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.

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!!

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 (:

"Steak" Sandwich.

I had a craving for a "steaky" kind of sandwich for lunch a little while ago, so I did what any good little vego would do, bought some Swiss browns and grilled them! I then added some sautéed onions, lettuce, spinach, bread and BBQ sauce and I got my "steak" sandwich.

So easy and SOOO YUMMY, totally satisfied my craving for something to just bite on in to! (:

I'm not sure how I made this background so black and the sandwich so shiny,
the wonders of my iPhone 3 I guess :-p

NB: Obviously if you want this GF make sure you bread and condiments are.

Happy St. Pat's Day (Kinda).

My contribution to St. Patrick's day was broccoli, broccoli wrapped in pasta (:

Friday was one of those nights that I just hadn't planned anything for dinner, I hadn't been shopping and I didn't know what was in the fridge or pantry! I opened them up and found my ingredients and a meal came to mind.

Now obviously Friday was not St. Pat's day, but I had left overs for Saturday night which I took to my Mum's house. I shared mine with my pasta obsessed niece and nephew whilst everybody else chowed down on stuff you don't want to know about!
(BTW omni hubby liked my meal MUCH better, I love that over time he is starting to see that meat makes you feel heavy, a bit sick and generally gross).
So what was this delectable delight I created? It goes by the "very imaginative" name of:

Broccoli Pasta

Omni hubby said "WOW, that looks so vegan!"
Funny that :-P

Ingredients:Quick note: there are few measurements because I didn't really measure anything, I just chucked it all in!

• Pasta, I used high fibre white pasta, but you can use what ever you like, spinach pasta for that extra St. Patty's day kick or of course wholemeal or GF.
• Garlic, I used granules 
• Salt
• 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• juice of one lemon
• 1 ½-2 heads of broccoli
• Sesame seeds
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Boil water in a large pot.
2. Whilst water is boiling cut broccoli into florets.
3. Add pasta and some salt (if desired) and garlic to water.
4. Juice the lemon and add the juiced halves (NOT the juice, just the left over skins and pulp) to the water.
5. When pasta only has about a minute to go chuck the broccoli and chickpeas in with the pasta.
6. When broccoli is cooked drain the whole lot and put it back in the pan.
7. Drizzle with some olive oil, pour in the lemon juice and toss on some sesame seeds. Give it a good stir and there you have it, broccoli pasta!

The first night we had this with (Woolworths Homebrand) garlic bread, which is my new obsession, but please don't forget about my main obsession to bring Lord of the Fries to Tasmania.

The second night I had 2 Redwood Lincolnshire style meat-free sausages and BBQ sauce with it, both nights it was great!

So go on and enjoy a very tasty and nutritious meal on me (: 

Another long time between posts!

OK so yet again I have been busy as all hell! I started 2 new jobs in as many days and LOVE them both! I am SOO much happier than I was when I was working at the shelter. I have now returned to veterinary nursing and also started teaching animal studies at TAFE. Both of these jobs keep me really, really busy and I have been putting in A LOT of long hours at nights and on my days off to keep up with my workloads. Seriously not at all complaining, I never thought you could really be truly happy at work, but now I know you can! (:
AND a week ago my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew moved down to Tassie as well, they join my folks in muscling in my mine and hubby's "territory", at least the live like 40 minutes away!!!

So with all of this wonderful craziness going on I have really not had time to cook, let alone blog! Thankfully though hubby has kept my belly full as until last week he has been unemployed since Christmas, just one of may casualties from the Tasmanian state government not being able to budget properly. Luckily he now has a part-time job at one of the local collages, which is awesome because it it super close to our house and he's only entering his 3rd teaching year and and we expected about another 7-17 years before he got such a position. So, yay for us, we both have income, something really handy when you have a mortgage! And him only being part-time (at this stage) means I still get a house-hubby for half the week, SCORE!! :-p

We were, however, able to take a mid-week weekend recently to Melbourne. It was awesome, I had never been before and really I had never before had any desire to go to Melbourne, why would I when I had previously lived 1-3 hours south of Sydney? Plus Canberra, believe it or not, had plenty of advantages, and after they got a DFO there was even less reason for me to care about Melbourne!
So what was the reason for this life-changing (stay tuned) trip?

