Vegan MoFo Day 27 - Free Fridays - Faking it hot dogs

Last week's Free Friday was a big fat F for a failure to post. I had so many posts planned for Free Fridays although I just didn't have the energy to write one up last week. Fried Friday and Foraging Friday were some of the other ideas I had in store for Fridays but as this is my final Friday post for Vegan MoFo I've chosen to write about Faking it Friday.

Hot dogs always used to be a favourite with my fellows yet I was never the biggest fan due to the mysterious nature of the ingredients involved in the meaty varieties. The boys survived without them for many years until Redwood's hot dog style sausages became available and ever since they have become one of our preferred fast food meals to make at home occasionally. I contemplated making my own a while ago and looked up a few recipes for making hot dogs from seitan although I never got around to trying it out. When Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe posted some MoFo Quicklinks a few weeks ago I was interested that she had included a link for a hot dog recipe on Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan.

I was intrigued about where this adapted recipe had stemmed from and after clicking back on a few links I arrived at the original hot dog recipe on Thrifty Living which was one of the hot dog recipes I had bookmarked many years ago. The version I made was fairly close to the recipe on Thrify Living with some tweaks from other bloggers adaptations and a twist of my own thrown in. My only disappointment was with the sizes of the hot dogs as they didn't quite fill up our rolls, the flavour and texture was very impressive which made up for the sizing issue. I'll post a recipe with my adaptation next time I make them as there is one more minor ingredient tweak I would like to try as well as getting the sizes right.

We enjoyed these hot dogs with vegusto piquant cheese, fried onions, ketchup and american mustard on one occasion and another time they were served up as chilli dogs with a lentil and vegetable chilli base. cheesy sauce, ketchup and american mustard.

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 9 - MoFo Mondays - Corned beef seitan and Pudla

Last Monday saw me rummaging through my Vegan MoFo bookmarks from 2011. This week for MoFo Mondays, I'm focussing on a couple of bookmarked recipes from Vegan MoFo 2012.

First up is corned beef seitan from Inspired Eats. This is the second time I've made a corned beef seitan and both times the recipes haven't been exactly what I'm searching for. The corned beef I used to eat in my youth was quite salty with a slight amount of clove flavouring which used to be accompanied with roast vegetables or mashed potatoes. This recipe and the one I tried previously have been a bit too heavy on cinnamon and allspice and not seasoned enough to please my salt tooth.

Having said that the seitan did work really well in a reuben styled sandwich (on white bread rather than rye) loaded with sauerkraut and the homemade mustard from The Vegan Ronin I posted about last Monday. Something I really liked about this recipe was how the thinly sliced pieces of seitan were cooked in a broth containing beetroot powder to give them a pinkish colour.

Kittee Bee Berns from Cake Maker to the Stars had me drooling over her Indian pancakes called pudla during Vegan MoFo last year. I'm kicking myself that it took me so long to get around to making these as it's such a quick, easy and tasty recipe which is adaptable to the vegetables you have on hand. 

These savoury pancakes are based on chickpea flour and have a few spices added to the batter. I gave the pudla a little extra heat by adding a chopped red chilli in with my chosen vegetables - shredded baby spinach, grated carrot, finely chopped mushroom, tomato and sliced spring onions. They are perfect for a weekend brunch and will be a regular around here as the man and I loved them. Next time I'll try to get my act together and serve them with a homemade cilantro chutney rather than the store bought mango chutney we had them with on this occasion.

Now that I've gone through a few Vegan MoFo bookmarks from the past couple of years I'm looking forward to getting stuck into some inspirational recipes from 2013!

"Chicken" parmigianas

When I used to eat out at a pub in my former omnivorous life it was a pretty safe bet there would be a chicken parmigiana on my plate. After looking through the menu and finding it difficult to make up my mind, I would usually play it safe and end up choosing the parma. Although chicken parmigianas disappeared from my pub order many years ago, animal-free versions are eaten at home instead.

For several years it's been easy to curb the occasional parma craving with the assistance of Fry's chicken-style schnitzels, topped with Napoli sauce and vegan cheese. A slice or two of tofu bacon is also added if there is any leftover in the fridge. It wasn't until the arrival of Vegan Diner that I gathered inspiration from a couple of the seitan recipes and began to think about recreating my own.

