Tofu Tacos

These tasty tofu tacos were excellent! Mash firm tofu and marinate in balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, then cook up with carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes, green and red capsicum, corn... the list goes on. I made the hot nachos dip to go along side - however, did not have access to any soy cheese besides tofutti slices (how do they get them so yellow?) so used good ol' dairy cheese. So yum!

Cornbread Chilli

Still from the everyday vegan,
this is the cornbread chilli bake. A batch of vegan chilli packed to the gills with fresh veggies, red kidney beans, tinned tomato and an original piped cornbread design. After this and the tofu tacos I'm a bit Mexicaned out. This is my first real effort at piping and I'm quite pleased with the result. The cornbread was a snap to make using orgran's cornbread and muffin mix (much better than plain polenta).

The Everyday Vegan Scones

After becoming a Dreena Burton fan last year, I had to go back to the beginning and have a look at the everday vegan, Burton's first cookbook. At first I was slightly disappointed (I had been used to the format from 'vive le vegan') but soon got over that.

My first attempt was the blueberry orange cake which wasn't quite what I had in mind. Clearly I had used too big a pan and the cake was terribly flat (without eggs, it can be difficult to get cakes to rise and retain the same tender structure) I also found it far too sweet. The second recipe attempted was scones. I was slighlty surprised by the ingredients and texture. Traditional scones made vegan would take the form of flour, margarine and soy milk, rubbing the margarine into the flour, and adding the milk until it forms a dough.

These were very different to what I would call scones. Maybe it's one of those things that gets lost in translation. Like how in Australia, biscuits denotes something you dip in a cup of tea, while is America, they are like savoury scones, to be dunked in gravy.

Recent Dinners

Here are some recent dinners. The first is a vegean loaf created with the assistance of Jennifer McCann's magic loaf studio. This version contains lentils, brown rice amd a host of other goodies. The loaf is served with baked potatoes and braised red cabbage.

The second is a savoury bread and butter pudding, made from left over staling challah. The bread is sliced and made into sandwiches using grated cheese and sliced tomato. They are then cut into thirds and placed in a baking dish. Mix together eggs and milk seasoned with salt and pepper and pour over the sandwiches (this forms a savoury custard when baked). The Pudding is served with a side of steamed broccoli.

The third is my mother's invention "Eggplant Boats". Eggplants are halved lengthways, cut into chunks and salted. After rinsing, chunks are lightly fried with some other ingredients and topped with cheese and breadcrumbs.

Homemade Spring Rolls

Hand made spring roll, served with soy-hoisin dipping sauce.
This recipe came from Dreena Burton's "Vive le vegan". (My new favourite cookbook).
Spring rolls are filled with rice vermicelli, vinegar soaked shitake mushrooms, grated carrot and a host of other goodies. Also, these were oven baked not fried. Needless to say they were gone quick smart.

Tofu Nuggets

This Jessica Seinfeld recipe makes me wonder who did the photography in her book "Deceptively delicious". Deceptive is right - for the cooker AND the eater.

In the recipe these look like deep fried, golden nuggets, with not trace of what is concealed beneath the breadcrumbs. In these photos the secret vegetable is no secret. Cubes of firm tofu are dipped in a mixture of beaten egg and pureed spinach, then in breadcrumbs. These are sprayed with oil, then fried. While they tasted OK, I don't think these would fool anyone.

2 ways with cheesecake

The first is a baked "raspberry and ricotta tart" from Table magazine. The key ingredient ricotta was not in stock, so a combination of cottage cheese and quark were used instead. This gave the tart more flavour than ricotta alone, which can taste bland. The tart was well recieved at a lunch for 15 people, serving more than the eight advised by the recipe.

The second is a "Quick cherry cheesecake" from FamilyFun kids' cookbook. The base is crumbled chocolate marie biscuits mixed with melted butter and pressed into the baking dish. The second layer is cream cheese, caster sugar and lemon zest beaten with an electric mixer. The last layer involved opening a can of cherry pie filling over the top. Popping it into the fridge for a hour and "hey presto!"