Pasta is awesome right? - it comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, assortments, you can get ravioli filled with yummy vegetables, you can have it in a light salad, with a rich and hearty sauce, as a side to mop up the joooo from a yummy stew.... I've even seen chocolate flavoured pasta in speciality shops so you don't have to miss out on the yummy pasta goodness for dessert.
How could such an innocent product be bad? Of course this is a rhetorical question - I'm going to tell you exactly how it can be bad (and not in a food poisoning kind of way though that would be bad too)
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/living-in-the-pasta-barilla-suggests-gays-can-eat-another-pasta-20130927-2ui9z.html
I'm sure you've all been aware of the Barilla controversy. Let me sum it up for you if you don't like clicking on the link.
Barilla CEO made a public statement that he would never depict a gay couple in his pasta adds, and that gays could simply choose to eat another pasta if they wished.
After much controversy - and the good folk in Barilla's PR department (poor buggers) gave their CEO a bit of a talking to; the CEO apologised for his statement, going on to say that he identified his pasta brand with a strong family image, and didn't want to use gays in his add as he felt that "women were the heart of the family."
Ahhh - a solution exists. Here's a family with women at the heart. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/sport/basketball/carrie-graf-opens-up-on-her-sexuality-and-being-a-new-mother-to-twins-20131004-2uyo7.html
Firstly - Congratulations to Carrie and Camille on the very healthy and happy looking additions to their family. Also, Carrie, thank you for being a strong, proud and visible member of Canberra's community. Finally, Go Caps!.
The upshot of the whole Barilla "gays can go and have another pasta" issue is this... yep, we can take our pink dollar to another pasta manufacturer or we can make our own fresh pasta at home. Scroll down through my blog and you'll find a lovely fresh pasta recipe.
I'm going to share below my "bolognaise" recipe. It's easy to make, basically it's just like a traditional bolognaise, but with red lentils instead of minced meat.
For those of the vegan persuasion, check out the dried pastas on the shelf at the shops rather than the fresh ones which can be made with eggs. There are heaps of brands and varieties. For those who are gluten-free, there's plenty of options at the regular supermarket, usually in the "allergy" section. Or you could just have the bolognaise sauce with some rice - it will still taste really good.
Here's the recipe.
Bolognaise sauce - makes enough for you and your visitors.
Start with:
a splash of olive oil
1 heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic (from a jar is totally fine)
Put a big heavy-based pan on a medium heat, with the oil and garlic.
While the pan is heating up...
Dice one onion
2-3 sticks of celery
and a carrot (or if you have a food processor you can chop them using that)
and grab yourself a bay leaf or two.
Once the garlic is sizzling quietly, add the vegetables and bay leaf to the pan and give it a good stir.
While that's going on, get yourself the following items.
1 cup of red lentils (dried ones)
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 jar of commercial tomato based pasta sauce (most of these are vegan - watch out for the sneaky "tomato and bacon" flavour ones if you're keeping it fully vegan)
A splash of white wine (leave the splash in the bottle for now - but just have it on hand for when we need it.)
Once the onion is transparent, there's likely to be a few bits of garlic and other detritus slightly sticking to the bottom of the pan. That's okay - in fact that's good. Even if you've gotten it all a bit more stuck than you wanted, that's all good too. Get your splash of white wine and splash it into the pan. Stir the vegetables around with a wooden spoon the wine will boil rapidly and help pick up all those bits from the bottom of the pan.
Once most of the wine has evaporated (the alcohol content will cook off as well) drop the bay leaves (or just one) into the pan.
Follow it with the can of crushed tomatoes, and the jar of pasta sauce. Rinse the can out with half a can of water, and do the same with the jar - putting the lid back on and giving it a good shake, pouring the rinse into the pasta sauce.
Once the sauce has come to a simmer, add the red lentils, giving it a good stir.
Keep it at a simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After 15 minutes get yourself the following items
A spoon to taste
salt and pepper
Taste the sauce - making sure you pick up a lentil or two in the taste test. Ask yourself the following.
Are the lentils cooked yet? - they should be soft, not at all crunchy or hard.
Does it taste like what I want?
If yes - fantastic, you're done!
If not evaluate as follows.
-Too sweet?
Add a bit of salt and pepper to taste, stir and test again.
-Not herby enough?
Consider adding some dried herbs like basil or oregano. Start with 1/2 a teaspoon of each dried, then step it up to meet your needs.
-Too acidic?
Sometimes this happens with canned tomatoes. Add a teaspoon of nuttelex, stir through well. That will take the edge off any excess acidity from the tomatoes.
-Want it to have some kick?
-Add a little bit of chilli.
And there you have it - Pasta sauce for the people. Just cook your preferred pasta size, shape, colour, type, or even some rice, polenta, gnocchi.... or whatever you'd like with it, and enjoy!
If you'd like to stick on a vegan pasta garnish in the absence of parmesan cheese, you could give the following a go to 'tart up' the final product.
-Garnish with a sprig of parsley or some fresh basil leaves
-Roast a cherry truss tomato in the oven (with olive oil at about 180 for about 15 mins) - leave the green stalk on, and plonk on top of your pasta dish at the end of cooking.
Megan Makes it Vegan
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Megan empowers you to make vegan chocolate avocado cup cakes
Some of you have dreamed of this day. Waited eagerly. Maybe even salivated a little.
I am sharing my recipe for vegan chocolate avocado muffins. The idea of chocolate and avocado as a food combination is not a new one. A lot of chinese resturants/cafe's will offer a chocolate avocado smoothie on their drinks menu. To be honest, I've always been a bit skeptical. I've always thought that avocado is for guacamole and guacamole alone. I've had a Steven Covey-esque paradigm shift on this one. Avocado is not just for guacamole, it's for cup cakes too!
