Haiti Benefit Cakes

Here are, finally, some impressions from my stall at the Haiti Benefit at the Foundry! I sold clothes, DVDs, CDs etc and, of course, food! I wanted to have at least some of the food to have some connection to Haiti, to remind people why we are having the sale & to represent the culture of that country. As I am completely unfamiliar with Haitian cuisine, and did not want to ask any Haitians for recipes at the moment, knowing they would have more important things on their mind than people’s theme cake sales, I went on the global recipe oracle – the internet. I found quite a selection of Haitian cakes, from pistachio upside down-ers on flickr to  gi-normous wedding cakes. Due to my current and rather severe restrictions of funds at the moment, I had to go for recipes for which I already had quite a few ingredients – or where I could obtain the ingredients from the market. The cakes I decided on were what seemed like a pretty traditional Sweet Potato Pudding Cake and an Upside Down Pineapple & Pecan Cake with Rum, a recipe from a Haitian ‘Rhum’ company.

For the sweet potato cake, I bought some white sweet potatoes, a coconut & ginger from the very helpful local Caribbean grocer’s. The remaining ingredients I had in the house. The main challenge of this recipe seemed to be the opening of the coconut. Thankfully, the global oracle is also helpful with such mundane things and, thanks to youtube, the coconut was split in an unfathomably elegant way, despite the lack of a meat cleaver… I’ve actually wanted a cleaver for ages after seeing it in action at my volunteer job, but no one has dared to buy me one as a present yet!

The flesh also removed itself rather elegantly without much effort from my part…

I could then shave off the brown skin on the flesh (used a peeler) and grate the ‘white stuff’ along with the sweet potatoes and the ginger. The in-between stages of the cake look actually pretty gross, but exude a deliciously sweet smell.

Particularly the cooking stage after the coconut milk/cream mixture goes in (you can also use evaporated/canned milk) looked a bit grim…

After the cake ‘dough’ had been cooked for quite a while, it went into the oven until it set and became a tasty flat brown lump. According to one of the ‘tasters’, it was the best cake they’d ever had – and they probably did not have to eat anything for the rest of the day either… so what more do you want?

The pineapple cake was quite a bit more aesthetically pleasing. This cake went first at the benefit.

This is the dough and the ‘bottom’ of the cake which is later the top. They had such delicious pineapples on the market that day that I nearly ate all of the pineapple before it could make it into the cake! It was also handy to have friends abandoning pecan cereals in your home…

Here is the cake when it just came out of the oven (should have turned it upside down a bit earlier, before the sugar lost its heat):

… and after I had decorated it and done a ‘quality assurance test’ as I like to call it…

The end result was kind of presented like this, although the pudding cake was put onto a ’silver plate’, later, too. Both cakes tasted delicious with cream. Unfortunately, I could only offer cream from the ‘hairspray’ tin, but at least people enjoyed the toy aspect of putting cream on their cake this way…  The tiny bottle of rum stands next to the cakes, because I offered people the choice to have the pineapple cake with or without rum.

I also made some more of my hot turnip pickles, which all sold out.

A close-up of my beauties… The beetroot was my latest experiment, and I kept it for ‘research purposes’…

The event was quite a success – we raised over £1000 for the Foundry’s Haiti Fund & have planned a few more events, such as an auction and a raffle, for the future. Unfortunately, the future of the Foundry, as it exists now, will be very uncertain, as Hackney Council has just given permission to have it removed & replaced by a five star ‘art’otel’… (just come back from the planning meeting). The Guardian and the Evening Standard have written articles about it. Let’s hope there will be a new space soon with more such amazing activities!

10-minute celeriac chilli

Normally, I eat celeriac raw – either grated as a salad or as juice. Very occasionally, I bake it with other root veg. Apparently, my grandfather used to love celeriac battered as a ’steak’, so, the other day, when all I had in the fridge was a celeriac and a bit of vegetable juice, I decided to try out another variant of ‘hot celeriac’…
I don’t actually know what to call this dish – chilli? curry? Basically, I boiled some Thai rice I had left over in the cupboard in slightly salted water. In the meantime, I cut about two cups of celeriac (celery root) into bite-size pieces, and fried those in a bit of oil. You could also add carrots, an onion/shallot and garlic – or even make it more fancy! When the celeriac started to get soft and give off a thick aroma, I added some cayenne pepper (and possibly a couple of other spices/herbs) and poured about a cup of vegetable juice (V8) into the pot. I simmered the celeriac-V8 mixture until the celeriac was soft, adding a little bit more juice and a bit of salt towards the end. The improvised dish made a very tasty, warming winter meal!

