For this recipe, I used a method known as Tang Zhong, or a water roux, which is used in a lot of asian bread recipes (Hokkaido Milk Bread, anyone?) to yield a super soft, pillowy bread. And since a lot of the time, gluten free breads aren't very fluffy, this works magic! If you are interested in Tang Zhong, my pal Lin actually has a really cool little bit of info on it here.

GF Pandan Coconut Bread with Black Sesame Seeds

Tang Zhong roux:
1/3 cup gluten free bread flour (I used Doves Farm)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water

Combine in a small saucepan and whisk over medium-high heat until thickened and the whisk leaves behind lines in the roux, it took me about 3 minutes but it will vary per stove. It should reach 65C at this point. Remove it as soon as lines are being formed by the whisk that hold their shape and cover with clingfilm or foil (i like to use foil so I can wash a reuse it a few more times!). Here is a video to help you judge when it is done

Bread:
420g GF bread flour
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum if not in your flour blend
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
4 tbsp coconut sugar
1 packet active (7g) dry yeast
10g pandan leaves/1 tsp pandan extract/1 tsp pandan essence + 1tsp green food colouring if you are using the colourless essence
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup sparkling water
1/2 tsp pink himalayan sea salt
5 tbsp aquafaba (the water from a can of chickpeas, you can also make your own!)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp coconut oil, warmed until it is a liquid but not hot!
130g Tang Zhong roux (about half of what you have made from the above recipe)
1/4 cup black sesame seeds

If you are using the pandan leaves, blend it with the coconut milk until it is nice and smooth. Otherwise, just add the extract and coconut milk together.
Place both the sparkling water and coconut milk in a microwave or saucepan and heat it until it is slightly warm, if it is not already. A good estimate is that is should be able the same temperature as your shoulder. Odd, but that's what I always do!
Add the ingredients to the bread maker pan in the order: warm coconut milk mixture, coconut oil, vinegar, roux, aquafaba, GF flour, xantham gum, cream of tartar, sugar and salt. Make a very shallow well in the flour and pour your yeast it. Make sure that the yeast does not touch any liquid before you start the machine! Do not pull a Sasha and forget the seeds, so pop that into the fruit&nut compartment.
Set the machine on the Gf setting for a 1kg loaf with a heavy crust. Although I suppose if you prefer a softer crust, anything works! Don't worry if it looks too wet for a bread dough, GF breads usually look more like a thick cake batter than a dough ball. Then let it do it's magic and you will have heavenly, fragrant bread. Just a note, though. during the second knead if you see any flour sticking ho the sides of the pan that is not being incorporated, just push it down gently using a spatula. I only had to do this once out of the few times I tried this recipe, but be aware! Let it cool significantly before slicing! It doesn't need to be cold but just not fresh-from-the-oven.

Coconut Peanut Butter
250g peanuts, roasted
1/4 cup coconut butter
small pinch of salt
1 tbsp rice malt syrup

Blend the peanuts into a paste in a high speed blender, then add the rest of the ingredients and whirl it until it's all well mixed. Then slather on some pandan bread, give it a couple of minutes in a toaster oven and SHAZAAM instant healthy(ish) deliciousness.

Cacao Carob Clusters

1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax and 3 tbsp water, stirred and left to sit until thick and egg-white like) (you can use 1 tbsp ground chia as a substitute)
1 1/2 cups granola
1/2 cup raw quinoa
1/2 cup pepitas
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
2 tbsp cacao/cocoa powder
2 tbsp rice flour
1 tbsp carob powder
4 tbsp rice malt syrup
6 tbsp maple syrup (or more rice malt)
1/4 cup chia seeds (I use organic burst!)
1 tbsp maca, optional
pinch of salt

Preheat an oven to 180C and line a medium to small baking tray with foil or parchment paper. Toss all the ingredients together and mix to stir well until everything is evenly coated and distributed. Pack it all into your prepared tray, pressing down on it and making it into an even layer. Place it in the oven for 16-20 minutes, keeping an eye on it towards the end to make sure the edges do not burn. If they do seem to be browning too quickly, remove it from the oven, flip it about whiel taking care nto to break it up too much, then put it back to dry out some more. Let it cool, and it will crisp up a lot more, before storing it in an air-tight jar.

