Toasted coconut and mango muffins October 31, 2008

It’s the very last day of VeganMoFo today and it’ll also be my 20th MoFo post. I’ve been out a few times this week and eaten a few old favourites which I’ve already blogged about, so nothing of interest there.

So out of desperation for something to write about – I made muffins! These are tester muffins for Isa’s brunch book and I’d made them before as testers and really liked them. I very rarely bake – it’s too precise for me and goes against my usual “pinch of this, pinch of that” attitude! I also don’t really like sweet food much and I’d always far rather fill up on main courses than eat muffins in between meals. But I’ll get an occasional urge for something nice to eat with a cup of tea and today was that day.

The really nice thing about this recipe is that it uses dried mango so you can have a lovely sunshine muffin flavour even on the last day of October when it’s dark and cold.

I’ve really enjoyed doing MoFo this year but the hardest part about it has been keeping up with all the wonderful posts on all the other blogs out there. There are so many creative, intelligent vegan bloggers out there and my google reader has been bulging at the seams with brilliant ideas, gorgeous photographs and delicious looking recipes. So even though I’ll be back to my usual rate of blogging from now, I’ll be busy catching up with all the great recipes I’ve missed!!

VeganMoFo: Lentil daal burger October 27, 2008

This is another test recipe for Joni’s burger book. I haven’t blogged about all of them but I reckon this is my 30th test burger! Burgers are usually Friday night favourite but we had a shuffle around this week and had the burgers on Sunday. I always have an urge to serve burgers on a bun but it’s not always necessary, and some burgers, like these, would go very well with something like rice or vegetables instead.

I made a very simple spinach and potato dish to go with them which was just onions, mustard seeds, cumin, chilli flakes, boiled potato, spinach and lemon juice all cooked together.

These made a lovely meal and the good thing about most of the burgers is that they freeze very well. I have quite a few assorted burgers in my freezer and now have 4 lentil daal burgers to join them!

VeganMoFo: My freezer October 26, 2008

Tami from the great blog Vegan Appetite tagged me to reveal the contents of my freezer. This is the first time I’ve ever been tagged so I’m very excited but also very scared!

I’ve got quite a big upright freezer which lives in my garage, with no windows, so the pictures are pretty woeful. It also ices up ridiculously quickly so I didn’t want to pull the drawers out and mess about with the photos for too long, so you probably won’t be able to make out much from the pictures. I have 6 drawers, so starting from the bottom:

Peas, sweetcorn, broad beans, edamame, hash browns and Swedish Glace ice-cream

Gluten from the chinese supermarket (not tried it yet), various ready made things for emergency meals – falafels, sausages, beef roast, tofu, veggie mince

Loads of fried tofu from the chinese supermarket, chinese dumplings, bacon, and a few non vegan things that my husband keeps – mostly quorn and Linda McCartney things.

This is the mystery and most interesting drawer! It’s all sorts of leftovers that I throw in to the freezer to use later. Lots of different cooked beans and lentils, dashi stock, broth from making seitan (I’m sure one day I’ll find a use for that!), mushroom stock, loads of breadcrumbs from whizzed up stale bread and toast crumbs, leftover test burgers for quick lunches, pasta dough, home made ravioli and pierogi, chilli, snobby Joanna mix (my combination of VCON lentil and green pepper base but YRR sauce), ethiopian lentils……

Lemongrass, lime leaves, curry leaves, ginger, chapatis, parathas, puri, puff pastry, filo pastry, shortcrust pastry, samosa pastry, spring roll wrappers, wonton skins, gyoza skins

Bread, pitta bread, rolls, muffins (the real type – English!), corn and flour tortillas

So there you go – it’s extremely full but there is a sort of method to it.

I’ve lost track of who has been tagged and who hasn’t – everyone I was thinking of tagging seems to have done it already so if you haven’t done it yet then please do!

VeganMoFo: VegNews macaroni cheese October 26, 2008

Macaroni cheese is just about the ultimate comfort food. It’s also my non-vegan husband’s absolute favourite meal, so it’s quite important to me to find a vegan version that he’ll happily eat. Since becoming vegan I’ve tried several different versions. I’ve always enjoyed them for themselves but I don’t think they can be compared to the dairy equivalent. I’m always up for trying a new version and I’d had my eye on this from VegNews for quite some time. It seemed like the perfect meal for a cold, wet Autumn evening when the clocks go back..