 The taste and texture of the seitan recipes I've made from Vegan Diner so far has been impressive. Julie Hasson seems to have a knack when it comes to nailing combinations of dried herbs and spices which provide the seitan with wonderful flavours. The wet to dry ratio of ingredients is perfect unlike other seitan recipes I've made where I have needed to reduce the amount of liquid. After I had made Julie's skillet-baked panko cutlets (which reminded me of chicken parmigianas with totally different seasonings) and chicken-style seitan roast I thought about morphing the two recipes to create some parmigianas.

The chicken-style seitan lists a poultry seasoning in the ingredients which is something I'm not familiar with. A quick search told me that it's basically a mixture of dried herbs, the blend of herbs varied a lot between different sources. I went with some marjoram, sage, parsley, thyme and vegan chicken stock in place of the soy sauce in the recipe. The seitan ingredients are mixed together briefly in a bowl rather then kneaded with rest periods in between which makes it very easy to prepare. After flattening pieces of dough between your palms to create the schnitzels, it's just a matter of steaming and then allowing them to sit overnight before putting turning them into parmas. 

The seitan schnitzels are coated with flour, soy milk and breadcrumbs before they are lightly browned in the pan. After being transferred to a baking dish they are topped with Napoli sauce and grated vegan cheese. I've included a recipe for a quick smooth Napoli sauce I used for the topping, if you don't have the time or inclination some tomato paste thinned with water or a pizza sauce with herbs will also suffice. The parmas only require a short bake in the oven as they only need to be heated through and for the cheese to melt.

The parmas were a household hit - the combination of herbs in the seitan worked out perfectly.  Comments were made about the kitchen smelling like roast chicken while the schnitzels were steaming. I made nine schnitzels out of this batch which were purposely on the smaller side as seitan is quite filling. A combination of roasted vegetables were a delicious accompaniment, another good partner for this meal would be a side of fries and salad. I'm so pleased to have a few more batches of these schnitzels waiting in the freezer for the next time my parma craving hits.

Chicken schnitzels (Adapted from Vegan Diner)
Makes 8-9

2 cups gluten flour
½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
¼ cup besan
1 tablespoon onion flakes
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon white pepper
1 heaped teaspoon marjoram
½ teaspoon dried sage
½ teaspoon dried parsley
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups vegan chicken stock (cold or at room temperature)

Place the gluten flour, nutritional yeast flakes, chickpea flour, onion flakes, marjoram, sage, parsley, thyme, salt and white pepper in a bowl and mix together thoroughly. Pour in the olive oil and vegan chicken stock and combine the ingredients with a spoon until a smooth dough forms.

Divide the dough into equal sized pieces and flatten each piece between your palms to a size of approximately 10 cm x 10 cm. Place the flattened dough pieces into a steamer basket lined with foil, allowing the schnitzels to overlap slightly if necessary. Steam for 40 minutes then allow the schnitzels to cool down completely. Refrigerate before using. The seitan schnitzels may also be frozen if you aren't using them all at once.

Quick smooth Napoli sauce
Makes enough sauce to top 3-4 schnitzels

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
¾ cup tomato passata
pinch of dried basil (or use a few fresh basil leaves)
sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a small saucepan. Add the garlic and allow it to sizzle for 10-30 seconds until the garlic begins to colour. Pour in the tomato passata and stir well then add the basil and season to taste. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Chicken Parmigianas

Preheat oven to 200C.

Set up three bowls for breading the schnitzels - plain flour in the first, soy milk with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in the second and breadcrumbs in the third. Cover a schnitzel with plain flour, wet it thoroughly with the soy milk mixture and then dunk it into the breadcrumbs ensuring it is well coated with the crumbs. Repeat for the other schnitzels.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat with some oil and fry the schnitzels until golden brown on both sides. Place the schnitzels in a baking dish, then top with Napoli sauce and grated vegan cheese.

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Melbourne to Perth road trip

Hello dear readers, apologies once again for the lengthy break between posts. I’ve just returned from my longest holiday ever (as well as the biggest break I've had from full-time work) travelling around Western Australia. Previous vacations of around two weeks have always gone by too quickly so the man and I have been saving up our dollars and annual leave for a while so we could enjoy a month long holiday. After we adopted Ollie our travel plans developed into an Australian based road trip and dog friendly vacation as we didn’t feel it would be fair to leave our new family member in a boarding kennel for such a long period.

