Recipe Round-Up: But My Family Would Never Eat Vegan

The final part of the three part recipe round-up from But My Family Wound Never Eat Vegan, by Kristy Turner. I hope you all at least enjoyed seeing the pictures. These round-ups take a bit of effort, because I have so many recipes to share! And working my way through the books in alphabetical order is slow going. But today we finish the Bs! Next full recipe round-up, we move into the Cs. Very exciting. It will be back to some shorter posts after this one for a bit. As always, you can see previous posts about this book here.

Fruit Pie Oatmeal: A final oatmeal for you, this one has fruit added to the oats while you cook, then they are topped with the same fruit and nuts if you want. I used strawberries, which are my favourite fruit, and used some pepitas rather than nuts.
Rating: :)



Roasted Carrot & Wild Mushroom Ragout: These next four meals are all from the comfort food chapter. And it kicks of with this lovely combination. I made a half recipe for two serves. The carrots are lovely and sweet, and pair well with an earthy mixture of mushrooms (portobello, oyster, and rehydrated porcini). Served over some creamy cheesy polenta.
Rating: :)



Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie: I feel like a lot of vegan cookbooks love using sweet potato for their shepherd's pie. This one was tasty, but I didn't get the typical shepherd's pie flavour from it. The filling of beans, mushrooms, vegetables, sundried tomatoes and green olives is very herby and tangy. The mashed sweet potatoes on top are sprinkled with pepita parmesan. I made a half recipe, and got three serves out of it.
Rating: :)



Lasagna Soup: This recipe uses that herby macadamia ricotta I mentioned in the last post that I used for the zucchini manicotti. This isn't really lasagne soup, because I used bowtie pasta instead of broken lasagne noodles. Using what I had! It also has chickpeas, zucchini, yellow squash, spinach, and basil in the tomato broth. It makes a lot! The ricotta is so good with it.
Rating: :)



Cauliflower Parmigiana: Ding, ding, ding, this is a winner! I loved this seasoned crispy coated cauliflower steak, roasted until crunchy on the outside and wonderful on the inside. It is topped with Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara (remember I mentioned that in the first post? Guess what, this is STILL not the recipe where it is made!), cheese sauce (I used some CFS vegan cheese sauce), and basil. You can serve it over spaghetti, but I had just had a huge lunch so was looking for a lighter dinner, so I just served mine over some wilted baby spinach.
Rating: :D


Perfect Roasted Potatoes: This is from the picky eater chapter, because I guess everyone loves potato! These are par-boiled, smashed, coated in vegan butter or oil, and seasoned before baking. They go crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside.
Rating: :)



Chickpea Croquettes with Dill Yoghurt Sauce: This is from the special meals for fancy get togethers chapter, not to be confused with the previous impressive meals for your in-laws chapter. I guess there is a distinction. The croquettes are made sweet potatoes and chickpeas. I took the baking option, and you can see they didn't quite go golden, but they tasted good. I left out the cayenne. I made some small croquettes and also one larger burger patty size so I could make a leftovers sandwich with it. The dill sauce was wonderful and tangy. In a shocking twist, fresh dill (my favourite herb) was no where to be found, so I had to take the dried dill option. I used a lot.
Rating: :)



Cheesy Roasted Sweet Potatoes: From the holidays chapter, this is simple and delicious! Just toss sweet potatoes with nutritional yeast, paprika, and garlic and roast. So simple, so delicious. Add extra nooch.
Rating: :D



Sun-Dried Tomato Linguine: At last, we have arrived at the origin recipe for the Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara you have been hearing about these last few posts. This is from the romantic chapter. Is this a date night mood setter? Beats me. Maybe ask someone who isn't acearo. But it tastes good! The marinara sauce has sun-dried tomatoes, fresh cherry tomatoes, tinned tomato sauce, and tomato paste, so it is all tomatoes all the time. It has a lot of flavour, and also makes a ton. So it is good to make all those other recipes with afterwards, you'll have some leftover! I used half the amount of pasta and made it up with a tin of kidney beans. This also has green olives, as you can see, as well as capers. Are capers romantic? Who's to say. Anyway, this is a good recipe.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Don't worry, Boo is fine. This is just a flashback photo to her in her cone. She wore it so well! Much fashion. I've scheduled the last couple of posts to be released, so I will update you on the Boo-Abby situation in my next post. Fingers crossed things around going a bit smoother. It is going to be a long, slow process.

