Vegan MoFo Day 26 - Tidy-up Thursdays - TVP for Caribbean patties and "bacon" bits

TVP has been cluttering my pantry for years and although it may not be the strangest pantry ingredient for a vegan to hoard I've included it in Tidy-up Thursdays as I rarely cook with it these days. By the time I came to the decision that TVP wasn't the most exciting ingredient, I had accumulated a few bags of the stuff which I've slowly been working my way through. The final remaining bag of TVP has a best before of December 2012 which doesn't deter me from using it as I don't believe this stuff can go off anyway. 

A handful of TVP recipes were spotted in my exciting new cookbook Caribbean Vegan and following the success of the first meal sampled from the book, I was very keen to give another recipe a try. I picked out some patties (filled pastries) filled with a spicy TVP mince and used frozen puff pastry sheets rather than the home made pastry in the book to shorten the preparation time. The filling was flavoured with a jerk seasoning, onions, garlic, green capsicum, curry powder, Vegemite (yay for an Aussie ingredient) and habanero chillies. I sampled the filling prior to constructing these patties and it almost blew my head off! I'm not shy about spicy food but this was right up there amongst the hottest meals I've made. We still loved the patties even those our noses were running madly but I'll be a lot more cautious when using habaneros in the future.

Another TVP based recipe which has been on my mind to try for ages is TVP "bacon" bits. I spotted this recipe in Vegan Diner where it is credited to Joni Newman, the recipe is also posted on her blog . The TVP granules are rehydrated with liquid smoke, water, salt and optional food colouring (I used beetroot powder) before being pan fried on a low heat until they are totally dried out. The "bacon" bits are very smoky and not quite salty enough for me so I would probably increase the salt next time and possibly add a touch of sweetener as well. I haven't used the "bacon" bits in a recipe yet but have plans for them in the next couple of days.

That's it for Tidy-up Thursdays! I'm not sure that my overflowing pantry has benefited much from these four posts but it was a fun exercise to find new recipes for a handful of neglected ingredients.

Vegan MoFo Day 11 - Worldly Wednesdays - Stopover 30 - Uruguay

I was pretty excited when Uruguay turned out to be the next stopover on my virtual trip around the world as I haven't had the chance to cover many South American countries so far. The traditional cuisine of Uruguay is based on European roots, particularly Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Britain as well as influences from African and indigenous sources. Uruguayan barbecues, known as asado, are well known around the world. This is also a popular style of cooking in the neighbouring country Argentina.

After searching through my cookbooks I came across a couple of dishes that sounded like they would pair well together, a pie called Torta Pasculina in World Vegetarian Classics and Tempeh asado in Viva Vegan. Tempeh asado was the first tempeh dish I ever made and the only dish from Viva Vegan that I haven't been particularly fond of so I was keen to give it another try using tofu instead.

The original version of Torta Pasculina which is also known as Easter Torte comes from Liguria, Italy. The Italian filo covered pie is usually filled with Swiss chard or artichokes. The Uruguayan/Argentinean version in World Vegetarian Classics contains spinach, marinated red capsicums, olives, parmesan cheese and eggs and uses a shortcrust pastry. I had planned to make a pretty slack replacement for parmesan by throwing in a heap of nooch plus some salt and finally break open my packet of the Vegg to use as an egg replacement.

A number of things went wrong during the making of this pie. The shortcrust pastry I've successfully made before didn't hold together when it was being rolled out so I had to pull some puff pastry sheets out of the freezer to use instead. In the cookbook version of this pie the eggs were broken into indentations made on the top of the filling. I've had no experience with using the Vegg before and and for some reason I was under the illusion that the Veggs would set in the pie when it was baked. When the pie was cut after being baked in the oven the Vegg mixture ran everywhere and made quite a mess!

I didn't hold much hope for this meal given all of my tribulations but by this stage it was late and everyone was ravenous. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise when the pie actually tasted great. The saltiness of the olives paired with the sweet marinated capsicums worked really well together and it wasn't just our hunger talking as the leftovers were just as enjoyable. The tofu asado was much nicer than the tempeh version I don't have fond memories of although there are other recipes in Viva Vegan that hold more appeal for me.

Did you know?

The national anthem of Uruguay is the longest in duration of any country in the world. Orientales, la Patria o la Tumba contains 105 bars of music with a duration of approximately 6 minutes.

Vegan MoFo Day 4 - Worldly Wednesdays - Stopover 29 - Marshall Islands

Last year for Vegan MoFo my theme involved virtually travelling around the world in 20 days, stopping in at 20 randomly selected countries to cook a dish or two. The research and cooking was more time consuming than I gave it credit but I thoroughly enjoyed exploring different cuisines and expanding my limited knowledge of global food. Although my plan was to continue cooking around the world regularly I've only managed to complete another eight countries in the year that has passed and have been stuck on my most recent selection for quite some time.

