Friday 21 August 2015

Finding the real spice of life with turmeric chai latte



I love chai tea – not the powdered or syrup-based sugary variety served by many cafes but the real stuff thing packs a really delicious, spicy punch aimed squarely at boosting your immune system and your health generally.

My favourite recipe comes from a great blog called The Minimalist Vegan – I have a saucepan of this amazing chai on the stove all the time, usually without the coconut sugar because I enjoy the subtle sweetness of the vanilla and star anise. Recently I started adding turmeric to the pot, with delicious results.

Turmeric is a wonderful and ancient spice, used for cooking and as a dye for 4000 years. While you might be more used to the bright yellow dried and powdered variety in the supermarket, it is actually a rhizome (like a thick root or bulb) that grows in tropical climates. Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, and also lowers cholesterol, helps fight cold and flu and may prevent Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.  If you’re lucky you can buy it fresh from your local Indian grocery store or even fruit and veg shop; otherwise the powdered version is fine.
Turmeric and ginger rhizomes

The healing benefits of other spices in this chai read like a roll call of wonder drugs – they variously treat diarrhoea, lower blood sugar levels, reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, and are anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antibacterial and high in antioxidants. Cloves are great for treating headaches and toothaches, and clove oil is a favourite amongst many mums with teething bubs.

I love this tea black, but it adapts nicely to a lovely creamy latte by replacing the water with coconut milk. I use Ayam brand coconut milk and cream in my cooking as they don’t use any stabilisers, just coconut.  Using undiluted coconut milk in the latte makes an exceptionally rich, creamy drink that is almost like a meal in itself, so you may prefer to use one third water, two thirds coconut milk or a 50/50 mix instead for a lighter drink. While I don’t use sugar in the black version, the flavour of the latte version is improved by honey – agave nectar or rice malt syrup would also work.
Cinnamon, cloves, cardamom pods, vanilla pod, star anise, peppercorns

 

Turmeric chai latte


1½ cups coconut milk (diluted with water if desired)
1-2cm fresh turmeric, finely chopped
2cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
Half a vanilla pod, sliced down the centre and seeds scraped out with a knife
Several peppercorns
10 cloves
10 green cardamom pods
A star anise
1½ tsp honey

Place all ingredients, including both the vanilla pods and seeds, in a small saucepan and stir to combine the honey and coconut milk. Gently heat on the stove over a low heat until it reaches a temperature just short of boiling. This is important as cooking the coconut milk too hot and too quickly will cause it to split and create an unpleasant texture. 

Turn the stove off, put a lid on the saucepan, and leave the chai for 30 minutes so the flavour of the spices infuses through the coconut milk. Reheat gently, then pour through a sieve and serve with a little cinnamon or nutmeg on top.
Turmeric chai latte, flecked with vanilla seeds and topped with nutmeg

Friday 14 August 2015

Winter rainbow salad



Winter greens seem to know it’s a dull time of year, so they make up for it with sweeter flavour and the most glorious of colours. Take rainbow chard – it’s just silverbeet, but it glows with spectacular hues of red, pink and gold that spread from its roots to the veins in its leaves. It’s equally at home in an ornamental garden as it is in a vegie patch, and it’s also very easy to grow. 
Broccoli leaf, tuscan kale, broccoli florets and flowers, rainbow chard, redbor kale

The seeds (available from the Diggers Club) come encased in a cork-like substance, so soak them for a couple of hours in warm water before planting. The plant should emerge in about 10-14 days. Raise the seedlings in small pots until about 10 cms high, then plant out in a nice sunny spot into well-drained soil that’s got plenty of good stuff like compost. In a couple of months you’ll be able to start picking the leaves while they’re still relatively small and tender. Give the plant a liquid feed every few weeks and you’ll be able to harvest the plant for several months. 
Stunning baby rainbow chard - even their roots are colourful
Rainbow chard can be used in salads while young, but also steamed, sautéed with a little olive oil and garlic, stir-fried or added to casseroles or soups. Use both the stems and leaves.
Rainbow chard stems - like gems of colour
Now to the world’s prettiest salad. Honestly, it took me a while to eat because I had to pause and gaze in wonder at every forkful. All of the vegies in it were picked from the small garden bed outside my back door less than half an hour before eating – with the exception of the garlic, which came from my summer harvest. I added a little more colour and flavour with goji berries but you could use sultanas, pomegranate seeds, or nothing at all – it tastes great either way. And of course, the vegies can simply be what you have readily available, but fresh, young and tender is the key.

