A quince a day

They are all around us, they are everywhere we go! Tis the season for quinces and as a team, we have not experimented much with this pear/apple like fruit, but that was about to change.

Cooking is about being experimental, about learning how to create something new so on our recent visit to the markets, we enquired about quinces and made it home with a few in our basket. Let the experiment being.

Some experiments are a disaster, we have learnt this to be a part of cooking but our baked quince puree proved anything but a disaster. Below is our quince creation that has donned our porridge and muesli each morning and was even baked through muffins. Enjoy.

Baked Quince Puree

Ingredients

400g caster sugar

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

4 quince, peeled and cut into wedges and core removed

1L water

Method

Pre heat oven to 120C.

In a large saucepan, add the sugar, vanilla bean & seeds and over a medium high heat until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to boil and remove from heat.

In large casserole pot, add the quinces and pour over the sugar syrup. Cover with a lid and bake in oven until deep red in colour, around 4-5 hours.

Allow to cool. Using a hand blender, blend to a puree and refrigerate until ready to use.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

Lemon pistachio cake

This recipe was adapted from a recipe I saw in a magazine last week. The beauty of cooking dairy free is learning to adapt recipes to suit your diet. This cake is beautifully moist and tastes just as good the next day. So simple to make, I suggest stocking up your Tarian Pantry with the necessary ingredients and get baking!

Ingredients

100g unsalted pistachios

220g caster sugar

75g plain flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

250g fine semolina

300ml soymilk

125g vegan margarine melted and cooled

rind of 1 lemon, finely grated

Syrup

220g caster sugar

125ml water

1 cinnamon stick

3 tbsp lemon juice

Method

To make the syrup, combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and slowly bring to a simmer. Add cinnamon stick and then simmer over a medium heat for 8 minutes. Remove from heat and stir through lemon juice. Cool until at room temperature, remove cinnamon stick and set aside.

Pre heat oven to 170 degrees. Lightly grease and line a rectangular cake tin (28cm x 17cm).

Using a blender or food processor, combine pistachios and sugar and blend to a fine powder. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, and then stir in the semolina and pistachio mixture.

Combine the soymilk, melted butter and lemon rind, then slowly add this to the flour mixture, stirring until smooth and well combined.

Pour this mixture into the lined cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Pour over lemon syrup until it has been absorbed. Cut into diamond shapes and serve.

To be lovely and decedent, serve topped with rose petals.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

Vegan pub grub - Fact or Fiction?

Its seem the mere vegan doesn't have to miss out on much these days and this includes pub grub!

We all need a little 'comfort' food especially as we are heading into Winter, comfort foods are what warms us from the inside out. So on our quest to find restaurants, cafes and pubs in Melbourne to satisfy our needs we came across a 'club' that exceeded all expectations - The East Brunswick Club (www.eastbrunswickclub.com).

Located at 280 Lygon Street, East Brunswick 3057 this venue offers just about everything - 2 gig areas, front bar, kitchen, beer garden and as part of their food offering, amazing vegan food. So on a cold winters Saturday night, a group of Tarian followers sat in the front bar, watched AFL and dined on a 'Traditional Vegan Parmagiana' served with all the trimmings - chips & salad.

Lets just say, we were smiling for ear to ear as we have now found our new haunt for the not so traditional pub grub.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

Well if I were to consume 4kg what would that do? It is recommended that we consume at least 2 serves of fruit a day as part of a balanced diet. Fruit is the ideal 'fast food'. It comes in all flavours, shapes and sizes and even comes in their very own recyclable packaging!

Whether you consume fruit on its own, cut up on top of your breakfast muesli, blended in your favourite smoothie or juiced; ensure you consume the recommended daily amount.

We purchased this 'orchard' of apples from the farmers markets on Saturday for $4 - yes you read right, organic juicing apples for $4. OK so there were a few bruises and marks but the juicer wasn't going to reject them because of a few imperfections! We blended the 4kg of apples with ginger to make a refreshing breakfast beverage.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

A new day, a new season.

It seems summer is well and truly behind us, especially if you live in Melbourne! So out come the ugg boots, the nana rugs and best of all, old and new winter recipes.

Whilst visiting the St Kilda Farmers Markets on Saturday, we saw the change not only in the weather but the produce that was on offer too. The colour pallet of the produce was different, the textures were harder, bigger bolder and the team here at Tarian, couldn't be happier.

If you are fans of Tarian Pantry, you will know we love soup! And what better time to hug a cup of soup than Winter time. Over the next few weeks, we will be testing out some new recipes and posting them on line in order to tempt you. The wild pine mushroom soup was a teaser and hopefully you have been able to find some of these delights at your farmers' markets, they are a hearty treat.

Below is a list of the fruit & vegetables that you will be seeing moving forward:

FRUIT

Apples (all varieties)

Custard apples

Limes

Nashi pears

Persimmons

VEGETABLES

Beetroot

Broccoli

Brussel Sprouts

Cabbages

Fennel

Pumpkin

Silverbeet

Spinach

New season means eating the foods that are 'in season'. Organic produce and buying will ensure you are eating foods that are grown to the current climate, not grown because 'we can't live without it'. We should be enjoying the new food pallet and all that comes with a new season.

Tarian Pantry - we will continue to inspire whatever the season.

www.tarianpantry.com.au

When bread becomes toast

Having spent the morning at the Melbourne Flower and Garden show, we could either eat out or make our way home for much talked about toasted sandwiches, we chose to make toasted sandwiches.

Using a sliced sourdough sliced bread from Chimmys in South Melbourne we toasted the bread and then filled it with toffuti cream cheese, beetroot relish, tomatoes, asparagus and rocket.

The tomatoes and rocket were straight from the Tarian Pantry's garden which made the sandwich even more satisfying.

Enjoy experimenting with your fillings for toasted sandwiches.

www.tarianpantry.com.au