Guest Post - Pumpkin Loaf AND Cheesy Stuffed Pumpkin! Bonus.

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Hey everyone!

Now, I know you have swung by today to check out Veggie Mama’s blog and right now you are probably thinking ‘who the hell is this Veggie Imposter?’ So let me introduce myself – my name is Emily and I’m visiting from over at Love Shoes and Cupcakes.

Today we are going to talk pumpkin and things are going to get a little crazy and a little messy so tighten your seat belts and just enjoy the ride!

Pumpkin would have to be one of my favourite vegetables because it’s just so versatile and lends itself to so many fantastic dishes like a gorgeous curry, a fully loaded quiche or even a salad. And do I even need to mention it works beautifully as a side whether you roast it, boil it, mash it or grill it? I think not. Basically what I’m getting at here is that you can do such a wide variety of things with pumpkin and in an effort to fully explore its versatility today we are not going to look at just one easy and delicious pumpkin recipe, but two! And while we are living dangerously I thought we would make one sweet and one savoury…..

Too much?

Bear with me….

The first recipe I have for you today is this Pumpkin Loaf. 

Now I know there are people out there, like my husband – Mr B, who are firmly against the whole pumpkin used in baking theory but I have to say that this very recipe completely changed my tune on pumpkin related baking. Whether you have it warm or cold, plain or with butter, this recipe is packed full of flavour and I’m even going to go out on a limb and say I prefer it to the humble banana bread. So if you are looking for something suitable for lunch boxes, morning teas, after school snacks or even breakfast, give this a go!

You will need:

650g butternut pumpkin peeled and deseeded 
100g softened butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar 
2 eggs 
2 cups self-raising flour 
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda 
1 tspn ground cinnamon 
1 tspn mixed spice 
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 

Preheat oven to 180°C and line your loaf tin with grease proof paper. 
Cut the pumpkin into 4cm pieces and place in a microwave safe dish. Microwave on HIGH (100%) for 3 to 4 minutes or until pumpkin is tender. Mash until smooth and set aside to cool. 
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add eggs, beating until well combined. 
Add pumpkin, flour, bicarb and spices. Beat on low until just combined.
Pour mixture into your prepared tin and smooth surface. 
Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack.

Ok so we have done the crazy part – now let’s get messy with this Whole Baked Stuffed Pumpkin. Mr B and I made this for my parents the night before we left on our honeymoon and it was a huge hit!

You will need

1 large pumpkin
100g diced mushroom
1 onion diced
1 stick celery diced
150ml extra light thickened cream
2 cups grated cheese (I used a combination of gouda, romano, cheddar and parmesan, but plain cheddar would be fine too)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 tspn Gourmet Garden Mediterranean Seasoning (which is a mix of basil, garlic, oregano and bell peppers)
Salt and Pepper

Pre-heat oven to 180C. 
Place your pumpkin on a tray and cut the top off. Scoop out all the seeds to create a nice round hollow but make sure you still have a nice thick shell as well. Soak the stalk in some water whilst preparing the filling. 
In a lightly oiled fry pan over medium heat, combine the mushrooms, onion and celery. Cook for 7-10 mins or until onion is cooked and celery is softened. 
In a bowl combine the mushrooms, onion, celery, cream, cheese, breadcrumbs and herbs. Season with salt and pepper. 
Spoon the filling into the hollowed out pumpkin. Don't be afraid to cram it all in there. Place the lid back on and pop the whole thing in the oven for around 90 mins. If you can insert a skewer into the skin and through the pumpkin with ease, then it is cooked. If not, give it another 30 mins and see how it goes then. 
When we cut the first slice out, the filling just sort of oozed out and it looked (and tasted) amazing!

There are so many different filling possibilities from rice to risotto to chilli to cheesey goodness! I’m interested to know, if you were making a stuffed pumpkin – what would you fill it with?


Thank you for reading my ramblings and I hope I have given you some inspiration to get in the kitchen, turn the music up and get your bake on!  

