Vegan MoFo Day 19: Lamey McLame Pants

Last night, I literally had about 30 minutes to get dinner cooked and in ma belleh. So I lamed out and cooked a frys chicken burger and some smash.

It was good because I love dirty food like that but it was so amazingly lame that I didn't bother taking a pic.

So salvation lies in an old photo of dinner from about a month ago.  I made the Portobello Feijoada from Viva Vegan.  I LOVE this book but I really haven't tried enough of the recipes yet.  I made this recipe a while ago when I had friends over for dinner and it went down really well.  So I'd been dreaming of it for a while.  I bought the dried beans, got the TVP chunks and even remembered to soak the beans overnight so I could crack on the next day.  It takes a while to make this dish but it is so worth it.

I served it over brown rice, with some diced avocado on top. I was gonna make guac but I literally had none of the ingredients to go in it, except the avo!  Rubbish.  It didn't matter, it was still great. 

This recipe makes LOADS and I didn't bother halving it this time, I just ate the leftovers for lunch for a few days.  So. Good.

Tonight I am cupcake making for a party, so hopefully I'll have pics of them for you tomorrow.

Happy Friday all!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 11: chickpea cutlets of radness

I decided not to go to the gym last night, as I'm going to be away with work from tomorrow night over the weekend, so won't really have a night to myself for a bit.  And because of this I decided to spend a bit longer making dinner. Also I thought my attack class was tonight and it was actually last night! haha oops, that's a fine I'll have to pay next time I book! :(

 

Anyways.... I went with the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon.  I don't make these that often because I always think they take ages to make, but actually if you have all the ingredients, they really don't take that long at all.  I always bake them, I've tried frying like it says in the book but there is ALWAYS gluten strings inside when I've fried. And uncooked stringy seitan makes me wanna barf.  So oven it is.  But that's good because it gave me time to prepare and cook some mushroom gravy, broccoli, mashed potatoes and green beans.

 

The gravy was suuuuper easy.  Just sauteed up about half a cup of mushrooms with a shallot and a clove of garlic. Then added about half a cup of veggie stock and some thyme.  To thicken I mixed about a tablespoon of flour with a couple of tablespoons of soymilk, I added this in then stirred till it thickened.  I also (of course) added some nooch! A couple of tablespoons.  Quick, easy and yummy.

 

Leftovers make a great sarnie for lunch the next day by the way!

I also had a bit of an experiment fail, but I'm trying it again, so that is a blog post for the future! 

Making cookies tonight - YAY.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: Lazy Pasta

I was being mega lazy with dinner tonight, in fact I figured it would be moderately crap so wasn't planning to blog it but you know what....? It was a surprise hit!

I tossed some cooked brown rice pasta with some raw, sliced mushrooms, a tsp of sun dried tomato paste, a tbsp of margarine and a tbsp of nooch. Then I added black pepper and a little bit of lemon zest. So easy and really delicious!

I guess sometimes, lazy is good!

Laterz
xXx

Hello?*

Hello - I've been neglecting this poor blog. I'm going to try and get back into a routine of posting again though, so I don't keep leaving it so long.

Well since the last post, my birthday came and went rather unspectacularly and we've had some gorgeous weather. That's about it. hahaha.

I did have a month's worth of food pix but rather than bombard you with crap, I just picked out the stuff I liked.

Starting with this pasta bake. I made the vegan yum yum sauce (but without the basil cuz I didn't have any, so I used dried thyme and rosemary instead) and mixed it with wholewheat penne. Then topped it with cheezly mozz, breadcrumbs and nooch and then baked it for 20 mins until the cheezly melted. Good stuff!


This was a salad I made last week, with red, yellow and orange cherry tomatoes, cucumber, sun dried tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and a simple oil & vinegar dressing. The tempeh, I boiled for 10 mins then marinated in lime juice, soy sauce and hot sauce then baked it in the marinade, under foil for 20 mins. Then flipped it, took off the foil and baked another 10 mins. It was really tangy and yummy.