The Marshall Islands are a small island country in the Pacific Ocean which are geographically a part of Micronesia. Politically this group of islands are a presidential republic in free association with the United States which means the US provides defence, funding grants and access to social services to the Marshallese. This connection to the United States is an indicator as to why the only recipe I could find linked to these islands was a Macadamia nut pie similar to a pecan pie that is popular throughout the United States.

My biggest challenge in recreating this dish was sourcing a suitable replacement for light corn syrup which is not widely available in Australia. I read many conflicting opinions on various cooking forums and had wanted to use liquid glucose as it was suggested as the best replacement. I'm sure that liquid glucose used to be stocked at supermarkets but it seems to have vanished these days. After wasting a lot of time with attempting to track down ingredients, I bit the bullet and used some good old golden syrup. When it comes to replacing eggs in recipes I use ground flaxseeds more often than not but I don't think I've ever veganised a recipe originally made with more than 1 or 2 eggs and was a bit nervous that this recipe called for 4 eggs. I wasn't sure how flax would perform in a larger quantity and subbed in some silken tofu with a bit of cornflour instead.

After my pastry dough had rested and been rolled out the filling didn't take much time to beat together. I was slightly concerned that the centre of the pie was a bit wobbly after being baked for the recommended time and didn't want to bake it for any longer as the pastry had browned and the top of the filling caramelised. The filling appeared to have set up properly after it cooled down but it was still a little oozy after it was sliced. The pie accompanied us to a Father's Day dinner last weekend and everyone really enjoyed it despite my woes about it not being quite right. I don't have much of a sweet tooth and found that this was way too sweet for me - I struggled to finish a small slice.

As this isn't something I'm likely to revisit I won't bother posting the recipe for now. I'm looking forward to my next stopover after being stuck in the Marshall Islands for so long!

Did you know?

The Marshall Islands have the highest incidence of leprosy in the world. Apart from humans the only animal in the world that can contract leprosy is the armadillo.

Almond and pistachio fingers

Branching out and making new sweets and desserts is somewhat of a rarity in my usual cooking routine. I'm not inclined to eat sugary food often and the guys always request their favourites (rum balls and choc chip cookies) so I always enjoy delving into something different when we have guests over. Last week I borrowed a few North African cookbooks from my local library to seek out recipes. There were many I was keen on trying but once I spotted some fancy looking Tunisian almond fingers my mind was made up.

The filling consisted of almonds, pistachios, sugar, cinnamon and rosewater which was a breeze to put together. The part that wasn't as straight forward was cutting sheets of filo, brushing them with melted margarine and rolling each one up with my clumsy fingers. There may have been a small sigh of relief after I had constructed about 40 little pastries and they were ready to go in the oven.

I was very pleased with how they turned out, the flavours of the cinnamon and rosewater worked together wonderfully without being too overwhelming. Everyone else enjoyed them too so it was well worth the effort. Surprisingly the pastry has retained it's crispiness throughout the week and the few remaining ones that have been kept at room temperature in an airtight container are just as lovely as on the day they were baked.

Almond and pistachio fingers (Adapted from Illustrated Food and Cooking of Africa and The Middle East)
Makes 40-50

200g almond meal
50g shelled pistachios
50g raw sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon rosewater
10 – 12 sheets filo pastry
115g dairy free margarine, melted
Icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 160C.

Process the pistachios in a coffee/spice grinder or food processor until they are broken down into a medium-fine powder. Place the almond meal, pistachios, sugar, cinnamon and rosewater in a bowl and stir well until thoroughly combined.

Lay the sheets of filo on your bench covered with a damp tea towel to stop them drying out. Work with one sheet of pastry at a time. Cut the sheet into 4 even rectangular pieces, brush each one with melted dairy free margarine and place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture on the end of each piece of pastry. Roll each piece of pastry into a finger shape, folding in the sides as your go to ensure the filling is enclosed completely.

Place the rolled up pastries on a tray lined with baking paper and brush the tops with the remaining dairy free margarine. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Allow them to cool down then dust lightly with icing sugar.

Store at room temperature in a sealed container, the pastry has stayed nice and crispy on the few remaining ones five days later.

2012 - The unblogged edition

The 18th January marks the anniversary of my blog which has been going for two years now. During 2012 I only managed to publish 101 posts, which was a bit lower than 138 posts in 2011. Challenges on and off throughout the year prevented me from writing as much as I would have have liked and ever since Ollie's arrival in July a lot of my usual free time has been devoted to training and exercising him (which is very rewarding, good exercise and lots of fun). Although it wasn't the most productive year in the blogging sense, there were many recipes from other blogs I tried along the way so here's a round up of a few I can recall (with photos of ones I've been able to locate).  

