Processing

Those of you who follow The Tropical Vegan on Facebook will know that, for my birthday in November, Andy got me a food processor.

For my birthday, I had my heart set on a cherry pie (with hippo crust decor, obvi). I nearly bought cherry pie filling from USA Foods, then saw the recipe for cherry pie in Pies and Tarts with Heart so decided to make my own.

BIG MISTAKE. Frozen cherries in Australia are NOT the sour cherries that make cherry pie so delicious. It was good pie, but it wasn't cherry pie, not really. My craving continues. 

It's a Cuisinart, which he found on sale through some online place, and I don't know how much it costed because it was a gift! But I do know that I love it. It has made possible some dishes we couldn't really do before, and made lots easier plenty of things we did in other ways. (Like massive batches of pesto... in a mini chopper!)

Here I will just brag about one meal, in which just about every ingredient went through the processor - because if you're gonna use it, you might as well use it, right? Washing it all up feels less onerous that way.

Step one: chop a red onion, some garlic, and a head of broccoli in the processor until they're pretty finely chopped, then saute.

 Put it into a pie crust. I should have really made my own, which is easy now with a food processor, but I wasn't organised enough to get my ingredients into the freezer to be really cold, and it's so hot in Townsville at the moment this is kind of crucial. Plus we're trying to empty out our freezer a tad so we can defrost it, so I used bought pastry.

Then put some tofu and a few other things into the processor and, as Jamie Oliver would say, "wazz it up". (He really drives me crazy, but I still watch his show. Some of his recipes are actually good, too!) I used Dynise's recipe for quiche from her pie book.

Pour the custard over the filling, then pop it on the BBQ. I've mentioned 'baking' on the BBQ a few times, but here is what I mean. We have a trivet to keep things away from the direct heat a bit. The temperature needs to be a bit lower than the recipe calls for - this pie got up to the called-for 200 for maybe 5 minutes but still managed to burn a tiny bit on the bottom. 

We have the middle sized Weber Q with the high lid and temp gauge. Good size for baking!

While the quiche is cooking, put the shredder blade on the processor and push some potatoes through.

Mix it all up with some flour and other stuff - we used the recipe for Baked Latkes from Betty Goes Vegan - and form into patties. Put them on a baking tray (along with two okras, if your garden is producing in a very slow manner, like ours...) and when the quiche is done, put these on the BBQ. They took 15 or 20 minutes, and I flipped once.

The quiche needs to rest for 20 minutes, so this works out perfectly.

The quiche turned out really well - it set beautifully but wasn't claggy, like some recipes can be.

The latkes were crunchy on the outside and soft inside. I think using a food processor makes it much easier to make hash brown-type potato recipes -- when shredding by hand, the potatoes seem to let off a lot more liquid than they do when machine-shredded.

And it's dinner time! This was a very little effort meal, and all cooked outside - perfect for the heat wave we're going through.

And for dessert, something I food processed on an earlier day - chocolate mousse tart. The food processor makes it so much easier to crush gingernut biscuits for the crust, and the mousse was silky and smooth. It was just four ingredients, too - 6 tablespoons of soy milk, 200 grams of chocolate, 250 grams of silken tofu and 400mL of coconut milk. After melting together the soy milk and chocolate (which was practically melted after sitting on the counter for an hour), wazz it up with the tofu and coconut milk. Andy thought I did it wrong, because the mixture was so runny, but after a few hours in the fridge, it becomes a rich, velvetty mousse.

This is probably the best birthday present Andy's ever got me, and he has enjoyed the products of it as much as I have!

Belated Birthday

Andy's birthday was, oh, more than two months ago! And we did celebrate on the day. But I was just looking through some photos and realised I never blogged about it. And it was a yummy, if junky, celebration, so it deserves to be blogged about.

For dinner, I convinced Andy that we should have a junky tater tot casserole. I even had to walk up to the grocery store to get tater tots at 6pm, that's how committed I was to the idea. Here's how you do it: bake the tater tots until they're just about done. Then smother them in tomato sauce, vegan cheese, and vegan bacon bits. Bake a little more.

