Veganise This!

Thai inspired tofu and noodle salad

2012-03-14T20:02:00.001+11:00

Salads are not commonly eaten in our house. It is difficult to find ones that suit all of our tastes, given everyone's individual food aversions. When we do eat salads, they are generally served on the side but the recent few days of warm weather motivated me to want a cold meal which is highly unusual. Perhaps this craving was due to some inner guilt as the "must try more salads" pledge I made to myself before the start of summer hadn't eventuated into anything more than a thought.

After rummaging through the pantry and fridge I was inspired to make a noodle salad. I had some left over tofu to use up and discovered half a tin of red curry paste hiding in the back of the fridge. I was in the mood to play around with the ingredients that were on hand rather look up recipes so that's just what I did.

The tofu was marinated in watered down red curry paste and fried briefly. The dressing for the noodles was kept simple, lime juice, Thai thin soy sauce and crushed garlic. Thai thin soy sauce is something I purchased whilst recipe testing, it has a lighter colour and flavour even though the sodium content is higher than regular soy sauce. I used some grated purple carrots as one of the vegetables which stained the noodles slightly as well as adding colour to the salad.

The young man isn't usually interested in salads in the slightest so I was extremely pleased that he liked the look of his dinner before he sat down to eat and then proceeded to devour his bowl with compliments. The tofu was initially quite spicy to eat, stirring it through the noodles toned it down a little as some of the marinade separated from the tofu and blended in with the noodles. The recipe has been written with different serving suggestions and recommended garnishes I didn't have on hand but would love to try next time around.

Thai inspired tofu and noodle salad

250g firm tofu, drained and pressed
3 tablespoons Maesri (or other vegan) red curry paste
3-4 tablespoons water
270g packet soba noodles
2 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons Thai thin soy sauce (or regular soy sauce or tamari)
1 teaspoon agave nectar
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 carrot, grated
2 x purple carrots, grated
1 small red capsicum, cut into thin strips
75g baby spinach leaves, shredded
lime wedges, to serve

Recommended garnishes
roasted chopped peanuts or cashews
fresh coriander leaves and/or thai basil leaves

Cut the tofu into bite sized cubes. Mix the red curry paste with 3-4 tablespoons of water in a bowl and stir through the tofu, ensuring that all of the cubes are coated in the marinade. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Cook the soba noodles in boiling water according to the package directions. Drain in a colander, then rinse well with cold water. Transfer the noodles to a large bowl.

Whisk together the lime juice, soy sauce, agave and garlic, then pour over the noodles. Add the carrots, capsicum and spinach to the noodles and toss well to combine.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the tofu and cook for a couple of minutes on each side. Allow to cool.

Serve the noodles and vegetables in large bowls, then add the tofu cubes on top. Alternatively, stir the tofu through the noodles and vegetables prior to serving. Garnish with chopped nuts and herbs if desired and serve with a wedge of lime.

Tofu Bacon

2012-03-08T19:52:00.001+11:00

It's no secret that tofu bacon is consumed on a regular basis in this household. Tofu bacon has featured in many recipes on my blog; calzones, pinwheels, brunches, several pasta dishes, and as a tasty garnish in a creamy cauliflower soup. It also makes a tasty sandwich filling. When it comes to facon we prefer tofu bacon over coconut bacon, tempeh bacon and this bean and buckwheat bacon. Eggplant bacon is still on my list to try!

Although I have posted a recipe for tofu bacon before, I have been meaning to write about it again for a few reasons. The original post (which I have been linking back to often) was early in my blogging days and silly old me didn't include any photos of the tofu bacon. Another reason is that my tofu bacon has improved over time due to the acquisition of a Tofu Xpress and grill pan. Pressing the tofu with the Tofu Xpress makes the texture of the block a lot easier to cut using a cheese slicer and the tofu also soaks up more of the marinade. After the slices are initially fried in the grill pan, I prop them up on the sides of the pan while the next batch is cooking which crisps the slices up further.

I'm sure this won't be the last time you hear me talking about tofu bacon as there are plenty of other recipes which I am planning to include it in the future.

Tofu Bacon (Adapted from a recipe on veggieboards)

350g firm tofu, drained and pressed
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
2 teaspoons liquid smoke

Shave the block into long thin slices using a cheese slicer or cut fine slices with a knife. Mix the soy sauce, water, ketchup, brown sugar, nutritional yeast flakes and liquid smoke together in a large shallow dish then add the tofu slices ensuring they all get coated with the marinade. Place in the refrigerator and allow to marinate for at least 8 hours or up to 2 days.

Heat a non-stick grill pan or frying pan and spray lightly with olive oil. Fry the slices in batches for a few minutes on each side until golden brown and crispy. If you have a grill pan, prop the cooked slices on the side of the pan while the next batch is cooking. Drain on paper towels. The tofu bacon becomes more crispy as it cools down.

Tofu Xpress

2012-03-06T20:21:00.002+11:00

Tofu has always been a bit hit and miss at home with the others more than myself. Over the last month or so my success rate with tofu has been flawless thanks to this handy device - the Tofu Xpress. I read about this gadget on various US blogs and although it sounded like such a helpful tool to have in the kitchen, I told myself that I didn't really need one. After contemplating purchasing other items for the kitchen that would have been used more infrequently, I decided to buy the Tofu Xpress as it seemed like it was something I would use often.

The Tofu Xpress is made up of three parts, a container to hold the block of tofu, a pressing plate which is placed on top of the tofu block and the part containing the spring. The latter clips into the grooves in the container which applies pressure to the tofu whilst holding it securely in place. It's a simple yet effective design.

It's important to place the tofu in the centre of the container particularly if the block is smaller than the container so that the weight is distributed evenly when the pressing is taking place. If the block isn't centred correctly, the tofu can turn out a bit lopsided.

After the tofu has been pressed for an hour or left overnight in the fridge, the entire container is full of liquid. Anywhere from 1/4 - 1/3 of a cup of liquid is expelled which is heaps more than I imagine would have been extracted via my previous method of pressing tofu with paper towels and heavy weights. The size of the block almost halves in size too. The tofu expands again after being placed into a marinade and it soaks up so much more flavour than tofu pressed with heavy weights.

I had been hesitant to grill up tofu steaks for my occasional tofu sceptics before I purchased the Tofu Xpress. Not long after it's arrival, the man and young man were won over with these teriyaki tofu steaks as the flavour that permeated throughout was sensational. The Tofu Xpress is an impressive tool for any tofu lover to have in their kitchen.

One of the downfalls of ordering is that the supplier is in the US and the shipping costs to Australia are quite expensive. The Tofu Xpress costs about $40 with the option to purchase a light tension spring (for pressing silken tofu) for an additional $6. The standard shipping costs were about $20 which bumps the price of the product up considerably and it took just under three weeks to arrive.

Recipe testing - Part 3

2012-02-29T17:09:00.001+11:00

After sorting through recent photos I decided it was time for another recipe testing post. There are only a few months to go before Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook is due to be released now. Click here and also here to read my previous testing posts if you have missed them or feel like another look.

Out of the four dumpling recipes tested this is the only photo I have taken. I wasn't inspired to take any shots until receiving some gorgeous china from my mother in-law for my birthday late last year. These dumplings were stuffed with edamame and daikon which wasn't my favourite filling of the bunch but it was still tasty.

This Morrocan bisteeya pie and carrot salad was a bold recipe test to conduct in my household as we aren't usually fans of sweet and savoury mixes. It wasn't very popular due to the sweetness as well as too many nuts for the man's liking which was a shame given the time it took to prepare.

I was excited to see a Ful Medames recipe pop up for testing and this is definitely the best version I have made at home now. The toppings were so full of flavour which really made it shine!

Paella is something I have made a few times before and my previous attempts were blown away by Terry's recipe which included some tempeh (I'm slowly coming around to tempeh). I tracked down some calasparra rice to use in this rather than arborio which was really rice.

This Tom Yum soup was so delicious and had a wonderful balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours. It was Tom Yum indeed!

We loved this Caribbean jerk tofu but weren't as keen about the rice and beans on the side. This was a pretty easy meal to whip up on a weeknight and it's made me keen to experiment with more Caribbean recipes.

It's been a really long time since I have gone to the effort of making a Thai curry paste at home. I'll have to get into the habit on a more regular basis as the fresh flavours in this green curry were so much nicer than the results of a jarred/tinned curry paste.

Green beans, tofu and chocolate truffles

2012-02-27T20:51:00.000+11:00

Over the past week or so, I have enjoyed revisiting a few older recipes. The boys love it when I go through this phase as I always give them the chance to request meals that they cherish. My son (who shall be known as "the young man" from this point forward, thanks Cindy) surprised me with a request for a green bean and tomato side dish we all used to love but I have not made in recent years.

We watched Jamie Oliver make this side dish of beans and tomatoes on one of his TV shows a long time ago and were intrigued with the combination of these simple ingredients. When I tried the recipe, it became a household favourite that remained on regular rotation for many years. Jamie didn't include any herbs in his recipe and somewhere along the way I decided that I liked it more with some fresh basil which is how I make it these days. It is a fairly quick side to prepare with the only downfall being that it uses more than one pot.

After deciding that I would appease the young man further by serving mashed potatoes with the beans and tomatoes, I wanted to include a bit of protein to round out the meal. I purchased a grill pan towards the end of last year on the spur of the moment as I had been thinking about buying one and found one on sale. It has been a fabulous tool for making tofu bacon but I hadn't put it to the tofu steak grilling test yet.

It took a while to decide on a marinade for the tofu as I wanted to use one with lighter flavours rather than something that would be too overpowering or spicy. After going through several cookbooks, I finally settled on making a teriyaki marinade from Vegan Planet. The man and young man can either love or hate tofu so they eyed their steaks off with initial scepticism but after tasting it they declared that the tofu was excellent as was the rest of the meal.

Valentine's Day is not usually a celebratory event on the calendar in our house but this year we cheated and had an indulgence on some delicious assorted truffles. It was purely because I was the lucky winner of this adorable box of Sjaark's vegan chocolate truffles thanks to Mandee of Cupcake Kitteh. If you would like the details of some online stores where a range of Sjaark's chocolates can be ordered from, head over to this post at Mandee's blog.

Teriyaki pan-grilled tofu (Adapted from Vegan Planet)

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped
350g firm tofu, drained and pressed

Whisk together the soy sauce, orange juice, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar, garlic and ginger. Cut the tofu into 3 thick slices, place in a shallow dish and cover with the marinade. Allow the tofu to sit for about an hour, flipping the slices over after about 30 minutes.

Heat a grill pan and spray lightly with olive oil. Cook the tofu for about 3 minutes on each side or until slightly browned on each side.

Green beans with tomatoes (Adapted from Jamie Oliver)

250g green beans, chopped into bite sized pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
400g fresh tomatoes, chopped or 1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
10-12 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

Place the beans in a saucepan with some salt and cover with water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 7 minutes or until the beans are tender. Drain in a colander and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the garlic. Fry for about 30 seconds or until the garlic is sizzling, then stir through the tomatoes. Cook for 15 minutes, the tomatoes should be completely soft and broken down after this time. Stir through the green beans, basil and season with salt and pepper to taste.

A milestone celebration

2012-02-16T20:17:00.000+11:00

Our son's 18th birthday was last week! Wow, it makes me feel old to be the mother of an adult but I am actually quite a young parent as I gave birth to him just after turning 19. On his actual birthday, the three of us went to a favourite local restaurant (which I must bring my camera to next time so I can post about it) and then we hosted a family party on the weekend. It was a great night that was thoroughly enjoyed by all, including the birthday boy.

During the month preceding the event I perused many recipes for dips, finger foods and sweets and pre-cooked a few freezer suitable items along the way to keep myself organised. I actually had to stop at one point because my freezer was full to the brim of baked goods so I couldn't squeeze another item in. The photo below was taken after clearing out the freezer on the morning of the party, pictured are samosas from Terry Hope Romero's recipe testing, pinwheels, sausage rolls from where's the beef and oven baked falafels.

I chose a selection of dips and daringly made a couple that I hadn't tried previously, one of which turned out better than the other. As my mum is seriously allergic to all nuts I decided to keep them out of everything apart from the sausage rolls and changed this Mexican layered dip around to suit. I started with a base of refried beans and layered it with guacamole instead of cashew cream, then topped it all off with chopped tomatoes, olives, spring onions and coriander. This was a big hit, especially with my niece and brother in law.

A hummus variation with roasted red capsicum, olives and smoked paprika that I made last Christmas, a spiced carrot dip which I wasn't very fond of, and a Moroccan broad bean dip called bessara were the other dips I made to go with pita bread. The bessara was quite similar to hummus although it had a deeper earthier flavour. I stumbled across this dip when I was searching for recipes that used dried broad beans a while ago as I accidentally purchased broad beans when I meant to buy Egyptian fava beans for ful medames.

For sweets, I made a carrot semolina halva from recipe testing and rocky road from Green Gourmet Giraffe minus the nuts. I also made a chocolate cake and frosting from The Joy of Vegan Baking which was decorated with choc-mint balls (see top photo).

Now that the party is over and with recipe testing finishing up soon, I aim to get back into a more regular blogging routine. That's the plan anyway!

Bessara (Moroccan broad bean dip) (Adapted from this recipe)

200g dried broad beans
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 heaped teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
fresh chopped parsley, for garnish

Place the broad beans in a bowl and cover well with water. Allow to soak for at least 8 hours or overnight. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse well with fresh water. Place the beans in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered for about an hour or until the beans are tender.

Drain the beans in a colander and allow to cool then place them in a food processor with the garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper. Pulse for a few minutes, scraping down the sides every so often, until it becomes a thick smooth paste. Add some additional water if you prefer a thinner consistency.

Transfer to a bowl and garnish with parsley. Bessara is traditionally eaten warm, I served it at room temperature which was fine.

Weekday smoothies

2012-02-09T08:36:00.000+11:00

Life has been extremely busy recently as I've been planning and cooking for an upcoming party this weekend, participating in another round of recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero and enjoying the company of interstate friends last weekend. I only have time for a quick post this week, but you can be assured there will be several posts to follow about the party food next week.

Smoothies became a part of my Monday to Friday ritual around the same time this blog was created but I haven't posted about them yet. Throughout my life I never enjoyed various cereals or muesli for breakfast and was generally happy to nibble on a couple of slices of toast. That all changed when the man began to purchase smoothies on a semi-regular basis. I questioned why he should pay for something at inflated prices when I could easily be whizzing them up at home for a fraction of the cost.

So I began making smoothies for the man and decided that I quite liked them too! I fluctuated with various combinations before we mutually agreed that pineapple and blueberries are our favourite base fruits. A third and sometimes fourth type of fruit is added which provides subtle differences in the overall flavour of the smoothie. The most common supplementary fruits I use are banana, mango or other type of berries. Ground flaxseed is always included to provide us with some Omega 3.

I call them our weekday smoothies as we consume them throughout the working week. The man takes 500ml off to work in a jug which leaves me with 250ml and enough room in my belly for a slice of toast.

Weekday smoothie

1/4 - 1/3 pineapple, roughly chopped
1/4 cup frozen or fresh blueberries
1 small banana or 1/2 mango or an equivalent amount of other various fruit
1 cup (or more) soy milk
2 tablespoons whole flaxseeds

Place the pineapple, blueberries, banana/mango/other fruit in a blender with about a cup of soy milk and blend until no chunks of fruit remain. Grind the whole flaxseeds in a coffee or spice grinder until it becomes a powder. Add the ground flaxseed to the blender and pour in additional soy milk up to the 750ml level mark on the blender. Blend again briefly, then pour into glasses and enjoy!

Tomato and chilli relish

2012-02-01T20:50:00.004+11:00

When it comes to making preserves, I am a complete and utter novice. You could say that I was a virgin in this department until a few days ago. Over the years, I have had the best intentions to utilise some of my various home-grown produce into jams, relishes or chutneys although I never managed to get around to it.

My mother and mother in-law are old hands at making preserves and always pass on a jar or two of their various wares. I discussed tomato based recipes with my mother in-law last weekend who showed me a great pile of old recipes she had been collecting over the years. She offered to lend me her book full of clippings and at the end of the evening, I forgot to take them home with me.

I took this as an opportunity to look through my own cookbooks and stumbled across a Tomato and chilli relish in an old Charmaine Solomon cookbook published by Family Circle in 1991. It sounded like a perfect recipe for me to try, especially as I had several home-grown chillis ready to use as well as a bounty of tomatoes. My chillies are quite small but they have a decent amount of heat, I have learnt that a little bit goes a long way.

I haven't taken any photos of my tomato plant this year as I am rather ashamed of it's appearance. It was neglected for a period and the leaves started to brown, ironically it has produced the most perfect fruit of any tomato plant I have grown. The bowl in the picture is holding 1.7 kg of beautiful ripe fruit, I only used 1 kg of these in the relish as we have been enjoying the tomatoes so much in salads, sandwiches and various other ways.

Charmaine's recipe called for 3 kg of tomatoes so I made a third of the quantity and also altered a couple of other things along the way. The tomatoes were supposed to be peeled first which I didn't bother with, I forgot to measure the salt so might have used a bit less and I also doubled the amount of curry powder as I felt it needed more after a taste test.

As this was my first relish attempt, I was astonished with the amount of sugar that went into it. After I added the final ingredients and had a taste, I was certain that it was going to be way too sweet. When the relish was bottled and cooled down, I nervously gave the man a spoonful to sample and was relieved when he declared it to be a good one. He loves a good relish so I was interested to hear his opinion. I was pleasantly surprised upon tasting the relish as the sweetness had mellowed throughout the cooking and cooling process.

The recipe filled three small jars and one slightly larger jar (total of approx. 950ml) and could easily be doubled or tripled to suit your needs. The amount of chilli and curry powder could also be increased or decreased to suit your personal taste.

Tomato and chilli relish (Adapted from a Charmaine Solomon recipe)

1 kg ripe tomatoes
2 medium brown onions
2-3 teaspoons salt (should be 3 teaspoons based on the recipe)
2 bird's eye chillies
300ml brown vinegar
250g raw sugar
1/4 cup plain flour
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon turmeric

Chop the tomatoes and onions and place them in a large non-metallic bowl sprinkled with the salt. Allow it to sit for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Drain the tomatoes and onions in a colander, then place them into a large saucepan with the chillies. Combine the sugar, plain flour, curry powder, mustard powder and turmeric in a bowl and add enough vinegar to make a thick paste and set aside. Pour the remaining vinegar into the saucepan and simmer on medium-low for 45 minutes.

Stir the paste into the saucepan, bring to the boil and stir until it becomes thick. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Spoon the relish into warm sterilised jars and seal tightly.

A bunch of brunches

2012-01-30T20:48:00.001+11:00

Tofu scrambles have been a habitual weekend brunch item for such a long period when I have the time to cook something up. Although I adore a good scramble and love how it can be changed up in a multitude of ways, I reached the point where I grew tired of cooking and eating scrambles. My last few brunches have been a lot more interesting to eat and photograph so I decided to post about them.

My first effort was centred around trying out some Mexican styled home-made baked beans. The beans had a great flavour although they were tainted by the odd chewy bean here and there. Making up the rest of the plate was avocado, steamed spinach with a drizzle of lime and garlic, a grilled home-grown tomato and some delicious mushroom chicharrones. Last year I made tofu chicharrones from Viva Vegan and loved their taste but not how oily they were. Mandee from Cupcake Kitteh gave me inspiration to try this wonderful marinade out with mushrooms and I have been making them like this since as they are seriously delicious without the guilt.

I gave the home-made baked beans a miss the following weekend and opted to use some tinned ones instead. The man prefers the sweet chilli variety with a bit of hot sauce added. Some of the same elements from the following week were on our plates again and there was also tofu bacon and some fantastic faux eggs. The faux eggs are adapted from one of Terry Hope Romero's testing recipes so I won't be sharing my version of this until the book is released.

On Australia Day, I decided to cook us up an Egyptian styled breakfast for something even more different. I bought some tins of ful medames from a Middle Eastern store a while ago after being slightly disappointed with my previous ful medames attempt when I cooked fava beans from scratch. The instructions on this tin said to "heat and eat" but I found that the beans needed some lemon and garlic to perk them up. The ful medames were topped with faux eggs, chopped home-grown tomatoes and parsley with some home-made pita bread on the side. The man wanted to know why he wasn't getting the full spread he was becoming accustomed to but I really loved this breakfast.

To appease the man, I went back to a full spread last weekend. Tinned baked beans, tofu bacon, spinach and home-grown tomatoes with a huge dollop of home-made pesto. I usually photograph my own plate but had been snacking along the way and wasn't very hungry by the time everything was prepared, so this is the man's enormous serve of the lot.

Instead of making up a chiccharone marinade for the mushrooms this time, I threw them into the remaining tofu bacon marinade which worked quite well. I also made some tattie scones which I have seen Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe and more recently Theresa of The Tropical Vegan post recipes for. I loosely followed Theresa's recipe although I didn't measure any of the ingredients and just made them by feel. Tattie scones are served for breakfast in Scotland and are made up of mashed potato, flour, salt and oil which are rolled out flat and fried on each side. Tattie scones will included in these types of brunches every so often as they were really nice and quite easy to make.

These brunches haven't been the fastest meals to prepare but I have enjoyed having so much variety on my plate. They are generally consumed very late in the morning which means there is no need for lunch, a small afternoon snack normally sees us through until dinner. And after all this time without a scramble, I'm really starting to crave one again!

Recent eats around town

2012-01-26T21:18:00.004+11:00

As someone who blogs about food, I do an extremely poor job when it comes to posting about eating out experiences. This is something I aim to improve on which means I'll have to remember to take my camera with me more often. My dining companions aren't the most patient people and generally want to chow down as soon as the meals arrive which can be another problem at times.

