Meateaters cook vegan November 16, 2009

Thanks to Facebook I recently met up again with two friends from University who I hadn’t seen for years. Rachel and I shared a house and a filthy kitchen. Even back then we were both interested in food and cooking though we tended to skimp on ingredients and save our student grants for bottles of gin. We’d cook huge pans of pasta with a few olives, tonnes of garlic and a bit of courgette. Times have changed but we both still love cooking even though we spend more money and take a bit more care about it now. We’ve both got shelves full of cookbooks and cupboards full of weird ingredients. The only difference is that Rachel is a confirmed meat and fish eater who has never even thought about what vegans eat let alone cooked a vegan meal!

So when Graham (the other friend, and a vegetarian) arrived at her house for a short trip and a brillian reminisce, I was intrigued to see what she’d cook. I needn’t have worried. Not only was there soya milk and vegan marge in the fridge, but she’d cooked a great meal that the most experiened vegan would be proud of. We had carrot and coconut dhal, aubergine curry with tomatoes, ginger and fennel seeds, spicy potatoes, rice and chapatis. And all of it tasted wonderful. The carrots had been roasted so they provided a lovely sweet undertone to the dhal and a nice contrast to the gingery aubergine. There was even vegan chocolate ice-cream for dessert! Thanks Rachel, for making an effort, moving out of your comfort zone and giving us a great meal. I’m already nervous about the return trip!

I managed to get two of the recipes out of her, too!

Carrot and coconut dahl

350g yellow split peas – the recipe said to soak overnight but I didnt read it until the day I made it so I just followed the packet instructions which was to boil for 45 mins and it was fine..
10 carrots peeled and halved lengthways (I chopped them finer as I had BIG carrots)
2tbsp sunflower oil
1tbsp cumin seeds
2tsp coriander seeds
1tsp turmeric
1 crushed garlic clove
2.5cm piece root ginger peeled and grated
400ml can coconut milk
25g coriander chopped.

Boil peas as per instructions. Roast carrots with 1tbsp oil in oven at 190degs c. Dry fry seeds for 2 mins then crush. Heat rest of oil, add spices, ginger, garlic, cook for 2 mins. Add all but about 2tbsp the coconut milk and 150ml water. Bring to a simmer, add peas and simmer for 10 mins. Top with carrots, rest of milk and coriander.

Aubergine curry with tomatoes, ginger and fennel seeds

600g aubergines
150ml veg oil
40g ginger chopped
40g garlic chopped
2 green chillies finely chopped
2tsp fennel seeds
1tsp cumin seeds
1tbsp ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
400g can chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp black pepper
1tbsp each fresh coriander and mint

Slice aubergines lengthways, salt and leave for 10 mins. Brush with oil and fry for 3 to 4 mins each side until nice and golden. Use a food processor to whizz up the garlic, ginger and chilli with a couple of tbsp water to make a paste. Put 2tbsp oil in the pan and add seeds, then the paste and fry for 2-3 mins. Add the turmeric, fry for 1 min then add toms, black pepper, 3tbsp water and half a tsp salt. Cover and simmer for 10 mins then add the aubergines and simmer for 5 more mins. Add the fresh herbs at the end.

 

Saltimbocca November 14, 2009

I’d been eying up the Saltimbocca from Urban Vegan since I got the book. I’m not in any way snobbish about simple meals or using products like Redwood’s ham, but I was curious about how good this really simple looking dish could be. It’s pretty much only seitan, bought ham and bought cheese with a bit of garlic and herbs. Aha – sometimes the simple things can be the best. This dish was excellent and tasted like it had taken far longer than it did – so it was a perfect Friday evening meal. The saltiness of the ham and the sage work together beautifully. I served it with some rosemary roasted potatoes and brocolli with chilli flakes and a few capers. A very easy but gourmet tasting meal which I’ll certainly be having again!

(That glorious melty cheese you see there is Redwood’s Melty Mozzarella, in case you’re wondering.)

Veganmofo 2009 – Vegan Brunch October 31, 2009

This is probably the book I own that I’ve cooked the most from. That’s because I was really lucky to test for it, and I’ve made some of the recipes time and time again.

