stuartlikesstrudel

This talk of brown rice taking ages is confusing to me... I cook brown rice in our rice cooker (a very basic one with just on/off) and it probably takes twice as long as white, but that still only means it's about 40 or 45 minutes all up. I am wondering if I've just been eating severely undercooked brown rice! But it's not crunchy, and I like the chewy texture, so I don't think I have. I love the idea of adding all kinds of other things like beans or grains to rice... it's not really much more work so it could be done any time rice is being cooked, but it can add much more interest and nutrition. Great stuff, everyone

I agree with doodad - fiddly, labour intensive stuff is most fun in a group. And if you choose something that's not TOO difficult but something a bit unusual that they probably haven't made, it could be a great experience for them. I made dumplings recently with a friend who is just starting to cook, and he was really proud at how neat he could make them at the end... it was a cool time together and it improved his confidence as well. With some other friends, I got them to shell a whole bunch of broad beans while I did some other things... yeah it's repetitive but I think they still liked doing it, and then when we were eating they noticed them more than they would have. And it meant I didn't have to do them all! I agree with others that pizza is a great idea. I think it's really important that you choose something that's can't go TOO wrong, or they may feel embarrassed if they can't get it right, so your observation about messing up filled pasta is good. Because mushy leaking pasta isn't great news

Hmm, that IS an interesting way to think about it... The only example I can really think of is with risotto - I make a soup that has risotto stirred into it, so I cook risotto the night before then use a bit of it in the soup. I guess you could just add raw grains into the soup and cook them off but I do like having it ready, and it probably improves the taste a bit. Actually, now a few others are coming up. Polenta - I have made a batch of loose/soft polenta to go with dinner, but taken out a portion with less liquid to chill, then slice into pieces and panfry. It's only a bit different, but I do like it fried with crispy edges so it's different enough in my book to look forward to. And in fact I have done the same thing with risotto as well, forming cakes to fry up (and if you put a bit of cheese in the middle it's gooeylicious). Oooh, and i have made a great Moroccan marinated chicken that I decided I wanted to put in wraps, so I made a lot of it and had great leftovers! Again, it's not really changing the form, since the chicken tastes the same each time, but it's with different sides and feels a lot more casual in the wrap... and i guess with all the salad it's lighter than when served with a sauce and cooked veges.

How coincidental, Darienne, I was just looking at a halva recipe yesterday that I have bookmarked and not got around to making yet... i hope i might get to it this weekend! So I can't say anything about its quality, but you can look at it HERE. You'll notice that the site has a few recipes - "simple" halva, soft halva, honey halva. And I think you are right about there being many different types... the first one I tried was quite fudge-like, but I have also had a very flaky, almost crisp one which was very different (still great!). There is also an indian dessert called Halva which I think involves carrots, perhaps more of a pudding type thing. Dunno... so many things to try!

I am neither an expert (or even competent!) in ganache or dulce le leche, but the first thing I thought of was milk powder... it might be a good way to play with texture/firmness and will help to contribute to the milky taste as well. And from a consumer point of view, I think if i bought a dulce le leche chocolate, I'd be expecting something that was pretty much just DLL in the center, not so much a ganache (very chocolatey). But that may not be feasible in terms of shelf life and all that stuff.

I have made some vegetarian kibbeh from a recipe book called "Spice" by the chef of a restaurant called Oleana in the U.S. It uses pureed pumpkin/squash in the shell, combined with bulgur. The filling was feta cheese, mixed with spices and herbs. It is nice and flavourful, but the cheese is probably a bit intense if you eat a few of them. It would be nice used alongside something else in the filling. I don't know if they would work well in a soup... I baked them (they would be great fried, too).

Kerry, those sound greaaaaaat! Any chance of a recipe? I love italian meringue (well, sugar ), and nuts, and flavoured/candied nuts, so i can't possibly see how this could be less that teriffic!

