Mini Me

Look at me posting after only 8 days' break!! hehe. It's a mini post from me today, because honestly, I really haven't cooked all that much this last week. I've been out for dinner a couple of times and instead of having the girls over here we went to Em's and she cooked - wonders will never cease!! :-)

So I'll start with the other day's lunch, roasted cherry tomato soup. This had a trip hit of tomatoes because I also added some tinned (well boxed actually) and some sun-dried toms. Recipe is at the end of the post. It was yummy.


Brunch today - I had some tofu leftover from the brownies that are coming up in a minute! So I made tofu omelettes from vegan brunch. I halved the recipe and the other half of the omelette batter is in the fridge for tomorrow morning. Once I spread out the batter I chucked on some chopped up sun dried tomatoes, spring onions, sweetcorn and a couple of rings of jarred jalapenos. Then flipped it to cook the second side. Then I flipped it back and sprinkled it with black pepper, dried oregano and grated on some cheezly mozz, then stuck it under the grill for a minute to melt. Soooooo delicious.

I said brownies.... I made these on Tuesday night to take to Em's for pudding. The recipe is from Vegan Cookies .... for the chocolate brownies and I added 1/3 cup of walnuts and 2 packets (50g total) of white chocolate buttons broken up. I cooked them for just the very minimum amount of time so they would be super fudgy and delicous and they were - best vegan brownies I've ever made!! SO EFFING GOOD. I must admit, when I first bought this book I was underwhelmed with it, but I've now made a few things and everything has been so tasty that I've really grown to love the book.

Dinner the other night, tacos! I sauteed a couple of spring onions and a clove of garlic and added a cup of sainsbury's frozen veggie mince (they didn't have any Linda McCartney, but this one is pretty much the same!). I added half a box of chopped tomatoes, a green chilli, some mild pepperdew peppers (I didn't have any red or yellow peppers!) and some cumin, coriander, oregano and paprika. I also grated about half a courgette in finely, then left it to reduce down. It was easy, nice and not too spicy. It made enough to fill about 6 taco shells, so I had leftovers. I had some salsa in the fridge so I topped it with that, some shredded lettuce and some soya yoghurt. Oh and some chopped, fresh coriander.

All ready to munch....

Close up of the taco filling...

Ready for assembling...

And here's the recipe for the soup:

Ingredients:
1 cup cherry tomatoes

2 fat cloves of garlic

olive oil

1 small onion

1/3 cup white wine

2 cups veggie stock

1/2 box (about 1/2 - 3/4 cup) chopped tomatoes in juice

4 sun-dried tomatoes*

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp dried rosemary

pinch of sugar or splenda

Salt & pepper to taste

Method:
Put the cherry tomatoes and garlic on a baking sheet and drizzle on a little bit of oil then bake at 200C/400F for 20 minutes.

Saute the onion over medium high in a tbsp or so of olive oil, with a good pinch of salt, for 5 minutes until starting to soften but not too coloured.

Once the tomatoes and garlic are done, pop the garlic out of the papery skins and set aside. Don't bother taking the skin off the tomatoes.

Back to the onions! Add the wine the pan and let it bubble off for a couple of minutes. Then add all the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and leave to simmer for 15 minutes.

Then pour into a blend and blend till smooth.

I served mine with a small blob of soya yoghurt on top, just to look poncey but it's not essential.

* I used sun-dried tomtoes packed in oil and just gave them a good shake off of the excess oil and then chopped them roughly. If you use dried ones, just chuck them into the soup when you add the stock and they'll reconstitute as you cook it.

Laterz
xXx

Freezer Burn

Last time I didn't post any baked goods so today I thought I'd start off with one this time. I mentioned before that I'm moving soon so I'm trying to use up stuff in my freezer and not be wasteful and when digging through my freezer I found a punnet of blueberries and some okara that I froze. So I made some okara brownies and added the blueberries & a tsp of orange extract to them as well. I had to cook them for 45 minutes as well, because of the extra liquid the blueberries provide. That still wasn't really long enough though, they are very squidgy - but I kinda like 'em like that!


