How Not To Be A Skinny Vegan*

Phirni

2012-01-09T04:07:00.000-08:00

Don't know what phirni is? Neither did I! But it's damn delicious and a great dessert for dinner parties because it can be made in advance.

Apparently, fir-ni, phir-ni or phir-nee, is eaten among the Muslim community of North India and also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is normally flavoured with cardamom, raisins, saffron, cashews, pistachios or almonds and can also have fruit pulp added!

This is just a basic recipe I found on the internet that I veganised for an Indian-themed dinner party that I had.The ground rice turns the hot liquid into a deliciously spice, gelatinous, cold pudding. Very yummy!

Phirni

(advanced prep needed)

1/2 cup basmati rice (or some other long grained rice)

1 litre/ 4 cups of soya milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cardamom powder

pinch of saffron

1/2 cup mix of unsalted almonds and pistachios chopped coarsely

Thoroughly wash and drain the rice. Put it into a bowl and cover with water. Soak for 2 hours.

Drain and grind the rice to a very coarse paste. I did this with my mortar and pestle but it could also be done on a hard surface with the back of a spoon. The rice needs to be broken down into small pieces but doesn't need to be completely smooth. You want to be able to see the pieces.

Put the rice paste, milk, sugar, cardamom and saffron into a deep, heavy bottomed pan and cook on medium heat till the rice is soft. Stir often to prevent the milk from scorching or burning.

Reserve some nuts for garnishing and add the remaining nuts to the phirni. Stir well.

Turn off the heat. Allow the phirni to cool, then chill in the refrigerator. You can either put it straight into the bowls you will serve it in (like I did) or put it into a bigger container and scoop the cold dessert out later into smaller bowls. I thought it looked nice in ramekins.

Garnish with remaining nuts.

Notes:

You can use brown long grain rice for this but I would suggest doubling the soaking time and making sure that when you cook the rice it is really soft before you refrigerate it.

You can add all sorts of different flavours. I tried almonds and cinnamon for Christmas and it was also really delicious.

If your soya milk has a lot of added sugar then consider cutting back on some of the sugar you add.

Vegetable and Lentil Stew with Herb Dumplings

2011-12-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

We are off to Denmark next week to spend Christmas with a friend and his family. But before we leave I thought I'd post this yummy winter stew.

My picture does not do this dish the justice it deserves. It's a really delicious, filling dish that's great for cold winter nights. It's based on the recipe for Mushroom Stew with Herb Dumplings in vegan.

I hope you all have a great Christmas and and I'll see you all in the New Year!

Vegetable and Lentil Stew with Herb Dumplings

1 potato, chopped
25 g shiitake mushrooms, halved

125g oyster mushrooms, sliced

600ml (1 pint) vegetable stock

200ml of water

125g puy lentils (dried)*

1 red onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

125g frozen peas

1 red pepper/capsicum, deseeded and chopped

125g cabbage, chopped

2 heaped tsp cornflour

2 tsp vegan bouillon powder**
2 tsp cocoa

1 tablespoon of molasses***

1 tsp vegemite****

2 tbsp tomato sauce

125ml sherry

Dumplings:

1 3/4 cup self-raising flour

1 tsp vegan bouillon powder**

1 tsp chopped sage

1 tsp chopped thyme

1 tsp chopped parsley

3 tbsp oil

1/2 cup soya milk

Place the potato, shiitake mushrooms and lentils into large saucepan with stock and water. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Mix all dumpling ingredients together in bowl. Make 12 balls (this is easier to do between 2 spoons or with 1 spoon and a hand. Two hands get rather sticky).

Add remaining vegetables to stew.

Mix the remaining stew ingredients into a small bowl. Then gradually add this to the stew. Stir constantly until stew thickens.

Sit dumplings on the stew and replace lid. Simmer for another 20 minutes until dumplings are cooked.

* We can never get dried puy lentils so use the canned ones. If you use the canned ones then don't put them in until the end just before you put the dumplings in. Alternatively, you can use red lentils or green lentils (the green ones will need pre-soaking, though, and may take longer to cook).

** If you can't get this, don't worry too much. We actually use this as the vegetable stock so just add a bit extra to make this. You could use dried vegie stock.

*** I use golden syrup instead of molasses. It's not really the same but it does the trick.

**** Or whatever yeast extract you use.

Gazpacho

2011-12-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

This recipe is super easy (as long as you have a blender/food processor), doesn't actually involve any cooking, uses up stale bread and tastes surprisingly delicious! It is based on a recipe I saw on River Cottage during their vegetarian season (on Channel4 for all you UK people). I made it much simpler by not caring about skinning and deseeding the tomatoes. If you want to do this I would suggest visiting the River Cottage website to see how Hugh does it. I also make my own croutons. He cheats.

Gazpacho

3 thick slices stale white bread (around 100g), crusts removed*

200ml cold water

1 garlic clove, crushed

1.5 kg large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced

1 red capsicum/pepper, deseeded and chopped

½ small red onion, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil for soup + 1 tbsp olive oil for toasting croutons

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper

shredded basil or chopped flat-leaf parsley

Take 2 of the bread slices and tear into pieces. Put the bread into a bowl with the crushed garlic and water. Leave to soak for 10 minutes.

Put the soaked bread and garlic, tomatoes, half the cucumber, red pepper, onion, olive oil, vinegar and sugar in a food processor (it should just fit). Process to a coarse purée and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and chill for 2–3 hours, then taste and adjust the seasoning.

Cut the final slice of bread into small squares. Brush the front and back with the oil and grill for a couple of minutes on each side to make croutons.

Serve the gazpacho topped with the croutons, shredded basil/parsley and the other half of the cucumber, chopped.

*I kept the crusts on for one of them (for my croutons) because they gave extra crunch.

Cinnamon Scrolls and Donuts (Doughnuts)

2011-12-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, I make my cinnamon scrolls and donuts with the same recipe. Topologically and semantically I might get away with it: the donuts are torus shaped and made from dough. However, I'm not sure Homer Simpson would have given my donuts the stamp of approval.

I love cookies and cake and muffins and all the really fatty, sugary stuff. It's really easy to eat something someone else made and not realise exactly how much fat and sugar goes into the product (and thus it's easy not to feel guilty about it). However, when you are physically mixing the batter and are measuring exactly how much oil and/or sugar you are using, you might not end up enjoying your lovely baked good in quite the same guiltless way.

This does not mean that the following donuts are healthy; everything in moderation. (Although, these donuts really need to be consumed on the day of baking (next day at the latest) so you might need to share in order to avoid eating them all yourself.) But these donuts are a lot healthier than your tradional donut from Krispy Kreme.

This dough recipe is based on the recipe for the dough for the Cinnamon Rolls in The Joy of Vegan Baking. In fact, my cinnamon scroll recipe is closely based around that recipe. I guess American cinnamon rolls are like Australian cinnamon scrolls and British Chelsea buns.

The dough you make will need 1-2 hours to rise so keep that in mind if you are pushed for time. You wil also need an electric stand mixer. If you don't have one you can do it just fine by hand but it'll be some work!

Also, don't be put off with the length of the recipe. It might look complicated at first glance but it is actually really simple once you have read through the instructions. And the results are well worth it!

Dough (for cinnamon scrolls and donuts)

(Dough needs 1-2 hours to rise so keep that in mind.)

4 1/2 tsp egg replacer (5 tsp ground flaxseed)

6 tbsp water

5 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp (7g sachet) active dry yeast

1 cup soya milk

1/3 cup vegan butter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Whisk egg replacer/flaxseed together with water until thick and creamy.

Using your electric mixer with the normal paddle/mixing attachment mix 2 1/4 cups of the flour with the yeast.

In a small saucepan heat the milk, butter, sugar and salt until butter is almost melted. Stir constantly. Pour into flour mixture in electric mixer and mix on low speed. Add the egg replacer mixer and turn to high/beat for 3 minutes.

Switch attachments to the hook-looking one. Put the mixer on low and mix in remaining flour gradually for 3-5 minutes until you have a moderately soft, smooth and elastic dough. You might end up with 1/2 a cup of flour left over. If you don't need it, don't use it. Your dough should be tacky but not sticky to touch.

Shape the dough into a ball and place in greased bowl. Let it rise for 1-2 hours in a warm place or until the dough has doubled in size.

Once the dough has doubled, punch it down, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover with a clean tea towel and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then roll it out.

Cinnamon Scrolls

advanced prep required: scrolls needs about 1 hour to rise (this is in addition to the 1-2 hours above)

soya milk for brushing

Filling:

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1/2 cup vegan butter, softened

1/2 raisins

3/4 cup chopped walnuts (or other)

Icing:

1 cup icing/confectioners' sugar

2 tbsp vegan butter, melted

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp soya milk

Prepare your dough as above.

Mix all the filling ingredients together.

Roll the dough into a 30cm square (12-inches for those of you still living in my grandma's era).

Spread the filling out over the dough. Do this evenly.

Roll the dough into a log (so that you can see the spirals at the ends). Pinch at the end to seal.

Slice the log into 8 equal slices (you should havd little flat cylinders with sprials of yummy filling showing). Place the slices on a greased tray or baking paper.* Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes-1 hour in a warm place until they double in size (keep this in mind when placing).

Preheat the oven to 190C (375F) and (uncover and) brush the scrolls with the soya milk. Bake for 25-30 minutes until they are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes.

To make icing combine all the icing ingredients in a bowl. After the scrolls have cooled for 5 minutes drizzle the icing over them. Serve warm. Best eaten day of baking (or next day at the latest).

*You can actually do all of this the day before and then put them in the fridge and carry on with the instructions from here.

(Healthier) Donuts

Prepare your dough as above.

Cut out donut shapes. I do this by using a wide glass for the outside circle and a small, sample-size jam jar for the inner circle. I'm sure you can also buy donut cutters or you could do it free-hand. You should end up with a bunch of donuts and holes. Keep both.

Place the donuts + holes on a greased or baking paper lined tray. Cover with cling wrap/film and let rise for 45min-1 hour. Donuts and holes should double in size.

Preheat oven to 190C (375F). Uncover the donuts and brush with soya milk. Baked for 10-15 minutes until the bottoms start to turn golden brown.

Remove from oven and place on cooling rack.

If you want to ice your donuts then let them cool completely and ice with whatever your favourite glaze is (the icing for the scrolls will do with a bit of cocoa if you like chocolate). If you want the traditional cinnamon donut then let them cool a little (a few minutes will do) then give them a quick spray with oil and roll them in a cinnamon-sugar mix (1 tsp cinnamon to 1/2 cup sugar).

Best eaten day of baking (or next day at the latest).

RSS Feed Gadget Added

2011-10-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

You can now subscribe to my blog via RSS feed using whatever service you prefer. You can find the option at the top of the left hand column.

I've been in the Peak District again this weekend. Lots of food reviews to come as well as some yummy new recipes!

Soba and Kombu Dashi soup

2011-10-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

Kombu dashi. I used dark soya sauce so my soup is quite dark. A light soya sauce will give a lighter soup.

I really love Japanese food. I especially love Japanese soups; they are low in fat but are warm and yummy on an autumn's afternoon.

We recently had a Japanese PhD student visiting our lab for a few months and she introduced us to a lot of Japanese food and cooking we would never have known about. And her father owns a chain of sushi restaurants in Japan so I think we can take it for granted that she knows what she is talking about!

I recently asked her for a recipe for some sort of soba noodle soup. She gave me the below recipe (to which I've added only minor comments). It involves something called kombu which is dried kelp to make the base soup. We found some in our local Asian grocer (although the packet is not necessarily going to be in English so you should ask someone). Besides from that the ingredients are pretty standard.

Kombu. An essential, pre-prepared ingredient for the soup base.

Soba and Kombu Dashi soup

for the kombu dashi (advanced prep needed)

6 cups water

3 x 2 inch pieces of kombu

for the noodle soup

400g/14 oz. dried soba (buckwheat noodles)
1/3 cup soya sauce
2 tbsp mirin
1/2 tsp salt

for the topping

~300g block of tofu

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 leek, finely chopped

1 sheet nori, shredded

In advance:

The kombu dashi soup base can be made in 2 different ways: a quick way or a long (better) way.

For both ways you take the kombu pieces and tear a couple of one inch tears on each end of the piece. This is to give the water somewhere newly exposed to seep in to. The piece should still be whole just with tears on each end (see picture).

Tear the ends of the kombu about 1 inch.

The long way to make the kombu dashi is to place the pieces in the 6 cups of water and soak for at least 4 hours (overnight is fine). The quicker way is to soak for 20 minutes and then slowly bring the soaking kombu to the boil. Before it starts bubbling, take it off the heat. After you've done either of these you need to strain the water to remove the pieces of kombu and anything else. To do this use a sieve and line it with 2 paper towels. Pour the liquid through the paper towels and sieve. You should collect some very clear, pure liquid at the other end. Discard the pieces and keep the clear liquid. The clear liquid is your kombu dashi.

To make the soup:

First fry the tofu. To do this you should pat your tofu block with paper towels to absorb as much liquid as possible. Then slice the tofu up into small chunks. Heat the sesame oil in a wok on high and fry the tofu for 2-3 minutes on each side. Once fried, place the tofu on clean paper towels to soak up some of the oil.

Cook your soba noodles according to the packet instructions (normally boil water, add soba, boil for 6-7 minutes, drain, rinse with cold water).

Heat the kombu dashi soup with the soya sauce, mirin, and salt in a large pot to make the soup.

Serve the soba noodles into four bowls. Pour the hot boiling soup over the noodles. Put the toppings on top of the noodles in each bowl.

Serves four.

Get Stuffed!

2011-09-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

Stuffed vegetables are awesome. Especially when you stuff the vegetables with more vegetables! The weather is getting colder so warm, yummy food with lots of vegatables (and vitamins), like the pictured dish, is more than welcome.

My general rule with stuffed vegetables goes a little something like: use whatever is in your fridge. I've posted about a stuffed field mushroom recipe before. However, zucchinis/courgettes stuffed with a delicious vegan pate is just as yummy. How do you make this delicious vegan pate? Well! I'm glad you asked.

Vegan Pate

adapted from vegan

1 cup red lentils

1/2 brown onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 cup of vegetable stock

1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 tsp vegemite/marmite*

2 tbsp chopped dates

1 tbsp canola/rapeseed oil

1 tsp soya milk

1 tsp chopped thyme

Put lentils in a saucepan and cover with cold water (water should be about 2-3 inches above the lentils). Bring lentils to the boil then drain and rinse.

Return lentils to the saucepan with the onion, garlic and vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Drain the lentils again. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Blend the lentil mix in the pot using a hand held stick blender or transfer the mix into a food processor/blender/liquidiser and blend until smooth.

Eat hot or cold.

If you want to stuff courgettes with the pate just cut about 1/4 of each courgette away along the length and scoop out the inside with a teaspoon. Brush with oil and bake for 15 minutes. Then add the pate and bake for another 10 minutes. If you are having trouble getting the courgette to sit flat then slice a sliver off the bottom edge, along the length.

The pate is also great on toast or crusty bread. I used it for a couple of days on sandwiches on fresh, grain bread with some vegan luncheon meat. It was very yummy!

* Or some sort of yeast extract paste.

Absence

2011-09-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead nor have I given up on cooking. I'm just super, super busy! But I have many new recipes to share and lots of reviews of restaurants from all over Europe so hang in there a little longer and I promise to update very soon!

Mildreds (Soho, London, UK)

2011-07-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours has been long recommendingng the decadent vegan chocolate & raspberry truffle cake at Mrs Marengo's in Soho. Unfortunately, they aren't open on weekends (and are only open for breakfast and lunch on week days) which is the only time we can make it down to London.

Luckily for us Mrs Marengo's is actually the sister cafe of Mildreds Vegetarian Restaurant which is only two doors up on the same street in Soho. And they also have the chocolate & raspberry truffle cake!

Mildreds is small, like all London restaurants, but very airy and light. The service is very good and the servers seem to know most of their customers quite well which is nice although it can get a little hard to get their attention when they are chatting.

