Vegan MoFo Day 16 - MoFo Mondays - Cheddar stuffed black bean burgers and Sindhi bhindi masala

Yesterday was the half way mark of Vegan MoFo, it was also the first day I have missed a post! Weekends are generally pretty hectic around here and as the one that just passed was busier than most, I couldn't find time to sit down and condense my growing bookmarks into a Summary Sundays post. 

This week for MoFo Mondays it was time to get stuck into some recipes from the last couple of weeks - first were Dawn from Veg-am's cheddar stuffed black bean burgers. As I'm not a big fan of commercial BBQ sauce and didn't have a homemade one on hand I switched it up and used Frank's Red Hot sauce to give the burgers a buffalo flavour. This change worked well for me and the other minor things I did differently was to use cheezly mozzarella in the burgers (as it was the only melting type of cheese I had in the fridge) and a little bit of rice flour when the burger mixture wasn't quite holding together. I was quite excited to discover that asparagus had come into season so the burgers were served with oven baked potato wedges and asparagus. These burgers had a great texture and I loved the buffalo flavouring but regretted not stuffing a larger quantity of cheezly into the centres. 

We have been right into okra curries lately and I've made a handful of different recipes over the past couple of months without being able to find a favourite. When I saw River from Wing It Vegan post about a gorgeous looking sindhi bhindi masala I simply had to give it a try. The recipe is posted at The Lotus and the Artichoke and includes a few handy tips about how the curry can be customised. This was just the sort of recipe I needed, after tinkering with it slightly it turned out to be the okra curry I've been searching for. The gravy was richer than the other recipes I've made and the spices packed a decent punch. I'll definitely be making this one every now and then to have on our regular curry nights.   

If you read last Monday's post which talked about a corned beef seitan you may recall that the seitan wasn't quite what I was searching for. More than half of the seitan was remaining as well as heaps of sauerkraut so I combined them with a cheesy sauce into a oven bake I named Reubenesque casserole. We enjoyed the seitan in this casserole more than we had in sandwiches and this casserole kept us going for a few meals. 

Vegan MoFo Day 2 - MoFo Mondays - Spicy Cajun Lentil Patties and Homemade Spicy Mustard

Welcome to MoFo Monday! Today I'm digging out a couple of bookmarked recipes from Vegan MoFo 2011 which was the first time I participated in this fun filled month of blogging. I limited myself to making two recipes due to time constraints and found it incredibly difficult to choose from the inspiring list of bookmarks I had gathered.

First up were Spicy Cajun Lentil Patties from Heathen Vegan. I don't have a regular veggie burger recipe that I rely on and enjoy trying out different concoctions from cookbooks, blogs and my head when the mood suits. Burgers aren't always served in buns at my abode either - I'm rather fond of a few protein packed patties alongside a plate of roasted vegetables in colder months. Jeni Treehugger's recipe appealed to me due to the inclusion of a Cajun spice mix as well as the combination of vegetables and other herbs and spices she had used. Her perfectly assembled patties also looked sensational.

Now, I'm going to be totally honest and let you know that I had two attempts with Jeni's recipe due to an ingredient mishap the first time around. The patties were supposed to be made with red lentils but I used brown lentils without thinking twice as they have been my default lentil recently. When the burgers didn't hold together cohesively and their appearance looked entirely different I read through the comments in the post and realised my mistake - oops. The patties tasted great so I had to give them another shot to do the recipe justice - and I'm glad that I did! Both times I doubled the quantity of Cajun spice to give them a little more kick and didn't regret this minor alteration. As I was already roasting vegetables in the oven, the burgers were whacked onto a separate tray and baked for 15 minutes on each side as I find this much easier than frying in batches on the stovetop.

Next cab off the rank was a Homemade Spicy Mustard from The Vegan Ronin. This really is a cinch to make - sterilise a jar, place mustard seeds, apple cider vinegar and water in the jar, shake it up and allow it to sit for a couple of days. After this time blend the mixture with a bit of sugar and turmeric and you're done! I only made half a batch as I didn't have enough mustard seeds for the full recipe but it was enough to fill a small jar. I kept the mustard on the chunkier side as I don't have a mini food processor and my full size blender doesn't do the best job with small quantities. The man is as a huge mustard fan and likened this to a hot English mustard in seeded form.

As it's so easy to make I'm sure I'll be making another batch when this jar runs out. I'm going to keep quiet about how we have enjoyed the mustard so far as it's going to feature in an upcoming MoFo post.

Giving unpopular leftovers a second chance

I'm generally happy when there is leftover food from home cooked dinners as the man and I usually rely on these remnants for our workday lunches. The exception is when I have attempted a new recipe that hasn't been to our liking. After these scraps have sitting in the fridge for a few days and look like they are in danger of being tossed into the rubbish bin, my solution is to give these unpopular leftovers a second chance by turning them into burgers.