Post Punk Kitchen - Chesapeake tempeh cakes. Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe posted about this recipe at a time when I was struggling to like tempeh much at all. I found the tempeh in these tasty little "crab" cakes to be very enjoyable although I wasn't particularly fond of the remoulade drizzled on top. I must make these again soon!

Seitan is my motor - Pasta with walnut, mushroom and tempeh sauce. This recipe was given high praise from vegan about town and where's the beef so I was keen to give it a try. Unfortunately it wasn't a winner for us, we didn't enjoy the tempeh in this meal and the flavour of the walnuts in the sauce were too strong for our tastes, so I'll stick to using cashews in creamy pasta sauces.

Holy Cow - Aloo posto. The man and I have a similar distaste for potatoes in curries so I generally steer clear of these types of recipes. I was intrigued by Vaishali's potato based curry as I had never seen a poppy seed paste in a curry previously so I made the recipe with cabbage instead. Even though my blender struggled to break down the poppy seeds completely it was still a very enjoyable dish which my extended family enjoyed too.

Fat Free Vegan - Okara crab cakes. This is an older recipe from Susan V's archives I stumbled upon when searching for okara recipe ideas after making home made tofu. I added the upper end of the stated amount of Old Bay Seasoning (purchased from USA Foods) which resulted in a strong peppery flavour that none of us were particularly fond of.

Inspired eats- Pan fried shiitake mushroom bacon. I was curious to see if a recipe that listed so few ingredients (mushrooms, oil, salt) would actually taste like bacon. The flavour was quite impressive given there was no liquid smoke or smoked paprika involved and they tasted great on baked potatoes with a spicy noochy sauce. It hasn't replaced my favourite tofu bacon but it was fun to try out another facon recipe.

Diet, dessert and dogs - Greek inspired chickpea scramble and Quinoa pizza balls. Both of these recipes tasted fantastic, the chickpea scramble made with besan was full of delicious Mediterranean flavours and is a great alternative to a regular tofu scramble. The quinoa and bean based pizza balls flavoured with tomato paste and herbs turned out a little softer than I expected but they were still lovely to snack on.

Sweet Roots - Coconut milk cheddar - There is something about coconut products that just doesn't work with my palate and I really need to stop experimenting. Heavily spiced coconut based curries are about the only savoury meals where I enjoy coconut and anything else just doesn't appeal. The coconut flavour in this cheese was way too strong for my liking and put me off vegan cheese making for a while.

Wheres the beef - Kentucky Fried Tofu. Cindy's not so secret blend of herbs and spices in this recipe that was written up in the Planet VeGMeL zine last year was really delicious and rather simple to prepare for a slightly indulgent nostalgic meal.

Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist / Wrapped in Pastry - I'm a huge fan of Leigh Drew's recipes and was rapt to get my guys on board with split peas in her garlic lemon dal recipe as they usually associate split peas with soup. The man and young man were also highly impressed with the Subway style "meatball" subs I made early last year. Pate en croute and pissaldiere (bottom right in the photo above) from Leigh's latest cookbook Wrapped in Pastry were popular at family Christmas gatherings last year. I loved both of these recipes but the man wasn't crazy about the pate en croute.

Vegan Dad - Corned Beef. The man used to have a penchant for corned beef back in the day so I gave this version a try. I wasn't able to track down all of the ingredients and made a couple of substitutions which may have contributed to it's failure. The accompanying white sauce with capers I whipped up wasn't fantastic either. I was sad to read recently that Vegan Dad has farewelled the blogging world as I've enjoyed several recipes from his blog over the years.

Vegan about town - Dan dan mian. I was really disappointed that the man didn't share my enthusiasm for this delicious bowl of noodles and tempeh in a super spicy broth as I was so happy to find another tempeh dish that I enjoyed. We usually have similar tolerances to chilli but on this occasion it was too spicy for him and perfect for me. Perhaps if it's toned down a fraction I may have better success next time?

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I would like to finish this post with a huge thank you to all readers of this blog, everyone who has tried a recipe or two, readers that have left me a comment during these years and the many people I have connected with through regular comments on my blog as well as their own. It really means a lot and all of the feedback I receive is much appreciated. I hope you are looking forward to another year of posts with plenty more stopovers from around the world to come!

