Happy Sunday

Today has been one of those days where you sit on the couch thinking about all the things you should be doing rather than browsing through millions of food blogs and drinking cups of tea. I think it's because we bought a brand new doona yesterday. Yes I am blaming my blankets now. It's so soft and cushy and (not wool, feather or down!) warm and comfortable I decided to not get out of bed for ages, which of course set me up for the rest of the day.

Though I did manage to attempt to do some sort of yoga before breakfast (which was porridge with banana and peanut butter), but only did about 3 different poses (including a few sun salutes) because I am getting increasingly annoyed with my lack of ability to touch my toes. Motivation for yoga has been hard to come by since I crashed my bike (funnily enough, so has cycling) even though my wrist is FINE and getting stronger everyday with all the heavy lifting we seem to be doing at work lately. I know I know, I just have to get off my ass and just do it. I know I'll like it! I bought a new yoga DVD yesterday in the hopes that it would motivate me but within the first 5 minutes it rubbed me up the wrong way so bad I turned it off and had a sook. Ah, hormones!

I made this delicious guacamole to have for a mid morning snack (instead of running! this would have been pefect for after a nice sweaty run). Mash 1 small avocado, stir in 5 chopped cherry tomatoes, a couple of tbsp of sour cream (I used the cashew sour cream from Addicted to Veggies - so good!), a dash of onion powder and black pepper. Stir and enjoy with corn chips or crudites or with a spoon.

I also managed to wash my car, which I've been meaning to do for a couple of weeks. I ended up getting a new  (used) car by the way hooray! And it got so filthy from all the dust while parking at work (so dry). So I vaccumed out all the potting mix and put in some floor mats to protect the carpet from my scummy work boots. While I was cleaning the back seats out I discovered they could sort of fold out (i'm not sure of the purpose of this) and underneath was a lovely history of the previous owners (or their children). They went to the beach a lot, ate lots of chips and drank cans of something. Mmmm. I washed the outside using only four buckets of water, and of course a huge storm has now rolled in and the rain clouds looks dark and ominous. Oh well, I enjoyed looking at it's shiny-ness when I walked down the stairs before!

For lunch I had this amazing bowl of soba noodles. I made a similar sauce with sunflower butter and soy sauce, only I added in some chilli flakes. The veges are a grated carrot, 2 grated radishes and all the greens from one bunch of radishes. I also put a handful of rye berry sprouts on top. Yum.

I bought a lifetimes supply of various noodles while in the Valley yesterday. (I also had vegan 'fish' at a little vegan/vegetarian asian restaurant but I didn't take my camera :( It tasted disturbingly like real fish, though I could tell it wasn't because it had the chewy texture of gluten).

Yesterday for an afternoon snack I made up some of this cream from Addicted to Veggies (I may be a little obsessed!) It would be amazing on peaches like in the original recipe but unfortunately they are not in season in Australia at the moment. Strawberries are, however, and we dipped them in the cream and thought about how amazing it would be as a frozen dessert...

Tomorrow I shall jump back on my exercise wagon, stop sooking about my lack of flexibility, and see if I can still run 3.5km (or 26 minutes) without stopping like I did last week! That was pretty exciting. It gave me confidence knowing I can probably run this 5k in less than 45 minutes or whatever it said I had to. Ha.

Tasty tasty

Been on a bit of a Veganomicon kick this week (spicy tempeh pasta) and the Asparagus and Lemongrass Risotto on page 198 was also freakin fantastic. It took forever to make (though I was making bread by hand at the same time so that may have held me up a tad) and I didn't have any basil or mint or peanut oil, ooor enough arborio rice but I don't know if I'll make risotto any other way again (jk). I used about 1 cup of arborio and half a cup of regular brown rice, skipped the basil/mint and did serve it with the suggested Tangerine Baked Tofu but used oranges and whiskey instead of tangerines and rum. Amazing. Served with lime zest, pan roasted cashew nuts and extra marinade from the tofu.

All the flavours worked really well together but I think next time I'll slice the tofu a little thinner and marinate for longer because it didn't pick up the flavour it could have.

Another one we've made is the 'Pumpkin Baked Ziti with Caramelised onion and Sage Crumb Topping'  (phew long title!) on page 194. (I obviously didn't go further than the pasta and risotto chapter.) I used wholewheat spirals instead of the ziti and I'm pretty sure that's the only edit I made to it! I could eat the cashew ricotta with a spoon and the breadcrumbs on top were to die for (though I wish I'd used some wholemeal bread instead of the white baguette we got for 50c since it gave both of us a stomachache!) and the whole thing was quite moreish. It was better the next day for lunch too.