In the past couple of months we have ventured out of our South Eastern suburban haunts on numerous occasions to sample some of the plentiful vegan food that the inner suburbs have to offer. Buying a pair of shoes from Vegan Wares has been a great way to entice us into tasting food around Collingwood as my one purchase has resulted in three visits; the initial selection, a second for a fitting and finally to pick them up.

Trippy Taco has been one of the stand-outs so far and you could say that I'm slightly obsessed with their Tofu Asado Burrito (ordering the same meal 3 times in a row is only a mild obsession, right?). I would love to be able to replicate the way they cook the tofu as I find that the smoky, char-grilled flavour is to die for. It took me ages to convince the man to return to Trippy Taco as he had a memory of it being just average when we first went there years ago, but now he's been converted! Our son has been with us once and thoroughly enjoyed a small but deceivingly filling plate of nachos. The smoky seasoning on the trippy fries is sensational too!

Trippy Taco
234 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
9415 7711

Gasometer is a fantastic pub to sample some American styled diner food with plenty of vegan options on the menu to choose from. The man and I both tried the Southern Fried "Chicken" Burger on our first visit several months ago as I had read so many glowing reviews about it. I found that the burger was nice although the herbs in the seitan were a bit overpowering and it was incredibly filling too. The crispy seasoned fries with their soft fluffy interior were sensational.

On our second visit I spotted a Buffalo Tofu salad on the menu and thought that it would be a lighter meal. Upon ordering I was advised that it came with cornbread and not a choice of 2 sides as stated on the menu which was a bit disappointing. I'm not a fan of cornbread so I ordered some fries as well as my meal. The tofu was amazing, buffalo seasoning is not a flavour I have tried previously but it was so delicious. The salad comprised of lettuce, carrots, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onion, corn chips and facon although it was slathered in too much dressing for my liking. As suspected, I didn't like the cornbread! I found it to be a bit dry and didn't appreciate the sweetness of the corn nor could I detect any heat from the jalapeno so I was happy with my decision to order a side of fries. Again we walked out of there feeling too full and have fondly being calling it the Bloatometer ever since!

Gasometer
484 Smith Street, Collingwood
9415 7711

It was exciting when I heard a few years ago that Lord of the Fries had just opened a new store at Chadstone. I usually detest shopping centres but it's wonderful for us to having a place selling all vegetarian and vegan food 10 minutes from home. We have sampled different burgers, hot dogs and nuggets as well as chips with various sauces over the years and now have settled on the original burgers and chips with gravy as our standard order. I love that they offer mini sized burgers because it's not the healthiest food going around but at least I don't feel as bad eating it in a smaller size.

Lord of the Fries
Chadstone Shopping Centre
Check their website for the store closest to you

Shakahari used to be one of our favourite places to dine and has been our choice to celebrate birthdays and wedding anniversaries over the last few years. After a disappointing experience for my birthday in December, I'm not keen to go back again soon. December is usually a busy month for restaurants with Christmas celebrations but I was advised that the table would be ours for the night when I made the booking for a later time. It certainly didn't feel like that was the case when we arrived. We felt under pressure to order quickly, drinks were extremely slow to arrive after ordering and there were several kerfuffles with the service. I'm generally easy to please when eating out but was rather annoyed that our main meals were plonked onto the table and the waitress didn't even take note that there was no cutlery on the table. Some of the items on the menu that haven't changed are ones that I have ordered and not enjoyed. The latest additions didn't really appeal so I ending up playing if safe and ordering an Indian curry which I have liked previously. There are plenty of other veg*n restaurants around town that I still haven't been to yet so I'm certainly not in a rush to go back to Shakahari.

Shakahari
201-203 Faraday Street, Carlton
9347 3848

We have also revisited The Mercy Seat a couple more times which I have reviewed previously. The tofu scramble didn't seem to have as much flavour the second time I ordered it, so the blackened tofu and avocado burger remains as my favourite pick. Then man is still enamoured with the Creole "chicken" soul burger and won't order anything else. The Mercy Seat has expanded their menu to include some other items, the details of which I can't recall but I think they now have a range of focaccias.

The Mercy Seat @ 99 Problems
31 Johnston Street, Collingwood
0406 290 353

A new look

2012-01-23T21:44:00.000+11:00

After many hours of fiddling around with templates and a lot of indecision, Veganise This! has been given a new look. There may be further tweaks to come but my main aim was to give the blog a cleaner appearance which I think I have achieved. Another item I have been meaning to write for ages is a simple About page which I have finally published; this is accessible from the top menu bar.

Over the last year I have been slack with updating the list of blogs that I read frequently, there are many that I have added to my reading list that don't currently appear in my sidebar. You can expect to see a lot more in the next week or two.

I would love to know your thoughts about the updates. Let me know what you think of the new look!

My first year in review

2012-01-18T20:43:00.000+11:00

Many bloggers summarise their year at the end of December or the start of January. My blogoversary falls on the 18th January so I decided to hold out until now to publish some thoughts about my first year of blogging and a few goals for the year ahead. I really wasn't expecting blogging to become a big part of my life, or to have published 142 posts over this time, but it has been a lot of fun and a wonderful experience.

Some of my blogging and cooking highlights throughout the year have been:

Participating in Vegan MoFo and publishing 27 posts during October.
Being tagged by Johanna GGG for a Stylish Blogger Award.
Being tagged by Mandee, coldandsleepy and Zuckerbaby for the Liebster Award.
Meeting up with several Melbourne veg bloggers at the Planet VeGMeL picnic.
Upgrading my very old basic camera to a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX9V in July 2011.
Recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook.

Monty was very interested in this chilli that rolled off the bench

Favourite recipes from my blog still on rotation are:

Calzones
Cheezy roast vegetable pot pies
Pita bread
Tofu scramble (this has changed a bit over time so watch out for a new post soon)
Ethiopian inspired soup
"Butter Chicken"
Dal Makhani with Punjabi Cabbage
Chilli sin carne
Lemony roasted potatoes (aka. Lemony Snickets)
Mexe Wedges
Smoky Alfred
Broccoli and tofu cannelloni
Choc-mint & Jaffa balls

On a personal note, 2011 started off on a high and went downhill from there. It was exciting to move back into a much larger home with a brand new kitchen after our lengthy renovations were finally completed. It wasn't long after the move back home that we discovered a lump on our dog Jasper's hind leg which was diagnosed as a bone cancer. This turned our world upside down as we were faced with the decision to amputate his leg and hope that no secondary cancers had started to form or to euthanise him in a week's time.

We gave our darling dog a chance and Jasper fully recovered from the amputation in a couple of weeks. His spirit did not change in the slightest, he still loved (and demanded) his daily walks and chased our cat Monty around the house at times. We cherished every day that we were able to spend with Jasper and tried to put in the back of our minds that our time with him could be limited.

Six months after the surgery Jasper's health deteriorated in a matter of days and an X-ray of his lungs confirmed our worst fears. A secondary cancer spread to his lungs and had been growing at an aggressive rate. It was so traumatic to hold him in our arms and watch him go to sleep forever. It was the first time the man and I had ever been in such a position with any of our pets. We were both totally devastated and couldn't function properly for days. He was like our second child, not a dog, which a lot of people wouldn't really understand.

Almost 4 months have passed but we are both still grieving. We miss him dearly and I still cry at times when I think of him. It has taken me until now to be able to write about him which hasn't been an easy task but hopefully it will help somehow. I still love seeing Jasper's cheeky grin every time I leave a comment on someone's blog so I won't be changing my profile picture anytime soon.

We planted a Japanese Maple in Jasper's resting place

Rather than leave you on a sad note, I'll sign off with a few goals for the year, which are:

Update my blogger template soon. I have been looking into this for what feel likes ages but haven't been able to decide on a layout!
Experiment with cuisines I haven't cooked with before.
Take photos when eating out and post about these experiences more often.
Participate in my 2nd Vegan MoFo.

I would like to thank everyone that reads this blog and especially those who have left comments throughout the year. I really love hearing from you and appreciate every comment I receive. Hope you stick around for another year!

Calzone craze

2012-01-16T20:26:00.002+11:00

There are few meals I make on a regular basis these days as I am constantly trying new things. Calzones are an exception and they are likely to feature every second weekend in our house. When we were vegetarians, I used to cook pizza for the man and I, but my son always preferred a folded pizza so I would make him a calzone instead. I was always keen on calzones but the man has only jumped on the bandwagon since we went vegan.

I wrote a brief post about calzones last year and never felt that I did them justice as I didn't post my full recipe. It's interesting that I haven't changed the filling much since this post although I have changed other things a few times before settling on a final recipe. This formula has been devoured by the man and son so often, they will instantly detect if an ingredient has been forgotten or if anything has changed.

The pizza dough I used previously was a quick recipe which didn't require an hour to prove, however I was never that keen on using 20g of salt. There is more than enough salt in the calzone filling from the pizza sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and tofu bacon, although my attempts to cut back on the salt from this dough meant that the texture suffered. My latest attempt used a Jamie Oliver pizza dough and I was very pleased with how it turned out so I'll be sticking with this one from now on.

Tofu bacon is the only facon I am allowed to use in these babies as my attempts to try out tempeh bacon and more recently coconut bacon have resulted in unhappy diners all around. It was the first time I had attempted to make coconut bacon and I opted to use a quick method which may have been it's undoing.

After the dough has been rolled into a oblong shape, the centre of the base is spread with a combination of a store-bought pizza sauce mixed with home-made basil pesto.

Chopped baby spinach leaves, red onion, mushrooms, roasted red capsicum and sun dried tomatoes are layed out across the centre.

Followed by tofu bacon, chopped olives and cubes of cheezly. I used to add grated cheezly but it seemed to get lost in the filling and was barely detectable. Cubes of cheezly results in a melted gooey surprise every so often.

The dough is folded over and sealed ready for baking.

After about 15-20 minutes in a very hot oven, the calzones are ready!

The recipe below makes three enormous calzones. We usually eat half for dinner and heat up the left-overs for lunch the next day. My son doesn't like all of the fillings so I make his without pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and olives.

Calzones

Pizza dough (Adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe)

7g dried yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons raw caster sugar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
325ml lukewarm water
400g Tipo '00' flour
100g fine semolina
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
extra Tipo '00' flour, as required

Combine the yeast, caster sugar, olive oil and water in a jug and stir well. Set aside for a few minutes or until the yeast starts to look a bit frothy. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, semolina and salt and then make a well in the centre. Pour the contents of the jug into the well and using your hands work the dry ingredients into the wet until everything is combined together.

Transfer the dough onto a clean bench dusted with flour and knead for about 5-7 minutes, adding more flour as necessary. The dough should be smooth and have a springy texture. Place the dough into a bowl dusted with flour, sprinkle some more flour on top and cover with a tea towel. Allow to dough to rise in a warm spot for about an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Turn the dough onto your bench and punch it down to remove the air. Knead for a minute and then divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces. Roll each piece of dough out to a thickness of about 0.5cm using more flour if the dough is sticky.

Calzone filling and assembly

1/3 - 1/2 cup Ardoma pizza sauce with herbs
2 teaspoons basil pesto
100g baby spinach, roughly chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
200g mushrooms, chopped
150g roasted red capsicums, chopped
100g sun-dried tomatoes, drained of oil and chopped
15 kalamata olives, sliced
200g cheezly, cut into 2cm cubes
18 strips tofu bacon, chopped

Preheat the oven to 230C.

Spread a mixture of pizza sauce and pesto on the centre of a base, leaving about 2-3cm around the edges plain. Add some chopped spinach, red onion, mushrooms, roasted red capsicums, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, cheezly and tofu bacon. Grab the edge of the dough that is furtherest from you and carefully roll it over the top of the filling. Starting at one end twist the edges to seal up the calzone. Repeat for the remaining calzones.

Gently place the calzones onto large baking trays sprayed with olive oil. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until the tops have browned.

Cheezy roast vegetable pot pies

2012-01-11T17:20:00.000+11:00

Last year I went on a pot pie bender after purchasing some ramekins and posted about my experiments a couple of times. The arrival of the New Year prompted me to sort through my draft posts and I was astounded to find that I had never published the recipe for the pot pies that ended up being the household favourite. As it had been such a long time since we last indulged in these pies, I decided to make them again and take some shots of the process.

The concept came from the roast vegetable pie recipe on easy as vegan pie where Carla combined some roasted vegetables with a cheezy sauce from Veganomicon. I turned this into pot pies and we loved them like this for quite some time. When I purchased Appetite for Reduction, we all adored the Easy Breezy Cheezy sauce in another recipe so I had to put it to the test in these roast vegetable pot pies.

The man and son were purposely kept in the dark about the change in sauce and I was thrilled that they could notice the difference and proclaimed them to the best pot pies. I can quite happily eat one of these pies without any condiments but the man always add some ketchup on top and the son prefers his with BBQ sauce.

Extra roasted, steamed or stir-fried vegetables are usually what accompanies these pot pies in the colder winter months. This time I served them with a side salad and garlic bread as I am currently enjoying a supply of sweet and juicy home-grown cherry tomatoes from my garden.

Cheezy roast veg pot pies (sauce adapted from Appetite for Reduction)

olive oil spray
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into small florets
1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets
1 medium sweet potato, chopped into 2cm pieces
3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 cup plain flour
2 teaspoons dried garlic flakes
2 teaspoons dried onion flakes
2 teaspoons Massel vegetable stock powder
2 teaspoons Massel chicken stock powder
2 cups water
1 teaspoon American mustard
75g baby spinach leaves, chopped
1 sheet Borg's puff pastry, defrosted
soy milk, for brushing the pastry
sesame seeds, for topping

Preheat oven to 200C. Spread the chopped cauliflower, broccoli and sweet potato in a single layer on a large roasting tray lined with baking paper. Spray with olive oil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the sweet potato is soft and the cauliflower and broccoli is slightly charred. Leave the oven set to 200C for baking the pot pies.

In a medium saucepan, combine the nutritional yeast, plain flour, onion flakes, garlic flakes, vegetable and chicken stock powders. Pour in the water slowly, stirring to ensure that there are no lumps. Heat over medium-low, stirring often until the mixture comes to a boil. Turn off the heat and stir through the mustard and chopped spinach.

Arrange the roasted vegetables into 4 ramekins and then cover with the cheezy spinach sauce. Place a ramekin on the puff pastry sheet and cut out a circle of dough around the base. Stretch the dough circle with your hands a little then place it on top of the mixture in the ramekin. Brush the top of the pastry with soy milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Repeat for the other 3 ramekins. Place the ramekins on a baking tray to prevent spillages and cook for about 20 minutes or until the pastry has browned.

Peppermint slice and Christmas baking

2012-01-09T20:49:00.003+11:00

Happy New Year! It wasn't my intention to have such a long break between posts. Time seems to slip by so quickly when you are on a break from full-time work and enjoying spending time with your family. My computer was packed away for most of this period so I ended up taking a break from my blog as well as keeping up with the many other blogs that I read regularly. It was back to work for me today so now it's back to blogging!

Christmas feels like a long time ago but I wanted to share an indulgent slice that originated from an aunt when I was growing up. It was insanely popular amongst the youngsters as well as the adults and I have distinct memories of trying to stuff as many pieces into my belly as possible without making myself physically ill. It was a fine line and often my cousins, siblings and I would just wait another 10 minutes or so before attempting another piece.

The original ingredients for the slice were not healthy in the slightest; condensed milk, chocolate ripple biscuits, butter and Cadbury's peppermint chocolate. I was pleased that by using soy condensed milk, removing the butter and substituting dark mint chocolate in a lesser quantity, I was able to reproduce this childhood favourite. The man and son were delighted that the consistency wasn't perfect in my trial run as it meant they had a whole batch for themselves to indulge on!

I mentioned my plan to make arancini for our Christmas Eve dinner with my family from a batch of cauliflower risotto but in my baking frenzy I didn't take any photos. They turned out great with some sun-dried tomatoes, olives and a small cube of cheezly stuffed inside. I shaped them as cones, dunked them in soy milk, then rolled them in corn flake crumbs and baked them in the oven sprayed with olive oil. I also took half of the peppermint slice, jaffa balls and a salad that I wasn't overly happy with.

For Christmas brunch with the man's family I whipped up a batch of socca from Terry Hope Romero's recipe testing which were a bit tedious to churn out for a large number of people. It didn't really matter as everyone enjoyed them and there were also jaffa balls and peppermint slice to be devoured.

For our formal Boxing Day lunch with the man's family, I made Imam Bayildi for our main meal item which was nice although it didn't impress me as much as when I first made it during Vegan MoFo. I merged a couple of different hummus recipes from Appetite from Reduction and baked some pita bread to go with it. These were both a big hit! A Mediterranean pasta salad was my other contribution which I would like to tweak a little in the future.

Finally, I would like to share my most treasured present from this year. I was extremely delighted to unwrap this apron and oven mitts from my son. He chose it on his own and knew that I would love the chillies on it! Aprons have never been my thing but this one is getting put to good use because I love it so much.

Peppermint slice (Adapted from an old family recipe)

2 x 250g packets Arnott's Chocolate Ripple biscuits
1 x 330g tin Soymilke condensed milk
1 x 100g mint flavoured dark chocolate (72% cacao)
dessicated coconut, for topping

Place the biscuits in a food processor and pulse until they become a fine powder. Transfer the biscuit powder to a large bowl.

In a small saucepan combine the condensed milk and chocolate, heat on medium-low until the chocolate has melted, stirring occasionally. Pour the condensed milk and chocolate mixture into the bowl containing the biscuit powder and mix thoroughly until well combined.

Press the mixture into a 28 x 18 cm tin lined with baking paper, sprinkle with coconut and place it in the freezer for 30 minutes - 1 hour to allow it to set. Remove the slice from the tin and cut into small pieces. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed container.

Cauliflower risotto

2011-12-23T15:36:00.000+11:00

Christmas can be a logistical nightmare for trying to get families together. For many years, we would have a lunch with one family followed by a dinner with the other family on Christmas Day which was quite exhausting. In more recent times, our first family gathering kicks off on Christmas Eve with my side of the family. Christmas Day is relatively quiet consisting of a brunch with the man's family followed by a proper lunch on Boxing Day. It feels more relaxing to have the festivities spread out over a few days and it also gives me plenty of time for cooking!

Over the last few years I have made a couple of nut roasts from Johanna's Green Gourmet Giraffe blog, a tofurkey discovered on Where's The Beef and Carla from easy as vegan pie's cauliflower and caramelised onion tart amongst other things. This year I wanted to mix it up a little. When my sister announced that she was planning a BBQ on Christmas Eve, I had to put my thinking cap on because veggie burgers or sausages didn't feel special enough for the occasion. I threw a few ideas at the man and the one that we both happily agreed on was arancini.

Arancini or risotto balls are best made with day old risotto so I decided to make a double batch of risotto, serve some for dinner and use the remainder for the arancini. A smooth textured risotto suits arancini best as it makes rolling the balls much easier. A cauliflower risotto recipe had been sitting in my drafts for several months as I didn't record the recipe properly when I initially threw it together and also felt that my first effort needed a bit of tweaking. I knew that the texture would be perfect for arancini so it was time to give it another try.

This risotto starts off by cooking the cauliflower in vegetable stock and then blending it with a bit of stock. The thick cauliflower puree is reserved and added to the plain risotto when it has finishing cooking which makes it a very creamy dish. We like to eat this risotto garnished with sun-dried tomatoes and olives. I have also sampled it with toasted slivered almonds and fresh parsley which gives it a lighter taste and a bit of crunch.

I was out of of white wine and fresh herbs which I would usually include in a risotto. I had prepared a very simple basil pesto so this was used in place of herbs. My mum has shocking allergies to every variety of nut so I had made this batch of pesto only with basil, olive oil, nutritional yeast and salt. The man adored this risotto and I had cunningly made it on a night when our son wasn't home for dinner. I've mentioned before that he doesn't care for risotto and olives are another pet hate of his. Sun-dried tomatoes are tolerable for him but they are not something that he is mad about. The man requested this meal to become a regular so I suggested that it could be a regular when it's tea for two.

I would like to wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope you all enjoy the festive season and devour some delicious food with great company.

Cauliflower risotto

1/2 head cauliflower, cut into florets

8 cups vegetable stock
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups arborio rice

1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon basil pesto
salt and pepper, to taste
chopped sun dried tomatoes and olives, for garnish

Cook the cauliflower in a saucepan with the vegetable stock until tender, about 15-20 minutes. Drain the cauliflower in a colander and reserve the stock. Place the cauliflower florets in a blender with 1//2 - 1 cup of the vegetable stock and process until it becomes smooth and creamy. Pour the rest of the stock back into the saucepan and simmer over a low heat.

Heat the olive oil in a large wide pot and fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute then stir through the rice ensuring that the grains are coated evenly with the oil, onions and garlic. Add 1 cup of stock and stir until the stock has been absorbed. Turn the heat to low and continue adding stock 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often, until the rice is almost tender.

Stir through the cauliflower puree, nutritional yeast and basil pesto and cook for another minute or two. Season with salt and pepper. Serve garnished with chopped sun-dried tomatoes, olives and fresh herbs if desired.

Smoky Alfred

2011-12-17T10:55:00.001+11:00

Hurry Up Alfredo has been a unanimous household favourite over the last couple of years. The recipe comes from Vegan Yum Yum which was one of my first vegan cookbook purchases and the alfredo was the first recipe I tried. I have probably made this more than any other vegan cookbook recipe as it's so quick and easy to prepare and such a crowd-pleaser at home. The first time I made the recipe as stated in the cookbook and then the tinkering began...