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 12 - Argentina

The young man knew I would be very happy when he picked Argentina out of the hat as the random draw hadn't produced any South American countries yet. I had been hoping to draw at least one South American country so I could make something new from Viva Vegan.  Even though I purchased Viva Vegan about two years ago there are so many recipes I still haven't tried. After hunting through the book for Argentinean recipes, I decided to make creamy corn filled empanadas and baked tofu with chimichurri sauce.

I've made Bolivian empanadas from Viva Vegan previously which were filled with seitan, potatoes, olives and raisins. They were a big success at home although very time consuming to prepare. These corn filled ones seemed a lot quicker to put together as there was no need to prepare seitan and making the corn filling was a simpler process. Instead of folding the empanadas as per Terry's instructions, I folded the edges in a crimped style. I was a little dubious as to whether I would enjoy these empanadas as much as the other ones because I'm not a huge lover of corn so I'm pleased to say that my doubts went away as soon as I sampled the filling. The combination of spring onions (scallions), garlic, corn, dried basil and cayenne pepper worked so well together, this was another superb batch of empanadas I would be happy to make again .

The chimichurri tofu was one of the first recipes I ever made from Viva Vegan, quite possibly because I was taken with it's name. The sauce is based on parsley, shallots, garlic, red wine vinegar, herbs and spices which I initially loved although the next morning I still had a strong taste of garlic in my mouth. This time I toned down the garlic by a clove and didn't find the garlic flavour strong at all, perhaps I had used really large cloves all those years ago. Instead of smothering the baked tofu with the reserved uncooked marinade at the end, I used it as a dressing on our side salad which spruced up our greens without the need for making a separate dressing. I definitely won't be waiting another 2 years to make this recipe again!

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Did you know?

Argentina was one of the first countries to have radio broadcasting. The first broadcast in Argentina was made on the 27th August, 1920 to a tiny audience of 20 people, they were the only ones with receivers at the time!

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 6 - Monaco

I'm back to my world trip this time stopping off in Monaco, the second smallest country in the world. Even though it measures just under 2 km in area, I still managed to find some dishes that are tied to Monaco. The first is socca, naturally vegan chickpea crepes that are also linked to Nice nearby in the south of France. The other was a dessert called Prince Albert mille feuille, a pastry filled with custard, cream and strawberries.

Socca is a fairly regular breakfast item at home on weekends ever since recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook Vegan Eats World, it's also become my solution for running out of bread. Apart from the resting period it's so easy to put together and tastes great. We normally love our socca with sun-dried tomatoes as well as olives and this was the first time I had been out of them but they worked well enough with olives and onions.

I had great plans for the mille feuille and when it can to the execution, everything went wrong. The puff pastry sheets were pre-baked using a flattening method I saw in this post, unfortunately mine didn't need quite as hot an oven or as long as the recipe stated so the first batch were a burst mess after half the cooking time. A pre-prepared batch of almond cream didn't turn out as thick as I was expecting. I also had woes with an initial batch of custard due to being distracted by a family drop-in and had to remake another batch. When it came time to put the few untainted ones together, I was weary and did a very rushed job. The main thing was they tasted fantastic and my decision to add lemon flavoured icing was a wise one indeed.

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Did you know?

Monaco's flag is the same as the flag of Indonesia. The only difference is that the Indonesian flag is wider. The red and white colours of the flag are the heraldic colours of Grimaldi, the name of the ruling family of Monaco since 1297.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Vegan MoFo - Grand Final Day

Excuse the interruption in my whirlwind trip around the world. When I planned my theme I decided to select 20 countries and write about them Monday to Friday so I can go off theme on the weekends if I have enough energy to do so. I'm planning to post a summary of links that have caught my eye throughout the week on Sundays and if I have enough time I'll write about something else on Saturdays.

Last weekend the AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final was held in Melbourne which could be compared with the American Super Bowl in terms of it being our biggest football event for the year. We didn't have any plans for the day and I knew my guys would be watching the game so I spent some time in the kitchen making football styled food to feed our faces with.

It had been ages since I last made a batch of these popular vegan sausage rolls from where's the beef. I couldn't stop thinking about these delicious morsels since being reacquainted with them at the recent Planet VeGMeL 3rd Anniversary potluck (check out the online zine here that was made for the occasion). The mixture of pecans, breadcrumbs, oats, silken tofu and seasonings is extremely tasty and quite easy to put together if you can get your hands on some vegan puff pastry sheets. I highly recommended these sausage rolls, they're pretty legendary around the Melbourne veg*n blogosphere.

We also enjoyed a Mexican styled pizza and I used my standard pizza base recipe topped with tomato paste mixed with Tapatio hot sauce, onions, garlic, mushrooms, Redwood cheatin' pepperoni, olives and mozzarella style Cheezly.

