Sophie and Mango have got into the pleasing habit of trying out vegan recipes together on a Wednesday evening. This is not exactly a recipe blog, but a catalogue of trial and error, showing our successful and less than successful cooking adventures.

Monday 10 August 2009

Collage, Risotto and Pie

The food on this occasion took a back seat to our decision to have an evening of creativity: a collage evening. With three other friends, we arranged to collect some potential collage materials. We cut and glued late into the night. Before that, however, we ate:

Seakale and Wild Garlic Risotto

2 mugs short grain brown rice
1 large bag of frozen seakale, defrosted
A slightly smaller bag of frozen wild garlic, defrosted
1 large onion
A large sprig of fresh rosemary
Coriander powder, quite a lot
Paprika, quite a lot
A couple of tablespoons of tahini
Half a tube of tomato puree
A big teaspoonful of yeast extract
A cautious dribble of cider vinegar

Mango: My friend Antonia has spent many hours filling my freezer with wild harvested foods from our local environment. By spring this year I had finished off last year's blackberries, freeing the freezer for a bumper crop of blanched and frozen nettles, seakale and wild garlic. Warning: seakale is locally abundant in certain places but rare in others. Be considerate if harvesting.

Antonia precooked the rice with 4 mugs of water while I was out swimming in the sea. Thanks! I coarsely chopped and sauteed the onion with the spices and rosemary, then added the rice. I gradually added more water as it got absorbed, and the yeast extract and wild garlic. When the rice was soft enough, with enough water to make it saucy, I thickened it with the tomato puree and the tahini. I put the seakale in right near the end not to overcook it. Finally, not quite satisfied with the taste, I dribbled in a little cider vinegar. That did it.

Blackberry and Apple Pie

Mango: this is a favourite of Antonia's. It's probably the most basic blackberry pie recipe you could possibly make. Sometimes she makes it just with blackberries. This time she included some unripe apples for some strange reason.

A carrier bag full of blackberries
Some unripe apples
White flour
Spelt flour
Sunflower oil
A little molasses

She boiled down the blackberries and apples together. To make the pastry, she rubbed the oil into the flour and added water to the right consistency. The whole enormous thing was baked in the oven. For me it was a little too sour but that's how she likes to eat. It was still enjoyable though, especially with lots of plain and blueberry soya yoghurt.

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