VeganMofo 2013: Post 22-Simple dinner

Cam cooked a lot this week (he had days off and I’m generally super tired after a day in court).  He definitely has really good instincts for what goes well together.  I had my doubts, but this was definitely good.
Lemongrass ‘chicken’ (Explore Asia Soybean Chicken from Green Edge) on baguette with a side salad.  The Lemongrass was a lemongrass sauce Cam got from a Thai grocer in the valley.

This was really good.  That soybean ‘chicken’ is pretty tasty.  If I’m correct, it’s the stuff they use at Green Edge for the fake bacon for breakfasts.  Yum!!!

Oh, had to add this.  It's been doing the rounds on Facebook and is freaking hilarious! I'm The Masked Hummus.  Cam's The Almighty Nooch.  Lol.

VeganMofo 2013: Post 21–Super quick post of last night’s dinner!

Photo from my phone!  From the bottom right in clockwise direction: Fry’s Schnitzel with bottled Ariabiatta sauce and notzarella, leftover tempeh “fishsticks” from the Unfishwiches and green salad.  The Schnitzel parma was pretty damn good.

The ice-cream maker arrived!  I’m waiting for the bowl to fully freeze to make the first concoction.

VeganMofo 2013: Post 20–Healthy(ish) Italian!

Howdy everyone!  I made it to 20 posts in 24 days!  Who’d thunk it?  (is that how you spell that?!?!?)

Anyway, after consuming WAY TOO MUCH peanut butter fudge on Sunday (I needed the energy while I cleaned the house (for the first time since about April – the vacuum cleaner represses me by its very existence, ok?)) I thought it would be a good idea to make something vaguely healthy for dinner.  That, and I’d bought amazing basil and tomatoes on Saturday.

So I made bruschetta which was the very first recipe that I made for Cam on our first date.  Granted the bread I used isn’t as glamorous as the loaf of white bread I bought on a Saturday night from the BP, but it still is one of our favourite things to eat and be ridiculously romantic dorks.

Bruschetta – feeds two hungry vegans for an entree

Ingredients

• 1 small red onion, chopped finely
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, minced (I use the microplane, so it’s practically pureed)
• 4 large tomatoes, chopped into 1cm or so pieces (they have to be GOOD tomatoes, I tend to get the ones on the vine in the supermarket for this)
• 1 large bunch o’ basil, finely chopped
• 2-3T of olive oil (never measured, just generally slug it in)
• 2 tsp salt (you may want less, or more – the more salt, the more liquid leaches out of the tomatoes – you want that)
• Fresh cracked black pepper

Throw it all in a large bowl – collect the juices as you go from the tomatoes.  Leave it sit for about half an hour.  You’ll end up with a soupy kind of dip.  We like it salty, but everyone has their tastes!

Serve on lightly toasted bread (preferably something fancy-ish).

The leftover dip/sauce is amazing on pasta.  Sure, your breath will stink, but you don’t want to be near any silly sparkly vampires, do you?

For mains we had Raw Vegan Alfredo Sauce with Zucchini Noodles.  I was inspired by Like a Vegan’s Raw Zucchini Pasta with Pesto, but thought that two basil heavy dishes in one night was a bit much.  Definitely on my to try list.  I love her blog! 

I’ve never been much of a fan of the raw vegan thing, but this was pretty damn good.  I want a spiralizer, but seeing as I just ordered an ice-cream maker, I think I need to wait!!!  Anyway, now that it’s getting warmer, I want to try a few more raw recipes to see what they’re like.  Any suggestions?

VeganMofo 2013: Post 19-Mac and Cheeze Monday–the Mac Daddy of the Mac and Cheezes

This is the fourth Monday we’ve had Mac and Cheeze.  I decided to go back and try something that I should have tried a long LONG time ago: the Veganomicon “Mac Daddy”.  This is a pretty damn healthy recipe – about 3T olive oil is all the fat in it (tofu has no fat, right?). 

It does use at least 4 containers though (two saucepans, whatever vessel you use for the tofu – I was lazy and used the food processor, and the final baking dish), as opposed to my normal mac and cheeze which uses a single saucepan.

