Vegan pub food?

Bring it on.

Now I am aware that the last time I updated this it was December, and now it is May. I might be able to remember what we id in Melbourne last year but I won't hold my breath. I do have the photos of the food though so it'll hopefully jog my memory =D

There was beer. This was the Cornish Arms I believe. Walking distance from our friend's place. Score.

What's that? Vegan chicken parmagiana!? Ahahaha, it was pretty good. I can't compare it to a nonvegan parma because I've never had one.

Vegan steak and bacon sandwich. And more beer.

There's a vegan burrito as big as my head behind the vegan steak and bacon sandwich. It came with vegan sour cream and guacamole and it was pretty damn good. It had the usual bean chili filling but also chunks of gluteny fake meat goodness.

I remember a vegan chicken burger thing too but my photo is mighty blurry, and it was essentially the parma in a burger bun.

So much gluten. So much fake meat products. I feel the need to mention I don't usually eat faux meat products like this, partly because they are made of gluten and partly because they are expensive. And also, I don't feel the need to constantly recreate the meat I used to eat in the vegetables I eat now. Every now and then it's fun but it can get a little creepy. Like the vegan burger I tried to eat in Spain...it was too real. However while I prefer to eat naturally vegan foods like vegetables and beans and tofu, it's also excellent fun to go down to that place in the Valley and eat ALL the faux meat things!

Recipe: Vegan Beef and Stout Stew

Stout beer. Mmm delicious. Pity most brands use isinglass in the fining process. Dang. BUT I looked and looked (it was hard, because I'm not too knowledgable on beer brands) and found that Coopers makes a vegan friendly stout beer! (Bonus points for being Aussie owned and made). And thus this stew was born. (Inspired by this recipe from Martha Stewart).

For the beef part I used this stuff. Found it in the freezer in an Asian supermarket. I'm not entirely sure of it's brand. There are words everywhere. I think it's essentially frozen rehydrated TVP chunks, and it pretty much has the same texture as the type of cow you'd buy to slow cook. Except you don't have to break your jaw chewing on it. (Ew.)

Vegan Beef and Stout Stew

Serves 6

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups of beef style pieces, defrosted (or rehydrated beef style TVP slices)

2 tbsp wholemeal flour*

170g tomato paste

500g potatoes, diced in 2cm bits

1 large onion, diced

5 garlic cloves, sliced

1 carrot, diced

1 celery stalk, diced

400mL beef style stock (I use massel)

220mL vegan stout beer

2 cups frozen peas, defrosted

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Saute onion, garlic, carrot, celery and potatoes in some oil or water in a large stock pot for about 5 minutes. Add flour and stir until it starts to brown. Stir in stock, tomato paste and stout beer so no lumps form. It will thicken a bit. You may need to add extra water if it's too thick. I added about an extra cup. (*I used 3 tbsp flour and I think it was too much). Stir in defrosted beef chunks.

Bring to a boil and then turn down and simmer for about 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Add peas. Cook until heated through and sauce has thickened. Taste for seasoning.

I served mine on bowtie pasta because I like pasta with stews. But you could try quinoa, brown rice...anything else really :)

A stew is the ultimate comfort food and this one doesn't disappoint. The gravy is rich and thick and we wanted to eat the whole pot! I reckons the leftovers will make a GREAT pie. So that is what I'm going to do. If the gravy isn't pie-thickness I'll just reheat it on the stove with some cornflour or something, but I don't think it'll need it. Making leftovers into a pie with perhaps a steamed green thing on the side will stretch it out to at least 8 servings I think. Depends how much pie you can eat ;). 

This reminds me a lot of something my mum used to make sometimes, except I remember disliking it immensely. Don't know why. I guess tastes change.

I would definately serve this to family, friends, anybody who enjoyed a good stew. If they didn't see me eating it I'm sure they would all think it was the 'real deal'. If you aren't a fan of fake meat, try using tofu, tempeh, muchrooms, or even a bean. I think mushrooms would be especially delicious (and much more accessible to everyone! I know not all of us live in a city with plentiful asian food marts.)  

Busy busy

So tonight is the last night we'll have to spend in our flat. This whole moving process seems to be taking forever! Probabaly because my little corolla is just that - little, and not all that much stuff fits inside it. Or maybe it's because not everything is in boxes, for example, today I'll be piling all our dresses into the backseat and hanging them up as soon as I get to the new house. Our coffee table books I put in the boot without a box because they make a box way too heavy, and I carried them in in smaller piles. And, it was a sweltering hot day yesterday and I thought I was going to collapse. Then I remembered the south's heat wave and realised it wasn't actually that hot, I'm just a wuss.

