Recipe Round-Up: Bold Flavoured Vegan Cooking

I thought I was keeping on top of my comment approvals, but I just found a few that had slipped through the cracks from the last couple of months. I will have to change the way I check on them to make sure I don't miss any more!

Back to another round of Bold Flavoured Vegan Cooking by Celine Steen, a book that I recipe tested for. You can see previous posts about this book here.

Quick and Easy Pad Thai: This is indeed pretty fast to make. The recipe calls for tempeh, but as I live with a couple of tempeh haters (alas!) I used tofu instead. The sauce comes togethr quickly, and has a nice tang from a combination of lime and tamarind. I'd add a bunch of extra green veggies to it next time because you know how I love the veggies. It is also topped with some Serundeng, a delicious spiced mix of pan-toasted coconut, peanuts, and shallots.
Rating: Pad Thai: :), Serundeng :D



Orange Marmite Noodle Bowl: Yes, marmite! Or in my case, Vegemite. The best of the mites! The thing about Vegemite is that it is a lot stronger than other mites, hence why it is the best mite. Bianca will back me up on this. As well as the sauce and the noodles, this bowl also has tofy, cabbage, and carrot in it. The sauce is a mix of OJ and Vegemite, along with other things. I blitzed the sauce together because Vegemite is quite thick and won't stir into things withouth blitzing or melting. I used the upper ampount of Vegemite, 2 TBS, as I love me some Vegemite. However although the sauce smelled strongly of Vegemite, the orange juice was the stronger flavour.
Rating: :)



'Crispy Thin Savoury Pancakes' with Mushroom Filling: I have a terrible track record with making this sort of pancake, they always fall apart. And this time was no different. So behold my pancake mushroom bowl! All the flavours, but none of the presentation. Despite my troubles, this was still a really nice and filling dinner. I noticed that Celine has changed the pancake recipe substantially between the tester recipe that I used here and the one in the book, so I hope to try again one day and perhaps have better success! But if all fails, just put it in a bowl.
Rating: :)



Soy Pomegranate-Glazed Eggplants with Dukkah: This recipe was supposed to be made with cute baby eggplants cut into slices, but I could not find anything but big eggplants, so they had to do. This was a lovely sweet, tangy, earthy and crunchy dish. I served it along side some rice, steamed broccoli, and za'atar spiced chickpeas.
Rating: :)



Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with White Barbecue Sauce: Yay for potatoes! I left out the capsicum and chile, and just stuck with the potatoes and the red onion for this dish. Also I used regular new potatoes. They are all very nicely roasted, tossed with a lovely savoury dark sauce. The white BBQ sauce is mayo-based, and is very tangy. I don't know that I would think of BBQ sauce flavours when I was eating it, but it is nice in its own way.
Rating: :)



Sweet Potato Fries with Sriracha Ketchup: No matter what I do with sweet potato fries, I just struggle so hard to get them to go crispy. I hear this is common. While these didn't go crispy, they were still very tasty. They are dusted with a porcini salt, which gives a great flavour. The ketchup is a mix of, you guessed it, sriracha and ketchup, but also has other yummy things in it like miso and lime juice. I scaled back on the amount of sriracha called for from 1-2 TBS to just a scant tsp.
Rating: :)



Red Chana Dal Mujaddara: I love mujaddara, a simple but wonderful mix of rice and lentils topped with fried onions. This is a fancy version with added flavours. The red comes from red onion and sun-dried tomatoes, and it was also meant to have red capsicum but I used carrot instead. I couldn't get the right sort of chana dal, so I used yellow split peas instead. In this one, the chana dal and the rice are cooked separately ahead of time, so you just add everything together in the end. It has a lovely flavour. The recipe has an option drizzle of pomegranate molasses to serve, but I found I preferred it without.
Rating: :)



Red Curry Veggies: For this recipe you can either make your own red curry paste or use a bought one. I went for a bought one, and I used less than the recipe called for. I also used light coconut milk and water as a blend for the coconut milk. This has green beans, red onion, eggplant, and carrot (used instead of eggplant), but would be great with some tofu added as well. I got 2-3 serves out of this, served over jasmine rice.
Rating: :)



Very Tahini Teffballs and Dressing: This is one of the recipes I have made since testing, as life gifted me some super onsale teff grain that I could't resist, but also needed to use up. I did change a few things in the balls themselves, leaving out the jalapeno and capsicum, and using parsley instead of coriander because that was what I had. They were very tasty little balls. Topped with a tahini dressing. The dressing calls for coconut cream and I used oat milk with some extra tahini, though it was still quite thin, which I accept as a result of my subs. It still tasted great.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim. If you follow me on IG, you'll be up to date. But for those who don't, here's the story. I noticed that she had been peeing an extra time a day compared to normal, so I felt her bladder after she had peed to see if it was completely empty as she has issues with urinary retention. It was empty, but it felt bumpy. Since my last post, we have done an ultrasound that comfirmed my fear that she has a bladder mass. Masses, to be precise. Initial testing did not give any answers, so the plan is the do a needle aspirate of them while she is sedated to hopefully get a diagnosis. I am coping while waiting by distracting myself with things (like blogging), and keeping myself feeling emotionally dead inside. The important thing is that she in herself is not unwell right now. She is her normal happy little self. I love her so much.