Some time ago, a friend with a high-pitched voice and appropriately asymmetrical hair gave me a vegan food challenge - to make something delicious that combined chocolate and avocado. I debated a few ideas in my mind before finally setlling on making these cup cakes with chocolate fudgy icing. I gave them to the friend with the high pitched voice and appropriately asymmetrical hair as a thank you gift for feeding my cats while I was away from home over a weekend.
The positive feedback on rich, indulgent and delicious flavour of these cup cakes was so good that I've made them several times since. I think part of the reason they work so well as a vegan indulgence is that quite often vegan cakes use tofu to replace the dairy component. Usually, this works just fine; but for some flavours the nutty/soy-ish flavour of the tofu can permeate through.
The avocado has a much milder flavour, but it's texture is a great analogue for butter in this recipe. It gives you the best of both worlds, by helping the chocolate cake to be rich and moist, without lending that background of soy flavour. It's perfect for vegan cakes, and would be also great for anyone who needs to avoid dairy food, or reduce saturated fat intake. The omega 3 fatty acids in avocado are good for you.
The avocado also takes the place of butter in a rich fudgy icing, alowing the chocolate flavour to play the lead role in this treat.
Here's the recipes, it makes a lot of cup cakes but trust me, you'll need them.
You will need:
Dry ingredients
3 cups self raising flour
1/2 a cup cocoa powder
1/2 a teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
'wet' incredients
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 ripe avocado
2 cups water
2tsp vanilla essence
2tbs white vinegar
You will have to:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C, lightly grease (cooking oil spray is fine) your muffin trays and set them aside.
In a big bowl; combine all of the dry ingredients.
In a seperate bowl mash the avocado until completely smooth. This will take a few minutes if you're doing it by hand with a fork, you could be forgiven for using a blender or food processor for this job.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, then add the vanilla essence, vinegar, avocado and oil. Mix to incorporate a little.
Add the water bit-by-bit until you have a glossy smooth cake batter.
Dispense the cake batter into the cup-cake trays. You will get 8-10 big cupcakes or anywhere up to 24 miniature cupcakes.
Place the cup cakes in the oven. They will take about 10-18 minutes to cook, depending on your oven and the size of your cupcakes.
Once they're cooked, remove from the oven and let them call in the trays for a few minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
Now, you can make the icing. You will need.
1 avocado
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2tsp vanilla essence
2tbs golden syrup
Mash the avocado until smooth. My comments RE blenders/food processors remain valid here.
mix the vanilla essence and golden syrup with the avocado.
Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a large bowl, then incorporate the avocado mixture. You may need to add a small amount of water to get the texture right. (it should be thick and fudgy, so that it will stick to the under-side of a knife or a spoon). If your icing is too dry add a little water. If it's too wet, add a little more icing sugar.
Place the icing in the fridge and leave there until the cup cakes are at room temperature. Leave it for at least an hour or so.
Spread the icing on top of the cupcakes, feel free to add any other decorations you like. Be creative and have fun.
So, there it is. You are now empowered to make your own delicious vegan chocolate avocado cupcakes. How on earth am I ever going to convince anyone to feed my cats for me again?
I am sharing my recipe for vegan chocolate avocado muffins. The idea of chocolate and avocado as a food combination is not a new one. A lot of chinese resturants/cafe's will offer a chocolate avocado smoothie on their drinks menu. To be honest, I've always been a bit skeptical. I've always thought that avocado is for guacamole and guacamole alone. I've had a Steven Covey-esque paradigm shift on this one. Avocado is not just for guacamole, it's for cup cakes too!
Some time ago, a friend with a high-pitched voice and appropriately asymmetrical hair gave me a vegan food challenge - to make something delicious that combined chocolate and avocado. I debated a few ideas in my mind before finally setlling on making these cup cakes with chocolate fudgy icing. I gave them to the friend with the high pitched voice and appropriately asymmetrical hair as a thank you gift for feeding my cats while I was away from home over a weekend.
The positive feedback on rich, indulgent and delicious flavour of these cup cakes was so good that I've made them several times since. I think part of the reason they work so well as a vegan indulgence is that quite often vegan cakes use tofu to replace the dairy component. Usually, this works just fine; but for some flavours the nutty/soy-ish flavour of the tofu can permeate through.
The avocado has a much milder flavour, but it's texture is a great analogue for butter in this recipe. It gives you the best of both worlds, by helping the chocolate cake to be rich and moist, without lending that background of soy flavour. It's perfect for vegan cakes, and would be also great for anyone who needs to avoid dairy food, or reduce saturated fat intake. The omega 3 fatty acids in avocado are good for you.
The avocado also takes the place of butter in a rich fudgy icing, alowing the chocolate flavour to play the lead role in this treat.
Here's the recipes, it makes a lot of cup cakes but trust me, you'll need them.
You will need:
Dry ingredients
3 cups self raising flour
1/2 a cup cocoa powder
1/2 a teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
'wet' incredients
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 ripe avocado
2 cups water
2tsp vanilla essence
2tbs white vinegar
You will have to:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C, lightly grease (cooking oil spray is fine) your muffin trays and set them aside.
In a big bowl; combine all of the dry ingredients.
In a seperate bowl mash the avocado until completely smooth. This will take a few minutes if you're doing it by hand with a fork, you could be forgiven for using a blender or food processor for this job.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, then add the vanilla essence, vinegar, avocado and oil. Mix to incorporate a little.
Add the water bit-by-bit until you have a glossy smooth cake batter.
Dispense the cake batter into the cup-cake trays. You will get 8-10 big cupcakes or anywhere up to 24 miniature cupcakes.
Place the cup cakes in the oven. They will take about 10-18 minutes to cook, depending on your oven and the size of your cupcakes.
Once they're cooked, remove from the oven and let them call in the trays for a few minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
Now, you can make the icing. You will need.
1 avocado
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2tsp vanilla essence
2tbs golden syrup
Mash the avocado until smooth. My comments RE blenders/food processors remain valid here.
mix the vanilla essence and golden syrup with the avocado.
Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a large bowl, then incorporate the avocado mixture. You may need to add a small amount of water to get the texture right. (it should be thick and fudgy, so that it will stick to the under-side of a knife or a spoon). If your icing is too dry add a little water. If it's too wet, add a little more icing sugar.
Place the icing in the fridge and leave there until the cup cakes are at room temperature. Leave it for at least an hour or so.
Spread the icing on top of the cupcakes, feel free to add any other decorations you like. Be creative and have fun.
So, there it is. You are now empowered to make your own delicious vegan chocolate avocado cupcakes. How on earth am I ever going to convince anyone to feed my cats for me again?
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Megan's (mostly) vegan food adventure
Hello readers,
I've just returned from a holiday in Fiji, which sounds utterly delightful. However, a pleasant blog about a pleasant holiday would be a direct violation of Murphy's law, so I'll tell you about what actually happened in Fiji.
The trip was taken a bit at last minute, I was needed to fill a gap on a group trip due to cancellation. Rather than have everyone on the trip miss out, I arranged leave from work, organised my travel insurance and packed a suitcase full of books and swimsuits for a tropical adventure. I pictured myself strolling to a little village, buying fresh mangoes from little pop-up roadside markets, and eating all manner of lovely fresh vegetables with plenty of rice. Yes, you guessed it faithful reader, time for the record scratch.
The group trip ended up actually being at a villa, about a three hour drive from Nadi, which for the astute geographers amongst you will realise is pretty much the opposite side of the island. I was in fact, almost completely isolated. Never fear, the group stopped at the supermarket near the airport to stock up on supplies to group-cook at the villa. I was told to relax, there would be plenty of vegetarian options.
The experienced vegans reading this may share a knowing nod with me now. There is a difference between vegan and vegetarian, and sometimes that difference requires vegans to be seasoned and experienced label readers, picking up all manner of trace ingredients that sneakly put animal products into your food.
I manage to during the group shop grab myself a liter of soy milk and a large box of Oreos. Little did I know how much I would be needing these two rather average food items in the days to come.
The morning of day 2 of my Fiji adventure dawned. I breakfasted on white bread toast, with marjarine (probably not vegan, but the toast came kindly 'buttered' before I could inspect the container) and a glass of soy milk. About three hours after this breakfast I manged to accidentally take a header off a 3 meter sheer cliff. I hit my head on a rock and lost consciousness. I came to back at the holiday villa with my partner holding me and talking to me. "Just let me go to sleep" I say. She kept me awake, kept talking to me and by doing so most likely saved my life. My concussion was quite severe, and I'm in fact still recovering from it now. Having an accident or injury while on holiday is never fun, especially when you're in a non-first world country where medical resources are fairly limited. While I'm confident the Fijian doctor I saw (Dr Raam) was really friendly and knowledgeable, his proscription of panadine forte and Fiji bitter was probably not what I'd be getting in an Australian hospital.
The unfortunate side effect of falling off the cliff is that I spent most of the holiday bed-ridden. My partner stayed by my side after the injury to care for me. Sadly, this meant that we couldn't access the group food, or participate in shopping trips to make sure that food we could eat was purchased. While not vegan, there are some foods my partner can't eat. Finding meals that satisfy us both at home is generally easy, but is a bit more of a challenge while travelling. The three days after my injury involved some pretty serious starvation. My partner and I shared the box of oreo cookies, with no real meals for about seventy two hours.
Imagine our delight when we are informed the locals would be cooking a Fijian feast for us at the villa, after nothing but Oreos for a few days. I was told that there would be a vegetable curry. The night of the feast rolled around, our stomachs gurgled in hunger and anticipation. I must say that never before has the word feast been so badly used. The table was laden with fish curries, roasted chicken and pork dishes wrapped in taro leaves. The vegan options included dry baked potatoes with the unmistakable odour of keroene, an iceberg lettuce salad, a pumpkin curry (so popular and delicious that I managed to scrape one mouthful for myself after the bowl had made it's way down to my end of the table) and cold baked taro. The smell of fish permeated everything and I struggled to eat a few mouthfuls of potato as nausea struggled against hunger. My partner and I held hands and walked off to our bed, united in our disappointment.
The next morning, day 4 of our 9 day trip a nearby resort opened it's doors to us, after being closed for a wedding function. We stroll in at 8am, eager for breakfast. My partner orders herself a cooked breakfast with all the trimmings, absolutely delighted to be having a full meal again. I read through the menu carefully, sighing. There's nothing on the menu that's vegan, or can be made vegan with a modification. The closest thing is a serving of banana and coconut pancakes. At home, I'd make the dish with coconut milk and mashed banana, using a little chick-pea flour to replace the egg. I can only realistically expect that this resturant has used eggs in their pancakes, and probably not ethical free-range eggs.
I make a difficult decision, one that most vegans have had to make at some point; the choice between going hungry or eating something that doesn't sit well with your ethics. I ordered the pancakes. I hadn't had a propper meal in about four days, and my body was screaming out for some nourishment so it could start healing from the injury I had suffered. I discussed it with my partner at the table, she understood how seriously I felt about the situation, and how much it matters to me to be vegan, to live my ethics. She very rightly pointed out though that skipping a meal at this point would be very bad for my health, I was still struggling through the concussion from my head injury and wasn't fully sure how much of my light headedness at the time was due to the injury, or purely due to hunger.
The choice I made is commonly referred to in vegan circles as 'the Paris excuse'. The idea is that, while travelling, or in a situation where vegan food is not available, a vegan can make a decision to eat something not vegan, but return to full veganism as soon as they are back in their normal environment, without losing the title of being a vegan. I feel that this scenario already comes in under the definition of a vegan; namely a person who does all they can to minimise all forms of animal exploitation through rejection of animal products in all consumable items. In the luxury of Australia's national capital, 'all that I can' is quite a lot; there's a vegan cupcake shop a 2 minute walk from my office. In a remote town in Fiji, 'all that I can' isn't quite so much.
