Cannellini Bean Casserole and Apple and Berry Muffins for Vegan Potluck

I had a lovely day today attending a vegan potluck hosted by Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe. Johanna and I started blogging at around the same time, and have been exchanging comments for a while, so it was lovely to meet her and her family (including the famous Dolly, for regular readers of Johanna's blog).  It was also great to meet some other Melbourne bloggers - namely Cindy and Mike of Where's the Beef?, Mel of Veganise This!,  and Alex of Soya & Chocolat and her boyfriend Steven, all of whom are vegan.

I am slightly thick in that when Johanna said the theme was green and vegan, I read "green" as being "environmentally friendly" (because eating meat is very resource intensive), when in fact it meant the colour green - as Johanna's favourite colour is green and it is in the name of her blog.  To quote Homer Simpson - D'oh!  Everyone else understood this, and Cindy and Mike dressed in green (Mike's green T-shirt even had a giraffe on it!).  Here is the impressive array of green dishes (sans Mike's green couscous, which came later):

and some beautiful green desserts - pick the non-green one:

Oh well, I got the vegan part right, and made a cannellini bean casserole (pictured at the top of this post)  and apple and berry muffins (pictured below).  I enjoyed both dishes, but would probably only make the stew again. I think there are better options for vegan muffins than the recipe I chose while operating on autopilot the other night, not realising that they contained almost a full bottle of maple syrup:

For the casserole,  I substituted the lima beans in the original recipe for cannellini beans, as my supermarket's range did not appear to stretch to lima beans.  Subsequent research shows that I should have chosen canned butter beans for the closest match, but I thought the cannellini beans were good.  I also gave the stew a little kick by adding a chopped fresh chilli - I think that was just right, as it may have been too bland without it. I also chose to leave out the dill, but added dried tarragon.

The cannellini bean casserole was based on a lima bean casserole recipe on p193 of Gourmet Vegetarian by Jane Price.  My version of this casserole is as follows:

2 x 400g cans cannellini beans, drained and washed
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick of celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped 
1 fresh chilli, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1 x 400g tin crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
Salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Heat the oil in a large casserole dish on the stovetop.   Add all of the chopped vegetables and cook them until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and water.  Bring to the boil, then simmer for 3 minutes.  Add the beans and tarragon, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Bring the casserole back to the boil, then remove it from the stovetop, cover it with a lid or alfoil, and place into the preheated oven to cook for 50 minutes or until the sauce is thickened.  (I actually found this was a little too long, so most of my sauce had disappeared.) Serve the casserole hot.

The apple and berry muffin recipe is from p166 of Rowie Dillon's Indulge (gluten free  recipes).  These muffins are a little on the exxy side to make because of the maple syrup, and only taste OK.  However, they have the advantage of being gluten free, as they are based on buckwheat flour.  I was attracted to this recipe because it contains grated apple, dates and berries - yum!  The muffins are also fairly easy and quick to make (a bonus!).  To make these muffins you will need:

1 tablespoon gluten-free cornflour
3 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
2 grated apples
1 cup chopped dates
235ml maple syrup
1 cup water
300g fresh or frozen berries (I used half this amount of  frozen raspberries)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, combine the cornflour, buckwheat flour and bicarbonate of soda.  Next, mix in the grated apple, dates and maple syrup.  Add the water and fold into the mixture.  Finally, fold in the berries.  Divide the mixture between the muffin holes (I actually got 15 muffins, not 12), and bake the muffins for 30 minutes in the preheated oven.  Remove the muffins from the oven and cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

FFwD - Crab and Grapefruit Salad

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe was a rather unusual Crab and Grapefruit Salad.  At first, this did not appeal to me, as it contained raw chilli, onion and capsicum.  However, when I tasted the finished product, I was pleasantly surprised - the grapefruit and vegetables melded beautifully with crab, resulting in what would be a very elegant starter at a dinner party.

