Recipe Round-Up: Naturally Lean

Thanks for all the kind words and thoughts for my dad. After two and a half weeks, he is out of hospital and on the mend!

Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer is a fun little book. It is divided up into chapters based on ingredients (such as nuts, grains, fruits, legumes, etc), rather than traditional chapters. You will notice that I talk often about how the serving sizes were far too small for me. This book is designed to have 300 calories or less for each serve, which I suspect is why some of them seem small. I don't count calories, so I just eat what makes me feel satisfied. Just bare that in mind if you are cooking for a crowd from this book. You can see what else I have made from this book here.

Popcorn Tofu with Beyond Good BBQ Sauce and Cucumber, Mango, and Radish Salad: This was a fun little dinner. The tofu is frozen and thawed, coated, and then baked. I found the chickpea-flour based dipping liquid very thick, so when I then rolled them in almond meal it got pretty sludgy. They baked quite nicely, but I had to increase the heat in my oven to get them to go golden. I The BBQ sauce was fairly easy to make, though initially had too strong a tomato taste for BBQ sauce, I added some extra brown sugar, and once it had time to sit a little the flavours melded better. I also left out the chili, used garlic powder instead of fresh garlic, and I didn't have any celery salt. The sauce also has some jam in it, and I used strawberry jam. The salad made a lovely side - it was so sweet and refreshing! My radishes were very little, so I cut the cucumber slices into quarters to make the sizes more equal.
Rating: Popcorn Tofu :), BBQ Sauce :), Salad: :)



Strawberry Banana Green Smoothie: It is cute when smoothie recipes say they serve 2, when they clearly only serve 1. Or is that just me and my big smoothie appetite? This is a lovely, pleasant smoothie. I used frozen strawberries to make it extra thick (along with the frozen banana), and I only used 1 date (rather than 2) so it wasn't super sweet. The recipe recommends almond milk, but I used oat. I used baby spinach as my greens.
Rating: :)



Mint Chocolate Chip Green Smoothie: I am iffy about mint and chocolate together, but this one had a really nice flavour. Definitely because it uses fresh mint rather than mint extract. And the unsweetened cocoa powder and cocoa nibs for the chocolate component, sweetened with 2 dates. I used both dates in this one, and it was the perfect mix of not too sweet. It isn't pretty to look at, it is murky, but a nice way to start the day.
Rating: :)



Goji Overnight Oats: A half recipe of this made a good breakfast (it says the full recipe serves 4... not on my appetite). A mix of goji berries, pecans, and cinnamon are mixed with rolled oats. She suggests only soaking rolled oats for an hour, but I did it overnight (as I normally do with overnight oat recipes), and the texture was fine for me.
Rating: :)



Cherry Overnight Steel-Cut Oats: This is a variation of the above recipe, using steel cut oats. I was suspicious about how uncooked steel cut oats would be in the morning. They certainly did soften with their overnight soak, though were still quite chewy. I prefer the texture of rolled oats for this sort of thing. I switched this version up by replacing the goji and pecans with dried cherries and almonds, which was a nice combination.
Rating: :)



Cinnamon Bun Milkshake: I made this for a snack, and a half recipe made one regular size glass (a whole recipe is meant to serve four, it would be pretty small serves!). I love cinnamon, and this recipe was so sweet and yummy, a great afternoon pick me up!
Rating: :)



Creamy Tomato Bisque: This is a super easy recipe to make, blending up tinned tomatoes and soaked cashews, though I found it overall was a little bland. I would have liked it to be creamier... some nutritional yeast added in was a nice cheesy flavour boost. I made a half recipe, which made one big mug for lunch, served with some grilled cheese. I didn't have fresh tarragon to use, so I used a pinch of dried.
Rating: :|



Lemony Lime Chia Pudding: I don't know in what universe 1/4 cup of chia seeds would equal four serves of pudding, but not in mine. I made a whole recipe for me. There is quite a lot of liquid in it, so it almost felt more like a chia drink than a chia pudding. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup maple or palm sugar, I used maple but cut it down to one Australian TBS (20mL), which was sweet enough for me. I also left out the zest, as I was using pre-frozen cubes of lemon and lime juice, and I didn't add coconut cream on top.
Rating: :)



