Needless to say, when I glanced at the soy ice cream in the supermarket recently and saw Vanilla Chai, I couldn’t resist.
Sweet, creamy, flavoured like cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg, and with a lingering taste of vanilla, this ice cream feels a bit more sophisticated than traditional chocolate or vanilla.
And considering it’s 97% fat free, it doesn’t have to be a guilty pleasure.
I made four kinds of dip.
First, hummus. This wasn’t from a recipe, but I added cumin as I’ve seen in some recipes and I loved it.
I also defrosted some coriander (cilantro) pesto and blended it with some tofu and soy yogurt for a tangy, creamy dip.
I also took the opportunity to test out some recipes from Urban Vegan’s forthcoming cookbook. First, the Easy Tahini Sauce, made a bit thick to be dippable.
The other test recipe was the Creamy Avocado Dressing, which was tangy and creamy and really yum.
For dipping, I had sliced sourdough bread and water crackers. I told my friends about the recipe testing, and they took their job very seriously. Both new recipes were tried individually (palates were cleansed with beer between tastes), and on both bread and crackers. While both were delicious, the tahini dip was the clear favourite of the night.
Daria brought a tray of cut up veggies, corn chips, and the yummiest tomato stuff I’ve ever had. Fresh ripe tomatoes from her parents’ garden, charred and cooked down in olive oil. Somehow such a simple concept gains so much in the process. I’m currently pestering her for a recipe, which she says doesn’t exist.
And what’s a birthday without a cake? I tried to make Boston cream pie I saw bazu blog about ages ago. But, the cream didn’t thicken much at all, so I filled the centre with peanut butter and some of the chocolate topping instead. This is a flavour combination which is fairly foreign to most Australians but my friends all thought it was great.
I had some leftover cake today, topped with the runny cream filling and strawberries. Yummy.
And, over the course of two days (time difference and all) I’ve been absolutely showered with birthday wishes via facebook, email, and text message. Andy hid my favourite chocolate in the closet before he left (but I found it a few days early). Heather got me a shirt from New Internationalist... it didn’t photo well, but it has a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”.
Viv got me a cool book full of great ideas about making changes which lead to environmental and social changes.
I know a lot of people have already done this meme, or have done memes like it. I also know that some people don’t particularly like memes. But I’m going to go ahead and tag some bloggers I don’t know much about. Feel free to ignore my tag, but if you do participate, let me know – ŀĀŘ¡ŝ∫Á from LaTin Veg Bites, wanting kneading, and David J from Through Balanda Eyes. If anyone else would like to partake, please let me know so I can read your facts!
In this dinner, we roasted asparagus with radishes in soy sauce and garlic. Roasted asparagus is sweet, which went beautifully with the mellow spice of radishes. This dish was served alongside roasted potatoes with kalamata olives; a raw salad; and (the poop-looking things in the back) pulp nuggets.
Asparagus is no doubt the star of the show in this Asparagus Tart. And this was the epitome of easy. A sheet of frozen puff pastry, a thin layer of vegan alfredo sauce (leftover from pasta the night before), and asparagus spears, baked for 20 minutes.
The asparagus gets tender, the puff pastry gets flaky and the tang of the alfredo sauce ties it all together without overwhelming.
And finally, steamed asparagus spears with salt and olive oil. Serving whole spears of asparagus feels very gourmet, in my opinion. It also makes me think of that scene in American Beauty where the husband tells his family he blackmailed his boss and quit his job.
These spears accompanied a not-so-gourmet mixture of mashed sweet potatoes and sautéed onion, crumbled tofu, grated carrot and fresh corn.
At the same time, I am fairly busy, and it’s stinking hot here... so I don’t want to spend heaps of time in the kitchen. So I’ve been trying out a few new recipes that don’t take much effort—I’ve found La Dolce Vegan a key resource for this style of cooking.
To use up the baby wombok from the fridge
With the leftover rice and the other half of cabbage, I put together a variation on Indonesian-Style Rice with Tempeh from Vegan Planet. Instead of tempeh, I crumbled up some seitan from the freezer. Topped with cucumber, this was a perfect meal for a hot day.
Cooking for one, at least for me, means constantly trying to keep up with using veggies before they go off. Somehow I ended up with about 12,000 potatoes (maybe I exaggerate) so to use them up I tried a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance—Stewed Tofu and Potatoes in Miso Gravy. Instead of tofu, I used more seitan, and I added some corn to the mix as well. I expected this to be a very heavy meal, but I was pleasantly surprised. The combination of white wine, thyme and miso makes for a delicate and tangy gravy.
Expect even more new recipes in the weeks to come, as I've been taken on board by Urban Vegan as a tester for her upcoming cookbook!
This is a quick stir fry of onion, zucchini, green capsicum, mushroom spinach, and corn mixed with rice noodles. These noodles are soaked in boiling water for 3 minutes and then drained and they’re ready to go, so they’re a great ingredient when you want food fast. The flavour in this stir fry comes from chilli and some leftover sunflower-miso salad dressing.
This is an adapted version of the ‘Green Bean, Asparagus and Tofu Stir Fry over Couscous’. The main change, obviously, is that I subbed more rice noodles for the couscous. I also added black sesame seeds for pizzazz. This was a really yummy way to use some fresh, springy asparagus.
