Vegan MoFo Day 17: Dude, you're fugly

I felt like I was staring into the fridge for hours last night trying to find inspiration to cook something awesome and not just throw a fry's chicken burger in the oven. In reality it was about 5 minutes.

 

I came up with a use for this mock chicken I bought in a Thai supermarket recently.  I didn't notice when I bought it that it's tofu, not fried gluten as I thought, so I was a little wary.

 

When I opened it, this was staring back at me! EEK.  It was massive lumps of gross looking stuff.  I tasted a bit, it tasted strongly of soy, but not completely unpleasant.

 

Despite its fugliness, I pressed ahead with my idea for "chicken" and dumplings and I'm glad I did, it was ACE!

 

I didn't measure anything, I was winging the lot, so here are some guidelines, rather than a proper recipe:

 

I chopped 2 large carrots into small dice and boiled them for 10 minutes, while I got everything else ready.  I sauteed a large shallot in a bit of olive oil with some dried thyme and rosemary and then added the carrots and the drained mock chicken that I broke up into chunks.  I then added about a tbsp of flour and stirred it around, then added 300ml of veggie stock and about half a cup of soymilk.

 

Whilst the carrots were blanching, I made the dumpling dough from 1/2 cup of plain flour, into which I rubbed 2 tbsps of vitalite, then mixed in a pinch each of thyme and rosemary and a bit of salt. Then I added soymilk a splosh at a time until it came together as a soft dough.

 

I rolled the dough into about 6 or 7 ping pong ball sized dumplings and dropped them into the stew.  Then I cooked it all for about 15/20 minutes.  I then added some frozen peas and because it wasn't thickening enough, I mashed a tbsp of vitalite with a tbsp of flour and added this to the stew to thicken it.

 

I served it with steamed cauliflower and mashed potatoes.

 

My little kitchen friend has taken to sitting and watching me cook lately (I think in the hope that she's going to get a titbit) and I took a pic yesterday just as she squeaked at me! hehe FEED ME SAL!

Laterz
xXx

Post title taken from this scene in Supernatural

Vegan MoFo: Sunday foodz and an ouch!

I am clumsy bint today. I caught my stupid fake nail in a drawer when I was tidying up and bent the fucker back. I think some of my real nail has come away from the nailbed, i just don't know how far down because stupid fakey is still attached. But there was blood. And pain. And a LOT of swearing.

Anyway, at least I had dinner to make feel better. I made another stew but this time I was inspired by the Barefoot Contessa's beef bourginon. So it's just onions, button mushrooms, soy chunks, stock, red wine and thyme. I also added peas cuz I <3 them.

With lots of mashed potato. YUM YUM YUM. So good.

For lunch I really wasn't all that hungry but I did have both an avocado and some tortillas in the fridge that were past their best. So I chopped up the tortillas and baked them and made some guac. And then I chomped them while watching last night's Strictly Come Dancing on the iPlayer (my stupid sky signal went out again last night). Jo is gone, at last!! hurrah. She was sweet but effin rubbish!

Did you remember to put your clocks back?? I didn't so when I was lying in bed this morn waiting for the church bells to start going off it took a minute to realise that it was actually almost 9am not 10am!! doh.

oh and Jojo - I edited my last post for you to add the soup recipe.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: Stew & Beans I Guess

I dunno where that phrase came from but every time we had stew or casserole growing up, my Dad would, without fail at some point, say "Stew & beans I guess!"

Those stews were a little different though, because of the meat/ick factor. So today I was totally in the mood for a hearty, delicious casserole and I decided to put it in the oven on a low heat and leave until I got back from my body combat* class. I used TVP chunks, potatoes, carrots, green beans, onion, some stock, tomato puree and some dried herbs.

When I got back from the gym it'd had about 2 hours in a really low (about 125C) oven. I put it on a low heat on the hob, added som cooked butterbeans and peas and left it 5 minutes to heat through. It was ssoooo good.

I've never cooked with TVP chunks before. I bought them to make the Cholent recipe in Veganomicon that's been calling me for ages (still haven't got round to that yet, but I will!). They go a bit chewy but not unpleasant at all, and I dunno what you guys thinks, but I think they look scarily like beef chunks!!


And of course - THE best thing about stews..... loads of thin gravy and soaking bread in it at the end till it goes mushy. Awesome.

