Cabbage, Pasta & 'Feta Cheese' Salad with Balsamic Mustard Dressing

Salads are super convenient and so fresh and tasty! However, I never recommend my patients to eat too many salads because they are very cold and can weaken your Stomach and Spleen Qi. Because salads are so cold and raw, the body uses up extra warmth and energy digesting them. In people with already weak Qi (due to poor sleep, prolonged or frequent illness or several other lifestyle factors), cold and raw foods can really exacerbate your weak Qi and make it difficult for your body to function properly. If you want more info on this you can read this previous post on salads. Despite this - I am a lover of salads and I never advocate cutting them out of your diet completely, in fact everything in moderation is the way I roll. So, there are three steps I usually take to mitigate some of the effects of salads:

1) Don't eat too many salads. Try not to eat salad every day (unless it is an accompaniment to a cooked meal). If you have salad for lunch then DON'T have salad for dinner.
2) Try to incorporate some cooked elements into your salad - lightly steaming carrots and broccoli before putting them into salads reduces their cold nature and makes it easier for the body to digest them. If you are eating cooked or steamed salads then rule one doesn't apply because you can eat them as often as you like! (Try my Marinated Tofu, Broad Bean and Broccoli Salad)
3) Drink a cup of green or herbal tea with or after your salad, this will help the Stomach warm and digest the raw vegetables you've just put in it!

This salad recipe takes all of these thing into consideration. It incorporates cooked spelt or soy pasta to help offset some of the cold aspects and it is recommended to be had with my delicious Cabbage-Is-My-Friend Tea. This tea not only warms the Stomach and aids digestion, but it also has a carminative effect so is perfect to have with the raw cabbage. In fact, this tea is so good for aiding and easing digestion that my partner now asks me to make it for him whenever he feels any slight digestive upset.

Ingredients
1 cup shredded iceberg lettuce
2 cups shredded green cabbage
2 vine ripened tomatoes, diced
1 green cucumber, diced
1 cup soyaroni or spelt pasta spirals
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup crumbled vegan feta (see this recipe for this delicious home made vegan feta)
2 generous tsp wholegrain mustard
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
Cracked Pepper to taste

To Make:
1. Preheat the grill/oven to about 180 degrees.
2. Cook the pasta according the directions on the packed (in my experience you usually need to cook for a minute or two less than the time listed on the packet to get it al dente). Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside in a strainer to drain properly.
3. Combine the cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and pasta in a big mixing bowl and mix well.
4. Spread the sunflower seeds and the crumbled feta evenly over a baking tray and toast in the grill for about 3 minutes. Keep a close eye on it!
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
6. Combine the lemon juice, olive oil, mustard and balsamic vinegar and stir well until they form a smooth dressing.
7. Add the toasted sunflower seeds, feta cheese and dressing to the salad and toss well. Eat immediately.

Serves 3.

Chadian Millet Balls with 3 Dipping Sauces (Peanut Sauce, Saka Saka Sauce & Harissa Lime Sauce)

So... let's continue to explore Chad shall we? As I mentioned in our first post about Chadian food, millet is a staple grain in Chad. Whilst trawling through websites for precious mentions of any form of Chadian food I cam across a lot of websites with the same regurgitated piece of information: in Chad they often eat millet balls which are dipped in sauces (if you want to see what I mean see these websites here, here and here). Yet, despite this piece of information being repeated on many different websites I couldn't find any recipes for this, pictures of this dish or any description of all of what these 'sauces' might be. So, essentially I was left to my own imagination in creating this dish. As a result I am sure that it isn't very authentic Chadian fare, however, it was most certainly inspired by my efforts to find a recipe or description of the elusive Chadian millet balls with 'sauces'.

This recipe uses whole hulled organic millet from my local co-cop, however, I gather that the more traditional Chadian millet balls would most likely be made of millet flour made into a paste. I like to keep my grains whole where possible, though, so I decided to make mine with whole millet. I also chose to bake them to make it more healthy, instead of frying them in oil. For my sauces I decided to go with: Chadian Peanut Sauce, Saka Saka Sauce (Spinach and Okra) and a Harissa Sauce with corriander and lime.

