Post 4: Weekend of tasty food

Hey guys!  Hope you had a good weekend.  We really utilized our “Iron Chef” skills on the food this weekend.  I’m drooling just thinking about it.
First – Cam’s ‘healthy’ lunch from Friday.  Just to show off the fantastic Asian snacks we can procure in BrisVegas:

Trident Hot and Spicy Soup with ‘Chicken’ nuggets (from Burlington in the valley), Cabbage dumplings (Burlington) and Dim Sims (from the supermarket near the former Magic Wok).  I shudder to think how much sodium was contained on this plate before the soy sauce was added!
I was inspired, after viewing everyone’s blogs on the VWAV cookbook challenge to find a recipe that I hadn’t made in that awesome tome.  I came up with the “Orecchiette with Cherry Tomatoes and Kalamata Tapenade”.  Why did I wait more than 2 years to try this?  It’s fantastic in the original dish (I even found the right pasta):

I added extra parsley for prettiness.
But we also tried it on bread (on Isa’s suggestion in the cookbook).  Witness the glory that is Tofutti Cream Cheese Kalamata Tapenade poppy seed bagels.  Seriously.  You HAVE to try this.  We had this for dinner on Sunday night and I had to have it again for breakfast today.  (I even exclaimed the virtues of it on Facebook).

It’s like heaven on bread WITH OLIVES!  Could I be more excited about a food?
And to finish, even though this was dinner on Friday night, we have pie filling.  ‘Beef’ and ‘bacon’ pie filling.  Cam said he fried an onion and added casserole mince and sliced Sanitarium luncheon.  Then he added ‘beef’ stock and a rather large quantity of liquid smoke (and I think a little gravy powder).  To top it off we added a slice of Toffuti American sliced cheeze and put in the pie maker.  It’s near to impossible to take a photo of a pie without destroying it, so you’ll have to imagine the awesomeness.  Here’s a rather unattractive picture of the filling:

It’s really only good when you serve it straight away so you can mix the toffuti into the rest of the filling.
I’m having fun being a MoFo.  Thanks for all of your comments.  They’re a great pickup while I’m writing assignments! 

Day 2: Kinda lazy vegan convenience foods

When Cam was cooking this last night, we discussed just how much pasta and tomato sauce we ate when we first became vegan (I became vegan after Cam but I did the same thing!).  It’s funny how much cheap pasta sauce has evolved, thanks to the gentrification of the store brands.  I buy a lot of the store brands stuff – especially ‘cause I cook a lot from scratch.  Plus, why pay more money to the large international conglomerates when you can pay less and get the same thing?
But I digress….
This one was a Puttanesca in the You’ll love Coles range.  It had both green and black olives and was tasteeeee!  It’s fun finding new ninja vegan foods.
And yes, we did use the moose pasta – I think it looks extra evil with the red sauce!

Amy out…

We're alive (we're just on holidays!)

Howdy!
Yes, I've neglected you blogosphere, but it's all been for a good cause.  Relaxation!
I've been doing way too many crafty things of late!  I've taken up sewing (I'm working on a dress and a top at the moment) and I made little Oliver (a friend's 1yr old) a birthday mobile out of my crazy little creatures!

This was meant to be a ghost (like my purple kitchen assistant)...

Hamster

Octopus (this was my favourite - it's a bit of a pain to do the legs, but it looks the best!)

Why is it that all the bunnies/hamsters I make look like deranged serial killers?

Mr Tadpole (now this was an appropriate colour to use!!!)

I didn't get a chance to get the "Oliver's view" pic.  But you get the idea!  Isn't it adorable?  I think I'll definitely be making this again!
FOOD!
I think Woolworths has finally worked out that they have vegan customers!  As I mentioned last time, they've increased their range of Fry's products (thank you thank you!!!).  We also found a new range of Australian gourmet burgers!

Syndian make these burgers.  They're pretty tasty.  We found best results from cooking on the health grill (I think they'd fall apart if you did them in a frypan).
Mexican flavour was tasty (also these are pretty mushy - which was good when I was recovering from tooth surgery!):
 
I've also been on a bit of a pasta kick (you're really surprised, aren't you? HA!).  I made some sort of mystery pasta a while ago:

Looks like some sort of bolognaise?
Continuing on my obsession with silverbeet, I made silverbeet and cashew ricotta cannelloni with extra silverbeet on the side.  I want silverbeet at every meal dammit!

Yummo!
And....... I made gnocchi again.  I seriously could eat this stuff everyday!  I made a ginormous batch, so we had no less than four bags of frozen gnocchi.  SOOOOOOOO tasty.  I pan fried it after boiling with dairy free pesto from Mrs Flannery's.  Not original but delicious!  I topped with the dairy free parmesan we've been overusing for the last few months (it's like crack, but good for you?).....

