Mexican Baked Potatoes

This one is pretty simple, but extremely tasty. It's basically just a fancy baked potato because I was craving something naughty, but needed to put a good twist on it. It's a baked potato stuffed and topped with Mexican 'mince', salsa and avocado.

The easiest way to bake your potatoes is in their skin. Place a small/medium potato on a lined baking tray (one which fits nearly into your hand is ideal size) and spray lightly with soy spray to keep from burning, also prick deeply with a fork so that it cooks better.
Potatoes should be cooked for roughly 1 hour at 180-190C or until a skewer can easily penetrate the potato (You don't want it too soft or it will fall apart)
I only made it through one potato, Mr. Monster made it through 3..... so I'd suggest maybe preparing two per person to be on the safe side. They'd make good leftovers!
Once cooked take out of the oven and leave to the side while you prepare the toppings/fillings for them because they'll stay hot for quite a while.

For the mince, you will need:
1 cup of 4 bean mix
1 tin of refried beans
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, grated
oil for frying
mexican spice (I used a sachet of taco seasoning)

To cook:
Place onion, oil and garlic in a pan, fry until translucent - add spices, 4 mean mix and carrot, cook for a further few minutes.
When ready to be taken off the heat add refried beans and mix until well incorporated
done, set your mince aside.

Salsa:
You can make it yourself, or buy a tin of it like I did

Avocado:
1 mashed avocado with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice to keep it lovely and green should feed two people (4-5 potatoes)



To assemble:
gently cut open your potato, take a small amount out of the center to place your bean mix in. I prefer to keep most of the potato to eat, and opt to overload and top it more than fill it, who cares, you're only eating it... right!?
Then add your salsa and avocado. You could add vegan sour cream or cheese if you wanted, but I was trying to opt for lower fat. I also garnished with spring onion as it's super tasty and finishes the dish off.
DELICIOUS!

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 - 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.

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

Vegan Calzone

'Cheesy' seasoned tofu mixture toasted inside a tortilla

You will need

Jumbo tortillas - I used 3
150G of firm tofu - pressed
1/4 cup of SEMI-dried tomatoes - diced
1 cup of fresh spinach, chopped
2 medium mushrooms, cut into chunks
5 fresh basil leaves, diced finely
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 cup of mozarella melting cheezly
4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons of massels chicken stock powder (or vegetable stock powder)
1/2 cup of diced onion
3 tablespoons of oil from semi dried tomato container
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of pepper
3 tablespoons of corn flour
oil for frying

sweat onion and garlic in frying pan until translucent, add everything but cheezly, cornflour and tofu and cook for a few more minutes.
Crumble tofu into pan and add 3/4 of the cheezly, keeping the rest for the tortilla, add cornflour
Fry for a few more minutes until hot.
lay tortillas out on a flat base - gently sprinkle with remaining cheezly and add tofu mixture to half of the tortilla, fold over in half.
Cook calzone. I found the most efficient way of doing this was on a toaster grill, but you could also do it in a pan being very careful, or in the oven.

Cut calzone into slices for ease of eating.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Parmigiana

crumbed slices off eggplant topped with pasta sauce and cheezly

You will need:
1 eggplant, cut into 1.5cm thick slices
1 jar of pasta sauce. I used a mushroom and garlic sauce
a tablespoon of grated mozarella cheezly per eggplant slice
Cornflour  for dusting (about half a cup)
breadcrumbs for coating eggplant (about half a cup)
1/2 cup of water mixed with 3 tablespoons of cornflour,( and 2 tablespoons of massells chicken stock ***optional)
salt


prepare eggplant - coat eggplant in salt and let sit for about 15 minutes per side, this will draw out the bitterness from it. Once this is done thoroughly wash salt off eggplant with some fresh water.

get 3 bowls ready
1: cornflour - to coat the eggplant
2: water/cornflour/stock combo which is your 'eggy' mixture
3: breadcrumbs.

Take each eggplant slice and coat first with cornflour, then with egg mixture, and then with breadcrumbs

Shallow fry each slice in a pan for 5 minutes on each side (or until browning) and then bake in oven on 190C for 15 minutes, flip eggplant and cook on other side for another 15 minutes.

Top with pasta sauce and cheezly and cook in oven for a further 10 minutes


Enjoy.