My verdict?  Pretty freaking good.  The extra tofu makes me feel less guilty about eating pasta (the protein factor) and it’s got a lot less fat too.

Cam’s favourite of the month is still the mac and cheeze in the MacShroom.  But he isn’t the one who generally cooks pasta, so we know who's favourite’s going to end up being cooked more

The ugly photo (ugly because you can’t take good photos of mac and cheeze!!!):

Cam’s off for the next few days, so I’ve requested stuff from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day.  Best find (in my bookshelf) of the mofo in my opinion!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 18-Breakfast, brought to you by the colour beige (and more info on last night’s dinner)

Last night’s dinner was delicious – I basically read the recipe and riffed off it.  I used dried seaweed strips because I didn’t have any kelp powder and I basically just put a lot of flavourings into the crumbs instead of adding it to the arrowroot powder (nooch, dried dill, oregano, dried garlic).  It just wasn’t fishy though.  I used to have a seaweed liquid thing that basically made things fishy, but I haven’t tracked it down.  The tartare sauce was freaking amazing though.  NOM!
Onto today’s food. 

On the left – Peanut Butter Fudge (this recipe).  Cheatin (Redwood) fake roast beef and rolls from Coles.  Super non-healthy breakfast.  NOM!!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 17 - Unfishwich

Amy tried another recipe from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day this evening. It was great! Not as fishy as I expected, but still delicious!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 16-Green Edge Poutine

So I’m approximately 5 posts behind – I’m hoping to blog almost every meal this weekend to catch up!

Green Edge announced on Facebook that they’d be doing Poutine this weekend.  I, of course, jumped straight on it.  Cam’s working day shift at the hospital this weekend, so I got it takeaway for myself.  Their cafe food is freaking fantastic.  If you haven’t tried it and you live in Brisbane, what’s wrong with you guy!?!!!!

Cue the awful (as in I have no photography skills, not awful taste) photo:

Delicious.  Salty, but delicious.  I think the cheeze is either cheezly or notzarella and it’s a James/Matt special recipe for the gravy.  They have it all weekend, so go get it Brisbaneites!!!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 15–The “MacShroom”

This WAS meant to be for Mac and Cheeze Mondays, but of course the week’s gotten away from me already!

While looking through Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day I found the MacShroom recipe.  Given my love of carbs with carbs, I thought I’d try it on Monday night.  Of course I didn’t leave work until 7pm, so this was eaten at about 8:45!

Cam thought it was the best version of Mac and Cheeze he’d ever had.  I thought it was freaking delicious, but not my favourite Mac and Cheeze.  The recipe makes a LOT of barbeque sauce, so we had it two days in a row!

Monday’s edition:

Tuesday’s edition (Cam used a different lens this time – it’s meant to be better for food photography?):

This is definitely going to enter the permanent dinner rotation.  Wow. It reminded me of the kind of stuff you get at the Homegrown Smoker in Portland.  Someone needs to convince them to release a cookbook!!!

I’m tempted to make this week Vegan Sandwiches week.  That, and I’m out of recipe ideas!  Thoughts?

VeganMofo 2013: Post 14 - Black Bean Burgers

These burgers are so good! I made them for dinner on Saturday and Sunday night. (I also made the raspberry chocolate blondies from VWAV wit strawberries but that was a complete disaster) Recipe is from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day. I think we bought it in Portland last year but I don't think that we've made anything from it.
Seriously yummy. And I've used up two of my baggies of black beans! #win
Tomorrow's post: Mac and Cheese Mondays!!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 13-Lunchtime salad

Howdy everyone! This week has been crazy busy. I went to the Gold Coast on Tuesday afternoon and got Tian Ran takeaway. I should have photographed it when we ate, but we were starving!
On Wednesdays when I'm working in the city I like going to the markets on Queen Street. I usually go and get falafel, but the lines are loooooong and I just don't have time to take an hour for lunch at the moment. So recently I've been going to the Nom Nom Mobile Food stall to grab a salad.
It's not the most attractive photo, but we'll just have to deal. They always have a patty, a hummus, a grain salad and lots of greens with a spoonful of chilli jam.
It's delicious and well worth the $10.
(Posting this on my phone on the bus to work, isn't technology awesome?)

