Hot cocoa

[OK, so it seems a bit oxymoronic (or perhaps just moronic) given the warm weather Sydney has been experiencing lately, but this evening I had a massive craving for hot chocolate – which of course inspired me to try and come up with a F4L-friendly equivalent. It took a couple of tries to achieve something I was happy with (how I suffered through the experimental phase, but I was thinking only of you, dear reader!), but the below is the result...]

Serves: 1
Preparation time: 5 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice milk (you’ll want to use a brand which has a sweeter flavour as you won’t be adding sugar to this recipe – I used Vitasoy Rice Milk Original which worked beautifully)
• 2 tsp cocoa

Method

1. Spoon the cocoa into a mug.
2. Add a little hot water (hot tap water is fine – no need to turn on the kettle) – just enough to make a loose paste (we’re thinking somewhere between the Clag-brand lumpy paste glue that those of my generation spent our first school years sticking coloured bits of paper to other coloured bits of paper with, and water) – and whisk until all lumps are dissolved.
3. Pour in the milk and stir thoroughly.
4. Whack the mug in the microwave for about 2 minutes (times will vary depending on your microwave – may take a little experimenting to get the milk hot enough but not so hot that you’re going to spend the next 10 minutes wiping spilled-over cocoa out of the microwave’s nooks and crannies).

Enjoy. :)

Notes

• I found the rice milk I used so sweet that it took me two teaspoons of cocoa to come up with something sufficiently “chocolate-y”. Obviously if you’re using a milk like soy or another brand of rice milk which is a little less sweet you might need to down your cocoa input to offset this.
• I also made up a couple of cups’ worth of cocoa up to step 3 and then stored the result in a glass jug in the fridge so I could indulge my sweet tooth with a little chocolate milk when the urge arose.
• When the weather gets a little cooler, I’m thinking I might try this recipe with just a dash of chilli to see if I can find an equivalent to the chilli chocolates I have tried and loved in the past… Will post the results...

Asparagus with hazelnuts and mint

Serves: 10
Preparation time: 10 mins + 5 mins cooking time

Ingredients

• 4 bunches asparagus, with woody ends trimmed
• Olive oil spray
• 1/2 cup dry-roasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup fresh mint leaves

Dressing

• 2 tbsp pomegranate juice (I used Pom Wonderful)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

Dressing
Whisk pomegranate juice and oil in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside until asparagus is ready.

The main event

1. Preheat a griddle pan or frying pan on medium.
2. Spray the pan with oil and add asparagus in manageable quantities.
3. Cook until the asparagus is bright green and "al dente" (ie - tender but still with a little crispiness to it)
4. Set aside to cool slightly.
5. Place on a serving platter, drizzle with dressing and springle with hazelnuts and mint.

Notes

• This recipe can also be prepared by cooking the asparagus over a barbeque grill on medium. To do this, thread as many asparagus spears as will comfortably fit along two soaked bamboo skewers (one at the top and one at the bottom of each spear). Spray each side of the asparagus before placing on the barbeque.
• This recipe was adapted from one found in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, 10 January 2012.
• Pomegranate juice has been shown to significantly increase the time taken for PSA levels (which, when elevated or rising may indicate the presence of prostate cancer or other prostate disorders) in post-surgery/radiotherapy prostate cancer patients to double, indicating that it may help to slow the progress of this disease.

Poached pears in lemon cinnamon syrup

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 litre rice milk (I used Vitasoy Ricemilk Original)
• 4 firm pears (I used Packham pears), cut into quarters (I also like to cut out the cores and seeds for easier eating)
• 3 thick strips lemon rind
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
2. Place pears, rice milk and lemon strips in a small baking dish.
3. Sprinkle pears with cinnamon and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours or until the pears are just tender and the sauce has reduced to a light and creamy consistency. Turn the pears once or twice during cooking so they are well coated in the syrup.
4. Stir in the lemon juice just before serving. (Note that the sauce will thicken if left to stand for a while before serving.)

Notes
This recipe was adapted from one which came on the side of a pack of Vitasoy Ricemilk Original which I bought and which was also available on the Vitasoy website. I found the taste a little unusual at first - it is quite different to the chocolate-y desserts I have always eaten up until now - but after the first mouthful or two the sweet, lemon-y goodness was pretty addictive and I couldn't help going back for seconds!

Strawberry milkshake

Serves: 1
Preparation time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

• 250g strawberries
• 250 mls milk (dairy or equivalent)
• 2 tsps almond meal (optional)
• Honey to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Remove the leaves/stalks of the strawberries and toss them into a blender.
2. Add the milk and (if desired) the almond meal.
3. Blend, pour into a big glass, enjoy.

Notes:
I decided to try whipping this up one day when I had a craving for strawberry milk - you know, the really sugary kind you buy in a carton down at the local service station. I must admit that this recipe didn't really satisfy the sugar craving I had, nor was the flavour spectacular (I didn't use honey, hoping instead that the rice milk I used would be sweetness enough - it wasn't) and the almond meal (which I used to beef the recipe up as I was feeling hungry) gave the thing a bit of a grainy taste.

But although the flavour wasn't spectacular (it wasn't bad, just didn't live up to the massive sugar craving I had), I must admit this concoction was hugely satisfying and I'd make it again as it was great when I was feeling tired and dehydrated after a bushwalk on a hot day.

Hand cut sweet potato chips

I made a trial batch of these delicious chips and ate my way through a goodly portion of them all on my own!

Serves: 2 as an indulgent main, 4 as a side dish
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes in total

Ingredients

800g sweet potatoes, peeled

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp wholemeal plain flour

½ tsp dried thyme

1 tsp low-sodium salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius and put a large saucepan of water on the stove and put on high.
2. Cut potatoes into 1cm thick slices, and each slice into 1cm thick chips.
3. When water is boiling, add chips and leave for 3-5mins or until just tender.
4. Drain and return chips to saucepan on a low heat and shake gently to dry.
5. Transfer chips to a baking tray. Drizzle with oil, add flour, thyme and salt and toss gently to combine.
6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, turning halfway through, until chips are golden and crisp.

Fruit puree

I'm not really a big fruit fan so I'm always trying to find ways to work more into my diet. This benefits you, dear readers, because aside from the nutritional benefits of fruit, they can be a great alternative source of sweetness if you're trying to avoid or altogether don't eat refined sugars.

One fail-safe approach is to make a fruit puree. I like to use apples and stone fruit, either alone or in any one of a number of combinations depending on what I've got in the fridge. All you do is peel and core/stone the fruit, cut them into roughly inch-square cubes (very rough - don't think too much about it!), then put them in an uncovered saucepan with a slosh of water to help get things going over a low to medium heat. You basically want it all to be simmering along gently until the fruit softens enough for you to give it a quick whiz with a bar mix, creating a lovely, indulgent puree.

If you want to dress things up a little, you could add honey to taste or experiment with different spices - apples with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg is one delicious example.

I find fruit puree great on its own as a dessert or sweet treat, or I store it in a jar in the fridge ready to be spooned over porridge.