Cauliflower and Mushroom Potpie with Black Olive Crust

So delicious! And easy!

I'd never made a crust before (am not much of a fancy baker) so this was a good baby step. The black olive biscuit crust is supposed to be made in little individual sections. I used a triangle shaped cookie cutter to make uniform shapes and then added some hearts in the centre. 

The sauce for the potpie has a lot of tarragon in it which is my favourite underused herb. Now I'm craving foccacia bread though.

Banana-Date Scones

I'm trying to bake every week now so that I have mid-morning snacks for work. I usually make muffins but the Banana-Date Scones from Veganomicon promised to be healthy and full of natural sugars so I went for it.

I made two substitutions, one which was unintentional. Now it could just be that I am terrible at finding things, but I couldn't locate brown rice syrup at my local health food store! So agave came to the rescue.

The recipe also instructed that I should make a flax seed egg, but given my large quantity of chia seeds I decided to make a chia egg instead and it turned out very well. I only soaked the soy milk and chia mixture for about 15 minutes but it turned into gel and blended perfectly into the scones. 

It should be noted that although these are called scones, flaky pastries they are not. They are like a heartier, wholesome cousin.

Samosa Stuffed Baked Potatoes

First potato post!

These were easier to make than samosas (and would have been ever easier had I not been rushing and scooping out potato insides that were still hot). I can see myself making these a lot since the main ingredients are potatoes, carrots, onions and frozen peas, which are staples around here. 

What the Heck... are Ground Cherries?

Or Groud Cherries, as the package says. Oops! But it's très charmant. 

When I first saw them at a distance I thought they were gooseberries, to the extent that once I actually read the label I wondered if ground cherry was an alternate name. But no, they are their own unique phenomenon. 

These one are actually naked - they grow with little coats on (see illustration) like tomatillos. I've seen them before on cakes in fancy bakeries but never actually tried one.

The result? Well, the word cherries is misleading. They smell a bit like cotton candy, but bite in and there's a burst of intense sweetness, followed by a taste that's like a combination of tomato, pineapple and vanilla. The ground cherry straddles the line between fruit and vegetable, sweet and savory. 

Not bad.