Tuesday 30 December 2014

Dal.

I love Indian food, but it often gives me heartburn, though I find that with a lot of tomatoey dishes. This is my tomato-free Dal. It is so good, yes, I know I am biased, but it truly is! (: And I promise it tastes a LOT better than it looks ;)


Ingredients: 

  • 400g tin lentils drained and rinsed
  • 400mL coconut milk, plus extra IF required
  • 1 tsp Garam Masala, cumin, ground coriander seeds
  • 1 brown onion, diced
  • 3 cloves/tsp crushed garlic
  • 1/2 tsp minced ginger
  • 1/4-1/2 tsp salt
  • Sugar as needed if too salty
  • Splash of Braggs (optional, but worth it)
  • 1 Tbsp Coconut oil
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • (I've given measurements, but really all the spices are to taste.)

Method: 

  1. Melt coconut oil in a saucepan. 
  2. Add diced onion and sauté gently. 
  3. Add garlic, ginger and all other spices and allow them to ft off a little. 
  4. Add lentils and coconut milk. Allow to simmer until thick, about 30-40 minutes. If it gets too thick thin out with a little more coconut milk. 
  5. Serve with steamed rice, roti and veggies, or as part of a banquet. 
  6. Enjoy (:

Sunday 14 December 2014

Strawberry Sauce

At work we have a rule that on your birthday you have to bring in the cake. I kinda think that's a bit mean, but being vegan I find it easier to cater for myself anyway. Plus it gives others a chance to see that vegan food isn't just "rabbit food". My go to special occasion cake is "my" (not my recipe) Chocolate Mousse Cheezecake  I made it yesterday for my birthday today. It's great with berries on top and that was my plan today, but when I looked at my punnet this morning they were a bit squashed and bruised. I decided I couldn't possibly serve them like that so I whipped a batch of strawberry sauce instead.


Ingredients:

  • 1 punnet of strawberries (or other berries or soft fruit, thinking mango next time) 
  • Agave nectar or white/raw sugar to taste A little water
  • Corn flour 

Method: 

  1. In a saucepan squish fruit with a masher or fork and add a little water. Heat up on medium heat slightly. 
  2. Transfer to blender, food processor or use a stick blender to liquify the fruit. 
  3. Transfer to a metal sieve and strain to remove any seeds or pulp. 
  4. Put back in saucepan and heat gently, add nectar or sugar to taste. 
  5. You can leave it as a runny syrup or mix up a little cornflour or arrowroot (about a tablespoon) with some some water and add to the mix. Heat gently until it has thickened. 
  6. You can now serve it hot/warm or allow it to cool. 
  7. Store in the fridge, but it will go quite thick, so you will have to let it come back to room temperature if you store it in a thin mouthed bottle like I have, or just scoop it out with a spoon if in something wider. 
I plan on making this next time I make scones too.
Enjoy! (:





Friday 5 December 2014

Hummus

I have never really been a hummus fan and I realised on Monday, after having some totes amazeballs hummus, that's because I'd only ever had shitty store bought stuff. The hummus I had on Monday came from a gourmet deli (Alps and Amici I think, for those in Launceston) and it was just so good that I wanted to eat the lot! I was asked if I had ever made it. I hadn't because I didn't think I'd like it, but upon realising I had all the ingredients in my pantry I figured why not?!

So here is my hummus recipe. I hope you like it :) It may not be quite as good as Alps and Amici, but I think it is pretty damn good! ;)



Ingredients:
  • One can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
  • Juice of 1/2-1 lemon
  • Salt to taste, about 1/4-1/2 a teaspoon
  • A couple of flags of olive oil
  • Shake of paprika (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon of tahini
  • 1-2 small cloves of garlic

Method:
  1. Put garlic, chickpeas, juice of half a lemon, one good glug of oil, tahini, salt and paprika in bowl of food processor, whizz until everything sticks to the side of the bowl. 
  2. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Whizz again to get it smooth. Keep scraping and whizzing as required. 
  3. Add extra oil, lemon juice, salt or even garlic as required or to taste. 
  4. Once you have the desired flavours and consistency pop the mix in a jar or other air-tight container, drizzle with a little extra olive oil and a dash more paprika. 
  5. Store in the fridge or just serve and eat it straight away. I love it on bread rolls! :)


Friday 28 November 2014

Cheeses (plus pizza and chocolates).

