Steph's Thai Wraps

So a season of the Great British Bake Off has come to an end.  I did want Kimberley to win, but at least it was clear that Frances earned her title.  I just wish I could watch Mel and Sue year round.  Are there box sets of the GBBO I could just play on repeat?  

But on to matters in my kitchen...

Yesterday's cabbage rolls were popular with my husband and me, but not with the wee ones.  One of my children, after dutifully working at his meal for a while, tried to make me promise to make something he likes for dinner the following evening.  "Something like Thai wraps!" he begged.

Well, I did have the rest of the cabbage to use up, so I thought I'd give it a go.  I don't have any old family recipes for savoury meals, but I do have this: 

A worn and battered copy of a recipe from college.  When we college kids wanted to experience something other than ramen noodles, we used to gather in a friend's kitchen and work together to prepare this meal.  It was an amazing treat, a true culinary delight for us, and was occasionally washed down with boxed wine (this was of course back when there was only one brand of boxed wine really on the market).  So whenever I make these, I get to feel all nostalgic for my student days at a certain liberal arts college.

Then, we used the most basic of equipment and shredded everything by hand.  Up until last December, that's what I did as well, but I have moved up in the world and now possess a food processor.  I didn't think I would love it as much as I do, but we use the Magimix every day now and it brings out the materialist in me.  Without doubt, it has earned a permanent place on the kitchen work surface.

So I gathered the ingredients for my son's request.  I find this recipe is a great way to get my kids to eat veggies, cabbage in particular.  My daughter doesn't eat loads of it, but when she helps me prep stuff she "steals" peeled carrot from me.

I didn't have as many carrots as I'd hoped, so I thought I'd throw in a bit of local kale to bulk it out.  And I was annoyingly out of fresh ginger, so powdered ginger would just have to do.  Oh, and no chicken.  Frugal times, remember?

First I made the sauce.  Everything went in at once and was heated until thickened.

The sauce doesn't normally separate like this, but it might be due to my new type of peanut butter (I've noticed it always separates in the jar).  Or maybe I overheated it.  Or measured wrong (my daughter was helping).  Still tastes good.

Weird.  I poured some liquid out, and set it aside to cool in a bowl.  It was thicker than I'd liked, but that's better than too runny.

Then I peeled and chopped veg and put them through the large grater attachment on my food processor.  

They were all put in a glass bowl and set aside.

Then after I rinsed out the Magimix, in went the dough blade for the tortillas.  No, as students we did not make our own tortillas, but they are really quite good when you make them yourself and a lot cheaper to produce.  Just bread flour, salt, water and a bit of oil went into the mix.

And a quick spin until it became this.

Which I divided into 12 pieces.

Then I covered to let them rest while I did the school run.

Catherine just might have over-floured hers.

So I managed to prep most of it with my daughter (with my baby son sleeping on my back even with the noise of the Magimix engine) before the mayhem of the afternoon pick-up and the squabbling that goes from 3pm onwards.  My daughter was really excited to help me with the tortillas, since she gets a wad of dough to roll out.  When dinnertime was approaching we put on the rice to cook and started on the tortillas.

I simply rolled them out one by one.  No tortilla press, and no one caring if they actually round or not.  I think the flour mix was about 2/5 wholegrain, 3/5 white bread flour.

Then they went into a hot, dry pan.

Once blisters appeared to be growing, I flipped them until they were also browned slightly on the other side.

Then I stacked them and continued cooking them one by one until all were done.  My husband likes to cook them on a baking stone in the oven, but I prefer the stove-top method.

I then quickly fluffed the rice.

And threw the vegetables in to cook all at once.  They don't need to cook for long, just long enough for everything to heat through.

And, er, don't worry if you don't have the lid that fits your pan either.

We tend to stick everything on the table then for people to make and roll up their own wraps.

How much you want to let your children make a mess of a table and the ingredients is up to you, of course.








Mmm...still as tasty now as when we were in our early twenties...the kale worked really well and made it more colourful too.

