Category: Vegetarian

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Chanukah Sameach!

The festival of light. And fried things. Well, of the miracle of 1 days oil lasting 8.

So we fry things. Potato latkes are a good bet and one of the things I remember really loving as a child.

So I decided we would have latkes tonight. These turned out so well, a real taste of my childhood.

Potato Latke
Yields 30
A delicious and crispy fried potato cake
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Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
10 min
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
10 min
Ingredients
  1. 6 large potatoes, peeled and grated
  2. 1 onion, finely diced or grated
  3. 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  4. 2 large table spoons of flour or matza meal
  5. salt and pepper to taste
  6. Oil for frying
Instructions
  1. Grate the potato and squeeze out all the excess liquid you can.
  2. Add the diced onion and mix.
  3. Add the eggs, flour and salt and pepper.
  4. Mix well.
  5. Heat the oil in a large pan.
  6. Take small handfuls of the potato mixture and squeeze out any excess liquid (the dryer the mixture, the crispier the latke).
  7. Flatten the handful and place in the oil gently.
  8. Fill the pan and fry for 3 - 4 minutes.
  9. Gently turn each latke over and fry for a further 3 - 4 minutes.
  10. Place the latkes on paper towel to absorb extra oil and then place in a dish to keep warm in the oven.
Notes
  1. You can eat the latkes as is or you can sprinkle cinnamon sugar over them or eat them with sour cream or with apple sauce or with nutella. Its totally up to you.
A Bit of This A Bit of That https://gnatj.com/
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Shakshuka

On Thursday I was given a bag of tomatoes. They were almost too ripe.

I asked online for some suggestions of what to do with them and shakshuka jumped out at me. 

 

Shakshuka
Serves 4
I love shakshuka. Its one of my favourite Israeli dishes. And its an all in one pan cook and serve recipe so very little washing up!
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Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
30 min
Total Time
45 min
Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
30 min
Total Time
45 min
Ingredients
  1. Oil for frying
  2. 1 x onion, diced
  3. 1 x red pepper, diced
  4. 8 x tomatos, diced
  5. Garlic
  6. Spices (usually cayenne pepper or something a little spicy)
  7. Salt and pepper, to taste
  8. 6 x eggs
Instructions
  1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy pan. You can split the ingredients into two smaller pans if you want to serve the shakshuka in personal servings.
  2. Throw in the onion and saute until golden.
  3. Add the red pepper and simmer for 5 minutes.
  4. Add the tomato and garlic and stir until its all mixed together. Simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to reduce.
  5. Add spices.
  6. Once the mixture is cooked through crack eggs directly into the sauce and cook through.
  7. Serve with fresh bread or pita to mop up the sauce.
A Bit of This A Bit of That https://gnatj.com/
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Carrot and red onion soup

We landed up with two bags of carrots, way to much to eat before they went off, so I decided to make a carrot soup.

Ingredients

  • Carrots, peeled and chopped into medium chunks
  • Red onion, peeled and chopped into chunks (I used two small onions)
  • Stock powder (I used chicken stock powder, you can use vegetable stock or maybe even mushroom soup powder)
  • Oil for frying
  • Water
  • Walnuts, toasted (I used about half a cup.  Also walnuts in their shells are far cheaper than ones already shelled, also its fun to use a heavy bottomed pan and go all HULK SMASH on them, although its quite messy)

Method

  • Add carrots, onions and a tablespoon or two of dry stock powder to a large pot.

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  • Drizzle with a bit of oil and lightly fry the veggies until the stock powder is dissolved.
  • While frying, bring a kettle of water to the boil.
  • Cover veggies with water, just above the veggies should be enough.

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  • Bring the water and veggies to a boil and then cover and turn down the heat to simmer.
  • Simmer until carrots are soft.
  • While the veggies are simmering, toast some walnuts.
  • Once the carrots are soft, add half the toasted walnuts.
  • Blitz the veggies for a smooth, thick soup. (Its ok if its not completely smooth, it still tastes delicious!)

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  • Roughly chop the remaining walnuts and add to the top of the soup as a garnish.

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  • Enjoy!
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Free* Banana Bread

*Free from eggs, gluten, milk, sugar.

So its Pesach, that means no flour and since Paul is diabetic I cant use sugar either.

I found {this} recipe on a FB food forum and I have tweeked it a little to suit us.

Ingredients

  • 1 large bunch of (over)ripe bananas
  • 2 cups chopped walnuts (I bought walnuts in their shells, my kids said they are not REAL if they are already shelled, I dont have a nut cracker, I improvised with a heavy bottomed pan and went all HULK SMASH on the poor walnuts, it was fun!)
  • 2 cups potato flour
  • 1 cup chopped dates
  • pinch of salt (I forgot about the salt, oh well)

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Method

  • Peel and mash the bananas.
  • Chop up your shelled walnuts, I blitzed them in a small food processor.
  • Pit your dates and cut or shred them into small pieces.
  • Add bananas, potato flour, walnuts, dates and salt in a bowl.
  • Mix until just combined.
  • Place in an appropriate sized loaf tin.
  • Bake for 35-40 minutes at 180ºC
  • Enjoy hot with butter slathered on!

