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I’m a bit sad to say goodbye to this space, and to say goodbye to my nearly 6000 views (I was so excited to get to 10,000, but now we’ll be starting all over again! SO! To help us out, come over to Vegan Chickie, have a look around, leave a comment and visit often so we can get back the ground we lost!

Thanks everyone!

See you there!

This is another one of those dishes that is SUPER yummy but somehow looks kinda yuk when you take photos of it, but I promise you, it’s very delicious! And quiet easy too despite all the different pans you will use!

Vegan Lasagne

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large can of chopped tomatoes
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 clove garlic minced
1 small red chili chopped finely
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 large red capsicum
10 button mushrooms sliced finely
1 large eggplant sliced finely
2 large zucchini sliced finely
2 fresh tomatoes sliced finely
3 layers of lasagne sheets
Salt and Pepper to taste
Fresh herbs (Basil & Thyme)

Method:

1. Quarter and deseed the capsicum and place it skin side up on a non stick baking tray. Place in the oven on high until skin blisters and blackens – about 20 minutes. Remove and discard the blackened skin and slice capsicum into thin strips. Reduce oven head to 180 degrees.

2. While the capsicum is roasting, make your tomato sauce: in a medium sized pan, on low heat, heat 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil, add garlic, browning for 30 seconds before adding the tinned tomatoes, chilli, stock cubes and fresh herbs. Leave the pan on low heat, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes.

3. While the tomato sauce is cooking, in a small fry pan and using the rest of the olive oil in batches, brown 8 of your mushrooms, the eggplant and the zucchini. Set vegetables aside.

4. In a baking dish, place half a cup of your tomato sauce mixture and then place one layer of lasagne sheets on top. top with 1 third of each of the capsicum, mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini, fresh tomatoes and then 1 third of the remaining tomato sauce. Repeat until all your ingredients are used up. Top with the remaining uncooked mushrooms.

5. Bake, covered, in the oven at 180 degrees for 50 minutes, and then uncovered for a further 10.

The Hidden Lives of Cows

Some Thoughts on Vegan Education

This video was the “light-bulb moment” for my husband, who has always been a very avid meat eater, he always picked on me for my tendency to anthropomorphize animals, but then he saw this video and he hasn’t eaten meat since.

The very fabulous Jonathan Safran Foer on Ellen

A children’s book about veganism and factory farming: Why We Don’t Eat Animals

Abolitionist Approach FAQs

Of course there is the documentary “Earthlings” which I highly recommend, even though I’m still having nightmares after forcing myself to watch it. I know it’s hard to watch, but as I said to a friend of mine the other day who said she just couldn’t watch it, closing my eyes doesn’t make the cruelty any less true. If you aren’t able to watch it, imagine how it must be to live it.

Here is a Thanksgiving Ad by Peta, in light of the fact that it is Thanksgiving. I have a lot of issues with Peta and a lot of their approaches to vegan education – in particular the way they exploit women – but I do quite like the simplicity and sincerity of this advertisement so I thought I would include it.

And you all know by now that I think everyone (in the world!) should read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, even if you have no interest in veganism, it is still such an important read, please read it!

Okay that’s it for this week. I’ll come back next week with anything interesting I find between now and then!

PS: Just a note, I will not link anything graphic without a warning either before or directly after the link, I am VERY sensitive about that kind of thing so I wouldn’t ambush anyone that way, however, some of the sites I’m linking to may have graphic pictures in their headers or sidebars, linking to various things around their sites, so tread carefully if you are likely to be easily offended.