Recipe Round-Up: But I Could Never Go Vegan

Hello! What a difference a few days makes. Since my last post, I had my wallet stolen (I am fine, it wasn't violent, I didn't even know until a couple of hours later, they got some cash, used my credit card a bit, but I am safe and financially will be OK). Some people are just so rude. I am very sad about the loss of my perfect wallet (pink with a cat on it) and my tokidoki strawberry unicorner mini that I had hanging off it. Anyway, let us distract ourselves with some photos of food, and finish off my current round-up from But I Could Never Go Vegan. As always, see my previous posts here.

Warm Lemony Olive Potato Salad: Dipping back into the salads are boring chapter, this is a lovely salad for cooler months. The potatoes are roasted (it says to use tiny potatoes halved, I just used regular potatoes diced). It is tossed with lemon juice (go easy on the amount, I used an Australian TBS and it was very lemony), baby spinach, rosemary, and olives (I used green).
Rating: :)



Potato & Pea Samosa Cakes with Tamarind Sauce: This recipe and the next are from the 'fake meat freaks me out' chapter. This recipe takes a little bit of prep work, but is very tasty so I think is worth it. I made a half recipe and got 8 little cakes. The recipe says to shape them using a cookie cutter, I have no patience for that so I just shaped them by hand and as you can see they look fine. The tamarind sauce was pretty runny though, but it had a nice and tangy taste. I left out the cayenne from the potato mix, and used a smaller amount of mild curry powder as well. As well as potato, there are onion, carrots, and peas. There was meant to be red capsicum but I just used extra carrot. I served this over a microwave spiced rice mix that I found at the supermarket, and with some steamed broccoli.
Rating: :)



Lentil, Chard & Sweet Potato Curry: This may look like a plate of slop, but it is so yummy! It turned our very soupy looking when I made it, whereas in the picture it looks a bit more solid. Food styling? Anyway, the appearance doesnt mated because it was amazing! I used baby spinach instead of chard, and only a little sprinkle or mild curry powder. Served over some basmati rice. This was amazing.
Rating: :D



Broccoli Cheddar Soup: Heading into the 'not soup again' chapter (people get tired of soup?), this soup uses roasted broccoli, chickpeas, and nutritional yeast. I made this during lockdown last year (yes, some actual recently made recipes! I know some of my round ups have recipes I made 10 years ago... oops), and I used frozen broccoli to make this super pantry friendly because it was that time where you really had to think about making produce stretch out a week or two. This recipe could be a bit cheesier and have more broccoli in it, to be honest. The chickpeas gave it a bit of a texture. I served it with some olive sourdough.
Rating: :| (not bad, just could have been more)



White Bean & Portobello Stew: Another lockdown recipe. I actually used this book more over the past 14 months to get a nice bunch of recipes for the round up. One good thing about working through books in alphabetical order for the round-ups is that it encourages me to actually use them so I can make long boring posts. It's OK if you just scroll for the pictures! Anyway, this is a lovely savoury soup. I made a half recipe and got three small servings or two big servings. It has leeks, carrot, celery, portobellos, white beans, and greens in it. The broth has liquid smoke and miso added for extra good flavour. I served this with some garlic bread, not pictured.
Rating: :)

Butternut, Carmelised Onion, & Porchini Mushroom Pizza: From the 'I'd Miss Pizza' section, this is a unique and wonderful pizza! There is nothing meaty or cheesy about it. The recipe is actually for kabocha, but I used butternut because it is easier for my to cut with my dodgy shoulder. I used shallots to caramelise, because my red onion didn't turn up in the order, and I used the Coles Pizza Dough Ball rather than the recipe from the book. The Coles pizza dough is really good and just helps makes things I bit easier. This pizza is 100% delicious, and I really recommend that everyone make it.
Rating: :D



