Lazy Vegetable Pakoras (Vegan)

This recipe is lazy for a few reasons. First, I adapted it from a recipe for Mushroom Pakoras that I found in Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Adventures Through the Great Subcontinent, the great cookbook by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, a husband-wife team responsible not only for this tasty offering, but a whole bunch of award winning cookbooks. Considering that the price, at about $40.00, is almost as weighty as the big hardcover tome itself, you know I am not going be to recommending it lightly. I almost didn't buy it myself, except that I read an excerpt online and was hooked. The book is attractive and has nice pictures, but the real lure is that the recipes are authentic and were collected personally in Asia by the authors and then brought home and tested in their kitchens here. It makes for recipes that are simple to make, and extremely tasty to eat. Every recipe I have tried has been very good. When you find a cookbook like that, you know it's going to become a cooking touchstone. This book has extended my knowledge and palate of the foods of Asia, and I thank the authors heartily for it. Now if only it came in a slightly less pricey and lighter version. But in the end, if a cookbook is a true standard and you use it many times for meals that you happily share with friends or family, then it actually becomes worth its price, and maybe even its weight.

These vegetable pakoras are also lazy because I discovered that chopping the vegetables in a food processor would considerably speed up the preparation time. This counts when you are tired after work and want something you can prepare quickly. The recipe makes quite a lot, to so it can serve as the main dish, easily complemented by a side of rice or mashed potatoes. There are so many vegetables in there you wont need anything more, though a few slices of tomato or cucumber on the plate are okay, too. Love the easy cucumber wedges I learned to make from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. Just cut a cucumber in wedges and arrange them on a plate ( I like to make a wheel-spoke design), sprinkle with salt and a bit of cayenne pepper and squeeze fresh lemon juice over them. Delicious, especially now with cucumbers in season-- sweet, mellon-y and crunchy. If the cucumber is a bit more mature , you could de-seed it with a spoon, just scooping along the length of the halves before you cut them into wedges.

The third lazy thing about these is that I pan-fry them in a lot less oil than the traditional deep-frying they usually get. That's a good way to save on the extra oil and the mess of cleaning it up. And because they are fried that way, the pakoras take on a kind of lying-down shape, more of a flat, slightly-puffed pancake shape, and have a chewy texture that seems sort of relaxed.

These are good, vegan, and a fantastic way to get vegetables into the kids. Served with ketchup they are quite a treat, but then I like ketchup. If you want a more sophisticated sauce, have a look at the cookbook and try the mint chutney or pick out another green chutney with just a hint of spice.

These are best when just fried, but if, by some remote chance, you have some leftovers, I doubt anyone will be throwing them out to the birds.


Lazy Vegetable Pakoras


Have ready: (The vegetables)



Chunk (for the food processor)or shred (for the hand-cut method) all vegetables.Feel free to try your own combination of vegetables, but at least some mushrooms really makes for a good texture.

1 medium carrot
1/2 medium onion,
2 green onions, if you have them on hand
Good large handful any mushrooms, from button to shitake
half a green or red sweet pepper
half a fresh seeded jalapeno pepper, if you have it

For the batter:

1 and 1/2 half cups besan (chickpea) flour - sourced from an Indian grocery or health food store
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne (instead or in addition to the jalepeno)
1 cup warm water





For frying:

Enough vegetable oil (I use olive oil) to cover a the bottom of your frying pan about 1/4-1/2 inch deep; replenish as necessary during frying.

Put the flour in a medium deep bowl, stirring in the salt and baking powder. Add the water, warm from the tap, all at once and mix it in. I use a fork. Process all your vegetables, either by pulsing in the food processor until they are shredded or by dint of a bit of hand chopping and shredding. I always mix them all together with the fork before I add them to the dough so they are evenly spread around, which makes it easier once added to the batter. The consistency should be like a thick pancake batter. If you need to add just a few tablespoons of warm water or chickpea flour to adjust the consistency. Don't worry, these are hard to ruin and you will easily catch onto how thick you like the batter after making a batch or
two.





Cover your pan with the oil and warm it up. Drop rounded tablespoons of batter in the oil in an oblong oval shape, distributing them around the pan, about 5 at a time for a medium-sized pan.





