Recipe Round-Up: But I Could Never Go Vegan

Hello and welcome back to another proper recipe round-up!I'll be delving into But I Could Never Go Vegan, a book by Kristy Turner. I've had this book for awhile, but it has been languishing a bit on my shelf. You can see some other posts I've made about it here. It has the fun concept of each chapter titled after a reason why someone might claim they could never go vegan, and then the recipes are based around that.

Tempeh Bacon Mac 'N' Cheese with Pecan Parmesan: This is in the 'couldn't live without cheese' chapter. The sauce is a lovely blend of roasted cauliflower and cashews, with a lot of nutritional yeast and other yummy things. I made all the sauce, with just a half recipe for everything else to get the right sauce ratio that I like. If you'd used all the pasta I think it would be a but dry. Instead of making the tempeh bacon crumbles, I used some Veef Bacon Bits (watch for those in an upcoming midweek munchies). It is topped off with some easy to make pecan based parmesan, I just made 1/6 of the recipe for that so I would have just enough to top my mac.
Rating: :)





Mediterranean Tofu Scramble: From the 'tofu doesn't taste like anything' chapter, this has spinach, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, capers, and olives in it. Unfortunately, the recipe as written ended up being too salty (it uses black salt for that eggy flavour), so please go easy on the salt. I served it with some cucumber, pide bread, and roasted asparagus.
Rating: :| (too salty!)



Creamy Mushroom Fettuccini Alfredo: Also in the tofu chapter, this one uses silken tofu to make the creamy alfredo sauce. My tofu block was a little less than the amount requited, but I had a quarter of a tub of Tofutti Cream Cheese kicking around, so I added that for some extra creamth. As well as the sauteed mushrooms, I also added some peas and spinach. This suffered from being a bit bland, so I needed to up the seasonings in it. I thing sauteeing the mushrooms in some soy sauce would also help with this. But the flavour did improve when I had some for leftovers the next day!

Rating: :) (with appropriate seasoning)


Portobello Steak Frites: From the 'vegan cooking is too hard' section, which is a chapter of recipes that take 35 minutes or less. I love a sauteed portobello and fries, I used to eat something similar a lot when I was at uni (though using frozen fries). Here the mushroom in marinated for about 10 minutes, and during that time you get the chips ready. I didn't have any red-skinned potatoes, so I just used a regular white skinned one. The fries were good, but I would have liked them to be a little crispier. The mushrooms are baked with the fries as well, though they just needed a little something extra. I think pan-frying them in a little vegan butter once they have marinated (rather than baking) would hit that nail on the head perfectly.
Rating: :)



Avocado & White Bean Salad Wraps: This is from the same chapter. The white beans are seasoned and mashed, then added to mashed avocado and some extra seasonings (I left out the chili). This results ina wonderful tangy and creamy spread. In this case it is spread onto some large tortillas with tomato and baby spinach, which go great with the spread. Roll up and cut for a cute presentation. I served it with some roasted broccoli.
Rating: :)



Chickpea Sloppy Joes: The next few recipes are from the 'where's the beef' chapter, for people looking for a 'meaty' sort of meal. I made a half recipe of the sloppy chickpeas (which was enough for three rolls). I left out the sriracha from the mix, and added some celery instead of capsicum. I served it on a Fry's brioche roll with some mayo and baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Thai Seitan Satay with Peanut Sauce: These seitan strips are meant to be served on skewers, but I can rarely be bothered with that. Instead I just grilled them (on my cast iron grill pan, which is giving me a lot of challenges with its seasoning), and served them over coconut rice and spinach. The seitan is marinated before grilling, I left out the curry powder to keep it mild. The sauce is meant to be a spicy dipping sauce, but I left out the hot sauce and I just served it as a sauce over the seitan rather than a dipping sauce. For the seitan, I used some leftover seitan I had from another cookbook.
Rating: :)



Three Pea and Orzo Pistachio Pesto Salad: The final recipe for this post is from the salads chapter. The pesto is a lovely green pistachio and basil affair. The 'three peas' in this are meant to be green peas, chickpeas, and black-eyed peas, but I went rougue and just used some green peas (frozen, I cooked them with the orzo) and white beans... so not even a second pea! The recipe is finished with some feta, and while there is a recipe from tofu feta in the book I used some Sheese Greek-Style that I had already open in the fridge.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Boo, peeking around the top of the stairs. This looks cute, though unfortunately will often end in her trying to stalk up to Abby and pick a fight. If I hear growling, I know I have to run to break it up with distraction techniques! Boo just needs to chill out!