Red Velvet Beet Smoothie with Cashew Cream Icing: There is a chapter about encouraging people to eat vegetables that they don't like, and this recipe is obviously for those who hate beetroot. Other hated vegetables in the chapter include eggplant, avocado (how? why? who?), cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. Note there is no capsicum included. But to be honest, no recipe would entice me to eat capsicum again. Anyway, this smoothie! It is a bit special compared to your basic smoothie. The lovely red velvet part has beetroot, strawberries, banana, dates, and cocoa powder to give a magnificent rich flavour. I used frozen bananas and strawberries to make it cold and thick, how I like my smoothies. The icicng is made by blending soaked cashews, water, and sugar. The icing is a fun idea, but to be honest I preferred the smoothie without it.
Rating: :)



Creamy Curried Tempeh Salad with Dried Cherries and Almonds: From the potluck chapter, though I made a 1/2 recipe for a single serve for me for lunch (my family doesn't like tempeh, sadly). I really liked the flavours in this, I of course used a smaller amount of a mild curry powder. But the dried cherries and almonds were a great addition. It suggests serving them fancy style in endive leaves, on a sandwich, or over greens. I went for the final option.
Rating: :)



Rosemary Lemon Pound Cake: This winter, a friend gifted me several giant juicy lemons from her tree. I juiced them so I can have fresh lemon juice for months in my freezer, I have several whole bottles full, but this recipe was the perfect way to use some up. Plus we have a giant rosemary bush in our yard. This is from the 'you can't bake without butter or eggs' chapter. And it uses silken tofu for binding. It also called for melted coconut oil instead of butter, I used melted Nuttelex. This recipe calls for coconut sugar and agave, so it is not the most pantry friendly recipe. I just always happen to have those in my cupboard. It also has a glaze made from lemon juice and icing sugar, though I left that off.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



As much as losing my wallet hurts, I am glad it was not a bag snatch and that they didn't get my phone. Honestly, my phone would hurt more probably. My support system and friends live on my phone. And it lets me take beautiful photos like this one. After I went to bed, sweet Abby came and sat on my legs while I read for a bit. She does this every night, but I was especially grateful for her comforting little body and sweet face after such a stressful day.

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: :)





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!)



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)


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: :)



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: :)



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: :)



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: :)



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: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



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!

Recipe Round-Up: But I Could Never Go Vegan

While I've posted about specific recipes in other blog posts before, this is my first full round-up from But I Could Never Go Vegan, the first cookbook from Kristy Turner. This is a fun book, with the chapters broken up into excuses that people give for why they couldn't be vegan. From lack of protein, to lack of ice cream, to family events, this book has you covered. Let's see what I've made!

BBQ Baked Tofu, Honey Mustard Kale Slaw, and Chickpea Fries: This was a fun combination that I made when a friend was coming over for lunch. The slaw uses lacinato kale (cavolo nero), rather than curly. My tummy can get a bit funny with raw kale, so I massaged it for a minute and then chilled the salad for about six hours, and it became quite soft. The dressing is agave (or you can make the Happy Bee Honey recipe from the book), lemon and mustard. I made a half batch of the chickpea fries, which I chilled overnight before baking. I needed to bake for an extra 10 minutes to get them crispy, though even then they were still a bit soft. The mix on the stove was a bit hard to whisk smooth, but it worked OK. The tofu was lovely, I feel it is hard to go wrong with BBQ tofu. I did end up baking it for quite a bit longer to get it to my preferred consistency (40 minutes on the first side and then 20 on the second, instead of 30 and 5 minutes called for in the recipe). I used the BBQ sauce recipe from the book, which is AMAZING. So delicious!
Rating: Slaw :), Tofu :), BBQ sauce :D, Chickpea fries :)



Tofu Bravas: I was a bit underwhelmed by this in general. The sauce just didn't quite meld together for me, perhaps it would be better having some time to sit for the flavours to mingle more. If I did this again I would also heat the sauce prior to serving, as it was just kind of lukewarm and then cold on top of the hot tofu, which then also lost some of the heat.
Rating: :|



