Vegan MoFo Day 26 - Tidy-up Thursdays - TVP for Caribbean patties and "bacon" bits

TVP has been cluttering my pantry for years and although it may not be the strangest pantry ingredient for a vegan to hoard I've included it in Tidy-up Thursdays as I rarely cook with it these days. By the time I came to the decision that TVP wasn't the most exciting ingredient, I had accumulated a few bags of the stuff which I've slowly been working my way through. The final remaining bag of TVP has a best before of December 2012 which doesn't deter me from using it as I don't believe this stuff can go off anyway. 

A handful of TVP recipes were spotted in my exciting new cookbook Caribbean Vegan and following the success of the first meal sampled from the book, I was very keen to give another recipe a try. I picked out some patties (filled pastries) filled with a spicy TVP mince and used frozen puff pastry sheets rather than the home made pastry in the book to shorten the preparation time. The filling was flavoured with a jerk seasoning, onions, garlic, green capsicum, curry powder, Vegemite (yay for an Aussie ingredient) and habanero chillies. I sampled the filling prior to constructing these patties and it almost blew my head off! I'm not shy about spicy food but this was right up there amongst the hottest meals I've made. We still loved the patties even those our noses were running madly but I'll be a lot more cautious when using habaneros in the future.

Another TVP based recipe which has been on my mind to try for ages is TVP "bacon" bits. I spotted this recipe in Vegan Diner where it is credited to Joni Newman, the recipe is also posted on her blog . The TVP granules are rehydrated with liquid smoke, water, salt and optional food colouring (I used beetroot powder) before being pan fried on a low heat until they are totally dried out. The "bacon" bits are very smoky and not quite salty enough for me so I would probably increase the salt next time and possibly add a touch of sweetener as well. I haven't used the "bacon" bits in a recipe yet but have plans for them in the next couple of days.

That's it for Tidy-up Thursdays! I'm not sure that my overflowing pantry has benefited much from these four posts but it was a fun exercise to find new recipes for a handful of neglected ingredients.

Vegan MoFo Day 18 - Worldly Wednesdays - Stopover 31 - Bardados Tofish and cou-cou

My next stopover was in Barbados which was another exciting prospect as the small amount of recipes I've made so far from the Caribbean islands have all been wonderful. The food of Barbados has influences from West African, Indian and British cuisines and their national dish is called flying fish and cou-cou. I wanted to attempt this meal more than anything even though it sounded tricky to pull off. Whilst hunting around for inspiration about how to achieve this I discovered that there was already a published recipe called Tofish and cou-cou in Caribbean Vegan by Taymer Mason. Thankfully I had drawn the four countries that would be appearing during Vegan MoFo prior to the start of September as this gave me enough time to order Taymer's cookbook online.

When the book arrived I flicked straight to the recipe I was interested in and decided that this would be a weekend project as there were several elements involved in making the dish. A couple of Bajan sauces that are integral parts in many of the Caribbean Vegan recipes needed to be prepared first. The rest of the components were a marinade for the tofish, a creole tomato sauce, a sauce to pour over the frying tofu as well as the polenta and okra dish called cou-cou. As I approached the meal in stages it didn't end up being as much work as I envisaged although I'm still glad that I didn't attempt this on a weeknight.

There were a large array of herbs and spices throughout the different elements in this dish but most of these were pantry friendly. Fresh parsley, thyme and basil provided the sauces with flavour along with plenty of onions, garlic, madras curry powder, paprika, ground cloves and black pepper. The only ingredient I had to track down was habanero chillies which are an integral part of Caribbean cooking and one of the hottest varieties in the world. I was able to purchase dried packets of habaneros at USA Foods. 

We have never been fans of polenta so the cou-cou gave me the most angst as I wasn't sure if we would enjoy it and I also wasn't confident about being able to cook it properly. This turned out a lot nicer than any polenta dish I recall and combined with creole sauce it really was quite delicious. This meal was definitely worth the effort and the leftovers were gobbled up enthusiastically the next day. Although I've only had a quick glance through the cookbook there are plenty of recipes in Caribbean Vegan I'm looking forward to making after Vegan MoFo ends.

Did you know?

The Barbabos cherry contains the highest content of Vitamin C of all the fruits in the world. Eating one cherry a day will give you the full daily requirement of Vitamin C.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 13 - Grenada

My first stopover to the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis was one of my favourite themed meals to date so I was very happy to have the opportunity to delve into some more Caribbean cooking when Grenada was drawn. After searching around for a bit I found a decent list of recipes for Grenada and decided to make jerk tofu and rice and beans.

