Philly cheesesteaks March 3, 2009

I need to start by saying that I have absolutely no clue what a Philly cheesesteak is. But when I saw some pictures of veganised versions at the Post Punk Kitchen I knew I needed a version, no matter what it was. I saw this and thought it looked like perfect Friday night junk food and I had to have it.

I did make some changes. I thought that I needed some fake meat in there with the mushrooms for ultimate pleasure so I rustled up a quick batch of Celine’s seitan crumbles (think they must have been a tester recipe but any seitan or sausage crumble would do) and stuck them in with the mushrooms. I used the cheese sauce from Uncheese but another time will use Cozy Inside cheese sauce because I like it better. I also gave it a generous squirt of BBQ sauce, just because I could.

I wouldn’t eat this every day or even every week but it was great Friday night comfort food, that’s for sure.

Cranberries November 22, 2008

I don’t remember eating cranberries before and this week I’ve had them twice! Normally, in this country anyway, cranberries are only ever seen in a jar of sticky sweet sauce which usually goes with turkey. As I haven’t eaten turkey for well over 20 years, I don’t think I’ve had cranberries in that time either. I did have cranberry vodka a few times when i lived in Russia but I don’t suppose that counts.

Both of the ways I ate cranberries this week are test recipes. The first one is cranberry, orange and pecan muffins from Vegan Brunch (formerly called Crack of Noon). These suited me down to the ground as you probably know by now that I don’t care for sweet foods and these are nicely sharp, yet balanced with sugar and orange.

I’ve also been lucky enough to be asked to test for another new cookbook – I don’t think I’m allowed to say who for yet – and I think a lot of my cooking will be tests for that bok in the near future! The first one I chose to test was a cranberry chilli. The picture doesn’t do it justice at all but it was very tasty, nicely sour with a kick of tequila and chilli in it. I served it with Veganomicon cornbread.

Cranberries must surely be healthy; they were certainly tasty in both of these extremely different recipes! Shame we only ever get them here for a few weeks over Christmas!