I think the response I hear most when I tell people I'm vegan is "I could never give up cheese"! I get that, cheese is mighty tasty. I loved eating cheese too and found it hard to give up, and most vegans I speak to say that cheese was the last thing to give up. I have tried various (vegan) cheeses, mostly the Cheezly varieties, some are better than others. Recently I tried the Vegusto Melty, everybody says it's great, not me! I thought it was ok, again, better than some others, but not *that* good. And the other 2 that aren't *too* bad are the Tofutti American and Mozzarella, again, ok.
So I decided to bite the bullet and shell out a shitload of cash to try the 4 cheese varieties I have heard everybody rave about: Daiya, Notzarella, Bio Cheese and The Loving Hut Aussie Vegan Cheddar. 
I have tried all of them raw.

The Daiya was not great raw, and despite it being soy-free I felt it smelt quite soy-like.
The Notzarella didn't really taste like anything, which I thought was good as mozzarella doesn't really have much of a flavour.

The Bio Cheese was fairly good, still had a mild soy taste, but much better than most others. I can see why people have been going crazy over it. I really liked the way it cut, it is nice and firm and that was a nice change.
An finally the Loving Hut Aussie Vegan Cheddar. this one I was the most skeptical about, but I found it fairly decent actually. Not as firm to cut as the Bio, but not much softer.
All blocks grated fairly well, especially the Bio, the Notzarella was a bit soft and more difficult to grate, but that didn't really surprise me.
The Bio and Loving Hut cheeses will be pretty good in toasties and on crackers, so that is a win and the Daiya was much better cooked than raw, though I was disappointed that it didn't melt that well and did not go stringy as promised on the pack. The Bio seemed to melt the best.
So to test all of these guys I made pizzas, something I'm not normally that in to, but in the interest of testing new products I figured this would be a great way to do it. The Daiya was definitely my fave in this regard. Now I will have to find some other cheesy recipes to test and use all of them before they go off.

Now for the chocolate.
Go Max Go chocolates are some of the best I have ever tasted, vegan or not, I love them!! Cleo's are peanut butter cups, Jokerz are a Snickers style and the Thumbs Up are a Butterfingers style, my favourite! The others I like of theirs are the Twilight (Mars bar) and Buccaneers (kind of like Milky Way). At around $4 per bar they aren't cheap, but they are so incredibly worth it! The only problem is I just want to eat them al, NOW!!

I got this haul form Vegan Online, my favourite online vegan store. They do ship cold products over night express which costs around $27, again, not cheap, but worth it if you REALLY want stuff!

If you live in the Launceston area and shop at The Organic Grocery Store on Hobart Road at Kings Meadows they order vegan produce from Vegan Perfection and these guys have started stocking Go Max Go Bars (YAY!), the Organic Grocer will order in stuff from VP for you so you don't have to pay for shipping (DOUBLE YAY!!). VP were going to stock Daiya, but so far this hasn't happened, hopefully they will start stocking that and Bio Cheese, this is my hope :)




Cheese overload pizza.
Top left: Daiya
Top right: all 4
Bottom right: Notzarella
Bottom middle: Bio
Bottom left: Loving Hut
Notzarella and Daiya with mushrooms, capsicum, pineapple and onion.




Sunday 23 November 2014

Evandale Markets

For those of you in Northern Tassie, you no doubt know about Evandale markets. Lots of great food (especially if your not vegan :-/ ), plants, bric-a-brac, video games, hats, clothing, etc, etc. Also a couple of great vegan goodies. Goodies such as Sudanese doughnuts.


