Vegan MOFO: Last post - HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Well, it's the end of Vegan MOFO, I've had a blast, and found many new blogs which I've enjoyed!
I thought I would use my final post to show you all my pumpkin carving journey!

1: finding a decent pumpkin!

 2: Scooping out it's guts, transferring an image onto the pumpkin, and starting to carve it

 3: Cleaning up the cuts so they're all nice and neat!

 4: Success!

Happy halloween guys, and happy MOFO-ing :)

Vegan MOFO: mini quiches

Another quick dinner! (I'm super lazy)
Recipe makes 6 mini quiches, muffin size.

You will need
2 sheets of vegan puff pastry
250g of firm tofu, drained
3/4 cup of soy milk
4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon of mixed herbs
1 teaspoon of mustard
1 1/2 cups of fried vegetables of choice I used onion, garlic, spinach, mushroom and broccoli
4 tablespoons of plain flour

Preheat oven to 180C
thaw puff pastry
oil a muffin tray thoroughly (6 muffin size)
cut each sheet of puff pastry into quarters, square quarters.
Neatly tuck each square of pastry into a muffin tin, be gentle, you don't need to push it right into the corners, when you place the tofu mix in it will drop more. patch up any holes you may have created with the left over puff pastry.

Place everything but the fried vegetables into a blender, and blend until smooth, if the mixture is too hard for the blender to mix properly, add a dash more soy milk (shouldn't really need it though)
fold vegetables into tofu mixture, and spoon into each uncooked puff pastry shell.
Place in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until starting to turn golden brown.
Gently lift out of the muffin tray, and serve hot or cold.

Enjoy

Vegan MOFO: Sushi

Simple concept, tasty food!
Here I have, avocado and mayo rolls, bbq marinated tempeh rolls, edamame pillows and bbq marinated tempeh pillows.

It's pretty simple, and you can use whatever fillings you want

you will need:
2 cups of sushi rice
3 cups of water
2 tablespoons of rice vinegar
4 + nori sheets
Filling of choice (tofu, tempeh, salad, avocado... etc)

A bamboo roller

rinse sushi rice until water is clear, and place in a pot with the water - bring to a boil.
Once boiling, turn down heat and simmer for roughly 20 minutes. I take it off the heat to cool once the mixture is gluggy, almost dry but still has some moisture left in it.

Place rice in fridge and wait until completely cooled, season with vinegar and mix through the rice before using it in your rolls.




Place nori sheet down on bamboo sheet, shiny side down. cover sheet with rice (about 1 cm thick), except leave about 2-3 cms clear at the end furthest from you (you will be rolling the sheet away from yourself)
Place a strip of filling in the center down the roll. For mine I used avocado, mayo and bbq tempeh, but you can use anything you want!
slowly start to wrap the sheet up, rolling away from yourself and tightly tucking it up.
Once you get to the empty part of the nori sheet, brush with water, and roll up. place in the fridge for cutting closer to serving time.



For pillows

Cut a nori sheet longways into cm thick pieces, you will use these to wrap up your pillows
Mould small amounts of rice into little ovals (about 3 tablespoons)
Place a topping on the ball of rice
Gently brush a nori sheet with water, and wrap around the pillow to secure your topping, making sure the nori sheet wraps around itself.


Serve with soy sauce and wasabi, or spring rolls.

Vegan MOFO: 'Cheese'burger

Most of us grew up as meat eaters - lets just face it. Most of us also enjoyed on occasion a cheeseburger from McDonalds. My partner, who is not a full time vegan was craving a cheeseburger, and asked if we could have them for dinner. So, I decided to try and make my own, every vegan likes some good junk food!