VeganMofo 2013: Post 12-Little Lemon Mousse Pie

So I forgot and put brown sugar in the glaze.  Was still awesome.  Something this good doesn’t require description.

VeganMofo 2013: Post 11–Mac and Cheeze Monday take two

Last week I asked you for Mac and Cheeze recipe suggestions.  I took Susan’s suggestion and made the Mac and Cheeze from Vegan Diner.  I added in liquid smoke, powdered mustard and didn’t include the sweet paprika (only because we didn’t have it in the house).  It was so creamy – probably due to the cashews.  I only got three servings out of it because I’m a pig when it comes to pasta.

Mac and Cheeze is impossible to photograph well. I think it’s because it’s all one colour.

 

I hadn’t made a nut based mac and cheeze before.  It’s an interesting method that requires patience!  I soaked the cashews in hot water for half an hour while I rode the exercise bike (and watched the newest episode of Dance Academy).

 

I might try the Mac and Cheeze recipe from Veganomicon next week.  Stuck for ideas for the rest of the week though.  Hopefully Cam will come up with something!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 10–Lemongrass Banh Mi and Strawberry rum thing

So in the hunt for Golden Mountain Sauce I went to Genki Mart at Stafford.  They have daikon radish, an essential ingredient in Banh Mi!

 

My go to Banh Mi recipe is this one.  It’s pretty damn good.  I pureed up the marinade this time so it was amazingly lemongrassy.

 

To go with dinner I found a way to use up some of the strawberries: Strawberry Mojito (from here).  YUM!  I used a lot of strawberries, so it’s basically alcoholic strawberry puree.

 

 

I cut up the rest and have them in the freezer.  I seem to want to plan for the apocalypse at the moment – my freezer is full of sofrito, black beans and strawberries.  Anyone else find that they seem to buy in bulk by accident a lot?

VeganMofo 2013: Post 9 Grilled Seitan Noodle Salad (Seitan Bo Bun)

So I’m starting to count the posts, rather than list them by day.  For one, Cam and I are both posting at will, so it’s hard to keep up with the day numbering, and secondly, I appear to have missed a post for Friday and I’m ashamed!  So I’m covering my tracks.  As you may have guessed, I’m trying to write each day’s post the night before and post them while I’m reading the news at breakfast.  It worked for a few days until I got sick.  Oh well!

 

So back to food.  I made Grilled Seitan Noodle Salad (Seitan Bo Bun) from Vegan Eats World last night.  My friend Melissa came over to avoid the election news (sooooooo depressing, bye bye progressive politics in Australia for 6yrs).  If you make this recipe properly it takes at least three hours.  Firstly you need to make the Chinese Five Spice Seitan, let that rest for an hour, make the seitan marinade, put the seitan in the marinade, then make the sauce for the salad, chop up all the veggies, cook the rice noodles, grill the seitan and assemble the salad.  Oh, and juice about 10 limes in the process.  And then you need to photograph

 

It was delicious!  The sauce is amazing, but very spicy.  I maintain it’s helping me get over this cold/flu thing.

I took this photo and I’m pretty proud of it!  Not as good as Cam’s.  Go Auto mode!

 

Terry’s cookbook (Vegan Eats World) is great, but there are a lot of random ingredients.  I was searching for green papaya or unripe mango yesterday (no luck) for the Thai Shredded Mango Salad and I discovered that I also needed “Golden Mountain Sauce”.  Is that the best name for a sauce ever?

 

So today’s discussion question: what’s your favourite random ingredient?  I know that discussing the hilarious names of Asian ingredients occasionally sounds racist, but they’re so damn cute!  There’s Chinese Mahogany sauce (which we’ve used in Malaysian stuff before), and Golden Mountain sauce.  Surely other areas of the world have equally interesting names for food?

VeganMofo 2013: Day 6–Pizza

I had planned to make taco pizza for dinner last night, but I just got lazy.  