The most delicious burgers I've been creating recently have been the result of an original meal that was bland, the flavours were out of balance or it just didn't suit our tastes. These concoctions never make it onto my blog as I don't see the point in posting about the original recipe unless it was a hit with at least one or two of us. Instead of providing you with a recipe, here are my steps and a few tips for making fantastic "leftover burgers".

1. Retrieve leftovers from the fridge. Curries, stews, casseroles and even thick soups have all been successfully transformed into burgers by me so far. If the leftovers have been stored with a portion of a cooked grain (i.e. rice, couscous, quinoa), transfer as many of the grains as possible to a bowl. Place the non-grain portion of the leftovers in your food processor and pulse until they are thoroughly broken down.

2. Season the food processor mixture and taste test as you go. If the original meal was bland, perk it up by whizzing through additional herbs, spices, nutritional yeast, salt or stock powder. Your favourite sauces can also be tasty additions although I don't usually like to add much additional liquid if the mixture is already quite runny. Be mindful of the ingredients in the original recipe and try not to create flavour clashes with the added seasonings (A google search can be helpful if you are unsure about what will and won’t work).

3. Thicken the mixture, making it suitable for shaping into burgers. Whiz through some chickpea flour (besan), ¼ to ½ cup is usually a good benchmark - chickpea flour in larger quantities can be overwhelming as it has a strong flavour. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and stir through any reserved cooked grains that were separated in Step 1. If you don’t have any spare cooked grains on hand and the mixture is still too runny after adding chickpea flour, stir through some breadcrumbs.

4. Prepare and cook the burger patties. Shape the burgers into small, medium or large patties. Most veggie burgers are adaptable with how they can be cooked so it becomes a personal preference of pan frying or oven baking. Most of the time I find it easier to place all of the shaped patties on a tray lined with baking paper and bake them in the oven (baking for 20-25 minutes on each side at 180C). I find that pan frying in batches can require more attention although this is preferable on a hot summers day when you don't want to turn on the oven!

5. Enjoy the "leftover burgers" in rolls with salad toppings or served with salads, roasted or steamed vegetables. Have fun pairing your burgers with different sauces, you may even find they have more than enough flavour and can be enjoyed without any additional condiments.

These photos were from my most recent batch of "leftover burgers" which were enjoyed with some roasted vegetables. The leftovers resulted from an unsuccessful batch of thick white bean soup I had made for an around the world post. In my rush to make this soup at the same time as another dinner I mistook a jar of ground cinnamon for cayenne pepper (oops!). The soup never made it to our bowls as I hadn't been overly impressed with how it tasted prior to making the cinnamon/cayenne blunder and the man hadn't been enthused about the overpowering smell of cinnamon. This "leftover burger" mixture was on the runnier/softer side which could have been improved with the addition of some cooked grains yet I didn't have any at my disposal.

I have made at least six different types of "leftover burgers" and every single time the burgers have been more popular than the original meal. The man and young man have been halfway through devouring their dinners before I've mentioned that it's a make-over of the meal they weren't keen on a few nights earlier. A future goal is to recreate my best ever "leftover burger" recipe as just a standard burger recipe (i.e. not making the failed recipe first). These ones were the nicest and most interesting burgers I've made at home and rated amongst the best I've eaten.

With the amount of food wastage that happens in our society these days, I hope this post inspires some of you to give your unloved leftovers a second chance too!

Kalbarri, Coral Bay and Shark Bay

After farewelling the young man at Perth airport, the man and I picked up our portable accommodation for the next 14 days – a camper trailer. Although we were already equipped with our own small tent, we figured that this style of tent would be easier to assemble and pack up and would also give us more space to organise our belongings. We didn’t have a firm itinerary at this stage, our goal was to travel to Coral Bay (approximately 1100 kms north of Perth) stopping off in places for as long as we felt and being mindful of local weather forecasts due to the cyclone season.

In addition to hiring the camper trailer we also rented a portable fridge/freezer and had been under the impression that it could run off the camper trailer battery or our car battery while we were travelling. I had done a bit of homework and pencilled in many bush camps along the way which sounded like peaceful waterfront locations. After discovering that the fridge/freezer hadn’t been charged and the camper trailer battery would only last for one night without power some quick re-planning was in order.

We resigned to staying in caravan parks for this leg of our trip for the sole purpose of electricity. After a quick overnight stop in Jurien Bay we drove to the town of Kalbarri, right on the edge of Kalbarri National Park. I had previously written off Kalbarri as I didn’t think we would be able to camp here with Ollie but it turned out I was wrong. The small town is located just outside the boundaries of the National Park on the mouth of the Murchison River. Along the coast were several dog friendly beaches we were thankful for as the daytime temperatures were around 40C. We enjoyed several trips to the stunning Red Bluff beach (pictured below) and were usually the only people there.