1) MILLET BALLS:

Ingredients
250g millet
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
5 tbsp millet flour
1/2 tsp salt
100g silken tofu
Olive oil spray

To Make
1. Cover the millet in plenty of boiling water and bring to the boil. Cook for 30-40 minutes or until cooked. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside to cool.
2. Toast the sunflower seeds in a frypan or oven for 1-2 minutes or until slightly browned (keep your eye on them as they burn really fast!).
3. Mix the millet, flour, sunflower seeds, salt, tofu and 1 tbsp water. Mix well into a thick pasty mix.
4. Take a bit of mix about the size of a walnut and press it gently into a ball (don't roll them too firmly or they will break up). Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Continue until all the mix is done.
5. Spray the millet balls with a bit of olive oil and bake at 180 degrees for about 30-35 minutes. (Every oven is different, so you might want to taste one when they come out to make sure they're not too doughy on the inside - if they are give them another 5 minutes).
6. Serve immediately with sauces (below).

2) SAUCES:

Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup shelled unsalted peanuts
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cups water

To Make
1. Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan. Saute the onion and garlic until softened. Add the chilli.
2. Chop the peanuts very finely.
3. Add the nutmeg and peanuts to the onion and garlic. Sauté for a further few minutes.
4. Add the tomato paste and water. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until the sauce is thickened.

Saka Saka Sauce
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 green chilli, chopped
4-5 okra, chopped
5-6 leaves of spinach (silverbeet)
Salt to taste
2 cups water

To Make
1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and sauté the onion, garlic and chilli until the onion is softened.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
3. Process with a hand held blender or in a food processor until smooth.

Harissa sauce with Coriander and Lime
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
1 tbsp Harissa spice mix (available in most health food or you can buy it online at Herbie's Spices)
1 tsp soy sauce
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup finely chopped coriander
The juice of 1 lime

To Make
1. Heat the olive oil in a small pan and sauté the onion until softened. Add the harissa spice mix and saute a further 2-3 minutes.
2. Stir in the soy sauce and water. Bring to a simmer for 3-4 minutes. Remove from the stove.
3. Add the coriander and lime juice. Serve.

Check out our other Chadian recipes as well: 

Chadian Breakfast Bouille

Chadian Sweet Potato Fritters

Chadian Irio (Mashed beans, potatoes and vegetables)
African Loz (Almond and Pistachio Bites of Amazingness)

Kachumbari 
Maharagwe 

Vegan Chocolate Cherry Cobbler

The idea for this post came from this amazing recipe from The Littlest Anchovy. As soon as I read the recipe I knew I had to veganise it and try it! I've never thought of adding chocolate to a cobbler topping before but now that I've tried it it makes sooooo much sense! These little cherry cobblers are particularly decadent and very rich so are perfect for a special occasion when you want to impress and indulge. The other thing about cobbler is that it is so easy to make but so special to eat! This one makes a slightly more cakey-style cobbler than the traditional American ones, so has more of a pudding-y texture to it. I love the crunch of the top and the soft rich pudding and fruit underneath!

First - let's mention chocolate and veganism. You might think that they are incompatible but you would be wrong. Chocolate and Vegans are a match made in heaven and I'm NOT talking about substitutes (by which I mean 'dairy free' milk chocolate etc.), what I'm talking about is dark chocolate. Any dark chocolate which is over 70% SHOULD NOT contain any milk or any butter fat. I'm not saying that they all don't, however it should be. If you pick up a block of dark chocolate and you read the ingredients and it says 'butter fat' on the back then you know the company is being cheap and it is not good quality chocolate (and I'm talking about Cadbury and Lindt and a lot of others). Butter fat is used in dark chocolate as a cheaper alternative to using cocoa butter. 

Having said that the Lindt 70%+ varieties are all vegan friendly (however the flavoured ones are not). I still wouldn't buy Lindt though because it isn't fair trade and I don't like to think that I am putting money into child slave labour. My pick of the chocolates is Green & Black dark chocolate. It's incredibly delicious, it's fair trade and it doesn't have any cheap butter fat in it - and that's my holy trinity of chocolate!