Map of our road trip including nightly stops

For those who are unfamiliar with where I live and/or with the geography of Australia, the distance from Melbourne in Victoria to Perth in Western Australia is approximately 3500 km by road. Most of the drive is through incredibly isolated terrain and includes crossing the Nullarbor Plain which runs across the Great Australian Bight. In the most remote areas, roadhouses (service stations selling fuel, snacks and souvenirs) are up to 200 km apart, often without a single residence in between.

A giant galah stands outside a shop in Kimba - "Half way across Australia"

Travelling from Melbourne to Perth with a dog meant that we were limited to camping along the way as the motel style accommodation at roadhouses don’t allow you to stay with pets. Knowing that it would be virtually impossible to find suitable food for us on the road trip, I planned ahead and prepared tofu bacon, chickpea eggs (adapted from Vegan Eats World) and delicious seitan pastrami from Vegan Diner. These items were kept cold in our Esky (Aussie brand of cooler/car fridge) along with dairy-free margarine, vegan cheeses, Fry’s chicken-style burgers, Linda McCartney sausages and salad items.

Cooking up breakfast on our little camping stove 

A portable pantry in the form of a large plastic tub accompanied us on our month long journey which was depleted and restocked several times. Its contents included tinned baked beans, kidney beans, chickpeas and tomatoes, olive oil, bread, rice, Vegemite (yeast extract), ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, Tapatio hot sauce, curry powder, cayenne pepper, mango chutney and snacks such as BBQ shapes, potato chips, nuts and dried fruit amongst other things.

Vegemite on toast (plus avocado for me) is what the man and I eat for breakfast on a regular basis and we continued this tradition throughout our travels. It was a challenge to perfect cooking toast over a naked flame on our gas cooking stove so we did have to suffice with the odd burnt section every so often. We enjoyed a big brekky on one occasion which was simply a matter of heating up precooked tofu bacon, chickpea eggs, baked beans and frying some tomatoes.

The spectacular Bunda cliffs 

Packing up campsites, driving long distances and setting up a new campsite at the end of each day meant that we didn’t have much time to stop and look at a lot of the sights along the way. Apart from roadhouse rests for fuel and toilets the only unscheduled stop I insisted on making was to one of the Bunda Cliffs lookouts close to the SA/WA border. This breathtaking spectacle of 120m high limestone cliffs above the crashing brilliant blue ocean was definitely worth a 10 minute break. Heaps of other photos on our 5 day trip across were taken from a moving vehicle which is not ideal although it did allow me to capture the ever changing landscapes along our hasty travels.

As we were spending somewhere between 7 to 10 hours on the road every day, a pre-made sandwich was usually on the lunch menu. Seitan pastrami, Vegusto vegan cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato and cucumber with the man’s favourite combination of vegan mayonnaise, American mustard and hot sauce kept us satisfied until we crossed the border from South Australia into Western Australia. There are restrictions about bringing fresh fruit and vegetables into Western Australia which meant that we had to ditch our remaining salad items, scoff down the last of our fresh fruit and rely on packaged foods until we reached Kalgoorlie.

Whilst I’m on the topic of packaged foods, our saving grace over the month eventuated from a trip to a local Indian grocer just before our departure. I had been on the lookout for easy, nutritious meals and found some heat and eat curries on their shelves. There only appeared to be 3 vegan meals out of around 15 varieties of vegetable curries as most of the others contained butter or cream. If you do come across the Pattu range, the Baignan Bharta (eggplant curry), Bhindi Masala (okra curry) and Peas Pulav (basmati rice with green peas and cashews) are all vegan. I wasn’t convinced they would be the most authentic tasting meals or spicy enough for our tastes and planned to perk them up with additional spices but it didn't turn out to be necessary. These meals were such a pleasant surprise so we continued to try out other brands of Indian convenience foods from standard supermarkets during the rest our trip.

The sachets are placed into boiling water for 5 minutes or microwaved if you happen to have one handy. Even though some of the curries are rather oily, they aren't particularly high in calories and fat and are free of any preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. The Tasty Bite range are not as flavoursome as the Pattu curries but they are available at most large Australian supermarkets with the Indian foods and are clearly labelled as vegan or vegetarian meals. We particularly enjoyed Punjab Eggplant and Mumbai Mushrooms from the Tasty Bite range. Some nights we scooped the curries up with chappatis rather than bothering to serve them with rice.