Lemon and herb vege burgers

For this one I'm just going to post the recipe for the patty, the rest is pretty straight forward ;)
Recipe makes 4 decent sized pattys (1 potato per patty roughly)

You will need:
4 medium sized potatoes, boiled, drained and roughly mashed (I mash my potatoes with 3 tablespoons of soy milk and a tablespoon of nutellex butter, but this is optional)
1 cup of mixed vegetables, I used a frozen mix of diced carrot alongside peas and corn
3 tablespoons of lemon juice, either freshly squeezed or packaged
2 tablespoons of herbs, I used lemon thyme to accentuate flavours, but you could always use coriander or even just a mixed herbs.
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
1/4 - 1/2 cup of cornflour.
2 tablespoons of salt
2 tablespoons of pepper
1 teaspoon of wasabi (optional, I like the tang it gives the patty)

Combine the above ingredients in a bowl until mixture sticks together well. Form into pattys (you can coat in breadcrumbs if you wish, but I didn't), I made 4 out of the mix and then fry in a hot pan with some oil until browned on both sides - patty is soft and goes great in a burger bun with some salad.

You can always customize the recipe by removing the lemon juice and herbs, and adding your own flavours, for example, you could always add a curry mix or something similar, experiment!

Spinach quiche

 
A tofu quiche made with spinach and mushroom in a savoury pie crust.

Crust:
1 1/2 cups of plain flour
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
1/2 cup of water
1 tablespoon of salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 200C
combine flour and salt in a mixing bowl and add oil, mix until the flour resembles a course sand
Add 1/2 of the water (so 1/4 cup) and stir until mixed, and then add the rest of the water
roll dough out until it is an inch larger in diameter than your quiche tin (I'm using a 9" dish)
place in the dish and neaten the edges
Gently prick the bottom of the crust around 7 times with a fork to stop bubbling

Cook in oven for roughly 12 minutes or until crust is golden - set aside

Quiche filling:
500G firm tofu (pressed and drained)
1/2 cup of soy milk
4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
4 tablespoons of vegan parmesan
2 tablespoons of pepper
2 tablespoons of salt
1 tablespoon of american mustard
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of egg replacer

Method: Blend all ingredients until smooth, set aside.

Spinach mixture:
4 cups of fresh spinach - washed
1/2 cup of diced onion
1 cup of diced mushroom
5 tablespoons of minced garlic
3 tablespoons of vegan butter.

Method:
Melt butter in a pan and gently fry garlic and onion until translucent, add mushroom and cook for a few minutes before adding spinach - mix until spinach is completely wilted. Fold spinach mixture into the blended tofu mixture


Once pie crust is cooked fill with spinach quiche filling and then cook in the oven for another 30-45 minutes until the tofu mixture is set. In the last 15 minutes you may want to gently brush the top of the quiche with some oil.

I served mine with some grilled corn, tomato and mushroom, Enjoy!

Shepherds pie

Lentil based 'mince' in homestyle gravy topped with creamy mashed potato and served in a crisp puff pastry shell.

These were a big hit at home, with both omnis, Mr. Monster and room mate Monster!

You will need (recipe makes 12 muffin-sized pies)

Mince:
2 carrots, diced finely
1 Large onion, diced
3 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 tin (1 cup) of lentils, drained
¾ cup of spinach, chopped
1 ½ cups of mushroom, diced (should still be slightly chunky)
3 tablespoons of Massels supreme gravy mix mixed with 1.5 cups of water.

Place everything but the gravy into a pan and cook until almost ready, add gravy and let thicken.


Mashed potato:
5 small/medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
tablespoon of nuttellex (or vegan butter)
¼ cup of soy milk

Boil potatoes until soft, drain
Add butter and soy milk and mash.

To make puff pastry casing, grease 2x12 muffin trays all over, make sure oven is preheated to 280C
gently push thawed pastry into muffin cases. Cook in oven for max 10 minutes. Depending on oven this will vary, so keep an eye on them! Once they’re golden take them out.

Add mince mixture, and top with mashed potato, cook for 20 minutes (at 180C) or until mashed potato is golden.

Creamy asparagus, spinach and broccoli risotto

One which people seemed to like a lot on my facebook.. so I thought I'd add the recipe for you all to enjoy :)

You will need:

2 cups of arborio rice

3 cups of mixed greens (fresh asparagus cut, broccoli cut, fresh spinach leaves)

1 large onion

4 tablespoons of garlic

1 tin of coconut cream

3 + cups of vegetable stock

Salt and pepper to taste

1. pan fry asparagus and broccoli until cooked and set aside in a bowl

2. sweat onion and garlic in pan and add arborio rice

3. add half of the vegetable sock and gently agitage the pan instead of stirring unil absorbed

4. add remaining sock and coconut cream - agitate the pan until absorbed - if too crunchy at this point, add more stock and cook for longer.