The food was really yummy, very well presented and came out quite quickly. We really enjoyed our meal, especially since we'd run into the restaurant sheltering from a storm, but the bill was a bit on the high end. It was even more insult to injury when we looked at the menu from Mrs Marengo's and realised that much of the menu was the same but about half the price. Sure, the service in a cafe is very different to the service in a restaurant and it was the weekend, but it did make us feel a little cheated.

sri lankan sweet potato and cashew nut curry served with yellow basmati rice with peas and tomato sambal

mixed mushroom, porcini and ale pie served with fries and mushy peas

My recommendation would be to go on a weekday and go to the cafe instead but if you are looking for a nice vegetarian dinner or somewhere on the weekends it's worth a visit to Mildreds. Just be prepared for about £6+£10+£6 for starter, main and dessert.

Corn Fritters

2011-06-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

It's May Week here in Cambridge and for a whole week the town gets stuck in some sort of high society time warp. The entire student population pretty much stays in black tie attire for the week as they ball hop with the only exception to this rule being when they don their blazers and hat and gloves for the garden parties. It's an experience so out of touch with the rest of the world it's almost embarrassing. It's also a lot of fun.

May Week begins with Suicide Sunday. It's the Sunday after exams have finished for everyone and, apparently more importantly, the Sunday after Bumps have concluded (Bumps is a rowing thing that I'm not entirely sure I understand). There are many garden parties on from about 9am to 10pm and lots of people end up drinking all day and feeling very sorry for themselves the day after.

We decided to start our Suicide Sunday with a vegan champagne brunch at our house and I made lots of yummy vegan goodies. One of the biggest successes was some very easy to make corn fritters.

Corn Fritters

1 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp frozen corn/sweetcorn

4 tbsp self-raising flour (wholemeal, if you have it)

2 tsp dried vegan veggie stock or bouillon powder

4 tbsp soya milk

2 tsp cider vinegar

3 tbsp chopped chives (about half a bunch)

pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Heat 1 tsp of oil in a pan and fry corn for a few minutes until it is hot.

Combine flour, bouillon powder, milk, vinegar, chives and pepper in a bowl. Add sweetcorn and stir thoroughly.

Heat the remaining oil in the pan again and add tablespoons of the mixture to the pan. Fry on the first side for 30 seconds (do not flatten yet) then flip. Then with the back of the spatula press the fritter down until it is under 1cm thick. Cook on the second side until golden brown. Flip again and cook on the first side until also golden brown.

Transfer the fritters to a lined baking tin and bake for 5-10 minutes until they rise a little.

Garlic Bread

2011-06-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

You will have to forgive my lack of posting recently. I've had exams. And if any of you are ever wondering if you should do Part III maths exams at Cambridge the answer is: no. No, don't do it. It's horrid.

While I was studying Geoff was kind enough to go away so that I could have the house to myself. However, this did mean that I had no one to cook me dinner at my command so I had to come up with a few quick, easy and tasty meals.

Pasta, of course, is very easy to make especially if you cheated and bought some vegan pesto from your local vegetarian store (which Cambridge has). Sometimes, however, you feel like you need something else to make your meal a little more interesting. And this is how I discovered how to make a very easy garlic bread.

Garlic Bread

2-4 slices of bread

2 tbsp of vegan butter

1 clove of garlic, crushed and chopped very finely

1 tsp Italian herbs* (dried is fine)

Put the grill on.

Put the bread slices in the toaster on the lowest setting. This is to ensure that when you put the butter on the toast and put it under the grill it is firm enough to not go soggy but not toasted enough to burn.

While the toast is toasting mix the butter, garlic and herbs in a small bowl. Once the toast is up let it cool for about a minute and then spread the garlic butter over the slices.

Put the slices under the grill, butter side up, until the edges and garlic start to go golden brown.

This recipe could also easily be adapted to go on a warm baguette (put in the oven for 10 minutes or so) or some other, more traditional breads.

* Supermarkets do tend to carry a "Italian herbs" bottle of spices that we buy. If you aren't a fan of this, or you can't get any, you basically just need basil, parsely and small amount of oregano and thyme.

Iodine & Sushi

2011-05-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit that a vegan diet takes a lot of consideration in order to get all the right vitamins. However, this certainly does not justify a non-vegan diet. The world is (scarily) full of people who don't get enough of the right things whether they eat meat or not. If anything being vegan has made me more aware of how to eat better and I think that's a great thing.

In the UK, New Zealand and Australia there have been increasing numbers of people with iodine deficiencies (see this). There are lots of reasons for this including a move away from salt and dairy but it's a bit scary because a lack of iodine is linked with horrid things like breast and stomach cancer, mental retardation and thyroid problems (although too much iodine can also cause thyroid problems and harm your baby if you are pregnant so be careful!).

In our little household we do use salt quite a bit in cooking but we use sea salt so it does not have the added bonus of iodine (where as table salt, at least in Australia, does). A good source of iodine is seafood but as we are a vegan household (except for the cheese Geoff sneaks in the shopping trolley, to my horror) that fact is not of much use. Luckily, seaweed is also a good source of iodine so bring on the sushi!

Seaweed is a good source of iodine for vegans who don't eat iodised salt.

Until today I was quite concerned about my iodine intake. The UK doesn't have very good soil so vegetables etc are quite iodine poor. In Brisbane I used to eat sushi at least once a week but here it is not the same quick, cheap, fresh snack it is in Australia. Our last (and first) trip to a sushi train here in Cambridge cost us £25! But then Geoff came home with a sushi mat, nori, Japanese rice, tofu and avocado. And for the very first time I made my own sushi.

Rolling the sushi requires a knack that I am yet to obtain. But it was still yummy!

I cooked 2 cups of the rice according to the packet instructions but then I added 2 tbsp mirin and stirred. I then spread all of the rice out onto a tray. Then I mixed 1/4 cup rice vinegar with a little salt and 1 tsp sugar and spread this evenly over the cooling rice. Then I stirred the rice, spread it out again and let it cool a little more.

For each roll I used 1 sheet of nori (shiny smooth side down) and 1 cup of rice (spread over 2/3 of the nori). I then made an indent half way on the rice (so 1/3 the way up the entire thing), placed the fillings in and then rolled. I have no idea how to roll properly but am hoping I will learn soon enough.

The fillings I used were avocado, fried tofu marinated in kecap manis (sweet, thick soy sauce) and vegetables (sundried tomatoes, spring onions, carrot).

I readily admit my rolls weren't as neat as the ones you get in a restaurant or stall but making them yourself means that they are much fresher so are really delicious! And it's a lot cheaper too!

If you want to know more about a vegan diet and iodine check out this link. It does suggest a supplement is the best way to get the right amount of iodine but eating some sushi now and then will help out as well!

Comfort Food

2011-05-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

Skillet Gardener's Pie

I'm studying at the moment which is why I have been a little absent. Geoff has been doing all the cooking and I've been breaking my procrastination up between episodes of the L-word (which I'm about as fond of as Gossip Girl (which, if you did not already know, is a very very bad show) but that ain't stopping me from watching it), posting on Facebook about how angry I am about various things (voting referendum, human rights violations, Geoff breaking my Tupperware can opener etc etc) and pilates.

Right now I'm posting this as a break from climate change study. I smelled Geoff cooking in the kitchen and it reminded me of something I've been wanting to say on my blog for quite a while. It goes something like this: FatFree Vegan Kitchen's Skillet Gardener's Pie is one of the most delicious, comforting foods I've eaten for quite a while and it's super easy to make!

Now, I know it's very lazy of me to just steal someone else's recipe and post about it. Normally, I find a recipe and tweak it to my liking (and convert from those horrid imperial units to nice metric ones) but this recipe was so tasty as it was that there's not much point pretending to change it.

The only variation we did try was to use sweet potato on top instead of normal potato and it worked just as well. The sweet potato, however, is a little thinner so add the milk slowly as you may not need as much.

With sweet potato topping instead of potato.

While we are on the topic of comfort food (and FatFree Vegan Kitchen) I thought I'd also mention Susan V's Herbed Polenta with Beans and Bok Choi recipe. This was the first time I had ever cooked with polenta and was curiously surprised by the way it thickens up in the saucepan (I don't have a pressure cooker so couldn't cook it the way she suggests). It was quite easy to cook although all the stirring certainly gave me a work out. However, I was a little disappointed with its lack of flavour and how heavy it was in the dish. Most of the casual cooks I know love polenta but it just didn't float my boat. The vegetables in the dish too were a little bit of a disappointment (I used balsamic vinegar, since white vinegar seems impossible to get here, and I'm not sure if it was that that caused the unusual, biting taste the vegetables had or if the dish just wasn't to my taste).

Herbed Polenta with Beans and Bok Choi

I still like the idea of the dish, though, and I like that polenta is filling and easy to make so I might try to build on the recipe in the future. Any ideas or other similar recipe suggestion would be most welcomed!

Zilli Green (London, UK)

2011-04-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

*Note from restaurant: Zilli Green is being relocated from Monday 25th July 2011 and will no longer be in Dean Street. To make sure our vegetarian customers are not neglected whilst this transition happens we have a selection of Vegetarian Dishes from the menu available in Zilli Fish restaurant, this will be cooked by our Zilli Green Head Chef to ensure the quality of the meals. Please call 0207734 8649 for more information or to make a reservation.*

Zilli Green is a very neat little vegetarian restaurant tucked away on Dean St, Soho. Like everything in London (and the UK) it is very small but the setting is very pleasant nonetheless.

We ate here on the weekend as a bit of a treat. I call it a treat because the service, menu planning, quality of food and ambiance all were absolutely fantastic. However, don't be confused when you see the prices which were quite reasonable for a Soho meal (£9-13 for a main) and well below what I would expect for the service we received.

I was desperate to try the vegan tiramisu so I skipped the starter to make sure I had room for it. For the main I ordered the tofu steak which was very well presented and quite tasty. I do regret not going for the soya burger but I will be sure to visit again.

Geoff ordered the Malasian Laksa which he said was really good. The vegan options were clearly labelled but seem to contradict the website (for example the laksa is vegan on the website but not on the inhouse menu and vice versa for the tiramisu). Our friend ordered the Tagliatelle, Porcini Mushrooms & White Truffle Oil (which can be made vegan) and she was also quite impressed with it. This was the more expensive of the mains on the menu but the portion size very very generous (a lot bigger than my tofu steak) so probably worth it if you are hungry (she was very full by the end of it).

The tiramisu ended up being a bit of a disappointment. As much as I appreciate the fact that they had a vegan tiramisu it seemed to lack the potency of a liqueur. I could taste too much of the cake and not enough of the creamy, chocolatey goodness.

Geoff, however, was lucky enough to order the vegan cheesecake which was absolutely delicious. So I ate my dessert and then ate some of Geoff's!

As you can see the food was beautifully presented and, for the most part, was quite tasty. The desserts were quite pricey (£7-9) but if you want a special, romantic or celebratory night out this would be a place to consider. Just be warned that you need to be double jointed to use the tiny, tiny bathroom and that it's a unisex toilet so there's no guarantee the last person put the toilet seat down!

Food For Thought (London, UK)

2011-04-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

We went down to London yesterday to see Hamlet at the National Theatre. Of course I like to get as many London vegan meals in as possible so we booked a table at Zilli Green (review to come) for dinner and planned to go to WholeFoods to stock up on vegan cosmetics and have some lunch. Geoff, however, had a different plan and we ended up in Chinatown before I knew it so he could get some Pandan Mochi. Since we were short on time we decided to have lunch somewhere closer.

Geoff had actually been introduced to Food for Thought earlier that week by a friend of ours (who is also from Brisbane but is living in London for a little bit). He loved it so, with the help of my extremely unreliable GPS and GoogleMaps, we ended up there for a very fast lunch.

The restaurant is located in Covent Garden on Neal St so is easy to get to but it doesn't exactly stand out so you can walk past it without knowing it (which we kind of did).

Once you are inside you head down some narrow stairs (take-away only is up the top) and are greeted with a small blackboard explaining the pricing and a very cheery server who explains today's options.

The room is not that big but there are bathrooms and there was plenty of spare seating (although it was Easter Saturday so London was very quiet). The tables have bowls of raw sugar, sea salt and pepper and you get glasses with your meal and there is water on each table that is regularly filled.

For £8 you can get a bowl of a "main" (I had a Mediterranean stew and Geoff had a Japanese stew but there was also a vegetarian lasagne and a vegan sweet potato and rice bake available) with your choice of salads. The salad helpings were very generous and the stews were really delicious so we felt it was very good value for money. There are cheaper options (just salad or main by itself or soup for around £4) and there looked like lots of desserts but I'm not sure if any were vegan.

Geoff was so impressed with the food he bought their recipe book so look forward to some recipes from it. And in general we were quite impressed with the place so will go back regularly and I highly recommend it for a hearty lunch or dinner.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention was their "food philosophy". Every day the menu is different and made fresh and the day's menu is determined by what fresh, seasonal ingredients they can get their hands on. This means that the vegetables were fresh and delicious and their carbon footprint is a little less.

EDIT: We recently returned here but this time for dinner. Unfortunately, most of the food was sold out by then so we didn't get the yummy stew we were expecting. We also noticed a lot of people walked out when they realised there was no butternut squash soup. The chef obviously only makes a certain amount each day so if you want access to the full range I would recommend lunch or an early dinner.

Chocolate Beetroot Cake

2011-04-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

While we are on the subject of beetroot I would highly recommend this Can't Be Beet Chocolate Cake. It is super moist and has a delicious earthy chocolate taste. And it's low fat! The Forest in Brisbane used to have a cake that was similar (which was gluten free but not low fat) so it made me a little homesick.

I made it without the sauce simply because it is so delicious I didn't think it needed it. But I'm sure it would taste great with maybe a beetroot glaze or a berry frosting.

EDIT: Since first posting this I've had a lot of people contact me about how weird they think chocolate beetroot cake is. It's very much not weird! If you are in Brisbane you all need to go to The Forest in West End and try some! Or cook this one! It really is just delicious.

Beetroot Burgers

2011-04-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a little while ago that my cousin had asked me to find the ultimate vegan burger recipe. I liked the Spicy Bean and Lentil Patties but thought I'd also try some other recipes. Of course my first point of reference was FatFree Vegan Kitchen and found the Roasted Beet-Tofu Burgers. However, I found the patties to be very sloppy and messy to eat. Although they look okay (see photo below) I thought the tofu in the patty made it far too soft and because you don't cook it separately it was a little bland.

After this attempt I decided to change things a little. I've been trying to move away from using too much tofu to using more beans. I've been buying lots of beans/chickpeas etc in dry form and soaking and cooking them myself. It is more effort but drastically reduces waste and energy use. The two ingredients you can prepare yourself to "save the world" I've listed under Advanced Preparation ingredients. However, I know not everyone has the time to be super green all of the time so there are alternative ingredients for the beets and chickpeas below the recipe and you won't need to do any of the advanced preparation steps.

Beetroot Burgers

Advanced preparation ingredients:

3/4 cup dried chickpeas*

2 large fresh beets**

On the day of cooking ingredients:

1 tbsp ground flaxseed*** + 4 tbsp water

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp oil

1 cup fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs

1 tsp cumin, curry powder, hot chili powder

salt and pepper

Advanced preparation methods:

Soak the chickpeas overnight & cook according to packet. This will need to be done in advance.

Preheat oven to 180C. Trim the tops and roots off the beets but don't peel. Wrap each in foil and bake for an hour. Let the beets cool. Like the chickpeas this can be done in advance.

On the day of cooking methods:

When you are ready to make the burgers peel the beets and chop roughly and set aside.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion for a few minutes and then add the garlic and fry for another minute or so. Set aside to cool a little.

Put the cooked chickpeas and flaxseed + water in a food processor and blend until it looks a little like chunky bread crumbs. Add the onion, garlic and beetroot and blend a little more (if you aren't careful you'll end up with big chunks of beetroot like I did). Transfer to large bowl.

Add the breadcrumbs and spices and mix. You should have something that sticks together quite well but is squishy enough to be shaped easily in the palm.

Grab small handfuls to roll into small balls. Then you can cook them according to either method below.

Cooking Method 1:

Heat a frying pan to medium heat with some oil (spray or liquid). Place the ball into the pan and flatten very gently with a spatula. Cook about 5-8 minutes on each side watching that they don't burn. If your patty isn't flat enough you are better to let it cook on the first side and then flatten it further on the second side.