Chickpea Omelets: These came together quickly, and I appreciated that they have a lot of veggies in them as well (mushrooms, greens, tomatoes, green onion). I did find them maybe a tiny bit bitter? But topped with some diced tomato and cucumber and a drizzle of tahini, all was good.
Rating: :)



Savoury Overnight Oatmeal: I love overnight oats, and I love savoury breakfasts. This certainly lived up to its name, and was a delightful savoury start to the day. Plus very filling! It is a mix of quinoa, oats, chickpeas, nooch, sun dried tomatoes and olives. And you can top it with whatever you like. Avocado is a must, obviously.
Rating: :)



Roasted Broccoli & Apple Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing: This salad was such a delightful mix of flavours. The broccoli is roasted in tamari, maple and nutritional yeast! The salad itself has greens (the recipe calls for baby spinach, but this was right after the recent rains and flooding so all I could get was a bag of mixed greens), apples, celery, almonds and dried cherries (I used a blend of cherries and cranberries). I left out the raw onion. The tempeh bacon is listed as optional, but it adds such a lovely savoury, salty, smoky hit that I just don't think you could leave it off.
Rating: :)



Mexican Bowl with Quinoa, Farro, and Amaranth Trio: This recipe says it serves 2-4, so I made a double batch and got about 4.5 serves. As well as the three-grain base (which ended up a little mushy), there was also seasoned black beans, a chopped vegetable salad, greens, queso, and avocado. The salad is meant to be tomato, corn and zucchini, but I do not like raw zucchini much, so I used cucumber and I also left out the raw green onion. I added some extra nooch to the cashew queso because I like things cheesy. Overall, a very nice combination.
Rating: :)



Roasted Garlic Hummus and Broccoli Bowl: This simple and healthy bowl is great if you have recently been overindulging. The roasted garlic hummus is made from scratch, using a head of roasted garlic, but to be honest I would probably double the garlic as I couldn't taste much of it. I would also suggest cooking the quinoa in broth to bring a little more flavour to the overall dish.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



All the time I am missing my Sahara, I am also missing my Gizmo.

Meals for Mum (Mother's Day and Mum's birthday 2016)

I'm a little behind in sharing specials meals that I made for special people. In this post, it will be about the meals I made for my mum last year for mothers day and also for her birthday.

First up, Mother's Day! This was a pretty fun meal. Mum loves baked beans, so I knew from the moment I saw the main recipe that I was going to make it for her sometime. She also requested a chocolate lava cake, which led to some fun times in the kitchen. Here's what we had!

Open Sesame Dressing from Blissful Bites: I made a half batch of this creamy dressing, and served it as a dip. It strangely calls for arrowroot, even though you don't heat anything to thicken it, so I just left that out. I served this with some Beanfields BBQ chips and some carrot and celery sticks.
Rating: :)



Maple-Baked Beans & Cornbread Casserole from But I Could Never Go Vegan: Unfortunately, the ratios for this seemed to be a bit out. I ended up with a very thick cornbread layer on top of an almost minimal layer of beans. I would consider making it in a smaller dish with only half the amount of cornbread for a better ratio. That is nothing against the cornbread though, it was a lovely light and fluffy one (I used a blend of half whole spelt and half AP flour in place of the whole wheat pastry flour). Also, this claims to serve 12 to 14, but really it serves about 6.
Rating: :)





Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes with Raspberry Sauce from Chloe's Kitchen: Thankfully these tasted good, because they did not hold their shapes once they plopped out of their molds. Also, it was hard to unmold, because everything was very hot and it was hard to get a good grip with oven mitts on. And then they just kind of collapsed on themselves, though didn't actually split. The chocolate chips also kind of spread a bit with baking, so they had more of a centre ooze than a lava flow. But the good thing is, they tasted great! The recipe says to store the raspberry sauce in the fridge once made, but mine set up like a gel when I did that and I had to reheat it again.
Rating: :)



Her birthday is later in the year, and this year we had my brother home from the UK as well! She requested a fairly light dinner, with cake of course.

