Make Your Own Week day four: shortbread biscuits

Breakfast: Nature's Path Peanut Butter Granola with yogurt and blueberries

Lunch: Sushi followed by proper tea with home-made shortbread biscuits

Dinner: Lentil shepherd's pie with salad

Are biscuits a kitchen staple? For many people, yes - in fact, a cup of tea without a biscuit is as close to heresy as an atheist can get. But shortbread? Well, shoot me, I'm British.

I'm not going to pretend that these biscuits are any healthier than the shop-bought ones (though of course they will be if you use good quality butter and non-bleached flour), the value in these is in the making and in the eating, not the being smug about the nutritional values (although that is one of my favourite hobbies).

The fun is also in the icing. Who doesn't love pink pig shortbreads?

You'll need
(Makes 18 pigs)

1 cup butter
1 cup icing sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
splash of almond milk

Method:

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celcius
Grease a baking tray or cover it in greaseproof / baking paper
Cream the butter and the icing sugar together until they're thick and creamy
Stir in the vanilla extract
Stir in the flour to make a moist dough
Add in the almond milk if necessary
Roll the dough out on a floured surface to your desired thickness
Use awesomely-shaped cookie cutters to cut out your cookies. I had pigs and skulls!
Put these on the greased / lined tray and bake for 20 minutes
Allow to cool

You can decorate these as you like - just mix icing sugar with almond milk until it's the right consistency then add a couple of drops of food colouring and ice to your heart's content!

A couple went not so well. We call these our 'special' skulls.

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Make Your Own Week day three: Pasta

Breakfast: A blueberry and oats smoothie

Lunch: Vegetable and barley soup

Dinner: Home-made wholewheat pasta with tomato and zucchini sauce and wilted spinach

Ah, pasta: the mainstay of the lazy. Countless times I've come in hungry with no desire to cook anything fancy, and thrown together some pasta and pesto dish in about ten minutes. It is joyous, and we always have it in the kitchen.

But why do we never make our own? Two reasons: it's cheap, and it's supposedly difficult - don't you need a pasta machine? No, no you do not. The reasons TO make it, however, are manyfold: it's quite easy, it's fun, fresh pasta is better than dried pasta, you can make it in any shape you fancy and you can make it with whatever flour suits you. Plus, telling people "Oh yeah, we just had some pasta I made" makes you sound like some kind of kitchen god, with the spirit of an old Italian woman in you.

You can make any shape pasta you like, but this is to make fat linguine.

You'll need
(Serves 2 hungry ones)

2 1/2 cups white or wholewheat flour (I prefer wholewheat)
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

Sift the flour and salt together in a bowl
Make a well in the middle and pour in the eggs
Beat the eggs lightly then stir into the flour
Form a moist but not sticky dough (add some water if necessary) and knead for 5 minutes
Cover with cling film and let rest for 30-60 minutes
Roll out onto a floured surface with a floured rolling pin
Flatten out to as thin and long as you can manage
Cut into 1-2 cm wide strips
Hang to dry if you're storing them OR boil water to cook them straight away
They should cook in 10 minutes or less
Enjoy!

This is definitely more effort than opening a packet and boiling them, but look at them - they look so tasty! The consistency of the pasta is great, and sitting there with both pasta and sauce that you've made from scratch is ultimately very rewarding. Plus, the wow factor: it's definitely there!

You can find inventive places to hang dry in your house!

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Make Your Own Week day two: Almond Milk

Breakfast: Home-made almond milk!

Lunch: Brown couscous salad with nuts and veggies

Dinner: A fantastically spicy veggie Pad Thai from the Red Room

I am lucky enough to be in Toronto, where you can't swing an anti-soy-milk banner without knocking over ten litres of almond milk. However, if you're not living in a city where almond milk is both cheap and ridiculously available, a good option can be to make your own. And it's easy!

