Enchiladas

These are the 'Cheesy Bean and Cheese Enchiladas' (brilliant title, eh?) from Vegweb. This is the second time I've made them. They make absolutely loads and the first time I made them I thought "Great! We can have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow". Alas, it was not to be, lots of Gary's smelly friends appeared and ended up eating them all! The cheek of it all! They all loved them so this recipe is very omni friendly and like I said it'll feeds loads!

Anyway... This recipe is great. I used a can of kidney beans and a can of chilli beans, some red onion, and the rest of it is made up of a 'cheese sauce' and enchilada sauce.

I feel like I'm rambling now so I'm going to stop. I apologise for being slightly incoherent. Meh.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 2/5

Best. Pizza. Ever.

It really was. On the pizza was tempeh sausage crumbles from Vegan with a Vengeance, red onion, pizza sauce (bought), and there was some sneaky sundried tomato paste hiding under the pizza sauce. It was absolutely delicious. The base (also from VwaV) was lovely and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. We has it with some garlic and herb mayo, which went with it perfectly.

I <3 my pizza stone!

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5

Haggis, No Neeps, and Tatties

As I mentioned earlier, it's Burn's Night tonight so I thought I'd turn my hand to something traditional. Why? Mainly because I thought it would give me something semi-interesting to blog about.

It looks bland and dull and boring, doesn't it? That would be putting it mildly. To be frank, the vegetarian haggis tasted like soggy wood. This will be my first and last Burn's Supper. Meh.

Why no neeps (turnips) I hear you cry? Well there was a slight mishap with the turnips which we shall not speak of again after today, okay?

The tatties (potatoes) were good, but mashed potatoes isn't much of a meal, so I gave my haggis to Gary (who oddly thought it was quite good... freak), ate my potatoes, and then ate a bowl of cereal. Meh.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5

Italian Bread Salad with Tomato Bombs

Yesterday I made the Italian Bread Salad from Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein. It has tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and spinach with a red wine vinaigrette, and herbed croutons. I'm not one for just having a salad for dinner so I made Tomato Bombs from Vegan by Yvonne and Tony Bishop-Weston. These were hollowed out tomatoes, stuffed with cream cheese which was mixed with some of the tomato juice, garlic, and herbs. They went really nicely together, the filling of the tomato bombs which exploded onto the plate when you cut into them made a nice, creamy extra salad dressing. The herbed croutons gave a nice crunch to the salad, as well as the extra herby flavour they added.

Tonight I'll be perpetuating a stereotype by cooking vegetarian haggis as it's Burn's Night tonight. I've never cooked vegetarian haggis (or any other kind) before as I've always been wary of it, but I'll give it a shot and let you know how it goes.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5

Sweet and Sour Tofu and Vegetables

We got a menu through the door today for a local chinese takeaway. I had a quick look through it and was pleased to see that they did quite a variety of tofu dishes. This is really unusual for where we live so it made me disturbingly happy. We were thinking about ordering from there tonight but the more I thought about it the more I realised how silly it was, we had everything in the fridge to make something similar to what we would have ordered. So I whipped up some sweet and sour tofu and vegetables with white rice. I dipped the tofu in cornflour before frying it off to make it lovely and crispy, I then stir fried up some onions, peppers, and spinach and added it to the tofu with some sweet and sour sauce (sorry - shop bought sauce, I'm bad). It was really tasty and ridiculously filling - neither of us could finish it, so we've got some leftovers for later which is always a bonus.

The red image in the background of the picture there is Gary. He's on the computer probably completely oblivious to the fact that his dinner is sitting on the table waiting for him.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 2/5

Fat Macaroni Cheez Casserole Bake

Wow... Sometimes I astound myself. I seem to have developed the skill to make whatever really good food I make look like crap in the pictures! Oh well... When I get rich I'll get a fancy camera and... I dunno... take some photography night classes or something... I get really impatient when I'm taking the pictures, I mainly want to eat!

Anyway yeah, this pasta looked like huge macaroni (possibly called lumaconi?) and Gary had been bugging me for ages to make macaroni cheez, so I made it with the huge macaroni! I made a regular nutritional yeast cheez sauce, added it to the pasta, then added the whole lot to a pyrex dish, mixed in nacho and mature red cheddar style cheezly and topped with more cheezly and some breadcrumbs. It went all nice and crispy on top, which is how I like it! It was good, probably one of the best cheez sauces I've made.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 2/5

Good Ol' Spag Bol

When I first went vegan Gary and I were living in a shared student flat and cooking was often not very convenient, and at times completely unsanitary. I think spaghetti bolognaise was the first dish I properly veganised and because it was so quick and simple that we used to eat it around three times a week! I use Realeat Vegemince, but I've also used Redwood Mince before and both are pretty good for meals like this. These days we rarely ever eat it, mainly because I've become a lot ore adventurous, but also because we tend to not really eat frozen food much. It's still nice to have every now and then, it's very much our comfort food!