Tempeh and Snow Peas: I cut this recipe down to be a single serving, served with some rice and some spinach. I wasn't a huge fan of the marinade, which I found to be very salty. There was some pineapple juice in it, but any sweetness was lost. I kind of wished I had some pineapple chunks in the stir-fry itself. I would also recommend crisping and browning the tempeh first in some oil after marinating, because when you just add it with the marinade and the snowvpeas it was just a bit mushy.
Rating: |



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Seeing as her catmax is out of action while we are renovating, I bought Dim Sim a harness and a lead so I can take her out in the yard for a little bit. I wasn't sure how she would take to it, being an 18 year old cat, but turns out she took to it just great! Though mostly she just wants to be able to drink out of the pool, and I have to keep encouraging her to enjoy other spots in the garden!

VeganMoFo 2017 #9: Everyday We're Waffling

9th: Go go gadget – A kitchen gadget you couldn’t live without, be it a simple grater or a blender. Alternatively, use a gadget you very rarely use.

I have decided to focus on a rarely used gadget. I love kitchen appliances. They are like Pokemon to me, I want to have them all! While some of them (like my blender, food process, rice cooker, and sandwich press) get regular workouts, there are some that are rarely touched. So I decided to have some fun! And what is more fun than waffles?

I actually have two waffle makers. The first one I bought many years ago was a Breville Waffles Creation maker. It was the only sort of waffle maker I could find at the time (except for Waddles, the penguin-shaped waffle maker). It made thin waffles that were like a flower made up of hearts.



Sure, they were OK. But they were thin, very hard to get crispy, and the shape was a little bit limiting.

Last year, when shopping for a new food processor, I happened across a beautiful Kambrook Belgian Dual Waffle Maker. It was on sale. It was love. The waffles I'd been dreaming of could be mine!

Oreo Wafflewiches from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes. The natural way to celebrate a new waffle maker is by making a ridiculous sweet waffle sandwich. The recipe says you should get 1 1/2 Belgian waffles or 2-3 standard waffles, but I got 6 of my big waffles from my waffle maker, so I am not sure how GIANT their waffle maker is? Those 6 waffles ended up making 3 giant wafflewiches. For maximum cookie crunch, I also gave the waffles a quick toast before spreading on the frosting. The frosting was very sweet, but tasted just like an oroa filling! You could easily cut these in half for a smaller wafflewich, they are pretty rich.
Rating: :)



Chocolate Teff Waffles from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer: Unfortunately, my next adventures in waffle making didn't turn out so well, but through not fault of my precious waffle maker. There is an error in the recipe, which calls for far too much liquid to be added. Unfortunately I didn't realise this until too late because I wasn't paying enough attention. I think the water should be halved. I am glad that I had scaled the recipe down, so that I didn't have too much of this watery mix to deal with (which ended up in watery tasting end product). The recipe says it makes 6 waffles with 1/4 cup scoops of batter, but the whole recipe would make way more than this, so clearly a mistake. You can see how sad the waffles look, after they mostly cooked int he waffle maker. I ended up trying to make pancakes out of the rest, but it wouldn't even really hold together for that. So, ever the optimist, I made scrambled pancakes with the rest of the mix, plopped it on top of the waffles I was able to make (so hard to get out of the maker because they never really set), topped them with peanut butter, two different types of ice cream, maple syrup, and blueberries, and called it a triumph. But without such heroic actions, these were a huge miss as written. I'll try again one day with less liquid.
Ratin: :(



Buckwheat Griddle-Pan Waffles from The New Vegan by Aine Carlin: Perfect breakfast waffles! This recipe was designed for those without a waffle maker, but I have one so I used that instead of a griddle pan. I halved the recipe, which made two cute little waffles. The batter is quite thick, so didn't spread out over my entire waffle pan in the quantities that I used, but that was fine because I got these nice little rustic circles! They are dense and not too sweet and are a great way to start the day. I served with maple syrup and blueberries.
Rating: :)



I had wanted to make one more waffle creation for this post, but I ran out of time. But I am definitely looking forward to making more waffles!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Month - Month of Sahara



Sahara was never a waffle, but she was frequently a perfect cinnamon scroll.