For the "meat" patty
1 tin of sanitarium nutmeat, minced
1 onion, finely diced
3/4 cup of cooked rice, white or brown (brown will be chewier)
1/2 cup of BBQ sauce or marinade of choice
3 tablespoons of massels supreme gravy powder (of beef style stock)
2 teaspoons of mixed herbs
3 heaped tablespoons of minced or chopped garlic
1 + cups of flour (for binding)

Mix all ingredients apart from flour together and let sit in the fridge for a few hours (if you can) this will let all the ingredients combine better for a good bbq style flavor.
Add flour and combine, if the mixture is not sticking to itself well, add a little more flour, or even breadcrumbs to bind.
Form 'meaty' mixture into patties which mimic a mcdonalds patty, small and thin (or don't... if you want them thicker)
You can cook these up now until browned and crisp over a medium heat pan, or leave them on a plate in the fridge to cook later on.
These patties are really excellent for BBQ's and picnics as a rissole, omnis and vegans alike love them!




For the 'cheeseburger' you will need

1 x premade recipe for cheddar cheese slices
bread rolls
tomato sauce
mustard
finely diced onion
patty recipe above.



To get the cheese all gooey and melting, throw it in a lightly greased pan on medium high heat for 1 minute, you will see the cheese starting to melt, but you should still be able to gently pull it off in one piece and place it onto a 'meat' patty.

Place patty and cheese into a burger bun, top with sauce, mustard and onion.

Eat straight away - the ultimate vegan junk food!

Vegan MOFO: cheddar 'cheese' slices

These.. are so simple to make, they require minimal effort and time to throw together. I made these solely for the purpose of a 'Cheese'burger, which is my next post!

You will need:

1 1/2 cups Water
2 tablespoons of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons of mustard
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon of salt
2 Tablespoons of onion powder.
5 tablespoons of agar flakes.
**(if you want to change up the taste of the mixture before setting it, the below ingredients are completely optional and found in most 'cheeses' I however did not use them!)
1 tablespoon of tahini (optional**)
1/4 cup of miso paste (optional**)


Blend everything but the agar flakes in a food processor/blender until smooth. I was lazy and didn't blend mine for long enough which is why you can still see little lumps of cashew!
taste it at this point. If it's not to your liking - add some more of any of the above ingredients, if you want more colour, add more tomato sauce and mustard, or alternatively, food colouring.
place mixture over medium/high heat until at boiling point - mix this the entire time, you don't want it to burn or you will taste it later on.

Add the agar flakes, and mix into cheese until well incorporated, take off heat and immediately place into a well oiled container. I used a very square container to mimik the cheese slices you get at the supermarket - but any container is fine.
Place in the Fridge for a minimum of 2 hours to set.

Slice or grate.

Enjoy  :)

Vegan MOFO: cheatin' sausage rolls

Another quick and simple treat. I actually made these ones because I was craving something a little more on the unhealthy/indulgent side, but they would be absolutely PERFECT for kids parties, or even catering as finger food.

You will need:
Sanitarium vege sausages. I used the sage and rosemary ones, they come in a 6 pack
1 sheet of vegan puff pastry per two sausages.

Preheat oven to 200 C
Slice each sheet of puff pastry in half lengthwise, this should be long enough to wrap one sausage in.

Wrap each sausage tightly into the puff pastry. If you want them to be a smaller single serve, cut up accordingly.
Lightly baste pastry sausages with soy milk or egg replacer

Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Vegan MOFO: Berry Crush

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I've actually been super sick and hiding from the world with this horrible cough. I thought it would be suiting to blog about something that I was drinking while sick to help me feel better.

Here you have a super tasty berry smoothie! I like to freeze all my berries prior to using them in this drink
You will need:
3/4 cup of frozen raspberries
1/4 cup of frozen strawberries
3 generous scoops of your choice of berry sorbet
1/2 to one cup of your choice of juice, depending how runny you want it (I used blueberry, strawberry, apple, and carrot juice)

Blend together in a blender - done. So quick, easy and delicious!

Vegan MOFO - Day 9: Another 'chicken' salad.

