Bowl full o' Dragons

So it's been awhile. Life has come along and rendered me incommunicado due to traveling, studying and moving house, but now I am free! Free of study for the semester and almost settled into the new place, so it's time to give y'all the most amazing, healthy, delightful and healing recipe in the world, The Dragon Bowl! Trust me my friends, you will not be disappointed!

Dragon Bowls are macrobiotic by nature and follow the basic principles of balance, taking into account the basic food groups which acheive said ultimate balance naturally: (in order of greatest portion size first) whole grains(rice), vegetables(salad, radish coleslaw, yam), enzymes(pickles, miso soup), minerals(seaweed, vegetables), Beans(tempeh), condiments/oils(gomasio, sesame paste or tahini sauce). (see the bottom for the Macrobiotic food pyramid and some other great links).

This recipe may seem involved, but once you gather all of the bits and pieces it really is a matter of assembling. So with the main bowl of food, you need some condiment (which contains your oils/salts/minerals), so I made a delicious sesame paste which you may like to try. If you are not into it, you can make some tahini cream or even just use Tahini as your condiment. Either way both are full of sesame which is full of calcium. And, delicious.

Sesame Paste:
- 4 Tbsp Black or white(or a mix) sesame seeds(pre dryroasted)
- 1.5 tsp Tamiri
- 1 tsp Mirin
- 1 tsp rice vinegar (or use sushi vinager but hold the mirin)
- 1/2 tsp rice syrup(or sugar)
- Bit of water if needed

Black and white Sesame paste

 Dragon Bowl Ingredients

Method 
Grind sesame in a mortar and pestle until squished but not completely powdered. Mix in the liquid. If too chunky, add a little water. Yum and easy.

All ingredients set out and ready for assembly

(the following list of ingredients are already cooked in their normal everyday way.. Any questions, comment me below)

- 1 or 2 cups of cooked rice(1 or 2 depending on how many you are cooking for. I used red rice, but feel free to use brown, black or wild, but steer clear of white please)
- 1/2 block of Tempeh (cut into small chunks and gently fried with a few drops of tamiri and Yam below)
- 1/2 large Yam (red,purple, white - cooked with tempeh, as above)
- Bowl of coleslaw (purple Cabbage, purple/orange carrot and daikon, chopped/mixed no condiment)
- 2 sheets of Nori, torn into little bits
- Miso soup (1 serve per person. I like the Sprial foods organic Miso soup)
- Organic or homemade pickles. I've used the Spiral foods pickled ginger.
- Handful of Shitake mushrooms (Use dry ones, soak in hot water for about 30 minutes. Drain off water)
- Seaweed salad mix. Made as per package instruction. Try to get one that is only sea vegetables and no added extras.

- Bean spouts
- Salad leaves

Once you have all of the ingredients cooked and set out, the hard part is over! Let the assemblage begin!

Assemble your Dragon Bowl

Step one: Take a nice sized bowl and quarter fill it with room temperature or luke warm rice (not piping hot and not cold from the fridge). Start to add small amounts of all of your salad like ingredients on top of the rice. This includes the sprouts, pickles, coleslaw, mushrooms, nori and seaweed salad. Place each ingredient in a circle around the edge of the bowl leaving a space in the middle.

Step two: Add the cooked tempeh and yam into the middle space, as though they are the main attraction.

Step three: Line the edge of the bowl with salad leaves, so you can still see the main attraction poking through.

Serve with a mug of miso soup and a dollop(or two) of the delicious sesame paste. Now Eat it!

And there you have. The amazing, seemingly complicated but actually easy, Dragon bowl. I cannot say that you will be spitting flames after eating this, but I can say you will feel like you can fly!

Fly free little Dragons! Fly Free!

_______________________

The following is the Macrobiotic food pyramid:

Macrobiotic Food pyramid -The kushi Institute 

Macro Links:
http://www.kushiinstitute.org/
http://www.macrobiotics.co.uk/
http://hipchicksmacrobiotics.com/
http://www.macrobioticcooking.com/

Sesame sugarfree Anzacs!

Anzac biscuits are the best. They are delicious, sweet, chewy, incredible. But with sweet comes sugar and too much sugar makes me twitch twitch twitch. So, in an attempt at a friendly anzac biscuit, I modified your everyday recipe, keeping it just as easy as normal but now more blood sugar friendly. You'll like them as much as these pups, no doubt.

Recipe:

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup GF or plain flour
1 cup dessicated coconut
3/4 cup Rice syrup
2/3 cup vegan margarine 

2 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 - 2 tbsp boiling water

Method:

Heat oven to 180 C. Grease 2 baking trays.