*Body Combat is AWESOME, not as fun as Jam but really really good nonetheless. And good for getting out some agression too. Feckin hard though, I sweated a lot!! I know you wanted to know that! hahaha.

Oh and go buy Shakira's new album, it is awesome.

Laterz
xXx

Elvis! Elvis! Let me be....

.... keep that pelvis faaaaaar from me!!!

I should probably start with the pic that inspired the post title so you don't think I'm totally nuts. Peanuts to be precise - The Elvis Cupcake! VCTOTW banana cupcakes, the Elvis variation. I can't believe that it took me so long to make this cupcake cuz they are AWESOME! I swapped the regular flour for white spelt and they were damn good.

The reason for these cupcakes was dinner, I had 4 friends over. For the main, I made us spelt pasta with mushroom and cashew cream sauce. It was really good, but the pic is ugly. Sorry.



Speaking of spelt flour and pasta, I had lunch last week with a fellow ppk'er, who introduced me to a great little health food shop that sells LOADS of different wheat free pastas. I also got tempeh - Squeeeeeee!! Only ever seen this online and in Brighton before so I was soooo excited.


So excited that I went back a couple of days later for more pasta and some tofu. The smoked tofu on the right is real good stuff. It has herbs and sunflower seeds in and is perfect just raw in a sandwich. And I speak as someone who HATES the texture of most raw tofu!


Most of the smoked tofu went into sandwiches like this. With mayo and tomato.


Today, the last of it went into some miso soup. 2 cups of water, half a bunch of udon noodles, red pepper, spring onions, chilli (from my balcony - yay!), a tablespoon of barley miso, a tbsp or so of low sodium soy sauce and smoked tofu. I added some hot sauce, as my chilli was pretty lame and the juice of half a lime. Some fresh coriander would have made this super.


Backtracking a bit, my spin on after dinner mints for when the friends came over was cake truffles. Remember that vanilla cake from my last post? And the neon green icing from my last post? I took the leftovers of each, mixed them together and covered them in melted mint chocolate.

Cute and tasty.....

Inside shot. Yum yum yum, these went down well!

I had some mushrooms and cashew cream left over, so I made some cream of mushroom soup. It was delicious and I had it with crusty bread.


Today I was trying to get inspired to make something with the potatoes and fresh corn in my fridge. So I came up with this spanish inspired stew. It had yellow pepper, onion and tomatoes in, plus a craptonne of paprika and some smoked paprika too. I served it with basmati that I stirred some vegan butter and fresh parsley & chives into. Not bad at all for a wing-it job.


And look, the great british summer, or what was left of it anyway.

Just keep your cool now you're starting to DROOOOOOLLLL. Hey! Fangool, I'm Sandra Dee!

Laterz
xXx

Handbags & Gladrags

I haven't been taking that many pics lately, mainly because I been eating a lot of meals that look like this and they tasty but they pretty boring! But this one was really good. It was just some baked tofu, with salad and a dressing made of tahini and miso and chilli sauce. I forget what else went in but it was good.


Last saturday, we went out to celebrate one of my best friend's 30th birthdays (the one I was dogsitting for last month!) We went for an Italian meal and I didn't fancy any of the vegan options on the menu. Actually I'm lying, there weren't any vegan options, but there were the usual things you can just ask them to take the cheese off. But as I said, didn't fancy those so I asked them to do me a salad and this is what they came up with and I have to say, I was REALLY impressed. It had roasted onions, peppers and courgettes, potatoes, rocket and a great dressing with chilli oil and balsamic vinegar.



I really wish I'd asked them how they did those potatoes, as I couldn't work it out but they were amazing. Seriously.

Birthday cake was my mango & coconut cake - which seems to be my friends' favourite as it's the one they always ask for. But when I was reading the recipe I realised it had a shit-tonne of oil in. So I cut it back to 1/4 cup and increased the soymilk to 1 cup, plus I used 1/4 cup of the mango syrup to make up the liquid content. I used tinned mango as I couldn't find a ripe enough fresh one (about half a tin / 1/2 cup finely chopped) and it was just as good. This mixture made for 15 cupcakes!

This was lunch the next day (when I was hungover from way too much Prosecco!!). I bought some falafel and made a tahini sauce and then served it with some tomato, grated carrot and a wholemeal pitta. Super yum!

Inside Shot!

I had some falafel left over and I made some bulgar wheat that I added a tin of tomatoes and some spices to. It was really good, but I didn't quite get the spcies right, so I'm gonna work on that one!

