Vegetarian Archives - I THINK THEREFORE I JAM

Sticky chocolate orange cake

have your cake….

This simple little cake is big on pleasure and has the texture of a French “moelleux au chocolat” but instead of butter ricotta creates the smoothness. I took my lead from an Italian nonna classic: “torta di ricotta e cioccolato senza farina” and tweaked it just a little.

The enjoyment starts with the childish pleasure of melting chocolate in a bowl over hot water, the conjuring up of the magic that is meringue, the pop of pungent orange oil on the grater, the crunch of the toasted pistachios and then the kitchen filled with the overpowering aroma of chocolate and orange, so strong that for a few moments the world is softer, brighter, happier.

This little cake is winter comfort eaten warm with vanilla custard, a pick-me-up breakfast with a cappuccino or an elegant dessert with some fruit and mascarpone. Choose your favourite and make this clever treat a firm (but squidgy) kitchen friend!

Minestrone with parsley root

more is more

My favourite way to eat this is with toasted pumpernickel or rye bread as a warming meal-in-a-bowl. My “smart way” to cook it is with a pressure cooker which retains more nutrients and saves on energy too.

Parsley and parsley root proliferate in this winter vegetable melange and imbibe the soup with startlingly high levels of Vitamin C and magnesium as well perhaps it’s mystical ability to transport the eater between earth and the spirit world (as the ancient Greeks believed)!

It is of course Italy that claims “minestrone” as its own and now Sardinia has claimed it as a “Blue Zone” healthy ageing staple but there are variations all around the Mediterranean, all with their own versatile and thrifty takes on a “cucina povera” vegetable stew.

Fig, pear, walnut, pine nut, sesame preserve with mastic and aniseed

Inspired by the Lebanese, “M’rabbah al teen” dried fig jam, Aegean ingredients and leanings this is what I think my Nana would have called a “sweetmeat”; something so delectably fine it deserved to be eaten just by itself (Although I have eaten it with creamy thick sheep’s “Suzme” yoghurt and salty crystalline “Tulum” goat cheese).

It melds the tahini-like taste of sesame seeds, the crunch of nuts, the stickiness of the figs, the indescribable taste of mastic (sakız) and the zing of the aniseed, into a stellar confection.