Vegan MoFo Day 17 - Tempeh Tuesdays - Thai larb salad

Making a Thai larb salad has been on my wish list ever since I sampled an unforgettable version at the Thai Vegan stall in the Fremantle markets during my travels earlier this year. It hasn't been the type of weather for salads since then, so when we had a short burst of warm weather a couple of weeks ago it was good enough reason to give this meal a try. Tofu had been my initial choice of protein when I first thought about making this meal but after all the success I've been having with tempeh recently I figured it could also work well with the strong flavours in this salad.

I looked at many recipes online as I wasn't impressed that the recipe in my copy of Thai Food by David Thompson omitted lemongrass. I distinctly recalled this flavour from the salad at Thai Vegan as well as in other larb salads I had eaten in Thailand years ago. Every recipe I looked up seemed to have one thing or another missing and in the end I wrote out the ingredients I believed should be components and followed my gut instinct.

This was a sensational meal bursting with flavours from the garlic, shallots, chillies, lemongrass, lime juice, Thai thin soy sauce, mint and coriander. It wasn't as perfect as I hoped due to both my local Asian supermarket and green grocer selling out of Thai basil that day which is my favourite herb that is used in Thai food. I longed for some of it's aniseed flavour and also regretted being a little heavy handed with the lime juice. With my notes on hand I'm sure it will be spot on next time at which point I will post the recipe. Another wonderful thing about this meal was that it was another tempeh win so it's been 3 out of 3 so far with only one more Tempeh Tuesday to go!

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 14 - Sweet Saturdays - Choc-banana cheesecake slice

Several weeks ago I received an email from the man containing a link to a recipe - this was a total shock as I don't think he hasn't ever sent me a recipe via email before. His food requests usually come verbally and are repeats that he loves. Prior to looking at the recipe I decided that I would come through with the goods regardless of how I felt about making it. After clicking on the link I was excited that the recipe was for a chocolate banana cheesecake slice as I've never made a cheesecake, vegan or otherwise, in my life before.

One thing that was unusual about this recipe (to me anyway) was that the bananas were cooked in the oven while the base was being cooked. Apparently this is to intensify the flavour of the bananas yet we thought the banana was rather subtle in the slice so I'm not so sure about this theory. The cooked bananas were totally black on the outside after being roasted yet the banana flash within was still it's usual colour and bit softer in texture.

The slice was a big success with everyone at home, myself included, which means that it wasn't overly sweet (in case you are new to my blog, I don't have a very sweet tooth). I was requested to use Sweet William dairy-free chocolate rather than dark chocolate that was stated in the recipe which made the slice slightly less rich than it would have been with a dark chocolate. It was intended to be topped with chopped roasted almonds which isn't the most popular topping choice with my fellows so we all agreed that strawberries were an equally good option. This recipe is a keeper and one that definitely will be seen around here again.

Choc-banana cheesecake slice (Adapted from Frank Camorra's recipe on goodfood.com.au)

Anzac biscuit base
100g plain flour
90g brown sugar
60g rolled oats
50g desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon sea salt
80g dairy-free margarine
20g golden syrup
2/3 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Topping
2 bananas
250g vegan chocolate (I used Sweet William dairy-free, use dark chocolate if you prefer)
400g tofutti better than cream cheese
150g brown sugar
A punnet of strawberries, cut into halves
Icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 20cm square dish with baking paper, allowing the paper to come up the sides then grease lightly with some margarine or olive oil spray.

In a large bowl mix together the flour, sugar, oats, coconut and salt. Place the dairy-free margarine and golden syrup in a small saucepan and heat gently until the margarine has melted. Add the bicarbonate of soda which will make the mixture foamy, then remove from the heat. Stir the contents of the saucepan into the bowl containing the dry ingredients thoroughly then press this mixture into the lined dish. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden and crisp.

Cook the bananas in the oven at the same time as the Anzac base, then remove and allow them to cool down. Peel the bananas and place them into a food processor along with cream cheese and process until the mixture is smooth. Add sugar and continue processing until smooth, scraping down the sides a few times to incorporate all of the ingredients. Melt the chocolate in a microwave or in a heatproof bowl, placed over simmering water, stirring occasionally. Add the melted chocolate to the food processor and scrape down the sides so it mixes evenly.