VeganMoFo 2017 #7: Recipe Round-Up: Naturally Lean

7th: Original vegan: Vegan meals that aren’t trying to replicate meat/omni ingredients

Some omnivores seem to be so centered around always having meat or dairy or eggs in every meal, but there is a whole world of food out there that is none of those things. People think veganism is restrictive, but since going vegan I find my food options are ever expanding as I discover new ingredients or techniques. I love vegan versions of meat and cheese sometimes, but I mostly love exploring all the other options. And it doesn't mean that it needs to be fancy or hard. Noodles, pasta, stir-fries, soups, stews.... The list is endless.

Many of my cookbooks hit this brief, though today I am going to do a mini round-up of Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer. While the book is designed to come into 300 calories or less for each serving, I don't pay attention to that. But it is a great book for tasty and healthy options. The book is divided into ingredient chapters - greens & crucifers, hearty grains, fabulous fruits, nuts & seeds, legumes, and squash, roots, & mushrooms. Recipes range from breakfasts to snacks to meals to desserts.

Choco-Chip, PB, & Banana Oatmeal (Hearty Grains): Allyson refers to this as her favourite oatmeal, and it is a pretty good combination. The oats are cooked (I used oat milk instead of water) and PB is melted into them, then they are topped with banana and cacao nibs (I love cacao nibs... more then chocolate chips!). I sweetened it with maple syrup rather than date sugar. This made a small bowl of oats, though reasonably substantial.
Rating: :)



Pad Thai Soba Noodles (Nuts & Seeds): Full disclosure: There is nothing pad thai at all about this dish, it is a pleasant, peanutty and coconutty noodles. First you make the Thai Peanut Dressing recipe on the following page, which is quite a thin and sweet coconutty sauce, I would have liked a bit more peanut and a bit more lime. This is tossed with soba noodles, veggies (I used scallions, carrots, mushrooms and peas), and I added some Japanese Style Marinated tofu because that is how I roll. Using 180g of soba, this made three serves.
Rating: Noodles :), Sauce :)



Zesty Black Bean Soup (Legumes): I made a half recipe of this and got just over one serving. It is a lovely soup, combining both savoury and sweet aspects. I left out all the chiles, of course, and used carrot instead of capsicum.
Rating: :)



Carrot Cake Smoothie (Squash, Roots, & Mushrooms): Carrots, apple, banana and pecans combine to make a very filling smoothie. The recipe calls for 2 cups of almond milk, I used 1.5 cups of oat milk, and got one bit serve (it is meant to serve 2). The best part about it is that it also has molasses, which makes it great! And also it is not too sweet.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post - Month of Sahara



'Oh, you were planning on putting this blanket away? I think not!' Sahara had a sixth sense for knowing where potential comfy sleeping spots were. Any sort of blanket or doona piled up was always up for grabs.

ALQ Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale at The Green Edge

I organised another bake sale for Animal Liberation QLD on the 7th of May as part of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. It happened a week after the official fortnight for the WWVBS due to public holidays, school holidays, work rosters and family events, but such is life. Once again, we held it at The Green Edge.

As usual, first here are the new things that I made for the bake sale. While I have a couple of tried and true favourites, I don't test everything before I make it for a bake sale. Live on the edge! There are too many recipes out there to try.

Banana Bread French Toast Cupcakes from Bake and Destroy by Natalie Slater. These banana bread cupcakes are topped with a maple buttercream frosting, which makes for a lovely combination. The frosting has the bonus of not being too sweet, and has a very rich maple flavour thanks to both maple syrup and maple extract. It also makes a good amount of frosting, I had about one cupcake worth of frosting left at the end, so if you just give an extra swirl with your frosting bag it should come out even for the twelve.
Rating: :)



Pepita Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bars from Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester. I love oatmeal and raisin cookies, and these bars were just delicious. The pepita gives them a nice crunch as well. This recipe is baked in a 9x13 inch pan for 16 squares, though I cut them into 12 big squares for satisfying bake sale goodies. Though I confess I kept two, one for taste testing and another to cut and freeze for work day snacks. They freeze great!
Rating: :D



Caramel Nut Barley Squares from Wholegrain Vegan Baking by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes. These tasty squares have a baked barley base topped with a caramel nut micture (almonds, cashews, pepitas) and a final sprinkling of chocolate chips. Mine turned out a lot flatter than the photo in the book, even though I used the specified size pan (an 8x8 inch pan, I cut them into 8 slices for the bake sale), but they still looked pretty nifty and they tasted good. I was a little lazy and used raw slivered almonds (instead of dry roasted almonds) and unsalted pepitas (I added a little bit of extra salt to the caramel). I needed to bake my caramel for a few extra minutes in the oven to get it to set up.
Rating: :)



