Lemon ice box pie

Well, actually, since this was just a test run, I skipped the biscuit-crumb base, so technically this is just lemon ice box pie filling, veganised. I wish I'd made a whole pie: this was fantastic!

I read about this pie in the Tipsy Baker's review of John Besh's book My Family Table (searchable on Google Books). You fold a lemon/sweetened condensed milk mixture through whipped egg whites and freeze, for something that is almost better than a perfect bite of lemon meringue pie. (I say almost because the one thing you are missing is that touch of caramelised meringue. Still, this is really delicious and perfect in its own way: a fluffy sweet lemon mousse-meringue.)

Here's what I did:

14 oz (1 3/4 cups) sweetened condensed soymilk*
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 t lemon zest
1/4 t salt
144 g chickpea liquid
pinch of cream of tartar
2 T sugar
0.8 g xanthan gum
60 ml water
0.8 g agar powder

Mix together the sweetened condensed soymilk, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt.
In a stand mixer, whip the chickpea liquid, cream of tartar, sugar and xanthan gum until you have a nice firm meringue.
Put 60 ml of the condensed soymilk mixture in a small saucepan with the water. Whisk in the agar, and bring to the boil. Simmer a couple of minutes to activate the agar, and then with the stand mixer going on high, pour the agar mixture down the side of the bowl and whip until it is well incorporated.
Fold the meringue into the condensed soymilk mixture, and freeze for at least three hours.

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* Sweetened condensed soymilk =  3 parts by volume Better than Milk original soymilk powder, 2 parts sugar, 1 part boiling water, and 3 T vegan butter per cup of soymilk powder, processed in a blender until smooth. (It makes just slightly more than the volume of milk powder you use: so if you need 1 cup of condensed soymilk, use 1 cup of powder, and you will end up with a little bit leftover.)

Sorghum injera

When we first arrived here, I was dismayed that there didn't seem to be any teff available in Australia. But things changed a year or two later: now you can buy it, though it's kind of expensive. Recently, my cheapskate tendencies have led to me making injera from sorghum flour (teff =$22/kg, sorghum = $4/kg). Apparently this is a traditional injera variant -- I found the recipe (thanks to Google books) in a book called Pseudocereals and Less Common Cereals.

Here's the slightly adapted recipe:

200g sorghum flour (I used red)
150ml water
teaspoon of sourdough starter

Mix together, cover and leave to ferment for 2 days. The original recipe called for less water (only 100 ml). This ferments well at cool room temperature.

After 2 days, take 80g of the ferment and mix with 30ml water, and then stir into 200ml boiling water. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, and cool to about 45C. Mix into the original fermented dough, and then add 100ml water. Leave to rise for a couple of hours, then cook.

They're not quite as stretchy as teff injera, but they are really tangy and bubbly. To be honest, the recipe seemed pretty weird to me -- I wasn't sure that my sourdough starter would like such a long fermentation -- but it worked surprisingly well. As well as being cheaper, it works more reliably for me than making injera with teff. I recall a few times when making teff injera where the process didn't go smoothly, or getting the timing right for the fermentation was a bit tricky.

Durango

Almost Durango cookies (veganized with a bit of cornstarch and water, and dark instead of milk chocolate):

I used alder smoked salt, and though I thought I was sprinkling it on a bit too generously, in the end I couldn't really taste any smoke at all. Nevertheless, these are excellent chocolate chip cookies with almond and cocoa nibs, and salt, and they are flat with crisp edges and chewy middles. A bit more smokiness would be delicious I'm sure. I read about these on the Tipsy Baker, and I think she might've suggested using smoked almonds which is an excellent idea.

Cilantro?

Yesterday, I happened to read this post on the Food 52 blog. This blogger's cilantro chocolate chip cookies made it onto their 'what's in' list. It was like a compulsion or a dare, I couldn't not try them. I followed her recipe for basil verbena cookies, replacing those herbs with cilantro. (It was easily veganized: I just left out the egg and added a little water and cornstarch).

I couldn't let the cookie dough rest as long as it should have: it rested for about 3 hours in the fridge. And the verdict? Delicious. The cilantro added a mild but zippy mintiness. Overall, though, I think I might prefer actual mint. I might try basil next time, as in the original recipe.

Croissants

These are sourdough croissants made with homemade vegan butter. They worked out pretty well (though they're nowhere near as impressive as their inspiration, txfarmer's gorgeous ones). They're much better than the last time I attempted vegan croissants.

The annoying thing about the recipe is that it asks for a 3 hour final rise at 26C. I couldn't see how to make that happen and still have them ready for breakfast, so I left them at cold room temperature (15 - 17C) for about 12 hours, and then put them near the oven as it preheated. They definitely rose a lot in that time, but they weren't (as the recipe puts it) 'soft and jiggly', so maybe they were slightly underproofed. 

The vegan butter behaved nicely for the encasement step, but I was a bit worried about the first turn after it had a rest in the fridge for an hour. I think the butter was too firm: it seemed to crumble as it folded. The final dough looked like pie dough, with specks of butter, which didn't seem quite right. I wonder if it would be better to let the dough rest at room temperature for 20 minutes between turns, as in Peter Reinhart's recipe.

Cauliflower inarizushi

Dinner: 'inarizushi' filled with cauliflower rice, plus dolmades, over salad greens.

The cauliflower rice was half a cauliflower, pulsed in the food processor, plus one carrot, likewise, plus sesame seeds, salt and liquid from the can of inari wrappers. The dolmades were from a can, and were a sort of jokey last minute addition to fill out this meal.

I read that there are various options with inarizushi: you can use plain rice, sushi rice or sweet rice (okay, cauliflower) like I did here. I think I might prefer sushi seasoning over the sweet version.

Also, it should be noted that Inari herself, as the goddess of rice, would be very unhappy with these cauliflower imposters. I'm not sure how foxes would feel about them.

Catchup

Good things I ate (or drank) in the second half of 2014:

From Vedge, Broccoli Rabe Philly Style (seriously bitter homegrown broccoli rabe [which I cut with gai lan to tone it down a bit], roasted red capsicum, porcini mayo)

 Pizza and roasted cauliflower at Pizza Domenica in New Orleans:

 Birthday/journal acceptance cake (Chocolate/root beer):

Asparagus pizza:

Enchiladas Especiales Tacuba style (wish I'd had poblanos; made do with green chillies and used rehydrated yuba sticks as chicken, and cashew cheese)

Pasta with a pureed caramelized onion / nutritional yeast sauce and cubed smoked tofu:

Pumpkin and pecan pie(s):

Home brewed saison: