Lelly's Vegan Kitchen

I'm a 1950s Husband

2009-08-01T19:50:00.004Z

Yup. The other day (well a few weeks ago actually, before I came down with this horrible lurgy) I came home from a tough day at the office and had a delightful meal on the table for me. How quaint!

The first course was this tomato and onion bruschetta. I properly love bruschetta. I know that's probably damaging my Scottish person street cred, but I do.
This was the main course. It's tripoline pasta which is kinda like frilly linguine with tomatoes, aubergines, and roasted peppers. What a lovely thing to come home to on a Friday evening. That and a glass of wine and I'm good to go.

I Win at Veganism

2009-07-28T11:44:00.007Z

I've decided.

Why?

This is why:

Clean up your drool. That, my friend, is caramel shortcake aka millionaire's shortbread aka nomtastic aka a-little-piece-of-my-childhood. As far as I'm aware it's quite a Scottish thing and is served in school canteens all over the country (we don't agree with our children having teeth apparently).

I started out with this recipe, which was okay but if I'd actually followed it, this would have probably been disastrous. It's quite unclear (for example it doesn't state what temperature to cook the shortbread at, so I had to guess), and quite a lot of it I just plain didn't agree with, so I changed. I somehow managed to remember most of the changes I made, and in an uncommon move on my part, I'm actually going to post the recipe. I know! How often do I do that?!

Caramel Shortcake/Millionaire's Shortbread

Shortbread
150g (6 oz) vegan margarine
75g (3 oz) sugar
175g (7 oz) plain flour
75g (3 oz) cornflour

Caramel
300g sugar
60g vegan margarine
6 tbsp soya whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla

200g of plain chocolate

Directions

Add the margarine and the sugar to a mixing bowl and beat together.
Mix in the flour and corn flour until well mixed and crumbly.
Press shortbread mixture into an oven proof dish (I only had a round cake tin and that worked fine, but for proper nostalgic slabs of cake, I'll need to get a rectangular one).This should be pressed in quite firmly, I used the back of a spoon to level it out.
Bake at 170 for 20 minutes or until just beginning to brown.
Let the shortbread cool.
While the shortbread is cooling you can make your caramel. In a large pan, melt the sugar BEING VERY CAREFUL NOT TO BURN YOURSELF ON THE MOLTEN SUGAR LAVA. Once all the sugar has melted, it should be a lovely golden colour. Add the rest of the caramel ingredients and stir through.
To tell if your caramel is ready carefully place a drop into a jug of cold water, and if it forms a soft ball between your finger and thumb then you're doing grand.
Pour caramel over your now cooled shortbread.
Melt your chocolate via whatever method you like and por over the caramel layer.
Put in the fridge until the chocolate sets.

I thoroughly reccommend taking it out of the fridge and letting it get back to almost room temperature before eating it as this is when the caramel should be optimally gooey.

Enjoy! If anybody has any questions, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email (I just added a link up on the top right hand side).

Teaching Boys to Cook

2009-07-18T20:52:00.004Z

Well, just the one boy really. I've been working crazy mad all over the place hours recently and although I do enjoy the boy's tofu stir fry, it was getting a bit dull having it every day. So! We decided he needed to learn to cook, and as it turns out, he's actually rather good. Score!
This was spinach pasta with a light, lemony, creamy sauce, with kale, onions and pine nuts. On the side is pesto potatoes. It was absolutely blinkin gorgeous, and I got to have leftovers for lunch the next day.

Uber win.

No, you can't have him. No, he doesn't have a brother.

Also, just for good measure, here's a pepper I only went and stuffed the other night. Poor bugger, he never stood a chance.
It had tofu and rice and kale (oh my!), which are possibly three of my most favourite things in the world ever. Okay, so maybe those aaaaand my iphone.

Finals Will Eat Your Soul

2009-06-28T13:25:00.006Z

Yes they will. You may or may not have noticed my disappearance. You may also have noticed that I like bullet points. Therefore, here is a lame bullet point list stating the reasons for said disappearance:

Final year exams. I existed mainly off of popcorn and ramen noodles. You dont want pictures of popcorn and ramen noodles.
Moving house. Yep, onwards and upwards.
The whole graduation shebang. I got a 2:1, which considering I had surgery twice in my final year, I think makes me an utter genius.
I started a new job. It's management-y and fairly demanding.

Anyway. A few weeks after I finished uni I celebrated with my boy by making a sushi feast. The boy had never had sushi before and judging by the way he gobbled it up, I think it's safe to say he liked it.
The sushi had spicy tempeh and spring onions. We had it with teriyaki dipping sauce. Absolutely completely nomtastic.
This is an unnecessary close up of the sushi.
I also made some Inari sushi stuffed with sushi rice and spring onions and at the front is the leftover tempeh from the sushi which was marinated and fried. Proper delicious.

You'd probably think that was too much food for two people, but you'd be wrong. We gobbled it all up in a worryingly short space of time. I'd do it again.

Ooooh! I just ordered an iphone! I'm mainly showing off, but if anyone has any good app recommendations, that would be much appreciated.

Dosa and Tarts

2009-03-06T18:10:00.003Z

Yup yup.

This was vegetables roasted in cumin, coriander, etc (by etc I mean I can't for the life of me remember) on top of a dosa which had some tikka masala (dairy free jarred brand from the health store) sauce on top. Yeah baby

This meal was made to use up leftover pastry from the Snow Day Pie. It's pastry rectangles, with sundried tomato sauce, chorizo red onion, mozzarella cheezly, and oregano on top. It was the yum. Served with salad salad and potato salad. Yes.

Snow Day Pie

2009-02-14T13:50:00.004Z

My office called on Thursday and said not to bother coming in because of the snow. I didn't argue and spent the day in my pyjamas watching the pretty snow outside. I also decided that as it was snowing, some stodgy food was required. What I ended up making was the best pie I have ever put into my mouth.
I roasted some brussel sprouts, carrots, and onion and then added some chopped vegideli sausages and simmered in some of Mr Henry Westons fine organic cider. I then added some onion gravy and into the pie bottom it went. Obviously it was then covered in pie top.

Best. Pie. Ever.

I want more now. There were not enough leftovers. Never enough.

PIE.

I'm posting to avoid doing my homework.

2009-02-12T14:22:00.003Z

No really. Leave me lots of comments that need answered so that I can avoid it some more. Go on, enable me, you know you want to.

