La Double Vie De Dumplings

A cold winter night in 2001, a young man who had just finished his 14hour shift stepped inside a small restaurant, in the strangest part of China. A little town where Maggie Cheung, wearing no make up, will ride pass you on her bicycle. A little town where hairdressers/brothels are opened next to primary schools. He picked 2 out of the 20 kinds of dumplings from the menu. There were 50 dumplings. He finished them with minced garlic infused soy sauce and 3 big bottles of beer.

When I eat dumplings, I think of my old days working/living in Mainland China. I still insist to have dumplings with minced garlic and soy sauce. I recently found probably the best packaged vegan dumplings in Mix Oriental (293－295 Barkly Street, Off Barkly Square, Brunswick). The Korean made dumplings are a little different than the Beijing or Shanghai ones I normally eat.

The packaging

I love to fry them (around 15-20 at a time) with 2 tablespoons of oil, mid/high heat for around 3-4 minutes. And then, put 4 tablespoons of water on the pan, put the lid on and let it simmer on low/mid heat for around 7-8 minutes.

Meanwhile, mince a glove of garlic finely (DO-NOT-USE-A-GARLIC-PRESS!!!), add to a dash of Yeo's 100% seasame oil in a small bowl of soy sauce. They should be crispy on bottom and soft on the top. Crack a Hightail Ale open and enjoy.

The other night, inspired by Carla, Kristy and I made Pumpkin, sage and pecan raviloi with white bean and garlic sauce and frizzled leeks from The Voluptuous Vegan to feed our friends the other night. It is a lot of work but worth it. Not on a 30 degree day though.

Almond fudge for new parents

Close friends of our recently had a baby and to say congrats I got them this vegan appropriate onesie from this etsy seller:


and we brought along some food since I know neither of them have been getting much sleep. We took them some sausages from Vegan Brunch, lentil quinoa stew from la dolce vegan and I made these fudge balls. The fudge recipe is from disease proof your child which I thought was kind of appropriate, but I got the recipe from Katie at frugal veggie mama:

1/2 cup dates
1/4 cup soymilk
1 cup raw almond butter
1/2 cup raw carob powder
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 tsp vanilla extract

Chop dates and soak in soymilk over night to soften. Mash all ingredients together in glass dish. Chill before serving. Serves four.

I followed Katie's suggestion and used vanilla soymilk instead of vanilla extract. I also used raw cocoa powder but I think it adds a little bitterness so next time I will stick to carob powder.

Congrats again Adam and Sarah on the birth of your healthy, adorable and energetic Astrid!

Goodbye Vegan Mofo- sausage dhal

This is an oldie but a goodie, one of the earliest vegan dishes I learnt how to make and one of the few savoury dishes that ALL of my omni family enjoy, my mother still makes this dish regularly even though I no longer live there.

It is actually a recipe from the sanitarium website but this time I used frys sausages, here it is served with basmati rice.

It tastes different to regular dhal thanks to the rogan josh curry paste, and it's super quick, cheap, full of flavour and make a great weaknight meal.

Soy Sausage Dhal

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons rogan josh curry paste

300g vegie traditional soy sausage original, cut into 1cm rounds

3 cups vegetable stock

1 cup red lentils

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan, cook the onion and garlic until softened.
2. Add the curry paste and cook, stiring for 1 minute or until fragrant.
3. Add the soy sausages, stock and red lentils. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils are soft.
   

Goodbye aus/nz veganmofo- be sure to check out the other aus/nz mofo-ers if you haven't already. Lisa has the full list over on her blog

My beans are better than your beans

I read and read and read all these American food blogs and cookbook with recipes with black beans but for some bizarre reason they don't sell canned black beans in Australia, unless you want to pay a crazy price for organic canned black beans. I have however seen dried ones in health food stores and got inspired by Kitten's Gone Lentil dried black bean cook up and then read about cooking them in a slow cooker.

So I set about soaking them and then started reading all of these things about red kidney bean poisoning from cooking dried beans in slow cooker and got freaked out, so to be on the safe side I boiled them for 10 minutes and then transferred them to my slow cooker to cook for the day while I focused on my thesis.

Mr T then made a massive batch of chili with the black beans using our standard chili recipe, but it tasted MUCH better with black beans and we had lots of black beans leftover to put in the freezer. I swear dried beans that are freshly cooked taste better than canned!