Regardless of my wussiness, I am so so glad I took this week as a holiday, rather than going to work and trying to move our copious amounts of crap at the same time. We need to do a big Lifeline run I think. I also need to not ever buy anything ever again. Except the thing is, most of the crap I've found that is mine I've been moving around since highschool.

So somewhere in amongst the cramped calves from running up and down stairs, to the blood blister on my finger from dropping a box of vintage crockery on it, and the brusies on my hips from whacking myself on our cast iron bed frame - I have to eat lunch. And in the interest of getting rid of as much perishable stuff in the freezer/fridge as is possible before I dig out our esky to clean which is currently under the stairs getting pooed on by geckos, I opened the freezer and pulled out the most empty packets I could find: edamame and those weird vegan prawn substitutes.

This was pretty tasty, actually, and really not that great for you. But who cares, I'm moving house.

Vegan prawn and edamame pasta
Serves 1

Ingredients:

100g spaghetti or other pasta shape that is hiding in your pantry
Margarine for frying
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp dried dill
5 vegan prawns, chopped up
handful of frozen edamame, defrosted and shelled
black pepper
olive oil

Put pasta on to boil. When it's nearly done, melt the margarine in a small saucepan and fry the garlic and herbs for a minute. Add edamame and prawn pieces. Cook until prawn pieces are done, not long. When pasta is ready, drain, and stir through the prawn mixture. Drizzle olive oil over top and season with as much black pepper as you like.
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Nadine asked yesterday if I was even a little nostalgic about leaving the flat. We have been here for two years after all. I said no. Though I will miss the colour of the kitchen cupboards:


Excuse the messy picture. This was probably taken over a year ago when I first discovered my camera had a panorama function.

 I won't, however, miss my pantry. Or my bench space. =D

'Chicken' with Orange Teriyaki

Since it was my last day of holidays yesterday (sadface) I decided to make a fancy lunch. Because I can.

I found 'Seitan and Brocollini with Clementine Teriyaki sauce' on Vegan Yum Yum, thought it sounded fantastic and made it. I just used oranges instead of mandarins for the sauce because mandarins aren't in season at the moment :) The sauce is delicious and made heaps so I'm going to use it to make this again for Nadine for tea! It's a perfect balance of sweet and salty, and bonus points for making it at home - no more expensive bottled sauce. I only needed 2 dessertspoons of sauce to coat all my veg and soybean chicken bits, and it was a rather large meal. I used regular brocolli and some purple cabbage as my veges, and served it with brown rice.

I thought about making some seitan for it, but came to the conclusion that it was too much effort so I dug this soybean chicken out of the pantry. When I bought it I was intrigued and asked the guy at the counter what it was like. He said it was pretty good - and that it was apparently good enough for people to get angry at him when it was out of stock! Now, it is actually quite good, but since I prefer my protein to come mainly from unprocessed foods I don't think I'd abuse the store guy if it wasn't on the shelf!

It only costs $3.95 (where I got it) for a 200g packet, which has four servings in it. One serving is quite a lot, so you could probabaly stretch it to six or eight servings if you up the veges in your stir fry or whatever you're making.

What you do, is you boil the little dried pieces of whatever it is in some water until they are soft, then you drain and rinse with cold water. Proceed to use in any recipe you'd use actual chicken!

It comes out of the water looking disturbingly like cooked chicken pieces. Doesn't taste like it though, it's all about the sauce/flavorings with these things! The texture is pretty damn spot on ( I don't know how they do it!), and I wouldn't hesitate to reccomend this product to people wanting to give up chicken or those transitioning from eating meat to being vegetarian/vegan.

(I am not being paid to flog this product by the way.)

'Beef' stroganoff

A while ago I bought some of those Lamyong TVP beef slice things for some reason. They aren't that good, but they aren't terrible and they are good for a bit of a protein change. Before we move I'm trying to use up as much of my pantry food as possible so I don't have to move it all. Next on the list was the beef style thingamees so I decided on a take on a traditional beef stroganoff! This recipe is much better than the first one I posted. Much much better.

'Beef' stroganoff

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 a packet Lamyong Beef strips (75g)

2 tbsp wholemeal plain flour

1 large onion, thinly sliced

3 large cloves garlic, crushed

450g portobello or swiss brown mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup white wine (I used sav blanc)

3/4 cup stock (I used chicken style but beef would be better)

3 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp mustard powder

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 cup silken tofu, blended smooth (important)

Pasta to serve

Method:

First, put the beef slices in a bowl and cover with freshly boiled water. Leave until it's soft. Use this water to make the stock.

Heat a little bit of oil in a stock pot and cook onions and garlic until they start to soften. Add mushrooms to pot and cook until they start to release the juice. Mix together the wine, stock and tomato paste in a jug or cup or something. Start water boiling to cook pasta.