So I made P Pizza – Potato and Pepperoni (using Tofurky Pepperoni and Notzarella cheese) on a barbeque base (pizza sauce and barbeque sauce mixed together).  The dough was my usual Vegan With a Vengeance recipe.

It was delicious!  And the leftovers were awesome for breakfast.

I’m about to run out and vote (yay democracy) and I’m planning on doing Saturday’s post later tonight, but in the meantime, what’s your go-to pizza topping?  I’m finding that I just use Tofurky Pepperoni by default – I tend to be exhausted by the time I’m done making the dough that opening a package is all I can handle.

VeganMofo 2013: Day 5–Amy runs out of ideas

So she does a super quick and lame product review.  I plead illness and mid-week ennui.

Anyway, Green Edge restocked on Tofurky products (yay!) and so we’re trying a few new things.

Precooked quiche

Enter Tofurky quiche.  I HATED quiche when I ate meat.  As far as I’m concerned there are two completely inedible foods – eggs and bananas.  The smell of eggs is really REALLY gross (actually, so is the smell of bananas – but I know there’s a lot of crazy banana-lovers out there, so I won’t go on and on about how yucky that is).  I don’t even think I’ve made a vegan quiche at all – it’s really not a flavour I’ve missed.

Cam liked this.  I thought it tasted too much like eggs.  So if you liked eggs try this, you might like it.  Otherwise, go for something less eggy?

Cooked quiche

Meanwhile, how good is Cam getting with the photography? *proud*

What foods do you think are gross (other than the obvious gross meat/dairy/animal stuff)?

VeganMofo 2013: Day 4.1 - Wherein Cam duels salmonella... and wins!

For dinner tonight, I decided to use up the out-of-date Redwood Chorizo we've had floating around at the back of the fridge for a while. Since we haven't yet experienced explosive diarrhoea, intense nausea or projectile vomiting, I'd say we got away with it. Used-by dates are for suckers.

I basically grabbed everything that seemed Italian and threw it in the frypan together. I dug out a few other ingredients after I took that photo, so it's not complete.

Mmmm... expired small goods. Delicious!

Raided the booze cupboard for some leftover wine.

When I tasted the sauce near the end, I realised some olives would go great in it, but alias, none were at hand. Not to be discouraged, I hunted right at the back of the cupboard - you know - the neglected dusty bottom shelf with the baby beetroot and creamed corn. And I wasn't disappointed - the universe provided! Sliced black olives, probably only a couple of years past their prime too. After a find like that, I wasn't brave enough to check the expiry on them. Gift-horse, mouth, all that.

Off camera - Amy's pro wooden spoon tilting skillz.

This fake parmesan is awesome.

Amy's pro grating skillz in action.

Please excuse my gratuitous overuse of aperture in the photos... I just got my first SLR and I'm still in that early stage that every new SLR owner goes through where everything looks better with a blurry background and half the subject out of focus.

VeganMofo 2013: Day 4–Why vegan? Wednesdays

Hi everyone!  Hope you’re having a rocking good time reading VeganMofo posts.  I’ve been posting links to my page on Facebook and have had to explain that Mofo isn’t Mofo.  Lol.

 

Anyway, I was thinking last week that it might be cool to get some other non-blogging vegans to answer a quick questionnaire on why they’re vegan (for one, it’s always interesting to hear why people are vegan AND it gives me a chance to be lazy with post-writing!  AND I’ve been sick for the last two days, getting out of writing is good.)

 

This week we have Susan.  I met Susan ages ago through mutual vegan friends.  She runs the awesome Eating for Animals and is a veterinarian – who cares about animals more than them!

 

Who is your favourite vegan cookbook author?

Robin Robertson is my number one. Plus as well as writing so many fantastic cookbooks she also has excellent taste in TV shows and is a total cat lady. Bonus!  Dreena Burton and Julie Hasson are also close to my heart.

What's your current favourite recipe? 

I try and cook a new recipe almost every night (eternal quest of trying to cook through all my cookbooks), so it is hard to say! The Mac and Cheese from Vegan Diner, Berry Patch Brownies from Let Them Eat Vegan, and the Miso Potato Tofu Stew in Vegan With A Vengeance are a few that come to mind.