This was last night's dinner and I REALLY enjoyed it. Jessy's post about her butterbean burgers made me want beanburgers but I didn't have any butterbeans cooked. I did have cannellini beans though, so I used those instead and because I forgot to print off her recipe, ended up chucking in stuff till it tasted right. So I don't have an exact recipe but in there with the beans went a matzoh, some ketchup, fresh thyme, paprika, an onion and a yellow pepper. Also I didn't have any burger buns, so it went on a folded up deli-wrap (something else I found in my freezer hehe).

Here he is with reggae reggae ketchup (my new favourite thing) and pickles....

And the whole shebang - with roasted potatoes & aubergines and sugar snap peas tossed in a little vegan margarine, sesame seeds & nooch.

This was Monday's dinner. It was a quick curry I knocked up to try and use up some veggies that were in the fridge but I added a bit too much water and it is more like soup. But hey, I like soup so it's all good. This had the other half of some tofu I had over the weekend (found in the overly frosty depths of my freezer, of course!), aubergine, peas, rocket leaves, orange pepper and mushrooms.

I cooked some chickpeas at the end of last week to make soup for mum & dad and I used some of what was left to make hummus. I added LOADS of lemon juice as I like it pretty tangy.


I had a few leftover chickpeas so I just sprayed them with cooking spray and shook in some cumin, paprika, salt, pepper & cayenne and baked them for 20 minutes along with dinner. They were a great snack.

This was dinner one night over the weekend. Just some tofu (the first half of the defrosted tofu that went in the curry) baked with some barbecue sauce spread on it and roasty new potatoes - which were awesome.

And this is a cake I'm working on - spiced apple with toffee sauce. I broke cake making commandment one - I overmixed and it was a wee bit tough. Plus I think there was too much liquid and it wasn't quite cooked enough - but as it was already a bit tough, this is probably a good thing. So the recipe is not ready to share yet but I think it's got potential.

I googled for a while to find the type of caramel sauce I wanted for this and when I tried it, I just ended up with a watery oily mess. So I decided just to wing it and it worked perfectly. It tastes more like dark toffee than caramel, so that's what I'll be a callin it when I get the cake bit right. Watch this space.

Oh and whoever stumbled upon my blog when they were trying to find out “how do u tell a alien how to make breakfast” - I hope you found some instructions!!

That's all folks.

Sexual Chocolate.....

SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!!! (I been watching Coming to America!! hehe)

My okara experiment actually worked! Hurraaaahhh. I made brownies and what's more - they are low fat!

Low Fat Okara Brownies
Dry Ingredients:
1/2 cup / 80g plain flour
1/2 cup / 80g wholewheat flour
3/4 cup / 150g sugar
1/3 cup (scant) / 30g cocoa powder
1+1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 / 120g cup wet okara*
3/4 cup / 185ml unsweetened non-dairy milk
1/2 cup / 125ml soya yoghurt
2 tbsp flavourless oil
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

3tbsp ish / 30g chocolate chips

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C / 350F.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, make sure to seive the cocoa powder so you don't get skanky lumps!

Whisk together the wet ingredients together and pour into the dry. Mix well and pour into an 8x8 glass dish, lightly greased. Sprinkle over the chocolate chips and bake for 25 minutes. A knife won't come out clean because 25 minutes won't cook these through. But I like them them super squidgy and fugdgy. You can cook them for longer if you like a bit less squidge!

Leave them to cool in the dish until they're cool enough to cut. I just leave them cut in the glass dish rather than turn them out - but mainly cuz I'm lazy!

*I say wet okara but I like to leave it in the filter inside the machine once I've poured out the soymilk, just until the filter is cool enough to remove. that way the extra liquid is removed and it's a bit firmer than if you empty it straight away. If you don't do this - the weight of the okara won't be the same for this recipe.


Cooking to: The Scorpions - Crazy World

And here are some bonus pics of my friend Emma's gorgeous little pooch Maddie. She brought her over to the flat in the week so we could have dinner and watch Supernatural. Isn't she gorgeous!!

She like attention so I think she was jealous that Dean was getting it all..... :)

Squidgy chocolate mess = love!