 


Winter rainbow salad
Dried goji berries (left) and after a quick soak (right)


Redbor Kale (aka frilly purple kale)
Tuscan Kale
Broccoli florets and leaves
Rainbow chard (aka silverbeet)
Goji berries
Olive oil
Apple cider vinegar
Garlic clove
Salt

Finely slice the greens and place in a bowl. Soak the goji berries for just 10 seconds in boiling water to hydrate, drain and add to bowl.
In a small jar, place about a tablespoon of olive oil, 2 tsps of apple cider vinegar, the crushed or chopped garlic clove, and a pinch of small. Secure the lid tightly and shake vigorously for about 20 seconds. This will make a lovely creamy dressing that will also act to tenderise the salad leaves slightly.
Pour the dressing over the salad, toss well, and serve. 


Friday 7 August 2015

Cauliflower risotto with almond parmesan crumb (Paleo and vegan friendly)

It’s funny how things can change so quickly. In April, I was happily planting dozens of home grown vegie seedlings and hundreds of seeds and garlic bulbs into my community garden plot, having spent the previous weekends digging a couple of tonnes of horse manure, mushroom compost and various other goodies into the soil.
Fast forward almost four months and there’s not much too see for all the effort, except for some happy garlic. I should have been harvested broccoli and cauliflower by the truckload by now, but the plants are still only 15cm tall. My broad bean plants have barely grown after emerging from the soil a month late, and I’ve just discovered cockies have destroyed a third of the sad little plants, apparently just for the fun of it. Thanks goodness for the backup brassica crop I planted in the backyard under a plastic greenhouse tent, so I can still enjoy home grown broccoli.
What this shows is that sometimes all the preparation and experience in the world doesn’t prevent failure in the garden, particularly when it’s hit by one of the longest and coldest winters in decades. I’ll start growing up seeds for summer in the next couple of weeks, so I can get them into the ground as soon as it’s warm and frost free. This way,  my summer crops should be done early enough to get next winter’s crops in nice and early.

Turning cauliflower into 'rice' takes literally seconds in the blender. Before...
...After
I did at least have a kind community garden neighbour gift me with one of their cauliflowers. The other option is, of course, to do what everybody else does and buy your vegies. When buying produce there’s a few great principles to follow:
  • Buy seasonally – so you know it’s not travelled too far, is fresh and hasn’t lost its nutrients while spending months in cold storage.
  • Buy local – farmers markets provide a wonderful opportunity to buy direct from a local farmer, ensuring that the profits go to the grower and not the supermarket. The produce will also likely be picked-yesterday fresh and there will usually be more organic options to choose from. If you need to buy from the supermarket, try to buy Australian (or whichever country you live in).
  • Be environmental – buying from the farmers market or Australian produce at supermarkets also reduces the amount of transport miles required to get the food to you, which means less fuel and pollution.
  • Buy organic – your environment and your body will thank you. The world’s bee population is under serious stress from the amount of pesticides being used in conventional farming, and those same chemicals are not particularly good for our own health either. Organic can cost more, so if you need to limit what you buy, choose produce that are typically the worst culprits for pesticides and other chemicals: apples, capsicum, blueberries, celery, grapes, cucumber, lettuce, nectarines, peaches, potatoes, strawberries and spinach. The cleanest conventional crops include watermelon, onions, cabbage, corn, pineapple, eggplant, peas, avocado, rockmelon, grapefruit, mushrooms, kiwifruit, asparagus, mango and sweet potato.
Lemon thyme, garlic and onion.

Back to that cauliflower – here’s a recipe that will see off the winter chill. The almond crumb really makes the dish sing.

Cauliflower risotto with mushrooms
Almond meal, smoked paprika, cumin, Himalayan salt.
Serves 2-3 people

½ head of cauliflower
1 onion, finely diced
½ stalk of celery, finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 cup vegetable or chicken-flavoured stock
The leaves from several sprigs of thyme or lemon thyme
2 tbs olive oil, plus extra to serve
Salt and pepper

Almond “parmesan” crumb, to serve
¼ cup almond meal
1 tsp each of paprika and cumin, ½ tsp salt – vary quantities to taste
 
Put the cauliflower in the food processor and blend for 5-10 seconds or until it’s in rice-sized pieces and set aside.
In a clean dry frying pan, toast your almond meal and spices over a medium heat. Stir throughout and take off the heat once you’ve got a lovely brown colour (but before it burns – this can happen quickly). Empty into a small bowl. Note – you’ll only need a small amount of this topping but it will keep for ages and can be used to brighten up other savoury dishes.
Onion, celery and thyme.
Add the olive oil to the pan over a medium heat and gently sauté the thyme, onion and celery for three minutes, then add the garlic and continue to stir for a couple more minutes.
Turn the heat up to high, add the cauliflower and stir it to combine with the onion mix. Do this for a couple of minutes to toast the cauliflower slightly, then add the stock. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the stock has nearly gone and the cauliflower is a nice texture – not soft but al dente.
To serve, pile it up on a plate, drizzle a good olive oil over the top, sprinkle with the almond crumb and garnish with any leftover thyme leaves.