Backlog catchup!

Here's what we've been trying from our new cookbooks!

Cam attempted a curry from his own recipe. It was pretty tasty. Still needs a bit of work though.


We've been making lots of this roast! It's the Sanitarium vegetarian roast. I made Sweet Potato Mash - where has this been all my life? I can't go more than a week without this roast.

Creamy Chickpea Soup with Moroccan Spice Oil (The Voluptuous Vegan page 34). Like my smiley face? This was really runny, but super delish.

Yin Yang Salad with Peanut-Sesame Dressing (The Real Food Daily Cookbook p99). This contains 2/3cup of peanut butter. It's peanut-tastic!

Salt and Pepper Tofu (The Post Punk Kitchen Forums, here). My friend Kath loved this. We also had too much wine that night!

Caesar Salad with Roast Garlic Croutons (Veganomicon p81). I added Joni's Bakin Bits on the top. Yum! Beware: Those croutons are amazing (and amazingly fatty).


Cholent (Veganomicon p182). Cam made this one. We loved it!

If you don't have Veganomicon yet. WHY ARE YOU HOLDING OUT? Seriously. This cookbook rocks. I don't know how Isa and Terry are going to top this one.

Brownie goodness

I made these brownies for Saturday night's election returns watching party. Suffice to say the brownies were awesome and I screamed like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert (circa 1965).

They're Pumpkin Pie Brownies! Recipe is from Isa's old blog. You of course check her new blog on an hourly basis.

I've been enjoying my free time of late. I've been reminiscing while watching seasons one and two of Buffy and I think we're up to season five of the X-Files (yes, I was a geeky dork in high school - all the cool people were). I've also bought a flash new pushbike. It's silver and oh so rad. I'll see if I can get Cam to take a picture of me riding it on the weekend (if I'm not too busy making cupcakes for our next cooking lesson on Sunday).

We've got backlogged pics from VCON (of course). But I'm lazy and have to get up for work in eight hours.

Enjoy your newfound freedom people!

Vegan Recipes!

Isa and Terry (of the PPK) are releasing a new book in November.

They're giving us a sneak peek of a few recipes on the PPK site!

Go there now!

The Catch Up - Part One - Savoury Dishes

Let's cut the c**p and just say I'm a lazy blogger (and a lazy thesis writer - up to 2600 wds).

I'll do another update in a few days - the sugar kick lasted all of a week and a half - HA!

So here's what we've been a cookin' lately:

This was a roast dinner that we made - the roast is the brand spankin' new Sanitarium one (you'll find it in the cold 'health food' section at Woolworths/Coles in Australia). It is fairly tasty, but I'm sure I could do something better with homemade seitan. We had it with Rosemary ordinary & sweet potatoes, onions and mushrooms (and a mix of steamed veggies) covered with vegan gravy (the Orgran brand)... Mmm mmm mmm

Next we made Tofu Tacos from The Everyday Vegan. This recipe made A LOT of taco mix - we were eating with tacos and then with tortillas for the next three days! I added a lot of chilli, so it burned, but Cam likes it that way. I served with guac and refried beans (we were too cheap to add cheeze)...


Finally, Cam found a recipe for dahl on the PPK recipe listing (somewhere, I don't know exactly which one). It was pretty tasty, but we needed to grind the spices a little more. It was good the next day as the flavours had developed.....

And one more thing..... We went to my parent's house for dinner tonight (it was my middle nephew's fourth birthday (I ended up buying the same book that my brother bought - there appears to be only one picture book about pirates????)). Anyway, I snapped my mum's cat Nancy (aka Nancy Fancy Pants, Pantsy - we have a weird thing with animal names) curled up next to a decanter of port (it was right under the heater - it's COLD in Brisbane!!!) I want a fur coat (I mean I want one instead of skin - duh)..... Check it out!!!

Stay warm everyone! I'm off to bed to cuddle up to a hot water bottle (well, it's actually a bag of wheat that you microwave, but serves the same purpose).

Visit in a few days to see the mountain of sugar I've prepared - you'll enjoy!!!

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**

Sunday's Indian Feast & cookie swap photos!

Cam cooked almost all day Sunday to make a feast for us! His sister, her husband and Cam's nephew joined us - they're omni and they LOVED it!!!

All the recipes come from The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking - the bread is a Chickpea and Whole Wheat bread (it was meant to be puffy, but we just baked in the oven), there's a tomato glazed chickpeas and a dahl. The salad is a quick combination of evenly chopped tomatoes, onions and cucumber drowned in a sea of lemon juice and liberal additions of sea salt.

They were all very tasty - I'm afraid I really cannot compete with Cam when it comes to Indian food - he is the master (but we won't let it go to his head, will we?)....

We checked the mail this afternoon (Monday) and we had presents!!! Mel had sent us through our cookies from the PPK cookie swap (next time I'll advertise here - that's an incentive to keep you checking my site... LOL).

We opened the box and found this note:


And then under the cool orange paper we found these cookies! You can see how small my hands really are in this photo - I am a 160cm midget:



OMG!!! These were so tasty!!! She spoiled us and used white choc chips - as far as I know you can only get these on mail order in Australia. Thank you Mel!!!!!

For those of you playing along at home, this is the blog post she refers to: http://bakingbites.com/2006/06/white-chocolate-macadamia-cookies/

And check Vegetation's post on the Human Battery Cage - currently touring Oz...
http://vegetationramblings.blogspot.com/2007/05/human-battery-cage-in-town.html

I'm behind the times - Seitan O'Greatness

I'm normally behind the times on all the cool vegan stuff, but I finally found gluten flour in Brisbane (it's known just as gluten flour in Australia - you can find it in lots of health food stores). Thus, I was FINALLY able to make the Seitan O'Greatness - the recipe was posted on the PPK forum last year(Lachesis' recipe)....

Here's my first attempt - I've cut it into slices:


And put it on a pizza! (Sauce is from VWAV - so much cheaper than buying pizza sauce BTW):

I love making pizza from scratch - the base is so much more tasty & healthy this way (and I get "cheese" - this one uses Cheezly & it looks a bit like pinapple chunks)..... YUMMO!