Peanut Butter Black Bean Brownie Bites from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer. These cute little bites are gluten free and have no flour at all, instead they are based on black beans, peanut butter and cocoa! The recipe says it makes 16 servings in mini muffin cups, so I pulled out my mini muffin/cupcake pan but I ended up with 28! So I guess her mini muffin cups are a bit bigger than mine! I reduced the baking time from 30 minutes to 25 minutes due to the smaller size. On a practical level, the batter was super sticky to get into the cups! I had to use wet hands and wash them a lot. But they were a nice, rich little morsel. Soft on the inside and crunchy on top.
Rating: :)



Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes with Hot Candied Pecans from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I'll save talking about these cupcakes for a future recipe round-up I am going to do from this book. They were part of a little self-challenge I am doing to cook one recipe for every holiday in the book. The bake sale was the 7th of May, so I made these from the Cinco de Mayo chapter. Stay tuned!



Carrot-Pineapple Sunshine Muffins from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. OK, so I have made these before. But the last time I made them was so long ago that I wasn't taking any food photos. So I remade them. This was not a problem at all, as these are delicious! I used a mango-peach flavoured yoghurt in them this time, which gave a nice flavour. They have crushed pineapple, shredded carrots and raisins in them. I was using some larger-sized muffin cups, so I made 7 rather than 12 this time. However, the cookbook says to fill them right to the top, as they don't rise much. This was a lie (or perhaps due to the larger volume), because they did rise and some of them dribbled down the side of the cups, so be cautious!
Rating: :D



Jelly Doughnut Cupcakes from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Another remake to get a photo of, these cupcakes are delicious and taste so much like doughnuts! I used a plum jam in them, which was lovely. You drop the jam on top of the batter and they are meant to rise and cover the jam all on their own, but you can see that a lot of mine did not (perhaps be a bit less generous with the jam?). But I think they still looked cute. I did have to top them up with a bit more jam before serving to get it right up level with the top of the cupcake.
Rating: :D



Triple Chocolate Gluten Freedom Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I make a variation on the GF chocolate cupcakes from this book every bake sale. This time I went simple. Chocolate cupcakes topped with the Oh-So-Rich Chocolate Glaze from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer, and pressed into some chocolate sprinkles.
Rating: :)



Lemon Olive Oil Cookies. I've made these GF cookies several times before as well, the recipe can be found on Allyson Kramer's blog here. They are so lemony and yummy.
Rating: :)



Here is what other people made!

Chili Chocolate Slice. As well as my final contribution, the famous Berry Patch Brownies from Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton.



Scones.



Double Chocolate cookies, Oatmeal Raisin cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies.



Cottage Pies. These were ace!



Chocolate cupcakes.



Sausage rolls.



Rocky road. This was pretty amazing. It had honeycomb, biscuits, nuts and jellies in it.



Peanut Butter Fudge.



Gluten Free Brownie.



Now for some table shots!





There were also some jam drops and some fancy baked doughnuts that I didn't get photos of.

It was a bit slow at times, but we raised just over $700 for ALQ to use towards their campaigns. The next one will be in a couple of months, and I already have a list of new things I would like to make for it.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yesterday was three months without Sahara. I miss her so much.

Christmas Eats 2016

I'm a month behind with this, but here is my Christmas round up. But first, a quick Sahara update again. After my last post, she took a turn. Three days after chemo she suddenly became very unwell. A day of drugs and nursing improved her a little, but she was clearly dehydrated and unhappy. I took her back into the clinic on Sunday to admit her for IV fluids. Thankfully she responded really well and I was able to take her home on Monday. She has been a lot better since. Though I just gave her the week two chemo dose (a tablet she gets at home, so a different drug from last week), so who knows what the next week holds for us. Things I am learning: it is literally day by day, be happy when she is happy and be ready to give her the support she needs when she is not.

OK, so Christmas. This year was a special year because my brother was home from the UK for a few months, so this was the first Christmas we got to spend together as a whole family in several years. Christmas is always tinged with sadness for me, due to Gizmo memories and loss, so it was nice to have him here. The last few years I have skipped the big Christmas morning breakfast and started my day with a 90 minute bikram yoga class, followed by a green smoothie. I am that person now.

