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Thursday 18 December 2008

Zombies do like the other other white meat

Thanks for your well wishes on my last post everyone. Not long after I wrote that, my dad picked me up and I spent 5 days mongin out on his couch. I was an absolute state - I looked like a zombie. I tell ya, if Sam & Dean saw me, they'd wanna hunt me!

I got home on Tuesday evening and about all I could manage to cook for lunch was some mushy peas on potato waffles. Tasty but rubbish. By dinner time I managed to get up the will to cook something better and I made some enchiladas and a nice cherry tomato salsa. I didn't have any beans so I used some tinned potatoes and they were really rad!!


A close up of the salsa.....


Then I made some muffins - these are just my basic banana & PB muffins but with 5 round tbsp of chunky peanut (instead of 3) and I also threw in half a pack of Dr Oetker dark chocolate chips (about 1/3 cup). They are sooooo good!


I experimented with my Soy Quick to make some nut milk cuz I didn't have any soybeans soaked. I poured boiling water over about a cup of skinned almonds and about 1/2 cup of raw cashews (both of which I pulsed up in a food processor) then after an hour, I put them in the soy quick with 3 tbsp of oats and a couple of tbsp of brown rice. The flavour was good! But I ran the machine 3 times and it still didn't crunch it all up and the milk was watery. So I emptied the pulp into the milk and used my stick blender to blend it all up. Then I strained it twice and had a glass with a muffin. I started to strain it through muslin but it was taking wayyy too long.

The texture's not really smooth enough to drink, but it's ok for baking (I used some in the muffins) and I'm keeping the pulp because I'm thinking I might add it to a batch of soap at the weekend - I haven't made soap in aaaaages! (haha look - that's Nigella in the background - love her!!)

Today's dinner was the Bodacious Barley & Bean Soup from the Garden of Vegan. I think I described this as the best soup ever last time - I stand by that, it's SO. FREAKING. GOOD!!!


I also made some more soda bread, to go with the soup. I swapped the white flour for spelt and I think I've cracked it this time, so I've included the recipe. Here it is, fresh out the oven with some margarine on! YUM!

Spelt & Rye Soda Bread
Ingredients:
250ml/1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
1 tsp white wine (or apple cider) vinegar
240g/1½ cups rye flour
160g/1 cup spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6.

Whisk together the milk and vinegar and set aside. Mix together all the dry ingredients, then pour in the milk mixture and stir until fully combined.

Don't be alarmed that it is a mega wet & sticky dough, it's supposed to be. At this point, throw it into a greased loaf or cake tin and spread out, or do like I did: lop it out onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and shape it as best you can.

What it looks like before shaping....

Then bake it for around 30 minutes until it sounds hollow when you rap the bottom of the loaf.Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool until you can't stand it any longer and have to cut a piece off (in my case about 20 seconds!!).

Here's one of the overall thing - to give you an idea of the messy shape I made it!

Cooking to: REM - Out of Time

Yesterday I went back to work and I still wasn't feeling 100% right. I had to go to the supermarket on the way home and I wanted something quick and I found curly fries in the freezer section. YAY! I love me some curly fries, I haven't had them in AGES! Well it was either those or potato smileys - which I very nearly bought instead! :)

I had them with some baked tofu and some cherry tomatoes macerated in balsamic vinegar. YUM.

Oh and off topic but Liono Lewis - cock off!! OK she has a good voice and she deserved to win the x-factor that year blah blah blah, but I hate all the songs she's released since, they're so annoying. And now she has covered Snow Patrol's Run. Run is one of my favourite songs and a song that almost brought me to tears when I heard it live because it was so beautiful. Well Liono has ruined it by turning it into a whiny whingy wowling piece of pop crap. Along with that and the piece of crap song that won this year's x factor - it makes me wish for the days when Take That & Mr Blobby were vying for the christmas no 1! /rant.

18 comments:

  1. That salsa looks fresh and delicious! And that bread picture makes me itchy... I don't know why... I'm sorry you're not feeling well... guess the winter sickies are going around... bah

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  2. I hope you're almost all better now. I honestly have no idea when the last time I had curly fries was...perhaps 15 years ago? They really looked good. Maybe I should try to track some down.
    You make your own soap???? OMD- you have to blog about it!! I want to try, but haven't yet.

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  3. everything looks so good!! I need to make those enchiladas!

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  4. I hope you're feeling 100% great by now!

    That is the most chunkylicious salsa I've ever seen! Fresh salsa is one of the greatest things ever created!

    Those banana, peanut butter and chocolate chip muffins must find their way to my belly somehow!

    Thanks for the soda bread recipe, I love how wacky the bread shape is!

    I don't know much about Leona Lewis, the only song I've ever heard is Bleeding Love or whatever it's called. Isn't she vegan or vegetarian, or am I thinking about someone else?