This breakfast came out of a craving I had for a fry up from the Grassroots Cafe in Glasgow. As I was not in Glasgow I decided to make my own. Tempeh bacon, toast, beans, herby tomatoes, and what really makes the Grassroots breakfast (which a lot of people find quite odd) garlic mayo. I wasn't in the mood for making myself feel ill, so I left off the potato scones. I think the mark of a good breakfast is the ability to have awesometastic lunch leftovers. This turned into tempeh bacon, tomato, and garlic mayo sandwiches for lunch, which was just the best thing ever.

Continuing along in my mission to test all of the new Grassingtons vegan range, I recently tried out the beef style meatballs. Served here with penne and arrabiatta sauce. I love these meatballs. Love. The instructions said to either bake them or fry them. Being the rebel that I am I ignored this and baked them, then fried them, then added the sauce. They plumped up nicely and were lovely and moist. Love.

My Poor Teeth!

2009-02-08T14:23:00.006Z

A post full of cavity inducing sugar on the way.
French toast. Bananas. Strawberries. Agave nectar. Bish bash bosh.
Ice cream with chopped up dairy free fudge and agave nectar. This was so disgustingly decadent I almost slipped into a sugar coma afterwards. You know what makes this more disgusting? It was eaten as dessert right after the fatty melt episode. I was clearly trying to kill myself with food that day. It's the only explanation.
This was the boy's birthday cake. I was the weird girl at the birthday party who demanded the lights must go on when the cake came out because I had to take a picture. Then I got all the questions about why I was taking pictures of food and explaining what a blog was. It was fun. Alas, the picture is still a bit crap because once again I was fairly inebriated. What is it with me being drunk around cake?

Lelly's Fatty Melt with a side of Irony Salad

2009-01-24T18:18:00.004Z

Back in October when I stumbled upon this monstrosity, my initial thoughts were eww and *vomit*. After the initial shock though, I vowed to veganise it. Why? Because I have this fixation with occasionally making the trashiest, godawfully unhealthy food around, and sometimes I just have to give in to the urge. What can I say? I'm Scottish, it's in my blood.

Anyway, this was remarkably easy to make. I cut the bread into squares roughly the same size as the burgers and then squished them down to make the bread really thin, and then put a slice of tofutti cheddar and vegideli bacon in. Instead of frying this like the recipe, I foremanised it, and then when the burgers were done grilling, they were put in between the grilled cheese sandwiches along with ANOTHER slice of cheese and ANOTHER slice of bacon. The result was the following artery clogging badness:
If you look closely at the top left hand side you can see the cheese oozing out of the top grilled cheese sandwich. You see that? That's pure atherosclerotic magic, that is! The boy also pointed out that in this picture the sandwich looks like it's poking out it's 'cheesy tongue of artery clogging defiance' at us. You can also see some of the bacon sticking out. Is everyone thoroughly disgusted enough with me yet? Good. For the record, I could only eat half of one of these and the boy ate the rest of my half. Also, don't you just love the irony salad? You know the rules If you're having something as disgustingly bad as this, it's okay, as long as you have something green on your plate too. It totally balances out. Also, everyone knows the rule about how all the calories are in the last bite, and so since the boy ate the last half of mine, I'm fine... Right?

I've been busy, okay?!

2009-01-22T11:25:00.006Z

Yeah yeah, so I know you're all bored of this little routine I have where I post regularly for a while and then I stop and can't seem to get my blogging groove back on and so I post apologising. I'm bored of it too, so I won't apologise. I will however inform you of all the new and exciting and scary (oh my!) things going on. Okay? Okay! As my friend the Debatron can attest to (this is really just a test to see if any of my friends read my blog), I like bullet point lists, so without further ado, here is the Bullet Point List of Things Which Keep Lelly Busy:

Uni! I'm in my final year, and I've somehow managed to be doing two dissertations (it's a whole big thing), so yes, I've been frantically, and often not so frantically working on that.
My face! You know how my face is filled with fail and will one day have the inside bits replaced? Well on the 30th of December (yes, I had a bloody great New Year tyvm) I had surgery to possibly delay this whole replacing of the inside bits thing. They froze my joints with a cryoprobe which should supposedly freeze the nerves, and thus freeze the pain. So far, I'm in as much pain as I was before AND I have the post surgical pain AND I have a rather hefty scar AND I have a hefty bald patch. Oh yes, they shaved my hair and didn't tell me they were going to do this until afterwards. The scoundrels! This kept me busy and off the solids for a while.
In December I had a big scary interview and presentation to do for a postgraduate course in teaching. So preparing for that, and then afterwards constantly refreshing the page to see if I'd been successful was rather time consuming.
Guess what guys, I got in! AND they waived their usual condition that biology students must have a second class degree or above for me. They just liked me that much. But well, who doesn't? So yes, I know what I'm going to be when I grow up again!
Is this a food blog? I think it just might be. Let the food blogging commence!

At Christmas I was in Glasgow and demanded that my mother helped me find some of the Grassingtons products. By demanded, I of course mean that I asked nicely. Anyway, I got some of the steaks, the chicken things, and the meatballs. So far I've tried the first two.
I actually really really liked this, which I suppose is odd considering I don't think I've ever eaten steak. It's tasty, tender, and handy to have in the freezer. From what I remember it wasn't actually that expensive either.
The chicken thing comes already marinated in some tomato thing. I served it atop some bulgur wheat, with roast potato salad on the side. Oh yeah, and some balsamic glaze on top. Hmmm... What to say about this? Well! Words cannot describe how very much I disliked this. It made me feel ill. I don't know if it was too chickeny, but I don't remember eating chicken so I wouldn't know, but it had these weird fibre bits that thoroughly freaked the everloving bejeesus out of me. DO. NOT. WANT. In fact, looking at the picture is making me feel a bit ill. *shudder*

Anyway, in other news, remember how I made a companion cube cake for my friend a while back? Well, someone who was also at that party (although I have to admit I do not know too well) liked the cake so much he requested I make him a cake for his birthday. Did I mention he wasn't vegan? Booyah. Anyway, he played it a bit fast and loose with the instructions, just that he wanted the same lemon cake. As previously mentioned I do not know this boy too well. Things I did know: 1) He's a nurse. 2) He likes Batman. 3) He does not seem to approve of our trend of naming people after the shapes of their heads. Anyway, this brief led to this cake:
I very very nearly put a little red cross on the bat logo, but I stopped myself. Why? I was thinking "if this was a professional cake and I did that, would it end up on the bizarre section of cake wrecks?" Oh also, the mess of blue and yellow border was all pretty squiggly lines, but then I couldn't fit the cake in my fridge and the icing melted a bit. Boo. Oh well. I have another cake to make soon for the boy (you know, the boy). Cakes seem to be like buses, you don't make one for ages, and then three come along at once. Err, or something.