**NOTE: This post was supposed to be posted yesterday, but due to technical difficulties didn’t go through until today, which explains the Thanksgiving theme

Lets go back to basics shall we? Sometimes I spend so much time focusing on my main meal of the day (and my baked goodies) that I forget to mention the simpler meals that I make. I was talking yesterday with a friend (you know who you are!) who is thinking about trying a vegan lifestyle and it occurred to me that sometimes the easiest meals are the best ones, especially when you are just getting started so here is a look at my lunch today:

Vegan Burgers! We have a whole bunch of vegan patties out the back in the freezer just waiting for a lazy day dinner or a quick lunch. Sometime they are bought ones, sometimes we make them, there are loads of great recipes online if you want to go that way.. and next time I make my own I’ll be sure to add the recipe to the blog, but for this burger I just used whatever we had in the freezer. Depending on how much time you have you can add extra veggies, I love zucchini sliced thinly and fried off in some olive oil until it’s browned on both sides, and grilled red capsicum as well. Ahh, but I’m getting ahead of myself, here is my basic burger:

Vegan Burgers

Vegan patty of your choice, cooked according to directions
3 button mushrooms, sliced
Bread roll
Hummus
1 Tomato, sliced
Fresh Basil
Beetroot
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Slice the burger bun in half and toast or grill it until brown, spread hummus on both toasted sides. In a small pan, fry your mushrooms in a little oil, place them on one side of the burger, top with sliced tomato and fresh basil leaves, sprinkle with salt and pepper, then add the beetroot and the burger patty. Put the top on and you’re all done.

If I’m having this for lunch I’ll have it as is, for dinner I usually serve it with salad and fries or chips. It’s a really simple meal that doesn’t take a lot of time, and it’s super delicious too.

This was my first attempt at vegan cookies and I’m so thrilled with the results. These cookies are the perfect amount of crunchy and chocolate-y, I think next time I’ll add some chopped walnuts to the mix as well, although I don’t think I’ll need to make any more cookies for a VERY long time, I doubled the normal amounts thinking the original yield would only be a dozen or so and I wanted to take some to my Bowen lady, five dozen cookies later I was still baking and that’s not even taking into account the cookie dough I ate straight from the bowl! My goodness, I’ll be eating choc chip cookies for the rest of the year!!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer (We use ORGRAN)
6 tablespoons (90ml) water
1 cup (225g) non-dairy butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 to 2 cups non dairy choc chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or use a non stick baking tray.

2. Whip the egg replacer and water together, until it’s thick and creamy.

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugars and vanilla. Add the egg replacer mixture to the bowl and thoroughly combine.

4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually beat the flour mixture into the wet mixture until it begins to form a dough. When it is almost thoroughly combined, stir in the choc chips.

5. Bake on cookie sheet for approx 10 – 15 minutes or until golden brown. Stand for 5 minutes and then put on wire racks to cool completely.

Yeild: 2 dozen

Anyone want to come round and share them with me? I have soooo many:

I think this chocolate cake is the easiest cake I’ve ever made, I’d barely even started and it was already baking away in the oven! Delicious too! It’s recipes like these that make me wonder why people bake with eggs and milk at all!

Vegan Chocolate Cake
(The Joy of Vegan Baking)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (188g) unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 cup cold water

+ the frosting of your choice

Method:

1. Prehead the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a baking pan. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder in a bowl until thoroughly combined.

2.Create a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the vanilla, oil, vinegar and water, mix until just combined. Pour into your prepared pan, and bake for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

3. Cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.

NOTE: you can also use this mixture for cupcakes, in that instance check after 15 minutes to see if cakes are done.

To be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of this mild curry, I prefer my curries to be really rich and spicy and so I wasn’t going to post it, but it occurred to me last night that there are some people who actually love their curries lovely and mild, so I figured I would post it and you can just decide for yourself! Serve with Basmati rice and chutney!

No Hurry Vegetable Curry
(Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker)

Ingredients:
1 tbs peanut Oil
2 large carrots, sliced on teh diagonal
1 onion leek, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbs curry powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
8 ounces green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1/2 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
Salt

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the carrots and onion, cover and cook until softened, about 5 mins. Add the garlic, curry powder, coriander, and cayenne, stirring to coat.

2. Transfer the vegetable mixture to your slow cooker. Add the potatoes, green beans, chickpeas, tomatoes and stock; cover, and cook on low for 7 – 8 hours.

3. Just before serving, stir in the peas and coconut milk and season with salt. Taste to adjust the seasonings.