November Blue Fenugreek, Purple and Green Cauliflowers

I don't have that much to share this month, but here are a few vegetables and foodie related things that I did manage to photograph. 

In my kitchen were these green and purple cauliflower picked up direct from one of the growers at a farmers market.  I made Savoury Black Sesame and Purple Cauliflower Cake with the purple cauliflower; and the other was made into a Green Quiche which I will share later in the week for Eat Your Greens food challenge.

These two baby pumpkins were left over from last month.  I roasted them in a little oil and added them to a Peanut Curry.  I found peeling them quite difficult.

These are the last of the cooking apples from the tree.  Its been a good year with the fruit trees in the allotment garden plot this year. 

I made two recipes from the BBC website, Dorset Apple Cake as shown above and Dorset Apple Traybake (not shown)  and I must say, that both very delightful to eat and share.  I want to be cheeky and call it Welsh Apple Cake, as the apples were from Wales, but I better not. 

Vegetarian Philly Cheesesteak

Yes this is a vegetarian food blog and what I share below may look freakishly like 'meat', but I assure you these are homemade seitan slices peaking out of this Philly Cheese 'Steak' or cheesesteak. 

I was looking for ways to use up my rather large batch of homemade seitan and it was whilst flicking  Mama Cherry's Soul Food in a Bowl that I stumbled upon a meat version.  I of course decided to adapt it.  I am not that familiar with Philly Cheese Steak.  Momma Cherry writes 'Cheese steaks were invented in the 1930s at Pat's Steaks in South Philadelphia fondly known as Philly.  It should have American Cheese, Provolone or Cheez Whizz (a yellow processed cheese squeezed from the bottle) on it'.  However she recommends that a grated mild English Cheddar works well, so that is what I used here, though I did later stumble across a vegan recipe for cheez wiz - this recipe can easily be made vegan.

Momma Cherry slices steak as thinly as possible to ensure it remains tender.  I of course used thinly sliced seitan to be quickly sauteed it in hot oil, but before that before that I sautéed some thinly sliced onion and green pepper to caramelise, then added the slices of seitan to it before finishing it off with a little seasoning.

The hot dog style bread rolls were sliced.  D recommended putting the cheese at the bottom as the warm seitan, onions and green pepper would add warmth and melt the cheese beneath it (it didn't by the way). I generously piled in the filling and then for a final touch squeezed over French classic yellow mustard sauce. Straight into your mouth for a bit bite - well that part is not true, as we had to take pictures!

I am sharing these vegetarian Philly Cheese 'Steak' with Soup, Salad and Sammies Sundays hosted by Deb over at Kahakai Kitchen. 

Moveable Pear Cinnamon Cake

So hello November and to warm delicious Cinnamon Pear cake.  

And it really was delicious.  

The pears in this cake came from the garden.  Its the first year we have ever had pears from the tree. In fact its been a good year with cooking apples too.  

I wanted to present the pears standing upright like a crown - see this chocolate pear crown cake - but the pears did not want to play along.  I still think this cake looks pretty stellar. 

For the recipe, please follow this Cinnamon Plum Cake and just replace the plums with pears.