Now a non Vgeanomicon related thing - my breakfast for the past few days! I had a tiny bit of whole oat groats leftover in a jar that was annoying me by being there so I cooked it up in some soy milk with handful of chopped dates and chopped brazil nuts. I didn't measure the dry grain but I ended up with 2 cups of cooked oats. I divided it in two and stuck it in the fridge. In the morning I heated it up, added sliced strawberries (on special at Coles hooray!) some chia seeds and a drizzle of brown rice syrup. Yum. Filled me up for ages which is really good since I have to wait 4 hours since I eat breakfast before I get to eat again. I highly reccomend a whole grain for breakfast - brown rice, wheat, oats, spelt (omg yum), buckwheat, barley. Just cook it up the night before, or on Sunday cook enough for your whole work week, it should keep in the fridge.

Now I am going to sit and watch the Gruen Transfer with a cup of hot red clover tea. Apparently it helps reduce hot flashes (cuz I get those! haha), healp relieve rheumatic or gout pain, contains vitamin E and can help sore throats. [source] Good o :)

No cows were harmed in the making of this cheese toast

I made some cheeses from the Ultimate Uncheese cookbook today :) The above is the brie, which kind of actually tasted like brie - it had the moldy aftertaste somehow. I may have been imagining it.

On the left is the colby cheese - pretty tasty, will be excellent on sandwiches and toasties, or even grated and melted on pizza. Right is the brie, and the one at the bottom is a raw macadamia cheese from Addicted to vegies. It's the best one! So easy to make (all of them are easy to make) but the raw macadamia one had the most flavour. I served them as a cheese platter with carrot sticks, celery sticks and chickpea crackers. I don't think I'll ever spend heinous amounts of money on storebought vegan cheese substitutes again, all three of these tasted better than any I've had, and I know exactly what ingredients are in it. I think I've had about a years worth of vitamin B12 today alone!

The two cheeses from the Ultimate Uncheese cookbook are both set with a fair amount of agar agar powder so it could get expensive, but that depends on where you buy it. I get mine in little packets from an Asian supermarket in the city for $2 each, so it's not going to break the bank for me.

Now, I don't miss real cheese at all. I also do not think substitutes are necessary for a vegan lifestyle or diet to work, but I reckon it's fun to make things like this every once in a while :) Just cuz I can.

More noodly lunch

Today I was cruelly reminded of Saturday kiddie sports. I mapped out a seemingly simple 10km route using mapmyrun.com to get it nice and accurate, and at about 5km there is a sports field belonging to some college which is fine, EXCEPT the damn psycho parents were parked all along the footpath, road, and everywhere in between. So the screeching kids and screaming parents and whistles and HUGE GIGANTIC 4WD VEHICLES made me get lost and I ended up only doing just under 7km.

But oh well, it was still a fair chunk! And I finished in 1 hour 5 mins so I got faster at walking, hooray. I may yet fit 22km in 3 hours. Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to do 10km on my bike, on a different route! Do kids play sport on Sundays? Either way there's a nice steep hill in that route so I wouldn't be able to get my bike up it. I might go to the farmer's markets the long way. I haven't been there in ages.

The other night I accidentally intercepted Bob on the way to the loo and put her in a little tent Nadine got from her work for free. She disagreed. It's a bit funny that we were wathcing Shrek on telly at the time and that grey thing she's murdering? A donkey. Haha.

And now for a little bit of food!

In my previous entry, I mentioned a black bean and sweet potato salad I made. We ate in on Thursday night as a cold salad on the side of a pile of sauteed silverbeet in vegan margarine and some grileld tofu with a soy sauce and red wine vinegar marinade. I did end up buying a lime and squeezed some juice over it. It was pretty good, but the flavours seemed to dissipate as time went on. I had it for lunch the next day and had to fight to taste the garlic. Next time I'll make a proper sort of dressing.

Anyhow, I kept the marinade from the tofu and used it in this stir fry noodle bowl I made myself for lunch today, after my walk. It's basically a huge pile of noodles, 1 sliced carrot, a big handful of cashew nuts, a big handful of shredded red cabbage (is there any other kind?), sesame seeds, garlic, ginger and chilli.