This is one of those meals that is SO DELICIOUS while you eat it, and then you regret it pretty much straight away. But SO DELICIOUS while you eat it.

Despite our tater tot casserole regret, we soldiered on with dessert, because, birthday cake! Normally, I make Andy a trifle. But his birthday was in the second-last week of classes, and we were both very busy, so although I offered, he requested a self-saucing pudding instead. Which was good, because I think it was really cold that week.

I made individual ramekin-sized puddings, and then we flipped them out into bowls for beautiful, puddingy cake. A weensy bit of ice cream or custard would have been really great, but I'm not complaining!

We probably eat like this about once a year. I promise my next post will be much healthier.

Slow Weekend

I think I said yes to far too many things this year, and now I find myself really very busy. As a result, I tend to spend the weekends recovering from my crazy busy weeks by crocheting, gardening, reading, socialising, and not really doing much online. As a result of THAT, my poor blog has been neglected.

I really thought that I would give this site some attention last weekend. We had 4 days off, afterall, and no concrete plans. But, instead of queuing up posts with recipes, gardening successes, and craft projects, I spent time cooking, gardening, and sewing instead. But it was a glorious four day weekend - it went by slowly, and gently, and really gave me a recharge. I honestly think we should have a four day weekend every month.

My slow weekend involved lots of lovely things, like...

Peanut Butter Oat pancakes. I saw this posted on Facebook on Friday morning and had to have them. I made some changes - I used chia instead of flax seeds, I used sunflower oil instead of melted butter, things like that.

When I made the batter, I thought it looked like Definitely Not Enough, so I quickly mixed up a second batch, effectively doubling the recipe. That turned out to be unnecessary - we were so full we had leftovers, which admittedly were a nice snack. So even greedy gutses like Andy and I found this recipe enough for two people - if you make it yourself, don't be fooled by the small quantity of batter.

Gardening. Mainly Andy did the gardening, with some occasional support from me. He built some garden beds, covered the front bed with cardboard and then mulch, planted loads of seeds, and harvested this gigantic sweet potato.

Which we turned into African Peanut Stew. The stew also had eggplant from the garden, luffa (aka loofah) from the garden, chillies & capsicums from the garden, and lots of delicious peanut butter.

Easter Eggs. I made some totally amazing Coconut Cream Eggs from Celebrate Vegan. I know Easter is over, but it is worth making these, even if you shape as truffles, because OMGtheyaredelicious.

I mixed up the filling, which involved cream cheese, icing sugar and coconut, and in my version a splash of cointreau, and froze teaspoon-sized blobs on a baking sheet. Once they were frozen-ish, I could shape them into vaguely egg-shaped things. I had a little chocolate left over after coating all my eggs, so I made a ganache and drizzled it, which was sort of stupid but not bad.

Curtains. I made them, with the help of Nacho. Now our bedroom is nice and dark, no matter how full the moon is.

I also made jam, finished crocheting my blanket (now I just need to edge it), and we dog-sat Tika's friend Zoe. It was a full weekend, but it all happened at a nice slow pace. I'm looking forward to the upcoming public holidays to do more of the same!

Cuppers

I sort of missed the cupcake trend when it exploded a few years ago. I don't know why, but they didn't really interest me all that much. I was more into cookies. Also inexplicably, I have quite recently begun to love the idea of cupcakes. Andy's friends recently had a birthday BBQ, and something made me really want to make birthday cupcakes for them. But I didn't want to make just any cupcake.  This is what I came up with.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing and Salted Caramel

Cake
1 1/2 c. plain flour
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1 tsp. bicarb soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp. vinegar
1 c. water

Heat the oven to 180 and line 12 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, bicarb soda and salt in a large bowl. In a jug or a small bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar and water. Pour these into the flour mixture and mix gently until combined. Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners and bake for about 25-30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing
1/4 c. smooth peanut butter
1 1/2 c. icing sugar
3-5 T. soy milk

In an electric mixer, or with a good fork and lots of energy, whisk up the peanut butter until it's a little bit fluffy. Add the icing sugar a bit at a time until the mixture is crumbly. Add soy milk, a tiny bit at a time, until the consistency of the icing is good. This depends on how you want to put it on - for spreading, thicker is better, but for piping you need it to be a bit looser. Mine was too thick, and the cheap piping bag I bought just couldn't contain it - it exploded at the seams, requiring me to lick lots of icing off my hands which was delicious but also made me feel a bit sick. Make sure the cupcakes are fully cool before putting the icing on top.

Salted Caramel
2 T. vegan butter or coconut oil
2 T. brown sugar
1 T. golden syrup
1 1/2 T. coconut cream (or soy milk)
1/2 tsp. salt, to taste

In the smallest saucepan or skillet you have, mix the butter, sugar, syrup and cream. Put onto medium-high heat and cook, stirring constantly, until everything is melted. Stir occasionally as it comes up to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring pretty often, for 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in 1/4 tsp. of salt, then taste (being careful not to burn your mouth) and see if you want it saltier. Remove the pan from the heat and let the caramel cool to not-quite-molten temperature, stirring every so often. Then drizzle spoonfuls over the icing. The cuppers look best on the day you do the drizzling - the caramel soaked into the icing on the ones that sat overnight.

Sweet, yes, but also fancy and sophisticated and quite delicious. The best part about these cupcakes was that the gift box only fitted 6, so we got to keep the spares :-)

Party People

Andy and I are both introverts, and we get along well because of it. But I'm more social than Andy is - I like being around people, in small, conversation-centric settings, and I especially like hosting.

When we signed the contract on our new house, we were drawn to the big patio area with a shade sail over the top. A week later, a tornado came through Townsville, and the wind knocked a tree branch on to the shade sail, rendering it unusable. We will replace it, but luckily it's autumn, and the patio is really only sunny for about 2 hours in the middle of the day, thanks to a tree.  For me, the patio is the perfect entertaining area, especially once we visited the second-hand shop for a table and chairs.

Having a patio and a new house strikes me as a good opportunity for a house-warming party, but less-social Andy is less enthusiastic about the idea than I am. I'm still working on a proper housewarming party, but last weekend we had a little get together with some people I work with. Visitors from Denmark, a long weekend, and nearing the end of semester all seemed like good excuses for me to do some baking and have people round for drinks.

I made "Elvis Blondies", from Vegan Bake Sale, which are of course peanut butter, banana, and chocolate. They were a bit underwhelming in the peanut butter category, but I was the only one with that complaint.

And coconut cookies, also from Vegan Bake Sale. These were really yummy, and super coconutty thanks to coconut oil, coconut milk, and shredded coconut.

Green fruit - honey dew melon and star fruit - were also popular. The flavour of star fruit isn't anything special, but how can you go wrong serving star-shaped fruit, really?

We rounded off the table with hummus and crackers, an easy party stand-by. It was exactly our kind of party - a dozen people, food, interesting conversation, and everyone was gone by dark, leaving us plenty of time to unwind. I think Andy enjoyed himself. So although our house hasn't been properly warmed yet, I think our patio has proven how enjoyable it will be for future parties. In the meantime, it's also a great place to read in the afternoons.

Puddin Cake

I realise that posting this may convey the impression that all I eat these days is cake, since my last two posts have involved polenta cake and rainbow vanilla cupcakes. I promise I do eat more than just cake, but last Friday it was rainy and cold in Townsville (got down to 17, brrr!). I was at work and I didn't really feel like being there. I presented a seminar, and then in the afternoon had a quick squiz at a few blogs. DJ's description of fudgy, sauce, chocolate puddin' cake immediately struck my fancy. And the stars were aligned - we have that cookbook! and our pantry would surely contain all the ingredients!

When we got home that afternoon, I told Andy that I was absolutely baking cake that evening, and that we should arrange some oven-based dinner. Or, I suggested, we could just eat cake for dinner. Andy was not supportive of that decision, but when he filled up the empty oven shelf with slow-baking seitan, our oven dinner options were limited. Still, he insisted we eat something with vegetables, so he whacked together a potato & wakame soup while I made cake.

