Adventures of a Vegan Foodie

This blog is now hosted at http://veganchickie.com

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.

This blog is now hosted at http://veganchickie.com

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 blog is now hosted at http://veganchickie.com

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:

This blog is now hosted at http://veganchickie.com

One of the foods that I always thought I would miss when I became a vegan was pizza, in my head there just wasn’t a way to have pizza without cheese, but it turns out that vegan pizza is not only delicious, but super fast and easy too.

You can make your own dough if you want to, but I was a bit of a cheat and bought some ready made bases from the supermarket. The toppings are totally up to you of course but here is what I have on mine:

Tomato paste/Pizza Sauce
Green olives
Mushrooms
Roasted Cashew Nuts (salty is best!)
Capsicum
Jalapenos
Artichokes
Tomato
Fresh Basil

Put the whole thing in the oven for 10 minutes and you’re done! So yum!
You can also use pita bread as a base if you like your pizza base thin and crispy.

What are your favourite vegan pizza toppings?

This blog is now hosted at http://veganchickie.com

Another slow cooker recipe tonight, a nice accompaniment for the snow storm that unexpectedly swept over us this afternoon! Unfortunately due to technical difficulties with the camera (ie: a dead battery) I don’t have any progress pictures to go with this recipe, just the end result.

Almost Irish Stew
(Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker)

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion leek, chopped
1 1/2 cups baby carrots, halved lengthwise
6 very small white potatoes, halved or quartered
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons tamari or other soy sauce
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 large kale leaves – or other dark leafy greens, chopped, cooked until tender and drained

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Add the onion, cover and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Transfer the onions to your slow cooker. Add the carrots, potatoes, garlic, beans, stock, bay leaf, wine, tamari, thyme and salt and pepper, Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

3. About 10 minutes before serving stir in the cooked kale (we also added some browned vegan sausages at this point). Serve hot.

Serve up with some fresh bread rolls.. yum!