Veggie Lady

Vegetarian Pizza

I made us a lovely Vegetarian pizza on Friday, using a recipe in one of our favourite books, Easy Vegetarian

The dough recipe seemed like the most straightforward of all the books we own, and it proved to work very well. I've tried to make pizza dough before, but with limited success! Actually, last time I made it I swore I would never bother again, it was so stressful. However, this dough made a lovely thin base and did't end up splattered all over my kitchen, so I will definitely be making it again.

I made some simple tomato sauce, chopped some veggies and topped the dough with them. Half an hour later we had two lovely pizzas - one vegan, one vegetarian.

Hello again!

Well now, I'm so sorry for my long absence. I have been in the thick of university assignments for the last few weeks, and have taken a bit of a holiday from blogging.

However, here am I, ready to blog anew! I'm going to make homemade pizza tonight - the results of which I will blog about soon - but in the meantime here is a little photo list of the nice veggie meals I've been cooking up lately.

Red Pepper and Asparagus Soup

 

Lemon and Piri-Piri Kebabs

Banana and Strawberry Smoothies for breakfast

Asparagus and Tofu Stir Fry

Portabello Mushrooms with red onion chutney and brie

Tasty Tofu

 I never thought I would like tofu, but I've found a very tasty brand that I buy as often as I can.

Tofu (bean curd) is an ancient product made by "coagulating soy milk and pressing the resulting curds" - see Wikipedia. It originated two thousand years ago in ancient China, though for hundreds of years it has been used in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.


Photgraphed is Taifun Smoked tofu, which is my particular tofu of choice. It's firm so doesn't crumble when you cook it. It smells and tastes quite unlike anything I've eaten before, and I practically drool over the stuff. The tofu is suitable for eating straight out of the packet, putting in marinades, and using in recipes.

The Engine Shed Cafe in Edinburgh makes their own smoked tofu, which I've been told is delicious. My local veggie friendly shop Real Foods sells it, and it would be nice to try one day soon!

I also like the very popular  Cauldron smoked tofu pieces, as they're easy to use in recipes and also taste nice just to snack on.

I'm personally not a big fan of the soft silken tofu that you can get, but mostly because of the texture. It's so versatile though, I've probably got hundreds of recipes that use it!

Has anyone else a favourite tofu?

Fancy Sushi

 

I almost forgot about this!

I did make fancy sushi, as I'd intended. It was actually really good, I would probably rate it as the tastiest sushi I've made.

I made up a few recipes for ingredients, to try some different things. On the PPK they recommended using tempeh in sushi, so I made a vegan sauce with some veganaise, tomato puree and (vegan) worcester sauce, mixed it with tempeh then stuffed it into sushi with avocado and cucumber - very nice.

Also marinaded some shitake mushrooms with sugar, mirin and tamari soy sauce, then lightly fried them together and rolled with cucumber. Again, this tasted nice but was also quite strong!

I filled the other rolls with various raw veggies, and also made a little wasabi mayonnaise (vegan style) to put in the rolls with the raw vegetables. T'was lovely: I'm not normally a fan of wasabi but the mayo certainly cooled it down a lot!

I cut these at jaunty angles, as per the PPK video, and they did look really good on the plate when they were sliced like that.


Mmmm, sushi. I could eat some right now...

Vegetarian Sushi

As promised, here's a little post about Vegetarian sushi.

I love sushi. I could eat it every day and I don't think I would ever tire of it. It's just the tastiest food ever, it feels healthy and it fills you up.

Sushi in Japanese refers to the vinegared sticky rice that is served. In the West we commonly use sushi as an umbrella term for everything that the rice is used in, so we just say sushi when talking about nigiri, maki, etc.

It's a common misconception that you need fish for sushi, but this is absolutely not the case. You can use fish as an ingredient with the rice, but it's the rice that's the important bit! I tell you this only because, as a vegetarian, I get people asking me why I eat sushi when I don't eat fish. T'ain't fish. Let them know!

