Recipe Round-Up: Veganomicon

Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero is a pretty famous cookbook in vegan circles. While the newest release of the book is the 10th Anniversary Edition, I cook out of the original version. You can see my other posts about Veganomicon here.

Sweet Potato-Pear Tzimmes with Pecans and Raisins and Spinach Noodle Kugel: The tzimmes was a very sweet dish, something that I would really think of more as a dessert than a main. There really is nothing in it that would mean it couldn't be a dessert, no onions or anything lurking, just sweet potatoes and pears and sweet stuff. But serving for dinner, it went very well with the gentle blandness of the kugel. I made a half recipe of the kugel, using a mix of frozen and fresh spinach, and broken up linguine for the pasta (I have never seen any vegan noodles that were suggested in the recipe). It also has matzo and silken tofu in it, as well as some dill. I added more dill than the recipe called for.
Rating: Tzimmes :), Kugel :)



Chickpea Quinoa Pilaf with Citrus Sesame Date Sauce: This pilaf is so simple and so tasty. I decreased the amount of quinoa to about 2/3 cup, which gave me three serves. It also has onion, garlic, spices (I used ground coriander rather than crushwed seeds), and tomato paste. I needed to cook it a bit longer than the recipe said to get everything to cook through. The sauce is made with orange juice, dates, and tahini (plus some other things like miso). It comes together so easily, and is great over grains or greens.
Rating: Pilaf :), Sauce :)



Fresh Dill-Basmati Rice with Chard and Chickpeas and Spiced Yoghurt Sauce: I am drawn to any recipe with dill in the title, it is my fvourite herb! I decreased the rice slightly from 2 cups to 1 1/2 cups, so I had a higher other stuff to rice ratio. I couldn't get silverbeet (chard), so I used some English spinach instead. Rather than steaming it, I chopped it, put it in a collander and tipped a full kettle of boiling water over to blanch it, let it cool, squeezed it dry, then chopped it again. I used lots of fresh dill, plus some dry dill as well. You cannot have too much dill. The spiced yoghurt sauce is very easy to make, I used some natural soy yoghurt and seasonings, lemon juice, and coriander are mixed in. On it 's own, it is a bit meh. But it was very nice when combined with the rice dish.
Rating: Rice :), Sauce :|



Udon with Shiitake Mushrooms and Kale in Miso Broth: This recipe says it serves four, but they are small servings. I'd double it if you really were feeding four people. It has a lovely rich broth, that is very simple to make. It would be good with some tofu added too to bulk it up a little.
Rating: :)



Almond-Quinoa Muffins: These muffins are a fun way to use up extra quinoa. Though they don't rise very high, they quinoa makes them dense and moist (sorry) and a great little snack. The almond comes from almond meal, and they also have some lovely spices and dried fruit as well (I used currants).
Rating: :)



Lower-Fat Banana Bread: This recipe uses a mix of applesauce and canola oil to make it 'lower-fat', eh, but it doesn't impact the taste at all. This is a very moist (sorry) and yummy loaf. It does have molasses in it, which gave it a lovely extra flavour (if you like molasses that is).
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A darling photo of our sweet sweet Petal. I will miss her the most!

VeganMoFo 2018 #21: Menu: Greek To Me And You from Veganomicon

This is the second time I've made the main part of the menu, but I hadn't properly documented the individual elements so I wanted to make it again. I knew it was going to be good! The book of course, is the famous Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra and Terry Hope Romero. I have the original edition, but they have also released an updated and revised 10th Annicersary edition. You can see other things I have made from Vcon here. On with the menu!

The menus are set out with a combination of three to four dishes to make up your main plate, then they also have a suggested soup and dessert. I didn't make the soup with this menu, but I had made it previously. I swear I had already blogged it, but I cannot find the post to link to so I shall include it here.

French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme: This filling soup will serve four as a main. It is full of lentils, carrot, onion, tomatoes, paprika, and - of course, tarragon and thyme. This uses the dry herbs, making it very pantry friendly. Apologies for the photos, according to my records I made this 10 years ago (!!!), when I apparently thought plonking a bowl on top of the TV guide on the table and having people's feet in the background was fine.
Rating: :)



Now, on with the recently made actual menu! Which is made up of three parts.