Cooking Method 2 (fat free):

Spoon balls onto a lined baking tray and flatten gently with palm. Cook for about 40-60 minutes. If you want you can check after 30 minutes and flip the burgers.

If you don't flip the burgers in the oven the downside will be
a little paler and less crispy but no less tasty.

* Alternatively, just use a 400g can of cooked chickpeas and ignore my chickpea cooking instructions.

** Alternatively, you can buy precooked beets in a tin or from the fresh food section of your supermarket. If you do this you'll need about 4 and you'll just need to roughly chop them and ignore the beet cooking instructions.
*** I'm sure some other egg replacer would work but I would recommend flaxseed for the Omega-3 and the creamy taste.


I'm not sure what is called beets where and what is called beetroots elsewhere but you are basically looking for something that looks like this.

Peach Bluba

2011-04-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

So I have absolutely no idea if bluberries are in season or not. Since this is the UK I'm going to guess... not. But these little dudes were in my freezer and spring is pretty much here so I felt I needed some fruit dessert to celebrate. So this is my take on the classic Peach Melba which I have called Peach Bluba. Because of the blueberries. Also because I'm very clever and funny.

This dessert is ridiculously easy to make but very tasty and has some heat to take away the chill on these early spring nights but enough fruit to remind you that warmer days are on their way!

Peach Bluba

2 x peach halves*

1/2 cup frozen blueberries**

3 tbsp sugar***

1 scoop vegan ice cream

Place the sugar and blueberries in a saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly until the blueberries are heated throughout and they've release some of their purple juices so you have a nice, warm, viscous sauce. Remove from heat and let stand for a couple of minutes.

Place peach halves in a bowl with the ice cream. Spoon the berries over the peaches and ice cream and drizzle the blueberry sauce over as well.

* If you live in England they'll have to come out of a can because the fresh ones are just terrible at the moment.

** You could use fresh ones if you live somewhere closer to the equator.

*** I actually used fructose sugar because my agave nectar phase died out but I'm still not a big cane sugar fan.

Vegetable Pilau

2011-03-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

If you just have some rice and vegetables and are looking for something easy but tasty for dinner then I can highly recommend this vegetable rice dish. I'm not 100% sure of the differences of pilau/pilaf/etc but I think pilau has its roots in the Middle East so that's where I've stuck it.

Vegetable Pilau

1 cup basmati rice

2 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

2 bay leaves

4 green cardamom pods

4 cloves

1 onion, finely diced

1 carrot, finely diced

1/3 cup frozen peas, thawed

1/3 cup frozen or canned corn/sweetcorn, thawed if frozen

1/4 cup cashew nuts

2 cups water

1/4 tsp ground cumin

salt

Wash the basmati in cold water, cover with water and leave to soak for 30 mins.

While rice is soaking get a non-stick frying pan and dry roast the cashews in the pan over a medium heat for a couple of minutes. Make sure you move the pan while roasting so that they don't burn. Turn out the nuts onto a plate to cool and return the pan to the stove.

Heat the oil in the pan and fry the cumin seeds for 2 minutes. Add the bay leaves, cardamoms and cloves and fry for 2 minutes. Add the onion and fry for 5 minutes until softened and lightly browned. Stir in the carrot and cook for 4 minutes. Drain the rice and add to the pan with the peas, corn and cashew nuts and fry for 5 minutes. Then add to this the 2 cups of water, ground cumin and salt. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes over a low heat until all the water is absorbed. Take it off the heat and then let it stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Note: The cloves, cardamoms and bay leaves are quite strong for the unsuspecting diner so if you like their flavour in the dish but are not so crash hot on biting into them I strongly suggest taking them out as you are leaving the dish to stand. I certainly take them out!

Teriyaki Sauce

2011-03-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

Stir fries are quick and easy. And if you use as many vegetables as I do then they are also full of vitamins. Our favourite sauce is normally made with black beans but we recently discovered this yummy teriyaki sauce and it's now used as often as the black bean sauce.

Teriyaki Sauce

adapted from vegan cooking

4 tbsp soy sauce (preferable dark)

4 tbsp dry sherry

4 tbsp mirin

1 tsp sugar

Mix all the ingredients together then heat the mixture in a wok or frying pan.

To use toss the pre-cooked vegetables and/or noodles in the heated sauce.

To the left is a dish I made by steaming the carrot and spring onion, grilling the asparagus, frying the tofu and slicing it and just adding the noodles to the sauce. Below is where I've thrown everything in with the sauce.

Spicy Bean and Lentil Loaf/Patties

2011-03-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

One of my many cousins recently decided to give being vegetarian a try. She had tried previously but it didn't stick. This time I suggested the weekday vegetarian diet. She did and she's doing rather well at it! She even says that when she gets to the weekend she doesn't feel like eating meat.

Vegetarian cooking can be a bit daunting at first. The reason I love vegan cooking so much is because it requires so much imagination (unlike, say, Heston Blumenthal rolling four meats together, sticking them in hot water (sorry, water bathing them) and acting like he just invented cooking itself*). However, sometimes this need of creativity can be exhausting. My cousin, however, seems to have dived right in and had a bunch of questions for me... some of which I couldn't answer.

One of the questions she asked me was how to make vegan burger patties. Ummm. Good question.

I had tried making patties once before and they turned out absolutely horrid. This time it was a complete accident. I was veganising a lentil loaf recipe out of Vegetarian again when I realised I couldn't fit all the ingredients in the food processor. So I split my batch up, put the first batch in the loaf pan, realised it was full, stuck it in the oven and pondered what to do with the rest of the ingredients. Then I remembered my cousin's request for a burger recipe.

Well, they turned out just great as both a loaf and a patty.

Spicy Bean and Lentil Loaf/Patties

2 tsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic, crushed

2 celery sticks, finely chopped

400g can kidney beans, drained

400g can green/brown lentils, drained

2 heaped teaspoons of ground flaxseed** + 4 tbsp water

1 carrot, grated

1/2 cup vegan cheese, grated***

1 cup breadcrumbs

2 tbsp tomato sauce/ketchup

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp hot chilli powder

salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion, garlic and celery for 5 mins on low-medium heat. Remove from heat and let cool.

Whisk the flaxseed and water together until it is creamy. Put the flaxseed mixture, onion mixture and bean and lentils in a food processor/blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the remaining ingredients.

The lentil loaf tastes great cold with salad or hot with vegies.

To make lentil loaf:

Preheat the oven to 180C, lightly grease a loaf tin, put mix in loaf tin and baked for 1 hour. My mix needed a bit longer but make sure you check it often if you leave it for over an hour.


Cooking the first side quickly then flipping ensures you can squash your patty down without it falling apart or getting stuck to the spatula.

To make patties:

Heat some oil in a pan on medium heat. Spoon out a ball of mixture (it ball should be big enough to just put your hand around), roll it gently in your hands and place it in the pan. Leave it for a minute then flip the ball (this ensures you have one side that's cooked enough to be prodded without sticking). Flatten with a spatula making sure the spatula is clean so the mix doesn't stick to it. Turn the heat down to low. This is important because you want the heat to cook through the patty, which takes a while, without burning the outside. Leave for about 5 minutes and then flip again. Leave for another few minutes. Repeat for the other patties (you can cook more than on at once just make sure you turn the heat up before each batch so the first side cooks a little quicker than the second side).

Serve with some salad, hummus and chilli sauce on a bun.

* Okay, calling Heston Blumenthal unimaginative is a bit of a stretch but I'd respect his creativity a lot more if he challenged himself and didn't rely so heavily on meat.

** You can use egg replacer if you want but remember that flaxseed is full of omega 3!

*** I swear there is nothing that tastes as bad as vegan cheese but inside the loaf you can't taste it. If you don't have any lying around just leave it out.

Leek, Mushroom and Lemon Risotto

2011-03-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

This recipe is a veganised version of a recipe I found in the wonderfully colourful Vegetarian. The lemon adds quite a nice flavour and considering that it is not a difficult recipe to prepare and that leeks have the nifty attribute of being in season in the UK from September to March I think this is a great recipe for cold winter nights. We shared this one over a bottle of wine with some friends.

If you want to try to keep to seasonal ingredients ignore the lemon rind and just use bottled lemon juice.

Leek, Mushroom and Lemon Risotto

225g trimmed leeks (about 3)

225g brown-cap mushrooms

2 tbsp olive oil

3 garlic cloves, crushed

salt and pepper

6 tbsp vegan butter

1 brown onion

1 3/4 cup aborio rice

5 cups vegie stock

3 tbsp lemon juice

lemon rind, grated

2/3 cup vegan parmesen

2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped

2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Wash the leeks and slice them in half lengthways then chop roughly. Chop the mushrooms roughly too. Heat oil in a saucepan and cook the garlic for 1 minute and then add the leeks, mushrooms and lots of salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes until soft and browned. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add 2 tbsp of the butter to the just emptied pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and cook for 1 minute until golden. Add a ladleful of stock and cook gently, stirring now and then. Once the liquid is absorbed add another ladleful until it is absorbed. Repeat this process until the risotto is thick and creamy and the rice is tender but not sticky.

Just before serving add the leeks and mushrooms with the rest of the butter, grated rind and 3 tbsp of the lemon juice. Adjust the seasoning and serve.

Red Pesto

2011-03-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

I decided to try out a roasted pepper pesto recipe from The Perfect Pantry but I pretty much suck at sticking to recipes and came up with my own. The real reason for this was that the roasted peppers (capsicum) that I bought were soaked in brine and I thought brine was salty water but apparently their definition of brine is vinegar. So my pesto tasted a lot like vinegar. The recipe also called for more vinegar and I added this except I didn't really look at the bottle it was coming from and so it turned out I added sesame oil and not balsamic vinegar.

Yes, I suck at sticking to recipes.

I would not recommend adding the sesame oil.

Red Pesto

1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted in oil free pan for few minutes
12 oz/340 g roasted red peppers/capsicum (from jar, weight after drained)

1/2 cup firmly packed fresh parsley leaves

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup olives (pitted)

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (leave this out if peppers are in brine)
1 pinch of mild red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Put ingredients in food processor and blend until smooth. If pesto is a little sticky or looks like dough add another tbsp of oil.

Makes enough pesto for 500 grams of dried pasta.

Gado Gado

2011-03-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

My father has owned his own business and has worked long hours for most of my life so I don't have many childhood memories of Dad being involved in my schooling. The one memory I do have is from when I was about nine and our school had an Indonesian day (since Indonesia is one of our closest neighbours we learned Indonesian in school). Dad took time off work and came to the school for the celebration and I remember sitting on the little tiny playground benches eating peanut satay chicken kebabs on banana leaves proudly eating with my Dad. Ever since that day I've loved peanut sauces (although I gave up on the chicken a while ago).

(Mum drove us everywhere and came to every other school event but I only remember Dad's solo visit. Poor Mum.)

Gado Gado is a traditional Indonesian dish of vegetables served with a peanut sauce. The only downside to peanut sauces are that they are quite high in fat but they are goddamn tasty so I'm happy to treat myself now and then. And considering the amount of vegetables you eat with this dish it's not too bad of a balance.

The things that makes this dish is the sauce so as long as you have that you can change the vegetables to whatever you have in the cupboard. However, I've included a recipe for a vegetable mixture because I loved the crunchy texture of it.

The only odd ingredient in this mix is the galangal. I've not seen it in the UK or in Australia fresh but we found a jar of galangal at Tesco and I just use that. It's popped up in a few recipes so it's handy to have. I imagine it would be easy to come across in Chinatown in Australia or maybe even just the supermarket.

Gado Gado

adapted from Vegetarian: the best-ever recipe collection

250g white cabbage, shredded

4 carrots, matchsticked

4 celery sticks, matchsticked

4 cups/250g beansprouts

1/2 cucumber, matchsticked

3 tbsp peanut oil

1/2 brown onion, cut into rings

salted peanuts, to garnish

chilli, sliced to garnish

Peanut Sauce

1 tbsp peanut oil

1/2 brown onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tbsp minced galangal

1/4 tsp ground chilli powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp lime juice

4 tbsp crunchy peanut butter

1 tsp soft light brown sugar

To cook the vegetables heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion rings and set aside on a paper towel to cool. Steam the cabbage, carrot and celery for 3-4 minutes (you want them tender but still with some crunch). Spread beansprouts on a plate and place steamed vegies and cucumber on top.

To make the sauce heat the oil in a saucepan and add onion and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in spices (including galangal) and cook for 1 min further. Add lime juice, peanut butter and sugar and mix well. Heat sauce gently, stirring occasionally and adding a little hot water if necessary to make the sauce runny enough to be poured but still thick.

Spoon some of the sauce over the vegetables, toss lightly and garnish with fried onion, peanuts and chilli with the extra sauce on the side.

Roasted Parsnip and Garlic Soup

2011-02-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

Soups are awesome. They may take a while to eventuate but on cold winter days they make you warm and fill you up and if you are careful you can essentially make them fat free.

Here's one from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen that we cooked up. It was yummy and very filling. Here's my version of the recipe.

Roasted Parsnip and Garlic Soup

500g parsnips, chopped into chunks

1 head garlic
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 rib celery (including leaves), chopped
4 cups vegetable stock
1 can beans (something white like cannellini beans)

200g mushrooms, sliced
1 spring onion, sliced thin
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 200C. Put parsnip chunks on baking tray lined with baking paper with the head of garlic with its stalk bit chopped off and wrapped up in foil. Bake for 30 minutes (until parsnips tinged with brown), turning the parsnips once. Remove from oven and allow the garlic to cool in its wrapper.

Heat a non-stick saucepan and cook the onion until it’s translucent. Add the celery and cook for a couple minutes more. Add 3 cups of vege stock and the parsnips. Squeeze the garlic out of the cloves into the pan and cook for a few minutes until parsnips have softened. Add the beans.

Blend the soup either in the pot or in a blender (be careful not to put boiling liquids in a glass blender). Add the extra cup of vegetable stock to thin the soup out and season to taste.

Rice and Beans with Avocado Salsa

2011-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

This is, without a doubt, my new favourite recipe. We've been having it at least once a week since we discovered how awesome it is. It's from Vegan Cooking (Eating for Health) and is so very delicious. And don't decide to skip the salsa as it makes the dish!

Rice and Beans with Avocado Salsa

Rice & Beans

1/2 cup canned kidney beans, rinsed and drained

4 tomatoes, halved (seeded, if you are patient)

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 brown onion, sliced

3 tbsp olive oil

1 cup long grain brown rice, rinsed

2 1/2 cups vegetable stock

2 carrots, diced

1/4 cup green beans, chopped into thirds

salt & pepper

4 tortillas to serve

Salsa

1 avocado

juice of 1 lime

1 small red onion

1 small red chilli, seeded and chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Preheat grill to high. Put onion, tomatoes and garlic in a baking tray and cover with 1 tbsp of the oil. Toss to coat and grill for 5 minutes on each side. Set aside to cool. Once they are cooled puree in a blender.

Heat the rest of the oil (2 tbsp) in a saucepan and add the rice and cook for a few minutes until golden. Add the puree and cook for 2 minutes.Pour in the stock and cover, cooking for 20 minutes. Stir occassionally.

Take out 2 tbsp of the kidney beans for the salsa and add the rest to the rice with the carrots and green beans and cook for a further 15 minutes until vegetables and rice are softened. Season.

The rice simmers down in its juices and tastes delicious!

To make the salsa dice the avocado and toss in lime juice. Add the onion, chilli, coriander and kidney beans and season with salt.

This avocado salsa is so yummy you could eat it on its own!

Spoon the hot rice onto tortillas. The salsa can be served separately but I like to put it on top of the rice and roll my tortilla up. Delicious!

inSpiral, London

2011-02-13T02:38:00.000-08:00

When I go to London I like to make the most of the variety of vegan restaurants available. We had decided to meet some friends for brunch last Sunday and I thought finding a vegan restaurant serving brunch would be easy. It wasn't. Most places don't open until 12pm and the only ones with actual brunchy food on the menu were pricey.

The last time I was in London I met some friends in Camden Town. I'm not Camden's biggest fan but I did spot a cafe that advertised vegan food so I decided to give it a try.

