Vegan MoFo Day 18: Eggplant Parm

Yesterday was one of those days when I had already decided what I was going to cook for dinner before 3pm, so I spent the last couple of hours at work dreaming of it! 

 

I had an aubergine in my fridge that I bought a week ago, so it was starting to look a little sad.  I turned it into Aubergine/Eggplant Parm.  I'm sure I've made/blogged about this before, but anyway.  I looked up a couple of recipes to get the general gist of how it's done and then went my own way, like I normally do.

 

I didn't have any dried breadcrumbs and I was too lazy to make any (and to clean the food processor) so I used cornmeal instead.  I dipped the slices of aubergine in flour, shook it off then dipped in almond milk then seasoned cornmeal.  Then they are fried til they get a little brown and crispy.

 

To assemble you just lay them on top of a bit of tomato (marianara if you're in the US) sauce; I used a jar of Dolmio, as I didn't fancy spending ages making my own.

 

Then it gets more sauce and a crap tonne of cheese.  I used tesco cheddar style and some cheezly parmesan.

 

Then it got baked at 180C/350F until this gooey saucy little minx came out the oven!

 

I was googling things to serve with it and some people were saying pasta, which I thought would be way too much. Others said green salad, which I'm not a massive fan of. So I made a bean salad with blanched green beans, black eyed beans, tomatoes, red peppers, cucumber, sweetcorn and sun-dried tomatoes.  The dressing was easy, just some of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes, cider vinegar and salt & pepper. Simple and tasty.

 

I also made some cheater garlic bread (a ciabatta roll, split down the middle and spread thickly with vitalite, then sprinkled with nooch and garlic powder and wrapped in foil, then baked along with the aubergine for the last 10 minutes). 

This meal was great, I really enjoyed it and I'll be making it again soon!  But I couldn't eat it all, it was super filling!

Laterz
xXx

Happy New Year!

Did everyone have a good Christmas?? 

I know I know, I'm over a week late, but here is the pictures of my christmas food and a few things since then.

I make a yule log every year and here was this years (VCTOTW basic chocolate recipe and store bought frosting - I was lazy!!) It fell apart a bit when I rolled it, so I just covered it with a tonne more icing.

Christmas day - first drinky!

My Christmas dinner. I took the pic before I slathered it with gravy.  This was a Redwoods celebration roast (fake turkey and pigs in blankets).  It was pretty gross and I wouldn't buy it again.  To be honest though, I'd have been happy with just the veg, sage & onion paxo stuffing and gravy, which is what I will probably have next year, if I'm too lazy to make something seitan based.  My Mum makes the best roast potatoes ever. Ever.

Christmas cake!  I never write down the recipe or follow one for that matter, I just wing it and if I'm lucky it turns out good.  This year was a good-un.  The decorations on top were not vegan (egg-white), so I picked them off my bit.  I just decorated it with a layer of marzipan then a layer of ready-made fondant icing, as cake decorating is not really my best talent, as you can see!

Dinner on boxing day was a puff pastry concoction I made.  It was mushrooms and onions sauteed and then I made a white sauce and added some cooked potatoes to it, then just wrapped it in puff pastry and baked.  It was pretty good for something I didn't put much thought into.

The next day I fancied soup, so I used some of the leftover veggies from boxing day...

I added the veg to veggie stock, a bit of tomato puree, some sauteed onion and garlic, lentils, a chopped up Wheaty Hemp Spacebar and some smoked paprika.  It was yummy and kept me in lunches up until I went back to work.

OK jumping forward a bit, this was dinner for my 3 besties, who came over on Saturday night.  I made the coconut lemon bundt cake from Veganomicon.  I ordered a bundt tin from amazon, but it didn't arrive in time, so I made it in a regular tin and it burnt a wee bit. Sadface!  However, it was still really really good!  I can't wait to try it again in the right tin, if the sucka ever arrives.  I used lite coconut milk in this.

