Spiced deep dish pancakes & plant-based lasagne love
recipes to my favourite vegan lasagne verdi al forno and Speculaas Dutch baby
I’ve opened up the vault!!
Before we get into this week’s recipes, I have some good news to share with all of you free subscribers……….. which I guess now is actually all of you!
Last week I made the difficult decision to end the paid subscription option for Eating Who I Want to Be. After spending the past couple of months reflecting what direction I want to take the newsletter in,
While I continue to love writing about food and sharing my recipes through this platform, due to other commitments, work and projects that I’m invested in, lately I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to deliver my promise of 4 new recipes/fortnight to paid subscribers, and this self-imposed pressure to create constant recipe output within time constraints has started to take away a little of the fun and creativity in my kitchen - which is the opposite of what this newsletter has always meant to be. At its core, as I’m always trying to encourage through my newsletter words, cooking and food should be fun!
By making Eating Who I Want to Be an exclusively free newsletter, I feel that I’ll be able to create, cook, write and share with you my recipes and musings with greater freedom and less pressure to deliver. I appreciate I’m very fortunate to not rely on this newsletter for financial means, unlike many other food writers ~ so I’d encourage you to support other writers you love through this platform as you see fit. But for now, I want to keep writing and cooking for pleasure not profit, so it stays my happy place (rather than my stress place), hence the decision to end paid subscriptions.
My hope is also that by making this newsletter exclusively free, it will allow the freedom for greater time developing my recipes and writing about eating well and global food issues, which will hopefully result in more interesting and mouth-watering content. I’ll be aiming to still deliver a couple of recipes to your inboxes every fortnight, but as we all know, life sometimes throws things our way, so keeping the newsletter free allows for a little more flexibility in its output.
Wait… so what’s the GOOD NEWS????
Well, the Good News is that because the newsletter is now exclusively free, I’ve decided to unlock the vault of recipes from the past 18 months (over 100 of them!) that were previously only available for paid subscribers. So not only are you getting two brand new recipes this week, but for a lot of you, there’s a whole treasure trove of recipes from previous newsletters you’ll now also have access to!!
I’d highly encourage you to peruse through the previous newsletters to see if anything takes your fancy to add to the list for this fortnight’s cooking. I think my plan is that at some stage I’ll add a recipe Index Page to my Substack (will need to figure out how to do this first!) that has a list of all the recipes with links directly to the newsletter that they’re in, to make things a bit easier to find immediately when you’re craving that baked aloo gobi rice or those onion weed bhajis pronto!
is no theme technically a theme?
I know I’m usually all about a theme to the newsletter of the week, whether it’s been driven by what’s in season, what’s in the news, what’s on my mind, or what I’ve magically pulled from the sky on that given Saturday out of desperation. But today, in keeping with this laidback, easy-going, no pressure, ‘happy place’ vibe I’ve suggested that I’m trying to bring back into my kitchen, there is no theme to the recipes I’m sharing with you this week. Whether that’s a theme unto itself, that’s for you to decide; I’m too busy floating on a metaphorical lilo, sipping on my make-believe mojito.
Rest assured, that while I have put minimal effort into thinking of a theme for this week’s Eating Who I Want to Be, there has been the utmost of effort put into conjuring up two absolutely sumptuous recipes for you to make and devour this fortnight, and forever more.
Recently Alex and I were reminiscing about past trips to Italy, and naturally, about the food memories we share from those adventures. Alex shared that one of his favourite meals was at a restaurant in Modena ~ Ristorante da Danilo. The trattoria was very very Italian, from the wall hangings to the white tablecloths to the proud restaurant owner to the floral crockery, and we were treated to a truly magnificent Panna cotta drizzled with aged Modena balsamic: sweet and sticky with wobbly, creamy perfection. While this is what’s stuck in Alex’s mind from that dinner, for me it’s the lasagne verdi al forno that came before the Panna cotta that’s etched in mine. Lasagne verdi al forno (ie baked green lasagne) is from the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy (where Modena lies), and is unique for its green lasagne sheets, made with spinach, that house the delicious ragu, béchamel, and parmigiano reggiano. In my ever-growing quest to recreate plant-based versions of my biggest food loves, this week I’m sharing with you a recipe inspired by this memory of lasagne verdi al forno, albeit a rather loose interpretation.
