MoFo Day 28: Sweet Couscous

I'm still not feeling great so here's another quick and easy dessert. I found a recipe for sweet couscous using dried fruits but I'm trying to make the most of the last of this year's soft fruits so here is my version.

Sweet Fruit Couscous

110 g couscous
120 mls hot water
juice of 1 clementine
juice of half a lime
200 g mixed soft fruits - I used strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and redcurrants
small handful of flaked almonds

Put couscous into a bowl and stir in the hot water. Leave for 10 minutes and then put the couscous into a colander and steam over a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes. Leave to cool and then stir in the clementine and lime juice, pile on the soft fruits and flaked almonds. 
serves 2
 

                                   

MoFo Day 26: Apple, banana and lemon dessert

I wasn't feeling too great today, with not much energy for cooking, so I decided to try a simple dessert recipe from my Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookery book. I tried to make this as suitable for Eat To Live as possible by replacing the sugar in the recipe with dates.  I used a Granny Smith apple. Together with the lemon juice it gave the dessert a sharp flavour and the cinnamon gave it a taste of Christmas. 

Apple, Banana and Lemon Dessert 

55 g dates, finely chopped
55 ml water
1 tart apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped 
1/2 banana, peeled and sliced
grated rind and juice of half a lemon
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Put finely chopped dates and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add chopped apple, banana, lemon juice with grated rind and cinnamon.Simmer, stirring well all the time, until all of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture is thick. Cool and serve with some cashew creme, yoghurt or ice creme.

                       

MoFo Day 25: Turkish Apple Cake

Today's is a recipe that is still a work in process, but I thought it was worth posting anyway. I found a recipe for Turkish apple cake in my Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookery book and was drawn to the recipe by the fact that it contained no oil - a great start in trying to make a recipe Eat To Live-friendly. Replacing the 50 g of sugar with finely chopped dates and a wee glug of date syrup wasn't entirely successful and the finished cake wasn't beautiful but it tasted just fine eaten as a dessert with some cashew creme and I really liked the fact that it wasn't overly-sweet. I obviously need to do some more research into fat-free, sugar-free baking, but in the meantime I will definitely make this again - I think it would be fabulous made with rhubarb or gooseberries. The original recipe called for the cooking apples to be peeled, cored and chopped which is what I did. I think perhaps I should have either chopped them finer or grated them, so I'll try that next time and see what difference it makes. The flour makes it unsuitable for the Eat To Live 6 week plan, which is what I normally eat but it's not too bad as an occasional treat.

Turkish Apple Cake

350 g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
juice of half a lemon
50 g dates, finely chopped
50 g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
25 g mixed nuts
25 g sultanas or chopped dried apricot
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg replacer
1 glug of date syrup

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 (350F/175C). Put chopped apples in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. Put flour, dates and baking powder into a food processor and pulse so that dates are even more finely chopped. Add mixed nuts and sultanas or dried apricot  and pulse once or twice to distribute evenly. Add this to the apples, together with vanilla essence and egg replacer. Mix well and stir in a glug of date syrup. Pour the mixture into a lightly oiled cake tin (I lined my cake tin with baking parchment instead of oiling it)  and bake for 20 minutes or until the top is lightly browned on top. Serve hot or cold with cashew creme.  

                   

MoFo Day 9: Date and almond stuffed nectarines

I originally made another soup for today's post but it didn't turn out right so it's still a work in progress. That meant I had to quickly rifle through my cookbooks for an alternative. I had some nectarines that were calling out to be eaten, so I used a peach recipe from A Vegan Taste of North Africa. The peaches (or in my case nectarines) are halved and stoned and then stuffed with a filling of ground almonds mixed with dates heated in orange juice. They are then topped with flaked almonds and sprinkled with orange flower water and then baked for 25 minutes in a medium oven. Such a simple recipe and yet so yummy. The recipe recommended serving it with soya yoghurt but I didn't have any so I quickly made some cashew/almond creme to top my nectarines, which was a really tasty alternative. The recipe called for the baking dish to be greased. I cooked mine in a ceramic dish and didn't bother to grease it and actually it really didn't need it. I have another 3 nectarines so guess what I'll be eating for the rest of the week. This recipe is totally Eat To Live friendly as long as you haven't already eaten your nut allocation for the day. I'm rather sad that I only just discovered this recipe at the end of the soft fruit season and I'm wondering if it would work with frozen halved nectarines. I guess the filling would work in a baked apple. 

                       

Vegan MoFo Day 3: Cheery Cherry Oatmeal

Today I was starting work at noon, meaning that lunch would end up being very late so breakfast was going to have to see me through until about 4.30. Here in Scotland a bowl of porridge has been used for centuries as a sustaining breakfast and when the weather starts to turn cold, oatmeal reappears on my breakfast menu. A few weeks ago I discovered Susan V's cherry pie oats and started to play with the recipe. I love fresh cherries but I can rarely afford them so frozen cherries are a great alternative to use in this recipe. I decided to combine the cherries with almonds, which is a combination I really love, and I added a couple of chopped dates as a sweetener. Pinhead (or steelcut) oatmeal takes longer than rolled oats to cook, but soaking the oatmeal overnight means that it cooks much quicker in the morning. If you don't soak overnight, add 10 - 15 minutes to the cooking time before adding the cherries.

Cheery Cherry Oatmeal

1/2 cup (50 g) pinhead oats
2 cups (400 ml) water
pinch of salt
1 cup frozen cherries, unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon almond essence

2 dates, finely chopped

Handful of flaked almonds

Soak the oats overnight in a medium-sized saucepan in 2 cups of water with a pinch of salt. In the morning bring to a boil, reduce the heat to very low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Cut the frozen cherries in half, stir in to the oatmeal, together with the chopped dates and almond extract. Cover and cook for a further 10 minutes or so until the until oatmeal has thickened. Stir in the flaked almonds and serve. 

I served mine today with home-made almond milk and a tablespoon of cherry juice with some gomasio sprinkled on top. It also tastes great with a fresh nectarine slices stirred in.

Makes 2 servings.