Market Finds and French Cauliflower Soup

Since we moved house, we've started buying our fruit and veges from the CERES market. I've really been enjoying it. It's a wonderful and novel experience to shop under blue (or grey) skies instead of fluorescents, the smell of manure from the animals in the next paddock wafting to your nostrils. The food tastes much better than supermarket produce – in part because it hasn't been sitting in cold storage for months, waiting until their nutrients reach the ideal state of degredation.

Part of what I love about market shopping, though, is finding food that you don't find in supermarkets. Here's what we found last week:

Oranges

See that on the right, with the slightest hint of a blush? That's a ruby grapefruit. See those segments on the left? See the half fruit sitting to the back? That's all an orange. You can't tell from the half (curse perspective), but the segments give it away: it's the same size as the grapefruit. Enormous, well-fertilized oranges. Mmm. We bought one each and they were some of the sweetest oranges I've had in some time.


Potatoes



I'm used to having two choices for potatoes at the supermarket: white or brown. A few weeks ago I was shopping at the Queen Victoria Market's organic section, and found a selection of about eight or nine different varieties, with a sign posted to let you know what the different varieties were good for (I think we got Kipfler, in the end).

These are a type of potato I'd never seen before. The market labelled them as "King Edward, also known as Pink-Eye", but the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water notes King Edward and Pink-Eye potatoes as two different cultivars. It's probably a Pink-Eye, based on the description given by DPIW.

Steph didn't appreciate their little dark pink eyes. She found them creepy. I read Neil Gaiman, myself, and write stories featuring fortune-telling dead men. I enjoy creepy.

Romanesco


This vegetable lurking in a rather sinister fashion in the shadows is called a romanesco cauliflower – or broccoli, or cabbage, depending who you speak to and what language you're speaking in. It's a brassica, like cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli, and I can confidently state that it tastes similar to cauliflower when cooked. I first heard of it on the SurviveLA blog on a post about purple cauliflower (!) and have wanted to try it since. I was thrilled to find it sitting nonchalantly on a barrow at the market last weekend.

I find Romanesco so fascinating because its structure is fractal – a small part reflects the whole:

Steph found this creepy, too. She said it looked like an alien creature that was going to come and eat us in our sleep. I have no explanation for her strange fear of vegetables.


I have noticed that I tend to post an inordinate amount of soup recipes, and as we're moving into winter, that is, frankly, unlikely to change. Perhaps I should write a recipe book: 365 Days of Vegan Soup.

This one is a French-influenced creamy soup with cauliflower and romanesco. There is, perhaps against type, no onions in it, as my girlfriend had just made an onion tart the previous day. The herbs were meant to be thyme, rosemary and basil, as I had just learnt from Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila Latourrette that these are the Provençal herbs. My education was furthered by discovering we had no thyme nor basil in our pantry. This has since been remedied. If you wish for authenticity, you can use the Provençal herbs. I promise it tastes good both ways.

French Cauliflower Soup


1 cauliflower head, chopped
1/2 romanesco head, chopped
2 potatoes, cubed
7–8 garlic cloves, chopped finely
2 L vege "chicken" stock
2 tsp pepper
generous pinch each dried marjoram, sage, rosemary and basil
2 tB mustard
1 1/2 cups oat milk (or other non-dairy milk)

Combine the vegetables, garlic, stock and herbs in a large pot, and simmer until vegetables are tender (about 10–20 minutes – I must confess I'm not much of a one for watching the clock). Stir through the mustard, puree, and stir in the oat milk.

Serve with a little more black pepper sprinkled on top.

Serves 6.

Apple Morris Cake

This was going to be "harvest apple cake", but I thought, how often does morris dancing get a dish named after it? Not often, I'd wager.

I made this cake to take around to some (morris-dancing) friends' house. The day before we all danced out at a harvest cider festival, and received some apple juice and scrumpy. In celebration, I crammed apples into this cake recipe any way I could, until it was bursting at the seams with appley goodness.

This cake is based on a mud cake recipe, but since it has almost no chocolate in it, it can't really be termed a mud cake. It did have the denseness and moistness of mud cake, though. It is a very appley, spicy cake. Note that if you don't have access to scrumpy (or apple cider), apple juice will do just as well. Similarly, if you don't have apple concentrate, you can either cook down apple juice until it thickens to a syrup, or you can use a liquid sweetener of your choice, like maple syrup or agave.

I'm afraid I forgot to take a photo before I came home again with the empty cake tin. Sorry.

Apple morris cake

Icing

1 cup almond meal
1/3 cup apple juice
1 tB apple concentrate
1 tsp peanut oil, other nut oil, or neutral-tasting oil (peanut is what I have on hand)
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup cornflour (optional: chill icing for 15 minutes or so, and add if it still needs thickening)

Cake

1 apple (for apple sauce)
40g dark chocolate
1/2 cup oat milk (or other non-dairy milk)
1/2 cup apple juice
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 tB apple concentrate
1 tsp vanilla essence (or 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste)
Egg replacer equiv. to 2 eggs (I used 2[1tB flaxseed + 3 tB water])
1/4 cup self-raising flour*
1 cup plain flour
1 tB cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
100g tahini


First, prepare the apple sauce. Chop the apple, peeling it if you're fancy (and don't want bits of apple peel in the cake; I think it adds texture). Put in a small saucepan, filling the saucepan about half-full with water, and place on the stove. Cook for about 15 mins, or until the apple is tender. When apple is done, puree it in your food processor, or mortar and pestle.

Meanwhile, prepare the icing. Combine all ingredients in a bowl or food processor, and combine thoroughly. The mixture will be sloppy, but don't be disheartened. It thickens upon standing (and refrigeration). Chill.

Place chocolate, milk, apple juice, concentrate and sugar together in a double boiler. Stir together, and when smooth, remove from heat. Prepare egg replacer with vanilla, and add to liquid ingredients.

Combine flours, cocoa and spices in a medium bowel. Add liquid mixture a little bit at a time and stir until smooth. Add tahini, and stir to combine, then add apple sauce.

Pour mixture into a greased 7-inch circular cake tin and bake for 1 1/4 hours. Allow cake to cool in tin, then turn out and ice. If icing is too thick to spread easily, let it stand at room temperature for 15 minutes or so, then try again.


* 1 cup of self-raising flour is roughly equivalent to 1 cup of plain flour and 2 tsp baking powder.