I think we will aim to make a batch of some sort of dried beans about every fortnight.

Pasta with toasted garlic breadcrumbs

This dish was adapted from a recipe on recipezaar, it was super easy and meant not having going to the shops to make dinner. Have you noticed a lazy theme with our dinners lately? I'm trying to do work like crazy on my thesis and Mr T is injured again.

• 500 grams pasta
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves,
  
• 3 pieces of stale bread chopped coarsely into crumbs
• salt and pepper
  

1. Cook pasta.
2. Meanwhile, in a large pan, heat the oil over medium heat.
3. Add the garlic and saute just until turning color.
4. Add the breadcrumbs, salt and pepper to taste, and toast to light golden.
5. Drain the pasta and place in a hot bowl.
6. Pour all but 1 cup of the crumbs on the pasta along with the water and toss.
7. Divide between 4 hot plates and sprinkle reserved crumbs over each serving.

We also added some white beans, zucchini and nooch.

Mr T said that he read somewhere that breadcrumbs were originally used as a poor man's cheese in Italy. I can kind of see why.

Vegan yum yum alfredo

Vegan yum yum blogger lolo is a genius and this super quick, rich, cheesy dish is proof of that.

Hurry Up Alfredo
Makes 2-3 Servings

1 Cup Soymilk
1/3 Cup Raw, Unsalted Cashews
1/4 Cup Nutritional Yeast
3 Tbs Low-Sodium Tamari or Soy Sauce
2 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine
1 Tbs Tahini
1 Tbs Fresh Lemon Juice
2 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp Paprika (smoked is awesome)
1 Pinch Nutmeg
2-4 Cloves of Garlic, optional
Black pepper, to taste

Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. This may work best in a high-speed blender (like a Vita-Mix), but you can definitely make it in a regular blender. Just blend extra-long, or perhaps strain if if you want it perfectly smooth. Tiny bits of cashews won’t hurt anyone though!

If you’re making this sauce for pasta, drain the pasta and return it to the hot empty pan. Pour the sauce over, place on medium heat, and stir until heated through. Serve with lots of fresh cracked black pepper.

We added some zucchini to it.

I really want to get her cookbook, but am super duper poor right now, so might have to wait and put it on my xmas wishlist.

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.

colourful choc chip cookies

I've having a bit of a blah day thanks to one very high energy bill $500+ which I think must be due to a faulty appliance and being stuck on my thesis, and realising that I might not actually have it finished by our trip at the end of the year. So I decided that I needed chocolate or cookies. I didn't want to go to the shops though because that would take my procrastination into an even longer break from the thesis. I didn't have any soy milk though which most vegan choc chip cookies seem to ask for, and a slightly bigger problem I didn't have any choc chips. But I noticed on Pip's blog header the picture of her colourful choc chip cookies and realised that I had colourful choc chips that I think she used in her picture:

Pic taken from blackwoodlane website.

They are smaller than regular choc chips, but I knew that they would assist with the craving. So a quick google search found these super easy chocolate chip cookies at vegweb that didn't require any sort of milk or any sort of egg replacer. They are quite possibly the easiest vegan choc chip cookie and use two techniques that I have heard Lisa talk about using in her amazing choc chip cookies: a tiny bit of cinnamon and flipping cookies half way through the cooking time. I think these would be perfect when staying at someone else's place and wanting to bake them something without having to purchase many extra ingredients.

Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients

2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp.salt
cinnamon to taste (optional)
vegan chocolate or carob chips - put in as many as you like
1 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
Directions:

VERY IMPORTANT-make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. It will work if they're not at room temp but it works MUCH better if they are. Also while your oven is pre-heating put the cookie sheets you are going to use on top of the oven so they get preheated as well. Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (if you choose). Add chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a medium size bowl mix vegan sugar and oil. Mix it well. Add the vanilla and then add the water. Mix it well. Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it. Add more chips if you need to. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Put them in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets.(top to bottom,and 180 degree rotation) Bake another 4 minutes and check them.

The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here untill they get to where I like them.

Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.


Serves: almost two dozen

Preparation time: 15 mins-10 to 12 cooking time

Mine aren't as pretty as Pip's, but this recipe doesn't really brown up in the way that regular cookies do, also they feel like they are undercooked until you leave them for about 15 minutes to harden up.