The final days of the holiday were made quite lovely by the wonderful resort staff, who did introduce me to one local delicacy, fried coconut. The recipe is quite simple; you take a fresh coconut, open it (generally with a sharp knife and strong hand... be careful don't cut yourself!). Take the solid flesh of the coconut and cut it into chip shaped wedges, remove most of the furry bit of the outer brown skin. Fry the coconut in hot oil, then baste generously with sweet chilli sauce when done. These are a common 'bar snack' over in Fiji.
The holiday eventually wraps up, and we make our homeward journey. I buy myself a packet of pringles to munch on the journey home. The trip home involves a 3 hour bus ride, followed by a five hour flight, followed by another 3 hour drive. I wasn't sure of finding food at the airport or on the plane.
My partner and I breathe a sigh of releif as we touch down at Sydney Airport and clear our way through customs. I stand at the baggage carousel clutching the half full box of pringles. One of the people from the group I was travelling with makes their way up to me. They begin to question the ingredients on the box of pringles, going on ot suggest that it contains traces of dairy product. The woman squeaks at me "As a vegan I thought you wouldn't eat something like that?" I'll confess, My response wasn't as diplomatic as it could have been. I snapped back "Do you really want to have a debate on this with me right now?" She harumphed and stalked away to the other end of the baggage carousel.
Perhaps, I should have wipped out my copy of "but you kill ants don't you?" and explained to her that veganism is never really a perfect black and white activity, but a constant aspiration. Perhaps I could have explained to her that hunger was the most common sensation I felt during the trip, behind pain from my injuries. But really, I just couldn't be bothered justifying myself to someone who was a meat eater.
This kind of harsh assessement happens to vegans and vegetarians quite regularly.... the number of times I've been asked "are those leather shoes?" "is that a wooly jumper?" I realised that this woman assiginging herself as the vegan purity police, Sydney Airport international baggage carousel region was essentially doing the same thing. One theory is that this is a bit of tall poppy syndrome. Vegans are trying to walk the talk. To really live their values. They should be applauded for it. Vegans are also people, trust me I'm a very regular normal person, I do the best I can, but sometimes that just isn't perfect.
The holiday wasn't all bad though, in fact in line with my theory that the universe is all about balance, something very wonderful happened to couteract all the nastiness of near-death experience and vegan haters. Despite the adversities we faced, my partner and I pulled together and made a great team, dealing with all the problems we encountered together. We agreed that regardless of what challenges life manages to throw at us, we want to face them as a couple. Shortly after our return to Australia (after a CT scan to confirm that I've suffered no brain damage) we ordered rings to celebrate the commitment.
Next blog, I promise you a propper recipe..... the much requested and rather popular chocolate avocado muffins with fudgy chocolate icing.
I've just returned from a holiday in Fiji, which sounds utterly delightful. However, a pleasant blog about a pleasant holiday would be a direct violation of Murphy's law, so I'll tell you about what actually happened in Fiji.
The trip was taken a bit at last minute, I was needed to fill a gap on a group trip due to cancellation. Rather than have everyone on the trip miss out, I arranged leave from work, organised my travel insurance and packed a suitcase full of books and swimsuits for a tropical adventure. I pictured myself strolling to a little village, buying fresh mangoes from little pop-up roadside markets, and eating all manner of lovely fresh vegetables with plenty of rice. Yes, you guessed it faithful reader, time for the record scratch.
The group trip ended up actually being at a villa, about a three hour drive from Nadi, which for the astute geographers amongst you will realise is pretty much the opposite side of the island. I was in fact, almost completely isolated. Never fear, the group stopped at the supermarket near the airport to stock up on supplies to group-cook at the villa. I was told to relax, there would be plenty of vegetarian options.
The experienced vegans reading this may share a knowing nod with me now. There is a difference between vegan and vegetarian, and sometimes that difference requires vegans to be seasoned and experienced label readers, picking up all manner of trace ingredients that sneakly put animal products into your food.
I manage to during the group shop grab myself a liter of soy milk and a large box of Oreos. Little did I know how much I would be needing these two rather average food items in the days to come.
The morning of day 2 of my Fiji adventure dawned. I breakfasted on white bread toast, with marjarine (probably not vegan, but the toast came kindly 'buttered' before I could inspect the container) and a glass of soy milk. About three hours after this breakfast I manged to accidentally take a header off a 3 meter sheer cliff. I hit my head on a rock and lost consciousness. I came to back at the holiday villa with my partner holding me and talking to me. "Just let me go to sleep" I say. She kept me awake, kept talking to me and by doing so most likely saved my life. My concussion was quite severe, and I'm in fact still recovering from it now. Having an accident or injury while on holiday is never fun, especially when you're in a non-first world country where medical resources are fairly limited. While I'm confident the Fijian doctor I saw (Dr Raam) was really friendly and knowledgeable, his proscription of panadine forte and Fiji bitter was probably not what I'd be getting in an Australian hospital.
The unfortunate side effect of falling off the cliff is that I spent most of the holiday bed-ridden. My partner stayed by my side after the injury to care for me. Sadly, this meant that we couldn't access the group food, or participate in shopping trips to make sure that food we could eat was purchased. While not vegan, there are some foods my partner can't eat. Finding meals that satisfy us both at home is generally easy, but is a bit more of a challenge while travelling. The three days after my injury involved some pretty serious starvation. My partner and I shared the box of oreo cookies, with no real meals for about seventy two hours.
Imagine our delight when we are informed the locals would be cooking a Fijian feast for us at the villa, after nothing but Oreos for a few days. I was told that there would be a vegetable curry. The night of the feast rolled around, our stomachs gurgled in hunger and anticipation. I must say that never before has the word feast been so badly used. The table was laden with fish curries, roasted chicken and pork dishes wrapped in taro leaves. The vegan options included dry baked potatoes with the unmistakable odour of keroene, an iceberg lettuce salad, a pumpkin curry (so popular and delicious that I managed to scrape one mouthful for myself after the bowl had made it's way down to my end of the table) and cold baked taro. The smell of fish permeated everything and I struggled to eat a few mouthfuls of potato as nausea struggled against hunger. My partner and I held hands and walked off to our bed, united in our disappointment.
