Lemon Vanilla Cheesecake with Blueberry Cassis Coulis

Cheesecake is a divine invention: tasty crust, yummy creamy filling, and berries to boost the whole thing into a blissful combination of textures and flavors!

Too bad it always contains so much lactose that even a tiny little bit gets my stomach upset.

Oops, did I just write always?

Then I made a mistake! Namely, if you use vegan cream cheese instead of a dairy one, even people like me can enjoy cheesecake without a tummy ache.

This is what you need for about 8 servings:

For the crust:

• 120g vegan margarine


• 80g gingerbread cookies


• 80g ground almonds


• 5 Tbsp rolled oats

For the filling:

• 675g vegan cream cheese (I used Tofutti, the only brand available in Finland)


• 100ml vegan natural yoghurt


• 100g confectioner’s sugar


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• grated zest of 1 organic lemon

For the coulis:

• 200g frozen blueberries


• 50g sugar


• 50ml crème de cassis liquor

Start with the blueberries: combine the berries and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil. Let simmer uncovered over a medium heat until most of the liquid is gone. (Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the crème de cassis liquor. It will come later in the picture!)

In the meantime, prepare the crust. Using a bread knife, crush the gingerbread cookies into fine crumbs. Combine the crumbs, almond meal, and rolled oats in a baking bowl, then add the softened margarine and work with your fingers until the mixture is homogenous. Take a round form (mine has a diameter of 26cm) and press the dough evenly on its bottom. Chill while you prepare the filling.

To make the filling, combine all ingredients in a bowl and beat with a hand mixer until the mixture is creamy and smooth. Pour the filling on the crust and chill for about one hour in the freezer. The cheesecake should be really cold but not frozen!

Now back to the coulis. When the blueberry jam is thick enough, remove it from heat and let cool a bit. At the time of the serving, it should be still warm to create a perfect contrast with the chilled cake. Just before serving, combine crème de cassis liquor and the blueberry jam in a cup and spoon over the cheesecake.

Enjoy with a good coffee!

Cashew Cheese with Garlic and Herbs

This post is dedicated to a dear friend of mine, who happens to dislike cheese beyond measure!

She had dinner at my place last Sunday and looked at me incredulously when I offered her a slice of sourdough with garlic-herb “cheese”. Of course, I would never serve her real cheese – just this mock  cheese made with cashew nuts.

But the texture and taste of this nut cheese are very close to those of the real stuff – it takes a true cheese hater to tell the difference ;)

For a perfect result, soak the cashews overnight, make the “cheese” mixture in the morning, and serve your cheese in the evening. It can be served immediately as well, but the flavours and the texture are optimal if you can wait a couple of hours.

This is what you need:

• 200g cashews, soaked overnight


• 70ml water


• 1 tsp salt


• pepper to taste


• 1 small garlic clove


• a generous handful of 4 herbs of your liking (parsley, basil, chives, thyme, arugula…)

Drain the cashews and place them with the cold water, salt, pepper, and garlic clove in a bowl. Pulse with a hand mixer (or in your food processor) until creamy. Add some more water if needed. The mixture should be firm enough so that you can easily form it into small balls with your hands. If the mixture is too liquid, don’t worry: when you wait a couple of hours, it will be firmer; and if not, you can add some almond meal.

Place the cheese-to-be in the fridge for a couple of hours. Just before serving, roll the mixture into small balls (about 1 heaped teaspoon per ball), which you coat generously with chopped herbs. Serve with good bread or crackers!

P.S. Inspiration for this recipe came from Nicola Graimes’ awesome vegetarian cookbook, “The New Vegetarian Kitchen”. A must-have in every self-respecting kitchen!

Mushroom Risotto with Parsley and Lemon

I've got a friend who's an excellent cook, but he confessed he never makes risotto because it's so difficult to make it perfect. It's either under- or overcooked, too dry, too wet - or, worst of all, tasteless! But that's not the case with this garlicky mushroom risotto with lemon-parsley sauce: it's an explosion of tastes.

And it's 100% vegan as well.