Sunrise over wetlands at Port Wakefield

So that's pretty much how we ate whilst travelling remotely for 5 days. Burgers and a few other meals were consumed along the way which I didn't remember to take photos of. There will be more posts to follow about Perth eats and the rest of the food on our trip over the the next few weeks. For now I'll leave you with a recipe which the man fondly refers to as "eggies". I've been making this since testing Ethiopian But'echa (Fluffy scrambled chickpea eggs) for Terry Hope Romero's cookbook Vegan Eats World. My adaptation omits the chillies, includes some black salt and cuts down on a couple of steps and dishes.  

Sand dunes at Port Augusta with the Flinders Ranges in the background

Scrambled chickpea eggs aka. eggies (Adapted from Vegan Eats World)

1 cup besan/chickpea flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 2/3 cups warm water
3 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon black salt
¼ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
pepper, to taste

Cook the besan in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly for 2 minutes or until the flour darkens slightly and smells toasty. Transfer the besan to a bowl. Pour in the olive oil and fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until they soften. Transfer the onions to a plate or small bowl.

Pour the water, lemon juice, black salt and sea salt into the saucepan. Start adding the besan into the saucepan a few tablespoons at a time, whisking all the time. After all of the besan has been added, use a spatula and continue stirring until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to pull away from the sides. Fold through the onions, turn off the heat and allow it to cool down for 10 minutes.

Drag a fork through the mixture to break it up into small lumps resembling scrambled eggs. Season with additional salt if required and black pepper, to taste.

This may be eaten warm or cold and it can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least a week. Adding curry powder and mayonnaise at the end is on my to-do list to create curried "eggs" for sandwiches.

2012 - The unblogged edition

The 18th January marks the anniversary of my blog which has been going for two years now. During 2012 I only managed to publish 101 posts, which was a bit lower than 138 posts in 2011. Challenges on and off throughout the year prevented me from writing as much as I would have have liked and ever since Ollie's arrival in July a lot of my usual free time has been devoted to training and exercising him (which is very rewarding, good exercise and lots of fun). Although it wasn't the most productive year in the blogging sense, there were many recipes from other blogs I tried along the way so here's a round up of a few I can recall (with photos of ones I've been able to locate).  

Post Punk Kitchen - Chesapeake tempeh cakes. Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe posted about this recipe at a time when I was struggling to like tempeh much at all. I found the tempeh in these tasty little "crab" cakes to be very enjoyable although I wasn't particularly fond of the remoulade drizzled on top. I must make these again soon!

Seitan is my motor - Pasta with walnut, mushroom and tempeh sauce. This recipe was given high praise from vegan about town and where's the beef so I was keen to give it a try. Unfortunately it wasn't a winner for us, we didn't enjoy the tempeh in this meal and the flavour of the walnuts in the sauce were too strong for our tastes, so I'll stick to using cashews in creamy pasta sauces.

Holy Cow - Aloo posto. The man and I have a similar distaste for potatoes in curries so I generally steer clear of these types of recipes. I was intrigued by Vaishali's potato based curry as I had never seen a poppy seed paste in a curry previously so I made the recipe with cabbage instead. Even though my blender struggled to break down the poppy seeds completely it was still a very enjoyable dish which my extended family enjoyed too.

Fat Free Vegan - Okara crab cakes. This is an older recipe from Susan V's archives I stumbled upon when searching for okara recipe ideas after making home made tofu. I added the upper end of the stated amount of Old Bay Seasoning (purchased from USA Foods) which resulted in a strong peppery flavour that none of us were particularly fond of.

Inspired eats- Pan fried shiitake mushroom bacon. I was curious to see if a recipe that listed so few ingredients (mushrooms, oil, salt) would actually taste like bacon. The flavour was quite impressive given there was no liquid smoke or smoked paprika involved and they tasted great on baked potatoes with a spicy noochy sauce. It hasn't replaced my favourite tofu bacon but it was fun to try out another facon recipe.

Diet, dessert and dogs - Greek inspired chickpea scramble and Quinoa pizza balls. Both of these recipes tasted fantastic, the chickpea scramble made with besan was full of delicious Mediterranean flavours and is a great alternative to a regular tofu scramble. The quinoa and bean based pizza balls flavoured with tomato paste and herbs turned out a little softer than I expected but they were still lovely to snack on.