Fake Christmas

2008-12-22T14:39:00.003Z

I had myself a merry little fake christmas in Dundee yesterday before I head back through to Glasgow.

I used one of the new redwoods turkey roast thingies and it was mighty delicious. It seems to me like it's what you Amurrikens get, you know, that tofurkey thing? Yeah, it was like that, with the stuffing in the middle and whatnot.
Served with roast parsnips, potatoes, brussel sprouts, and gravy. I could eat this again now.

Weighted Companion (not quite) Cube Cake

2008-12-15T15:00:00.006Z

I'm a geek, so it's only natural that the vast majority of my friends are also geeks. This weekend I went to a birthday party for one of my favourite people, who just so happens to not only be a geek, but also vegan! Score! So, I decided to make him the geekiest vegan cake I could. Behold, the vegan weighted companion (not quite) cube cake:
It's not quite a cube because I figured out that to make a cube this cake would have required about four layers, and I kinda have a little bit of a life, or at least uni work to do. So, i decided to only make one side of the cube. It was an executive decision. Also, yes the botton part has cracked icing. It's a square cake that got transported on a too small circular base. I have come to terms with this crack. You should too.
This is it sliced and my thumb making another blog appearance. The cake was a lemon cake (at the birthday boys request), with strawberry jam in the middle. The picture is rubbish because by the time we got to eating cake, I was fairly inebriated. Apparently when the cake was being sliced it was made certain that I got a bit with some heart on it. That's friendship, that is. Also, I feel the need to state, unequivocally, and for the record.

The cake is not a lie!

Anyway, unrelatedly, I hate Christmas. I just do. What I do like however, is all the good vegan food that appears in shops around this time of the year. I do like that.
Fancy spelt bread with red onion, cranberry cheddar cheezly, and cranberry sauce. I do like that.

Sometimes I sing songs.

2008-12-05T14:58:00.003Z

I cannot sing. Not a note. That doesn't stop me. I like to take songs and adapt them to whatever situation I'm in. I have a song I sing about cell division. It helps me remember the phases (or it used to, now I'm brilliant and just know the phases, but I still like to sing the song). My sister is a primary teacher and she makes up songs for her class, so clearly this is a genetic thing. That is my professional opinion.

Anyway, remember a few posts ago I made meatballs? Well I made forty five million of them and they've been sitting in my freezer ever since and they started to become an oppressive force in my life, and I thought to myself, why am I letting meatballs become an oppressive force in my life?! So I thought, meatball subs!
So, why was I babbling about singing? Well as I was making this I was dancing around my kitchen singing my meatball sub song. It's essentially the manics song 'Motown Junk' but with meatball sub instead. It's really very clever. Meatball! Meatball sub!

Listen to my opinion!

2008-12-03T15:35:00.005Z

For it is important. So important that my friend John has taken to using Chuck Norris jokes to describe me. Obviously he takes Chuck Norris out and uses my name instead. It's really very unimaginative, but it amused me greatly. For example:

There is no ctrl button on Lelly's laptop. Lelly is always in control.
Contrary to popular belief, you are not living in a democracy, its a Lellytatorship.

My other friend Stu decided to point out that this does not always work:

Lelly doesnt have a chin, under that beard its just another fist.

Stu is just a big fat spoilsport though.

Anyway, what am I babbling about? Is there a point to this drivel? Well, not really, but kinda. I'm doing a product review today!

I found this at the Health Store and had to try it out. It wasn't too expensive - Just over 2 quid and it feeds 2. Yes, that is my strange child like thumb. Can we move on from the thumb?!

It claims to be Tortellini Tri Colore filled with tofu and spices.
I cooked it up with some tomato and basil sauce and sliced vegi deli sausages. The pasta itself was good. But I really could barely taste the tofu never mind any spices. Nevertheless it was nice to have fresh pasta of any sort, so I'd probably buy it again. What I would not do again is refill my sea salt grinder right before I'm about to eat this, not screw the cap on properly and then pour have a tub of salt on my pasta. Luckily it was just in the bottom corner (you can still see some of it on the sausages at the bottom), and I rescued as much as I could, but still, I actually yelled. Quite a lot.

My meatballs bring all the boys to the yard.

2008-11-23T17:13:00.004Z

I could teach you, but I'd have to charge.

The meatballs were loosely based on the new farm recipe, but I added gluten flour and took some stuff out. In, out, in, out, shake it all about. Served with linguine, spicy pepper sauce, and sprinkled with parmezano.

This currently resides in my stomach. Blackened tofu, tuscan kale, and potatoes roasted in cumin, turmeric, and paprika. The blackened tofu is once again based on the recipe in eat, drink, and be vegan. I winged it mainly because I'm a rebel, but also because a stinky boy has my copy of ED&BV. Smelly boys!

How have I spent today? Cutting up and sticking together juice bottles to make model biospheres with the class I'm teaching in a high school. Geeks like me shouldn't be allowed scissors. It's not going to end well.

It's my birthday and I'll bake if I want to.

2008-11-16T14:32:00.005Z

You would bake too if it happened toooo youuuuuuuuuuuuu. Or something.

I just had what was officially the bestest Lelly birthday ever ever ever. Ever. There was cake and cocktails and vegans, oh my!

So I had friends coming over and some of the out of towners were staying over and as everyone knows Lelly is a feeder. As everyone also knows, Lelly is worryingly sensible and so she made mucho food to feed to people to line their bellies.

Why yes, that is a three tier cake stand and a shopping trolley, thanks for asking! In the cake stand are chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls, and chocolate chip brownies. In the shopping trolley are homemade soysage rolls (which if I don't make on a semi-regular basis certain friends of mine will make me pay). There's also tomato bruschetta, carrot cake, and (not pictured) roast potato salad. Oh, and pretzels. You can't forget the pretzels.

I like to steal other peoples ideas

2008-11-09T20:24:00.003Z

The idea for the following post is entirely stolen from another blog. This is like an essay right? As long as I cite it, it's all cool? Yeah?

Anyway. Here is the first installment of insane google searches that led people to my blog.