Side note: When you wait for your waiter to bring your food to you, do YOU become the waiter?
Matcha Bread Star with a Sweet Black Sesame Filling and a Ginger Glaze
Dough ingredients:
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 cup vegan buttermilk, lukewarm*
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3 tbsp coconut sugar (you can use cane)
½ tsp baking soda
3-4 tsp matcha, depending on how intense you want the colour to be
Pinch of pink himalayan sea salt (orrr just salt)
3 tbsp aquafaba
¼ cup coconut oil**
1 cup crystallised ginger, finely chopped (optional)

Filling Ingredients:
3/4 cup sesame seeds
2-3 tbsp oil (more may be needed to make a paste)
3/4 cup palm/cane sugar

Glaze:
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tsp ginger
1-2 tbsp plant milk (oat or almond work well)

Once your buttermilk is ready, stir in the yeast and let it sit, covered in a bowl for 10 minutes until it is foamy. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, matcha and salt. Whisk the oil and aquafaba into the yeast mixture. Form a well in the dry ingredients then add your wet mixture and mix it until it forms a nice dough ball. Knead this for about 10 minutes, you can use a stand mixer with a dough attachment if you struggle with kneading but try this method out, it's a good workout! Ideally your dough should be at the windowpane stage by the end of kneading, try to get it as close as possible to that but don't overwork it.

Oil a large bowl and toss your dough ball into it, flipping it over so the dough is greased a little on the outside and doesn't stick too much. Cover with a damp cloth and leave it on the countertop (if you're in a warm country) or an oven with a pot of freshly boiled water beside it (if you're in a cold country). Let it proof for 1 and a half hours until the dough has doubled.

As it proof make the filling, in a food processor grind the sesame seeds down, I like to grind it almost into a paste but if your machine is not powerful enough it is okay just to grind it into an almost-flour. Mix in the sugar and oil, adding a little more oil to get it into a spreadable consistency.

Punch it down and roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a log. Divide it into four equal pieces and roll each into a large circle. I would describe how to do this if I could but I think a video would be a lot more helpful in telling you how to shape the star! Here is one, just use the sesame paste (and sprinkle in the candied ginger in between layers if you are using it) instead!

Place this on a baking tray and cover it again with a damp towel to proof for another 1 hour. Set the oven to 175C 10 minutes before it is done. You can paint a little bread wash out of plant milk and rice brain syrup on top of it to stick some seeds to it! Then pop it into the oven for 20-22 minutes. Halfway through, cover the pan with aluminium foil to stop the bread from browning too much and loosing that beautiful green! I forgot to do this so mine came out a little too brown. Bread is done when it is slightly hollow sounding when tapped. You can insert a bread thermometer into the centre and it should read about 200F.

Stir the glaze ingredients together until there are no clumps and then pour it on top of the bread, or if you aren't eating it all immediately, the slices.

*Vegan buttermilk: Add 1 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup and fill it up to the top with a plant milk. Soy works best for this. Let it sit to let it curdle, about 5-10 minutes. You can also made this with 3/4 cups of soy yogurt mixed with 1/4 a cup of plant milk.
**I use a coocnut oil with a very light flavour, but if you don't have this you can easily use a non-flavoured oil such as rice bran

  Let me just begin by saying I have heard many good things about Sage by Heston Blumenthal. His team and himself take a very scientific approach when developing appliances and it just gives machines that do what they are built to do, and well. He often thinks of that is wrong with the current appliances in the market and works to fix that in the Sage range. I remember hearing about his microwave and how fab the smart settings were, as well as how it didn't make soup bubble and spurt out all over the inside of the oven.

  But this post isn't about the microwave, it is about his high-speed blender: The Boss. And because it is by Heston Blumenthal I have decided to also delve a little deeper into the science and nutrition behind the machine so that we all know a little more about blending VS juicing... all the little myths you may have heard here and there about what is better for you and why. While The Boss is a high speed blender, I have often wondered about the nutritional differences between a juice and a smoothie, and thought it would be fun just to discuss it a little!


  Firstly, I believe strongly that both juicers and blended smoothies can offer you good nutrition although many people argue that one is better than the other. I have been doing some reading up on the benefits of both, as well as reading through some science-backed research and have come to the conclusion that no method is superior to the other.

