Leek, Mushroom and Lemon Risotto

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.

Vegfest 2010 Review

It was so awesome!

90% of the stalls were vegan, I ate until I could eat no more and I even snatched up a few free goodies to take home with me. One of the highlights was So Delicious Coconut Milk ice-cream (called Purely Decadent) of which I tasted the Passionate Mango and Cherry Nirvana which were both equally delicious. Another highlight was my first slice of Tofurkey. I will never eat it again (the texture is far too Turkey-like) but it had to be tried. There were also these vegan burgers there and I honestly thought they were meat.

I was a little sad, though, that a city of only 700 00 people (2.7 million in the urban area) could have such a large festival like that with so many people (you could hardly move there were so many people) with such a great range of vegan restaurants when Brisbane has two vegan restaurants and a few vegetarian ones and you tell people you are vegan and they wonder if there is a cure for it. And a lot of the products were local so it's not just about the huge population of the US being able to snap up their share of Tofurkey. I just think Australia is really behind when it comes to changing our lifestyles for someone (or rather somethings) other than ourselves.

There was a stall promoting drinking water (apparently not everyone knew it was good to drink water) and they had free samples of an immune booster drink. I have been a bit flu-ey since I've been here so thought I'd try it. Everyone else trying it was pulling funny faces but not me. I thought it was delicious. Turns out, it's because it's almost exactly like my super secret honey-ginger-garlic-lemon drink. Here's their recipe:

Natural Immune Boosting Drink

2 litres of water

8-10 lemons (juiced)

9-12 cloves of garlic

1 inch of fresh ginger

1/2 cup of honey (try to use non-commercial honey)

1/2 onion (chopped)

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Pour 1/3 of water into blender with juice of lemons. Blend. Add garlic and onions. Blend very well. Add honey and pepper. Blend. Add remaining water. Blend.

Blueberry Lemon Muffins

I don't think I can describe just how much I love this book. And from it comes this most delicious recipe. These muffins come out beautifully every time. You can use frozen berries to make it a bit cheaper but if you use fresh berries you'll be rewarded with the taste!

Blueberry Lemon Muffins
from The Joy of Vegan Baking

2 cups flour
11/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
zest of 2 lemons
1 cup sugar
1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup canola (or whatever you have) oil
1 tsp lemon extract (I just use a bit of lemon juice)
1 tbs white vinegar
11/2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 200C. Lightly grease muffin tray.
In a bowl mix flour, bs, salt and lemon zest. In another bowl mix sugar, milk, oil, lemon extract and vinegar. Mix well. Add flour mixture and stir until just blended. Gently fold in blueberries with rubber spatula. (If you are using frozen berries do this carefully and in minimum time to avoid bleeding.)
Fill muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes. If you have Elise's oven, however, bake for exactly 2 episodes of Sex & The City (while drinking a vegan friendly glass of Brown Brother's Crouchen & Riesling) but only if you fast forwarded through the title music at x8 and checked on them during a particularly nonsense, whiny part of the show.
Enjoy!

Sour cream, Chai lemon ginger muffins and camping.

Hmm. Camping. Not my favourite thing. But more of that later.

I tried my sour cream idea. It went a little something like this:

300g silken tofu
too many teaspoons of vinegar
a couple of teaspoons of lemon
salt
pepper
(blend blend blend)
Crap, I'll have to add some flour because this is really sloppy. Let's chuck in a few fingerfuls.
(blend blend blend)
Oh God it's still sloppy.
(forget about it for a while)
Hmm. It's got some solidness. Let's serve it.

I'm serious, Ladies and Gentlemen; don't try this at home. It tastes nothing like sour cream, a little like bland mayonnaise, and needs much perfecting.

The spicy "Mexican" beans, on the other hand, turned out great. I used:

2 cans of red kidney beans with half the water drained off
1 red capsicum
1 red chili
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
some oil
chili powder, ground cumin, turmeric
pepper and salt

Fry the onions, garlic and chili. Add spices. Add capsicum and beans (with half water in the can in order to make the sauce). Make hot. May need to boil off some of the liquid depending on how you like your spicy "Mexican" beans. I served with tortillas, vegan sour cream, vegan guacamole, cut lettuce, tomato and grated carrot.

I tried something different this time for the guacamole. I just mashed up some avocado, added some lemon juice and about 2 tablespoons of soft tofu and some salt and pepper to taste. It wasn't my best guacamole. I'm getting there, though.

After dinner I went to the task of baking for the weekend. I baked the good, ol' trusty banana cake (which didn't die a slow painful death this time in my less than spectacular oven) and Ginger Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking which is the most fantastic cookbook in the entire world.

Ginger (and Lemon) Muffins
2 tsp No-Egg
4 tbsp water
1/4 fresh minced ginger
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup vegan butter
1 cup soy milk
juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 190 (or try to, in my case). Grease muffin tins (God bless oil in a spray can). Mix No-Egg and water. Supposed to use an electric hand mixer. I use a tea cup and a spoon. It's supposed to be thick and creamy. I just get white and liquidy. Combine ginger and 1/2 cup of sugar in saucepan over stove and stir constantly while the sugar melts. Set aside and add lemon zest when it cools but don't let it cool so much that it goes hard because this is a pain in the butt to get into the bowl. In another bowl mix flour, salt and baking soda. Then yet again in another bowl (God bless my Mix Master) beat butter then add to it the remaining sugar and beat until blended. Add No-Egg mixture and mix. Add milk and lemon juice and mix. Add dry ingredients from other bowl and the ginger/sugar until just blended. Put in muffin tins. Bake bake bake. 30 mins?

These muffins are delicious. But don't use dry ginger or ginger in a tube. Not good. And if you have the Texas Muffin tins use that instead because the muffins seem to come out better even though they are bigger so you make less. And if you, like me, run out of soy milk because your boyfriend eats more than all of Africa then you can use, if you have it, cold Chai in a carton that has been sitting in your fridge for over a week that should have been thrown out. This will make the muffins darker and taste a little like Chai but it'll still be good enough for your camping trip.

And so we've made it to the part in the blog post where I talk about camping. Well, the scenery was spectacular. We went on two 4km walks on Saturday and a 4km walk on Sunday. The falls are great. Spurling Brook falls are spectacular.

We camped at Springbrook in the camping area and it had a nice little BBQ area where we cooked up a nice vegan BBQ of vegie sausages, mushrooms, tomato, onion and sweet potato.

As soon as the sun went down, however, we noticed a ridiculous change in the temperature. And as soon as we stepped away from the warm BBQ area I felt my organs start to shut down with the cold.

I've never been so cold in my entire life and I never want to be that cold again. It's my birthday next month and all I want is a very, very good sleeping bag so I never have to be cold while camping again. And a good camping mattress so that my poor broken back can survive.

I think my complaining about the cold really tested poor Geoff's patience. Luckily I had Ginger Muffins and Banana Cake the next morning. I believe strongly in the old saying (that I made up just then):

You can be as annoying and mean as you like just be prepared to bake a lot to compensate for it.