Ingredients:

500-600g fresh cherries, halved and pitted

2 tsp sugar

3 tbsp cherry brandy or kirsch

1 tsp flour

1 cup wholemeal flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bi carb soda

1/4 cup caster sugar

7 tbsps nuttelex (or other non dairy butter or margarine)

100g dark chocolate (check to make sure it's vegan)

2/3 cup soy milk

1 tsp lemon juice

To Make:

1. Mix the first 4 ingredients in a bowl and set aside to macerate for at least 30 mins (preferably about an hour).

2. Add the lemon juice to the soy milk and set aside to curdle slightly. 

3. Mix the flour, baking powder, bi carb and sugar together. Cut the butter into the mix and mix with an electric hand mixer. 

4. Add the soy milk. Mix well again.

5. Finely chop the dark chocolate into small pieces Add this to the mix as well and fold in using a spoon.

6. Distribute the cherries amongst 6-8 ramekins (depending on the size of your ramekins) - or alternately use one big baking dish.

7. Distribute the topping evenly amongst the ramekins, just blob it on top and don't worry about spreading it our evenly as the topping will expand while it cooks to form an even smooth crust.

8. Place the ramekins on a large baking tray and bake at 180 degrees C for about 30 minutes.

Makes 6-8 mini cherry cobblers (serves 6-8).

Chadian Breakfast Bouille (Rice and Peanut Porridge)

Welcome to February on Gormandize with A-dizzle and K-bobo! We're pretty excited about all the incredible and fascinating foods we'll be offering up for you to devour with your eyes and it's certainly going to be a journey into the unknown for us because this month we are exploring the cuisine of Chad. Thanks to our reader, Sophie, for requesting Chad as our feature country this month. Firstly - it must be said that neither of us have been to Chad (yet!) nor do we know anybody from Chad with whom we could consult on these, so any comments on authenticity would be welcomed! If you have been to Chad or have a knowledge of Chadian cuisine we'd be over the moon if you contacted us!

First, a bit about Chad for those who aren't very familiar with it. Chad is a landlocked country in Northern Central Africa. It borders Libya, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Sudan.

(Map from worldatlas.com)

(Map from lonelyplanet.com)

Chad has a chiefly dessert climate and is one of the poorest countries in the world. For these reasons the Chadian diet consists mainly of grains, beans, vegetables and meat. Often dried vegetables are used with grains as the staple foods for Chadians. Millet, rice and sorghum are commonly consumed grains, whilst okra, cassava and peanuts are often used to flavour and thicken dishes.

To start Chad month off I've made a breakfast dish called la bouille - a rice porridge flavoured with peanuts. I found a base for this recipe on this website, however, this exact same recipe is on a dozen sites over the internet and none of them credit a source so I can't be sure where it actually came from. My version is veganised and slightly altered to my personal tastes. Even so, I found it very nice but a touch bland. I'm guessing this might speak to it's authenticity, but it would be even nicer used as a base to which you can add anything you like. I ate mine with fresh banana and a sprinkle of brown sugar and it was quite a delicious breakfast and a very healthy way to start the day.

Ingredients
1 cup rice
4 cups hot water
3 tbsp millet flour (you can substitute other flours)
1/2 cup soy milk
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup peanuts (no skins, unsalted)

To Make
1. Bring the water to boil and add the rice. Lower the heat to a simmer.
2. Finely chop the peanuts while the rice is simmering and set aside.
3. Mix the millet flour with 3/4 cup warm water until dissolved completely. Add this mixture to the simmering rice.
4. Once the rice is cooked and the porridge has thickened, add the soy milk, lemon juice and salt.
5. Remove from the heat and stir through the chopped peanuts.

Garnish with any toppings you choose - I suggest fresh fruit, tinned fruit in syrup, chopped nuts and/or brown sugar.

Serves 3-4.

