Vegerati - Eating Vegan in Melbourne

Buddha's Day and Multicultural Festival 2010

2010-05-17T16:35:00.001+10:00

Alternate title: Yumyumyum!

I remember seeing Cindy & Michael's post last year about the delicious food at Buddha's Day, so I really wanted to go this year. Everything was fun, but the food! So good! Lemon chicken! Hooray! I'm not 100% sure if everything was vegan, but I shall say again, it was SO GOOD!

Busy busy! But most food was ready to go, so the queues weren't very long.

Mock prawns! I have avoided these until now, because I was never a big fan of the real deal, but these were great. Some vegies (I think carrot & radish?) plus water chestnut (crunchy!) wrapped in yuba & noodles & deep fried! Great! I actually tried to replicate these last night with not so much success - oh wells!

These were cooked by Buddha’s Light International Association of Victoria.

LEMON CHICKEN!!! By Fo Guang Shan Melbourne, which I believe is a college run by Buddha's Light. I think they have vegetarian classes. Yummm.

Beef noodle soup! I can't remember who made this deliciousness, I actually really loved the broth, but the noodles weren't so great, and the mock-beef was a bit too beefy... hmm.

And... sticky rice balls! Okay this was more of a rice log, and it doesn't look like much, but it was filled with a long stick of some kind of fried gluteny mock-chicken type thing, toasted sesame seeds, and some teensy bits of mock-pork. So good! So sticky! (I got it all over me). This was also by Buddha's Light.

The food was all so delicious, and if I could figure out if Buddha's Light ran cooking classes, I'd totally be up for it!

If you want the food, you can go next year, or try Fo Guang Yuan in Melbs.

Fo Guang Yuan
Buddha's Day

Global Vegetarian, Ormond

2010-04-14T09:11:00.001+10:00

Global Vegetarian is a little bit of a mainstay for Monash Uni students - it's on the famous(ish) 630 bus line and it's cheap, so when I was at uni I used to go there a lot. Some people LOVE it, I was never so much of a fan.

Basically the thing you either love or hate is a salty seasoning they use, I don't know what it is, some kind of stock powder maybe? but they use it in every dish so they all taste very similar. So a mee goreng tastes similar to a laksa which tastes similar to a pasta...

We had a mee goreng and a laksa. The mee goreng... I know I've had it before, and should know what to expect. It was fine, noodles, sauce, vegies - but there was really very few flavours other than soy and their salty flavour thing. A bit of chilli would have been nice?

The laksa was nice. Kind of like a green curry soup, lots of noodles, steamed vegetables, tofu & gluten chunks. Good for comfort food. And each main is only $9.80, so that's quite comforting too.

Global Vegetarian
499 North Road
Ormond
03) 9578 9566

tempeh & baby corn noodles

2010-04-12T21:04:00.001+10:00

We have an electric stove so I find it very tricky to cook stirfries. I have devised a method which works well for tempeh & tofu stirfries - For this one I fried some onion, garlic & tempeh for awhile. I then carefully and slowly added some plum sauce, kecap manis, mirin and soy sauce. If I add them slowly on my stove then it goes okay, if I add them too fast, because my stove doesn't get very hot the whole thing just starts to stew. Ew.

So, when the liquid had burned off I added some baby corn, bok choy & noodles and twiddled them around for awhile.

Then with salad on top. This is the pre-salad shot so you can see the tempeh.

And I am so sorry about the photos. Daylight savings is killing my food photography.

tempeh burgers!

2010-04-10T09:51:00.000+10:00

Primasoy tempeh is definitely my favourite tempeh - I love getting it at the market because you get to speak to the makers directly, it's always fresh, and they sell their yummy tempeh goreng (tempeh deep fried in an awesome pea-flour batter). You can buy little sachets of the batter mix at the market, which I did.

And clearly I'm getting really into this cold weather, with no raw dishes for ages! Oh well.

Our burgers contained:
Tempeh goreng
Avocado
Tomato
Alfalfa
Sauce...

So good! We went to Brumby's bakery to get bread rolls - I don't usually buy bread, so it was such a novelty to be asked if I wanted to buy 6 rolls which meant I got the 7th free? Of course! Hooray free things! This was a mistake. I have now eaten far too much crappy white bread and am going wheat-free for awhile so my digestion recovers.

You know what they say. Once you've been macrobiotic for 3 months one Summer you can't go back to wheat & dairy & nightshade without paying.

barley & lentil soup

2010-04-09T15:44:00.003+10:00

Yum! It's just a simple vegie soup, barley & lentils cooked with vegetables including fried onion & garlic, carrot, celery, parsnip & potato. With lots of fresh herbs, pepper & ginger.

This soup came around because I went to the St Kilda Farmers Market. I hadn't been for awhile and needed to stock up on bulk Mount Zero lentils (I love them because a- sometimes the cute Mount Zero guy is there, b- they always cook really well, and c- they're locally grown - in Tottenham, cute name!). So I was a little sad that all they had left was lentil & barley mixed together - apparently that morning, in the dark, they had a little accident, so it was cheap!

I'm always suspicious of unhulled barley because usually when I've tried to cook it it's still been really tough, but the Mount Zero one is fabulous! I soaked the lentils & barley overnight and then cooked for for maybe 30 mins before adding to the soup - very good!

leftover sushi plus vegie box resolutions

2010-04-08T08:20:00.004+10:00

So, as you may have gathered, we get a weekly vegie box full of lovely organic vegies & fruits. When we started getting it I was always very enthused about thinking up what to cook, but lately it's been slipping a bit, and last week there was a sad incident involving a bunch of spinach, half a bunch of silverbeet and the compost bin.

So, I used up all the leftovers (plus some tempeh) and made sushi, and vowed to have all future vegies end up in my (and Chris's) tummy and not the compost. So, I finished up all our old vegies in sushi form! So we could begin vegie box resolutions afresh.

Sushi type A contains tempeh fried with carrot & lots of fresh chilli, with teriyaki sauce.
Sushi type B contains silverbeet & onion with soy sauce.

The next morning I bought tempeh! At the St Kilda Farmers Market!
And this is our new vegie box.

I know this is all getting a little confusing, I really need to do posts the day I take the photos!

New posts this week featuring celery, capsicum, beans, carrot, zucchini, onions, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, banana, apple & pear! Mmm.

And finally. This is embarrassing. Chris and I tried to go dumpster diving because I have never been before and really wanted to go - we went to 3 places and their dumpsters were all locked away! Better luck next time.

curry chicken noodles!

