Vegan MoFo 2001 #1: Welcome and 'The Vegan Cookbook'

It's the most wonderful time... of the year! Well, for some. For the vegan blogging world, it is certainly the most hectic. Vegan MoFo is here, the vegan month of food. Over 600 blogs are participating this year, all with the aim to post almost daily for the month of October about vegan food.

I did not take part last year, and the two years before that I did take part but didn't reach my hoped for posts. This year I am back in the ring and ready to take on the challenge!

I am having a theme for this MoFo, though it is kind of the theme of my blog. Each post I will be reviewing one of my cookbooks, as well as posting photos of some of my favourite meals and some recently cooked meals. Books will range from some of my older books, to the hot new things, to those books that have made the biggest difference in my cooking. I'll be going into more depth about the book itself than I usually do in my photo round-up posts, so looking at layout, writing style, recipe selections and things like that. I'd also love to hear from you about your favourite cookbooks - I am always on the look out for more!


Here are some of my cookbooks, the rest are scattered around in piles on other shelves and on tables. I am currently in negotiation for more shelves of this bookshelf for my books, given that I actually use my books so it is handy for me to have them neatly near the kitchen! Plus it is pretty to see them all together!

The Vegan Cookbook
Alan Wakerman and Gordon Baskerville, Faber and Faber, 1996



I am kicking off MoFo with my first ever vegan cookbook. My parents gave me this for Christmas one year, I can't remember which year it was, but I think maybe 1999. I was definitely still in Wagga. It was pretty exciting to be in possession of a completely vegan cookbook, I think this was even before I was fully vegan!

The book is a simple paperback. No photos. Chapters include Soups, Startes, Main Dishes, Side Dishes, Salads, Desserts, Sauces and Dressings, Spreads, Baking, The Alternative Dairy, and Miscellaneous Recipes, as well as appendices on vegan nutrition, reasons for veganism, glossary of ingredients and others. Recipes in chapters are arranged in order of quicker/cheaper/simpler (for everyday use) and slower/dearer/more elaborate (for special occasions). The recipes are easy to read, and include both metric and imperial measurements as well as a nutritional breakdown, serving sizes and preparation time.

Although I have had this book the longest, when I first got it my cooking bug hadn't fully bitten yet, so I haven't cooked extensively from it. The recipes are, for the most part, quite appealing. It is definitely a cookbook of its era (it was first published in 1986, and there is are several recipes for vegetable flavoured jellies and mousses). I do find that the recipes trend towards the bland/dry side, so mix things up to your preferences. It was my first introduction to making loafs, vegan baking, breads, cream substitutes and other things that we now just whip up without a moments thought.

This book introduced two very important recipes to me.


Rum Truffles
I still make this recipe almost every Christmas, I love them! Though I find it doesn't have a strong enough rum flavour, so I add a few more slugs. Warning: the alcohol is NOT cooked out of these! I have also made a fun variation where I switch out the raisins and rum for dates and Cointreau. Really, you can make all sorts of fun stuff!

Rum and Chocolate Cheesecake
My first ever vegan cheesecake, this was before the days of vegan cream cheese. Tofu is the base, but the flavours of the chocolate and rum mean there is no soy taste. I made this when I was living in my uni house, and everyone loved it. Though, funny story, the only rum we had at the time was OP Rum... Hooooo heeeee! That made for one super rummy cake! Alas no photos, this was long before the days of my digital camera!


I don't have many photos from this book, but I will share a couple of soups I have made recently (I still pull this book out every now and then for old times sake).


Tomato Soup
This is super quick to make, and has a strong tomato flavour. However, I found it lacked a depth of flavour compared to other tomato soups I have made.


Cauliflower Soup
Nice enough, but a little bland.

Sorry I don't have more exciting photos! I am very fond of this book for sentimental reasons, and I find some of the recipes kind of amusing (I will make those jellies one day!). I don't think it has the same sort of iconic nostalgic value as some other older cookbooks (none of which I have, but which I read about on people's blogs... Tofu Cookery?).

What was your first vegan cookbook?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Kitty photos are back! Here is Dim Sim's sweet sleeping face.

Baking for Christmas.

Yesterday I woke up, felt in a bit of a funk, and then pulled myself out of it with a mammoth baking extravaganza. It. Was. Awesome! So much fun, and so very zen. Here are the goodies...