  Juices are great and smoothies are great, and in different ways. For example, one reason why smoothies are often thought to be better for you than juices is because they still contain the dietary fibre of the fruit and veg you you use, and all this is stripped away in a juice. Dietary fibre is important in your diet as it slows the rate at which your blood sugar levels rise after a meal, less dietary fibre = a faster, higher rise in blood sugar and vice versa. The slower the rise in your blood sugar, the smaller the strain on your pancreas to produce enough insulin to bring your blood sugar levels back down to normal. This, of course, is important especially in diabetics. Fibre is also a very important part of your diet (the recommended intake is about 25-30 g a day), being in important factor in letting food move through your gut easily, and juicing fruit instead of adding them to a smoothie can be seen as 'wasting' the opportunity to consume that fibre.


  While this is true, it does not mean that juices are more likely to cause diabetes due to the spikes in blood sugar, or lead you to put on more weight as a result of that. In fact, the amount of fibre in a food does not have a direct+strong correlation with the rise in your blood sugar levels. in other words, the previously mentioned equation of 'less dietary fibre = a faster, higher rise in blood sugar' is not always the case. Removing the fibre in a juice also allows your gut to absorb more of the nutrients in it, while drinking an equivalent smoothie may result in some of these nutrients not being absorbed at all because it is 'trapped' within the dietary fibre. This way you can pack in a lot more nutrition for the same volume of fluid you consume.

  So, as you can see, chose a juice or a smoothie based on how you want it to treat your body. If you need a fast boost of energy and vitamins, a juice will be your best bet, while if you need something to keep you full until lunchtime, the fibre in a smoothie will make it the better option. That being said, there are ways in which you can pimp a juice in order to make it behave more like a smoothie. I like to add wheatgrass powder to add soluble fibre to a juice to let it keep me full for longer.

  In fact, juices have been found to contain a higher nutrient content than an equivalent smoothie for things like Vitamins C and A as well as potassium. Smoothies, on the other hand, proved to be a better way of delivering calcium to your body for the same ingredients. The reasons for the differences in nutrients between a smoothie and a juice despite containing the exact same ingredients is because both juicing and blending process the ingredients in such a way that some of the nutrients are destroyed. Nutrients in fruit and veg are always being destroyed, from being picked off a tree/from the ground to when you chew it. Nutrient destruction is inevitable but different amounts of each nutrient are retained depending on how you process it. The longer the time the fruit has going through a blender/juicer, the more nutrients you destroy. Also, the more heat that is applied to the ingredients, the less nutrients you retain.

  If you extend this last argument, it is easy to see how many people think that a slow juicer may offer more that a centrifugal juicer. Slow juicers essentially are marketed as applying less heat as it juices, and thus retaining more vitamins etc when you drink it. However, as it's name implies, the fruit also spends more time going through a slow juicer (about 30 times more, in fact) so it is in contact with the heat for longer. By the end of it all, if you take into account the total heat applied to the ingredients, the difference isn't that much for a slow and fast juicer, if there is any difference at all. For this reason, there is actually little difference between vitamin and mineral content of a slow juice VS a fast juice.



  So, why buy a juicer or blender when you can just get juice off a supermarket shelf or from a juice bar? (1) The cost; and (2) the nutrition you actually receive. Firstly, cost. A juicer may seem to be an hefty investment at first because it is so much more expensive than a juice, for example. But if you drink a fair amount of juice, you are going to have to buy a fair amount of juices. And if you add that all up, it easily makes up for the juicer in about 20 or so juices. Also, having your own juicer lets you make your own juice (duh) and that way you can chose what goes into your own drink. Don't like carrots? Leave them out. I have found that smoothie companies often try to be inventive with flavours and some of them have just one ingredient in it that just isn't working (picky eater confession). Juices themselves are heavily overpriced for the ingredients actually in them, so bite the bullet, invest in your health, in saves you a lot of money in the long term. Secondly, nutrition. Stuff on supermarket shelves are pasteurised, maybe they have stabilisers and preservatives. All these reduce the nutrition of the drink itself. Juices left sitting out on a juice bar shelf, while maybe fresh when looking at the bigger picture, actually lose nutrients as they sit out there. When you juice it yourself you have the option to drink it immediately. More vitamins for you. Win win.

While I would love to ramble on and on about the whole debate, I don't want to bore you. If you are interested in reading more about the science behind it all, I really loved this website called Juicing Science, it was really informative and was backed by solid evidence and really had no ulterior motive, so it's probably one of the least biased sources out there.

And if you have found yourself, after reading my juice VS smoothie debate, that you're more of a juice kinda person, Sage has a fabulous rage of juicers that I have had my eye on.