Another link to Dan's forum is for these Red Onion rolls with the same technique... I love the soft, moist texture of them (and the onion flavour is nice, i can eat these by themselves, maybe a bit of butter).

I am not an expert, but i'd suggest that there would be very little difference in the two techniques, and yours is probably a better way to do it. I can't imagine that the baking powder would behave any differently by having 20 extra seconds in the bowl as the flour is added, and mixing it with the flour ensures good distribution, which is one of the main things to keep in mind. If anything, I'd suggest that putting it in the wet mixture is much more likely to end up with lumps or undesirable results.

I kind of agree, but also understand where they are coming from. As a vegetarian, I still enjoy things like burgers, takeaway "Chinese" food and so on... so if there are people who can cater to that, good on them! Raw foodies have chosen to eat like they do (most often for health, i think) but if they can get a dessert that's different to the usual fruit they eat, I imagine it could be very exciting for them, a nice treat. I enjoy the challenge of trying to come up with tasty food for people with eating restrictions, but agree that when there is an EXPECTATION (perhaps like in this case) it seems a little demanding and unrealistic. Actually, I just went back and read Tri2Cook's last comment on the previous page and I think he does a better job of saying what i'm trying to say Annie, I like your last quote about the rabbit and hat, haha!

Alright, it's time for the report of the event! It happened on Saturday night and I was very happy with how it turned out... (this post is going to be BIG I reckon, I will go into a fair bit of detail for my own enjoyment and anyone else who's interested!). Of course you can feel free to just look at the pictures and skip all the overblown details, haha. So first a few details on the 'setup'. The idea, which I had sometime last year and gradually mulled over, was to have a many-course dinner party where each course was a different color. I didn't want to use food colorings, and it was a vegetarian meal (as I am vego myself). I thought it would be a good chance for me to try out some plating ideas, as I haven't done that before, and love to look at the beautiful plating I see here and elsewhere. My preference leans towards the fancy, intricate plating seen in top restaurants, I loved looking through the StudioKitchen thread and admiring all of Shola's food... I have very limited dinnerware at home so I decided to just do them all on the big white plates we have, keep it simple. I'll reflect a bit at the end on what I learnt/thought about plating. One thing I did to keep things a bit easier for me was to put a bit of masking tape on the edge of each plate and get people to mark their plate, so we could clean them between courses without having to use new plates or anything... it worked really well, I just got one of my guests (all friends, so it was nice and casual) to come and rinse them while I prepared the next course... then they helped to plate it, so it was fun to have them slightly involved OK, onto the menu! I didn't think too much about trying to keep to one style/cuisine, because I don't have a specialty and also, with the color restrictions, I thought it would be hard enough without trying to bend everything in one direction. I don't think it ended up too scattered, and I reckon people wouldn't have even thought about big variety in flavours. As for my cooking abilities, I consider myself a good home cook, but I don't consider myself a chef, and so I also hoped to try a few new techniques and flavours... overall I didn't get too out there, I would have liked to do a bit more of that but found myself mainly thinking of how to get a dish to be the right color, so the taste sometimes took a back seat! They all tasted nice, but weren't super adventurous, I think. Not that that's always a bad thing! So I planned out the menu, and during the week started to do a bit of prep. I didn't get as many things done ahead as I would have liked, so I ended up rushing through it a bit... I had to skip one dish, and I didn't enjoy the process as much as I could have, but it was still pleasant and never TOO hectic. I didn't test the recipes before I made them - since it was just a fun experiment, and with friends, I wasn't too concerned if some stuff didn't work out (and of course, plenty of things didn't go quite to plan ). I also decided not to get too much contribution from here on eG - I know I would have received a lot of great ideas and feedback, but I wanted to do