The next morning, day 4 of our 9 day trip a nearby resort opened it's doors to us, after being closed for a wedding function. We stroll in at 8am, eager for breakfast. My partner orders herself a cooked breakfast with all the trimmings, absolutely delighted to be having a full meal again. I read through the menu carefully, sighing. There's nothing on the menu that's vegan, or can be made vegan with a modification. The closest thing is a serving of banana and coconut pancakes. At home, I'd make the dish with coconut milk and mashed banana, using a little chick-pea flour to replace the egg. I can only realistically expect that this resturant has used eggs in their pancakes, and probably not ethical free-range eggs.
I make a difficult decision, one that most vegans have had to make at some point; the choice between going hungry or eating something that doesn't sit well with your ethics. I ordered the pancakes. I hadn't had a propper meal in about four days, and my body was screaming out for some nourishment so it could start healing from the injury I had suffered. I discussed it with my partner at the table, she understood how seriously I felt about the situation, and how much it matters to me to be vegan, to live my ethics. She very rightly pointed out though that skipping a meal at this point would be very bad for my health, I was still struggling through the concussion from my head injury and wasn't fully sure how much of my light headedness at the time was due to the injury, or purely due to hunger.
The choice I made is commonly referred to in vegan circles as 'the Paris excuse'. The idea is that, while travelling, or in a situation where vegan food is not available, a vegan can make a decision to eat something not vegan, but return to full veganism as soon as they are back in their normal environment, without losing the title of being a vegan. I feel that this scenario already comes in under the definition of a vegan; namely a person who does all they can to minimise all forms of animal exploitation through rejection of animal products in all consumable items. In the luxury of Australia's national capital, 'all that I can' is quite a lot; there's a vegan cupcake shop a 2 minute walk from my office. In a remote town in Fiji, 'all that I can' isn't quite so much.
The final days of the holiday were made quite lovely by the wonderful resort staff, who did introduce me to one local delicacy, fried coconut. The recipe is quite simple; you take a fresh coconut, open it (generally with a sharp knife and strong hand... be careful don't cut yourself!). Take the solid flesh of the coconut and cut it into chip shaped wedges, remove most of the furry bit of the outer brown skin. Fry the coconut in hot oil, then baste generously with sweet chilli sauce when done. These are a common 'bar snack' over in Fiji.
The holiday eventually wraps up, and we make our homeward journey. I buy myself a packet of pringles to munch on the journey home. The trip home involves a 3 hour bus ride, followed by a five hour flight, followed by another 3 hour drive. I wasn't sure of finding food at the airport or on the plane.
My partner and I breathe a sigh of releif as we touch down at Sydney Airport and clear our way through customs. I stand at the baggage carousel clutching the half full box of pringles. One of the people from the group I was travelling with makes their way up to me. They begin to question the ingredients on the box of pringles, going on ot suggest that it contains traces of dairy product. The woman squeaks at me "As a vegan I thought you wouldn't eat something like that?" I'll confess, My response wasn't as diplomatic as it could have been. I snapped back "Do you really want to have a debate on this with me right now?" She harumphed and stalked away to the other end of the baggage carousel.
Perhaps, I should have wipped out my copy of "but you kill ants don't you?" and explained to her that veganism is never really a perfect black and white activity, but a constant aspiration. Perhaps I could have explained to her that hunger was the most common sensation I felt during the trip, behind pain from my injuries. But really, I just couldn't be bothered justifying myself to someone who was a meat eater.
This kind of harsh assessement happens to vegans and vegetarians quite regularly.... the number of times I've been asked "are those leather shoes?" "is that a wooly jumper?" I realised that this woman assiginging herself as the vegan purity police, Sydney Airport international baggage carousel region was essentially doing the same thing. One theory is that this is a bit of tall poppy syndrome. Vegans are trying to walk the talk. To really live their values. They should be applauded for it. Vegans are also people, trust me I'm a very regular normal person, I do the best I can, but sometimes that just isn't perfect.
The holiday wasn't all bad though, in fact in line with my theory that the universe is all about balance, something very wonderful happened to couteract all the nastiness of near-death experience and vegan haters. Despite the adversities we faced, my partner and I pulled together and made a great team, dealing with all the problems we encountered together. We agreed that regardless of what challenges life manages to throw at us, we want to face them as a couple. Shortly after our return to Australia (after a CT scan to confirm that I've suffered no brain damage) we ordered rings to celebrate the commitment.
Next blog, I promise you a propper recipe..... the much requested and rather popular chocolate avocado muffins with fudgy chocolate icing.
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!
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!
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Kiwifruit Challenge Part 2
I'm not going to apologise for the delay in producing part 2 of my kiwifruit challenge blog. I had a very good reason for delaying the write-up.
I made a dessert using fresh kiwifruit on the same night I made my chutney featured in part 1 of the challenge. A day after preparing my rather reasonable dessert of kiwifruit and orange muffins, I had a very lovely and special dinner guest; to whom (amongst other things) I served my kiwifruit muffins. She was kind enough to provide a brief review stating that I've "Shown that Kiwifruit is not just for pav".
There was one unfortunate downside to this, when after, I say again AFTER! eating (and enjoying) these muffins, I was firmly instructed to not feed this very lovely and special lady tofu. This was unfortunate for me at the time, as well, as you'll see in my recipe. These orange and kiwifruit muffins contain silken tofu. I'm not talking a couple of teaspoons here... I mean step one of the recipe is going to involve you draining and mashing an entire 250g packet of the stuff. Awkward.
However, being a glass half full kind of lady, I decided that silken tofu in muffins was not really a show-stopping problem in the general scheme of my life... let's face it, worse things have happened.