I have never cooked a crab before, so approached it with trepidation.  This is my blue swimmer crab prior to cooking:

Handsome, isn't he?  His lovely blue coat turns red as soon as he is added to the pot of boiling water (to which I added brown sugar and salt at the suggestion of a website):

Here is the crab, all cooked and sitting in a sinkful of cold water to halt the cooking process:

I found a Youtube video on how to shell a crab.  After removing the top plate (called the carapice, if you are interested), you break the crab in half:

Then you crack open the claws and shell to remove the meat, in my case using a nut cracker.  After all that, this was all the crab meat that resulted: 

Sigh ...  Oh well, it was a surprisingly good salad.

Visit the LYL section of the FFwD website to see what everyone else thought of this dish.

Wednesdays with Donna Hay - Baked Mozzarella and Tomato Dip

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe is Baked Mozzarella and Tomato Dip, chosen by Chaya.  This is a simple but tasty dip comprised of crushed tinned tomatoes, garlic and mozzarella served with salted Lebanese bread crisps.

I enjoyed this as a change for a snack.

Go visit Chaya, Margaret and Kayte to see what they thought of this dip.

Next week: Soft-poached eggs with sweet potato hash browns

Daring Bakers - Dutch Crunch Bread (Tiger Bread)

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

I made the bread - no sandwich - I don't have time.

Here is the dough:

and here is the dough with the crackle topping on it:

and here is a peek inside the finished loaf:

It tasted very nice, with a soft texture inside. It also answered the question for me of how they made tiger bread (which is sold at Brumbys here).  Thanks to our hosts, Sara & Erica, who will have the recipe on their site.

FFwD - Cocoa Sables

"They won't understand that in Bradford."

This was the statement made to John Cleese by one of his producers regarding the humour on At Last The 1948 Show, an early comedy vehicle for Cleese and his contemporaries, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman.  Thank goodness that John and his colleagues bore this producer no heed, for without their unique comedy sensibilities, there would be no Monty Python, and no Goodies.  This little snippet was part of the narrative of John's life as revealed through An Evening With John Cleese, subtitled "The Alimony Tour", which I went to on Wednesday night.  Although The Age critic was quite lukewarm on the show, I enjoyed it immensely, and there were some pearler lines.  Some of my favourite anecdotes included John relating his father's view that the fact that the Germans bombed his sleepy home town of Weston-Super-Mare demonstrated that they had a sense of humour, and John stating that "everyone has their cross to bear" after showing us a photo of  his late mother, Muriel Cross.  The first half of the show was autobiographical, while the second half of the show was concerned with how John Cleese and his peers went about writing comedy.  It was all lots of fun, and it was great to see John Cleese in the flesh, so to speak.

Thankfully, it is Friday now, and it is time for another French Friday with Dorie recipe.  This week was baking (hooray!), and the recipe was cocoa sables.  These are buttery, sandy-textured chcocolate biscuits flavoured with cocoa and chocolate, and brushed on the sides with egg and rolled in sugar.

They were absolutely delicious - I ate 4, which is again is unheard of for me unless the biscuits are really good.  See what everyone else thought of the cocoa sables by visiting the LYL section of the FFwD website.

Wednesdays with Donna Hay - Red Wine Osso Bucco

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay offering is Red Wine Osso Bucco, chosen by Margaret.  I adore slow-cooked food, so this choice was right up my alley.

This picture ain't pretty, but when I tell you it is meat melting off the bone after being slow-cooked in red wine, it will make you happy:

I served my osso bucco with mash and beans. 

To see what Margaret, Kayte and Chaya thought of this recipe, go visit them tomorrow.

BWJ - Irish Soda Bread

Today's Baking with Julia recipe is Irish Soda Bread.  Our hosts for this week, Carla of Chocolate Moosey and Cathleen of My Culinary Mission, will have the recipe, or buy the book.

This bread was as easy peasy - only 4 ingredients required, 5 if you add cranberries like I did.  I don't even buy buttermilk anymore - I read once that you add one tablespoon of lemon juice to a cup of milk to make a buttermilk substitute so that is what I did for this bread.  I made only a quarter recipe because apparently this bread does not keep well.

The bread came out well - no rising time, quick to bake, and a soft, light interior:

I ate a piece warm out of the oven spread with fig jam - it was pretty damn fine, if I say so myself.

You can see what the other group bakers thought by visiting the LYL section of the BWJ website.