You'll need:
(Makes 8 cups / 2 litres)

2 cups almonds
8 cups water

Method:

Soak the almonds in the water overnight
Put the whole lot into a blender and blend
Strain through a sieve lined with a cheesecloth - leave for strain for 15-20 minutes
Save the almond pulp to make into something along the lines of delicious like almond biscotti
Enjoy the almond milk!

You can make vanilla almond milk by adding 2 tsp of vanilla essence to the water, and if you prefer your almond milk to be a little sweeter, you can add 8 dates to the water while it drains. If you're hardcore, you can have it just like this.

The pulp that you'll find left in your cheesecloth can be used in smoothies, biscotti, or anything else almondy that you'd like to try. I used mine in a smoothie and I still have loads left!

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Make Your Own Week day one: Bread

Breakfast: Toasted home-made bread with home-made jam. Ultimate smug breakfast

Lunch: Brunch wrap from Tequila Bookworm with salad and their awesome coffee

Dinner: Vegetable curry with brown rice

This week on the Everyday Veggie is going to be Make Your Own Week. Yes, it's technically always Make Your Own Week (duh) but this week is going to show you how to make your own kitchen staples; the things you buy without even thinking about making your own.

Why? Well, the things you buy in the store are often full of salt and sugars to make them last longer, and so can be quite unnecessarily bad for you without you even knowing - baked beans are notoriously bad for this, and so is anything tinned. Sometimes, they're unnecessarily expensive in the stores, with a litre of almond milk in Sydney costing an unbelievable ten dollars. Sometimes, though it's just more fun to make your own and be in control of the flavours - and we'll be making ice cream simply because it is fun.

First up though, bread. There need to be no reasons for making your own bread beyond these two: it makes you feel like some sort of kitchen master and it leaves that amazing just-baked-bread smell permeating your house all day.

You'll need
(Makes 1 loaf)

1 kg whole wheat flour
6 tsp instant yeast
6 tsp honey / sugar
2.5 cups warm water
2 tsp salt

Method:

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl
Stir in the yeast
Dissolve the honey / sugar into the water
Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the water mix, then stir to make a moist dough
On a floured surface, knead the dough - pull it, rip it, slam it down, fold it over roughly
When it rips less and moves back together when pulled, put it in a large bowl with a tea towel over
Leave for 40 minutes in a warm, moist place
It will have doubled in size; knead again for 2 minutes and leave again for 40 minutes
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C
Place gently into a loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes
When it's ready, it should sound hollow when you knock on it, and should smell gorgeous!

I can't tell you how much of a sense of achievement you get from making your own delicious bread. It has such a dense flavour and feels really hearty. Leave it to cool then coat a slice with a thick layer of home-made cherry jam, and enjoy it with a cup of tea and the paper. Pure farmhouse kitchen joy.

I'll never go back!

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Welsh Rarebit

Breakfast: Banana cinnamon smoothie

Lunch: Pesto scrambled eggs with chickpea salad

Dinner: Welsh rarebit with spinach and red peppers followed by Bailey's chocolate cake

Happy National Welsh Rarebit day! Well, it was yesterday, but there you go, that's the nature of time: it passes.

Anyway, many of you poor folk won't be aware of what a Welsh rarebit is. Some naysayers may tell you that it's basically cheese on toast; but dear reader, if you're being cynical even vichyssoise is basically potato soup. No, rarebit is so much more than that; it's a culinary delight, combining some very different flavours and even, in some recipes, beer (never accuse the British of passing up an opportunity to include alcohol).

My version is a bit of a variation on the traditional, because that's always fun. It's also very subtle in some of the flavours, letting the cheese take centre stage while the rest of the ingredients play important bit parts.

