2 years of blogging, raw sushi, and raw chilli-cinnamon-sea salt chocolates

Today marks two years since Bite-Sized Thoughts started. I have taken it as an opportunity for reflection and for edible celebration.

Raw vegetable sushi and raw chilli-cinnamon-sea salt chocolates.

On the reflection side of things, I continue to get a lot of pleasure from blogging and the blogging community. I am more creative in the kitchen than I was two years ago. I know a lot more about vegan and vegetarian cooking and eating, and have seen my eating preferences and patterns change and evolve. I have met (in a virtual sense) people with whom I feel a huge amount of connection, especially when considering that our interactions are limited to online comments and discussions.

From a blog perspective, the last year saw me switch from my blogspot address to bitesizedthoughts.com, create a (very basic) favicon for the blog, and start participating in link-up events like Ricki's Wellness Weekends, Healthy Vegan Fridays, Cityhippyfarmgirl's 'loving this week' posts, and Celia's In My Kitchen series. More recently, I changed my header again and learned how to do drop-down menus.

Bite-sized thoughts version 1 (2011-2012)

According to Google Analytics, the most frequently viewed posts in the last year were:

1. Body image and eating disorders awareness week (posted September 2011)
2. Les Mills Body Attack (posted July 2011)
3. Making non-dairy yoghurt (November 2011)
4. Sweet potato chickpea and hemp seed veggie burgers (posted August 2012)
5. Vegemite, Marmite and Promite (November 2011)
6. Raw vegan cheesecake, three ways (my one year anniversary post, March 2012)
7. Thai fish cakes, vegetarian style (March 2012)
8. Treehouses (May 2012)
9. Raspberry and white chocolate muffins, for my parents (October 2011)
10. Vegan lemon slice for a modern afternoon tea (June 2012)

I think we all have a list of amusing search terms that somehow led someone to our blog. In the last year, some of the more amusing phrases to lead here include...

• "Yılbaşı yemekleri."  Apparently, this is Turkish for New Year's Eve dinners. How and why multiple people have used it to search for this site is beyond me.
• "New york times white bean pasta."  I'm pretty sure no New York Times recipes are on my blog. And hardly any pasta ones.
• "Are fish cakes vegetarian?"  Um, no. 
• "Good thoughts in english with images."  What?
• "Bicep hurts shooting basketball."  This one I understand. I feel your pain.
•  "Bite hair."  I don't really want to know what this is about.
• "Green and black's dark chocolate tastes like liquorice?"  No, it doesn't, but now I wish it did.
• "How do I know if I broke my toe."  Frankly, I don't think I'm the person you should be asking...

Bite-sized thoughts version 2 (2012-2013)

Moving to the edible part of today's post, I realised that I set the bar a bit high last year by making three types of raw vegan cheesecake for my one year blog anniversary. Such foolish enthusiasm! I don't have three varieties of raw vegan dessert for you today, but I decided to stick with the raw theme for the simple reason that I find it fun. My diet is not predominantly or even mostly raw, but I find that making raw vegan dishes is even more rewarding than making vegan ones. It is like kitchen alchemy.

Raw sushi must be one of the easiest raw dishes to make, although I got into a muddle about whether mirin and rice wine vinegar are technically raw or not. (Usually I wouldn't worry, but if I was calling this raw, I wanted to make sure it actually was.) My version uses tahini for flavour and carrot, capsicum and watercress as vegetable fillings. If you like avocado, that would be a great option to include too.

My sushi is always messy and this raw version is no exception. For images of neater raw sushi, I recommend the pictures in Hannah's recent post on Wayfaring Chocolate!

Raw vegetable sushi

Makes 2 large handrolls, or 10 large slices.

Raw and vegan.

Food processor required.