The trickiest part of these is to keep the temperature hot enough to cook them without burning them before they can cook in the centre. I usually adjust the heat from medium high to medium as they cook. They need more time on the first side than the second, just like pancakes. When you see little open holes (bursting bubbles) in the dough you can turn them over. I usually drift a little salt and pepper on the first side, as they need seasoning to be good.

Remove them as they are done to a basket or plate lined with some absorbent paper. I like brown paper or coffee filters rather than paper towel. In any case, have a little plate ready with condiment of your choice for dipping and eat them as soon as you can for the best flavour and texture. Leftovers can certainly be heated or put into a wrap with some mayonnaise, mustard, and veggies for next day's lunch or dinner.

Join the World at The International Day of Climate Action

Where: Your community, or one near you. All over the world.

When: Today, October 24th.

Who : You, your neighbours, your children, your family.

Why: Because you need to breathe.

350 parts per million is the safe level for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but we are now at 387 ppm and rising.

350. org's action day has participants in lots of communities around the world who've organized fun events like family festivals, pot luck lunches, and awareness gatherings like the one in Halfax from 12:00-2:00 today. We'll draw a chalk line around the area of the old Commons to raise awareness of the importance of protection of our green spaces.

Go here to find an interactive map where you can find something to join. I'll be down chalking in the Commons; maybe I'll see you there.

Susan Boyle: Wild Horses

A singularly moving interpretation of the Rolling Stones' Wild Horses by Susan Boyle. For my mother, whose birthday is coming up and who loves her, and for me because sometimes sentimental is also sublime.

Julie and Julia

There's a frisson in writing about the new film, Julie & Julia, that I've rarely felt lately. It comes from the confluence of the literary, culinary, and blogging worlds, three of my favourite things, and even includes omelettes, something that I've had a few words about here, that remain a mainstay of my diet, and even laid the foundation stone of my kitchen life. And, in case there is any doubt, I am now and always have been a passionate reader of anything that catches my interest from schlock to Literature. Sometimes that might be a cookbook, or more recently, a food blog with good recipes. Something to arouse the senses as well as whip me away to another world when this one becomes too heavy to carry for another minute.

So it was with plenty of anticipation that I watched the trailers of the new film, and plenty of glee that I noticed that Meryl Streep was playing Julia Child in tasty period couture with that plummy voice at full throttle. Suddenly " Bon Appetit" was on everyone's lips, even if we sounded just a little less like Julia and a little more like Dan Aykroyd than we'd like to think. I shamelessly uttered it at the checkout of the local bookseller as I plunked down a bit more cash than I had anticipated when I spotted My Life in France by Julia and Alex Prud'Homme wilily placed just next to Julie Powell's Julie & Julia . I hear both are bestsellers now because of the movie, and that Julia's cookbooks are also being rediscovered. All of which is good, in a literary sense, and which should thrill her heirs, whoever they may be.

It thrills me on another level, the cook as superhero, and this time she's a woman. And you might think I'm speaking tongue-in-cheek here unless you've read the account of Julia's life in France, her exploits at the Cordon Blue cooking school in a class of ex-GIs where she was the only woman, albeit a 6-foot-2-inch woman, armed with a formidable character that no doubt could have laid waste to whole platoons if she had wanted, and maybe charmed the pants off them before she did it. Because Julia came from a moneyed family that gave her a good education, and she had the sense of make pretty good use of it, even if she pretends that she was no egghead. She knew enough to be able to talk to anybody from fishmonger to ambassador and she certainly knew enough to pick the right life companion. Someone to stand by her and support her through her great adventure until she became a celebrity in her own right, the superhero who stood her ground wielding pan and knife, ricer and sieve and taught America how to cook and eat French food.

Who ever heard of such a thing? Before Julia.

Her book, recounted to her grandnephew Alex Prud' Homme when she was in her early nineties and just before her death, is the story of passion and conquest, a story of a woman stronger than her circumstances, bigger than her life, yet boxed in by the expectations of society for the wife of a mid-level diplomat in the late 1940s and 50s, even one who had been a spy with him in Ceylon and China in the second world war. Well, she was the head of the Registry in the OSS, later the CIA, and processed all the reports of the agents in the field "and other top secret papers".

But there was no boxing in Julia. She was big enough to spring out of any box she was put in, and that through some old-fashioned virtues, stubbornness and hard work. For when she couldn't do something, some skill at the Cordon Blue exceeded her grasp, she went home and practiced and practiced and sweated and toiled until she could do it better than anyone in class. And, in her own words, she came to be respected by her peers because she was "fearless". Superhero fearless.