The man asked me to make mini dogs as well as many other things that didn't end up making the cut. We had them in mini rolls with Cheezly, caramelised onions, ketchup and American mustard. I never manage to take a decent shot of our hot dog meals, this is no exception but I thought I would include it anyway.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 5 - Bosnia-Herzegovina

I'm not sure what the chance of bordering countries being randomly selected in the first week are but it happened to me! After stopping off at Croatia a couple of days ago, here I am back on it's doorstep in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The cuisine is described as being influenced by Turkish, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Central Europe which is quite a large mixture when you think about it, so like Croatia there were plenty of options for me to choose from.

The dish I was particularly drawn to was a type of burek called zeljanica, traditionally filled with spinach, cottage cheese, sour cream and eggs. The only problem with this meal was how to manage such a mammoth project on a work night. Some of the traditional recipes I looked at mentioned that you should set aside an afternoon for leisurely burek making. After further googling I discovered it is also served as a filo encased pie, similar to a Greek spanakopita.

When it came to making vegan replacements I was a bit slack with this recipe. I didn't have any vegan sour cream on hand nor did I have forethought to soak cashews for my preferred style of home-made sour cream. Instead I whacked a heap of ingredients in the food processor and taste tested the mixture in between pulsing. You'll notice that I included fresh and frozen spinach in this recipe which was due to having a small amount of fresh spinach that needed using up otherwise I would have used one or the other. Bosnian salads were stated to be fairly simple and usually made up of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion and capsicum. This combination is what I served on the side dressed simply with some balsamic vinegar.

Regardless of the authenticity of this, it actually turned out to be very flavoursome and the meal was enjoyed by all of us. Burek making is now on my long cooking to-do list and will have to wait for a lazy weekend.


Zeljanica

150g baby spinach leaves
1 x 250g frozen spinach, defrosted
6 spring onions (scallions), roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
500g firm tofu, drained
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
2 flax eggs (2 tablespoons ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tablespoons water)
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 sheets filo pastry (I find the fresh sheets are easier to use than frozen ones)

Preheat oven to 180C.

Steam the baby spinach until just wilted. Allow it cool slightly then combine with the defrosted spinach in a colander and squeeze out as much moisture out as possible. Place the spinach, spring onions, garlic, tofu, salt, nutritional yeast flakes, flax eggs and lemon juice in a food processor and pulse until all the ingredients are broken down and combined thoroughly. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides once or twice.

Melt the dairy-free margarine and mix in the olive oil. Using a pastry brush, grease a 24 cm pie dish with the margarine/oil mixture. Place a sheet of filo pastry in the pie dish, tucking it gently into the corners then brush lightly with the margarine/oil mixture (don’t worry if your sheets are overhanging the tin). Repeat this for a further 3 sheets then spoon in the contents of the food processor bowl and smooth out the top of the mixture. Complete the pie by layering the remaining sheets on top, brushing the margarine/oil mixture between each layer. Fold any overhanging pieces into the centre of the pie and press down gently.

Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes. The top of the pie may brown rather quickly, don’t be tempted to take it out early as the sides and bottom will still be soggy.

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Did you know?

There are a group of naturally formed pyramids in a Bosnian town called Visoko which caused an international media frenzy in 2005. There were claims that they were man-made and the largest ancient pyramids on earth which was later proven to be a hoax.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

A different week in the kitchen

It certainly has been a different week in my kitchen - not a chilli in sight! I wanted to write about this recent period as my cooking has felt entirely different to what is usually on the menu. The man had minor surgery last week (nothing serious) and has needed to eat blander food than usual during his recovery. I usually sway towards spicy meals and probably cook them about 50% of the time so I took this as a perfect opportunity to broaden my horizons a little.

Last weekend I made pierogis which was fun to do but very time consuming. I prepared the dough, a potato-fried onion-dill filling, a sauerkraut-mushroom filling and fried onions for topping ahead of time which was rather simple to do. When it came to putting these little dumplings together, it felt like it took forever and even that was with the aid of a pasta machine to roll out the dough.

I had a few issues with getting the thickness right and initially made the dough too thin which meant that it wasn't robust enough to contain the filling. Another issue I ran into was overstuffing the dumplings which is something I have been guilty of doing in the past with Asian dumplings and really should know better by now. Once those issues were ironed out it was still a lengthy process to manually seal the dumplings and in hindsight I should have used my handy little dumpling press for this task.

The good news was that the pierogis tasted fantastic, the bad news is that I can't share the recipe as it is from Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook that will be released in October. We all preferred the potato and dill filling out of the two and I was especially pleased to find a recipe that made me appreciate this herb as it hasn't been one of my favourites in the past.