I deliberated the issue with myself for a few days, before deciding on a course of action. Honesty really is the best policy. I came clean about the tofu. No doubt placing a very severe strain on this fledgling relationship. I really tried to sell it as a glass-half-full situation.... Tofu isn't evil! it's not even bad!... the tofu-hump has been conquered! It's all good from here on in, with salt and pepper tofu, tofu-cheesecake, mr-puffy-tofu, agadeshi tofu, grilled tofu with salad....
Yeah okay, record scratch. The moratorium on fermented soy products continues.
Here's my muffin recipe, I can honestly state that you wouldn't know they were vegan and had tofu in them if you don't specifically tell someone.
You will need:
250g silken tofu (the soft stuff, not silken firm)
50g nuttelex (melted)
2 cups Self Raising flour
1/2 brown sugar
1 cup chopped fresh kiwi fruit
1/2 cup orange juice (from a bottle is fine, it doesn't have to be freshly squeezed)
You will have to:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C
Prepare either 12 large or 24 small muffin cases (your choice of greasing with cooking spray or lining with paper trays)
Open the packet of silken tofu, drain the water.
In a mixing bowl mash the silken tofu.
Melt the nuttelex (I just put mine in the microwave)
Stir the sugar and melted nuttelex into the tofu mix.
Add the flour slowly, stirring until incorporated. It should be a bit dry.
Add the orange juice, adjusting the volume of OJ if needed to get a good muffin batter consistency. It should be thicker than a pancake batter, but not like a dough, you should be able to spoon it into the muffin trays when it's just right.
Add the chopped kiwifruit last, stirring very gently to incorporate the fruit without squashing it.
Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes, they are cooked when you can poke a fork or other similar item into the muffins and it comes out clean.
These muffins are not super sweet, so if you want something really decadent you may want to consider some icing. Happy cooking!
I made a dessert using fresh kiwifruit on the same night I made my chutney featured in part 1 of the challenge. A day after preparing my rather reasonable dessert of kiwifruit and orange muffins, I had a very lovely and special dinner guest; to whom (amongst other things) I served my kiwifruit muffins. She was kind enough to provide a brief review stating that I've "Shown that Kiwifruit is not just for pav".
There was one unfortunate downside to this, when after, I say again AFTER! eating (and enjoying) these muffins, I was firmly instructed to not feed this very lovely and special lady tofu. This was unfortunate for me at the time, as well, as you'll see in my recipe. These orange and kiwifruit muffins contain silken tofu. I'm not talking a couple of teaspoons here... I mean step one of the recipe is going to involve you draining and mashing an entire 250g packet of the stuff. Awkward.
However, being a glass half full kind of lady, I decided that silken tofu in muffins was not really a show-stopping problem in the general scheme of my life... let's face it, worse things have happened.
I deliberated the issue with myself for a few days, before deciding on a course of action. Honesty really is the best policy. I came clean about the tofu. No doubt placing a very severe strain on this fledgling relationship. I really tried to sell it as a glass-half-full situation.... Tofu isn't evil! it's not even bad!... the tofu-hump has been conquered! It's all good from here on in, with salt and pepper tofu, tofu-cheesecake, mr-puffy-tofu, agadeshi tofu, grilled tofu with salad....
Yeah okay, record scratch. The moratorium on fermented soy products continues.
Here's my muffin recipe, I can honestly state that you wouldn't know they were vegan and had tofu in them if you don't specifically tell someone.
You will need:
250g silken tofu (the soft stuff, not silken firm)
50g nuttelex (melted)
2 cups Self Raising flour
1/2 brown sugar
1 cup chopped fresh kiwi fruit
1/2 cup orange juice (from a bottle is fine, it doesn't have to be freshly squeezed)
You will have to:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C
Prepare either 12 large or 24 small muffin cases (your choice of greasing with cooking spray or lining with paper trays)
Open the packet of silken tofu, drain the water.
In a mixing bowl mash the silken tofu.
Melt the nuttelex (I just put mine in the microwave)
Stir the sugar and melted nuttelex into the tofu mix.
Add the flour slowly, stirring until incorporated. It should be a bit dry.
Add the orange juice, adjusting the volume of OJ if needed to get a good muffin batter consistency. It should be thicker than a pancake batter, but not like a dough, you should be able to spoon it into the muffin trays when it's just right.
Add the chopped kiwifruit last, stirring very gently to incorporate the fruit without squashing it.
Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes, they are cooked when you can poke a fork or other similar item into the muffins and it comes out clean.
These muffins are not super sweet, so if you want something really decadent you may want to consider some icing. Happy cooking!
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Masterchef kiwifruit challenge - Part one
Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in. In this blog entry I'm taking on the Masterchef kiwi fruit challenge.
A lady in my pub trivia team was lovely enough to bring a plethora of kiwi's along one night last week; I was the lucky recipient of about twenty little specimens of this brown and furry on the outside, green and tangy on the inside fruit.
Kiwi fruit is really good for you; it's very high in vitamin C. However, I've never had kiwi as anything but a snack all by itself, where you either cut it in half and eat it with a spoon or cut it into slices and remove that furry skin in little rings.
As I um and ahh about accepting these lovely fruit; not knowing if I can manage to eat that many kiwi fruit before they go off; and not wanting to waste any "BG" suggests that I take the "Kiwi fruit challenge". By suggest, I really mean her wish is my command, so of course I must go forth and produce food and a blog entry to fulfill this brief.
I cast my mind back; to the memorable episode where Mindy won herself the immunity pin in Masterchef. Admittedly, it was in a raw food challenge against some top sushi chefs, however they were required to select a 'star' ingredient to feature in each of the courses. The sushi chef guy selected kiwi fruit.
I now have an excuse (oops I mean a reason) to take the kiwi fruit and produce something worth blogging about.
I start off by consulting with my good friend and much lauded oracle; "Google Chef"... She's got recipes for absolutely everything. I am actually cooking from a recipe I found on the net; the recipe was vegan by the ingredient list as is. I guess that's a bit of an 'invention/creativity fail' however, I also think it's a great opportunity to show that you can get really delightful and unexpected results from different ingredients if you're just willing to try something a bit different.