Spread this onto the cooled biscuit base and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours. After the slice has set, use the baking paper to lift it out of the dish. Cut the slice into square pieces, top each piece with a halved strawberry and dust lightly with icing sugar. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Vegan MoFo Day 13 - Free Fridays - Creamy green pasta sauce with homemade gnocchi

This week my theme for Free Friday is called Flashback Friday. Back in my vegetarian days I used to make a decadent cream and parmesan based pasta sauce to serve over potato gnocchi on a semi-regular basis which was a favourite meal with my fellows. The gnocchi was hand made if I could afford the time as it was so much softer and lighter than any gnocchi that came out of a packet. In my early vegan days and prior to discovering the almighty powers of cashews I made a vegan version of the pasta sauce which turned out rather well. This dish had slipped my mind until I started to crave gnocchi recently (my gnocchi cravings are similar to pizza and taco cravings, once they resurface they have to be fuelled).

The creamy sauce used to be stirred through sautéed garlic, mushrooms, spring onions, sun-dried tomatoes and wilted spinach leaves before it was poured on top of the gnocchi. I was all set to recreate it this way until Kari from Bite-sized thoughts posted a recipe for a pureed spinach and white bean pasta sauce recently. I adored the colour in Kari's pasta sauce and even though I still made my own cashew based sauce I changed up the method and blended the spinach in with the rest of the sauce ingredients which resulted in a vibrant green sauce.

The mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes were hidden by this colourful sauce and I will be tempted to omit them next time I make this as the sauce is flavourful enough without them. I loved this sauce so much I won't be waiting until I can bothered making gnocchi again as the sauce would be great with any type of pasta. As I don't have time to post a version of the gnocchi recipe right now, here is the link to the recipe I have referred to for many years which always results in extremely soft gnocchi that almost melts in your mouth.

Creamy green pasta sauce 

½ cup raw unsalted cashews
1 1/3 cups soy milk
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice
30 fresh basil leaves
100g baby spinach leaves
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced

Optional extras
100-150g button mushrooms, sliced
50g sundried tomatoes, drained of oil and cut into thin strips
4 spring onions, sliced
freshly cracked black pepper

Place the cashews, soy milk, nutritional yeast, sea salt, Dijon mustard and lemon juice in a blender and process until no chunks of cashews remain and the sauce is smooth. Add the basil and spinach leaves and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides a few times of necessary to incorporate any stray pieces of basil and spinach.

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat and fry the garlic for 30 seconds or until fragrant and starting to colour slightly. If using mushrooms, add them to the pan and saute until they have softened and released their juices. Pour in the contents of the blender then rinse out the blender jar with ¼ - ½ cup of water and add this to the pan. Stir through the sundried tomatoes and spring onions (if using) and allow the sauce to heat through. Serve with pasta of your choice garnished with freshly cracked black pepper.

Vegan MoFo Day 12 - Tidy-up Thursdays - Green Chili Stew

This Green Chili Stew posted on Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist a couple of MoFos ago was initially supposed to be a part of my first MoFo Mondays post. After scanning through the recipe I realised that it was going to utilise two sorely neglected ingredients in my pantry - tinned tomatillos and hominy. It's safe to say they had been sitting there unloved for a couple of years and although I did go through a period of cooking with tomatillos a while back I had never eaten hominy before.

I made a few substitutions to Leigh's recipe to suit the vegetables I had on hand and included cooked black beans in place of crumbled tofu. I wasn't sure about the quantity of tomatillos that was used in her recipe as the tin size wasn't specified but I'm tipping it was larger than my small tin which meant that my stew didn't end up with a green colour. On the other hand I had more than enough hominy in my giant sized tin and after doubling the amount there was still plenty leftover.

The man loved the aroma of this meal when he arrived home from work and enquired what I was making for dinner. I warned him that the meal contained quinoa as he isn't the biggest fan and cleverly marketed it as a "Mexican meal" rather than a stew to keep him interested. Stews are one of his least favourite kinds of meals so I always keep the liquid to a minimum as he really doesn't enjoy soupy styled dishes. I adored the strong smoky flavours from the ancho chilli and smoked paprika throughout this dish and also enjoyed the mild corn flavour and chewy texture of the hominy. The only bothersome aspect was that the meal contained a slight metallic undertone which was most likely due to using such old tinned ingredients.

Susan from Kittens Gone Lentil posted about recipe testing for Leigh Drew's new cookbok "Veganissimo! Beautiful Vegan Food" last week, which will be released on the 15th of November and can be pre-ordered from booktopia now. I couldn't finish a post about one of Leigh's recipes without mentioning her book as I was also involved in some of the phases of recipe testing. As well as many of the curries and tandoori cauliflower cheese that Susan mentioned in her post, I was most excited by the above dish - Tostada Tofu Rancheros with Scrambled Tofu, Blackened Tofu and Roast Potatoes accompanied by Mint Salsa Verde and Guacamole. This meal was amazing! For a sneak peek of other delicious foods from Leigh's new cookbook, make sure you check out Susan's post.