Mrs B xx

Meatless Monday: Cheese and spinach-stuffed potatoes

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Damn do I love a baked potato! Especially if they're cooked in coals and the outside goes all crisp but chewy and charred and delicious... remind me to buy a barbecue, would you?!

Until then, I have to be satisfied with those baked in the oven and topped with a warm and comforting mornay-type sauce with spinach thrown in for pretend nutritional value. Or something. Very difficult to say no to, very easy to veganise if you're that way inclined (I already use soy milk in everything and vegan margarine is an easy swap, as is veggie cheese or nutritional yeast).

They're really quite substantial so I usually only get through about half a potato, with side dishes. I also choose rather large potatoes, so there's plenty of room for the filling and plenty of soft creamy potato inside. The sauce will do about four potatoes.

Ingredients:
1-2 potatoes per person, scrubbed to within an inch of their life
olive oil
salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour 
1.5 cups milk
1 bunch fresh spinach or 1 box frozen, thawed and drained
1 bay leaf
pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper
at least 1 cup cheese, grated with extra for topping

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 220C.

2. Rub potatoes with olive oil and salt and place directly on the oven rack to cook for one hour. You can par-boil them if you're in a hurry and put them into the oven to finish + crisp up.

3. Remove potatoes and gently cut in half lengthways. Scoop out potato flesh, leaving about 1cm of potato on the skin to form little potato bowls.

4. While potatoes are cooking, melt the butter with the flour over medium heat. Stir for at least 1 minute, then add milk, bay leaf and nutmeg. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until sauce boils and thickens (I cook it over high heat because I'm a rebel and I've never had a problem with lumpy sauce). Add spinach, salt, pepper and cheese, and remove bay leaf. Stir in potato flesh.

5. Pile everything back into the potato shells and top with cheese. Bake another 15 minutes or so until heated through and cheese on top is browned.

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Sweet potato and red lentil bisque - an Oprah recipe

Sometimes there's that rare moment when you read a recipe and realise you have all of the ingredients ready to go. Flipping through the O Magazine recipe book I picked up on my trip to DC, I came across this gorgeous soup and knew I needed to make it for dinner. As I was alone I was seriously considering vegemite toast, but this looked so healthy and delicious and would be awesome for lunch the next day.

I love anything with coconut milk, and everything is blended so there's no scary lentil bits or anything. Just a lovely velvety soup with a slightly sweet flavour. Excellent for some of the cool nights we've been having. Crusty bread with lots of butter wouldn't go astray...

You can find the recipe here. I've not taken nearly as gorgeous a photo as they have (and I also had no pomegranate), but you get the idea!

Lentil and balsamic tomato pappardelle

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Spaghetti Bolognese is one of those ubiquitous dishes. Everybody eats it, everybody cooks it, everybody likes it.

Except me.

Maybe because we had it upwards of three times a week (may be an exaggeration... but not much!), maybe because I don't like the way spaghetti feels in my mouth, maybe because I just don't like tomato pasta sauce. I don't know. I rarely never cook it and pretty much never want to eat it.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, QUIT CALLING IT SPAG BOG.

It makes me think of a toilet.

Mr Veggie Dad finds my bolognese aversion tough going, as he really likes it. And he makes a mean version too, just quietly. Sometimes I make similar sorts of things, like this lentil dish, and it seems to suffice. Want to cut down on meat? (And since when did mince get so expensive? I thought it was just snouts and tendons...) throw in some lentils. Add something, anything, for the love of god other than spaghetti and hey... even I might eat it.

Cover it in parmesan and I'm your man.

You could make this even better (and I have), by roasting halved tomatoes until soft. Then squashing them with salt and balsamic and adding to the lentils. YUM.

It's easy, quick and good for you. A delicious dish on a cold night with a sneaky red. You know you want to.

Oh and don't forget the garlic bread. Tell 'em Veggie Mama sent ya.

