Potato cakes

Looking for inspiration I turned to Vegan Yum Yum's site and found her Bubble and squeak cakes.
I used green cabbage instead of brussel sprouts and put a clove or whole garlic into the potatoes while they were boiling. This adds great flavour when you mash it all together.

The only other change I made was to add a good few tablespoons of dijon mustard to the potatoes and some parmazano soy cheeze to the flour coating. It added a little extra flavour and excitement. I think you could also use chick pea flour successfully.

They were absolutely delicious and great the next day on some wholemeal bread with lettuce and more dijion mustard.

Raspberry Smoothie

A quick and super tasty smoothie that my girls love.

1 banana
1 cup frozen raspberries
500-750 mls of Rice milk

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.

Using frozen berries adds the coldness to it that ice does but without the extra water.

Custard and Raspberry Tart

Here is a simple and quick tasty and attractive dessert.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of made up custard (I used Coles Smart Buy. It is a custard powder which is vegan, I made it up with rice milk and added a splash of vanilla)
1 cooked shortcrust pastry shell
Raspberries (I used frozen, the heat of the custard defrosts them)

Method:
Place the custard into the pastry shell and decorate with the raspberries.
Allow to set in the fridge

Curry Puffs

Yum yum! Here is my simple and tasty curry puff recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cooked potato, mashed
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 onion finely diced
1 stalk of celery finely diced
2 tsp massaman curry paste
puff pastry

Method:
Saute onion and celery in pan until soft
Add the curry paste and cook for a minute
Add the mashed potato and coconut milk and stir until all ingredients are well combined.
Add spoonfuls of the mixture to pastry circles and fold in half and seal.
Bake in a 200C oven until golden

Chocolate Peppermint Slice

I found this recipe and veganising it was very simple. Use dairy free margarine and dark chocolate. This was so easy to make and it is super tasty.

Ginger Ale

My husband had the desire to make his own ginger beer or ale and came across this recipe from Berlin's Whimsy for a raw food ginger ale. Sweetened with agave syrup and flavoured with a squeeze of lime, this ginger ale is fantastic! I think it might also be really beneficial to anyone suffering from nausea. Ginger soft drinks tend to be a bit to sugary, but the balance of flavours is devine.

Sourdough bread

My husband has had a huge desire for sourdough bread lately, and in true fashion, I had to research to see if making the starter was a possibility. And boy is it!

I followed the instructions from S. John Ross on how to do the whole process.

The starter takes up to a week to be ready for making a loaf of bread. To make the starter, you simply mix 1 cup of flour with 1 cup of warm water, mix well and leave out UNCOVERED. Leaving it uncovered allows the yeasts present in the air to inhabit the flour water mix and multiply. This gives the sour taste/smell and also gets your bread to rise.

Now my fridge has a lot of starter ready to go, but it needs to be cared for as it is a living thing. Very satisfying to create something all of your own.

Beigli Pastry Rolls with Walnut or Poppy Seed Stuffing

Thanks to one of my sisters the name for 'that poppyseed cake thing' was discovered. Beigli. My father is from Hungary and so recipes such as this were made often by our grandmother, but not recorded or passed down.
This recipe was from a Hungarian tourist site.
A few minor changes were made to change it to a vegan recipe.
Butter exchanged for vegan margarine, egg exchanged with egg replacer and some milk for extra liquid. Sour cream was exchanged with my cashew sour cream. Also instead of brushing with egg I just brushed with some olive oil.
Result? Very tasty!

CASHEW CREAM RECIPE

Soak 1 cup of raw cashews in water overnight. It is important they are raw as roasting enhances the nuts flavour. We do not want to have this strong flavour.
Rinse the soaked nuts thoroughly and put them in a blender just covering with fresh water. Blend until very smooth.
If you cannot get it super smooth, run it through a fine sieve.

To make it a sour cream add a tablespoon of vinegar.

Passionfruit Star Bisuits

I've been so slack lately, but very busy, I assure you, so here is a few posts to get going again.

I got a wonderful new vegan cookbook from a friend and was so excited by it's contents. It's called "Wild Vegan" by Angela Stafford. Inside was a simple recipe for passionfruit star biscuits.
They were delicious, a simple sugar cookie but adding passionfruit pulp makes them so much more interesting. Definitely will make again. (I cannot put the recipe here as it is copyrighted).

Pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins!