Check out our other Chadian recipes as well: 

Millet Balls with 3 dipping sauces

Chadian Sweet Potato Fritters

Chadian Irio (Mashed beans, potatoes and vegetables)
African Loz (Almond and Pistachio Bites of Amazingness)
Kachumbari 
Maharagwe 

Croatian Food Month - 9 Vegan Croatian Recipes

Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions guys! I now have a big list of countries, one for every month of 2012! But please keep the suggestions coming as I love to hear what you guys want and adding it to the list! A-dizzletron and I are having so much fun exploring these cuisines that we previously knew nothing about and I hope that you are enjoying reading them to! We have just finished our last entry for January - Croatia Month, which was requested by an anonymous commenter and we would firstly like to thank him/her/it for such a great suggestion - it was delicious! I'd also like to thank all the fantastic people who helped us out by providing their knowledge of Croatian food. If you'd like to check out the recipes we came up with, here are the links for the 9 Croatian dishes we posted up this month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça (Fluffy savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles - one of my favourites from the month)

Paprenjaci (Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma (Rice filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca (Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza (with "kulen sausages" and vegan feta cheese!)

Kupus Na Zagorski & Blitva (2 delicious vegie side dishes)

Šljivovec (AMAZING plum pie)

It's quite a list of recipes! All of them were delicious (of course, otherwise we wouldn't have posted them!) but I would have to pick my top 4 as the Yumuşacık Poğaça, Paprenjaci, Croatian Pizza and the Šljivovec. But then the Posna Sarma and Makovnjaca were pretty special too... you see I just can't pick! So you'll have to give them all a try!

So - we are leaving Croatia behind (for now!) and moving on to our February featured country which was requested by Sophie - CHAD! Yes, in February we will be delving into the Northern African landlocked country of Chad (something tells me there will be less sea food then there was for Croatia!). We can't wait to share what we find with you and I hope that if you know lots about food from Chad then you will contact us and let us know! 

Split Pea and Basil Stew

Sometimes I find the best recipes are created when you have something that you need to use up. My vegie garden is growing so beautifully right now and I am a tiny bit super proud of it. It's sort of like my child (except less high maintenance), every time somebody comes over to my house I invariable drag them outside to proudly show them my vegie garden and point out all the changes since last time I dragged them out to see it. My friends are probably sick of this but they will probably have to get over it. I imagine it is similar to if  they went over to somebody's house who had just had a baby - out come the baby photos (despite the fact that the baby is right there for you to look at) so that they can tell you all the tiny ways that the baby has changed over the last month which are all things that probably only they care about. Well, I'm like that with my vegie garden. It's like my child essentially. This is my other child, by the way, and I can tell you that she is definitely much cuter than my vegie-garden-child:

Uli Von Tuftsberg

However, what happens with a vegie garden (as I'm sure any vegie growers know) is that suddenly you get an influx of something which needs to be used up all at once before the plant goes to seed. So, this week the basil in my garden was rather thriving and I knew I needed to use up a fair bit of it to stop the plants going to seed. I was making lunch and what I really felt like was split pea soup/stew. So - the result was obviously Split Pea and Basil Stew! This is probably something I never would have tried if I hadn't had to use up the basil, which would have been a great loss because it was absolutely delicious (seconded by the two guests I had over for lunch that day). So the moral of the story is. Something.

Just to prove what a proud parent I am here is a picture of my basil (isn't it adorable??):

Split Pea and Basil Stew

Ingredients:

1 tbsp nuttelex (or other vegan margarine)

1 leek, washed and thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp caraway seeds

1.5L vegetable stock

1 1/2 cups green split peas

1 potato, peeled and diced

1 carrot, chopped

1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced

5 tomatoes, finely chopped

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 cup fresh or frozen green peas

Cracked pepper to taste

1 bunch fresh basil

To Make:

1. Melt nuttelex in a large soup pot. Add the leek and garlic and sauté until softened. Add fennel seeds and caraway seeds and sauté for a further 5 minutes.

