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.

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan With A Vengeance

VWAV is another book that has a new edition coming out soon. My original edition is much loved, though there is still so much I need to make!

Tempeh Reuben with Baked Cajun French Fries: I have only had a few reubens in my life, all made by me (I'm coming for you in June, Chicago Diner!). I halved the recipe for the tempeh and marinade, which after 6 hour of marinating had sucked it all up and made enough four four sandwiches. Because I am not a raw onion fan, I used scallion for the dressing. I could not find pumpernickel bread anywhere, so I used sourdough. I also added a slice of Daiya swiss cheese, which is my favourite Daiya. The baked fries were delicious, crunchy and golden. A perfect side.
Rating: Reuben :), Fries :)



Scrambled Tofu: A quick and easy tofu scramble is always a welcome recipe. Onion, mushrooms and carrot are added to the tofu with Isa's special spice blend.
Rating: :)



Tempeh with White Beans Sausage Patties: These tender patties have a yummy and smoky taste, they are great on sandwiches or as a breakfast side. They also freeze and defrost well.
Rating: :)



Breakfast Veggie Chorizo: TVP-based chorizo is always satisfying. I used less chili powder, and next time would use a bit less sugar as it was a little sweet. I served it here as part of a burrito filling.
Rating: :)



Beet, Barley and Black Soybean Soup with 'Pumpernickel' Croutons: I can't find pumpernickel that isn't those super thin things, so I used sour dough for the croutons instead. This is a very pretty and satisfying soup, just don't panic the next day! Remember the beets.
Rating: :)



White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup: I made a half serve of this very simple soup and got this lunch-sized mug bowl serving. It had a whole head of roasted garlic in it, which was awesome. I just used a stick blender to blend it all smooth rather than putting it in a food processor.
Rating: :)



Chickpea-Hijiki Salad Sammiches: I wasn't able to find hijiki for this, so I used arame which I snipped into little pieces once I had soaked it. The seaweed gives a great flavour as well as adding to the texture, making this a special sandwich filling. Here I made a chickpea-hijiki grilled cheese sandwich, which was awesome.
Rating: :)



Garlicky Kale with Tahini Dressing: Lots and lots of garlic with lots and lots of kale. Topped with a delicious tahini dressing. Without the water, the dressing is super thick.
Rating: :)



Fettuccini Alfreda with Italian Marinated Tofu: The fettuccine is coated in a rich sauce, made with pine nuts and nutritional yeast. I always like to use spinach fettuccini. The Italian tofu is a great side, and becomes wonderful and chewy with baking.
Rating: Fettuccine :), Tofu :)



BBQ Pomegranate Tofu and Coconut Rice: I found a little pot of pre-removed pomegranate seeds at the supermarket, so being lazy I thought I may as well try them out before committing to removing them from an actual pomegranate. This is a great, tangy BBQ sauce that would be great anywhere. The pomegranate seeds themselves were OK, but I wasn't overwhelmed with desire. I have made the coconut rice several times now, and it is so good.
Rating: Tofu :), Rice :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Sahara is looking very pretty!

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Planet (original edition)

I ended up taking an accidental blogging break, despite my good intentions leading up to Vida Vegan Con! Part of that is because I am co-authoring a chapter on feline diabetes in a major veterinary internal medicine textbook, so that is pretty exciting but kind of takes up a fair bit of time!

The original edition of Vegan Planet was my first introduction to Robin Robertson. It has recently been released as an updated and revised version as well. While I have both, all of my cooking has come from the original version.

In a Jiffy Chili-Couscous Pie: If you have some leftover chili (I used the recommended Sweet and Spicy Chili) this comes together 'in a jiffy'. A couscous base, topped with cheese, spread with chili, topped with more cheese and onions. Bake. Your are done! I decreased the couscous by half though, because it seemed like it would be far too thick a layer, and this alternation made it just perfect for me.
This recipe appears in the revised edition as 'Chili-Couscous Pie', and includes an option for using cheesy sauce instead of vegan cheese.
Rating: :)



Eggplant and Spinach Lasagna: I made a half recipe of this using an 8 inch square casserole dish. Despite the tofu ricotta component (I still used the full amount of spinach for this part), I didn't find this particularly filling, I had to eat quite a lot!
This appears in the updated edition unchanged except for using slightly less olive oil.
Rating: :)