And today Higher Taste Bakehouse had a stall and they are planing another before Christmas, depending how swamped they get with orders in the lead up to then. I grabbed 2 bags of cookies today; Chocolate Fudge Brownies and Sticky Date. They are so yummy!! And the great packaging makes them great gifts too, and they have a farm sanctuary also! (:


You can check out Higher Taste Bakehouse on Facebook or online here. And she does post around Australia! (:

"Bounty" Slice

Yesterday I made these gorgeous fingers/bars by Karly at Clean Eating Survival Guide. They taste so much like Bounties it is crazy!
It's not my recipe so I won't publish it, but here is where you can find it, on Karly's Vlog.

I will say that I used agave as my sweetener and I didn't have enough dark chocolate, only about 40g, so I topped up with Sweet Williams choc chips which was fantastic!! 


Friday 14 November 2014

ChocNana Bliss Balls

I got a new food processor today and I am stoked, it means I can finally make all sorts of awesome new treaties! Its first job: bliss balls. 
I have found various recipes that I like on the intertubes, but I decided to wing it today, not something I normally do when I haven't ever made something before. So I came up with ChocNana Bliss Balls. I realise banana might be a little odd, and you can totally leave it out if you want, but I had it lying around after my little dude decided he wanted one and then promptly decided that actually he didn't! *facepalm* So I just whacked it in too. 

SJ's ChocNana Bliss Balls


Ingredients:
  • 2 cups of pitted dates (mine were pretty dry, so I soaked them in boiling water for about 2 minutes)
  • 1 C rolled oats
  • 1 C raw nuts, I used cashews, but whatever you want
  • 1 banana
  • 1/2 C coconut, I used moist flakes, plus extra coconut for rolling, I used dedicated. 
  • 2 Tbs vanilla protein powder, optional
  • 1/4 C cocoa

Method:
  1. In food processor roughly chop the nuts and oats.
  2. Add and chop the dates, banana and coconut. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as required.
  3. Add protein powder and cocoa. Mix until everything form together in the bowl.
  4. Scoop out tablespoons of mixture and roll into balls. Roll the balls in the extra coconut or you could use extra cocoa or chopped nuts.
  5. Place balls in an airtight container and leave to firm up in the fridge for one hot before eating. Store in airtight container in the fridge for about 3 days. 


For a GF option take out the oats (or use GF oats) and use extra nuts.  

I popped the recipe into My Fittness Pal and here is an approximate nutritional analysis from the mix. My mix made 17 balls. 

Approximate nutritional value per ball based on 17 balls.


Pot Luck

A couple of weeks ago I went to my very first Pot Luck picnic. It was lovely. The weather was great, I met some new people and the food was fantastic!
My contributions were "Hedgehogs", an old family recipe that is kind of like a little potato rosti, and a beany pasta salad. Both of these recipes are perfect for a BBQ, picnic, or a party (maybe not a fancy party in terms or the hedgehogs).
I'll start with the salad first.

Sooo much vegan goodness!
Even the locals liked it ;)


Beany Pasta Salad.


Ingredients:

  • 1 tin of mixed beans (or any legumes of your choice) drained and rinsed
  • 350-500g of pasta your choice of pasta,  (I used 500g, but next time I'll only use 350-400g)
  • 1 tin or 3 fresh chopped tomatoes (I prefer to use fresh for this recipe)
  • 1 red onion (optional, and not used this time)
  • 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 C chopped basil leaves
  • 200g (or more) of baby spinach leaves
Method:

  1. In a large pot Boil enough salted water to cook a whole bag of pasta. Whilst water is boiling/pasta is cooking do everything else. When ready drain pasta and pop it back in the pot, set aside off heat. Cover with lid until ready to use.
  2. Whilst the pasta is doing its thing chop tomatoes and onions, if using them, drain and rinse the legumes, wash and spin the spinach leaves.
  3. Heat a little olive oil in a pan and gently sweat down the garlic, and onion if using, and basil leaves.
  4. Add beans and tomatoes to just heat up a little bit and to get some of the garlic, basil and onion flavours. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Once the beany mix and pasta are both ready combine the two gently, being careful not to mash the beans or tear the pasta. Drizzle the pasta with a little extra olive oil.
  6. Add the spinach last minute, just before serving or walking out the door, so as to prevent it from wilting too much.
The salad is lovely warm or cold and great to take for work/school lunches also.