I was introduced to jerk tofu during recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's soon to be released Vegan Eats World which the man and I adored. The marinade I made for this tofu was completely different to Terry's as it didn't require the use of a Jamaican curry powder although it did include some of the spices that would be included in this type of curry powder. The amount of marinade I used could have been halved (or the tofu doubled) as there was more than enough for the job. The heat in this jerk marinade came from the pickled jalapenos which I scaled back a fraction as I opted to measure the required quarter of a cup in slices rather than finely diced. The tofu was still rather spicy so I would recommend cutting back on this if you don't enjoy a lot of spice.

My first impression of the red beans and rice recipe was that it was going to be beans and rice cooked together and it was only later that I realised it was actually a bean stew served on rice. The original recipe listed smoked sausage in the ingredients, with a little more time up my sleeve I would have made a batch of chorizo sausages from Viva Vegan as a substitute. I had an unopened jar of Cajun seasoning in the pantry which I bought ages ago for a recipe that I never ended up making so it was good to put this new spice blend to use at last. The beans weren't anywhere near as spicy as the tofu even though they still had a pleasant amount of heat.

This was a fantastic dinner packed full of protein, the only downfall was not capturing a decent photo that did the meal justice!


Grenada jerk tofu (Adapted from this recipe)

350g firm tofu, drained and pressed (use more tofu if you like, there is ample marinade for it)
1 small onion, roughly chopped
8 spring onions (scallions), roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons allspice
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup pickled jalapeno slices (use less for a milder version)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 200C.

Cut the tofu into long thin sticks or other desired shape. Place the remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend/process until it becomes a smooth paste. Pour the marinade into a baking dish then add the pieces of tofu and flip each piece to ensure they are all evenly coated with the marinade.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes then flip the tofu pieces over. Allow the tofu to cook for a further 20 minutes.


Grenada red beans and rice (Adapted from this recipe)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 x 400g tins red kidney beans (don't drain)
1 cup vegan chicken stock
1 teaspoon Cajun (or Creole) seasoning
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper, to taste
cooked rice, for serving

Heat the olive oil in a deep sided frying pan  over low-medium heat and fry the onions for 10 minutes or until starting to brown. Stir through the garlic for a minute then add the kidney beans with their tinned juices, stock, Cajun seasoning and cayenne pepper. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with cooked rice.

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Did you know?

Grenada is also known as the spice island of the Caribbean. Grenada is one the largest exporters of nutmeg in the world, nutmeg replaced sugar as the main crop after the British took the island from France in 1783.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 1 - St Kitts and Nevis

It was a rude awakening to my Vegan MoFo challenge when the first country drawn was St Kitts and Nevis, a couple of small islands located in the Caribbean Sea. After discovering that the most famed dishes on these islands were seafood or goat based, I saw mention of a roti filled with curried potatoes and chickpeas. I wasn't able to track down a recipe that was particularly attached to St Kitts and Nevis so I used a bit of my amateur knowledge in Caribbean cooking I picked up during recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook Vegan Eats World. This is a perfect time to remind you that Terry's amazing cookbook containing fantastic recipes from around the globe is due for release at the end of this month and can be pre-ordered from Amazon now.

For the filling, I fried up some onions, garlic and chilli and later added some Jamaican curry powder (Terry's recipe), dried thyme, and salt. This was combined with pre-cooked and slightly mashed potatoes and chickpeas. The mixture was spooned into the centres of some roti bread bought from an Indian grocer which were sealed and browned in a grill pan. I struggled to find an authentic green vegetable recipe to have as an accompaniment and simply served broccoli steamed with garlic on the side. The rotis were on the fairly spicy side which didn't mind us as we don't mind a bit heat, for a milder version the amount of curry powder could be reduced and/or the chilli omitted.

These rotis were fairly simple to put together and tasted great. If the food this month keeps turning out as delicious as this meal was tonight, it's going to be a wonderful month of eating!


Caribbean rotis filled with curried potatoes and chickpeas

600g potatoes, peeled and diced small
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 birds eye chilli, minced
4 teaspoons Jamaican curry powder
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon allspice
1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2/3 cup water
6 x 20 cm pieces of roti bread

Place potatoes in a saucepan filled with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until tender. Drain in a colander and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a deep sided frying pan over medium heat. Fry the onions, garlic and chillies for 5 minutes until soft then stir through the curry powder, salt and thyme for a minute or until fragrant. Add the potatoes, chickpeas and water and cover and cook a couple of minutes on a slightly lowered heat until the water is almost absorbed. Using a wooden spoon, gently mash the potatoes until they are mostly broken down. Turn off the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Place 1/6 of the mixture in the centre of each roti and fold the rotis up like parcels. Heat a grill pan over medium heat and cook the rotis in batches for a couple of minutes seam side down first until lightly browned then flip and brown lightly on the other side.

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Did you know?

St Kitts and Nevis were discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1498 and they were one of the first Caribbean islands to be settled by Europeans.