SYSTEM OF A MOTHER EFFING DOWN!!!!!!
At Rod Laver Arena

Oh man I loved this gig, I was head banging like I was a good 10-12 years younger than I am, and even though I'm only 28, I found out the next day that I was WAY out of practice for such activities! I didn't care though, I also didn't care that I screamed and threw my right arm around so much that I was barely audible and my shoulder was competing with my neck for sympathy! 

Now it wasn't just  SOAD that had me all excited, since going vegan I have wanted to visit Melbourne, and in the end I was actually getting more excited about food than I was the band! This was actually the 2nd time I saw SOAD, but only the first time that I had gone to Melbourne, and as a vegan at that!
A couple of days before I left I asked "the Facebook vegans" where I should go for meals and to stock up on vegan junk food to bring back.

I was directed to some great places, THANK YOU to everyone who made suggestions for me, including one of my fave places in Melbs: 

The Radical Grocery Store

I spent $100 here on junk such as Dandies, various Bonbarr chocolate bars, jelly, toffee, coconut ice, tofutti cuties, AND:

Mister Nice Guy Cupcakes
This was a Peanut Butter Cup and it was SOOO moist and chocolatey
and peanut buttery!!

I also ate at Enlightened Cuisine where we had:

Crispy Duck with Plum Sauce.

And

Kung Po Lamb.

AND on my way back to my plane I made my way to Chan House where I had:

"Honey" "Chicken" with Steamed Rice and Veggies.

We also visited the Australian Centre for the Moving Image which was really great AND FREE! Well worth a look if your hanging out around Federation Square.

But I think the place that got me more excited than ANYTHING else was visiting Lord of the Fries my new favourite place on earth, SERIOUSLY, I'm even spearheading a campaign to bring them down to Tasmania, not just for me, but we NEED more veggie choice down here!
LOTFs was my first stop on my whirlwind trip and then I had breakfast there the next day for breakfast as well. 

This was my breakfast meal, a big original burger and fries with vegan cheese and gravy
I have recreated these fries a few times over the past few weeks with
Redwood's cheezly and Redwood's vegetarian gravy, YUM!!!

Nuggets, onion rings and fries munch box with BBQ sauce .

Mini original burger

The best OJ I have ever had!

Now I can't wait until the next time I get to go to Melbourne, and I plan on spending more than 36 hours there!

Stay well,
Love SJ (:

Happy First Anniversary (To Me).

Today is my 1st anniversary of being vegan!

I am so proud and happy with myself and all of the changes I have made this year, not just with my diet, but the way my thinking has changed as well. I feel I have always been a compassionate person, but over the past 12 months I think I have become more compassionate. This isn't to say that I have turned into a weepy sissy, just more understanding. And I haven't become weaker, just the opposite, I have become physically and mentally stronger. Actually this image sums it up nicely I think :)

Now there have been a few amazing changes to my health as well, the biggest being in remission from Hyperthyroidism (that 1 year anniversary will be next month). When my Hyperthyroidism was coupled with my old lifestyle I think it's amazing I didn't have any worse health issues. From the time I was 24 (I'm now 28) I had high blood pressure, 145/90, and a high resting heart rate, 100-120 bpm. These numbers have been gradually falling, I think I started documenting them at some point, but I have no idea where. On Monday, however, I went to  my GP for a check up and and found out that my BP was 103/76 and my HR is 76bmp! I cannot believe how dramatically this has changed!
And of course I have lost weight, something else my doctors are more than happy about. From Christmas 2010-Christmas 2011 I lost 18kg (39.68 lbs). Unfortunately since then I have gained 1.5kg which pisses me off to no end, hopefully that will fall off again soon!