The caravan park we stayed in was one of the nicest on our trip, our camp site had an outlook to the river and a swimming pool was nestled amongst the gum trees. As I didn’t take any food shots at Kalbarri, I’ve included a photo of this rather cute long nosed dragon who was peacefully enjoying basking in the hot sun.

During our stay at Kalbarri most of our fridge items became frozen and we were informed by the hire people that the configuration was 80% freezer, 20% fridge and not the other way around as we had initially thought. Thankfully we still had our esky/car fridge with us and were able to use that for cooling things without freezing them! On our drive up to Coral Bay we passed through the larger town of Carnarvon and I made use of the freezer by stocking it up with bags of mixed frozen vegetables as it was difficult to keep produce fresh in such hot temperatures for any length of time.

Coral Bay is a tiny tourist town situated on Ningaloo Reef, the largest fringing reef in Australia which is renowned for being a temporary home to the whale sharks during their annual feeding season. Snorkelling is accessible as little as 50 metres offshore which is ideal for beginners and youngsters. Unfortunately for us, an impending cyclone further north by the name of Rusty brought some gusty winds to Coral Bay which made the conditions for snorkelling rather challenging. Even though all of the area surrounding Coral Bay is a marine park there was still one beach where Ollie was allowed to run free and the man and I could alternate snorkelling attempts. We spotted lots of colourful fish of varying shapes and sizes as well as the occasional sting ray.

Every afternoon, there was a fish feeding session in the bay so I went along one day to check it out. A marine biologist spoke to the tourists standing around in knee deep water about the types of fish that usually visit during the feeding times as well as the other species which hide amongst the reefs. The hungry fish were extremely bold and not afraid to brush against your legs, some of the fish were rather large and a number of tourists were afraid of getting too close. Everyone was given a handful of food pellets to drop into the water slowly, if you dropped too many in at once the fish would fight over the food. Hand feeding was strictly prohibited as humans can pass on germs and the fish are likely to bite with their sharp teeth.

Even though the weather wasn't ideal, it was difficult to leave Coral Bay as we had travelled over 4000 kms from home and this was the turn around point of our journey. After starting to drive back towards Perth we made a detour at Shark Bay, a World Heritage Area. The region of Shark Bay is home to Monkey Mia, a popular tourist destination due to the daily feeding program of bottlenose dolphins which have been visiting the shallow waters for over forty years.

The number of dolphins that choose to visit the feeding area varies on a day to day basis. The feeding program is only a supplementary part of the dolphins diets. To ensure that all of the dolphins are still hunting for themselves and not becoming reliant on hand feeding, the number of fish each dolphin is fed on a given day is accounted for and strictly limited. We were fortunate to be there in low season and arrived in time for the last feeding session of the day which the least number of tourists attend. In high season the beach and jetty can be lined with hundreds of people straining to view the dolphins, I counted 25 people attending our session.

It was a beautiful experience watching the dolphins swimming a couple of metres away from you. Small turtles were also clearly visible swimming around in the clear waters, rays and sharks were spotted in the distance jumping into air. The man and I rotated between standing in the shallows with the dolphins and holding Ollie on the beach who was fascinated with the huge dark shapes bobbing about in the sea.

On the road to seeing the dolphins I called out to the man to slow down when I spotted a couple of emus further ahead on the road. By the time we reached them one had disappeared into the bushes while this bold one was happy to stick around for a few photos. He wasn't afraid of us and would have stuck his head inside the car if the man hadn't quickly wound up the window.

Although the dolphins are the main attraction, there are plenty of other interesting areas to see in Shark Bay, being a World Heritage Area most of them weren't dog friendly so we stuck with the places we were allowed to visit. Our favourite spot was called Little Lagoon which really wasn't so little. Shallow - yes, little - not really. It's a serene location with a few picnic tables and free BBQs sparsely located around the perimeter of the lagoon. After an initial visit we decided to return for a sunset BBQ and enjoyed a Fry's hamburger there (pictured below with Ollie blissfully chasing seagulls in the background).

I do apologise for the lack of food shots in this post, be assured that I’ll make up for it in the next couple of posts. Sunsets before 7pm meant that we were rarely eating dinner in decent light which wasn’t ideal for taking photos of meals. The few food photos I have included are the only ones I took during this part of our trip even though we did eat more a lot more than burgers. Once again, we relied on Indian heat and eat curry packets after long days of travelling and setting up camp as they were quick and easy to prepare. Some of the other meals I cooked on the camper stove were Thai red curries with tofu and vegetables and Linda McCartney veggie sausages and onions with vegetables. We ate baked beans on toast a few times, sandwiches were our standard lunches and there was plenty of snacking on nuts and fresh fruit in between meals.