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

Mr T's bike cake, or my most depressing baking day

I think maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I should stick to cupcakes, because I had issues with the scrabble cake, but the attempts for Mr T's birthday cake were almost heart breaking.

Mr T's had drinks to celebrate his birthday on sat night. A groups of our awesome friends had all financially contributed so that two friends could build him his very own bike. So I decided to bake him a bike cake to match his bike.

There doesn't appear to be many instructions online for bike cakes, so I just made it up. I decided to make the bike out of white icing and it was an absolute bitch to make. I had to redo the writing, wheels and several parts and when I tried to move it it kept falling apart even when it had hardened. But I eventually got it done, even if it looked a bit like a 10 year old did it.

1st cake attempt: I made an oreo cake using the vctotw recipe x 3. I baked two square cakes, put icing in the middle and all over the sides and had it looking pretty good and then tried to move the cake into a container and it all broke and fell to a thousand pieces, I wanted to cry because I had spent two evening and one whole day to get to this point and was running out of time. Around this time, all of my family members came over one by one, each seeing what had happened and tried the crumbly mess and told me how delicious it was. Which was great but at this stage I had started to make a different cake.

Failed cake #1 looked something like this:


For the second attempt I made a vanilla cake because it didn't require going to shops to get more oreos. I used kittee's vanilla cake recipe because I know she is a cake goddess. When it was in the oven, I thought something might be wrong because there was quite a strange smell. I had already made the icing though and thought maybe it was just me. So I iced it by cutting it half and put jam in the middle and then chocolate icing all over. The chocolate icing was awesome and surprisingly doesn't need any soy/rice milk. Anyway I then noticed that there was a tiny bit of cake that I could try, so I had it and realised that it tasted sour, I then realised that I must have put apple cider vinegar in it in place of the oil. So I had spent all day and then all evening making two failed cakes. I just wanted to crawl up in a ball and cry but had to go home to Mr T. I considered staying up to midnight to bake a third but just realised it was crazy. So I decided to take the iced cake to show him and everyone and explain that it wasn't really edible.


But somehow, with 24 hours and a hell of a lot of icing and jam it was edible. It still smelt weird but all the sweetness of the jam and icing seemed to compensate for the weird cake.

Here is the cake:




and here is the bike:

I think I need a rest from cake baking for a while :-)

Soup for the soul

Again, a dish that I made in my early vegan days. I love this soup, it has lots of veggies in it and is the type of thing that requires lengthy cooking time but that's when you get to go blog or whatever. We had this for dinner and then had it as leftovers the following day as a pasta sauce.

This recipe makes a lot so be prepared for leftovers, it freezes well too:

2 cups green lentils
1 head garlic, peeled and finely minced or pressed
2 medium onions finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 bunch celery chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
4-5 carrots sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
4 medium potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes
8 to 10 cups water or vegetable stock
2 bay leafs (remove before serving)
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon oregano
salt and pepper to taste


1. Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat for about five minutes or until soft.

2. Add onions and garlic to stock pot with water or stock.

3. Add remaining ingredients and simmer, stirring occasionally for at least 1 hour. Like most soups of this type, this one will taste even better the second day when the flavors have had a chance to develop.



This has got to be one of the least appealing food pics, but it's better to have crappy images, than none right?

Vegweb can be pretty darn good

Lately I've been making dishes that I made when I first went vegan 5-6 years ago and didn't really know how to cook. I used to make this noodle dish regularly and was kind of relieved to see that I still enjoyed it today. It's easy, ohh how I love easy savoury dishes. To make it slightly more interesting I also made tofu bacon. I can't find the recipe on vegweb anymore but basically you fry the hell out of tofu pieces, and then sprinkle some nooch on it, and add a tiny bit of liquid smoke and a fair bit of soy sauce so that it so that it nicely coated.

I also can't find this dish which was titled 'asian broccoli noodles' dish on vegweb. What's up with vegweb lately? Anyway I did find it on another blog:

Ingredients:
2 cups Broccoli, Raw
3/4 cups Onions, Green
2 servings Fresh Garlic
2 tablespoons Fresh Ginger Root
2 tablespoons Omega Natural Peanut Butter
1/4 cups Soy Sauce
1 tablespoons Natural Cane Sugar
3 tablespoons Water
2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
1/2 teaspoons Salt (table)
4 servings Noodles, Japanese, Soba, Dry

Instructions:
Combine garlic, ginger, PB, soy sauce, and sugar. Blend well and add water, lemon juice, and salt.

Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain, rinse, and set aside.

Heat oil in wok or skillet. Stir-fry broccoli for about 3 minutes. Add noodles and stir until heated.

Add PB mixture to pan and stir until sauce is evenly distributed.

Bourban balls, or super classy jim bean balls

Apparently I am crazy, because I decided that I will participate in Australian Mofo in a crazy busy month for me. But I'm hoping that it will get me out of my food rut that I have been in lately and get me back to making and blogging about interesting yummy food.

It's Amy at Iron Chef Vegan fabulous idea to have it one month early for Australians, which is great because while September is going to be crazy, October is going to be even busier for me. So the goal is to post every day about vegan food, but since we are lazy Aussie's we will aim for 4-5 a week. There are quite a few vegan Aussie blogs participating including unwakeable, vegan sixteen, tropical vegan, Annabananabomb, ink and venom, twilight and shadow (from NZ), and for esme.

Anyway on to the food.

It was my dad's birthday recently and I wanted to make him something, but he is pretty picky when it comes to desserts. However, I know that he loves Jim Bean so I decided to make something with it. The first thing I thought of was rum balls, I found this great recipe from vegalicious which was easy and which my dad loved:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups vanilla wafer crumbs or digestive biscuits
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1 cup pecans or walnuts, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup rum or bourbon
  
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/3 cup corn syrup
• 1/2 cup of shredded coconut
  

Directions:

1. Using a kitchen machine, or blender or food processor or a rolling pin (depending on what you have available), turn the cookies into fine crumbs.
2. Combine biscuit/wafer crumbs and chopped nuts.
3. Add remaining dry ingredients in bowl and mix thoroughly.
4. Mix the corn syrup and rum together and then add to the crumb mixture, using a big spoon or fork, mix all together well. It will be a sticky mass.You can put it in the refrigerator for a short time to harden a bit before making the balls, sometimes this makes it easier, or less sticky.
5. Roll into balls 1 inch in diameter then roll balls in either confectioners’ sugar or finely chopped nuts. I obviously used coconut.

Makes 40-48 balls. Store in a cookie tin or container tightly sealed.

I only used a quarter cup of bourbon which is an exactly one mintaure bottle of jim bean because I thought they would be too strong but all of the bourbon drinkers said that they could use more. I am going to make some more this weekend for fathers day for my stepdad and include his favourite drink Johnnie Walker.

Yes man and Zooey Deschanel

Mr T and I recently watched Yes Man on dvd, and had pretty low expectations but were pleasantly surprised. We both enjoyed the film which is a bit of goal in it self since we normally can't agree on movies. I was surprised because I normally can't stand Jim Carey. The soundtrack was not bad too, and towards the end I realised that the female vocals sounded very familar and then realised that of course Zooey Deschanel sang many of the songs and I really like her stuff in she and him with m ward.

Speaking of Zooey, I enjoyed watching the US cooking show where they made a five course vegan, gluten free, soy free meal for her. I was a bit disappointed in some of the lazy efforts like buying ready made rice based ice cream and how some of the professional chefs found the concept so hard but loved the look of the quinoa pasta dish. You can watch the episode here Thanks vegan dad for pointing it out.

Ma Po Tofu

Mr T and I recently made Ma Po Tofu from where's the beef and it is AWESOME. It is so easy to make and rich in flavour that we have made it about 3 times in a pretty short period. The only change we make, is using a little less of the spicy soya bean paste because we both have a pretty low heat tolerance.

Thanks Cindy and Michael, and Quinn T for suggesting it.

Pancake weekend

A couple of weekends ago I had to knuckle down and spend a weekend working on my thesis, to try to make me feel better on sat morning I made these 5 minute pancakes. I didn't have regular soy milk but had choc and then made Vegan Dad's easy blueberry sauce.

The pancakes were super easy, slightly sweet, and yummy although I probably wouldn't recommend using choc soy milk. The sauce was delicious and well kind of healthy too.



The next morning, I made them again with regular soy milk, and served them lemon and icing sugar. Mr T said that he had never had them with lemon and sugar before. I think it is my favourite way to eat them and you can also eat them with your hands when there is no sauce or sticky maple syrup.


I will be making this quick pancake recipe again and again and again.