Mini muffins.... I am dieting so I thought if I made them small, theyd be less calories. Which they are but then I eat 2!! hahaha. Ah well, the thought is there.

This was a riff on something that Giada De Laurentiis made on everyday Italian. I cooked a cup of orzo pasta then sauteed some spring onions and a couple of chopped up plum tomatoes, then added a cup of peas and about half a cup of alpro soya cream (the fresh one). I also put in some nooch and some thyme if I remember rightly and added some pasta water to make a bit more sauce. When you first mix in the sauce it's quite erm, well saucy! But as it sits the pasta soaks up all the sauce and so it makes really yummy cold leftovers.

This was dinner for me and my friends a coupleof weeks ago and also, the first thing I made from Viva Vegan. That book is awesome and this was the Guatita (creamy peanut / potato stew). SO FREAKING DELICIOUS!! I made a salsa to go with it with sweetcorn, black beans, avocado, cucumber and cherry tomatoes and served it all with some brown basmati rice.

It makes a lot - about 6 servings worth. My friends and I ate about 4 servings between us by the time we finished off what was in the serving bowl and then I had loads of leftovers :-)

For pudding, I made us cupcakes. It was my friend's birthday so that's why one had a candle in.

Speaking of birthdays, mine was at the beginning of the month. I decided the theme for my cake this year would be a hot mess! hahaha - I think I pulled it off with the aid of a shit tonne of sprinkles and jelly tots:

Even the inside was a mess! I coloured portions of the cake with food colouring:


And swirled it....


The only colours that came through well though were the blue and the green. Next time I know I'll have to put in way more. You could see the orange a bit, but it wasn't much darker than regular cake colour! And you can see a bit of the pink but the purple kind of disappeared. Ah well, it was still a hot mess and it could have sent even the biggest sugar love into a sugar coma if they'd eaten enough!


Onto a random dinner - mushroom parm! Something else I saw Giada make (I think). I made a quick tomato sauce with some cherry tomatoes that weregoing a bit soft in the fridge. I grilled some mushrooms and then topped them with the sauce and a topping made of breadcrumbs, nooch and cheezly mozz mixed together. Under the grill they went for 5 mins u ntil the cheese melted and I served them with a rocket salad dressed with a tahini and lemon dressing. DELISH.

That's about it for now. Have a great week in the sunshine everyone.

Laterz

xXx

* dammit I'm gonna be singing Lionel Richie all day and now hopefully - so will you! BAHAHAHAHAAHA!

You know what I say when I feel like swearing? Fudge!

Been a bad blogger again haven't I!! Well I won't bore you with yakety yak, I'll just get on with pics of some of my recent eats. Starting with Wednesday night's dinner: Roasted tofu and stuffing balls (just packet mix), steamed cabbage, mash and roasty carrots. Sunday lunch on a wednesday night, perfect!


This was a really quick meal. I just sprayed each side of some tofu triangles with a bit of low sodium soy sauce then rubbed some 5 spice powder in and baked it for 30 mins, flipping once. The noodles were just straight to wok rice noodles, red peppers, sliced up mange touts and carrots. I made a sauce with a little peanut butter, lemon juice, soy and 5 spice. Really quick and tasty.

This one took a bit longer, but not that much. I was in the mood for moroccan-inspired foodz. So I made a veggie tagine that had all sorts in: tofu, courgettes, red peppers, onions, brown lentils, tomatoes, apricots, spices and a bit of agave. The couscous was simple - veggie stock, lemon zest and raisins.

But the real star were the flatbreads that I made to go with them. I just eyeballed everything so don't have a recipe really but next time I'll write it down so I can post it.

This was another random dinner. I was not feeling all that inspired and hadn't been food shopping so I just pulled out whatever was in the fridge and that was basically onions, mushrooms and peas! I cooked them up and added some cashew cream (I just whizzed up some cashews and water until they were as smoothe as my processor would get them) and a tonne of nooch. On wholewheat spaghetti with some smoked tofu on the side. Not bad for an uninspired night.