Lemony Roasted Potatoes: Because I get lazy sometimes, I did not peel the potatoes and these turned out 100% fine! Wedges of potato are bathed in olive oil, garlic, broth, and lots and lots of lemon juice before being baked. I did need to turn up the temperature a bit during the baking, and bake them for a bit longer.
Rating: :)



Easy Stir-Fried Leafy Greens: This is a base recipe that you can use for any sort of green. For this menu, it suggests a blend of dandelion and kale. I can't get dandelion leaves here, so I went with all kale. I just tore up the kale, rather than slice it up. It has an Asian flare, with ginger, garlic, rice wine, soy, and sesame oil (I did not use the chile oil option), but it goes well with pretty much everything. I've also included a photo of an earlier time when I made it with baby bok choy.
Rating: :)





Mediterranean-Style Baked Lima Beans: I love these huge, creamy beans. You need to start from scratch with dried beans for this recipe. They are soaked, simmered, sauced, and baked. The sauce is tomato based, with some onion and carrot and a range of different seasonings. It all comes together for a beautiful flavour.
Rating: :)



Everything together!



Lemon Bars: I made a half recipe of this, in an 8x8 inch pan, lined with baking paper. The filling in this uses agar flakes, and sets up really well for slicing. I only needed about 7 minutes instead of 10 for my agar to dissolve. The full recipe, using a 9x13 inch pan, says it makes 12 bars. As you can see, I cut six bars from my half recipe and they are HUGE! But they are lovely and tangy. As a note, this recipe is identical to the one that appears in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Bars (except they have reduced the size of the servings by cutting it into more bars in that one).
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Sometimes Dim Sim is willing to ignore proximity if there is sunshine involved.

VeganMoFo 2017 #30: Veganomicon for the Holidays

30th: Practice run a dish for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or another upcoming holiday

It really isn't long until the holidays are here! And as an Australia, I mean until Christmas is here, as we don't have Thanksgiving. Two months to go, though the shops have been selling Christmas stuff for the last several weeks. I decided to make a holiday-themed dinner from Veganomicon, the original one. I know there is a new edition that has just come out, but I am still old school and stuck in the past with my treasured old copy.

Caramelised Onion-Butternut Roast with Chestnuts: The idea of roasting and peeling chestnuts from scratch does not appeal to me, I don't think the end result is worth the effort, but I had found some packaged chestnuts for cheap in an Asian store ages ago and I needed to use them up, so this seemed like a good chance. The recipe calls for a pound of chestnuts in the shell, I had 250g of ready to use chestnuts, which was enough for me. I always find chestnuts oddly textured. For this casserole, onions are roasted in a pan (mine never did go brown and crispy, but they still tasted good) and then are mixed with butternut, chestnut, white beans and herbs and baked. At the end, a herby breadcrumb mix is put on top and baked until golden. This is a fairly easy casserole if you don't have to fiddle with the chestnuts, most of the time involved is baking time. And it ends up with a nice sweet flavour, with a bit of salt from the topping. The recipe says it serves 6-8, but I would say it serves 4.
Rating: :)



Holiday Cranberry Sauce: This recipe calls for apple cider, and in Australia our apple cider is alcoholic and fizzy and not at all what this recipe wants. I always think of cider as being spiced, but I did some reading and it seems like a lot of cider is just unprocessed apple juice? So I used some fresh pressed cloudy apple juice from a bottle for it. The recipe claims to make 5 cups, and I didn't want that much, so I scaled it down to 1/3 of the recipe but ended up with less than a cup. I used the agar powder option, and I used frozen cranberries. I found this to be a very tart sauce, on its own I was not a huge fan. It did go well with the sweetness of the casserole, but I don't think I'd make to to plonk on top of a roast dinner.
Rating: :| on its own, :) on casserole



And here it is all together! I served it over some wilted baby spinach and brown rice, and with some roasted Brussels sprouts.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post - Month of Sahara



Sahara and our kitty Christmas stocking. This was last year, which was her last Christmas.

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.

VeganMoFo 2016 #27: Coriander and challenging genetics.

27th: Changed Opinion – Was there a food you used to hate, and now don’t?

Let's talk about my newfound love of capsicum. Haha, just kidding. Friends know that I detest capsicum with a certain hate that can only be reserved for the devil vegetable sent from the fiery pits of hell to ruin good food that capsicum is. Oh no, there will be no salvaging that relationship.

So instead lets talk about fresh coriander (or cilantro, for my US friends). For years and years I could not abide fresh coriander, it tasted like someone was spraying soap up my nostrils. Even if I picked it off as a garnish, I could still taste its sudsy residue on my food. Gross. I used to sub in either parsley or mint for it in recipes, depending on what seemed appropriate.

One day I decided that I should try and love coriander because it was in so many recipes. I set about making a plan as to how I would introduce it in a non-threatening non-soapy way, and work from there. And hopefully one day I would love it.

The recipe I chose was Cilantro Sour Cream from Veganomicon.



This is some sort of magic recipe, because I loved it! And just like that, I could eat coriander. In fact, I love coriander now. And not just blended or cooked into things, I will liberally garnish it on top of things or throw it in salads. Oh coriander, you are so tasty!



