Thursday 26 August 2021

Recipe Round-Up: But I Could Never Go Vegan

Hello and welcome back to another proper recipe round-up!I'll be delving into But I Could Never Go Vegan, a book by Kristy Turner. I've had this book for awhile, but it has been languishing a bit on my shelf. You can see some other posts I've made about it here. It has the fun concept of each chapter titled after a reason why someone might claim they could never go vegan, and then the recipes are based around that.

Tempeh Bacon Mac 'N' Cheese with Pecan Parmesan: This is in the 'couldn't live without cheese' chapter. The sauce is a lovely blend of roasted cauliflower and cashews, with a lot of nutritional yeast and other yummy things. I made all the sauce, with just a half recipe for everything else to get the right sauce ratio that I like. If you'd used all the pasta I think it would be a but dry. Instead of making the tempeh bacon crumbles, I used some Veef Bacon Bits (watch for those in an upcoming midweek munchies). It is topped off with some easy to make pecan based parmesan, I just made 1/6 of the recipe for that so I would have just enough to top my mac.
Rating: :)

Tempeh Bacon Mac 'N' Cheese with Pecan Parmesan


Tempeh Bacon Mac 'N' Cheese with Pecan Parmesan


Mediterranean Tofu Scramble: From the 'tofu doesn't taste like anything' chapter, this has spinach, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, capers, and olives in it. Unfortunately, the recipe as written ended up being too salty (it uses black salt for that eggy flavour), so please go easy on the salt. I served it with some cucumber, pide bread, and roasted asparagus.
Rating: :| (too salty!)

Mediterranean Tofu Scramble


Creamy Mushroom Fettuccini Alfredo: Also in the tofu chapter, this one uses silken tofu to make the creamy alfredo sauce. My tofu block was a little less than the amount requited, but I had a quarter of a tub of Tofutti Cream Cheese kicking around, so I added that for some extra creamth. As well as the sauteed mushrooms, I also added some peas and spinach. This suffered from being a bit bland, so I needed to up the seasonings in it. I thing sauteeing the mushrooms in some soy sauce would also help with this. But the flavour did improve when I had some for leftovers the next day!

Rating: :) (with appropriate seasoning)
Creamy Mushroom Fettuccine Alfredo


Portobello Steak Frites: From the 'vegan cooking is too hard' section, which is a chapter of recipes that take 35 minutes or less. I love a sauteed portobello and fries, I used to eat something similar a lot when I was at uni (though using frozen fries). Here the mushroom in marinated for about 10 minutes, and during that time you get the chips ready. I didn't have any red-skinned potatoes, so I just used a regular white skinned one. The fries were good, but I would have liked them to be a little crispier. The mushrooms are baked with the fries as well, though they just needed a little something extra. I think pan-frying them in a little vegan butter once they have marinated (rather than baking) would hit that nail on the head perfectly.
Rating: :)

Portobello Steak Frites


Avocado & White Bean Salad Wraps: This is from the same chapter. The white beans are seasoned and mashed, then added to mashed avocado and some extra seasonings (I left out the chili). This results ina wonderful tangy and creamy spread. In this case it is spread onto some large tortillas with tomato and baby spinach, which go great with the spread. Roll up and cut for a cute presentation. I served it with some roasted broccoli.
Rating: :)

Avocado & White Bean Salad Wraps


Chickpea Sloppy Joes: The next few recipes are from the 'where's the beef' chapter, for people looking for a 'meaty' sort of meal. I made a half recipe of the sloppy chickpeas (which was enough for three rolls). I left out the sriracha from the mix, and added some celery instead of capsicum. I served it on a Fry's brioche roll with some mayo and baby spinach.
Rating: :)

Chickpea Sloppy Joes


Thai Seitan Satay with Peanut Sauce: These seitan strips are meant to be served on skewers, but I can rarely be bothered with that. Instead I just grilled them (on my cast iron grill pan, which is giving me a lot of challenges with its seasoning), and served them over coconut rice and spinach. The seitan is marinated before grilling, I left out the curry powder to keep it mild. The sauce is meant to be a spicy dipping sauce, but I left out the hot sauce and I just served it as a sauce over the seitan rather than a dipping sauce. For the seitan, I used some leftover seitan I had from another cookbook.
Rating: :)

Thai Seitan Satay with Peanut Dipping Sauce


Three Pea and Orzo Pistachio Pesto Salad: The final recipe for this post is from the salads chapter. The pesto is a lovely green pistachio and basil affair. The 'three peas' in this are meant to be green peas, chickpeas, and black-eyed peas, but I went rougue and just used some green peas (frozen, I cooked them with the orzo) and white beans... so not even a second pea! The recipe is finished with some feta, and while there is a recipe from tofu feta in the book I used some Sheese Greek-Style that I had already open in the fridge.
Rating: :)

Three Pea & Orzo Pistachio Pesto Salad


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Boo


Boo, peeking around the top of the stairs. This looks cute, though unfortunately will often end in her trying to stalk up to Abby and pick a fight. If I hear growling, I know I have to run to break it up with distraction techniques! Boo just needs to chill out!

8 comments:

  1. Boo is an extrovert like me. Abby is an introvert like you.

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    1. Abby and I would love to hide away from the world together.
      But at least you don't get up in my face growling and then try and slap me! ;)

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  2. Cauliflower is so versatile! Why have I never made cheese out of it? Such a perfect idea and your mac looks so good! The seitan looks great, too. I have minimal seitan skills. Mine either turns out tough or mushy and I can't seem to hit the sweet spot. Someday.

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    1. This was a really good seitan recipe, it was from Vegan Eats World. I also recently learned from another Australian blogger that our gluten flour is a bit different from your vital wheat gluten, so ours often doesn't need as much water. That explains a lot as to why sometimes my seitan turns out a bit mushy.

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  3. I love pecans, I'd have never thought to use them to make Parmesan!!
    I love to make sloppy lentils, chickpeas seem like a great idea too. Did you mash them a bit?
    Boo is too cute! I have to break up a few tussels everyday here too!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, the chickpeas are mashed up before you add them.
      Unfortunately with Boo it is not so much a tussel as it is an all out fight. Sigh. We're working on it.

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  4. I really like the strategy behind the chapter titles of this book!

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    Replies
    1. It is very fun! Though sometimes makes it a bit hard to locate a recipe.

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