Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Vegan Coconut Oat Pancakes with Date Syrup, Coconut Chips and Clementine

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I love cozy Sunday mornings especially at winter times. Who doesn’t? If I have time I always make pancakes. I love pancake and it’s exciting for me to test new flours and new flavours. 
There are two new (for me) ingredients in this recipe: coconut flour and date syrup. Do you know any of them? 


Coconut flour is a gluten-free alternative to wheat that is rich in dietary fiber, which helps support your digestion, immune system and heart health. The flour is fiber from the coconut meat after most of the oil has been extracted. It can be added to standard wheat-based recipes to add extra fiber, by substituting 10-30% of the grain-based flour with coconut flour. It can also be excellent addition to shakes and smoothies where fiber and protein are needed. Since organic coconut flour contains natural sugar from the coconut meat, baked goods need less sugar added. 
Date syrup is an alternative sweetener, a thick, dark brown, very sweet syrup extracted from dates. It is used widely in the Middle Eastern countries. Date is a food of high nutritional value. It provides natural sugar in the form of glucose and fructose. It’s good to know that a 100 gram portion of fresh dates is a source of vitamin C and supplies 230 kcal (960 kJ) of energy.

Vegan Coconut Oat Pancakes with Date Syrup, Coconut Chips and Clementine

Ingredients (makes 8-10 pancakes)

– 1 cup white spelt flour
– 1/4 cup oat flour
– 1/4 cup coconut flour
– 2 tablespoons aluminium free baking powder
– 1 cup oat milk or almond milk
– 1 tablespoon date syrup
– 2 tablespoons coconut oil + for cooking
– 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
– pinch of salt
– unsweetend coconut chips
– clementines

Method

In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flours, baking powder, salt. In another separate bowl mix together oatmilk, coconut oil, vanilla and date syrup. Give each mixture a stir then add the wet to the dry combining just until mixed. Set aside for 5 minutes to allow the batter to rise. Prepare a non-stick pan with 1 teaspoon oil on medium heat. Spoon batter into pan, forming a pancake. Cook until lightly brown on the bottom. Turn and brown the other side. Serve with clementines, coconut chips and more date syrup if you want.

Paprika Spiced Cauliflower Soup

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During the colder months in Eastern Europe, its common to find soups made from vegetables such as cauliflower, as it tolerates frost well and can be stored for a long time. This version of cauliflower soup includes paprika which gives it a nice flavor. Although, every family has their own version, my grandmother cooked cauliflower soup with paprika, my mother without it.
Follow me at the wonderful The Hungarian Girl website to read the recipe!

Cauliflower, Thyme and Green Tea Cream Soup

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Autumn is here again and this is the heart and soul warming soups time for me. Most of the time I only want to snuggle under a blanket on our comfy couch, light a few candles, read a good book, watch a film and eat something delicious, warm and hearty. It’s so peaceful and relaxing. Where is your happy, peaceful place during fall?

Today I’m sharing a hearty, warm soup recipe with you. Originally this wasn’t the next one to come on the blog. I cooked this soup yesterday and it turned out to be so awesome that’s why I can’t wait to share it with you, guys. The interesting part is the green tea that’s not a conventional ingredient in soups. It doesn’t give a strong flavor to it but it’s different than vegetable stock. The leek, celery and garlic give an earthy flavor and the lemon makes it a bit sour. Special savor combination!

Cauliflower, Thyme and Green Tea Cream Soup

Ingredients (serves 4)

– 1 medium sized cauliflower, cut into small florets
– 1 leek, only the white part, thinly sliced
– 3 cloves garlic, chopped
– 1/2 small sized celery root, diced
– 2 cups water
– 3 cups green tea
– 3 springs of fresh thyme
– 1 lemon’s juice
– salt and pepper
– 2 tablespoons coconut or olive oil

Method

Heat coconut oil in a large saucepan. Add leek and garlic and saute for 5 minutes. Add celery, cauliflower, lemon juice and saute for another 3-5 minutes. Add in the water and green tea (enough to cover), thyme, salt and pepper. Bring it to a boil. Simmer and cover the pan. Cook the soup for about 15-20 minutes until the vegetables tender and puree it with a hand blender. Serve warm, sprinkle olive oil on top.

Roasted Kapia Pepper Sauce with Fusilli

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I love roasted kapia peppers. I just simply sprinkle with olive oil and roast them in the oven. At the end of the roasting the remaining olive oil is mixed with the taste of the peppers and you will get something very yummie. Take a small piece of crunchy bread and dip it into this oil mixture. You will be in heaven, I promise! 🙂
First time I cooked this pasta dish a few weeks ago. I randomly threw all the ingredients together, I didn’t have too much time for cooking. I was going to make a salad with it but because of the lack of time I just chopped some zucchinis into julienne and top the pasta with it. The zucchini’s clean, sweet flavor goes well with the pepper, tomato, spicy sauce. Second time I made this dish for my Budapest Vegan Club’s friends (without the goat cheese) and everyone loved it. I’m sure, you will too!

