Yumness: Zucchini, Corn & Mint Fritters by The Kind Cook

Have you visited The Kind Cook?  If you haven’t, you should.  Mel creates beautiful easy to follow recipes.  Actually, my first introduction to Mel was at a cooking demo she presented where she made her Fragrant Cambodian Noodle Salad.  I arrived late but not to late to score a sample (mwahaha, my dad taught me well where free samples of food are concerned, as in “you take the west entrance, I take the east, your sister takes the south and when the waiters come through take all the prawns for me.  Where’s your mother gone???  I need someone at the north entrance”… that’s me dad).  Mel also whipped up some lovely truffles and a mint flavoured slushie that was diviiiine so when I got home I raced to her website and spent some time drooling.

Today I was in a frittery kind of mood.  I don’t often make fritters because my kitchen sucks too much to be standing at the stove cooking fritterish things.  But as Husband has taken DeeW to the beach and Arthur is stuck in the sofa under a pile of library books, I figured it was a good time to get my fritter on.

Mel’s recipe for Zucchini, Corn & Mint Fritters is very simple and calls for chickpea flour, corn kernels, grated zucchini, spring onion, fresh mint and salt-pepper.   Too easy right?  They’re delicious too.  I’m having a hard time leaving some for the beachgoers:

Mel has a Facebook page.  Please consider ‘liking’ it, that way it can attract a publisher and Mel can write a cookbook which would be all kinds of super amazingness 🙂

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Foody bits and pieces this week

What a week!  Lots of social events, visiting people, catching up.  I have the day at home today and boy do I need it.  House to clean, crumble to cook, my frizzy boofhead to manage before I head off to a vegan ‘do tonight.

This week DeeW turned 5, without my permission I might add.  She chose to have her ‘party’ at the Icehouse, which is an indoor ice skating venue in Melbourne.  We met up with some other homeschooling families.  I don’t skate at all and if I tried you can bet I wouldn’t take my hands off that metal helper thingy:

(I picked this dress up for a few bucks from Savers last week, hand made, looked unworn).

I made practice pineapple-mango upside down cakes as she requested this for her  birthday.  The practice cakes were great.  The actual birthday cake didn’t turn out at all and was quite awful.  Whoops.  Oh well, the kids stuffed themselves on strawberries and some liked the Christmas stollen I bought from Aldi.  And my vegan sausage rolls were a hit with two of the guests who were walking around with their little squirrel cheeks all bulging out with sausage roll.

At my mum’s house, I had her Greek pilafi rice (she makes it vegan now, yay!) and a Greek style peas and potatoes dish.  Hopefully I’ll get the recipe up soon:

Here’s a raw smoothie from Brendan Brazier’s “Thrive” book.  It’s made with pomegranate, hemp protein and banana with a pinch of cayenne pepper:

More Not-Butter-Chicken from The Kind Cook.  Yes, this is a dreadful photo:

Cauliflower ‘popcorn’ from Eat Raw, Eat Well.  I think I way over dehydrated this but it’s so delicious.  You toss cauli florets in some olive oil, nooch and a bit of salt then dehydrate:

Pecan Banana Cookies also from Eat Raw, Eat Well:

And we put up the Christmas tree.   It’s rather lopsided.  I prefer to say it’s really chilling out.  This is what a tree looks like when kids decorate it:

Some gorgeous vintage kitchen stuff I picked up for next to nothing.  LOOK AT THE HANDLES YOU GUYS!

I tried a packet mix of a mock meat rendang curry and added some potato.  Yum:

Banana bread-cake for playgroup yesterday, where we discussed the merits of dipping cake in to tea/coffee.  I’m a dipper/dunker:

And speaking of tea, I’m outta here.  I have the house to myself so today’s music selection is Tori Amos and G’n’R.  Yeah!

Not-Butter-Chicken from The Kind Cook

One of my big challenges is cooking vegan meals my non-vegan Husband likes.  Animal products are off both the menu and the shopping list in our home.  Husband is also what some would call a rather fussy eater.  On the plus side, he can eat the same meal many many times in a row and never get sick of it.  Me, I get sick of the same smoothie after two days.

I was hunting around for veganised versions of his favourite meals and happened across this fantastic recipe for Not Butter Chicken by Mel over at The Kind Cook.  Mel won my heart at The World Event To End Animal Cruelty a few months ago with a fantastic cooking demo where her food and drinks made my eyes roll back in my head.

With this recipe I used potatoes, carrot and green beans as they are the only vegies Husband likes that would suit this dish.  For myself, I added in firm tofu and pumpkin.  The only thing I do differently is significantly cut down the amount of cumin as Husband doesn’t like too-strong cumin flavour.  I also go for the coconut milk option in the recipe.  I prefer brown rice to white, although white would make for a nicer photo.  Next time I make this, I’ll blend up some cooked red lentils throw them in.  They should fool Hubz.

This is one of my favourite vegan recipes and gets a big thumbs up from Husband. Forgive the naughty green bean in this photo for rolling out of position.