Mmmm looking at that braised cabbage thing is making me want to make it again. Maybe red cabbage is in season and therefore will be cheap at the markets tomorrow. Hmm.

The Training Begins, Homemade Sausages and Scones!

Nadine stretches woo!

We started training for our half marathon last week, really. We accidentally walked 10km! We thought the distance would be about 6km but it took us 2 hours to get there and back, so we looked it up and it was actually ten. No wonder our legs hurt. But today we did just a short one - 5km walking with sporadic jogging to break up the monotony. I just bought two cheapie pedometers, so hopefully it makes it a little easier to see exactly how far we are going. Google maps isn't really accurate enough for my liking!

Like my stretchy pants? I love them. About $10 at Target, they are SO COMFY and prevent chafing - important in a 21km walk. They come in all different lengths. I got one pair in full length and one in 3/4.

After lunch we wanted to go to have coffee somewhere but the place had closed up for the day so we came back home and I made some fluffy white scones and coffee! (To celebrate the royal nuptials hahahaha). I made them as traditional as I could - bought white self raising flour and everything! I used this recipe I found on the BBC. Unfortunately it barely makes 4 scones, but that's probably a good thing as scones don't really reheat well. We had them with jam and some cashew cream I had leftover from the Panna Cotta I made yesterday. I'm not too fussed on the cashew cream - I wanted to make the 'clotted cream' I found on this entry by Oh She Glows (which inspired me to make scones to celebrate the wedding in the first place) but I couldn't find Tofutti cream cheese (or any other vegan kind) at woolies (and the shop I would otherwise get it from was closed) so I couldn't. Next time.

I have a three level steamer! It certainly comes in handy.

I decided to make some sausages for dinner! I found the recipe yonks ago on Vegan Dad's blog and have always wanted to make them (but I am lazy and keep buying the sanitarium ones which are good). I doubled the recipe and made about 8 or 9 I think. I could have made them smaller, they were a bit giant!

I also didn't mash the beans enough (I used black beans) and I thought they would be ruined but they weren't at all. Though next time I am pureeing them in the food processor first. Yes it looks like a poo.

I also didn't put enough herbs in, but trial and error! They were still delicious. We made mashed sweet potatoes (with rosemary), and steamed brussels sprouts, carrots, peas and corn with lemon and pepper and garlic. Yum. I didn't think as far ahead as sauce though! Gravy would have been good.

Tom Yum Soup, Fresh Rice Paper Rolls, and Vegan Panna Cotta!

I was home alone today since Nadine had to work (sadface) but it gave me the opportunity to spend all day pottering about in the kitchen!

I found a stalk of lemongrass in the fridge that I harvested last week sometime and I can't remember why, so I decided another Tom Yum Soup would be on the menu. This time I used some of that Vegetarian Oyster Sauce instead of soy sauce, to give it a 'fishy' taste. I couldn't taste any notable difference! (That oyster sauce, by the way, has over 1000mg of sodium per 15mL serve. I don't think I'll rush to buy it again!What it lacks in sugar it makes up with salt.)

In the morning I made up a couple of fresh rice paper rolls to go with it. Inside are: bean thread noodles, fried tofu, shredded purple cabbage and finely sliced carrot. Served with a mix of peanut butter and soy suace. I meant to put sesame oil in the sauce but I forgot about it :(

I was flicking through the Concious Cook to find something for dessert and the Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Orange Sauce jumped out at me and screamed 'MAKE ME MAKE ME'. So I did.

Before the sauce. Do you like my pretty plate? It's part of a vintage tea set from Czechoslovakia. I rescued it from Nadine's mum's giant chest of antiques she was getting rid of. I was going to sell it to the Antique center because I really don't have room...but it's so pretty I'm going to keep it.

Oh man. So delicious. The recipe made 6 serves so there's more for the next couple of days! The sauce is amazing - a plain caramel would be better with the vanilla, but I just made what was in the book. It's orange juice and zest, brown sugar and a bit of whiskey. Yum. I was supposed to strain it but I like chunky sauces (and soups, and gravies). The panna cotta itself is basically a cashew cream set with agar agar. It's a little tiem consuming to make (like most of the recipes I've tried in this book) but is completely worth it.