Edamame-Mint Hummus from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook: I made a half recipe of this refreshing dip, which gave me about 1.5 cups (the recipe says a whole batch makes 4 cups, so mine came out a bit under expected). This dip is lovely, creamy and fresh, plus very pretty. I left out the chile flakes, and added a bit of extra mint. It says to serve with pita points, but I served it with cucumber slices and it was just delightful.
Rating: :)



Miso-Glazed Eggplant from Chloe's Kitchen: This interpretation of nasu dengaku is a little on the sweet side, but still very pleasant. I used 5 eggplants to get the one and a half pounds (the recipe saus 3 will give you this), and I doubled the sauce because Mum likes a lot of sauce. We had these with sushi rice, baby spinach, and broccoli.
Rating: :)





Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake with Fudge Frosting from Chloe's Vegan Desserts: This is meant to be a double layer cake, but I just made it as one layer for a more manageable amount (this is a lesson we learned during with my Dad's birthday cake... that story to come in a later post). The cake has coffee in it, but as I am not a caffeine person (or a coffee taste person) I used some weak decaf, and I also added 1/2 tsp of chocolate extract. The cake was good, I liked it. The problem was that the frosting was just way too sweet for me. It has melted chocolated in it, and I used 70%, so a darker chocolate may help with that, but there is so much icing sugar in it. Not for me. However, my mum loved it. So if you like icing, you'll be right. You do need to let the frosting set a little bit before putting it on the cake, or it is too oozy (the recipe says to apply immediately before it sets at all).
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Mum used to love giving Sahara her bear hugging cuddle walks, and Sahara was a big fan of it as well. Miss those walks with her.

Mum's Birthday Dinner

My mum's birthday was earlier this month, and as is my tradition I made her a birthday dinner of her choosing. She had been out for lunch with some friends that day (I am happy to report she ordered a vegan grilled salad as her main there), so we were aiming for a fairly light dinner.

Carrot Cashew Pate from But I Could Never Go Vegan: I served this as the first course, and made it the day before so that it would have lots of time set up in the fridge, poured into a gladwrap lined bowl. It was still very soft the next day, so go with care. This was a very savoury and more-ish kind of dip, and you will have a hard time not going back for more. I served it with some bagel crisps I bought from the shop.
Rating: :)



BBQ Cauliflower Salad with Zesty Ranch Dressing from But I Could Never Go Vegan: For the main I chose a salad... but not just any salad. This has a few components to put together. I made the BBQ sauce recipe from this book a few days before, and it is a great BBQ sauce! The BBQ sauce recipe says it will make 4 cups, but I only got two and a half (I only needed 1 for this recipe). The BBQ sauce is then used to coat roasted cauliflower, and then roasted some more. My sauce didn't completely dry on the cauliflower, but it was fine. The cauliflower sits on top of a salad of lettuce, avocado, corn and tomatoes (my mum didn't add avocado to her one because she is tragically intolerant) that has been tossed with the Zesty Ranch Dressing. This is a cashew based dressing that you blend up. I had to add a bit more water to it, and it didn't go 100% smooth in my mini food processor, but it was creamy and tangy to the taste. Of course the crowning glory of this salad is the Crispy Baked Onion Rings. This was my first time making onion rings, and I was very happy with the result. I only needed a half quantity of the dipping and coating stuff to coat my single onion. I also forgot to spritz them with oil before I put them in the oven, but they still baked up nice and crisp.
Rating: Salad :D, BBQ Sauce :D, Ranch Dressing :), Onion Rings :)





Mint Chocolate Birthday Cake with Glossy Ganache from Keep It Vegan: This comes together easily, but be warned about the delicious moist cake! Delicious moist cake is good, except that I made it the day before and then tried to slice it in half the next day to fill with the peppermint buttercream and it was extremely fragile. It is OK though, because ganache covers all! I like that Aine has a very sensible, thin layer of icing, which is really all the cake needs to give it a minty kick. The buttercream calls for two teaspoons of peppermint extract, but I only used one and it was definitely minty enough (I used Queen's Natural Peppermint). The ganache also makes exactly the right amount to nicely top and cover the cake. It was a really nice cake.
Rating: :)





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Our beautiful family cat Possum, who is no longer with us.