  

 In a large bowl mix together the oats, flour, sesame seeds, coconut and rice syrup. Melt the margarine in the microwave and add the bicarb soda and the 1 Tbsp boiling water(the other Tbsp may be added later if it's all too gluggy). Pour the mixture into the dry(ish) ingredients and mix well. Roll the mixture into balls (slightly smaller than golf ball size). They will still be very soft when you remove them from the oven so let them cool slightly on the tray first before placing on a cooling rack. 

Give them to your friends or family, or eat them all yourself! Yeah, just eat them all yourself. You don't need to feel guilty about these ones.

Johnny Cakes, Johnny Cakes!

Corn is awesome. But being able to say 'I'm making Johnny cakes', that's even more awesome. What a cool name! These Johnny cakes are corn pancakes though we had them for dinner with veggies and some beans and quinoa, but you can easily have them for breakfast smothered in maple syrup or nutelex. Do as you please, but I will tell you this, these hi-fiving Mofo's are enslaving..

Recipe:
1 cup Fresh corn (I like it off the cob, though you can use canned or frozen if you want)
1 cup Rice milk
1 1/2 cups gluten free plain flour (or cornmeal if like)
1 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp Maple syrup
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Olive oil spray for cooking

Method:
In a processor, pulse the corn and rice milk a few times, just to get the corn a bit chopped up. Add all remaining ingredients and blend for about 7 seconds, or until combined. There should still be chunky pieces of corn left. Let the batter rest for around 10 minutes, and in the meantime, preheat a good Fry pan over medium heat.


Spray the pan with oil and using an ice cream scoop, ladle out a few johnnycakes. Cook for about 3 minutes, the underside should be crisp and browned, the top still wet. Flip the cakes (spraying the pan as you lift each cake. This is important as corn loves to stick!) and cook until crisp and flecked with brown. Keep finished cakes on a plate covered with tinfoil as you prepare the rest.

These little guys can keep in the fridge for a couple of days, but with a name like Johnny cakes, I doubt they will last that long! Palatable as heck!

Baked Golden Nugget of Bliss.

Little pumpkins. How amazingly cute are they? When I see them I just want to collect them up and put them on display or stroke them or kiss them or something ridiculous like that. But if you run around kissing tiny pumpkins you will get some unsavoury glances, so maybe we should cook them instead huh!

This is a Lee original, so you can feel free to change up the ingredients to suit  yourself, but I gotta say, this one was pretty darn delicious (Oh, and I cooked them in tiny casserole dishes as I accidental cut a hole in the bottom of one of the nuggets... whoops).

Recipe:
2 x Golden Nuggets(or more to suit)
Filling:
1 cup of cooked Quinoa
1/2 cup of cooked French lentils
3 Mushrooms chopped small
1/4 Carrot chopped small
1/4 Zucchini chopped small
1/4 Massle cube in 1/2 cup boiling water
few drops sesame oil
few drops of Tamari
1 ground clove of garlic

Method:
Preheat oven to 200 C. Chop top off the Nuggets and remove the seedy guts. Put aside.
Filling: In a saucepan add all ingredients. Cook on medium until everything is smooshy and cooked. You may need to add more water if mixture is getting too thick. Once Mixture is cooked fill the nuggets and put the lid on top. Bake in the oven for approximately 20-30 minutes. When pumpkin is soft it's good for eating! Serve with some steamed greens, like Broccolini and Cabbage. You gonna be happy it's Winter so you can eat this allllllllllll the time! So lucky!

NB. You will probably have loads of mixture left over. You can use this in savoury pies (tastes strangely like chicken), over mashed potato or in pasta. Go crazy!

Vegan Laksa surprise!

 Laksa. The idea is a scary one, no? It must be soooo hard to make! Well sweetheart, I'm here to tell you that indeed, it is not! It's one of the easiest dishes I've made, even if there was some therapeutic mortar and pestle repetition, I felt good making it and even better eating it! I love food that has hidden surprises, don't you! I got some inspiration from this Vegan Laksa recipe(thank you) but I modified it to suit my taste(ahem, my disregard of onions and coriander) so feel free to check out that recipe if you want an unbiased ingredients list.. Let's get Grinding!

Recipe for the Paste:
3 cloves of garlic.
3 red chillies.
1 tsp of cumin, ground.
1 tsp of ground turmeric.
1/2 tsp of ground cardamom.
1 tsp of ground fennel seed.
3 ground cloves.
1/2 tsp of cinnamon.
1stalk of lemongrass that has had the outer layers removed, so that you are left with the soft inside flesh of the stalk.
1 Tbsp of minced ginger.
1/2 tsp of salt.
1/2 cup of water.
20 or so leaves of Thai basil.
1/4 cup of cashews.

