Chocolate Self Saucing pudding

(It's a mess, I know. But it makes up for looks when you taste it!)

Pudding:
1 cup self raising flour
3/4 cup of raw sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons of cocoa
1/2 cup of soy milk (I used soy milky)
2 tablespoons of melted vegan butter (nuttelex)


Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Mix dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl ( flour, salt, cocoa and sugar)
Stir in wet ingredients (melted butter and soy milk)
Spread the thick mixture into a greased baking dish - leave to side until covered in sauce.

Chocolate Sauce:
1 cup raw sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 3/4 cups boiling water


Mix raw sugar, cocoa and sprinkle over cake mixture
Pour the boiling water over the pudding before going in the oven (GENTLY!!!!)
Bake in oven for approximately 30-40 minutes or until the top resembles a cake.

Serve with fruit, vegan custard, or in my case some coconut cream :)

Stack of pancakes with blueberry sauce

These are a great breakfast idea for any occasion, including mine which was just to satisfy pancake cravings. I'm only human!

Pancake batter:
1 cup of plain flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
6 heaped tablespoons of raw sugar
1 cup of soy milk
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional)

Method:
mix together dry ingredients well in a bowl and make a well in the center
add wet ingredients and blend until combined with few to no bumps


Heat up a frying pan and add some vegan butter to minimize sticking to the pan

Add small amounts and cook no more than 3 at a time in the pan - set aside





Blueberry sauce:
1/2 cup of frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
4 heaped tablespoons of raw sugar
3/4 cup of water (a little more if you'd prefer more sauce)
2 tablespoons of cornflour dissolved in 3 tablespoons of water.



Add water, sugar and frozen blueberries to a pot and bring to the boil, the water will discolour and match the berries, this is normal
Let boil for 5 minutes (blueberries must soften) and then add the cornflour and lemon juice, take off the heat and mix in, the sauce will thicken (add more water or cornflour depending on what consistency you would like the sauce)




Stack up your pancakes (or don't) and add your blueberry sauce. Enjoy :)

Hot Chocolate

Everyone enjoys a good hot chocolate in the colder months, but may find it hard to get one whilst out and about, and lets face it, real chocolate tastes that much better than the powdered stuff.

For 3 small mugs (150ml ish each - good luck trying to eat more!) - you will need:

3/4 - 1 cup of grated dark cooking chocolate, grated
4 tablespoons of raw sugar or sweetner quivalent (stevia for example) add more or less depending on your sweet tooth.
2+ cups of soy milk or vegan alternative (rice would go nicely, but I used Soy Milky Lite)

Place about half a cup of the milk in a pot over a high heat, once it starts warming up add half the chocolate and all of the sugar, mix until melted.
Add the rest of the chocolate, mix until melted and combine with the remaining milk.
At this point it's up to you, if you would prefer more milk and less of a chocolatey flavour, add more milk.

Done! Easy!

Place in mugs (make sure you serve it very hot!) and add toppings of your choice. In the picture I've just added some extra grated chocolate, but some whipped soy or coconut cream or vegan marshmallows would also go extremely well.

Mushroom stroganoff

so, this was surprisingly tasty, it's a mixture of mushrooms in a creamy sauce om nom nom


You will need:
1 cup of button mushrooms, cut into halves
1 cup of shitake mushrooms, cut into halves
1 cup of oyster mushrooms
2 large field mushrooms cut into large chunks
1/2 cup of soy creamy cooking milk (I used carnation for this, but coconut cream would also work well)
1/2 cup of vegetable stock
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
3 tablespoons of red wine
1 brown onion, cut into a medium dice
3 tablespoons of flour (more if you want it thicker)
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley, more for garnish
4 generous tablespoons (heaped) of vegan butter - I used nuttelex
2 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of pepper

Melt butter in a pan and add onion and garlic, fry until translucent but do not burn.
Add half of the mushrooms and all soy sauce, red wine and vegetable stock, salt,  pepper and cook for a further 5 minutes.
add 3/4 of the cooking milk and the parsley to the pan and simmer for another 5 minutes until you start seeing some colour in the sauce, I would add the remaining mushrooms at this point, you want a little variation in the texture of mushroom, but they will all cook.
whisk flour into remaining milk until there are no clumps and add this to the pan, the sauce should thicken, cook for a few more minutes. Taste and add more salt or pepper accordingly (at this point I usually add heaps more pepper!)

You are done, it's that easy! serve on pasta or rice, which ever you prefer

Straight edge, and proud.