Haiti Fundraising Bring & Buy @ The Foundry

Image source: The Foundry Haiti Fund

My band is co-organising a fundraiser for the Foundry’s Haiti Fund. It is going to be a bring & buy night where you can turn anything you don’t want or need in your home into potential aid money! I will be selling some cake and maybe other food made after Haitian recipes found on the net (if you have any Haitian recipes for cakes, patties, pickles or finger food, please post them in the comments!).

Here are the event details:
Where? The Foundry, 86 Great Eastern Street (Tube: Old Street), EC2A 3JL
When? 27 January 7-11 pm
What to bring: anything!

January’s Frugal Foods…

Ah, it’s January! It’s cold (I like that actually!), I’m super-skint (xmas & no job) & I’m hungry. So, what to do apart from relying on care parcels from family and friends or the benefits office? Well, I eat a lot of noodle soups, omelette & beans, and this kind of stuff, made with veg from the market.

The number one discovery of the month: Brussel tops! Much tastier than the sprouts, me thinks!

Brussel tops from the bottom!

And tasty with tofu ’steak’, mustard and mash. The salad is made from grated celeriac, grated apple, coconut yoghurt and lemon juice.

Here is another ‘mustardised’ tofu steak (supplied by my mum – thanks mum!). This time with carrots and celeriac sticks, baked in the oven with a dash of oil, a dash of water, thyme, salt and pepper.

One of my all-time favourites: plaintain fritters of any description. This is my favourite base so far: grated green plantain, crushed garlic, oregano, salt, pepper. Shaped into patties (the mixture is sticky) and fried in oil.

Goes very well with red pepper sauce. For this sauce, I skinned peppers (after putting them under the grill until the skin started to go black and peel off), simmered them for a bit with a little water and tomato puree, blended them into a sauce and seasoned it with cayenne pepper and salt. Make sure when you use peppers that you get tasty ones. Usually they are very watery. I’ve found that the peppers with brown crackly ridges (that sounds gross I know, but I’m serious!) taste the best. Maybe those are outdoor peppers?

This was an excellent xmas present from my friend Nicole. A ‘lucky pumpkin’! I need luck this year – badly!!

I roasted the flesh as well as the seeds…

…and then turned the roasted pumpkin flesh into a tasty pumpkin & carrot soup (with garlic, some veggie stock and lots of luck!). Ate it with some home-made bread with veggie pate (supplied by mum, too!).

I have made more soups in the last few weeks. My favourite one was green lentil, leek, potato & veggie sausage soup. For this soup you pre-soak the lentils (you don’t have to, but I do it to reduce the cooking time or to revive particularly ancient lentils!). When you like the look of your soaked lentils you fry some onions, finely chopped leek and potato cubes with a bit of oil in a pot. When those have simmered a bit, you drain the lentils, add them to the pot with some grated caraway and cumin and pour in some new water.
Let the whole thing simmer until the lentils and the potatoes are tender. You can then blend the whole soup or take part of it out before you blend most of it (for added texture). I usuall fish some of the potato cubes out and put them back in after blending. Before serving, you fry some ‘veggie bangers’ (or meaty ones), chop them into roughly five pieces each and add them to the soup! Warning: the colour of the soup is an unflattering green-grey. But the taste definitely makes up for aesthetic shortcomes!

Xmas Turnips

Inspired by a visit to a Chinese restaurant, I tried to recreate their pickled turnip snacks. For this, I compared a few pickled turnip recipes I found online and finally used this one as a guidance.

I sliced about 1/3 crate of turnips into small-ish sticks (I just asked the man on the market stall to give me all the turnips he had left over…). They are quite tough critters, so that took a while…

Then added a few sliced green chillies and 10 red birds eye chillies (one for each jar), 10 garlic cloves (one for each jar), 4 tiny red beets (sliced into sticks).
The brine I made from nearly 6 cups of white wine vinegar, nearly 6 cups of water, about 9 tablespoons of sea salt. No heat-processing is involved in the recipe.

I waited for about 10 days to eat the turnips, and they tasted almost like the ones in the restaurant. I would have had an exact copy, if I’d left the garlic out, but I was curious how it would taste in the mix. Next time, I’d probably use less garlic. But the pickles do taste great!

Accidental pasta sauce hit!

No, I did not hit anyone with pasta sauce. Me and my friend were a bit depressed after she had invited me for a meal in a posh restaurant, and the overpriced food turned out so badly (overcooked from frozen) that any school canteen meal would have been a better offering. So, today, it was back to no nonsense pasta. To my luck, I still had some home-made cavolo nero pesto in the fridge, but, because I had used really cheap ‘hardcheese’ to make it instead of proper parmesan, it didn’t quite taste alright. But I did not want to throw it away either. So I came up with the idea to mix it into some reconstituted tomato puree. Believe it or not, it tasted really nice! I bet with ‘proper’ cheese it will taste even nicer. Also, if you’ve made too much pesto and don’t want to eat it day after day, you can alternate between pesto only and pesto-derived sauce!