Now my weight loss would have been a lot more, as I am still overweight, if I hadn't been so frickin' lazy!! I didn't feel the need to exercise very much, or at all, as I have a very physical job (excuse number 1). I was also seeing such great results just by the changes in my diet that I didn't feel I had to exercise very much, or at all (excuse number 2). So I didn't.
For some reason, however, I have decided that I need to exercise, which has turned into "I have to exercise or else I am a fat, lazy slob!". I understand that in writing that may send alarm bells off in some people's minds thinking "Whoa,this chica better watch out she doesn't do anything stupid or dangerous!" whereas what it actually means to me is "itchy feet". I am finding that if I walk for an hour or do a Zumba class after work I feel more relaxed, happier, less stressed and I sleep better. I know those of you who are regulars to this exercise thing would be thinking "Well duh!!", but it takes lazy peeps, like me, longer to figure these things out! So now I am loving exercise, just annoyed that this 1.5kg came back whilst I'm doing it! >:-/

Back to the anniversary. To reward myself for everything I have achieved I made my favourite meal. This is something that like my Lentil Bolognese is a childhood favourite that I had a lot of fun veganizing!

NOTE: This isn't a quick recipe, you probably want about an hour or so just to let the mix simmer on the stove, so allow 2-2.5 hours prep/cooking time. The ingredients and methods lists look huge, but don't be discouraged, it's totally worth it. I do recommend the use of an apron!

SJ's Lasagne.

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• 1 brown onion
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• 1 400g tin brown lentils
• 2 zucchinis 
• 2 carrots
• 250g mushrooms, I prefer button or Swiss brown or a mix
• 100g (or so) frozen spinach
• a nice big bunch of fresh basil, as well as fresh oregano, rosemary and thyme to taste
• 3-4 fresh tomatoes or a 400g tin
• 200-300g firm tofu
• 750g bottle pasta sauce of choice
• ½ cup red wine, I've been enjoying the Yallumba Y Series Merlot for both cooking and drinking :)
• 6-8 lasagne sheets of choice (regular, GF or even tortillas!)
• If you wish TVP (1 cup), veggie mince (1 cup) or crumbled up veggie burgers (about 2 home or ready made) are also nice editions.
• 1 Tbs sugar (optional) 
• salt and pepper to taste

Cream Sauce:

• 1 tub Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
• 1 tin Carnation soy milk
• 2 Tbs (or to taste) nutritional yeast/Parmazano/"Motzarella" or a combo of all
• 1 tsp nutmeg

To Serve:

• Garden Salad
• Garlic bread (recipe at the end)

Method:

1. Slice and press, or just press, tofu.
2. Drain and rinse lentils, set aside.
3. Top and tail and chop the zucchinis, carrots (peeled or not) and mushrooms, set aside
4. Finely dice the onion. Heat a little oil in a nice big deep pan or large pot, through in onion. Gently cook on medium to medium-high heat until translucent, stirring occasionally, do not brown. When ready crush garlic into pan, stir.
5. When garlic becomes fragrant add tomato paste and allow it to cook off for a minute or two, gently stir every now and then.
6. Add zucchini, carrot, frozen spinach, tomatoes and lentils, mix well.
7. Add pasta sauce and red wine, mix well.
8. Crumble in tofu. if using veggie mince or burgers now is the time to add them as well. If you find that the mix is getting to thick you may want to pour a little water in, or maybe just simmer for less time, you be the judge.
9. Tear the leaves of the herbs of the stems and stir them into the mix.
10. Now add the mushrooms, sugar, salt and pepper.
11. Turn the heat down to medium low, stir very well to ensure all the ingredients are combined. Allow the mix to simmer an bubble away for up to 1 hour, just keep a close eye on it and stir semi-regularly.
12. Whilst the mix is simmering away prepare your cream sauce. Combine the Tofutti cream cheese, Carnation soy milk, nutritional yeast/"cheese" and nutmeg. To do this I usually just use my immersion blender or use a medium sized bowl and good spoon or spatula. The process is easier if the Tofutti is at or close to room temperature.
13. When The mix on the stove is at a consistency you are happy with preheat the oven according to the directions on the pasta box (usually about 180^oC and 30-40 minutes cooking time). 
14. Get a LARGE baking dish and assemble your lasagne. I layer pasta, veggie mix (make sure it covers the pasta well) and cream sauce until dish is full. I do pasta, veggie mix (3-4 ladles worth) and ¼ of the cream sauce. Repeat this once, then top with pasta and remaining half of the cream sauce. On top of this I sprinkle extra nutritional yeast. If you have a REALLY LARGE baking dish you may just need more layers.
15. Pop in the oven for bout 30-40 minutes, it should be nice and golden and bubbly, just like a "real" one.  
16. Now is a good time to make your salad and start preparing your garlic bread, recipe bellow).

