Recipe Round-Up: Chloe's Kitchen

Chloe rose to fame after being the first vegan to win Cupcake Wars, and she followed up that win with this winner of a cookbook. Chloe's Kitchen is a beautiful book full of a whole range of recipes. I have had a lot of fun with it.

Avocado Toast: The default breakfast for many vegans attempting to eat out, Chloe takes simple ingredients and makes this amazing. From my perspective, avocado on toast is always welcome (I love avocado), and this combination is one of the best.
Rating: :D



Avocado Pesto Pasta: I am always suspicious of avocado pasta sauces, but then always pleasantly surprised by the result. I used some water I reseved from boiling the pasta to add to the pesto rather than the oil for a lower fat option (not that I have anything against fat, I just often find pesto a bit too oily for my liking), halved the amount of pasta and added broccoli and peas. The sliced grape tomatoes add a nice freshness.
Rating: :)



Chinese Takeout Chow Mein: Chow Mein was never a regular part of our take away orders, so most of my experience with it comes from recipes since going vegans. This version is fast and full of vegetables. I didn't have quite enough pasta (I used brown rice spaghetti) so I bulked it out with extra broccoli, which was a good compromise. I also added roasted cashews.
Rating: :)



Drunken Noodles in Cashew-Shiitake Broth: This recipe says it serves 4-6, but I made a half recipe and got one big dinner-sized serve. This is a great, savoury soup, with great mushroomy flavour. I used dried udon noodles for this (I like them better than the par-cooked varieties).
Rating: :)



Barley Bliss Casserole: I think this was the first thing I made from this book. You can see it bakes into a wonderful casserole, very tasty. I used zucchini instead of the green pepper.
Rating: :)



Caribbean Vegetables with Coconut Rice and Plantains: This fun bowl combines four different components, but is worth the trouble. It goes together very well. The fourth component is cumin-lime black beans. The rice was verging on too much coconut fat for me, so I would use light milk next time. This recipe only gave relatively small servings of the beans and plantains, which meant I had lots of rice and vegetables left over for lunch.
Rating: :)



Mongolian BBQ Seitan: My photo doesn't quite do this delicious dish justice - see the photo in the book! As expected, this was absolutely delicious! The only sad thing is that we only got about three servings out of it, rather than four, so make a double batch if you want leftovers or are expecting company!
Rating: :D



Orange You Glad I Made Crispy Tofu: Another takeaway classic that I only became familiar with once I started cooking vegan. This is lovely, especially served with white rice and broccoli. I used a 500g block of tofu rather than 14 ounce, and there was still lots of sauce to go around.
Rating: :)



Pancakes for Dinner: There is no breakfast chapter in this cookbook, and I truly believe that pancakes are suitable for any time of day or night, so why not for dinner? I got 8 pancakes from this recipe. As you can see, they brown up nicely in the pan. I made half the pancakes with the blueberry option (not pictured), which involves sprinkling blueberries on top of the pancakes as they cook. I would prefer to just fold them through the pancakes next time.
Rating: :)



Pineapple Not-So-Fried Rice: I can never make pineapple shells as pretty as in books or restaurants, but it is still fun to try. I was in a rush, so I pan-fried the tofu with the soy sauce rather than baking it. This made too much to fit in a single half shell, and there were lots leftover for lunch. I served this with tomato and cucumber.
Rating: :)



Tempeh Piccata: I am not sure what is going on with the colour in this photo. I love piccata, so I was sad to be a bit disappointed in this recipe. It just wasn't lemony enough for me.
Rating: :|



Tropical Island Kebabs with Cilantro Rice: Food on skewers is always fun, though to be honest once the photo is taken I tend to just scrape it off into a pile on my plate because I always end up stabbing my mouth with the stick. I used zucchini on my skewers instead of capsicum. This is served on some nicely flavoured rice, which makes for a nice twist.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Honey again, this time a bit blurry as she was mid-face wash. I will never get tired of watching cats lying on their back!