2. Add the split peas, stock, potato, carrot, sweet potato, tomatoes, soy sauce and cumin and bring to the boil.

3. Reduce to a simmer and and cover. Simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the peas have gone nice and mushy.

4. Grind the basil to a paste in a mortar and pestle (leaving a small handful out to chop and use as garnish) or alternately use a food processor.

5. Add the basil paste and peas to the stew and simmer, uncovered for 5-10 minutes. Season to taste with cracked pepper.

6. Serve topped with shredded fresh basil.

Serves 4.

Vegan Šljivovec (Croatian Plum Pie)

This is our last post on Croatian food for this month - which has been a truly delicious journey for both of us. This incredibly plum pie is the perfect way for us to farewell a country which has given us a lot of delicious food experiences. Plums are perfect in Australia right now so it's the perfect time to give this super special pie a try. The beautiful and simple tart flavour of the plums is accented by the lovely crunchy pastry. The fact that it's also free form pie makes it much easier than other forms of pies. This isn't the first time we've posted a free form pie - check out our savoury free form pie: Pumpkin, Cashew and Balsamic Pie. Once again I have to thank the amazing Enola (@rhelune) for not only sending us this recipe but also translating it from Croatian for us - you legend!

Ingredients:

Pastry:

400gm of wholemeal flour

2 Tbsp of canola oil

1 sachet (5gm) yeast

1/2 tsp of salt

2 Tbsp of raw sugar

1/2 cup of warm water

Filling:

7 large Plums, sliced into wedges (about 6 per plum)

1/4 cup of sweet dark rum (or plain brown rum)

2 tsp of ground cinnamon

3 Tbsp of almond meal

Juice of half a lemon

3 Tbsp of brown sugar.

How To Make:

1. Mix the yeast, sugar and warm water in a large bowl. Let sit for 10mins.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

3. Mix in flour, salt and oil with your hands, until a smooth, elastic dough has formed. Form in to a ball, and leave in the bowl in a warm place, firmly covered with a tea towel, for 15mins.

4. Place plums and all other filling ingredients, except for 2 Tbsp of brown sugar and the almond meal, in a bowl and let sit for 15mins.

5.Dust a smooth, flat surface (like your bench!) with flour, and roll the dough into a circle.

6. Spread the almond meal and remaining 2 Tbsp of brown sugar evenly over the dough, like this:

7. Pour plum mixture into the middle of the dough and fold the edges in, like so:

8. Bake for 45mins.

Serves 10.

2 Croatian side-dishes: Kupus Na Zagorski & Blitva

Well we've almost reached the end of Cabbage Month... I mean Croatia Month. So we're rounding the savoury recipes for Croatia off with a double whammy - two lovely side dishes (no surprises - one of them is cabbage!). These dishes are a great accompaniment to your main dish, or you can make them both because if you eat them together it makes a great full vegetable-filled meal.

Kupus na Zagorski

Ingredients:

½ a large cabbage, shredded finely
4 Tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp brown sugar
1  brown onion
4 Tbsp of smoky paprika
1  tsp cumin
1 green chilli
5 tablespoons vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

How to make:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over a medium heat and sauté the onion and chilli for 2-3 mins.

2. Add remaining ingredients and mix well, sautéing for 5 mins.

3. Turn the heat to low, cover pot and leave to simmer for about 20 mins (or until cabbage is cooked).

4. Enjoy!

Serves 10-12 (as a side dish)


I recommend having some of our Cabbage-Is-My-Friend Tea.

Blitva


Ingredients:
1 bunch chard/spinach
2 medium waxy potatoes, peeled
2 tbsp olive oil or to taste
2 tbsp nuttelex
Salt & pepper to taste


To Make:
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the 1 tbsp nuttelex.
2. Rinse the chard well and remove the tough stems. Tear into large pieces. Cut the potato into 3-4cm cubes.
3. Drop chard and potatoes into the boiling water and cook until done (about 10 mins).
4. Drain and top with olive oil and 1 tbsp nuttelex. Stir well and season with salt and pepper to taste.


Goes perfectly with out fabulous Croatian Posna Sarma (Cabbage rolls stuffed with rice).