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 2/5

Tempeh Pasties and The Battle of The Potatoes!

The Dec/Jan issue of satya had a really tasty looking recipe for tempeh pasties with a spiked mustard sauce, so I thought I'd give it a try. The pasties were great, but I think I'd adapt it a little bit more next time, it was a little grainy for my tastes. The recipe makes a lot of pasties so we have some in our freezer for later.

The spiked mustard sauce was... well... mustardy. Far too mustardy, even for a mustard sauce. I will definitely not be making that sauce again. The pasties would be fine with a little bit of ketchup, there was really no need for the ridiculously mustardy sauce!

Onto the battle of the potatoes now. Gary and I nearly came to blows (not really) yesterday trying to negotiate which kind of potatoes to have with the pasties. He wanted mashed, whereas I'm a great lover of really crispy roast potatoes. I ended up making both to diffuse the situation.

Leave me a comment saying which kind you think is best. Just so you know, the correct answer is roast potatoes.

Sundried Tomato and Vegetable Fusili

For one reason or another we ended up not eating dinner until really late last night, so we were absolutely starving! I had a jar of Seeds of Change sundried tomato pasta sauce, some pasta and lots of veggies so the meal was pretty much self explanatory. The vegetables I used were, onion, kale, sundried tomatoes. I added a little bit of oregano and garlic as well.

It was a nice, filling meal for sitting in, watching a dvd on a Friday night.

I promise to cook more interesting things soon!

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5

Stuffed Abura Age with Sauteed Kale

We're very lucky where we live to have the largest Chinese market in Scotland practically on our doorstep. I'd seen abura age (I think that's what it's called) in a tofu cookbook I have. It's basically thin slices of deep fried tofu which can be cut open to make little tofu pockets. The tofu cookbook I have (imaginatively titled 'Tofu') recommends stuffing them with spring onions, garlic, toasted sesame seeds, and soy sauce. I had all of these things but I added a tonne more garlic, because I love garlic, and I also added some chinese leaf that I had left over from the stir fry. Once the were stuffed, they were grilled, and then cut into little triangles. I sauteed some kale to serve it with, mainly because I had some kale to use up. The kale was sauteed with a little bit of sea salt and garlic, and I served it with a serving of sweet chilli dipping sauce on the side. Not sure if a sweet chilli dipping sauce is really what should have been served with it, but I liked it, so it was all good.

It was a really quick and easy to put together meal but when it all came together it looked deceptively impressive.

ETA - I was just looking through the pictures I had of this and for some reason I had uploaded the worst picture I had, so I changed it. This one's a lot better.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 2/5

'Chuck Everything In' Noodles

Yup, just basically chucked all the veggies I had in my wok with some tofu, noodles and sweet chilli sauce and bobs your uncle, you've got a meal. It wasn't the tastiest meal in the world but it was probably pretty healthy and you can't have everything!

Veggies that went into this were: onions, green and red peppers, spring onions, chinese leaf, curly kale... I think that was it. Turns out I'm really dense at remembering what I put into my meals... I should really work on that.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 2/5

Beware the Penguin Army!

As you may have read in a previous post, our fridge and freezer packed up on us over New Year. We don't eat a lot of frozen food, we have loads of shops on our doorstep and tend to try and only eat fresh vegetables and the like. I was looking in the kitchen for something to eat last night and I had apparently forgotten that there was nothing in the freezer because I opened it and was extremely surprised to see this army of penguin ice cubes looking back at me!

Gary had apparently put them in there and arranged them like that the day our freezer got fixed. Just shows how much attention I pay!

All You Can Eat Buffet

Gary took me out for lunch today to an all you can eat Indian buffet. There was plenty of vegan food to be had and we both ate more poppadums than I care to admit. The picture is us probably about halfway through our second plates. We had poppadums, mango and tomato chutneys, vegetable and aubergine pakoras, spiced potatoes, a mushroom curry type thing (that I'm not going to pretend to be able to spell), spring rolls, and probably loads of other things, but I'm drawing a blank right now.

In unrelated news, I bought a cheap lamp in my way home from lunch today so and rubbish pictures from now on are down to my general rubbishness and can no longer be blamed on the stupid lack of light in my flat.

Breakfast For Dinner!