Vegan MoFo Day 11 - Worldly Wednesdays - Stopover 30 - Uruguay

I was pretty excited when Uruguay turned out to be the next stopover on my virtual trip around the world as I haven't had the chance to cover many South American countries so far. The traditional cuisine of Uruguay is based on European roots, particularly Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Britain as well as influences from African and indigenous sources. Uruguayan barbecues, known as asado, are well known around the world. This is also a popular style of cooking in the neighbouring country Argentina.

After searching through my cookbooks I came across a couple of dishes that sounded like they would pair well together, a pie called Torta Pasculina in World Vegetarian Classics and Tempeh asado in Viva Vegan. Tempeh asado was the first tempeh dish I ever made and the only dish from Viva Vegan that I haven't been particularly fond of so I was keen to give it another try using tofu instead.

The original version of Torta Pasculina which is also known as Easter Torte comes from Liguria, Italy. The Italian filo covered pie is usually filled with Swiss chard or artichokes. The Uruguayan/Argentinean version in World Vegetarian Classics contains spinach, marinated red capsicums, olives, parmesan cheese and eggs and uses a shortcrust pastry. I had planned to make a pretty slack replacement for parmesan by throwing in a heap of nooch plus some salt and finally break open my packet of the Vegg to use as an egg replacement.

A number of things went wrong during the making of this pie. The shortcrust pastry I've successfully made before didn't hold together when it was being rolled out so I had to pull some puff pastry sheets out of the freezer to use instead. In the cookbook version of this pie the eggs were broken into indentations made on the top of the filling. I've had no experience with using the Vegg before and and for some reason I was under the illusion that the Veggs would set in the pie when it was baked. When the pie was cut after being baked in the oven the Vegg mixture ran everywhere and made quite a mess!

I didn't hold much hope for this meal given all of my tribulations but by this stage it was late and everyone was ravenous. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise when the pie actually tasted great. The saltiness of the olives paired with the sweet marinated capsicums worked really well together and it wasn't just our hunger talking as the leftovers were just as enjoyable. The tofu asado was much nicer than the tempeh version I don't have fond memories of although there are other recipes in Viva Vegan that hold more appeal for me.

Did you know?

The national anthem of Uruguay is the longest in duration of any country in the world. Orientales, la Patria o la Tumba contains 105 bars of music with a duration of approximately 6 minutes.

Vegan MoFo Day 10 - Tempeh Tuesdays - Tempe Panggang Bumbu Rujak

During last Vegan MoFo my around the world cooking theme introduced me to an incredibly tasty fried tempeh dish from Indonesia which has totally slipped my mind since. For my next Tuesday tempeh challenge I thought it was time to try out another dish from Indonesia as it is the home of tempeh after all. Earlier this year I had been flicking through a friends cookbook called The Best of Indonesian Cooking and took the opportunity to jot down a few of the tempeh recipes to try at a later time.

The dish I settled on making called Tempe Panggang Bumbu Rujak sounded interesting as the tempeh slices were initially cooked in an aromatic paste, and then finished off on a grill. The remainder of the cooking paste was to be served over the grilled tempeh. The paste was made up of candlenuts, red chillies, purple shallots, garlic, galangal and tamarind and coconut milk with a bruised stem of lemongrass and a couple of kaffir lime leaves add to the simmering mixture.

Although it wasn't stated in the recipe I opted to steam the tempeh slices prior to cooking them in the broth to remove any bitterness. I'm not sure whether this was entirely necessary given the robust flavours in the paste but I wanted to play it safe. The only part of the recipe I was unsure of was the stated quantity of tamarind. Tamarind is available in many forms and I'm not sure that the half teaspoon of puree I used was what the recipe intended as this flavour seemed to be non-existent.

On the other hand the coconut was a bit too dominant for my liking and I will probably play with this recipe a little when I give it another shot. The meal was another great way to enjoy tempeh and the man thoroughly enjoyed this dish so I'll post a version down the track when I tweak it to my liking. I'm pretty happy that the tempeh recipes I've cooked in the past two weeks have been really tasty dishes I would be happy to make again, hopefully the next two will work out just as good!

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!