The cafe is inSpiral and it's just a few hundred metres up from the Camden Town tube stop. They have a huge range of vegan meals, drinks and desserts and the cafe is a bit of a tight squeeze (especially when it is as busy as it was on Sunday!) but has a wonderful view of the river and opposite markets.

The food was spectacular. I had a toasted focaccia which was only £3.95. The meals that the others had were £7.95 which I would consider a bit pricey but taking into account the fact that this is the UK and that my friends said the meals were delicious I'm happy to let it slide.

The coffee was really good. In fact, I'd almost go back just for the coffee since no where else in the UK seems to be able to make reasonable coffee. And, of course, I had to try the desserts. Geoff ordered a Key Lime Pie which was tasty but my Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake knocked its socks off.

This is definitely going to be a cafe I will visit often.

Olive Bread Focaccia with Almond Pesto, Sundried Tomatoes & Rocket Salad

Spelt Crusted Chunky Vegetable Ratatouilli

Nut Loaf

Key Lime Pie

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake

St John's College

2011-02-10T05:54:00.000-08:00

It is no secret that I am not a fan of formal dinners at Cambridge. Until last night my only experience of them was at my own, rather poor college of Selwyn. The food is always overcooked, the vegan dishes are unimaginative and I always get fruit salad for dessert.

Imagine my surprise then when our lab went to St John's College for formal hall last night and the food was well cooked, beautifully presented, very tasty and the wine was free! And it was cheaper than Selwyn! For shame, Selwyn, for shame.

You can only take photos in hall when the fellows are not present which restricts any photos of the food to dessert.

So above is the menu for anyone that's not a vegan. I received an entree of cherry tomatoes, rocket and capers drizzled in seasoned olive oil. For my main I had pasta with a red sauce with mushrooms, courgettes and aubergine with the same fondant potatoes and glazed carrots and black sesame seeds as everyone else. Then for dessert... no fruit salad! It was a very sweet berry, date, fig and raisin compote which I couldn't actually finish so Geoff ate it.

John's is my new favourite place to get a 3 course meal with wine for £9 in Cambridge.

Fat Free Vegan Kitchen

2011-01-31T07:45:00.000-08:00

So as part of my new year resolution to eat healthy on week days I've been basically making every meal from Susan V's fantastic blog Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. I've mentioned this blog a few times before but some of the recipes I've tried making recently were so fantastic that I thought I'd share my pictures and some comments. I'll link to each of the recipes but make sure you check out her whole recipe collection. She has this fantastic feature where you can pick out your favourite recipes or recipes you really want to try and put them into your "Recipe Box". At first I was a little surprised that a fat free blog won the VegNews Favourite Blog award for three years running but once I started cooking from her blog frequently I found out why!

Brussels Sprouts and Shiitake Mushroom Soup: This is by far my favourite recipe. So yummy on cold nights and such wonderful flavours. The brown rice takes a while to cook but it's a very easy recipe to make.

Spinach and Artichoke Pie: So Geoff couldn't get filo pastry and so bought shortcrust pastry instead. Not exactly fat free so I just ate the filling but it so so delicious that I scooped out inside of the left-over pie and hid it in the fridge so I could have it for lunch the next day too.

Chocolate-Orange Cake: I baked this cake for a friend in the lab for his birthday. I actually found it to be a little too dense for my liking but for a fat free cake it's brilliant and everyone in the office loved it. My supervisor liked it so much his wife asked me for the link.

Pasta with Asparagus, Cannellini Beans, and Porcini Cream: I was so excited about the flavour of the porcini cream for this recipe but when I put everything together it tasted a little floury. I also think I undercooked the asparagus.

Chickpea and Turnip Stew with Ethiopian Spices: I don't have a photo of my dish but this is me making up the spice mix. I didn't really like the flavour of this dish. I think I put too many cloves or something in it.

Orange Couscous Curry: This was tasty and very easy to make. We bought the mandarin pieces in a jar but I'm sure you could use fresh ones if you are lucky enough to be currently living in a country where fresh fruit doesn't taste like potato.

Chocolate Sauce

2011-01-31T07:21:00.000-08:00

My new year's resolution was to eat healthy on week days and eat whatever I like on weekends. I also promised myself to exercise more and have been going to pilates twice a week (and have consquently been in constant pain). I've been pretty good at sticking to my resolution and so on Saturday night I had no problem at all with eating this lucious bowl of fruit with chocolate sauce.

I've never made chocolate sauce before (and couldn't be bothered looking up a recipe) so I broke up a couple of blocks of vegan cooking chocolate, stuck them in the microwave for a minute or so (checking every now and again to make sure it wasn't burning) then added a few teaspoons of agave nectar and a tablespoon or so of soy milk. And it was delicious!

Vegan in Edinburgh

2011-01-22T05:08:00.000-08:00

Edinburgh is one of my favourite places in the world to go to eat because they don't run screaming when you mention you are a vegan. Last year when I was there I went to the fantastic little bistro called Henderson's (actually, I went 3 times) and this time I went twice again.

Vegetable soup. This was actually kind of bland..

Bean pate. Very yummy.

The soup of the day: spinach et al. Ask for vegan butter.

The haggis.

Enchilada (not vegan in this picture but can be made vegan.)

Curry of the day chutney and yoghurt (not vegan but can be).

Bean burger.

We also ventured to another restaurant this time called David Bann. It's a vegetarian restaurant and it's absolutely stunning inside with fantastic service and some of the most delicious and unusual tastes I've ever eaten.


56-58 St Mary's Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SX (Off the Royal Mile and the Cowgate)

The vegan beer selection was very good.

Smoked mushroom & basil tortellini w/ parsnip soup.
(Not vegan)

Thai fritter of spiced broccoli and smoked tofu.

Jerusalem artichoke & creamed celeriac w/ puff pastry.
(Not vegan)

Risotto of mushroom, leek and butternut squash. (Not vegan)

Organic Udon noodles w/ ginger red pepper
sauce & home smoked tofu.

Soup of the day: broccoli et al (not vegan).

Smoked and marinated tofu. This was so delicious.
Such unusual flavours.

Sweet potato, cauliflower and cashew nut curry.

Lentil dish. This was hearty and filling but the
flavours weren't as interesting as some of the other dishes.

Lemon and raspberry posset (not vegan).


Filo basket of warm orange caramel fruit with coconut rum sorbet. This was amazing. The fruit was warm and juicy and the syrup wasjust delicious in contrast to the subtle coconut sorbet. The only negative part about the dish was that there wasn't enough sorbet.

Happy Hogmanay!

2011-01-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm well aware it's almost the end of January.

Where have I been?

Well, it definitely wasn't to see the Queen despite her relative closeness.

For the past few weeks I've been chained to my desk programming and writing reports for my upcoming assessment (upcoming in like two days). In between these moments I've been keeping up to date with the devastation in Brisbane (my home for the last 8 years) and other parts of Australia (including Grafton which was my home for 14 years). I also may or may not have become slightly addicted to watching The Vampire Diaries and may have neglected the blog a little in order to watch Elena and Stefan make out. I'm a sad, sad individual.

But before the floods, 150-year old vampires that are supposed to look 17 but are actually 30, and the numerical solvers Geoff and I spent Christmas and New Year in, and just out of, Edinburgh.

I've never been anywhere that celebrates Christmas and New Year like Edinburgh. And the weather was almost balmy! It was 5 degrees some days. A whole 5 degrees.

I'll make a separate post about the restaurants we ate at while we were visiting that beautiful city but for now let me just share some photos of my Christmas and Hogmanay experience.

Mulled wine at Sofi's.

Hot cider at Roseleaf.

Christmas day.

Moroccan Lentil Soup

Roast Vegetable Cous Cous and Stuffed Mushrooms

Hogmanay Torchlight Procession.

Princes St during the procession.

New Year's fireworks.

New Year's Day haggis feast with neets and tatties. I used Macsween.

Vegan Christmas

2010-12-19T04:13:00.000-08:00

I've certainly been very slack about posting lately. This is mostly due to the fact that our house was turned upside down by having a very large dinner party and then by the arrival of our Christmas presents and our removal boxes from Australia. Weather permitting we are also leaving for Scotland tomorrow (and hopefully back to Henderson's) to spend Christmas with some friends so it's been very busy in our little flat.

I've cooked a couple of new things recently but our internet is currently capped and I can't upload photos so I will wait until the new year to post some new recipes. Until then here is a reminder about some tasty Christmas dishes I've made before that you can make too! (Click on the link under the photos.)

Gingerbread!

Sticky Date Pudding!

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding!

German Apple Cake!

Trifle!

Vegan Franchise

2010-12-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

I'm mighty glad Vegan MoFo is over. I was exhausted by the end of it.

I'm not sure if you guys have noticed but I also have a craft blog (which has been neglected of late because my sewing machine is on a ship on an ocean somewhere).

Today I also started a movie/TV blog. I like watching movies and TV. I've called it Video Vegan and if you care what I might have to say about random TV shows and movies you should check it out.

Oriental Ratatouille

2010-11-30T12:06:00.000-08:00

Once again adapted from Virtually Vegetarian this is quick and easy and delicious.

Oriental Ratatouille

1 tbsp sesame oil

4 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 inch ginger root, finely chopped

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 yellow pepper, diced

1 zucchini, diced

50g mooli*, diced

1 small aubergine, diced (small)

200g plum/egg tomatoes, diced

400g can chopped/whole tomatoes

1/2 tsp sugar

salt & pepper

10 basil leaves

Heat oils in a pan and simmer garlic and ginger until they release their aromas. Add all the vegetables excluding the tomatoes and saute on a high heat for 2-3 minutes. Then add the tomatoes and sugar and cook for another half a minute. The vegetables should not be brown and should be crispy. Season to taste and add basil. Transfer to another dish to let it cool.**

* See previous post about this.

** This will stop it from continuing cooking in the pan and being overcooked.

Sichuan Barbecued Aubergine Rolls with Papaya and Cucumber

2010-11-30T11:59:00.000-08:00

Virtually Vegetarian is fast becoming my new favourite cook book despite the fact that it is neither vegetarian or vegan. These little starters/entrees are so full of flavour!

Sichuan Barbecued Aubergine* Rolls with Papaya and Cucumber

Note: Advance preparation required.

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp agave nectar**

1 tbsp kecap manis***

2 tbsp vegetable oil

4 tbsp sesame oil

salt & pepper

2 medium aubergines, cut lengthways into thin slices

1 small green chilli, deseeded and finely sliced

1/2 tsp sesame seeds

1/2 inch ginger root, finely chopped

1 tbsp chopped mint

2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves

1 papaya, peeled & deseeded and cut into small dice

1/2 cucumber, peeled and cut into small dice

Mix together vinegar, agave nectar and oils and season. Marinate the aubergine slices in the mixture overnight.

Remove the slices from the marinade and cook on a barbecue for 2-3 mins on each side****. Slices should be tender and golden. Return them to marinade to cool.

In a bowl mix together the chilli, sesame seeds, ginger, herbs, papaya and cucumber and spoon in a little of the marinade. Season to taste.

Take an aubergine slice and put 1-2 teaspoons of the papaya mixture on one end (the fatter end is easier). Roll it up and place on a dish. Repeat for each of the slices.

* Yes, I call it aubergine now. I have to practise for the morons at Tesco who can't recognise the vegetable by sight.

** Or honey if you hate bees.

*** Sweet Indonesian soy sauce. I spoke about it before here.

**** Due to the fact that it is minus eleven thousand outside and we don't own a barbecue I just put them under our grill for 5 mins on each side.

Oriental Black Risotto with Basmati Rice

2010-11-30T11:42:00.000-08:00

This is by far my new favourite dish. It's a bit involved but well worth it. Very delicious! This is adapted from Virtually Vegetarian.

Oriental Black Risotto with Basmati Rice

Risotto

50g vegan butter

1 small onion or shallot, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1/2 inch piece ginger root, finely chopped

250g basmati rice

2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder

3 cups mushroom stock*

salt & pepper

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

Vegetable Garnish

4 tbsp sesame oil

50g vegan butter

14 shiitake mushrooms, halved

1/2 inch ginger root, finely chopped

1 carrot, grated

1/4 red pepper, thinly sliced

1/4 green pepper, thinly sliced

15g mooli (daikon raddish), grated*

2 spring onions, finely chopped

16 coriander leaves

Risotto

Heat butter in a saucepan and add onion/shallot, garlic, ginger and cook for 1 min. Do not brown. The add rice and try to coat the grains with the melted butter. Then add five-spice. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Season to taste and simmer for 15-20 minutes stirring frequently. Rice should be al dente and most of the stock should evaporate.

Once you have cooked the risotto, add the soy sauce.

Vegetable Garnish

While the rice is cooking heat 1 tbsp of the sesame oil and 15g of the butter in a wok or frying pan. Saute the mushrooms until tender. Remove the mushrooms, place on a plate with a paper towel over them and keep them somewhere warm.

Heat the rest of the oil and butter in the same pan and stir in ginger and garlic. Leave for a few minutes then add the rest of the vegetables. You want the vegetables to be crisp so don't overcook. Season.

Spoon the risotto into bowls and garnish with the vegetables, mushrooms and coriander leaves.

* I made my own and will post the recipe soon.

** I'd never seen it before I came to England so I don't think you'll be able to get it in Australia. It doesn't add much to the dish anyway and could easily me left out.

Last Day of Vegan MoFo

2010-11-30T09:18:00.001-08:00

It's sadly the last day of Vegan Month of Food. Our little household has tried some great new recipes so we think it was well worth it although I'll be glad now that the pace of blogging is calmer.

I'll now post some of my favourite recipes from this month. Enjoy!

Pizza Pizza!

2010-11-28T01:25:00.000-08:00

I'm well aware that I've been slack with the posting (I can rarely begin something without finishing it all in one go so I accidentally read all 10 Southern Vampire Mystery novels in less than two weeks despite the fact that Charlaine Harris writes like an 11-year-old (one with a vivid sexual imagination) and then discovered Generation Kill which I almost watched in one sitting). With only two more days of Vegan MoFo to go I need to get motivated.

Vegan MoFo has been great. We have tried out a lot of new recipes despite the fact that I'm glued to my work most of the day. Geoff has been great: he picks out the recipes, does all the shopping, cleans the kitchen and puts out all of the ingredients and utensils (last night he even marinated eggplant for tonight; I don't even know what we are cooking tonight). He even stirs. All I do is chop and be bossy. So a lot of credit needs to go to Geoff. Without him I wouldn't have done Vegan Mofo.

There are a couple of recipes that he picked out recently that were fantastic but I'll save them so the next few days as Vegan MoFo wraps up.

One of the recipes we do use a lot is pizza dough. I couldn't find vegan pizza bases here in Cambridge that didn't have palm oil in them (and palm oil is very bad!) so I like to make my own.

I've posted about the recipe here before but the recipe was a bit dodgy. So this is my better version.

Pizza Dough

7g sachet dry yeast
1 tsp caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup warm water
2 cups plain flour
2 tbsp olive oil

Combine water, yeast, sugar and salt in jug. Whisk to dissolve. Cover with cling wrap and set aside in a warm place for 5 mins or until you see bubbles on the surface. Add oil to the mixture.

Sift flour into a bowl. Add yeast mixture to it. Mix to form a soft dough. At first the dough should look a little too dry but it will eventually start sticking as you mix more. I normally do it with my hands. If you are really sure it is not wet enough just add some water but do it slowly and carefully. Sticking dough is very hard to work with especially after it had risen.

Turn onto lightly floured surface. Knead for 10 minutes until elastic. Place in lightly greased bowl & cover with plastic wrap. Stand in warm place for 25-30 minutes or until dough has doubled size.

Use fist to punch dough down. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth. Top with whatever you like and bake for 10-15 minutes.

The topping on the pizza; ready to go.


Pre-oven. I like to add leeks because they make it taste hearty. This one has vegan cheese on it but I rarely use it since I don't like the taste.

