Tofu Mushroom Ragu

I frequently make this Tofu Mushroom Ragu. It is based on the Mushroom Ragu in The Australian Women's Weekly Vegie Main Meals recipe book, which is one of the small ones Aussies will see on same for a few dollars at the supermarket checkout.

I change it around a bit, by using button mushrooms and adding tofu for protein. I serve it often with pasta, as you can see, rather than dairy laden polenta, as in the recipe. I also add some vegetable sides.

It is a great favourite in our house. In fact it's one of Z's favourite meals.

Here's my recipe:

Tofu Mushroom Ragout

Ingredients

Serves 8-10 with pasta and sides (I freeze half and have 2 meals for 5 people)

Cooking spray or a few tablespoons of olive oil
Approx 750g very firm tofu (can be a bit more or less depending on the packaging style), cut into 1-2 cm chunks
1 Large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons Nuttelex
1/4 cup plain flour
500 g button or flat mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2/3 cup wine (can be white or red or cooking sherry, depending on your preference or pantry)
2 cups vegetarian stock (I usually use Massel Chicken-style vegan stock cubes + water)
1-2 cups water
2 teaspoons dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Pasta to serve

Method

1. Spray large skillet or wok with cooking spray.
2. Fry tofu chunks until slightly golden. You might need to do this in batches. Remove tofu from heat.
   
3. Spray skillet/wok again with cooking spray. Cook onion until almost translucent.
   
4. Add garlic and cook for a minute or two longer.
5. Remove garlic and onion. Melt margarine. Add flour and cook for a minute or two. If it's too dry, add a few tablespoons of water.
6. Add mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.
7. Add wine, tomato past and stock and mix until flour mix dissolves into liquid.
8. Return tofu and onion/garlic mix to liquid. Add enough water to almost cover. Add thyme.
   
9. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, until liquid reduces to a desirable amount and thickens.
   
10. Taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.
    
11. Serve over cooked pasta with vegetable side dishes.
    

This freezes very well.

Adventures with Pastry: Croissants

I will admit up front that I don't have a great history with pastry. I think I overwork it. However, I buy a mean puff pastry (Borg's - it says "Vegan" on the packet!"). After visiting Vegan Dad's excellent blog and seeing his croissants, and in spite of my pastry history, I decided to give them a go for Mother's Day. M asked if she could help. I used this recipe from Jennifer of Vegan Lunch box fame.

First step was to mix the simple yeast dough and let it rise. That bit was easy enough. We then punched it and M rolled it out:


After that, we added a layer of margarine (Nuttelex):


I tried rolling and freezing the margarine as Jennifer directed, but the Nuttelex did not freeze hard. Instead, I just spread it around.

After that, we folded it as directed:




We then refrigerate, re-rolled and refrigerated the folded dough several times as directed.

Finally, we shaped them:


And here is one the next morning on my breakfast tray, as arranged by M, who made me breakfast in bed:


(By the way, the tray was made by J, who gave it to me for a present last year. He is very talented at woodwork and is toying with carpentry for a career idea.)

How were the croissants? The flavour was excellent and they rose well. The whole double batch was eaten by our family on Mother's Day. However, they were a bit more bread-like than flaky inside. That's probably done to the Nuttelex not cooling hard and me over-enthusiastically rolling it. However, I need to give another recipe a go to see if it's the recipe or me. (I'm guessing me!)

Caturday

Berry's Box: Enter at Own Risk

Our cats love boxes and hiding places, so we grabbed a box the other day from a pile at the shops. Berry commandeered it, though Switch frequently sniffed it, interested in smells that we couldn't detect. We realised why it was so popular once we actually read the details on the front of the box!

French food dinner & Julie and Julia

A few weeks ago, I saw Julie and Julia, the moving about a blogger, Julie Powell, who decided to blog her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French of French Cooking. Julie made all 500+ recipes in the cookbook in one year, while blogging her progress. Her very successful blog was published as a book, which was the basis of her story in the movie. The movie also told Julia Child's story from her first cooking lessons in France through to her cookbook publication and eventual successful TV career. The Julia story was based on her autobiography.

The movie was a fairly light romp. Meryl Streep was excellent as Julia Child. I don't know how they made her look so tall, but she embodied Child well, awkward tallness, irritating voice, joie de vivre and all. The other actors were appealing and did well in their roles. The stories appealed to the feminist in me, showing two women engaging in what could have been seen as trivial women's occupations (cooking plus blogging for Julie) and turning it into wild successes. The story telling was kind to the protaganists, while avoiding the hyperbolic conventions of many success stories.

The down side of the movie was the amount of dead animal food discussed and handled. I don't find corpses fun, but realise that most of the rest of the cinema would have seen the very real dead bodies as no more than another prop or meal. I handled it by closing my eyes in a couple of spots.

The concentration of the moving on Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French of French Cooking, led to me checking it out from the library. In the movie, Julie raved about her mother making Boeuf Bouguignon. As a result I decided to give it a veganised try.

To go with my version, I decided to make a 3 course french meal.

First course, not pictured, was an omelette aux fines herbs, using the omelette recipe from Vegan Brunch, filled with fresh chopped herbs, rolled, sliced and served with a small green salad. I also served sliced french stick with it. This is an amazing omelette. I will blog it further soon.


It was followed by mushroom stick bourguignon, which was better than it looks in this photo. I substituted Lamyong vegan ham for the bacon in the original recipe, nuttelex for butter, Massel beef style stock for the stock and mushroom sticks for the beef. I made a 2/3 sized recipe, with only 300g of mushroom sticks in place of 1kg meat, as it appeared to be around that volume, though it was lighter. I frequently use mushroom sticks in the place of beef in any recipe where it calls for small chunks. Mr Brisvegan loves them, as do the children.

It worked really well. As you can see, I served it with baked potato, cauliflower gratin and baked asparagus. Everyone other than Z liked it. Z likes his mushroom sticks with a more subtle sauce apparently.


To follow, I made my first tarte tatin. It was as easy as it looks on TV cooking shows.

Apple Tarte Tatin

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Nuttelex
2 Tablespoons white sugar
pinch each cloves and cinnamon
3 - 4 apples, cored and sliced
1 sheet vegan puff pasty

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
   
2. Line a pie dish with non-stick baking paper. In the dish, melt the nuttelex. You can do this by popping it in the oven for a few minutes.
3. Sprinkle the sugar and spices over the sugar.
4. Add apples. Return to oven for 20 minutes or until apples are just tender.
5. Remove dish from oven. You can leave it to cool if you wish to serve the pie hot later in the day.
   
6. 30 minutes before you want to serve a hot tarte tatin, cover the apples with the puff pastry. Trim and tuck the edges around the apples.
7. Return to oven. Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden.
8. Once the pasty is cooked, invert the tart onto a serving dish. Viola!

Everyone loved the tart. It was so simple and easy, I will be using this method again.