In all its cooling on the table glory. Tee hee! Let's see what they made?



Here are some truffles. Sorry about the horrific photo, I had about three seconds to take it. Anyway, the ones with coconut on the outside are Rum Truffles (with raisins) from The Vegan Cookbook (my very first vegan cookbook ever so many years ago). The ones that are just covered in cocoa are a variation I made up - Cointreau Truffles (with chopped dates). They are both very yummy. And very high in alcohol!



Isa's Gingerbread Men, though they are sadly nekkid and undecorated. I was going to make some royal icing to make them pretty today, but my intentions were thwarted. Boo hiss. While they may be nekkid, they are still yummy though.



From the second I saw them, I had to have them! They are Strawberry Santa Hats from Wing It Vegan. They are so adorable! I made the coconut cake from the recipe on the blog, and it is so very easy and tasty. I used the Buttercream recipe from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. And they taste great - I love the freshness of the strawberry with the coconut and the buttercream. But... if you think that they are cute...



REINDEER CUPCAKES! Oh, they are so adorable. Again, I got the inspiration from Wing It Vegan. So cute I could *die*. I used the basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and I iced them with Chocolate Ganache (also from VCTOTW) rather than buttercream. The nose is a halved fresh cherry and the eyes are spots of buttercream with chocolate chips as pupils. The antlers are pretzels. They have no mouths, because everything I tried just looked kind of strange. So they are silent.



And here is a (slightly blurry) close up, just to revel in the CUTE! Tee hee.

This morning I woke up full of plans for more baking, including dressing my gingerbread men. Alas, I woke up with the headache that Nurofen would not budge. Which seems to be evolving into the slight feeling of ookiness that may come before a flu. Hmmm... not for Christmas!

Oh well, the stollen, mince pies and shortbread will have to wait until next year. Or, more likely, until June when I make winter solstice Yule festivities.

A Tale Of Two BBQs.

Alas my friends, this is an almost photo free post because the battery on my camera died. Woe! Doom! Despair! Agony!

So today I attended not one but *two* BBQs - breakfast and lunch. That would bring my grand total of BBQs attended this year to... ummm.... two! Anyway, I turned up and showed how much vegans totally rock.

The first BBQ was the annual extended family breakfast BBQ. It was held at my cousin's house out at Chappel Hill, and her balconies overlook beautiful views of bushland. It was a good morning, with lots of aunts, uncles and cousins. Though there seem to be a disturbingly large number of children now popping up at these family events. I'm sticking with the cats, thanks! Thankfully the kids kept themselves occupied with TV and the swing set. I don't really do children.

For my vegan breakfast, I enjoyed rolls with tempeh bacon (using again the marinade from Vegan Vittles) and fresh tomato, stone fruit salad with vanilla soy yoghurt and Applesauce And Oat Bran Muffins from Veganomicon.



And here is the one photo for the post. It is one of the muffins, with Nuttelex and raspberry jam. After this, my battery decided it was all too much, so you'll have to imagine.

Let me say, I was stuffed full after this breakfast! It was great. There was a lot of interest in the tempeh bacon, and a couple of people even ventured to try it and really liked it! Alas, my brother was not one of those people. It turns out he cannot stand the texture of tempeh. Give me time and I'll change that - hee.

Me and my full belly then waddled home to pick up the food for the next BBQ, which was my work's Christmas party. It was held at a bowls club, so some barefoot bowls insanity was enjoyed. I took along some of the vegan sausages of awesome and the Lighten Up Macaroni Salad from Vegan Planet that I made on Thursday. I fried up my sausages on alfoil on the BBQ before the meat fest began. There was a lot of interest in the sausages. Next time I shall tape the ingredients on my forehead because I repeated them so often!

I also took Rum Truffles from The Vegan Cookbook. These are amazing. And are not stingy on the rum. Especially because I always add a few extra splashes to make the flavour better. And all that rum is in no way cooked out of it. They were quite popular! Tee hee. I'll be making these again closer to Christmas, so I promise I shall have photos of them then.

Now I am at home. My belly was very full. I enjoyed a cup of peppermint tea from the beautiful T2 teabags my secret santa got me (I drink a lot of peppermint tea at home and at work), then I had some salad and some fries. And the left over rum truffles. And now I am going to bed!

A great day of BBQs. Looking at the meatfest that the omnis were eating, all I can say is that I am really glad to be vegan. We rock!