tofu salad wraps

Another easy sick-person meal - we bought lots of flatbreads for our ill fated camping trip, so Chris made this.

They contain:
Grated carrot,
Shredded lettuce,
Tahini,
Shichimi togarishi,
Tofu fried in oil then smothered in teriyaki sauce & kecap manis,
Herbs from our garden.


The herbs include mint, garlic chives, basil, purple basil, some other sort of basil and vietnamese mint.

Yum!

easy noodle stir-fry

I've been a wee bit sick the past few days, and after reading Miss T's delish looking post about Tom Yum, I decided that was what I needed to make me better. Chris went on a mission to find some paste, and found Shanggie brand - which was no good! Didn't taste like much, but burned my mouth. I think I will make my own, or hunt down the brand Miss T used.

So instead we ate a simple noodle stir fry - just veggies, rice noodles and puffy tofu in a teriyaki-esque sauce (soy, mirin, kecap manis). Sprinkles of fried onions, shichimi togarishi and fresh cucumber, this is one of my favourite things to eat.

I'll let you know when I have tom yum success!

Handmade pasta with roasted pumpkin

With excitement, on Boxing Day I tested out the new pasta maker I was given the day before. On the first attempt I used vegan dough which didn't work out so well (if anyone has a good recipe please let me know). On the second attempt I included a few eggs from my parents’ free-range chickens. It worked nicely.

The pasta was topped with a basic tomato and onion sauce with roasted pumpkin and pine-nuts. Perfect post-Christmas easy meal (apart from cleaning up the flour that I seemed to have spread all over the kitchen…).

vegan gingerbread

Made using this recipe, from the Veganomicon authors. I made it on Thursday, our house was still a little warm so it was tricky, many trips back and forth with the dough in the fridge! It turned out so well though, I'm liking my icing skills.

I gave the cookies as gifts for Christmas, and kept a little stash for me & Chris. Delicious!

This is my cookie cutter, the supermarket ran out and I couldn't find mine. Totally pro.

raw salad

Raw salad, or, what I've been eating a lot of lately. Things have been busy busy in the business, so since my recent inspiration of raw chocolate cake, I've just been eating a lot of simple raw salads for lunch.

Usually with:
Bean shoots (sprouted by me, yay!),
Avocado,
Nuts,
Cucumber,
Lettuce / spinach,
Spring onion,
Tomato.

With my favourite dressing of lemon, olive oil, dijon mustard, salt & pepper.

Sometimes I eat it with a bagel. Almost raw.

raw chocolate cake

The latest issue of lovely Peppermint magazine had a rather intriguing recipe for raw chocolate cake. Chris didn't object to having this for his birthday, so away we went!

This is the cake pre-icing...

The recipe is by Ani Phyo, you can see of super cute little video of her making on a talk show it here.

Essentially the cake is walnuts, cocoa & dates, which are blended up into fine crumbs, and smooshed together into a cake. It's good! The icing even has avocado in.

So, now I have become all inspired by raw foods, which taste delicious and make me feel good. And may be an antidote to Christmas food?

Vegan Afghan Biscuits

Yum! I love these cookies, chocolatey and crunchy, but they're normally very buttery, so here's my adapted version. I've been rather absent on this blog - my business has been super busy leading up to Christmas, but I do have some posts ready and have been eating some yummy things, hooray!

Vegan Afghan Biscuits

Ingredients:

BISCUITS
½ cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of castor sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup of unsweetened corn flakes (Kellogg's)

ICING
1 cup of icing sugar
2 Tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder
3 Tbsp water
3 drops of oil (adds glossiness)
pistachios/flaked almonds (optional)

Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
Cream the oil and sugar. Add the water.
Sift together the flour and cocoa powder and mix into oil/sugar.
Fold in cornflakes (don't worry if they crumble).
Roll 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls and flatten them slightly. Place onto oven tray lined with baking paper.
Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Icing: combine icing sugar, cocoa powder, oil and water in a bowl. Mix well.
Spoon a little icing on each cookie and then decorate with flaked nuts.


A tip on the cookie dough -- you really need to roll and press the dough firmly into a ball because the cornflakes can make the dough a little crumbly. Just scrunch it all together!!