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Veggie delights with #FamilyFood from Fry’s

On Saturday night, Fry’s Family Food sent me Chef Candice to make a 5 course dinner for me and my family.  Using only Fry’s vegetarian goodies, Chef Candice made enough food to feed an army.  Or a good Yiddisha family 😉

We had a mixed bag of dinner guests. Paul and I and the kids (kids are fussy as you know and I think they were the ones we had to win over the most), my mom & Brian (Brian doesn’t eat anything vegetarian), Dave (Confirmed carnivore) & Yael and Timor & Marc.

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We started off the night with a Asian inspired salad with chicken style strips coated in honey and sesame seeds.  I have to admit, this was my favourite of all the dishes.  The strips look and taste just like chicken.  And the best part… The kids LOVED them!

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Ingredients

  • Fry’s Chicken Strips
  • 1 x cup sesame seeds
  • ¼ x cup raw honey
  • Grape-seed oil
  • Salad veggies
  • Avo

Method

  • Mix the honey with a tablespoon of boiling water in a shallow bowl.
  • Place the sesame seeds in another shallow bowl.
  • Dip the strips into the honey then into the seeds and place on a baking tray in the fridge for 15 minutes.
  • Heat a splash of grape-seed oil and gently toast the strips, watching that they don’t burn.
  • Serve as one large salad or in individual salads by placing the salad veggies in a bowl, slicing the avo in thin strips on top and then placing the warm chicken style strips over them.

The next course was two mini burgers served with potato wedges.  One burger was the Fry’s original burger patty and the other was the Asian spiced burger.  Both were delicious, although the actual patty’s were a bit too processed looking (too uniform in shape and texture) to pass for ‘real’ meat patty’s.

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The third course was chicken style chunks/balls on rice noodles.  I think this was the least appreciated dish of the night.  It was tasty and I have discovered I adore rice noodles but the chicken style chunks were very ‘un-meaty’ in texture.  That being said, only Brian didnt finish his. The rest of my guests polished theirs off.

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My second favourite dish of the night came out as the fourth course.  Lamb style curry mini bunny chows!  These were amazing and I was so pleased that there were leftovers which we ate the next night for supper.  The lamb style meat looked, felt and tasted like lamb.  I was very impressed.

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Ingredients

  • Fry’s lamb style chunks
  • 3 x medium ripe tomatoes, grated
  • 1 x medium onion, chopped
  • 1 x tsp ginger and garlic mix
  • 4 curry leaves
  • 100g x potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 7.5ml x curry mix
  • 150ml x vegitable stock
  • Garam Masala
  • Lemon juice
  • Canola oil
  • Salt and Pepper

Method

  • Fry the onions in a little oil.
  • Add the ginger and garlic mix.
  • Add the curry leaves and curry mix.
  • Add the lamb style chunks and mix so they are coated in the sauce, cook on low.
  • Add the tomatoes and potatoes and stir while slowly bringing the mixture to a boil.
  • Then add a little of the stock until the chunks are just covered.
  • Turn down the heat and simmer, covered, for about 1 hour until the chunks are soft and the mixture is thick and juicy, adding more stock as needed.
  • Adjust the flavour to taste by adding salt and pepper or the Garam Masala and a squeeze of lemon juice.

The last course was mini chicken schnitzel with garlic mash potato and sautéed baby mushrooms.   I have always liked the Fry’s chicken schnitzel and this time was no exception.  They were delicious.

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Thank you Fry’s for treating me and my family to an awesome  5 course #FamilyMeal.

If you would like to purchase a Fry’s recipe book you can pop over here.

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Ginger, honey and carrot soup

My darling friend Roro in Israel made this delicious soup today for lunch.  Since its so cold over there she served it hot but I think it would make a yummy cold soup served with toasted French bread slices for summer too.

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Recipe as is, from Ro.

Ingredients

  • 1 Onion chopped up (I use red)
  • 5 Carrots peeled and sliced into rounds
  • Root of fresh ginger (or as much as you would like)
  • 4 Spoons honey
  • Orange juice of 1 orange (I just cut up the orange and add it in)
  • Lemon rind
  • 1 litre water
  • Salt and Pepper

Method

  • Fry onions in butter/olive oil until golden brown
  • Add ginger and carrots and cook for five minutes
  • Add honey, juice and lemon rinds
  • Add water and salt and pepper and cook until carrots are tender.
  • Take off heat and blend
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Diabetic and gluten friendly pizza base!

So since Paul was diagosed as diabetic I have been searching for interesting recipes that are diabetic friendly.

We, as a family LOVE pizza and unfortunately pizza bases are a no no for Paul.

I found this recipe on Pinterest over here and decided it sounded yummy.  I adjusted the recipe to make 2 bases.