Trashy food. I can't decide whether to be offended or amused.
Ot vegan. This one is a VFF joke, but I'm not sure how it led here. Oh well.
Battered salad. I would like to state, for the record, that I have never battered a salad and don't plan to. If you're here for the battered salad, move it along brah!
Chinese supermarkets make me feel sick. This is just plain odd. How did this get someone to my blog?! Oh google godesses, please tell me?!
Close ups of boobs. My mother will be so proud.
Critique Robin Dunbar. This one was from my last post, but it gives me an odd sense of pleasure knowing other people studying for an essay on this will get my page instead, because I found so many useless pages in my search. Come for the Robin Dunbar, stay for the vegan love, that's my motto.
Giant monkey balloons. And so the fable of the giant monkey balloon continues. Long may he travel the country, confusing the masses.
Italian bombs food. I have no witty banter for this one. I don't understand where the need for this search would be.
Please don't feed the bears banana bread. I understand where this one came from, but still, I kinda want to go out and feed bears banana bread now and see what happens. Oh yes, I am such a rebel.
Trashy kitchens. This one I plain take offense to. Other than the many irn bru bottles (it's my other national drink and is therefore mandatory) there ain't nothing trashy about my kitchen.

The odd thing is apparently, recently only one person has got here from googling 'vegan'. VEGAN VEGAN VEGAN VEGAN VEGAN. Take that the google!

The Meme That Helps Lelly Avoid Work

2008-11-03T14:11:00.002Z

The students out there know what I'm talking about. Two essays due in so my house has never been more tidy or organised, I have about three meals prepared in advance, and I'm doing this meme. What? A girl needs some down time. Mum, you know you do it too, don't look at me like that!

1. What was the most recent tea you drank?
I keep a box of St John's Wort tea in a cupboard at work. I sit in front of a computer a lot, and I find the St John's Wort helps fend off any lurky migraines.

2. What vegan forums do you post/lurk on? If so, what is your username? Spill!
The VFF is mah BFF. My username is Lelly because I am the worlds most original person.

3. You have to have tofu for dinner, and it has be an Italian dish. What comes to mind first?
I just had some! I marinated tofu in a tomatoey basil mixture, baked it, and had it on top of a pasta bake.

4. How many vegan blogs do you read on an average day?
I just checked my sage feeder thing and apparently 27. But then that's not all vegan blogs, that includes xkcd and other webcomics.

5. Besides your own, what is the most recent one you’ve read?
I was just reading the Sisters Vegan, which is where I got the idea to procrastinate with this meme. I also happen to think they're adorable.

6. If you could hang out with a vegan blogger that you haven’t met, who would it be, and what would you do?
Ida from Yummy Vegan Dinners. First we'd perfect our yorkshire pudding recipe, and then we'd use this knowledge to take over the world.

7. If you had to base your dinners for a week around one of the holy trilogy – tofu, seitan or tempeh, which would it be?
Tofu tofu tofu!

8. If you had to use one in a fight, which would it be?
I reckon the frozen blocks of tempeh they sell in the health store could do some damage.

9. Name 3 meals you’d realistically make with that tough protein of choice! Battered tempeh, battered tempeh, and battered tempeh.

10. What’s a recipe in vegan blogland that you’ve been eyeing?
I wanna try another one of Bryannas roasts soon. I've only made on once and she has so many different kinds. Plus it's that time of year when you want a nice warm oven and a massive lump of seitan isn't it?

11. Do you own any clothing with vegan messages/brands on them?
Uh yah. I have the red and black SSOV, the brown v neck one. A green herbivore zipper, a brown herbivore zipper. Umm, I have lots more but I can't remember.

12. Have you made your pilgrimage to the 'vegan mecca' yet? (Portland, duh)
*sob* No! I do plan to though, honest to goodness I do. Althought I hear the Illadelph is giving PDX a run for it's money, so I may have to plan a trip out and compare them both. Purely in the interests of science... Or something.

13. What age did you first go vegan? Did it stick?
17 or 18, and of course it stuck! If you're not vegan now, you never were, Brah!

14. What is the worst vegan meal you’ve had? Who cooked it?
Oooh! Recently when I went away to the middle of nowhere with uni. One night I was given a baked potato with boiled potato as topping and some inexplicable birdseed sprinkled on it.

15. What made you decide to blog?
Well, as you all know, I'm really quite awesome, and I felt the need to share this awesomeness with you, my faithful readers.

16. What are three of your favorite meals to make?
New Farm mac and cheese, stuffed shells, and stuffed tofu with hasselback potatoes.

17. What dish would you bring to a vegan Thanksgiving-themed potluck?
Probably one of Bryannas roasts, or the aforementioned New Farm mac and cheese.

18. Where is your favorite vegan meal at a restaurant? How many times have you ordered it?
Ooooh.... The Big Mono burger from Mono followed by some 13th Note cheesecake. I can't choose between them and you can't make me. Nuh uh.

16. What do you think the best chain to dine as a vegan is?
Ugh...Scream pubs around these parts are okay, but it depends from pub to pub.

17. My kitchen needs a………
Breadmaker! I've always wanted one. It most definitely does not need a deep fryer. No siree bob.

18. This vegetable is not allowed in my kitchen…..!
I welcome all vegetables graciously, but that evil little fungus dude the mushroom is banned. Would you like some extra slime with your meal? Try the mushrooms!

19. What's for dinner tonight?
More of the pasta bake and tofu that I made earlier.

20.Add a question here!
Write a critique of Robin Dunbar's theory on the evolution of language. Go on, you know you wanna write my essay for me.

Super Secret Pudding Project

2008-10-26T17:14:00.004Z

Not pudding pudding. Yorkshire pudding.

Can I tell you about the project? No. Can I tell you the how's or why's? No. It's a secret. I can tell you one thing. It's a delicious project. Wait, I lied, I can tell you two things. I'm working with another agent on the project. We are comrades in yorkshire pudding struggle.

Exhibit A - Yorkshire puddings. Look at that dip. Whoa mama. I would mention the other stuff, but who cares?

Exhibit B - As nature intended. Yorkshire puddings as gravy holding receptacles.

The first rule of yorkshire pudding club is you don't talk about yorkshire pudding club.
The second rule is no smoking.

This blog post will self destruct in 5...4...

The following meals are brought to you by indecision

2008-10-13T10:26:00.005Z

I'm not good at making decisions. At all. Sometimes when I can't decide what I want to eat, I make everything that sounds good at once and then have leftovers for ages. I sometimes like when this happens.

This meal was inspired by wanting generalised Indian food. There is tofu and aubergine tikka masala, wholegrain rice, vegetable samosas and onion bhajis.

This meal was inspired by wanting generalised carby stodge. There is spicy pepper pasta, aubergine pomodoro, garlic bread, and mini peppers stuffed with garlic and herb cream cheese and battered. Look at that cream cheese oozing out...