Tempeh and Eggplant Moussaka: Unfortunately I was a little underwhelmed by this. I found the silken tofu-based topping quite bland, it just needed something else (I ended up putting a bunch of nooch on top, though that isn't exactly unusual for me). The eggplant slices are pretty delicious!
This appears in the updated edition with a few changes to the ingredients.
Rating: :|



No-Egg Salad Sandwiches: I always like a good tofu-based 'egg' salad sandwich. This one is fairly classic, but I also added some dill in because I love the flavour.
This appears in the updated edition with no changes.
Rating: :)



Curried Chickenless Salad Sandwich: Tempeh stands in as the basis of this fairly sweet sandwich filling. It has a great texture with the tempeh, crunchy celery and almonds, and sweet bursts of golden raisins. I left out the capsicum, of course.
This recipe appears in the original edition using 8 oz of tempeh instead of 12 oz.
Rating: :)



Tuna-Free Sandwich Filling: We've had tofu, tempeh and now chickpeas are the star of this sandwich filling. If you want a more fishy taste then add more kelp powder.
This recipe appears in the updated edition with the addition of salt and pepper.
Rating: :)



Three-Bean Burritos: I always have the worst time taking photos of wraps or burittos! Refried beans, kidney beans and black beans make up our beanly trio, which made far more filling that would fit into four large tortillas, but better too much than not enough! Or maybe large tortillas in the US are larger than out large tortillas here.
This recipe appears in the updated edition with no changes.
Rating: :)



Portobello Fajitas: More terrible photos. These photos were taken a long time ago, but still I haven't gotten much better! These are great fajitas with portobello strips, red onions and zucchini strips instead of capsicum. It is nice with some sour cream added as well.
This appears in the update edition with slightly less olive oil and slightly less chili powder.
Rating: :)



Grilled Vegetable Wraps: Slightly better photo I guess. These are stuffed with grilled red onion, portobello and zucchini, I just left out the capsicum. I grilled the vegetables on my tiny George Foreman grill, and kept them warm in the oven until I had finished them all. The wraps are spread with some mayo to bring some creaminess.
This recipe appears in the updated edition using a large rather than medium red onion.
Rating: :)



Stuffed Mushroom Burgers: Take a large portobello mushroom, sautee it, stuff it with a cooked veggie burger (I used a Fry's burger in this one) and serve in a roll. Tasty goodness! Could be even better with some melted cheese as well.
This appears in the update edition without any changes.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



More kitties in a basket! Mia, the saucy tortie at the front, will be going to her new home soon with some wonderful clients! But Polly and Precious are still waiting.

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Pizza

Vegan Pizza is another great book from Julie Hasson. The first three chapters are full of easy doughs, tasty pizza sauces and meaty-style toppings, before moving on to the pizzas.

An important point to mention is that all these pizzas has stood up to my ultimate pizza test: they all taste great cold straight from the fridge the next day! (Actually, I almost like cold leftover pizza more than fresh hot pizza....).

Tomato-Basil Pizza: This is a simple classic pizza, which is sort of more of a snack pizza than a meal pizza. It is made up of pizza base, Tomato-Garlic Sauce, mozzarella and fresh basil. I went for a side by side cheese comparison - Daiya on the left and Cheezly on the right.
Rating: :)



Valentine's Pizza: Or not valentine, I made this to enjoy all on my own sometime far away from February. The layers are pizza base, sun-dried, tomato and arugula pesto, mozzarella and tomatoes. There was also meant to be red capsicum on it but no way would I ruin a perfectly good dinner with capsicum!
Rating: :)



Corn, Pesto, Zucchini and Tomato Pizza: A fun summer flavours pizza made up of dough, pesto (I cheated and used a bottled one), mozzarella, zucchini, tomato and corn.
Rating: :)



Mushroom, Broccoli, and Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza: This is pretty self-explanatory, though it also has some tomato-garlic sauce, mozzarella and toasted pine nuts as well.
Rating: :)



Pineapple and Jalapeno Pizza: I love pineapple on pizza, and I will not apologise! This is like a Hawaiian pizza, with some delicious sweet and smoky soy curls in place of ham. To be honest next time I would leave off the jalapenos and add sliced black olives, because I like my Hawaiian pizzas trashy.
Rating: :)



Smoky Wild Mushroom and Potato Pizza: This pizza has a great smoky white cheese sauce on the base, which I topped with the optional mozzarella for maximum cheese. Red potatoes and sliced shiitake mushrooms make up the rest. I skipped the truffle oil garnish.
Rating: :)