Smoked paprika was the first alteration and after enjoying it so much in this sauce I could never go back to making it without. Ingredients were omitted from the sauce every now and then which didn't seem to have a significant impact on the meal. After reading Cindy from Where's the Beef and Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe's posts about Hurry Up Alfredo and seeing their photos, I realised that my version had become quite different to the original recipe as well as Cindy and Johanna's adaptations. It's probably not so much of an Alfredo these days but we do still fondly refer to this meal as "Alfred".

I always like to add some greens to it which is usually broccoli, spinach or in this case broad beans. Left-over tofu bacon is a welcome addition too. This meal always satisfies our creamy pasta cravings and the smoky flavour is what makes this meal such a hit.

On an unrelated note, the plums on our tree are ripening which has been prompting these stunning rainbow lorikeets to visit on a daily basis. My week has been brightened up by these gorgeous birds chatting away and feasting on the plums a couple of metres away from my work desk.

Smoky Alfred (Adapted from the Hurry Up Alfredo recipe in Vegan Yum Yum)

300g frozen broad beans
1/3 cup cashews
1 1/3 cup soy milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
250g pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1/3 quantity tofu bacon, chopped
handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped

Place the broad beans into a pot of boiling water and cook for 2 minutes. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse well with cold water. Squeeze the beans out of their pods and discard the pods. Cook the pasta according to the package directions, then drain in a colander.

Process the cashews in a blender until it becomes a powder. Add the soy milk, nutritional yeast, soy sauce, tahini, lemon juice, dijon mustard and smoked paprika and then blend until everything is combined.

Heat the olive oil in the pot you cooked the pasta in and fry the garlic for about 30 seconds. Pour in the sauce from the blender and then add the cooked pasta, broad beans, tofu bacon and basil. Stir for a couple of minutes until heated through. Serve immediately with freshly cracked black pepper.

Breakfast burritos

2011-12-13T20:40:00.000+11:00

Breakfast burritos have always sounded like a fantastic idea to me although I must admit to never eating one before. Last weekend I decided it was time to give them a try with a tofu scramble filling. Smoked tofu seasoned with cumin, oregano, chipotle chilli powder and lime juice felt like a good combination of ingredients, along with some mushrooms and the man's favourite vegetable - broccoli. The broccoli seemed a little out of place but it was purely there to keep a promise.

After making the scramble, it was just a matter of filling the tortillas, folding them up and then grilling for a minute or two on each side. I had some sofrito, cashew cream and guacamole leftover from dinner which were perfect condiments for the burritos. This was a slightly different kind of brunch to ones I usually make on weekends but it is a meal I am very likely to make again as it was fairly quick to prepare and we loved it!

Mexican inspired tofu scramble burritos

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 head broccoli, cut into small florets
1/2 cup water
1 large shallot or 1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
100g button mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon chipotle chilli powder
300g smoked tofu, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2-4 teaspoons lime juice (I used 4 which I might reduce to 3 next time)
salt and pepper, to taste
4 flour tortillas

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan, add the broccoli and cook, stirring for a few minutes until browned. Pour in 1/4 cup water, cover and steam for another minute. Transfer the broccoli to a plate.

Add the other tablespoon of oil to the pan and fry the shallots/onions and garlic on medium for about 5 minutes or until soft. Stir through the mushrooms with a pinch of salt and cook for a further 5 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft and juicy. Add the cumin, oregano, chipotle chilli powder, smoked tofu, tomato paste and 1/4 cup water and stir well to combine. Cook for a few minutes until the liquid has been absorbed. Turn off the heat and add the lime juice to your desired taste. Season with salt and pepper.

Place spoonfuls of the filling in the centre of the tortillas and then wrap them up to enclose the filling. Heat a non-stick grill pan or frying pan over medium heat and cook the burritos for a minute or two on each side. The burritos should be cooked seam side down first and carefully flipped over when slightly browned. Serve with cashew cream, guacamole and hot sauce.

Recipe testing - Part 2

2011-12-07T20:34:00.000+11:00

My posts have been few and far between recently as I am still knee deep in recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook. The experience has been fantastic and as the focus of the book is based on cuisines from around the world, it suits me perfectly. I love making food from different countries!

Thai jungle curries are completely different to the standard red and green curries that are on the menu at every Thai restaurant. I was so excited to try this recipe as I have been wanting to try a jungle curry for a while. This hit the spot for me but some people would find it too spicy.

It was a bit foolish to attempt these Jamaican curry seitan and potato patties on a weeknight but they were well worth the effort. I haven't really eaten Caribbean food before but these patties made me want to try more.

I have loved all of the Mediterranean recipes I have tested and this pastichio was no exception. A little bit goes a long way as it's a really filling meal.

I haven't photographed any of the soups I have tested apart from this asparagus, potato and leek soup. It wasn't my favourite of the soup recipes but other testers have raved about it.

The Belgian beer bathed seitan stew with oven frites won the hearts of the man and son. It was so rich and hearty and really tasty.

Cauliflower stuffed parathas with okra masala was a delicious Indian meal. I love making flatbreads and although the stuffed ones can be a bit challenging to put together, they really are worth it. This was my first foray into cooking with okra and we enjoyed this curry a lot.

This tomato, olive and garlic socca was an absolute highlight and will be on our weekend brunch rotation from now on. Just thinking about it makes me hungry!

Spicy Broccoli Risoni

2011-12-02T12:40:00.000+11:00

Risoni is also known as orzo in other parts of the world. It's a small type of pasta that is shaped like rice which makes it perfect for using in pasta salads, soups, oven bakes and one pot pasta dishes. I haven't tried out any new recipes with risoni/orzo for quite some time and when I saw a post during Vegan MoFo called "Spicy Broccoli Orzo", I bookmarked it immediately.

The recipe from Big Mike Eat's interested me on a few different levels. The ingredients were certainly an appealing factor and I was also fascinated that Micah had used a wok to cook his meal in. I was tempted to follow suit but rather than pull out my wok, I stuck to my standard pasta cooking method using a large saucepan. I made a few changes to Micah's recipe by adding in an onion, using fresh garlic rather than powdered and swapping the dried rosemary and thyme for some basil.

This quick and simple one pot meal was declared to be a success by 2/3 of the household. My son and I loved it and the man was not so keen. We enjoyed the combination of chilli, lemon and basil but the man thought that the lemon flavour was too strong and also grumbled about there being too much black pepper. He really dislikes pepper so I usually put minimal amounts in dishes and add more to my own plate at the end. At least there was some home-made garlic bread on the side to keep him happy!

Spicy Broccoli Risoni (Adapted from Big Mike's Eats)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup risoni/orzo pasta
3 cups water
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 head broccoli
2 tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and black pepper, to taste

Chop the head of broccoli into small florets and cut the stalks into bite-sized pieces.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium and fry the onion for 5 minutes or until soft. Stir through the garlic and cook for a minute, then add the risoni and stir thoroughly.

Pour in the water and add the dried basil, chilli flakes and sea salt and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook uncovered for 5 minutes. Stir through the broccoli and tomatoes and cook uncovered for another 3 minutes. The liquid should be absorbed after this time. Add the lemon juice and season with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste.

Tamales with refried beans, mushrooms and corn

2011-11-30T12:25:00.000+11:00

Last Saturday was perfect weather to stay indoors as it was an extremely rainy old day in Melbourne. This wasn't to be the case as the man and I had several errands to run which included a visit to USA Foods in Moorabbin. The main reason for our visit to USA Foods was to purchase some more liquid smoke but I was also delighted to find some Maseca flour for making tamales. As soon as I had this wonderful flour in my hands, I knew we would be having tamales for dinner that night.

Tamales have been intriguing me since I purchased Viva Vegan. They are parcels of masa dough filled with savoury or sweet items which are wrapped in corn husks and steamed. As I had no idea where to buy corn husks, I decided to forgo this part and wrap my tamales in foil instead. The man loves his refried beans so to please him I made up a refried bean filling and added some mushrooms and corn rather than following one of the tamale recipes from Viva Vegan.

When it was time to make the masa dough, I let out a big sigh. I didn't have any vegetable shortening! The rain was still bucketing down and I couldn't bear the thought of going out in the weather again. Instead I spent of bit of time reading about masa dough recipes for tamales and discovered that any type of fat can really be used so I settled upon using some olive oil in it's place.

After the filling and masa dough were prepared, I set up an assembly line of sheets of aluminium foil. The dough was placed onto each sheet and shaped by hand, then spoonfuls of the filling were placed down the middle of the dough. The trickiest part was the rolling. There's a lot of great tamale making advice and tips in Viva Vegan but it is centred around using corn husks so I just did what felt right and hoped for the best. Next time I would use slightly smaller sheets of foil as they were a bit cumbersome to roll.

The refried bean filling on it's own was rather spicy although the heat level dropped considerably when it was combined with the masa dough. Never mind, a few splashes of hot sauce took the spiciness back up to how we like it. I really enjoyed the soft but hearty texture of the tamales and the flavour of the corn in the masa dough was delicious. The tamales were served with a simple side salad drizzled with Creamy Ancho Chile dressing which is also from Viva Vegan. I'm looking forward to trying out some other tamale recipes now that there is a big bag of Maseca flour in my pantry.

Tamales with refried beans, mushrooms and corn
Makes 10 tamales

Refried beans with mushrooms and corn

1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small onion, finely diced
2 teaspoons finely chopped pickled jalapenos
100g mushrooms, finely diced
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon ancho chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf
1 x 400g tin red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup water
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels

Heat the peanut oil in a large saucepan over medium. Fry the garlic for about 10 seconds, then add the onion and jalapeno and cook for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes or until soft. Stir through the cumin, oregano, ancho chilli powder, salt and bay leaf. Place the kidney beans and water in the pot, bring to the boil then reduce the heat slightly.

Cook uncovered for 20 minutes, then remove the bay leaf. Break the beans up with a potato masher and then cook for another 5 minutes. Stir through the frozen corn kernels 2 or 3 minutes before the filling is ready. Remove from the heat and allow to cool before filling the tamales.

Masa Dough (Adapted from Viva Vegan)

1/4 cup dairy-free margarine
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups Maseca flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups warm vegetable stock

Place the margarine and olive oil in a bowl and use a hand-held mixer to combine the ingredients together. Add the maseca flour, baking powder, garlic powder and salt and beat for a few minutes until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Pour in the vegetable stock and beat until the liquid has been absorbed.

The dough should have a consistency that is comparable to thick mashed potatoes. If it appears too wet, mix through a couple of tablespoons of extra flour. If it's too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water and stir thoroughly.

Tamale assembly

Tear off sheets of aluminium foil or baking paper and spray lightly with olive oil. Place about 1/4 cup of the masa dough on the centre of each sheet and use your hands or a spatula to mould the dough into a rectangular shape of approximately 12 x 8 cm. Place a couple of spoonfuls of the filling down the centre of the masa dough leaving 1 cm at each end without any filling.

Prepare each tamale by pinching the sheets of foil/baking paper together along the outsides of the masa dough, then roll up the foil and secure the ends. The parcel should be fairly tight but needs to allow a bit of room for the masa dough to expand whilst steaming.

Place the tamale parcels into a steamer basket and allow to steam for 55 minutes. To check whether the tamales are ready, remove one from the steamer and carefully peel back the wrapper. If the dough appears to be sticky, continue steaming for another 10-15 minutes.

Fasolia Ksera (Broad bean salad)

2011-11-24T19:53:00.000+11:00

Broad beans are something that I don't cook with often as they take a while to prepare. Time never seems as much of an issue when home-grown produce is in the picture. When my mother in law presented me a big bag of broad beans from her garden, rather than adding them to a dish as a supplementary item, I looked for a recipe that would give them a starring role.

Broad beans, green peas and mint were common themes popping up all over the place, but the man and son aren't particularly fond of mint so I kept hunting further for something different. My searching came to a halt when I found a recipe for Fasolia Ksera, a salad of Greek origin. This caught my eye as it was a combination of broad beans, olives, lemon juice and parsley.

After an initial podding, the starting weight of 600 grams of broad beans dwindled down to 180 grams. The final weight ended up as a measly 100 grams after being blanched and having a second podding. The amount wasn't really sufficient for three people as a side dish and I could have bulked it up with some frozen broad beans, but I wanted to relish the taste of this fresh home grown produce on it's own.

The slight tang of lemon and saltiness from the olives were a perfect match and complimented the beans without being overpowering. We really enjoyed this salad and I was regretful that there wasn't more to go around. Next time I'll definitely be making a double batch!

Fasolia Ksera (Broad bean salad) - Adapted from this recipe
Serves 2 as a side dish

600g fresh broad beans or 180g frozen broad beans
1/4 small red onion, finely diced
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
6 kalamata olives, cut in half
freshly chopped parsley, for garnish

If using fresh broad beans, remove the beans from the pods first.

Bring a pot of water to the boil, add the broad beans and cook for 2 minutes. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Remove and discard the skins by making an opening with your fingernail and squeezing the broad beans out.

Whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper together in a bowl, Add the broad beans, onion and olives and mix thoroughly. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Tempeh Lasagne

2011-11-19T09:21:00.000+11:00

Tempeh, you either love it or hate it! For me, it's the latter the majority of the time but I'm starting to learn ways that I can appreciate it. The first few times I tried tempeh at home, it was in chunks that had been marinated and then baked or fried. Even after following tips and steaming the tempeh prior to marinating, I still found that these chunks had an unpleasant taste that the marinade didn't disguise.

Cindy from Where's the Beef tentatively pointed me in the direction of her tempeh lasagne recipe recently as I haven't been totally satisfied with any of my previous vegan lasagne attempts to date. I was delighted to find that the tempeh in this recipe was cut into tiny mince-sized pieces and I was particularly interested in trying the cashew cream sauce.

A few adjustments were made to bulk up the tempeh sauce portion as Cindy mentioned that the lasagne could have used more of this. Some eggplant was added to the tempeh sauce as there was some around that needed using up. I also made my own lasagne sheets using a mixture of semolina and wholemeal flour.

The lasagne turned out to be really delicious and full of flavour. My son is not that keen on tempeh either but he really liked this meal. The man adored it and everyone was keen to have a share in the leftovers. I found that a few bites here and there still had a hint of the tempeh taste I'm not fond of. This was totally my fault as I increased the amount of tempeh in the recipe but didn't change the amount of soy sauce and liquid smoke that the tempeh needs to soak up. That is the only thing I would change next time around and there will be a next time because this lasagne is now our favourite!

I would love to hear about more tasty tempeh recipes. Let me know if you have any favourite recipes that use little bits of tempeh.

Tempeh Lasagne (Adapted from Where's the Beef)

Pasta dough (or skip this step and use pre-made sheets)

3/4 cup plain wholemeal flour
3/4 cup semolina flour
pinch of sea salt
1/3 - 1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons olive oil

Place the flours into a bowl with a pinch of salt, mix together thoroughly and make a well in the centre. Pour the water and olive oil into the well and work the flour into the water slowly until a slightly wet dough has formed. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.

Tempeh Sauce

3 tablespoons olive oil
300g tempeh, chopped into tiny pieces
2 tablespoons soy sauce (will add an extra tablespoon next time)
1 teaspoon liquid smoke (will add an extra 1/2 teaspoon next time)
250g eggplant, chopped into 2cm cubes
2 onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
pepper, to taste

Heat a tablespoon of the olive oil in a large saucepan and cook the tempeh, stirring often, for about 10 minutes or until the pieces are browned. Add the soy sauce and liquid smoke and fry until the sauces have totally been absorbed by the tempeh. Remove from the saucepan and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the saucepan and cook the eggplant for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until the eggplant is soft and golden. Remove from the saucepan and set aside.

Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and cook the onions for 10 minutes, until very soft. Add the tinned tomatoes, eggplant, dried basil, chilli flakes, salt and pepper and simmer while you are making the cashew cream sauce. Stir the tempeh through the sauce just prior to assembling the lasagne.

Cashew Cream Sauce

1 cup cashews
1 litre oat milk
3 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper

Place the cashews in a blender with 1/2 cup of oat milk and process until it becomes a smooth paste.

Melt the dairy free margarine in a saucepan then stir the flour through. Cook, stirring for a few minutes until the mixture browns a little. Add the rest of the oat milk, slowly at first, whisking through the mixture to ensure that no lumps remain.

Bring the mix to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until the mixture becomes thick. Add in the cashew cream/oat milk paste and nutritional yeast flakes then stir until combined. Simmer for another 5 minutes, turn off the heat and add the lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Lasagne Assembly

Use a pasta machine or rolling pin to roll out thin sheets of pasta. Cut the pasta to measure the width of your baking tray.

Spread enough cashew cream sauce to cover the bottom of your baking dish. Add a layer of lasagne sheets, then spread a 1/3 of the tempeh sauce followed by enough cashew cream to cover the sauce. Repeat the layering another 2 times, finishing with a layer of cashew cream. Bake in the oven at 200C for 30 minutes until the top layer has browned.

Recipe testing

2011-11-15T19:29:00.000+11:00

Since I haven't been doing much cooking apart from recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook, I decided to gather some photos together and show you what I have been up to. The following is by no means all of the recipes I have tested but should give you an idea of how diverse the recipes are.

This French caramelised apple tart was a perfect way to finish off an evening meal with family last weekend.

Roasted gnocchi with a tomato caper sauce and roasted broccoli with lemon and sage. This was a really nice meal but my boys prefer a soft home-made gnocchi to the chewy gnocchi in this dish.

This kimchi tofu eggplant stew was different to anything I have eaten before and features home made kimchi.

The man told me that the curry laksa was restaurant quality. It was so good that I convinced him to come home for lunch to enjoy the leftovers. This has been one of my favourites so far too. I have also tested a Vietnamese pho which was really nice.

Chinese claypot seitan and mushrooms didn't really push my buttons although several other testers have enjoyed this and it was pretty easy to make.

Gyros roasted seitan, lemon garlic roasted potatoes and greek salad with cashew feta. I was quite excited to try a gyros seitan recipe during MoFo so when I saw a gyros seitan listed in the recipe index, I had to try it to compare. Terry's gyros is definitely superior and the greek salad is also fantastic.

Hope you enjoy these pics, I'll be back soon with a recipe post!

Cauliflower alfredo with tofu bacon

2011-11-11T17:07:00.001+11:00

Last week I took a few nights off recipe testing for various reasons. The man and son had been overwhelmed with so many new dishes, leftovers were getting out of control and my vegetable crisper needed a darn good clean out. Half a head of cauliflower was begging to be used which reminded me of Johanna's recent post about Cauliflower Alfredo. It sounded like a perfect way to use up the cauliflower and pasta is always a good way to keep my boys happy.

My adaptation was a bit different as I left out the white beans, kale and sun-dried tomatoes and added in some tofu bacon, broccoli and baby spinach leaves as they also needed to be used up. I included a larger quantity of smoked paprika which is something I have loved when playing around with the Alfredo recipe from Vegan Yum Yum. It turned out to be a fantastic meal that pleased everyone immensely so this pasta sauce will definitely be repeated in the future.

Cauliflower Alfredo (Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe and Cupcakes and Kale)

1/2 head cauliflower, chopped into florets
1 1/4 cups soy milk
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 spring onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
100g baby spinach leaves
10 strips tofu bacon, chopped
250g pasta of your choice
salt and pepper, to taste

Place the cauliflower florets in a saucepan filled with water, bring to the boil then simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until very soft. In the meantime, steam the broccoli florets until just tender and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the cauliflower in a colander. Put the cauliflower, soy milk, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, salt and smoked paprika in a blender and process until it becomes a smooth mixture.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the spring onions and garlic and cook for a minute or two. Pour in the blender mixture then add the broccoli, baby spinach, tofu bacon and pasta. Stir everything together thoroughly and heat through until the spinach has just wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

Vegan MoFo - Roundup

2011-11-01T08:46:00.002+11:00

Vegan MoFo has been such a busy month but not without reward! It has been fantastic to get to know some other bloggers and the abundance of gorgeous creative food posted throughout the month has truly been mind boggling. I was honoured to receive Liebster awards from Mandee from Cupcake Kitteh and ZuckerBaby from Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist.

I'm glad that I posted some links halfway through the month as the volume in my bookmarks is pretty huge. Here are a few more recipes that I am looking forward to making one day:

Vegan Laksa - In the Mood for Noodles
Bean Scramble - Veg-am
Yorkshire Puddings - Heathen Vegan
Green Chilli Stew - Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist
Buffalo Bleu Dip - Veg-am
Strawberry and cashew cream filled crepes - The Vegan Chickpea
Olive oil bread with chia - Green Gourmet Giraffe
Spicy broccoli orzo - Big Mike's Eats
"Cheese" enchiladas with chili con TVP - Eating Appalachia

Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my posts throughout the month, I really do appreciate it. I'm looking forward to a quieter month of blogging in November but definitely won't disappear completely.

Vegan MoFo - Z is for Zaalouk

2011-10-31T20:25:00.000+11:00

I wanted to revisit an old recipe for my last alphabet post as it's one I have been meaning to make for a while. Zaalouk is a slow roasted eggplant and tomato combination finished off with harissa, cumin, caraway, fresh coriander and mint that can be served chunky or pureed. I chose to puree it and serve it as a dip with pita bread but when left chunky it can also pass for a salad. It's not a quick dish to make although there is plenty of downtime throughout the process and the end result makes your efforts worthwhile.

The original recipe sourced from a Sunday paper makes a huge quantity and as I only had one eggplant around, I made a third of it this time which resulted in about a cup of dip. It was just as delicious as I had remembered it and one I will definitely make again.