Print recipe

Ingredients

1/4 head cauliflower

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 - 1/2 tsp agave nectar (to taste)

Pinch salt

2 tbsp unhulled tahini

2 sheets nori (dried, not roasted)

1 medium carrot, cut into thin slices

1 small capsicum, cut into thin slices

A thick handful of watercress

Method

Process the cauliflower in a food processor until fine and rice-like in texture. Mix through the apple cider vinegar, agave and salt and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Take one sheet of nori and lay flat on a chopping board, or sushi mat if you have one (I don't). Spread approximately half of the cauliflower mix over half of the nori sheet, leaving an inch at the bottom edge and several inches at the top edge. 

Spread 1 tablespoon of the tahini over the cauliflower, and then place your vegetable fillings in a row towards the bottom of the sheet. Roll up and seal nori edges with water as required.

Repeat for the second nori sheet. 

Slice and serve.

This is, obviously, different in texture and flavour to rice-filled sushi. If you don't expect a like-for-like substitution, I think most people would enjoy it. It is certainly an easy way to boost your intake of vegetables, and I think the mix of cauliflower rice with fruit fillings would be an enjoyable combination too. I'd also like to experiment further with including dried herbs and seasonings in the cauliflower mix.

Raw sushi is all well and good, but I will confess to being more excited about the second dish I made. These individual raw chocolates are made with cocoa butter, cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, chilli flakes, cinnamon and sea salt. I loved them.

Before looking into raw chocolate making, I didn't really have any idea how it was done. It turns out that it's surprisingly simple. You need to invest in cacao butter, and may also want to purchase cacao nibs, but you're likely to have most of the other necessary components in your kitchen. What is more, while I spent $30 on the cacao butter, nibs and raw cacao powder, those purchases should allow me to make another 3 or 4 batches similar to the one below. This places the cost per 100g of chocolate in the region of $4 - $5, including the cost of other ingredients, whereas commercial raw chocolate costs at least $10 per 100g (around me anyway).

Raw cacao butter and raw cacao nibs.

Cost aside, there are other advantages to making chocolate this way yourself: it is really fun, and you design your flavour. The following recipe takes you through what I did, but you can modify the cocoa percentage and the flavour add-ins to taste.

Raw chilli-cinnamon-sea salt dark chocolate

Makes about 240g, or 24 small chocolates.

Raw and vegan.

71% cocoa content.

Inspiration drawn from Choc Chic's simple raw chocolate recipe, 
Indigo Herbs post on how to make raw chocolate, 
and the chocolate making process outlined on Pana Chocolate.

Print recipe

Ingredients

60g (~1/2 cup) raw cacao butter

80g (~3/4 cup) raw cacao powder (or regular / roasted cacao powder, if preferred)

30g (~1/4 cup) raw cacao nibs (or more cacao powder)

65-70g (~1/4 cup) agave nectar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp chilli flakes (or to taste)

Method

Lay out individual silicon moulds for setting the chocolate in, or use cupcake liners if you don't have moulds available.

Create a double-boiler system by placing a glass dish on top of a large saucepan half-filled with water. Heat the water over low heat.

If you want to ensure the chocolate is raw, use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature of the glass dish and ensure it stays below 42'C / 108'F. If you aren't worried about the raw aspect, keeping the water in the saucepan below simmering point should approximate a temperature below 42'C anyway.

Add the cacao butter to the glass dish and stir regularly until it has fully melted. This step may take up to 5 minutes.

When the cacao butter has melted, add the cacao nibs and cacao powder. Stir until dissolved (the nibs will still be identifiable).

Add the agave and stir until incorporated, and then add the vanilla, sea salt, cinnamon and chilli flakes (or other flavourings to taste).

Transfer into your moulds / cupcake liners and set in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Left to right: Cacao butter in unmelted form; melted cacao butter; liquid raw chocolate.

I can only describe this chocolate as wonderful. I am sure I am a little biased, and I'd love it if you tried a version out yourself and let me know how you got on. For now, though, let me say that if I bought this in a shop I would definitely buy it again.

The chilli gives a subtle kick without being overpowering, the sea salt comes through in waves, and the cinnamon is only just detectable but works to brings the different flavours together. The nibs provide a subtle texture contrast and the chocolate is dark and deep and slightly sweet. I think the texture of the cacao nibs also helps to avoid (or, perhaps, to distract from) the grittiness that sometimes accompanies raw chocolate.