SO, on gym days I usually prepare a salad for dinner - purely because I don't see the point in ruining the sweat and tears I produced just hours earlier on an oily meal.
Fake chicken and salad are one of my favourite combos, and the best part is you can use whatever is in the fridge, and whatever dressing you have on hand to change it up

Salad should feed 4 people comfortably

I used:
1 cup of 4 bean mix
1 cup of sweet corn kernels
a cup of cucumber, diced into bite sized chunks
1 cup of salad greens (I used chopped cabbage)
1/2 cup of shredded carrot
1/2 cup of shredded beetroot

1/2 cup of onion - red or spring onions chopped
1 cup of avocado, diced

fake chicken strips - cooked (i used about 1 cup)

Dressing of choice.


Throw in a large bowl. Top with dressing. DONE OMG!

Vegan MOFO - Day 8: Tempeh BBQ ribs/steak

Apart from marinading, this is actually quite a quick protein to cook. would go great served alongside some salad, or even sliced differently and cooked on skewers as a kebab. I'm not a huge fan of tempeh, but this did win me over. You could also use other marinades apart from BBQ.

You will need:
BBQ sauce, enough to cover tempeh (I used premade, but you can make your own)
a container which fits the tempeh in it snugly. (Too big and you're wasting BBQ sauce)
Tempeh.

Slice tempeh into slabs which are no more than 1cm fat. The thinner they are, the more marinated they will become. You can cut them into whatever shape you like after this, but I stuck with uniform pieces.
Place a small layer of BBQ sauce in the container, and then layer in your tempeh (BBQ sauce, tempeh, BBQ sauce, tempeh etc) until you are out of both.

Place in fridge to marinate overnight (the longer the better)

When ready to cook take out of container, and cook on hot grill until the bbq sauce starts to caramelize.

Serve

Vegan MOFO - Day 7: Spinach Cob Loaf Dip

This recipe is great for any kind of social gatherings, and can be made in advance and kept in the fridge. Although I would not place dip in the loaf until it is ready to be served.
This is exactly how I remember the non-vegan version tasting, only much better for you, and much better for the animals!

You will need
1 cob loaf

Spinach Dip:
1 cup of silken firm tofu
1/4 cup of vegan mayonnaise
1/4 cup of finely diced shallots
1 cup of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess liquid
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of salt
2-3 tablespoons of vegetable stock powder. (more if you think it needs it)

To make dip, place tofu, mayonnaise, vinegar, salt and vegetable stock powder in food processor, blend until smooth
add shallots and spinach and leave in fridge until ready.

Hollow out cob loaf into bite sized pieces and place in oven until slightly crisp
I also like to place the hollowed cob loaf in the oven for a few minutes to crisp up

Place dip inside hollow cob loaf and serve alongside bite size pieces of bread.
Enjoy

Vegan MOFO - Day 6: Bounty Chocolate Bar

The best part of this is you can tweak the recipe to however you want it, and know exactly what's going into your chocolate bar. Not very hard although the recipe makes it look difficult. You'll be making more chocolate bars in the future just because they're so simple but tasty :)


Coconut filling:
1 can(cup) coconut cream
2 1/2 cups of shredded coconut
3 tablespoons of vanilla essence
1/3 cup of vegan butter (I used nuttelex) or coconut oil
1/4 cup of raw sugar (or sweetner of choice, ie maple syrup or agave)
3 tablespoons of xantham gum (or cornflour, or thickening agent)

1 bar of dark cooking chocolate, for melting

melt butter or oil over medium-high heat in a pan until melted
add sugar and cook until melted into the mixture (a few minutes)
Add coconut cream and cook until boiling - at this point add in the vanilla essence and take off the heat.


add shredded coconut and xantham gum
At this point, the mix should be very thick, if it still seems rather gooey, add more shredded coconut.

firmly pack coconut mixture into a square or rectangle container and place in fridge for 3 hours to set
gently cut into the coconut mix and cut it into smaller rectangles. These will be your bars.
place in freezer to set completely for an hour or so.

take out of freezer after an hour or so, break out each piece of coconut bar, if it is too thick, cut in half again, they are very rich when coated in chocolate.  Place pre-cut bars back into the freezer while you melt your chocolate.


