Recipe Round-Up: Vegan With A Vengeance

I don't think it is a stretch to say that Vegan With A Vengeance, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, is a pretty important cookbook for many of us. Certainly it changed the landscape of vegan cookbooks, and opened up a whole new world (and community) to many vegans. Although there is a new edition out now, I continue to cook from my original copy (that I was able to get signed by Isa when she was in Australia a few years ago... Terry also signed it for funsies). You can see my other posts about this book here.

Tempeh Sausage Crumbles: I used a chickpea and linseed tempeh to make this (which is why you can see chickpeas in the picture), which had a really crumbly texture. I definitely prefer soy tempeh. This is a simple recipe with lots of herbs and some lemon juice to make some tasty crumbles that you can use in a couple of different recipes, or just enjoy how you wish. I did find the lemon a bit strong, so be sparing.
Rating. :)



Baking Powder Biscuits and White Bean Tempeh Sausage Gravy: I put half of the above sausage crumbles to good use in this recipe. I made a half recipe of the gravy, which you can see is very thick. I needed to add some extra liquid to thin it out a bit, and even then it is a solid gravy. But a good flavour, lots of sage. I was only going to make a quarter recipe of the biscuits, but I accidentally added half the fat so then had to add in extra dry and liquid after that. They were a bit tough, and didn't rise much, I suspect due to my errors. But they were still very tasty and great with the gravy.
Rating: :)



Potato and Tempeh Sausage Pizza: The other half of the sausage crumbles went on this tasty pizza. I used a premade crust and pizza sauce, and I did add a bit of FYH mozzarella (Isa says you don't need to, but also says she can't stop you, and I had some to use up). The rest of the toppings are the crumbles, potato, and fennel. My potato didn't cook through entirely, so often an issue I have with potato dishes, but they were cooked enough. A very lovely pizza.
Rating: :)



Seitan-Portobello Stroganoff: This is a great savoury mix of onion, mushrooms (cremini and portobello are called for in the recipe, sometimes they are hard to find so I used white and field mushrooms), seitan, and peas. The sauce has a hefty dose of paprika and nutritional yeast, and is made creamy by soy milk and Dijon. They recipe says it serves 6-8 over pasta, but I found I got four servings for it.
Rating: :)



Maple Walnut Cookies: I made these as Maple Pecan cookies, because I prefer pecans. They are a sweet and chewy cookie, and are guaranteed to please. I needed to cook mine for about an extra 5-10 minutes (I often find this, I think due to my oven). This recipe uses maple extract, which I now own but didn't at the time of making this recipe, so I just used more vanilla extract. The maple syrup in the recipe still gives loads of maple flavour.
Rating: :)



Orange Rum Tea Cake: This is a sweet and fancy looking little cake, lovely for a morning or afternoon tea. A light orange cake is drenched in a lovely orange rum syrup and then garnished with flaked almonds. Be sure to let the cake sit for a while before serving, so that the syrup can really soak in for maximum flavour.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I often eat on the sofa while I watch TV, and Dim Sim often thinks that this is an excellent time for her to come and sit on my lap. Who needs a lap for eating? This always ends up with me holding my plate up high, eating over her. Sometimes it takes her several minutes to settle down, she doesn't care. Here I was, trying to eat the pizza from this very post, but she thought that my lap should be for her instead. Of course she won.