vegan banana & fig cake

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!

rice paper rolls

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

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!

vegan chocolate cupcakes

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

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).

Super Easy Pizza

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

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

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

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!!

Roasted Cauliflower Salad

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

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

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.

Carrot & Couscous Salad

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

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.