I followed the recipe, from La Dolce Vegan, pretty closely, except that instead of nuts I used a whole heap of fresh ginger that one of Andy's co-workers had brought in from his garden. The batter was good, and then I did the weird part of the recipe - pouring boiling water over the batter in the pan. When it comes out of the oven, the cake floats on the surface of the pudding-y sauce, and looks like this.

I scooped a generous portion for myself, then another slightly larger bit for Andy... and we had nearly finished the whole cake... so we ended up just finishing the whole cake! It was a bit gluttonous, and I may have had a food baby afterwards, but it was exactly what I wanted - warm, gooey, gingery, and chocolatey. What else is there in life?!

Blenderiffic

Having a blender/mixer thingie has revolutionised the way we cook.

Okay, I may be exaggerating a leetle bit. Or perhaps I'm exaggerating a whole awful lot. But a blender is better than a stick blender for things aside from smoothies.  Things like...

Tofu mayo. Caper and garlic chive flavoured. Which made a totally beautiful potato salad dressing.

And pesto. Yeah yeah, pesto is totally make-able, and arguably better, when done by hand in a mortar and pestle, but let's be honest. I haven't made pesto by hand in years, so a blender is pretty awesome. Plus, Andy went on a field trip which was wayyyy over-catered, and brought home some pinenuts. So we stuck those into our little "Magic Bullet-ish" attachment with some basil, garlic, salt and olive oil, tossed it onto gnocchi, and dinner took less than 10 minutes total.

Chocolate mousse! Though, this version probably doesn't deserve an exclamation mark. It should have been good - 1 block of silken tofu; 100gms of dark chocolate, melted; a big scoop of peanut butter; a shake of cinnamon. Blended. But it was just missing some essential sweetness. The bitterness of the chocolate overpowered everything else, so that you couldn't even taste peanut butter or cinnamon. So, no win there, but lots of ideas for future mousse experiments. And, smooth & fluffy-riffic, thanks to the blender.

Despite being disappointing, it was still good to eat with some Soyatoo whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. Because really, what isn't?

And I will leave you with this photo of Andy draining the final dregs of the Soyatoo, which were no longer aerated and tasted overwhelmingly sweet and vanilla-y. 

You'll have to ask him if this was a good life choice or not.

Total Request Live

When I was in year 10 or 11 at school, we took a day trip to NYC. As this was around about the year 2000, and we were all around about 16 years old, we felt like we just *had* to stand outside the MTV studio during the show TRL. Carson Daly waved at us! This post is my version of answering your requests. I tend to be bad at (1) posting recipes and (2) responding to specific comments on this blog. I'm trying to change that!  So in this post you will find recipes for tattie scones, olive & basil dip, fig & pecan stuffing,  mango granola, and candy cane slice. Apologies in advance for the often vague-ness of my recipes - we tend to put in a scoop of this, a shake of that, and a bit more of these.

Tattie Scones
This Scottish breakfast staple is actually much easier than I thought it would be. They're not that good for you, but they sure are tasty. Just be sure that your mashed potatoes don't have milk in them, because that makes them too wet.

1 c. mashed potatoes
salt to taste
2 Tbsp. olive oil (or to taste)
1/2 c. plain flour

Mix the salt and oil into the mashed potatoes and adjust the flavours until you're happy. Add flour and mix until fully combined. It should be a soft dough, but not too sticky. Add more flour, if you need to.  Divide the dough into three balls and press them out with your hands onto a well floured surface, until they are a circle about 1/2 cm thick.  Cut each circle into quarters and dust both sides with flour.  Heat a frying pan with a thin layer of oil over medium-high heat. Fry tattie scones until golden on both sides. Serve straight away, or refrigerate and reheat, or freeze for later use.

Olive & Basil Dip
A combination between tapenade and pesto, in creamy dip form. Obviously not for olive haters, but Andy and I really loved this.