it myself and see what I came up with, so I only checked in about the purple because it was the most difficult bit for me... Here we go! (this is in chronological order). I will link to recipes in the description if I used them - most of it was kind-of made up though. Sorry for the poor photos, I didn't test the camera settings first (dumb idea!) and so I found afterwards that they were quite overexposed and with some nasty shadows... We started the night with a GREEN appetizer. This is Olive Oil Crackers to which I added some minced parsley in the hope the juices and leaves would make it a beautiful green... it wasn't TOO bad, but not vivid, and though I tried to bake them at low temp to keep them from browning, it didn't really work, and I had to amp it up to get them crisp. Oh well. I thought it would be neat to have a few little "tastes" to progress through, so I made the crackers long and thin, so each bite could be one of the three toppings, which were : a mashed potato flavoured with dill, which I then pan fried to get a crispy bottom. Then, a refreshing cucumber diced finely with lots of lime juice and coriander (and a little chili). Lastly, a pea puree with lots of mint and some feta. The colors were good for these toppings, the potato was least green, but still ok. The concept of the consecutive bites worked well, I think... people seemed to like guessing what the next taste would be, a few thought the final one was avocado, so a bit of a surprise there Next was meant to be black, but in the excitement I got confused and served ORANGE instead! This is a Chilled Carrot Soup which I topped with a little dollop of double cream (tinted orange with some leftover soup) and toasted orange zest. The soup is delicious but a bit odd... it really tasted like pumpkin, I think, and so did others. Once you know it's carrot you can understand the flavour, but for something that's pretty much just carrots, I was a bit surprised. I added quite a bit of lemon juice to make it fresher tasting, I'm surprised there is none in the recipe. This was a real winner, I think. I thought of the toasted zest just to add a little visual detail and interest, and the taste worked really well, adding a bit of bitterness and fragrance to some mouthfuls. BLACK came next... This was a dish I had pretty much made before, trying to replicate something I had eaten at a Balinese restaurant - it's eggplant slices cooked in soy, sweet soy (Kecap Manis) and coconut milk. I served it with black glutinous rice and black sesame seeds. I had some Asian black dried fungus which I was going to do something with as well, but discovered that they actually weren't very dark in color. Overall this dish was one of the weakest, I think... I knew the color wouldn't end up fully black but it was the best I could do without resorting to squid ink, which I didn't want to use. It tastes nice, but was a bit dry and didn't look appealing (the eggplant breaks up too much, especially since I sliced it so thinly). I had hoped it would look nice, with some thin overlapping circles creating a nice rhythm on the plate, but it just didn't, especially since they broke up a lot. Thinning a bit of the marinade with more coconut milk and making a sauce is nice, but i didn't thin it much because it made it non-black again. People still ate it. The plan was to have purple next, but I didn't want to have it after black because i thought they would be quite similar in texture and also color... if I hadn't mixed orange and black up, it would have been right. But I decided instead to have YELLOW next. I think this was one of the best dishes, and others seemed to agree. It's Gnocchi Parisienne, minus the herbs and tinted with a bit of tumeric to be more yellow. This is good to make in advance and freeze, then just defrost and pan fry to crisp and heat... very handy! It's resting on a bed of corn and yellow capsicum (heated)... the capsicum was roasted for a bit, maybe 20 mins, to enhance the flavour and soften a bit, without become slimy or darkened. It still had a bit of tooth, which was perfect with the juicy bursting corn and soft gnocchi. A few shavings of parmesan on top, a good squeeze of lemon juice, and a sauce of butter with half a vanilla bean and some lemon zest. I love vanilla and just felt like it would go well here. I think it did! It was subtle, but present, and looks great on the plate. I want to explore vanilla in savoury applications more. Next was PURPLE - the subject of discussion here, and in the end a great success I found the good potatoes I mentioned a few posts earlier, and also the purplest red cabbage I could find! I blanched the leaves, which