2010-04-05T08:30:00.003+10:00

So it's been a long time since I actually ate chicken, I'm not sure what it really tastes like anymore, so I'm guessing that Fry's Chicken Strips (which my local supermarket just started stocking) are more in the tastes-like-chicken food group that so very many ingredients seem to fall in to?

Anyway, these were kinda good! Like when you watch teevee and see an ad for KFC and you kinda want the KFC but you're vegetarian/vegan - let this be your new KFC. They tasted totally junky, so the part of me who really appreciates macrobiotics and raw food was appalled, but the part of me that gets sucked in by television advertising was totally into it.

Chris cooked. The bowl contains:

Rice noodles,
Onion & carrot cooked in red curry paste & coconut milk,
Chicken strips! and spring onion cooked in a bit of the oil that floated to the top of the red curry (the rest we scooped off, ew),
Alfalfa,
Pickled ginger.

And it was SO GOOD! I have been bugging Chris to cook it again. Maybe I will go bug him now. Oh and we squeezed lime juice over the top too.

pickled ginger (beni shoga)

2010-03-26T10:43:00.000+11:00

I put this ginger on top of most things - noodle dishes, soup, stir fries... I used to buy the bright pink ginger from the grocery store, but I like making it myself because I know exactly what's in it.

I pretty much followed these instructions, with some editing (and way less sugar)...

I did 100g of ginger, which is a nice amount. I also use a lot less sugar than most recipes state - I guess this means it won't keep for as long in the fridge, but should last at least 3 or so months.

Ingredients:
100g ginger
1 tbspn sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 tspn salt

First comes the fun part - chopping the ginger! Okay, when I say fun I mean not-so-fun... Peel the ginger and break off the knobbly bits, so you have nice easy pieces to slice. For the small pieces just use a little knife and slice finely, for the bigger pieces try a grated or something like that.

Next, sprinkle the salt on and rub it through the ginger with your fingers. Sit for 1 hour.

After an hour, the ginger should be turning slightly pink and will be a lot more limp. Pick it up in your hands and squeeze so lots of the juice comes out. If you prefer you can pat dry with paper towel.

Finally, put the sugar and vinegar in a saucepan and heat on low until the sugar has melted. Pour over the ginger and push the ginger down - you may want to add a tiny bit more vinegar so that the ginger is covered.

That's it! Enjoy!

vegan banana & fig cake

2010-03-23T21:00:00.001+11:00

We've been getting lots of bananas almost every week in our organic vegie box - I'm not a big fan of raw bananas, so I've been baking a lot. I love this recipe! Works great in a loaf tin, or as cupcakes. It's not too sweet... mmm.

I have had this recipe so long, and keep on editing it to suit my less sugary tastes.

Vegan Banana Cake

Ingredients
1/3 cup oil (I use a fruity extra virgin olive)
2/3 cup sugar
2 tspn cornflour mixed with 1 tbspn water
1 tspn baking powder
1 cup mashed banana (about 3 bananas)
few drops of vanilla essence

250g plain flour
1/2 tspn baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 tspn cinnamon powder
1/2 tspn allspice (or a mix of ground ginger, nutmeg and cloves)
1/2 cup milk with 1 tspn lemon juice added (I use soy milk)
7ish dried figs, chopped finely.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Mix together sugar, oil, cornflour mix, banana and vanilla well, until it's all smooth and pastey (this is not a chunky banana cake people!)
Sift in the dry ingredients and lemony milk, mix together until it's all just mixed (don't overwork your cake mix please!) Add the figs and mix through.

Pour into a greased loaf tin or cupcake cups.

For 1 cake- bake for about 45 mins.
For cupcakes- bake for about 20 mins.

Test with a toothpick type device - it will be cooked with the toothpick comes out dry, but with some moist crumbs sticking to it.

Yummy!

Vegan Bento 5

2010-03-22T14:26:00.000+11:00

Another Vegan Bento! Sometimes I find it relaxing to plan what to have in a Bento Box... Takes my mind off work!

This one contains:
Onion and silverbeet/rainbow chard lightly braised with soy sauce & sesame,
Short grain rice with nori stars,
Apple & tomato (the tomato is hiding at the bottom),
Pumpkin and puffy tofu in teriyaki sauce.

So good! I find the trick with Bento is to balance everything - fresh & cooked, salty & sweet, colours, textures etc.

Action photo! (Chris took the photo, I'm not that skilled at one handed photography.)

yakisoba!

2010-03-20T13:22:00.000+11:00

I love yakisoba, but I've never cooked it that successfully before. But, I was determined - I googled and settled on this recipe. I substituted the capsicum and bean shoots with puffy tofu and carrots, and I didn't add the lemongrass paste (I've never heard of that in yakisoba before??). I also subbed fried onion flakes for sesame seeds. But other than that I followed the recipe faithfully, and it was delicious!!!

I mentioned a few posts back about not overcooking the soba noodles, and defo keep that in mind. I cooked them until they had just started to go floppy, but so they were still very firm - they absorbed the sauce and the dish was quite dry and delicious.

So good!

Shyun, Carnegie

2010-03-16T13:51:00.000+11:00

Most days I have to take a walk to the Post Office in Carnegie, and if I'm feeling peckish I get a little Teriyaki Tofu Don from Shyun. The staff are all so lovely, the service is fast, and the tofu don is only $7!! They do other good things too, but I really think that Tofu Don is one of my top 5 favourite meals.

Apparently their actual teriyaki sauce is not vegetarian, so this one has a miso sauce. So good. $7. Awesome.

Shyun
126 Koornang Rd
Carnegie

vegan hamilton island

2010-03-14T17:48:00.002+11:00

Chris and I went to Hamilton Island for Chris's brothers wedding, which was lovely! Pool bar- woo!

Unfortunately Hamilton Island is not super vegan, but these cocktails are! Mostly we ate bread rolls with hommus and vegies, but that's not such an exciting photo, I know.

The pool bar is awesome. You can stand up in it, so you wade over to the bar in the middle. They have Happy Hour twice a day too. The purple cocktail totally tasted like purple!

rice paper rolls

2010-02-11T17:41:00.003+11:00

Perfect food to eat when it's humid & warm (I ate this yesterday!) I felt like something raw(ish) so I had them without noodles.

Clockwise: big bowl of warm water (to soak the rice paper in), sliced carrots, rice paper, fried onion, puffy tofu & capsicum with kecap manis, another rice paper, bowl of Vietnamese mint & sliced spring onion, bowl of shredded lettuce.

In the middle: hoisin sauce, okonomi sauce, shichimi togarishi.

Construction (excuse the light, Chris would sit in the way!)

Voila! They're a bit wobbly looking, but I was too hungry to take care :)

miso noodle soup

2010-02-10T13:26:00.003+11:00

Pretty much all I have been eating this week is miso noodle soup & rice paper rolls. I really am not a great candidate for having a food blog, usually I eat the same thing for a week or so at a time then switch. Chris is not such a fan, but I really enjoy it!

This week is miso noodle soup, so easy!

Boil:
1 cup water
sliced onion
pumpkin chunks
puffy tofu
Simmer until the vegies are tender

Add:
handful of soba noodles,
little bit of soy sauce
a bit more mirin
Cook for about 3 mins, until the noodles are still a bit hard

Add:
Some miso paste that you've thinned in some water
Simmer for 30 secs

That's it!
Put in a bowl with cherry tomatoes & spring onions, and some shichimi togarishi.

Obviously you can use whatever vegies you like, but it's important to not cook the noodles for too long, as they will turn soggy in your bowl.

Do you like my new bowl? My grandma gave it to me!

Saigon Orchid, Glen Waverley

2010-02-08T15:31:00.004+11:00

We went to Saigon Orchid with the family. I've been here a few times before, and it's been consistently fairly good, and we enjoyed it a year or so ago for someone elses birthday, so I was expecting just a nice, fun night.

I would say this time it was average. The restaurant, whilst having a few vegetarian / vegan dishes, is obviously not trying too hard in this area. All the meat-eaters enjoyed their meals, so obviously they're doing some dishes right!!

Chris and I ordered spring rolls to start. The spring rolls were inexpertly rolled, and seemed to have been fried on too low a heat. The non-veg ones looked great, so I am not sure what happened with ours, but the ends of the spring rolls seemed to unravel a little so that when fried they absorbed HEAPS of oil. I had to mop the oil off with my napkin. Hmm. The filling was nice though, pillowy pieces of silken tofu and fresh vegies, but spring rolls shouldn't make you feel ill!

Chris got soft fried egg noodles with veg. This was the only veggie noodle dish on the menu... it was a little bland. I know that usually this dish is bland, but this one was ultra-bland.

I got red-cooked vegetables (with rice on the side). I admit, I had no idea what red-cooked anything was, so while we were ordering I Googled it on my phone. Google told me it was a richly sauced dish, so I was a little disappointed at what tasted like your very bland standard takeaway / food court bean curd & vegetable stir-fry with a bit of bright red sweet & sour sauce added.

So, overall - vegie dishes were average. The staff were all lovely, though.

Dishes:
Spring rolls were $7ish per serve,
Mains were $12ish per serve.
Plus rice, drinks etc.

Saigon Orchid
179 Coleman Pde
Glen Waverley 3150 VIC
Phone: (03) 9561 5055

simple things

2010-02-06T20:29:00.003+11:00

Just olive oil, organic onions, zucchini, tomatoes & basil from the garden. A bit of salt & pepper, and spaghetti.

So good. Tastes like Summer!

Wood Spoon Kitchen - Collingwood

2010-02-04T08:19:00.001+11:00

I was totally inspired by this amazing review of Wood Spoon Kitchen by Ms Fat Feminist Foodie, so Chris & I went there for my birthday. It was great! Hooray! I'm going to start by saying what she said - go there and have the tofu!!!

We went for drinks around the corner at Birdman Eating first, hooray! Then at Wood Spoon Kitchen I started with Umeshu (plum wine). Delicious.

Next up, Okonomiyaki (this isn't vegan, so try not to get too hopeful). It was a lot denser and less full of vegies than most okonomiyake I've had, but despite being dense it wasn't too heavy or doughy. It was like eating a really amazing pizza dough, and realising that all the pizza doughs you've had until now have been terrible excuses for pizza dough. So, it was good.

This is the tofu! Excuse my awful photo, clearly in my excitement I forgot to take my finger off the lens... but this Agedashi Tofu was so very good! The sauce was thicker than you'd usually have on agedashi tofu, it was like a sweet chilli / teriyaki combo. The tofu was so lovely & fresh, and all crunchy on the outside. And the beans & eggplant were great! The tofu wasn't that oily, so the eggplant was super welcome, and the beans were nice and fresh.

Go there and eat this!

They don't look it, but the onigiri in the Onigiri Set were massive. They come with edamame (yum!!) and pickles (meh). We got the three vegan onigiri - Sweet Potato, Seaweed & Sansai (mountain veg). They were each about the size of my fist - big onigiri. The sweet potato one was great! The sweet potato tasted almost candied, and the onigiri was studded with toasted black sesame, mmm.

The other two I found a little average - the seaweed one was rice & the standard seaweed salad mix, and the Sansai was a little bland. Basically this was a nice, comforting, filling (very filling) dish, but it wasn't spectactularly tasty.

Finally, we ordered two small miso soups. Yum. The broth was full & flavoursome, and didn't taste too seaweedy (or suspiciously fishy). I loved all the vegies that were in the soup - there were also big pillowy chunks of soft tofu, and little pieces of fried tofu. The soup was quite thick, but wasn't overly salty. Whenever I've made miso soup (I make it a lot) I have never managed to achieve this consistency - go there for the miso soup too!

You can see all the prices etc on their website - it's all very reasonably priced! We were too full for dessert, I guess that means another visit is in order.

The staff were all super lovely, great decor, and we had a good time. You'd better make a booking though - it's pretty small :)

Wood Spoon Kitchen
88 Smith St,
Collingwood
03) 9416 0588

vegan chocolate cupcakes

2010-02-03T10:51:00.000+11:00

Birthday cupcakes! I love this recipe, I cook it a lot, and it's very forgiving. I often add extra things and change it around, and it always seems to work out! Normally I make a big cake, but this time was cupcakes.

The little cupcake cups are from Cake Deco. Yay!

Vegan Chocolate Cake (or cupcakes!)

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup oil (I use a nice olive oil)
1 cups water / juice
1 tablespoons vinegar or lemon/orange juice
1 teaspoons vanilla extract

This time, I used a cup of liquid comprising 1 tbspn orange pulp (from a boiled orange) and the rest of the cup full of water. I also added about 1tbspn choc chips, and I used 1 tbspn orange juice (instead of vinegar). Yum!