That unsinkablity carried her through the cooking school and into a career in teaching other Americans in Paris to cook, and to take on writing a cookbook about French technique in English, cooperating with Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle. Oh, did I mention that along the way she had also mastered the French language well enough to read French cookbooks like Ali-Bab and The Larousse Gastronomique and shop in the street markets for the best produce, meat, fish and wines both for her daily food and the classes? Shazam.

With one hand on the pulse of the artistic life of France, for her husband was an artist as well as a diplomat and they entertained and befriended other creative people, and the other two firmly fixed on testing and refining the recipes she would eventually turn into Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia attacked her life with a zest and vigour rarely found outside of the realm of the most driven, the most productive of humans, ones that seem to know something that the rest of us don't, the geniuses among us, those that are smart enough and lucky enough to discover their magnum opus and then go for it with everything they've got.

It takes the courage of a superhero to do that, when life has so many directions that you could explore, and there are so many interesting ways to spend your time. Most of us seem to stumble into some kind of work and then try to make the best of it, but how many of us find our real work, one that lifts the soul enough to bear on when things get heavy, the souffle falls, our boss is an asshole with no vision, and our co-workers spend their time nitpicking everything?

Luckily Julia did. For she certainly faced publishers with no vision, collaborators with no stamina or with narrow views, and complete indifference to her vision of bringing French cuisine to the American household. But somehow Julia knew and she kept on until she found someone who recognized her work, and her for who she really was. Presto! An american superhero was born.

Julie Powell is another kind of superhero. She is a writer first and foremost. A writer with a tremendous idea and a blogger at the forefront of the blog-to-book-to movie revolution. Also, coincidentally a wife and a cook, at least of the everywoman persuasion. Perhaps it was that, as well as the magnitude of her project that caught the readers of The Julie/Julia Project's imagination. For what young cook in her right mind, in this era of white meat and vegetarians, would think to take on the work of cooking all 524 recipes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days? Recipes full of organ meats, brains and eviscerating fowl and fish, killing live lobsters and making slippery aspics. Julie Powell, that's who. Unassuming secretary by day, superhero cook by night, donning the somewhat dusty cloak that Julia had shed some years before, she steps bravely into the limelight, armed with only a sharp wit and a modest budget and cooks and writes her way into blogging history and the hearts of America much as Julia did years before. She does not mince words, she is feisty and foul-mouthed and real, and she discovers along the way that she has broken the black spell of the Curse of The Ordinary and moved into the state of grace of being inspired by something. Inspired by Julia, she cooks her way to becoming relevant to herself and others and offers that gift to anyone with the ability to log on.

It is a story of love as much as of success. Love of a project that seems bigger than you. More daring than you think you can do. Something only love could inspire you to start. And what is that love? Love of the potential and ability to dream and transcend the ordinary cards you seem to have been dealt. The forces of evil telling you that that cubicle is the place you belong and should be happy to be. Even when you know it's not true, but are afraid as hell to even think those thoughts let alone act on them.

It is a story of bearing up through fear and uncertainty and chickens that fall on the floor, of people that must be fed dinner, and writing that must be done whether you feel like it or not, and more than that facing up to the truth about yourself, whatever it is, and then finding some version of that truth that you can tell to others.

It is the story of life and discovery, joy and pain and in this very fortunate case of Julia Child and Julie Powell it has resulted in two very inspiring stories for women, whether we are cooks, writers, bloggers, cubicle workers or just people looking for our way toward something better.

I like the episode of The French Chef where Julia flubs something and then looks into the camera, patting the back of her stylish flip as she says, "You MUST have the courage of your convictions". I don't know if Julia always was as sure of herself as that, but she has left us with a prescription for the ages, one that along with her, "Never apologize. Never explain." and "Bon Appetit!" make great companions when we hesitate or stumble with whatever great or little work we stoop to conquer.