This is how we celebrated the Royal Wedding (which I totally watched. Shame!) Classy, no? Hello Kitty jammies, a hideous Marilyn Manson shirt and two bottles of red wine. I actually enjoyed the wedding very much, I thought it was lovely and romantic. Hahaha. I couldn't make it to the famous balcony pash because before that the stupid announcers started doing the 'fashion judging' which I can't freakin stand. And I thought they were very mean to Beatrice and Eugenie Ferguson.

We ended up taking poor Bob to the vet :( She had a very high temperature and hadn't eaten anything for days. The vet said she probably got into a fight with another cat (no surprise there!) and had an infection, so she gave her an antibiotic shot. We opted for the shot even though it cost more, because we value our arms and faces, and it lasts for two weeks and is less painful for everybody involved! Anyway, she perked right up within hours and has been running around and chowing down on her food and even went visiting with the neighbours! Hooray :)

Spiced Bean and Bulgur burgers with Silverbeet Stem Chips



Do you love my trashy stubbie holder as much as I do? Hahahaha

I made these the other night partly as a way to use up a heap of crap I have had lying around in my 'pantry' (I don't have an actual pantry so space is valuable) for too long, and partly because I haven't had a good vege burger for absolutely ages. The silverbeet on the side is a variation of a recipe I found in the Silverbeet chapter in the Kitchen Garden Companion (such an inspiring book!). It is truly an excellent way to use up those stems that always get left behind in the fridge to go soft! You CAN eat them, and they taste like the leaves, only subtler.

Anyway, to the recipe:

Spiced Bean and Bulgur burgers with Silverbeet Stem Chips
Makes 8 burger patties

Ingredients
For the Burgers -
2 1/2 cups cooked beans (I used a mix of white beans and black eye peas)
1/2 cup raw cashew nuts
1/2 cup bulgur/cracked wheat, soaked in 1 cup of boiling water until soft. Drain any excess.
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp curry powder, chilli powder, and ground coriander seed
1/2 cup whole meal flour
black pepper

For the silverbeet chips -
Enough silverbeet stems to serve who you are feeding (I used the stems of 1 bunch for two of us)
A few tbsp chickpea flour
Dried herb of choice
Juice of half a lemon
Oil for shallow frying

Method

In a food processor, combine the beans, cashew nuts and sweet potato. Blend until smooth (or if you like chunks, leave some chunks). Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients until well combined.

Shape into 8 flat patties and put in the fridge to firm up.

Meanwhile, slice the silverbeet stems into sticks. Bring a pot of water and the lemon juice to a boil. Boil the stems for 5 - 10 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to stop cooking and dry with a paper towel.

Put the dried stems in a bowl and toss with the chickpea flour and dried herbs.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the stems in batches until crispy. Place on a paper towel lined plate in a warm oven.

You can either fry or grill these burger patties. They are good either way :) I fried mine in the oil left over from the chips, until brown on both sides. For lunch the next day I grilled them for 10 minutes on one side, 5 minutes on the other.

Serve on bread rolls with salad and sauce of choice :) tahini-mustard-sweet chilli sauce was pretty good :)

I made my bread rolls myself - I used the exact same recipe as the bread I make, but divided it after it's first rising into 6 balls before rising again. I think I cooked them for 25 minutes at 200 degrees, but check them after 15 just in case. They were pretty damn good!
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All these ingredients I found lying around my kitchen. The potato was in the freezer begging to be used, I always have beans in the freezer, cashew nuts and bulgur were the last of their packets...Any nut could be used instead of cashews, cous cous, quinoa, buckwheat or rice would be a good replacement for the bulgur wheat. (I have had the bulgur in a jar for over...2 years now. Shame! I can't remember why I had it in the first place.)

I am definately cooking my silverbeet stems this way again next time I have them. I usually just chuck them into a curry or stir fry, but this way of cooking  them preserves their flavour a bit more.

Cashew nut butter

I've been meaning to make my own nut butters at home for a while now. I always sort of thought you needed a fancy schmancy hardcore blender like a vitamix or something to make them, but you really don't.

First, I got 150g whole raw cashew nuts (just over 1 cup) and put them in a dry frying pan (no oil) and toasted them until they started to brown. Don't burn them!

I pulsed them a few times in my normal everyday food processor from the 70's so not to stress it out too much at once.

Blended for a minute or two and it turned into dust and started clumping slightly.

I gave it a rest every now and then, to take the pictures and not burn out the motor.

Gradually it clumped up as the oils started releasing from the nuts.

