Menu Madness: Indian Buffet Trio from Chloe's Kitchen

While Chloe's Kitchen (by Chloe Coscarelli) has menus listed in the back of the book, this collection of recipes is all together in the main dish section, though as involves four dishes I am counting it as a menu! I made this for my Dad's birthday a couple of years ago because he loves Indian food (yes, I am that far behind in getting through my photos!).

The 'trio' in question are saag aloo, chana masala, and vegetable biriyani, with the added fourth of some garlic naan.



Saag Aloo: This was my favourite of the trio. Delicious potatoes and spinach in a cashew-based sauce. So good.
Rating: :D



Chana Masala: Chickpeas, tomatoes, spices, classic. It has a tablespoon of sweetener in it, which I found to be a bit too sweet, but it was still good.
Rating: :)



Biriyani: I love biriyani, and this made a lot! It is packed full of romato, mixed veggies, and raisins. The leftovers were also great (sprinkled with nooch, because I have no shame and it tastes great with nooch!).
Rating: :)



Garlic Naan: I was really excited about this, but unfortunately it was a bit of a let down. The dough is based on her pizza dough, but ended up being super sticky even when I added a bunch more flour. So they were tricky to cook. The taste was OK, but not really naan.
Rating: :|



And here are some more photos of them all. There was the option of serving with Chloe's tamarind mango chutney (from another recipe in the book), but I served with store-bought mango chutney and some plain soy yoghurt.





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Continuing on with the paw theme, here is Sahara holding onto her tail with her paw. She does this sometimes and it is adorable.

Menu Madness: Ashleigh's Birthday Edition

My friend Ashleigh's birthday is on New Year's Eve. For the last two years, in January, I have had her over for a birthday feast and we have watched Lost Girl on DVD. (Sometimes she comes over and we watch Lost Girl without it being her birthday, and of course I still make food, but let us focus on the menus I have made). This year I made the American Menu from Vegan Without Borders by Robin Robertson (this will be my next recipe round-up, I am loving this book!), and the year before I made the Kid's Birthday Party Menu from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli.

All-American Supper from Vegan Without Borders

Mac and cheese, garlicky greens and chocolate cake makes for a super satisfying and delightful menu!

Butternut Mac and Cheese: The sauce for this is made up of steamed butternut (though I bet roasted would make it even better!), cashews, non-dairy milk (it says almond but I used oat) and nooch plus seasonings. It is SOOOOOO good!
Rating: :D



Garlicky Greens and Beans: The greens called for in this recipe are collard greens, but as they don't exist here (that's right, no collard wraps for Australians), I just used trusty kale. Several years ago kale was super hard to find here, but now it is everywhere, so hopefully collars will follow. Instead of simmering the greens in boiling water, I just blanched by pouring a kettle-full of boiling water over them to wilt, then proceeded.
Rating: :)



Group shot!



Blue Ribbon Chocolate Layer Cake: This is a decadent cake that is very impressive. The frosting is a brilliant combination of melted chocolate, silken tofu (I used soft silken rather than firm silken as that was all I could find) and soaked cashews! The cake does call for some coffee, which I am generally not a fan of however I have found it to enhance the chocolate taste of other cakes in the past, however in this case I found it was a bit too coffee, so I would use something else instead. I made the cake the day before and it kept very well.
Rating: :)



All up a very simple to make menu. I had planed on making some other things from this book to add into, but I was feeling under the weather, and this was still lots of food!

Kid's Birthday Party Menu from Chloe's Kitchen

Kid's menus are often a lot of fun, as they should be! And this was certainly enjoyable.

Sweet and Sour Party Meatballs: These balls are amazing (hee hee). They are made from a great mix of tempeh, lentils, walnuts and flour (obviously with other things), and they came together fantastically,though they were a bit soft. I would recommend grinding the walnuts first. She uses a similar mix to make her big mac patties, which I am super keen to try soon! I got about 30 meatballs from this recipe, which was plenty for two hungry vegans. It is served with her sweet and sour sauce. Normally I am not a fan of the super-sweet, bright red sweet and sour sauces, however this recipe has a great tang to it. There are a few options for ingredients, and I used apple cider vinegar, brown sugar and cornstarch.
Rating: :)



Easy Peasy Pasta Salad: Potato sauce? Yes please. This is a tangy, creamy sauce with steamed potatoes as the base! Chloe serves them over wagon wheel pasta, but as I have never found that, and in the spirit of the menu, I used Hello Kitty themed pasta. I only used 8 oz pasta (instead of 1 lb) and about three quarters of the sauce. I also mixed some nooch through because I am an addict.
Rating: :)



Group shot!



Happy Birthday Cake: Vanilla cake with chocolate icing is fairly classic. This frosting has melted chocolate, shortening and lots of powdered sugar. It says you can make the frosting up to two weeks in advance and store it in fridge, however I made it the day before and it sets up HARD, I needed to leave it out for ages to be soft enough to spread. I added a layer of sliced strawberries in the middle to add some freshness, which was an excellent plan.






This menu also included some Chlostess Creme Filled Cupcakes, however for the two of us I deemed one large cake to be quite enough.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A pretty black Dim Sim on her favourite pinkie.

Menu Madness: The Vegan Table: Curry in a Hurry

I love making menus from books, and I love alliteration! The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is a book full of menu plans.

I made the Curry in a Hurry menu last year for Father's Day, because my dad loves all things Indian. To be honest, sometimes the menus in this book seem a little disjointed, but this is relatively simple and goes together very nicely. This menu is from the 'Formal Dining for Six to Ten' chapter and is the 'Summer' section (I did not actually make this in summer, which is pretty shocking for me).

Pumpkin Curry: I only made a half batch of this (as I was cooking for three). This uses lentils, onions, pumpkin purees, shredded coconut and spices. Because I am a chili wimp, I used one dried chili instead of five. I needed to increase the heat and cover for the last 10 minutes of cooking to get the lentils to cook all the way through. I also changed the water to vegetable stock for some more flavour.
Rating: :)



Yellow Split Pea Dal: I made the whole recipe of this, which made an okay amount, but if I broke this into the 6 servings it said it makes they would be pretty small. I love dal, and this was nice and satisfying, though not the best dal I've made.
Rating: :)



Looking nice and tasty together!



This menu doesn't have anything green or really many vegetables at all, so I roasted a bunch of Brussels Sprouts to go on the side.



Curried Puff Pastry Nibbles from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: This is a ring-in. I wanted something a little extra as the menu itself was fairly simple, so I picked these cute curried puff pastry twists. Ready-made puff pastry is pressed with a mixture of ground cashews and spices, then baked. I found they turned out a little dry, but nothing some mango chutney couldn't fix.
Rating: :)



I served all of this with some brown basmati rice for a very tasty plate.



Frozen Mango Lassi: Of course we had to end with dessert. This menu ends with a frozen mango lassi, made mango, yoghurt, agave and cardamom. The mango and the yoghurt need to be frozen first, and because it was not mango season I just used a bag of frozen mango I always have on-hand for smoothies. This made quite a large amount. On the night I served it with some strawberry cupcakes (from Colleen's other book The Joy of Vegan Baking).
Rating: :)





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Remember Honey from my last post? Here she is helping me out at work by lying on the keyboard.