Posts

Posted on

Working On the Table of Contents

Spending a little time this morning trying to figure out what I want to include in Vegan Serendib. I’d really like to finalize the table of contents by the end of April, and I think that’s do-able. The plan was to remove all the meat and fish and egg recipes from Feast (about 40), and replace those with 40 new vegan recipes from Sri Lanka.

The problem isn’t finding those — the problem is narrowing down which ones to include. So far, I’m pretty happy with all of these, which means I probably have room for about 10-15 more. I kind of lost track of my test cooks last fall when things got busy (I blame the pandemic and switching to online teaching), so I need to ask people to start test cooking recipes again.

I kind of love that the Vegetables section has expanded to Savory Fruits, Flowers, and Vegetables. There’s a rose & hibiscus salad coming, for example. 🙂

*****

SAVORY FRUITS, FLOWERS, and VEGETABLES:

• Bottle Gourd and Spinach Curry: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161550809829616

• Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Jaggery, Balsamic, and Cayenne:

https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161625256254616

• Green Chili Curry: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10162062139529616

• Green Tomato and Lentil Curry: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161542190374616

– tested by Taylor, Lucinda, Jennifer, Linda

• Dried Hibiscus Poriyal: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161534798914616

• Hibiscus (Shoeflower) Curry / Sembaruthipoo Kari: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161535931054616

• Pineapple Curry with Coconut Milk and Saffron: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161949008449616

• Mild Green Plantain Curry: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161568742619616

• Spicy Plantain Curry: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161568698699616

• Tempered Green Plantain Peel: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161570297779616

• Pumpkin Curry: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161581447339616

ACCOMPANIMENTS:

• Green Tomato Chutney with Apples: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161531491924616

– tested by Jude and Jessica

• Quick-Pickled Cucumber-Carrot Relish: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161534135234616

– tested by Maya

• Eggplant Pickle / Brinjal Moju: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161597857279616

• Spicy Pineapple Pickle (Achar): https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161948554219616

• Plantain Sambol: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161569885339616

• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161582154884616

SOUPS:

• Curried Pumpkin Soup: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161582206649616

GRAINS:

• Keerai (Spinach) Pittu: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10162072391064616

• Milk Rice / Kiri Bath (with Bottle Gourd variation): https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161553704479616

• Tamarind Rice with Black Lentils: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161951228944616

• Toasted Coconut and Sesame Rice, with Black Lentils: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161952261869616

SWEETS:

• Lime & Coconut Scones, with Lime Glaze: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161969747104616

• Mango-Ginger Scones, topped with Jaggery: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10161854232729616

• Irasavalli Kizhangu Kanji / Purple Yam Pudding or Porridge: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10162109419154616

Posted on

Irasavalli Kizhangu Kanji / Purple Yam Pudding or Porridge

(30 minutes, serves 4)

This is one of the prettiest Sri Lankan dishes — the color is sure to delight dinner guests and children. It’s healthy too! Yams are good for you, and so is coconut milk; you can feel happy serving this dessert to one and all. Irasavalli is also often eaten for breakfast, in the same way as a rice congee (or oatmeal).

Purple yam (Dioscorea alata), also known as ube (Philippines) or isu ewura (Nigeria), is native to Southeast Asia. It can be found fresh and frozen in your local Asian grocery stores.

2 c. purple yams, peeled and diced
2 c. coconut milk
1 c. water
1/4 c. sugar or honey
1 T lime juice
pinch of salt

1 drop rose essence, or pinch of cardamom (optional)

1. In a saucepan, combine yams, coconut milk, and water. Bring to a boil and cook ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until yams are cooked through.

2. Remove from heat and either mash with the back of a wooden spoon, or use a blender (an immersion blender makes it easy) to puree the yam and combine it with the coconut milk.

3. When well blended, return to heat, add remaining ingredients, and simmer 10-15 minutes more, stirring, until pudding is thick and starting to pull away from the sides of the pan.