5 Minute Pancakes

• 1 cup flour
  
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup soymilk
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  

1. Set out all your ingredients.
2. Set a stove element with a pan to medium heat.
3. Combine the 4 dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) in a bowl.
4. Add the soy milk and vegetable oil to your mixture.
5. Mix until smooth.
6. Now the pan should be ready for your batter, so spoon one pancakes' worth of the mixture into the pan.
7. Flip [carefully] when you see bubbles in the middle of the pancake, or if the edges are looking stiffened.

Nan's choc sauce for ice cream

Both my nan and mum used to make this yummy choc sauce that was only ever served on ice cream, and I asked about it recently and found that it was super easy to veganise.

This is best served on vanilla ice cream. It is gooey and almost fudge like and makes me feel better about eating ice cream in winter.


1 cup sugar
1/4 cup margarine
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tbsp of cocoa

• Melt margarine, add sugar and cocoa and stir until sugar starts to dissolve
• Add soy milk, bring to boil and cook for a minute (be careful here if you cook it for too long it will become too hard like toffee)
  
• Take off heat and add vanilla essence
  

This makes too much for just 2 people, even people who eats lots like us so next time I will half the recipe. I didn't have regular soy milk but had vanilla soy milk so I just used that and left out the vanilla.

Thanks Nan, you rocked!

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.

Happy Tuna Salad meets Jacket Potatoes

I heart jacket potatoes, I don't know why we don't make them more often. The other day I decided to combine the chickpea based Happy Tuna Salad with jacket potatoes and it rocked. I then added some cheddar cheezly to the top. My only complaint was that it was quite dry and so next time I might add some tofutti cream cheese or sour cream.



We had some of the potato/happy tuna salad filling leftover so I decided to fry them into patties which worked really well, I didn't even have to add oil.



What are you fav jacket potato combinations?

Bad food pics but yummy food

This first dish is up there with my favourite tofu dishes, and I really like the method for dry frying the tofu first and love the orange sauce It was a perfect way to use up some excess oranges from the food co-op and I think I will add it to our dishes that we have again and again.

I don't want to risk losing the recipe so here is it:

Orange Tofu with Broccoli from Vegan Homemade

1 lb.(450 grams) extra-firm tofu, cut into cubes or triangles
bunch of broccoli, cut into florets
4 cloves garlic
4 green onions
3/4 c water
1/4 c orange juice
1 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs seasoned rice vinegar
4 Tbs soy sauce
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp red pepper
1 Tbs cornstarch

Dry-fry tofu until browned, or saute in oil if preferred. Steam broccoli until crisp-tender.

Whisk remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Heat a large skillet to medium, and add tofu, broccoli and sauce mixture. Bring to a simmer, then continue to simmer until the sauce is reduced to your liking, stirring occasionally.

Serve over brown rice or noodles.

Erin also linked to this handy link on how to dryfry tofu.

This second dish was so great when I was sick. Ginger is awesome for both nausea and colds/flus. We followed her recommendations and used soy sauce instead of braggs. I love the unusual combination she uses, it actually works.

Carrot Ginger Cashew Pasta from Vegan Soul Power

*This recipe is casual with portions, because it can easily be stretched. I usually use about 3 carrots and 2 handfuls cashews.

-Raw, unsalted cashews
-Carrots, peeled and chopped
-1-2 cloves garlic, peeled
-1" ginger root, peeled and sliced
-1/2 tbs agave nectar
-Braggs
-Whole wheat pasta
-Kale or swiss chard, loosely chopped

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil for your pasta. Bring a small pot of water to boil for your veggies.
2. Using a steamer insert, put equal parts carrots and cashews, along with the garlic and ginger in a pot to steam. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and steam for about 5 minutes, or until carrots can easily be pierced with a fork. Meanwhile, cook desired amount of pasta.
3. (Carefully) add steamed veggies to food processor or blender. Add a dollop of olive oil, a splash of braggs, and agave nectar. Blend until smooth-ish.
4. Once pasta is al dente, pour over kale or chard. Then toss with carrot sauce, adding a tiny pasta water if desired.



And finally not a food pic but a pic of the graffiti from my favourite safeway in Brunswick. It's my fav safeway because they sell tofutti cream cheese, often has good buskers, is right near radical grocery and I can take the bike path the whole way to get there instead of having to cross Sydney or Grantham St.