THE BOSS
  I have been talking a lot about smoothies when it comes to blending, and while The Boss makes a mean green smoothie (and even has a smart setting for that BOOYAH), the sky really is the limit. It can make hot soups, mill you fresh flour from buckwheat or quinoa, grind you ridiculously creamy nut butters, whip up some banana ice cream, frozen cocktails (wink wink), mix up the batter for a baked good... I could go on.
  I mentioned a green smoothie smart setting, and it also comes with one for crushing ice, normal smoothies (which is different from the 'green' kind because you don't have to blend through fibrous leaves and what-have-you), frozen desserts and soups. The manual settings on The Boss itself are very easy to use, just twirl the dial to up the power. It also has a timer (for those emergency loo breaks) and a pause button (when you just don't know if a soup is done enough). The Boss is a winner for presets and functions.


  Often high speed blenders require you to use a paddle (or tamper... depending on which school of blender lingo you subscribe to) to push the ingredients down towards the blades. Which, as someone with a very tall vitamix and very low overhead cabinets on the kitchen counter, involved a lot of me knocking my hand on the bottom of the cabinet itself (i.e. much pain). While The Boss does come with a paddle, I found that I didn't have to use it as often as I had with my other blender. I suppose this has to do with the design of the blades and also the angle of the base on the jug. It is designed to push food up and away from the blades as the spin, allowing the un-blended food to fall down towards the base to get ground up themselves. That isn't to say you can just ditch the paddle, some of the tougher things (i.e. nut butters) require a bit of coaxing, but smoothies and soups seemed to blend without me having to intervene.
  Clean up on this is a breeze. I forgot to mention it also has a smart setting for washing up. So pour a bit of water into the blender post-soup-making, add a drop of fairy liquid and press 'auto clean'. Then just rinse it out with water. Easy peasy.
  The blender is a bit on the noisy side, but you have to remember that it is after all a high speed blender, and nothing that has a power to crush solid ice into a beautifully fine granita is going to be very silent. It is still quieter than my vitamix, though. I have thin walls in my room and was afraid of angering my neighbours, but I never actually ended up blending for very long for it to be annoying. I hope. Otherwise I have very polite neighbours and have myself been ridiculously inconsiderate.
  Something I struggled a bit with, was getting all my smoothie/banana ice cream/other wet blended food item out of the jug. Because the base is narrow to allow the ingredients to be pushed up, it is difficult to get, for example, every little bit of an acai smoothie out from under the blade into your glass. I had to buy a very small and long spatula to solve this problem. Which, considering the silky smooth smoothies it gives me, is fair enough.



  The boss comes with several really great recipes and also has loads of beautifully-shot recipe videos on youtube. Heston Blumenthal also has several videos on how the design of the jug makes this blender stand out from other high speed blenders. So check that out if you are thinking of this baby.
  I know that cost is an important factor when choosing what to buy, and any high-speed blender isn't going to come very cheap. I personally did toy with the idea of just getting a regular blender when I was thinking of buying my first high speed blender, but when it came down to it, I realised that I was willing to pay for the better quality result I would get, and also the additional features of a HS blender. For example, it may just kill an average blender to crush ice or to grind nuts into a butter, something I now use The Boss for on a regular basis. Also HS blenders often come with fairly long warranties, seven years for The Boss, which guarantees you many years of beautifully smooth soups. And even then, they often last years and years beyond their warranty. So it is an investment, yes, but in my opinion, it's an investment worth making.


Now that I have given you my two cents on how I liked The Boss, here are a couple of recipes I have made and that I adore:

Smokey Sunflower Butter


2 cups sunflower seeds, toasted while stirring constantly in a dry pan on the skillet until fragrant
1 tsp rice malt syrup
1 tsp pink himalayan sea salt

Place the ingredients into the blender and blend on the highest spin setting until a 'butter' consistency is obtained. This spread is the perfect replacement for PB if you've got an allergy, or if you just want to try something a little different!

Raw Vegan Chocolate Vanilla Cheesecake



'Nana Ice Cream Bowl


Spiced Carrot soup


6-7 small carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 a head of a large cauliflower
3 cups vegetable stock
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Salt, if desired
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 cup red split lentils, washed
Seeds of 4 cardamom pods

In a pot, boil the red split lentils in 1 cup of vegetable stock until they are cooked through and mushy, about 15-20 minutes. Add all the ingredients into the blender along with the cooked lentils and blend on the soup setting.

