A note, if you are looking for this book, search for Veganissimo by Leigh Drew, as there are a couple of other books with the same name. I guess it is popular!
Baingan Bharta with Tandoori Cauliflower Cheese: I made these two recipes during testing, and they go great together (served with some steamed basmati rice). The Baingan Bharta is an eggplant (both mashed and chooped) and tomato based stew, with lots of seasoning. I found my eggplant did take a but longer to bake than the recipe, so make allowances for eggplant size and oven temperament. I left out the chili and the cayenne with this. It went well with the tandoori cauliflower cheese, which was amazing! The original tester recipe used whole spices, but the published one uses ground to make it super easy. This makes a big amount, but you won't be sorry.
Rating: Baingan Bharta :), Tandoori Cauliflower Cheese :D
Chocolate Raspberry Muffins: This is another one I made during testing, but have made again since because they are so good! The muffin batter has crushed frozen raspberries in it (rather than finely chopping them, I found that if you put them in a freezer bag and use something to hit it with they crush up super fast). The best part about these muffins is the middle - they have a couple of chunks of dark chocolate and some raspberry jam baked into the middle. If you eat them when they are still a bit warm, you just get this amazing burst of melted chocolate goodness! But they are a bit fragile, so treat them gently until you shove them in your face hole!
Rating: :D
Overnight Breakfast Cups: I made this recipe quite recently, for a pre-work breakfast. The recipe is designed to make cute little cups - six cups based on 2 cups of rolled oats (or quinoa if you'd prefer, but I used oats). Of course, I halved the recipe to make one nice big bowl! But geez, it was filling. The oats are soaked with milk (I used oat), granny smith (meant to be grated but I seriously hate grating apple so I just finely chopped it) and some dried fruit. The dried fruit called for is cranberries and goji berries. I used some dried mulberries instead of the goji berries as I had some kicking around that I needed to use up. The recipe tops the cups with banana and peanut butter before serving. I used these on my bowl, but also added some fresh blueberries and pepitas.
Rating: :)
Mozzarella: Leigh has several cheese recipes in here, but my star is the mozzarella. This takes a bit of time, but is very easy. It uses agar agar to set, which means no yucky coconut oil (it uses canola oil instead), and it is based on soy yoghurt. It sets up beautifully, is very sliceable, and as you can see makes an amazing melted grilled cheese sandwich.
Rating: :D
Reuben Sandwiches: I do love a Reuben, and I love Leigh's take on them. This recipe does require a few components to be made ahead of time - cheese sauce, vegan bacon, and thousand-island style sauce. I took a couple of short-cuts, using a premade cheese sauce mix and making a simple thousand island by mixing mayo, ketchup, and gherkin relish. For the bacon, I used the Baked Seitan Bacon recipe. This is cool, because it involves making the seitan mix with bacon marinade, so the flavour is all the way through. After cooking and cooling, you slice and cool it. What I really loved about this was the sauerkraut, which is sauteed with caramelised onions. It was a really nice take on a reuben!
Rating: Reuben :D, Seitan Bacon :)
Waldorf and Caesar Salad Remix: This was a great, fresh salad with a bunch of lovely flavours and textures. I made a half recipe to serve one hungry me. Again, this does involve a couple of other recipes - Vegan Bacon and Avocado and White Bean Dressing. For this bacon, I made the tempeh bacon. There is a bacon marinade in the book that is unlike anything I've seen - it involves making a spiced soy sauce and then using that, and it was amazing. You can use it on tempeh, tofu, kale, or other vegetables, but of course I chose tempeh. IT WAS AMAZING. The avocado and white bean dressing is very tangy and quite thick, on its own it is great on sandwiches. For this recipe, it is then blended up with some kalamata olives. Once I had done this, it was almost too thick, so I had to thin it with some water. The salad is a mix of cos, granny smith, tempeh bacon, the olive avocado bean dressing, capers, croutons (I used rye bread instead of sourdough), and pecans (which I used instead of walnuts) candied with agave syrup and garam masala.
Rating: Salad :), Avocado and White Bean Dressing :), Tempeh Bacon :D
Cute Kitty Photo of the Post
Holly is a sweet black and white girl with a lovely blaze and a funny personality. Yes, we named all if Petal's baby girls after plants!
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Such a great round up! I usually find my eggplant takes much longer to cook than any recipe says. For the longest time I thought I didn't like eggplant--and then I discovered, when eating it at a restaurant, that I'd prepped it totally wrong, because my mother also tended to undercook it. So glad I figured it out. That Indian meal looks amazing!
ReplyDeleteEggplant is tricky. I used to think I didn't like it as well, until I realised it was because I was cooking it wrong, and also I think a lot of restaurants cook it not great as well. It can get very soggy and very oily very easily. But when done right, it is so good! I am glad figured out eggplant as well.
DeleteWhen this book first came out, we made heaps of the Indian style recipes (including your two up top) and invited heaps of people over for a feast - it was so good!
ReplyDeleteThe other long-time favourite of mine from this book is the potato waffles. But now I'm thinking that I've gotta give that mozzarella a go.
The mozzarella is SO good, definitely try it! I also love the potato waffles, they are very tasty indeed!
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