Sweet Potato and Kale Pizza: Some more smoky white cheese sauce in the mix here, along with baby kale leaves and sweet potatoes. Slice more sweet potatoes that you think you will need as it shrinks down quite a bit.
Rating: :)



Broccoli and Cheddar Pizza: Broccoli and cheese is a classic combination, but this time it is on a pizza. A combination of an amazing cashew cheddar cheese sauce and grated cheddar cheese make this super cheddary.
Rating: :)



Chili Mac Pizza: This says to use 10oz cooked macaroni so I started with 8oz uncooked, though I didn't use it all on the pizza. The macaroni is mixed with a cashew creamy cheese sauce. I used a tin of Amy chili here that I had kicking around in the cupboard.
Rating: :)



Cowboy Pizza: BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese, sweet and smoky soy curls, broccoli, jalapenos and coriander make for a pretty tasty pizza.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



What is better than a pizza party? A basket full of kittens! These are three girls available for adoption at the moment. Mia is the sassy tortie at the front, with Polly next to her, and sweet little Precious peeking over from behind. Love these girls!

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Lunch Box

Several years ago, the blog Vegan Lunch Box was all the rage, and the book Vegan Lunch Box was released. It was full of cute lunchbox menus and spawned a wild craze for adorable bento-style lunch boxes. I don't really have such an adorable lunchbox system, but I make do with various containers around my house. I should note that these menus were designed for a school day, my work days are considerably longer, so I often had to add extra snacks.

Quick & Easy Menu Page 28

• Nut Butter & Jelly Cut-Outs
• Banana
• Carrot and Celery Sticks
• Easy Ranch Dip
• Soy Smoothie

I skipped the fun-cut option for my PB&J (strawberry jam is always my choice) and took it as a regular sandwich. The ranch dip was a bit meh and runny if you use all the soy milk. And I took a mango smoothie that I made at home.
Rating: Overall :), Dip :|

Quick & Easy Menu Page 36

• Bagel with Cream Cheese
• Green Beans and Carrots in a Tarragon Vinaigrette
• Red grapes
• Animal crackers

This was meant to be mini-bagels, but again I went with a full sized bagel slathered with Tofutti cream cheese. The carrots and beans had a bright, tangy dressing which were nice with the bagel. The animal crackers were an accidentally vegan brand that I bought, but I can't remember what they were!
Rating: Overall :), Beans and Carrots :)

Quick & Easy Menu Page 46

• Veggie Burger
• Sweet Potato Oven Fries
• Wheat-Free Apple Crisp
• Extra snack: Carrot sticks and hummus

The veggie burger is a construct of pre-purchased goodies - a Fry's burger patty, Toffuti cheese slice, soy mayo and salad. I love the sweet potato fries on the side, they include garlic powder that gives a great flavour. The crisp was nice, but there are nicer topping recipes out there. I added an extra snack for this. It was also meant to have amazake as a beverage, but I couldn't find any.
Rating: Overall :), Burger :), Fries :D, Crisp :)

Ready & Waiting Menu Page 145

• Veggie Tea Sandwiches
• Blueberry Lemon Mini-Scones
• Fresh strawberries and purple grapes
• Kid's Iced Tea

The book gives a range of filling choices for your dainty tea sandwiches - I used cucumber, cream cheese and dill and also Nuttelex, radish and salt. I love little tea sandwiches! The scones are super quick to make and super delicious to eat! The iced tea is a combination of apple juice (make sure to get cloudy!) and tea - I used the Red Green Dreamy mix from T2. I skipped the sugar.
Rating: Overall :D, Sandwiches :), Scones :D, Tea :)

Ready & Waiting Menu Page 151

• Pizza Shop Breadsticks
• Sneaky Momma's Tomato Sauce for Dipping
• Frozen vegetable and bean medley
• Fresh blueberries and plums

The breadsticks are made from scratch, and they are twirled around a filling of nooch, sesame seeds, salt, garlic and granules. The sauce is nice, with basil, kale and carrots in it. It is meant to be blended until smooth, but as I don't need to hide my vegetables I left it chunky. The medley was literally some four bean mix and some frozen peas and corn (they thaw for a pretty delicious snacks).
Rating: Overall :), Breadsticks :), Sauce :)

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I know you want to see more of Abbey in her birthday hat!