It’s a wonderful book – loads of pictures (I think that’s the first book I’ve been able to say that about this month!). It’s written in Isa’s usual quirky style which lets you get an idea of the her personality – I really like that about cookbooks.
We only make a real effort for brunch at weekends so we ate most of the recipes for dinner. Even if you’re not a morning person there’s lots to make in this book, so don’t let it put you off getting it. There’s a really good balance between savoury and sweet, which suits me perfectly as its only once in a blue moon I’ll fancy something sweet at any time of the day, especially breakfast.

It would be pointless listing all the things I’ve made from this book as I’ve made almost everything in it. It would almost be equally pointless to list the things I loved, as I loved almost everything (the one thing I didn’t like was the sour cream but that was just a personal thing). I did make things I never thought I’d make at home, such as bagels, English muffins, pierogies and dosas. And they worked!

So I think the best thing I can do is to tell you the things I’ve made repeatedly, because given how often I cook new things, that must tell you a lot about how good they are.

Ethiopian crepes with potato salad coleslaw
Cornbread waffles with pantry mole rojo and seitan
Mom’s breakfast casserole
Courico casserole with grilled pineapple salsa (I always use soaked TVP chunks now for the soy curls)
Beer battered tofu
Smoked almond gravy
Pierogi
Mushroom, leek and white bean pie
Tempeh sausage pastry puffs
Sausages

Well, that’s the end of VeganMofo for this year. I managed 30 posts, which is amazing, especially since I was away from home for a week this month. I think I only did 20 last year. It made it much easier having a theme. I picked the cookbook reviews because I’ve got so many so I knew it would be easy. I just picked them totally at random. It was great fun and although I only did it because I thought it would be an easy theme, I really enjoyed it and it reminded me of many dishes I intend to now go ahead and cook. It’s amazing how tastebuds can change, or ingredients become more available, or cooking skills improve, so that dishes that seemed unattractive one year can look gorgeous the next. And of course, I have lots of your rcommendations from all of the books that I absolutely promise to try.

I’ve still got lots of other vegan cookbooks not to mention all my many vegetarian books. I can’t help being a cookbook whore! (Even since Mofo started I have either received or ordered another 5). People (apart from one person, the only downside of this Mofo for me) seem generally to have enjoyed the reviews, so I think I might make it a monthly feature – please let me know if you’d like it.

And now I’m off to spend a few months catching up on everyone else’s brilliant Mofo efforts. Hope you all enjoyed it, and back to normal from now on!

Veganmofo 2009 – Ani’s raw food kitchen October 30, 2009

I bought this book full of good intentions – I’d start a wonderful raw food Wednesday, and I’d be glowing with good health, trim and toned and look about 10 years younger. Then I thought about it properly and realised it meant eating uncooked, cold food and went off the idea a bit!

It’s a lovely book and if any book was going to persuade me to start eating lots of cold uncooked stuff this would probably be the one to do it, but it hasn’t worked yet. It doesn’t rely too heavily on expensive gadgets like dehydrators or spiralisers, which is good news for beginners. There are certainly lots of pictures but most of them are of the author looking pensive or rollerblading or of flowers and fruit, rather than of the finished dish. The pictures that are of the dishes do look great and the stuff I’ve seen on blogs gets good reviews. I suppose I just need to take the plunge into some easy raw things to get me started. Any ideas?

Veganmofo 2009 – The (UK) Vegan 100 October 29, 2009

Most of you will have seen the various versions of the Vegan 100 floating around the blogosphere. I was frustrated by seeing all those great vegan wares in the Portland one, and so I decided to do my own UK based version! I shamelessly stole from various blogs and websites, and asked many of you for help. Thanks to all who contributed and apologies to those  who had great ideas which I ignored! Some of it is fairly specific. I kept it that way deliberatley, so shoot me!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.
5) Pass it on!

If you don’t have a blog, just let me know your total in the comments. I’m going to post it first in its naked glory so you can copy and paste it without reformatting and messing about, then next week I’ll add my own crossings out and bolds, so you can see my total!

All items on the list refer to the vegan version. Please don’t contact me to tell me that butter isn’t vegan, for example. I mean a vegan version of it!