So I feel like this is the best place to put this, as I personally see my veganism as much more than a diet it's a philosophy for living well. I also think that my straight edge stance reflects this.

Straight edge is the basic beliefs that drugs and alcohol are not needed and should be rejected. That one should live against the grain of popular society and live by rules and standards from themselves and not the ones dictated by society.

Much alike veganism, I am constantly finding people who seem to have a go when you mention the word 'straight edge' or when you say "No, I don't drink alcohol."
WHY, why do you feel the need to badger on about it? No, I don't smoke, drink or do drugs. I honestly never thought this could be considered a bad thing!
Yes, I eat sugar, if someone spiked my lemonade that doesn't count as an edge break, having to take medicine for surgery is not an edge break, having a red bull is not an edge break, having sex before marriage is not an edge break *insert obvious answer to stupid irrelevant question here*

This is more of a vent than a productive post, but at the end of the day. I guess this is my blog!

“When a slave was drunk, the slaveholder had no fear that he would plan an insurrection…. It was the sober, thinking slave who was dangerous, and needed the vigilance of his master to keep him a slave.” -Frederick Douglas

Banoffee pie

Crust:
You can either make a digestive biscuit crust or a plain one, this time around I opted for plain
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons soy milk

Preheat oven to 180C
Mix dry ingredients together and then add wet ingredients quickly mix until dough - like
Roll out on a flat floured surface and then place into a 9inch pie tin.
Neaten edges and prick the bottom in at least 7 places with a fork on the bottom of the crust.
Bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown and set aside


Banana toffee mixture

2 bananas
100ml milk
4 tbsp caster sugar
3 tablespoons of agar agar powder (optional but preferred - toffee will hold better)

1. Blend the two bananas with the milk until well combined and smooth
2. In a pan over high heat melt the caster sugar. Don’t stir, just gently tilt as it melts to a dark caramel colour
3. Add the banana milk mixture to the toffee, stirring until the toffee melts back into the bananas
4. Add agar agar powder and cook for a further minute then take off heat
5. Pour into the pie case (immediately) and freeze for 20 minutes or refrigerate for a few hours.

Cream
300ml coconut cream fat (separated from rest of can) To do this refrigerate canned coconut cream overnight and scoop out (and use) the thick white fat from the top of the tin. You will probably need about 3 tins.
1 tbsp camp coffee (optional, vanilla essence will work fine)
3/4 cup of powdered sugar.


Beat coconut cream and sugar on high for about 7 minutes until well combined gently fold in vanilla essence or camp coffee.



To assemble rest of pie:
cut up another two bananas into generous slices and cover the banana toffee
place cream on top of this, no need to be neat

For a fancy extra you can either add some powdered instant coffee or coco powder on top of the cream or large chocolate shavings, Enjoy!

choc-mint cheesecake!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! I was robbed just over a week ago now of all my technology, and I have only just replaced my laptop.
I come bearing choc-mint cheesecake goodness!!!

Yes, I realise that is not actually mint on the top of the cheesecake. But I figured for photo purposes there had to be some green in the picture!

You will need:

Crust:

20ish Digestive biscuits, crushed

1/2 cup dairy-free margarine, melted. I used nutellex.

3 tablespoons cocoa powder
4 tablespoons of raw sugar

Method:
Combine all of the above ingredients until mixed well
Tightly pack crumb mixture into either a spring form pan (just on the bottom) or in a tart casing
Place into fridge while you make the cheesecake mixture

Cheesecake:
1 tub of tofutti cream cheese
150g of firm tofu
5 heaped tablespoons of stevia sweetner powder (or sugar of choice)
3 heaped tablespoons of corn flour
1/3 cup of soy milk
1 tablespoon of canola oil

** for choc mint you can do a few things, you can use a few tablespoons of a mint liquor or mint extract (for these options you will also need to add about a tablespoon of cocoa to the mix) or get your hands on a few vegan chocolate mints and put these with the cheesecake mixture. Or you can forget the whole mint thing and go for a really chocolatey cheesecake!

Method:
Blend until smooth - it's that easy.

Place blended mixture onto biscuit base and bake in 180c oven for about 45 minutes or until the outside is cooked and the center is still a bit wobbly.

Place in fridge for about 4 hours before cutting and eating.


For the topping on mine I have also added some dark and white chocolate shavings.
To get the larger shavings you need to scrape a knive along a block of chocolate towards yourself.


Enjoy :)