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  5. I hope you are feeling better now Sal!
    I used to buy those dark choccy chips when they used to be 'Supercook' (they had the 'may contain milk traces' warning as per usual) but when I picked up a packet of 'Dr O' ones (they recently took over Supercook I believe) at the weekend the packet read 'contains traces of milk'! Not 'may'! (I put 'em back) I despair!
    I had been watching Nigella until The Veggiesaurus told me she had been on telly last week saying how much she loves wearing fur (http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?Nigella_sparks_fury_after_bear_killing_claims&in_article_id=439893&in_page_id=7)
    so I stopped watching the meanie and put The Hairy Bakers Xmas special on instead!
    God, I'm a right party pooper today, sorry!
    All your food looks super awesome though Sal, as always.
    Get well, and Happy Holidays!!

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  6. Shelly - I will do, it will probably be a disaster though as I haven't soaped in ages!

    River - Yeah she's veggie but that doesn't redeem her she is sooo annoying.

    Becks - REALLY!!! GAH! I thought I'd checked them again last time I bought them to be sure. Stupid Dr Oetker!!! What chocolate chips do you use?? Or do you just chunk up a bar? In the past I've imported chocolate chips from America but it's just not very economial!

    Yeah I heard that about Nigella but Mum watched the interview and the comment was taken a bit out of context! Not that it makes it ok but it wasn't as bad as PETA would have you believe apparently!

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  7. All your food looks lovely but I'm especially lovin' the Soda Bread!
    It just looks sooooo good.
    The Wombats have churned out a pretty good xmas song.
    Leona Lewis - COCK OFF!
    That made me laugh so much!!

    Oooh curly Fires - gonna nab me some of them when I'm over.
    If I don't get the chance before, have a truly happy, healthy and fantabulous Yule, Christmas and New Year Sal.
    xxxxxxxxxxx

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  8. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply the choc chips you bought weren't vegan~ I used to buy the Dr O ones too, but they seem to have changed the milk warning recently. I was v. grumpy about it on Saturday!
    Until I can find a better source of choccy chips I am using the new 'Dairy Free' milk chocolate chips for cooking (they sell them in Sainsburys special needs~ sorry 'special diet' section!!) I flickr'd a picture for you so you know what to hunt for if you want some~
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/31945327@N06/3119896851/
    The whole range is pretty yummy though:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/31945327@N06/3120725194/

    And re the Nigella thing, I didn't see it so you're totally right~ it probably was taken out of context. >:o)

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  9. ah yeah those, I saw they were doing chips as well as the buttons when I was in sainsbury's last time. I like the buttons.

    Stupid dr oetker! I'm gonna write to them and tell them they suck.

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  10. i'm glad you're feeling better! the soup and bread must've helped, eh eh? and yay for curly fries! i finally found some in my town, ironically in the freezer section of the store a block from my house that i never get frozen stuff from. to think i could have saved years worth of curly fry envy if i had just opened my eyes. oh well. also, i totally have no idea what you are talking about in that last paragraph, but... i hate whiny pop singers too.

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  11. I'll check again at the weekend (in case I'm going mad in my old age!).
    I e-mailed Dr O to ask for a vegan suitability list a few months back and the reply I got was:

    Unfortunately we do not as yet have a list of products which are suitable for Vegans. However, if you could please let us know which particular products you are interested in, we will advise whether they are suitable for you.

    Which is the e-mail equivalent of a shrug! So helpful! I wrote back with a list of products (I was so tempted to list everything they make! Mwahahaha!) but they never replied!!

    Askeys on the other hand (who make those awesome "monster crackin' ice cream toppings" etc) who are part of 'silver spoon sugar co' sent me a very thorough response, so I snaffle lots of their products! Nom!

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  12. the salsa looks great, Sal! i'm dig'n your burrito too. mmmmmmm! awesome!

    banana & pb muffins + dark chocolate = the best ever! damn those look so scrumptious!

    soap making also rocks, i would like to add... :)


    i think that soup's convinced me to buy Garden of Vegan. next time i make an amazon.com purchase i'm gonna put one in my shopping basket. w00t! and soda bread, curly fries - jeeeeeeeez, totally craving it all! thanks for the recipe, Sal!

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  13. that salsa is definitely right up my food alley!

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  14. What a rant!!! Geez, Sal, sit yerself down with a cuppa tea, lovey, before you burst a blood vessel!! So nice to see I'm not the only one who eats oven-ready comfort food when necessary!! And I must try that soup...

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  15. Feel better soon!

    Those potato waffles sound great! You you happen to have a recipe or are they storebought?
    Yum, curly fries! I always order them at the only vegan restaurant I have access to.

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  16. Mihl, the waffles are just store bought birdseye potato waffles. They are really just chopped up potato shaped like a waffle, sold with all the cheapo potato crap in the freezer section, but they are good!

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  17. I don't often make soda bread, but this version sounds really good... I might have to hold on to the recipe for later!

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  18. your muffins are so round!!! i love those things. i just want to pinch their cheeks haha

    i really want to go to arby's and order curly fries now. they definitely have the best fries out of all fast food restaurants in my opinion.

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speak to me, yo!