Steph's Thai Wraps

Ingredients

Sauce

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup sugar

3 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp water

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 Tbsp ginger

Filling

1 red onion

1 cup cabbage or kale 

1 cup carrots

4 green onions (optional)

1 Tbsp ginger

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Rice

1 cup uncooked (jasmine or basmati preferably)

Chicken (optional)

1/2 - 1 breast per person

Tortillas

420 grams bread flour (use whatever blend you like)

9 oz water

1 tsp salt

1-2 Tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions

Put sauce ingredients together in a small saucepan.  Heat and stir constantly until even consistency.  Remove from heat and pour into bowl to cool and thicken.

Grate all filling ingredients in a food processor or by hand.  Set aside.

Put flour and salt into a food processor with the dough blade and quickly pulse to mix together.  Add water and oil and pulse until all has come together into one ball.  On lightly floured surface, cut into 12 pieces and cover to rest for at least a half hour or as long as you like.

Cook the rice.  If you don't know how, read the packet.  

Heat a frying pan up to a medium high heat.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the tortillas one by one until they are vaguely circular...or oblong...or shaped like Australia...then put them in the pan.  Cook on one side until blisters start to appear then flip and cook for 30 seconds or so more.  Remove onto cooking rack and stack until done.

Clean the pan out without burning yourself and put a bit of oil in.  If using chicken, cook in the oil then add veggies once the chicken is cooked through.  If not, just put all the veggies in once the oil is hot and cook until heated through but not completely limp.  

Serve everything together.  Franzia and Dirty Dancing viewing optional.  

Cabbage Patch Roll-ups and Citrussy Roasted Cauliflower

You know how you always roll your eyes when people say "I can't be racist, I have friends who are <insert minority here>!"

Well, I feel a bit like that when I cook vegetarian meals.  Like I'm saying to vegetarians, "hey, I get it, I 
cook vegetarian meals too!  I LOVE quinoa!"  I draw the line at quorn, though. *shudder*

I do like to get my meat at the Farmers Market, so to afford it I need to cook vegetarian part of the week to balance out the expense.  Meatless Mondays are all the rage, so I hear...and it feels like a Monday as the kids went back to school and nursery today.  And I had to do something to pass the time until the Great British Bake Off final.

One of my Facebook friends has a vegetarian husband and occasionally sends out requests for good veggie family meals.  One of her friends recommended Veg Every Day by the River Cottage guy, Hugh whatshisface.  I've had a few people rave about his recipes to me, and after seeing the cookbook had good reviews by vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike, I impulsively bought it.  It looks promising, but it is definitely a chef's cookbook, in that there are lots of instructions like "cook this 2 minutes, then this 10 minutes, then add this and cook 5 minutes, then add THIS and cook 8 minutes, but on a lower heat, then add THIS and increase the heat and cook for 20 minutes..." and on and on it goes.  When managing kids, these instructions are a big pain in the backside.  I want to be able to throw everything in a pot in a relatively short space of time, not have 7 different additions of ingredients over the space of an hour with long sessions of simmering on different heats in between.  That kind of precision just is not going to happen, so generally when I attack his recipes I feel I'm going to have to lump things together.

I made this cabbage roll recipe once before, and while they tasted good, the cabbage leaves were too tough, so this time I decided to double the recipe for the sauce that goes in with the rolls and cover them in the oven when I cook them.  So here's what I gathered together:

First I started on the sauce.  The basics (onion, celery, carrots, and garlic) got chopped up and cooked to soften them a bit with a some thyme (sprig of thyme, Hugh? HA! I'm not buying a whole pack of fresh thyme for a lousy sprig.  Dried thyme it is) and a bay leaf:

Next time I think I'll just throw all them in together at the start.

Then in went a bottle of passata and a box of chopped tomatoes with a bit of water too.

I let that simmer for a while.  I had to - there was a baby crying.

Then I pulled the outer leaves off a cabbage.  Hugh said 12, so I picked 15, I think, as I usually need a few extra at hand just in case.  I hate having leftover filling, it feels like so much more a waste than leftover cabbage leaves.

I blanched them for a bit longer than he said, somewhere around 5 to six minutes, just to make sure I didn't end up with tough leaves again.

And on to the filling.  I cooked some onion and garlic.

To them I added currants, walnuts, lemon zest, a handful of dill, and a bunch of parsley, Last time I used sultanas and I wish I had this time as well; I hate the odd crunch that currant seeds provide.  With this ready, I put the quinoa on to cook.

