Hummus pizza

Without tomato sauce or cheese, it feels a bit weird to call this a pizza. Whatever you want to call it, it was good: hummus, topped with lemon slices, olives, pomegranate and sun-dried tomatoes. I wasn't sure that this combination would work, but it really did -- sweet, salty and tangy, with a nice hit of garlic from the hummus.

The tomatoes got a bit burnt, but still tasted pretty good. (The pomegranate bits had been frozen, which changed their colour but they held up pretty well.)

When I did some googling about hummus as a pizza topping, it seemed like quite a few people thought it better to reduce the amount of time the hummus is in the oven, by putting it on after par-baking the crust, or even putting it on after the pizza is done. However, I thought this worked out well, and don't think the long cooking time (12 min) hurt the hummus at all.

(Pizza specs: as usual, I used my favourite dough recipe from Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. This time I used 2/3 wholemeal and 1/3 white flour and it was very nice. I got some nice bubbles in the crust, maybe because the toppings were lighter and drier than usual.)

World peace cookies

You might think that the name of these cookies is a bit effusive. I did, until I made them. They're very good. The recipe (you can find it here) is by Dorie Greenspan.

 A couple of notes:

• There is a very troubling sequence of instructions in the recipe. First you are told that the dough may be crumbly, and not to worry about it. Then you are told to form said dough into logs. The recipe does not seem concerned that crumbly dough may not want to be formed into logs. (I found that swearing at the dough helped a lot with this step.)
• While the recipe instructs you to refrigerate the dough for at least 3 hours, if you are like me and don't read all the way through and have plans to bring these cookies to a dinner party in about an hour and a half, don't worry. Just stick the dough logs in the freezer for as long as you can (about 40 minutes worked fine for me).

Lemon pizza

Well, technically it was a lemon, thyme and olive pizza. The lemon was kind of overpowering, in a good way.

(The other pizza specs: olive oil pizza dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (2/3 all purpose flour, 1/3 whole wheat, plus some vital wheat gluten) and mozzarella style Cheezly.)

Saag paneer

I really can't believe that this worked.

I had some 'mostarella' (good god, when will the wacky names for vegan cheeses end?) which I made from a recipe in The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. It's an oatflour and cornstarch thickened 'cheese', flavoured with tahini, nutritional yeast and lemon juice. (I left out the onion powder, and added one cube of stinky tofu.)

I had some spinach, and had a hankering for saag paneer. At first I assumed that I wouldn't be able to pan-fry the mostarella, because it is pretty soft. But I gave it a shot anyway, and it worked!

Rosemary and basil

So here we are in the middle of winter in Perth, and I find myself obsessed with basil and rosemary. Luckily winter in Perth is sort of a joke, compared to Massachusetts (a typical winter day time temperature here is 18C or 64F) so I actually still have basil growing in the garden.

And as for rosemary, many of our neighbours have rosemary hedges in their front yards. I don't feel bad about grabbing a few sprigs here and there while walking the dog.

So this is how we ended up eating some pretty summery looking meals this week. Here you see beans with pesto and cherry tomatoes, green beans and mushrooms, and baked polenta 'fries'. (The polenta was pretty great -- I made it quite cheesy-tasting with miso and nutritional yeast.)

And here is baked eggplant with a quick tomato sauce and pesto, stir fried cabbage with lemon and pepper, a quick focaccia topped with rosemary, and rosemary-roasted tofu cubes (from Vegan Soul Kitchen). The tofu was great -- the baking technique is really cool. The tofu cubes puff up and get crisp on the outside.

New toy

On Sunday, I went to a charity second-hand sale and scored this beauty for $5.

It's a vintage Kenwood Chef, probably about 35 years old, in perfect working order. In the UK and Australia, these guys have the same sort of reputation as old Kitchenaid mixers. (Of course, they're not as pretty, but oh well.)

In the picture, the mixer is kneading bagel dough. It did a great job on the dough -- after 6 minutes, it passed the windowpane test easily.

I'm looking forward to making lots of bread with this thing. And marshmallows!

Coconut muffins

I recently bought a young coconut. After we drank the coconut water inside, I was left with the question of what to do with the coconut meat. It was too soft to grate, and its flavour was quite subtle -- not that exciting to eat on its own. But cut into chunks and baked into muffins, it was amazing.

Even though it was quite a lot of work cutting into the coconut, I am thinking about getting another one just so I can make these muffins again. (The coconut water was great too -- it wasn't the flavour that blew me away, but the scent, which was surprisingly floral.)

I used this recipe with a few modifications*. (I should take a moment to praise this recipe -- it is terrific. I say this as someone who has made many failed muffins.) I used some cooked and pureed pear for the cup of fruit in the recipe, and added the chunks of coconut plus some Dutch chocolate sprinkles.

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* I reduce the oil to 1/4 cup, use regular whole wheat flour, reduce the sugar to 1/2 cup and increase to 3/4 if necessary, replace the egg with a 'flax egg' or just extra water, and use soymilk + vinegar for the buttermilk. So far the fruits and vegetables I've used to great success are: pumpkin, pear, apple, banana, and most surprisingly, a mixture of banana and pureed kiwifruit.