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

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

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

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

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'!

 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

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.