Then I decided to spend some quality time with my daughter.  I felt like a smug, efficient supermum. We did puzzles, read books, laughed together...then I smelled something.

Oh, crap.

Note to self: SET THE *&%$ TIMER!  For the record, I did try the stuff on top to see if it was alright to use, but it tasted foul  Ok, so the rolls were going to have quinoa in them, but now I was out of the trendy supergrain.  While that pan soaked, I cooked some bulgur wheat and muttered to myself.

Once I managed to successfully cook the bulgur wheat, in it went with the other filling ingredients.

Oh, and an egg went in too.

Assembly time.  Did you know that the inspiration for Ford's assembly line came from watching the efficient slaughterhouses of a big American city?  Catherine was part of the assembly line today; she spooned the filling in, then I rolled up the leaves and placed them in the dish.

Aw, aren't those little bundles cute?

Then we poured the sauce over them.  No more cuteness.


On to the cauliflower.

One of the advantages of being in with the local farm folk is that you get vegetables like this:

Have you ever seen a more beautiful vegetable?

Sorry, do I sound a bit like Uncle Monty in Withnail and I?  Well, it is almost too pretty to cut, with all those mini spirals.  Almost.

One of my pet peeves is recipes that call for either zest of a lemon or the juice, but not both.  By combining the stuffed cabbage recipe with the cauliflower one, I got to use up my zested lemon.  Yay!

It's the little things, people.  So the cauliflower got chopped up and drizzled with lemon juice, olive oil, and paprika.

Into the oven went everything, and after half an hour it came out looking like this:

A sample meal for a little one, minus the dollop of sour cream:

Did the kids all love it?  Of course not, don't be ridiculous.  But they each had a few bites of their cabbage rolls and ate several pieces of cauliflower.  I feel it is an important part of childhood to be given food you do not want to eat and no alternative except for hunger.  The faces they pulled were impressive, and good practice for Hallowe'en.  I liked both recipes, though, and intend to make them again.  I'll just try not to burn the quinoa next time.

RECIPES

Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

Ingredients

12-15 outer leaves from a large Savoy cabbage

For the Tomato Sauce

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 onions, chopped

1 bay leaf

a couple pinches of dried thyme

2 carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 bottle passata

1 box chopped tomatoes

seasoning to taste

For the Filling

120g bulgur wheat or quinoa

1tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

50 sultanas

50g walnuts

zest 1 lemon

a bunch of parsley, chopped

a handful of dill, chopped

1 large egg

To make the sauce, heat olive oil in a saucepan and soften onion, bay leaf, thyme, carrots and celery.  Add garlic and cook a bit more before dumping in passata and tomatoes and maybe 200ml or so of water.  Simmer until thickened, about 15 min...or half an hour...whatever fits your schedule.  Set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and blanch the cabbage leaves for 5 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

To make the filling, cook the quinoa or bulgur wheat according to the instructions.  Heat olive oil and cook onion and garlic.  Tip it into a bowl and add quinoa/bulgur wheat, sultanas, walnuts, zest and herbs, stirring well.  Season and add egg and stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Prepare an ovenproof dish that will fit all the cabbage rolls.  Taking one leaf at a time, place a big spoonful of the filling mixture into the centre of each leaf, fold over the sides and roll up from the stalk end to make a cute bundle. Carefully place in dish seam side down and repeat until filling is used up.  Toothpicks can be used to keep leaves in place, just remember to take them out before serving to small children.  

Pour the sauce over the top and cover with foil, then bake for 35 minutes until piping hot.  Serve with sour cream.

Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon and Paprika

Ingredients

1 medium cauliflower

2 lemons

3 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Instructions

Preheat oven to 220 degrees.  Cut the cauliflower into medium florets and rinse.  Put into a large roasting tray, then drizzle over the olive oil and juice from one of the lemons.  Sprinkle over the paprika.  Cut the remaining lemon into 5 segments and scatter amongst the cauliflower.  Roast in oven for 30 minutes, until florets are turning brown at edges.

Once they are out of the oven, burn yourself by squeezing the roasted lemon segments over the cauliflower.

*I've given the temperatures as in the recipes I used, but I actually cooked both at the same time in a fan/convection oven at 200 degrees for half an hour with the cauliflower on the top rack and the cabbage rolls below