New Years Eve Party

For New Years eve I decided to throw a little get together with some of my closest friends.

I've never gone wrong with Not Quite Nigella's recipes, so most of these are from her wonderful site.

This dessert was a last minute decision, I had all the ingredients already and just needed coconut and it just looked so darn good. It was incredible. If it wasn't for the tedious nature of making coconut butter, I'd be making this all. the. time. I've actually made coconut butter before and it took even longer than this, mainly because 1) I was using shredded coconut and 2) I wasn't adding much water to help it along. The water really is so necessary.

I did the same thing as NQN except for a few modifications, click here for the recipe. I blended 2.5 cups of desiccated coconut as last time in making coconut butter I didn't think I used enough. It starts as a flour consistency, then it lumps together and finally forms a butter like texture. Hallelujah. It only takes forever though considering you need to scrape down the sides and stop the processor ever so often to prevent overheating. Mine actually overheated awhile ago and once it gets too hot it just stops on its own. It's one from target and cost $20, I love it.

Then I added about 4 tablespoons of water, used a ripe banana, 2 tablespoons of raw honey, 1 tsp of a good quality vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Then after that was done, I added in a cup of frozen blueberries (cut in half). I also then lined a takeaway container and put it in the freezer overnight.

It has a mild coconut flavour and slightly sweet with a bit of texture from the coconut

Another dessert I made was a mango and blueberry vegan cheesecake inspired by this that is a fair bit cheaper.

The last time I made a vegan cheesecake I used a cake tin that was 8 inches in diameter that was far too big, resulting in a very thin cake. This time, I made the base and saw that a 6 inch cake tin would be better, even though the original recipe uses an 8inch.

Fo the base: I just got a packet of raw mixed nuts and separated them
1 cup almonds
1/2 cup hazlenuts (not enough almonds in the original packet).
3 cups of cut up pitted dates (woolworths brand, only $2 and tastes like medjool dates but slightly less sticky and sweet). I poured hot water over them, removed the hard skin and cut them up.

For the middle:
I used 2 cups of soaked cashew nuts (soaked overnight).
2 frozen overripe bananas (sliced)
1/3 cup of maple syrup
1/3 cup lite coconut milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the top:
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup mango
1 frozen sliced banana
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

To make:
1. Blend almonds and hazelnuts until chopped then add in chopped dates until sticky. Press into cake tin and put in freezer.
2. Blend all the ingredients in the middle layer until smooth. Pour 3/4 into cake tin (use 1/4 for top layer) Put back in freezer. One thing I did wrong was I put all my bananas in one bowl to freeze. Then put them all in the middle layer instead of reserving one for the top layer.
3. For the top layer, I blended the 1/4 left from the middle, mango, banana, blueberries and cinnamon. I left out the maple syrup and dates as it was already quite sweet from the mango. I put this back in the fridge and then blended it again. Poured it into the cake tin and I put it back in the freezer.

I think this would work if you switched up the fruits too, so maybe use a berry and another fruit that's in season. Pitted dates and frozen fruits do work though.

I found the base was way too sweet for me but I enjoyed the other layers, it has quite an overwhelming banana taste though. Next time I would reduce the number of dates in the base to 2 cups and also reduce the amount of maple syrup in the middle to 1/4 cup.

Some other desserts present included: coconut and pandan cake and rocky road. The coconut and pandan cake was extremely light and moist, not oily at all, not overly sweet and had a very mild coconut and pandan flavour. Similar texture to an airier sponge cake.

For snacks:
I also made 2 dips, both served with toasted lebanese bread.

One was NQN's tuna dip which I followed exactly. The flavours marry well together, it's perfectly balanced and reminds me of a pate (but with tuna). It has a vinegary taste which is offset by the creaminess from the residual oil (from the tuna) and the mayo. It was a huge hit

I also made this hummus recipe with some additions.

Basically blended a can of chickpeas (skin removed), save 1/4 liquid, a crushed clove of garlic and 2 tablespoons of hulled tahini. Then added 3/4 juice of a lemon, cumin, tiniest bit of chill powder, salt, 1/4 reserved liquid. I like that it doesn't have a ton of olive oil like a lot of other recipes and it's quick.

I removed the skin beforehand to make it creamier, crushed the garlic clove. My favourite hummus is still the Aldi one and an Obela brand pine nut one.

For main:

I made NQN's Singaporean noodles which was really good. I also added in quite a lot of water towards the end because I prefer wetter noodles and stirred it quite a bit to break up the noodles. I also reduced the curry powder to 3 tablespoons

I also made a watermelon, feta and mint salad. I used 1/4 of a watermelon, 50g of feta and a few torn up mint leaves. I didn't mind it but I wouldn't make it again, it was refreshing though.

Some other mains included potato puffs and these chicken bites (which had garlic butter inside)

I hope you all have a very happy new year!

Dips!

Tzatziki from a Woolworths magazine:

I added 2 tbsp of chopped fresh mint, 1.5 cups greek yogurt, 1 medium zucchini (said finely chopped but I grated mine), 1tbsp of lemon juice (should be fresh, I used bottled and it tastes fine), 1 clove of minced garlic and stirred it up. Tasted really good with indian curry tune on crackers/ bread.

Almond Butter: 

Roast almonds, lay flat until browned and wait till they've cooled.

then Blend!

It'll start looking fine and loose and then like this, you'll have to scrape down the sides a few times. Maybe try short pulses until it gets smooth. 

To prevent overheating, stop it and you can come back to it. I broke my food processor but letting it run for the full 20 minutes at a time. 

It'll start looking smoother (usually around the 15 min mark). Keep blending till you get the consistency you want

 A 500g bag of almonds makes a full-sized bottle

I find it a lot easier and nicer with roasted nuts than raw nuts, but both taste quite good. If you're roasting your own, definitely let them cool first to prevent over heating. 

I've made an almond, brazil and cashew one which is really good. I've also tried walnut, coconut and maple syrup, macadamia and coconut and roasted macadamia with sea salt and honey (my favourite). In the future, I plan to make coconut butter, which involves processing shredded coconut. 

Donna Hay's Fresh & Light

I thought this was appropriate as a first post given my blog is called coconut & mango and this post features both those ingredients. 

Last year, I bought Miss Hay's cookbook 'Fresh and Light'. I've only made a few things but I've got several other recipes tagged. 

I love cooking seafood in baking paper and this book has a whole page spread dedicated to flavour combinations to jazz it up. The one I made involved placing raw fish in baking paper and I added some bok choy, sesame oil, lemon juice and soy sauce (but you can use XO sauce as well). 

I plan on making her coconut & lime salmon which involves putting cooked brown rice on the paper, a salmon fillet over it and adding a drizzle of coconut milk and a sprinkle of kaffir lime and chili flakes. 

I've also made her banana bread with mango and coconut, served with mango yogurt. YUM!

However, her classic hummus recipe wasn't such a success, although it's much healthier as it's made with greek yogurt. My favourite hummus is the Aldi Deli Originals hummus and Obela Roasted Pine Nut one. I love all the dips from Aldi though, in particular the spicy pumpkin, eggplant and sweet potato and cashew! 

My favourite dip of all time is the red rock deli roasted red capsicum, pecorino, cashews & basil one though, which is so incredibly more-ish/dangerous. 

I also tried her Raspberry and Oat muffins which were a little dry (tried it as soon as it cooled a bit) but if you microwave it for 20 seconds, it is pretty good especially with almond, cashew & brazil nut butter.