Pumpkin & Spinach Red Lentil Curry

2010-11-22T13:40:00.000-08:00

There's really not much you can do to make curry look good in a photo. Nor do I have a specific recipe for cooking this curry. It goes a little something like:

Pumpkin & Spinach Red Lentil Curry

1 tbsp oil

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 cups red lentils, washed
3 cups chopped pumpkin

1 litre vegetable stock

200g spinach leaves

Spices*

1 tbsp madras curry powder

1 tbsp chilli powder

1 tsp parprika

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tbsp cumin

1 tsp cinammon

Heat the oil in a pot and add garlic, onion & spices. Fry until the onion softens and the spices release their aromas. Add the pumpkin and fry in the spices. The add lentils and stock and bring to the boil. Then lower the heat and simmer until the liquid is reduced so that it looks like curry and not soup (this could take a while). Add the spinach when it has the desired look and stir through until it is limp. Then either blend a few ladelfuls in a blender or using a stick blender do it in the pot.

Serve with rice.

* This is quite a conservative estimate. I probably put a lot more in. I don't own any measures though!

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

2010-11-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

I have fond memories of the magic that is self-saucing chocolate pudding from when I was a kid. However, my memories consist of me helping mum empty the packet mix into a microwavable bowl and cooking the pudding in the microwave.

I actually have nightmares about baking in the microwave.

Despite this I was always amazed at how the pudding rose above the sauce and it was always delicious (cf to the rest of Mum's cooking) despite its shocking origins.

I've been wanting to make one for a while but it just never happens. However, my friend Maree was visiting me on her 12 month world tour and I decided to make it for dessert (since I don't have any cake tins yet and it was the only thing I could think of to cook in a Pyrex dish with the ingredients I had). So here it is!

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

Pudding:

1 cup of flour

3 tsp baking soda

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

80g butter melted

1/2 cup soy milk

1 tbsp ground flax seed w/ 3 tbsp water*

Sauce:

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup boiling water

For the pudding mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the flaxseed with the water until it is thick and creamy and add the rest of the wet ingredients. Then very slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients stirring as you add. Pour into an oven safe dish (I used a round Pyrex dish) and smooth the top.

For the sauce mix the two dry ingredients together and then sprinkle over the top of the pudding mix in the dish. Then very slowly pour the boiling water on top of the pudding as well. It's best to use a spoon to do this so that the sugar mixture isn't too disturbed and you get an even sauce.

Put the Pyrex dish onto a tray (to collecting spilling liquids in the oven).

Bake for 40 minutes and serve immediately with soy ice cream!

* Or other 1 egg equivalent.

Green Risotto with Fresh Herbs

2010-11-21T02:29:00.000-08:00

This is another recipe from Virtually Vegetarian. I've veganised it and it tastes great! Just make sure when you cook it you follow the recipe very closely. There are small details that make sure the risotto turns out as it should.

The original recipe uses herb juice and not herbs. However, not having something small enough to make herb juice I just used chopped herbs (although it was quite obvious that I should have spent more time chopping them finer). However, the smaller you can get the herbs the better so I would suggest that if you have a mortar and pestle that you squish the fresh herbs into a juice. Alternatively, you could blend the final bit of butter and the herbs together in a blender or food processor to get the smaller bits of herbs.

Green Risotto with Fresh Herbs

600ml vegetable stock

100g unsalted vegan butter

2 shallots, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

250g Aborio rice

90ml white wine

125g mixed herbs*

salt and pepper

Bring stock to the boil in a saucepan and keep it over a low heat to be added to the risotto.

Melt 40g of the butter in a pan and add the shallots and garlic and cook until tender. Add the rice and mix to coat it with the butter so it's nice and shiny. The add the until and cook until the wine has reduced its volume by half. Then add a ladelful of stock and stir until it is completely absorbed by the rice. Keep adding the stock like this (ladelful, stir, absorb, ladelful, stir, absorb etc) until it is all gone. This will take a while (1/2 hour).

The risotto should be loose but not sloppy and the rice should be tender but still had bite. If it becomes this before you run out of stock then don't add anymore. If it is still not at this point after you've run out of stock then just add ladelfuls of boiling water.

Once the rice is cooked add in the remaining butter and herbs and season to taste.

* Parsley and basil were my choice. The recipe also suggests adding chevril to the mix. I have no idea what chevril is. See my comments at the start of the post about how to prepare the herbs.

Soy-Glazed Linguine with Ginger and Tofu

2010-11-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

Cambridge is somewhat of a cultural odd pot. The town definitely basks in that British traditionalism that the university exudes in great loads but it can always surprise you.

When I was fifteen I visited New Caledonia with my French class. New Caledonia is a little lax on the alcohol (and a bunch of other) laws and being fifteen and from a small country town I, and the rest of the French class, went a little crazy. There was alcohol, French men (who I now have a rather low opinion of seeing as they were chasing after fifteen year olds!) and even smoking. I detest smoking but I'm also not fond of people disliking things they haven't tried (unless it's heroin or has moral implications like, say, the flesh of an animal).

I had a point here.

There were these drinks called Desperados there (a premixed beer and tequila drink) and we drank them by the gallon. When I returned to Australia I tried to find them again (although that was a little difficult until I was 18) but never succeeded. All my travels in France (and the rest of Europe), my travels in Canada and the US have never discovered these little bottles of beer/tequila gold.

The thought of beer and tequila now makes me want to vomit so I gave up my quest a little while ago. However, Geoff and I walked to Mill Road the other day in search of rice paper to make rice paper rolls (Mill Road houses most of Cambridge's Asian grocers) and we spotted a bottle shop, popped in to look at the wine and there, sitting in a small little fridge, were Desperados.

Of course I had a small girly fit.

The guy behind the counter said: "That's Cambridge for you. You never know what you'll find."

I thought he was being a bit sentimental and gave him my awkward I-think-you-are-a-giant-weirdo-so-please-shut-up-now smile.

However, it turned out to be very true.

An example of this weird Cambridge culture happened on Saturday. Geoff and I were walking back to our bikes with groceries and saw some people coming out of a church (there are many old, old, old churches here). Geoff suddenly walked into the church demanding I follow.

I don't know if I've told my readers this before but Geoff has a special power. He has special book detecting skills.

The entire church was full of second hand books. They were selling them at pretty good prices too! My most precious find was a book called Virtually Vegetarian. It cost me £1.

It's an interesting book. It's written by a British chef called Paul Gayler and it consists of a bunch of vegetarian recipes that use gelatin and chicken stock (hence the virtual bit) with meat additions suggested on most recipes. So it's not really a vegan cook book at all but we've discovered that most of it can be veganised and that this chef gives great instructions and has some quirky tastes that seem to work!

So here is the first veganised recipe we made from it. It tasted great too!

Soy-Glazed Linguine with Ginger and Tofu

450g linguine

1 tbsp vegan butter

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

25g fresh ginger, finely shredded

1 carrot, finely grated

2 spring onions, finely shredded

75g (about 7) shiitake mushrooms, shredded

2 bok choi heads, shredded

1 yellow pepper, finely shredded

2 tbsp dry white wine*

4 tbsp ketjap manis**

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar***

90ml vegetable stock

100g firm tofu, cubed

2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves

2 red chillies, deseeded and cut into thin rings****

Okay. First of all, don't freak out about all the shredding. I just basically grated everything. I'm sure a food processor would be easier but make sure you keep the ginger and garlic separate from everything else. Also, everything happens quickly so have everything prepped before.

Cook the linguine until al dente. Drain well and keep aside and warm.

Heat the butter and oil in a pan with the garlic and ginger for 1 min over moderate heat. The stir in the carrot, spring onions, mushrooms, bok choi and yellow pepper and stir for another minute.

Add the wine, ketjap manis and vinegar and bring to the boil. Once it has boiled cook it for a further 2 minutes. Add vege stock and cook until it is "light and syrupy". The more finely your shredding the syrupier***** the sauce.


This is my version of "light and syrupy". It looks soft and mushy to me.

Add the drained linguine to the sauce and stir. I would suggest doing this in small parts since the pasta will stick together and you want to get every strand covered in a nice yummy glaze.

Stir in the tofu and garnish with coriander and chilli. Don't neglect this step; the coriander really makes the dish.

* Or dry sherry.

** This is a sweeter, thicker Indonesian soy sauce. You could get it in supermarkets in Australia (sometimes spelled kecap manis). I just made my own with agave nectar and soy sauce. Honey and soy sauce or even sweet chili sauce and soy sauce would also work.

*** If you don't have some you can get it at supermarkets. And it comes in handy with a lot of Asian dishes so don't be afraid to buy some.

**** Please deseed them and cut them into rings and don't put them in the sauce. They are garnish. My darling boyfriend put three extra hot chillies, seeds and all, into the sauce and my entire mouth went numb.

***** Not a word.

Vegan MoFo Fail

2010-11-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

My cousin had her baby a few hours ago (she's the first great grandchild! They haven't named her yet which is of no consequence to me since I've been calling her Squishy for some months now and don't plan on adapting to whatever name they give her) and we opened a bottle of wine to celebrate. And now I'm quite drunk. So no post tonight. We had strongonoff again anyway. I'll post tomorrow, promise!

Potage Parmentier

2010-11-15T16:10:00.000-08:00

I really didn't like Julie & Julia. The movie was fantastic (and was the inspiration for this blog!) but the book paled in comparison. I enjoyed the book but often cringed at the amoral, apathetic yet sometimes psychotic view of the author.

Yes, she made fun of vegans.

But that's not why I didn't like it.

One of the scences I particularly did not like was where she had to get marrow out of the bone of a cow leg. I have no problem with that if she's made the decision to eat meat. However, she goes on to explain how her and her husband have a discussion about buying a country house and a cow and lovingly taking care of it as penance for the marrow extraction. Oh, you feel guilty? Now?

It really highlighted to me that it's not until people are elbow deep in a splintered shin bone that they actually realise that meat comes from an animal. So she felt bad about that cow. But the hundreds of other cows she slaughtered that year don't deserve a single thought. And the lobsters she boiled alive were fine. And the veal comes from the butcher... not the calf.

And the amoral, contradicting opinions about her married life and her friends' love lives drove me nuts.

Her second book is about how she becomes a butcher and cheats on her husband. It honestly made me wonder if she cheated on her husband just so she could write her second book. At any rate I won't be reading it.

However, I did enjoy the bits where she talks about food (the bits without her pathetic attempt at moralising). The opening shopping sequence, as she buys potatoes and leeks for Potage Parmentier without realising it, was lovely. And it made me want to make Potage Parmentier!

So, after all that anger vented toward Julie Powell here is my vegan version of her first blog entry.

Potage Parmentier

500g potatoes, diced

3 cups sliced leeks

2 litres (8 cups) water

1 tbs salt

3 tbs vegan butter

Add the potatoes, leeks, salt and water to a soup pot and bring to the boil. Simmer for 45 minutes.

Blend the soup in a blender (or in the pot if you have an awesome stick blender like mine!). The blending is important. It has to be smooth. Use a sieve if you have to.

Stir in butter before serving.

Yummo!

Roasting Tin Muffin Cake

2010-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Geoff hasn't been feeling well so I had the brilliant idea to get up this morning, make him some Ginger and Lemon muffins and a coffee from our wonderful espresso machine, and surprise him with breakfast when he woke up. Now, most of my friends will know that being that romantic (or even just nice) is quite unusual for me but Geoff has been so good at looking after the household duties while I'm at the lab that I thought I should be nice for at least a morning.

However, like always, things didn't go according to plan. Instead of nice warm muffins and fresh coffee Geoff woke up to my voice:

"Geoff, you need to get up. I made muffins for you only to realise we don't own a muffin tin yet. So you need to get up and go get me one."

This is my version of nice.

Poor Geoff.

In the end I couldn't remember if we have muffin tins coming over by ship from Australia or not and since we have limited space (because in the UK your flat is 1/4 the size for twice the price) doubling up isn't such a good idea. The next best thing I had was a roasting pan so I made the "muffins" in that.

They always turn out delicious and this time was no exception. However, there is just something nice about having a warm muffin in your hand and taking that first bite into it and watching the steam billow out. A flat, rectangular muffin with a depth of about 2cm is not exactly the same.

Since our stuff won't be arriving by ship until December I won't be baking any muffins for Vegan MoFo. However, if you are lucky enough to have a muffin tin at your disposal I would highly recommend making these delicious little gems.

There will be no photo of the muffin cake. I am much too ashamed.

Scrambled Tofu 2.0

2010-11-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

When we were living in Brisbane scrambled tofu used to be one of our favourite brunch meals on sunny Sunday mornings with tea and coffee. Normally just before or after walking the dog.

England is not so sunny and we miss our puppy but we are still enjoying our scrambled tofu vegie mash. Especially when it's wet and cold and rainy outside it's becoming a yummy lunch or dinner.

It's not really something I have a recipe for. I just fry up some onion and garlic in a small bit of oil and then add whatever vegies I have lying around (mushrooms and spinach always make it in but my new favourite edition is sliced leeks) and then add the tofu by crumbling the block with my hands over the pan to get the scrambled look. And I normally add turmeric, curry powder, chili powder, paprika and cumin and those herbs give it a beautiful aroma, gorgeous colour and delicious taste.

The texture and taste is not the same as the recipe I posted a while ago (that one feels and tastes more like scrambled eggs) but I prefer it.

I also saw that Susan V on FatFree Vegan Kitchen had a similar post recently and mentioned how lovely the meal is on an autumn night. I envy that her autumn is the south of the US would be a lot warmer than mine but I share the sentiment about scrambled tofu!

Wednesday: Bangers and Mash

2010-11-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

Some of my dear friends will be falling off their chairs when they see this post. Yes, it's true, I hate potato. It's also true that, since I now live in England, every meal is supposed to contain potato. It's also a bit hard to avoid hot, warm comforting things like Bangers and Mash when the weather is miserable all the time. So I've succumbed. A little.

Bangers and Mash 1.0

Bangers and Mash 2.0

I'm not about to give a recipe from mashed potato since... well... even my mother can make mashed potato. You will, however, notice that my mashed potato seems to be a little on the orange side. That's because I make it with half potato, half sweet potato and then mash it, stick in some soy milk and a tablespoon or so or vegan butter, salt and pepper and mash again. Easy peasy.

Version 1.0 is served with onion, leek and sliced mushrooms fried in a pan with a bit of oil. Version 2.0 is served with sliced onion rings that were fried with a bit of oil and then my Garlic & Chili Broccoli except I replaced the nuts with some sliced mushrooms. Yummy and easy.

Of course it's all topped off with some HP. Because we live in England now.

Tuesday: Mexican!

2010-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Where Mexican! = not really Mexican at all.

Whatever spicy beans in a tomato sauce with tortilla and salad and vegan guacamole is... that's what I made.

I've posted before about my recipe for the beans. It's basically the same recipe except with more garlic, red onion instead of brown onion, one can of kidney beans and one can of black beans (all the water drained), can of crushed tomatoes and paprika added to the spice mix. I also added in some zucchini because I had some left over. It's an easy recipe and it's easy to change and it still tastes yummy.

Just watch out and make sure your tortillas (which I always buy at the store) are vegan!

I am an unwrapped tortilla.

I am a wrapped tortilla.

Monday: Mushroom & Tofu Strogonoff

2010-11-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

I originally got the idea from this quirky blog. I think strogonoff is traditionally served on rice (and sans tofu) but I remember my mother making it with pasta when I was younger (I may have implanted that memory because Mum can't cook). But it was delicious! The only suggestions I'd make is to watch the salt levels in the vegie stock. You don't want it to be too salty.

Mushroom & Tofu Strogonoff

1 tbsp oil

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

300-500g tofu pieces*

4 large field mushrooms, chopped**

500ml/2 cups liquid vegetable stock

250ml soy cream

1/2 cup wine***

Heat the oil in the pan and fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes. When they are translucent add the mushrooms and tofu pieces and stir for a further few minutes. When the mushrooms begin to leak their juices (that's a bit sexy) pour in the stock and wine. Bring to the boil and let it simmer for a good while (10-20 min) until the mushrooms and tofu are sitting in the sauce and not drowning in it. Then stir in the cream and heat through. Don't boil the cream. Boiled cream = bad. But make sure the flavours have been stirred through the cream and the cream is nearly at boiling point (kind of like what you would do for coconut milk in a green curry).

Serve on top of pasta (spaghetti or fettuccine) or rice.