Hampshire watercress

Haggis

Montezumas chocolate

Melting mozarella Cheezly

Tartex

Granose Mock Duck

Sosmix

Churros at Terre a Terre

Yorkshire pudding

Beans on toast

Crumpets

Mushy peas

Aldi croissants

Bourbon biscuits

Holland and Barrett fruit flapjacks

Linda McCartney sausages and chips

Marmite on toast

Kent black cherries

Marmite breadsticks

Beanfeast

Sunday roast at The George

Anything at Birmingham’s curry mile

Rhubarb crumble with Swedish Glace

Paskin’s full breakfast

Jersey Royal potatoes swimming in butter

Evesham asparagus

Potato farls

Bubble and Squeak

Sticky toffee pudding

Irn Bru

Bacon buttie with tomato sauce

Marigold bouillon powder

Booja Booja truffles

Scones and jam

Bird’s custard

Anything at Dandelion and Burdock

White chocolate

A bought pizza with cheese in the UK

Hot cross buns

Staffordshire oatcakes

Bread and butter pudding

Summer pudding

Pickled onions

Potato from the Baked Potato Shop in Edinburgh

Wetherspoons curry

Irish stew with dumplings

Mashed carrot and swede

Pease pudding

Christmas pudding

Cranachan

Blue Sheese

Faggots

English muffins

Pringles

Scotch broth

Walker’s prawn cocktail crisps

Mildred’s mushroom and ale pie

Masala dosa

Realeat fishcakes

Worcestershire sauce

Mushroom ketchup

Pickled walnuts

Ribena

Anything at Vbites

Co-op donuts

Picalilli

Ryvita

Anything at Saf

Chip shop curry sauce and chips

Parmezano

Warehouse Café bangers and mash

Innocent Smoothie

Vimto

Eccles cake

Semolina pudding with jam

Linda McCartney country pie

Scallop (potato fritter)

Elderflower cordial

Spotted dick

Victoria plum

Marigold braised tofu

Clive’s pie

Wagamama Yasai Chilli Men

Sarsaparilla

Spring cabbage

Holland and Barrett Porkless Pie

Henderson’s relish

Scottish raspberries

Scouse

Colcannon

Fry’s Peppermint Cream

Hobnobs

Roast parsnips

Booja Booja ice cream

Champ

Pimms

Rice pudding

Nuttolene

Beef and Tomato Pot Noodle

Sesame Snaps

Veganmofo 2009 – Alternative Vegan October 29, 2009

I’m really baffled by this book. I don’t know what to make of it at all. It’s just really weird. The premise seems to be that vegans all live off seitan, tofu and tempeh and need lots of recipes full of other ingredients. Well, I don’t, but obviously I don’t mind the idea. There’s certainly nothing alternative about it though! And there just doesn’t seem to be all that much to eat in the book. Well its got lots of recipes in, but few of them seem to be for meals. It’s also a very odd mixture of Indian food scattered with other foods, and some are really easy pasta dishes next to dishes with loads of ingredients. Some of the recipes have a very short introduction and instructions, whereas others ramble on for pages. It’s almost like its a collection of recipes written by about five different people! I’m not saying that there aren’t decent looking recipes in it, because there are, especially the Indian ones, but it’s quite hard to get into and crack on with. It looks like it’s currently being republished, so I don’t know if anything will change in the new version.

Any recommendations people?

Veganmofo 2009 – The Vegan Gourmet October 29, 2009

When I was in Denver, Colorado a few years ago, my brother in law had bought me a copy of Candle Cafe. As I already had it he took me to the bookshop to exchange it. I’d never seen so many vegan cookbooks in one shop before but since my suitcase was already full of dried chillies and liquid smoke, I needed to pick a small one! I’d never heard of or seen anything about this book before, and didn’t have too much time, but a quick flick made me think it looked quite interesting.

Here I sit, 2 years later, flicking through it, thinking that some of the dishes look interesting, yet only having made one thing from it!! The dish I made was alright, but coming back to the recipe later it had absolutely no salt in it at all and was just a bit odd. I think that put me off a bit.

There aren’t any pictures, and the chapters are quite straightforward – appetizers, salads, soups and stews, side dish vegetables, pasta dishes, grain dishes, sautes and stir fries, entrees from the oven, morning meals and sandwiches and wraps. There aren’t many strange ingredients, and the recipes look interesting yet not too difficult.

Some things I’ve ticked to try in future are:

Spicy chilli beans with tempeh and dried peaches
Curried spinach with tomatoes and pureed chickpeas
Potato, courgette and olive stew with garlic, jalapenos and tomatoes
Fettucine with courgettes, roasted peppers, almonds and mint
Lasagnette with spicy greens, aduki beans and shiitake mushrooms
Corn and potato cakes with Southwest seasonings
Oven braised tempeh and new potatoes with mustard and sauerkraut

Any recommendations?