We ended up cutting our camper trailer trip short but this was for a good reason. I’ll fill you in on the details in the next post!

Gasometer

Gasometer (also fondly known to us as Bloatometer) has become one of our favourite places to grab a quick, tasty meal and a refreshing beer. Gasometer has only previously been mentioned once on my blog in a post filled with other eating out experiences, yet we have enjoyed eating here five times in the past six months. Vegan options are plentiful with around five main meal options to choose from as well as a selection of entrees and sides. Upon hearing that the menu had gone away from the original US diner style food, I anxiously waited to hear other peoples impressions about the change of menu to Eastern European food before making the trip across town.

After Cindy and Michael from where's the beef delivered with a comprehensive review, we were back to try it out for ourselves within the week. There was no variety in our selection of meals as we both went there with the exciting promise of a vegan pastrami burger and after perusing the menu, nothing could change our minds. The pastrami burger certainly delivered on taste and wasn't as unbearably filling as some of the previous mock-meat items had been. The pastrami seitan was sliced extremely thinly and contained so much flavour on it's own. When paired with coleslaw, beetroot relish and vegan goats cheese, the burger was a taste sensation! The only thing we would have liked a bit more of was the goats cheese as it tasted fantastic when you got a hit of it.

The fries were almost the same as they had been with the old menu, crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside and perfectly seasoned. There was no aioli to accompany them this time, but I'm more than happy to eat them without.

Gasometer pulls in quite a crowd so if you're dining with children or needing a quick bite, I recommend going before 7pm to secure yourself a table. Oh and the latest on their Facebook page is that vegan pierogies are on this week!

The new menu at Gasometer has only been reviewed by where's the beef so far.

Gasometer
484 Smith St, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 5538

Vegan MoFo - M is for Mexe Wedges

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
1-2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon chilli seasoning
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon garlic powder
pinch of cumin
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.

I'll be burgered if these taste like tempeh!

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.

FNQ - Holiday Cooking

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 and allow to soak for 15 minutes. Shape the dough into burger patties and fry until each side has browned up nicely.

Broccoli burgers on the blogger-go-round

One of the things I love about Cindy and Michael's blog is their links section on the right hand side titled "Old favourites we're eating this week". Quite often, I meander off to have a look at their old recipes and was particularly interested when I saw one called broccoli burgers some time ago. This recipe was linked back to Johanna's blog where she had discovered it in an article highlighting best vegetarian burger recipes. 

It wasn't a vegan recipe but sounded like it could be made vegan pretty easily so I had a stab with a few adaptations that night and was very impressed. These burgers were really tasty! The recipe came with the bonus of being an oven-baked version which I prefer over pan-frying in batches. It gives you more time to get other components of your meal ready, less angst about breaking up burgers and you don't use as much oil so they are better for you. Win, win, win!

The first time I baked the broccoli burgers no photos were taken or notes written down on the vegan adjustments that I made. When I had a second attempt last week they turned out just as I had remembered them to be and this time I was better prepared with camera and computer. 

The initial mention of broccoli burgers did instigate a few strange looks although they have since been enjoyed by all of us. Broccoli burgers seem to go well with a variety of condiments; gravy, tomato sauce, tomato chutney and BBQ sauce have all paired nicely and I even enjoyed a couple of cold plain left-over burgers for a quick snack.   

Broccoli burgers (Adapted from Where's the Beef via Green Gourmet Giraffe and originally posted here)

1 medium-sized head broccoli
2/3 cup almonds  
2 slices of wholemeal bread
1 red onion, cut into quarters
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon vegan worchestershire sauce
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1/3-1/2 cup water
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 200C. Chop the broccoli into large florets, place in a food processor bowl and pulse until finely chopped. Remove the broccoli and place in a large bowl. Place the almonds in the food processor and process until finely chopped. Remove and add to the bowl with the broccoli. Repeat these steps with the slices of bread and then the onion.

Add the nutritional yeast flakes to the bowl and mix thoroughly so that all ingredients are well combined. Stir the ground flaxseed together with 1/4 cup of water and reserve 1/4 cup of water for later. Drizzle the worchestershire sauce over the top of the ingredients in the bowl, then add the flaxseed/water mixture and stir thoroughly until well combined. Add the reserved water slowly, stirring through and testing every so often to determine when the mixture becomes soft enough for rolling into burgers. You don't it to get too moist so all the water may not be required.

Line a large roasting tray with baking paper and spray lightly with olive oil. Roll the mixture into balls and then flatten out into burgers. Give the tops of the burgers with a spray with olive oil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the bottoms are browned. Flip the burgers over and bake for a further 20 minutes.