Lastly, last Friday was my dad's birthday and I decided to make cupcakes from a different book than vegan cupcakes take over the world. No disrespect to that book, it's probably my favourite book ever, I just wanted something different. So I made the caramel apple spice cupcakes with penuche frosting from Veganomicon. I'm glad I did cuz they were really REALLY good!!

I found the frosting a bit hard to work with as it set up pretty quick but I got it on as good as I can. So they were not perfect - but it is home cooking after all - not bakery perfection.

The frosting made loads and it was super sweet so I didn't want to pile it all on. I really only used about a third of it on the cupcakes (which I only got 11 out of, despite it saying there'd probably be leftover batter - I guess I filled the cases too much!).

So I figured that instead of freezing yet another load of leftover frosting I'd make into fudge, as it was setting up that way already anyway. So I stired in about 1/3 cup of creamy peanut butter over a low heat to get it to mix, then put it into a plastic food box and left it to set at room temp. Once set (an hr or so later) I cut it into chunks. It was SOOOOO YUMMYYYY!!! For realz. My friends and I ate some of it with our drinks before we went out Friday night.

If you have a go at this, you might want to refrigerate it when you're done pigging out (trust me it's sweet so unless you can tolerate a crap tonne of sugar, you won't be able to eat that much of it in one sitting!). It will stay in shape at room temp but melts a little.

That's all for now, I'll try and not leave it so long next time!

Laterz
xXx

(PS: Post title inspired by this scene in Supernatural. Hehe I Love Dean!!)

Vegan MoFo: I pea'd on the floor!!!

:-( They fell out ma over-stuffed fridge!!!


I wish I'd taken a pic of last night's tea. I had mum & dad round and made us a chilli with cornbread muffins. Ah well. Tonight's was kind of mish-mash, cuz I didn't really know what I fancied.

Pasta with mushroom sauce, roasted sprouts and butternut squash and some Taifun smoked tofu with herbs and sunflower seeds (I <3 that stuff!!).

Maybe tomorrow i'll be more inspired!

Laterz
xXx

The Good The Bad and the Fugly

I haven't blogged in a while so I have lots of pics. This week has been a weird one and a lot of it has SUCKED! but there have been some good parts too.

Bad - I'm a gimp!! I got a blister on the ball of each foot, no word of a lie, an inch long each one!! I never knew that blisters could be so painful. This is not run of the mill pain - this is my entire foot and some of my leg is sore and I can hardly walk!

Work has been rather shit this week.

Also I get up this morning, get in the car, put on the radio and hear the sad news about Michael Jackson! I am a big fan of his music and have been since I was a little girl. I got really tearful when they played Beat It on the radio this morning and then nearly busted out crying at work when I watched Jermaine's press conference on the internet. It's so sad. RIP Michael.

But onto the good stuff - I saw Eagles of Death Metal Live on Wednesday night. They are just so awesome, great live and Jesse is the shit. I lost count of the number of times he shouted CAN YOU DIG IT! It's a good thing I'm single or I'd be trying to convince the man in my life to grow a Mo like Jesse!! (I know they sound scary but they're not so if you are not familiar with their music go download Death by Sexy now, like right now!! then download Peace, Love, Death Metal & Heart On after that.)

The other good stuff? My PPK swap package arrived from the very awesome Vijita from Canada. she totally made my crappy day good - I got a buttload of swag....

So onto the food. I had a go at making some raw bars and they're good but they were a little too soft and fell apart a bit. I need to try again. They had dried apricots, cranberries, sun-dried bananas, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, brazil nights, walnuts, peanut butter and maple syrup. So technically I dunno if they are really raw - does maple syrup count???