Serve this risotto on pretty plates, pour some of your favourite Chianti in your glass, put some Irene Grandi music on - and you couldn't have it better off in any Italian restaurant :)

For 3 people you need:

• 1 medium-sized onion


• 4 Tbsp olive oil (divided)


• 250ml risotto rice


• 600ml vegetable broth


• 350g fresh mushrooms


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• salt and pepper to taste

For the parsley dressing:

• 1 tsp grated lemon zest


• 1 Tbsp lemon juice


• 5 Tbsp olive oil


• a generous handful of fresh parsley

 

Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan. Chop the onion and sauté over a medium heat for about 3-4 minutes. Add the rice and stir another 1-2 minutes. Gradually add the broth (previously heated, preferably) and let simmer over a low heat, partially covered. Let cook until the rice is al dente, or about 18 minutes. Once in a while, check that there's enough liquid - if not, add more!

While the rice is cooking, it's time to prepare the mushrooms and the lemon-parsley sauce.

Chop the mushrooms and sauté them in a large (iron) pan with no oil on it, stirring constantly, until the mushrooms have lost most of their liquid. Then add 1-2 Tbsp olive oil and the crushed garlic cloves and stir and fry 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle with some salt and pepper.

For the sauce, just combine all ingredients in a jar and mix with a hand mixer until smooth. If you don't have one, chop the parsley with a pair of scissors as fine as you can, the add the rest and stir.

Now you should have all the three elements ready. Check once more that the rice is not too dry - if it is, you can still add more hot broth or water! Divide the rice on three plates, then sprinkle with those garlicky mushrooms and drizzle 1-2 tsp of the sauce on top. Serve immediately! And wipe any rests with a piece of baguette ;)

 

 

 

 

 

Baguette, or French for Bread

Don’t even think of baking a baguette if you haven’t got a masonry oven at your disposal.

Unless you’re as stubborn as I am and want to try it anyway.

In which case you should read this post, because I’ve discovered an easy and foolproof way of baking delicious baguettes, even in an electric oven.

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of baking baguettes in a masonry oven. The oven hadn’t been used in the past 25 years or so, but it was in a perfect condition to provide me with the most perfect bread ever.

Only, I was a perfect analphabet with masonry ovens!

My first attempt resulted in a charred baguette in less than 5 minutes in the oven.

My second attempt resulted in a pale loaf although it had been 40 minutes in the oven. Still, it looked and tasted awesome, resembling nothing you can bake in a normal oven.

And then the weekend was over, and I had to return to my own kitchen and my electric oven. Maybe next time, I’ll learn to master that old masonry oven where my grandmother used to bake her bread for about four decades..

In the meantime, I’ve now learned to bake decent baguettes even in my electric oven. You just need to make a few special arrangements.

If you have a pizza stone, use it. If you’re like me and don’t possess one, use a normal oven tray but heat it in the oven for about 10 minutes so that it’s piping hot when you place your baguettes on top of it! That way, the baguettes keep their form and the oven spring is spectacular.

This recipe is based on Sébastien Boudet’s recipe. It’s baked with pre-ferment, so that the baguette doesn’t taste like yeast nor like sourdough starter (nothing wrong with the latter but somehow it doesn’t fit to baguette, in my opinion), and with an excellent crust and inner structure.

Here’s what you need to make two long baguettes or three shorter ones:

Pre-ferment:

• 500ml cold water


• 500ml all-purpose flour (do try replacing about 1/5 of the flour by rye flour, for an extra tasty baguette)


• 1g yeast


• 1tsp stiff sourdough starter

For the final dough:

• all of the pre-ferment


• about 300ml all-purpose flour


• 14g salt (about 2 tsp)

Combine water, starter, and yeast in a baking bowl. Stir, then add the flour and stir until you get a dough almost like a thick pancake batter. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let stand for about 12 hours in room temperature.

Next day, the pre-ferment should be bubbling nicely and smell…delicious! If not, something went wrong (too cold? too much draft?) and you have to start over. (This never happened to me, so it’s very unlikely it will happen to you, either!)

Now, add the salt and the rest of the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until you get a smooth and elastic dough. Cover it with a damp kitchen towel and let ferment for about 8-10 hours more (I do this overnight). In the morning, the dough will have at least doubled in size. Now it’s time to set your oven to 300C and start shaping your baguettes. (In case you’re baking in a masonry oven, you have to start heating the oven a couple of hours earlier, of course!)

Pour the dough onto a floured baking surface. Beat the air out, then divide the dough into three parts, and let them rest for about 5-10 minutes. Now, place the pizza stone or your oven tray in the oven so that it will be ready to receive your baguettes.

Then roll each part out into a rectangle as long as you want your baguette to be, and roll it into a tight roll, a bit like when you’re making cinnamon rolls! This is of course not the only way to shape a baguette, but that’s the one that works the best for a beginner as myself: it's the easy way to get an evenly-shaped baguette that holds its form!

Bake your baguettes on the pre-heated oven tray in 275C for about 20 minutes, or until well baked but not burned.

Let cool on a rack and serve with lots of salty butter or good olive oil!

And start planning how to get a masonry oven of your own ;)

Spätzle with Chestnut and Mushroom Ragout

Spätzle is the king of all home-made quick dishes: after you've got 3 liters of water boiling, it only takes one minute for you to have a plate full of these German noodles on your plate!

Traditionally, the batter consists of special spätzle flour, salt, water, and eggs, but this time, I wanted to try it 100% vegan.

Again, no weird substitutes needed: I just left the eggs out and used more water. Spätzle flour is not available in Finland, so I used Italian durum wheat flour instead. I couldn't really tell any difference - only that the durum flour is yellow, so even without eggs, the spätzle had exactly the same appearance.

Spätzle can be eaten with grated (vegan) cheese on top - that's the fastest option. But if you're not in a hurry, do try this delicious ragout! The idea for it comes from the Vegan Love Story, but I changed it quite a bit (the only ingredients in common being chestnuts, red wine, and onion). The ragout combines chestnuts with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, onion, a lot of garlic, and red wine, and the result was exquisite. It made me think of boeuf bourguignon...

This recipe should be enough for four hungry eaters!

This is what you need for the spätzle:

• 400g spätzle or durum flour


• 440ml water (a bit more or less, the quantity really depends on the flour you use)


• 1 tsp salt

And for the ragout:

• 1 medium-sized onion


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• 2 medium-sized carrots


• 200g shiitake mushrooms


• 200g canned chestnuts


• 200ml red wine


• 500ml vegetable broth


• 3 Tbsp tomato paste


• salt and pepper to taste


• a handful of chopped parsley

Begin with the ragout: chop the onions, crush the garlic, slice the carrots, and quarter the mushrooms. Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a heavy pan and sauté the onions first about 3-4 minutes, add the garlic and carrots, and sauté 3-4 minutes more. Then add the mushrooms, stir two more minutes, and add the chestnuts, wine, broth, salt, and pepper. Let boil over a medium heat partly covered until the carrots are tender. Add the tomato paste, stir, check the taste and add more salt if needed. Sprinkle generously with chopped parsley (or how about thyme?).

In the meantime, prepare the spätzle: Combine flour and salt in a baking bowl. Add the water - first a bit less, then gradually adding more if needed. Mix energetically with a wooden spoon until you have a smooth batter, almost like very dense pancake batter. The amount of water depends heavily on the type of flour you're using. Mine took 110ml water for each 100g of flour.

Bring 3L water to the boil in a big saucepan. Press the batter through a spätzle grater (spätzlehobel) into the boiling water. If you don't have one, try pressing the batter through the holes of a regular colander. The spätzle are done when they rise back to the surface, or in about one minute. Remove the cooked ones with a skimmer, and repeat until all of the spätzle is done.

Serve with the ragout!

P.S. I wasn't familiar with the etymology of the word ragout  - well, now I am! It comes from old French ragoûter, or to revive the taste. In this case, it's an appropriate name indeed  :)

 

 

Savoury Vegan Filo Rolls with Beetroots and Carrots

Didn’t I tell you my next posts would be about filo pastry? Well, this is going to be the last one for now – I used my last sheets to make these savoury rolls filled with beetroots and carrots. Again, a 100% vegan recipe.