How simple are these? It's made my student lunches so quick and easy to whip up, meaning I cook for myself a lot more and it's so much healthier and cheaper than eating out all the time! These are only 4 of the many things I made, and I have many lots of other recipes already on the blog in them:
Falafels, Brocc-Cauli salad, Dosa, Hummus, Pesto,  Shiitake Pate, Buckwheat Porridge, Hazelnut Mousse, Bliss balls (of course!), my FAVOURITE raw fig rolls, healthy cookie dough and 'nana popsicles.

  Small disclaimer: I was sent the appliance to review and give it a spin (heh heh see what I did there?) but the opinions are all my own!

Excuse the shoddy icing and piping work I was too excited and it was too hot and icing was everywhere (mostly in my mouth)

I think, looking back at it, I used to request demand cream puffs three times a week when I was younger. Minimum. My favourite thing to buy in delifrance were the little chouquettes, studded with the little beads of pearl sugar (uh yum?). And in any cafe that had em: éclairs stuffed full of coffee crème patissière and just smothered in tempered chocolate.

I was a child who loved my choux pastry.

When I gave up dairy and eggs, choux just fell amongst the things I didn't let myself think about. I was sad. No choux. No meringues. No macarons.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't regret giving up animal products. Not at all. I just assumed (and psst! wrongly) that these just couldn't be recreated without 'em. I mean: meringues were basically half egg white. And macarons had egg amongst its three ingredients. Choux was basically butter + milk + egg.



Enter: Aquafaba.

I first came upon Aquafaba (read: chickpea cooking water slash the water you get in the canned version) when I was in one of my macaron-less moods. 'Vegan Macaron' was googled many a time (trust me), but this time I just happened to find one made out of (gasp!) chickpea cooking water. Which, granted, does seem odd. Chickpea flavoured macaron?

Er maybe not.

But listen close: aquafaba works. And aquafaba god's gift to vegans (along with hummus). Couple of tablespoons of this stuff, pinch of cream of tartar, buckets of sugar (hashtag treat yo'self) and you have yourself a meringue. Add in almond flour and taadaa! macaron!

But this is not a post about meringues. Or macarons. Today is a day for choux.



Choux pastry is typically made out of a dough butter, milk, flour and eggs. Maybe a bit of sugar. It's usually cooked on a bain marie until it forms a little dough ball, then formed into little balls or logs to make profiteroles or eclairs.

Google vegan choux and you are faced with 2 problems. 1: they never look quite as good as their egg-laden counterparts. Never quite golden, or crisp. Kind of shrivelled and sad and pale. But we want crunch we want browning! and; 2: the ingredient list usually is full of 'fake' vegan food like margarine and egg replacer which I just don't own or like using. Or powders like arrowroot and guar gum and tapioca starch which I would never use otherwise.

So I tried my own. Using aquafaba. Because if it works for meringues then it must work for choux, right? #sashalogic

Also: no funky ingredients. Kinda healthy. Ish. And you probably can make it now. Right now (well ok after you read the recipe).

AND IT WORKED. So in celebration, because all successful recipe-veganising call for celebrations, I made Wes Anderson's Courtesan Au Chocolat from the Grand Budapest Hotel. Because (a) Wes Anderson is a genius and I worship him; and (b) I have watched this video too many times crying softly and whispering the word 'choux' every 19 seconds:

(The music! The copper pans! So much perfection.) (Except, you know, eggs+butter+milk)

So I made my own vegan-ified version. Hurrah! I will now eat my Courtesan Au Chocolat towers while watching Grand Budapest (for the 4309859234809th time) with a smug little smile on my face. Like this one here.

Also, if you want to make your own Mendl's Boxes (who wouldn't?) like I did, print off the template here. I just stuck it on some card paper and cut it out, made shallow little cuts with a pen knife along the folds on the inside of the box, glued+assembled and threaded baby blue ribbon through. Simple pimple.

The choux recipe is as follows. You don't need to follow the sizing step if you aren't making the Anderson version of a Religieuse.