Directions
In a large bowl, mix the oil & sugar. Add in the rest of the wet ingredients.
Mix in the dry ingredients, and beat until just smooth.

Pour into cupcake cups, or a greased cake tin (about the size of a loaf tin).

Bake at 180C - cupcakes for 20 mins or cake for 40 mins.

This recipe is adapted from Grandma's Eggless Butterless Milkless Cake. Mmm.

plum tomato tofu

2010-01-10T13:22:00.002+11:00

Following on from my plum sauce success, I've been trying it out in dishes. We only had a little bit of tofu left, which I chopped up (rather inelegantly) and marinated, then broiled with some veggies & tomatoes. It was so good! Kind of like a scrambled tofu, without the scramble.

Plum Tomato Tofu
250g tofu
1 tbspn plum sauce
1 tbspn soy sauce
1/2 tbspn tahini
1 tbspn olive oil
2 - 4 spring onions, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 zucchini, sliced (or, whatever veggies you like)
1 large / 2 medium tomatoes, chopped

First, chop up the tofu and marinate in the plum sauce, soy sauce & tahini for at least 10 mins.
Grill it on a flat frypan (reserving the marinade) with the olive oil until the tofu develops a nice golden colour.
Add in the spring onions, carrot & zucchini & fry until the vegies are just starting to cook.
Add the chopped tomatoes & leftover marinade, turn down the heat and let the dish cook for about 10 mins.

The tomatoes should break down and start to disappear, and the tofu should develop a crunchy crust (I thought it ended up tasting slightly bacon-y, in a good way).

I served mine with rice & dumplings (momos).

stephanie alexander's plum sauce

2010-01-09T20:15:00.000+11:00

Hooray! We have a winner! Since we moved into our current house with a large plum tree in the backyard, I've been searching for the perfect plum sauce recipe. I'm not a huge eater of sweet things, so I don't really do jam. I think this Stephanie Alexander recipe is the best plum sauce I have tried!

I used 1 less cup of vinegar and 1/2 less cup of sugar than the recipe stated - I have no idea what variety of plums we have, but they are a lot more watery & less fleshy than a blood plum. I also didn't actually chop up the plums at all, I just chucked them in whole and cooked for a bit longer. I am a lazy preserve maker.

Anyway, if you have a plum tree, make this sauce! Mmm.

Oh, I also found the recipe made around 1 litre, not 2.

Super Easy Pizza

2010-01-07T14:03:00.000+11:00

I always think of homemade pizza dough as being rather labourious, so I was happy to see some on Where's the Beef that promised to be dead easy. Hooray! Chris & I gave it a go, and it really is!

You can see the recipe here, we followed it exactly, but let the dough rest for about 30 mins, allowing it time to double in size and get all nice & puffy. The dough on the left had been sitting for about 10 mins, and looked almost exactly as it did when we made it - giving it that extra 20 mins was a good idea.

Our toppings were nice & simple, and made use of the incredibly large bunch of silverbeet we'd received in our vegie box.

Tomato Pizza:
Tomato
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
Basil

Sprinkle the tomatoes & garlic with a pinch of salt & let sit for 10 mins (to release excess tomato juices & get rid of garlicky garlickness).
Pour off the excess liquid.
Mix in olive oil & basil - voila!

Silverbeet Pizza:
Silverbeet
Onion
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Oregano
Artichoke hearts
Pine nuts

Blanch some silverbeet in boiling water then cold water.
Squeeze out the extra juices.
Slice the silverbeet finely, then add some lemon juice, oregano & olive oil.
Put it on the pizza, and top with the artichokes & nuts.

Yum!
Add

cherry chocolate sundae

2010-01-05T07:53:00.003+11:00

This isn't quite a true sundae, as it's not frozen. Chris gave me this lovely cookbook for Christmas - to encourage me to make raw things that aren't salad?

It's a great cookbook, I did a bit of research on Amazon, and this book (Raw Food for 1 or 2 people) is recommended by lots of people because it uses kitchen utensils most people have, rather than the dehydrator so many raw cookbooks use. I do find the cover design rather offensively bad, but don't let that put you off.

I've been intrigued by raw desserts for a little while now, and wanted to try the cashew vanilla cream.

Cherry Chocolate Sundae

One layer of halved & pitted cherries.
One layer of raw cashew cream.
One layer of chocolate sauce.

Raw Cashew Cream
I altered the recipe as I went, but basically you:
Soak 1 cup of raw cashews for an hour or so.
Then, blend them in a food processor with some agave syrup & vanilla extract.
Add additional water slowly as you go, and keep on tasting! Just keep blending until you get to a delicious, creamy consistency.

Chocolate sauce
Heat 1/4 cup soy milk in a double boiler, whisking in 1/2 tsp cornflour.
When the cornflour is in, add about 25grams of dark chocolate, and stir until melted.
Let it cool! That's it.

Sorry about the super 80s photo styling, by the way...

vegan tzatziki

2010-01-01T13:20:00.003+11:00

Tzatziki is something I miss a lot, I do eat yoghurt sometimes but only when very necessary (like after burning my mouth on hot chillies). This is my new substitute!

This version is based on the recipe from Veganomicon, which seemed good, but contained some random stuff that I pooh-poohed. This is my version, it is delicious!

Tzatziki
1/2 cup raw cashews
1 medium lebanese cucumber
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic
1 tbspn extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 sprigs mint

Soak the cashews in boiling water (enough to cover) for about 30 mins. Drain.
Grate the cucumber (peel if you like).
Put the cashews, 2/3 of the cucumber, the salt, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice into a food processor.
Squeeze the liquid out of the other 1/3 of the cucumber. Place the squeezed cucumber aside, pour the squeezed liquid into the food processor.
Blend! It takes a little while, but you should end up with a smooth-ish paste. You may need to add more water, I ended up adding about 1 tbspn extra water.
Mix in the reserved cucumber & shredded mint.
You can drizzle over a little extra olive oil.

I served mine with some toasted pita bread - I rubbed olive oil & ras el hanout into one side, then baked until crispy.

tofu salad wraps

2009-12-31T10:01:00.000+11:00

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

2009-12-30T21:15:00.000+11:00

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

2009-12-29T21:41:00.005+11:00

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

2009-12-26T16:05:00.003+11:00

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

2009-12-23T17:00:00.001+11:00

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

2009-12-23T13:55:00.004+11:00

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

2009-12-15T13:33:00.004+11:00

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!!

