Rice Balls

Rice Balls

I used to know these Malaysian girls who made these squares of pressed rice (called nasi impit) around exams. It seemed such a simple exam time snack and since we had some sushi rice (glutinous rice) left over we thought making rice balls would be a good idea.

They taste something like sushi balls realistically as we filled them with sushi type vegetables. The exceptions were the sundried tomato (which was so good in it!) and tamarind water. There’s this lovely Indian vegetarian restaurant in Dublin that does these pani puri that we’ve become a bit obsessed with. We stumbled on some tamarind concentrate in a Middle Eastern shop recently though and have been looking for a use for it and this seemed the opportunity. Tamarind gives off a kind of spicy minty taste, though we found we should have added more in the recipe below as we couldn’t taste it very strongly. It’s not the most common ingredient either, so you could just use soy sauce or anything to your taste.

What we used:

-          1 cup sushi rice

-          1/2 pepper

-          3 mushrooms

-          1/3  cucumber

-          4-5 sundried tomatoes

-          3 teaspoons tamarind concentrate, diluted in 1/3 cup water (though I would use more on redoing this recipe!)

   1.       Cook the rice until mushy enough to stick and mould into balls.

   2.       Chop the vegetables very finely. Add the tamarind water/sauce

   3.       Get about handful size amounts of rice (once cooled somewhat, so you don’t burn your hands!) and mould it into a cup shape so it sticks together. Add the filling. Cover the hole with about a tablespoon more rice and mould into a ball. Realistically you can also try making these smaller.

   4.       Cover with some oil and place into an oven at about 200 ̊ for 30mins (or until browned).

The result is a rice ball that’s crispy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside and filled with minty spicy crunchy goodness on the inside. Conor said making more bite size versions would be especially nice…

Filo Pastry Twists

Filo Pastry Twists

These are fairly simple to make, despite the need for filo pastry. I would almost call them ‘cauliflower cashew nut filo pastry twists’ but that doesn’t sound quite as wonderful as they tasted! The avocado also had a strong presence in the food too.

Realistically, you can make such twists with any filling and wouldn’t need to follow the vegetable combination here.

What we used:

-          12 sheets filo pastry

-          ½ Cauliflower

-          250g cashew nuts

-          2 avocados

-          ½ courgette

-          1 onion

-          3-4 cloves garlic

-          1 pack mushrooms

-          3-4 Florets broccoli

-          3-4 Baby sweetcorns

-          Herbs & Spices; 1 tsp curry powder, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, thyme, pepper

1. Chop up all the vegetables and mash the avocado. Fry the vegetables in a wee bit of oil, possibly in the order of; onion and cashew nuts (so they soften), add all the rest except the avocado and mushrooms and when the others are cooked enough add these two as well. Add in the herbs, spices and garlic then.

2. Cut the filo pastry into 12 squares (if not already in 12 squares) by taking some off each edge. Then put the bit off the edge of each into the centre (as the food will go here, so just to have a bit more support). Coat the edges lightly in oil.

3. Add the vegetable mixture to the centre of each square. Pick up the edges of each side, then twist around each other.

4. Cook at 200° for about 20-30mins. Enjoy!



Avocado can be so lovely in meals and when we manage to get some soft enough there's generally one recipe that comes to mind:
Avocado Pesto Pasta!

Not being able to buy any commercially available vegan friendly pesto (one that isn't ridiculously expensive that it), this is a treat that always turns out well. I'm not sure where we originally got the recipe (it's been years) but it seems it's been circulating on the internet without an original maker on lots of sites (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/vegan-recipies, http://www.meatoutmondays.org/emails/11-03-21.htm, etc). Definitely one to try when you have avocados....

Kidney Bean Kievs

Kidney Bean Kievs

Finally caught up with all the backtracking! Conor is in exam season at the moment and since my exams aren’t for a good few weeks (it’s an odd thing we do this particular year) I’m doing the cooking for now.

The recipe here is very much a student recipe; kidney beans, bread, onions... all cheap student accessible food. Very suitable to make for having friends come around for a student budget but slightly more impressive dinner. I’m not sure how much of a ‘kiev’ it is persay, as I’ve only tasted a kiev maybe once in my life, but the idea is the same and it is delicious regardless. 

I used:

-        2 cans kidney beans, 1 can mixed beans (though it could well be done with just the kidney beans

-        ¼ leak                                                              - 1 onion

-        7-8 slices bread                                                - Flour

-        Oil                                                                    - 3 cloves garlic & some butter (for the garlic butter)

-        Spices and herbs: thyme, pepper, chilli pepper to taste

1. Make the garlic butter by mixing crushed garlic with butter.

2. Mash the beans with a potato masher (or fork) with some water. Add the finely chopped leak, onion, some oil (about 1/3 cup) and spices (to taste). Add breadcrumbs of about 3 slices bread. Add flour until no longer liquidy (but still sticky).