Vegan Choux
Cooking time adapted from here

1 cup plain flour
1 tbsp coconut sugar
1/8 tsp salt (I love using pink himalayan) 
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
2 tbsp coconut oil
6 tablespoons aquafaba*
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
Pinch of turmeric 
1 cup non dairy milk** 
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a baking tray with parchment or a silpat sheet. Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together in a bowl. Over a bain marie or on a heavy-bottomed pan on a small flame, bring the 1 cup of oat milk and coconut oil to a bowl. Reduce the heat even more and stir in the flour mixture using a wooden spoon. If the mixture becomes too thick, add a tablespoon of water or oat milk at a time until a dough forms. Take it off the heat immediately.
Whip the aquafaba and cream of tartar using a balloon whisk until it is stiff and frothy and no more liquid remains. whisk in the turmeric briefly.
Transfer half of the aquafaba mix to the dough and stir in, then repeat with the other half. Mix well until it is consistent. You can now shape the dough into little balls with you hands or on a spoon. You can also pipe them.
To make the courtesan Au chocolat I made 2 smaller dollops (teaspoon sized) for each bigger dollop (tablespoon sized). I did not make a hazelnut sized dollop as in the video because it would have burnt, and the nature of the choux dough requires much cooling in the oven itself so too small a dough ball would have burnt to a crisp. For profiteroles, just make tablespoon sized balls and for eclairs pipe them into logs. You can use a finger dipped in water to smooth down the top a bit so that no bits stick out too much and burn.
Place the tray into the oven for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 175 degrees C and bake another 15 minutes. Turn the oven off, cool for half an hour in the oven with the door left ajar (you can wedge a wooden spoon in) and then tip them out onto a wire rack, pierce a hole at the bottom to let the steam escape and cool another half hour.

*You can either measure this from the liquid inside a can of chickpeas, or boil some yourself and use 6 tbsp of the cooking liquid. I always keep some of it in the fridge but if you don't have any right now, cook some chickpeas (and make hummus from this recipe) place some aquafaba in the fridge until you have it cooled till room temp before you use it.
**I use homemade oat milk as I find it thickens nicely. I advice you do the same. I soak 1 cup of oats in 3 cups of water for 2 hours then blend and strain with a cheesecloth. And use 1 cup of the resulting milk. You can keep the rest for smoothies. The reason why this works more than other milks is because homemade oat milk often has little oat fragments still in it and this thickens when you cook it. Like oats. Go figure

Vegan Ganache (or you can also fill them with my chocolate mousse here or an avocado chocolate pudding)
1/2 a bar of good quality dark chocolate (anything beyond 70% will work nicely)
2-3 tbsp rice syrup or sweetener of choice
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cornflour dissolved in 3 tsp cold water
1 tbsp cacao butter (or coconut oil if you don't have any)
Over a bain marie or in a heavy bottomed pan, melt the chocolate together with the syrup, cacao butter, and cornflour+water mixture. Stir until it is a smooth liquid and continue to heat until it is thickened over a small flame (7-10 minutes), stirring constantly. Add the vanilla and stir it in, then refrigerate to let it firm up further before filling the puffs. I like to cut a slit in the puffs, use a little spoon to scoop up the dough inside (more room for chocolate!) then use the same spoon to stuff in the ganache

Icing for the puffs
Icing sugar
Water
Acai powder for the purple layer
Beetroot powder for the pink layer
Wheatgrass/matcha for the green layer (alternatively you can use a drop of food colouring) 
Sift the icing sugar and add a drop of water, stir into a thick paste, adding as little water as you can as a thick paste works best. Divide into three bowls  (leaving a little and put it in a piping bag to pipe the white swirls) and colour them pink, purple and green. Assemble as in the video.

It is no secret that I am in love with my microwave oven.
And, yes, there is much controversy over microwave cooking. So this post is meant to clear up some misconceptions, to tell you what I personally think about the whole she-bang and to just impart some of my microwave-guru knowledge that I have accumulated over the years. Well, two. Because that I only have access to a microwave in college.



Myth numero uno: Microwave ovens emit radiation which can cause cancer
Microwave ovens actually use non-ionising. Non ionising radiation has enough energy to move things around inside a cell but not enough to change cells chemically. Thus, it is unable to change the DNA of cells causing them to become cancerous. There is, as always, an exception to this rule. UV rays are non-ionising and do cause cancer. However, there has been research into whether microwave ovens are like UV rays, and so far there have been no evidence that this is so.
Microwave ovens produce magnetic fields which affect the body less the further you stand from it, and this effect does not last very long in the body. Many experts say that microwave radiation is not strong enough to damage DNA, and thus could not cause cancer.

Myth number two: Microwave ovens make food radioactive
All microwaves do is heat food by causing water molecules in the food to vibrate via non-ionising radiation. This vibration raises its temperature and thus cooks the food.