Method:

I found that listening to Nirvana's 'Bleach' really helped with the making of this paste. Give it a try! If your spices are not already ground, ground them all together in a Mortar and pestle. It's fun! Once all are ground, Blend all of these ingredients in a food processor(I have a miniature one which is great for this paste), scrape the sides down often so as to form a paste. Add the water a little at a time. When paste is as smooth as you can get it it's done! Paste will keep in a container in the fridge for about a month... Though, I bet it won't last that long!

Recipe for Laksa Soup:

2 Tbsp of the above paste.
2 cups vegetable stock.
250 mls of coconut cream or milk.
As much sliced fried tofu puffs as you like 

1 medium bunch of Two bunches of bok choy, cleaned and chopped into three or four parts.
3 or 4 mushrooms, sliced.
A handful of bean sprouts.
8 snow peas.
A serving of Rice vermicelli - Prepare as per instructions and set aside.

Method:

In a sauce pan, place the paste. Add the tofu, mushrooms and stock and simmer for about three minutes, until the tofu is looking a little on the cooked side. Add the coconut milk and heat through. Bring to the boil and simmer for about two minutes. You don't want to cook it too long because if you do, the fats in the coconut milk will break down and it won't be so creamy. 

Take two bowls. In each one, add half the bean sprouts, half of the noodles and then all the veggies on top of the noodles. Pour the soup mixture over the veggies. The heat from this soup will cook the veggies just right.

Take a soup spoon and some Chopsticks and get to work. Now, you tell me that you do not feel like you have just ridden on a rainbow after this toothsome dish! Mmm hmm!

Quinoa Sesame Pats.

Do you ever look in the fridge and say 'well... What do I do with this Jumble of unrelated food stuffs?'.. Do you ever wish you could just throw it all together and it would turn out delicious? Well, I'll tell you, wishes CAN come true! These little joys are protein and calcium rich, gluten free and super amazing! You can make a whole stack and have left overs for lunch tomorrow! Sounds pretty good to me...

Recipe:
1 cup of cooked Quinoa
1/4 Cabbage
1 Carrot
1/2 Zucchini
1/4 average sized Daikon
1/4 cup Sesame seeds (+ more for sesame crumbs)
1 Tsp Chia seeds
Few drops of Sesame oil
Few drops of Tamari
1/4 massle cube (dissolved in 1 Tsp boiled water)
A little Gluten free rice crumbs(or Breadcrumbs or cornflake crumbs) 

Method:
Put all ingredients into food processor. Mix until ingredients become a gluggy chunky goo. Take a Tsp of mixture and shape into a flat pat. Pat the flat pat into a combined mixture of Rice crumbs and sesame seeds for a nice crispy coating. Fry on medium heat in a little olive oil, flipping at 5 or so minutes. You want both sides to be nice and golden.

We had these little joys with a large serving of steamed vegetables. But you can have them how you like. With veggies, with salad, for breakfast or lunch. Maybe even increase the patty size and you have a burger! WOW! Trust me, after you get this in your belly, you will invincible!

EZE CHEEZEEE Tatterbake!

If you tell me you hate potato bake, you are a liar liar, pants on fire and you owe me $10! Potato bake, I believe, is one of the worlds most comfortiest of comfort foods and it makes any meal become a little more mealier. Becoming a vegan I kinda let myself believe I could live without the delights of creamy, cheesy potato bake, but time proved to me that I cannot and food imagination showed me I do not have to! We all need a little food hug sometimes.

So I made up my own recipe. It is cheesy(ish), warm and delicious. You are going to wish it were Autumn so you can eat it all the time! Oh wait! It is!


Recipe: 
2-3 Large potatoes
1 cup rice milk
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp French onion soup powder + 1/2 Tbsp for topping
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes + 1/2 Tbsp for topping
1 tsp sweet paprika

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Peel and slice potatoes, about 3mm is probably a good thickness. Put them in a casserole dish. In a blender mix the rice milk, oil, french onion soup powder and yeast flakes. Blend until it is an even consistency. Poor mixture over the potatoes and stir a little to get an all over coverage. Sprinkle the remaining 2 x 1/2 Tbsp of soup powder and yeast flakes and the paprika on top. Pop on the lid and place in the oven for about 35-60 minutes(depending on your oven), or until it is nice and golden on top.

Serve with some steamed veggies and maybe some fried Tempeh.

Mmm. Hmm.. And If you do not find a loving culinary hug in this bake, I'll give YOU $10!