I'm currently obsessed with Mexican food. What's your favourite cuisine?

I am a pretty big fan of them all. Thai and Japanese would be at the top of my list. I swoon for a good Pad See Ew or Eggplant Dengaku.

I've always been a fan of Iron Chef French, which Iron Chef would you want to be? 

I haven't watched Iron Chef for a long time, but I think Iron Chef French as well. If only because my favourite episode ever was set in a French castle and the Chairman wore the most hysterical ceremonial cloak ever.

Finally, and most importantly... Why are you vegan?

For the animals, plain and simple. The fact that the food is amazing is a pretty big bonus. ;)

 

Thanks for participating Susan! 

 

Thursday’s blog post is currently a mystery.  Hopefully today will bring inspiration!

VeganMofo 2013: Day 3.1 - Wherein Cam attempts to destroy the kitchen with jets of boiling hot TVP-lava

In preparation for my forthcoming 135km Cape to Cape Hike in WA, I decided I'd do a few posts this month while testing out some recipes for my newly purchased JetBoil Flash.

There really aren't many options I've found in Australia for dehydrated camping food. For the last hike I did, I took mostly canned soup and beans and used solid fuel and a mini camping saucepan to heat, but that approach is way to heavy for the 5 day Cape to Cape. Enter the Jetboil! 400g of high powered cooking fire that can be used to rehydrate meals right in the cup.

After browsing around hiking sites on the web for a while (a few of which were run by vegan hikers), I decided that recipes based around TVP, red lentils, couscous and quinoa were probably the best way to go. I figured TVP would be a good place to start. I found a few recipes to blatantly steal take inspiration from.

I assembled the ingredients below and started the JetBoil up with two cups of water.

I discovered the JetBoil has a handy indicator on the side of the insulation that turns to yellow when it's hot. It is, however, a little redundant, as once it starts to boil, the huge volume of skin-scolding steam raging from the top of the cup is a bit of a give-away.

After my water was boiled, I turned off the heat (most recipes said to put it on low, but there really appears to be little difference between "low" and "full raging inferno" on this thing. I am using the large 230g gas cylinder and it is full, so perhaps the gas flow rate is a little higher than with the usual 100g cylinders. 

Into the cup, I placed to rehydrate:
1/2 cup TVP
1    tsp vegan "beef" stock
1/2 tsp garlic powder
pinch of salt

After 2 minutes of standing, I realised that there was not nearly enough TVP for the volume of water, so I decided to heat it a little more, both in an attempt to boil off some of the water, and encourage expansion of the TVP. In retrospect, this was where it all started to go horribly wrong.

While hunting through the kitchen cupboard looking for other tasty ingredients to add, the JetBoil erupted into a volcano of molten TVP lava. The handy sipper lid served as a funnel to eject said lava in a geyser directly over the gas control (as well as the floor and cupboard). I initially ran over and stuck my hand into this stream of boiling lava to turn off the gas, but a quick brush with the erupting contents made me realise that this approach would see me returning to work on my day off to have some ED intern bandage up my arm and make a referral to the Burns Unit.

 By the time I grabbed a tea towel and went back after the gas control, the volume of water left in the jetboil had diminished to the point that the raging torrent of TVP-steam was now just a trickle.

In the delirium that followed my near death experience, I didn't get any decent pics of the soggy TVP strewn marsh the kitchen had become. After cleaning up the mess, I threw some of the olive oil, chili powder, tomato paste and nutritional yeast into what remained of the TVP in the JetBoil - it actually wasn't too bad, though I'm not entirely sure it was worth the collateral damage to the kitchen and to my pride.

VeganMofo 2013: Day 2–the mac and cheeze-ening

Hi everyone.  Hope you had an awesome first day of Mofo! 
My theme for Mondays (and the official Monday theme for Mofo) is ‘Mac-and-Cheese Monday’.
I usually make a white sauce and add nooch to it for my go-to Mac and “cheese”.  It’s pretty much my favourite comfort food (and lazy food, happy food, I’m hungry food, I’ve had a shitty day food, etc).  Back when I ate meat and dairy it was still one of my favourite things to make.
So, today’s Mac and Cheese.
We used this product called Cherub Dairy-Free Cheesey Sauce Mix that Cam picked up ages ago from Green Edge.  Looks like it’s a product of Angel Food (NZ).  I think we still have a meringue sachet from this company in the cupboard.  I should see if that is still any good….
                          
