Spinach linguini with basil coriander pesto May 17, 2009

I’ve been doing loads of fun cooking recently but almost all of it has been testing – 3 books! More on that to come very soon, but for now here’s the one dish I’ve made for ages that hasn’t been a test for someone. I got in from football last night at about 7:20 and wanted something I could have on the table very quickly. This dish, from Veganomicon, fitted the bill perfectly.

I’d been putting off making this dish because I couldn’t find vegan spinach pasta anywhere. I know I could have done it with plain linguini but I knew that eventually I’d find some spinach pasta somewhere and was happy to wait. I eventually found it in the strangest place – the local chinese supermarket. Even though they’ve got a whole aisle full of noodles I was still quite shocked to see spinach noodles there. it just show that you can find unusual ingredients anywhere if you keep your eyes open!

The pesto was easy and tasty and once you’ve made that the dish couldn’t be simpler – it’s just red onion, garlic and a splash of wine. I threw in some spinach as well as my day so far had been notably lacking in vitamins and heavy on alcohol. My one complaint is the use of tinned artichokes. I generally prefer jarred, but the recipe specifically says not to use them and to use tinned. Maybe not all tinned artichokes are created equal, because mine (Sainsburys) were very metallic and jarred with the lovely silkiness of the rest of the dish. I will certainly make the pesto again, it was a lovely bright green and nice and zingy.

Pancake day! March 3, 2009

Pancakes are another of those food things which separate English and US cooks and eaters. And alongside biscuits, muffins (and probably others I can’t remember), we’re right! Pancakes are thin, usually come with lemon juice and sugar, and are eaten for pudding on Pancake Day, usually accompanied by discussions about how nice they are, and shouldn’t we eat them more often and not wait until next pancake day…!!

I cobbled together our Pancake Day meal with stuff I had in the fridge. I used the crepe recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, as I normally do. It’s a great recipe which usually needs thinning out a touch – could be slightly different flour here. I stuffed them with a mix of spinach and Redwoods feta cheese and baked them, then served them with Veganomicom lemony roasted potatoes and a garlicky yoghurt sauce (finally used up that pot of yoghurt!). And yes, I will be having pancakes again before next pancake day!

Penne vodka February 16, 2009

I’d seen this recipe in Veganomicon and heard great things from people who’d made it at the Post Punk Kitchen but I couldn’t bring myself to get excited about trying it. Pasta, tomatoes, blah. It’s often the only  vegan option on a dull menu so I don’t choose to eat it at home. But when I get in from football last night I wanted something quick and I had all the ingredients including some wilting basil, so I decided to give it a try. I still wasn’t really expecting much but as soon as I started to blend the almonds into the sauce I knew I was wrong.

Years ago, one of our favourite dishes was something that came off the back of a packet of dried habanero chillis. It was tagliatelle in a tomatoey, creamy, spicy sauce and we couldn’t get enough of it. Why oh why did no-one ever tell me that Veganomicon penne vodka tasted just like that dish only better? (I must admit to adding more chilli than the recipe!)

We loved this dish and I can safely say that it really surprised both of us with just how tasty it is. It can be on the table in half an hour, is spicy, rich and delicious. What more can you want?

Chile-cornmeal crusted tofu po boy January 24, 2009

Since I came back from holiday I’ve been cooking old reliable favourites that I’ve mentioned here before, so nothing much new to write about. I was scratching around thinking of what to write about when I remembered that I made this just before I went away.

I don’t know about you but I’ve always got a list of dishes I want to cook. It’s not even a mental list; it’s a list I keep in a notebook where I scribble down recipe tips from the telly or dishes I’ve eaten in restaurants that I want to recreate. Sometimes dishes stay on that list for ages and I’ve got no real reason for not cooking them; I’ve just never got round to it. This dish is one of them. I absolutely knew I’d love it just by reading the ingredients but I’ve no idea why it took me so long to get round to it.

It made a really hearty sandwich which wasn’t so easy to eat without a knife and fork but tasted divine. It was spicy, crispy and the salad was creamy and went perfectly with the tofu. I had some of the milk slurry and the coating left so I threw a few thick slices of portabello mushrooms into it and cooked them too. The mushrooms were soft and juicy and although the coating was the same the texture was totally different to the tofu and was equally delicious – so if you’ve ever passed over this recipe because you don’t like or can’t eat tofu, go back to it and try it with mushrooms – you won’t regret it!

Yuca tortillas December 31, 2008

I have been eying up this recipe in Veganomicon ever since I got it, so I’ve no idea at all what’s stopped me from making it for so long. You might think it was availability of yuca, but I can get it fairly easily fresh and very reliably frozen. I’d never tasted it before so I was a bit unsure what to expect but that doesn’t normally stop me either. I decided to buy my yuca frozen (the bag says tapioca chunks but the man in the shop assured me it’s the same thing; you might see it called cassava too). I expected it to be a bit like sweet potato but it’s not really – it’s starchy but the taste isn’t all that pronounced. I’d say it was more like a starchier version of a normal potato, so if you can’t find yuca I bet normal potato would work too (or someone on the PPK suggested using mashed white beans).

I made 2 of the variations in the book – one was sweetcorn, mushroom and black olive and the other was spinach and coriander. They were both really easy to make and I loved both of them too – I probably marginally preferred the sweetcorn version but it was nice having the mixture. I served it with tropical salsa which is also in the book, and it brought a fresh, zingy taste to the meal.

I loved this meal and will definitely be making it again, both repeating the ones I tried and trying the other variations too. Highly recommended.

What does a vegan eat for Christmas? December 28, 2008

We have our main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve as we like to go out on Christmas Day and eat Indian food. It’s become our tradition – it’s our favourite food and if we can’t eat our favourite food on Christmas Day when can we?