Like I said, I been eating a lot of salads for lunch lately and this was one I had at work last week. Really good! Rocket salad, sun dried tomatoes, chick peas, raw broccoli, carrots, cucumber.... with balsamic dressing and mixedseeds. Sorry for the crap pic, I took it on my phone, which doesn't seem to have any flash options.

During the week I really fancied some chocolate soymilk, but when I picked up the packets of Alpro I saw that one 250ml carton weighed in at over 700 calories! I thought that was unbelievable. So when I went home I made my own with light soy milk, a spoonful of cocoa, a dash of vanilla and a squeeze of agave nectar. Tasty, chocolatey and less than 100 cals! Which meant I could have an oreo. YAY to my friend for bringing me back oreos from Las Vegas - UK ones are not vegan.

Yesterday me, mum & dad hopped on the train to reading to do some shopping and have lunch. We were wondering around the oracle trying to find a veg-friendly restaurant when my dad spied a Wagamamas! HURRAH. I had my usual yasai itame (gorgeous spicy coconutty soup with loads of veggies, noodles and herbs - sooooo good) and a side of chilli/garlic/salt edamame. I snapped a pic of the soup on my camera phone! I've tried so many times to recreate this and I NEVER get anywhere near close!

Another bonus of going shopping with the parents (aside from them paying for lunch) - accessories!! Mum was buying a new bag and so was I and Debenhams were having a sale but you had to spend £50! Mum's bag was £49 and mine was £25 so she bought it for me! YAY. I really love Julien Macdonald's Star range. His bags are leather free - yay! And he does some awesomely trashy, sparkly shit that I just love. This pic doesn't begine to capture the gorgeous pretty blue/green of this bag. It's lovely. Mum thought I was mad and kind of turned her nose up!! haha

Lastly, today's dinner. I bought all the stuff to made lasagna but none of us could be bothered to wait for it. So I made a quick veggie casserole cuz mum fancied potatoes and something in gravy. But as I was cooking she knew it would have to be vegan, but they still really enjoyed it so I'm happy. It had fennel, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, red pepper, red onion and cauliflower. The sauce was just veggie stock, red wine, dried thyme & oregano and a good splash of vegan worcester sauce. Really good and lots of gravy to soak up with bread.

Oh and I know I promised a tattoo photo, but I'm very sad to say that the guy did such a shit job that I've had to book in with the place that did my first one so they can fix it! I wish I'd listened to my gut and gone there in the first place. However, I think it should be fairly simple to fix, so pics when it's all done next month!

Love, Actually.

This year I made a couple of valentine themed goodies. Being single since, erm - Abba! means that I usually spend v-day with a tub of ice cream and a chick flick or a single girlfriend, a tub of ice cream and a chick flick!!

This year I had one such single friend over to stay and my other friend & her fiance as well - they decided not to bother celebrating it this year!

But it started on Thursday night when a workmate requested some v-day themed cupcakes for Friday. So I made chocolate CCs with buttercream that I tinted/flavoured with raspberry Crusha (which used to be vegan and I still have a bottle of the old stuff - boo to them for putting carmine in it now!!) The heart was some white fondant that I coloured with a wanktonne of pink food colouring paste, rolled out and cut out with a teeny cookie cutter.


I also made 2 special ones for my fellow Gossip Girl loving besties!!

So onto the day itself. Dinner for my friends was butter bean stew, with smashed taters & roasted asparagus (my new favourite way to eat asparagus.

I made 2 desserts as my friend said she was trying to be good so I thought I'd make sure I had a lower fat option. The main event was a coconut cheesecake that I have had in my head for ages, I just wasn't sure it'd work, but it did (recipe is at the end of the post, I'm really REALLY happy with the way it turned out)

Second option was a carrot cake, that I threw some pineapple chunks & orange zest into. Instead of the usual cream cheese frosting, I just made a glaze with icing sugar and orange juice and drizzled it over the top. It was awesome!

Of course, everyone went for a bit of both in the end. I whizzed up some strawberries to make a sauce for the cheezecake too.


Today's dinner was some rice that I cooked up and added to a tomato, some black beans that I cooked this morning and lots of hot sauce. With roasted baby portabellas and asparagus. MMM!

And here's the cheesecake recipe. It's very soft but it sets enough to remove the outside of the tin!