You'll need
(Feeds 2)

2 thick slices of brown, crusty bread
2 cups grated mature cheddar cheese
1 egg
1 tsp mustard seeds
3 spring onions, chopped
sprinkle of oregano
sprinkle of paprika
small splash of balsamic vinegar
small splash of tabasco sauce / hot sauce
black pepper
oil

Method:

Put a little oil in a pan, put it on a medium heat, then add in the mustard seeds and put the lid on
They'll pop and hit the lid; take them off the heat before they burn
Beat the egg in a bowl
Stir in the cheese, onions, mustard seeds, oregano, paprika, balsamic vinegar and tabasco sauce and combine well
Toast both sides of the bread
Cover one side with the cheese mixture, making sure it's spread right up to the crusts
Grill (broil) until the top of the cheese is browning and bubbling
Serve with a light salad

Interestingly, the name of this dish is a corruption of the phrase "Welsh rabbit" and the whole thing has many legends attached to it. My favourite story is a bit of a diss on the Welsh: it's called Welsh Rabbit because if the Welsh went rabbit-hunting, this is what they would have to eat that night. DISS!

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Vegan rice bowl with coconut-miso sauce

Breakfast: A coconut bun from the Asian bakery

Lunch: Spicy sweet potato soup with home-made bread

Dinner: A Fresh-inspired vegan rice bowl with coconut miso-sauce

I've harped on about Fresh before, but they really are the king of veggie restaurants in Toronto. There are definitely other ones, possibly better ones, but Fresh are always consistent, always have at least 10 things you want, and are never boring.

They're most well-known for their range of rice bowls, which are always great no matter what the season. This is a simplified version of that concept, with uncooked veggies to keep the maximum nutritional value in them. The sauce is, I'm not gonna lie, amazing...and so easy!

You'll need:
(Feeds 2)

1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
1 avocado, chopped
1 red pepper, sliced thinly
1/2 cup snowpeas, chopped
2 tbsp miso
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp rice vinegar
fresh coriander

Method:

Boil the rice with the water, then simmer with the lid on for 20 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed
Stir the miso into the coconut milk and heat over a medium-low heat
Stir in the paprika and rice vingear
Allow to thicken then remove from the heat
When the rice is cooked, spoon it into a bowl, and layer the vegetables on top
Drizzle the sauce on top and tear a little fresh coriander on top
Enjoy!

If you had some alfalfa sprouts this would be even better. This is great for the turn of the season, when you still want fresh, healthy food but you need a little warmth with it too. Coconut-miso sauce is the bomb. Seriously.

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Spicy Sweet Potato Soup

Breakfast: Banana and apple smoothie

Lunch: Chino Locos Juicy Vegan burrito - Pressed tofu, eggplant, shittake mushrooms, glass noodles, guacamole, tomatoes, edamame beans, red onions, black beans, green peppers, cilantro, chipotle sauce, rustic rice. NOMS

Dinner: Spicy sweet potato soup with home-made bread!

It's getting colder in Toronto at the moment, and I am glad about this for two reasons: 1) I can wear jeans without losing some of my leg mass to sweat and 2) it's soup season again!

To celebrate this, and because the impending turn of the season is making everybody be on the verge of illness, I made this for the first time. The chilis in this open up your airways and can actually help to thin the mucus that's building up in your system, and the ginger is great for staving off illness before it starts. Plus, it's sorta sweet, sorta spicy, and really smooth and delicious.

You'll need
(Feeds 4)

1 giant sweet potato, peeled and cubed
2 large onions, diced
4 chilis, diced
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground paprika
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large piece ginger, grated
4 cups vegetable stock - more if necessary
fresh coriander
oil
black pepper

Method:

Fry the onion and garlic in the oil until they're browning and soft
Throw in the chili and ginger and fry for a minute or so
Add in the cubes of sweet potato and stir for a minute or so
Add in the vegetable stock - you've got the right amount if the water just covers the vegetables
Stir in the paprika and coriander
Bring to the boil then simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the potato is soft
Take of the heat, allow it to cool, and then blend
Stir in the black pepper
Serve, and garnish with a spring of fresh coriander

This is one of my new favourite soup recipes and can be made in under 30 minutes. The spices and the heartiness of the potatoes really help give you some energy and a little boost when you're feeling not your best. Add in the home-made bread and it's killer  - and stay tuned for that recipe next week!

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