Roasted Cauliflower Salad

2009-11-19T22:38:00.002+11:00

We've had a lot of cauliflowers in our vegie box lately, and they're not a vegetable I usually enjoy cooking... it's been so hot, so I decided to do a bit of a salad.

Basically, I chucked all this in a roasting pan:
1 cauliflower, chopped into florets
1 tbspn olive oil
1 tspn coriander seeds
1/2 tspn cumin seeds
1/2 tspn ras el hanout
1/2 tbspn soy sauce
1/2 tbspn pomegranate molasses

Roasted for 30 mins (or until the cauli looks golden-ish and cooked)

Then, I squeezed on the juice of half an orange, some torn mint, and let it cool for a bit. Mmm!

Moroccan Pumpkin Couscous Salad

2009-11-08T13:05:00.004+11:00

I'm not the world's biggest pumpkin fan, so when one happens to arrive on my doorstep as part of my Green Line delivery, I usually try and make something super-delicious. This week I was having a little browse through the Where's the Beef blog and found this recipe, which I adapted slightly. Yum!

Moroccan Spiced Pumpkin
1 small-ish pumpkin (about 1.5kg)
2 tbspn olive oil
1 tbspn soy sauce / tamari
1 tbspn pomegranate molasses*
1 tbspn coriander seeds
1 tspn cumin seeds
2 tspn ras el hanout
1 orange (or some orange juice)

Peel, deseed and chop the pumpkin into largish chunks.
Toss the rest of the ingredients (excluding the orange) together with the pumpkin in a baking dish.
Bake, uncovered at about 180 degrees C for 45 mins.

As you're baking, you'll see that the pumpkin is starting to get dry - you can squeeze over the juice of half an orange after 15 mins of baking, and the other half an orange again after 30 mins.

Hooray! That's it!

Serve with some a little couscous salad of mint, tomato, onion, sultanas & spinach.

*Pomegranate molasses is a tangy sweet syrup - if you don't have any you could use a bit of maple syrup or sugar and some lemon juice.

Aloo Gobi

2009-10-30T09:00:00.004+11:00

The other day the only veggies we had left were cauliflower and potatoes. So - Aloo Gobi. I did a Google search for the recipe, and Bend it Like Beckham kept coming up, which I thought was a bit racist. I chose this recipe because it had 70 5-star ratings! Awesome! And, apparently it's the recipe from the Bend it Like Beckham DVD extras. Google search results explained. I quite enjoyed that movie, but I don't really like having to type out Beckham over and over, because let's face it, he's not the awesomest dude in the cosmos.

So anyway. Delicious curry (feel free to omit the coriander as I did), don't let the Beckham reference turn you off.

Vegan Bento 4

2009-10-23T20:59:00.003+11:00

Last night's bento was a bit of a mish-mash of some random veggies. This week in our Vegie Box from The Green Line we had (amongst the usual amazing organic fruit & veg) some rather sad looking & very tough green beans. I did a Google search to see what to make with tough green beans - the first result came back with roasting, which according to the website (will try and find the link) would take the green beans back to their fresh & young, pre-tough state. And... it kind of did?

In my bento:
Inari, salad with lemon & spring onion dressing, roasted potato, roasted green beans, sushi & onigiri.

I watched this super cute video on Youtube before making the onigiri - it was sort of helpful and very fun to watch!

Spaghetti & (Vegan) Meatballs

2009-10-22T08:57:00.004+11:00

I know I've posted a very similar recipe before, but this was so delicious!

Again using the lentil & hazelnut mixture from my last post, I just fried up some onion on a flat non-stick pan, added some lentil & hazelnut balls and cooked until they were fried all over (just keep turning them every minute or so). Then I whacked in some asparagus and tomatoes, and that's it! Yum!

Vegan Bento 3

2009-10-21T08:38:00.003+11:00

Another day, another Bento box. This one is quite similar to the last...

In my bento:
Lentil beanballs with tomato/red pepper paste sauce, steamed cauliflower, apple & rocket salad, sliced tomato, silverbeet sushi (yum!), carrot/cucumber/pickle sushi, more inari.

I've found it's easier to do everything in batches, which lasts a few days... the rice I cook fresh every day, but the bean ball mix I made a big batch of. I have more beanball recipes coming!

The mix contains:
Whole red lentils,
Ground hazelnut,
Polenta,
Celery,
Potato,
Spring onions,
Salt & pepper

Basically I just soaked the lentils for a few hours, then boiled them with the potato & celery. Then chucked it in a food processor with some hazelnut, polenta, chopped spring onions, salt & pepper and whizzed until mushy.

Vegan Bento

2009-10-20T17:43:00.005+11:00

This week I've been totally inspired by the vegetarian Bento on We're Rabbits - they always look so delicious! I usually cook the same sort of things for a week at a time - this week is officially Bento week at my house.

I noticed that the We're Rabbits bentos often had yummy looking hazelnut & lentil balls, so I cooked a loose interpretation of this recipe.

In my bento:
Lentil bean balls, sliced tomato, inari with cucumber loveheart, cucumber & pickles sushi, apple/dijon salad. And on the side is a yummy okonomiyake Chris made.

Carrot & Couscous Salad

2009-10-07T17:22:00.004+11:00

I'm not a big couscous eater, but I had a craving for something carrot-y and Moroccan-y. This was extremely quick to make, and tasted rather delicious.

Carrot & Couscous Salad

Ingredients:
Couscous
Carrots
Onion
Olive Oil
Lemon Juice
Ras el Hanout
Pepper
Salt
More Carrots
More Onion
Orange Juice
Mint
Baby Spinach
Walnuts
Sultanas

(Sorry for lack of quantities, just make it up as you go!)

Okay.

Fry half the carrots & onions in some olive oil with a bit of salt & pepper, until they're nicely cooked and a little caramelised.
Chuck these in a bowl with some Ras el Hanout (this can be a bit spicy, so don't add too much), lemon juice & couscous, and add some boiling water (just cook as per instructions on your couscous).
- I just chuck everything in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and chuck on a lid and let sit for 5 or so mins.

Whilst the couscous is doing it's thing, take the rest of the onions & carrots and fry this batch. When this 2nd batch is lovely & golden, pour on the juice of 1 orange to kinda deglaze the pan & make a nice caramelized sauce.

Chuck it in with the cooked & fluffed couscous with some sliced baby spinach, mint, sultanas & walnuts. Hooray! Yummy!