Ingredients:

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 can green lentils

1 can chopped tomatoes

A good splash of balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
a pinch of sugar
salt and cracked black pepper
Fresh pappardelle pasta, or cut your own from fresh lasagna sheets.


Directions:

1. Heat some oil or butter in a saucepan and fry onion over medium heat until translucent. Add garlic and fry 1 minute.

2. Add everything else and bring to the boil. Let simmer for at least 10 minutes. The longer you do, the richer and better it will taste.

3. Cook pappardelle according to package directions.

4. Test your sauce for seasoning, add to pasta, cover the lot with parmesan.

5. Never eat spaghetti bolognese again.


Seriously... am I the only one that doesn't like it?

1.

Sweetcorn risotto with haloumi

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Recently I scored some juicy sweetcorn from the markets, and I was looking for a different way to eat it than my usual steamed, or this insane corn chowder I usually make.

Corn is right up there as one of my favourite veggies - just after pumpkin and just above artichoke. Veggie Dad doesn't get overly excited when served with a giant cob on his plate, but I've been known to just stick a fork in one end and snack away. The stuff is good.

Anyway, this summer I'm going to play around with more corn salads, salsas, fritters and succotash, but tonight, as my toes freeze from our still-cold spring nights, I'm dreaming of this silky risotto. It's full of flavour, sweet from the corn and salty from the haloumi... which you don't need to add, but would be silly not to!

Ingredients:
1 litre corn stock - I simmered four cobs of corn, kernels removed, in hot water for a couple of hours. I was aiming for about a litre.
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
sea salt and cracked black pepper
400g risotto rice
100ml white wine
the kernels from two large cobs of corn
1/2 a block of haloumi, diced
butter, to taste
a handful of parmesan

Directions:

1. Heat the stock in a saucepan and keep it on a simmer.

2. In a separate pan, heat the olive oil and butter. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook gently about three minutes. Add garlic and cook another two minutes.

3. When the onion has softened, add the rice. Turn up the heat, and don't leave the pan alone.

4. While slowly stirring, fry the rice. After two or three minutes, add the wine and listen to it hiss :)

5. Pour yourself a glass - there's so much stirring you ain't going anywhere.

5. Once the wine seems to have been absorbed, add a ladle of hot stock, and turn down the heat. Keep adding ladlefuls of stock once they are absorbed.  Don't rush this, or the centre of the rice granules will be hard and gross. Not a good look, particularly if you're trying to impress the in-laws.

6. After 15-20 minutes, check the rice. You want it soft and creamy. Check the seasoning. 

7. Add the corn and cook just to heat through. When cooked to your liking, take the pan off the heat and add the butter and parmesan.

7. You want it oozing in the bowl or plate, so make sure you've added enough stock. Under no circumstances is it to be stiff or gluggy. ugh!

8. Fry your haloumi cubes over a very high heat until golden on all sides.

9. Serve risotto with haloumi and sliced spring onion on top. 

Dark Mint Spanish Hot Chocolate

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It was a sunny mid-semester afternoon and I was meeting an American friend for coffee. I had randomly sat next to her in our local courthouse a few weeks earlier, both of us there to cover stories for our News Rounds class. I was nervous as hell, and always had visions of being stalked outside the courtroom for scribbling notes about the trial by the defendant's angry family. I saw a pretty, perky blonde with a notepad and cute shoes and sank down next to her gratefully, whispering "I think I'm here for the same thing you are!". She smiled and we bonded over our mutual love of Sweet Valley High books. She was bold and confident, on exchange from her beautiful big college in Pennsylvania. I was jealous.

A week later she popped up in my Forces of Change in International Politics class. We swapped numbers. Little did I know, it was the start of something seriously awesome.

So this day we decided to forgo coffee and headed straight to the new San Churro nearby for some hot chocolate instead. I had the dreaded less-than-$20-so-can't-get-cash-out-from-an-ATM student syndrome, and I was told at the counter I they had a $10 maximum spend when I went to order my Classic Spanish. The sad fact was, I had less than $10, too. I mumbled not to worry about it, and something else ridiculous, like I'd live off the fumes of my American friend's. She giggled. I died.