I don’t really care for roast type dinners so Christmas Eve is the only time of year when we have one. We usually have a light starter and this year I picked the Greek style courgette fritters from Veganomicon. I thought they were the highlight of the meal – light, fresh and tasty.

For the main course I decided to make the meatloaf that was featured in the free digital edition of VegNews (it doesn’t link properly but if you google VegNews then go to Subscribe you will find it). It was a very meaty loaf made with rice, lentils, mushrooms and lots of herbs and veg. It’s basted with a smoky tomato sauce which actually I thought was a bit overpowering and next time I’d halve the sauce. Still, it held together well, was easy to slice and tasted fantastic in a sandwich later on! I served it with roast potatoes, leeks, green beans, roast potatoes, stuffing, yorkshire pudding, bread sauce and gravy. My Yorkshire puds were a bit cakey, despite following the exact same recipe which worked perfectly last year. I made the stuffing up as I went along but I used a couple of Realeat veggie sausages with lots of celery, onion, garlic, sage, thyme and breadcrumbs. It was delicious. This is a picture before I attacked it with gravy:

On Christmas Day I made US style biscuits with gravy. I use the VWAV biscuit recipe, and served them with smoked almond gravy which is a really tasty gravy from the new brunch book. I’ve said it before but I really can’t understand why we haven’t embraced biscuits and gravy over here. They’re a wonderful start to the day!

We went to a local South Indian restaurant, Hanging Mangoes, for our main meal. It’s only a small place but it was quite busy with local Indian families spending Christmas there. I’ve only got a decent picture of the masala dosa, but we also ate chilli fried idli, cauliflower 65, dhal, spinach masala, vegetable noodles and coconut rice. Delicious as it always is!

So Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were filled with delicious food and wine with more to come over new year. Yes, we vegans really suffer at Christmas time!

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!

Chickpea cutlets revisited November 9, 2008

I’d made chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon before, and although I enjoyed them I didn’t think they were quite as fantastic as the rest of the vegan world seems sure they are. But I always planned to try them again, so when Friday dawned cold, dark and damp, and my husband declared a longing for mashed potatoes, I decided to go for it.

One of the problems I had last time was that I couldn’t seem to get the cutlets flat but I had no problems with that this time. I think that wheat gluten has a bit of a mind of its own and I’m certainly more used to it now than I was last time, so maybe that was one of the improvements. I also decided to bake 2 and fry 2 so that we could do a direct comparison – the internet world seems to be split down the middle.

I marginally preferred the baked and my husband marginally preferred the fried but both versions were infinitely better than my first attempt and I am beginning now to see what all the fuss is about. They’re such an easy centrepiece to knock up, and from reading various blog posts and forum discussions people are varying the spices, throwing them in sandwiches, serving with salsa, BBQ sauce, and almost anything else you can imagine!

I served them with mashed potatoes, spinach and a slightly tweaked version of the mustard sauce I used from Veganomicon last time. I used less mustard and less wine, and generally messed about with the flavourings until I got a taste I liked, and it was really tasty.

Sometimes I make a recipe and think it is fantastic then am disappointed the second time I make it. Fortunately this time it was the other way round and it just proves that you should never give up on a recipe after just one attempt! And even the photo is better!

Grr… food photos October 7, 2008

I love looking at other people’s food photos but I am the most rubbish person at taking photos in the world. The more I study tutorials and learn about my camera, the worse I get. I have learned recently how to remove red eye, crop pictures etc, but that’s not terribly useful when what you want to do is make a fuzzy, cloudy, steamy picture that looks like sick look like a gourmet offering. Sometimes I point and click and the food looks delicious, sometimes I point and click and it looks woeful.

Tonight I made a new recipe (from Veganomicon) -escarole with white beans and capers. It was a totally delicious meal served with creamy mashed potatoes and I wanted to show it off. It was doubly important since I have never seen escarole here and had lugged one back from France especially to make this recipe! I tried a macro setting (several times), I tried a normal auto shot with the flash off, I found the best light I could (though it is getting dark very early now), I turned the dish round, tried to zoom in, zoomed out, and generally gave it my best shot. But all of the pictures are steamy and fuzzy and look like cat sick. So I’ve got no picture for you. If this wasn’t VeganMoFo I’d probably just ignore it, leave it off the blog and move on. But since this was my plan for todays post as you can see I’m pressing on regardless.

It was such a simple recipe – mashed potatoes couldn’t be easier and are so comforting whatever you serve with them. Then all I did was fry some garlic and chilli flakes in olive oil, add the chopped escarole and wilt then add some white beans and capers. The escarole wilted admirably – still crisp in parts but nice and soggy in others. If I could get escarole here I’d be eating it weekly. Anyone tried it with other types of lettuce?

Samosa baked potatoes with dahl and spicy courgettes September 4, 2008

I had a spell of trying new things last week and this was one of them – again from Veganomicon. The idea is that you stuff a baked potato with all the yummy things you’d normally find in a samosa and don’t mess around with the pastry. It’s a great idea but baked potatoes don’t thrill me much. I don’t like microwaved versions and I don’t like waiting forever for oven cooked ones either. But while my jambalaya was in the oven I decided to throw a few potatoes in at the same time, so that the next day I could just stuff and rebake them. Genius or what?

I had heaps of courgettes to use up so I did some spiced courgettes and dahl to serve with them. I had planned to make Veganamicon quick mango chutney to serve too, but my mango was annoyingly black inside when I cut it open!

Even without it it was a really tasty dish. Handy to assemble the potatoes in advance and then just throw them in the oven to heat through too. One half served with some raita would make a really nice, novel starter too. There’s a similar idea in Yellow Rose Recipes too, so I’ll be throwing potatoes into the oven everytime I’ve got it turned on from now on.