Julia's opinion of MacDonald's French fries. (Youtube video)

How to Be Me

Collect yourself after a full day of teaching and hoist that backpack onto your shoulders, change into sneakers (if you ever changed out of them that day), and head down three flights of stairs to the downtown street where you work, then uphill to the central green spot, or Commons, that is the short-cut to your bus home. It is probably hot, so by the time you get on the bus you are sweating through your clothes and into the lining of your slightly-too-heavy jacket, fumbling in your pocket for the correct change, and maybe not coming up with it. If you are lucky, though, you will be rescued by a kind stranger, asking "Do you want change?" who when you look up turns out to be your daughter coming home from work, on the same bus.


You ride in silence, standing or gratefully sinking into a too-narrow seat, while the bus fights its way through rush hour traffic, taking twice the time it would normally to get to your stop. Off the bus, you start up the steep hill towards your daughter's house, arriving winded at the front door, now painted an attractive green to harmonize with all the trees and shrubs surrounding it.


Dogs within start to bark furiously as you fumble around with the key, using the other hand to reach into the mailbox and see if anything came for you. If you manage to avoid wet dog kisses and dropping your keys or bag in the ensuing hubbub at the door, congratulate yourself.


Into the now-lovely hallway, step onto a padded bamboo rug and luxuriate in the softness of a freshly painted vanilla light. For the house, after 3 months of hard slogging by the whole family, but especially by your daughter, is finished and has been put on the market. Now it is all summer, transformed from its dark and grungy former life into a blond, beautiful lushness with open views of the trees and flowers that envelop it. One can sit on the back deck and eat a meal with trees overhead and flowers all around. One get a breath of air and there is even, on most days, a bit of peace to be had, on the edge of activity of this busy city.


Despite the new kitchen with its dark gleaming counters, shiny new sink, cabinets that have been custom-coloured to match the new floor, you are a bit too tired after a long day of work to be inspired to cook like an Iron Chef. Instead you eat salad, baked potatoes with a quick broccoli and onion stir-fry and some nice fried tofu, spaghetti with a quick garlic, olive oil, pepper and cherry-tomato sauce, macaroni and tofu cheese, a quick curry, dahl and rice, or something else tried and true and easy.


You are not blazing trails in innovation now, you are eating to recover health and energy after four or five months of kitchen and whole-rest-of-the-house chaos. You are trying to enjoy the quiet in the house (except for those barking dogs) between the business of viewings. You are saving energy for keeping the house clean enough for visitors every day.


Did I forget to mention that you have a new job? You are now a teacher of adult newcomers to Canada. You are teaching them the communication, aka English, skills they will need to continue their education here or get a job. It is worthy and rewarding work, since they are so motivated and eager to learn and come from countries where that was difficult or even prohibited. Countries like Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iran. Since you stepped in near the end, you are very busy creating lesson plans and curriculum in the last month before the program ends for this term.


When it does, in July, you will be going out to Vancouver to visit your sister and meet a dear friend. After that, who knows? Life may suddenly take a new turn, something sweet and surprising. There may be birds, and trees, and fresh air, and growing involved. You hope there will be time for lots of good food and recipes for new things. If there is, those faithful of your readers, and friends, who have stuck around through thick and thin will be able to read about it all right here.


Good Old Macaroni and Cheese for a Lazy Night

While I appreciate that there are many ways make it, from those that favour bechemel cheese sauces, to breadcrumbs-topped, baked in the oven versions, when I make GOMAC I really want just the basic goodness of cheese flavour stretched and sticky over a nice chewy pasta. No fuss, but still comforting and good.

Take a package of Tinkyada brown rice pasta (sorry, can't guarantee any other gluten-free kind, but the regular wheated is fine if you can have it). You can also use regular cheddar, if you eat dairy.

Fill up a big pot with water, add some salt and put on the lid until it boils. When it comes to a rolling boil, remove the lid and pour in the whole package. Give it a stir around to break up the pasta clumps.

Meanwhile back at the cutting board, get out 1 package of rice or tofu cheddar and 1 of mozzarella. You could use all cheddar, if you like. Cut off about half a package of each and then chop into thinnish slices about 1/4 inch by 1 or 2 inches long. You don't have to be exact; the thinness is more important than the length.

When the pasta is cooked to a nice al dente state (with a bit of bite but not raw in the centre), drain it in a colander and throw it back into the pot with the cheese on top. Take a fork and begin to stir the mixture. It will look as if the cheese is not going to melt in, but be patient. Just keep stirring it around and after a minute or so everything will meld together. Keep stirring until there are no more cheese lumps and it is a sticky glorious mess.

