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Vegan &/or Raw

Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Gut-Loving Family Snacks

If you find feeding your family healthy food is as easy as foxtrotting up a glass wall, then this shortbread recipe is for you. Kids love it. Teens dig it. And adults can’t keep their mitts off it.

Try to find a local raw honey where you live – it will contain impressive antimicrobial and antibacterial properties. These work like a giant Pac-Man in the bloodstream. Heat treated, mainstream honey cannot boast the same benefits and can be cleverly adulterated. You might want to check out the honey documentary on Netflix right now. Creepy.

Our body will also appreciate the swag of vitamin C & antioxidants from your favourite berries. These should help slay any renegade free radicals loitering in our system.

Plus, you’ll find a consignment of vitamin E in almonds. This vitamin works synergistically with vitamin C, to pimp up our immune system and front line defence. How cool is that? I kept the best bit until last … a nifty cargo of live probiotics! You and I can neck probiotic capsules when our bodies feel like a Petri dish. But our little ones? They need our help.

This recipe is magical – enough to impress Hermione Granger.

No-Bake Probiotic Shortbread

Makes 30

  • 80ml (1/3 cup) extra virgin coconut oil
  • 7 tablespoons good runny honey
  • 250g (2&1/2 cups) ground almonds
  • 4 tablespoons raisins, dried blueberries, goji berries, and/or mulberries
  • 4-6 capsules of probiotics, or probiotic powder (I swear by Udo’s #NotSponsored!)
  • Pinch of ground turmeric (optional)

Gently melt the coconut oil with your honey. Try not to kill the honey’s health benefits with intense heat, if you managed to get your mitts on some fabulous local raw honey.

Tumble in the ground almonds and dried fruit. Now parachute each opened capsule into the shortbread dough and the optional turmeric for extra nutrition. Mix thoroughly.

Spoon onto a sheet of baking parchment, and squash together with the palm of your hands. Using another sheet of parchment atop, exercise a rolling pin over the surface and flatten the dough to a depth of 1cm or 5mm. Freeze for 2 hours.

When the kids return from school hollering for a treat, remove the dough from your freezer and carefully cut into chards of shortbread, just like the photo. These are designed to be eaten straight from frozen like ice cream cookies. They need no baking, and can be stored like this for up to 3 months. Thunderous hurrah!

February 13, 2018
Breakfast, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Pomegranate, Pistachio, Rose Water Halva

Today’s wholefoods movement is often described as the 1970’s, resuscitated on kale powder and kimchi. Please! In the 1970’s, cooking skills sucked. We were too busy lovebombing the world with geraniums.

Forty years on, our culinary skills have been heightened and honed. So yes there has been a re-awakening of wholefood ingredients, but more importantly, we see this awakening wedded to badass kitchen skills. This ain’t no hippie culture my friends. This is punk.

Great swathes of perfectly sane people have turned their attention towards mindful practices, in search of a more socially responsible roast from capitalism. But taste is at the forefront of this movement. You’ll find we don’t just do sausies. We do slow pork, where piggies have been massaged with lavender, read bedtime stories and fed bottles of rooibos tea.

Nor do we do slicepan. We do house-cultured sourdough, from heritage grains harvested by moonlight. And we do not do instant coffee. We dry hump our monthly subscription box from 3FE where the coffee beans were raised on Bach, and lightly washed with tears of joy.

We are taking unrefined ingredients and celebrating them in their most authentic form, in contrast to society’s reliance on conveyor belts and chemicals. And we are doing it with unprecedented style and skill.

Welcome to the new age rhythm of funk – food punk.

Pomegranate, Pistachio, Rose Water Halva

Serves 25

  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
  • 125ml (raw) honey
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Pinch of sea salt flakes
  • 1 x 340g jar light tahini
  • 4 tablespoons pomegranate seeds
  • Handful of shelled pistachios
  • Rosewater (optional)

Prep a small rectangular container by lining with cling film. Lunchboxes are perfect. Set aside.

On a very timid heat, melt the coconut oil to a liquid. Gently whisk in the honey, using a fork, the vanilla and the flaky salt. Keep going with the jar of tahini, working at speed so the mixture doesn’t seize.