faded their color a bit even though I used acidity in the water, but they were still nice and purple. To fill, I shredded some more (raw) cabbage very finely and mixed it through caramelized purple onions and some walnuts. Add another splash of vinegar and it was a tasty sweet, rich and sour filling. I hadn't tried to wrap parcels in cabbage before, and my leaves weren't huge, so by the time I removed the tough core of the leaves there wasn't heaps of space left to work with... lucky I was only making small servings! They came together ok, and I pressed them for an hour or two to help seal, then just warmed them in a pan before serving. With it are the purple potatoes, which I boiled in thin slices for a few mins to soften, then quickly pan-fried in a good dose of EVOO and salted nicely. They were semi-crisp, with a good burst of salt so they worked ok, and looked great. I used the water from the blanched cabbage leaves to boil the potato, so by the time I'd done both those things, it was very purple... so I decided to try and make a thin reduction for decorative purposes. I added a bit of vinegar and sugar and boiled it down a bit. It didn't taste great, not bad but not something I'd normally serve, but the color was right, so I added it! And people seemed to eat it, I guess it was ok with the potatoes I was so pleased with the color, it was really vivid and there was no doubt it was purple. Now, if you've managed to keep track of the INTENDED course order, purple should have been followed by yellow, then red, resulting in a good contrast of colors, but since I'd already done yellow we went to RED from here... so the color impact was lessened. Ahh well! This dish is a risotto with a lot of roasted capsicum puree added for color and flavour. I then chilled it and cut it into bars which I pan fried to crisp up. It's served on a sauce of tomato with harissa added, and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. The sauce was meant to be done earlier and probably would have been more considered, but I just ran out of time so i threw some harissa in and made it middle-eastern tasting, which was fine but a bit of a cop out! Pomegranate seeds were a great burst of freshness and flavour, but are annoying to eat with their seeds in the middle... I'd forgotten about that! I was happy with the taste of this dish, but the presentation didn't end up like I hoped. It looks quite a lot like a 'log', if you know what I mean! And I was going for a very geometric, clean look, but I have learnt that if you don't get it SUPER exact, it just ends up looking a bit try-hard and messy... the cuts need to be so clean and precise. Also, I think the dish needs another 'detail' element with the pomegranate seeds... something fine and wispy over the top - herbs would have done that, or some red pepper threads that I have seen, but couldn't find in the shops. Onto dessert... This was quite disappointing, because I was planning to have 2 desserts, but I really ran out of time (due to not getting enough prep done early, and a few unavoidable delays, so I had to ditch the WHITE dessert, which would have been good looking and probably tasting, I think. It also means that we went from Purple to Red to Pink, which is a bit similar. White WOULD have been this : Rose flavoured floating island (poached meringue) with a lychee mousse centre, in a coconut custard/cream, with a coconut tuile. I think it would have looked nice in some white bowls we have, and would have been very white, with a tropical-ish taste... quite delicate, I think. Ahh well! PINK was therefore the only dessert course. And it didn't really work in color, but tasted nice. The main feature was a Strawberry ice cream which I infused with mint (which worked really well). This sat on some oat crumbs, much like Tri2Cook's beautiful dessert upthread. I tinted these with berry juice, but they came out pretty grey. I think this style of presentation is great in terms of look, and also texture as you can eat the creamy ice cream by itself, and also get bites that have a crunchy-ish texture from the crumbs. The idea to go with this was super thin slices of compressed watermelon and a pear-raspberry gelee... but it didn't really happen like that! The watermelon worked, but was distinctly red rather than pink, even when i laid thin slices on the white plate. I decided to keep them, though, because they are an unusual experience to eat, and were refreshing to go with the ice cream. My slices looked pretty sloppy and ragged, again not geometric enough to look precise and super neat. I made a pear puree and added raspberries, but the texture was a bit coarse and gross (from the