Ingredients:

• Woolworths "Bake at Home" Dinner rolls, however many is required for the amount of people you are feeding.
  My garlic bread is super easy, but NOT GF so if that is something you require ensure you have GF bread rolls.
• olive oil, about  ¼ cup 
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, crushed

Method:

1. When the lasagne only has about 10 minutes left to go, pop the rolls in the oven until they are half cooked.
2. Mixed the desire amount of garlic and oil together. If you like a more subtle garlic taste use only a little, if you like it more robust use more.
3. When ready pull the rolls out of the oven, cut them in half lengthwise and using a teaspoon pour the garlic oil onto the rolls, rub the mix in to ensure decent coverage and not just a clump. Depending on the size of the rolls you may need to repeat this.
4. Once covered in garlic oil pop the rolls back into the oven until they are golden brown around the edges. Once ready pull your rolls and lasagne out of the oven and serve.

Just be warned, this amazing tasty garlic bread gives you seriously gnarly garlic breath the next day, consider yourself warned! :)

I know this seems like a lot of steps and a lot of time in the kitchen, but trust me, it's not that bad. The only person I have served this to that didn't like it was my dad, and that is only because he doesn't like zucchini or carrot, oops! Other than that EVERYBODY loves this, even omni hubby told me that he likes my vegan lasagne better than he does my mum's traditional lasagne, a he truthfully wasn't sucking up!
If you find you have a ton of veggie mix left just pop it in the freezer until next time, it won't be enough mix for a huge one, but you could definitely getter a smaller one out of it.
I also find that this makes fantastic left overs for my lunches.So go on, give it a go, as I said at the beginning this is one of my favourite dishes. If I could be bothered I would make it every week, but eventually I would get sick of it and I do not want that!!

Enjoy :) 
xo

Any Meal With Salad Is Healthy, Right?

WRONG!! I didn't care though! I have been working out a fair bit lately and I got a craving, just for chips with Nice N' Tasty Chicken Salt, yes vegan chicken salt!! :) :) :)  I figured I couldn't just have that though, so I started looking for seitan recipes, but it was getting a bit late to start making seitan and I was really, really hungry! (When I get like that I tend to get grumpy also, sometimes to the point that hubby tells me that I need feeding :-p)
Any-who, I Google kept directing me to "Southern Fried Chicken" recipes and that's when I remembered that I had a pack of  Redwood Gourmet Meat-Free Chicken in the freezer.
Now I have previously made this recipe and found that the coating was ACE, but that I didn't like the chicken I used as much 1) Because it's quite glutinous and 2) Because it has an Asian BBQ chicken flavour. You can check this out here.
So the recipe I was referring is one that many vegos would 
have come across in their quest to satisfy a meaty, chickey, fried, KFCy kinda craving. This recipe is all over the web, I have found it on About.com and on Yeah, That Vegan Shit, but just in case you haven't seen it before here it is:

Southern Fried "Chicken"

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp salt or seasoned salt 
• 1 tsp onion powder 
• 1 tsp garlic powder 
• 1 tsp black pepper 
• dash cayenne (optional) 
• 1 1/2 cups flour 
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional) Personally I think this shouldn't be skimped on.
• 1/4 cup prepared mustard (yellow/mild American is where it's at, but you could probably use any) 
• 2 tbsp baking powder 
• 1/2 cup water 
• 1 lb seitan or other chicken substitute, cut into 1-2" square pieces 
• oil for frying

Method:

1. In a medium to large bowl, mix together the salt, onion powder, garlic powder, flour, black pepper, cayenne and nutritional yeast. 
2. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mustard and water. Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and combine well. 
3. Add baking powder to the flour mixture and combine well. 
4. Coat pieces of seitan or mock chicken with the mustard batter, then coat each piece with the dry flour mixture. 
5. Fry chunks of "chicken" in the oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet for 3-5 minutes, turning once until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel, serve with ketchup or barbeque sauce and enjoy! 
6. Tip: If your chunks are turning brown or black rather than a crispy golden brown, your oil is probably too hot! Reduce the heat a small amount and try again.