I also used the novelty home brand pasta from Woolworths.  I buy the novelty shapes a lot.  Cam never seems to mind, so I don’t have a problem with it.  I have been known to use novelty shapes before.
I also added broccoli (I have this rule that I won’t eat mac and cheese without a substantial green vegetable – in my mind it makes up for the lack of healthiness of everything else in the meal).

The verdict?  Cam quite liked it.  We added a fair bit of salt to it (probably because we’re salt fiends) but it seemed a little too subtle for my taste.  Next time I make it (I have enough mix left to make a cup of sauce) I’m adding nooch and a little powdered mustard.
I’ve used a few different Mac and “Cheese” recipes in the past – the lower fat New Farm Mac and Cheese recipe from the original Get Sconed blog site was good (now the version online is gluten free).  There’s also my ye olde standby (bastardised from a scalloped potato recipe from long long long ago).  Now I tend to add a few drops of liquid smoke to that.
What’s your favourite Mac and “Cheese” recipe?  Or do you prefer to use a mix? 

VeganMofo 2013: Day 1!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to my attempt to do VeganMofo for an entire month (for the millionth time).  I’m aiming for about five blog posts a week.
To prepare for Mofo-ing I did a whole lotta cooking yesterday.
I soaked and cooked 1kg of black beans – turns out that makes approximately 14 cups of cooked beans.

(12 cups of which are now in the freezer in 2 cup servings!) Beans – taste great, not so attractive sitting in the pressure cooker.
I also made a whole lot of sofrito using Terry’s recipe from Viva Vegan – we eat a LOT of burritos, etc (I’d call it Mexican, but I’m sure that it’s not very authentic).  That also went into the freezer in 1cup servings.  I spent a good 30 minutes chopping up onions!  Luckily no one was home to see how teary I got.
So, the first dinner of Mofo was Burritos!  And seeing as this meal was going to be my first Mofo2013 post, I thought I’d make some exciting extras: a fresh salsa and pickled red onions (the pickled red onion recipe is from Viva Vegan – OMG, so freaking good.  I frequently eat them out of the container). 

Pickled onions before and after.  Hot pink and so so good.
You can spy my salsa in the second pic.  It’s a variation on my usual bruschetta recipe: 3 tomatoes, 1 small red onion, juice of half a lime, 1 large handful of coriander, about 3tsp salt.  Chop up and mix together – it’ll be ready to eat after about 20 mins of sitting.  The juice is so salty but soooooo amazing.

Yum. 
The bean filling was:

• 1 cup or so of sofrito (basically whatever I had left after freezing the rest)
• 2 cups of black beans
• 1 tsp of smoked paprika, garlic powder, oregano, cumin
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 drops of liquid smoke
• 1 chipotle in adobo (it was the last of the tin, so I just added the 3T of adobo that was left to the mix)
• 1 red capsicum, chopped into 1cm square pieces (or so)
• 5 mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tsp hot sauce
• juice of half a lime

Heat up a deep frypan on the stove.  Cook up the sofrito.  Add the capsicum and mushroom and cook for about 3-4 minutes on high. 
Add in your beans (I used the measuring cup straight from the pressure cooker, so there was a fairly large amount of the cooking liquid in there). 
Lower the heat to medium and add in your spices, the chilli, liquid smoke and hot sauce.  Cook for about 15mins.  The mixture will want to stick to the bottom of the pan.  Don’t be too rough – you want some whole beans in there!
Once the liquid’s reduced, squeeze your lime juice in.  Turn it off and stuff your burrito. 
I tend to put about half a cup of beans on the bottom, then a large amount of pickled onions (or however much you like), and then top it off with salsa.  I frequently add Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, but we’re out :(

So that’s my go to recipe for burritos.  What’s your favourite recipe for burritos or tacos?
Tomorrow: Mac and Cheeze Monday!