pear fibers). I decided it was alright though, so I added the gelatin to set it. The resulting product kept the icky texture and was kind of enhanced by the gelling, so I ditched that and just smeared some of the puree on the plate. Instead, I made a gelee of raspberry and lime juice, which was better, and a nice sweet-tart balance. I was hoping it would be a beautiful pale pink and quite transparent, but it wasn't really. I didn't want to water it down to get the color right, so I let it stay red. I couldn't get thin enough slices to layer with the watermelon, so I made little cubes and sprinkled them around. So in the end, the dish had most of the elements I planned, but in different forms/plating and not really pink! Originally i actually had pink and white planned quite differently - pink was going to be the floating islands (rose flavoured, tinted with raspberry puree) served in a raspberry custard with a candied rhubarb strip. White was going to be a coconut ice cream with a banana cream puree (may not have been very white) and a coconut tuile. Both the desserts were quite creamy and rich, so I could have tried to branch out a bit with that, but most ideas I had needed cream to keep them white (or dilute red to make pink). I would have liked some kind of pear/raspberry/champagne sorbet or something like that, but I was keeping it non-alcoholic for a friend. Actually we kind of had a white dessert to finish... I brought out some Gin and Tonic Sorbet I had made a while ago, which was a refreshing taste to end with, and it is very white. So that works, I guess As for BLUE, I had planned to bring out one blue gummi bear each on a big fancy platter, as a bit of a joke, but I forgot to buy them! I decided not to even try and make a proper blue dish, as the bluest thing I could think of were blueberries and they're purple! If I had seen blue corn I could have tried that but there wasn't any. When I wandered through the market, the one other thing I saw were some black mission figs which were black/blue/purple in color and could almost have passed as blue (grilled, on a piece of blue cheese, I reckon) but it would have been pushing it and I decided it's better to just give up on that one. A bit of a long bow to draw, or whatever the expression is. My guests really got into the theme, which added a lot of enjoyment to the night. Most said that their favourites were Yellow, Red or Pink, which isn't surprising to me, as I think they're the most substantial dishes... the Orange was also quite popular as something different. I was most pleased with the Yellow, as the taste was great, the color was true and I think the plating worked quite well. So to wrap up ("Shut up already!!"), here are a few little reflections on the experience : - Prep is king! The things that I did have time to prepare beforehand came together much more easily, and it took a lot off my mind knowing I had them ready, and didn't need to worry about them. Even things like cutting veges in advance (stuff that didn't lose freshness) and getting garnishes ready helped. - Plating is pretty hard I think I did alright, but my suspicions were confirmed, that elegant plating is an art and a simple plating done well is a deceptively tricky thing to do... it's easy to make it look amateur and overworked, or just dull. Achieving a balanced plate, but one that has a rhythm... tricky! By getting my guests to help me plate, I noticed how shifting things slightly, or positioning a bit differently can dramatically change the effectiveness of a plate, using the same elements, so it really is about precision. I think little details such as tiny bits of seeds, herbs, sauces etc play a big role... I started to think of my dishes in terms of the main element, the support (such as a complementing vegetable or preparation), the sauce (if there was one) and a garnish. I think that adding a few more layers, such as a second sauce or oil, maybe a separate support/side and a second garnish, can add to the perceived complexity, and therefore fanciness, of a dish. Having said that, I know it's also an art to pare it back to let a few things shine, and adding extra layers can sometimes just muddle things. - Photography can make a big difference! The same dish, taken in different ways, different angles and lighting, close up with depth of field, looks so different. I like the shot of the gnocchi, but one of the other shots that's zoomed out and all in focus looks much less exciting. - Food is fun, and tasty, and when combined with friends, makes for a wonderful evening! And on that warm and fuzzy note, I'm done! Thanks for reading, I needed to get all that out - Stu