Love me! I just noticed the follow me thingy on blogger because it told me that the lovely Kismet was following me. You should also follow me. Why? Because I'm needy and like to be loved. Do it. You know you want to. The link is right over there --->

Wanna hear a whole big pile o' excuses?

2008-10-09T14:04:00.005Z

Then read on brah!

Okay, so first off there was the surgery. It took a while to recover from that, and a while longer to be able to eat anything I'd want to take a picture of. How did the surgery go? Well, not so great. The surgeon went in and what he saw was too far gone for silly little keyhole surgery so he just flushed my joint out and closed me up. The flushing gives temporary relief for about a week or so, so that's long gone. So, anyway, I had my review appointment the other day and as it turns out, I need bilateral joint replacements. Whoop-di-doo. I don't need them right now, but at some point before I'm 30. This sucks because once you start having them you need to replace them every 10 years or so, so essentially this was a life altering piece of news that made me require a short pity party. I'm okay now though, mainly because I rock. Anyhoo, to delay needing the first one, I'm having some surgery soonish to freeze my joint capsule because that's where all the nerves (and thus pain) are. If all goes well with that, it should delay the need for joint replacements for a good few (max 5) years. It could all not work though, and being the eternal pessimist that I am, I hold out little hope.

Let's see... More excuses... I'm back at uni and I'm in my final year, which is crazy but exciting and I'm kinda enjoying the crazy.

Anyhoo, I will now stick with the 'food' part of the whole food blog shtick and post some food. I warn you though, due to all of the above, it will be in no way exciting. In fact, two of the three photos are of tofu scramble. Oh yes, I win at originality.

This is the way I always make scrambled tofu. There's always peppers and onion, and various spices. That's as much of a recipe as I'm ever able to stick to. It's served on some amazing multi seed bread and topped with fresh basil (you may start to sense a theme with the basil).

This scrambled tofu was inspired by the post on Vegan Dad's blog (which btw, I love). Of course, I didn't follow the recipe at all, but this was really good, and I can see it being a staple when I'm in dissertation mode and haven't seen a fresh vegetable in a while.

In a brief departure from scrambled tofu, is this good old vegan stereotype of the stuffed pepper. I stuffed this sweet pepper with marinated tofu and fried rice. Again, topped with fresh basil, obviously.

Anyways, I'll try and be better at keeping up with ye olde blogosphere, but what can I say? When you still consume rather a lot of liquid foods it can get difficult to find enough to post. I'll try my best though, I'm just awesome like that.

Two Weeks on Monday...

2008-08-17T10:43:00.005Z

...Is when the big bad surgeon man is going to be cutting into my pretty pretty face. Send me all your good vibes (and care packages).

Anyhoo, food.
This is quinoa topped with sauteed spinach and green tiger tomatoes (which I have to admit I only bought because they looked pretty), and baked sweet chilli and garlic tofu. It was delicious.
Now, this isn't really a meal, but it's one of my new favourite breakfasts and I thought it looked pretty. It's multi seed rye bread, topped with green tiger tomatoes, oregano, basil, parmezano, and sea salt. Totally awesome.

People like me!

2008-08-01T19:04:00.002Z

Well duh! I'm awesome. Anyhoo, I got nominated by the wonderful elise for a Brilliante Weblog Award. Yay! Go me! The first thing I have to do is put up the banner thingie.
Done. The apparently I'm supposed to link to the person who nominated me, but I already did that up there because I'm just way ahead of the game. Now (jeez, this awards malarkey is complicated) I have to nominate seven other blogs for the award. Fun!

First I'm nominating the wonderful Kris over at Kris's Cruelty Free Kitchen because she always posts the kind of food I want to eat and because she's my Scottish freaky friend.
Next I want to continue the (almost) Scottish freaky friend theme and nominate Sinead over at Kitchen Dancing. Her food always looks so fancy, plus she's a vegan biologist and I essentially want to be her when I grow up... Whenever that may be.
Ida over at Yummy Vegan Dinners always takes awesome photos and hearty stick to your ribs kinda food that a stodge lover like me can appreciate.
Vincent over at VeganImprov likes to pretend to be mean as corn but his food is always classy as...umm a classy thing (I'm Glaswegian, I'm not exactly the master of classiness).
Okay, so I know I'm supposed to nominate seven people, but I don't play by no rules so I'm stopping at five! Lastly (and I hate to inflate his diva ego anymore) is Dino over at Alternative Vegan. I actually don't want to say anything about Dino because he loves himself enough as it is. (But he is a little bit awesome).

And now I have to go leave comments on their blogs to tell them! Jeez! No rest for the awesome!

Okay, so I should probably post some food. I gove to you... Tofu, rice and different sauces! Oh yes, my blog is truly revolutionary and worthy of an award.
General Taos Tofu from the legendary recipe at vegweb (oh how I <3 thee).

Sweet and Sour Tofu.

Revolutionary, I say!

An Oldie But A Goodie

2008-07-09T19:32:00.003Z

Stuffed shells with sundried tomato and basil sauce. The shells are stuffed with garlic and herb cream cheese, spring onions, sundried tomatoes, and basil. Served with a mountain of kale because apparently I serve everything with a mountain of kale. Alas though, I think my love affair with kale may have to take a break. It's just too chewy on my full of fail jaw. *sigh*

Seitan, Kale and Tomatoes

2008-07-08T18:31:00.003Z

Got home from work and wanted something quick. I had some seitan cutlets kicking about so I marinated it in garlic and baked it. Served atop some garlic sauteed kale with roast vine ripened tomatoes. Drizzled in balsamic glaze.
*drools*

I survived!

2008-07-07T17:57:00.007Z

For a while there I was pretty much entirely composed of bruises, but I survived. To mark my survival, I give to you (all five of you) some pretty pictures:
This was taken from somewhere up a hill. I fear I may have repressed most of my hillwalking memories so I can provide no further info.
I do remember why I took this picture. You see the white foggy looking thing over yonder? Yeah, that was rain on another mountain. I obviously thought this was cool enough to take a picture of it.

Anyhoo, enough with that boring outdoorsy stuff and onto the food!
Naan pizza... Naanza! Umm yeah. Anyhoo, there was a recipe similar to this in Bryanna Clark Grogans latest (and last *sob*) newsletter. As usual I didn't actually use the recipe, but I used the idea. I made a spicy tomato sauce and made the cheesy sauce from the new farm cookbook. It was grand.
Curry crusted tofu, vegetable fried rice, and vegetable curry. The tofu was coated with loads of spices and then baked and grilled. Look at those grill marks! Oooh yeah! *ahem* Tasty!

