Sunday 19 August 2012

Vegan snack extravaganza

For once, I'm not starting this blog with an apology.  Yes, it's been a while since I've blogged.  Masterchef is well and truly over, Andy in all his boyish glory is of all things off to open a mexican resturant with his bestie Ben.  All the best to Bendy in their mexican ventures.

As some of my faithful readers who know of me in the 'real world' may have worked out, I've been busy doing other things; being happily swept off my feet and also a bit of being there for my urban family.  See, all good worthy and important stuff.  Nothing to apologise for.

Recently, I've also been spending a lot more time than I'm accustomed to in front of the TV; doing my patriotic duty of cheering on the Aussies to proud maritime glory in the olympics.  Something else I've been doing while watching TV, is a lot of snacking (who said I wasn't a multi-tasker).

Even better, I've been snacking away happily with a friendly bunch of non-vegans as we worked to keep our energy levels up while we cheered the aussies on to olympic awesomeness.  I have been thoroughly spoiled, with massive amounts of care and effort lavished upon me to ensure that there was something available for me to munch on; so I wasn't left out when snacking with the gang in front of the TV.

This experience has made me realise that my blog has a bit of a hole in it.  Just like your "three squares" which can be either vegan or not vegan in equal degrees of deliciousness, vegan snacks are just like any other non-vegan snack.  Vegan snacks can cover the full spectrum of bite-size, crunchy, savoury, sweet, spicy, chewy, hot or cold.  There's a vegan snack for every palate and occasion.

Here's a few vegan versions of classic snacks, there's no real preparation or cooking involved.  I took a trip to my local supermarket and searched the shelves high and low until I found an adequate selection.

You don't get much more classic than the "chip'n'dip" a feature of many classic aussie gatherings since I first remember.  These days the the supermarket is full of great vegan dips.  For those who don't like reading labels, hommous is always a safe bet.  It would take a strange producer indeed to put anything animal related into a tub of hommous.  Also try eggplant dip (baba ganoush) or beetroot dip, almost all of the regularly available ones are vegan.  Also tomato salsa (found in a jar in the chip aisle) is vegan.  Sadly, it's pretty much impossible to get a completely vegan guacamole, they all seem to be 'padded out' with cream cheese.  Making your own is very easy though, you could make a super lazy version by just mashing some avocado with a little lemon or lime juice on top to prevent the fruit from enzymatic browning.

To dip into your awesome dips, there's heaps of stuff.  A surprisingly large selection of chips are vegan, the plain corn-chips, plain, salt and vinegar and some of the BBQ flavours are fine.  Moving beyond chips, there's also heaps of other crunchies, give some seaweed flavoured rice crackers, grissini (bread sticks) ryvetas, water crackers and for a last surprise, BBQ shapes are all vegan.  Also, I'm stating the obvious here but, some vegetable crudites are always popular, try carrot, celery, cucumber and capsicum cut into sticks.  I wanted to check out the savoury shapes to see if they're vegan too, but they were on a really tall shelf and I couldn't reach a packet to check the label.  Readers, let me know if you have better luck than me?

Anti-pasto can either be a vegan disaster zone, with a plates loaded with different smoked meats and sausages, and no vegetables in sight, or it can be vegan snack heaven.  Your supermarket deli has heaps of great vegan stuff to add to an antipasto (antipasti?) plate.  Try stuff like sun-dried tomatoes, olives, marinated capscium, grilled eggplant and artichoke hearts.  For something a bit more substantial, try some dolmades, they are rice and lentils cooked with spices wrapped in a grape vine leaf. 

Traditionally, I would busily load myself up on crackery type snacks so that I'm not starving hungry when the rest of the party-goers start tucking into the inevitible party pies and sausage rolls.  The good news is now that vegans can have heaps of hot snacks without having to scour the freezer looking for a box labelled vegan specifically.  Frustratingly, some companies will make you pay through the nose for those 5 little letters on the front of the box, when an inspection of the ingredient list shows their product is very basic to produce, usually made from lentils and veggies and should be very cheap to produce.  Now that I'm past my rant, here's a vew hot vegan snacks that can be easily thrown into the oven to cook up with no fuss.  Try things like potato wedges, potato gems, hash browns or veggie spring rolls and dim-sims.  There are a few specialised items in the freezer section; a company called "Syndian" will sell you items labelled as vegan and gluten free for a price.

Finally, this blog on snacks would not be complete without a brief chat about sweets.  You can get some lovely vegan sweets at the supermarket.  For those who don't want to read labels and don't want any concern over weather the item is 'fully vegan' or not, there's quite a few things speficially labelled as vegan.  You will find them in the health food aisle, and include rum-balls, white and 'milk' chocolate, chocolate mintons and even a vegan version of tim-tams. 

If you don't want to blow more than five bucks on a single packet of biscuits, there's a few more options available.  Gingernut biscuits and Choc Ripple biscuits are both vegan... yep, totally vegan.  How cool is that.  If you want something that's a bit more of a treat and have time to do it, the Lindt 70% and higher chocolates are vegan; they come in blocks, but if you have time to melt some and dip strawberries in it, you'll have a very pretty mini-dessert.  If you want a cold dessert, you'll find soy ice-creams in the freezer section; and most sorbets are vegan. 

To all those who host vegan house guests, thank you.  I, and every other vegan are incredibly grateful for your understanding and effort in attempting to feed us. 

Until next time, take care and make sure you eat something yummy!

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