Lastly, tumble through the pistachios and pomegranate, reserving a couple to scatter along the top.

Scrape into your prepped dish and freeze for 6 hours. Just like ice cream, it must be stored in the freezer.

You can slice delicious shards from the block of pistachio and pomegranate halva once frozen, and serve on a platter to pass around the party. Spray with a little rosewater before serving. Celestial stuff.

February 4, 2018
Lunchbox, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw

Gin & Tonics and a Buttery Walnut Whip

Christmas is about giving (out). I like to give my husband material for his new play, so I activate my ego and let it loose alongside the turkey giblets. A playwright’s worst dream is having a happy Yuletide. It gives them Writer’s Block. I would never do that to my husband.

The run up to Christmas often feels somewhere between an Alfred Hitckcock movie and a bad Wes Anderson screening. Everything appears dreamy and beautiful. But beneath the surface, our collective passive-aggressive venom is enough to alarm the UN General Assembly.

So with military incisiveness, I start the season with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) on my husband. I cannot begin to tell you how much this exercise enhances the Christmas spirit. When I’m feeling particularly generous, I even share my analysis with the in-laws.

In between, I cook, eat, feed and nark. Over the course of my theatricals, I have come to realise that irrespective of how hideously I behave, good food can mend moods and marriages.

If you’re looking for novel ideas, or trying to take the hell out of healthy, here are a few life jackets from 2016’s Sunday Independent Crimbo special. (Walnut & Rosehip Cookies, Lapsang Souchung Christmas Cake, Festive Florentines).

This pomegranate halva should add a sophisticated splash of romance to your Christmas party. One taste can ignite libido, like finding Bradley Cooper under the mistletoe.

But if you don’t want romance at your party (think family gathering) then feel free to horse into this walnut whip (recipe below). It’s got enough garlic to end up on Norway’s Richter scale. We serve it alongside special G&Ts, to take the nip off our bite (alos, below).

Merry Christmas my friends. See you in 2018.

Buttery Walnut Whip

Makes 18 pass-aroundies

 

130g good walnuts
1 fat clove of garlic
1 teaspoon ground all-spice
1-2 tablespoons water
1-2 teaspoons lemon juice
A few twists of the salt and pepper mill
Small punnet of redcurrants

Tip the walnuts, the garlic and your all-spice into a pestle and mortar. Pound for about 5 minutes, until you’ve got an oily butter. If the mixture is still crumbly, keep going my friend.

Now add the water, some lemon, and a few twists of the salt and pepper mill. Water tends to change the colour of the mixture from biscuity brown to light beige. Don’t worry – you’re on the right track. It’s really up to you how creamy or thick you want it.

Spread across discs of cucumber and crown with juicy redcurrants. If you’re crazy fancy, try filling teeny Brussel sprout leaves with this whip, and top with scarlet pomegranate seeds.

Gin & Cucumber Ice

Makes many, many ice cubes for your festive freezer

 

2 cucumbers, juiced
1 wedge of lime
25ml chilled gin
55ml chilled tonic water

To make the cucumber ice, press or juice 2 cucumbers. If you don’t have a juicer at home, you can purchase pure cucumber juice from your nearest juicer. It won’t be on their menu – you’ll need to coax them into giving it to you.

Pour and fill your empty ice tray(s) with this verdant green potion. Freeze for 6 hours before using.

A gin and tonic’s sweet spot is just about twice the amount of tonic, to gin. But some prefer a little extra tonic. Depending on how many lucky peeps you are serving, measure up, squeeze in the lime, and drop 2 cucumber ice cubes into each glass. Small, chilled glasses are best. If you want extra ice, you can always freeze some tonic water a few hours before the party. Fa la la la lahhhhhh …

Taking the hell out of healthy.

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The Virtuous Tart cookbook

December 17, 2017
A special announcement

Join me on Substack

Howdy! I’ll be deleting this website shortly. Gah! But please stay in touch – I so appreciate your loyalty and lovebombs.

You can continue to access my recipe drops over on Substack.  Hope to see you there, and to continue frolicking on this veggie-fueled dance floor.