With a surplus of dill leftover I investigated other ways to make use of it. Beef stroganoff was something we used to enjoy years ago when we ate meat and then a mushroom version when we were vegetarian. I've been meaning to try a vegan recipe for a while using slices of tempeh and a sour cream replacement so I gave it a shot. I looked up a few different recipes from my cookbooks to get some inspiration but nothing was exactly what I was looking for so I ended up creating my own version inspired from about 3 recipes. I was very happy with the flavour of this meal and the man adored this so I'll have to make it again. I'm going to hold off posting a recipe for now as the consistency of the sauce was too thick and the way I prepared the tempeh needs a little tweaking so stay tuned for this one.

Tonight was the man's birthday and I made him a vegan spanakopita which incorporated baked almond feta which was posted by Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe recently. Johanna mentioned in her post that the cheeze needed more oomph and even with a bit of extra salt, it still wasn't tasty enough. The texture was great as it was creamy and a bit crumbly so I'll be revisiting the feta in the future. The spanakopita was pretty good although a little lacking in salt so once again I'll be tweaking this recipe further before posting my version. 

I'm so used to writing up a post with the objective of sharing a recipe so it feels strange to leave you without one this time around. In recent times I've been cooking up way more than I have had time to write about so at least it feels good to share some of my photos and experiences of the previous week. And even though I'm beginning to crave a spicy meal, it has been anything but a bland week of eating.

Latchkey lime pie

A couple of weeks ago my mother in law and I did a home-grown produce swap of limes for lemons which threw me a little. I had been planning so many things to make with lemons and didn't have much stored up in the way of lime recipes. Limes are something I frequently use in guacamole, cashew cream, stir-frys etc. and I adore their flavour although I've never made anything that features limes in a starring role. It wasn't until the man gently persuaded me to make something sweet that I recalled a Post Punk Kitchen recipe that had been stashed away for a while - key lime pie.

I've never eaten key lime pie before so I was never going to have anything to make a proper comparison with. I decided to use the sweet shortcrust pastry from Wrapped in Pastry (with lime juice and zest instead of lemon) as I've made this a couple of times now and it has always worked perfectly. When it came to the filling, a few adjustments needed to be made to cater for what was in the pantry. I was out of almond milk and substituted soy milk, my supply of coconut milk was rather low so I included less than the original recipe and increased the soy milk quantity slightly and used cornflour instead of tapioca flour. 

The pie took hours to complete yet there wasn't much active work throughout the process. The shortcrust pastry needs an hour to rest prior to rolling out and baking and the pie filling was cooled on the bench for a while prior to it's setting time in the fridge, in total it would have been about 5 hours from start to finish. The man asked about having a biscuit layer on top so I indulged him with this request and ran a handful of Nice biscuits through the food processor for this purpose.

The man and I adored this pie and agreed that it was totally worth the wait! It was more refreshing than a lemon tart, with a lovely citrus tang and wasn't overly sweet which I always appreciate. The young man was not convinced, it seems that he is more attracted to lemon based sweets. Recipes like this make me long for a lime tree in my garden as I would happily revisit this recipe often to deal with a surplus of limes.


Latchkey lime pie (Pastry adapted from Wrapped in Pastry, lime filling adapted from PPK)

Sweet shortcrust pastry

2 cups plain flour
¼ cup icing sugar
½ cup dairy-free margarine
¼ cup soy milk
1 tablespoon lime juice 
1 tablespoon lime zest

Sift the flour and sugar into a large bowl then sprinkle the lime zest over the top. Using your fingers, cream the margarine into the flour/sugar/zest mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs. Drizzle in the lime juice and soy milk slowly, mixing it through with a butter knife until the dough comes together. Knead for a couple of minutes until the dough is smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Roll out the pastry between two pieces of plastic wrap or baking paper to an even thickness of about 1cm. Press the pastry into a greased and floured 25cm tart tin, patching up any bare places with leftover dough if necessary. Run a knife around the top edge of the tin to remove any excess pastry which will also neaten it's appearance.

Blind bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the pastry is cooked and a golden brown colour. Allow the pastry to cool completely before adding the filling.

Lime filling

1 tablespoon lime zest
2/3 cup lime juice
2 x 165ml light coconut milk (at room temperature)
2 tablespoons cornflour
½ cup raw sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essense
2 teaspoons agar powder
450ml soy milk (at room temperature)

Arnotts Nice biscuits, crushed, for topping (optional)

Whisk the lime zest, lime juice, coconut milk, cornflour, sugar and vanilla essense together in a mixing bowl and set aside.

Place soy milk and agar in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the agar has dissolved. Slowly pour the contents of the mixing bowl into the saucepan, stirring often. Continue to cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring often, until the mixture thickens slightly.

