Indrani Perera

poet, publisher & mentor

Tag: homemade

  • Souped Up!

    IP - The Week of Soup

    It’s hard keeping the troops fed. Especially when they come home from school, starving. All that learning sure does burn calories! 

    I’m not sure about them but I know that I get bored with making the same things so I took a little time the other day to go through my recipe books and find some tasty recipes.

    My two favourite cookbooks at the moment are both by Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame. They have incredibly naff covers but Hugh’s Three Good Things…On a Plate and Light & Easy are both fantastic cookbooks.

    I must be craving warmth because every recipe I flagged was soup! White bean soup, barley soup, lentil and bacon soup, chickpea soup, eggplant soup and fennel soup to be precise. I figured why not have a crack at making them all and so I did.

    The biggest hit was the lentil and bacon soup followed by the white bean soup. I also quite liked the fennel soup with its preserved lemons. The chickpea soup tasted a lot like a hot, runny, hummus! 

    It felt great to be back in the kitchen, making something new. And so wonderful to be a eating so many new flavourful soups!

  • Gluten and Dairy Free Oat Scones

    Gluten and Dairy Free Oat Scones 1

    The oven is doing double time round here. Cooking dinners and baking tasty treats. My latest creation is gluten and dairy free savoury scones based on this recipe. I switched out the wheat flour for oat and used soda water instead of the lemonade to turn it from savoury to sweet. It was so simple that I can't believe I haven't made scones before.

    I ate these with some red chilli tapenade the Lovely G scored at the supermarket. The kids had theirs with butter and jam. Mmmmmm, tasty!

    Gluten and Dairy Free Oat Scones 2

    Gluten and Dairy Free Oat Scones

    3 1/2 cups oat flour, sifted

    1 cup coconut cream, runny

    1 cup soda (or carbonated) water

    1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

    pinch of salt

     

    Pre heat oven to 210 C (190 C fan forced).

    Line a baking tray.

     

    Sift the flour into a large bowl.

    Make a well in the centre and add the water, coconut cream and apple cider vinegar.

    With a butter knife, mix it into a rough dough.

     

    Spoon the dough out on to the tray (it’s going to be super sticky).

    Flatten the tops a little with wet fingers.

     

    Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

     

  • Double Choc Bliss Bombs

    IP -Double Choc Bliss Bombs 1

    IP -Double Choc Bliss Bombs 2 IP -Double Choc Bliss Bombs 3

    Still sugar free and still loving it. Especially when I can manage to concoct something as scrumptious as these double choc bliss bombs. Mmmmm.

    Think rich and velvety with crunchy nuggets of cacao nibs and bursts of dried cranberries. Rum balls without the rum (or sugar). Vegan, dairy and gluten free. What more could you want really? (Apart from world peace and an end to the climate emergency of course). In the meantime, eat cake, I mean, bliss bombs.

     

    Double Choc Bliss Bombs

    2 cups of pitted dates

    ¼ cup dried cranberries

    ¾ cup of desiccated coconut

    ¼ cacao nibs

    ¼ cup cacao powder

    extra desiccated coconut for dusting

     

    Soak the dates in boiling water for at least 30 minutes to make them soft and squishy. Skip this step if you're using fresh dates – just remember to remove the pips!

    Drain the dates and squeeze out the excess moisture.

    Throw the dates and dried cranberries (make sure to buy the ones sweetened with apple juice not sugar) into a food processor and blitz.

    Once they've become a paste, add in the coconut, cacao powder and cacao nibs.

    Blitz again until it all comes together.

     

    Sprinkle the extra coconut on to a plate.

    Dip your hands in cold water (this reduces the amount of mixture that sticks to your hands).

    Spoon out some mixture and roll it between your palms to make it into balls.

    Roll the ball in the extra coconut and then put it on a plate.

    Repeat for the rest of the mixture.

     

    Refrigerate for an hour or two before devouring.

     

  • Gingerbread

     

    IP - Gingerbread 1

    IP - Gingerbread 2

    IP - Gingerbread 3

    IP - Gingerbread 4

    One of my favourite things about the festive season is all the baking of yummy treats. This year we're not going to Canberra to spend Christmas with my parents and my youngest daughter is very sad about not seeing her Nana and Seeya. She's been missing them dreadfully. She's determined to make Christmas at home as much as fun as it is with them. We've been decorating our place and she wanted to make a gingerbread house like the one Nana makes. A whole house felt a little beyond my abilities (and hello, witch?) so we compromised on these little guys.