This is my last Vegan MoFo post for the A - Z of golden oldies and newbies. I managed to meet my original goal of posting at least 2 new recipes per week, 12 for the month and ended up posting 15 new recipes, so I'm pretty happy about that. The full list of alphabet posts can be found on this page.

I have had a lot of fun with the theme and ventured into cooking with new ingredients like jackfruit, daikon and fava beans. My favorite new recipes to come out of the month were Hot Potato Salad, Imam Bayildi, Pinwheels, Rendang Nangka, Seitan Gyros, Vanilla Slice and Yassa Tofu.

I hope to get one more post in quickly to share some of my bookmarks from the second half of MoFo.

Vegan MoFo - Y is for Yassa Tofu

2011-10-28T17:33:00.000+11:00

Yassa tofu has been one of our favourites to come out of recipe testing so far. It's a baked tofu dish cooked with carrots and onions in an African inspired marinade. Lemon and mustard are the dominant flavours and it also has a spicy kick from the chillies. This meal smelt absolutely gorgeous whilst baking in the oven.

Terry suggested serving this with rice or millet and I daringly picked a millet dish that I strongly suspected would not be popular. I had never eaten millet before and was keen to give it a try but the dish I selected contained mango and peanuts. Both the man and son aren't fond of sweet items in savoury meals so I knew they wouldn't like the mango, and the man doesn't like nuts in salads or stir-frys so it was a bold choice indeed.

We all adored the Yassa tofu and the boys begrudgingly ate their millet. There were some complaints at the end of the meal about how there was none of the delicious tofu left for seconds but heaps of the millet remaining. Yassa tofu will definitely be on the menu again!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - X is for Xiang Luo Bu Si

2011-10-27T20:41:00.000+11:00

X was always going to be the trickiest letter so I spent a bit of time hunting down recipes and came across this interesting Chinese side dish called Xiang Luo Bu Si which translates to Sounding Radish Slivers. The main ingredient of this recipe is daikon radish which is something I haven't cooked with before but I am always interested in experimenting with a new ingredient.

As this was only a side dish, I looked for a Chinese noodle recipe from the recipe testing pool to make it a full meal. The most challenging part was managing two woks and getting the timing right. Although I only have one wok burner, my other largest burner seemed to do a decent job of cooking the daikon side dish in my small wok. I didn't take a shot of the noodles but they were really nice and a little different to others I have made previously.

The daikon wasn't a hit with my son but he loved the noodles. The man loved the daikon and I thought it was alright but not fantastic. It wasn't until writing this post that I realised I had forgotten to finish it off with a drizzle of sesame oil. I had to go back and drizzle sesame oil on the leftovers which really did make a world of difference.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Xiang Luo Bu Si (Slightly adapted from a recipe on food.com)

400g daikon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 bird's eye chilli
2 spring onions, green part only
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons rice vinegar
3/4 teaspoon rice flour
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Peel and cut the daikon into finger-sized thin slices, then cut each of these pieces into slivers. Combine in a bowl with some salt and set aside for 15 minutes. Finely chop the chilli and slice the spring onion into slivers of a similar size to the daikon. Mix the rice flour and water into a paste in a small bowl. Drain the moisture from the daikon and squeeze dry.

Heat the wok until smoking, then add the peanut oil and swirl to coat the sides of the wok with oil. Stir-fry the chilli for a few seconds then add the daikon and soy sauce and stir-fry for a few minutes. Add the spring onions and vinegar and stir well, then add the rice flour paste and stir rapidly until it thickens and becomes glossy. Remove from the heat, drizzle with sesame oil and serve immediately.

Vegan MoFo - W is for White Rice & Black Beans

2011-10-26T19:58:00.000+11:00

A few posts back I mentioned that I have just started some recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook. I don't think I conveyed how thrilled I am to have this opportunity as my stress levels were rather high at the time. When I initially checked out the recipe index for testing, I searched for a couple of things that would fit in with the remainder of my MoFo theme to ease my workload a little.

Last night I tested a recipe called White Rice & Black Beans which was nice enough but it hasn't been a standout meal from testing so far. I found myself comparing it to Gallo Pinto (Costa Rican Refried Rice and Beans) from Viva Vegan but the flavours in this meal weren't as interesting. It was one of the simplest recipes I have tested, with minimal prep work and a fairly quick cooking time so from that perspective it was a win.

I served the rice and beans with guacamole, cashew crema and hot sauce although half-way through the meal I remembered there was some left-over sofrito in the fridge and we found that this was a really good addition.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - V is for Vanilla Slice

2011-10-25T20:14:00.001+11:00

Several times on my blog I have mentioned that I don't have much of a sweet tooth, although if I see something smothered in passionfruit icing it's more likely to get my attention. A vanilla slice posted by Cindy from Where's the Beef and K from In the Mood for Noodles about a year ago was exactly this type of sweet.

Vanilla slice was always a favourite treat for the man and son. They would frequently be tempted by these sweets that commonly appear in bakeries. This recipe had been sitting in my bookmarks for way too long so I took the opportunity to try it out for the letter V.

It's quite easy to put together, the puff pastry sheets are lightly browned, a custard is made, the slice is assembled, refrigerated and topped with icing a few hours later. The only issue I ran into was running out of cornflour but I had some rice flour in the pantry to make up the difference.

It's quite surprising that I am the only one in the house to have sampled the slice so far but I know that my boys will adore it. I thought it tasted just like a vanilla slice should even though it has been such a long time since I have actually eaten one.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vanilla Slice (Adapted from Where's the Beef and In the Mood for Noodles, originally sourced from IVU)

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, defrosted

Filling

1 cup castor sugar
1/2 cup cornflour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup custard powder
1 litre soy milk
3 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2 teaspoons vanilla essence

Icing

2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon dairy-free margarine
pulp from 2 passionfruits
2-3 teaspoons water

Heat an oven to 200C. Cook the puff pastry sheets on trays lined with baking paper for about 6 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cornflour and custard powder. Add about a cup of soy milk and whisk thoroughly ensuring there are no lumps. Whisk in the rest of the soy milk and margarine. Heat the custard over medium, stirring all the time to ensure that there no lumps. The custard will eventually become very thick which is when you need to turn off the heat and add the vanilla.

Cut one of the pastry sheets to fit your baking dish and place gently in the bottom of the dish. Spread the custard evenly over the top. Cut the second pastry sheet to size and place on top of the custard, then press it down gently so it sticks to the custard. Place in the refrigerator for a few hours.

To make the icing, place the icing sugar in a bowl and add the passionfruit pulp and margarine. Mix together and add teaspoons of water slowly, stirring as you go, until a thick but spreadable paste results. If the icing ends up too runny, add some more icing sugar. Spread the icing over the top of the pastry evenly. Return the slice to the fridge in order for the icing to set.

Vegan MoFo - U is for Upside Down Blueberry Microwave Cake

2011-10-24T20:40:00.001+11:00

A minor cooking mishap in an attempt to make a chocolate mug cake that K from In the Mood for Noodles posted about last week wasn't enough to deter me from trying again. The disaster was totally my fault, I should know by now that microwaves can vary when it comes to cooking times and I still don't understand how I managed to turn my back at that crucial moment. It was only a matter of seconds from when that delicious chocolate aroma turned into a horrible burnt smell and the microwave starting smoking!

I felt very stupid for failing at such a simple recipe so I had to give it another try. This time I made the berry almond variation and checked the Facebook page for further hints before getting started. I made the cake in a ramekin rather than a mug as the sizes are similar and initially set the microwave for 2 minutes (watching it like a hawk the entire time). The middle looked slightly underdone so I zapped it for another 20 seconds and the cake was done.

My son really enjoyed the cake and fruit isn't his favourite thing so I have promised to make good with a chocolate one for him soon! This is the type of dessert I would usually like but I was way too full from dinner tonight so I'll have to try one for myself soon.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Upside Down Blueberry Microwave Cake (Adapted from In the Mood for Noodles)

2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons self-raising flour
1 tablespoon almond meal
1 tablespoon applesauce
Handful of frozen blueberries
A drizzle of maple syrup

Cook the margarine in a bowl for about 30 seconds or until melted. Stir through the sugar, self-raising flour, almond meal and applesauce and mix until well combined.

Place the blueberries in a ramekin or large mug, drizzle with some maple syrup then cover with the cake mixture. Put the ramekin or mug on a plate and cook in the microwave for 2-3 minutes or until the cake has set in the middle.

Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake, then invert onto a plate and enjoy!

Vegan MoFo - T is for Tortilla Chips and testing for Terry

2011-10-23T14:45:00.002+11:00

I found it strangely coincidental after deciding to make tortillas for the letter T and a suite of accompanying Viva Vegan recipes that an email would land in my inbox notifying me that it was time to start testing recipes for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook! It was so exciting but the timing a little frustrating as I have come so far with my MoFo theme and still want to see it through. My remaining MoFo posts will be briefer and slightly altered from my original plan to compensate and may also include a couple of photos from recipe testing.

On Friday night, I made blue corn tortillas, refried beans, sofrito, guacamole and cashew crema although due to a mishap with the hot sauce I decided not to post the photo. Instead I whipped up another batch of blue corn tortillas to be made into tortilla chips. I tried a oven-baked version of tortilla chips a while ago which turned out alright but ever since I have wanted to try them again, this time deep fried.

I used a wok with peanut oil to fry the tortillas wedges in and after they were cooked, seasoned one batch with nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, chilli and salt and the other batch simply with salt. The texture of the tortillas chips turned out to be inconsistent with some a bit too soft whilst others had the right amount of crunchiness. I was a bit concerned about burning the chips initially and definitely undercooked the first batch or two. The ones that turned out the best spent about a minute in the wok.

Since Friday I have tested three of Terry's recipes which have all been really good but this has meant that I haven't had time to catch up on MoFo posts or reply to comments for a while.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - S is for Seitan Gyros

2011-10-21T17:39:00.000+11:00

When I spotted Rachel's post about Seitan Gyros a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to try it straight away! Unfortunately G had already been posted so there was an agonising wait until the letter S came around. The mixture of herbs and seasonings that Rachel used in her seitan sounded interesting and I loved how thinly her slices looked.

I made a few minor adjustments to the ingredients, by adding in some chickpea flour and slightly more salt and lemon zest. The method was also adjusted to allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes after an initial knead so that the gluten develops. This was inspired by the Viva Vegan seitan recipes which have been highly successful for me in the past. I always make seitan at least a day before I am planning to use it as the texture improves after an overnight chill in the fridge.

On the day I only had to make pita bread, garlic sauce, finely slice and fry the seitan, and chop the lettuce, tomato and onion. One thing I noticed with this garlic sauce as it was my second attempt making it, is that the garlic flavour develops a lot after the sauce is chilled for a while. I should cut back to 2 cloves next time and see how that fares as 4 makes it rather pungent.

The pitas were lined with lettuce, tomato, red onion, gyros seitan and topped with garlic sauce and sriracha. I don't think this would fool a hardcore omnivorous gyros lover but I really enjoyed the herbs and lemony flavour throughout the seitan. The man and son thought they tasted pretty good too and devoured them rapidly.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Seitan Gyros (Adapted from I Eat Grains!)

1 1/4 cups gluten flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
4 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 teaspoons dried oregano
Grated zest from one lemon
1 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 tablespoons ketchup

Place the gluten flour, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic power, rosemary, oregano and lemon zest in a large bowl. Mix ingredients thoroughly then make a well in the centre.

Combine the water, soy sauce, sesame oil, liquid smoke and ketchup together in another bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the well then mix with your hands. Tip the dough onto a clean bench and knead for a couple of minutes. Allow to rest for 10 minutes then knead for another 30 seconds.

Divide the dough in half, shape each half into a loaf shape and wrap the loaves in separate pieces of aluminium foil. Ensure that there is a bit of room for the seitan to expand. Bake in the oven at 180C for 1 hour. Allow to cool completely then store in the fridge until required.

Vegan MoFo - R is for Rendang Nangka

2011-10-20T19:43:00.000+11:00

R was a difficult letter because I couldn't decide what to make. Rice paper rolls were my original idea as I have wanted to make them for a long time and then I thought about making a risotto but that seemed a little mundane. On the morning I was due to cook something for R, I read this interesting post on I Eat Grains! about how green jackfruit has a very meaty texture and neutral taste and decided to try it out in a Rendang curry. I even stumbled across a rendang recipe using jackfruit in my copy of World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown.

World Vegetarian Classics contains chapters of regions around the world and each chapter starts with a page about an expert in the regions cuisine. I was interested to find that the expert for South-East Asia was Sri Owen, a cookbook author that Cindy and Michael from Where's the Beef have been posting about in recent times. Cindy and Michael have posted a Sri Owen recipe for rendang using tempeh instead of beef which apart from being doubled in quantities looked very similar to the ingredients in my cookbook. The main difference between these recipes was the latter part of the method.

Cindy and Michael mentioned a few tweaks they would make next time around which was to increase the ingredients in the spice paste and/or reduce the amount of coconut so I took this on board and altered the World Vegetarian Classics recipe a bit. I used the stated amount of chilli but decided the leave the seeds in to make it spicier, increased the shallots, garlic, ginger and galangal and cut back on the coconut milk a little.

Reducing the coconut milk decreased the cooking time by about 30 minutes which was fantastic as the curry still took a good 2 hours to cook. The initial preparation doesn't take very long but once that is out of the way, it's just a matter of stirring every now and then. After about an hour, a crust develops on the bottom of your pot which you need to scrape off a few times and mix in with the sauce. These crusty bits were a highlight of the curry as they contained so much flavour.

The man and I were so impressed with the jackfruit in this rendang, my son was a little less enthused about the jackfruit but still liked the curry. The texture of the jackfruit was rather meaty and the pieces were mostly intact after 2 hours of cooking. I think jackfruit is a great mock meat alternative for gluten and/or soy free people and it's something I will use more often, perhaps in my "butter chicken" next time. You can find green jackfruit in tins at asian groceries but be aware that they also sell ripened jackfruit in syrup which is sweeter and softer and wouldn't produce the same result.

The rendang was served with basmati rice and choy sum steamed with minced garlic drizzled with a touch of sesame oil at the end.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Rendang Nangka (Adapted from World Vegetarian Classics with some tips taken from Where's the Beef)

4 shallots, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3cm piece of ginger, roughly chopped
3 red chillies, roughly chopped
1cm piece galangal, roughly chopped
2 x 400ml tins coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 bay leaf
1 stalk lemongrass, outer layer removed
1 teaspoon salt
2 x 540g tins green jackfruit in brine, drained and rinsed
1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Place the shallots, garlic, ginger, chillies and galagal into a blender with about 1/4 cup of the coconut milk and process until smooth. Pour the blender mixture into a large pot along with the rest of the coconut milk, turmeric, bay leaf, lemongrass, salt and jackfruit and bring to the boil.

Lower the heat to medium and allow it to simmer, uncovered for about 90 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 60 minutes the gravy will become very thick and will require more frequent stirring. A crust will begin to form on the bottom of your pot which should be scraped with a metal spatula to allow a new one to form. After scraping the crust a few times, the gravy should be almost totally absorbed by the jackfruit. Add the chickpeas and cook for a further 30 minutes, scraping the crust a few more times. There should be no liquid remaining. Remove the lemongrass and bay leaf before serving.

Vegan MoFo - Q is for Quinoa Stew (and an award)

2011-10-19T19:20:00.000+11:00

This quinoa, lentil and vegetable stew has to be my favourite recipe from the Fat Free Vegan blog as it's the one I have repeated the most. It's from Susan's "Ridiculously Easy" category as she used frozen vegies and tinned lentils for convenience. I have blogged my adaptation of this recipe before which uses fresh vegetables and larger quantities of quinoa and smoked paprika.

It's a great recipe which is simple to prepare and you can throw in whatever vegetables you have around. This time I used pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and added spinach right at the end. The flavours improve over time as it tastes even better the next day. I have also mixed a bit of harissa into the leftovers before and made quinoa stuffed peppers which were fantastic!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

I was both thrilled and extremely honoured to receive the Liebster award (German for favourite, beloved or dearest) from Mandee at Cupcake Kitteh. Mandee's blog is full of beautiful photos of the many things she has made from Viva Vegan which is what initially attracted me. I also find it inspiring how she manages to cook such amazing food with ease that doesn't contain any soy or gluten. Head over and take a look if you haven't been there already!

My job now is to hand out the Liebster award to 5 bloggers that have less than 200 followers if this can be judged from the site. I decided to give the award to bloggers I have discovered throughout Vegan MoFo 2011 that haven't already received this award to the best of my knowledge.

The bloggers (listed in alphabetical order to keep in line with my MoFo theme) I am awarding are:

Dawn from Veg-am
erinwyso from Olives for Dinner
Jes from Eating Appalachia
Jes from Your Mom's a Vegan
Rachel from I Eat Grains

The winners can pass the award on if they feel inclined to by:

Showing your thanks by linking to the person that gave you the award
Choosing 5 bloggers to give the award to and leaving a comment on their blog to let them know
Post the award on your blog
Enjoy spreading the love around

Vegan MoFo - P is for Pinwheels

2011-10-18T19:36:00.002+11:00

Pinwheels were one of the finger foods my mum used to serve at big parties throughout my childhood. I used to love helping out with making them as it meant that I would get to snack on the ones that had slight imperfections. Pinwheels are made from puff pastry sheets spread with finely diced toppings which are rolled up, sliced into bize-sized pieces and baked in the oven until flaky.

Mum's pinwheels always used to be made with tomato paste, onions, bacon and cheese. I wanted mine to taste fairly similar so I used tofu bacon and vegan cheese and mixed a bit of pesto with a store bought pizza sauce for an extra dimension of flavour. They are a little bit fiddly to make but once you get used to the process, it does becomes easier. The recipe includes some step by step photos to guide you through although the late afternoon light streaming into my kitchen interfered a little.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Pinwheels

3 vegan puff pastry sheets
1/4 - 1/3 cup tomato paste/pizza sauce
3 teaspoons vegan basil pesto
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1/2 batch tofu bacon, finely diced
3 large button mushrooms, finely diced
200g vegan cheese, grated
olive oil spray

Place a sheet of frozen puff pastry on a large chopping board and cover with approx 2 tablespoons of tomato paste/pizza sauce mixed with a teaspoon of pesto. Try to spread the mixture evenly and ensure that the left and right sides are covered as close as you can get to the edges. The sides closest and furtherest away from you can be left plain.

Sprinkle a 1/3 of each of the onion, mushrooms and tofu bacon on top followed by 1/3 of the vegan cheese. (The photo below was taken prior to cheese being added).

By this time the puff pastry sheet should have thawed out just enough for it to be rolled up. Starting at the end closest to you, roll the pastry over to 1/4 of the length of the sheet then continue rolling tightly until you get to the end. With a sharp knife cut sections of about 1cm width along the sheet.

Place the pinwheels onto a tray lined with baking paper and cook in the oven at 180C for about 15-20 minutes or until they are flaky. Repeat the process two more times and enjoy your pinwheels!

Vegan MoFo - O is for Olive Bread and Okonomiyaki

2011-10-17T20:52:00.000+11:00

Oooohhh, it's a double post! Olive bread was my choice for this letter until the man asked me to make the Japanese pancake thing you used to make that starts with O - he meant Okonomiyaki of course.

I used to buy Olive bread from time to time but it wasn't terribly popular at home so I would end up devouring the majority of it. I love eating it fresh or toasted and we also discovered on the weekend that it gives an interesting twist to your standard garlic bread. I halved quantities and adapted a recipe from The Cook's Companion which made a french stick sized loaf. A mixture of black and green olives went into the mix as it was what I had on hand and I also used a different herb. It turned out to be a really nice light loaf of bread although I probably would use a few more olives next time.

The name Okonomiyaki translates to okonomi - "as you like it", yaki - "grilled". They are Japanese pancakes which are very tasty when made solely with vegetables as it's the topping sauces that really complete the dish. All of the okonomi sauces contained oyster sauce at my Asian grocer so I searched around and decided to give this simple one a try. I scaled the quantities of the recipe back to 1/4 and made a couple of vegan friendly substitutions. I found that the sauce was rather thin so it was thickened up with some cornflour.

The pancakes are very easy to put together especially if you have a food processor to shred up the cabbage, carrots and zucchini. This was the first time I have used capsicum or bean shoots but they needed using up so they went in.The hardest thing to judge is the consistency of the vegetable batter, if it's too runny they pancakes won't hold together very well but if it's too thick they can taste too floury. They are easy to make and fun to decorate and will fill you up a lot quicker than you think.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Olive bread (Adapted from The Cook's Companion)

300g bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon dried oregano
12 black and green olives, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
150ml warm water

Place the flour, salt, yeast, oregano and olives in a large bowl and mix well. Make a well in the centre, pour in the oil followed by the water and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a clean bench and knead for 10 minutes or until the dough is springy and elastic. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise until doubled in size, approx 1 hour.

Tip the dough onto your bench but don't knock it back. Work the dough gently in a long loaf shape, then wrap in a floured tea towel and allow to rise to 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 220C with a baking tray inside. Roll the loaf onto the tray and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped.

Okonomiyaki

1/2 small cabbage, shredded
2 small carrots, grated
1 medium zucchini, grated
1/2 red capsicum, finely chopped
1/2 cup bean sprouts, washed and trimmed
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
pepper, to taste
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons water
1 cup plain flour
olive oil spray
okonomi sauce (recipe below), for topping
vegan mayonnaise, for topping
spring onions, for garnish

Mix the cabbage, carrots, zucchini, red capsicum, bean shoots, stock powder and pepper together in a bowl. Add the water and flaxseed/water mixture and use your hands to combine thoroughly. Add the flour a little at time, mixing well with your hands.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and spray lightly with olive oil. Grab a large handful of the mixture, form it into a ball, flatten it slightly then add it to the frying pan. Press down gently on the pancake to flatten it further. After about 3-5 minutes, flip the cake over and cook for a further 3-5 minutes on the other side. Repeat until the mixture is used up.