Vegan Double Choc Chip Cookies

2009-10-04T12:54:00.000+11:00

Mmm. Yum. This recipe for vegan cookies has been kicking around my house for years & years. Adapted from a butter-y & egg-y recipe, you can add anything to it. Chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, coconut, the list goes on!

I used to make these with Nuttelex. However, due to concerns about Nuttelex's use of Palm Oil, and also the whole trans-fat thing (is it bad? is it not?) I just use oil.

Hooray! So these ones are for Chris's mums birthday, but of course I've snuck in a few already, just to be sure they taste okay!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil (I use olive oil, you can use whatever you like!)
1 & 2/3 cup self raising flour
3 tablespoons cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbspn apple juice / water / soy milk
2 tspn vanilla essence
1 & 1/4 cups choc chips / walnuts / coconut

Preheat oven to 180C.

Okay.
Mix the oil & sugar together.
Add in the flours, & baking powder, and mix until the oil is distributed.
Add in the juice/water/milk & vanilla, and mix until the cookie dough is kinda like a crumbly, pastey dough, like this:

Then, add in the chocolate chips, nuts, coconut (or whatever you choose) and mix through. By now it should be slightly resemblant of breadcrumbs?

Roll it in to little balls, like this:

Then bake on greaseproof paper for about 15 mins, until the bottom of the cookies are lightly browned.

Note: the cookies will be super soft when you pull them out of the oven, but will crisp up as they cool.

Hooray! Yummy cookies!

This recipe makes around 30 small cookies. Yum.

savoury pumpkin pie

2009-10-03T18:25:00.001+10:00

Lately we've been getting a lot of pumpkin in our weekly vegie box. I'm not a famed pumpkin lover, so my repertoire is pretty thin. My favourite way to eat pumpkin is usually with Moroccan / Middle Eastern flavours, hence this pie.

Super easy:
Roast some pumpkin pieces in olive oil (garlic optional)
Marinade the roasted pumpkin in lemon juice, ras el hanout, sesame seeds, sultanas (optional) & walnuts for about 30 mins.
Chuck it all on some pastry and bake.

Hooray!

I served it with this delish salad of steamed asparagus, avocado, apple & rocket in a dijon/lemon/olive oil dressing. Lovely.

This meal was totally super easy and quick, as are pretty much all the meals I've been cooking lately. I find cooking to be a huge way of procrastinating, I love cooking and can spend hours at a time, especially when I'm going through a macrobiotic phase. But, I'm trying to ramp up production in the business before Christmas, hence the easy recipes at the fore. It's better than take-out, right?

Walnut Bolognese Sauce

2009-10-01T19:19:00.001+10:00

I've been a wee bit lazy the past couple of days, and haven't gone out to buy more olive oil, onions, and a few other kitchen staples. So, when it came time to make something to eat today, I felt I would be inventive (rather than leave the house, horror!)

I felt like a pasta, but I like my pasta rich & a little olive oil-y, but we only had about 1 teaspoon left. So, I thought maybe the oilyness of walnuts would satisfy my rich pasta craving, and made this up.

It kinda has that what-is-that texture that regular bolognese does, but doesn't taste much like it (I think, I can't remember).

(Once again, sorry for dodgy photos, can't wait for summer and eating dinner during daylight!)

Walnut Bolognese Sauce
For 4 people

Ingredients (the things in brackets are what I would have used if I hadn't been too lazy to shop!)
1/2 leek (or 1 large onion) sliced finely
1 tbspn olive oil
Salt/Pepper
Couple of sprigs of thyme (or whatever herbs you feel like)
Bay leaf
1/2 cup walnuts
Large handful of beans - say, 30 or 40? (or some other green veg like asparagus or something)
1 tbspn vodka (trust me)
Pinch of ground cinnamon
800g tin of tomatoes

Okay!

First you want to bash the walnuts in a mortar & pestle till they're the consistency of breadcrumbs. (Or wizz them in a food processor, whatever, I don't care).

It will look like this. Arty shot.

While you're at it, slice the onion/leek and the green beans - if you slice the beans lengthways it will look prettier, but you'll also be more likely to cut yourself so take care.

Great. Now, fry the leek/onion until soft & slightly browned.
Chuck in the beans & walnuts, and turn the heat down and cook for about 5 until the walnuts seem toasty.
Splosh in the vodka (or, if you don't believe me, a bit of wine).
When the vodka/wine has sizzled away, add the other stuff, and let the sauce simmer for at least 30 mins.

Mmm. That's all.

P.S. - this is not quite as 'meaty' as you would expect a bolognese to be - I guess you could add some mashed up tempeh or something if you wanted, too.

Gyoza Noodle Soup

2009-09-22T09:27:00.001+10:00

I was totally won over by this post on the Fairest Feed by lovely Philippa, and decided to take my own crack at making a Japanese noodley soup with gyoza.

Mine's not quite as pretty, but was super delicious!

To make:
About 1 cup vegetable stock per person (make sure it's nice & garlicky & gingery),
Soy sauce, orange juice, kumquat marmalade, mirin, etc,
Some vegies, including asparagus, spring onion and cabbage / wombok,
Some tofu puffs
Soba / ramen noodles (precooked to al dente),
Gyoza! (You can buy dumplings at the shop, or make your own).

Okay.

Put the stock in a pot, and add juice of 1 orange, 1 tbspn light soy sauce, some mirin / ketchap manis / sugar / kumquat marmalade (just make your favourite Asian-y broth),
Add some finely sliced tofu puffs (about 1.5 per person), and the long cooking vegies (like asparagus stalks, cabbage, cauliflower etc.
When that's cooked, add asparagus spears, spring onion, other quick cooking vegies, and the noodles.

At this point, start frying your pre-steamed gyoza.

Then, when the gyoza are fried, the noodles will be done. Serve! Mmm! So good.

macro bought by woolworths

2009-06-28T16:44:00.000+10:00

Just a quickie today - unimpressed to discover that Macro Wholefoods, as of May 09, has been bought out by Woolworths.

Enough.
Freaking.
Woolworths.

You can read more here - some of the stores are going to be turned into 'upmarket grocery' stores named Thomas Dux. Macro's line of products will be bought out too, and presumably rebranded.

I am getting downright sick of hearing terrible stories of the way that Woolworths treats its food growers and suppliers, and I know I'm not the only one.

And I really liked their tempeh burgers.