Coconut Cream Cheezecake
150g digestive biscuits*
3 tbsp vegan margarine

250ml coconut cream (1 carton of Blue Dragon UHT coconut cream!!)
1 tsp agar flakes

1 tsp arrowroot

1 tsp water

3/4 pack (a 225g pack) of plain vegan cream cheese

1/2 pack firm silken tofu

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Smash up the biccies a bit, then throw them into a food processor until they are finely ground. Melt the margarine and then mix the two together.

Pour the crumbs into a 9" flan tin, with a removable bottom if possible. Press the crumbs down well and use a cup measurer or a spoon to pack them down. Put into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until just lightly brown. Remove from oven & cool.

Pour the coconut cream into a saucepan and sprinkle the agar flakes over it. Don't stir! Switch on the heat and bring to a boil. Stir well and then turn the heat down and simmer, stirring occasionally until the agar flakes melt.

Mix together the arrowroot & water and then add to the coconut mixture. Turn the heat up a bit and bubble, stirring, until it thickens a bit. Remove from the heat, leave to cool and stir occasionally. Don't worry if it gets a bit lumpy!

When the coconut mixture and base are both cool, throw the tofu, cream cheese and coconut mixture into a blender (or food processor if it is a really good one that will get it smooth! - a hand blender would work too!). Add the vanilla, sugar & maple syrup and process till all smooth.

Pour the filling into the shell & level it out and smooth off the top. Chill for at least 2 hours until firm enough to remove the outer ring of the tart tin.

To make it pretty, I mixed some coconut with some pink food colouring and sprinkled it on top!

Cooking to: I have been mainly listening to Lily Allen - It's Not Me It's You & Paramore - Riot! this week.

*Digestives - watch out, a lot of them contain butter. McVities Light digestives are vegan, as are Morrison's own brand value range!

I said BRRRRRR it's cold in here...

.....There must be some Toros in the atmosphere. OH EE OH EE OH ICE ICE ICE.

Ahem, sorry. So how hard did it suck having to go back to work this morning?? Ergh. The flat was freezing and so was the office – all day because it had snowed last night. So I was glad to have some leftover soup from yesterday’s dinner for lunch to warm me up at lunchtime.

See look - poor old Jeff was all frosty today!


In other news – I’m moving out of my flat in 3 weeks’ time. I’m looking for a new place because I’ve just had it with my wanker landlord, plus this place is too small – especially the kitchen! So I’ll be staying with my parents for a month or so while I find a new place. This means my blogging might be affected somewhat but hopefully not too much. I’m looking forward to having a new (hopefully bigger) kitchen to bake in! J So anyway, back to the food.....

This was yesterday's dinner and it was awesome. It was a result of feeling totally uninspired to cook anything and staring into the fridge for ages. Normally soup & bread just don't cut it for dinner time but this was really filling and warming. It had potato, roasted peppers & jerk seasoning but I'm struggling with coming up with a name for it. It's going in the zine though!


With soda bread... YUM!


Saturday's brekkie - Celine's awesome peanut butter & chips granola, that I threw some cashews into as well. Next time, I think I'll roast the nuts for a bit firs as they were a bit raw but it still rocked. I used regular chocolate chips and some of the white chocolate I got for thingymas.

Saturday, I decided to have another go at my chicken style seitan. First thing it went into was some stew & dumplings.

Today I breaded it and baked it and served it with soft polenta with sweetcorn added and VWAV Punk Rock Chickpea Gray - gah that stuff is rad! This meal doesn't look all that healthy but I think it was really as there's hardly any oil in the gravy and I ignored my instinct to fry the seitan and baked it.

In the past I haven’t had a lot of luck with the boiling method, that sounds so easy in Veganomicon! Last time, although it tasted good it still was a bit puffier than I’d liked (the dreaded “brains” appearance) and they stuck to the pan and I only really had one out of 4 that held it’s shape. Plus the stock wasn’t really usable in other recipes as it was full of little bits of seitan that had fallen off during the cooking. So I knew I needed to experiment with the cooking method and this is what I came up with and it worked superbly! Here is what they looked like this time.

