Raw Ginger Biscuits

As promised! Including a crap blurry photo taken with my daft mobile phone… They kinda look like tiny falafel patties. But they don’t taste like ‘em!

1 cup raw almonds
1 cup shredded coconut
¾ cup dates
1 tsp sea salt
roughly 1 inch chunk of fresh ginger root, grated

Process almonds and salt to a powder in a food processor. Slowly add dates, one at a time. Add coconut, and pulse processor until just combined. If you want “smoother” cookies, use desiccated coconut instead of shredded. Add ginger gradually. Taste test mix to check if desired gingery-ness has been reached. Empty contents of processor into bowl. Taking 1 tsp to 1 tbsp size chunks of dough, roll into balls then press flat into desired biscuit/cookie shape. Refrigerate to firm up. Optional: instead of refrigerating immediately, dehydrate on a low setting for several hours to achieve a drier, crispier biscuit/cookie.

Note: I wouldn’t recommend these ginger cookies for pregnancy nausea! The nut base was too rich for my sensitive tummy. Blander, flour-based ones are better until the nausea passes… and it seems to have passed for me, now. Yay!

Lots of Spelt Ginger Biscuits and Iced Green Tea with Lime & Ginger

Note these are low-gluten cookies made with spelt flour, not entirely gluten-free. If you want gluten-free, it’s probably good to use a soy-based gluten-free flour like F.G. Roberts, but it will make a softer/wetter mix. For soy-free & pre-mixed-flour-free, you can use a mix of equal parts potato starch, chickpea flour, brown rice flour, and tapioca starch, which tends to work well for a lot of pastry-style/biscuitish things. Also note that in the land of Australian English we use the terms cookies and biscuits interchangeably. I don’t know what’s up with those north American savoury “biscuit” things. Sorry, guys!

Ingredients

5 cups organic spelt flour (see above for alternatives)
2 tbsp ground flax (linseed meal)
1 tsp xantham gum (optional)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (add a little more if your baking powder is salt-free/gluten-free/aluminium-free fancy junk like mine)
1 cup sunflower oil (or other unscented vegetable oil)
1 cup golden syrup (aka: cane juice, cane syrup, light treacle)
½ cup molasses
1 bigass chunk of ginger root, grated (about ¼-½ cup, depending on how gingery you like it)

Heat oven to 180ºC (350ºF). Grease and/or line two baking trays. Sift together flour, flax, xantham, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Combine well (aerating with a whisk is good, too). Dump in your oil, molasses, syrup, and grated ginger. Stir until just combined – this is a thick dough, so it’s fun to use your hands to finish the job after some stirring. (Add a little water if your flour is too dry.) Put tablespoon-sized blobs on to your two trays. Chuck the trays in your oven for about 15-20 minutes (remember the tray on the higher shelf will cook quicker). Cool for a while on the trays before putting the biscuits on cooling racks – they will probably be quite soft, and will harden a bit as they cool. Then eat the tasty little bastards. Give some to your friends and family if you’re feeling generous, otherwise hoard them for yourself. They freeze pretty well.

And there you have it. A cure for pregnancy nausea. Which is also one of the reasons I’ve been pretty slack with updating this blog recently. Another cure:

Iced Green Tea with Lime & Ginger

1 bigass pot of high-quality loose-leaf Japanese green tea*
1-2 cups of apple juice, to sweeten
juice of ½-1 lime
grated ginger to taste

Boil water, then let cool to 80ºC (176ºF), then pour onto your nice green tea in your nice teapot. Brew for 1 minute, then strain into a jug. Let cool. Add apple juice, lime, and grated ginger to suit your tastes (adding more or less also depending on how bigass your teapot is). Stick it in the fridge. Serve chilled.

*Please go to a decent Asian grocery shop and buy the most expensive stuff you can afford. Supermarket/generic/whitebread brands are complete shit. Seriously. Better yet, ask your lovely, kind Japanese sister-in-law to give you some for Xmas, or, if you fail at having extended family in Japan, find yourself a kind global nomad friend with a penchant for Asian travel and get them to post you some. Or get off your ass and see the world for yourself, and buy lots of tea while you’re out there. Get to it! And send me and my nauseous pregnant belly a postcard or two along the way. I promise to be insanely jealous. Go! Go now! Before it’s too late.

Stay tuned for a raw version of the above ginger biscuits as well.

Fennel and Mustard Seed Pakoras

Ingredients
750g can of mixed beans (eg. small red kidney, baby lima, garbanzo, great northern)
1 – 2 tablespoons gluten-free self-raising flour (I use FG Roberts)
1 tablespoon dried fennel seeds
3 teaspoons dried yellow mustard seeds
1 teasp turmeric
1 teasp ground coriander
1 teasp ground cayenne pepper
1 teasp ground cumin
2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
sesame seeds, optional
vegetable oil for deep-frying (eg. sunflower)

Method
1. Drain and wash the beans. Put them into a food processor – add water until the mixture starts to move/blend easily (but is still a thick, heavy dough-ish consistency, not runny). Add flour and blend thoroughly, until a smooth consistency.
2. Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a small pot. Add the mustard and fennel. Cook at high temperature until the mustard seeds start popping, then quickly add other spices. Take off the heat and add to the food processor, and blend until combined/evenly dispersed (the fennel seeds won’t break down).
3. Heat up oil for deep-frying. Roll mixture into balls in the palm of your hand, roll the balls in sesame seeds, coating them and pressing firmly so they stay on (optional), then deep-fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown. Drain on rack or paper towels.
4. Serve with fresh coriander, and sauces (sweet chilli and kecap manis). This recipe makes more than enough for four people – for an entrée or snack.

Pakoras without seeds:

You could use channa flour + a little starch (eg. potato or tapioca) and a pinch of baking powder in place of the gluten-free SR flour.