You can melt your chocolate a few ways, if you have a microwave, you can use that.
I placed a mixing bowl over a pan of boiling water and kept mixing my chunks of cooking chocolate until it was melted and no clumps remained.


Now - for the fun part, coating your bars in chocolate!

I found he easiest way to do this was skewering each bar with a toothpick - this gives you something to hold onto while you coat them evenly in chocolate, but you have to work quickly, as the coconut hits room temperature it will not be solid enough for the toothpick to hold it up.


I used a silicone spatula to dump melted chocolate onto each coconut bar, and then gently scraped the excess off back into the bowl, making sure each side is covered (you will get the hang of this quite quickly) and then placed each bar onto heavy duty aluminum foil (baking paper would work) to set.
you can put them in the fridge to speed this up.

And then, you're done.

Vegan MOFO - Day 5: Cashew Curry

So, this was surprisingly easy, and Mr Monster can't stop raving about it :)

You can really add whatever vegetables you want to it!

Cashew Curry sauce:

1/2 cup of raw cashews
1/2 cup of coconut cream
4 tablespoons of red curry paste
4 tablespoons of curry powder
1/2 cup of diced tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup of water + 2 teaspoons of vegetable stock powder added.

Blend all ingredients until smooth in a food processor - yes, it's really that easy!

For the vegetables I used:
2 potatoes, cut into chunks
2 carrots, cut into chunks
1/2 cup of corn kernels
4 cups of loose spinach
1 large broccoli, cut into florets
1 cup of chickpeas (pre soaked or tinned)
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced

1 tablespoon of red curry paste
1 tablespoon of curry powder

Gently par-boil carrot and potato until almost cooked (still firm) take off the heat and add broccoli for 5 minutes until also slightly cooked.
Place onion, garlic, and curry paste/powder into a frying pan with oil, cook until onion is translucent and curry is fragrant

add par-boiled vegetables, corn and chickpeas, stir well to combine.
Add sauce, and cook through for about 10-15 minutes.
Once sauce is heated through, add spinach and cook until wilted.

Serve with rice.

Vegan MOFO - Day 4: "Chicken" salad

This is really a quick throw together meal that I make for me and Mr. Monster when I'm too busy at the gym.

4 loose cups of fresh spinach, washed
1 packet of frys chicken strips
1/2 red onion, sliced
1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 large avocado, sliced
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 cup of shredded carrot and beetroot
1/4 cup of chargrilled capsicum, eggplant, or semi dried tomatoes (tinned/canned)

Dressing of your choice - in this case I used 99% fat free Praise mayo, but a spicy peri sauce would be nice too

throw everything but the dressing and "chicken" in a bowl and toss
fry chicken on medium heat until cooked
add chicken to salad, and top with dressing - voila.

I know - I'm lazy sometimes, but it was delish!

Vegan MOFO - Day 3: Samosas

This recipe is so easy to mix up. My advice is to change it up, try new things with it. You can always mix up the filling depending on what's in your fridge, and the pastry based on how much effort you want to put into making them.

Filling:
2 cups of mashed potato (sweet or normal or a mix of both is fine)
1 cups of varied vegetables (whatever you have in the fridge) I used, carrot, peas and corn
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
3 tablespoons of curry powder
4 tablespoons of oil

Place a pan over medium heat, add oil, onion, garlic, fry until the onion starts to go translucent and then add curry powder, cook until fragrant.
Add varied vegetables and cook for a minute, and then add mashed potato.
mix through and cook for another minute.
Set aside

Pastry:
1 cup plain flour
2 tsp salt
2 tb vegetable oil
1/3 - 1/2 cup warm water.

Preheat oven to 180C (or preheat oil if you want to deep fry them)
Mix flour and salt into a bowl. Make a well in the center, add the oil and enough water to make a firm dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and roll into a ball. Cover in plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Divide the pastry into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and roll out into a circle of 15 cm. Divide this circle into two equal pieces with a knife.
Brush each edge with a little water and form a cone shape around your fingers, sealing the dampened edge.
Fill the cases with a tablespoon of filling and press the two dampened edges together to seal the top of the cone.