Ingredients

  • 4 cups raw spinach leaves (I used young spinach from Woolies)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups grated low fat cheese (again I used from Woolies)
  • Salt, pepper, seasoning to taste

Method

  • Heat oven to 180°C.
  • Blend spinach leaves until they look like baby food, this drastically reduces the volume of the spinach, I panicked but it was ok in the end.
  • Add eggs and blend.
  • Add in cheese and spices and blend until just combined.
  • The original recipe says that you HAVE to use parchment paper on your baking sheet/pizza pan because it sticks.  I didnt have any so I Spray & Cooked the shit out of my pans and it was absolutely fine, nothing stuck!
  • Once you have lined/sprayed your pan, pour half the mixture into the middle of the pan.
  • With the back of a spoon, slowly push down on the mixture so that it forms a thin, even circle on the pan,roughly the size of a medium pizza base.
  • Place the pan in the oven and bake for about 15/20 minutes or until the edges are brown and crisp.
  • Remove from the oven and add your tomato base, cheese and any toppings you like.
  • Return to the oven until the cheese has melted.
  • Remove from oven and cut into slices.

pizza

Enjoy!

Oh… Apparently you can make a cauliflour base too!  That is next on my list to try!

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Potluck Savoury Muffins

Tanya once again sent me a too good to be true recipe. So good in fact that all of her muffins were eaten before she could take a photo.

So I decided that I couldnt post the recipe without giving you a photo and I whipped up a batch this evening.

When Tanya says that it takes 10 min to prep and 20 min to bake she wasnt lying.

Quick and yummy, my idea of good food!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cake flour
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • Salt and pepper
  • Pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 200g red pepper (Tanya doesn’t eat peppers so she substituted for 200g ham, or bacon, a bit of onion or spring onion etc… the options are endless!)
  • 100g chopped mushrooms
  • 100g cheddar cheese
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley
  • 2 whole eggs
  • 60ml vegetable oil
  • 350ml skim milk
  • Non-Stick Spray

Method

  • Preheat oven to 200°C
  • Sift together the dry ingredients.
  • Add in the mushrooms, spices, parsley and grated cheese.
  • Whisk together the wet ingredients and add to the dry ingredients.
  • Mix until just combined, the mixture should still look lumpy.
  • Spoon into a muffin tin that has been coated with non-stick spray and bake in a 200°C oven for 20 minutes.
  • Remove from oven, turn onto a wire rack to cool and serve.

They smelled so good that I had to take one straight out the oven, slice it open, slather it in butter and eat it up.  I burned my fingers adn my tongue but boy was it worth it!

Oh, Tanya said it makes 12, I managed to get 22 muffins but not all of them were the same size.  So be prepared to use 2 muffin trays.

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Strawberry Salad

Woolies had a large (and I mean LARGE) punnet of strawberries for sale to day.  Of course I bought it.  But what to do with them?

I googled ‘strawberry salad’ cause I need to take a salad with to my mom in law for dinner tonight and I came across this simple fresh salad, I immediately pinned it and turned it into reality.

Ingredients

Salad

  • Lettuce (I used a bulk bag of crispy lettuce, ready washed etc from Woolies)
  • Red onion (I had bought a little bag of ready sliced red onion from Woolies. Gd bless you!!!)
  • Strawberries, hulled and quartered
  • Fresh mint, chopped (this I got from around the tap next to my back door, yum)
  • Pecan nuts (I left these out, cause well, I didnt have any…)

Dressing

  • Quarter cup olive oil
  • Third of a cup balsamic vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • Salt and crushed black pepper to taste

Method

  • Toss lettuce, onion, strawberry and mint together in a salad bowl.
  • Blend together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper.

I kept the dressing separate for each person to add for themselves but Im sure you could just toss the dressing over before serving.

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Roasted Tomato Soup

Today we have another guest chef, Tanya (aka @Beagle_Momma) sent me a delicious and healthy recipe for roasted tomato soup.

Ingredients:

  • 900g baby tomatoes
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 20ml (weigh less) olive oil
  • 900ml chicken stock (I used oxtail – didn’t have anything else)
  • 20g Fresh chopped basil (i didn’t have, so just used about a tablespoon of dry italian herbs)
  • 5ml (weigh less) balsamic vinegar
  • Salt & pepper

Method:

  • Cut tomatoes in half, place on baking tray cut side up.
  • Also pop the 4 cloves of garlic on the tray
  • Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper
  • *Since I wasn’t using fresh basil, I sprinkled my dry herbs on too – fresh basil comes later tho*
  • Roast at 195degrees for an hour.
  • In the mean time, i prepared my 900ml of stock, and added balsamic vinegar to the stock.
  • Once the tomatoes & garlic are roasted (divine smell!!) take them out, pop the stock mixture, the roasted tomatoes/garlic into a blender *now would be when you add the fresh basil if you using it*
  • Blend until smooth.
  • Sprinkle with a little bit of feta before serving! A slice of crusty bread would be perfect too!

Serves 4 and each portion counts as 2 Veg and 1 Fat.

The recipe says serve hot or cold!

Easy, healthy, tasty, quick! Winner!