And for this week’s second helping recipe, we’re going sweet and Dutch-but-not-actually-Dutch. I say this, become I’m sharing with you my spin on a Dutch baby, a Yorkshire pudding/pancake crossover, which is actually a misnomer as its origin is weirdly based somewhere in American/German food history. Feeling that it needed to be given a touch of actual Dutchness (and I don’t mean Dutch courage!), my Dutch baby recipe is flavoured with the alluring Dutch spice mix, Speculaas, famously found in the traditional Dutch biscuit of the same name. It’s a spice mix easily made at home, with prominent cinnamon, nutmeg and clove flavours, that really livens up the basic Dutch baby. Paired with wintry flavours of sticky maple walnuts and tinned Black Doris plums (the one tinned fruit that some may controversially say rivals its fresh counterpart), it’s a cosy and ultimately delicious option for either a weekend brunch or a quick dessert.
Cooking from Good Vibes this week…
Cooking from Good Vibes: I’ve started with a new team this past fortnight, moving from working in older person’s mental health to the Early Intervention psychosis community service, meaning that I’m now working with a much younger cohort of clients (age 16-30)… which has been somewhat refreshing. Feeling in the mood to bake something last week for my new workmates, and having some buttermilk in the fridge near expiry and NZ oranges in the fruit bowl, the ‘Impossible’ cake from the Delight chapter of Good Vibes was the only option. This will forever be one of my favourites to make, forever mystified by the Mexican wizardry that sees the layers of custard flan and chocolate cake swap places in the tin as they bake. Baking truly is a science.
Best of the season this fortnight (NZ):
Citrus - lemons, early grapefruit, early winter oranges, late limes
Yams
Onions
Leeks
Carrots
Brassicas (broccoli, caulis, cabbages, Brussels sprouts)
Hardy greens - cavolo nero, silver beet, kale
Kiwifruit
Celery
Mushrooms
Spinach
Celeriac
Brain food:
Farming systems influence the quality of our soil, food and our health; findings from a recent landmark NZ study
For the nutlovers out there - a rather controversial ranking list (hazelnuts at number 10, are you for real?!)
The Intersection of Food Security and Mental Health in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals
A Hokianga nursery hoping to restore knowledge in the māra kai to the local community
Whether you give these recipes a go or not, I hope that your next fortnight is full to the brim with good kai and good vibes. As always, feel free to spread the word about this little newsletter to anyone you think might listen; good food should always be shared!
Much love,
Alby xx
Lasagne verdi al forno (plant-based)
The lasagne of my Northern Italian dreams, given a plant-based Alby’s kitchen twist. Rather than the traditional pasta sheets made of spinach, I opt to blitz spinach through a plant-based miso béchamel, layered with the most umami of umami plant-based ragus you could imagine. It really does give all of that meatiness, without the meat. If you’re wanting comforting nostalgic Italian kai that will please all eaters at the table (meaty or not), this is the one.
Hands-on Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 2 hours
serves 8-12
Cost Estimate: $36 (about $4-5 per serving)
Ingredients
Spinach + miso béchamel
120g baby spinach leaves
400ml can coconut cream
600ml oat milk
80ml olive oil
1 ½ tbsp white (shiro) miso paste
100g plain flour
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¾ tsp cracked black pepper
sea salt, to taste
Mushroom ragu
400g finely chopped celery (from about 3-4 large stalks, leaves removed)
350g carrots (about 3), peeled and finely chopped
3 medium brown onions, finely chopped
1 tsp sea salt
300g mushrooms, roughly chopped
8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
400g can chopped tomatoes
750ml vegetable stock
125ml red wine
100g tomato paste
50ml light soy sauce
2 tbsp white (shiro) miso paste
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried basil
400g can black beans or lentils, rinsed and drained
2 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp cracked black pepper
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground chilli
Additional ingredients
375g instant dried lasagne sheets
fresh basil leaves, to serve
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced (or 180°C conventional).
First make the ragu. Pour the olive oil into a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Once hot, add the chopped celery, carrots, onion and salt. Sauté for 15 minutes, until nicely softened (this is called the soffritto). Add the chopped mushrooms and garlic and cook for a further 5 minutes, tossing through the soffritto. Add the remaining ragu ingredients, bring to the boil and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring intermittently, until the liquid reduces to form a delicious ragu. Adjust seasoning to taste.
As the ragu cooks, make the spinach miso béchamel. Place the baby spinach in a bowl and pour over boiling water to cover. Leave for 2 minutes, then drain the water, rinse under cold water to refresh, and drain again, squeezing out any excess water from the spinach; set aside. In a bowl, whisk together the coconut cream and oat milk until combined. In a large, deep saucepan, whisk together the olive oil and miso paste. Place over medium heat and once hot, add the flour and whisk into the miso oil, cooking for a minute or two to form a crumbly paste (the roux). Remove from the heat and gradually pour in the coconut cream/oat milk, whisking constantly until the mixture is smooth. Return to the heat, bring to the boil and simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly along the bottom of the pan, until the sauce is nicely thickened. Remove from the heat and add the blanched spinach, ground nutmeg and cracked black pepper to the béchamel. Using a stick blender (or similar), blitz until completely smooth. Season to taste with sea salt, if desired (the miso will have already added a little saltiness).