Well why not? In case you can't tell, it's scrambled tofu. Personally I can't eat scrambled tofu at breakfast time because it feels too heavy to me, but I love it at dinner time. This is Gary's, he had his on some toasted ciabatta, I had mine in a flour tortilla because I wasn't as hungry as Gary.

I don't think I follow a specific recipe when I make scrambled tofu, I probably take a bit from everywhere. I use firm tofu, onions, green and red peppers, turmeric, ground coriander, cumin seeds, and nutritional yeast. I also like to cook it until the tofu is very nearly burnt, because I like the really crispy bits.

I reeeeeeaaally need to be getting me a lamp for the photo taking, all the photos in my flat are so dark! That's living in an attic conversion with roof windows for you!

If anyone (does anyone actually read this?) wants me to post the recipe I'll try, but I'm not one for measuring amounts at all, I just tend to chuck things in until it looks/tastes right.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 1/5
All that's used is my non stick frying pan and a chopping board, so not many dishes at all!

Glasgow

Look! It's an actual decent picture! This proves that my bad picture taking is just down to the rubbish lighting in my flat! Must get a lamp...

Anyway, we went to Glasgow on Friday. The first thing we did on getting off of the bus was go to the Grassroots Cafe and get a 'full vegan breakfast'. It's the best breakfast I've ever had which is why we pretty much get it every time we go to the Grassroots Cafe. it consists of toast, beans, sausages, potato scones, tomatoes, mushrooms, and tempeh bacon. One of the other reasons we get this every time is that to be honest, the rest of the menu isn't particularly appetising.

We went to Mono on Saturday and met some lovely vegans. Me and Gary both had burgers (much better than the burger from Grassroots or The 13th Note, in my opinion) and they were damn tasty. They came with a vegan cheese slice (I'm guessing probably tofutti), mayo, onions, and mushrooms on top. They were ridiculously messy to eat, but that was half the fun. As you can see I didn't take a photo, I was really hungry and I forgot, so shoot me. We then went across the road to The 13th Note Cafe to get cheesecake. This cheesecake has to be eaten to be believed... So creamy... Mmmmm... Cheesecake. No picture of cheesecake either for aforementioned reason.

In conclusion, a good time was had by all, but my stomach really wasn't happy with me at the end of the day, so me and Gary groaned as we walked up the hill to get the bus home. I want more cheesecake...

Gary's Chilli

Gary made chilli tonight. I love Gary's chilli, it's reeeeeeeaally good! We had it on top of nachos and topped it off with some cheezly. There would have been some tofutti sour cream on top but the stupid health store didn't have any! Bah!

I haven't posted in a few days because at some point between us leaving for a party on Hogmanay, and opening the fridge to make some food on New Years Day, our fridge and freezer had gone and broken on us! The fridge was actually warm, warm people! Anyway it's fixed now, but for the past few days we've been living off of a big batch of lasagne I made so as not to waste the vegemince we had in the freezer. I didn't take a picture because for quite a while there was a fridge freezer lying in the middle of my kitchen, so managing to make food was enough hassle!

We're off to Glasgow tomorrow for a short while. We're planning on nipping into the Grassroots cafe for some food when we get off the bus tomorrow and then on Saturday we're going to Mono to meet a whole big bunch of vegans! Should be fun. If I stop drooling for long enough I'll try to remember to take some pictures of my food.

Bland Burgers and Tasty Bread!

Looky looky! I made bread! It was surprisingly easy to make. This recipe (rather unsurprisingly from vegweb) didn't even require kneading, but I couldn't help giving it a quick knead before cooking it anyway. I also made rolls because his recipe makes two loaves, and I have no real need for two loaves.

Seeing as I made rolls I thought I'd make burgers tonight to have in them. I used one of those 'just add water' mix things (I used Burgamix, which I think is made by Harvest Direct or something like that). I found the burgamix quite bland and disappointing, I think I'd definitely add some extra herbs and spices to the mix next time I use it. The texture was a little bit soft as well so I'd maybe add less water, or add some flour or something, not really sure... Anyway, Here's the burger and my home made bun. The stuff on top is garlic mayonnaise that Gary made and it's really tasty!

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5

A Quick Hogmanay Meal

Yup, last night was Hogmanay so we needed something quick and filling to line our bellies before the drunkenness ensued. We also needed something from ingredients that we already had because there were thunderstorms outside and the shops were not the place to be!
The answer (from vegweb of course) was Chana Masala. I don't know much about Indian food so i have no idea how authentic this was but it was tasty and filling and hit the spot. We had it with wholegrain rice.

The recipe from vegweb seems to make a lot because we were full and still had plenty of leftovers.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5