I can not wait to make more, and to try different flavours.

I am sending these recipes to Raw Foods Thursdays 14th March 2013, and Ricki's Wellness Weekend 14th to 18th March 2013.  

Happy two years from bite-sized thoughts!

Thank you to each and every one of you who stops by, leaves a comment, or lets me know that you've tried out a recipe - you all contribute to the pleasure I get from blogging and blog reading.

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Christmas food ideas 2012: Brown rice mango sushi

It is possible that this food idea will be better suited to those of you in southern hemisphere climates than northern hemisphere ones. Sushi for Christmas is a bit of an outlandish idea in its own right. If it is snowing outside, adding fresh mango to the mix may seem bizarre as well as impractical.

If you are somewhere cold, this may be one occasion when tinned mango could stand in. Otherwise, a pumpkin and tahini filling was a serious alternate contender for this, and I am pretty sure pumpkin will be easy to come by if it's winter where you are. (If anyone does try pumpkin and tahini, please let me know how it goes!)

In the form I made it, this easy dish has mango, carrot and tofu as the sushi fillings. I used brown rice instead of sushi rice and the result was a meal (or snack) I could happily eat every day. It's not traditional Christmas fare, but mango and Christmas go together in an Australian kind of way, and this would be perfect for any pre-Christmas events when finger food is required.

I actually used pre-flavoured tofu for this. I rarely buy those packets (on account of the cost), but when they're on sale I tend to stock up. This was a Thai flavoured block, which paired perfectly with the mango. If you were using plain tofu, a simple marinade of soy sauce, fresh grated ginger and chilli would work well. That had been my plan prior to finding the flavoured tofu, and I would stir-fry the tofu ahead of time so it can be cooled before the sushi rolling stage.

Really, though, you can modify this dish to suit whatever you have to hand. It is more of a concept than a recipe. You may want to use cucumber instead of carrot (I don't like cucumber), put avocado in (I don't like that either), or even skip the tofu altogether. Sushi is flexible like that.

Brown rice mango sushi

Easy, festive, and perfect for summer (or for dreaming of summer)
Makes about 20 sushi pieces
Vegan

Print recipe

Ingredients
1 cup brown rice

2 cups water

2 tbsp mirin or rice vinegar

3 sheets nori

1 large mango, cut into thin slices (you can use tinned if necessary)

1 large carrot, cut into thin slices

200g marinated and cooked tofu, cut into thin slices

Method
Ahead of time, cook the brown rice in the 2 cups of water using the absorption method (cover, bring to the boil, reduce heat, simmer for 15-20 minutes). Allow the rice to cool. Stir the mirin through the rice and refrigerate until needed.

Take one sheet of nori and spoon cooled rice into a strip, approximately 2 inches in from one end. Top the rice with sliced mango, carrot, and tofu. Roll in from the near end and use water to seal the other end after rolling.

Repeat for the other sheets of nori.

Allow the sushi to chill in the refrigerator before slicing with a sharp knife.

I am not sure if this will feature on our Christmas day, but it will definitely be appearing again either before Christmas, or as a staple of my summer lunches.

I am submitting this to Healthy Vegan Friday #21, hosted by Gabby, Shelby and Carrie.

Other 2012 Christmas food ideas: Chocolate, almond and goji berry truffle balls, and bejewelled couscous salad.
My 2011 Christmas food posts can be found here. 

How do you feel about non-traditional Christmas foods at Christmas time?

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Sushi salad, inspired by Giraffe

I must admit, I had fun naming this post. It may not be a title that makes sense at first glance. I am referring, you see, to Giraffe of the restaurant rather than animal variety.

Giraffe is an English restaurant chain that I had seen on many occasions but not eaten in until our latest trip. On looking into its origins, it seems that the first Giraffe store opened in Hampstead in 1998. By the end of 2011, the chain had grown to 45 restaurants and produced a Giraffe cookbook. They must be doing something right!