    I was feeling pretty tired the day we made these but Miss P insisted we all sit down together after dinner and ice them. She didn't want to be sensible (and let's face it, boring) and wait until the next day. Oh no, she was excited and full of joy and wanted to do it now! So we did.

    And I am glad she insisted because it was so much fun to sit around our kitchen table, decorating gingerbread shapes. It's funny, I've been missing all the spontaneity and excitement that very small children bring and then when one of mine does, I get all resistant! Note to self- remember to follow the joy!

    What holidays do you celebrate and what are your family traditions?

     

  • Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

    IP - Peanut Butter Cookies

    I was reading a Ruby Redfort book by Lauren Child which I borrowed from my daughter. I'm not sure which one it was. Either Pick Your Poison or Blink and You're Dead. In it Ruby was eating peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. She's always drinking banana milk (which incidentally was my absolute fave when I was a teen) and eating cookies.

    I'm highly suggestible at times and this was one of those times. As soon as I read that she was eating peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, I just had to have some. Right now! So it was off to the kitchen to check out the state of the pantry and then online to find a recipe.

    I started with this recipe because it only had three ingredients (what's not to like about that?) and no flour which is amazing for someone like me who tries to avoid flour. Of course they didn't have choc chips so I added them in. The batter tasted amazing (everyone knows the batter is the best bit right?) and the cookies weren't too bad either. 

    When I was searching for recipes I also came across this one which used oatmeal. Oats is one of the grains I do eat (quinoa and buckwheat are the others although I think buckwheat is technically a grass) and I thought it could be cool to include them and make the cookies even better.

    So here's my recipe. Sorry there aren't any pictures of the finished cookies, they were all eaten before I could take a picture!

     

    Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

    1 cup oatmeal or quick oats

    1 ¼ cups rapadrua sugar

    1 cup salted peanut butter

    2 eggs

    2-3 tbsp chocolate chips

     

    Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

    Line a baking tray with baking paper.

     

    Mix together the sugar and oats in a large bowl.

    In a small bowl, whisk the eggs then whisk in the peanut butter a bit at a time.

    Put the peanut butter mixture into the large bowl and combine with a wooden spoon.

    Then add the chocolate chips.

    Place spoonfuls on to the baking tray.

    With wet fingers, flatten the top of each cookie.

     

    Bake 8-10 minutes or until done.

    Cool on a wire tray.

     

    Notes: to make this recipe grain free (makes 24 cookies):

    2 cups sugar

    2 cups peanut butter

    3 eggs

    4 tablespoons chocolate chips

     

    And follow the above steps.

     

  • Food, Glorious Food

    IP - Food Glorious Food 1

    IP - Food Glorious Food 3

    I've been back in the kitchen getting creative and it feels so good. The weather is nippy so it's the perfect time to crank up the oven and get back to baking. Shelter in place has given me time to play with ingredients and potter about with pots and pans.

    These days I don't bake sweet treats (trying to stay off the sugar) but I still love baked goods of the savoury kind. I've been devouring kale chips drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with nutritional yeast. Peeling chestnuts hot from the oven. And making rosemary and thyme flavoured mini muffins with buckwheat flour. Flours often make me crash but this recipe has egg in it and the protein seems to balance out the flour.

    I love sitting at the table with my family to eat all the goodies when they're hot, straight out of the oven. The simple things really are the best.

     

  • Making Shortbread

    Making Shortbread 1

    Making Shortbread 2

    Making Shortbread 3

    Every year my daughters make Christmas presents to give to friends and family members. This year we were a bit stuck with what to make. After all, there's only so many tea towels, aprons and bags someone can use. Ditto with bookmarks and art work. We were stumped until Miss 13 came up with the idea of baking something for the grandparents. Genius! Who needs more stuff when you can have scrumptious, homemade baked goodies?

    Once we tasted our friend's amazing shortbread, we knew that was what we wanted to make. As promised, the recipe was super simple with lots of fun of rolling out dough and cutting shapes. The house smelt amazing and although I can't eat the shortbread I can admire it from afar.