Do you have a recipe for the dinner rolls handy? I have tried a few different basic roll recipes and have never been happy with my results...

Haha, that's great, Steve! But it's an interesting point, too, that zest is one of those things that's never really explained because it's assumed that people will know. I think that assumptions have to be made, or all recipes would be long and unwieldy to read... it certainly helps that we have google now to help us with all that kind of thing!

I was going to suggest pretty much what djyee100 said - i love them halved, with a dob of butter and a little sprinkle of brown sugar, then under the griller or in the oven for a few minutes, just till it starts caramelizing and the fruit softens slightly, without become too cooked. Great served simply with some whipped cream (i love a good hit of vanilla in the cream for this) and some toasted almonds, or crumbled spice cookies (i buy Spekulaas which is a Dutch cookie). Some types are a lot easier to handle for this (i think there are clingstone and slipstone nectarines, like peaches, maybe?). I tried with ones that didn't want to come away from the stone, and you can still do it, but it's more work and they can look a bit hacked up. But also as fooey said, they're so great fresh when they're good fruit.

Minor update here (the actual dinner is tomorrow night, so about 36 hours to go!). I went to the Queen Victoria Market which is the main market in Melbourne, and was hoping to find all kinds of fruit and veg to inspire me... actually a lot of the stuff was very 'normal'. But that was ok because I had planned all my dishes already so if I found new stuff, i'd have to rethink it all on the spot! The most exciting purchase I have made are Purple Congo potatoes... very very purple, and apparently keep all their color when they cook. So that's great I got some nice purple cabbage, and so i will be making a little cabbage, beetroot and red onion parcel, probably with a bit of apple and/or prune in it. Both the beetroot and onion strike me as more red than purple, but it's a fine line and I'm sure it will be acceptable! Still need to work out what to do with these stunning potatoes... some kind of simple prep, I think, maybe just roast or saute them with some oil or butter and garlic. Or a little rosti would be nice, very crisp. I might test one tonight to see if it holds the color well after browning.

As a vegetarian myself, I have tried various vegie pattie recipes, and I can make some nice tasting things but they are not worth thinking about as meat substitutes... i think of them as fritters or patties. So if you mean a vegetarian sausage that seems like meat, I'm not much help. But if you think of it more as just a tasty "log" that can be enjoyed in a roll, I think there are possibilities. There are "nut loaves" or non-meat loaf recipes that use nuts as part of the bulk, which can be quite pleasant. I have also made some tofu balls that involve firm tofu crumbled into little bits, and mixed with various other stuff, including peanut butter, which really helps the taste for some reason... i guess it's adding salt and fat. Also helps to bind. But I find all my attempts end up a bit squishy or paste-y, which is less than desireable! Meat has so many qualities and textures that are just really hard to emulate! Here's a blog post from a friend of mine, in which she discusses vegan (skinless) sausages with a similar conclusion to me.

wow, thanks for all the comments, guys! Some great input here, I appreciate each post, even though I can't respond to everything I hadn't really thought about blueberries much, because they are quite expensive and I wasn't sure how purple they really are... but I will look into that. Anne, I love the thought of this... very classy, quite different, and I like pushing the sweet/savoury border. Tri, I actually saw that picture just yesterday! I was mainly just entranced by the icecream... the color, the glossiness, it really did almost convince me to turn purple into a dessert course just from that But the rest of the menu (which i will post with the pics after) is pretty much set so I don't think I want to rejig it all at this stage. your savoury suggestion is nice too... we had purple basil last summer and it was a great visual contrast. Kouign, thanks for your comment about lighting... I had (briefly) thought about that, but I don't really have control over it as I have to use the lights that are installed in our house already! Unfortunately they ARE yellow, so i will have to fight against that. Maybe I can bring a lamp over just to show that it IS purple, heh! Greenmountain, good suggestion. I haven't got a pasta course (though i have some pate choux gnocchi) so that might be a good option, and dying the pasta could work well!