Croatian Pizza (with "Kulen" and Vegan Feta Cheese)

I have certainly had such a great time digging around for amazing Croatian-inspired dishes to share with you this month. This particular one might seem a bit odd, I know, since you're all thinking "Pizza comes from Italy right?" - unless of course you're Croatian in which case you are probably thinking "Naša pizza je najbolja pizza na svijetu" (Ok - I used Google Translate for that so if you are Croatian and it doesn't make any sense I sincerely apologise). 

I have two people to thank in the creation of this dish - firstly my awesome and well-travelled friend Amy, who I asked for ideas on Croatian food since she had been to Croatia quite recently. She gave me the usual reply: "lots of seafood". Hmmm. But then she said something which surprised me quite a lot - she said that the pizza she ate in Croatia rivalled the pizza she ate in Italy. After this interesting conversation I jumped on that incredible resource - the internet - and did some reading. Apparently there is some contention among Italian and Croatian people as to whose pizza is superior. I have been to Italy and sampled some sensational pizzas, however, have not (YET) been to Croatia thus cannot provide any opinion. However, as Amy is neither of Italian or Croatian descent/allegiance I trust her opinion and thus thought I would try my hand at a Croatian-inspired pizza. 

The next step is of course..... what do I put on a Croatian pizza? I couldn't find much about this on the net so I was very lucky when I managed to have some great twitter conversations with the other important person in this story (a Croatian person!): Enola (@rhelune). Through these fantastic conversations I gleaned a few key ingredients to a Croatian style pizza. The first of them was "Kulen" - a spicy fermented paprika sausage. Obviously real kulen is out of the question for a vegan (and for an Australian, for that matter - as I am as of yet unaware of any underground market in imported Croatian sausages) but I figured I could make something replicating the flavours of this without too much difficulty. The other is ingredient was cheeses - Enola told me about Kaymak, which is a type of clotted cream. However, I thought I might try my hand at something a bit less heavy and remembered coming across quite a few Croatian recipes on the internet that used feta cheese. So - my challenge with this dish was to invent Vegan Kulen and Vegan Feta Cheese - both of which are featured on my Croatian Pizza below. I invented both from scratch and I'm very happy with how they both turned out - delicious!

Big, big thanks to Amy and Enola and I hope they like what I came up with on their suggestions! If you are Croatian or Italian please feel free to argue passionately about whose pizza is better in the comments section below :)

Ingredients:

Kulen:

3 vegetarian sausages, thinly sliced

1 heaped tablespoon smoky paprika

1 tsp hot paprika

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp water

3 cloves garlic, crushed

Feta Cheese:

125-150g hard tofu (that means it should NOT be in a punnet and should retain it's shape completely when you squeeze it)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Pizzas:

6 small thin crust pizza bases (I like these because you don't have to cut the pizza up at all - just pick it up and eat it! But you can make this on a larger pizza base of course)

12 tbsp passata (or tomato paste for a richer tomatoey flavour)

Baby spinach

5-6 mushrooms, sliced

5-6 cherry tomatoes, sliced

Olive oil, to drizzle

To Make

1. To make the Kulen: Combine all ingredients in a bowl - mix well and set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients so that they can marinate (try to leave for at least 15 minutes - but longer is greater).

2. To make the Feta: Squeeze as much of the water out of the tofu as you can and crumble it into a small bowl. Add the lemon juice, salt and garlic and mix well. Taste test - it should be nice and salty and sour. If it is not salty enough add more salt, if it is not sour enough add more lemon juice. Set aside for at least 10-15 mins while you prepare your other ingredients.

3. To assemble: Place the pizza bases on a lined baking tray. Spread 2 tbsp passata on each base.

4. Layer the ingredients on: first the baby spinach, then the mushrooms, then the tomato, then the kulen. 

5. Finally, grab a small handful of the feta cheese and sprinkle it in the middle of the pizza. Drizzle with a little olive oil.