When I was younger, mum had this recipe for pasta with roasted peppers and bacon and mushrooms. It was good and we used to make it a lot. So I thought I'd have a go at veganising it. I couldn't remember all the ingredients and I so I added some stuff I know wasn't in there. But it was really good and even better cold for lunch the next day! Recipe at end of post.

This was dinner on saturday night for me & my friend and it was seriously rad. Guava's post about pot pies had me craving pie and the idea of a mushroom pot pie was just genius. So I gave it a go and it was awesome. I don't have the recipe 100% yet but when I do i'll post it.

Dinner on Monday for me & my friend was this mixture of veggies, tomatoes and white beans - I served it over wholewheat rotilli pasta.


And also I made some garlic knots to go with it.

Dinner on Sunday night had to be quick, because it was 8ish by the time I got back from the gym. So I went with a Sunday Soup & Sarnie. I made a quick hummus with white beans and dijon mustard.

And I made my fast pea soup.

The last couple of days, because of my feet, my food has been spectactularly un-interesting and some of them - down right FUGLY!! Mainly because I can't stand up for very long. This was some brown rice cooked with tomatoes and some nooch sprinkled on top.

I found these in Holland & Barrett and thought I'd try them. They have a weird texture, like most fake meats do. They need a bit of frying to make them a nicer texture. Overall they're not bad but I wouldn't buy them often.

Inside shot...

I threw in some peppers, courgette, spring onion and some jarred salsa.

Then threw it on a wrap with some guac and sour supreme. Not bad, not great either.

Last night, my feet were particularly sore, so all I could manage was throwing some basmati in a pan with peas, sweetcorn, tomato puree and some spices. It was surprisingly not bad for such a lame effort.

Today, my feet felt marginally better so I made some mac n cheeze and threw in some peas & sweetcorn too.

Ooh and I just had to share..... It's been a long time but on Sunday, I made some soap! I know it's not the prettiest soap in the world, but serously it's been about 2 years since I made soap. It smells like a piece of heaven though - I scented it with dreamsicle fragrance oi. Up close it's pretty and shimmery too because I added some pink and gold mica to it. I am looking forward to getting back into making some products again!


Here it is in the moulds....

And here it is cooking away in my crockpot! (don't worry, I have a separate one for soap!!)

OOh I almost forgot. Here's the recipe for the pasta dish:

'Bacon', Mushroom & Roasted Pepper Pasta
2 tsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 pack mushrooms (about 125g/1.5 cups), sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 tbsp white wine
2 tbsp water

1 cup of roasted red and/or yellow peppers (if you're roasting them yourself, about 2 big peppers*)
About a cup of vegan bacon, cooked, in bitesize pieces**

Salt & Pepper to taste
100g (1.5 cups) pasta - cooked according to package instructions

Method:
Start by sauteeing the onion for about 5 minutes over a medium heat till it starts to get transluscent. Then add the mushrooms and cook down for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, tomatoe puree and thyme and cook for around a couple of minutes. add the wine and scrape up all the bits off the bottom of the pan until the wine reduces till pretty much gone. Then add the water and mix well.

Add the peppers, 'bacon' and pasta and heat through for a couple of minutes, then season to taste and serve.

*The peppers - if you're doing your own, spray them lightly with oil, put on a baking sheet and bake at 250C/500F, basically the highest your oven will go for about half an hour till they are good and black. Then chuck 'em in a bowl and cover them with clingfilm. When cool enough to handle, the skin should peel off pretty easily.

** The bacon - up to you what you use. I used the marinade for the tempeh bacon recipe in VWAV but used thinly sliced tofu instead, cuz I can never find tempeh. I marinated it for about an hour, then fried it in a dry frying pan for a few minute until lightly browned on each side. You could use veggie rashers too but I personally think they're repellant! I used one 200g block of taifun tofu and I put the whole lot in the pasta.

I know i've been shit at commenting on blogs this week too - sorry! I have been reading though, so I'm off to do some catching up.

Laterz.

xXx