Hi all, I am throwing a chromatic dinner party, where each course will be a different color... just for fun, to challenge myself and make some interesting food. I've sorted out all the courses except for the purple one - my aim is to make each one quite distinct in the color, as well as being tasty and a little bit fancy. So I'm wondering if there are any suggestions of something (even one element of a few) that I could make. The meal is vegetarian, and I am not using any food colorings (but if it's natural, such as using beetroot juice, that's ok). The purple course is going to be savoury. I've done lots of googling for ideas, and have looked into purple fruits and veg, and there are some stunning ones (purple cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant, capsicum, potatoes) which I am thinking about but don't know (a) if I will be able to source, and (b) how well they keep their colour in cooking. My current thought is something like this (note that I haven't done any tests to see if it works, and looks purple): Red/purple cabbage leaf roll - filled with caramelized red onion, walnuts (not purple but in small bits so they won't be too visible), maybe some prunes or raisins, and perhaps grated beetroot. Served with a sauce of some kind. I think this would be ok, it might turn out quite red, but I don't think there's a lot I can do about that. My other idea is something very fresh, a bit like a coleslaw - finely sliced purple cabbage with some kind of dressing... but I don't know how to make that into a dish in its own right. If I can get some purple-inside potatoes I will make them into chips to serve with it. A bit of an obscure request, perhaps, but I'd love to hear what you clever peeps have to contribute I'll be posting a report/pictures after the event if people are interested. - Cheers, Stuart

Aahhhh fooey, where's the money shot?!!? The freshly baked, golden pastry! You can't tease us like this! Being my namesake, I really should give strudel dough a go... I'm keen to, but the right moment hasn't come up yet Yours looks very tantalising.

that sounds like such a great time, Emily! I think side-dishes or little nibbles are often more enticing than a 'regular' dish, maybe because you can eat a lot of different ones It's cool that everyone got involved too, i can imagine the great atmosphere with everyone buzzing around, and getting along with each other!

I just made dumplings (asian, savoury) last night with a friend, and it occurred to me that this is a perfect task to linger over, particularly with another person. It was great to spend a good half hour (i'm slow, and it was his first time) filling and folding a whole lot of dumplings, watching them fill the trays in neat lines, seeing our technique improve, till in the end we had a tray full, a feeling of satisfaction and a good appetite! Great chance for some relaxation and conversation. I know that experienced people can do it a lot quicker, but even then, it's something that deserves to be done at an enjoyable pace... doesn't have to be slow, but I think it can't be enjoyed when you're deliberately rushing.

Paul, as always your contributions are much appreciated. You go into the details that I always wonder about and can't seem to learn just by following a recipe. I just had a look at the file you linked to and it was great to help me understand what each thing does, and more importantly, how I can adapt it to suit my needs... great! I suspect you approach cooking in a similar way of thinking to me, and at a much further progressed level, which is perfect for me to learn from

Flourless orange cake is another tasty option... the taste is a little "grown up" because you use the whole oranges (including pith/rind) so there's a slight edge of bitterness to it. It's a good non-chocolate option (many would question why you'd want non-chocolate but it's good to know!). You can find many versions by googling, here's one for example : http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14822/flourless+orange+cake

Doodad, good idea... I don't use sage much so probably wouldn't have thought about that, thanks for the idea Chris, thanks for the celery seed suggestion! I haven't ever used or really even heard of these, so i'll have to keep an eye out, sounds like a good thing to play with. I'm not sure if these nuggets actually have a batter, I suspect the outsides are just crispier because of the contact with oil, but again, i will keep the chickpea batter as an idea to try. Fantasmagoria, I will definitely report back here with what I find. Don't get your hopes up too much, I'm not an expert in reverse-engineering dishes, and these are the kind of thing that I reckon might require specialty equipment or technique to get just right! But who knows...! Now I just need to find a good time to actually make them.

This article just came to my email inbox today... quite fitting, actually (though not much help in terms of flavour ideas). http://www.culinate.com/columns/ask_hank/b..._campaign=Fruit I agree with the earlier poster that silken tofu can help with texture - you don't notice a beany taste if you only use a little, and it's healthy as well as adding good body to the smoothie. I had a tiramisu once that had a significant amount of tofu in the filling and didn't even perceive it (though i'm sure connoisseurs would!).