Recipe Round-Up: The Garden of Vegan

It's been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently, as I have been stuck down by the plague (well, actually more a respiratory virus, but plague sounds more dramatic) and have not been up to much other than mainlining episodes of Veronica Mars.

The Garden of Vegan is a book that I haven't used much lately, but that I used to use all the time. It has some pretty solid recipes in there, though as always there are some misses as well.

Portobello Mushroom Bake with Swiss Chard and Garlic: The portobello mushroom bake is a very rich dish, with a sauce made of almonds, oil, Braggs, water, vinegar and spices. Onions are also roasted with the mushrooms, which give a sweet countpoint. Served over rice, and with lots of greens on the side. The swiss chard (or silverbeet in Australia) recipe is pretty simple. It calls for sauteeing garlic, then putting raw silverbeet on top and leaving covered for a couple of minutes. I prefer my silverbeet a little less raw, so I cooked it for a couple of minutes then let it sit
Rating: Bake :), Swiss Chard :)



Quick Museli: I love museli, and I love putting different things together to make new museli flavours. This has lots of oats, wheat bran and germ, plus fruit and nuts. Their recipe called for walnuts, but I am not a fan of them, so I used pistachios and pepitas instead.
Rating: :)



Wishful Thinking Mango Smoothie: Mango, yoghurt, water and some spices combine to make this drink. I used less water than the recipe calls for because otherwise it would be too watery and runny for my tastes. I made this with fresh mango, but these days I would use frozen because I prefer my smoothies to be icy and thick.
Rating: :)



Hummus and Veggie Sandwich: This sandwich is pretty straightforward, though I skipped the red onion because I don't like raw onion breath. I used a bought hummus for this, but there is also a recipe in the book for hummus if you prefer. The sandwich has gomashio on it, which adds a nice salty crunch.
Rating: :)



Delightful Rice Salad with Olives & Sun-Dried Tomatoes: This is a flavourful salad with a blended tomato-vinegar-herb dressing. It keeps well for lunches.
Rating: :)



Sweet Pepper Balsamic Bean Salad: I don't know what I was thinking when I made this, because capsicum, that I made, and I ate. What? I don't know. Anyway, I roasted all the capsicum first (the yellow one is meant to be raw), which I guess made it a little better. I seemed to have liked this. I honestly don't know what was happening.
Rating: :) (though I may have been possessed at the time, because capsicum is gross)



Claire's Red and Racy Potato Salad: This salad is nice and creamy and quite sweet because of the grapes. It goes really well over some baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Awesome Asian Noodle Salad: I used udon noodles for this (they are chewy and great) and upped the number of vegetables in proportion to the noodles. I also used zucchini and squash instead of capsicum.
Rating: :)



Aunt Bonnie's Chickpea Salad: Aunt Bonnie seems to have contributed a lot of great recipes, she sounds like a cool aunt. This tasty salad is full of lots of fresh vegetables, as well as olives. It is yum. It says it makes 2-4 servings, I got four lunches from it.
Rating: :)



Perfectly Amazing Pasta Salad: This salad includes tomatoes, olives, artichokes and parsley. Also capsicum, but I used peas instead. The dressing has lots of ingredients, and is quite tasty, though I prefer the fresher tasting Amazing Grace salad from this book to this recipe. I used grated cheezly on top.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This cute little girl was staying with us at the clinic, and here she is showing off her racing ears. Her ears don't actually look like that, but she was rubbing her head through Pip's hand and they both flipped back like this. She is streamlined and ready to race!