Put the flour in the pot with the mushrooms and stir quickly. Once it has cooked for a minute, pour in the liquid and stir so no lumps form. Let simmer for a while, sauce should thicken. Add in softened beef slices, mustard and paprika. By now the water should be boiling. Continue cooking stroganoff until pasta is ready. A few minutes before serving, stir through the tofu. It's important that it's blended so it's smooth. As you can see in my photo mine wasn't, and therefore came out all lumpy!

Serve on pasta and enjoy.

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This is really good, even better the next day. however the tvp beef stuff does NOT freeze well. This would also be delicious with tofu chunks, tempeh, seitan, or some sort of bean, or double the mushrooms. For example, if I was serving to family I'd go for the beans or all mushroom version :)

A blast from the past

I recently sold my old car, and after paying a fair chunk of it onto my credit card, I decided to go nuts and buy a heap of things I don't normally buy, and one of the things I got are those creepy frozen vegan prawns by Lamyong! (in the description of them on this page it says they contain gluten, soy and dairy. The packet says vegan on it though, and I bought them at the Green Edge, an all-vegan shop.) I know, right? Ew. They even had the pink bits on the back. I don't know how they do that. On the packet it says they have the texture of gnocchi. As unappealing as that sounds I still bought them just to try, because why not? Besides, I wanted to put them in Tom Yum soup (which I did, but my camera died so I couldn't take a good picture).

To test them out in all their fake prawny glory, I decided to make simple garlic butter prawns, a treat of mine I used to make back in the days when i worked at a fish n chip shop. I basically mixed together a lump of vegan margarine with a grated clove of garlic, and fried the frozen fake prawns in it until they were cooked. Didn't take long. I then tried to make my fake prawns swimming in garlic butter a little bit healthier by putting them in a bowl of baby spinach and a sliced avocado! Black pepper on top completed the lunchtime snack.

Okay, small review. These things made me feel sick they tasted so real. Gnocchi texture? Notsomuch. I'd say it was pretty damn close to a real prawn. If you are a vegan who has never eaten a prawn but may be curious, these are a pretty damn close substitute. I'm planning on making some sort of prawn salady thing with homemade cocktail sauce for Christmas lunch with these. We'll see how it goes.

We finished!



From left: Nadine, Nadine's mum, Nadine's aunt and me!

Well, we didn't 'officially' finish, as in our time wasn't recorded but Nadine did it in 3 hours 7 minutes and 29 seconds, and I finished in 3 hours 7 minutes and 9 seconds. We can just see the time in our official photo they took as we stood on the finish line haha. Nadine's aunt officially finished in 2 hours 55 minutes. I want to be able to jog 21km when I'm 60.

The night before our carb-tastic meal was spaghetti and meatballs (this is an old photo) and they were delicious. Everyone had seconds. At 4am we got up and ate some toast with peanut butter, and after we finished we got breakfast out at a cafe - we both had baked beans, spinach, mushroom, tomato and avocado on gluten free toast (The only veg option was also gluten free and we just got them to take off the cheese ha).

I have never been in so much pain in my life! I can't walk. Why did we choose to do this again haha? Oh yeah, for the satisfaction! We're quite chuffed, considering the utter lack of training we did. My feet hurt, my upper thighs hurt, everything. I obviously didn't stretch enough afterward - oh well, lesson learned. Getting up stairs and in and out of my car is a mission though! When's the next half marathon?

Speaking of cars, I officially started looking for a new one today. Ugh.

Pizza night!

It's been a while since our last pizza night, so we felt the need to make it. This time I decided to add on a bit of fake meat for shits and giggles. I made the 'Big Stick Pepperoni' recipe from Vegan on the Cheap. Man, this stuff is great. The secret ingredient is definately fennel seed, and the flavour is very strong in it. Next time I might cut it down just a tad, it's a little overpowering. Now, I never liked salami, it always grossed me out (always knew what it was , especially after working in a deli and slicing it every day ugh), but since I know this stuff isn't wrapped in fat netting, and is actually cooked and NOT moldy, then it tastes delicious. The texture is odd, as disgusting as this sounds, but it's kind of like a (real) salami that hasn't dried to a hard lump quite yet. So it kind of grossed me out, so before I put it on the pizza I fried it up a tad and it's much better. 

Unfried big stick pepperoni



So on the pizza in order was: tomato paste, caramelised onion, potato, olives, jalapeno pepper, pepperoni and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast. It was just greasy enough from the onions, without having the atery clogging greasiness of cheese on it. We had it with a much needed salad of baby spinach leaves, red capsicum, red onion, capers, radish and apricot kernels with a lemon juice-olive oil and black pepper dressing.