5. once rice is nearly cooked add fresh spinach leaves and wilt in rice.

6. Once rice is cooked gently mix in asparagus and broccoli, add salt and pepper to taste

MMMMmmmmmm!

Spinach and 'Ricotta' Cannelloni

This ended up being surprisingly tasty, all round favourite!

you will need:

10 + Canelloni tubes, cooked per packet instructions

2 cups of fresh spinach leaves

1 small onion - diced finely

tablespoon of garlic

1 tin of pasta sauce, I used a roast onion and garlic sauce.

Ricotta:

1 cup Firm tofu

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of lemon

5 tablespoons of almond meal

3 tablespoons of nutrtitional yeast

White sauce

1 cup of soy milk

5 tablespoons of nuttelex

2 tablespoons of almond meal

3 tablespoons of flour

Preheat oven to 190C

To make Ricotta:

In a bowl, mash tofu and all ingredients into a ricotta like consistency and set aside. If not to your liking, add more nutritional yeast/lemon juice until you're happy with it.

To make white sauce:

1. Melt nuttelex in a pot and add flour, mix well into a roux

2. add milk and whisk vigorously until thickened - set aside.

Sweat onion and garlic in a pot and add spinach, cook until wilted.

Add spinach mix to ricotta and use this to stuff the canneloni, be gentle with the cooked shells

Compile your baking tin!

Lay a thin layer of pasta sauce on the bottom before you place your canneloni down, once you've put the Canneloni in fill with pasta sauce and top with white sauce.

Bake in oven for around 20 minutes - Enjoy

Creamy pumpkin soup

So I've been a little sick with a cold as of late, and my throat was pretty sore so I didn't want to eat anything too harsh... so I made pumpkin soup, it's so easy I don't know why I don't make it more often!

This recipe feeds two people, if you have more mouths to feed - adjust amounts accordingly.

You will need:

1 1/2 cup of pumpkin (I used butternut), cut into chunks
1 cup of sweet potato, cut into chunks (leave skin on)
1 cup of carrot, cut into chunks (leave skin on)
1 large onion
4 tablespoons of garlic
2 litres of water
3 tablespoons of massels vegetable stock
1 tablespoon of massels chicken stock (or an extra of vegetable)
2 tablespoons of mixed herbs
salt and pepper to taste
tin of coconut cream

1. Dice onion and sweat in a pot with garlic
2. Add water and stock powder and herbs
3. Place pumpkin, sweet potato and carrot in pot and place lid on top(water should just cover vegetables) - let cook for about 20 -30 minutes stirring occasionally, if vegetables are not falling apart yet, let it cook for longer.
4. Use a stick mixer to blend soup into a nice thick consistenty - blend half the coconut cream into this.
5. Serve up, add coconut cream to the center and gently mix around to create the pictured effect, add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Serve with crusty bread, or whatever you like really, I just used some multi grain toast.


Enjoy!



Enchiladas with salsa and sour cream

Recipe makes 12 enchiladas

You will need:

Packet of 12 burrito tortillas

Enchilada filling:
2 cups of mixed vegetables, blended in a food processor or grated (I used the following)
         - butternut pumpkin
         - sweet potato
         - spinach
         - mushroom
         - carrot
1 can tinned corn, drained (equivalent to a cup)
1 large onion, diced
4 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 can of lentils, drained (equivalent to a cup)
1 can of old el paso Refried beans (equivalent to a cup)
1/4 cup of flour

Salsa
1 can of diced tomato (equivalent to a cup)
1 Large onion or two small onions, diced


Sour cream
Firm silken tofu (equivalent to a cup)
4 + tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar
4 + tablespoons of agar nectar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
pinch of salt

1- Preheat oven to 200 C
2- fry processed vegetables along with diced onion and garlic until cooked, add lenils and corn and cook for a further 5 minutes, then add refried beans and mix through and add flour to stiffen mix
3- spoon enchilada mixture evenly amongst 12 tortillas, wrap tortillas and place on a baking tray - place in oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until golden and crispy on top
4- blend sour cream ingredients until smooth (tofu, apple cider vinegar, agar nectar and salt) taste, if still too 'tofuey' add more vinegar and agar nectar - once happy with taste place in fridge until serving time.
5- To make salsa place diced tomatoes and diced onion into a bowl - done!