This could just be a simple tale of changing my mind about a food, but it gets more interesting. Coriander hating has been linked to genetics. Some people are genetically predisposed to find that coriander tastes like soap! Basically, I may have changed my genetics. Hello, I am the silliest superhero ever. I took my one shot and changing my genetics, and I used it up so I could like coriander. Fear me!

Actually, this article talks about some of the other reasons people might not like coriander, and that you can change your preferences sometimes, so maybe I just did that. Though I like my superhero genetic theory better.

What is your super obscure superpower?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Gosh, our old verandah sure did give us lots of pretty photos of cats gazing through the bars. My third cat Patches, looking very handsome. We had our gentle giant for three and a half glorious years before he left us when I was in grade 7.

Recipe Round-Up: Veganomicon

Wowsers, what a week. I've been struck down with the worst sick I've had in a while. There was a time there when I could barely eat. And if I am turning down food, you know things are serious. I was only able to take one day off work, and have spent the last three days there (the last two days with no voice). So today, this glorious Sunday, I am just lying around at home, drinking tea and soup, and hugging the cats. And finally getting this blog post up!

Veganomicon... does it need an introduction? Probably not. So let's get to it. I haven't used Vcon for awhile, but looking through some of these recipes I've made in the past, I need to revisit it. You can see my other posts about Vcon here.

Baked Apricot BBQ Tofu: I love BBQ tofu, and Vcon has a recipe for two different sauces you can use on yours. One is regular BBQ, but there is also an Apricot BBQ sauce, which is what I used here. It was very good!
Rating: :)



Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans: This is a hearty soup, that makes a bunch! Very good for feeding a lot of people, or for lots of leftovers. The roasted garlic is a very nice addition. I can never find tinned navy beans here, so I used cannellini beans. Also served with some olive and thyme sourdough.
Rating: :)



Creamy Tomato Soup (with Basil variation): This is a great tomato soup, with a very intense flavour. It has sundried tomatoes as well as canned tomatoes in it, and is made smooth and creamy by potatoes. There is a basil variation, which I have made as well - basically just stirring through some basil. But whichever way you have it, it is good. Especially with a grilled cheese!
Rating: :)





Jamaican Yuca Shepherd's Pie with Sweet Potato, Kidney Beans, and Plantains: This is a nice take on the shepherd's pie (and the filling is also nice on its own as a curry over rice). I have never found fresh yuca here, so I used frozen. I also used peas in place of lima beans in the filling. Oh yeah, and left out the scotch bonnet peppers! I couldn't find Jamaican curry powder anywhere, but the recipe notes it has some star anise and coriander and aniseed, so I added a bit of Chinese 5-spice to some curry powder for a completely inauthentic knock off attempt. Tasted good!
Rating: :)



Almost All-American Seitan Potpie: A very hearty dinner! I increased the amount of vegetables in the filling because that is how I roll. Pot pie isn't something I grew up with, but something I do enjoy now as a vegan. The crust was pretty easy to bring together, and was a nice pastry. After this photo it was drizzled in ketchup because that is how I feel pot pies should be served.
Rating: :)



Seitanic Red and White Bean Jambalaya: For me, this dish was missing something. It was OK, but not wow. Which is a bit of a shame, because it made so much. I had to use two casserole dishes to cook it in the oven (it does say to use the biggest pan you have).
Rating: :|



Spaghetti Squash Mexicana with Salsa Fresca: Hmmm.... spaghetti squash. It was unavailable here for ages, but is trickling through now. Sometimes at outrageous prices, but I have found it at decent prices sometimes and picked one up. First up, spaghetti squash in no way replaces pasta for me in any way, shape or form. Pasta is pasta, I love pasta. Spaghetti squash is its own thing. It's own not very filling thing (if I have it, I have to make sure I have some carbs somewhere else in the meal, or I die). The bean mixture that it is tossed with is nice here, with black beans and corn in a gentle spice. The best part is the salsa. The salsa recipe is included on this page, but it is also a separate recipe in the sauces section. It is great!
Rating: :)



Seitan in Mole Sauce: This has a great flavour. The mole sauce is made from scratch, and is really nice, and is mixed with the seitan, carrots and onions. I served with with brown rice and roasted cauliflower for my dad's birthday one year (see the tablecloth, that means special occasion!).
Rating: :)



Tropical Avocado Salsa Fresca: Just coming back to that salsa again, it is pretty much the greatest salsa you will even eat. You can choose between mango, pawpaw or pineapple. I have made it with both mango and pawpaw, they are both great options. My mum has an avocado sensitivity, so I made a portion for her using cucumber instead of avocado that was still nice and fresh. Please make this forever.
Rating: :D



Do you have Veganomicon? What are your favourite recipes?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



The final in my 'Dim Sim On Her Back In My Lap' series. Behold the awkward leg placement. Bless her.