Sweet Temptation - Casserole with Sweet Potatoes and Anchovies

Dear Readers,

This post marks a couple of important changes in the direction of this blog. First, my friend Michael, who used to coauthor this blog, has gone on to set up his own, all-vegan blog (http://hififood.blogspot.co.uk/ - check it out!), where you will also find his old recipes. Second, this blog will no longer only contain all-vegan and all-vegetarian recipes. What it will contain is gluten- and sugar-free recipes made of organic or locally sourced seasonal ingredients - whenever those options are available. Many of the recipes will also continue to be vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, lactose-free, egg-free and grain-free. As before, all the recipes will be tagged with the appropriate labels, so that you can quickly and easily find the recipes that suit your individual needs.

To start off the new era, I am posting a recipe inspired by a traditional Swedish dish called Janssons frestelse (Jansson's temptation). I decided to name it "Sweet Temptation" because, instead of potatoes, I am using sweet potatoes and carrots to make it.

SWEET TEMPTATION

a large orange sweet potato
two small carrots
a smallish onion (or 1/2 of a large onion)
2-3 cloves of garlic
about 40 grams of anchovy fillets in olive oil (with the oil, the total weight should be about 80 grams)
a small bunch of fresh parsley
freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Cut the sweet potato in half. Slice the sweet potato and the carrots thinly. 
3. Cut the onion into rings.
4. Finely chop the garlic and the parsley.
5. Place the ingredients in layers in an all-metal pot, starting from a layer of sweet potato slices.
6. Add a little bit of water (about a fourth or a third of the dish's height) into the pot. You might also want to add in a little bit of the olive oil from the anchovy package. Beware, though - it is very salty! Oh, and please do not add any salt to this dish; the salt in the anchovies will be enough. In fact, you might even want to rinse some of the anchovies in water to make them less salty.
7. Place the pot on the stove, and bring the water to a boil. 
8. When the water starts boiling, place the dish into the oven.
9. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the potatoes and carrots are cooked.
10. Enjoy!

Annika

P.S. Step 7 is optional. I only do it to speed up the cooking process a bit. If you skip Step 7, you can use a glass or a ceramic oven dish instead of an all-metal pot.

Nuts for Ginger - Gluten-Free Ginger Nuts

I never had a major sweet tooth in my glutenous past. The only two types of biscuits that I've ever really, really liked are ginger nuts and oat biscuits. This is my attempt at recreating ginger nuts without gluten. My ginger nuts are not brittle like glutenous ginger nuts but soft and more bread-like. I love their taste but I do miss the crispiness of glutenous ginger nuts. I am currently trying to develop a second ginger nut recipe that would result in a similar taste but a crispier texture. I reckon you could also make these biscuits a bit crispier by forming smaller/thinner biscuits, and by lowering the temperature to 170-180 degrees and keeping the biscuits in the oven a bit longer. I will try that next time I make this dough.

NUTS FOR GINGER

2 dl cooked white beans

3 tablespoons coconut oil
0.5. dl honey

0.5 dl boiled and blended sweet potatoes

5 tablespoons ground flax seeds

1.5 tablespoons ground ginger
1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
0.5-1 teaspoon ground cloves (or 10-20 crushed clove buds)

a couple of pinches of sea salt

0. Soak the beans overnight, then cook and drain them.

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
2. Peel a sweet potato, cut it in small pieces, steam until soft and blend until smooth.
3. Mix the honey, 0.5 dl of blended sweet potato, 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, the ground flax seeds, the ginger, the cinnamon, the cloves and the sea salt, and let the mixture stand.
4. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

5. Blend the beans and two tablespoons of coconut oil until smooth.
6. Add the spice mixture and blend. The dough will be quite solid.
7. Use two teaspoons to form seven biscuits: both spoons to get the batter onto the lined baking tray, and one teaspoon dipped in water to shape and flatten the biscuits.

8. Bake for about 15 minutes until the biscuits start browning.

9. Place the biscuits on a cooling rack, and let them cool down.

10. Enjoy.

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory - Spicy Chocolate Biscuits

I've been carrying out so many chocolate biscuit experiments recently that I'm starting to feel like I'm working at a chocolate biscuit factory! Why this sudden obsession with chocolate biscuits and cakes? I should be filling out my tax forms, that's why.