Dough? Keep blending!

Suddenly it will turn into smooth smooth buttery goodness.

I stored it in an airtight container in the fridge. I only lost 10g of nuts from it, mainly from me taste testing and whatever I couldn't scrape off. I didn't measure it in cups, but my guess is the yield would be just over half a cup.

At shops I've seen cashew nut butter cost anywhere between $6 and $10 for the same amount (150g), this little batch I blended up only cost me $3. If I didn't buy stupidly expensive nuts from the fruit shop, it would probably cost even less.

Oh, and it's absolutely delicious.

I put a blob on top of some Banana Rye Muffins I made today. I'll post the recipe another time :) There's too much in this post as it is!

Being in the fridge, it does go really solid, but I don't really care about that. Next I might try almond or brazil nut butter :)

Valentine's day dinner

We aren't really big on the whole goopy lovey dovey crap associated with Valentine's Day, so we usually cook up a particularly special meal and dessert. Sometime we go out or buy presents but we are very broke this month :) Also this year Nadine had a nasty cold so there was no wine :( very sad. But the food was so so so delicious!

Nadine made dinner, a recipe she found in Tal Ronnen's 'The Concious Cook' (Old Bay Tofu Cakes with Pan Roasted Summer Vegetables, Horseradish cream, Apples and Beets) Jeez this guy has long meal titles. However long it takes you to read the title, it was fantastic. We thought the cakes wouldn't work because they were so mushy but they did, we just had to be extra careful, which is fine. I used the 'Horseradish cream' as a salad dressing on today's lunch at work. Yum. It's definately a comfort meal, for some reason it reminded me of when we got to eat fish fingers as kids.

I made dessert :) As soon as I saw the recipe on PPK (Berry Creme Tart with Cocoa Olive Oil Crust) I knew I had to make it. I made it up on Sunday afternoon when Nadine wasn't home and hid it in the fridge. We had one each for dessert then cut the other one in half and ate it with work lunches the next day :) Amazingly good. Make them :) The filling is especially good on it's own. I had to eat the leftover filling in the morning for breakfast so Nadine wouldn't see it and eat it and the delicous surprise would be ruined! Tragic. It's like the best pudding you've ever had.

So even though Nadine was blowing snot out of her nose all night and I had to get up at 5:30am the next morning to go work, it was a very nice relaxing Valentine's day for us :)

Roasted Beetroot Risotto with Strawberry Cashew Thingee

I made a roasted beetroot risotto for dinner from Vegan Italiano. It was really quite good! You gotta love beetroot though, good thing I do :)

For dessert I made a strawberry cashew thing...I was intending to make a raw cheesecake type thing but I didn't put a base on it so I hesitate to call it that :P

Strawberry Cashew Thingee

Makes 2

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw unsalted cashew nuts, soaked in warm water all day or overnight

About 5 large strawberries, washed trimmed and chopped up

3 tbsp coconut oil

Method:

Put it all in a blender and whiz whiz whiz until it's as smooth as it will go! This took a little while in my blender. Pour it into mini tart pans (I bought some little tart pans with removeable bottoms as a present for myself a little while ago to make this delicious looking dessert. Which I did and it was divine!) The ones with removeable bottoms are best as it may stick...It shouldn't though. I lined mine with baking paper but I don't think it was really necessary. Put the pans in the coldest part of your fridge and leave to set - mine didn't take long, but I didnt count...I made them a few hours before dinner.

I served it with a strawberry sauce - just chopped up some strawberries and cooked them down until they were mushy. :)

I used very very overripe strawberries - Nadine brought some home cheap from work. They were a little too ripe to eat plain so I decided this would do them justice. I am going to freeze the leftover strawberry sauce to use another time.

Cashew based desserts are so rich and filling, you feel like you are being quite unhhealthy while eating them :) They are quite fattening so eat in moderation...these will be putting me well on my way to a bit of weight gain haha. It's probabaly a good thing I can't afford nuts too often!

Best ice cream ever

Cashew nut ice cream with vanilla bean and raw cocoa nibs. We had it with fresh sliced strawberries which are perfectly ripe and in season now.

Drrooolll.

It's very expensive at $13.99 for 500mL, but we figured out there's actually 10 serves in the tub so it in theory should last us almost a week.

Apparently the person who created it has opened a little raw cafe not too far from us. We went to check it out but it was closed, so next time.