Add some salt and black pepper. Eat and enjoy.

It can be re-heated by adding a bit of water and stirring as you heat it. Watch to make sure that it doesn't burn. Or, for real laziness, of which I am definitely a proponent on working nights, just microwave. Eat fast, before it can rubber up.

Enjoy!

Note: I apologize for the lack of pictures here. Since my camera disappeared I have been borrowing my daughter's when I can, but access is a bit spotty. Please be patient, I'll try to put some up soon, both of the house and the GOMAC.

Love Fool

Love Foolosophy from Jamiroquai for pp. For this one you might need your dancing shoes, honey. Oooh.



And one more, live from Abbey Road Studios, Travelling Without Moving:

Gluten-free Tempura

I'm not quite sure why I have so few Japanese recipes posted. I suppose that when I was in Japan I assumed that most everyone could easily get Japanese food, so I concentrated on recipes that were mainly comfort food from home, or adaptations using Japanese ingredients.

But now, after being away from Japan for just over a year, I definitely miss Japanese food. I got a bit of a fix with a visit to Doraku Restaurant, where my family had an early Mother's day dinner last Friday night. The sushi was still good; the soba still tasty. But even so, there were dishes I couldn't have because they were made with flour. One thing that especially caught my eye and made me a little envious was the bowl of noodles my daughter had that was topped with some tasty looking tempura.

Tempura. As everyone in Japan, and probably many in North America know, tempura is the Japanese name for battered fried tidbits. Some of those tidbits are vegetables, and in fact the tastiest tempura is often made of them. Thinly sliced pumpkin (like our squash), shiso leaves (a herb not often found here but delicious with a tart addictive flavour) and even green pepper are among the stars in any Japanese tempura basket. Tempura is often served as the central dish of a "seto" a prix fixe meal that often includes miso soup, pickles, rice, and tea, maybe even salad or a small desert. It is high in calories because of the oil, but one would never call tempura, properly made, oily. Instead it has a thin crispy coating, while the vegetables inside are soft, flavourful, and even a bit juicy. It is a treat, plain and simple.

And Japanese tempura batter is the soul of simplicity. It is made from three ingredients only - egg yolk, flour, cold water. Dump them in a bowl, stir them up and that's it. Most of the work comes from the slicing and frying. The slicing is not onerous, though, because you don't need to cut that many vegetables unless you are feeding a crowd. You probably need only a few slices of a few kinds of vegetable per person.



Those vegetables can be anything from exotic Japanese to honest as the earth North American roots. For my selections I used what I had in the cupboard and fridge and that was onions, potatoes, carrots, red pepper, parsnips and spinach leaves. Nothing fancy, but the result was more than pleasing. It could have fed company as well as being a lone diner's treat.

It takes a bit of time, but it's a fun project. Nothing is difficult; the most taxing thing is perhaps the amount of oil you will need, enough for 3-4 inches of it in a narrowish saucepan. But you can cool, strain, and reuse the oil a few times. I refrigerate mine to make sure it is fresh.

Hope you will try this the next time you want to make vegetables the star of a special meal. You could guild the lily by serving it with a garlic mayonnaise or a ponzu, soy sauce-vinegar dip, or even, shhhhh, good ketchup. Not Japanese, but still good.

Go ahead treat yourself!





Gluten-free Tempura

Select about 3 to 5 kinds of vegetables and cut them into oblong or square shapes about 1/4-1/3 inch thick. I used potatoes with the skin left on, red pepper, onions cut in half and separated, carrots and parsnips cut into oblong slices, and spinach leaves.

To make the tempura batter stick the sliced vegetables need to be dredged lightly in flour before dipping into the batter. I used a mixture of half white rice flour and half cornstarch for this and made sure to clean off the excess with my fingers before dipping them. I fried mine in sunflower oil but you could use any mild flavoured vegetable oil that resists smoking. Give the veggies a quick dip in the following batter before frying them.





The Tempura Batter

1 egg yolk
1/2 cup very cold water
1/3 cup of white rice flour
1/6 or more of a cup of cornstarch

Separate the egg and pop the yolk into a small bowl. Beat it up to a froth and then put in the water and mix around a bit (I use a fork for this.) Put in the flours and beat lightly to get out the lumps. Usually you don't mix it too much because the gluten in regular flours will toughen but with gluten-free flours this is not a problem. It should look like a pretty thin crepe batter. Add a bit more flour if you think it needs it but be conservative because this batter is meant to be light and delicate.