* I used pre-seasoned tofu for this recipe but it threw the salt balance way off. Perhaps seitan would be better but I can never get my hands on any.

** I like field mushrooms but get whatever you want. 4 big handfuls will do.

*** I think normal recipes use white but we are red wine drinkers and never have any white around so I used red and it didn't make that much of a difference with the colour.

Sick Little Vegan MoFo

2010-11-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

Surely, being US-based, they realised that MoFo was already in use...

Anyway, I've been sick. I am still kind of sick but since I had to return to the lab I felt I should return to the blog.

I still needed to eat while I was sick so I was still cooking... I was just too exhausted each day to blog. I still am quite exhausted (I constantly feel like I've just been working out and have muscle fatigue despite the fact that I have not) but Geoff has not yet cleaned up last night's dinner so I have some spare time before the kitchen is ready for use.

So I shall now bombard you with this week's Vegan MoFo adventures.

Camden Town

2010-11-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

No post yesterday. Sorry. I was buggered (note: the English have another meaing for that word!) from our trip down to London to catch up with my Trek friends. More on that later.

Camden Town is host of the famous Camden Market and seems to be buzzing with "alternative" things. The streets are lined with stores selling Doc Martens, New Rocks and "vintage" clothing. Every second store seemed to sell cheap Chinese-made clothing or was host to a tattoo and piercing parlour. There were a few cool shops here and there but most of it was goddamn tacky and the people there weren't far from the same.

See what the Cambridge Bubble does to you? Pretentious twat indeed.

I did find a delicious little stall in the Stables part of the Camden Market. I can't remember the name of it (I was hoping I could find it on the internet but alas not) but it was a vegetarian Ethiopian stall and everything was vegan. I like it when vegan places don't advertise that they are vegan as to not scare people away. Because veganism is a scary, scary disease.

I didn't take any photos of the food which I am now very sorry about. But some of my friends had the same as me and said there is a much better Ethiopian restaurant in Kentish Town. I shall have to track it down.

I also spotted inSpiral and noted that the next time I venture into the Camden Market I shall pay a visit. It looked very promising.

I went down to London to meet up with some friends I met back in 2005 when I was travelling solo around the USA. For some strange reason, despite our rather different backgrounds and political views, whenever we get together we have an amazing time. Perhaps it's because we only see each other every year or so or because we all shared somewhat of a memorable experience and add to that each time we meet up. Whatever it is it works.

We spent the afternoon and then the early evening at The Lock Tavern drinking many, many pints. My throat was hoarse from yelling over the noise and my cheeks hurt from laughing so much. I drank some Fruli, which is a Belgian Strawberry beer. I have no idea if it is vegan or not and could not find any information about it. If someone finds it is not I promise never to drink it again.

Brownies

2010-11-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

So I've posted the recipe to these delicious goodies on this blog before (see Chocolate Brownies post) but I wanted to talk about it again because a) it's Vegan MoFo and the other thing I cooked last night is being saved up for an extra special post sometime in the future and b) I think these ones look better than the last I made. These were delicious and gooey and oh so yummy.

I have heard a lot of people talk about if they are in the cakey or the fudgey brownie camp. I like this recipe because you can use the same recipe to please people in both camps depending on how long you leave it in the oven. I have also found that the less chocolate chips I use the less gooey it is.

BTW Happy Bonfire Night to those in the UK. I did not partake of the activities because I decided to go to a maths lecture instead. However, except for the fact that I lost my phone in the rain somewhere between home and the CMS, it was well worth it. If you know any maths and ever get the opportunity to see Bela Bollobas speak you should definitely go if only to boggle at the things that he finds "trivial" (such as, oh let's say, this trivial little thing).

Ripe From Around Here

2010-11-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Some of the lovely gals from UQ gave me this book as a going away present when I recently left Australia. I was a little excited when I got it because I was very much looking forward to getting northern hemisphere weather and local produce when I arrived in England. I had, however, forgotten all about the benefit of the EU and find it a bit hard to refuse bananas from Portugal simply because they are "imported" when the distance between here and Portugal would be like Brisbane to Melbourne.

Yes, I'm exaggerating.

I also found it quite hilarious that the first recipe I decided to make (simply because it was listed under her fall/autumn recipes) involved shiitake mushrooms and the only ones Geoff could find were £2 for 120g and were imported from China.

For those of you geographically challenged like myself... China is a long long way away.

Anyway, I couldn't very well change my mind since Geoff had already done the groceries and we had an hour before we had to go bowling. Yes, we computational scientists like to bowl after work.

So I made two recipes from the book to make a whole dinner. Only neither were particularly satisfying (although I made up for that with two pints of cider while bowling). They looked great but the delicate taste of the mushrooms in the salad was drowned out by the vinegar and the sweet potato... well, it tasted just fine but it just wasn't very satisfying.

If I made these dishes again they'd either be together as an entree or as sides as part of a much bigger meal. And I'd significantly reduce the amount of vinegar. And since the shiitake don't really add any flavour to the meal that isn't drowned out I think I'd chuck in some heartier mushrooms and a few more of them. So below is my adapted recipe for these dishes.

I want to make a few more recipes from the book before recommending it (or otherwise). However, I do think that since vegans make up such a small part of the population and that getting any book, let alone a vegan cook book, published is a mammoth effort ( more likely a miracle) we vegans should go out and buy as many cook books as we can afford. And what better month to do it in than Vegan MoFo!

Anyway, below are my adaptations of the two recipes I used in the book. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato in Jacket

Serves 2

Preheat oven to 200C. Scrub sweet potato and cut out any blemishes (if it's anything like the poor vegetables in my kitchen they'll probably be growing some sort of mould/arm/attitude). Prick the sweet potato evenly all over and place on a baking tray. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes or until soft. Slice down the middle and serve with butter. (Next time I'm going to make my own herb butter and melt it on top).

Warm Spinach and Mushroom Salad

Serves 2

2 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion

2 cloves garlic

200g spinach leaves

100g (a dozen) mushrooms*

1/4 balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup chopped nuts**

salt and pepper

Toast the nuts on an unoiled hot pan. Set nuts aside.

Heat the oil in the same pan and put in garlic, onion and mushrooms. Stir for several minutes until mushrooms and onion are soft. Meanwhile put the spinach in a bowl and stir through the vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. Then add the onion mix and then the nuts. Stir through until the heat from the onion mix begins to wilt the spinach leaves and serve.

* Shiitake, if it pleases you.

** I used walnuts but pine nuts would give it more flavour or slivered almonds or pecans would also work.

"Honey" Soy Sauce with Chili

2010-11-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

Today is going to be a stupidly busy day so I'm getting in early with my post for Vegan MoFo. If you've seen the picture, don't fear, I'm not going to give a step by step guide to making stir fry. Stir fry is the delicious lazy person meal and everyone should already know how to cook it. What I do want to talk about is sauce.

When I first became a vegan back when I was 15 I ate stir fry every night for dinner. Worst still it was without tofu and only with soy sauce as a dressing. This was a direct result of the fact that my mother can not cook and I was a teenager so didn't really know much about cooking either. Long story short: I ended up loathing stir fry.

Fast forward to my third year at university and I was living with my then boyfriend and he introduced me to all sorts of cool stuff like tofu and chili and sweat peas and baby corn. And he used to take me to a lot of restaurants in Chinatown where I started getting the idea that stir fry != soy sauce. (Yes, I just made a C joke. Someone kill me.)

Australia, and even the UK, are quite good at providing lots of different sauces for your stir fries. However, considering the very basic ingredients that they are made from, they are a little overpriced.

One of my favourite flavours is honey soy with chili. Of course actual honey is not very vegan of me (although some of you will know my fuzzy honey moral lines) so here's an alternative I use a lot.

"Honey" Soy Sauce with Chili

1/4 cup of soy sauce

1/4 cup of sweet chili sauce*

1 tsp agave nectar**

1 tsp cornflour

Add the first three ingredients together and mix thoroughly. Then add the cornflour making sure you stir all the lumps out. Add to your stir fry!

* You can, of course, make your own sweet chili sauce and I have done this before. However, most people should just have a bottle of it sitting in a cupboard so it's much easier to use that.

** Agave nectar is easy to get and quite cheap here in the UK. This is not the case in Australia although you can get it from health food stores for about $10. I only use it in this recipe because the sweet chili sauce is not that sweet here (and rather spicy!) so you could leave it out if you think the sauce is sweet enough or replace it with honey, rice honey or even golden syrup.

How To Be a Cambridge Vegan IV

2010-11-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

I promised a follow up to my formal dining experiences at my college, Selwyn, here at Cambridge. We've been to a few dinners since then so I've collected a nice sample of opinions about the food. Please feel free to ignore this post if you don't like bitter, angry women and wasting your time.

MCR Dinner

This was my first experience at a formal dinner here at Cambridge and I was a tad shocked. Although a fair chunk of the graduate students here are international students like myself a lot of them are true Cambridge scholars: they came here for undergraduate, left the 'Cambridge Bubble' on holidays only and came back for graduate studies. These are the ones to watch.

Somehow, and I am guessing it's through osmosis or magic, all of the knowledge of drinking games passes on to the new students (we are called, to my horror, "Freshers") and suddenly everyone around you is ridiculously drunk and you are having trouble not punching the American guy across the table from you as he name drops some distant relative from some ivy league school in the US. a) Why the hell would I know about someone not even remotely in my field? b) You are at Cambridge. Yes, the university that was ranked most like Harvard... beating Harvard.

Yes, yes. I'll get to the food when I've vented.

We were without wine that night (we weren't aware you could take wine in with you) and so we had to remain horrified in our sobriety. But the food was okay. They gave me a mushroom stack which was really nice but not exactly filling. There was some sort of soup for starters. Beetroot and something? It was okay. And for dessert I was served fruit salad. Cut up the way they do in pre-school.

So I sound bitter but I was quite happy with my meal. Being vegan means you tend to just be overwhelmed when you are able to eat something let alone have a special meal cooked for you.

Formal Hall

Formal Hall happens twice a week at our college. It's more formal than the MCR Dinner (yes, that's right, more formal than having to wear a suit and tie (or the "women's equaivalent" as they so delicately put it) and your gown to dinner). It is also open to all students and is mostly frequented by undergraduates so we were a little worried about the drinking games.

However, we need not have worried because it turns out that the undergraduates of Cambridge are actually quite well behaved. Yes, there was some "pennying" (people drop pennies into other people's drinks and they have to drink it all at once) and some passing of the dinner mints (this is done mouth to mouth and earns you expulsion from the dinner because the mints are supposed to accompany the port, chaps, and are not for fun) but the presence of the fellows seemed to keep things a little tamer.

We had wine this time and it was truly awful. And the port! I forgot to mention the port! Each meal has a starter then a main course then a dessert then a cheese platter with coffee and port and after dinner mints. And the port tastes like fermented sultanas and methylated spirits. One of these days I'm going to go to a Trinity or King's dinner and see if the port tastes better in the wealthy colleges.

Anyway, my point was... we drank a fair bit too. It made the pennying tolerable and the Latin chanting (there is a lot of Latin chanting going on... which they practise to make sure they get the pronounciation right) hilarious.

The food this time was a bit of a problem. Firstly the waiter told me that the carrot soup was vegan. Then when she went to get my main course she told me that they had not prepared any vegan food because the catering lady had forgotten to tell them. Guess the carrot soup was not vegan after all.

The chefs were pretty good, though, and threw together some spiced beans in a tomato sauce with some polenta. It wasn't fantastic but at least I was fed and they seemed to have done a better job on the protein considerations this time.

Dessert was fruit salad. Cut up the way they do in pre-school.

Matriculation Dinner

Geoff wasn't invited. Matriculating graduate students only.

The wine was free and was plentiful and was actually good! (Up until this point I had assumed England thought that wine should taste like ethanol). And the food! Oh the food!

For starters we had polenta with watercress and some delicious dressing. Then the main course was a tomato stuffed with tofu pieces and nuts and vegetables and served with roasted root vegetables. And potato. There's always bloody potato. And for dessert... fruit! But not the way pre-school does it. It was a lovely pear that had been cooked in something like sugar syrup, white wine, cinnamon and star anise. It was chilled and served whole but sliced so that it made a little star shape on my plate while still sitting up like a pear would. I fell in love with it. But I ate it anyway.

Then we did a bit of musical chairs (there is designated seating except at Formal Halls) and moved to the New SCR for white dessert wines, coffee, cheese platters (of which I did not partake), port and mints. Except everything was actually nice this time!

The dinner was really amazing. The best million course vegan meal I've ever eaten.

So apparently we only get one more of these dinners and that's when we graduate. Except I'll be matriculating again next year and then graduating again three years after that (yes, my hobby is degree collecting) so I am very much looking forward to it.

And now I'll leave you with some images from around our street of this lovely (although a bit chilly and windy tonight!) city. Happy autumn!

Easy Crunchy Nectarine Bake

2010-11-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

When I finally did get around to going to the markets on Saturday I was not at all prepared and only ended up with some very large nectarines and some very large field mushrooms. The nectarines, however, were already going bad before I even walked in the door and so last night I had to save what was left of them in this crunchy nectarine bake.

You could, of course, use peaches in this recipe. In fact, you could use it for pretty much any juicy fruit (apples, berries, pears, plums...). I used nectarines because I had them. I also like baking with them because you can leave the skin on and it doesn't ruin the texture.

Easy Crunchy Nectarine Bake

4 large* nectarines (or several smaller ones), deseeded & sliced

1 banana

1 cup quick oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup vegan butter

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Lightly grease or oil an ovenproof dish (like the Pyrex one in the photo below). Mash the banana in the bottom of the dish. Add the nectarine slices and mix through so that the banana is evenly spread throughout.**

In a separate bowl mix all of the dry ingredients together and then add the butter, using your fingertips to make an even crumble. Then sprinkle over the top of the nectarine slices and pat it down lightly with the back of a wooden spoon.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the fruit is nice and juicy and the crumble nice and crunchy.

Serve with vegan ice cream.***

* And I mean large. If they aren't bigger than your fist you'll need more than 4.

** If you don't like banana and are bitterly disappointed with the inclusion of it in this dish then I would suggest just throwing a little sugar and flour over the nectarines and mixing it through. This should caramelise and hold together the nectarine pieces without the banana.

*** I am obsessed by the amazing taste of Swedish Glace and am considering permanent residence in the UK because of it.

Vegan MoFo

2010-11-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's Day One of Vegan MoFo... and I ate leftovers for lunch and intend to eat leftovers for dinner. So far I'm doing a fantastic job!

If you don't know what VeganMoFo is click on the logo above! And be prepared for 30 days of non-stop blogging about vegan food!

Now I'm going to go find something to cook tonight so I have something to blog about tomorrow.

This is going to be fun!

Vegan Halloween

2010-11-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first Halloween. We were supposed to go to a party but the party ended up being cancelled. It was also the first day since daylight savings ended and we were not at all prepared for the lack of sun at 4pm. So we got comfy at home, watched some Skins and I made a nice simple Halloween dinner with some inspiration from Morrisons (the original link to their Halloween treats seems to have died overnight).

Spicy Blood & Guts Soup*

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp paprika

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 potato, peeled and diced**

2 leeks, thinly sliced

500ml tomato juice

1 can of crushed tomatoes

salt & pepper

Heat the oil in a large soup pot on a medium high heat. Add the onion and stir for a couple of minutes until translucent. Add the sweet potato, potato and spices and fry for a few minutes. Then add the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Then simmer for 35 minutes.

To make the soup smooth you'll need to either put it in a food processor or blender or get one of the amazing stick blenders that I got for my birthday and you can blend it right in the pot!

Once it's smooth add salt and pepper to taste and serve with the spooky witch finger bread below!

* I had intended this to just be Blood Soup but it didn't quite have the colour (it was the missing beetroot I forgot to get... it needed beetroot for the colour).

** If you have beetroot and want to get the blood colour use a 300g can of chopped beetroot, drained, here instead.

Cheesey Witches' Fingers Bread

300g flour***

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

50 g vegan butter

75g finely grated vegan cheese

1 tbsp flaxseed + 3 tbsp of water (or equivalent)

8 tbsp milk

1/4 capsicum/pepper (yellow or red)

Preheat the oven to 200C and line some trays with baking paper.