Help!

2008-06-19T19:55:00.002Z

Tomorrow after work I'm off on a 7 day residential course with uni. To the middle of nowhere. I'm scared. I'm taking three bags, one of which is entirely filled with food. I'm too much of a city girl for this stuff.

Wish me luck in my not dying endeavours!

If I see anything pretty I may take some pictures for you, if you're lucky. Bah!

*cries*

Work Food

2008-06-09T17:55:00.004Z

As in, just home from work and jeezy creezy I want food in mah belly now. Quick food.
Cheezy pasta with sundried tomatoes and red chilli flakes. Teh yum.
Baked potato with roast vegetables, balsamic and chilli dressing and mature cheddar cheezly. Also teh yum.

Holy Inactivity Batman!

2008-06-07T12:19:00.003Z

It's been a whole month since I last blogged! I suck!

I kinda lost my cooking mojo for a while. Lets not get all emoriffic, but with my jaw arthritis and stuff, I started associating eating with pain, so I'd been rushing food and eating a lot of smoothies and soups, which lets be honest, you don't want to see.

Anyhoo, what else has been going on in Lelly land? Well, I passed my exams. I'm not happy with my grades at all, but I keep telling myself that I'm doing well to have survived this semester, never mind anything else. What else? I started a new job on Monday. It's actually pretty great. Good money, a 10 minute walk away, and really relaxed atmosphere. The job itself is scarily important, so I think the atmosphere is to make up for that. Oooh, I'm officially on the waiting list to get my maxillofacial surgery. The surgeon reckons it should happen around August, so hopefully the end of the year will be much better than the beginning. After my surgery, I won't be allowed solid food for around 6 weeks, so the blog should become... interesting! Maybe I'll just post pictures of my (hopefully not too) gnarly scars. I have other good things going on just now, but maybe we'll talk about that some other time. Maybe.

Anyhoo, did I forget this was a food blog? I think I might have. I made a big pasta bake the other night so I'd have some food for after work for a few nights. Also, nice soft pasta is pleasing to my face. In this there was some form of curly pasta, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, vegideli sausages, mozz cheezly, onion, spinach, and some baked tofu I had. It was pretty much a clean out the fridge meal. Oh yeah, and it's topped with parmezano.

The Worlds Biggest Salad

2008-05-07T17:30:00.005Z

Okay,so that's a completely unsubstantiated claim and I offer you no proof, but it was a pretty damn big salad. Let's see, what was in there? Rocket, tomatoes, onion, baked tofu, balsamic dressing... Ack, there was most likely more but I forget. On the side is a little roast potato salad, so I suppose I had salad with a side of salad, what fun! Btw, this meal was pretty tough on my jaw (tmj arthritis issues), I don't know why I think it's helpful to tell you all that. Maybe I should start a tmj friendliness rating... Or not, because that would be highly dull. Anyhoo, in other news, I bought a bike recently. I love it. Like seriously. Today I got to cycle all along the river, and fields, and saw wild bunnies and heelan coos. It was delightful. Anyhoo, in case anyone vaguely cares, here's a picture of my bike:
Due to the shape of the outside of my flat, it was impossible to get a complete side view, you're all gonna have to just like with it, k?

Quiche!

2008-05-02T17:33:00.001Z

In the quiche is sundried tomatoes, red onions, and spinach. Served with a quick side salad and some mayo. Tasted like summer. The leftovers are calling to me...

Korean Vegetable Pancakes... Kind of.

2008-05-01T16:19:00.003Z

As you can see they kinda fell apart, but who cares? They still tasted good. The recipe is from Asian Vegan, which I'm currently loving and plan to make a lot more from. Inside the pancake is onion, carrot, garlic, beansprouts, and chives. Served with chilli dipping sauce.

So, I Squashed Me Some Taters...

2008-04-26T15:43:00.003Z

Look at them... Sitting there looking delicious, waiting to be devoured. Mwah ha ha.I'm fairly convinced that Dreena Burton invented this recipe specifically for students at exam time, who haven't had time to go proper food shopping in a while, and don't have much time to cook. Well either that or she invented it specifically for five year olds. Is there really much of a difference? This time I put a little fresh basil (yes, yes, I do put it on everything), and dried oregano on them, and to compensate for eating a meal entirely composed of potato, I used spray oil. Doesn't taste any different with spray oil, in fact I think I might prefer it. Anyhoo, in conclusion, exam time sucks and potato squashers rock.

Pizza of Win!

2008-04-25T17:06:00.004Z

Yes, I declare this to be the official pizza of win. Why? Well it's full of all the win foods. Spelt base, garlic sauce, caramelised red onions, pine nuts, and fresh basil. Win. Just for extra win, here's a slice shot:
Now, what did i have with this classy beast of a pizza? Ketchup. Oh yes. I make classy things trashy.

If anybody's wondering why my pictures have gone a bit downhill recently, I've decided to blame it on the fact that I've turned the Aerogrow off, and so don't have the fake almost natural light anymore. Don't worry, she'll be back! I'm just deciding what to grow in her next.

Post O' Orange

2008-04-22T16:55:00.004Z

Yes, for some reason everything I've eaten over the past few days have been various shades of orange, how bizarre. Everything is also from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan which I just got recently.
Sorry for the blurry shot, I think it was still steamy when I took the picture. Anyhoo, this is the cashew ginger tofu and tamari roasted chickpeas.
This is the blackened tofu and potato squashers. I absolutely loved both. I'm currently eyeing up the tofu leftovers, I doubt they'll make it to lunchtime tomorrow.

Huzzah!

2008-04-06T19:24:00.006Z

Food o plenty in this post. First up is the food of sick people all over the world, mac and cheese. I was in hospital last week because apparently blood clots aren't supposed to be in your lung, who knew? Well I did, but I am very clever. Anyhoo, when I got out I wanted to make a batch of something hearty that I could work my way through for a few days, so as always I went for the new farm mac and cheese. I reduced the oil quite a lot though, because it really is quite ridiculous. Here it is with roasted brussel sprouts, which are the rockingest cruciferous vegetable around:

I had an influx of vegans this weekend for much drunken and non drunken fun. Some out of towners came up on the Friday night which to me seemed like a perfect excuse to have a pizza party.
This first pizza has basil tofu ricotta and pesto, it was the yum.
This one has mozzarella cheezly and home made pepperoni. Also the yum. There was a third pizza that was essentially a combination of both of the above, but at that point my stomach had given up on letting me eat pizza and I was far too bloated to get up and take a picture.

No food! I've been tagged!