To construct your lasagne, lightly grease a large, deep ovenproof dish or baking tin (approx. 33cm x 23cm) with oil. Spread a very thin layer of béchamel over the base of the dish. To form your layers, start with a single layer of lasagne sheets, followed by half the ragu (spreading it out), then another layer of lasagne sheets and half the béchamel. Repeat so that you have four layers of lasagne sheets, with the top layer being béchamel. Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes until golden, bubbling, and the lasagne sheets are cooked through. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes before serving warm with fresh basil leaves.
Alby’s Advice:
To save time, I recommend finely chopping the vegetables for the ragu in a food processor, if you have one.
Use whichever mushrooms you can get your hands on - a variety is good, I like to use portobello, but you could also easily use white buttons if they are most accessible.
Speculaas Dutch baby with Black Doris & sticky walnuts
I’ve been meaning to make a Dutch baby recipe for some time, and this weekend was finally the weekend for it. A Dutch baby is somewhere between a Yorkshire pudding, pancake and crêpe, but decidedly unique in its own right. Essentially a pancake batter is made, without any raising agents, and then poured immediately into a hot buttered pan and baked at a high temperature. The high temperature results in the batter creeping up the edges of the pan and the pancake becoming naturally puffed and golden. It’s perfect for when you can’t be effed spending 30 minutes at the stove flipping pancakes, and is a great option for a quick-yet-fancy breakfast for two ~ my preference is to eat it straight from the pan! You can top your Dutch baby without whatever you feel, but this combo of canned Black Doris plums (IYKYK), sticky maple walnuts and crème fraîche, when paired with the Speculaas spice in the Dutch baby batter, really is something terrific.
Hands-on Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
serves 2-4 (or 1 very hungry caterpillar)
Cost Estimate: $12
Ingredients
Dutch baby
3 eggs
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
2 tsp Speculaas spice mix (see recipe below)
¼ tsp sea salt
150ml milk
30g butter
To serve
50g walnuts, roughly chopped
3 tbsp maple syrup
generous pinch of sea salt
100g crème fraîche
850g can Black Doris plums
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C fan-forced (or 220°C conventional). Place a medium 23cm, high-sided cast-iron frying pan in the oven immediately, to heat while you make the batter.
For the Dutch baby, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar and vanilla until frothy and the sugar is dissolved. Sift over the flour, Speculaas spice mix and salt, whisking to combine. Pour in the milk and whisk until a smooth, thin batter is reached. You want plenty of air in the batter to help with the rise, so don’t be afraid to whisk it well (alternatively you can blitz all the ingredients together in a blender). Leave to rest for a couple of minutes. Remove the hot pan from the oven, add the butter and swirl the pan so the butter melts and coats the base and sides. Immediately pour in the batter and return the pan to the oven. Bake for about 18 minutes, until beautifully puffed up and golden brown.
As the Dutch baby bakes, prepare the toppings. For the sticky walnuts, place a small frying pan over medium heat. Once hot, add the walnuts and toast for a couple of minutes until fragrant and starting to turn golden. Add the maple syrup and salt. Stir through the walnuts for a minute until the walnuts are sticky and deliciously caramelised. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl to cool. Place the crème fraîche in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Take three whole plums from the can, halve, remove the stones and place in a small bowl with a little of the syrup. Transfer the remainder of the can to a jar or container and refrigerate for another use.
Serve the Dutch baby immediately, topped with the crème fraîche, plum halves, sticky walnuts and a final drizzle of plum syrup.
Alby’s Advice:
If you’re not in the mood for making the speculaas spice mix, a teaspoon of cinnamon, plus a little nutmeg, ginger and/or cardamom is a good option.
Oat milk can also be used as a dairy-free substitute.
Greek yoghurt, caramelised sliced pears and toasted hazelnuts are also a great topping option.
Speculaas spice mix
Speculaas are a famous Dutch spiced biscuit, made unique by their particular spice combination, which leans heavily into notes of cinnamon and nutmeg. This spice mix is incredibly versatile, perfect for adding to cakes, biscuits, or desserts (like the Dutch baby above). This recipe makes about 8 tbsp of spice mix, but can easily be doubled or tripled.
Ingredients
4 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground nutmeg
2 ¼ tsp ground cloves
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp ground cardamom
1 ½ tsp ground star anise
1 ½ tsp ground black pepper
Method
Place all ingredients in an airtight jar and mix together until well combined. Store in the pantry and use as desired.
Thanks- these recipes look delicious!