Anyway, we sat down and before I could pester her with millions of questions about my obsession with American food, she took a sip of her chocolate.

"Oh," she said.

"Oh my".

I was intrigued... I watched the viscous chocolate ooze back into its place in the mug every time she finished sipping. I barely heard anything she said. I needed this chocolate for my very own.

So I went home, and in true food-obsessed starving student fashion, I made my own.With a random Lindt Easter bunny I found in my refrigerator. And now you can too!

Ingredients:
1 cup milk per person
1 teaspoon cornflour per cup of milk
4 squares Lindt Mint Intense dark chocolate per cup of milk.

Directions:

1. Put milk and cornflour into a saucepan and whisk to combine. Heat over medium heat until chocolate just boils, stirring regularly.

2. Add the chocolate, broken into small pieces and whisk until blended. It will get deliciously thick and you will be the envy of all your friends.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Lindt... it was mere randomness that I never ate Easter eggs and had one rolling around in my fridge that I originally made this with. It was so good that I've never used any other chocolate. This time it happened to be mint. You can choose whatever flavour you want. I have not received anything in return for this post.

YUM!!

Fourth of July Coney Island Hot Dogs and a Cherry Coke Float

This is what I was doing this time last year - watching the fireworks over the National Mall in Washington, DC.

I could feel the heat rising through the blanket I on which I was sitting from the concrete below. It had been a super-hot day, the news stations and papers filled with pictures of children sitting in buckets under hoses, and talk of record-breaking temperatures. I had presented my sweaty face to the Lincoln Memorial,

Mr Lincoln, Mr Lincoln!

I had gotten up close and personal with President Obama,

I had watched the annual Independence Day parade along Constitution Avenue - lots of marching bands, baton-twirling and giant-helium-balloon-holding.

I had waded through a throng of patriotic people to be that guy that gets their photo taken with the White House. I also nearly got my head taken off when I stepped a toe outside the barrier keeping people on the sidewalk. At least I wasn't part of the crew getting their photo taken with the back of the President's house...

I had sought refuge in the cool interior of the United States Holocaust Museum, and I had stood on the steps right where Dr Martin Luther King, Jr made his "I Have a Dream" speech. I had looked out over the Reflecting Pool and had visions of Jenny splashing into it in search of Forrest Gump.

Forrest!

 I had also watched the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island on TV from a food court earlier that day (54 hot dogs in 10 minutes, people!), and it was that memory that made me decide what to make to help celebrate this year.

We eat a lot of hot dogs in the Veggie Household - they're one of the few mock meats we truly like. Our concoctions usually consist of ketchup, mustard, onion, pickles, relish and cheese. Occasionally we have chili dogs, and occasionally I like to branch out and try something new on my poor guinea pig husband.

This year I decided on Coney Island Hot Dogs, which are very specific in their preparation. We couldn't help but doctor them up somewhat, although I've made them here in their original veggie form.

Not actually made in Coney Island, but in Michigan, the hot dog is topped with a beanless chili, a strip or two of yellow mustard, and lots of chopped white onion.

And it is good.

Especially when you add extra ketchup and cheese...

And a Cherry Coke Float.

Happy Fourth of July!

 To make the chili:

Heat one 300g packet veggie mince with one can diced tomato and 1/2 cup water. Add 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, a sprinkle of cinnamon, basil and as much chili powder as you want. Add a crushed veggie beef stock cube. If it is still too soupy, you can thicken it with a teaspoon of cornflour in a tablespoon of hot water.

To make the float:

Ice cream. Cherry Coke. Mix.

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

One thing that you rarely get as a vegetarian is a decent pie. Sure a lot of people aren't huge fans of the humble meat pie (and the insane amount of fat enclosed in each little pastry parcel), but it's so Aussie, and can actually be quite delicious. When done well, of course. With the quality of veggie mince these days, pies are finally within our grasp.