Heat the oil to about 230 degrees. A thermometer makes this easier but you will learn to adjust the heat up or down so that the vegetables sizzle and bubble when they go in but don't cook too quickly outside before they are done inside. You can put about 3 or 4 pieces into a medium-sized saucepan at the same time. If you dredge and dip each one in succession they will enter the pot in good time to maintain the temperature of the frying oil. When they seem done remove with a slotted spoon or egg lifter and drain on absorbent paper on a plate, adding a small sprinkling of good salt. To serve them you may want to go the traditional route and put a few choice pieces on a bowl of rice, or serve them piled in a bowl or basket for snacking.

Enjoy them with a dip or let them melt in your mouth totemo solo.

Hit the Carrot Trail Muffins for Earth Day

Are they muffins or cupcakes? These days it's hard to tell the difference. Muffins in the popular chains have turned extraordinarily sweet and rich and many of them are large enough to fuel a charging lion. If lions were vegetarians maybe they would eat muffins. Makes sense to me.

I know my family likes little cakes, by any name. My daughter has a special fondness for sweets. Though she could certainly gain a few pounds, she eats small mountains of chocolate. Loves cakes, squares, cookies, breads whether sweet or savoury. I brought her up right.

These days with the stress high in this house, homemade sweets have been a little scarce. Not that we couldn't use the lift, just that the kitchen is in various states of renovation and clutter, as the house is readied for sale. And that we also are in various states of distress with some mental clutter to be cleared out, so baking sessions have been rare. But a day or so ago I felt the need of a little sweet medicine, so I went to the kitchen to whip up a remedy.

I came up with some pretty good muffins. They are a bit like carrot cake, which is what the recipe started out as. Carrot cake cupcakes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook. I thought they neded a bit more punch as I was going to convert them from glutened to gluten-free and sometimes that conversion produces baked goods that are so light they are more like parentheses around puffs of air than earthly delights.

I added pineapple, whch is a fundamental ingredient in carrot cakes I have been used to making. And because these needed some bite, and something to keep them from levitating off the table, I added some hearty store-bought trail mix. And an egg, but you vegans could make them without. They were nice and comforting. My daughter kept eating them and said they were as good as real muffins. I thought to share them with you.

Thanks to the Earth for all good root vegetables. If you make these at home you will save all the wrappings they would normally come in and spend a little time doing something healthy for yourself and maybe friends or family. You could even take them on a hike. So hit the Carrot Trail and have a happy Earth Day!





Hit the Carrot Trail Muffins (or cupcakes)

1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup sugar ( I use a natural organic sugar)
1/3 cup rice milk
1 egg (optional)
3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tapioca flour
3 Tb kinako (roasted soybean flour) if you have it
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 rounded teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 rounded teaspoon ground ginger
1 tsp good vanilla
1/2 cup or so pineapple and juice (canned). I crush it in a blender.
1/4 tsp, rounded, baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup pulsed carrots (I do them very small in a food processor)
1/3-1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup or so trail mix, pulsed to crumbs in a blender (Nice if it's the kind with dried fruit)

Put the sugar, oil, and rice milk and vanilla in a medium-sized bowl and combine with a fork. Add the flours, baking powder and soda, spices, and mix together. Add the carrots and pineapple and stir them in. Put papers in a 12-cup muffin pan and fill carefully with the mixture. I add a tablespoon at a time to them all and then another spoon, going around in turn so the batter is distributed evenly among the papers. Because there's oil in the mix you don't need to oil the papers. Put the pan into a 350 degree oven and watch them fairly closely. They won't take too long to cook, probably between 15-20 minutes. I have a fast oven, but there are no hard and fast rules about this; watch them and rotate the pan after 10 minutes front to back so they can cook evenly. When they look a gingery light brown and seem firm, test them by sticking a sharp thin-bladed knife or a cake pick into the centre of a few. When it comes out almost clean and dry you can take them out because some cooking will continue out of the oven. Let them sit in the pan to solidify, especially if they are the vegan, without eggs version, which are a bit more delicate but taste just as good.

Eat them naked or sprinkle the tops with icing sugar and enjoy. If you are actually taking them on the trail, they should be light in the pack and light on your stomach.