2008-03-27T11:24:00.002Z

Not in the criminal way, obviously. DJ over at the skint vegan tagged me to do one of these meme thingimijigs. I have to tell you five things about myself and then tag five other bloggers. I'm not really one for drive by tagging, so if you read this, and you're a vegan blogger, consider yourself tagged. Okay, so onto the most likely dull lelly facts.

I'm currently radioactive due to a scan I had at hospital yesterday. I feel like I should be fighting crime. My weapon shall be battered pizza, and I'll get rid of the criminals with atherosclerosis. (too geeky? me? never).
Continuing along the geek theme - years ago I read an article in a newspaper about bumble bee behaviour and physiology. I enjoyed it so much that I cut it out and if I need cheered up, I re-read it. Bumble bees ftw!
Tofu is my absolute favourite food because it's just so versatile. One of my pet peeves is when people (who usually have never actually eaten it) say they don't like it, at which point I big-headedly exclaim "aha! this is because you've never had me cook it for you!".
I am ever so slightly besotted with Ron Weasley. NOT, Rupert Grint, only Ron Weasley.
I love the way Jenna from Vegan Freak Radio says my name. She just says it so much cuter than anybody else.

I now feel oddly exposed...

Tofu and Potatoes

2008-03-23T12:01:00.002Z

It's very odd really that some form of tofu, tempeh, or seitan and potatoes is my stand by comfort food, because as an omni I was never much of a meat and potatoes kind of girl. In fact, the thought makes me sick. Ugh. Anyway, the tofu wasn't even marinated, i just kinda poured some balsamic vinegar and worcester sauce onto it when it was cooking. The potatoes were just boiled and then I tossed in some fresh basil, and I made a balsamic onion gravy type thing. Excellent.

Leftovers ftw.

2008-03-19T18:09:00.003Z

(that's 'for the win' for any old folks)

I sauteed up some onion and kale and strips of seitan cutlets and added it to pasta and then added some leftover spicy tomato pasta sauce. Topped with parmezano, as always. Delicious, as always.

Oh, yes. I've gone through an entire bag of kale in a day and a half. Just felt the need to share. It has been pointed out to me that this is clearly too healthy, and I should batter it. Battering is always the answer.

You know you're vegan when...

2008-03-19T13:57:00.001Z

...this is your idea of lunchtime comfort food:
A big bowl of sauteed kale with balsamic baked tofu slathered with more balsamic vinegar.

Bryanna is a Goddess.

2008-03-18T16:31:00.002Z

Yes. Seriously, if you haven't subscribed to her newsletter yet, do it now. I'd do it just for the soy and seitan cutlet recipe alone.

I have a massive batch waiting for me to put them in the freezer. I plan to make many gluten based foodstuff this week, oh yes i do. This time i breaded them, but who knows what wonderful things I shall do to them soon, who knows?

Served with garlic kale and baby potatoes with fresh basil and garlic.

Oh, in other news, did I mention I was single now? No? Well I am. I still haven't quite gotten the portion sizes down yet, so if you're not a crazy serial killer and you're in the area, come over for the inevitable leftovers.

And one more for good measure...

2008-03-13T19:32:00.002Z

I'm going to be away at the weekend so I thought I'd just post this now. The afrorementioned beanball subs:
Aren't they cute? I used petit pains, so there's only 2 weeny beanballs in each one. The beanballs were baked with (very garlicky - my breath still stinks) marinara and mozzarella cheezly. Delightful.

Penne and Beanballs

2008-03-13T16:36:00.004Z

The title pretty much sums it up. The beanballs are from Vcon, and I have absolutely loads left. I'll probably be having beanball subs for about a week (not that I'm complaining). I'll actually probably freeze some for later. I just got a load of gluten delivered so next week I plan on making loads of Bryannas seitan cutlets and loads of chickpea cutlets and freezing them, my exams are coming up soon and it'll be handy. Anyhoo, the sauce is cherry tomato and chilli, and it's got a little sprinkling of parmezano on top. Yum.

Linguine Alfreda

2008-03-06T15:00:00.002Z

Based on the vegan with a vengeance recipe, but as usual I got distracted and started doing my own thing. I also at one point decided that some Fry's Vegetarian Strips would be good in it, so I chucked some of them in. I also put some chopped fresh basil in, because I always have some and I love it.

Nothin' Fancy!

2008-03-05T16:12:00.003Z

Spicy tomato pasta with fresh basil, grilled asparagus, and sautedd kale. I <3 kale these days.

I'm Back!

2008-03-04T11:21:00.004Z

Yup, I promised I would be, and so I am. Todays food isn't particularly exciting, I'm easing myself back into this whole eating meals malarkey by eating familiar things. I promise to start cooking exciting things soon.

Anyhoo, here's some scrambled tofu that I served on a wholewheat seeded wrap with some spinach.
This is what I had last night. Yet again I made hasselback potatoes, but this time I used sweet potato, and only used spray oil to cook everything, so it's a lot healthier than usual. There are also tofu steaks served on a bed of garlic and sea salt sauteed kale. It was delicious.
The marinade I used for the tofu, is the same marinade I use all the time (balsamic vinegar, vegan worcester sauce, and soy sauce). It really sinks into the tofu. Because I use it so much I did something sensible last night and made a lot of it and put it in a potion bottle. I'm just clever like that.

Sorry...

2008-03-03T09:22:00.001Z

Yes, another apology for being a rubbish blogger. I've had a lot of things going on, and I'm still having appetite issues, but I promise I'll be back soon. Probably with healthier food than my last post, but that really wouldn't be hard now would it?

Anyway, yes, I'm sorry, I suck and fail, please don't hate me!

I've only gone and done it...

2008-02-18T17:04:00.004Z

Yep, I've only gone and made the unhealthiest vegan blog post in the history of vegan blogs.
Okay, so as you know, I'm Scottish, and everybody knows Scotland is the land of deep fried battered foods. Back in my school days there used to be a chip van (like a mobile chip shop if you're unfamiliar with the concept) that parked right outside our school gates at lunch time. Thinking back on it now I'm outraged that my school let this happen, but back then I thought it was great. Back in the day you could get two 'pizza crunch' and a can of Irn Bru for a quid. A quid! It was marvelous. A pizza crunch was essentially a quarter of a cheese pizza, fried in batter. Possibly the most unhealthy thing on the planet, but anyhoo. It's something which I've always missed, and ever since I discovered that I can make kick ass batter, I've wanted to try it.