I have an awesomely chocolately recipe for you today - my take on brownies. They weren't exactly what I was going for but they are still fabulous!

These brownies are super squidgy and soft (even if you keep them in the fridge, there's no chopping one off and picking it up - they squidgy!), they're not too sweet but they are chocolately and delicious and with a bit of tang from the berries.

Here they are straight out the oven....

Sal's Squidgy Booze-berry Brownies

Ingredients:
2 flaxeggs (2 tbsp ground flax seeds whisked together with 6 tbsp water)
3 tbsp Cointreau (divided)
1 small punnet of raspberries (170g)
⅓ cup / 50g vegan chocolate chips
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup / 130g plain flour
¾ cup / 150g demerera sugar
½ cup / 50g cocoa powder, sieved
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
Wet Ingredients:
1 cup / 250ml cold water
½ cup / 125ml sunflower (or other light) oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.

Then, whisk together the flax seeds and the water for the flaxeggs and set aside.

Pour 2 tbsp of the Cointreau over the raspberries, mix gently until the berries are coated and then set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl (make sure you sieve the cocoa to get rid of the skanky gritty lumps).

Whisk together the flaxeggs, the 3rd tbsp of Contreau and the rest of the wet ingredients, then pour them into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Lightly spray a baking tray with sunflower (or other flavourless oil) and tumble the raspberries/Contreau in.

Pour the batter on top of the raspberries and smooth over. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top and bake for 30 minutes.

The cocktail stick test won’t be very accurate as these will still be soft in the middle but it will come out pretty much clean.

Leave to cool completely in the tin. I keep these in the fridge in the tin and just spatula a bit out when I want one! You can put them into a tupperware but you’ll have to go careful when you take one out as they’re very soft.

Here's one up close & personal

Dinner for the last two days was sun-dried tomato seitan - basically, that's my variation on Julie Hasson’s sausage recipe but made into patties instead. These were sooooo good. I have posted my version at the end of the post, but credit still goes to the original recipe for proportions on gluten / liquid and cooking method.

Yesterday I lightly pan fried them and served them with some steamed mange tout, white bean mash (idea stolen from Nigella), and red pepper sauce. The sauce was an experiment, basically I used the veganyumyum recipe for the creamy tomato sauce that I love, but I used a roasted red pepper, 4 cherry tomatoes and left out the tomato puree. It was GOOD!

Today I pan fried them again and served them with some broccoli, sweet potato fries and some cherry tomatoes roasted in olive oil and balsamic vinegar and then sprinkled with finely chopped basil.

My variation of the seitan (I only make a half batch as it's just me)
Good handful (about 8) sun-dried tomatoes
½ a small onion, chopped into small dice
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp (145g) Vital Wheat Gluten
¼ cup (4 tbsp) Nutritional Yeast
2 tbsp gram (chickpea) flour
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp thyme
½ tsp oregano
½ tsp sage
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
¼ tsp cumin
Pinch (⅛ tsp) chilli flakes (optional)
Wet Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp (280ml) cold water
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbs ketchup
¼ tsp liquid smoke (optional)
1 tsp vegemite or marmite
½ tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
Pour boiling water over the sun dried toms and cover the bowl with a plate or clingfilm, and set aside.

Saute the onion in a tsp or so of olive oil for 5-10 minutes until soft and browned. Add the garlic near the end and cook for a minute or so, then set aside.

Then combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir together the wet ingredients.

Chop up the sun dried toms and throw them into the wet ingredients, with the onions/garlic. Pour the wet into the dry and stir until it forms a dough. You don't even need to kneed!

Drop 1/4 cup of dough per patty into a piece of plastic wrap, smoosh them out and wrap them up. Then steam them for 25 minutes.

They taste best if you pan-fry them, until just very lightly brown, in a spray of olive oil before serving.

Makes 4 sausages (use a 1/2 cup measure) or 8 patties (1/4 cup measure).

Bonus pic - I managed to get the pics from London off my phone. They're really not that bad quality - it's just a combo of filthy windows (eww) and poor lighting!

View from my window: My giant room!

T.T.F.N!