I was really intrigued by the method of making the sauce, especially the inclusion of the carrot. But I suspected from the ingredient list that it wouldn’t have quite enough zing so I made a few changes. I halved the salt but added a few tbsps of nutritional yeast, and a couple of teaspoons each of white miso and tahini. I also stirred some cooked spinach through the pasta before I baked it because that’s what I’ve always done – vegan or not.

The result was spectacular. The sauce was really thick, rich and creamy and an excellent colour from the carrot. My additions did give it a cheesy zing and I will 100% definitely be making this again. The only thing I’ll do differently is make more! Maybe we’re especially greedy but it was supposed to serve 6. In our house it served 3.

VeganMoFo: Paella October 25, 2008

I’ve never eaten the sort of paella which contains shellfish and sausage, but I’ve eaten a fair few vegetarian versions and this one is my favourite. It comes from “Jump Up and Kiss Me” which is a vegetarian cookbook containing lots of recipes based around chilli.

This paella succeeds because it takes fennel seeds, artichokes and chestnuts to replace the taste and texture of the sausage and fish. I really like chestnuts and apparently they’re the only nut to contain vitamin C, so I’m always glad to find recipes that use them. This paella also has a medley of peppers, peas and olives, and an underlying taste of chilli, basil, oregano and saffron.

It’s packed full of flavour and so not for the faint hearted, but I thoroughly enjoy it with a glass of rioja!

VeganMoFo: Smokin’!! October 23, 2008

Nothing new cooking here but I’m running out of October and I want to make sure I get my 20 VeganMoFo posts done, so I thought I’d mention my love of smoked food. I bought a stovetop smoker a few years ago and I use it most frequently to smoke tofu, mushrooms and aubergine, but I have also smoked chillis and potatoes with success. I still aim to try garlic, tomatoes and rice too. I mostly use oak or hickory chips to smoke. I have mesquite but find it can make food very bitter so use it rarely.

There are various other smoky things around my kitchen too. I brought 3 bottles of liquid smoke back from America last time I was there. It’s great thrown into sauces, greens, and especially tempeh bacon. Wheaty smoked seitan steaks live in my fridge, defying their sell by dates, and taste great ground in chillis or chopped up in stews and jambalaya.

Chipotle chillis (smoked jalapenos) appear a lot, either in their dried form or tinned in adobo. They give a great spicy smoky boost to chillis, burritos or beans.

Smoked salt is quite a new addition but I love it sprinkled over mushrooms or pasta dishes. I’ve also got a stash of smoked almonds in the cupboard. Sainsbury’s doesn’t get them in very often and they’re often reduced to clear so I buy them 4 or 5 bags at a time. Compulsive snacking but wonderful in Isa’s Smoked Almond Gravy (coming in the new brunch book and perfect with biscuits and greens).

Finally smoked paprika is indispensable in my kitchen and goes in a whole host of dishes here. I adore its smoky, earthy taste and it does wonderful things to tofu scramble. I probably overuse it and need to make better use of my hungarian paprika too.

Are there any smoked goodies that I’ve missed out on? I need to know about them! And I’m really interested in any of you home smokers and what else you throw in your smoker…

VeganMoFo: Mom’s breakfast casserole October 22, 2008

This was a tester from Isa’s brunch book quite a while ago, and we really loved it.

Tonight we had a friend visiting and I was wondering what to cook. She’s actually a perfect food friend. She loves good food and she’s not vegan nor even vegetarian. But she’s got an open mind and is happy to try most things, so she’ll say if she doesn’t like it but it’s good news if she does, because she’ll eat vegan food with just the same open mind as if she’s eating a new type of fish.

Anyway, when I was scouring the fridge and the cupboards I came up with 2 meals – VCON chickpeas romesco with saffron rice and greens, or the brunch book casserole with smoky greens. I love both meals but obviously most of the time if the person you’re cooking isn’t vegan you’re not sure about offering them tofu, tempeh and cheeze sauce in one meal. But my husband insisted that she’d like to try the other dish so I went for it.

Anyway, we all enjoyed it, and afterwards I asked my friend what she thought. She really wasn’t sure – she knew she enjoyed it but wasn’t sure what some of the tastes were. I tried to pin her down and eventually I managed to get her to say that she had no idea tofu could taste like that – it wasn’t like wagamama tofu at all. By the way I poured VCON cheeze sauce over the top, but the book also recommends some vegan cheeses you can use.