Hedgehogs


Ingredients: 

  • 4 large potatoes
  • 1 brown onion
  • Replacement for 3 eggs, I use Orgran's No Egg
  • 1 C frozen corn
  • Plain white flour to mix (this could be substituted for a GF flour)
  • Oil for frying, enough to submerge the Hedgehogs in
Method:

  1. In your food processor or by hand, grate the potatoes (peeled or not is your choice) and the onion. If you don't have a food processor grating onions sucks big ones, so I recommend slicing fairly thinly instead. If you are doing it by hand use a large bowl, if doing it in the food processor make sure your chopping blade is not in there.
  2. Heat your oil, either in the deep fryer or on the stove, keep an eye on it!
  3. Mix in the No Egg and frozen corn kernels.
  4. Mix in enough flour to bring everything together. Start with about 1/4 C at a time. How much you will need depends on how wet your potatoes are. You could squeeze the liquid out of them just after gating, but I have never worried about that. Don't mix in too much as you will probably need to add more to soak up the moisture from the mixture as you are cooking as the corn will start to defrost.
  5. Now get your hands into it. Scoop out handfuls, if you have big hand make the little handfuls, mold them together by gently, but firmly squeezing them until formed.
  6. Place in your hot oil and cook until golden brown. I don't have a deep fryer so I just cooked them on the stove. I found about 2 minutes on each side (I flip them over) worked fairly well, but the first batch took longer, despite the oil being hot *shrugs shoulders*
  7. Drain on paper towel and enjoy! 
These are great hot or cold, sprinkle with salt, squirt on some tomato sauce, whack 'me between two slice of "buttered" bread and totally eat the shit out of them!! These are also frickin' awesome as a hangover food, vegan, greasy, amazeballs, hangover food. They are also great to eat with beer. They just friggin' rock no matter what your doing!!

Sunday 2 November 2014

Cream Cheese Frosting

I love cream cheese frosting, it can be a bit zesty if you like, either way it is super easy and super yummy! This makes a large quantity, when I made it last I frosted a 30cm round banana cake and 12 cupcake/mini muffins, and had enough to do at least 12 more!! So you may want to halve the quantities (:

Cream Cheese Frosting 

Ingredients:
  • 1 tub of Tofutti "Better Than Cream Cheese"
  • 1/4 cup Nuttelex
  • 500g icing sugar
  • 1 tsp of vanilla extract/lemon juice/orange juice/lime
  • The zest of 1 lemon/orange/lime (optional, but recommended if using citrus juice instead of vanilla, which is what I usually do).
Method:

  1. Allow cream cheese to soften on the bench for a little while before you are ready to make the frosting.
  2. Place all ingredients in a bowl/bowl of mixer/bowl of food processor and mix until combined. Done! You may want to add your flavourings according to taste rather than quantity.
  3. If you aren't using the mix immediately transfer to an air tight container and pop into the fridge until ready. It can be stored like this for a few days or so. 

Mini Carrot Muffins/Cupcakes

I have been finally get back into the swing of baking again, but I have terribly neglected my poor little blog!

I have never been a fan of carrot cake, it always seemed like a "grownup's" cake because I never found it very sweet, it never had pink or chocolate icing and the grownup's would alway have it with coffee. That was all terrible to me, and now if I was offered a slice of carrot cake I would still turn it down as I hate walnuts, which always seem to make an appearance. 
I stumbled across this cupcake, or really mini muffin, recipe a while back and I've been tweaking it to my tastes. 
So here are my carrot cake muffins, I  hope you enjoy them (:

Mini Carrot Cake Muffins






Makes 12 mini muffins/cupcakes

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup raw/white sugar
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 225g grated carrots
  • Zest of 1 orange
  • Subsitute for 2 eggs 
  • 1 1/2 cups self raising flour, white/wholemeal or a mix
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 55g sultanas
  • 1/2 cup milk of choice, you may need more or less so start slow. I use soy or oat milk.
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon 
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Method: 
Basically I just chuck everything, except the milk, in my mixer and go for it. I then just add the milk whilst it is mixing through until it looks right. But I'll give you the proper version as well ;)

  1. Preheat oven to 200oC/400oF
  2. Sift flour into a bowl/food processor bowl or bowl of mixer
  3. Add all other ingredients except for the milk. Gently mix until almost all combined.
  4. With the mixer/beaters/food processor on low speed, slowly add milk until the mix has just come together and looking smooth. If you are doing it by hand just keep going until done. Remember; try not to over work the batter or the "muffincake" will go tough. 
  5. Bake for about 15-20 minutes (give or take).
  6. Cool completely on a wire rack.
  7. Frost with cream cheese frosting.
Can be stored in a air tight container unfrosted for a week or for about 3 days frosted in the fridge.






Sunday 12 January 2014

Veggie Lettuce Cups


Sang Choi Bow isn't usually the most vegan friendly dish in the world, but I have had Chinese restaurants create a veto version for me, which still normally costs more than it should. So I like to make it at home. Sometimes I omit the lettuce cup part and eat the mix with rice instead, also good. Being in the middle of summer things are starting to heat up, in Tassie anyway, the rest of the country is already sweltering. And after an afternoon in the sun and having a dip in the pool at the gorge (Launceston cataract gorge) we only felt like something light and fresh for dinner. So lettuce cups it was.

This is the kind of dish I just through together with whatever I have on hand. Last night it was beans, capsicum, carrots, spring onions and tofu puffs. 

Ingredients
Whatever veggies you want
Whatever protein you want (tofu, tempeh, TPV, whatever)
Lettuce cup (Sang Choi Bow) sauce. I used Lee Kum Kee brand, but you could make your own with soy sauce/tamari, Chinese five spice, garlic, mirin, some chilli if you want. Whatever tickles your fancy.
Iceberg/Cos lettuce to serve
Rice to serve if desired

Method
Chop veggies and protein very small, no bigger than 1cm pieces.

Stir fry veggies and protein.

Add sauce, stir fry some more.

Serve when cooked with prepared lettuce and/or rice.

Simple and tasty!

Enjoy (:

Banana Wholemeal Pancakes.


"I wanted to wake up and want pancakes for breakfast." That's what I told my hubby, he replied with a suitable quizzical expression and then asked "What's it like being you?" whilst patting my shoulder in a patronising fashion. Fair call really, I am quite odd! 😝 

When I saw a had some VERY overripe bananas I decided I should couple them with my idea of wanting pancakes. I jumped onto taste.com.au and checked out a recipe that needed modifying and here is what I came up with.

Ingredients
1 ripe banana
1 1/2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
1 1/2 cups soy milk
1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons of rice syrup (or your fave honey substitute)
2 'eggs', I use "No Egg"

Method
Sift flour into a large mixing bowl. It may seem silly to sift wholemeal flour, but I do it to aerate the flour and then I add the bran back into the bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour.

Add vinegar to soy milk and set it aside.

Mash banana in another mixing bowl or large jug.

Prepare egg replacer. 

Add egg replacer, soy milk and honey substitute to the banana and mix well.

Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the flour and and whisk until smooth. Set mix aside for 10 minutes.

Heat pan and cook as you normally would, about 1-2 minutes each side, depending on how hot your pan is. Just like regular pancake cooking, watch for the bubble to appear on the surface, but be aware that this is a bit of a dense mix so it doesn't bubble very much.

I used Nuttelex to cook them in after my first few got burnt when I used cooking spray. The Nuttelex worked very well! 

These are good hot or cold (that's how I am eating them today for afternoon tea). Serve with jam, yoghurt, ice cream, extra banana, berries, drizzled with honey substitute, or just eat them plain like I do.

Enjoy (: