Vegetation

Who in the heck decided we needed to be able to label every single post. Honestly, sometimes I get so tempted to just leave it blank :P Anyway, rant over.

This week Mr Un-Veg is away which means, generally, easy meals.

First up was Esmes special sauce. I know I've blogged it before and it's nothing new, but I haven't eaten this since my last post and forgot just how yummy it really is! This time I added some fresh baby spinach that was just wilted and some cut up baby corn and it was heavenly, I definitely need to eat this more often! This time I threw in 2 Tbsp of everything except I added the mirin which I didn't do last time and only used 1 Tbsp. Mmm sooo gooood!
Then I made some black bean burgers from Ashasarala over at The Metal Femme's Vegan Living blog (which I've just discovered and am loving). Mine were a bit dry, I ended up throwing in 2 Tbsp of mayonnaise. I also used Rice Crumbs which I won't do again, for some reason they wouldn't stick (and they look uncooked in all the photo's for some reason, I think the dying sun was kind of shining through them or something but they looked much better in reality):
There was a PPK discussion very recently about loving smoked paprika, which I really do. I've temporarily forgotten who posted it but I'll amend this later when I get on there. They said they crumb their seitan in a mixture of breadcrumbs (they said Panko, but I was out and didn't feel like driving into the city so I used regular and it was fine) with some veggie salt (seasoned salt), savoury (nutritional) yeast flakes and some smoked paprika. So I tried it and it was awesome! I know you've all seen a thousand crumbed chicken seitan cutlets but meh, you get to see them again :P Seriously though, try this! (I used about a cup of crumbs, 1/4 tsp Salt, 2 Tbsp Nooch and 1/4 tsp Smoked Paprika).
Last but not least I also recently discovered the Happy Herbivore blog and am also adoring it! I decided, after seeing it on there, to make Aloo Gobi, only thing was hers used chilli and without it I knew the flavours wouldn't be what they should so I did some googling and came up with this one. It was good, but next time I'll probably double the spices, while I don't like heat, I do like my spices to be fairly prominent and they were really mild in this (again a crummy pic, it's starting to get dark earlier and earlier which I love for life but not so much for food porning):

Aloo Gobi
Serves 2-3 as a main, with rice or Naan bread

2 Potatoes, diced
1/2 Cauliflower, cut into florets
1/4 of an Onion, diced
1/2 tsp Ground Coriander
1/2 tsp Ground Cumin
1/4 tsp Turmeric
1/8 tsp Ground Cloves
1 Bay Leaf
1 tsp grated fresh Ginger
1 tsp (clove) minced Garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/3 cup Water

Boil the potatoes for about 12-15 minutes or until just tender (I did mine 12 and they were too soft). Remove, drain and set aside.

Soak the cauliflower in boiling (boiled) water while the potatoes are cooking.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan (really large! With a lid if you have one). Add the onion and cook a few minutes until starting to soften. Add the ginger and garlic and cook for another minute, then add the remaining dry spices and cook for about 30 seconds or until fragrant.

Add the potatoes, drained cauliflower and cook for another couple of minutes, mixing all well.

Add the water and lemon juice and cook for another 5-10 minutes or until veggies are cooked through.

Drizzle if you wish with a bit of soy or dairy yoghurt and serve with the bread or rice.

Posted by Vegetation at 7:19 PM | 8 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Legumes, Mains, Patties, Seitan, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian

And some griping! First up the griping. I bought our favourite coffee the other day. I was excited because it was on special for almost $1.50 cheaper than usual and given that it's about $8 something for 100g it's kind of expensive!

Anyway, I got it home and thought it looked wrong. I wasn't sure how. Just wrong. As I put it away I grabbed the last jar out of the cupboard so I could put it in front of the new jar and it felt huge! When I got them both out (because of course by now I was curious) I noticed that the new coffee contained only 80g, not the usual 100g and while it was on special this week, normally it won't be. This makes me SO mad! Where do big companies get off, downsizing their products and then charging the same amount of money for the new smaller size. Do they think we just won't notice? Or that it's not worth complaining for 20g of coffee (or whatever else is is we're buying)? Shame on them! (Just for the record, the company in question this time is Nescafe'). There was a kerfufel recently about the Aussie made Vegemite doing a similar thing and getting rid of the most popular sized jar of vegemite, leaving consumers paying almost the same amount of money for a tiny jar or buying a whopping family sized jar for double the price of the one they got rid of. Not really much of a choice is it?

Anyway, moaning aside, dinner last night was something different. Lentil, Olive and Pumpkin Lasagna. It was good, but I think it would be better with slightly less liquid and at least double the lentils. I'd also leave out the parsley next time, it didn't really suit the dish and lastly I doubled the fetta cheese to make a layer of cheese in the centre. Again, this is easily veganisable for those who can eat soy, just use tofu fetta. For those of you who would like the original recipe you can find it here.
Actually I meant to say that I found this the other day. Wouldn't it be nice if all those companies out there who produce tofu and tempeh etc get on board with this and then all us soy allergic people could be free to eat just about anything again? Well, one can only hope I guess.

Posted by Vegetation at 3:42 PM | 9 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Mains, Pasta, Vegetarian

This week I've actually managed to cook some things that weren't repeats (woo hoo!) First up was Tomato Couscous from Veganomicon. Mr Un-Veg wasn't a fan (he doesn't like capers or anything that's really tomatoey which is a shame cause I love them both and cook with them a lot! :P) We had this as a side dish and it was good, but it needed a little something. The next day for lunch I reheated it but threw in some sliced Kalamata Olives. Mmmmm it was absolutely perfect that way so I'll definitely make it again, but it will definitely have olives (much to the Un-Veg's horror, you should see him when I dish up Puttanesca!!)
Next was Potato and Kale Enchaladas. Also from Veganomicon. I don't know what happened but mine came out looking all cracked like a desert which is weird because they weren't actually dry, despite their parched appearance.
Sadly when I dished them up this happened:
I really hate it when food does that. Worse still, these were a LOT of work and when I spend that much time and effort making something I at least want it to look pretty. But despite them collapsing they were delicious! And the filling! Oh my heck! That filling! I think I'll happily serve it up on it's own sometime!

Today I wanted to bake muffins. The last 2 batches I cooked weren't favourites around here. The ginger one's I blogged about not so long ago didn't go down so well (apparently I'm the only ginger fan around this place) and then I made some pumpkin muffins which are usually adored, but I frigged them up so there were little chunky bits of rice cereal in them (don't ask). This time I decided to pick something specifically for Mr Un-Veg who's been requesting chocolate and yumminess.

Would you believe, I still have many, many untried VwaV recipes? So I'm sorry if these are old news but I cannot believe that I have somehow skipped over these for so incredibly long!!! Mocha Chocolate Choc Chip Muffins. Heaven in a muffin and if you eat them hot with ice cream they're just like a muffin brownie! Mmmmm.....
If you want the recipe for these and don't have VwaV you can find it here.

Dinner tonight was another Veganomicon success. The more things I cook from this cookbook, the more I love it! Not everything has been the most amazing thing we've ever had but I still haven't had a single disaster out of it and the only things that haven't been amazing have all been down to personal likes/dislikes. I just wish I could eat some of the yummy sounding tofu dishes ::sob:: Anyway, dinner was Vodka Penne which was wonderfully easy, but probably not something I'd make ALL the time, only because I don't drink and the 1/4 cup of vodka the recipe called for cost me $5.99 (I guess you're supposed to buy in bulk but I rarely cook with alcohol because it really doesn't agree with me at all, even with the alcohol burned off). Even Mr Un-Veg liked this one. The only change I made was using paprika instead of chilli and almond meal instead of the almonds (because my blender broke). I think the almond meal worked pretty well. The sauce looked a teeny bit grainy but it didn't feel that way when you ate it.

Posted by Vegetation at 7:44 PM | 7 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Mains, Pasta, Sweet Stuff, Vegan, Veganomicon, VwaV

This recipe was one of my absolute favourites when I was omni. I felt very devastated I'd never eat it again because to be honest, the idea of it with seitan just didn't seem to appeal.

Then I discovered DEOTS II chicken seitan and I can't get enough of it! (well technically I can, but suddenly I am enjoying a whole lot of recipes I'd discarded earlier).

Admittedly this is another vegetarian recipe but again, it's easily veganisable by using soy yoghurt (or another yoghurt alternative~note that I haven't tried it yet with a non soy non dairy alternative). It was for the whole family so not a time to go experimenting with cashew yoghurt. Anyway, it turned out really yummy and was very similar to the omni version (minus the fat from chicken thigh fillets and the torture of death).

Butter Chicken
Preparation: 10 minutes
Total cooking time: 35 minutes
Serves 4-6

2 Tbsp Peanut Oil
1 batch Seitan O Greatness (or 2-3 cups of your favourite chicken seitan), diced into small squares
60g Margarine or Butter (if you use butter, weird as it sounds I don't, even though I eat some dairy and the occasional egg)
2 tsp Garam Masala
2 tsp Sweet Paprika
2 tsp Ground Coriander
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh Ginger
1/4 tsp Chilli Powder (omit if you're a wimp like me)
1 Cinnamon Stick
6 Cardamom Pods, bruised (do this by squashing a bit with the flat edge of a large knife)
350g Tomatoes, pureed
1 Tbsp Sugar
1/4 cup (60g) plain Yoghurt (or soy yogurt or nut milk thickened with corn flour/cornstarch)
1/2 cup (125ml) Cream (or thick soy or almond cream or cashew nut cream or if you're lucky and live in the states, mimicream which makes me superbly jealous!)
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Heat a large saucepan or frying pan (or preferably a wok if you have one, mine died) and add 1 Tbsp of the oil. Add the seitan and fry the seitan for a few minutes until it crisps slightly on the edges. Remove from the pan.

Lower the heat and add the margarine or butter and melt. Add the spices (all of them) and fry them gently for about 1 minute or until they are fragrant. Return the seitan to the pan and coat it in the spice mix.

Add the tomatoes and the sugar and bring to a boil. Lower heat again and simmer, stirring frequently, for 15 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Add the yoghurt, cream and juice and stir for 5 minutes or until the sauce has re-thickened somewhat.

Remove the cinnamon stick and cardamom pods (don't worry if you can't find them, just spit them out, they won't hurt you) and serve over rice.

In other news, today I picked up, from my local library, The Joy of Vegan Baking. I have no idea what to make first, but oh my there's some yumminess encased in it's pages!

Posted by Vegetation at 2:42 PM | 8 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, Mains, Seitan, Vegetarian

3 nights ago I had a scratchy throat but put it down to allergies. I mean, we're in the final 2 weeks of summer. Who gets a cold in the final 2 weeks of summer?!?! Not me! I get the FLU in the final 2 weeks of summer (thanks rugrats who seem to be a whole lot healthier than I am with this thing but are sick enough to share the love.......errm germs!)!!! Luckily it's not very hot (about 22C yesterday) which means I could have sick comfort food.

Now normally I loathe soup with a passion. There's just something not right about my veggies all smooshed up with a bunch of water and herbs and trying to call itself a meal (now don't get me wrong, I understand that people like soup and that's fine by me, but it's just not for me). Anyway, getting sidetracked. I knew I wanted potatoes (ultimate comfort food right?) and garlic because garlic is good for a cold right? (right? I am not actually sure on this, but it's a good excuse to throw a bunch of garlic in my dinner ::grin::)

So I did some googling and decided on Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup. Most recipes called for cream which I didn't really feel like in my dinner. Potatoes are creamy enough on their own me thinks, so I stumbled across this recipe here and decided to give it a try.

The verdict? I still loathe soup with a passion, which is usually what I discover every time I think I want soup. To top off my wonderful soup experience, I lost my taste buds last night, meaning I couldn't taste a darn thing, so this soup pretty much felt like some sort of weird sludge going down the back of my throat. In desperation I threw in a bit of grated cheese but that really just made the whole gloppy mess worse somehow and it went in the bin. Now it had smelled great while I was cooking it, and it tasted somewhat okay at lunch time, but yeah, by dinner when I reheated it, blech and that was with no taste left! Today, just the thought of it, makes me feel unbearably nauseaus. I've included a pic so you can all hail it's gross-ness along with me.
With it I served this bread that I found on Boo's Veganut Blog. It caught my eye ages ago but I never seemed to get organized to make it. So yesterday I put all the dry ingredients into the bread maker and this morning all I had to do was chuck in the water and molasses. I don't know if I did something wrong but the dough was super sticky when I got it out of the bread machine. I kneaded a few extra tablespoons of whole wheat flour into it but it was still sticky so I just threw it into the bread pan and hoped for the best! It came out of the oven looking great, although not as crusty on the outside as I like my bread, but I eat it toasted with soup anyway. I was right though, it's kind of gluten-ey (which I'm 100% sure is my fault! I plan to try this again and will hopefully do a better job! I seem to always stuff up cookies and bread).
I promised disasters didn't I? Boy do I deliver!!

I also whipped up some of my Mum's ice cream, which is anything but vegan, but decadently delicious none the less. I promise I'll redeem myself soon by posting it in all it's yumminess (along with a pretty successful attempt at butter chicken~minus the chicken of course, and easily veganisable!)

Posted by Vegetation at 12:01 PM | 5 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Off Topic Stuff

Firstly, a belated Happy Valentines Day to you for yesterday. I didn't post yesterday, because to be honest, I didn't cook (shock, horror!). You see, 10 years ago yesterday, I met my husband and 3 years later, on the same day, we got married. So for me, as cheesey as it is, Valentines Day is my wedding anniversary (but not because it's Valentines Day, just because we happened to meet on that day). So yesterday was spent relaxing and then take away for dinner, which we decided would be pizza.

I called ahead to a local pizza place that we had a pamphlet for (not a big franchised one, this guy owns his own) and asked if they could do a vegetarian pizza as it wasn't on their leaflet. He informed me that he could make any pizza I wanted, cheese, no cheese whatever I liked. I was happy to find not just a place that would make a vegetarian pizza for me, but if I decide one day to take the final step, one that would happily make a vegan pizza for me! And it was good too!
Anyway, it was back to cooking tonight. I decided ages ago that I would like to try Paprikash. As happens frequently these days, I only had vegan recipes and all of them had tofu so I had to go hunting for one that wasn't vegan. To the original recipe I added some chopped mushrooms. It tasted a lot like the stroganoff I make and I think next time I'll add more mushrooms, but it was yummy! It would also be nice with seitan chunks I think. If you want it the original recipe can be found here. It's also easily veganisable (veganizable?) by using tofu sour cream instead of the dairy.

Linguine with Paprikash Sauce
Yield: Makes 5 to 6 servings

340g Linguine
2 medium red Capsicum
1 medium Onion, thinly sliced
1 clove Garlic, minced
300-400g Mushrooms
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Plain Flour
4 tsp Sweet Hungarian Paprika
½ tsp Salt
¼ tsp Black Pepper
1 (225g) can Tomato Sauce (puree)
1 cup Vegetable Stock
½ cup Sour Cream

Cook linguine according to package directions. Drain in colander. Place in large warm bowl; keep warm.

Meanwhile, cut capsicum lengthwise into thin strips; cut strips crosswise into halves.

Heat oil in large frying pan (I used water instead of oil) over medium heat until hot. Add capsicum, onion, mushrooms and garlic. Cook while stirring for about 10 minutes or until peppers are very soft (Or you could cheat here and use roasted peppers and just cook it until the onion is soft).

Combine the flour, paprika, salt and black pepper in small bowl. Stir into capsicum mix in the pan. Cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Combine tomato sauce and broth; stir into the frying pan. Bring to a boil; stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until sauce thickens.

Remove frying pan from the heat; place the sour cream in a small bowl. Stir in several spoonfuls of the capsicum mixture. Stir sour cream mixture into sauce in pan. Cook over low heat 1 minute or until heated through. Do not boil. Pour over linguine, toss if desired.

Posted by Vegetation at 7:54 PM | 6 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Mains, Pasta, Vegetarian

for my blog posts! My creative juices must be drying up :P

Sorry again for the lack of blog posts. I seem to be stuck in a rut of cooking old favourites and I'm also busy trying to empty out my overstocked freezer! Every time I cook I make the mistake of keeping leftovers (by cooking for 4 then I get 3 freezer meals). Only problem is my freezer meals are currently out of control and some must be eaten!

Anyway, amongst these frozen...errrm....delights I've made some burger patties. I got the recipe from here. They tasted nice, although I'm not sure on the crispy skin they kind of got on the outside. I'll see how they are when I reheat one. I also changed it slightly by cooking the veggies and garlic before I made the burger (I don't trust my oven to cook them so they were soft).
I made some Ginger Muffins from the Joy of Vegan Baking (I got the recipe from amazon.com while browsing the book :P). I have this book on order from the library and can't wait. I used less sugar than they called for and used half wholemeal spelt flour, half normal white flour. I loved them. The family not so much (but I'm a real ginger addict). They have lemon in them which I wasn't so keen on. I plan to do some fiddling soon with the recipe and once I've got them how I like them I'll pass on a recipe:
Julie's sausages again from Every Day Dish, this time as actual sausages. I just fried them up with a bit of non stick spray in a frying pan and they were perfect! I'd love to put them in the George Foreman but Mr Un-Veg has gunked it all up with meat grease (eeewww!). In the background is Isa's Spinach and Millet Polenta. I still love this stuff:
Last but not least I decided to try my hand at a different type of cookie. I tend to stick to chocolate and choc chip one's. So I flipped through Veganomicon and decided on Pistachio Rosewater cookies. I think I did everything right. I was pretty careful although I used almond milk~read that a tablespoon of almond meal in the dry ingredients and water in the wet (I think the recipe called for rice milk?). The recipe said they wouldn't spread, so I put them fairly close together and because I threw out my beat up old cookie tray when we moved I put them on a pizza tray (same thing right? Only round!). In the oven they went. They smelled heavenly! Once the timer went off I opened the door expecting perfection and instead I was met with:
Pistachio Rosewater Pizza. Oh well, thank goodness for knives (and they still tasted great, they just didn't look so pretty! and yes, that's a blank one, I'm not usually a fan of nuts on cookies so I wanted to try a naked one).

Posted by Vegetation at 7:50 PM | 12 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Mains, Patties, Seitan, Sweet Stuff, Vegan, Veganomicon

Tonight I wanted Cornbread. To be specific, I wanted the cornbread from DEOTS II (minus the sugar, turns out I only like savoury cornbread). The thing is, I had no idea what to eat with it! Seems that cornbread is another traditional American food, not so much in Australia (in fact, before I became vegetarian I'd never eaten it before...ever). So I turned to my trusty google and discovered that chilli seems to be the most popular choice, along with stew and soup. Soup is out, I don't like end..the end. Stew is great, but not so much in the middle of summer. Admittedly it's been raining for 3 days and has cooled off a fair bit but it's not cold or anything. So chilli it was!

Hmmm except I'm a big wimp and can't handle chilli. What to do? Heatless chilli (aka chilli for wimps). I knew I wanted my favourite bean (Black Turtle Beans) to play a big part in this dish so I went on the hunt for Black Bean Chilli and came across this. Some slight alterations: halved the recipe, otherwise I'd be eating chilli for the next year or two. I removed all traces of chilli and used slightly less (eyeballed) than a tablespoon of paprika and the other spices. I left out the coriander, only because I didn't have any and they don't sell it at the local store and I didn't want to go into the mall.

This was pretty good (I think, given that I've never eaten chilli before I actually had nothing to compare it to). It was comfort food (again with the comfort food!) and I loved it. I have 2 more boxes of it in the freezer for can't be bothered to cook nights (only problem is we have so many boxes of can't be bothered to cook things that there's absolutely no room left for anything, so we're going to have to start eating it all!)

I served it up with cheats rice, which is rice in a bag that you microwave for 90 seconds and voila! You have whole grain cooked rice (I don't normally go to the expense of these but I like to have them in the cupboard for the odd occasion I want to be lazy or I need cooked rice and I need it NOW!) and of course with the Spoon cornbread from DEOTS II (I had no idea how addicted I would become to cornbread with the discovery of this~the best bit? No dry bits! It's all tender and moist and scrumptious!).

On the Roon (charlotte) front, she's still holding down her food. She has errm a slight leakage problem (maybe from the enema? or the laxatives?) that I'll be calling the vet about tomorrow if it hasn't fixed itself, but it's not terrible or anything, very minor. She's still very quiet and hiding in the laundry and stuff which worries me, but she otherwise seems okay.

Posted by Vegetation at 4:46 PM | 12 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, Legumes, Mains, Vegan

Hi guys. Thank you all for your wonderful comments on my last post. I'm sorry that I have not answered them yet, I want to take the time to get back to them properly.

I just wanted to ask you, all my blogging friends, to please keep my kitty Charlotte in your thoughts today. She got sick 3 nights ago, throwing up. I took her to the vet yesterday and he thinks she has a hairball that is blocking her intestine. He gave her some laxative and she had another 2 doses at home and nothing happened so she went back today.

This afternoon she's having a "colonic" to try and flush out the blockage. She may or may not need an x-ray to see what's going on. This colonic is costing us around $300 (more than we have right now with 3 rugrats who've just started school). If it doesn't work and the blockage is in her small intestine instead of her large, she'll need surgery. For that we're looking at a minimum of $900.

Honestly, it's unlikely there is any way we could come up with that sort of money in any sort of time frame that would help Charlotte. I don't know what we're going to do if the worst happens and I've been absolutely devastated all day.

So if you could, please, just keep her in your thoughts and hope for the colonic to do it's stuff and for her to come home this afternoon feeling better. You guys are so awesome I just know that the power of all of your positive thoughts will help.

I promise I'll get back to comments as soon as I can.

ETA: I just heard from the vet. There is no blockage which means we now have no idea what is going on with her. He hasn't checked her small intestine but he did feel around very carefully and doesn't believe there's an obstruction. She's staying over night so he can see what she's up to and her behaviour etc and is taking a full set of bloodwork. He's also starting her on antibiotics but as he said, he can't promise that the bloods will show anything or that the antibiotics will do much :(

ETA II: Okay, we collected our girl today. She's doing okay. The bloods showed nothing much except a little dehydration so that's been treated and she's eaten 2 small meals since she got back at lunchtime and managed to hold them in. She's sleeping happily on the lounge curled in a ball. She has a shaved neck from one of the IV lines (why are shaved kitties so kiss-able?!?!). So long as she stays as good as she is, we're assuming there was a hairball but she's coughed it up somewhere and it's made her feel sick for a day or 2 afterwards. If she gets sick again it's back to the vet, who I just have to say has been absolutely wonderful. All up her tests etc came to much much more than he charged me and he's nice to boot! (Ever notice a lot of vets are cranky and have zero people skills? He's not one of them and you don't get the impression he's trying to throw you out the door quickly so he can move on to his next patient).

Thanks again for all the concern and well wishes for her. I've no doubt it's what's helped her to get well again. In the mean time we're enjoying the super friendly girl who's come home (I give it 8 hours before she's back to her cranky self :P) I'll keep you all updated on how she's doing and bring you some food soon (been too stressed to do much cooking or anything exciting anyway).

Posted by Vegetation at 11:35 AM | 17 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Furries, Off Topic Stuff

I've been busy again and slack with blogging again.

From Susans Fat Free Vegan Kitchen Blog, Pumpkin Spice Loaf. This was wonderful. I made 3 mini loaves and a heart bundt shape (mini and only because I'd run out of mini loaf pans). I had only one gripe with this. I couldn't stop eating it....
I healthified it further by using 1/2 of the total flour amount whole wheat flour and the rest white pastry flour and I couldn't tell there was wholemeal in there. I went for the oil option. Next time I think I'll use less sugar, not a lot less but a little.

Dinner the other night was V'con Samosa Baked Potatoes. These were super yummy, except I'm a green pea-a-phobe so mine had corn kernals instead of peas. My taties also could have been bigger but I was having trouble finding decent potatoes, sigh:
Having had such wonderful success with Julies sausages the other night I decided to try and come up with a seitan chicken breast. This was the result:
What to do with it? First schnitzel it:
Then turn it into Chicken Pyjama's (inspired by Amy from The Reluctant Vegan and her chickpea cutlet pj's):

The taste was absolutely perfect for it. One gripe (yes, I seem to like that word at the moment), the texture was way too soft. My mixture was quite wet when I started so it could have been that, it could have been the addition of chickpea flour to the gluten flour, it could have been the new gluten flour I bought or it could have just been that I was off in the amount of liquids I added. More fiddling, then I'll share the recipe (or if you really want I'll share it as is if I can remember it and you guys can fiddle). I might try baking it next time too.

Here it is next to Mr Omni's (sorry for the meat shot, but can you tell which is which?):
And the insides:
Last but not least I had my 2nd pie from the Byron Bay Pie Company I blogged about before. This one was curried lentil. The insides were delicious. Sadly I wasn't a fan of the crust. It was some type of spelt crust and it was thick, dense and heavy, not all flakey and yummy the way I like my pie crust to be. It was okay when smothered in the lentil mix, maybe it had to be heavier to hold the insides ...ermm...inside:
The inside shot (another word I like today obviously!):
Alrighty, I've not cooked much the last couple of days. The baby rugrats started school for the first time (leaving me at home alone and devastated) and the Un-Veg is away for work. I did make some veggie burgers I haven't tried before today. I'm not sure how they've turned out yet. I guess if I blog about them they're okay (either that or I'm showing you my disaster!)

Posted by Vegetation at 3:11 PM | 14 Remarkable Remarks Links to this post    

Labels: Mains, Seitan, Sweet Stuff, Vegan, Veganomicon, Vegetarian