Comfort Food

Skillet Gardener's Pie

 I'm studying at the moment which is why I have been a little absent. Geoff has been doing all the cooking and I've been breaking my procrastination up between episodes of the L-word (which I'm about as fond of as Gossip Girl (which, if you did not already know, is a very very bad show) but that ain't stopping me from watching it), posting on Facebook about how angry I am about various things (voting referendum, human rights violations, Geoff breaking my Tupperware can opener etc etc) and pilates.

Right now I'm posting this as a break from climate change study. I smelled Geoff cooking in the kitchen and it reminded me of something I've been wanting to say on my blog for quite a while. It goes something like this: FatFree Vegan Kitchen's Skillet Gardener's Pie is one of the most delicious, comforting foods I've eaten for quite a while and it's super easy to make!

Now, I know it's very lazy of me to just steal someone else's recipe and post about it. Normally, I find a recipe and tweak it to my liking (and convert from those horrid imperial units to nice metric ones) but this recipe was so tasty as it was that there's not much point pretending to change it.

The only variation we did try was to use sweet potato on top instead of normal potato and it worked just as well. The sweet potato, however, is a little thinner so add the milk slowly as you may not need as much.

With sweet potato topping instead of potato.

While we are on the topic of comfort food (and FatFree Vegan Kitchen) I thought I'd also mention Susan V's Herbed Polenta with Beans and Bok Choi recipe. This was the first time I had ever cooked with polenta and was curiously surprised by the way it thickens up in the saucepan (I don't have a pressure cooker so couldn't cook it the way she suggests). It was quite easy to cook although all the stirring certainly gave me a work out. However, I was a little disappointed with its lack of flavour and how heavy it was in the dish. Most of the casual cooks I know love polenta but it just didn't float my boat. The vegetables in the dish too were a little bit of a disappointment (I used balsamic vinegar, since white vinegar seems impossible to get here, and I'm not sure if it was that that caused the unusual, biting taste the vegetables had or if the dish just wasn't to my taste).

Herbed Polenta with Beans and Bok Choi

I still like the idea of the dish, though, and I like that polenta is filling and easy to make so I might try to build on the recipe in the future. Any ideas or other similar recipe suggestion would be most welcomed!

Potage Parmentier

I really didn't like Julie & Julia. The movie was fantastic (and was the inspiration for this blog!) but the book paled in comparison. I enjoyed the book but often cringed at the amoral, apathetic yet sometimes psychotic view of the author.

Yes, she made fun of vegans.

But that's not why I didn't like it.

One of the scences I particularly did not like was where she had to get marrow out of the bone of a cow leg. I have no problem with that if she's made the decision to eat meat. However, she goes on to explain how her and her husband have a discussion about buying a country house and a cow and lovingly taking care of it as penance for the marrow extraction. Oh, you feel guilty? Now?

It really highlighted to me that it's not until people are elbow deep in a splintered shin bone that they actually realise that meat comes from an animal. So she felt bad about that cow. But the hundreds of other cows she slaughtered that year don't deserve a single thought. And the lobsters she boiled alive were fine. And the veal comes from the butcher... not the calf.

And the amoral, contradicting opinions about her married life and her friends' love lives drove me nuts.

Her second book is about how she becomes a butcher and cheats on her husband. It honestly made me wonder if she cheated on her husband just so she could write her second book. At any rate I won't be reading it.

However, I did enjoy the bits where she talks about food (the bits without her pathetic attempt at moralising). The opening shopping sequence, as she buys potatoes and leeks for Potage Parmentier without realising it, was lovely. And it made me want to make Potage Parmentier!

So, after all that anger vented toward Julie Powell here is my vegan version of her first blog entry.

Potage Parmentier

500g potatoes, diced

3 cups sliced leeks

2 litres (8 cups) water

1 tbs salt

3 tbs vegan butter

Add the potatoes, leeks, salt and water to a soup pot and bring to the boil. Simmer for 45 minutes.

Blend the soup in a blender (or in the pot if you have an awesome stick blender like mine!). The blending is important. It has to be smooth. Use a sieve if you have to. 

Stir in butter before serving. 

Yummo!

Wednesday: Bangers and Mash

Some of my dear friends will be falling off their chairs when they see this post. Yes, it's true, I hate potato. It's also true that, since I now live in England, every meal is supposed to contain potato. It's also a bit hard to avoid hot, warm comforting things like Bangers and Mash when the weather is miserable all the time. So I've succumbed. A little.

Bangers and Mash 1.0

Bangers and Mash 2.0

I'm not about to give a recipe from mashed potato since... well... even my mother can make mashed potato. You will, however, notice that my mashed potato seems to be a little on the orange side. That's because I make it with half potato, half sweet potato and then mash it, stick in some soy milk and a tablespoon or so or vegan butter, salt and pepper and mash again. Easy peasy.

Version 1.0 is served with onion, leek and sliced mushrooms fried in a pan with a bit of oil. Version 2.0 is served with sliced onion rings that were fried with a bit of oil and then my Garlic & Chili Broccoli except I replaced the nuts with some sliced mushrooms. Yummy and easy.

Of course it's all topped off with some HP. Because we live in England now.

Potato Bake

I got a bit reminiscent these holidays. I missed the potato bake my Aunty Di used to make every time we had a family dinner. So I attempted a vegan one using rice cream from Mrs Flannery's.

I layered sliced potato, onion and cream and then topped it with some Greek soy cheese I get from Pigeon Pear Deli in Middle Park and tomato. It was okay but nothing like the original. I've since found a better cream at Mrs Flannery's in Taringa (I used it to make creamy mushroom pasta with fresh basil and pine nuts the other night) so perhaps I will try again soon.