Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Without Borders

Robin Robertson is one of my favourite vegan cookbook authors. She is extremely prolific, having written countless tomes (many of which I have on my shelves) filled with so many recipes! Vegan Without Borders is her international cookbook, with recipes from around the world. You can see my other posts about this book here.

Seitan Jagerschnitzel and Halushki (Eastern Europe): I served these two dishes together, which made for a lovely dinner. The halushki is a simple dish of onion, cabbage, and noodles (I used 8 oz of linguine), along with some herbs (I used fresh parsley and dried dill). It needs a fair whack of seasoning, but made a great backdrop for the stronger flavours of the jagerschnitzel. I used Lamyong mushroom chunks, sliced thinly, rather than seitan, which added a great flavour. This stew has a mushroom and white whine sauce, with lots of seasonings and spices, and made creamy by sour cream. I found it to be quite soupy, even after adding the cornstarch to thicken, so I'd suggest adding less stock to make for a thicker stew.
Rating: Jagerschnitzel :). Halushki :)



Roasted Ratatouille with Basil Pistou (France): This is a simple dish to make, just roast a bunch of vegetables and make the basil pistou. For the vegetables, I didn't use any capsicum, and I roasted the cherry tomatoes separately. I also added a tin of white beans to make it more of a meal. For the basil pistou, I made a half recipe which was plenty for the ratattouille. Unlike a pesto, it doesn't have any nuts or cheese. The book recommended serving with baguette, but I served with spinach and brown rice because that's what I felt like.
Rating: Ratatouille :), Pistou :)



Portuguese Kale Soup (Spain and Portugal): This is a solid soup, nothing outstanding, but savoury and satisfyinbg. As well as kale (obviously), it has onion, potato, and white beans in it. I only used one tin of beans (rather than two) and added extra kale because I had a large bunch. I also left out the chili flakes. This would be a good sick day soup.
Rating: :)



Orzo and Chickpea Salad (Greece): This makes a big salad, excellent for hot day dinner or lunches. As well as the title ingredients, it is full of tomato, cucumber, olives, celery, and herbs, and topped with toasted pine nuts. Also scallions, though I substituted them for chives, and I didn't have any parsley so I left that out as well. The dressing is simple and lemony, I used my water and guar gum sub trick instead of the oil because oily dressings make me feel a bit queasy, and I used garlic powder because my tummy doesn't like raw garlic anymore.
Rating: :)



Jackfruit Gyros (Greece): These made a lovely, light dinner, served with the above salad. The jackfruit is shredded (I used the food processor) and cooked with lemon and lots of herbs, then shoved into warm pita with spinach (which I used instead of lettuce) and tomato. The recipe also calls for a batch of Tzatziki Sauce, though the one in the book calls for yoghurt and sour cream and I didn't have sour cream. Instead I made my own quick version with greek yoghurt, cucumber, dill, garlic powder, and salt.
Rating: :)



Moroccan Lentil and Chickpea Soup (Africa): This was a good, hearty soup with a nice flavour. Chickpeas and lentils make it a protein-filled dinner, though I still got three servings out of it rather than the 4-6 the book suggested (perhaps those were for serving as a soup course, not as a whole dinner). It does have some harissa in it, and hilariously I did try and make a less hot version of harissa (I made this back when I still did a little bit with chili), though it didn't work too well. So I just used a teeny drop. Served over some baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Something a bit different today. Check out this gorgeous family portrait I got done of my and my sweet babies by Mellow Doodles