I was asked recently by an ardent pie lover, who is also vegetarian, if I had a recipe for a traditional meat pie.

"Sure I do," I said.

"Really? with the gravy?", he said wistfully.

And I understood that feeling... when you've grown up with something (party pies for school lunches, anyone?), it can be hard to fully strike it from your menu for the rest. of. your. life.

Luckily for me, I am determined to reach as many omnivores as possible with my veggie food, so see this kind of memory re-creation as of great importance. I want a meat pie with tomato sauce, and I want it now! And you meat eaters want a meat pie without the golf-ball amount of fat with every serving (is that rumour even true?), so consider this a public service to all.

Ingredients:

1 packet veggie mince (I used Quorn in this recipe)

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 carrot, chopped

1/2 cup each peas and corn

1 cup water (you may need more, depending on how thick you want your mince)

1 veggie beef stock cube

1 tablespoon flour or gravy powder

1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons tomato sauce

1 teaspoon mustard

3 potatoes, peeled and chopped

1/2 sweet potato, peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup milk

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 220C.

2. Put the potato and sweet potato in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and cook 15-20 minutes until soft. Drain, mash, and add butter and milk.

3. Saute the onion, carrot and garlic in a little oil until translucent. Add mince, peas and corn.

4. Dissolve stock cube in boiling water and add to the mince. Add all the sauces and cook over a low-medium heat for five minutes. Add the flour or gravy powder dissolved in a little water and adjust the consistency to your liking.

5. Spoon the mince into a casserole dish and top with the mashed potato. Cover with cheese and bake 15 minutes until cooked through and cheese is golden and bubbling.

6. You're welcome.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

From: Rebecca Marshall
Sent: Monday, 14 June 2010 12:16 PM
To: Stacey Roberts
Subject: RE:


Honey there are some things broccoli should never be and soup is one of them. There is something vomity about it in liquid form anyway and you go and add cheese? What are you? On crack?
 
 
 
From: Stacey Roberts 
Sent: Monday, 14 June 2010 12:18 PM
To: Rebecca Marshall
Subject: RE:
Seriously. After all these years and all this Veggie Mama-ing, you still don’t trust me? Why would I bring to you a disgusting soup? It’s one of the most amazing things I have ever tasted. Rich and velvety, the thing is like nectar from the gods. Sure I was apprehensive the first time I made it, but I can’t imagine what life would be like without this soup in it. Ye of little faith.

Pah.

Meanwhile you had such a bad week with replacements last week. Wield the power and cut his darn copy.


Kind Regards,
Stacey Roberts
***** News Editor
 
 
From: Rebecca Marshall

Sent: Monday, 14 June 2010 12:21 PM
To: Stacey Roberts
Subject: RE: Well I expect a thermos of said soup at your earliest convenience. Until then you are safe from elimination and still in the MasterChef competition.




Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large head broccoli
2 potatoes, diced
1 litre vegetable stock
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup grated tasty cheese

Directions:
1. Saute the onion garlic in 1 teaspoon each butter and oil over medium heat until translucent.

2. Add the broccoli, potatoes and stock and turn up the heat. Boil 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are cooked.

3. Meanwhile, melt the 1 tablespoon butter in a small pan over low heat. Add the flour and cook 1 minute. Add the milk and whisk vigorously until smooth. Cook slowly until the sauce is thick and creamy. Add the cheese.

4. Blend the soup to a puree and add the cheese sauce. Serve with lots of delicious, hot bread.

Audrey Gordon and the Roast Vegetable Salad

I love comedy. I love books. It is my personal belief that there's nothing better than when the two are combined.

I was made aware recently that the hilarious team from Working Dog Productions had taken a potshot at the foodie culture by creating their own celebrity chef, and in turn had her create a cookbook. Now I like my wit drier than a desert, and when a satirical publication is passed off as legitimate, (hello The Onion), I am especially impressed. Particularly if it leaves people a little unsure if they're being had or not.