Our Giraffe visit was on our very last day in England, as we were exploring the town where Mr Bite spent his childhood years. I had always thought of him as growing up in a suburb of Birmingham, but in fact he lived in a separate town just outside of Birmingham. Solihull took me by surprise in this regard, and the town centre was as far removed from the hustle of Birmingham (which will get posted eventually...) as one could imagine. It was a beautiful town, well-equipped and scenic and with appealing architecture.

Solihull town centre

Giraffe was located in a fairly new shopping centre in the heart of the town. I was enticed by the soba noodle and edamame salad listed on their menu, and we agreed that the relaxed restaurant vibe was appropriate for our final lunch in England. The chain's motto is to provide "freshly cooked food for everyone served to the sound of great music — guaranteed to make you feel good!". The reference to music makes me feel badly for not noticing it while we were there, but I agree that the menu would be likely to have something for everyone. Main meal options include a range of burgers and focaccias, Mexican enchiladas  various meat and fish dishes, Asian-style noodles, risottos, and plenty  of salads.

Unfortunately, once we got inside the soba noodle salad had disappeared off the menu. This was a bit perplexing and it turns out that their menu had recently been updated, with the changes not yet made to the exterior version. The soba noodle salad had been replaced by a tabbouleh one, which looked nice but didn't appeal to me on the day.

Fortunately, my replacement order was good enough to make thoughts of noodles fade into the background. I asked for their 'California sushi rice salad with oak smoked salmon', but minus the salmon. I was delighted to have the waiter take time to ask if I was vegetarian, and if so, if I wanted something else instead of salmon (or to have the dish charged at a reduced cost). I opted to have edamame beans and it was a real pleasure to have the staff be so accommodating and genuinely happy to modify the dish for me.

The sushi salad came with mango and a wasabi lime dressing, plenty of broccoli, and sheets of seaweed underneath. It was wonderful. Mr Bite had a vegetarian focaccia that was reportedly good but not stellar, but I don't think I would have changed any aspect of my meal. The edamame beans, on the side, were a lovely addition and were flavoured with chilli and sea salt.

Over the weekend, I got around to creating my own version of sushi salad. It is only loosely based on the above dish - I added strawberries instead of mango, used different flavourings, and tweaked the vegetables. It was equally good. Sushi is such a versatile dish and salad versions of it are the same - easy to modify to taste and circumstance and convenience.

Sushi salad

This makes 2 main-meal serves, but can easily be adapted

Vegan

Print recipe

Ingredients

1 cup sushi (short-grain) rice, rinsed in cold water 

1.5 – 2 cups water 

2 tbsp rice vinegar 

4 sheets dried seaweed (available in most supermarkets) 

1 bunch bok choi or pak choi, rinsed and chopped 

½ - 1 cup broccoli florets 

½ cup shelled edamame beans (available in Asian supermarkets) 

3 tbsp sweet chilli sauce (or any other Asian sauce of choice) 

Pickled ginger and strawberries, to serve 

Method

In a medium saucepan, add the sushi rice to the water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 12 – 14 minutes or according to packet instructions. Allow to stand for 5 – 10 minutes, then transfer to a bowl and mix in the rice vinegar. 

While the rice is cooling, steam your bok choi / pak choi and broccoli for 5 minutes, or until just cooked but still crisp. In a separate saucepan, cook the edamame beans in boiling water for 5 minutes. 

When the rice has cooled, line two large bowls with 2 sheets of seaweed each. Add half of the rice to each bowl along with half of the vegetables (bok choi / pak choi, broccoli, edamame beans) and half of the sauce. Top with pickled ginger and strawberries and serve.

Beautifully simple. Not quite as well-located as the version I ate in Solihull, but beautiful nonetheless!

For another take on sushi salad, check out Johanna's post on Green Gourmet Giraffe last week.
Are you a fan on this twist on regular sushi?

This post is part of my Vegan Month of Food contributions for October 2012. 

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