Serve okonomiyaki topped with okonomi sauce and vegan mayonnaise, garnished with spring onions.

Okonomi sauce Adapted from Okonomiyaki recipe blog)

1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup vegan worchestershire sauce
1 tablespoon vegan oyster mushroom sauce
1 tablespoon agave nectar
2 teaspoons cornflour

Mix the ketchup, worchestershire sauce, oyster mushroom sauce and agave nectar together in a small saucepan. Stir cornflour with a small amount of water in a teacup to make a smooth past, then add it to the saucepan. Heat gently, stirring for a couple of minutes until thickened.

Vegan MoFo - N is for Noodles

2011-10-16T20:33:00.000+11:00

N is for noodles because they are such a wonderful versatile food. I often cook different types of noodle dishes on weeknights as they are generally quick meals to prepare. Char Kueh Teow is a delicious dish made with fresh flat rice noodles that has been on regular rotation since I tried Steph from vegan about town's version earlier this year.

The noodles are flavoured with garlic, chilli, light and dark soy sauce and stir-fried with a few vegetables and tofu. One thing I love about this recipe is that the tofu is crumbled rather than cut into cubes or strips. I usually break up the tofu in a bowl and marinate it with a dash of soy sauce for about 30 minutes to give it some extra flavour.

I have blogged about Char Keuh Teow previously but didn't post a recipe. Next post will feature two recipes for the letter O so I'll leave this post short for now and be back with more tomorrow.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - Alphabet break to share some MoFo love

2011-10-14T17:41:00.000+11:00

Vegan MoFo 2011 has been a fantastic experience so far. This time last year I didn't even have a blog and thought that trying to keep up with reading and bookmarking so many fantastic recipes was an exhausting task! In addition to reading, bookmarking and commenting on other blogs, I am trying to post daily and comment back to readers on my own posts! The latter is something I usually do but haven't been as timely with this month.

As mentioned in my last post, I have posted about golden oldies and newbies from A - M (listed here) which brings me half-way through the alphabet. So it's time for a quick break to share a few of the MoFo posts that have been inspiring me so far.

Simple staples

The Vegan Ronin posted homemade spicy mustard followed up by homemade spicy ketchup the next day. Both of these sound delicious, I have never thought to make my own mustard before but it doesn't sound too difficult and I'm sure it would be a lot tastier.

Dawn from Vegan Fazool posted about chard chips which was exciting to see. There have been countless posts about kale chips which seem to be a craze at the moment. I bought organic kale from the Vic Market once but it was quite limp and very expensive so I didn't feel it was worth bothering with. Now I have an alternative to try!

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe's post about how to make gravy appealed to me as I reach for a packet mix too often when I know I should be making my own. Some underwhelming gravy recipes have led me to this but it's time to get over it and start experimenting again. On the topic of gravy, Tofu Mom is posting about gravy for the whole month, for the second year in a row!

K from In the Mood for Noodles noocho cheese sauce sounds great because I love trying out nooch sauces and the combination of ingredients are a bit different from others that I have tried.

Burgers and sausages

Jeni Treehugger from Heathen Vegan's spicy cajun lentil patties are exactly my type of burger. As soon as I saw the name I was ready to bookmark this recipe.

Miranda Browning's quinoa and sun-dried tomato burgers sound fantastic and I have been meaning to try a quinoa based burger for a while.

Big Momma from Really Crabby Crafter's gluten-free sausages will be in my mind next time I run out of gluten flour and am wanting to make sausages.

Celeste from Growing up Veg's black bean juicy lucy burger just looks awesome. I had never heard of a juicy lucy before but seasoned black bean patties with vegan cheese is the middle sounds really good to me.

Sweet things

Lauren from Where the veggies are's strawberry lavender muffins sound so interesting as I have never played around with infusing flavours from flowers and have bucketloads of lavender growing in my garden.

La Vida Vegana posted some gorgeous looking chocolate peppermint patties which are exactly my type of sweet treat.

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This is just a little sample of the many recipes I have bookmarked over the last 2 weeks! Some of the themes I have been enjoying are coldandsleepy cook's A - Z, Cupcake Kitteh's cookbook challenge (especially the Viva Vegan posts), vegan.in.brighton's football food sunday and cookbook challenge, Kittens Gone Lentil's cookbook reviews and veg-am's 1 food 5 ways.

Hope you are all enjoying MoFo as much as I am! I will be posting some more links after I have worked my way through the rest of the alphabet.

Vegan MoFo - M is for Mexe Wedges

2011-10-13T20:06:00.000+11:00

Mexe Wedges is the name I created for my favourite spiced wedges some time ago. I played around with the quantities in this recipe for the first few attempts and this is how I make them every time now. They have become one of our favourite ways to eat potatoes and when my son told me that he preferred them over deep fried hot chips I was delighted. They are very simple to prepare and dangerously addictive but are cooked with little oil so you can indulge to your heart's content.

They are coated with a combination of salt, smoked paprika, olive oil and a chilli seasoning mix based on this recipe prior to baking. I like to keep a container of the chilli seasoning prepared as I know exactly what is in it as opposed to a packet mix full of additives. The main change I make is to omit the flour from the recipe.

On this occasion we enjoyed our wedges with Chipotle Lentil burgers from Appetite for Reduction, Mushroom Chicharrones from Viva Vegan and some asparagus. The burgers did not live up to our expectations, they were nice but not as wonderful as I was expecting them to be. I actually preferred the leftover burgers straight out of the fridge the next day. Mandee from Cupcake Kitteh inspired me to give the tasty chicharrone marinade another try using mushrooms instead of tofu and they were a highlight of the meal. The man adored them so much that I am planning to follow Mandee's lead more often and use mushrooms in place of tofu.

This post brings me halfway through my alphabet of golden oldies and newbies. So far I have posted 7 new recipes and revisited 6 oldies. It feels like a good time to take a bit of a breather, go through some of my MoFo bookmarks and post about some of the exciting recipes I can't wait to try!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Mexe Wedges

1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon chilli seasoning
1 tablespoon olive oil
olive oil spray

Preheat oven to 200C.

Place the potato wedges in a large bowl and sprinkle the salt, smoked paprika and chilli seasoning over the top. Drizzle in the olive oil, then mix thoroughly with your hands until well combined.

Line a roasting tray with baking paper and spray lightly with olive oil. Spread the wedges in a single layer on the tray and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the bottoms have browned. Flip the wedges over and cook for a further 15 minutes or until nice and crunchy.

Vegan MoFo - L is for Lasagne

2011-10-12T20:52:00.001+11:00

Lasagne is something I have struggled to enjoy as a vegetarian and vegan. Countless recipes have been attempted over the years but none of them have ever been repeated. I was so underwhelmed by these attempts that I put lasagne into the "too hard" basket until earlier this year.

A version made with nut roast leftovers and a cheezy sauce restored my faith in a tasty meatless lasagne. It had a great flavour and was very hearty and filling due to the nuts. The man and son were very keen on this lasagne but for some reason we didn't feel the same way when I made it next time. I pondered for a while about how it could be improved although I didn't get around to fiddling with this recipe again.

Since I have been using Ricki's ground "meat" recipe in so many different ways recently, I decided it was time to put it to the lasagne test. This lasagne was made in a similar fashion to how I used to make it in my omnivorous days, as I always used to add sliced carrots and mushrooms to the meat sauce and cheese to the bechamel sauce. The lasagne sheets were made with a pasta machine as the texture of home made pasta is so much nicer than the pre-made sheets.

I would love to tell you that this was the best lasagne to date but unfortunately something wasn't quite right about it which wasn't just my opinion. All three of us are quite particular when it comes to lasagne. It had some great flavours going on and the home-made pasta was as fantastic as usual but it still didn't give me the wow factor I was looking for. I will probably play around with this recipe a little in the future but will post it for now regardless.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Ground "meat" lasagne

Lasagne sheets (or skip this step and use pre-made sheets)

3/4 cup semolina
3/4 cup plain flour
pinch of sea salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/3 - 1/2 cup water

Mix the semolina, plain flour and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre, pour in the olive oil and 1/3 cup water and work the flour into the water until a slightly wet dough has formed. If the mixture is too dry, add the extra water a little at a time, mixing it into the dough as you go. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and set aside for 30 minutes.

"Meat" sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
2 medium carrots, sliced
4 portobello mushrooms, sliced
1/2 quantity ground "meat" recipe
1 x 800g tin of tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon flat parsley, chopped finely
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the carrots, mushrooms, ground "meat", tomatoes, basil and oregano, cover and cook for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Remove from the heat, stir through the fresh parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Cheezy bechamel sauce

2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
1/4 cup plain flour
2 cups soy milk
200g vegan cheese
salt and pepper, to taste

Melt the margarine in a saucepan then stir the flour through. Cook, stirring for a few minutes until the flour browns a little. Add the soy milk slowly at first, whisking through the mixture to ensure that no lumps remain. When all of the soy milk has been added, stir constantly until the mixture starts to bubble. Stir through the vegan cheese until it has melted. Season with salt and pepper.

Lasagne assembly

Use a pasta machine or rolling pin to roll out thin sheets of pasta. Cut the pasta to measure the width of your baking tray.

Spread about 1/4 of the cheezy bechamel sauce over the bottom of your baking dish. Cover with a layer of lasagne sheets, then spread a 1/3 of the "meat" sauce followed by enough bechamel to cover the sauce. Repeat the layering 3 times, adding a bit of extra grated vegan cheese on top if there isn't enough bechamel remaining. Cover with foil and bake in the oven at 180C for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10 minutes.

Vegan MoFo - K is for Kheema Matar

2011-10-11T20:14:00.002+11:00

Kheema Matar is an Indian dish traditionally made with ground lamb mince, green peas and spices. It's a recipe I wanted to revisit after enjoying Ricki's ground meat in spaghetti bolognese, chilli non carne, pot pies and chow mein. My previous attempt with Kheema Matar used TVP as the mince replacement which I wasn't very keen on so I had high hopes to restore this dish to it's former glory this time around.

Ricki's faux meat recipe is simply made of processed cauliflower and nuts with seasonings mixed through and baked in the oven until it has totally dried out. When added to sauces it absorbs a lot of liquid so it's a good idea to increase the quantity of the sauce from your standard recipe. I'm not going to tell you that this tastes exactly like meat but it certainly has the appearance of ground meat and imparts a nice subtle nutty flavour.

Even though I didn't have a couple of the recipe ingredients like green chillies and fresh coriander it was still a pretty tasty meal and won hands down as the best veg attempt to date. It's doesn't take too much time to prepare, especially if your ground "meat" is already on hand. Kheema Matar pairs well with bread and pappadums which is exactly how we enjoyed it.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Kheema Matar (Adapted from The Food of India)

1/2 cup cashews, soaked for at least an hour
1 large onion, chopped roughly
2 green chillies, seeded and chopped (I didn't have any this time)
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons minced ginger
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 bay leaves
1/2 quantity ground "meat" (recipe below)
1/2 cup tomato puree
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
2 heaped teaspoons ground coriander
2 heaped teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups frozen peas

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

2 tablespoons fresh coriander (I didn't have any this time)

Drain and rinse the cashews, then process in a blender with about 1/3 cup water until it becomes a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl and rinse out the blender. Place the onions, chillies, garlic and ginger in the blender with 1/4 cup water and process until smooth.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion mixture and bay leaves and fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the ground meat and tomato puree and mix thoroughly. Stir through the turmeric, chilli powder, coriander and cumin and cook for a minute. Add the blended cashew cream, salt and pepper and continue frying for another 5 minutes. The mixture may become too dry so add a small amount of water if necessary.

Stir through the frozen peas and cook for 5 minutes, then add the garam masala and fresh coriander. Serve with flatbread or pappadums.

Ground "meat" recipe (Adapted from Diet, Dessert & Dogs)

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 cup walnuts
1 cup pecans
2 tablespoons olive oil (I forgot to add it this time)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon liquid smoke (I spilled in extra by accident)
1/2 teaspoon mixed herbs

Preheat the oven to 180C. Place the cauliflower florets and nuts in a food processor bowl and pulse until finely ground. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.

Add the olive oil, garlic powder, soy sauce, salt, smoked paprika, liquid smoke and herbs and mix thoroughly with your hands until the ingredients are well combined.

Spread the mixture out evenly into a large oven tray lined with baking paper. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes, then stir the mixture around. Cook for another 15 minutes and stir again. Keep cooking the mixture until the mixture is dry and brown, stirring every 15 minutes. It usually takes an hour or a little longer for mine to be ready.

Use the ground "meat" straight away or store in the fridge or freezer for later use.

Vegan MoFo - J is for Jaffa Balls

2011-10-10T20:21:00.000+11:00

Jaffa balls are more like chocolate-orange flavoured truffles than the lollies I used to eat called jaffas. Jaffas are a chocolate-orange centred sweet with a crunchy shell rather than a coconut coating but it was the flavours in my balls that reminded me of jaffas so that's what I named them.

My venture into making vegan chocolate balls began when looking up an old rum ball recipe for my husband and son. The recipe only required one substitution, soy condensed milk for the regular condensed milk. After churning out a few batches, I decided to replace the rum and vanilla essense with some peppermint essense which resulted in delicious choc-mint balls. And after that jaffa balls followed...

The mixture is a cinch to put together with the help of a food processor to pulverise the biscuits. The biscuits in my recipes are a brand that is available in Australia which doesn't contain any animal products. Any type of plain sweet vegan biscuit could be used in their place. After combining the ingredients, it's worthwhile to put the mixing bowl in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. This firms up the mixture which makes rolling the balls a smoother process with not as much ending up on your hands.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - I is for Imam Bayildi

2011-10-09T20:27:00.000+11:00

I went searching through my cookbooks for inspiration for the letter I and stumbled across a recipe I had been meaning to try - a Turkish stuffed eggplant recipe called Imam Bayildi. This recipe appealed to me due to the name which translates to "The Priest Fainted" even more so than the ingredients. There are two stories behind the name; the first is that the priest fainted with pleasure when he tasted this delicious dish and the second is that he keeled over when he saw how much precious olive oil his wife had used to make it.

There were recipes in two of my cookbooks, World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown and The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander. I chose to follow the latter as it is a treasured cookbook but one I have neglected in recent times. It was still useful to cross reference both recipes as Celia Brooks Brown's recipe stated a much longer cooking time of one and a half hours as opposed to 30 - 45 minutes. I ended up cooking the eggplant for close to an hour and a half which resulted in a smooth silky texture.

This meal turned out surprisingly flavoursome considering it only contained onion, garlic, tomato, eggplant, olive, lemon juice and parsley. The recipe was scaled down to feed two as I wasn't sure how great the meal would be or if I would want any leftovers. I was kicking myself that I hadn't made more as this was the most delicious eggplant I have eaten in a while and it's made me realise that the way to succeed with eggplant is to use heaps of oil and a long time in the oven!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Imam Bayildi (Adapted from The Cook's Companion)

1 medium eggplant
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 bay leaf
pinch of cinnamon
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
juice of 1/2 lemon

Slice the eggplant down the centre then scoop out the flesh leaving a small rim in the eggplant shells. Chop the eggplant flesh, salt and set aside. Salt the eggplant shells and set aside for 30 minutes. Rinse and dry.

Preheat oven to 180C. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan, then cook the shallots on a low flame until soft. Add the garlic and cook for a minute, then stir through the tomato, bay leaf, cinnamon and parsley and cook for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl and remove the bay leaf.

Rinse the eggplant flesh and dry with paper towel. Heat another tablespoon of olive oil in the saucepan and fry the eggplant for about 5 minutes until soft and golden. Mix the contents of the bowl through the eggplant.

Spoon the filling into the eggplant shells and place onto an oiled baking tray. Cover with a mixture of juice from half a lemon and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Bake in the oven for 1 hour 30 minutes spooning the liquid over the top of the eggplants a couple of times during baking.

Vegan MoFo - H is for Hot Potato Salad

2011-10-09T11:29:00.000+11:00

Hot potato salad has been on my list of things to veganise for a while as it is a family favourite that has been around at BBQs for years. The original recipe uses a lot of sour cream and cottage cheese as well as a dried packet of french onion soup. I had been thinking about how to make a good vegan version of this for some time and when I found some tofutti french onion flavoured cream cheese last week it seemed like the perfect thing to try.

The man and son were particularly interested when they saw what I was attempting to make as they are huge fans of this potato salad. Using cashews, nutritional yeast, tofutti, soy milk and seasonings it turned out tasting quite close to the original so I was pleased with the result for a first attempt. I'm certain that I will be requested to make this again as the boys loved it so much that they went back for seconds.

I also made some Hot Wings from Vegan Dad's blog but found the texture to be mushier than how I'm used to eating seitan. The are two recipes for hot wings on his blog and I tried his one that contains mushrooms. Other people had commented about the texture of these wings so perhaps I'll try the recipe without the mushrooms another time.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Hot Potato Salad

1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
1 cup unsalted cashews, soaked for about 4 hours
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup soy milk
1/4 cup french onion flavoured tofutti cream cheese
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1-2 teaspoons dried onion flakes (I used 2 which gave it a fairly strong taste)
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
4 spring onions, chopped
cornflake crumbs or breadcrumbs for toppping

Preheat oven to 180C.

Place the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, drain the cashews in a colander and rinse well with fresh water. Place the cashews, water, soy milk, cream cheese, nutritional yeast, onion flakes, dried parsley and salt into a blender and process until smooth and creamy.

Drain the potatoes in a colander then spread evenly in a baking dish. Sprinkle the spring onions on the potatoes then pour the blender mixture over the top. Stir gently with a spoon until combined. Top with crumbs of choice and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Vegan MoFo - G is for Glamorgan Sausages

2011-10-07T19:34:00.000+11:00

Glamorgan Sausages or Selsig Morgannwg in the Welsh tongue are credited with being the first vegetarian sausages according to my copy of World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown. They can be traced back to 1862 where they were highly regarded by George Burrows in his diary about his travels through Wales. The original cookbook recipe consists of breadcrumbs, leeks, parsley, eggs, cheese, mustard and seasonings which is obviously not vegan. My husband and son adored these sausages during our period as vegetarians so I took it upon myself to attempt a vegan version several months ago which they both deemed to be a success.

By substituting a vegan cheese for dairy cheese with a bit of nutritional yeast thrown in for good measure and ground flaxseeds mixed with water for eggs, the mixture actually binds together better than the original version. They are not strongly flavoured so I recommend serving them with a nicely spiced tomato chutney or mustard. Tomato sauce/ketchup or BBQ sauce is another condiment that works well with them.

I actually prefer my meals to have a bit more oomph than these snags and mash but they have been requested for quite some time so I made them to please the man and son. To keep it interesting for me this time, I stir-fried some julienned carrots and shredded cabbage with garlic, chilli and vegan mushroom oyster sauce to have on the side. Next time around I may try adding a bit of smoked paprika to the sausage mixture as it's a spice I adore and feel could make them more interesting.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - F is for Ful Medames

2011-10-06T18:40:00.000+11:00

Ful Medames is something I have wanted to make ever since sampling it a Middle Eastern cafe last year. It's an Egyptian dish consisting of fava beans, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic which is traditionally served for breakfast with eggs and pita bread. When I tried ful medames, it was served with salad and pita bread which was a nice combination. I wanted to replicate this for our meal at home and had already prepared a batch of pita bread for my Ethiopian soup which meant some of the groundwork was already done.

I searched high and low for a recipe containing the right balance of elements that were etched into my memory but none of them seemed quite right. There were also conflicting methods around how the beans were served as several recipes left them whole whilst others mashed them into a refried bean consistency. The ones I had tried in the cafe were whole beans but I had a feeling that my bean-loathing son would prefer them mashed.

I ended up not following any of these recipes, used my intuition and taste tested along the way instead. After cooking the beans, I started with liberal amounts of the seasonings, tasted and then added more lemon and garlic as these were the flavours I could recall as standing out and were the ones that I adored. There was one hiccup in the meal which I will admit to, some of my beans were undercooked which meant they didn't mash well and were a little bit chewy. This was the first time I had cooked dried fava beans so I will remember to taste test more than one bean before declaring them ready next time around!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Ful Medames

1 1/2 cups dried fava beans, soaked for at least 8 hours
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves crushed garlic (or less if you aren't that keen on garlic)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
pepper, to taste
flat leaved parsley, for garnish

After the beans have been soaking for 8 hours, drain them in a colander and rinse well. Place the beans into a pot and fill with water until the beans are covered with at least 2cm of water. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered for about 2 hours or until all of your beans are cooked through.

Drain into a colander, reserving the bean cooking liquid, then return the beans to the pot. Add the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and cumin and mash well with a potato masher. You may need to add some of the bean cooking liquid if they are too dry. Reheat the beans on a low temperature and serve garnished with parsley.

Vegan MoFo - E is for Ethiopian Soup

2011-10-05T20:40:00.000+11:00

So I'm sharing another old recipe today which makes it 4 oldies in a row! If you are hanging out to see something new, bear with me as I promise there will be a brand new recipe tomorrow plus plenty more coming up over the next week.

Ethiopian food has been a passion of mine for several years. World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown was the first vegetarian cookbook given to me which contains an extensive section on Ethiopian cuisine. The moment I tried these recipes I fell in love with the unique flavours. For those who are unfamiliar with Ethiopian food, there are two crucial ingredients that are used in the wats (stews), a spiced clarified butter called niter kibbeh and a spice mix called berbere.