    I hope you've had a wonderful festive season, whatever you celebrate.

     

  • Doing Business

    IP - Biz 1

    IP - Biz 2

    IP - Biz 3

    Wool blankets aren't the only thing I've been up cycling lately. My latest foray into reusing saw me turn a previous design into an updated business card. The original business card was created by my super talented friend Amy. She's the one responsible for the lovely banner you see at the top of my blog. Everyone needs a friend who can tell you straight out – 'Those colours hurt my eyeballs,' when you're trying to dip your toe into the world of design. Design is not for the faint hearted I tells ya!

    I drew the sun logo almost twenty years ago when I was backpacking solo through Europe. My name, Indrani, means goddess of the sun and moon and I originally intended it to be a tattoo. It never quite made it on to my skin but has already done time as the logo for my now defunct Easy shop, The Esoteric Sun. It's great seeing the logo in its latest incarnation.

    I read a long time ago about successful people having a string of failed attempts (or interesting adventures depending on your point of view) behind them. I think the term was something like 'Fail fast and often.' The idea being the sooner you try things and discard them, then refine your ideas and try again, the better. Eventually, you're sure to hit gold. I may not have a string of failures (life moves pretty slowly around these parts) but there are a few diversions in my history for sure. I haven't hit gold yet but I'm having fun making and writing.

    I created the images for the front and back of the cards with the free app, Canva. It's a great tool for novice designers like me. I then sat on the floor and cut them out by hand using a guillotine while waiting for my daughters to finish their craft class. #feelinghappy

     

  • Doing Business

    IP - Biz 1

    IP - Biz 2

    IP - Biz 3

    Wool blankets aren't the only thing I've been up cycling lately. My latest foray into reusing saw me turn a previous design into an updated business card. The original business card was created by my super talented friend Amy. She's the one responsible for the lovely banner you see at the top of my blog. Everyone needs a friend who can tell you straight out – 'Those colours hurt my eyeballs,' when you're trying to dip your toe into the world of design. Design is not for the faint hearted I tells ya!

    I drew the sun logo almost twenty years ago when I was backpacking solo through Europe. My name, Indrani, means goddess of the sun and moon and I originally intended it to be a tattoo. It never quite made it on to my skin but has already done time as the logo for my now defunct Easy shop, The Esoteric Sun. It's great seeing the logo in its latest incarnation.

    I read a long time ago about successful people having a string of failed attempts (or interesting adventures depending on your point of view) behind them. I think the term was something like 'Fail fast and often.' The idea being the sooner you try things and discard them, then refine your ideas and try again, the better. Eventually, you're sure to hit gold. I may not have a string of failures (life moves pretty slowly around these parts) but there are a few diversions in my history for sure. I haven't hit gold yet but I'm having fun making and writing.

    I created the images for the front and back of the cards with the free app, Canva. It's a great tool for novice designers like me. I then sat on the floor and cut them out by hand using a guillotine while waiting for my daughters to finish their craft class. #feelinghappy

     

  • Tapenade Recipe

    IP - Tapenade 1

    I devour tapenade by the spoonful, straight from the jar. The kids love it too, spread on toast. With the amount of tapenade we consume in this house, it was high time we learnt to make it ourselves. Miss Twelve really wanted us to make it with olives we had pickled ourselves but unfortunately our pickling was a disaster so we had to resort to store bought olives for this recipe.  One day we shall make tapenade with our own olives!

    IP - Tapenade 2

    IP - Tapendade 3

    Tapenade Recipe

     1 heaped cup of pitted black (kalamatta or nicoise) olives

    2 anchovy fillets

    2 tbsp capers

    1 fat garlic glove

    2 tsp fresh thyme

    1 tsp fresh rosemary

    1/2 lemon, juiced

    3 tbsp olive oil

    Throw everything except the oil into a food processor.

    Pulse until coarsely chopped.

    The slowly drizzle in the olive oil while blending until a paste forms.

    Spoon into jars and store in the fridge. It apparently keeps for ages but we don't have that problem around here – our first jar was eaten in one day!

    Delicious on crackers, toast or by the spoonful straight from the jar!