The first thing I did was weigh my kiwi fruit to see how much I had.
I'm just thinking of your health and well being by making sure you flex your neck while sitting at the computer. If you can't be bothered flexing, I have about half a kg of kiwi fruit on that scale.
In addition to the 500g of kiwi fruit you will need.
1 banana, 1(large) brown onion, 3tbs lemon juice, 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 tsp each cayenne pepper, allspice, nutmeg and cardamon, 1 dessert spoon salt, 1/2 cup white vinegar.
Prepare the kiwi fruit by removing the skin and dicing them.
By this time I'm a tad skeptical of this recipe... a kiwi fruit, a banana and some onion in a pot? sounds like a "someone walked into a bar joke" to me right now. But I persevere.
The instructions to this recipe are very straightforward, I'm actually surprised to learn how easy it is to make a chutney. This is my first time making one and I'd always thought they were complicated!
All you do is chop up the fruit and vegetables, then take everything in the ingredient list and throw it into a large pot over medium heat.
Give it a stir, and once it boils then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. The recipe says to simmer for 1 hour, until everything is cooked down to a jam like texture. I keep an eye on it every few minutes, giving it a stir to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.
The finished product looks like this:
I'm the first to admit that a jar of chutney doesn't look like much; really this just looks like a jar of chutney. I made some onion bahji's for dinner to try out with my chutney.
The kiwifruit chutney was tangy and delicious! I've discovered that it's great with onion bahji's, cauliflower pakoras and just regular old bread.
So... if you find yourself in a situation with stacks of kiwi fruit you don't know what to do with and you like tangy chutney give this one a go.
A lady in my pub trivia team was lovely enough to bring a plethora of kiwi's along one night last week; I was the lucky recipient of about twenty little specimens of this brown and furry on the outside, green and tangy on the inside fruit.
Kiwi fruit is really good for you; it's very high in vitamin C. However, I've never had kiwi as anything but a snack all by itself, where you either cut it in half and eat it with a spoon or cut it into slices and remove that furry skin in little rings.
As I um and ahh about accepting these lovely fruit; not knowing if I can manage to eat that many kiwi fruit before they go off; and not wanting to waste any "BG" suggests that I take the "Kiwi fruit challenge". By suggest, I really mean her wish is my command, so of course I must go forth and produce food and a blog entry to fulfill this brief.
I cast my mind back; to the memorable episode where Mindy won herself the immunity pin in Masterchef. Admittedly, it was in a raw food challenge against some top sushi chefs, however they were required to select a 'star' ingredient to feature in each of the courses. The sushi chef guy selected kiwi fruit.
I now have an excuse (oops I mean a reason) to take the kiwi fruit and produce something worth blogging about.
I start off by consulting with my good friend and much lauded oracle; "Google Chef"... She's got recipes for absolutely everything. I am actually cooking from a recipe I found on the net; the recipe was vegan by the ingredient list as is. I guess that's a bit of an 'invention/creativity fail' however, I also think it's a great opportunity to show that you can get really delightful and unexpected results from different ingredients if you're just willing to try something a bit different.
The first thing I did was weigh my kiwi fruit to see how much I had.
 | ||||||||
| I forgot to rotate the image again, sorry. |
In addition to the 500g of kiwi fruit you will need.
1 banana, 1(large) brown onion, 3tbs lemon juice, 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 tsp each cayenne pepper, allspice, nutmeg and cardamon, 1 dessert spoon salt, 1/2 cup white vinegar.
Prepare the kiwi fruit by removing the skin and dicing them.
By this time I'm a tad skeptical of this recipe... a kiwi fruit, a banana and some onion in a pot? sounds like a "someone walked into a bar joke" to me right now. But I persevere.
 |
| Banana ready to be prepared. |
All you do is chop up the fruit and vegetables, then take everything in the ingredient list and throw it into a large pot over medium heat.
 | |||||||||
| Starting to cook chutney |
The finished product looks like this:
 | |
| Yours may be less sideways. |
The kiwifruit chutney was tangy and delicious! I've discovered that it's great with onion bahji's, cauliflower pakoras and just regular old bread.
So... if you find yourself in a situation with stacks of kiwi fruit you don't know what to do with and you like tangy chutney give this one a go.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Masterchef round-up and vegan meals in 5 minutes or less
It's been a little bit since I've blogged. I've been busy on a few other projects, including renovating my home over a geological time-scale. This installment: Lovely curtains for my sun-room/library!
 |
| I'll confess, the only reason that throw-rug is folded so nicely is because my cleaner did it last week. I can't bear to touch it now. |
I'm loving Masterchef this week. Tonight I perched on my couch, eating my 5 minute noodle salad (recipe to follow in this blog) when they put on a food challenge that couldn't possibly be more opposite than the meal I was eating. The "dude food" challenge was completely awesome.
Can dude food
be vegan? Sure! Dude food isn't just stuff wrapped in bacon and deep fried. It's also stuff coated in sugar and deep fried, or even deep fried food on a stick. In my opinion the ideal dude food should go great with a beer, or go great after about ten beers. It should be prepared with absolute disregard for caloric content or nutritional balance. It should have intense flavour.
So, if I were making dude food vegan: I would make: mini okonomyaki (fried japanese vegetable
pancakes), beer-battered whole button mushrooms and mini-deep-fried pumpkin
cakes. I would serve it with vegan mayo,
that has teriyaki sauce swirled through it; topped with fried shallots and
garlic. I'd provide extra-long cocktail
sticks with it so the "dude" could load each of the three bite-size
items onto a single stick and chow the whole thing down with mayo coated
goodness.