Soup is another love of mine. I'm not much of a cold weather person although one of the things I enjoy most about the cooler months is cooking up a batch (or two) of soup on a weekly basis. Over the last few months I have tried 19 new soup recipes, some of which were concoctions of my own. My Ethiopian soup is the recipe I am most proud of, because it started as an idea to use up the remaining vegetables in an almost bare fridge and resulted in the most delicious soup I have ever created.

After the success of my first batch, I have made this a couple of other times using niter kibbeh in place of the dairy-free margarine, cloves, cinnamon and cardamon which results in a superior overall taste. I usually serve it with pita bread as I have been making this a lot since finding a great recipe earlier this year. Injera would be a more appropriate accompaniment although it does takes longer to prepare than pita.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - D is for Dal Makhani

2011-10-04T19:44:00.000+11:00

When it came to the letter D there was no question about what I was going to make - Dal Makhani! I used to make Indian food on a weekly basis until my husband and son started losing interest in all curries apart from "butter chicken" and koftas. There is something about those little balls that my boys can't get enough of. Personally, my love has always been for dal and although I have tried so many different varieties over the years it is difficult to pick a favourite.

Dal Makhani was chosen for Vegan MoFo as it is one of my most treasured dal recipes and judging from my post where you can find the recipe, it has been over 6 months since I last made it! Black lentils and kidney beans mixed with tomatoes and spices, finished off with a cashew cream is such a divine combination. The man isn't usually very enthused about dal but last night he totally enjoyed the meal and commented several times about how good it was. As we have eaten a fair bit of rice recently, I served the dal with frozen store-bought parathas which puffed up beautifully after a quick fry in the pan. We enjoyed the dal and bread with one of our regular Indian vegetable side dishes which also appeared in my dal makhani post, punjabi cabbage.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan Mofo posts.

Vegan MoFo - C is for Chow Mein

2011-10-03T21:02:00.001+11:00

My original idea for the letter C was a little different to what I have ending up posting but the result was still equally delicious. A lack of vital ingredients for the planned meal changed my focus onto Chow Mein which is a great way to use up bits and pieces of food. That is precisely the type of meal I needed to cook.

I had never made chow mein prior to my post back in May but since trying Johanna's recipe it has been back on the menu on a few subsequent occasions. It's a great one-pot meal made up of noodles, rice and vegetables cooked with soy sauce, "chicken" stock and chilli. It also has the bonus of being quick to prepare. After my first attempt I have always added a couple of teaspoons of curry powder which makes it taste even better.

This time I had some fresh pho noodles that needed to be used so I added these instead of dried rice vermicelli and replaced the TVP with what is rapidly becoming one of my favourite meat substitutes - a ground "meat" recipe from Ricki of Diet, Dessert and Dogs. I have plans to make more meals with Ricki's ground "meat" throughout Vegan Mofo and will discuss this wonderful concoction of cauliflower and nuts in more detail then.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - B is for "Butter Chicken"

2011-10-02T19:41:00.000+11:00

Butter chicken was a favourite meal of ours back when we were omnis. Once I discovered that I could nail this dish and provide us with such a close vegan rendition of what we used to adore so much, it was a huge comfort. Before I knew of the existence of asian mock meats I tried to make this curry with vegetables and tofu which worked well enough but did not live up to the taste and texture of a butter chicken made with mock meat. We don't eat mock meat very often but when we do the temptation is always there to whip up another batch of this delicious "butter chicken".

The original recipe was given to my husband by a work colleague as stated in my previous post where you can find the recipe. I made it a little differently last night due to being out of Tofutti cream cheese and only used about 300g of mock meat and added a touch more soy milk and dairy-free margarine than usual. Some other vegetable side dishes I usually serve with this meal are gajar matar (carrots and peas) or punjabi cabbage. Last night was an exception as we ate this simply with rice and pappadums. It wasn't the healthiest of meals but it was extremely tasty!

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.

Vegan MoFo - A is for Apple Sponge

2011-10-02T13:28:00.005+11:00

The time has come for Vegan MoFo (Vegan month of food) with the aim of the game to blog as much as possible through the month of October with a minimum of 20 posts being the benchmark. I have set the bar a little higher and decided to try an alphabet theme as I enjoyed following quite a few bloggers who went with this last year.

My A-Z theme is going to be based on golden oldies as well as some newbies. The reasoning behind this was to lighten the load for some posts as the oldies will be shorter posts with links back to the recipes. The rules I have set for myself are:

all of the food needs to be cooked in October
a minimum a 2 new recipes per week to be posted
a minimum of 12 new recipes for the month

I really want to be able to see this through until the end of the month and hope you will enjoy me for the ride!

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When I was a child it was always exciting to hear that my uncles were coming over for dinner as mum would usually make their favourite dessert which was also a favourite of mine - Apple Sponge. The title is rather misleading as it gives the impression of a cake rather a baked dessert that is usually served hot. The other misnomer is that the topping is based on a plain cupcake mixture rather than a lighter sponge cake that the name leads you to believe.

It's been ages since I last ate Apple Sponge and had totally forgotten about it until I starting planning out this month of cooking. I looked up a basic cupcake recipe on taste.com.au and swapped a few ingredients to make it vegan. Dairy-free margarine for butter, soy milk for milk and ground flaxseeds to replace the eggs. This dessert is very easy to make taking only 15-20 of preparation time. It would really taste better served with some soy ice-cream or a dollop of cashew cream, the latter will be prepared for us to enjoy the leftovers.

Edited to add: After having some leftovers the following night, the apple to cake ratio didn't seem quite right. Next time around I would probably use 2 more apples or even halve the cake quantity below.

Apple Sponge (Cupcake mixture adapted from taste.com.au)

4 apples, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1/4 cup water
2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup soy milk
125g dairy-free margarine, melted
2 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanillla essense

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the apples, cinnamon, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes until the apples are soft and most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Sift the flour into a large bowl and mix through the caster sugar. Add the soy milk, margarine, flaxseed/water mixture and vanilla essense and stir with a wooden spoon until the ingredients are combined.

Spread the apple mixture into a pie dish then cover with the cake mixture. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Poke the cake with a skewer and when it comes out clean it is ready.

Serve hot out of the oven or cold with a scoop of soy ice-cream or cashew cream.

100th post - My Veg*n story

2011-09-28T20:52:00.001+10:00

I have been a bit slack on the blogging front in the latter part of this month which is partly due to Vegan MoFo preparations. Before we enter into October being the Vegan Month of Food I felt the need to reach a milestone – 100 posts! I planned this post some time ago as I thought it would be a good time to share my story of how and why I became vegetarian and my progression to veganism. I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who has been reading and commenting on my posts as it means a lot and gives me motivation to keep blogging.

As a child I adored animals, my favourite toy was an enormous plush dog aptly named “Doggie” who was just one of many cherished “pets” in my soft toy animal collection. Dolls were never of interest to me and I don’t recall owning one. I grew up in a house where there was always a pet (if not several) around and I was always trying to add to our brood by bringing strays home. I adored the country and watching animals peacefully grazing on our way to visit my Nanna in Gippsland was the highlight of the journey there.

Meat was on the table every night of the week, as a child I loved eating it and never really made the connection between what was on my plate to the furry friends I cherished so much. In a home economics class at secondary school we made veal schnitzels and our teacher always encouraged us to take the recipes home and cook them for our families. Veal was something that had never been served at home and I remember being totally repulsed at finding out that it was flesh of a baby cow when I questioned my mother about it. I cooked the schnitzels that night and somehow managed to eat, although there was no enjoyment in the meal whatsoever. I only ate veal on a couple of other occasions after this, simply to be polite when eating at someone else’s house. Calves have always had a special place in my heart and I could never deal with the thought of eating such a gorgeous innocent creature.

I flirted with half-arsed vegetarianism when studying at Uni for a brief period however this was limited to not eating red meat. This was brought to an end during my pregnancy when I caved into intense cravings. I fell back into the habit of eating meat on a daily basis for many more years.

The middle of 2008 was the last time I ate meat. Surprisingly, my decision to stop eating meat wasn't really my idea but was brought on by several discussions and a bit of gentle prompting from my husband. This was mainly due to his concerns about factory farming which we had been blissfully unaware of up until then. I resisted for a while as my primary concern was how on earth I was going to cook different interesting tasty meals every night of the week. So we began by having a meatless dinner once or twice a week for a short time and building up a small repertoire of meals that we all enjoyed I agreed to give vegetarianism a try. We never looked back...

In fact, I totally embraced vegetarian food, became enthralled with trying out new recipes and the interest I always had in cooking was taken to a whole new level. I discovered veg*n blogs and was amazed and inspired with the creativity that these amazing people applied to their cooking. I became even more interested in factory farming issues and animal rights. I stopped purchasing leather, wool, etc. and changed household products to cruelty-free brands.

After reading “Eating Animals” by Johnathon Safran Foer I wanted to go vegan straight away. I had loved not eating meat up until then as my conscience felt clean however this was no longer the case when I discovered more shocking truths about egg and dairy production. I wanted to stop consuming these nasties straight away and not contribute to the life-long suffering of these poor animals. It did not happen this way as I decided that more research into a balanced vegan diet was required. I had read stories of people that were unable to sustain veganism due to various reasons and wanted to ensure that I was covering all bases when it came to nutritional requirements.

This transitional period lasted for a while, much longer than I would have liked as we moved out of our house for renovations and in with my accommodating in-laws. I didn’t feel that it was going to be feasible to commit to a vegan diet until I was back at home and in my own kitchen. It was difficult enough to impose our vegetarian ways on our gracious hosts by needing to prepare our own meals every night as well as storing the food we required. Over the months, I kept decreasing the amount of dairy in my diet and wasn’t interested in eating eggs at all. Vegan meals were on the menu the majority of the time and food containing dairy wasn’t enjoyable for me anymore.

The renovations became complicated and drawn out and as well as being frustrated with them I just couldn’t wait any longer to go vegan. Milk in my daily coffee was one of the last things to be substituted which was something I was certain was going to be very hard to adapt to. After I bit the bullet and tried a few different varieties of soy milk, my taste buds adapted in a couple of days. There was to be no more waiting now, renovations or no renovations I was going vegan!

The man was the only person that initially knew and was very supportive of my decision. I never expected that he would follow my path as he has always been a bit of a sweet tooth and a total sucker for ice-cream and chocolate. When we moved back home, he secretly went for a week without eggs or dairy, proudly announced that he was joining me and has never looked back either.

It has been almost a year which has been a very happy and delicious time. Whenever I sit down to eat I don’t have to think about contributing towards the suffering of farmed animals which makes every meal a positive experience.

Tofu quiches and apricot delights for potluck plus Singapore noodles

2011-09-21T19:49:00.001+10:00

Spring was well and truly in the air last weekend making it perfect weather to celebrate Planet VegMel's 2nd anniversary with a potluck in the Edinburgh Gardens. It was a bit daunting to turn up to an unfamiliar park that was crawling with numerous groups of people enjoying the sun whilst trying to locate a bunch of people I hadn't met before. After a quick stroll around I thankfully recognised a couple of blogging faces and made my way over to the friendly welcoming group.

My stomach was still rather full from a late breakfast so I didn't sample as many of the wonderful selection of vegan delights as I would have liked, and ended up snacking on more sweet things than savoury which is quite out of character for me. I enjoyed K's refreshing iced tea and Fat Fueled Vegan's deliciously creamy mango lassi for drinks and tucked into some of Michael's potato-chickpea enchiladas from Viva Vegan. The enchiladas were not new to me as I have made them a few times before, but I was intrigued to try them to compare.

When it was time for the sweets, Johanna's cake pops were extremely popular and rightfully so. Steph's chocolate caramel slice was delicious as were Emily's chocolate truffles. I took home some of Cindy's peanut butter cookies with ganache filling amongst other goodies and tried one later that night. My relationship with peanuts is rather quirky (peanuts = yum, anything containing peanut butter = yuck) so I didn't expect to enjoy these cookies. The peanut flavour paired with chocolate wasn't too overpowering so I was pleasantly surprised to find the cookie enjoyable as did my son who devoured the remaining two.

I made some tofu quiches originally from Fat Free Vegan and previously blogged by Johanna GGG and Vicki Vegan which seemed to be popular. My only gripe was they were nice and fluffy when they were being baked and then shrunk a little after they were cooled. Unfortunately K was unable to try them as I had included miso which can contain gluten. I also made some apricot delights from Johanna's blog which were also blogged about at In the Mood for Noodles; they are a nice and healthy sweet although they did become rather soft after spending some time out of the fridge.

It was a fantastic experience to meet and share food with other veg*n bloggers I have been following for a few years although it was also a little overwhelming for a shy person like me.

A few nights before the potluck, I finally made Toby's Singapore noodles which were fantastically easy to prepare for such a tasty dinner so I decided to add this into the post for another 'that recipe seems very familiar...' submission. The only changes I made were to add some different veggies and I also crumbled the tofu which is something I loved in Steph's awesome Char Kueh Teow recipe and have since used in other dishes. Oh yes, and like others who have also tried this recipe we preferred it with additional soy sauce too! Singapore noodles will definitely be part of our mid-week noodle rotation meals from now on.

Tofu quiches
(Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe and Vicki Vegan, originally posted at Fat Free Vegan)

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
100g button mushrooms, finely chopped
100g baby spinach leaves, finely chopped
2 x 300g silken tofu, drained
2 tablespoons tahini
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon white miso
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons tamari
2 tablespoons chickpea flour
1/4 cup soy milk
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chives, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the onions for about 5 minutes until soft. Stir through the garlic and mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes until the mushrooms are cooked. Add the spinach and cook, stirring until the leaves have just wilted.

Place the tofu, tahini, nutritional yeast flakes, miso, smoked paprika and tamari in a food processor bowl and pulse until well combined, scraping down the sides if necessary.

In a small bowl, mix the chickpea flour with the soy milk thoroughly to obtain a smooth paste with no lumps. Mix together the ingredients from the frying pan, food processor and chickpea flour/soy milk paste. Stir through the sun-dried tomatoes and chives.

Place spoonfuls of the mixture into a muffin tray lined with papers and bake at 190C for about 30 minutes.

Apricot Delight
(Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe, originally from Australian Women's Weekly)

250g dried apricots, chopped
3/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cup dessicated coconut
2 tablespoons agave nectar
extra coconut, for coating

Soak half of the apricots in a saucepan with the boiling water for about an hour. Bring to the boil and simmer on a low heat, uncovered for 10 minutes.

Puree the apricots in a food processor. Add the remaining apricots, coconut and agave and process until well combined. You may need to scrape down the sides a couple of times to ensure that all of the ingredients are blended in.

Spread the mixture into a small tin lined with baking paper, cover the top with baking paper and refrigerate overnight.

Remove from the tin, cut into squares and roll the squares in extra coconut. Store in the fridge in an airtight container.

Singapore Noodles (Adapted from In the Mood for Noodles)

250g rice vermicelli noodles
250g firm tofu, crumbled
1 medium carrot, julienned
1 small red capsicum, thinly sliced
2 large portobello mushrooms, sliced
1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets
splash of soy sauce
slash of sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 onion, sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1/4 cup vegetable stock
extra soy sauce and white pepper to taste

Soak the noodles in hot water for about 10 minutes until the noodles are tender. Drain and set aside.

Place the crumbled tofu, carrot, capsicum, mushrooms, broccoli in a bowl and marinate with soy sauce, sesame oil and chilli flakes.

Toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan over a medium high heat, then set aside.

Heat the peanut oil in a wok over the highest heat and stir-fry the onion until soft. Stir through the curry powder then add the marinated tofu and vegetables and stir-fry until the vegetables are softening. Add the noodles and stock and stir-fry until the stock has been absorbed. Season with extra soy sauce and white pepper and serve garnished with sesame seeds.

Vegan MoFo 2011

2011-09-15T12:09:00.000+10:00

Vegan MoFo is being held in October this year.

I have loved discovering many new blogs through Vegan MoFo in the past and vowed when I started my own blog that I would definitely participate in this event. The sign-up form is here and the submission deadline is the 28th September for those who are interested in participating.

There are only 2 weeks to go so it's time to start planning!

Baked falafels with home-made pita

2011-09-13T20:25:00.003+10:00

Falafels are something that have been on my agenda to make especially after purchasing my copy of Appetite for Reduction as I was excited that it contained a spicy, baked version. The only thing that held me back from trying it until now has been the man's lunches. Most days I send him off to work with leftovers from dinner or some soup, apart from once or twice a week when he buys something.

For the past few months, the man has been right back on the falafel bandwagon as a purchased lunch option. His relationship with falafels is quite difficult to predict so rather than inundate him with multiple occurrences in the same week, I have been patiently waiting and gently inquiring about what he has been eating when he buys his lunch. A few years ago when attending a work Christmas function at a Middle Eastern restaurant, the man astounded our table by refusing to eat falafels. Some people couldn't get their heads around a vegetarian not wanting to eat a vegetarian staple! He was just off them at the time...

Recently I was questioned as to why I had never made falafels before so I took it as my opportunity to do so! On the night, I prepared a batch of pita bread dough and whilst waiting for that to rise, made the falafels, hummus and a garlic sauce. The falafel mixture was simple to make with the aid of a food processor and although the little balls were a bit sticky to handle, they bound together well with some extra chickpea flour added.

Appetite for Reduction also contains a recipe titled "Hummus and friends". It starts with a base recipe for hummus which is fairly standard apart from the exclusion of tahini. The recipe then continues on with six different hummus variations that include a couple of extra ingredients to make them unique. I liked the sound of the Shabby Sheik Hummus as it contained smoked paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper and I thought this would pair well with the falafels.

I went with my instinct for the garlic sauce and used silken tofu, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic and adjusted quantities until I was satisfied. Two cloves of garlic were blended in with the other ingredients initially but I could still detect an underlying taste of tofu. I added an extra couple of cloves of garlic and the sauce was fantastic, perhaps a little too garlicky for some people's tastes although perfectly suitable for my audience.

After the falafels were baked and the pita breads rolled out and cooked in the frying pan, the only thing left to do was to assemble these babies! Each pita began with a generous spread of hummus, followed by some shredded cos lettuce, chopped tomatoes, sliced red onion, falafels and topped off with the garlic sauce. It's been a while since I last had falafels and I must say that these ones really hit the spot! My son has never been a falafel lover so I almost fell off my chair when he scoffed his down without complaint and proceeded to go back for seconds. The man also went back for more which meant there were no leftovers, so next time I will definitely be making a double batch!

Baked Falafels (Adapted from Appetite for Reduction)

1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 red onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 bunch parsley leaves
1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons Sriracha chilli sauce

3-4 tablespoons chickpea (besan) flour

1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 200C.

Place the chickpeas, onion, garlic, parsley, olive oil and chilli sauce in a food processor and pulse until a smooth mixture results. You may need to scrape down the sides a couple of times to ensure that everything is processed.

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir through the chickpea flour, cumin, coriander, paprika, baking powder, salt and pepper. If the mixture is not firm enough to roll into balls, add a bit more chickpea flour.

Line an oven tray with baking paper and spray with olive oil spray. Make walnut sized balls out of the mixture and then flatten them slightly into patties. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, the underside should be browned. Spray the tops of the falafels, flip them over and them bake for a further 8 to 10 minutes.

Shabby Sheik Hummus (Adapted from Appetite for Reduction)

1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Place all ingredients in a food processor bowl and pulse until the mixture becomes smooth and no lumps remain. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until required.

Garlic sauce

300g package silken tofu
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt (or more, to taste)
2-4 cloves crushed garlic (start with 2 cloves, add additional garlic to taste)

Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until the mixture is smooth. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until required.

Delicious tofu indeed!

2011-09-08T20:54:00.005+10:00

Tofu is something I could happily eat every day of the week. I love it's ability to soak up flavours and the different textures that can be achieved by applying various cooking methods. Having said that, I try to limit my weekly tofu consumption as there are enough soy products in my diet and it's better to eat a variety of protein sources. If I had to choose between a meal containing lentils, beans, tofu or nuts, tofu would be the winner most of the time.

Perhaps my self-imposed tofu limit is the reason that Matthew's delicious tofu posted by In the Mood for Noodles well over a year ago didn't make it out of my bookmarks until now. I always have an abundance of tofu recipes stored up and never enough time to cook them all! The flavours in the recipe sounded great, a combination of spicy, salty, sweet and sour. It had also been given the thumbs up by Where's the Beef earlier this year.

After planning out my meals for the week and deciding to try Matthew's delicious tofu, I became somewhat conflicted after reading K's post about Toby's Singapore Noodles. The noodles also sounded fantastic and I haven't eaten Singapore Noodles for quite some time. Of course, I could have made both recipes but the rest of my week's cooking was organised so I stuck to my original plan, telling myself that it was only fair to give this neglected recipe a shot first.

I wanted to include some vegetables with the meal without making a separate side dish so I decided to steam some vegetables and add them to the tofu at the end. As the sauce would have been devoured by the tofu by this stage, I doubled the sauce quantity and reserved half to mix into the pan with the vegetables. The recipe also listed chopped nuts which the man doesn't like as toppings so I left them out to appease him.

The recipe's title was certainly an honest one as the tofu truly was delicious! There were no complaints from my crew so it was unanimous win. It was also a simple meal to prepare which was perfect for a weeknight dinner. This recipe is one that I will keep in mind for nights when you need a quick meal on the table.

This post is my second submission for the 'that recipe seems very familiar...' blog event which is part of the 2nd birthday celebrations for Planet VeGMeL.

Matthew's delicious tofu with steamed vegies
(Adapted from In the Mood for Noodles and originally from The Garden of Vegan)

1 tablespoon peanut oil
350g firm tofu, drained, pressed and cut into pieces
1 small head broccoli, cut into florets
1 small red capscium, sliced
1 medium carrot, sliced
6 button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup tamari
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons Sriracha chilli sauce (or less if you don't like too much spice)
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 tablespoon minced ginger

Heat the peanut oil in a large pan over medium heat and fry the tofu until browned on both sides.