Myth number three: Microwave ovens remove any nutritional value from food you are cooking in it
This is not true if you do not overcook the food, overcooked vegetables and fruits will lose their nutrients no matter how you cooked them. In addition to this, microwaves actually help you to retain the nutrients in fruit and veg if you cook them in no water, thus nutrients do not leech out of the food and stay packed up in it, which leeches out into YOU instead when you eat them. Fab, no?

If you want to know more about microwaves and cancer, go here.

Right, no onto microwave RULES to live by, follow these to ensure your food is as good-for-you as possible and to avoid any -er- microwave mishaps (nobody likes those little sparks that fly whenever you don't microwave according to the rules)

Rule one: Only use glass or ceramic in your microwaves.
I strongly encourage you to follow this. This is the golden rule.
Emma Bridgewater bowls are a personal favourite, but it is completely up to you.

Metals and microwaves are a no-no. You want to avoid sparks/fire/explosions? Do not stick anything moderately metallic in your microwave. If it has got a metal handle / coating / little deco bits, it is not allowed in our microwave any under circumstances
Plastics without a 'microwave friendly' label on them will leech tons of plastic chemicals into whatever you are cooking, and may even melt in the microwaves, releasing toxic fumes. Even if you have microwaved with it before without knowing it was not microwave-friendly, do not ever use it again.
Plastics with a 'microwave friendly' label on them are regulated by an authority and cannot leak chemicals beyond a certain threshold. So what does this mean? It does not leak many chemicals into your food, but it DOES still do it. Even though the amount is very small, think about how often you microwave and this amount does build up. Older plastics may even leak more. So better to be safe and avoid plastics.

Rule two: Never desert your microwave, especially if it is the first time you are using it to cook a particular item.
Certain items, like popcorn and oatmeal should never be left alone. Nobody likes crusty oatmeal that has overflowed or the burnt smell that charred popcorn gives (does. not. get. out. of. hair.).
Eyes like a hawk, grasshopper. For items like oatmeal and veggies and kale chips, stop it every minute or so to give it a swirl around. This ensures both even heating/cooking and prevents burning/overflowing.

Rule three: When unsure, google
If this is the first time you are microwaving something, and if it is something you have never heard of being microwaved, do a quick online search. For those of you that eat eggs, whole eggs in the microwave only result in scrambled eggs--all over the interior of your oven. Things like grapes, raisins, hot peppers, onions, your pet cat... the list goes on. Especially if the food is very dry (dehydrated veg etc). Remember how we talked about microwave ovens using water molecules if the food to heat it? Well things can go south if you give your microwave oven no water to work with. For dryer vegetables, and if you have no intention of making kale chips, maybe add a tablespoon of water or so.
Here is a cheat sheet I have grabbed from pinterest for veggie cooking times in the microwave:

Rule four: Microwaves vary
If you see a recipe calling for a one minute cooking time, take it with a pinch of salt. Microwaves are all unique and I do suggest you keep an eye out while using the suggested times as a rough guide.

Rule four: Size matters
A small carrot cube will take a shorter time to cook to perfection than it's larger counterpart. So if time isn't on your side, spending an extra minute or so chopping your food into smaller pieces will probably save you more time in the long run

Rule five: Starting from the middle
Microwaves tend to heat up food in the centre first and this can overcook once the rest of your food has cooked through. So, when possible, place your carrot slices in a ring equi-distant from the centre of the microwave plate. For things like soup of oatmeal, stop constantly to give it a stir.

Alrighty then. Now that you are well acquainted with the rules of your microwave oven, it is time to get cooking. There are tons and tons of microwave recipes in the interwebs. Although many of these may not be vegan-friendly or good for you. I am alway inventing new ways to cook foods and recipes in the mircowave, so I have built up quite a collection. Here are some of mine. If there is anything you are DYING to make in the microwave, let me know! I am always up for a challenge.

Recipes
1. Microwave Kale Chips
2. Microwave Savoy Cabbage Chips
3. Pancakes in a Jar
4. Curried Kabocha
5. Microwave Popcorn
In a ceramic microwave-safe bowl, place unpopped popcron kernels. The amount you add is dependent on the size of your bowl, but for an average sized bowl, I usually add about 4 tbsp of kernels. Place in your microwave and top with a plate which is large enough to completely cover the bowl of the bowl. Now microwave on the highest setting for about 3 minutes, keep an eye on the bowl throughout. Stop the microwave once the popping has become very infrequent, or when the plate on the bowl is being pushed up by the popcorn under it. Let the bowl cool with the door ajar, or handle with a cloth. Season as you wish.