After a bountiful crop and the obligatory giving away of as much as you can, I made many things with pumpkins. Firstly pumpkin and sweetcorn soup. I found a whole 400g tin of corn, juice and all makes the best tasting soup.

Next pumpkin pie. This was simply putting pumpkin puree mixed with sauteed mushrooms, onion and asparagus a little rice milk, chopped almonds and nutritional yeast into a precooked shortcrust pastry case and put into a 190C oven until golden.

Also I made pumpkin muffins. Another of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's amazing recipes. These really are The Best Pumpkin Muffins.

Finally, today I am trying my hand at pumpkin bread. This is made with the no-knead recipe by substituting 1 cup of the water with pureed pumpkin. I also added some pumpkin seeds to the top.

My notes for no-knead bread.
To make it even easier, I do the dough before going to bed.
The next day I won't touch it until I am going to make dinner.
I omit all the tea towels and just put the dough in a greased bread tin, sprinkle seeds on top (or not. I like sesame as they toast wonderfully when the bread is baked) and leave it until later that evening (typically after children are in bed). This gives the bread almost 24hours to rise which is key in a bread with little yeast.
Bake at 190-200C for half an hour covered with foil, then another half hour with the foil removed.
So if you want fresh bread without the effort, this is perfect!

St Paddy's day creations

Well, feeling in the mood for baking I tried a two color biscuit from the Coles Easter magazine. The only change was to use non-dairy margarine. They were easy to make and look fantastic. I used a shamrock to cut out the centre.

Next up was a pasta lunch.
Sautee a few asparagus and mushrooms (I used oyster, they are awesome!) in some olive oil
Add some milk, and 1/2 cup of veg broth (I used veg-chicken) along with some chives, ground celery seeds, onion powder, pepper and nutrional yeast.
Simmer until reduced a little.
If you need to thicken add some cornflour mixed in a little cold water.
Don't thicken too much though. You want to add the pasta to the sauce so it is all coated, this also thickens the sauce.

Lastly, our 'green' item. This was simple. Choc cupcakes with peppermint frosting! These are the same ones I have made before from "Vegan Cupcakes take over the world". I love choc-mint and this is perfect. I added some edible green glitter, so they look great too.

Filled Omlete

Mmmmm, vegan omelet. My lovely husband has perfected another egg like, but egg free dish. I will post the recipe asap.

Vegetable Garden

The patches, with the pumpkin vines at the front



After all the wonderful rain we have been getting, out vegie patch is over run with pumkin and watermelon vines. The other patch has some healthy corns and stawberries which are producing and a single carrot which was all that servived the ants before all the rain.

The pumpkins grew from seeds from a pumpkin I bought. So I will be looking forward to posting lots of delicious pumpkin recipes as they start maturing.

Snobby Joes with a twist

Not being too familiar with sloppy joes, I tried the PPK version of "Snobby Joes". But instead of serving it on a roll, I served it IN a roll. A similar idea to getting a big cob loaf and using it to put your dips in. I made some bread rolls and cut of a little hat, pulled out the inside and filled it with the 'Joe' mix. The mix was delicious, but taking note of comments on the site I reduced the chilli, also I don't think my girls would handle anything too spicy. But it was delicious.

Egg free scrambled eggs

That's a typo you say. It's not! If you have ever made tofu scramble the key to making it truly taste like scrambled eggs is a wonderful spice. BLACK SALT. What gives this salt its egg like fragrance and taste is the sulfur content as it is a volcanic mineral. If you can find it (we found some in an Indian spice market in Canberra) get some and make my husbands wonderful super quick tofu scramble.

Ingredients:
Packet firm tofu. Drained and squeeze some liquid out.
1 tsp black salt
1 tbs nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
pinch ground cloves
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp pepper
olive oil for frying

Method:
heat oil in pan
crumble the tofu into the pan
add remaining ingredients and mix well trying to keep some chunks
fry for about 5 mins continually stirring.
Remove from the heat when the mix started to brown
serve on your favourite toast

Coffee and Date Loaf

Mmmmmmm. I was making a starter for my Jim Lahey bread with rye (on the left of the picture. To make it rye I add 1/2 cup of rye flour/meal and only 2 1/2 cups white flour. I also use the rye as the dusting flour), I added sunflower seeds and remembered my bakery days and the delicious coffee and date loaf. So I went searching and found this recipe. The only changes needed to make it vegan was to use dairy-free margerine and I replaced the egg with a heaped teaspoon of egg replacer. I also added a little extra baking soda.
This is a delicious bread/cake. Super moist and fairy simple. Definitely one to make for when friends come around. (On the right in the picture).