While the tofu is frying, steam the broccoli, capsicum, carrot and mushrooms until just tender. Whisk the maple syrup, tamari, lemon juice and chilli sauce together and set aside.

When the tofu has cooked on both sides, reduce the heat, add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for a minute. Pour half of the sauce into the pan, stir well, then cover and cook until the juices have almost evaporated. Add the steamed vegetables to the pan with the rest of the sauce, mix thoroughly and cook until heated through. Serve the tofu and vegetables on a bed of rice with sauce from the pan drizzled on top.

Simple strudel

2011-09-07T19:53:00.000+10:00

The other night I had an urge to cook something for dessert which is quite unusual as I don't feel compelled to bake sweet things very often. After looking at a few cookbooks, I decided to make an apple strudel from Vegan Yum Yum.

There was one minor flaw with this plan, only one apple was left in the house which was not going to be enough for the strudel so I pulled some frozen blueberries out of the freezer and made a mix of both. My son was disappointed about the inclusion of blueberries as his preference for fresh fruit has always been limited to apples. The only way he will eat other fruits is when they are included in something sweet like a dessert or cake.

This was such an easy dessert to throw together and only took about 10-15 minutes of preparation time (gotta love those puff pastry sheets). I was highly impressed with how it turned out for such minimal effort. The pastry was nice and flaky and the filling had a perfect balance of sweet and spicy flavours. A dollop of cashew cream would have been a lovely accompaniment which I will keep in mind for next time!

Apple and blueberry strudel (Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum)

3 tablespoons raw sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 large apple, peeled and sliced thinly
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 Borg's puff pastry sheet, thawed
2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine, melted
Extra sugar and cinnamon, for topping

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Mix together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt. Drizzle the lemon juice over the apple slices and blueberries and then coat the fruit with the dry mixture.

Spread the fruit mixture in a line down the centre of your pastry sheet. Fold over the dough and tuck in the ends. Place the strudel on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush the strudel generously with the melted margarine and top with sugar and cinnamon. Make several slashes in the strudel with a knife.

Cook for about 30 minutes or until golden and crispy. Allow to cool a little before serving, or eat straight away and try not to burn your tongue!

Chilli bean crepes

2011-09-06T19:08:00.000+10:00

Some leftover chilli beans were found hiding in the fridge just before Father's Day which gave me an idea for Sunday brunch. I would reheat the chilli beans, make some guacamole, grate some cheezly and serve all of this in crepes!

We were smitten with savoury crepes a couple of years ago, first made for us by my sister in Cairns and then at a market stall she recommended when we headed over to Darwin. My sister's crepes were filled with goat's cheese and tomato which was a variation of her feta and tomato market stall favourite. Another type of crepe we sampled from the market contained chilli beans, cheese and sour cream which was another delicious combination. After we arrived home, both varieties were on our weekend brunch menu for a while before other things took over and they were forgotten.

I hadn't really thought about making crepes after going vegan, mainly because our beloved fillings had been so heavy in dairy products. The time had come for our weekend brunches to have a shake-up, tofu scrambles and baked beans had been standard fare for a while and were becoming a little mundane. After looking through several cookbooks, I decided to try the savoury crepe recipe from Veganomicon.

The mixture is simple to prepare although like many other crepe recipes, the batter needs to sit for a least an hour before it's ready for making crepes. Our growling stomachs couldn't quite wait for an hour to pass (we made it to about 45 minutes) but this had no detrimental effect as the crepes still turned out perfectly. It was a different way to use up left over chilli beans and we also managed to consume one or two crepes topped with lemon juice and sugar as well!

Savoury Wheat Crepes (Adapted from Veganomicon)

3/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups soy milk
1/4 cup water

Place the flours and salt in a bowl and combine well. Pour in the soy milk and water and whisk until a smooth mixture results and no lumps remain. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Prior to making crepes, give the mixture a quick stir.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high and lightly brush with melted dairy-free margarine. Pour about 1/3 cup of the mixture into the frying pan, swirling the pan to ensure that the batter spreads out into a thin layer. When the mixture has set, flip the crepe over and cook for another minute. Remove the cooked crepe and repeat the process until the mixture has been used up.

Chilli beans

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red capsicum, chopped
2 teaspoons chilli seasoning mix (based on this recipe which I'm constantly tweaking)
1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
1 x 400g tin kidney beans, rinsed and drained
salt, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and fry the onion until soft. Stir through the garlic, red capsicum and chilli seasoning mix and cook for a minute. Add the tomatoes and kidney beans and simmer for about 10 minutes until the capsicum is tender. Season with salt and serve.

Chilli bean crepes

For each crepe, add spoonfuls of the chilli beans onto one half of the crepe. Sprinkle with grated cheezly and add dollops of guacamole and/or vegan sour cream. Fold over and serve!

Ethiopian dinner party

2011-09-02T19:55:00.003+10:00

After the success of the Mexican fiesta a few weeks ago, I invited my Dad and family from his second marriage over for a meal. This time my plan was to cook some Ethiopian food as I thought it would be something they would appreciate not having tried it previously.

A few weeks prior, I was delighted to find that my health food store had just begun stocking teff flour. I had been searching high and low for this authentic ingredient for some time and to have it magically appear after I had given up all hope was a lovely surprise. My previous injera attempt which I never got around to posting about was using red sorghum flour which is supposed to be the best alternative to teff flour. This injera recipe from The Sour Dough is the updated recipe I have been using which has worked well with both red sorghum and teff flours.

For the stews (which are really more like curries), I cooked up a double batch of our favourite powdered chickpea stew and a mixed vegetable stew with pumpkin, broccoli and cauliflower, both from World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown. I also made a couple of other stews trialled once before, a split pea stew adapted from Vegan Dad and a silverbeet stew inspired by Appetite for Reduction.

Vegan Dad's split pea stew is a recipe that is written using a pressure cooker which I don't own. He also listed plain margarine as an ingredient so I subbed in some nitter kibbeh (spiced clarified margarine) and omitted some of his spices that are also a component of nitter kibbeh. I cooked in the style of other Ethiopian stews, by initially dry-frying the onions, then adding nitter kibbeh, spices, garlic and ginger and also increased the cooking time considerably to ensure the split peas were soft enough.

It was interesting that out of the 4 stews, everyone seemed to have their own preference for the one they liked the most. Dad was incredibly impressed with the split pea stew which I was calling the soup stew. I adore split peas and only used to include them in soups although this has changed recently. When I use split peas in anything other than soup, the man usually comments that it tastes like soup which doesn't bother me at all being the soup lover I am.

I kept my dessert very simple and made lemon bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking which were a big hit. I don't really have a sweet tooth but lemon bars are definitely my type of indulgence. Although it was the second time I had made them, I haven't taken a photo either time to prove it! Speaking of photos, I didn't capture any on the night so the shot at the top is some lunch leftovers of injera with powdered chickpeas and split pea stews.

Overall it was a fantastic dinner which was only dampened by the loss of my engagement ring. Thankfully, it did turn up the next day!

Teff Injera (Adapted from The Sour Dough)

Day 1 - Set-up the starter

1/2 cup teff flour (or red sorghum flour)
1/8 teaspoon yeast
3/4 cup room temperature water

Mix the teff flour, yeast and water in a container until well combined and no lumps remain. Cover loosely with a lid and store in a warm place.

Day 3 - Feed the starter

1/3 cup teff flour (or red sorghum flour)
1/2 cup water

Open the container (be aware that the smell can be pretty intense) and observe little bubbles rising to the surface. Stir through the teff flour and water until well combined. Cover loosely with a lid.

Day 5 - Final feed of starter

1/3 cup teff flour (or red sorghum flour)
1/2 cup water

If you are planning to make injera for dinner, feed the starter in the morning. Stir through the teff flour and water until well combined.Leave covered for at least 4 hours.

Day 5 - Making Injera

2 cups self-raising flour (wholemeal SR flour works too)
enough room temperature water to make a thin mixture

After the final feeding has taken place 4 hours ago, add the self-raising flour and enough water to make a thin mixture to the starter and stir until the mixture is smooth and no lumps remain. It should resemble a thin pancake mixture. Cover and leave for 4 hours.

When you are ready to make the injera, give the mixture a final stir.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat and spray lightly with olive oil. Add about 1/4 cup of mixture at a time, swirling the pan with your other hand to spread the mixture as much as possible. When the mixture on top has set, slide a spatula under the injera and transfer to a plate. Repeat this process until the mixture is used up.

The injera is ready when the centre looks like the edges.

Notes:

Injera is cooked on one side only so don't flip it over like a pancake!
If you find the injera is sticking to the pan, spray the pan lightly with olive oil occasionally.
The injera is fairly rigid after it is cooked but becomes more spongy and pliable as it cools. When it has cooled a little you should be able to roll them up.
Don't stack the flat cooked injera's on top on each other or they will stick together. You can use baking paper to separate them the cooked injera. I prefer to use two plates, the first to cool down the injera slightly and the second to stack the rolled injera's on.

Ethiopian Split Pea Stew (Adapted from Vegan Dad)

2 onions, diced
3 tablespoons nitter kibbeh
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
2 cm piece ginger, chopped finely
1 tablespoon berbere (or to taste)
1 tablespoon paprika
2 cups yellow split peas, rinsed well
4 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
2 carrots, diced
100g mushrooms, diced
100g baby spinach leaves

Dry fry the onions in a large pot over low-medium heat for 5 minutes or until soft. Melt the nitteh kibbeh into the onions, then stir through the garlic, ginger, berbere and paprika and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the split peas, water and salt. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for 1 hour.

Add the carrots and mushrooms and cook for another 30 minutes then stir through the spinach leaves until have just wilted. Season with additional salt, if required.

Haggis - "That recipe seems very familiar..."

2011-08-31T20:39:00.001+10:00

Traditional haggis is a meal that has never appealed to me. In my pre-veg days, certain types of meat had a taboo attached to them and consuming internal organs of animals was something I couldn't understand how anyone in their right mind would find appetising. When I saw Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe's haggis recipe, it was a different story. The recipe sound intriguing and somewhat reminiscent of a nut roast. I was particularly interested in some of the creative ways that Johanna had put the leftovers to use, in haggis nachos and haggis pizza.

Haggis pizza sounded very appealing and after the success of the man's vegan meat lover pizza's using leftover bean burgers, I decided this would be the recipe to try! My main goal of making haggis was not to eat it in the traditional manner but to use it as a pizza topping which didn't seem right. The evening that I prepared the haggis, my veggie crisper was almost bare so I omitted the mushrooms and doubled the amount of kidney beans. The only other change I made was to add a couple of cloves of minced garlic as it's something I like to include on a regular basis.

After sitting in the fridge overnight, my prepared haggis was ready for pizza making. I had planned to make 2 pizzas, a margherita and the haggis pizza. The haggis pizza was layered with tomato pizza sauce and vegan pesto mixed together, garlic, cheezly, chopped haggis, capsicum, mushrooms and spring onions. Sometimes I drizzle a bit of sweet chilli or BBQ sauce on top of our pizzas, however on this occasion I wasn't sure which would suit and left it plain. After cutting the pizza we chose our favoured sauces and found that the haggis pizza worked well with either. It was a delicious pizza, the mixed herbs in the haggis seemed to really shine through and add so much flavour.

After the success of the haggis pizza there was still 3/4 of the haggis remaining so I decided to freeze 1/4 for another pizza in the future and use the rest in a meal complimented with vegetables. The haggis was served with gravy alongside a potato/sweet potato mash, roasted carrots and roast cauliflower and broccoli drizzled with garlic margarine. This was another popular meal and my son commented he preferred the haggis over the nut roasts I had made.

Johanna's recipe had been bookmarked for a good while before I finally managed to give it a try. The day after I made it, Steph announced a blogging event called "That recipe seems very familiar..." to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of Planet VeGMeL. The idea is to cook a recipe posted by another Melbourne veg*n blogger and then write a post about it. This is my first entry for the event although with the huge volume of recipes I store up, it may not be the last!

Vegan Haggis (Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe)

1/2 heaped cup mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, pecans)
4 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2/3 cup rolled oats
2/3 cup oatmeal
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
2 medium carrots
1 x 400g tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon Marmite (or other yeast extract)
1 tablespoon whisky
freshly ground pepper, to taste
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 teaspoons mixed herbs

Process the mixed nuts in a coffee grinder until they become powdery (This step was performed in error as I didn't notice in the recipe that the nuts were finely chopped which would add some more texture).

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large frying pan, melt half of the margarine and cook the nuts, oats and oatmeal for about 3 minutes over medium heat. Remove from the heat and transfer to a large bowl

Place the onion, garlic, carrot and beans in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is very fine. Melt the remaining margarine in the frying pan and cook the vegetables and beans for about 2 minutes. Add the oats and nut mixture to the frying pan with the vegetable mixture. Mix in the yeast extract, whisky, lemon juice, pepper and mixed herbs and cook for another 5 minutes.

Spread the mixture evenly in a 28cm x 18cm tin lined with baking paper. Cook for 40 minutes in the oven or until the top has browned and the mixture feels firm to the touch .

Recipe Index

2011-08-30T21:28:00.000+10:00

After the inception of Veganise This, a to-do list was written mainly related to the design and navigation of the blog. I always seem to have a backlog of posts to write and never enough hours in the day so my to-do list has been sorely neglected.

I decided to take a short break from recipe posting so I could concentrate on building a simple recipe index which has just been published. It is a cut down version of a grand plan I had for the index but this one will have to suffice for now.

It was an interesting exercise as it highlighted areas of cooking on the blog that have been overlooked like dips/snacks, salads and breakfasts which I must rectify. It was surprising that only 6 soups have made it onto the blog so far as 18 new varieties have been trialled in my kitchen this year.

So click away and check out my recipe list! Please let me know if there are any broken links or other errors.

VOTM - Broccoli

2011-08-26T21:28:00.000+10:00

VOTM generated some interest with the man and son which I have found somewhat amusing as they usually don't have much involvement in my blog (other than eating and providing the odd bit of feedback). After I finished last month's cauliflower post, they both made separate requests for my vegetable of focus for the following month. I went with the man's choice this time as he selected broccoli and given that my last two VOTM posts were from the cruciferous family I decided to keep rolling with it.

We have increased our consumption of broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts this winter and one of the reasons is due to our dear dog Jasper. When he was diagnosed with bone cancer earlier this year and we made the difficult decision to have the cancer removed (which meant a leg amputation), I spent a lot of time researching an anti-cancer diet for dogs. We were aware that after the removal of his bone cancer, there was a potential risk of a secondary cancer forming.

Did someone say broccoli? Mmm...

Jasper deserved to have the best possible chance of leading a long and happy three legged life after going through such a big operation so his diet had to change. One thing that was common in my research was that cruciferous vegetables are most suitable for a dog's anatomy (therefore easier for them to digest) and their cancer fighting properties are beneficial to dogs as they are to humans. Broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage and asian greens have since become a component of Jasper's nightly meal solely for this reason. Jasper is showing no other signs of cancer five months after the operation (and we hope it continues this way) although I'll never really know whether the change in his diet has assisted in any way.

Broccoli is a vegetable that has been a part of our meals for many years although more recently I have been putting it to more interesting uses than just serving it steamed on the side. Vegan Yum Yum's broccoli dhal and broccoli/mushroom bake are a couples of recipes that were enjoyed in the past and more recently bistro broccoli chowder and 40 cloves chickpeas and broccoli from Appetite for Reduction. Spinach was pushed aside to make way for broccoli in my latest version of home-made cannelloni and broccoli burgers were a great find thanks to the posts from Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe and Cindy and Michael of Where's the Beef. Broccoli also manages to find it's way into the majority of my stir-fry's and tastes amazing when roasted and is slightly charred.

This simple broccoli-based pasta sauce is a work in progress...

Deciding on a recipe for this month wasn't the easiest task. One of my intents with VOTM is to post a simple side dish for the particular vegetable of focus, however it was difficult to make up my mind this time around. Out of the many broccoli recipes I had been playing around with, none was particularly simple and there were definitely no side dishes! Our holiday to FNQ came and went at the end of last month and I missed my VOTM post for July which gave me some breathing space to ponder.

When serving steaming broccoli as a side one night, I decided to toss it with some garlic margarine that was left over from making garlic bread. This worked quite well although I found that steaming the broccoli left some water remnants which watered down the margarine to a degree. My alternative method was to roast the broccoli florets and serve them drizzled with garlic that had been cooked in dairy-free margarine. I preferred the second method and also cooked some cauliflower in the same fashion. They were both delicious and I could have eaten a truckload!

I decided to post these couple of quick sides for this month as they are very simple, tasty and moreish. In fact, when rushing to get food on the table this week I was questioned why the plain steamed broccoli was not covered in garlic marg. It seems like this one will be a regular in the future...

Now's it time to get my thinking cap on for my son's request which I have a feeling could be another challenge!

Broccoli with garlic margarine - two ways

Cut a head of broccoli into florets and use as much garlic and dairy-free margarine as you like!

Steam broccoli florets until just tender, drain well, then toss with dairy-free margarine and minced garlic.
Roast broccoli florets at 200C for 20 minutes on a baking tray sprayed with olive oil. Meanwhile, melt dairy-free margarine in a small frying pan and cook minced garlic until it turns golden. Drizzle the garlic margarine over the broccoli when serving.

I'll be burgered if these taste like tempeh!

2011-08-24T20:01:00.001+10:00

Tempeh has been troubling me for many months. Several experiments with tempeh have left me totally underwhelmed and extremely frustrated. Despite my efforts at pre-steaming, marinating, baking, stewing and pan-frying, tempeh has always left a funny taste in my mouth, literally speaking.

My first experiment was a tempeh bacon recipe to which the man, son and I had an unanimous agreement. It wasn't that bad but we all preferred tofu bacon. My next foray with tempeh was using a Viva Vegan recipe, tempeh asado. The tempeh was pre-steamed to remove the bitter taste, marinated in lime juice and spices and then pan-fried. The only thing that made me happy that night was the delicious gallo pinto (Costa Rican refried rice and beans) that was served with the unappetising tempeh. Tempeh asado was the first recipe from Viva Vegan to get a big thumbs down from me.

A smoky tempeh, white beans and greens stew from Appetite for Reduction was a slight improvement on my last tempeh trial although I did ensure that the amount of beans and greens on my plate was significantly greater than the tempeh pieces. Baked marinated tempeh was my next attempt which was another miserable fail. At this stage, the man was the only one interested in tempeh but I felt like I needed to persevere. Surely, there must be a way that I could enjoy it!

The tempeh experiments were given a rest for a couple of months until I recently discovered a packet of marinated tempeh hiding in the back of the fridge which was almost due to expire. I thought about how to use the tempeh and decided on burgers as they are usually a winner and were something that I hadn't tried yet. A quick search let me to Vegan Dad who had a tempeh burger recipe that sounded promising as it was full of an abundance of herbs and spices plus none of his recipes had let me down so far.

My son made a face when I told him we were having tempeh burgers for dinner. Like me, he hadn't been a fan up to that point. I tried to keep his interest up by stressing that I had high hope for these burgers and that we needed to keep an open mind. One bite was all that it took to win us both over! The burgers were delicious, so many wonderful herbs and spices could be detected (they were probably over flavoured due to using pre-marinated tempeh but it worked for us!) and there was no disgusting taste at all this time around.

Although I have finally had success with a tempeh recipe, I'm still no convert and would choose tofu over tempeh any day of the week. I would like to keep trying tempeh recipes in the hope that it will grow on me eventually. So I wanted to ask bloggers and readers their thoughts about tempeh.

What's your favorite tempeh recipe? Was it love at first bite or did it take some time for you to embrace tempeh?

Tempeh burgers (Adapted from Vegan Dad)

300g packet marinated tempeh, grated
1/2 generous cup breadcrumbs
1/3 generous cup gluten flour
2 teaspoons ground fennel seed
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons tamari
1 tablespoon BBQ sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
1/2 teaspoon massell gravy powder
2-4 tablespoons water (I used about 2.5)

Place the grated tempeh, breadcrumbs, gluten flour, ground fennel seed, sage, thyme, oregano, parsley, garlic and onion powder in a large bowl and mix well. Add the tamari, BBQ sauce, ketchup and enough water to make a pliable dough. Knead in the bowl for a few minutes until the ingredients are well combined.

Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball then flatten into a thin burger. Spray a frying pan with olive oil spray and cook for about 5 minutes on each side until lightly browned.

The Mercy Seat

2011-08-21T20:25:00.000+10:00

The man enthusiastically showed me an article from The Age about the 5 best vegetarian burgers last Saturday night. Before he had scrolled down the page I immediately knew that the vegan Southern Fried Chicken burger in the list was going to be the one from Gasometer that everyone has been raving about. We had planned to grab something to eat after the Ban Live Export rally the following day but unfortunately Gasometer isn't open for lunches so I suggested that we try The Mercy Seat instead.

We had a quick look at their small but interesting and almost totally vegan menu and made up our minds pretty quickly. The man was dead set on ordering the Creole Chicken soul burger (I don't think he even looked at the rest of the menu) and after some deliberation, I selected the blackened tofu burger. When our burgers arrived we were both blown away by how delicious they were. My tofu burger was full of tasty morsels of salty, spicy tofu chunks along with tasty mushrooms, avocado, salad and a tangy mayonnaise. When asked whether we would like a bottle of hot sauce to try, the man eagerly grabbed the opportunity and has not stopped raving about it since.