Anyway, minor rant over, back to delicious food. I generally make maki-zushi, as I love the taste of the nutrient rich nori sea vegetable with the rice.

We buy Clearspring producs for sushi - they're all marked vegan, are often organic and are very tasty. I like to make sure we have nice organic Shoyu (soy sauce) for dipping, as it really does taste better than the soy sauce you typically get in supermarkets.

I like to make Futomaki (nori rolls) and Uramaki (inside out nori rolls). Futomaki I find easier to make, but the Uramaki is always tasty and worth the extra effort.

I use all sorts of raw ingredients for sushi. I particularly love the combination of red pepper, avocado and cashew nuts, and tend to make Futomaki with these ingredients in them, however i like to combine sweet potato, carrots, peppers, cucumber, spinach, asparagus etc. Because I make my sushi vegan (so we can both eat it!) I no longer add cream cheese or anything, but back when I did I loved the combination of cream cheese and lightly fried mushrooms together.

After watching the Post Punk Kitchen video I really want to try making some tempeh sushi - I think I'm going to give it a try tomorrow night. I'll post a photo if it's successful!

Have a look at Wikipedia's entry on sushi to learn a bit more.

Post Punk Kitchen - Episode 1

I'm still feeling a bit ill, but thought I would share the very first episode of the Post Punk Kitchen with you! These are a couple of great vegan chefs - my boyfriend bought Isa Chandra Moskowitz's book "Vegan With a Vengeance" several months ago, and it has some really interesting recipes in it. Anyway, here they show you how to make vegan sushi (my favourite food, more about that later this week!) and cupcakes... Enjoy!

Potabello Mushroom veggie burger

Mushroom burger, originally uploaded by Laura A.

I made us mushroom burgers for dinner tonight. really easy to make, and they tasted delicious (if I do say so myself).

Ingredients:
2 ciabatta rolls (or 4 small ones, or whatever roll you want!)
4 Portabello Mushrooms
1 red pepper
Wild rocket
Hummus or mayonnaise, whatever you prefer.

For shallot topping:
4 or 5 shallots, really thinly sliced
Splash of balsamic vinegar (a teaspoon or a little more)
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper, to taste.
1 tablespoon olive oil

Firstly, I very gently fried the sliced shallots in the olive oil for about 20 minutes, making sure they didn't brown or burn.

I sliced the red pepper and put it in the oven to roast while the shallots were cooking.

After the shallots had been sweating away for 20 minutes or so, I added the garlic, balsamic vinegar and seasoning then left on the hob to cook gently together. I put the ciabatta rolls in the oven to heat and harden - the ones I bought took about 10 minutes to cook.

While this mix was cooking I lightly coated my mushrooms with some olive oil, then fried them for around 5 mins on each side.

When the mushrooms were ready I removed everything from the heat, slied the ciabattas into nice bun sized halves and piled one mushroom, some shallot mix, red peppers and rocket into then, then topped with hummus.

Was relatively easy to make, the most time consuming part being the shallots.

Vegan Truffles Recipe

I made my boyfriend vegan truffles for Valentine's day... I know, it's horribly soppy, but he deserves them!

They were quite easy to make, actually. A bit time consuming, but mostly due to the periods of inactivity whilst waiting for things to cool.

Ingredients:
125ml vegan cream
100g vegan plain chocolate
40g flaked/chopped almonds (approx, more or less is fine)
Some icing sugar
Red berry jam

Firstly, I mixed the almonds and cream together and gently heated for several minutes, never letting the cream boil.

At the same time, I broke 50g of the plain chocolate up and melted it in a bowl over boiling water. I used some nice Green and Black organic dark chocolate (marked veggie and vegan - I bought the plain kind, no extra flavourings).

When the chocolate was melted, I combined it with the almond/cream mixture and then blended until the almonds were well broken up and the mixture was sufficiently smooth.