Why vegan, you might ask. Well, I'm not taking part in Veganuary (to be honest, I only read about it yesterday - a great idea!). But I've got a vegan challenge of my own: my husband who after three years of vegetarianism told me he'd like to eat only vegan from now on - and gave me an inspiring cookbook, the Vegan Love Story.  And I am inspired :)

The filling combines carrots and beetroots with lots of garlic and herbs, plus nutmeg, cinnamon and ras el hanout, a mixture of spices used in Northern Africa. A total winner!

This is what you need to make 6 rolls, or just enough for 3 eaters served with an accompaniment or for 2 served just with a salad:

•  6 A4-sized sheets of filo pastry

For the filling:

• 1 large beetroot, finely chopped (or grated)


• 2 small carrots or 1 large, finely chopped


• 1 small onion, chopped


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• 3 Tbsp


• 1tsp ras el hanout


• 1 pinch of grated nutmeg


• 1 pinch of cinnamon


• salt and pepper to taste


• a handful of chopped parsley and mint (or other herbs of your liking)

For the brush:

• 20g vegan margarine


• 4 Tbsp olive oil


• 2 Tbsp almond cream


• 1 garlic clove, crushed


• salt and pepper to taste

Start with the filling: heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a large pan. Add onion, garlic, carrots, and beetroots, and stir and fry for about 5 minutes. Then add the spices and the cream and a bit of water if needed. Cover and let simmer about 5 more minutes. If the vegetables are really finely chopped, they get tender very quickly. Remove from heat.

In the meantime, make the brush: just combine all ingredients in a saucepan and warm up until the margarine has melted.

To make these rolls, I cut each A4-sized filo pastry sheet in two. I brushed the half of the small sheets with the brushing mixture and placed about 2 Tbsp of filling in the middle of each brushed sheet. Then I folded carefully into a 7cm long, 4cm wide roll. Then I wrapped each roll into a non-brushed filo sheet. This way, the rolls held together perfectly!

Bake in a preheated oven (200C) for about 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

To go with, I served some quinoa with grated lemon zest and a lot of chopped herbs. Yum!

Orange and Almond Filo Rolls - a Perfect Vegan Dessert

I guess my next posts will be about filo pastry for a while, I'm in love with this stuff! It seems you can fill it with just about anything and it will taste gorgeous.

And to tell the truth - this filling isn't actually just anything: it combines so many flavours it just could not not taste perfect. Vanilla, orange, orange blossom water, almonds - and not to forget the Port glaze (no, I didn't accidentally spill some red wine on the plate - I'm considering to try white Port wine next time, because of the colour ;) ) And did I mention it's 100% vegan?

This portion was supposed to be for 5, but I ended up eating two right away.

For 5 big rolls you need:

• 5 A4-size sheets of filo pastry

For the filling:

• 150g silken tofu


• 75g soy-based cream-cheese


• 2 Tbsp agave syrup


• 2 Tbsp orange syrup (from home-made candied orange peel)


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 30g almond meal


• a handful of finely chopped candied orange peel (preferably home-made)

For the orange glaze:

• 3-4 Tbsp agave syrup


• 1 tsp orange blossom water

For the Port glaze:

• 200ml Port wine


• 2 cinnamon sticks

Preheat your oven to 200C. Combine all the ingredients of the filling in a bowl and stir until well combined. Place one filo sheet at a time on a working surface and place about 2 Tbsp of the filling at one corner, more or less the size you want the final product to be (leave a margin, though). Fold the pastry so that the result is a roll not dropping too much of the filling out :) This needs some getting-used-to. (One of mine broke quite badly, but I just wrapped it in one extra filo sheet.)

Place the rolls in an oven-proof dish and bake until golden brown and crispy. In the meantime, warm the agave syrup and the orange blossom water in a small saucepan and keep the glaze ready: as soon as the rolls come out of the oven, brush them with the syrup. Let cool a bit.

In the meantime, prepare the Port glaze: place the Port wine and the cinnamon sticks in a saucepan and let boil over high heat until the liquid has reduced to about 5 Tbsp. Now, place the rolls on a serving plate and pour 1 Tbsp over each. Decorate with a couple of mint leaves if you happen to have some.

Oh, and needless to say - serve your filo rolls with a glass of your favourite Port! Saúde!