6. Flax Seed Crackers

7. Oatmeal / Buckwheat Flake porridge

8. Granola

9. 'Baked' Oats
Mix 1/2 cup of oats with 1/2 cup of water, and one flax egg (1 tbsp flax meal, and 3 tbsp water). Mash in a banana and stir, and sweeten it if you desire. Add a pinch of baking soda and stir well to make sure baking soda is mixed well and the oatmeal will rise evenly. Microwave for 3 minutes, stopping every 30 seconds to make sure it doesn't rise over the top of the bowl. let cool then top with more fruit and eat!

10. Lentils

11. Cauli-rice


12. Tofu Scramble
Take a block of extra firm tofu and mash well with a fork until it has the consistency of cottage cheese. Add some turmeric, salt, pepper and dried herbs and a splash of almond milk. Stir well then microwave on high for about 3 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. This goes perfectly with microwaved flax crackers :)

There we go! I have a few more recipes for microwave cupcakes and desserts which will be coming up soon (read: when i get my lazy arse to open lightroom and edit my photos properly)

I hope this was useful, leave a comment if you want a microwave-take on your favourite dish
xx

I once tried to grow my own thyme. Needless to say, being a person who often forgets to feed herself water every now and then, my poor thyme plant perished. The man who sold me my thyme plant said it was one of the easiest herbs to grow yourself. It basically is self-sufficient. No pruning, no grooming, no fertilising. A perfect windowsill plant. So this means there is no hope for me and my plant-rearing abilities since I have managed to ruthlessly murder my poor thyme plant.
So why do I start off a post about za'atar with a story about my lack of a green thumb? Because za'atar tastes awesome with fresh thyme. Had I not killed mine, it would have saved me a trip to the supermarket to get some. But understandable, some of you will have better thyme plants than I did, or perhaps have a box of them in your fridge. Either way, za'atar is a middle eastern spice blend that makes everything taste like magic, from chickpea salads to roasted eggplants (more on that in another post). If you have trouble sourcing sumac, trusty amazon or a local middle eastern shop might help. I got mine from the mohammed mustafa centre in Singapore. That place sells everything.

Ingredients:
-2 tsp ground sumac
-2 heaped tbsp dried thyme
-1 tbsp dried oregano
-1 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds
-1/4 tsp pink himalayan salt
-1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, pulled off the stem

Method:
Simply toss into a mason jar, screw on the lid and shake it like a polaroid picture.

Great as a salad garnish, on natural yogurt (or soygurt!) with a drizzle of olive oil, on top of fresh hummus or baba ghanoush or in a piping hot tagine. But if you're lost for ideas, I'll be posting some soon xx

Sprouts are a great way to spice up your diet, and get some extra good stuff! Although you can eat them raw, I generally cook them before consuming them. Mainly because I mostly sprout when I am in Singapore, and in tropical climates, insects and bacteria are more likely to get to them! I do have several really great recipes using different kinds of sprouts, so I will be posting tons of them soon.

What can you sprout? So many things! These are some of my favourites:
Lentils, chickpeas, Beans (kidney/red/black/cranberry/pinto), seeds (sunflower/broccoli/alfalfa), raw nuts (like almonds) grains and the like (wheat berries/quinoa/buckwheat)

How to soak and sprout:

1. Soak. Place in a jar (i usually use about 12 a cup of seeds in a large jam jar) and fill until the water line is 1-2 inches above the seeds. Use water at room temperature! You don't want it too hot such that it kills the seeds or too cold such that soaking and sprouting times become much longer. The soaking time varies for what you soak, but a general rule of thumb is that seeds and small grains require about 4 hours, while beans and lentils need about 8.

2. Rinse well. Again, with water and rom temperature! Place cheesecloth (you could also use a clean unwanted T-shirt or pantyhose) around the mouth of the jar and secure with a rubber band. turn it upside down to try and get the water out.

3. Sprout. Leave each jar in a bowl, resting at a 45 degree angle to ensure water drains out slowly. Every 4 hours, repeat step 2 and 3. You have to do this over several days, until little tails sprout! It also depends on how long you want your sprouts to be, as well as what you are sprouting and the weather. Grains, seeds and lentils take 2/3 days while beans take 4 days.

4. Greening. Place on a windowsill for an hour so that it can photosynthesize!

5. Refrigerate or cook (recipes coming soon!) and then enjoy~