1 bunch of fresh basil
1 small drizzle of olive oil
1 small clove of garlic (more, if you don't mind raw garlic)
1/4 c. pitted kalamata olives
1/3 c. vegan cream cheese

Using a mini chopper, blender, or food processor, or by chopping everything *reallly* finely, mince up the basil, garlic, and olive oil into a paste.  Pulse in olives, so they are still a bit chunky. Add cream cheese and blend until all ingredients are combined.  Good with crackers & veggies.

Fig & Pecan Stuffing
Our stuffing recipes tend to be variations on a theme - bread, dried fruit, and some kind of nut. Because bread gets mouldy in Townsville before it gets stale, we dry out our bread by leaving it open in the fridge for a night or two. This year we used white bread, but other years we've used whole grain.  Basically, use what you have and it will be good.

~10 slices of stale bread, cut into cubes
1 c. soy milk, other non-dairy milk, or veggie stock
drizzle of olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
some fresh thyme (we have a plant, and I think I cut three or four stems? maybe a teaspoon of leaves once they've been taken off the stems?)
1 celery stalk, minced
1 carrot, grated
6 or 8 dried figs, chopped up
1/3 c. pecan crumbs, toasted

In a bowl, soak the stale bread in the milk. In a frying pan, gently saute the onion with the black pepper and thyme, until the onion is translucent. Add the celery and grated carrot, cook until they are tender, and then remove from the heat. Add the veggies to the bread, and then stir in the figs and the pecans.  Stuff into something, or press it into a baking dish and bake until it's crunchy on top.

Mango Granola
This recipe is another variation on a theme, and is my daily breakfast. I 'cook' the granola in my dehydrator, but the oven way works, too. Granola is a good way for soy milk making folks to use up okara, but if you don't have okara, try using some kind of yogurt, or perhaps a weeny bit less non-dairy milk, or maybe just more fruit puree. This size recipe fills up all five dehydrator trays - for a version that can fit onto two oven trays, just cut everything in half.

6 c. oats
1/2 c. rice flakes
1/2 c. barley flakes
1/4 c. wheat germ
1/4 c. shredded coconut
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 - 1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c.-ish dried currants

1 1/2 c. wet okara
1 c. pureed mango-banana blend
3 Tbsp. orange oil (made by putting the peels of an orange into some rice bran oil and fridging it until you want to use it - or, for orange haters, just use regular oil)

In a very big bowl, mix up all of the dry ingredients.  In a jug, stir together the wet ingredients. Then combine the two, using your hands to make sure every bit of dried stuff gets coated in the fruity okara. For dehydrator granola, spread onto sheets and put into the dehydrator at 45-ish degrees, for about 4 hours, turning the trays 90 degrees every hour.

To make it in the oven, spread onto two baking trays and cook in a 160 (275F) oven for 60-90 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until it reaches your preferred level of crunchiness.

Candy Cane Slice
I was inspired, last year, to make Vaala's recipe for mint slice, except for utilising candy canes instead of peppermint extract. This is a variation on that, with the candy canes left crunchy. Andy doesn't love that about this slice - he would prefer a smoother texture.  For Christmas, my mum got me a ginormous multi-function mix master thingie, so I used that for the mixing. Before I've done everything by hand, and it was just fine.  It's a good way to use up that box of candy canes that you bought on special after Christmas, without remembering that you don't love to eat candy canes.

Base:

125g margarine, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa
1 cup shredded coconut

Heat oven to 180, line a slice tin with baking paper.  Cream together the margarine and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the rest of the ingredients until just combined and then press into the prepared baking tin.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Let cool.

Filling:
1/4 c. vegan cream cheese, at room temperature
3 c. icing sugar
1 Tbsp. non-dairy milk
10 candy canes, chopped

Beat cream cheese until it is soft, then slowly incorporate icing sugar. Drizzle in milk until you get the consistency of icing, and mix in the chopped candy canes. Spread this onto the cooled base and chill again.

Topping:
100 g. dark chocolate (we used Lindt 70%)
1 Tbsp. soy milk
2 candy canes, chopped

Melt the chocolate and soy milk together in a bowl over steamy water. Pour over slice, spreading to the edges. Sprinkle with candy canes. Fridge again, until ready to eat. Slice into slices, but this is tastiest if you let each piece come to room temperature before eating.