Red Cabbage & Cauliflower Salad

Yesterday, I tried out this salad. It’s really simple to make if you’ve got a good grater or food processor. Basically, you chop some iceberg lettuce and finely slice red cabbage as well as raw cauliflower. The result looks a bit like something that comes out of a neuroscience lab…

I made a yoghurt dressing to go with it using creamy wholemilk yoghurt, salt, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, pepper, paprika, parsley, vinegar, olive oil and sugar. Later, I found out (thanks to the lady from HTRK!) that the salad also tastes good with chilli sauce mixed in, so next time I’ll probably make the dressing much more spicy!

Somebody requested that I make it look less like brains, so I mixed it up a bit… still pretty scary! Luckily, nobody was genuinely put off, so it all got eaten!

Lemon & Coriander Rice

Thought I’d share this picture of lemon & coriander rice. It has chopped fresh coriander and lemon in and on it, and was cooked in a similar style to pilau rice with lots of spices and some salt. I used a mixture of whole grain, wild and red rice that i found in a certain supermarket…

Chick Pea & Celeriac Chilli

This is my new favourite dish: chick pea and celeriac chilli. It does not actually need the rice. Maybe some bread, if all. I made it because a friend was coming over for dinner who dislikes so many vegetables, I’ve lost track (the most important rule is: ‘no peppers’).  Also, I had an Open University deadline and did not have the time to do much shopping, so I just went with whatever was in the house. I soaked the chick peas over night and boiled them soft the next day with some salt, turmeric and cumin. In a separate pot, I fried some onions, tiny celeriac cubes and four cloves of garlic (I like my garlic!). I also added some chopped chillis, some spices, lots of dried basil and some veggie mince. Finally, I added the chick peas and their broth. Into this broth, I stirred enough tomato puree to make the whole thing creamy! It was so nice! Unfortunately, my friend did not get to have any of the chilli, as she decided last minute that she cannot have garlic before meeting an important client the next day. So I just got her some fish (from sustainable sources and from a certain posh supermarket’s reduced to clear section) and prepared it after a fantastic & easy recipe I stole from the BBC! She was happy, and I had the chilli all to myself. Bingo!

For dessert, I made vanilla pudding with berry sauce (I found frozen berries on special offer). There was lots of berry sauce left, but it came in handy when a friend brought round some pumpkin loaf!

Last but not least, here are instructions for a paper Battenberg in case you need to stay away from the real thing!

Save the Foundry!

The Foundry minus the awful advertising that currently defaces the upper part of the building
Source: Go East Old Man (and slightly younger woman)

Ah well, another good place is being destroyed by money in the wrong hands. This time, it’s The Foundry, a pub and event space at the junction between Old Street and Great Eastern Street. The Foundry stands out in an area which has been overtaken by superficial hipness. While it may attract some of those types, it is mainly a place for artist-activists. In its elven years of existence it has housed music, cabaret, outsider art, political film festivals and even runs its own radio show. I have performed there many times as a musician and have put on events to support ‘World Oceans Day’ being recognised by the UN. Frankly, I cannot think of any other places which support such a mix of activities in central London on such a sustained basis.

Proposed to be in its place is a so-called ‘Artotel’ (ironically, an art-themed hotel) in which art does not seem to amount to mere decorative value. The blurb on their proposal reads that they are seeking links to local artist communities, but I cannot see the Foundry’s type of  ‘Artivism’ (to go with the word blending theme…) work in such a highly corporate environment. I don’t think there is much anyone can do about this other than hoping for the council to support a relocation of the Foundry on the basis that it is a place of cultural significance. Cultural significance is a concept which includes, for instance, social significance which is commonly defined as ‘embrac[ing] the qualities for which a place has become a focus of spiritual, political, national or other cultural sentiment to a majority or minority group‘. Here are some examples of how ‘cultural significance’ is established. If you feel that these points apply to the Foundry, please forward your arguments to the local council:

Hackney Planning Services
Dorothy Hodgkin House
12 Reading Lane
London
E8 1HJ

Thank you!

Also check this out:

It’s a bit hard to read, but basically it says that the deadline for objections is 20 November and that you can also e-mail to gillian.nicks@hackney.gov.uk (planner for this site) and/or graham.loveland@hackney.gov.uk (head of planning) and cc to eyesoreonoldst@live.co.uk .