Rub the flour (+ baking soda & powder) and butter together with your fingertips until you have something that looks like breadcrumbs. Add the cheese and stir. In a separate bowl beat together the flaxseed mixture and the milk and add it to the dry ingredients to form a dough. Knead the dough a little and then roll it into a ball.

One at a time, pull off pieces of the dough (about the size of a ping pong ball). Roll into a round ball and then roll out into a long finger-length stick. Place on the baking tray and repeat. Once you have rolled them all out pinch two knuckles in each one and then get a sharp knife and make some cuts across each knuckle (take a look at the picture of the cookies below to get the idea).

The final step is to cut the capsicum/pepper up into little triangles for the nails. Then just place them on and stick the fingers in the oven for 15-20 minutes. When they are done, let them cool and serve with the Spicy Blood and Guts Soup!

*** I used wholemeal/wholewheat flour for both the bread and the cookies simply because I ran out of plain flour. I don't think it makes much of a difference except that wholemeal is a bit better for you!

Almond Witches' Fingers Cookies

3/4 cup vegan butter

1 cup icing/confectioner's sugar

1 tbs flaxseed + 3 tbsp hot water

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups flour

2/3 cup almond meal (ground almonds)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 dozen blanched almonds

Beat together the sugar and butter. Then add the liquid ingredients. Finally add the dry ingredients to form a dough. Then follow the same instructions for the bread above only this time put a blanched almond for a fingernail.

These cookies taste great with coffee!

Quick & Tasty Crunchy Garlic and Chilli Broccoli

2010-10-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a little while ago that I bought a book called Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me: A Chef's Stories and Recipes from the Land. This is not a review. Yet.

I've actually only made it to the second chapter of this beautiful, carefully crafted book. But despite the fact that I love it I could not go any further reading it. Why? Well... I was just so overwhelmed. I now realise that I know nothing about vegetables. The crappy little green things we get in supermarkets are pale imitations of the real thing.

So, I was reading this wonderful book and I was thinking: "I've got no fricken clue what vegetable he's talking about." And he mentions quite a few.

My solution was to finish chapter one (on green vegetables), put the book down and go out into the markets and at least see some of these vegetables. However...

... no plan runs a smooth course. The fact that I spend all the hours of daylight in the CMS (Centre for Mathematical Sciences) or in the lab (the Cavendish lab!) has hindered my ability to get to any sort of market before it has closed. And, thanks to distance between Cambridge and my beloved equator, there seems to be less and less sunlight in the day. Also, my brain is so fried by the time I get home I've resorted to mashed potato and soy sausages two nights in the last fortnight! (I know, dear readers, times are tough.)

Until a time comes when I no longer sleep, dream and breathe numerical methods of solving partial differential equations and I get to go out into the sun I intend to massage my poor brain with lighter reading (Julie & Julia, in fact: the book that inspired the movie that inspired this blog. And some new recipes... but more of that another time...). I also intend to keep buying the crappy vegetables at Sainsburys (it's open until 11pm!).

I adapted this recipe from my Wild Garlic book for everyone else that doesn't leave their desk until 8pm and needs something quick and tasty but preferably green to go with their soy sausage (that isn't that fresh and was probably ripened by gas in some big shed somewhere and shipped to Sainsburys or Tesco or Woolies or Walmart and then sat in your crisper for a week while you ate choc chip cookies instead of vegetables... yes, those people... those people like me...).

Crunchy Garlic and Chilli Broccoli

1 head of broccoli

2 long red chillis, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/8 cup of walnuts (or cashews)

1tbsp soy sauce

olive oil

Break off the heads of the broccoli and halve any bigger heads so that they are all bite sized. (You can also chop up some of the stalk and include it if you don't want to waste it!)

Heat a pan to medium to hot, without oil, and lightly roast the walnuts making sure you constantly move the pan so that they don't burn. After a minute or two, turn them out onto a clean chopping board, chop them up (carefully, they'll be hot) and put aside.

Put the pan back on the heat and add the oil. The pan should still be fairly hot so chuck a small piece of garlic in to test the oil (it should sizzle slightly) and then if it is hot enough put in the rest of the garlic and the chilli. Quickly fry for a minute and then put in the broccoli. Cook for about 3-5 minutes. You want the broccoli to be bright green and firm. I like mine on the crunchy side. You definitely do not want it to be yellow and soggy (the ones in the photo are a little too yellow).

When it's ready throw in the nuts and soy sauce, stir for 30 seconds and take it off the heat.

Serve immediately.

Fun fact about England: If you call someone a twat here it's really rude! If you sit at your computer and call yourself a twat continuously people think you are a complete nutter!

Coffee coffee coffee!

2010-10-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Geoff bought me a coffee machine for my birthday. I cannot express how much this makes our little household happy.

It's a DeLonghi EC155 Black Silver Espresso Machine 1100W.

It was only £60 and for the price it is fantastic!

Geoff bought some really nice ground beans from Coffee Bean Shop Ltd. He actually bought 1kg of four different types. We're into the No. 1 Roast at the moment and it's delicious!

Chocolate Ginger Snaps

2010-10-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

So after spending my entire weekend staring at a computer screen (I'm teaching myself C while simultaneously doing all my computational science assignements in C) I felt I needed a treat. So, inspired by this delicious blog, I grabbed some ginger snaps from the cupboard and covered them in melted chocolate.

You can do this with pretty much any biscuit. Just grab some vegan biscuits, melt some vegan chocolate in the microwave (a minute or two will do) and coat the biscuits in the chocolate. Lay them on baking paper and stick them in the fridge for 15 minutes and voila! High fat, delicious biccies for your afternoon snack!

How To Be a Cambridge Vegan III

2010-10-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

I have neglected to tell my loyal readers (all four of you) that we recently moved into a much nicer/bigger/more expensive/shower-able flat. This is it on the left. Those big windows on the top* floor there are all ours.

If you plan on stalking me in Cambridge with the use of this picture... good luck. All the houses around the city centre look the same.

Despite my lack of tools** I've recently been experimenting with some new recipes and spent a long while today in the bookstore looking for vegan cookbooks. I ended up finding a few but was annoyed at their lack of pictures and the fact that they were all mostly by the one author. So I bought a vegetarian "cookbook" called Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me: A Chef's Stories and Recipes from the Land.

The reason I chose this book over the vegan ones was because I enjoyed I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti: A Memoir of Good Food and Bad Boyfriends so much when I read it and, despite the fact that it wasn't vegan, it taught me how to make good, simple pasta and inspired me to make a lot of my own recipes. I love recipes (and I've been lately thinking about making my way through Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook one recipe at a time Julie & Julia style) but I've been cooking long enough now to know what goes with what... and I want to create my own recipes! So I thought I would enjoy this book a lot more because it would give me the chance to tweek the recipes while still reading an enjoyable book. And it got some good reviews so I look forward to reviewing it myself!

We had our start of semester maths luncheon yesterday at Selwyn***. I was a bit nervous about what I was going to get as food but in the end it was actually quite good! They had prepared me my own separate meal and just pulled it out when I was ready. It did have potatoes in it (my close friends will know how much I hate potatoes) but they were thinly cut, nicely cooked and seasoned wonderfully so it turned out to be quite a nice lunch.

Tonight is one of the few MCR**** dinners and apparently this is the yummiest of the dinners you get so I'm hoping for something good. I will laugh very hard if they just give me what they served me yesterday.

Wish me luck and I'll let you know how it goes!

* There is actually a couple living in the roof although we aren't sure how exactly they do it as our ceilings are very high and there doesn't seem to be much space for anything but crawling!
** Note: Don't buy £1 chopping boards from Poundland (see picture right & click on it to get a closer view of our new kitchen!).
*** Selwyn is the college I belong to at Cambridge. The system here is weird and you have to join a college to be admitted to the university. I joined Selwyn because it's half way between the city centre and the Cavendish lab where I work and because it's less touristy than the others. The purpose of the college system is networking. And it works! I've met lots of people although mainly from the sciences.
**** MCR = Middle Combination Room = grad students of the college.

Choc Chip Cookies

2010-10-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned them before but it just occurred to me, as I went to find the recipe on this blog (as the cookbook it comes out of is somewhere in a box on a boat on a very large ocean), that I've never posted the recipe on here. So here it is: the yummiest choc chip cookies I've ever tasted.

Choc Chip Cookies

adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking

2 1/4 cups plain flour*

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup of vegan butter**

3/4 cup of white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

2 tsp vanilla extract

egg replacer for 3 eggs (inc water)***

1 cup semi sweet choc chips

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)****

Preheat oven to 190C. Whip the egg replacer until thick and creamy in a small bowl. Whip together sugars and butter in another bowl with vanilla extract. Add egg replacer mixture. Mix flour, salt and baking soda in another bowl and then add to the wet mixture. Once it is combined and nicely moist add the choc chips and nuts (if using). Spoon onto lightly greased baking trays and cook for about 10 minutes.

Notes:

Be careful once you take them out of the oven to cool and are transferring them to a wire rack: the melted chocolate can be quite hot.
The dough is quite tough to handle, especially once you've put the chips and nuts in. At the moment I'm making do but once my mix master gets here it will be doing this heavy work.
The cooking time really depends on your oven. My old oven use to take 20 minutes and this one takes 10. The cookies don't go too golden so don't be deceived but they should develop some colour.
Everytime I've cooked these they have come out a different shape. Depending on what type of butter I use normally determines if the cookies will spread a lot or not (Nuttelex = spreading!). Also, if your oven is too hot they will spread and if it is not hot enough they won't.
Practise makes perfect: use your normal oven with the ingredients you typically use and practise, practise, practise!

* Wholemeal (wholewheat) flour also works well and is much better for you I am sure!

** Yeah, this is a lot of butter. Don't eat all of the cookies and blame me for weight gain! Also, see notes above about effects of different butter.

*** I'm just using flaxseed now (1 egg = 1 tablespoon flax seed with 3 tablespoons water). In Australia I was using Orgran No Egg and I think in the US Ener-G Egg Replacer is the popular option. See the boxes for equivalence. Just be careful because the flaxseed uses more water than the others so you might need to add a tiny bit more flour to compensate. The dough should be quite wet and sticky but you don't want it too sloppy.

**** I use walnuts although have used peanuts successfully with this recipe in the past.

Dessert? Um... sure, I made dessert...

2010-10-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

I cooked a delicious, creamy pasta the other night (the basil was dying on our kitchen window (I have a theory it's because the sun never appears in England) and I had to use it up) but we only had our camping saucepan and our small frypan we bought from Sainsbury's so the portion size was a little smaller than usual. So Geoff was still hungry after the pasta and asked for dessert; a dessert that I had not prepared.

I used to make a banana split at home with bananas, soy ice cream, soy cream, Cointreau and nuts. We didn't have any Cointreau, though, and often that dessert is a little rich for me. So I threw together this delicious dessert with some items that everyone should have lying around.

No-Bake Tropical Custard Crunch

Serves 2

1 cup custard

1 peach

1 banana

2 tbsp honey*

1 ginger biscuit**

1 tsp cinnamon

vegan ice cream***

Halve the custard and pour 1/2 cup into the bottom of two dessert bowls (i.e 1/4 cup in each). Halve the banana length ways and place one half in each bowl. Slice the peach into sections, removing the seed, and arrange in bowls evenly.

Scoop out some ice cream into each bowl (I put two scoops in each but do whatever you like!) and then drizle the remaining custard and honey over the dish.

Crush the biscuit up (I normally do this with the back of a spoon on a dry chopping board) and sprinkle it and the cinnamon on top. Enjoy!

Notes:

You could heat the custard so that you get a lovely contrast between the hot custard and cold ice cream (think warm apple crumble and ice cream... mmm!)
The peach and banana could easily be replace by other fruits. I fully promote the use of seasonal fruits.

* I remain okay with eating honey. I can't seem to find any evidence that insects feel pain and the extraction of honey, as long as it is done responsibly, does not appear to have any serious effects on the bees. However, I still completely understand other people's apprehensions and the honey in this recipe can easily be replace with maple syrup, rice honey, agave nectar or any other viscous, sweet substance.

** The ginger biscuits here in the UK are vegan. That's not so in Australia. You could just replace it with any sweet biscuit but the ginger adds a nice flavour.

*** We didn't actually use soy ice cream. We used Tofutti's Mango and Passionfruit ice cream which tastes nothing like a sorbet or an ice cream but I still like it (it's almost like bad supermarket gelato). Since then we have discovered the absolutely amazing Swedish Glace which tastes like really well made real ice cream! But if you are in Australia you might be stuck with So Good. Sorry!

Carnivwhore

2010-09-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

I saw this lovely post today. I thought it was really sweet.

Despite the fact that the author has made the decision to eat meat she has made an informed choice and hasn't tried to deter her child from another path. I feel much better about carnivwhores like her.

How To Be a Cambridge Vegan II

2010-09-25T04:44:00.000-07:00

We found Tesco yesterday which meant we stocked up big on supplies. Which meant I could eat this yummy breakfast!

And the packaging here is so helpful that finding vegan food is very easy!

We brought our camping saucepan with us and bought a Tefal frying pan for £14 (bargain!) and found a deep, round Pyrex dish in a second hand store for £1.50. We went to this lovely kitchen shop at Market Hill but despite my drooling over some of the lovely items we could only afford a £1.49 wooden spoon (although it's a very nice wooden spoon!). But in all I have the basic items I need to cook which makes me slightly cheerier about the pending, impending, gloomy, doomy cold.

I also found the Cambridge Vegan Society and their website has a good list of vegan friendly restaurants in town which is mighty helpful. So be prepared for some reviews!

There's also something called The Cafe Project here but I'm a little uncertain of it at the moment. I will have to find out more.

How To Be a Cambridge Vegan

2010-09-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

Selwyn College

Geoff and I are now officially residents of Cambridge (that's Selwyn College above, we live on the grounds and I'm a member of the college). It's been wonderfully sunny and warm and my bosses, supervisors and lab buddies have all been so wonderful and welcoming that I've hardly noticed we've moved. And since everyone is here at the moment we've been going out to eat a lot.

We ate at the Rainbow Cafe when we first arrived (some readers may remember my not so positive review from April) and my opinion of it remains unchanged although Geoff seemed to like his meal.The following morning we still had no food in the house so went into town (and by that I mean the 5 minute walk across the Cam to the centre of town) and discovered that nothing opens until 10am on Sundays so we walked around a bit and found a lovely little cafe called Indigo Cofee House (Facebook page here) where we had coffee and bagels and did the Times crossword (the easy one, and only once we found it which required asking 2 strangers and a lot of flipping). We have now discovered that the 2.20 pounds refers to the weight of the damn paper and not the price.

I also had lunch at Carluccio's, although could only eat the bruschetta, and we had dinner last night at Browns which was a bit underwhelming but my meal was actually quite nice (despite the lack of protein) it was a nice evening.

We are settled into our new house although are a bit surprised by the lack of a shower. So we've been taking baths, Mr Darcy style, and hopefully we'll get some sort of shower hose fitting soon. This is a photo of the outside of our house of which we only occupy a small part.

Our humble home in the Selwyn Grounds

As I mentioned above we live on the Selwyn grounds so it's very convenient to everything including the lovely gardens.

Selwyn Gardens

And although I was hoping for a gas oven the one we have is electric but it actually works splendidly (we made great pizzas when Zach came over for dinner the other night) so I'm quite happy with it. I cannot wait until my mix master is here and all of my baking tins so I can start cooking again.


This is where the Cambridge Vegan magic will happen.

So for now that's all I have to report. But I would like to give the following, very important advice to anyone ever visiting the static world that is Cambridge:

Oma's Spaghetti Dish (Elise's vegan version)

2010-09-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

Geoff's grandma always loves to make him spaghetti and Geoff loves to eat it (especially for breakfast!). She very kindly gave me the recipe so that I could cook it in Cambridge for Geoff. Of course, it had to be veganised but here it is.

Oma's Spaghetti Dish (Elise's Vegan Version)

3 tbsp of olive oil

3 tbsp vegan butter

250g spaghetti

4-6 cloves garlic chopped finely

1 medium onion diced

400g tin of crushed tomatoes

12 whole button mushrooms sliced

3-4 gherkins sliced

1 red capsicum

12 sliced pitted black olives

mixed herbs & bolognese herbs

500ml of tomato juice

vegan Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Add salt. Add spaghetti and cook until al dente. Drain and set aside in a casserole dish.