Read more here.

cheater pastry pudding

2009-06-18T15:24:00.000+10:00

This recipe is super easy, but requires puff pastry which I just bought at the shop (hence, cheater).

I was watching Masterchef a little while ago, and they made some sort of caramelised apples with french toast. I am yet to be convinced of the virtue of either eggy french toast, or a vegan alternative, so I came up with these to go with my apples.

Again, don't have any quantities in this recipe...

You'll need puff pastry, don't use a low fat version or they won't be nice & crunchy and puffy.

Take
1 sheet puff pastry (defrosted), and sprinkle on top:
Caster sugar (about 1 tbspn), &
Cinnamon, &
Nutmeg of clove powder, &
Dessicated coconut, &
Apple, just a tiny bit grated VERY finely (optional).

Basically the more you add, the harder it is to roll, but that's okay. Don't add much that is too wet or it won't be nice & crunchy when it's cooked.

So. Roll it all up (the pastry needs to be very non-frozen & very non-low-fat or it will crack).

Then with a sharp knife, slice it into rounds - each should be about 1.5cm thick.

Then, place on a baking tray and bake for about 15 mins or until they look golden and delicious.

Pre-cooking - sorry about the battered tray!

Post cooking - the darker ones are just upside down.

Serve with caramelised apples or something else yummy.

You can also make savoury ones of these, go for it!!

pumpkin: roasted pumpkin pasta

2009-06-18T15:13:00.000+10:00

Now that we're getting our weekly vegie boxes, I'm a lot more focussed at cooking specific vegetable types. We recently had a BIG chunk of pumpkin in our vegie box, which called for, amongst other things, Roasted Pumpkin Pasta.

It was quite easy to make...

I peeled and roughly chopped my big pumpkin into bit sized strips.

I chucked them in an oven tray with some olive oil, salt & pepper, and roasted them at about 180 degrees for 1.5 hours, until they were lovely & sweet and the way roasted pumpkin should be.

Toward the end of the roasting time, I made a basic pasta sauce, with:
Leek &
Onion, fried until golden in
Olive oil, to which I added
Salt,
Pepper,
Chopped Tomatoes (from a can), &
Spinach leaves

When the sauce was ready & the spaghetti cooked, I tossed it all together with about half the pumpkin, and then served with more pumpkin on top, and some pistachios (yum!)

It was soooo nice. Recommended!

And sorry for lack of measurements, I NEVER measure when I cook savoury, but you'll figure it out!

Kumquat Salsa

2009-06-01T17:39:00.000+10:00

I know, it is a bit unusual, kumquat salsa. But I like to experiment!
We were having tacos, and I had just finished making some kumquat marmalade (more on this soon). Kumquat apparently is a very common ingredient in Asian cooking, I love it with soy & chilli. So I thought, why not in salsa? It worked really well, very yummy.

I've been eating this salsa with the tacos, and also just on bread. So good!

Ingredients:
1 small onion, sliced finely
1 teaspoon fresh ginger shredded
1/2 tbspn olive oil
1 capsicum sliced finely
1 chili sliced finely
salt & pepper
1 tomato, cut into little cubes
1 tspn soy sauce
pinch of cumin seeds
2 stalks of oregano leaves
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbspn kumquat syrup

You should cook this in a mid-sized frying pan.

Fry the onion and ginger in the oil on a medium heat for a few minutes until the onions are just starting to brown.
Add in the capsicum and chili, turn the heat down, and cook for around 10 mins, until the capsicum is nice & soft.
Turn up the heat to high, add the cumin seeds, salt, pepper & oregano, and cook for around 1 min until the cumin is nice & fragrant.
Add the soy sauce and kumquat, and cook about 1 more min - the sauces should sizzle when you add them in, and the liquid quickly evaporate.
Okay. Now add in the lemon & tomato, turn down and cook a bit longer.

Voila! You have salsa. Enjoy!

Yummy Vegies: The Green Line

2009-05-27T14:41:00.000+10:00

Sorry for terribly long absence from this blog!

We've just started getting organic vegies delivered from The Green Line (if you're in Melbourne too you can also get them!)

We've opted for a weekly box of mixed seasonal fruit & vegies, it's always a surprise!

I feel a lot healthier eating this fruit, normally I would NEVER buy fruit, but as it's there I have to eat it!

Because the vegies are seasonal, it means there are lots of things in there I might not usually buy, so I have to be more creative cooking. That's a good thing!

Get your own Green Line vegies here!

spaghetti & beanballs

2009-04-06T20:02:00.000+10:00

Meatballs are one of those ultimate feelgood foods I think. But not having eaten meat for a long time, I had totally crossed them off my comfort food list until I bought my copy of Veganomicon and found beanballs in there! Like any recipe, I can never follow it and always think my way is best. I've made these twice now, once with breadcrumbs and once wheat free.

Both recipes make at least 20 beanballs.

You will need to make a basic tomato pasta sauce to go with them.

Beanballs

With breadcrumbs:
1 x 410g tin red kidney beans
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 of a leek
1 tbspn plum sauce*
2 tspn soy sauce
pinch of pepper

Drain the kidney beans (reserve the liquid). Put these in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Blend, adding the kidney bean liquid as you go, until you've got a mixture the consistency of mincemeat. That's it!

Wheat free:
1/2 cup of dry adzuki beans, soaked overnight (at least 12 hrs) and then cooked until soft
1/4 cup cornflour
1/8 cup rice flour
1/2 small onion
1 tbspn plum sauce*
2 tspn soy sauce
pinch of pepper

Same as above! Drain the beans, chuck everything in the food processor, and blend adding the cooking liquid as you go.

Cooking:
Roll either of the mixes into balls, and then fry them, turning as they cook. When they're fried all over, simply add them to some basic tomato pasta sauce (mine was just onion, tomato & zucchini). Cook for about 5 mins in the sauce, then serve over pasta!

* - you can use any sweet relish/chutney instead of the plum sauce.

Gyoza (Mmm, Oishii!)

2009-03-23T17:00:00.001+11:00

Who doesn't like Gyoza? I don't know, but if you don't then maybe these will change your mind.
The Filling.
4 Wombok leaves, sliced into really small pieces (about 5mm squared)
4 Spring onions, sliced bery thinly
1 garlic clove, grated finely
2 teaspoons soy sauce
3 teaspoons cornflour
Salt

Put the wombok & spring onion in a bowl with the salt (mix it all up).
Let sit for about 10 mins.
Handful by handful, squeeze the juice out of the wombok & spring onion mix (just pick it up in your hands and SQUEEZE over a sink.
Put it all in a bowl with the soy sauce, garlic & cornflour. Mix well (basically it should look like a bowl of wilted wombok thinly coated in white cornflour-y goop. Good.)