Vegan carrot cake

Most vegan carrot cakes call for pineapple, of which I had none. This one makes use of a syrup to add moisture and sweetness to the cake. Here is the recipe.

I also put on top a halved amount of this cream cheese frosting (and added some choc chips as decoration).

Pecan slice

This recipe is so delicious. Especially the icing. It is very sweet, but the maple syrup creates a very exciting new flavour.

Chewy chocolate chip cookies

Another delicious recipe from the PPK. I addes some chopped hazelnuts and glace cherries (a case of not enough choc chips and wanting to use up other things). The result is a choc nutty cherry delight.

Lentil loaf

Sounds a little boring, but this was awesome. DH loved it too!
It has a delicious potato filling, but I think you could swap it and put the lentil part inside some jacket potatoes and bake them.

I used red lentils, which take much less time to cook. Also, I did not use the dairy-free cheese. Just sprinkled liberally with nutritional yeast. You could use this as a roast alternative or cold in lunchboxes the next day.

Here's the recipe.

Ice cream

I made vegan dads vanilla ice cream (cheaper version) with a chocolate topping (like ice magic. You melt some chocolate and add shortening or coconut oil, so it goes solid on the cold ice cream) and they were delicious. Simple to make. Thanks vegan dad. You are loved at my house.

Bean Bruschetta

I love toast and beans on tops. So I combined the two with some amazing recipies.

The first being the toast.

This is made with a lovely and so simple long rise bread. It involves no kneading and only 1/4 tsp of yeast, but about 24 hours to rise. It is worth the wait. I start my next days bread just before I go to bake last nights risen dough. So it really makes it effortless. Similar in time to using a bread machine. Very tasty straight from the oven with some dairy-free margerine or toasted with wholegrain mustard.

The other is for a Three Bean Salad. I omitted the carrot and added chopped celery. I also swapped the green beans for brown lentils. I think any beans/peas work fine. The key is differing colours, sizes and textures. You could heat it up for a warm bruchetta, but cold it is delicious too.

Either of these recipes can be used separately, but for something easy and delicious for any meal, together they are devine.

Eggplant

I have to call it aubergine as my darling 3 year old daughter won't eat it because "we don't eat eggs. It's not nice to the chickens".

Anyhow, I had one in the fridge, still pondering what to do with it as I have only tried them once, and it was awful.

I discovered I forgot to do one simple thing - salting.

After slicing the aubergine (I did simple circles) it is vital to sprinkle some salt over the top of each piece and let them sit for about 1/2 an hour. This helps to remove the bitterness.

After doing this give them a good rinse to remove all the salt.

So what next? I kept the water on the slices and coated them in some seasoned flour then popped them into so hot oil and shallow fried them until golden on both sides. The result was amazing. Crunchy outsides soft melt in your mouth insides, and my girls loved them too. Always a bonus when kids eat something new. These would make a great change for a burger too.

Some craft

These were made using acrylic yarn. It's great as it's easy to use and very washing machine friendly. The stuffing is poly. It's also washable.

Birthday cakes

For my girls birthdays I made two simple recipes.

Vanilla cupcakes with heavenly frosting

and Vegan Brownies (which I always make as a cake). My non vegan relatives loved them. So did the girls!

Christmas Trees

I finally have time to put a few pics up from my holiday cooking.

Firstly is these beautiful gingerbread xmas trees. The recipe was fantastic from the Post Punk Kitchen (PPK). I used this recipe for the gingerbread men previously.

I used some start cutters of gradually diminishing size to form the tree. Then iced away. Super easy and they made great presents. I also made one from my recipe for xmas cookies.

Linny's Xmas cookies:

Ingredients

3/4 cup almonds. Use chopped, slivered flaked. Whatever you have. I always have whole ones so chopped it is.

125g non-dairy margarine
1/4 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup custard powder
1/4 cup chopped glace cherries
handful of dried cranberries


Method

Beat marge, suger and vanilla with electric mixer until fluffy
sift in flour and custard powder. Add fruit and nuts and mix well.
Give a quick knead to ensure everything is well incorporated.
Cover and put in the fridge for 1/2 hour
Roll out to about 7mm thick and cut out as desired.
Bake at 190C for 15mins
Let cool for 5 mins on the tray before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely
Ice or dust with icing sugar.

YUM!