I got apricot kernels at the farmer's market this morning, and they taste like almonds (same species I think) except sweeter and they are about half the size. An excellent addition to a salad. I love adding crunch like nuts and seeds to my salad. I usually go for sunflower seeds but I had these :)

Yum. I look forward to lunch at work tomorrow.

Some interesting produce and souvlaki

Nadine definately knows how to make me happy :) She got me these purple carrots from woolies as a present. Yes I don't get jewellery or chocolates, I get carrots. And it's awesome.

I am actually growing carrots like these (pictured under chicken wire in background) but they aren't ready yet, and only 3 have survived. And I think my ones are orange on the inside, but these from woolies are white on the inside. They also taste like parsnip. In a good way.

I unfortunately decided to use them in some carrot cake cupcakes. Unfortunate because the cupcakes failed miserably. They still taste good so we are going to turn them into a pudding which I'll post later if it's worth it!

The other night I really wanted souvlaki. I am unsure if I've ever actually eaten real souvlaki before but I wanted it anyway. Souvlaki is a greek dish made from lamb chicken or beef, on a skewer. But I obviously didn't  use any of those meats, or put it on a skewer, I made up some seitan instead! I tried to make some seitan using okara but the whole thing fell to pieces in the saucepan, which sucked, so I went back to the recipe for 'simple simmered seitan' in Vegan on the Cheap which of course worked perfectly, since I've made  it a million times.

So, I cooked up the seitan, and sliced half of the recipe into strips (the rest went in the freezer). In a container went half a cup of red wine, a few teaspoons of dried oregano, 1 tsp smoked paprika and some black pepper. I put in the seitan strips, and filled the container with some of the simmering broth to cover the pieces. Shook it up a bit and left it there til dinner, maybe 1 hour?

Meanwhile I made up tzatsiki sauce. 1 cup plain soy yoghurt, 1 small lebanese cucumber diced, zest from half a lemon and juice from half a lemon. There is supposed to be garlic in it but I ran out. Also, I squeezed the cucucmber bits in a paper towel because I didn't want runny tzatsiki. It worked.

I fried up the seitan slices until they were browned and a bit crisp on the outside and ate it all in a multigrain wrap with the tzatsiki and some diced tomato and red onion.

It was so so good.

The only thing is it made the wrap turn into mush (gonna go the skewer route next time) and I wanted to eat more. But if I consumed any more gluten I may have ended up with a stomach ache! There can be too much of a good thing.

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.

Fruit of the month!

I always like to try a new fruit or vegetable every now and then, and now that I work at a fruit shop with a pretty good variety of exotics, I can just pick something up!

This one is called a Wax Jambu (or jambo as the sign at work spelled it ;)) and it is the fruit of a species of Lilly Pilly (Syzigium samarangense). This website has a little bit of information about it.

I have eaten other types of lilly pilly fruit in the past, and liked them, so I just had to buy these and try :) (For some reason the first search that came up was a vegan website lol).

The wax jambu is like eating a star fruit (or carambola) but without the acid. It's freakin delicious, and today if I get to work early I'm going to buy more. One for every day of the week!

The neighbours have lined their fence with small-leaved lilly pillys (second link) and they just went into flower, which means - fruit! Their trees happen to be dropping over MY fence therefore they are up for grabs. Unfortunately, I think the possums have gotten to the blossoms...they have stripped the other neighbours avocado tree of it's flowers, and the other neighbours mango tree of it's flowers (me = very sad) so it wouldn't surprise me if the lilly pilly flowers are gone too.

So worth the $8.99/kg price ticket. It's not that expensive - they barely weigh anything.

I knwo of a few quandong trees in a public space that I may be able to get fruit off, too...at least I'm sure I can gather the fruits that have fallen to the ground. Muaha.

I had this randomly delicious meal for lunch today. I wasn't expecting it to taste so good :) It's basically brown rice, Fry's Chicken Nuggets, and sautee'd kale, beetroot stems, sliced ginger and garlic with vegan butter and a blob of vegan tom yum soup paste. I drizzled soy sauce over the top, but may have put too much because it was a bit salty...I even managed to get in a bit of weights work while I was waiting for the rice to cook! Not much, but it was something. I've been quite slack lately. Usually only managing a couple of sun salutes in the mornings, which is better than nothing I suppose.  

So busy, everything breaks at once!

It's been a while! Our internet was down for over a week. It's amazing how much we depend on technology. We were pretty much lost, ha. 

I made a few yummies, mostly cheap re runs like bean curries and lentils and rice etc, as I found out I get paid fornightly and it leaves me without money for ages but that's okay.