Sweet Roots - Coconut milk cheddar - There is something about coconut products that just doesn't work with my palate and I really need to stop experimenting. Heavily spiced coconut based curries are about the only savoury meals where I enjoy coconut and anything else just doesn't appeal. The coconut flavour in this cheese was way too strong for my liking and put me off vegan cheese making for a while.

Wheres the beef - Kentucky Fried Tofu. Cindy's not so secret blend of herbs and spices in this recipe that was written up in the Planet VeGMeL zine last year was really delicious and rather simple to prepare for a slightly indulgent nostalgic meal.

Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist / Wrapped in Pastry - I'm a huge fan of Leigh Drew's recipes and was rapt to get my guys on board with split peas in her garlic lemon dal recipe as they usually associate split peas with soup. The man and young man were also highly impressed with the Subway style "meatball" subs I made early last year. Pate en croute and pissaldiere (bottom right in the photo above) from Leigh's latest cookbook Wrapped in Pastry were popular at family Christmas gatherings last year. I loved both of these recipes but the man wasn't crazy about the pate en croute.

Vegan Dad - Corned Beef. The man used to have a penchant for corned beef back in the day so I gave this version a try. I wasn't able to track down all of the ingredients and made a couple of substitutions which may have contributed to it's failure. The accompanying white sauce with capers I whipped up wasn't fantastic either. I was sad to read recently that Vegan Dad has farewelled the blogging world as I've enjoyed several recipes from his blog over the years.

Vegan about town - Dan dan mian. I was really disappointed that the man didn't share my enthusiasm for this delicious bowl of noodles and tempeh in a super spicy broth as I was so happy to find another tempeh dish that I enjoyed. We usually have similar tolerances to chilli but on this occasion it was too spicy for him and perfect for me. Perhaps if it's toned down a fraction I may have better success next time?

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I would like to finish this post with a huge thank you to all readers of this blog, everyone who has tried a recipe or two, readers that have left me a comment during these years and the many people I have connected with through regular comments on my blog as well as their own. It really means a lot and all of the feedback I receive is much appreciated. I hope you are looking forward to another year of posts with plenty more stopovers from around the world to come!

Around the world - Stopover 23 - Greece

Greek food makes an appearance every so often in my kitchen. Moussaka, spanakopita and seitan gyros in home made pita bread are some of our favourite Greek dishes that I make on a semi regular basis. One of our highest rotation recipes from Vegan Eats World is Terry Hope Romero's oven roasted gyros made with chickpea and olive seitan because my fellows adore it and request it often. Despite being an avid hater of olives, it's the only meal where the young man will eat them as their strong flavour blends into the seitan so they are barely detectable. When Greece was drawn it was no surprise that I was hounded for gyros wraps to be on the menu again. On this occasion I made a similar tofu based garlic sauce to one I've previously posted about and added a touch of fresh dill.

All of the Greek recipes from Vegan Eats World that I tested were full of flavour and thoroughly enjoyed. I didn't get the chance to try Yemista (capsicums and tomatoes stuffed with rice) during testing and I still hadn't made anything new since the book arrived so I was well overdue for branching out into a new dish. Yemista take a little while to prepare although there was plenty of slack time whilst they were baking in the oven. The dill and mint flavoured rice filling was lovely and the Yemista paired wonderfully with some left-over oven roasted gyros and pita bread. This is another fantastic Greek recipe from Terry!

After flicking through World Vegan Feast by Bryanna Clark Grogan, I found some Greek recipes and picked out a Gigante bean and chard stew as I knew it would please the man. Due to time limitations I wasn't very faithful to the recipe. The tofu feta was omitted, the silverbeet/chard was simmered in the stew rather than pre-cooking it separately and as I cooked it on the stovetop rather than in the oven, it didn't make sense to top it with breadcrumbs. The use of tinned lima beans would have made this meal an even speedier process. It was still a very tasty meal with these changes, the flavour of the dill was the highlight amongst the onions, tomatoes, beans and silverbeet/chard. A slice of toasted olive bread from Crumbs Organic Bakehouse was the perfect tool to clean our plates with.