Anyway, my starting point for these chocolate biscuits was this recipe:

http://mynewroots.blogspot.pt/2011/11/black-bean-chocolate-chili-cherry.html. The original recipe is nice but I wanted to make my biscuits a bit sweeter (when trying out the original recipe, I didn't add the dried cherries, which would have probably made the biscuits a lot sweeter). To add that little bit of extra sweetness, I've been experimenting with pureed vegetables. So far, I've tried beetroots and sweet potatoes - sweet potatoes definitely being the winner. Apart from sweet potatoes, I think that carrots and pumpkin might work well in these biscuits. Don't worry, by the way, because there isn't a hint of bean or sweet potato taste in the end product!

I'm really quite happy with the texture of these biscuits, by the way. I've been having some problems making my gluten-free biscuits stick together well enough but these are just perfect (they are definitely softer than glutenous biscuits, though). To compensate for the pureed vegetables being liquid, my recipe contains a lot more ground flax seeds than the original recipe (ground flax seeds can be used as an egg replacement).

As a side remark, you should be able to make these biscuits vegan by using agave instead of honey. If you're not big into spicy stuff, you could also try replacing the spices in this recipe with vanilla, cinnamon, or something else.

WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

2 dl cooked beans (the ones in the picture were made using white beans; black beans will result in a darker brown colour)

1 tablespoon coconut oil

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

0.5 dl honey

0.5 dl boiled and blended sweet potatoes

4 tablespoons ground flax seeds

1 1/3 tablespoons ground ginger

a couple of pinches of sea salt

a couple of pinches of chilli powder

OPTIONAL: 0.4 dl chopped walnuts (about 6 large walnuts; the ones in the picture were made without but the ones with walnuts are prettier)

0. Soak the beans overnight, then cook and drain them.

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Peel a sweet potato, cut it in small pieces, steam until soft and blend until smooth.
3. Mix the honey, 0.5 dl of blended sweet potato, the coconut oil, the ground flax seeds, the ground ginger, the sea salt, the chilli and the cocoa powder, and let the mixture stand.

(4. Crack the walnuts open and cut them into small pieces.)

5. To prevent yourself from wolfing all the biscuits down as soon as they are ready, think of something to do for a couple of hours after you have taken them out of the oven.

6. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

7. Blend the beans and the wet mixture until smooth.

(8. Add the chopped walnuts and fold to incorporate.)

9. Use a tablespoon and a teaspoon to form the biscuits: both spoons to get the batter onto the lined baking tray, and the teaspoon to shape and flatten the biscuits. The batter is enough to make nine thinner biscuits without the walnuts, and six thicker biscuits with the walnuts.

10. Bake for 20 minutes until the edges of the biscuits are browning (a bit longer in case you choose to make thicker biscuits with walnuts). I turned the baking tray around after the first 10 minutes.

11. Place the biscuits on a cooling rack.

12. Do what you planned to do in Step 5.

13. Enjoy.

Annika

P.S. Please notice that the taste improves when you keep the biscuits in the fridge and the tastes have more time to meld with each other.
P.P.S. Please stay tuned for recipes for gluten-free gingernuts and gluten-free muffins, which I am working on at the moment.

Work Your Mojo - Sweet Potatoes with Garlic Sauce

A year or so ago, I went to a Caribbean restaurant in Seville, Spain. I randomly selected a few tapas-sized dishes that had been marked both vegetarian and gluten-free on the menu. One of the dishes that I ended up being served was a gorgeous Yuca Con Mojo, boiled cassava with garlic sauce. This very quick and extremely simple dish was inspired by that Yuca Con Mojo.

WORK YOUR MOJO (for 1 person)

1 small sweet potato

extra virgin olive oil

2 medium-sized cloves of garlic

chili powder

sea salt

1. Wash the sweet potato well and cut it in thick (about 1 cm) slices.

2. Pour a little bit of water on the bottom of a pot, add a little bit of sea salt, cover the pot with a lid and bring to the boil. The idea is to steam the sweet potato slices rather than boil them, so it really has to be very little water.

3. Add the sweet potato slices into the boiling water an cover the pot with a lid.

4. Chop the garlic cloves finely. 

5. Peel the sweet potato slices when they are ready. Keep them under a lid so that they will stay hot.

6. Pour some olive oil into a small saucepan and mix in the finely chopped garlic and a touch of chili powder. Heat the oil until it starts bubbling. While waiting for the oil to start bubbling, move the sweet potato slices on a plate. When the oil starts bubbling, pour it over the sweet potato slices.

7. Enjoy.

Annika

P.S. The same sauce goes well, for instance, with steamed cauliflower, as well.