The coffees were also an impressive standard so we made plans to go back the following Saturday. This time I ordered the scrambled tofu but the man couldn't be swayed from the chicken burger. The amount of spinach present in the scramble had me smiling as I do enjoy my greens and these ones were perfectly done, just wilted and not soggy at all. The scramble flavour reminded the man of curried eggs when he had a bite of it. Perhaps it did have some curry powder included but I'm sure there were a few more spices to it than just that.

We have enjoyed our meals and the service has been prompt and friendly on both visits. I'm happy to pay $10 - $12 for such tasty good quality vegan food and wish I lived closer so I could visit more often.

The Mercy Seat has also been given the thumbs up by Where's The Beef twice, In the Mood for Noodles, Vetti and Garden of Yoda.

The Mercy Seat
31 Johnston St, Collingwood
Open Wed-Sun 8am - 4pm

Mexican Fiesta

2011-08-20T21:55:00.000+10:00

Last Saturday night, we had our first official family gathering post renovations. Although the majority of our renovations were completed early this year, we wanted to hold off on dinner parties until we purchased a new dining table. The year has been slipping away too quickly and as we are no closer to purchasing a table, we decided it was time to pull out the old trestle tables and have the man's family over for a meal.

Over the last couple of years we have fallen into the habit of having curry nights in colder months with everyone bringing a curry or two to share. As this was to be our first hosted dinner, I wanted to do something different and suggested a Mexican night which was warmly received.

I planned to make enchiladas and the man suggested that I make two different kinds, potato-chickpea-spinach filling with tomatillo sauce and smoky tofu and black bean filling with tomato enchilada sauce. As well as guacamole, salsa and cashew crema, I felt it would be a good time to try out a salad from Viva Vegan and settled upon the classic cabbage salad with cilantro-lime dressing. And then I felt like there should be some sort of appetiser and a dessert and went off to explore some further options.

On Friday night, my preparations began. I wrote out a task list, marked a few things that could be knocked off in advance and away I went. A couple of hours (and several dishes) later, two different sauces and fillings had been made for the enchiladas, black beans and cashews were soaking and the dressing for the salad was made.

The following day I made two types of flans from Viva Vegan for dessert, vanilla coconut and coffee flavoured (cafe con leche). They had the same caramel topping with a touch of lime juice so it was simple to prepare my moulds in advance with a double batch of this mixture. The fillings were fairly easy to make using agar flakes as the setting agent.

A few years ago I made a 7 layer dip to take to a party and it was very popular although I found it difficult to enjoy as there were too many layers to appreciate at once. I decided to cut back on the layers this time around and wound up with what I will call a triple layer dip. It starts with a layer of refried beans, followed by cashew crema and the top layer is a mixture of chopped avocado, tomato, olives and coriander. The dip was enjoyed by all and the man thought that it deserved a place on my blog. Other family members requested that the cashew crema recipe be posted as they thought it was fantastic as part of the dip and an accompaniment to the main meal.

It was great fun cooking so much food and I enjoyed dabbling in desserts which is something I should do more often!

Triple layer dip

Refried bean layer

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 jalapeno chilli (or to taste), finely chopped
310g tin pinto beans
1/2 cup cooked black beans
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup water
salt, to taste

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan and fry the onion for about 5 minutes until soft. Stir through the garlic and jalapeno and cook for another minute. Add the pinto beans, black beans, cumin, oregano and water and simmer for about 10 minutes on low heat. Mash the beans with a potato masher or a fork until they reach the level of smoothness you want. Season with salt to taste.

Cashew crema layer (From Viva Vegan)

1 cup cashews
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon agave nectar (or use other sweetener)

Soak the cashews in water for at least 4 hours. Drain and rinse then place into a blender with the remaining ingredients. Process for a couple of minutes until a smooth paste is achieved. Store in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Top layer

1/2 large avocado, diced small
1 medium tomato, diced small
8 kalamata olives, diced
1 spring onion, chopped
2 tablespoon fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
squeeze of fresh lime juice
salt and pepper, to taste

To assemble, spread the refried beans evenly on the bottom of your serving dish followed by the cashew crema. Sprinkle the diced avocado, tomato, olives, spring onion and coriander on top. Add a squeeze of lime and some salt and pepper.

Kung Pao Noodles

2011-08-18T20:10:00.001+10:00

Although I had never tried kung pao/po before, when I saw this posted on Ashley's eat me, delicious blog it sounded exactly like the type of meal for me. A spicy, salty sauce with a bit of sweetness was definitely one to try!!! Soon afterwards I had the opportunity to sample Kung Po "Lamb" and "Chicken" at Enlightened Cuisine and they were fantastic.

One of the things I wanted to change about the recipe was the hoisin sauce as it's not something I am particularly fond of and didn't have any on hand. Instead, I used a combination of kecap manis, BBQ sauce and vegan oyster mushroom sauce. White wine is something I never have around either so I added a touch of white wine vinegar as my substitute.

When it comes to stir-fry's the man came be quite fussy. He only recently made it known to me that he doesn't like nuts in stir-fry's and has also become a bit weird when it comes to tofu. I still haven't worked out how he likes it best (apart from deep-fried which I rarely do!) but I know some of the ways he doesn't like it. He seemed to enjoy the tofu that we had at Nana Thai in Mission Beach which wasn't pre-fried so I thought I would give that a try. Instead of frying the tofu cubes, I placed them into the kung pao sauce to marinade whilst preparing the rest of the vegetables.

The good news is that all three of us really loved these noodles. There were so many wonderful flavours in the sauce to enjoy and the tofu tasted sensational as it had soaked up the kung pao sauce. I had a good feeling about this recipe as I had loved a curried chickpea soup that Ashley posted from her Rebar cookbook a while ago. This cookbook is going on my wishlist, not that I really need any more!

Kung Pao Noodles
(Adapted from eatme, delicious and Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook)

Kung Pao sauce

2 tablespoons minced ginger
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon kecap manis
1 tablespoon BBQ sauce
1 tablespoon vegan oyster mushroom sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
3/4 cup water
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 star anise pod
2 teaspoons sriracha chilli sauce
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon cornflour

Other ingredients

270g dry udon noodles
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 onion, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
1 red capsicum, sliced
1 head broccoli, cut into florets
3 large portobello mushrooms, sliced
350g firm tofu, drained, pressed with paper towels and cut into cubes

Place all of the ingredients for the sauce except for the cornflour into a small saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 15 minutes. Mix the cornflour with a tablespoon of water in a teacup until it is a smooth paste, then pour this mixture into the simmering sauce. Simmer, covered for a further 10 minutes, then remove from the heat. Remove the star anise from the sauce and discard. Add the tofu cubes to the sauce to marinade.

Meanwhile, bring water to the boil to cook the noodles in. Cook according to package directions (mine took 8 minutes). Drain the noodles in a colander and run cold water over them to stop them from cooking further.

Heat the peanut oil in a wok, swirling it around so the sides of the wok are coated with the oil. Stir-fry the onion until golden, then add the vegetables and stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Add the sauce and the tofu and allow to cook until the vegetables start to soften. Mix through the noodles and serve.

FNQ - Eating out

2011-08-17T19:47:00.000+10:00

This feels like a rather pathetic post as over the course of the week that we were on holidays, we only dined out a few times and not once did I take a photo! The camera didn't make it with us to one of these dinners, once the light wasn't great so I didn't bother and another time I was too darn hungry to remember to take a shot before shovelling the food into my mouth. Nonetheless, I thought I would write a bit about the places we ate at as finding vegan food around Cairns and particularly Mission Beach was a bit challenging! To jazz the post up a little I have added in a few shots from our week away...

Someone getting ready for a swim, definitely not me!

After our return from Russell Heads, the man and I stayed a night in Cairns and strolled around town for a long time trying to settle on a place to eat. He felt like a Malaysian style vegetable curry but we were put off by limited veg options in a few Asian restaurants and staff standing by the door trying to intice you in just like they do on Lygon Street in Melbourne. We recalled having a decent vegetarian curry on our last trip to Cairns two years ago and wandered in the direction of a place called Mondo's at the Hilton. The Hilton has a couple of restaurants, Mondo's being the more casual of the two which also has the bonus of outdoor tables by the water.

The menu stated the items that contained dairy and we were disappointed to find that out of the 4 or 5 vegetarian items, all had the little "d" symbol next to them. We were getting tired and hungry by this stage and after questioning whether the Sri Lankan vegetable curry could be made without dairy we were given the thumbs up! This was just what we needed, a mild-moderately spiced bowl of curried vegetables served with rice, a tasty tomato chutney and a crispy pappadum.

Bananas growing in the garden of our rental house in the Daintree

Before we headed to the Daintree, I dragged the man down to Lillipad Cafe as I had seen it listed on the Happy Cow website as being vegetarian friendly. It was a very casual laid-back place and it took us a little while to realise that we needed to grab menus from the counter inside where you also ordered meals. There was only was breakfast item that didn't contain eggs so we both went with that after verifying with the staff that it would be vegan. The man was disappointed that they didn't provide any Nuttelex even though I pointed out that there was more than enough avocado to spread on the lovely light pieces of toast. The brekky also came with some cute mini hash browns, yummy pan grilled tofu, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms cooked with spring onions. We also enjoyed well-made coffees and freshly squeezed orange juice and waddled out of there full to the brim.

Cairns is a destination we have been to several times so we like to travel around the region and spend time in different locations as there is so much diversity. Rainforests, islands, mountains, beaches, beautiful croc-free freshwater swimming places and even goldfields and the outback are accessible. We still haven't seen it all!

Although the sky looks clear at Mission Beach is was quite windy and not very warm

Cyclone Yasi tore through Mission Beach and the surrounding area in February causing a huge amount of damage to local residences, businesses and surrounding national parks. As we hadn't been to this area before I felt it would be a good time to visit. Many businesses only started to re-open in July and really need all the tourism dollars they can get. The cyclone must have been too much for some people as there were plenty of businesses closed down and shops up for lease.

There are three main towns in the Mission Beach area and although we stayed closest to the largest one we didn't eat there as there wasn't much that looked vegan friendly. After driving through the Wongaling Beach shops and then a bit further down to the beach we spotted a Thai restaurant opposite the beach. The man and I don't usually frequent Thai restaurants as we find that Thai food in Australia contains way too much coconut milk, not enough spices and tastes nothing like what you eat over in Thailand. As we were rather limited for options this time, we decided to give it a try.

Tully's Golden Gumboot - it's height of 79m represents the highest rainfall in one year!

Many dishes had the option of being made with tofu or vegetables including soups, noodles, stir-frys and curries so there was plenty to choose from. The man surprised me by selecting pad grapow (stir-fry with chilli, garlic and thai basil) which is what I would usually choose. I had my eye on a jungle curry which is something you don't see very often. This appealed to me as the description indicated it was water based rather than coconut based which sounded like it would be nice and spicy. We ordered both of these meals with tofu as they already contained vegetables and ensured that there would not be any fish or oyster sauce added.

When our meals were delivered we were in heaven as they were absolutely delicious. I don't think we have eaten Thai food this authentic since going to Thailand. The jungle curry tasted so fresh and spicy and I was relieved that the man didn't want to split our meals down the middle. He was more than happy with his meal so we were both satisfied with simply tasting a few bites of each others. I was curious about the jungle curry ingredients so I questioned the owner as I wanted to know if he had used fresh peppercorns in the paste. Oh yes indeed, they were grown in Silkwood (20 kms down the road). This meal was the absolute highlight of our trip and now I am on the hunt to find some fresh peppercorns so I can attempt to recreate this sensational curry at home!

Josephine falls near Innisvale. None of our photos do this beautiful place justice.

Mondos
34 Esplanade, Cairns
(07) 4052 6780
Lunch and dinner only

Lillipad Cafe
72 Grafton St, Cairns
(07) 4051 9565
Breakfast and lunch only

Nana Thai
165 Reid St, Wongaling Beach
(07) 4068 9101
Only open for dinner, dine-in or take-away

FNQ - Holiday Cooking

2011-08-11T21:20:00.004+10:00

My first official trip away from home as a vegan was to Far North Queensland last week so I wanted to be well prepared and take along some food for the road. The man and I (we went childless this time) flew up to Cairns, were picked up by our friends K and N and taken to an isolated spot called Russell Heads (pictured above) for the weekend, It is a tranquil and beautiful place 45 minutes south of Cairns and on the coast but only accessible by boat and only when the tide is high. The two of us then drove to the Daintree where we stayed in a gorgeous house in the middle of the rainforest for a couple of days and after that drove south down to Mission Beach to throw some dollars at the local economy which is still rebuilding after the devastation that Cyclone Yasi caused in February.

I started preparing for the trip a week in advance with some Viva Vegan chorizo seitan sausages as I thought they would be handy to have in case of a BBQ. Around the time I discovered chorizo seitan last summer, this spicy chipotle ranch dressing was also a hit and we enjoyed several chorizo snags in bread topped with the ranch dressing. It had been a while between batches, so I whizzed one up for the road. I also took along some of Cindy's well renowned vegan sausage rolls and prepped the bean burger mixture also posted on Where's the Beef recently. For the plane trip, I threw together a Mediterranean flavoured risoni based pasta salad which the man adored. It is a recipe I plan to work on further when the warmer months arrive as I thought it needed a little tweaking. So as well as our luggage I had a big cooler bag full to the brim of supplies to keep us going!

The sausage rolls went on the first night and although K and N liked them, they were totally blown away by the chipotle ranch dressing. Unfortunately we forgot to take tomato or BBQ sauce so the sausage rolls were downed in a rather unorthodox fashion, with either sweet chilli sauce, tamari or chipotle ranch dressing. A trip to the shops would have meant a cruise back up the crocodile infested river in the dark so we had to make do with what we had. K and N made some awesome rice paper rolls the following night which was a bit of a struggle given the only knife in the house was totally blunt rendering it almost useless. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the end result.

On our way to the Daintree we stopped off in Port Douglas for groceries and the man was interested in a Thai red curry and lentil bolognese (with garlic bread of course!) for our dinners. I was stunned that I couldn't find any plain tofu in two supermarkets, all they had was the pre-marinated packages which I usually don't buy. On our first night I made a red curry with a vegan friendly paste spruced up with extra chilli, garlic and lime loaded with heaps of vegies and marinated tofu and it was delicious.

For lunch the next day we had bean burger subs. The pre-made burger mix was purely made of ground beans, nuts, oats, flour and spices which made it perfect travel food. There was no need to keep it chilled and a week after making the mixture, it still smelt fresh and just as good as the day it had been made. The final steps only required the addition of tamari, water and some garlic and after soaking for 15 minutes it was ready to ready to fry. These burgers had such a robust texture that I had no qualms about them falling apart in the pan. The subs were layered with a tofutti cheese slice (which I thankfully brought with me from Melbourne), the bean burger, tomato sauce, lettuce, carrot, capsicum, red onion and avocado. They were very tasty subs, the bean burgers had a fantastic nut and garlic flavour with a slight crunch and were deceivingly filling too.

We didn't have cooking facilities at Mission Beach which was a shame as it was difficult to find vegan eats but I will write more about that in my next post. For our last night we drove back to Cairns to stay with K and N who had planned a wood-fired pizza night as they recently bought a second-hand oven. I tried to hunt down some cheezly in Cairns but to no avail. A vegetarian supplies shop listed on the Happy Cow website had a "For Lease" sign in the window and a couple of other health food stores were of no use in the cheezly department. We made do with the remaining chopped up tofutti slices we had and the man was unusually given license to create the toppings for the vegan pizza. As well as heaps of veggies and loads of garlic, he decided to chop up some bean burgers and chorizo which worked a treat. We called it the vegan meat-lovers pizza!

My biggest regret was that I didn't return to the Cairns markets before we returned home to purchase some fresh produce. We went there on our first day and I was blown away with variety of fruit and vegetables available. Local produce like bananas, pineapples and avocadoes were about half the price that we pay in Melbourne. Other more exotic tropical fruits like jackfruit, lychees, mangosteens and rambutans were in abundance. My jaw dropped open when I saw plantains as there are quite a few recipes that use plantains in Viva Vegan which I have wanted to try!

Although the weather was a lot warmer than Melbourne we only felt the sun on our skin once which was a shame. It was overcast most days with showers here and there but it was still lovely to walk around in shorts and t-shirts for a week. It doesn't feel right to finish without a recipe so I will leave you with the bean burgers which will definitely be made again and they will be something that I keep in mind for future travel.

Next post will feature some places where we ate in FNQ!

Bean Burgers (Adapted from Where's the Beef and originally from Meals without Meat)

1/2 cup dry chickpeas
1/2 cup dry cannellini beans
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon salt
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 tablespoons tamari
1 cup water

Place the chickpeas, cannellini beans, peanuts and sesame seeds in a food processor bowl and process until the texture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the parsley, salt, oats and chickpea flour and mix well.

At this stage it can be stored in a airtight container for at least a week.

When you are ready to make burgers, add the water, tamari and chopped garlic to the dry mixture, mix until well combined andallow to soak for 15 minutes. Shape the dough into burger patties and fry until each side has browned upnicely.

Quinotto

2011-08-10T19:48:00.000+10:00

Quinotto caught my eye in Viva Vegan for a few reasons. I liked the sound of the name (keen-otto) and the concept of cooking quinoa in the style of a risotto felt like it would work well. My son does not enjoy risotto at all and the reason he states for disliking it so intensely is that he hates arborio rice. I still can't get my head around that!

The recipe introduction states that quinotto is a common concept in South American countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, although the resulting meal is more like a pilaf than an actual risotto. The ingredients seemed a bit plain as it listed mushrooms as the only vegetable so I pinched a couple of the chorizo seitan sausages that I had prepared for our trip away and threw in some baby spinach leaves as well.

I am pleased to say that my son was totally impressed with the quinotto although he did mention that it wasn't anything at all like risotto. I do agree with him as the taste and texture was totally different. The quinotto term suits the cooking process of slowly adding stock in batches and stirring frequently more than the actual dish. The man wasn't as enthused about this meal and preferred to sneak bites of a risoni based pasta salad I had been preparing for our plane trip the next day.

Pictured above is the Aji Amarillo chilli paste purchased from Casa Iberica which has a bit of a kick but is definitely not the hottest chilli paste going around.

Quinotto (Adapted from Viva Vegan)

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup white quinoa, rinsed well
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar + 1/2 cup water (or use 1/2 cup white wine)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon aji amarillo paste (or use another form of chilli paste/powder to taste)
3 cups warm vegetable stock
1/6 quantity chorizo seitan recipe, cut into rounds
4 large portobello mushrooms, sliced
100g baby spinach leaves
1 tablespoon lime juice
salt and pepper, to taste
fresh chopped parsley, for garnish

Heat the olive oil in a large pot and fry the shallots and garlic for about 5 minutes, until golden. Add the rinsed quinoa and fry, stirring occasionally for about 3 minutes until it turns slightly golden. Stir through the white wine vinegar plus water (or white wine) and stir well to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Add the thyme, oregano and aji amarillo paste (or chilli) and simmer for a minute.

Add about a cup of the vegetable stock and stir a little more frequently. When the stock has been absorbed, add a little more. Continue adding the stock bit by bit, stirring every so often until the quinoa is tender. This should take about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, spray a non-stick frying pan with olive oil spray and cook the chorizo seitan rounds until lightly browned on each side. Remove the chorizo from the frying pan, give it another spray with olive oil and fry the mushrooms until softened.

Turn off the heat and stir through the cooked mushrooms, chorizo seitan and spinach. Cover the pot and let it rest for 10 minutes. Finally add the lime juice and season with salt and pepper. Serve garnished with fresh parsley.

Pumpkin and spinach dal

2011-08-08T20:34:00.000+10:00

It feels like quite a while has passed between posts which has been for a good reason - a trip to Far North Queensland to thaw out my wintery bones! I'll write a bit about the holiday eats soon enough but first of all I wanted to post about something I discovered whilst clearing the fridge out before going away.

Half a chunk of pumpkin plus a yearning for some Indian led me to search for a pumpkin dal recipe. After reading through a couple of recipes, I settled upon making a version of one that I found on Vegan Culinary Crusade, a vegan blog I hadn't heard of before.

The pumpkin pieces were roasted in the oven the night before (whilst other baking was going on), then mashed into a puree. I decided to tweak a few of the spices to my liking and used the juice from half a large lemon rather than a lime. My initial thought was to serve this with some stuffed cabbage flatbreads I had seen on Allotment2Kitchen not long ago, however this was too ambitious with other holiday cooking preparations going on so I had a last minute change of mind and served the dal with our old faithful punjabi cabbage instead.

Over the years I have cooked countless different dals on so many occasions and the man sadly hasn't been very fond of them for a while. I was very pleased that he did enjoy this dal as did my son and I. The addition of a souring agent like lemon or lime juice in a dal brings out a different dimension of flavour that all three of us enjoyed a great deal. And anything with spinach is always popular too!

Pumpkin and spinach dal (Adapted from Vegan Culinary Crusade)

1 cup red lentils

2 cups water

1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tsp brown mustard seeds

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon chilli powder

2 teaspoons garam masala

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup pumpkin puree

Juice of 1/2 lemon

100g baby spinach leaves

Rinse the red lentils in a strainer until the water runs clear then place them in a saucepan with the water, vegetable stock powder and turmeric. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to the lowest possible and simmer, covered for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a frying pan on a medium flame. Add the mustard seeds and when then begin to pop, stir through the onion and fry for 5-10 minutes until the onions are translucent and begin to brown. Add the cumin, chilli powder, garam masala and salt, stir the spices through the onions evenly and cook for about 2 minutes.

Mix the onions and spices through the lentils then stir in the pumpkin puree, lemon juice and spinach. Turn off the heat when the spinach has wilted and serve with rice.