3. Breadcrumb the rest of the bread and add a little oil.

4. Take about 2 tablespoons of mixture and mould into a flatter elongated shape. Add a teaspoon or so garlic butter into the middle. Get another teaspoon of mixture or so and flatten, then mould atop the first shape (with the butter still in the middle). Once done, put into bowl with breadcrumbs and cover outer layer, which should be sticky so it’s easy enough.

5. Put into oven dish and cover with a little more oil (so breadcrumbs don’t burn). Cook at about 180° for 30mins. This part might be a bit more subjective as ovens in student houses tend to be terrible, so you may have to cook it longer at a higher temperature if you have such an oven.

 

We served it with some vegetable mixed rice.

I realise we started off following recipes and adjusting them and now we’re more so starting with an idea and trying to make our own recipe, but it’s really enjoyable.

Green curry potato bake

Green curry potato bake

Making so many tomato based things recently, and with Conor studying for an exam this week I got my pick of recipe. Due to not being from an Irish family myself but a Russian one, unlike Conor I luckily never got sick of eating potatoes. They would always be a rare thing even now – the odd Sunday dinner with Conor’s family would be it. I adore dishes that use potatoes well, like in ‘shepherd’s pie’ type dishes and saag aloo. I also adore green curry! This dish here is a bit of a mix of cultures I suppose, but it tastes so good I don’t see why it’s not made more often!

 

What I used:

-        About half a bag of baby potatoes or equivalent amount other, peeled

-        1 leek

-        1 large onion

-        Pack of mushrooms

-        1/3 a red pepper (why not?)

-        1 can black eyed beans

-        1/3 broccoli, some bits cauliflower, 1/3 carrot

-        1 can coconut milk

-        Green curry paste (to taste, but about 2-3teaspoons)

-        Spices to taste; parsley, coriander, pepper, chili flakes, cayenne pepper

1. Boil the potatoes, mash with about ½ cup soya milk (or however looks right), 1 tablespoon butter, parsley, a smidgen of salt, and pepper.

2. Cook the vegetables, perhaps starting with the leek and onion, then the broccoli, cauliflower and carrot. When cooked enough add the red pepper, mushrooms and eventually beans. 

3. Stir in the green curry paste. Add coconut milk and cook until the water steams off enough to create a creamy consistency. Add spices to taste.

4. Line an oven dish with the vegetable mixture and spread the potato mash on top. I topped it with some parsley and cayenne pepper to look pretty. Cook for about 20-30minutes at 180°

Realistically this is a mixture of more traditional vegetables that usually go with potatoes, but in a green curry sauce. Potato mash and green curry – who would have thought they’d be so delicious together?

Cake pops

Cake pops

Here in Maynooth we held one of the only two (according to the site) vegan bake sales as part of Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale week, the other being hosted by the Vegetarian Society of Ireland. This meant of course that the new recipes this week would be baked goods!

For my part I suggested we make some cake pops, which my Canadian friends tell me are a big sensation and go down well. Having looked up some recipes online, we found that it seems any cake mixture can really be used and any frosting mixed with it to make them!

     1.  So we made two general sponge cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate and once baked we mashed them into large crumbs. We then made a frosting consisting of ½ cup margarine and 1½ cups icing sugar and added this to each bowl of cake crumbles.

-     2. Once done we rolled them into balls and put them in a container into the freezer. Having the balls touching didn’t seem to make any difference luckily, as they didn’t stick together!

-     3.  By the time we removed them from the freezer and brought them to Conor’s (who doesn’t have internet!) we realised we didn’t save any recipes for the pops at all. Thinking this didn’t matter, and from the pictures we’d seen, we proceeded to make cake icing to cover the balls in. Big mistake it turns out – the icing just flowed off the cake balls. I tried thickening it so much that it wouldn’t, but the balls just broke when I tried applying it then.

-    4.   Having gotten very distressed that this was really not working, Conor came to my rescue and suggested we cover them in melted chocolate instead. I left him to it so and delightedly we found this was perfect! Amusingly, next time we had access to the internet we found that icing isn’t even used to cover cake pops, it’s chocolate and such things instead!

Definitely a great, though time consuming thing to make. We made some more for the VSI Bake Sale this Saturday, along with cupcake size versions of the strawberry tofu ‘cheesecake’.

Oh and to liften my spirits after the initial icing disaster, we made some vegan baileys by the recipe here: http://ohsheglows.com/2012/03/12/homemade-baileys-irish-creammade-vegan/

Even when we tried it without the whiskey, this was just amazing!