Once enchiladas are cooked, place on plate and add salsa and sour cream, you could also make an easy guacamole by mashing some avocado and lemon.

Enjoy!

Not so meaty animal-lovers pizza

Last nights dinner was pizza, and Mr. Monster wanted something different on his, so I put together a faux-meat-lovers pizza, it turned out pretty damn good if I don't say so myself!

I reckon I could fool a meat-eater :P

So the base is just pita pocket bread based with BBQ sauce and some herbs, and ontop we have: Onion, Mushrooms, Capsicum, nut-meatballs (sorry guys, there's going to be a few nutmeat recipes until I get through the whole tin!) and a sourcream/aioli I made.

Nut-meatballs were just made using the recipe on the side of the Sanitarium nutmeat tin, and shaped into small meatballs and shallow fried.

Sourcream/aoli

1/2 cup of firm tofu (silken firm would be fine too)
teaspoon of apple cider vinegar
teaspoon of minced garlic
teaspoon of agave nectar (or any sweetner)
teaspoon of lemon juice
mixed herbs, salt and pepper for seasoning.

Blend the above ingredients into a sauce-like paste, if you want it to be a little more watery add a teaspoon of oil, if you require it to be more runny, I'd suggest some soy milk.

compile the pizza - drizzle with sourcream/aioli (and some more bbq sauce) and bake in the oven

wha la! (Mr. Monster and I's pizza/movie night treats!)

creamy pumpkin and spinach risotto

whala!

1 cup of risotto
1/2 large diced onion
3 tablespoons of garlic (or less if you don't like it)
small amount of oil for frying
2 cups of loose spinach
salt and pepper for seasoning


pumpkin mixture (blend ingredients until smooth)
1 cup of roasted pumpkin
1/2 cup of boiled sweet potato
1/2 cup of boiled carrot
1 cup of coconut cream
1 tablespoon of massells chicken stock
1 tablespoon of massells vegetable stock
1/2 cup of water


Fry onion and garlic in a pan until soft
add risotto and mix until coated in oil and garlic
add pumpkin mixture and gently fold  until risotto is cooked (around half an hour)- add more water if needed
when rice is nearly ready, add spinach leaves, and fold into risotto, they will wilt

DONE!

mongolian tofu

So tonight a bit of a lazy stirfry
Battered and shallow fried some blocks of tofu, added them to a stirfry with onion, capsicum, broccoli,carrot  and mushroom, with a pre-made (I know...) sauce.

Twas tasty!

vege fry-up

so tonight I felt like just having a heap of vegetables, so here you have it!

(I made enough for me and my man)

1 large red capsicum
1 large onion
1 tablespoon of chopped or minced garlic (less if you don't like it as much)
2 cups of fresh spinach
1 packet of eatwell sausages (I used the tomato and basil ones)
15 + mushrooms
2 corn cobs

Cut the corn cobs in half, and boil until ready
roughly slice the onion, throw in hot pan with garlic and some nutellex
seed and chop capsicum, add to pan
cut mushrooms into quarters and leave till the end with the spinach leaves (you want the leaves slightly wilted and the mushroom still juicy) put these in the pan when everything else looks nearly cooked, add and cook for a few minutes and put fried mixture onto a plate.
Chop sausages roughly and fry in pan until cooked - add to the rest of vegetables
drain corn

WHALA! I think broccolini would go great in this as well.. but I didn't have any :( It's such a simple meal, and so tasty :)

Roast Vegetables

Bit of a lazy dinner tonight

The roast vegetables are just chopped, potato, sweet potato, carrot and pumpkin tossed in a mixture of herbs (mixed herbs) some vegeta vegetable stock, and some oil.

On the side we have a mash potato - pretty simple, just some boiled potato mashed with a little soy milk and 'butter' with some steamed pumpkin
and the other thing on the left is fried mushroom, onion and garlic, all chopped coarsely so that the mushroom is still juicy when you eat it.

I top it all off with my own gravy, which I make out of a mixture of herbs, vegeta vegetable stock, no egg, and the water from boiling the potatoes.

All in all, a pretty delicious meal! (bad shot, but I'll be ditching the camera phone for a proper camera shortly!)