Gigante bean and silverbeet stew (Adapted from World Vegan Feast)

250g dried lima beans or 2 x 400g tins lima beans, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
6 spring onions, chopped
2 cups vegan "chicken" stock
1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1 bunch silverbeet/chard leaves, washed well and chopped

If using dried lima beans, place them in a large bowl, cover well with water and allow to soak for at least 8 hours. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse thoroughly. Place the beans in a saucepan and fill with water so there is about 5cm of water above the beans. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the beans are tender (mine took about 2 hours).

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat and fry the onions and spring onions until they have softened and are beginning to brown. Add the drained beans, "chicken" stock, tomatoes, dill, salt and pepper. Stir through the chopped silverbeet/chard in batches until each batch has softened and reduced in size slightly. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered for 30 minutes.

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Did you know?

Greece is the world’s third leading producer of olives. The Greeks have been cultivating olive trees since ancient times and there are some olive trees still producing olives that were planted in the thirteenth century.

Vegan MoFo - Grand Final Day

Excuse the interruption in my whirlwind trip around the world. When I planned my theme I decided to select 20 countries and write about them Monday to Friday so I can go off theme on the weekends if I have enough energy to do so. I'm planning to post a summary of links that have caught my eye throughout the week on Sundays and if I have enough time I'll write about something else on Saturdays.

Last weekend the AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final was held in Melbourne which could be compared with the American Super Bowl in terms of it being our biggest football event for the year. We didn't have any plans for the day and I knew my guys would be watching the game so I spent some time in the kitchen making football styled food to feed our faces with.

It had been ages since I last made a batch of these popular vegan sausage rolls from where's the beef. I couldn't stop thinking about these delicious morsels since being reacquainted with them at the recent Planet VeGMeL 3rd Anniversary potluck (check out the online zine here that was made for the occasion). The mixture of pecans, breadcrumbs, oats, silken tofu and seasonings is extremely tasty and quite easy to put together if you can get your hands on some vegan puff pastry sheets. I highly recommended these sausage rolls, they're pretty legendary around the Melbourne veg*n blogosphere.

We also enjoyed a Mexican styled pizza and I used my standard pizza base recipe topped with tomato paste mixed with Tapatio hot sauce, onions, garlic, mushrooms, Redwood cheatin' pepperoni, olives and mozzarella style Cheezly.

The man asked me to make mini dogs as well as many other things that didn't end up making the cut. We had them in mini rolls with Cheezly, caramelised onions, ketchup and American mustard. I never manage to take a decent shot of our hot dog meals, this is no exception but I thought I would include it anyway.

Four ways with bratwursts

Over the past month we have become smitten with bratwursts, vegan ones of course! My interest in bratwursts began when Joey of Flicking the V's posted about a tasty sounding European stew she had made based on a recipe in The Guardian. A few months later Cindy and Michael of where's the beef wrote a post from their travels in Berlin that gave me a severe case of food envy. They had eaten doner kebabs where the seitan was cooked on a spit and currywurst. I had never heard of currywurst previously but vegan sausages covered with a curry ketchup sauce sounded pretty darn tasty to me.

Now that there were two recipes using bratwurst I was keen on trying, a decent vegan bratwurst recipe was all that I needed. Mihl of Seitan is my Motor came through with the goods in a single post, a currywurst recipe plus seitan bratwurst. The seitan was a little different to others I have made as it included tofu in the mixture, I've seen plenty that incorporate mashed beans but never tofu and my eyes brightened even more when I noticed that it called for smoked tofu! I'm not fond of mashing things to put into seitan as the texture of the dough can be uneven and harder to work with so I chose to whizz the tofu up in my blender with some water instead. The smoked tofu gave the bratwursts a wonderful aroma as well as adding to the flavour.

The bratwurst stew recipe from The Guardian was full of many elements that we usually enjoy although I don't recall pairing mustard with sun-dried tomatoes before. This was a very hearty meal and apart from using finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes rather than a paste, vegan sausages and vegan chicken stock, I didn't change a thing about it. Stews don't usually get my gents enthused although anything with seitan is usually popular so we all enjoyed this meal.

Next up on the cooking agenda was currywurst and chips. It's not meant to be the healthiest of meals and is usually served with fried chips. I lightened it up by serving the saucy sausages with some oven baked potato fries and peas on the side. The currywurst sauce was rather spicy using only a pinch of cayenne so perhaps the curry powder I used gave it some extra heat. This meal was another household success!