Pour the filling into the pie crust and allow it to cool on the kitchen bench for 30 minutes. Refrigerate until firm and set, about 2-3 hours. Top with crushed Arnotts Nice biscuits, if desired.

Wrapped in Pastry

Wrapped in Pastry by Leigh Drew was released at the most perfect time for me, just before Mothers Day. My fellows were totally aware that I was planning on buying this cookbook and bought it for me as a gift. The man ordered a signed copy and was stunned when he received a personalised signed copy addressed to him with a message to "cook with no fear". The message had us in stitches of laughter as nothing could be further from the truth!

We had a fairly quiet day on Sunday so I jumped straight into making some of Leigh's recipes. I don't have a lot of experience with pastry making although I do love eating it. Ready made puff pastry sheets are usually  my preferred option for when the pastry cravings hit. I started with lemon and passionfruit tarts which used a sweet shortcrust pastry. The pastry was a breeze to put together although rolling it out after the resting period took me a while. The lemony filling required little effort and as I don't own any tart cases, I made mini tarts using a muffin tray to make the cases. They were really lovely with a wonderful tangy flavour from the lemons, just my type of sweet.

I wasn't quite up to the challenge of making another type of pastry that day yet I really wanted to try the chickpea, leek and mushroom pies. My solution was to make individual pot pies, placing the filling into ramekins and popping a puff pastry lid on top. They were a perfect way to get my boys interested in chickpeas which they aren't usually that keen on. I think the flavour of the leeks in the delicious creamy filling won them over.

I had already tried Leigh's sausage rolls a few days after she posted the recipe as a sneak peek. I've been a big fan of the where's the beef sausage roll recipe for a long time and love how simple it is to put the filling together, the only problem is that it's not suitable for people with nut allergies. This was the first vegan sausage roll recipe I was attracted to that didn't contain nuts so I had to try it. Even though they took considerably longer to make, it was worth the effort as they tasted fantastic and entirely different to ones we are so used to.  

Wrapped in Pastry has a great mix of sweet and savoury vegan recipes, with gluten free options for the sweet and regular shortcrust pastry. It only contains 20 recipes so I won't be posting any of the recipes on my blog as I would like to support an Aussie vegan cookbook author, instead I encourage you to order a copy from Aduki.

Cheezy roast vegetable pot pies

Last year I went on a pot pie bender after purchasing some ramekins and posted about my experiments a couple of times. The arrival of the New Year prompted me to sort through my draft posts and I was astounded to find that I had never published the recipe for the pot pies that ended up being the household favourite. As it had been such a long time since we last indulged in these pies, I decided to make them again and take some shots of the process.

The concept came from the roast vegetable pie recipe on easy as vegan pie where Carla combined some roasted vegetables with a cheezy sauce from Veganomicon. I turned this into pot pies and we loved them like this for quite some time. When I purchased Appetite for Reduction, we all adored the Easy Breezy Cheezy sauce in another recipe so I had to put it to the test in these roast vegetable pot pies.

The man and son were purposely kept in the dark about the change in sauce and I was thrilled that they could notice the difference and proclaimed them to the best pot pies. I can quite happily eat one of these pies without any condiments but the man always add some ketchup on top and the son prefers his with BBQ sauce.

Extra roasted, steamed or stir-fried vegetables are usually what accompanies these pot pies in the colder winter months. This time I served them with a side salad and garlic bread as I am currently enjoying a supply of sweet and juicy home-grown cherry tomatoes from my garden.
  

Cheezy roast veg pot pies (sauce adapted from Appetite for Reduction)

olive oil spray
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into small florets
1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets
1 medium sweet potato, chopped into 2cm pieces
3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 cup plain flour
2 teaspoons dried garlic flakes
2 teaspoons dried onion flakes
2 teaspoons Massel vegetable stock powder
2 teaspoons Massel chicken stock powder
2 cups water
1 teaspoon American mustard
75g baby spinach leaves, chopped
1 sheet Borg's puff pastry, defrosted
soy milk, for brushing the pastry
sesame seeds, for topping

Preheat oven to 200C. Spread the chopped cauliflower, broccoli and sweet potato in a single layer on a large roasting tray lined with baking paper. Spray with olive oil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the sweet potato is soft and the cauliflower and broccoli is slightly charred. Leave the oven set to 200C for baking the pot pies.

In a medium saucepan, combine the nutritional yeast, plain flour, onion flakes, garlic flakes, vegetable and chicken stock powders. Pour in the water slowly, stirring to ensure that there are no lumps. Heat over medium-low, stirring often until the mixture comes to a boil. Turn off the heat and stir through the mustard and chopped spinach.