Vegan MoFo Day 8 - Summary Sundays - Week 1

Hey there, hope you have all enjoyed the first week of Vegan MoFo and aren't doing your heads in trying to keep up with the pace! There are heaps of inspiring recipes floating around and once again my bookmarks are getting out of control but rather than share some of them today I'm going to give a shout out to some of the themes I've been enjoying so far.

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe, one of my fellow Melburnian bloggers is baking TV Dinners this month. She has been recreating some lovely looking meals inspired by a range of television shows.  

Seinfeld still remains as one of my favourite shows ever so I'm loving Seinfeld MoFo - A blog about nothing over at Naked Vegan Lunch. Crystal and Trevor have already covered one of my favourite episodes The Soup Nazi, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a calzone will pop up during the month too.

Joey from Flicking the Vs is veganising British meals for the month and has had my mouth watering with her lovely looking Chelsea buns and Mulligatawny soup.

Cadry from Cadry's Kitchen is revisiting favourite foods from her past travelling around in a virtual DeLorean fuelled by a Flax Capacitor. Check out her Back in Thyme posts - her graphic is fantastic! 

Mandee from Cupcake Kitteh's MoFo Mimic is similar to my Monday theme except she is taking inspiration from her favourite bloggers and bookmarked recipes for the entire month. 

Lazy Smurfs month long taco cleanse sounds exactly like the type of cleanse I would like to embrace. These posts stirred up my taco cravings so badly I had to whip up our favourite combination of refried beans, tofu adobe with cashew cream, guacamole and hot sauce on soft corn tortillas for dinner last night.

What are your favourites themes so far? It's easy to miss things with so much going around!

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In my theme intro I mentioned that I was going to have a surprise on Sundays. Well here it is for all you animal lovers - a short video of our 14 year cat Monty showing young Ollie who is the boss of the house. This was taken not that long after we rescued Ollie who has settled down so much in just over a year after having a pretty confusing start to life. It took a little for us to integrate these guys but thankfully they get along quite well these days.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Vegan MoFo Day 7 - Sweet Saturdays - Raspberry yoghurt cake

There was a time in my life when the majority of the cookbooks I owned were a selection of Woman's Weekly cookbooks, which had been impulse purchases during shopping trips to the supermarket. In the midst of a clean out a few years back I gave all but one of these cookbooks away to charity as the pile was so large and I hadn't been using them for ages anyway. I held onto one for nostalgic reasons as it contained a recipe for a lentil cottage pie which was the first vegetarian meal I ever cooked for my family.

When Jes from Eating Appalachia posted about a lemon blueberry yoghurt cake this week, I had an instant flashback to a raspberry yoghurt cake my husband used to bake years ago. I knew that this recipe came from one of those Woman's Weekly cookbooks and immediately went searching for the one I had retained to see if the cake we used to love was in this book. After I scanned the index and found the raspberry yoghurt cake my other baking plans for Sweet Saturdays were put on hold as I was compelled to veganise this cake that used to be such a household favourite.

It was never a complicated cake to put together and this vegan version also proved to be pretty straight forward. The cake can be made with whatever berries you have kicking around in freezer, at times we used to make it with a mixture of berries or blueberries. It's a lovely moist cake and not overly sweet which is a good thing in my book. When it comes to sweet treats I've been making slices mores than anything recently but now that this recipe has been rediscovered I'm sure it will be appearing often at home.

Raspberry yoghurt cake with cream cheese frosting (Adapted from Woman's Weekly Low-fat food for life) 

½ cup (125g) dairy-free margarine

¾ cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

6 tablespoons water

1¼ cups (200g) self-raising flour

½ cup (140g) soy (or other non-dairy) yoghurt

100g frozen raspberries

Cream-cheese frosting

60g tofutti cream cheese

20 g soy yoghurt

½ cup (55g) icing sugar

1 teaspoon lemon or lime juice

Preheat over to 180C. Grease a 14 x 21cm loaf pan and line it with baking paper.

Beat the margarine and sugar together with a hand held mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Stir the ground flaxseeds with the water in a small bowl and pour this into the bowl containing the butter and sugar mixture. Beat until just combined.

Using a wooden spoon, stir through the flour, yoghurt and raspberries until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Spread the mixture into the loaf pan.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Test for readiness with a skewer after this time, if it comes out clean the cake is ready. If not, bake for an extra 5-10 minutes.

Allow the cake to stand in the tin for 10 minutes then turn it out onto a wire rack and allow it to cool down before icing.

Whisk together the tofutti cream cheese, soy yoghurt, icing sugar and lemon/lime juice and spread over the cake.

As the icing contains tofutti cream cheese I prefer to store the cake in the refrigerator.