It was a Veganomicon kinda night, because I decided I do not cook from that book enough, and it's awesome.  So I made the saffron garlic rice (although I only used 2 cloves of garlic, as my friends are not as into it as me).

And the Chickpeas Romesco.  I LOVED this.  I think the only change I would make next time is to maybe use ground almonds, as my food processor didn't get them as fine as I think they need to be.  Aside from that it was delicious. 

The side dishes were just some blanched green beans that I then sauteed with shallots and some baked tofu.  I made the marinade up as I went along, so I can't remember exactly what was in it, but from memory I think I added some wine, sherry vinegar, agave, paprika and vegan worcester sauce.  I burnt it a bit (theme of the night??) but it was still not bad and all got eaten!

And this was yesterday's lunch.  A quesadilla I made with cheezly white cheddar and jarred salsa.  Easy and quick (and yummy!).  My dad said I shouldn't post it as it was burnt (recurring theme...) but I think it was just well done! :-)

Hope you all had a fab break and if like me you celebrated an anniversary of being vegan on 1st January - Happy Veganniversary!! Mine was 4 years! :0)

Laterz
xXx

Snow is fallin' all around me....

.... OK the snowing stopped, but you gotta love a bit of Shaky at Chrimbo!

It's Christmas Eve - YAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! I love Christmas and I'm in the process of making the food for tonight and getting the flat ready for my friends to come round before we go out!

So onto the food pics. I dug out my battered old breville sandwich toaster the other day to make this awesome sarnie, I called it pizza toasted sarnie, because it really was pizza-y! That's mozarella cheezly, tomatoes, black pepper and dried oregano. YUMMO.


Gooey cheezly - the only way I can eat vegan cheese - melted to oblivion!

I believe I mentioned cupcakes last time.... here they are. My best friend's husband turned 30 this week so I made these to celebrate. VCTOtW Golden Vanilla cupcakes that I added some chocolate chips and a bit of mint extract to. The icing is just a basic chocolate buttercream that I also added mint extract to.

And here - more cheezly. This was disgustingly trashy and freakin awesome. I made mac & noochy cheeze sauce then put some breadcrumbs on top and put it under the grill a few minutes. Then I added some bacos and cheezly and gave a couple more minutes under the grill. Trashy comfort food at it's best.

This was gonna be dinner for me and my friends on monday but they both got stuck in those ridiculous traffic jams coming home from work and didn't get to mine at all, so I had leftovers the next day. It was these nuggets that I made from black eyed beans and barley then coated in cornmeal and fried (probably what gave me acid reflux attack - haha oops!). I'm working on the recipe still and I'm going to bake them next time to be safe, but they were almost there.

The next day was pretty miserable because of the afore-mentioned acid reflux pain. All I could face cooking and eating was soup, so I chunked up an onion, a big parsnip and about 5 big carrots, the stalks of a bunch of coriander leaves and cooked them in stock for 20 mins. Then I added some soymilk and the leaves of the coriander and blended. It was yummy.

And a sneak peak of tonight's xmas eve foodz - peanut butter krispie balls (hee hee). There's tonnes of recipes out there and someone put some they'd made on their blog last week (I've forgotten who and didn't bookmark it so whoever you are - sorry!) and they looked so good I knew I had to have a go. So I mixed up peanut butter, rice krispies and some other stuff and rolled into balls (hee hee) then put a big old blob of melted choccie on top. I'll post the recipe next time.

I've also got some fudge in the fridge that doesn't appear to be setting up, even though I followed the recipe to a T! if it hasn't set in the next hour I'm going to have to try and salvage it - will report back next time!!

So as Shaky says "ooooh ooooooooh oooooh ooooh oooh oooooohh - shooby dooby dooby doo wop....!" Wait no sorry, "I mean Merry Christmas Everyone!!" and I'll see ya in 2010!

Laterz
xXx