So as you can no doubt tell, this is not a healthy meal, especially when I served it with chips, at least I skipped the bread, but I did have salad with it to make it appear healthy :-P
The Redwood chicken worked really quite well, I did gently defrost it in the microwave prior to coating, and it cooked really quickly.

I highly recommend that the next time you feel like something naughty definitely give this a go, it's quick and easy to prepare, tastes great and you can totally play around with different seasonings and salts. 

So go on, have fun :)

SJ's Pad Thai

Hubby and I went out for dinner a few nights ago to a local Thai restaurant, the chef was more than obliging to make my Pad Thai vegan. I was pretty good, I did enjoy it and I was very grateful for the efforts she went to.

Tonight  Hubby wanted a stir-fry for dinner, he usually does. He feels that as I am now vegan I should be an honourary  Asian and eat stir-fires every night basically. 
(Please note that these comments are not intended for offence, he, well we, just think that Asians do the best food, but especially vego food!)

So, anyway, we have been eating a lot of Asian and Indian (inspired) foods lately which means we have been eating a lot of rice lately, white rice at that, not the healthier brown rice! I decided that I could not deal with rice again tonight so I would make noodles instead. Even though I had only had a Pad Thai style dish a few nights ago, I decided I would finally try to make my own. It turned out pretty good too, Hubby even went bakck for seconds (remember Hubby is omni, and not at all vego), though the dish was a little dry as I didn't have any peanut oil and only used a little bit of olive oil. Clearly restaurants use a hell of a lot more oil than I do (no shit!). I have adjusted this in my ingredients, but if you have the same problem just add more oil.

SJ's Pad Thai

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbs peanut oil (you may need more), coconut oil would probably go alright in this as well, though I would use the refined
• 3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 small-medium brown onion, sliced into thin half moons
• 1 Tbs vegetarian Tom Yum Paste, I used Vessimix by Lamyong and yes, it is vegan
• 1 tsp tamarind puree 
• the juice of one lime, including pulp, plus an extra lime (or lemon) to serve
• 2 Tbs kecap manis, soy sauce or tamari to keep it GF
• 1 Tbs brown sugar, muscovado or coconut palm sugar
• 1/4 tsp (or one good pinch) dried kelp/seaweed, Sea Power Dulse Flakes or Wakame Leaves 
• Coriander to taste, I am not a fan so I only used a few, maybe 5 or 6, leaves chopped up for the whole dish, plus extra for garnish, some recipes say a whole bunch, ew!
• 200g firm tofu, pressed and sliced into bite sized pieces
• 100g of vegetarian chicken seitan (NOT GF!) or 1/4 cup unprepared soybean chicken (optional) ~ I tend to just use tofu more often than not
• 1 1/2 cups bean sprouts, washed, drained
• 1 1/2-2 cups mixed veggies, be as traditional or not as you like! I used yellow capsicum, beans, snow peas, carrots and broccoli simply because these are what I had in my fridge and they need to get used!
• 200-400g rice stick noodles
• Crushed peanuts, these should be natural, raw peanuts

Method:

1. Prepare your veggies and put them aside.
2. Heat oil in a large pan or wok.
3. Add sliced onion and cook gently for about 1 minute. Add garlic, do not allow to colour.
4. Add the Tom Yum Paste and tamarind puree allowing the pastes to cook off.
5. Now add the lime juice and pulp, kecap manis/soy sauce/tamari, kelp/seaweed and brown sugar. You may need to add a little more oil or a little bit of water if it seems to be drying out.
6. Once well combined and sugar has dissolved transfer to a small bowl, mug or measuring jug, makes about 100ml, and put aside.
7. In the same pan/wok that was used to make the sauce, which should now be empty, throw in the tofu and "chicken" if using.
8. Start preparing the noodle according to packet directions.
9. Add veggies to pan, once tofu is starting to get golden. Stir-fry nice and hot for a few minutes. Drizzle on 1/4-1/2 of the sauce that was put aside and allow the flavours to start to infuse the veggies and tofu.
10. Drain noodles once ready and add to pan along with bean sprouts. Add remaining sauce and stir everything through thoroughly, let cook for about a minute.
11. Serve with crushed peanuts on top (if desired) and garnish with leaves of coriander and wedges of lime, my fave, or lemon.