Finally, the quickest kind of noodles yet. I came home from an animal rights meeting to a lovely raw lunch made for me by Andy. Zucchini ‘noodles’, fresh spinach from the garden, and tomatoes were the base of the salad, and the dressing was probably technically not raw but had Bragg’s, miso, chilli, rice bran oil, sesame oil, and lots of ginger. I think this meal was inspired by a recipe in the recent food issue of VegNews, but don’t quote me on that.
I love noodles!
Well, the time is here. I saw a sign advertising Cheap Bowen Mangos outside a barber shop so I went in and got four littlies for $2. We waited impatiently as they ripened on the benchtop, picking them up daily to sniff them and feel for the tell-tale tenderness.
When they finally ripened, we didn’t bother with recipes, juicers, or any fuss whatsoever—we just cut them open and ate them plain, juice dripping down our hands as we went.
It’s still early in the season, so cheap mangos are few and far between, but expect to see more of them over the next few weeks and months.
The funny thing is – it was only a few weeks ago that we used up the last of the mango in the freezer from last season.
I had a hard time keeping up with everyone’s VeganMoFo posts, but a post I saw doing the rounds was the “in my freezer” post. I like it, so now that I’ve got a bit more free time I thought I would let you peek into my fridge and freezer. 
Andy and I got our fridge from a guy who sells refurbished second-hand appliances, and we haven’t had a problem with it in the nearly three years we’ve had it. The outside is covered in photos, takeaway menus, postcards, a free movie ticket, heaps of magnets, a budget for November and the bit of paper on which Andy asked me to marry him.
Sitting on top we have: our wok; regular soy sauce; dark soy sauce; balsamic vinegar; a roll of paper towels we never use; cooking salt; and our oils—olive, rice bran, homemade chilli, and sesame.
Continuing down from the top, our uppermost freezer shelf houses: 2 tubs of ice cream—one nearly empty chocolate, and one nearly full vanilla chai (post on this coming soon); a bag of tater tots; a Tupperware of roasted pumpkin; reduced to clear noodles; a jar of farmer’s market coriander (a bit of an experiment; it freezes fine, fyi); organic broccoli we bought on special and chopped and froze; chicken-style seitan, cut into meal-sized pieces; a bag of green broadbeans; 2 jars of cooked fava beans (we pressured cook big batches and store the leftovers in jam jars in the freezer); 2 containers of mango-flavoured silken tofu; a package of puff pastry; a jar of cooked chickpeas.
In the bottom shelf of the fridge you can find: Filo dough, chopped spinach, carrots (cut and frozen by Andy); a blue ice block; a jar of coffee; pizza dough; sliced bread; reduced to clear bread rolls; 2 bags of green peas; about 6 blocks of firm tofu; a jar of cooked white beans; a jar of coriander pesto; and more reduced to clear noodles.
In the freezer door we keep: ground LSA mix; ginger; chillis from the garden; yeast; a jar of cat treats; and some gross fish food.
Down in the fridge, the top shelf keeps: soy milk; a brita filter; a bowl of bread waiting to become crumbs (that’s not usually in there); a few jars of jam; a few jars of olives; and a can of redbull I was given on the very first day of my PhD that I have yet to drink. We usually have a litre of soy yogurt in there as well, but on the day of the photo it was out becoming yogurt.
In the middle fridge shelf, which is a bit bare right now, we have: granny smith apples; a jar of dill pickles; apple sauce; nuttelex; and a bag of jelly beans my parents sent last easter.
The bottom shelf of the fridge is where we keep: a bottle of Yellowtail Pinot Grigio; two bottles of homebrew beer; a cucumber; and a rockmelon.
The fridge drawers are also usually more full, but at the end of the week they had: apples; potatoes; oranges; and a wombok.
The fridge door is where we keep lots of condiments to make dinner taste good, like (top to bottom): fresh rosemary; ginger; garlic; limes; lush lotion (Townsville is too hot for handmade cosmetics); Tandoori paste; tamarind puree; pickled ginger; four types of curry paste; probiotic capsules for yogurt-making; the leftovers from a tin of pineapple chunks; plum sauce; minced garlic; chilli capsicum deli spread; sunflower butter; miso; a block of chocolate; a box of nerds my parents sent at christmas; a bottle of white wine for cooking; basil oil; hoisin sauce; and reduced to clear juice.
Phew! Who knew it was possible to squeeze so much stuff into a relatively small space? And this is when it's on the empty side...
These are stuffed mushrooms. The stuffing is made from onions, spinach, and the pulp from (I think) carrot, sweet potato, and zucchini. The picture looked alright on my laptop, but here at uni the screen is different and it seems really dark. Hopefully you all have better monitors than I do!
This was a yummy dinner of baked tofu (marinated in hoisin, plum sauce, and a few other surprises), roasted green beans with kalamata olives, and broccoli-chickpea casserole. The casserole sauce is a simple white sauce--turned purple with the addition of beetroot and carrot pulp (Andy's idea). While I thought this was a very yummy way to use pulp, the colour threw Andy off a bit.
Finally, we have some more stuffed veggies. This time, Hawaiian-stuffed zucchinis. The stuffing is made from pineapple and carrot pulp, flavoured with tamarind paste, chilli oil and a few other things. With the zukes we had roasted radishes and beets, and a yummy salad of baby spinach and marinated portobella mushrooms.