This week I'm intending to try out Vegan Dad's roast to see if I can get it to work for Christmas Day.  And we finally found Sweet William choc chips, so there'll definitely be cookies in the future!
Hope everyone's enjoying summer/winter.  I'm seriously jealous of Teresa's trip to Melbourne!

In which Amy pulls her finger out...... (and goes on and on..............)

And posts something on the blog. Hi everyone! I've been sick and hella busy for the last week or so, so I've been neglecting the blog. I went to a friend's wedding on Saturday, which was lovely. AND I finally got some work done on my thesis (10% down, 13,500 words to go!). But here's what you've visited for - THE FOOD!

I baked two batches of seitan on Monday afternoon (the recipe was Lachesis' ultimate baked seitan from the PPK boards). One was the original Seitan O'Greatness and the other's flavour was inspired by the VWAV tempeh recipe (the recipe I normally use to make Tofu Bacon in BLTs). I didn't bake the original Seitan O'Greatness for quite long enough, but it turned out to be really useful for use as a 'mince' substitute!

So on Monday night (which was pretty cold here in Brisbane) we curled up on the couch with a huge glass of red wine each and watched two episodes of the Sopranos and ate Italian food!

Garlic Bread (oh man, this was so garlicky & tasty!):


And Seitan Stroganoff:


To make:
Fry up about half a batch of Seitan O'Greatness with garlic(I'll leave the quantity to your own taste, we end up using about 3 tablespoons everytime - we like garlic breath), a chopped onion in olive oil. After the onion is transparent, add your pasta sauce (I make a bastardized version of Isa's pizza sauce & add more tomatoes). Serve over pasta.

Cam really loved these two recipes - I think I need to make more pasta sauce before adding the grilled seitan.

Going back in time now.....

On Sunday night my brother (who lives with us & works for a rockin' deli in a local suburb - their olives are the best) brought home about ten punnets of strawberries for us! I love strawberries (my favourite way to eat them is to cut them into pieces and eat with a fork)! So, we just HAD to make waffles! I made the Ginger Pear Waffles from VWAV, but we didn't have any pears, so I did it with apples.



We served with Strawberry sauce and Chocolate Soy Ice Cream. The batter made LOTS of waffles, so I basically snacked on these while writing my thesis (the sugar assisted greatly!).



On Tuesday, after what can only be described as the worst working day in my career thus far, I needed tasty food. Voila! Vegan Fajitas!

I marinated the seitan in a sauce made with Smoky Barbecue Sauce, Refried Beans (the only thing I could think of that would impart a 'mexican' flavour) and a lime-chilli paste.



I had to post a pic of the sauce - what is it with actors and sauces? Paul Newman has his salad dressings, etc and now Jack Thompson has a BBQ sauce? LOL.....

Seitan looked like this when it was marinating:



And when it was served with guacamole, refried beans, fried onion and mushroom, tomato and lettuce, it looked like this!



I think that's it for now..... We went to the Alibi Room on Saturday for breakfast - if it is possible, it was better than the week before!

One last thing, I'm going on a sugar-free kick. Yes, I know this means no cookies and cupcakes, but I'm getting tubby and more than a little concerned about my sugar intake (I really don't want diabetes). So Iron Chef Cookie will have to wait a few months.

Hope all the Aussies aren't freezing their arses off right now (I'm wearing four layers!) & hope everyone in NSW is doing okay after all the rain. **End Communication**

Pasta - Pumpkin Ravioli with Tomato and Mushroom Spicy Sauce

The filling recipe also comes from Nonna's Italian Kitchen, but the sauce is an Amy Original.

Really easy sauce - fry up some garlic and two big handfuls of mushrooms in olive oil. Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste & fry for a few seconds. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes & a teaspoon of chilli (I'm too lazy to cut up chillis, so I use the stuff in the jar). Also add some vegan stock powder & half a cup of water.

I like to make the pasta sauce first and let it bubble away while I'm making the pasta - tasty!!!! 

Pasta - Lasagne (Spinach and Ricotta teamed with Lentil and Tomato)

I had a fair bit of the Spinach and Ricotta filling from Sunday night's ravioli dish (which took about 3.5 hours from start to finish - including the "cheese").

So I made more pasta (it's like playdough for grown-ups) and made a quick "meaty" sauce by opening a can of lentils and mixing it with a bottle of tomato pasta sauce - I believe it was a Raguletto Venetian sauce.

I then layered this into a square ovenproof dish and topped with five slices (yes, that is a sh*tload of fat) of Tofutti Mozzarella "cheese" slices.

Bake for about 40 mins & finish off under the grill.

This stuff was so good, the omnivores at work were asking what it was!!!!

Pasta - Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli in a Tomato & Mushroom Sauce

I got myself a pasta maker last week and I've made three different pasta dishes so far!!!

This one's a Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli with a Tomato and Mushroom Sauce. Recipe for the pasta and filling comes from Nonna's Italian Kitchen by Bryanna Clark Grogan.

Very tasty!!!