Vegan &/or Raw

If Shakespeare was reincarnated, this would be it. Cold Brew Coffee.

Make it immediately. Today. Now. For wellness junkies, you can offset the caffeine indulgence with a field of kale later. Or try this cold brew cacao instead.

Cold brew is simply an easy way of making coffee concentrate. Instead of relying on heat to extract the flavour from the coffee beans, you’ll be relying on a full moon and pheromones. I leave mine overnight in the fridge, after an interactive chorus of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. In the morning, all that’s left to do is strain and serve over ice. It’s enough to incite poetry in a three-toed onglet.

Because the coffee beans do not socialise with intense heat, the result is a smoother, lighter, sweeter kava with an unexpected smack of hard rock.

One final FYI; cold brew coffee is bodaciously good with macadamia nutmilk. Just soak 100g of maca nuts in water for two hours. Ditch the soak water, and spin in a blender with 250ml of fresh water or cold brew coffee. Strain through your cheesecloth, chill in the fridge, and summon when required.

Cold Brew Coffee

4-8 servings

1 litre cold filtered water

220g coffee beans

1 nutmilk bag or cheesecloth

1 Roughly grind your coffee beans to a super-coarse crumb.

2 In a tall Kilner jar, or French Press, add the filtered water to your coarse coffee beans. I like to make a ceremony out of it. The soundtrack to Star Wars is not inappropriate.

3 Seal with a lid. If using a French Press, don’t push down – just ensure no oxygen sneaks in through the spout. Leave the beans to fraternise with the filtered water in the fridge overnight, or for up to 24 hours (the sweet spot).

4 When the brew is ready, strain twice through a nut milk bag or cheesecloth (or plunge the French Press). The double filtration ensures every last scrap of silt disappears. Compost the coffee beans, or use them in the shower as a bodyscrub mixed up with olive oil.

5 Refrigerate your cold brew coffee for up to 6 days. Serve with an audience, over ice. Or use this recipe for hazelnut milk, using 2 cups of water in place of 3 cups of water.

My attempt to stay well-informed with world politics is at odds with my attempt to stay sane these days. It’s increasingly necessary to distract my head from translating Trump’s alternative facts and brain farts.

I console myself with spectacularly weird recipes like this plant-powered bacon. Know what I mean? The more arcane the recipe, the longer I spend away from US politics and Cyclone Twitter. It’s kind of like hacking into my own network of synapses, and writing in some anti-viral code to stop my adrenal glands from imploding. I highly recommend it.

Back to plant-powered bacon. Yes. Meat-free rashers. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy meat. But I find myself wondering whether future generations will look back and yak at the idea of supermarkets selling solid lumps of animal flesh. If you arrived on Earth today and saw how we dismembered other living creatures, then sold them in plastic boxes, you’d think that we were greasy psychopaths. (Some of us are. See first paragraph).

But for now, the mass manufacturing of meat limbs seems perfectly acceptable. Strange, eh? (Come to think of it, we’d probably find our obsession with Wow Brows and golf equally disquieting).

If society’s relationship with factory meat seems disturbing, could we start buying less of it? Give sales a massive wedgie? I’d love to see footfall directed back into our butchers, where it mindfully and respectfully belongs. We’d also be doing our wallet, our health and our environment a whopping great service. Look, I’m pretty caffeinated right now, and this aubergine bacon is making me disproportionately emotional. Try it.

1 large aubergine

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle chilli

1/2 tablespoon tamari soya sauce

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon rapadura or coconut sugar

3 tablespoons filtered water

Using a sharp potato peeler, thinly slice long strips of aubergine. Give the aub a slight turn every slice. The idea is to leave a small strip of peel on each piece, and work around the aubergine. Compost the seedy centre.

Lay the strips out on a cutting board. Sprinkle evenly with your salt and let sit for 1 hour to draw out all the moisture. Pat dry with kitchen towel, and wipe away as much salt as you can. Whisk the remaining ingredients together and let the slices marinade for at least 1 hour, but frankly as long as you fancy.

Preheat the oven to 120C. Transfer the marinated aubs onto a roasting tray (unlined) and bake for 70-90 mins, or until dry, CRISP and deeper in colour. You can do this in a dehydrator at a lower temperature for longer.

Aubergine bacon makes a kickass DVD snack with some popcorn, or as a breakfast with avo toast.

And in other news, THE VIRTUOUS TART cookbook has gone paperback in Ireland. Which means another fun cover shot with Jo Murphy! This is what you’ll spot in bookstores across the country …