Working Dog have amused me over the years with The Castle, The Panel, and Thank God You're Here, and are made up of members of the D-Generation and The Late Show (seriously funny Australian comedy that I still watch today), and their creation of Audrey Gordon does not disappoint. As she moves to Tuscany to immerse herself in the culture, customs and cuisine, Audrey's impertinent attitude (she was voted Britain's Sternest Chef for three consecutive years) makes for compelling reading. There was a joke on just about every page that I found genuinely funny ("The Piazza Pallazzio has genuine period charm. Each of its 66 rooms boasts antiques such as Etruscan rugs, four-poster beds, vases and dial-up internet"), and I am an exacting comedy consumer. I'm a tough nut to crack.

Complete with recipes I want to try marked...

All the recipes included in the book are real, and actually quite delicious. I'm told the book is "a practical guide that will help you carry off everything from a lazy Sunday brunch with friends to a formal sit-down banquet for 300 lactose-intolerant, diabetic vegans with severe peanut allergies". You can't get more helpful than that.

I decided to put the roast vegetable salad to the test - something easy I could throw together, but still be delicious. Given that it is getting into cooler weather too, a salad sort of needs to be a bit hotter and heartier to go with your meals This will do the trick!

Ingredients:
10 new potatoes, halved
2 white onions, sliced
2 large carrots, cut large chunks
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 zucchini, thickly sliced
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
olive oil
salt
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
50g pine nuts
150g flat-leaf parsley, washed
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C.

2. Place the potatoes in a saucepan of water and bring to the boil for 5 minutes until they're just turning soft, but not cooked.

3. Put the potatoes in a large bowl along with the sliced onion, carrot, garlic cloves and zucchini. Sprinkle with rosemary, thyme and a good slug of olive oil. Toss to coat the vegetables with the olive oil then season with salt to taste.

3. Spread the vegetables on an oiled baking tray and bake about 35 minutes until they begin to brown around the edges.

4. Stir in the cherry tomatoes, and continue cooking for a further 15 minutes.

6. Toss the roast vegetables in a large bowl with the pine nuts, parsley and balsamic vinegar.


Audrey's Tip:
Heat is the very essence of cooking. It's what causes individual ingredients to lower their barriers and intermingle with each other, eventually yielding to the moment, rather like vodka at a dinner party. That said, it's imperative that you use no more and no less heat than is needed. The last thing one wants is to startle the garlic or flummox your onion.

Veggie Pot Pie

To me, Pot Pie just screams comfort food. Not particularly popular in Australia (to my knowledge), it seems to have quite the following overseas. I especially remember one episode of South Park in which Cartman screams to the cat: "NO kitteh! This is mah chicken pot pie!". Understandable.

While pie was always a favourite growing up, tasteless vegetables in some kind of whitish goo enclosed in pastry never really did it for me. I steered far clear of chicken pies and anything that didn't look "normal". Thankfully, after concocting my own recipe for a pot pie's innards, I am now a veggie pie devotee. As is Veggie Dad. He even turned to me early this morning and declared he was already looking forward to the leftovers for lunch. #WIN!!

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced
1 potato, diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup each frozen peas and corn
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup vegetable stock/broth
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (there is a vegan option)
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, defrosted.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Gently saute the onion and garlic over medium heat in 1 tablespoon of the butter and a splash of olive oil until soft.

3. Add carrots, potato, peas and corn and raise heat to medium-high.

4. When the peas and corn thaw out, add the mushrooms for a minute or two. Add the other tablespoon butter.

5. Sprinkle over the flour and stir to mix. Add the broth and milk and stir quite rapidly to get up all the flour from the bottom of the pan and mix until smooth.

6. Turn down the heat and simmer 5-10 minutes until veggies are tender.

7. Pour into a casserole dish and cover the top with the pastry. brush over a little milk or egg and poke some holes in the top to allow the steam to escape. You can also do these in smaller individual ramekins.

