Cam's Indian Restaurant

We had friends over for dinner on Saturday night, and by Jeebus, he outdid himself!  (You can commence drooling now):

Mung Bean Dahl.  Need I say more?

Cam's favourite Savoury Chickpeas.

Amy's favourite Potato and Cauliflower Curry (he added Coconut Milk this time - it's a nice addition!).

Indian Salad.

Mushroom and Pea Curry.  This one was HOT but good!

Why are there never any leftover Chilli Potatoes?  Grrrrrr.

The whole shebang.
We followed all that spice with Spiky cupcakes!

They were the Toasted Coconut ones from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World topped with Chocolate Buttercream.  I made too much icing (on purpose).  Oh the joy of raiding the fridge for icing!!!!

(The diet started yesterday - I'm of course ignoring the English muffins below!).        

DIY Indian Feast

I often brag about Cam's skills as a chef (or as he'll now be known, Iron Chef Cam) when it comes to Asian delights. He really is very good!


Here's an example of just how good he is (be prepared for extreme jealousy!). A couple of weeks ago we took pity on my Dad and made him dinner (Mum was overseas for work). Cam made an extra yummy Indian feast!.

Tomato Glazed Sour Chickpeas from The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking.


Chilli Potatoes by Iron Chef Cam - recipes to the right!
These are pretty hot, but OMG they're incredible!



Mung Bean Dahl - Iron Chef Cam




And my absolute favourite at the moment, Potato and Cauliflower Curry by Iron Chef Cam.




Yummy! Dad sweated a bucketful (as always). Tee hee.

Here's a later meal - Mushroom and Pea Curry by Iron Chef Cam. The recipe's in the recipe list to the right.



Hopefully I can get myself organised before uni goes back to add some of my original creations.

Please have a go and let us know what you think!
Email us at ironchefvegan AT optusnet.com.au.

The incredibly dorky Iron Chefs.

P.S. I heard Hiroyuki Sakai was in Brisbane yesterday and I missed out!!! :(

Update 28th August

Here's a selection of what we've been chomping on for the last few weeks!

We went out to dinner about two weeks ago for family birthdays (my brother is born on the 13th and my sister and dad are born on the 14th of August!). We went out to a really yummy restaurant called Olivetto's. It's really fancy (we had real table linens and napkins - you really don't get that in the cheap vegan cafes!).

This was all that I remembered to snap (I was unable to after 4 glasses of Pimms!). It was a mushroom and potato thing... Don't remember what it was called. Do remember that it was AWESOME and I wanted MORE! This isn't from a vegan restaurant, but isn't it funny that "normal" chefs can produce excellent quality non-meaty food!


Next, we had our friends Kath and Adam over for dinner. I was studying that day (surprise, surprise), so Cam made an Indian feast!
Chickpea Curry:


Potato Dahl:


And Indian Flatbreads:


As I recall, the Chickpea Curry and the bread came from our normal Indian reference text. Potato Dahl was (I think) a Cam original. I'll check & let you know! My contribution was VWAV Gingerbread Apple Pie. It tasted good, but it really sticks to the pan!


Speaking of Cam originals, I present, Mushroom & Pea Curry! Our local Indian restaurant makes a recipe exactly like this one. So good!


We've also made La Dolce Vegan Stroganoff (I found portabellos on special!!).


As inspired by PPK Food Porn, I made Scalloped Potatoes, which we had with "chicken" nuggets from the chinese supermarket & random vegetables (they're buried UNDER the gravy!).


Tony, who gets to share an office with me at work (isn't he lucky?), had his 55th birthday on the weekend, so on Thursday night I made Pistachio and Rosewater Cuppers from VCTOTW. I ate too many (and I'm now sick of rosewater!).


Checkout my lame decorating skills!


And the reason I was so excited about making cupcakes - I got a proper cupcake carrier!


And finally, Susanna, a lovely girl that I work with, bought this for me! She's heard me go on and on about how much I LOVE Hello Kitty! She's so awesome (I need a new adjective)! It's a lunchbag (yes, I'm a 26yr old who has a pink Hello Kitty lunchbag - I rock!).


Hope everyone's doing well. I sent off chapter two to my thesis supervisor yesterday, so I'm onto chapter three. I have ten weeks (from yesterday) until it is due! I don't need sleep to live, do I? LOL... Peace Out!

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 a lazy, lazy blogger

A lovely friend of mine invited me over to her place last week for dinner, so I took my camera - I left it at her place. Ha! I have an excuse for being lazy.. ;)
Anyway, here's the food we've been eating for the last couple of weeks:

Last night: Malaysian Curry (made by my boyfriend)....
In the words of Elmo (I think) this is definitely a 'sometimes' food. Laden with Coconut Cream and generous quantities of canola oil, this one's for when you've been v. good with your food! So tasty though (just had a bowl for breakfast!!!!). Perhaps the brown rice makes up a teeny weeny bit for the fat??? LOL.. We got this recipe from the lovely people who owned ID Cafe in Fortitude Valley. I really miss their laksa (although now I have the recipe!!!).... :(

According to the photo properties we had this on April 3 - I've posted a pic of this one before - Ginger Miso Tofu Salad. It's incredibly fresh tasting (but you do get slightly wierded out (is that even a word???) by the tofu - it comes off the grill looking like Chinese BBQ pork). The miso ginger dressing is so tasty. I think we may have gone overboard with the sesame seeds.....

I seem to be posting lots of meals that my boyfriend has cooked of late - he's making up for a few weeks ago (he took GAMSAT & I did all the cooking, etc so he could study). I'm meant to be catching up on my thesis - it's going VERY slowly.....

Anyway, here's another Vegan Monkey creation:


I believe this recipe is from The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi. It was very good. It reminded me of the delightful curries you get from Krisha restaurants - very fragrant, but not too heavy......

I couldn't go a week without making cupcakes, I actually had a few left over when I took them to work - everyone's either been off sick or on holidays...... These ones are the basic vanilla and basic chocolate cupcakes 'marbled' together with Peanut Butter icing (from VCTOTW). I've gone on a health kick (I've started running on the treadmill - I did 5kms in 38mins 30secs on Friday). Anyway - here they are in all their unhealthy glory:


I'm drooling just looking at them.... How very Homer Simpson of me.....

And finally, a silly picture I took at my friend's place. She forgot to take the screw cap off the wine bottle before pouring..... Here's our silly reconstruction:


I'll be a little less lazy this week I think!!! Enjoy your vegan food everyone!!!! xxooxxx