Recipe is below as well. I used a half cup measure for each cutlet and it made 4, but they were HUGE ass cutlets so next time, I’m going to try use a 1/3C measure I think.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp (145g) Vital Wheat Gluten
¼ cup (4 tbsp) Nutritional Yeast
2 tsp poultry seasoning (see pic)
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp thyme
1 tsp veggie or faux chicken bullion powder (or use cold stock instead of water)
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp (280ml) cold water

2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet in a jug. Pour the wet into the dry and mix it well with a metal spoon or spatula until it comes together. It will look sloppy and like there’s not enough dry ingredients – don’t worry, it’s meant to look like that. Now get your hand in and knead it just for a minute or so.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat. It’s very important that the pan is non-stick as you’re not going to add any oil to it. Split the dough into 4 or 6 (depending how big you want them) and flatten them into cutlets. Do 2 at a time and flatten them out a bit more with your spatula on the pan. Cook them for a 1-1.5 minutes (keep the heat fairly low/medium) then flip them and cook for another 1-1.5 minutes. Remove from heat and put on a plate, then do the next 2.

This doesn’t cook them so they will be very soft and a wee bit tricky to turn and remove from the pan, but just be patient and you’ll get them out fine. I used 2 spatulas and that seemed to make it easier.

Cut out 4 (or 6) squares of parchment, about the size of the cutlets (don’t worry if they’re a bit small).

Fill a large pan with COLD stock. Take each cutlet and place it on a square of parchment, then gently lower it into in the pan and push it to the bottom. Repeat with all the cutlets and try and place them on alternate sides of the pan.

Turn on the flame and bring it to the boil. Once boiling, turn it down straight away to a low simmer, cover and cook for 30 minutes. Every now and then, push the cutlets down with your spatula (they tend to rise to the top). After 30 minutes, turn off the heat and leave them to cool completely in the stock (or until you need them). Store them in the fridge in an airtight container, immersed in the cooking liquid (which you can use as stock in other recipes).

To use them, I just gently press out as much of the water as I can, between 2 pieces of kitchen towel – especially important if you’re breading them.

This is the chicken seasoning blend I use and instead of faux chicken stock (which I can't find) I use these incredibly disgusting soups. They taste mingin alone but used for stock they are good. I use one sachet in the dry ingredients and 2 mixed with water for the cooking liquid.

Another use for my seitan was fajitas. I put loads of guacamole, soya yoghurt and roasted onions & peppers on with the seitan. MMM MMM MM! They were good.

Extreme close up - MOLEY MOLEY MOLEY!

OK I've made myself want to watch Bring it On so that's what I'm gonna go do!

Vegan MoFo - Mock-a-doodle-stew

Lame title. I'm sorry.

Today I had PMT - the angry kind and work sucked so I was fighting the urge to put on Rage Against the Machine and sing FUCK YOU I WON'T DO AS YOU TELL ME! at the top of my voice. I went with plan B instead - chick flick and comfort food. Plus angry PMT has turned to lameass teary PMT - I cried twice while watching the Sex & the City Movie!

I love a good stew and when I saw the Barefoot Contessa's show yesterday I knew I totally had to steal her idea! (This recipe.)

Ingredients (approximates as I didn't measure anything):
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion
3 tbsp margarine
3 tbsp flour
2 cups ish stock (I used the faux chicken stock I cooked the seitan in)
1 clove of garlic
1 cup of chicken seitan (I made my own and more on that at some point during Vegan MoFo!)
small handful finely chopped parsley (about a tbsp)
leaves from 2 sprigs of time
1/2 cup peas (actually it was prob nearer to a cup - my hand slipped!)
2 carrots

Method:
Peel & chop the carrots and cook them in boiling water for 10 minutes.

Saute the onion in the olive oil for 5 minutes, then add the margarine and turn heat down low. In a separate pan, gently warm (don't boil) the stock. Once margarine is melted, add the flour and stir well, cook out flour taste for a minute or so. Slowly add the stock, bit by bit until you have a lovely thick smooth sauce.

Add the garlic and thyme, stir and cook for a minute or so then add the seitan, veggies and herbs, stir well, turn down low and cook with a lid on for 5-10 minutes. Serve with sprinkle of fresh parsley, dumplings and mashed potato! YUM.

I baked the dumplings / biscuits and just put then on the stew for the last 5 minutes. But I made a booboo! I just used the recipe on the side of the Atora packet but I use plain flour instead of self-raising and forgot to add baking powder. DOH. So they were more like hockey pucks than fluffy dumplings but hey, it's been that kind of day.

Cooking to: the Sex and the City Movie!