Arrange the roasted vegetables into 4 ramekins and then cover with the cheezy spinach sauce. Place a ramekin on the puff pastry sheet and cut out a circle of dough around the base. Stretch the dough circle with your hands a little then place it on top of the mixture in the ramekin. Brush the top of the pastry with soy milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Repeat for the other 3 ramekins. Place the ramekins on a baking tray to prevent spillages and cook for about 20 minutes or until the pastry has browned.

Vegan MoFo - V is for Vanilla Slice

Several times on my blog I have mentioned that I don't have much of a sweet tooth, although if I see something smothered in passionfruit icing it's more likely to get my attention. A vanilla slice posted by Cindy from Where's the Beef and K from In the Mood for Noodles about a year ago was exactly this type of sweet.

Vanilla slice was always a favourite treat for the man and son. They would frequently be tempted by these sweets that commonly appear in bakeries. This recipe had been sitting in my bookmarks for way too long so I took the opportunity to try it out for the letter V.

It's quite easy to put together, the puff pastry sheets are lightly browned, a custard is made, the slice is assembled, refrigerated and topped with icing a few hours later. The only issue I ran into was running out of cornflour but I had some rice flour in the pantry to make up the difference.

It's quite surprising that I am the only one in the house to have sampled the slice so far but I know that my boys will adore it. I thought it tasted just like a vanilla slice should even though it has been such a long time since I have actually eaten one.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.


Vanilla Slice (Adapted from Where's the Beef and In the Mood for Noodles, originally sourced from IVU)

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, defrosted

Filling

1 cup castor sugar
1/2 cup cornflour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup custard powder
1 litre soy milk
3 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2 teaspoons vanilla essence

Icing

2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon dairy-free margarine
pulp from 2 passionfruits
2-3 teaspoons water

Heat an oven to 200C. Cook the puff pastry sheets on trays lined with baking paper for about 6 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cornflour and custard powder. Add about a cup of soy milk and whisk thoroughly ensuring there are no lumps. Whisk in the rest of the soy milk and margarine. Heat the custard over medium, stirring all the time to ensure that there no lumps. The custard will eventually become very thick which is when you need to turn off the heat and add the vanilla.

Cut one of the pastry sheets to fit your baking dish and place gently in the bottom of the dish. Spread the custard evenly over the top. Cut the second pastry sheet to size and place on top of the custard, then press it down gently so it sticks to the custard. Place in the refrigerator for a few hours.

To make the icing, place the icing sugar in a bowl and add the passionfruit pulp and margarine. Mix together and add teaspoons of water slowly, stirring as you go, until a thick but spreadable paste results. If the icing ends up too runny, add some more icing sugar. Spread the icing over the top of the pastry evenly. Return the slice to the fridge in order for the icing to set.

Vegan MoFo - P is for Pinwheels

Pinwheels were one of the finger foods my mum used to serve at big parties throughout my childhood. I used to love helping out with making them as it meant that I would get to snack on the ones that had slight imperfections. Pinwheels are made from puff pastry sheets spread with finely diced toppings which are rolled up, sliced into bize-sized pieces and baked in the oven until flaky.

Mum's pinwheels always used to be made with tomato paste, onions, bacon and cheese. I wanted mine to taste fairly similar so I used tofu bacon and vegan cheese and mixed a bit of pesto with a store bought pizza sauce for an extra dimension of flavour. They are a little bit fiddly to make but once you get used to the process, it does becomes easier. The recipe includes some step by step photos to guide you through although the late afternoon light streaming into my kitchen interfered a little.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.


Pinwheels

3 vegan puff pastry sheets
1/4 - 1/3 cup tomato paste/pizza sauce
3 teaspoons vegan basil pesto
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1/2 batch tofu bacon, finely diced
3 large button mushrooms, finely diced
200g vegan cheese, grated
olive oil spray

Place a sheet of frozen puff pastry on a large chopping board and cover with approx 2 tablespoons of tomato paste/pizza sauce mixed with a teaspoon of pesto. Try to spread the mixture evenly and ensure that the left and right sides are covered as close as you can get to the edges. The sides closest and furtherest away from you can be left plain.

Sprinkle a 1/3 of each of the onion, mushrooms and tofu bacon on top followed by 1/3 of the vegan cheese. (The photo below was taken prior to cheese being added).

By this time the puff pastry sheet should have thawed out just enough for it to be rolled up. Starting at the end closest to you, roll the pastry over to 1/4 of the length of the sheet then continue rolling tightly until you get to the end. With a sharp knife cut sections of about 1cm width along the sheet.

Place the pinwheels onto a tray lined with baking paper and cook in the oven at 180C for about 15-20 minutes or until they are flaky. Repeat the process two more times and enjoy your pinwheels!