A few weeks after the batch of sausages were used up, the man asked if I could make bratwursts for a special request. He was keen to have one of these sausages in a hot dog roll loaded with fried onions, vegan cheese, ketchup and american mustard. This turned out to be a wonderful idea and it was perfect for a quick, not so healthy dinner on a Friday night. I wasn't in the mood to style the hot dog nicely which is why I don't have a photo of this.

I was out of smoked tofu when the second batch of bratwursts were made so I used plain tofu instead and added smoked paprika to the dry ingredient mix which worked out fine. A recipe for bratwurst stroganoff from taste.com.au landed in my rss reader just after I had made the batch and given the perfection of the timing, I had to give it a try. When I read the ingredient list I smirked a little as it was so far from being vegan yet I had bits of leftover cashew cream, tofu bacon in the fridge and of course the seitan sausages to stand in for the animal based products. The man adored my recent attempt at tempeh stroganoff although the young man and I weren't as keen on it so it was great that we all loved this version equally.

All of these recipes were very quick to prepare as the seitan had been prepared at least a day in advance.  Next time I make a batch it will be difficult to decide which way to serve these bratwursts as these 4 ways were all fantastic.


Seitan bratwurst (Adapted from seitan is my motor)
Makes 8 large sausages

2 cups gluten flour
4 tablespoons chickpea flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
4 teaspoons dried marjoram
2 teaspoons onion flakes
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons smoked paprika (if not using smoked tofu)
130g firm tofu (use smoked if possible)
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
400ml cold water

Combine the gluten flour, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, marjoram, onion flakes, salt, pepper and smoked paprika (if using) together in a large bowl. Place the tofu, garlic and water in a blender and process until no lumps remain. Pour the contents of the blender into the bowl and mix everything together thoroughly.  Knead the dough until it becomes smooth then allow it to rest for 5 minutes.

Briefly knead for 30 seconds then divide the dough into 8 equal sized pieces. Roll each piece into a thin sausage shape, place it in a piece of aluminium foil and wrap it up securely. It's important that there is some room for the sausages to expand whilst cooking so don't wrap them too tightly otherwise they may burst out of the foil.

Place the sausages into a steamer and cook for 30 minutes or cook in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes. Allow them to cool completely then refrigerate overnight before using in recipes.


Currywurst (Adapted from seitan is my motor)

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 seitan bratwurst sausages, cut into 2cm pieces
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons curry powder
pinch cayenne pepper

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add the sausages. Cook until lightly browned then flip over and cook on the other side until browned.

Mix the ketchup, water, soy sauce, curry powder and cayenne pepper together in a small saucepan and cook on a low heat for 1 minute.

Serve the fried sausages topped with the curry ketchup sauce and chips on the side.


Sausage stroganoff (Adapted from taste.com.au)

olive oil spray
4 seitan bratwurst sausages, cut into 2cm pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, sliced into thin half moons
3 cloves garlic, minced
350g mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ cup tomato paste
1 cup vegan beef or vegetable stock (I used Massel beef stock)
8 slices pre-cooked tofu bacon, chopped
¼ cup cashew cream
1 tablespoon fresh dill, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Heat a deep sided frying pan over medium heat and spray lightly with olive oil. Cook the sausages until lightly browned on one side then flip over and brown lightly on the other side. Transfer the cooked sausages to a plate.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan, add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir through the garlic for a minute, then add the mushrooms and cook until they are soft and beginning to release liquid. Add the paprika, tomato paste, beef/vegetable stock, pre-cooked sausages and tofu bacon and stir thoroughly. Allow it to cook until bubbling then stir though the cashew cream and dill. Season with salt and pepper.

Iskender Kebab

A few months ago I made a frivolous comment about veganising an Iskender Kebab. The man and young man were rather keen on the thought of Iskender Kebab but I wasn't sure how to pull it off at the time so I added it to my "ideas" list for the future. The man was given a peek at this list recently as I wanted him to select a couple of items from it and his top pick was Iskender.

For the uninitiated, Iskender Kebabs are traditionally comprised of thinly sliced gyros meat served on top of cubes of Turkish pide which is covered with a tomato sauce and yoghurt and garnished with fresh tomato slices and parsley. We used to order them from a local kebab shop, obviously back when we were omnivores.