4. Serve hot, with your choice of garnishes — ripe banana, ripe mango, coconut flakes are all good options.

NOTE: If you’re using frozen yams, they may have lost some color in the freezing process. If the purple is not sufficiently purple for your delight, do feel free to add a drop or two of food coloring.

Posted on

Sri Lankan Sesame Seed Balls Experiments

Well, that was a little frustrating. I tried making two different versions of Sri Lankan sesame seed balls, hoping to include one in Vegan Serendib, and I’m afraid I didn’t like either one. They’re both Jaffna recipes, Ella Urundai (sesame fudge) and Sesame Seed Pori Ma, and both made with roasted sesame seeds, rice floor, and jaggery.

They came out looking fine (though I did need to add a little sesame oil to help them bind together). But I just don’t like the taste — it has an edge of bitterness, and the roasted rice flour is kind of grainy even after binding with the flour and jaggery.

It might’ve worked better if I’d done a jaggery syrup, and combined in that? I’m not sure. But I think I’m going to try a different approach if I do this again — there are Sinhalese recipes for sesame balls made with jaggery and coconut — no rice flour, and that sounds better. I’ve also seen variations adding in Medjool dates, which sounds yum. (I’m not positive I actually like sesame candy, though, which might be the real problem.)

Alas. Sometimes, experiments don’t work out. We still learn things. Science!

Posted on

Easter Menu:

• lamb shanks braised in red wine with onions and carrots
• sliced ham
• roasted new potatoes
• roasted asparagus
• roasted sweet potatoes and onions
• sautéed sugar snap peas
• Hawaiian rolls with salted Irish butter
• clementines and strawberries
• candy-coated chocolates

• forsythia/pandan cake

Good mix of kid-friendly and adult-fancy dishes, and all relatively easy cooking too. All the roast veggies were just tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper.

Posted on

Forsythia & Pandan Cake

This didn’t quite work — I wanted to try making a forsythia and pandan cake. Made forsythia tea, subbed in a cup of it for a cup of water in the cake mix. (I also added an extra egg and subbed in melted butter for the oil in the cake mix.) But I don’t think I can really taste any difference; I’m not sure forsythia is strong enough to overcome a yellow box cake.

AND I added pandan powder to make some of the batter green; I got a two-color cake effect when I cut into the baked cake, but I honestly couldn’t taste the pandan either. (Pandan has sort of a grassy-coconut flavor.) Pandan extract next time, I think — pandan powder has failed me.

But it’s still pretty, so that’s something, and the kids thought it was delicious. They’re not so picky about cake, though. 🙂

Posted on

Making Forsythia Tea

Harvest blossoms, pour boiling water over, let sit overnight to cool completely, strain.

Once you have the flower tea, you can boil with sugar to make a simple syrup for drinks and desserts, or add honey to make forsythia honey, use pectin, lemon juice, and sugar to make forsythia jelly, etc. and so on.

Posted on

Boxing

Kavi tells me that “boxing” videos are a thing on TikTok. I’m not deft enough to pack and record myself packing on video at the same time, but the spring Patreon Earth tier boxes are going out today, so here’s a set of photos — sort of like a time-lapse video? 🙂 (There’s some variation in the boxes, depending on what I have on hand, but this is basically what’s going in this tier.)

– tissue paper

– caramel chocolate, coconut rock, dragonfruit chocolate (with white pepper and citrus), ruby chocolate, passionfruit marshmallow

– unicorn hibiscus chocolate (with Celtic sea salt and pounded hibiscus)

– hibiscus & vanilla flower cookie

– coconut-cashew milk toffee crumble (nice on ice cream, yogurt, stirred into granola or cereal, or just eaten straight out of the bag)

– more coconut rock (this one is variable, filing up with extra sweets)

– pandan crinkle cookie (ditto variable)

– snowdrop soap (unscented)

– dried flower & resin bookmark

– photo mini bookmarks

– confetti! 🙂