Roasted Kapia Pepper Sauce with Fusilli
Ingredients (serves 4)
– 500 g fusilli
– 8 pieces kapia peppers
– 4 cloves garlic, sliced
– 4 tomatoes, chopped
– 6 leaves basil
– 4 baby zucchinis, cut into julienne
– goat cheese
– olive oil
– salt, pepper
Method
Heat oven to 180C. Place peppers on a sheet pan, sprinkle with 2-3 tablespoons olive oil and roast for 15-20 minutes until the peppers’ skin gets black. Remove from the oven and let it cool. Peel the skin and remove the seeds carefully. Place it in a bowl. 
Cook the fusilli al dente in salted water according to the package. In the meantime add sliced garlic, chopped tomatoes, basil leaves and 1 tablespoon olive oil to the roasted peppers. Season with salt and pepper and with a hand blender work the mixture until it gets smooth. Pour the creamy sauce over the cooked and drained fusilli and stir well. Serve the creamy fusilli onto plates, top with the zucchini and goat cheese crumbles.

And one more photo that doesn’t belong to this meal… I took it a couple of weeks ago and I really liked it that’s why I though I would share it with you.

Sweetcorn Polenta with Tomato Aubergine Sauce

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I bought Ottolenghi’s book Plenty  couple of months ago. When I found out I would go to London, to Food Blogger Connect I knew I wanted to visit one of his restaurants. Thanks to my food lover food blogger friends they agreed to come with me.
One day before the conference we did a foodie tour around London. Our first stop was at Borough Market. It is one of the largest food markets in London, and sells a large variety of foods from all over the world. The market, which has focused historically on fruits and vegetables, has in recent years added stalls dealing with the fine food retail market. Stallholders come to trade at the market from different parts of the UK and traditional European products are also shipped over and sold. Amongst the produce on sale are fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese, meat, game and freshly baked bread and pastries. There is also a wide variety of cooked and snack food on sale for the many tourists who flock to the market. I was in heaven! I loved the market so much and I couldn’t stop taking photos!

Then we had a nice coffee at Monmouth Cafe – apparently they sell the best coffee in London which I can prove! OK, I didn’t taste all the coffees in London but Monmouth was definitely the best one I tried.

The next stop was at Neal’s Yard. It is a small alley in Covent Garden between Shorts Gardens and Monmouth Street which opens into a courtyard. It is named after the 17th century developer, Thomas Neale. It now contains several health food cafes and new age retailers such as Neal’s Yard Dairy. It is easy to find the shop because you can smell the cheese from distance. The company buys cheese from about seventy cheesemakers on farms around Britain and Ireland and they sell the cheese in their two shops in London and to shops and restaurants all over the world.

We ended the day in Nopi at Ottolenghi’s newest fancy restaurant in Soho. Seven food bloggers  (Nando, Giulia, Beth, Sarka, Mowie, Mayssam and myself) plus Bruce got together and shared the delicious but small meals. According to the menu the dishes are designed for sharing. That was what we exactly did. And we laughed. A lot.

By the way… the recipe I’m sharing with you is from the book, Plenty. 

Sweetcorn Polenta with Tomato Aubergine Sauce

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the polenta
– 3 corn cobs
– 300 ml water
– 20 g butter
– 150 g feta, crumbled
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– pepper

For the aubergine sauce
– 1 medium aubergine, cut into 2 cm dice
– 1 canned tomatoes (peeled)
– 3 fresh tomatoes, chopped
– 30 ml dry white wine
– 50 ml water
– 1 onion, chopped
– 3 cloves garlic, chopped
– 1 tablespoon chopped oregano
– salt, pepper
– pinch of cane sugar
– olive oil

To make the polenta, remove the leaves from each corn cob, then chop off the pointed top and stalk. Stand each cob upright on its base and use a sharp knife to shave off the kernels.

Place kernels in a saucepan and cover them with water. Cook for 10-12 minutes on low simmer. With a hand blender puree the kernels with water (break as much of the kernel case as possible).

Return the corn paste pan to the stove and cook on low heat for 10 minutes. Fold in the butter, feta cheese, season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Meanwhile heat up 2 tablespoons olive oil in a saucepan and saute the onion and garlic for 3-5 minutes. Add the aubergine and 2 more tablespoons olive oil and fry on medium heat for about 5-8 minutes. Add the tomatoes (can + fresh) and stir with the aubergin. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the white wine and water. Season with salt and pepper, add the pinch of cane sugar and oregano. Cook for another 10 minutes to get a deep flavoured sauce.

Divide the polenta among bowls and spoon some warm aubergine sauce on the top.