Brown the onions and garlic in the olive oil and butter. Pour in the crushed tomatoes, mushrooms, capsicum, herbs, S&P and simmer for a short time. Add the gherkins and olives & stir. Add this sauce to the spaghetti in the casserole dish and mix. Pour in the tomato juice and bake, lidded, in oven for 1/2 hour. Remove and sprinkle with Parmesan and return to the oven, unlidded, until Parmesan turns golden.

Notes:

I can only ever find 1 litre of tomato juice but this is a good thing. The reason it is in this recipe is that the pasta soaks it up while in the oven (I'm sure there are many Nonnas rolling in their graves at the sound of this). I normally pour in half and then check the oven now and then to see if the mix if too dry. If it is I add more juice.
If you don't have a casserole dish you can put it in a big soup pot and keep it on the stove for half an hour. It's not quite the same but it still tastes good!
You must put the gherkins in for two reasons: 1. it forces you to buy gherkins which turn out to be tasty snacks, 2. the sourness of the gherkins make everything else taste buttery. Trust me, you need the gherkins.
As Oma famously says... you never make this recipe the same twice. These are just the ingredients that make it Oma's mix but you can add extra anything.

2010-08-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

Pears with Ginger and Star Anise
from Vegan Cooking (Eating for Health)

6 tbsp caster sugar

1 1/4 cups white dessert wine

thinly pared rind and juice of 1 lemon

7.4cm piece of fresh root ginger, bruised

5 star anise

10 cloves

2 1/2 cups water

6 slightly unripe pears

Put first six ingredients in a saucepan (big enough to hold all the pears in upright position). Don't put the pears in yet but bring liquid to boil.

Peels the pears but leave the stems. Add the pears to the liquid making sure they are completely immersed. Return to boil, lower heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until pears are tender.

Remove the pears with with a slotted spoon and place them in a heatproof dish. Boil the remaining liquid rapidly until it reduces to about half the volume. Pour liquid over the pears and allow to cool. Then chill.

Cut the pears into thick slices and arrange serving with some soy icecream or yoghurt. The recipe also suggests serving with sliced pieces of ginger from ginger in syrup.

I loved this dessert. Geoff was not so impressed. I loved the flavours and how light but delicious it was. I didn't have any dessert wine on hand (well, I did, but it was a rather expensive bottle we had picked up in Tasmania that we were keeping for a special occassion) so used some champagne which gave it a bit of a tang. I also didn't have any of the ginger in syrup and only made this recipe to use up the pears in my fruit bowl and didn't want to have to go out and buy it. I'm sure it would have added to the delicious flavour and wonderful textures but it was tasty without it. I also just used the normal green pears that you get in the supermarket. It would be great for a dinner party as you can prepare it before, leave it in the fridge, and could dish it up on one big plate or on inidividual dishes.

Mini Crustless Quiches

2010-07-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was talking about quiche. I finally got around to making some from this great recipe on the FatFree Vegan website. They are light and delicious and great for fingerfood or snacks. I'm going to even try adding a crust (maybe brown rice). I've Australian-ised the recipe below.

Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches

olive oil spray
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1/2 cup red capsicum
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives (or spring onions)
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp. dried, crushed)
black pepper to taste

350g lite firm silken tofu, drained of water
1/4 cup plain soymilk
2 tbsp savoury yeast
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp tahini

1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 190C (375 F). Spray 12 regular-sized muffin cups well with non-stick spray.

Lightly spray a non-stick frying pan with olive oil and sauté the garlic, capsicum and mushrooms over medium heat until the mushrooms just begin to exude their juices. Stir in the chives, rosemary, and freshly ground black pepper, and remove from the heat.

Place remaining ingredients into a food processor or blender. Process until completely smooth and silky. Add the tofu mixture to the vegetables and stir to combine. Spoon equally into the 12 muffin cups: it will fill regular muffin cups about halfway (mine didn't so if you want bigger quiches maybe only fill 11).

Put the muffin pan into the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 180C (350 F). Bake until the tops are golden and a knife inserted into the middle of a quiche comes out clean–about 25-35 minutes depending on your oven and muffin cups (silicone will take longer than metal, so if you’re using a metal pan, check it at 20 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes.

Chocolate Cheesecake

2010-07-31T19:46:00.000-07:00

My Dad loves cheesecake. He also has a bit of a cholestrol problem. So I served him up some of my chocolate cheesecake and he loved it. He said he could tell it wasn't real cheesecake, and it's true that it doesn't have the same heavy cheesy taste, but it's light and delicate and delicious. And very easy! The only con about this recipe is that it uses two tubs of vegan cream cheese. My favourite to use if Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese (which my local Coles stocks and I'm pretty sure you can get it at Woolworths too) but it's quite expensive. I also have a lot of trouble getting reasonably priced vegan chocolate cooking chips. So I normally just buy a dark vegan chocolate cooking block and chop it up. Takes time and is a bit messy! Still, it's worth it if you are having a dinner party and want to serve up something yummy!

Chocolate Cheesecake

from The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets

Filling:

6 tsp egg replacer

1/2 cup water

1 cup vegan semisweet chocolate chips

690g vegan cream cheese

3/4 sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cookie Crust:

1 cup crumbled vegan cookies (I find chocolate ones are yummiest!)

1/2 vegan butter melted

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Lightly oil a round springform pan. Mix crust ingredients together and press into bottom of the pan. Mix egg replacer and water together in small bowl (best done with electric hand mixer or food processor). Melt chocolate chips in the microwave or double boiler. Beat together cream cheese, sugar and egg replacer mixture in food processor (although I use a blender). Mixture should be smooth and fluffy. Add melted chocolate and vanilla to this and blend again. Pour into prepared crust.

Bake for 50 mins. Be really careful with baking time. The cheesecake centre should barely jiggle when the pan is tapped.

Remove from the oven and let it cool completely in the pan. Then move to a serving plate and cover with cling wrap and put it in the fridge overnight. If you need to serve it straight away you need to chill it for at least 2 hours.

FatFree Vegan Kitchen

2010-07-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

This blog was named as it is as a humourous reaction to some jokes about vegans that popped up on The Simpsons over the years. I had, rather incorrectly, assumed that vegans can't really get fat. I carried this incorrect assumption until a couple of weeks ago... when I couldn't do up my favourite jeans.

I'm not sure when it happened but I have an idea it might have had something to do with the delicious vegan restaurants in Seattle and then my discovery that Oreos are vegan. I don't think Masterchef has helped either: the more extravagant the dishes on the television, the harder I tried to replicate vegan versions.

So I decided, with the hour or so I walk the dog every day, that I should perhaps cut down on the decadent vegan chocolate cheesecakes (recipe to come!) or rich, creamy cauliflower tarts (also to come!). Like most of my bright ideas I went to the extreme first: I ate 99.4% fat free 2-minute noodles for lunch and dinner every day. I soon got sick of that (we'll not mention how unhealthy it is). Then I tried steamed vegies and flavoured rice. It was good but once a year is enough for a plate of vegetables. I wanted something delicious and creative!

Then I remembered that I recently cooked some vegan quiches with a recipe from a blog called FatFree Vegan Kitchen. The quiches (recipe and photos soon!) were delicious (although, unfortunately, in the higher fat end) so thought I'd browse through SusanV's blog to find some delicious, fat free, vegan recipes. And I found some great ones I'd love to try!

Asparagus and Mushroom Quiches with a Brown Rice Crust

Red Lentil Sambar

Baked Spinach Kofta

Red Lentil and Rice Patties with Coconut-Mint Sauce

Apple Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes

Chili Mac

Easy Macaroni and Cheeze

Curried Chickpea and Quinoa

WhyVeg.com

2010-07-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

WhyVeg.com is a great place to visit if you are or are interested in becoming a vegetarian/vegan.

I can't wait to try out their vegan-friendly recipe for lasagne!

Don't let 'Free Range' become 'Factory Farmed'!

2010-07-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

If you live in Australia please take the time to click here and help Animals Australia stop terrible changes to the way eggs are classified.

Food Inc

2010-07-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

When Geoff and I first starting going out we used to have Date Night every Saturday. Date Night usually consisted of dinner and a movie.

Since we started living together Date Night turned into takeaway in front of the television watching a DVD (most recently it's been The Wire and then Planet Earth). But last night Geoff was determined to rekindle our more exciting routine so we went out for dinner and a movie.

We couldn't get a table at A Night in India or at the Himalyan Cafe so we opted for the Indian restaurant near the Palace Centro. It's called Sitar and the food was quite good, prices average and the service was pleasant but very unprofessional.

We had decided to go to a 9.10 movie so had to scoff our food down and I ran to buy the tickets as Geoff paid the bill. And just as we were walking into the doors of the cinema they closed in front of us signalling that the movie had started. We forced our way in as the opening credits started.

The movie we saw was Food Inc. It's been around for quite a while in the US but has only recently hit our cinemas. With the help of Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) the documentary looked at the origins of the food most Americans eat. And it wasn't just one of these movies that scares the average omnivore into not eating meat for a couple of weeks until they forget about the raw impact of the movie when they get hungry and crave a Quarter Pounder. This documentary shed some light onto the power of consumers to shape the products supermarkets stock, the problems with a few multinational companies holding all the power over what we consume, the veil between product and origin, and the problems with genetically modified food (particularly the soybean).

I always preach that meat eaters are so distanced from the animal because of the way a piece of meat is presented in a supermarket that it's easy for them to buy and eat without thinking about the consequences. I still hold this belief but this film made me think about my choices too. I can say I don't contribute to the slaughtering of animals and the moral, environmental and social consequences that go with it but what can I say about the vegetables, grain and soy proteins I buy?

It's a really well made film and makes its point very well by letting people in the industry, particularly farmers, voice their opinions.

My dear friend Laura was talking about goals this week on her blog. I have a few short term goals (make the perfect vegan caramel popcorn; finish my thesis soon!) and now some new long term goals: don't buy genetically modified foods, buy local, shop at farmers' markets and try to buy organic.

RSPCA Cupcake Day

2010-06-27T02:16:00.000-07:00

I am taking part in the RSPCA Cupcake Day on Monday August 16th. You can donate to the RSPCA and place pre-orders for my yummy vegan cupcakes here. I'll be filling orders, exchanging cupcakes (and muffins and brownies and other goodies!) for gold coin donations and collecting any other donations at UQ on the day. So start ordering and donating!

MasterChef and Kylie Kwong do vegan Stir-Fried Eggplant

2010-06-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

This recipe looks amazing. And I have an eggplant in the fridge. Time to cook!

I cannot express how in love I am with MasterChef.

Edit: I cooked it. What do you think? Next time I'll definitely chop up the eggplant smaller and buy smaller eggplants. Mine were large eggplants!

Which wine?

2010-06-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

I've recently become obsessed with MasterChef. I think it is due to all the marking I have and the fact that I sit in front of the television to mark so that I don't feel like I'm alone on an island of vector spaces. The only show I've seen on commercial television that I like is MasterChef. Unfortunately it's on the same time as the 7.30 Report but I switch back and forth: a little cooking, a little of Kerry's 7.30 report land.

Anyhow, I came across this article on the MasterChef website that I thought was great. So often I see the back of a wine bottle describe what meat dish the wine would go with; never have I once seen "this wine complements marinated tofu"!

Talking about wines maybe I should ask our new PM what wine goes with slaughtered and fried K-Rudd.

Fruity Oatmeal Bars

2010-06-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

Try this delicious and very simple recipe for great snacks with afternoon tea!

Fruity Oatmeal Bars

adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1/2 cup vegan butter

3/4 cup fruit jam (make sure it has been in the cupboard and not the fridge!)

Preheat over to 180C. Grease a 20cm square pan. Mix brown sugar, flour, bs, salt and rolled oats in a bowl. Add the butter and make a crumbly mixture with your fingers. Press 2/3 of the mixture into the pan (I lined the pan with baking paper to make it easier to get it out later). Spread the jam within 5mm of the edge. This is tricky. Make sure the jam is room temperature beforehand and don't get too stressed if it's lumpy in parts. Just try to make it even. Sprinkle the rest of the mixture on top and lightly press into the jam. Bake for 35-40 mins until it has lightly browned. Allow to cool before cutting into squares with a sharp, strong knife. Delicious and simple!

Chocolate Brownies

2010-06-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Brownies

from The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tbsp water

2 tsp ground flaxseed

1/2 cup water

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/3 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips (or just chop a block)

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease 20cm square baking tin with canola oil.

Stir together sugar, applesauce and 2 tbsp water in a bowl.

In a smaller bowl combine flaxseed and 1/2 cup water and add to applesauce mixture with vanilla.

In yet another bowl combine flour, cocoa, bp, salt, choc chips and nuts. Then add to applesauce mixture and stir until just combined.

Pour into pan and bake for 40 minutes. You want the brownies to be moist so the edges should start to come away from the pan as it's ready but it shouldn't be overcooked so that you get a cake-like brownie (unless you want it like that!) so the old clean knife in and out trick won't work. The knife should look like it's gone through moist cake but not doughy batter. Let it cool before cutting and cut with a sharp knife.

Easy like Sunday morning...

2010-06-05T17:47:00.000-07:00

We ate breakfast at Sassafras in Paddington last week. I've been here once before. I like the good range of vegetarian (and vegan) options. Sometimes they even have yummy vegan cakes that look amazing. However, the service can be terrible (like standing at the counter for 10 minutes before one of the dozen people chatting and flitting around behind the counter cares to serve you) and the wait can be atrocious (when we went last week they told us the wait would be 45 minutes). However, if you have the time on a Sunday morning, like we did late weekend, it's nice to pop across the road and grab the paper (or Australian Vogue (I have a local fashion addiction, I can't help it!)) and read while you wait for your meal. And the meals are generous, although for the price you'd expect it. Breakfast for 2 will cost you nearly $40 but it's nice for a treat.

German Apple Cake

2010-06-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

German Apple Cake
from The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets

Cake
3 apples, peeled and cut into slices
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup applesauce unsweetened
2 tbsp soy milk
1 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder

Topping
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease 23cm spring form round pan.
Cook apples in a bit of water on the stove or in microwave until they are a little soft but not mushy. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together. Add applesauce and milk. Add flour and baking powder and stir until just combined.
Add batter to cake pan and arrange apple slices in a circle on top of the cake.
Mix together topping ingredients in a bowl and sprinkle over the apples covering the top of the cake. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Let it cool for 15 minutes before unfolding cake from pan so that the apples don't fall off!

Southwestern Mushroom and Tempeh Crepes

2010-05-29T04:08:00.000-07:00

When I was in Seattle recently I had the most delicious southwestern portobello mushroom and seitan crepes at the very tasty Sage Cafe. I attempted to recreate the delicious flavour and texture recently in my own kitchen with some success!

Southwestern Mushroom and Tempeh Crepes

Crepes:

1 cup of flour

1-1 1/2 cups of soy milk

2 tbsp of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Mix the flour, sugar and salt. Add milk until the batter has the consistency of milk. Try to get all the lumps out. Heat a pan and grease it lightly. Pour a small amount of batter into the middle of the pan (about the size of a pikelet) then gently roll the pan until the batter covers the entire pan (obviously if you have a very large pan it might be a bit smaller than your pan).

Southwestern Mushroom and Tempeh Filling

1 tbsp oil

1 clove garlic crushed or chopped finely

1 red onion

1 tomato diced

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground chilli

200g tempeh sliced

200g mushrooms sliced

Heat the oil in the pan. When hot add the garlic and onions. When onions start to soften add the spices and tempeh. When tempeh starts to brown add the mushrooms and tomato. The tomato should form a nice gravy with the spices. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Creamy Southwestern Sauce

1/3 cup of vegan mayonnaise

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp tabasco sauce

1 tsp flaxseed oil (optional but full of Omega-3!)

Mix all the ingredients together until consistent and creamy.

Finally, spoon the hot mushroom mixture onto the crepes and drizzle in the creamy sauce. Fold the crepe over. Season with a sprinkling of smoked paprika.