So that was a lot in one post, but I will try to be more efficient at this in future!

2012

Happy 2012, everyone!

They say what you do on New Year's Eve is what you'll be doing for the year ahead, and if that is the case, then Andy and I will be doing a lot of cooking, a lot of eating, a lot of reading, some movie-watching, and just a little bit of drinking.

Here are some of the things we ate, over the course of an afternoon and evening, on the last day of 2011.

Candy cane slice.


Crackers & Dip. I find champagne goes really well with sharp flavours, like this basil and olive dip.


We also had some cheese & crackers - smoked cheddar sheese, to be exact, which I received as part of a package swap with Susan (which I will post about soon).  This is really yummy, nicely textured vegan cheese.



I made sushi! It was my first time making it, and it really wasn't as daunting as I expected. My only tip is to have wet hands, so the sushi rice doesn't stick so much.  I made my sushi with brown rice, following the recipe from Celebrate Vegan by Dynise Balcavage, except filling it with zucchini and tofu.


The results were a bit bland, in both colour and flavour, and next time I will have zippier fillings. But, I can make sushi!


The best part of the night was easily when we ate ice cream sundaes. I bought some Soyatoo! Whipped Cream on my birthday, back in November. Because it was so freaking expensive, I wanted to use it on only the most perfect dessert. I decided, more than a month ago, that it had to be an ice cream sundae. But it was only this week that the right confluence of ingredients found themselves in our home. Some vanilla spice ice cream in the freezer.  Some Macho Fudge Sauce (from Urban Vegan by Dynise Balcavage) in the fridge. Some sprinkles in the pantry. And the result was everything I expected, and more. So, so good.



That wasn't all we cooked on New Year's Eve, though. We also made some preparations for breakfast the next morning.  I made these parsley breakfast sausages in the frying pan, because I couldn't be bothered steaming them.


And we made some tattie scones. These are essentially mashed potato flat breads, which we ate every day for breakfast in Scotland. And they are easy to make!


So with a bit of reheating, opening a tin, picking some spinach, and chopping some mushrooms (including this well-endowed specimen)...


We had our first meal of 2012.  It was good.


My "resolutions", if you want to call them that, are simple. I plan to wear gloves when I was dishes, to make my own laundry detergent, and to keep my Flickr account up to date. I'll add a brief promise for the next week or so to this: I will post a recipe for fig & pecan stuffing, and for mango granola, because Hannah has asked for them.  Remind me if I forget.

Submission Cake

Andy submitted his PhD today.  Aside from giving Nacho a comfy perch from which to disapprove...

This milestone represents a great opportunity to make cake, and eat (and possibly drink a little, too).  But instead of just any cake, I somehow got the idea to make the cake in the shape of a butterflyfish, because that is the group of fishes he studied throughout his PhD.  Andy was totally sceptical that it would work, but I received encouragement via Facebook and the tea room at work.  So I forged ahead.

First, I traced the fish, Chaetodon plebeius, onto baking paper and then scanned it in and blew it up to pan-sized.

Then I used more baking paper to trace the shape and cut it out, to make my template.

The next step was to bake the cakes.  I decided to do two rectangle cakes, so the fish could be swimming in a blue ocean.

Once the cakes were cool, I "glued" my template down with a bit of icing, to keep it from moving around, and then cut around it to get the fish shape right.

A thin layer of blue icing on the bottom, then I put the fish-shaped cake on top and coated in yellow icing.

Some tidying up of icing (tip from watching my mum: a butter knife or finger dipped in water is the perfect way to get a smooth icing finish), and then adding on of details like stripes, a blue patch, and a fin.  All this was done before 10.30am, because I was super excited and couldn't wait!

Finally, I finished with the "black" (aka light brown and chocolate) stripe and spot, and used a little piece of strawberry for an eyeball.

A final tidy-up, and in the end we had to swap the strawberry (which was oozing juice and messing up the cake) for a dried cherry, but I'm pretty chuffed with the end result.

Congratulations, Andy!