8. Bake 10-15 minutes until the top rises and puffs and is golden brown.

Ministry of Food: Classic Mince and Onion Pie

It was about 3.30am and I was en route from Los Angeles to Brisbane. It was a 12-hour flight, connecting from Washington DC with a six-hour layover at LAX. I was three hours from home, dog tired and unable to sleep. To the television I turned, going straight to the cooking channels, as usual. It was there I made the decision to watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

BIG mistake.

What I thought would pleasantly entertain me in the wee hours of the morning and hopefully help me to drift off to sleep, instead enraged me, upset me, inspired me and completely broke my heart. Hello increased heart rate, and hello one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever watched on TV.

I thought teaching people to cook healthy meals was a great idea, and eagerly watched as Jamie spread the word about over-processed, artery-clogging, fat-filled food and his attempts to replace it with good, fresh produce with great flavour. My eagerness turned to despair, and then real anger as I saw his efforts met with resistance, stubbornness, ignorance and even hatred. Everywhere he turned, from school cafeteria to radio DJs and regular people, he was hated, ridiculed, despised and even lied about. I couldn't stand it. When the first episode finished, I was desperate to know if he'd cracked the uncrackable exterior of the scared and offended people... but I couldn't bring myself to watch any more. Eventually I relented and watched the second episode. There I stopped, when the headway he was making was so unbelievably incremental.

When I was given the Ministry of Food cookbook recently by Veggie Dad, I was excited. What I liked even more was that these recipes were made to be shared, with as many people as possible. As a food blogger, I'm always careful to use recipes that are in the public domain, but some of the best are in the cookbooks I own. Here is my chance to get these delicious morsels to you!

The idea of the first Ministry of Food was to ensure there was enough food to go round during war time, and to educate the public about food and proper nutrition. Thousands of women who could cook were sent out across the UK to help others. Jamie has asked the readers of his cookbook to pledge to learn just one recipe from each chapter of this book, then pass it on. To at least two people, preferably four. Then they, in turn, can pass it on, creating change with a modern ministry.

Well Jamie, I accept your challenge, and forthwith offer my veg version of a comfort food staple - the classic mince and onion pie.


Ingredients:
3 medium onions
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
olive oil
2 bay leaves
1 packet veggie mince (I use either Quorn or Sanitarium brand)
1 teaspoon English mustard
1 teaspoon Marmite (I used Vegemite - cos I'm a Happy Little Vegemite!!)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (I used one with no anchovies)
2 teaspoons flour, plus extra for dusting
Enough beef stock cubes to make one litre of stock (I used four Massell beef stock cubes, which are vegetarian and gluten-free)
1 sheet frozen shortcrust pastry
1 large egg or a splash of milk

To make your mince filling: 
Peel and roughly chop onions, carrots and celery - don't be fussy, just get them small!

Remove rosemary leaves from woody stalks and chop finely.

Place a large pan on high heat, add 2 lugs of olive oil, the veggies, rosemary and bay leaves.

Stir every minute for around 10 minutes until veggies have softened and lightly coloured. Stir in the mince and break up chunks.

Add mustard, Marmite/Vegemite, Worcestershire sauce and 2 teaspoons flour.

Dissolve the stock in a litre of boiling water and add to the pan, bring to the boil.

Turn heat down and simmer with a lid slightly askew for about an hour, stirring every now and then.

To make your pie: 
Fill a large baking dish with the mince filling and allow to cool slightly.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Place your thawed pastry on top of the dish, running a knife around the edge to remove excess. Using a fork, press down around the pastry to crimp it and help it to seal.

Make a hole in the middle of your pie with the tip of your knife. Brush the top with beaten egg or milk.

Bake at the bottom of the oven for 40 minutes or until pastry is golden and crisp.


For anyone curious about how veggie mince looks, behold:

Pretty normal.

At the end of your hour, your mince mixture should look like this. If it's too runny, add a little flour to get a nice, thick consistency:

Egg helps the top of the pastry to be a beautiful, shiny, crisp brown. Feel free to use milk or even soy milk.

*drool

So there you have it - learn, enjoy and pass it on!