Good and Bad from Isa

I've been loving Vegan Brunch and think it one of Isa's best books along with my bible- vegan cupcakes take over the world.

I followed her simple but brilliant suggestion to add lemon pepper to my potatoes, I used chat potatoes because they are superior really. However, beware most of the lemon pepper options in the supermarket seem to have chicken in them, the salt free option doesn't though.

I have found mixed results with Veganomicon though, we loved the leek and bean cassoluet but had issues with the biscuits and had to throw them out.

We also made the seitan cutlets from,Veganomicon and they sucked, they were rubbery and even the taste was wrong it just tasted like gluten flour.

Cranberry sage sausages!!!!!

After I didn't get the chorizo texture right, I was determined to try again. This time I decided to try the cherry sage sausages, I used white beans and almost followed the recipe correctly. I only used half the amount of liquid smoke because 1 teaspoon seemed to be a little high, and only half the amount of garlic and sage. Isa specifically asks that you NOT use sage powder, but I used it anyway since I couldn't find dried rubbing sage in the supermarket. I also used cranberries instead of dried cherries. Texture wise these were awesome, but taste wise the chorizo were definitely tastier. Here they are precooked:


And after we fried them in a tiny bit more liquid smoke:



I will be experimenting with this a bit more.

Elizabeth's red wine lentils with pasta and chorizo

We made this after the potluck, with a couple of leftover chorizo sausages, which we fried and crumbled. They were friends, but I look forward to trying these with the italian inspired sausages in vegan brunch. This recipe was originally suggested by Elizabeth and the converted into a recipe by Cindy. Vicki also made it and raved about it. I made a few more alterations though. I didn't use any fresh herbs and added marjoram because it rocks and I hate rosemary. I decided to skip the polenta all together and added the sauce to to pasta. The sauce was yummy and was a great change t the regular tomato based lentil pasta sauces that I normally make.

Red wine lentils sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 carrot
2-3 sticks of celery
2 x 400g cans lentils, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups 'chicken' stock
1 teaspoon dried sage powder
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon marjoram
2 large chorizo sausages (from vegan brunch)
Nooch (optional)

Bring the oil to medium heat in a frypan, then saute the onion and garlic in it for 2 minutes. Add the carrot and celery and saute for a further 5 minutes. Stir through the lentils, wine, stock and herbs and simmer the lot until the lentils are tender and the sauce has reduced a little.

Pop the sausages under the grill, turning them once or twice, until they're crisp on the outside but still tender in the middle. Slice them into generous chunks and add them to the simmering lentils.

Add to pasta and add some nooch if you feel inclined.

I've added a new label: weeknight dinner, for dishes that I want to make again on a regular basis and aren't super time consuming and this recipe certainly fits into.

Pre potluck ride

So a group of decided on sat the day before a potluck to do a group ride to st kilda, but it was super windy so instead just rode to the vic market and back. We wanted to go to somewhere for lunch and Mr T remembered seeing in market lane a place selling vegan and gluten free crepes called Le Triskel Creperie. We decided to give it a go.

They did have vegan crepes, which is great but they were pretty disappointing. Cindy had a non vegan crepe and said that the actual crepe itself was a lot drier than their her non vegan one, I suspect that they use buckwheat flour instead of regular flour. For savoury options, they only had one that could be made vegan which was tomato, mushroom and spinach, not so great though for tomato hating Craig. It was just dry and not overly tasty. They offered a fair few sweet ones that could be adapted though so I had a banana, almond and maple syrup one. Despite the maple syrup it was also a bit dry and disappointing but did look quite cute :


I appreciate the effort they made in making vegan ones, but not sure if the cafe realised that vegan doesn't have to mean dry and boring crepes.

We then went to casa del gelato which I adore, I seriously can't say enough good things about that place. I can see myself spending lots of time there this summer. They have awesome creamy soy flavours like hazelnut, pistachio, coffee, chocolate, natural (which is vanilla-ish) and bachi. Also all of the fruit flavours (except for banana) are vegan, it's so great to have non fruit flavours to choose from. I had bachi, hazelnut and passionfruit in a cone, and Mr T had pear, natural and pistachio:

For the potluck today, I decided to leave it to one of the many other bloggers who attended to post about and take pics. I made the chorizo sausages from vegan brunch but made a few changes, I decided to use refried beans instead of mashed pinto beans, added a tiny bit of liquid smoke because I run out of smoked paprika and used sage powder even though the recipe asked for dry rubbed sage because I couldn't find dry rubbed sage. I think that refried beans substitution may have contributed to the softness, but they were pretty tasty. I look forward to trying the other ones.

Mr T made kiwi sorbet which was yummy but we reallied half way through that we are a missing a piece of our ice cream maker so it wasn't as smooth as it should be.

Casa del Gelato
163 Lygon St Carlton
Daily 12:00pm-12am
Tel: (03) 9347-0220

Broccoli Quiche

We recently made broccoli quiche from vegan brunch, it was ok but a bit on the bland side.

After some adding some more salt and cheezy it was significantly better but the omelets are still a thousand times better.

Oh my god, vegan omelets!

Ok so go and buy vegan brunch right now! I have only tried one recipe but already the book is worth it's money for vegan omelets.

These are amazing and quite easy to make too!

Here is my soy sausage, broccoli, cheesy sauce and sun dried tomato one

and my not so pretty one with cheese (from tart n round) and sun dried tomatoes.

I got some some black salt from the indian supermarket on sydney rd but only used half because it was too eggy for me, but Mr T loved it and sprinkled some on top of his.

Lindyloo has already posted the recipe so I guess it is ok if I also post it.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 garlic cloves


• 1 lb. or 450g silken tofu, lightly drained (not the vacuum-packed kind) or soft tofu


• 2 T. nutritional yeast


• 2 T. olive oil


• 1/2 t. turmeric


• 1 t. fine black salt, plus extra for sprinkling (optional)


• 1/2 c. chickpea flour


• 1 T. arrowroot or cornstarch

DIRECTIONS

Chop up the garlic, if using, in a food processor. Add the tofu, nutritional yeast, olive oil, turmeric, and salt. Puree until smooth. Add the chickpea flour and arrowroot and puree again for about 10 seconds, until combined. Make sure to scrape down the sides so that everything is well incorporated.

NOTE: The original recipe also has a note in case you use soft tofu, and it's essentially that you will need to add/adjust water to your mix. Start off with 1/4 cup and test it out by heating up a skillet and cooking up 1-2 T. of it according to the directions below. If it spreads and congeals as it cooks, you can move on to the big versions. If it doesn't spread at all but just sort of sits there and doesn't congeal, then add up to 1/4 cup more water. I didn't add any it was fine.


Preheat a large, heavy-bottomed, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Lightly grease the pan with cooking spray. Also, make sure that you use a large skillet, as you need room to spread out the omelet and to get your spatula under there to flip.

In 1/2 cup increments, pour the omelet batter into the skillet. Use the back of a spoon or a rubber spatula to spread the batter out into about 6-inch circles.

Let the batter cook for about 3 to 5 minutes before flipping. The top of the omelet should dry and become a matte yellow when it's ready to be flipped. If you try and it seems like it might fall apart, give it a little more time. The underside should be flecked light to dark brown. Flip the omelet and cook for about a minute on the other side. Keep warm on a plate covered with tinfoil as you make the remaining omelets.

Fill omelet with the filling of your choice, then fold it. Once the omelet has been filled, sprinkle with a little extra black salt, since some of its flavor disappears when cooked.

Makes 4 omelets.