Enjoy (:

Can Anybody Tell Me What Time it is? It's Lime Time.

I didn't really plan anything for dinner tonight, I was too busy blogging, facebooking and perusing my new cookbook. 

I remembered that I had a packet of Lentilicious's "Lime Time", it's kinda like a think lentil stew, which I served with steamed brown rice and broccoli, but I decided I wanted some Tofutti, Better Than Cream Cheese plopped on top, I don't know why, but I thought it made it!

Now I think I may have over cooked it a bit, and it kinda looked like gruel, luckily it didn't taste that way, so I didn't take a pic of it, so here's a pic of the packaging instead.

You can buy them online at Vegan Online or from Lentilicious's site, or from there you can also search for a stockist in your state, Tassie isn't listed, but I can tell you that the Trevallyn Grocer does stock them. They're about $7-$8 a pack.

"Meat"balls.

A few nights back I was hungrily plodding around the kitchen trying to think of what to have for dinner. As I had had my weekend cut short by being called into work last week, I didn't have any really meal planner prep time, which I try to do!

Then I happily remembered that in the freezer I had a box of Redwood's meat free meatballs in the freezer which I get from my most favourite store in the world Vegan Online.

So I quickly grabbed them out and heated up my oven and made a kick arse marinara sauce and boiled some pasta.

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1-2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 - 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 500g jar pasta sauce, I like Raguletto's Venitian herbs
• 1 400g tin diced tomatoes
• fresh oregano, fresh basil, salt, pepper and dried mixed herbs to taste 
• Pasta 

Method:

1. Heat oil in a saucepan.
2. Add onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add garlic and saute fror 2 more minutes.
4. Add tomato paste and let it cook off, another few minutes.
5. Add fresh herbs, tomatoes and pasta sauce, mix thoroughly and let simmer until heated through.
6. Add salt, pepper and fresh herbs to taste, you may also want a little bit of sugar in it, depending how acidic it is. Let simmer for as long as you like, when you're happy with it serve.

You could also add red or white wine to the mix as well.

This was a really great base the next night for a pizza sauce, SOO YUMMY!

But here was the dish I made

There is easily 4 serves here, you really only need 5 or 6 meatballs per dish, especially when eating with pasta, bread and salad like we did. Actually we didn't have bread, we didn't need it! And they were a great lunch of leftovers as well :)

Now I think these are gluten free, but I can't be 100% certain, just (obviously) check the ingredients first.

I can't wait to put in my next order for these, I loved them so much, even just dipping them in BBQ sauce!

Not Quite Meatloaf.

Whilst I was busily blogging about my awesome breakfast this morning, I saw on my blog roll a new post from The Vegan Stoner for Lentil Loaf. I've 
been thinking about veganizing meatloaf, but was basically just too lazy! So when I saw this recipe this morning I got VERY excited!
My changes are bolded in this colour.

Lentil Loaf

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of cooked lentils (from 1 cup of dried)
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• Hand full of walnuts, We don't like walnuts, so instead I used 1/2 a large apple, chopped
• 2 handfuls crushed crackers, I used 4 whole saladas                  
• 2 cups frozen veggies, I used a mix of peas, corn and spinach
• A sprinkling of garlic salt
• 4 Tbs apple sauce, I only had 3 Tbs worth, which is the other reason why I decided to use fresh apple as well
• 2 Tbs tomato sauce, I used 3
• I also added 1 Tbs of yellow/American mustard
• Ketchup is supposed to go on top, but I used sundried tomato chutney

Method:

1. Cook lentils.
2. Mash in onion and walnuts/apple and crackers.
3. Mix in all remaining ingredients.
4. Pack into a loaf tin.
5. Spread with tomato sauce/ketchup/chutney and bake for 40 minutes at 180oC.