I suppose I have 2 points here. The first one is that Isa’s brunch book is brilliant so buy it. The second is never underestimate your friends, and don’t think that they might not like certain foods just because they’re vegan. You end stereotyping people’s tastes just as much as we normally hate them doing about us if you do.

VeganMoFo: Gnocchi with broccoli pesto October 21, 2008

There have been a lot of VeganMoFo posts about quick dinners. Tonight was one such in this house. I’d been at work all day and had to go straight to a governors meeting which lasted a few hours. Normally on governor nights my husband cooks something (under orders from me), but today he was in London so I couldn’t rely on that.

I’d bought a bag of ready made gnocchi from the fridge when I was in France a few weeks. They were just about to come to their sell by date so rather than bung them in the freezer I decided to use them. I have made my own gnocchi, and I can buy vegan versions here but not regularly – they often have egg in them.

Anyway, they cook really quickly so I did a very quick pesto to go with them. I LOVE the pesto from Vegan With a Vengeance – I honestly swear I prefer it to non vegan versions. I often have it with gnocchi as it’s nice and light and gnocchi can get a bit claggy if it’s overwhelmed. But today I felt as if I needed some extra greens so I made the pesto as usual but threw in some steamed broccoli and also a small spoonful of Toffuti cream cheese. It made for a delicious sauce but would certainly have been better with dried pasta as the gnocchi really needed something less chunky. Still, It took hardly any longer to make than it does to boil water so I’m really pleased with it for an emergency meal.

VeganMoFo – Sausage and mustard bean bake October 20, 2008

I don’t know how on earth it happened, but without ever intending to buy a single tin of kidney beans in chilli sauce I seemed to have 2 in my cupboard. I think both times I picked them up in a rush thinking they were plain kidney beans. They’d both been sat there for ages annoying me pretending to be plain kidney beans when I needed them.

So I was delighted when flicking through an old vegetarian magazine to find this recipe which needed 2 tins of kidney beans in chilli sauce. It was extremely simple but took ages because it needed an hour in the oven after assembly. Sometimes it’s quicker to make something fancy on the stove than bung something in the oven..

Anyway, this was basically some fried onions and chopped vegan sausages (Taifun are my favourite). Then you add the 2 tins of beans, some wholegrain mustard and stock, and top with sliced potatoes dotted with vegan margarine. Cover with tin foil and bake in the oven for an hour. Then remove the foil, dot with a touch more marg and some mustard and grill for 5 minutes.

This was a tasty dish and I’d definitely do another variation on it. I especially liked the mustard potatoes on the top but I’d make my own sauce for the beans another time. I served it with some simple steamed greens. It was a nice autumnal dish and I’m so glad to get those 2 annoying tins out of my cupboard!!

VeganMoFo: Crumpets with marmite October 17, 2008

Bazu’s recent post about crumpets got me thinking. I used to love crumpets and didn’t think I’d ever enjoy them again without a pool of butter, but tastes change and I do sometimes buy and eat them with Pure spread and marmite. They’re cheap and readily available – though do check because they sometimes have butter in them. Usually not though so they’re a quick and easy breakfast of afternoon tea snack.

This morning I decided to have a crack at making my own. I’d had a recipe hanging around for ages and I’m not even sure where I got it from, but I know I printed it from the internet. I made the batter and let it sit around for an hour until it was nice and bubbly. My first efforts at cooking them weren’t so good because I wasn’t really sure how much batter to put into the rings and I let the bottoms overcook a bit. But once I got the hang of it it became easier and the last few worked perfectly.

Crumpets are so easily available that I don’t think this is something I’ll be doing everyday, but they were really fresh and tasty and a whole new level from shop bought. It would actually be easier to put them into the pan free form and make a version of pikelets, but there’s something very satisfying about pulling the ring off and finding a nice crumpet lurking underneath!

Crumpets (makes about 12; I made half)

1lb plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp fast action dried yeast
400ml warm milk (I used rice milk)
200ml warm water
Vegetable oil
4 greased crumpet rings

Put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Pour in the warm milk and water and mix well to get a thick batter. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for about an hour until it is a light spongy texture. Stir well to knock out any air.

Heat a nonstick frying pan over a low heat with a drop of oil. Sit the greased rings in the pan. Pour in enough mixture to fill the rings to about halfway. Leave to cook until small holes appear on the surface and the batter has dried out a bit.

Remove the rings and turn over the crumpets to cook for another minute. Sit on a wire rack while cooking the rest of the mixture.