6. Bake in the oven at about 180 degrees celcius for about 10-15 minutes, or until the crusts are nice and crunchy and the feta cheese is slightly browned on top. This will vary depending on the type of bases you buy and how hot your oven is - so keep an eye on them.

This is what they looked like before baking.

Makes 6 mini pizzas (serves 3).

Check out our other Croatian Recipes:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça

Paprenjaci (Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

Makovnjaca (Poppy Seed Strudel)

Vegan Truffles in 3 Flavours: Tahini Temptress, Paprika Paradise and Strawberry Gum Seduction

This is our second contribution to the Death By Chocolate Blog Hop - as the fabulous hostesses were very kind and allowed that we could have a special consideration for this hop and post one recipe each (since we have 2 authors on this blog). This was a huge relief really because chocolate is probably my favourite thing ever and if I had had to fight K-bobo for it things would have got messy (in a melted chocolate everywhere kind of way - kind of like they did anyway.... as you'll see from pics below).

K-bobo has already contributed the incredible Black Forest Shots to the hop, so I thought I would go with a more traditional way to die consuming chocolate - decadent creamy truffles. There really is no end to the flavour combinations you can create with truffles, and they take little effort whilst looking and tasting mighty fine. K-bobo came up with the frankly genius idea of smoky paprika truffles, and I just couldn’t resist trying my new strawberry gum (the ground leaves of a eucalyptus tree with an amazing strawberry passionfruit flavour) and combining two of my favourite things: tahini and chocolate. And the result? These truffles pretty much Blew.My.Mind.

Strawberry gum might seem like a bit of an obscure ingredient, but it can be bought from some fruit and vegie shops or quite easily online here at Herbie's Spices. Trust me it is well worth getting - the flavour and the aroma are incredible

Ingredients:

250g of dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
¼ cup of soy milk
¾ tsp of ground strawberry gum
¾ tsp of smoky paprika
2 Tbsp of unhulled tahini
¼ cup of toasted sesame seeds, for coating
Cocoa powder and sweet paprika for dusting.

How to make:

1. Heat the soymilk in a small saucepan until small bubbles appear and steam rises off the pan.
2. Take off heat, add chocolate and stir vigorously until the chocolate has melted and the ganache is smooth.
3. Divide the ganache into three small containers/bowls or as I used, ramekins:
4. Add the smoky paprika to one of the containers and stir until combined. Add the strawberry gum to the second container and stir until combined. Leave the third as it is, cover the containers and chill in the fridge for eight hours or overnight.
5. Time to roll some truffles!

Strawberry Gum Seductress:
Remove strawberry gum ganache from the fridge. Place about ¼ cup of cocoa powder on a small bowl, and using a teaspoon or a melon baller (these are perfect!), place a spoonful of the ganache into the cocoa, tossing it in the cocoa until covered. Then dust your palms with some of the cocoa and roll the ganache piece into a ball, and place on a serving plate/whatever plate you like. Repeat until you run out of ganache.

Paprika Paradise:
follow the instructions above, adding 1 tsp of smoky paprika to the dusting cocoa. When the smoky paprika truffles are rolled, sprinkle the tops with some sweet paprika for colour and added flavour.

Tahini Temptress:
Now we get to the double sesame amazingness! K-bobo perfected the technique for these, so I’ve included step by step photos of her making them like a champion. First, toast your sesame seeds in a small pan, stirring them over a low heat until browned, and transfer them to a small bowl. Allow to cool completely. Then dust your palms with a little cocoa and take a spoonful of the mixture, this time without dusting it in cocoa. With your fingers, mould the spoonful of mixture into a pancake shape, like this:

Then get a pea sized amount of tahini and place it in the middle, like this:

Now carefully fold in the edges of the ganache until it is sealed, and very gently roll into a ball with your palms (your palms will get pretty chocolaty with these!). Lastly, place the rolled truffle in the bowl with the toasted sesame seeds and gently roll until covered in seeds. By the end of making of making the double sesame truffles, your hands should look like this (cue chocolaty jazz hands!):

8. Enjoy your truffles!

Makes approx. 35 truffles