There are a few different ways to cook these. I baked mine, but you can also deep fry them!
If you are too lazy to make the pastry on your own (like I am at times) buy some vegan puff pastry and use that, it will work. I'm not 100% about whether the puff would go too well in the deep fry though.

Vegan MOFO - Day 2: Strawberry PopTarts

So, how I actually came about making these was interesting, and purely to prove someone wrong. Would I make them again? Yes, a million times, yes. But I would make a large quantity and freeze them. For a small amount of poptarts this really is an effort. But in the end, worth it.

So, I overheard a conversation between two colleagues at work, and overheard the word "poptart"
now, for anyone who had poptarts as a kid, they were a huge deal. They fit straight into your toaster and came out nice and warm. Most people remember burning the roof of their mouthes on the gooey, hot inside if they couldn't wait for it to cool down.

- Anyway, moving along. Due to the sugar quantity apparently Australia will not allow imports of the product anymore. My colleague was ranting about how he absolutely loved them and he didn't know what he was going to do (A bit of a crazy. He has a wall of poptart boxes on his work desk)
So I piped in to say, "Well... you could always make them at home?"
"...make poptarts? YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE A POP TART!"

That was it, I was sold. I got home and started on my vegan pop tart creation.

First, you have to make the jam - you can buy one if you really want, but making it fresh really made a HUGE difference, and requires minimal effort... plus I had a heap of strawberries in my fridge which I got cheap from the market.



Strawberry Jam:
2 cups of strawberries, diced
2 cups of sugar (brown or white, I used white)
and two small or one large lemon, juiced

Layer strawberries and sugar in a container until you are finished, then pour the juice over the top to cover
Leave OVERNIGHT - this will start preserving and breaking down the strawberries
After at least 24 hours, you can then place the mixture into a heavy bottomed pan (I used a non stick fry pan)
Place pan on medium - medium high heat and let the strawberries cook and the sugar melt.
Cook for about 15 - 20 minutes, using a spatula to mix frequently - you do not want this to burn!
You will know the jam is ready when... well, it looks like jam.

For this recipe the jam cannot be chunky, so I placed the hot jam mixture into my blender, and let sit and cool down for about 10 minutes, before blitzing it until smooth and no chunks remained.
It will then look something like this:

Pop tart pastry:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1.4 cup of vegan shortening (recipe will work without it)
1/4 cup ice cold water (make this 1/2 cup if omitting shortening)
2 Tbs sugar

Place flour, margarine, shortening and sugar into a food processor and blend until the mixture resembles a sand like mixture.

Place this into a mixing bowl and add cold water, knead until dough like.

To combine:
Preheat oven to 180C

Roll out pastry to about .5cm thick
Cut the pastry in rectangles which fit inside your toaster (check this, you will be disappointed if they don't fit!) You will need two rectangle pieces of pastry for each pop tart
place 1 tablespoon of jam mix into the center of half of the pastry rectangles, and gently smooth out over the surface of the pastry, making sure to leave at least 1 cm gap around the edges, preferably 2cms, wet this section with either a dash of soy milk, a wet no egg mixture, or plain water
Place second sheet on top, with a fork, gently push down the edges to make a pattern, making sure they are well stuck down or all your jam mixture will ooze out everywhere!

Place pop tarts on a greased tray and bake in oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until going golden brown.
Take out of oven and let cool. And dust with a tiny bit of icing sugar if you have it.

To heat back up for individual use - use your toaster!
Enjoy.

Oh, and I brought these in for my colleague who didn't think you could make pop tarts at home, let alone vegan ones. He was very surprised, and loved them. So there you go!

Vegan MOFO - Day 1 post.

So for my first post, I don't actually have a new recipe, but some pictures of the cupcakes I've been working on all day for a friends 21st party.

The base of the cupcake used this recipe which I posted a while back on my blog, with a simple buttercream frosting which I coloured.
I was super stoked with the outcome, I hope he was too!