I let this cool for a while - I tried the "bowl in cold water" trick but eventually resorted to the fridge for a few hours.

When the mixture was cool and hardened, I drew out scoops of it and shaped them into rough balls. I melted my remaining chocolate in a bowl, and dipped the truffle balls into this. They hardened quite quickly, and I put them back into the fridge to cool.

I mixed icing sugar and jam together to make the red icing - I guessed the quantities of each but didn't need much - just use whatever consistencies needed to get the icing right for your own decorations - I wanted it kind of runny. I used jam and not colouring to avoid any potential non-vegan contamination, also it seemed a bit more healthy (until we talk about sugar - so let's not!). The icing dissolved nicely in the jam, and I piped it onto the cooled truffles. Back in the fridge, an hour later: truffletastic.

I'm assured that they taste good. I'm trying to be nice and not eat them - I had my fill whilst licking the spoons before washing them, etc. Noticed an hour or two after making the truffles that I had a large smear of chocolate stretching from my mouth to my cheek :)

I also tried, with less success, to make truffles filled with berries - I mixed the warm, almond free cream with melted chocolate, and stirred chopped "razzcherries" into this mix. It didn't have enough time to set, but I'd try it again if I had time to make chocolates the night before as they are ready for eating today!

Note: I have to say that since this is a homemade recipe I wasn't too careful with my measurements, so use whatever looks right to you! I tried to find a good truffle recipe online, but many vegan ones called for loads of sugar (which I think we get enough of from the chocolate) or silken tofu. I'm not averse to using silken tofu when I need to, but when soya cream is available I prefer to use it in desserts.

Veggie News: a little round up

I've read a few stories that have sparked the interest of my vegetarian self, and thought I'd up links up to them. Click on the title for the link.

PETA drops Heather Mills McCartney?
A few UK newspapers this weekend have reported that PETA have dropped Heather Mills, a formely vocal supporter of the charity, for the chance to work with Mary McCartney (Paul's daughter and a respected photographer). Wonder if it's true? I really hope not - it's not a good day for a charity if they get involved in personal family feuds. No reports on the PETA site, as yet :)

160,000 turkeys culled in avian flu outbreak
Dearie me... I'm sure you have all read this already, but the Bernard Matthews factory in Suffolk was involved in an outbreak of the bird flu virus H5N1. This has resulted in some 160,000 turkeys being gassed to death. In my ignorance, I didn't realise that so many birds would be kept in such close quarters. Poor wee birdies.

Organic Meat - turning veggies meaty?
Well, I don't think so. I'm posting a link to this article because it made me rather grumpy. A woman who has stopped being vegetarian posts an article in the magazine section, in which she justifies her reasons for eating meat again. Fine by me, but the assumptions she makes are ridiculous and annoying. She talks about the "happy life" of an organically bred animal, but doesn't appear to think about the stressful death. She also assures her readers of the many other vegetarians who would happily eat organic meat - I suspect that many vegetarians would beg to differ. Have a read through the comments - like me, you may become grumpy with the comments from both some of the veggie and meaty readers! She also starts sentences with "but" and "because". Dearie, dearie me...

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Made this for dinner on Saturday night, as intended!

It was nice, easy to make too.

I chopped an onion, then gently fried it in some vegan margarine. Whilst the onion was frying, I brought some rice to the boil and cooked with a little vegan stock.

I added my packet of wild mushrooms (chopped) to the onion, then after a few minutes I added some vegan White Wine to the mix. I let everything cook gently together until the rice was finished cooking, then drained the rice and added it my mushroom/onion mix. I stirred in some fresh spinach, which naturally wilted in the heat, and served with Aubergine (eggplant) steaks. (The steaks were simply long strips of aubergine, soaked in olive oil, coriander and a splash of lemon juice, grilled until blackened slightly.)

Another easy, tasty tea!