Why am I not making this rather than just describing it? Because I live by myself (with three cats). I can eat a lot for a small(ish) person, but even I have limits. Amina made sushi and got sent through to the elimination round tomorrow; rightfully so. Amina, I love you to bits and think you're an awesome cook but sushi is not dude food and dude food is not your thing. It's all good though as I'm sure she'll use the opportunity to absolutely mop the floor with "Andrew" and make sure that silly bloody twit goes home. That guy could fuck up toast I have no idea how he's managed to hang on in the competition this far.
Earlier in the week the Masterchef team catered for a Hindu wedding. I'm not going to re-create or blog any of their dishes here as Hindu culture is a vegetarian (but not vegan) culture already. Some of the recipes in that episode looked like they would have been vegan by eye: The Aloo tiki, Gobi 65, Eggplant chips, and the okra tamarind curry. Google Masterchef, they usually have the recipes on their website.
The challenge recently that really caught my interest though was the "5 minute challenge" Can you walk into your kitchen, and walk out 5 minutes later with a meal that's completely ready to eat? It's actually a tough challenge. Even making a salad can take longer than 5 minutes if you're not prepared and organised in the kitchen. I'll break down my work into 1 minute intervals so you can see how I did it. I'm lucky that when I bought my house, I basically bought the kitchen size and layout I wanted, and am slowly dealing with the rest of the house that's around that kitchen. As a result My layout of fridge, pantry, preparation area and stove-top are perfectly arranged to cut down on excess doubling-back across the room while preparing food. You may struggle to get this done in 5 minutes or less if your kitchen is cramped, poorly laid out, or if you're not totally organised.
Here's my first 5 minute meal, a Japanese style spinach salad.
Minute 1:
Turn on a stove element to high heat, place a fry-pan on the stove to heat up.
Go to your pantry and get the following items.
-Wallnuts (about a hand full will do)
-Sesame seeds (about half a hand full)
-Rice wine vinegar
-Sesame oil
-vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil)
-Soy sauce
-Nori sheet (1 sheet)
Go back to the stove top.
Place the wallnuts and sesame seeds in the fry pan to toast.
Place the other pantry items on the bench.
 |
| Stopped the clock for a 1 minute progress check. |
Minute 2
Go to the fridge and get the following items.
Fresh spinach leaves
pickled ginger
lime juice (squeezy bottle)
Take these items to your bench/preparation area.
Go to your cupboard and get the following items
Chopping board
Salad bowl.
My knife is on a knife block at my prep area, if yours is somewhere else go and get it now.
Quickly wash the spinach (I just ran it under the tap in my hands) shake it dry and place it in the salad bowl.
Give the fry-pan with the nuts and sesame seeds a quick shake and make sure nothing is burning.
 |
| Progress at 1:45, 15 sec to wash spinach and put in salad bowl. |
Minute 3
Remove a few pieces of pickled ginger from the jar, place them on your chopping board.
Dice them finely, then add to the salad.
Take one nori sheet and crumble it, using both hands over the salad.
Turn off the stove, leave the nuts and seeds to cool.
Go to a cupboard and find a screw-top jar.
Minute 4:
In this minute we are making a salad dressing; you don't need to measure the ingredients accurately to get it right. Salad dressings are most often a 3:1 oil:acid mixture. Other stuff you add to it is usually just seasoning. I didn't measure my dressing, I just added the components by eye, gave it a good shake and tasted it to make sure I was happy with it.
Into your jar place
6 drops sesame oil.
Make up to "3 parts" with rice-bran oil.
Add "1 part" rice wine vinegar (ie if you used 100ml of oil, then you will need about 30ml of vinegar)
Add a small splash of soy sauce
Add a small squirt of lime juice.
Put the lid on the jar, shake.
Remove lid, taste, adjust if needed.
 |
| Forgot to stop the clock, also forgot to rotate the image. Sorry. |
Minute 5
Tip the nuts and seeds from the fry pan over the salad.
pour some of the salad dressing over the salad. (I made a lot of extra dressing in that jar, as I know it will keep to be re-used in other things)
Give it a quick stir-through.
I used the last thirty seconds to get myself a glass of OJ to go with the salad, and to take this picture.
 | |||||||||||
| Nutritious, satisfying meal in 5 minutes or less. |
Voila! If you can stand spending 7 minutes in your kitchen, you could have thrown some tofu or tempeh into the fry-pan with the nuts and seeds for a bit of extra 'oomph'
But wait, there's more.
I can also make a noodle salad in 5 minutes or less. I used some of the left-over salad dressing from the Japanese style salad (with a slight modification)
Minute 1.
Put about 500ml of water in your kettle, put it on to boil.
Get a bowl and place it on the bench next to the kettle.
Go to your pantry and get the following items.
Vermicelli bean thread noodles.
Place the noodles in the bowl
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| This is enough noodles for a big batch, each 'bunch' of noodles is enough for 1 serve. |
My neighbour's cat was so intrigued by my efforts he decided to have a peek at what I was up to.
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| He's not here to borrow a cup of sugar. |
Minute 2
Go to your fridge and get the following items.
Bean shoots
1 Carrot
1 red capsicum
spinach leaves
Your left over salad dressing from the Japanese style salad
Fresh ginger
1 fresh chilli
Place them on your bench.
Get your
chopping board
knife
grater
a plate
Finely dice the chilli
Open the salad dressing jar, place the chilli and ginger inside, put the lid back on give it a shake.
Minute 3:
Grate the carrot
Finely chop the capsicum
roughly chop the spinach leaves.
Minute 4
drain the noodles
place a hand-full of bean shoots on the plate (or a bowl is fine if you like, it doesn't matter.)
top with the noodles
add the other vegetables, stir/toss with a fork.
Minute 5
pour the salad dressing over the top. Again, if you can spring for 7 minutes in the kitchen you could do some grilled tofu or something similar to chuck over the top to add a bit more "oomph"
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| 5 minute noodle salad. |
I'll count this one as another vegan win. 2 meals, completed in 5 minutes or less. Both tasty and satisfying. Give them a go and let me know how it went for you? Can you take the 5 minute vegan meal challenge?
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