The main hurdle I needed to overcome was creating a decent Turkish pide. My previous attempt of making pide last year had shattered my confidence as the bread turned out almost rock hard! After looking up a few recipes, I made this one from taste.com.au and halved the recipe in case it didn't yield satisfactory results. This dough was extremely pliable and stretching out the pide to an even consistency proved to be a bit of a challenge. As you can see in the photo above, the centre of the pide turned out a lot browner and crispier due to the dough being too thin in this area. Regardless of these minor issues, the pide turned out so much nicer than than the one I tried previously. 

The gyros part didn't require much thought as we loved the taste and texture of the gyros seitan I adapted from I Eat Grains! last year. Both times I have added 1/4 cup chickpea flour to Rachel's recipe as I have found that seitan recipes from the US usually turn out moister than they should be. I found it interesting during recipe testing that someone from the UK mentioned that their gluten flour requires less liquid to be added than the US recipes state. Perhaps the vital wheat gluten used in the US acts a bit differently to the gluten flour available in other parts of the world.

The tomato sauce seemed too easy after looking up a few Iskender recipes. They all called for tomato paste with some water and melted butter with a few adding in a pinch of cayenne. A true vegan cultured yoghurt felt like way too much to tackle this time around so I decided to use something in it's place that we all adore, cashew cream.

We all loved this meal, it satisfied our kebab cravings and it was a lot of fun to plan and put together. There were quite a few steps involved in the recipe but it was spread over the course of a few days to lighten the load. There was some seitan leftover so for lunch the following day we had wrap style kebabs using store bought pita bread and I added some garlic to the remainder of the cashew cream. Iskender is not something I can see myself making on a regular basis but I'm sure it will be requested again in the future.

Iskender Kebab

Olive oil, for frying
1/2 quantity seitan gyros, sliced thinly
Turkish pide, cut into bite sized pieces and kept warm
Tomato sauce
Cashew cream
Fresh tomato slices and parsley, for garnish

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and cook the seitan in batches until browned on both sides.

Arrange the pieces of turkish pide on serving plates and place the seitan slices on top. Cover with some  tomato sauce and cashew cream and garnish with fresh tomato slices and parsley.


Turkish Pide (Adapted from taste.com.au)

250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon dried yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup lukewarm water
Olive oil, for greasing
3/4 teaspoon nigella (black onion, kaloonji) seeds
3/4 teaspoon sesame seeds
2 teaspoons dairy-free margarine, melted
2 teaspoon olive oil

Mix together the sugar, yeast and warm water in a small jug and set aside for a few minutes until it becomes frothy.

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the water into the well and mix the wet and dry ingredient together with your hands.

Tip the dough onto a clean bench and knead for about 10 minutes, after this time the dough should be smooth and springy. Lightly cover the dough with oil and place in a bowl. Cover with a tea towel and position in a warm spot for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.    

Preheat the oven to 230C and place a baking tray on the centre shelf. Place the dough on a floured surface and flatten slightly with your hands. Transfer to a baking sheet and cover with a damp tea towel for 15 minutes.

Stretch the dough out to a rectangular shape of approximately 40 x 18 cm. Leave on the baking paper and cover with the tea towel again. After 10 minutes, remove the tea towel and brush the top of the bread with a mixture of melted margarine and olive oil. Sprinkle the nigella and sesame seeds on top.

Remove the baking tray from the oven and slide the pide on the baking paper onto the tray. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the top of the bread turns a golden colour. 


Tomato sauce

1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup water
pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
1 tablespoon dairy-free margarine

Stir together the tomato paste,water and cayenne pepper (if using) in a saucepan. Add the dairy-free margarine and heat on a low flame until the margarine has melted.


Cashew Cream

1 cup cashews
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon agave nectar
3 tablespoons lemon juice

Soak the cashews in hot water for at least 4 hours. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water. Place the cashews, water, salt, agave and lemon juice in a blender and process for a few minutes, scraping down the sides if necessary, until it becomes a creamy sauce.  Keep refrigerated in a covered container.

Vegan MoFo - S is for Seitan Gyros

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, alternatively the seitan loaves can be cooked for 35-40 minutes using a steamer. Allow to cool completely then store in the fridge until required.