Veganmofo 2009 – Vietnamese Fusion/Buddha’s Table October 27, 2009

These 2 little books are by the same author and published by cool company Book Publishing Co. They all have this excellent layflat binding which make them very easy to use and work with. There’s a couple of pictures lurking in the middle but not enough to be of much help or inspiration.

They’re both good books though with lots of authentic sounding recipes and ideas. Some of the ingredients might prove difficult to find if you’ve not got good access to Asian shops but there’s still recipes you could try without them.

Once again, I’ve been inspired to make more from these books just by looking through them in order to review them. There’s load of attractive looking rice, noodle and vegetable dishes and I’m staggered that I haven’t used them both more. I suppose I just normally turn to Asian Vegan Kitchen or Real Vegetarian Thai when I’m looking for those sort of flavours, but in future I’ll be grabbing these two and trying some dishes.

Things I’ve got my eye on:
Grilled aubergine and mushrooms with lime sauce
Grilled 5 spice portabello mushrooms
Clay pot glass noodles
Bamboo shoot dumplings
Curried coconut noodles
Red curry fried rice cakes
Fried tofu with sweet and sour chillies

Veganmofo 2009 – Urban Vegan October 26, 2009

This is a very new book – in fact I think it arrived on the first day of Mofo so I’ve only had it a couple of weeks. I’ve been excited about it for ages though as I do enjoy the Urban Vegan blog and have seen some tester photos on Flickr which looked really tasty. So even though I’ve not had it long I rushed to make some things out of it so I could review it here before the end of Mofo (I do suffer for the cause).

It’s a nicely published and presented book, even though there aren’t any photos. It took me a while to get used the chapter headings and where things are, but although I prefer a more straightforward order, this one works well. The chapters are Cafe Culture, Breakfast, Lunches, Soups, Melting Pot (pastas, tagines, curries etc), House Party, Urban Garden, Haute Cuisine, Just Desserts and Happy Hour. It is a bit confusing but it’s still easy to work around. There are symbols for low fat, fast, omnivore friendly, frugal and kid friendly.

The author’s personality comes strongly through the recipe introductions. It could come across as a bit smug, but then I guess she’s got quite a lot to be smug about so I don’t begrudge her it at all! Her city life is certainly different to mine though. I mean, I live in a city, but it’s one without all the diners, cafes, vegan friendly restaurants, ethnic markets and cocktail bars that Philadelphia clearly has!

There’s still plenty I want to try, which is a good sign. Because I only got this book after MoFo started, I haven’t blogged about any of the dishes yet, but will do soon. Here’s what we’ve tried and what we thought:

Chickpea paprikash served with red cabbage with caraway seeds – really nice, quick and easy, good for midweek
Millet crusted mushroom leek pie – very easy to make but found both the filling and crust a bit bland
Chocolate chipotle chilli – A bit sweet on day one but really tasty on day 2
Spaghetti carbonara – loved the taste and texture but too much pasta for sauce, would use less pasta next time (and the instructions don’t tell you when to add the cornflour/soya milk mix)
Curry cashew casserole – very quick and easy, great texture but will use more curry paste next time

Things I’m really keen to try:
Saltimbocca
Sweet potato gnocchi with basil cream sauce
Portabello burrito
Bean and bulgur tacos
Bagna cauda (especially this!)

Veganmofo – The New Vegan Cookbook October 25, 2009

When I look through all these books I’m beginning to wonder what I ever eat! This is yet another book where I look through and there’s lots of nice stuff but I’ve only made a few dishes from it. There’s loads of good quality photos and it’s very nicely laid out. There’s one glaring error in it though, which I just can’t seem to get past. The author talks several times about Brewer’s Yeast where she clearly means Nutritional Yeast. I feel enormous pity for any real new vegan who buys Brewer’s Yeast based on this book; they’d have a very nasty surprise in store, and would probably never attempt to cook vegan food again!

The dish I’ve made was the Thai inspired broccoli in coconut coriander sauce, which was OK the first day but was really good the second day. I want to try the slow baked cannellini with olives, escarole and gremolata, if I ever see escarole. The Provencal green lentils with artichokes, mushrooms and parsley aoli is definitely next on my list.

Has anyone else got this book and is there anything else I should try?