Simple, easy and quite tasty.
My loaf pan was a bit small, so the remaining mixture got turned into patties.

Chinese Roast Duck with Steamed Rice and Lemon Stir Fried Veggies.

When I went to Hobart recently stocked up on various awesome food stuffs, including frozen fake meats by Lamoyng. I was so stoked at my finds at the Asian grocer Wing & Co., then I ate too much fake meat too quickly and the thought of eating anymore made my stomach turn. So all this food has been taking up room in my freezer and tonight I decide I had better start making a dent in the stocks so as I can restock it with other meals I want to make. 
Because the fake meat is quite glutinous, and I still don't know how to go about preparing it, I wanted to try and make it crispy, which I have tried before and failed, but tonight it was a success.
Check it out :)

Chinese Roast Duck with Steamed Rice and Lemon Stir Fried Veggies. 

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

• 200g Lamyong (Sayur) Vegetarian Roast Duck
• Vegetable oil (I used Canola) for shallow frying
• 2 packets of Lee Kum Kee Lemon Chicken sauce (from the Asian section of the supermarket)
• Mix of your fave veggies to stir fry, I used capsicum, snow peas, carrot, onion and broccoli
• 1 tsp olive oil for cooking veggies
• Steamed white rice

Method:

1. Start steaming rice, I just use a rice cooker.
2. Cut up veggies and have them ready to go.
3. Heat the oil for frying the the "duck".
4. Whilst oil is heating cut duck into thin strips. Fry when oil is hot, this only takes a few minutes, I did it in batches. I also drained the "duck" on a cooling rack over a baking sheet and then kept the strips warm in the oven set to 160oC whilst I was prepping everything else as I wasn't overly organised, watch them though, mine dried out a little too much.
5. Heat oil in a large fry pan or wok and stir fry veggies.
6. When just about cooked to your liking add the packets of sauce, you may only need 1 pack, I like things a bit saucy though.
7. When everything is cooked put the "duck" into the saucy veggies and coat it all with the sauce and dish up with the rice (which I happen to think is the way to go) or do what I did and dish the "duck" up on the rice and the veggies on the side, as pictured above.

This did not turn my stomach at all, as even though it may not be the healthiest method of cooking out there, shallow frying the "duck" took away the spongy glutinous feeling of the product and left it very crispy and let the flavours shine through!

Peasant Dinner.

Well it might look like something the dog threw up, but last nights (and tonight's) dinner was great!

I've been eating a lot of crap lately, namely processed Asian-style seitan which I totally made myself sick on, literally!
Recently I got a copy of "Appetite For Reduction" by Isa Chandra Moskowvitz, along with a few other of her books. I figured after a seitan OD it was time to get back to some healthy vegan basics and so I picked up my copy of AfR and put together 2 recipes. On page 117 is Upside-Down Lentil Shepherd's Pie (GF), which I just made as a Lentil Stew (with some variations which I will probably post one day) which I served with Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits (Sweet Potato Scones, which would be a great savoury snack) from page 253.

It was so yummy, wholesome, healthy and filling, even non-veg hubby really liked it, especially the scones, he ate 3!

Get Behind My Seitan! (Well Lamyong's Seitan).

As mentioned in my last post I've been craving crazy things like KFC, well today I pretty much stopped that by making some SF"C", Sarah's Fried Chicken, which isn't actually my recipe, but rather one that I stole from Yeah That Vegan Shit!, which was stolen from somewhere else, just like everything else on the internet!
So with my huge stash of groceries that I got in Hobart ( from Wing & Co. by the way) I got some Lamyong Vegetarian Chicken (which is vegan) and looks like this (after being cut up):

The lumps on the right have been cut into bite sized chunks for apricot chicken and the lumps on the left have been into 2" squares for my fried chicken, which looks like this:

Apart from being a bit too oily it really does taste quite good, and very satisfying!

And for those wondering the "raw" product smells like Asian BBQ chicken and reminds me of Vietnamese street food, and that's what it tastes like too, but no the texture is not like chicken, its glutinous (DUH!) and not tough like meat.