This year's smoothie was the Ginger Colada Green Smoothie from the Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking cookbook by Dana Shultz. I generally like a gingery smoothie because it seems festive. This one had ginger, lemon, coconut milk, pineapple, banana and greens. I decreased the amount of coconut milk and made up the rest with oat milk due to my sensitivities, and I used only spinach rather than a blend with kale. It was a refreshing smoothie, and fairly creamy, but I did find it a touch too acidic. Behold my festive mug that I served it in.
Rating: :)



After breakfast we did presents. I got some new cookbooks (Baconish and But My Family Would Never Go Vegan), some Buffy Season 10 and Angel & Faith comic volumes, the final season of Parks & Rec on DVD, and a Music for Cats CD (that is actually incredibly soothing for my own stress and anxiety levels). So a decent haul.

After presents it was time to start making lunch, which is our main meal of the day. For the centerpiece this year, I had found a Field Roast Hazelnut Cranberry Roast En Croute. It was pretty tasty, and definitely one of the better Christmas roasts I have tried. I like the puffed pastry and the filling. The roast itself is made with the apple sage style sausage meat, which is my favourite flavour. So all round a very good roast. Seen here with some roasted asparagus.



Of course, you cannot have roast without cranberry sauce. My favourite recipe from this is the Cinnamon Citrus Cranberry Sauce from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin. This is the second year I have made it and it is excellent.



For sides, I tried the Glazed Baby Carrots from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer. I couldn't find baby carrots as such, so used some little Dutch carrots, I am not sure if they were a bit bigger. Next time I might peel them first, just because the outsides got a bit wrinkled and didn't look as cute. But then, the skin is meant to be the healthiest part? The glaze was really nice, though didn't stick the carrots too well. (Here they are on a platter with our favourite Potato Smashers from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton that I make every year.)
Rating: :)



I also tried the Super Traditional Stuffing from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I only made a third of the amount, because the full recipe is huge. Unfortunately my bread was sliced a bit too small I think (I bought it from a bakery and they said they would slice it thick for me to make the stuffing with, but their thickest slice was really not that thick), so it was a bit soggy. The flavour was good, but I would have liked a higher veggie to bread ratio.
Rating: :|



Finally, some greens. As greens are important. These are just some seared green beans with toasted almonds.



With four of us a the table, we served the food buffet style in the kitchen, and loaded up our plates.





After lunch, we had some vegan Christmas pudding that we got from the Cruelty Free Shop. It was nice. Served with custard, of course (Alpro vegan custard). The first photo here is so you can see the pudding, with a custard drizzle. The second photo shows you my optimum custard to pudding ratio.





Then we played some fun card games (Sushi Go and Timelines Inventions), before lazing about for the afternoon and picking at leftovers for dinner. The following day we played our traditional game of kids vs adults Trivial Pursuit, which we can only play if Greg is here. It was a very long, close game, ultimately the parents won. I'd forgotten how long Trivial Pursuit can go for, next time we need a speed version.

I had a few days off after Christmas as well, and this time of year sees me eating lots of treats I associate with Christmas. So here a few other things that I had over the next few days.

A croissant with Tofurkey Ham, Tofutti cheese slices and leftover cranberry sauce. The croissant is from a local company, but unfortunately they aren't great.



Fruit mince tart with cherries and grapes. I ate this while watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Boxing Day.



Open-faced sandwiches with Tofutti French Onion cream cheese, beetroot relish, Tofurkey ham slices and cucumber. Served with some sauteed greens and addition cucumber because I really needed some greens at this point.



Some vegan Stollen I got from Aldi. I love stollen, and this was the first I have had since I went vegan! It was really nice.



A Tofurkey ham, Tofutti cheese slice and sweet mustard pickle sandwich.



A hot and melty toasted sandwich with Daiya swiss slices, Tofurky hickory smoked slices, beetroot relish and Tofutti French Onion cream cheese. This was my favourite creation.



Cute Kitty Photos of the Post



Before yoga on Christmas morning Dim Sim and I had a lovely quiet time together, with pats and purrs.



I got them some catnip spray and sprayed their stocking with it as a test. Sahara was interested.