Next, grab your packet of gyoza wrappers (see photo one for the type I used).
Get a bowl of warm water - wipe a ring of water around the edge of each wrapper, put a small blob of mix in the middle, and get crimping!

Cook.

This is contentious.

Sorry for the traditionalists.

Mine are fried then steamed,
But, if you want them fried, steam them first and then fry them for a couple of minutes on a flat pan. Mmm.

I make them by putting a little oil in the bottom of a pan (sesame or olive usually). Then I put my gyoza in the pan, and heat on medium-high heat until the bottoms of the gyoza are fried and a light brown colour.

Then I ADD:

1 cup of water, with:

1 tspn soy sauce

1 tspn kecap manis

1 sliced spring onion

1 thumb sized knob of grated ginger

So you mix it all into the water first, then quickly tip this into the gyoza (there'll be a very loud SIZZLE) and quickly put the lid on.

Turn the gyoza down to a medium-low heat and cook about 10 mins until the gyoza look cooked (the wrappers should have a sheen and be very slightly translucent). If you have too much liquid, leave the lid off and cook for another minute or so.

That's it!

Yum!

Very Good Cookies

2009-02-03T23:01:00.001+11:00

I made these really yummy chocolate chip cookies a couple of days ago. One of those too-hot-to-be-baking days, oh well. They're not cookies for the purist, they have chocolate, pecans, sultanas and coconut, and some other healthy things. Not too sweet, very yummy - so yummy I had to donate some to Chris's parents to stop myself from eating them all. Mmm.

Will share recipe soon!

the best tofu sandwich

2009-01-19T21:27:00.001+11:00

Mmm. Best tofu sandwich ever.

It contains:

Grilled tofu

Avocado

Gerkhins

Grilled Zucchini and

Leek & tomato salsa

You could use any salsa, but this salsa I made with some fried leek, garlic, spices, herbs & tomato. And some sultanas. Yum!

Carrot Cake

2009-01-14T20:57:00.000+11:00

Yum! I have eaten too much today though... so good and addictive, especially with the cinnamon icing! I don't remember where I found this recipe originally, but my copy has so many alterations, crossings out and resizing of ingredients it doesn't really resemble the original!

Carrot Cake
Makes 1 Cake

1 ½ cups grated carrot (approx 3 med carrots)
1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder *
2 teaspoons cornflour *
pinch of salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup vegetable / olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
120 g crushed pineapple with juice
¼ cup chopped pecans or sultanas (or a mix of both)

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C (350 F)

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add in the grated carrot and mix thoroughly until all the carrots are coated in flour.
Stir in oil, vanilla, pineapple and pecans / sultanas and mix well.
Pour into a greased tin (a loaf tin is the perfect size)
Bake for 45 mins – check with a skewer to make sure it comes out clean.

Ice with cream cheese icing, or my favourite – cinnamon icing (pictured). It’s just icing sugar, water and a pinch of cinnamon.

* you can substitute the cornflour and baking powder for 2 eggs - just beat in with the rest of the wet ingredients.

Healthy Tomato Soup

2009-01-12T20:10:00.001+11:00

I was inspired by the recipe for Creamy Tomato Soup in my (recently purchased) Veganomicon cookbook - I am terrible at following recipes, I always think my variations will be better. I wanted to give this soup a bit of a health kick, so I added some lentils and other healthy bits and pieces, and it is fab! I made such a huge pot though, I ended up distributing to various family members. Here's the recipe (I actually made a double quantity but have halved it for you).

Healthy Tomato Soup
Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1sp chopped rosemary
couple of sprigs of thyme
pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup red lentils (soaked overnight if possible)
2 large potatoes, sliced thinly
1/4 cup white rice or buckwheat (or a mixture)
1 tablespoon ground almonds (optional)
2 litres stock / water *
100g sundried tomatoes (not the ones in oil, just plain ones)
1 x 810g tin crushed tomatoes (I like ardmona brand)
salt, to taste
fresh basil (optional)

Fry onion, garlic, herbs & pepper in the oil for about 5 mins, or until the onions are starting to brown slightly.
Add the stock / water, lentils, potatoes, rice & optional almonds. Boil for about 15 mins, or until the lentils are tender.
Add the sundried tomatoes and more stock / water if necessary and simmer on a low heat for 20 mins or until the lentils are soft and the tomatoes have plumped up.
Blend the soup well (a stick mixer works great), add the tinned tomatoes and blend again until smooth.
Add salt & pepper to taste, feel free to chuck in some fresh basil.

* I used water, but sploshed in some soy sauce for a bit of extra flavour

Bento Boxes

2009-01-12T19:51:00.001+11:00

Tonights dinner was yummy Bento boxes! Chris's parents gave me these boxes, and I love them as I've always wanted bento boxes of my own.

In these we had

Okonomiyake,

Radish pickles with sesame seeds,

Salad of lettuce, tomato & pear, and

Rice with a leek & garlic sauce.

Leek & Garlic Sauce Recipe (too easy...)

Thumb sized lump of ginger (about 3cm x 1cm x 1cm)

1/3 of a leek

Oil - 1 teaspoon

Mirin - 1 tablespoon

Soy Sauce - 1 tablespoon

Slice the ginger and leek into very fine matchstick sized pieces. Stirfry the ginger in the oil for about 1 min, then add the leek. When they've both cooked and become a bit browned & softer, add the mirin & soy sauce and cook until the sauce has thickened. Serve on rice for a nice, special touch!

Huff Bagelry

2009-01-09T21:01:00.001+11:00

I'm a bit of a Glicks fan, so when a new bagel shop opened near me it took awhile to visit. Huff Bagelry is a pretty swish looking operation, but when we got there in the early afternoon they'd run out of a lot of stuff.

We bought some savoury bagels, my favourite so far have sesame & caraway seeds baked on top (yum). Nice bagels, caraway seeds were a bit of a revelation, but Glicks is still my number one bagel shop.

My breakfast of champions:

Sesame & Caraway bagel, topped with homemade hommus, tomato, and pickles. It was pretty good. I think I'm a champion.

Welcome!

2009-01-09T20:47:00.000+11:00

Do we need a welcome message?