Oh lordy it was good. I cut my pizza into eighths (mainly for pan space issues), and used cheezly mozzarella. I'd wanted to go all out trashy (what's the point in half measures?) and get a cheap white base, just like the chip van used, but there weren't any and we had to use a spelt base. I strangely found a weird sense of smugness in frying spelt, the poster child for health. Anyhoo, yes I used my previously posted batter recipe, and shallow fried. It actually probably would have been a helluva lot easier if I'd deep fried it, but I had a traumatic deep fryer incident in my childhood which will probably never allow me to use one.

In conclusion. Pizza good. Batter good. I could only eat a few bits because I'm still having appetite issues, but I just had a need to do it, and now it's out of my system, for a while anyway.

Oh, if any government bodies are looking to bump off some of those pesky animal rights "terrorists", the way to go is clearly to fund me to open up a vegan chip shop. Do it.

Excuses...

2008-02-15T19:20:00.003Z

Yes, so I haven't blogged in a while. For many reasons I've not been eating grown up food and nobody wants to read the blog o' toast. Here are my excuses for unblogworthy food:

Gary went away for a few days to visit his family, and I can never be bothered cooking proper food for just me, it's sad, I know.
When Gary got back he started chucking up everywhere as he had contracted the dreaded norovirus. He wasn't eating properly for quite a while, which means I wasn't eating properly.
I'm on new medication for my jaw pain (I'm sure I've mentioned it at some point) which has made me lose my appetite quite a lot.

Because of the loss of appetite, I've mainly been eating lightish foods. I remembered to take pictures of the last few meals, so hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things now!

This is a pretty basic meal of stir fried veg, baked tofu, and quinoa.

And this is... ummm... well, it's clearly a salad. It had lettuce spinach, basil, tomatoes, red onions, some sliced up vegi deli sausages, redwoods feta, parmezano... Probably more, but meh. I also made a dressing and bottled it. We have quite a few of these bottles and Gary likes to pretend they're potion bottles like in an RPG. Indeed. Anyhoo, the dressing has a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil and dill, nutritional yeast, and balsamic and red wine vinegar.

Holy Yum Batman!

2008-02-01T23:41:00.000Z

Like all good meals, this one has a story behind it. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I shall begin...

Okay, so me and Gary went to the cinema today and it is tradition for us to get some nachos with salsa and jalapenos. Today, however, it was not to be. The snack bar was closed for refurb, and as I was in a cranky mood, I threw an almighty tantrum. Yes, I am a brat. In an effort to appease me, Gary promised we could make nachos when we got home. I remained unconvinced but agreed. These turned out to be the best nachos ever. There's, beans, cheesy sauce (the one from the new farm book), salsa and jalapenos. I'm glad the shop was shut today, and I apologise to anyone who witnessed my strop.

Spring Rolls

2008-01-31T18:54:00.000Z

For my first time making spring rolls, I think I did pretty well. Me and Gary made these together in a fit of nice, clean, organised fun (my favourite kind). We stir fried up some onions, carrots, cabbage, and spring onions in some vegan oyster sauce. Rolling them was fun.

Served here with sweet chilli dipping sauce.

In conclusion, spring rolls are fun and they taste good too! Win-win, really.

Colcannon and Sausages

2008-01-30T18:48:00.000Z

Kinda like bangers and mash except... not.
Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish which is basically mashed potatoes with cabbage and leek. I used onion instead of leek because it's what was in my veg box. I also mashed some celeriac with the potatoes because it too was in my veg box. I formed my colcannon into patties, coz that's just how I roll. The sausages are the redwoods vegi deli ones, which in my opinion are the best vegan sausages around. Gary eats them straight out of the pack because he's gross like that.

Also, I sould probably stop making all my food into star shapes. It's getting old, but I have very little creativity. Evs.

Thai Green Tofu Curry

2008-01-29T18:07:00.000Z

For some reason I had never before ventured into the land of green curries before, but now I think it will be a stand by staple. So quick and easy and tasty! Oh my! I'm a bit afraid of coconut milk so I didn't put as much in as is probably normal, but I liked it that way.

Sometimes Lelly Eats Healthy Food.

2008-01-28T20:58:00.000Z

It's true. In fact more often than not I eat healthily, I just never tend to post the healthy stuff. I swear it's true!

Anyhoo, I made a simple stir fry with veg and bean sprouts a plenty, with baked tofu, and served on brown rice. Yum.

How To Batter Like A Scot

2008-01-23T18:46:00.000Z

Just, like, don't do it every day. k? k.

Okay, This is the same recipe that I used for the battered seitan a while ago. It's crunchy and crisp, but not incredibly greasy or heavy. Here I've used it to batter some tofu nuggets:
(Yeah, yeah, I know battered tofu and potato wedges does not a healthy meal make, but I was feeling like slobbing out, okay?)

Ok so here's the dealio:

To a fairly large bowl, add:
1 cup flour
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp oil
1/4 soy milk
Mix up until it's good and mixed and then add enough water to make it nice and thick and gloopy, for me this is 3/4 cup.

Makes enough to have lots of battering fun. Try battering a vegan mars type bar. Or not, evs.

Anyhoo, enjoy, but not too much.

ETA - You don't need a deep fryer to use this batter. I don't own one, and all my battery goodness is shallow fried.

Tofu Steaks

2008-01-22T14:13:00.000Z

Just a quick post!

The tofu steaks were marinated in a worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar mixture, and then floured and pan fried.

Tomorrow I shall be back with a longer and thoroughly thrilling post about how to batter like a Scot, so stay tuned! It will be exciting, and will probably make your blood pressure rise. Indeed.

I Love Sandwiches

2008-01-11T17:18:00.001Z

No really I do. This sandwich started out as I had made a huge bowl of coleslaw to use up some of my cabbage. there's also carrot, onion, and spring onion. delicious.

Served on a nice fluffy baguette with tofu that had been marinated in balsamic vinegar and worcestershire sauce. Almighty yum.

When Life Hands You Vegetables...

2008-01-10T18:10:00.000Z

Make soup!

I got my first veg box delivery on Wednesday:
I got two massive carrots, a head of cabbage, a cauliflower, loads of potatoes and onions and leeks (oh my), mushrooms, tomatoes, and a bag of fruit (apples, pears, oranges, and bananas). All organic, and delivered to your door for a tenner. Take that "organic food is too expensive" people! Ha!

So, yeah, I made vegetable soup. A massive pot, and I still have loads of vegetables left.

I love my vegetables box delivery man!

Simple Food for a Simple Lelly

2008-01-08T18:01:00.000Z

Sometimes the simplest foods are the best. No really. Tonight I had some pasta with a spicy tomato sauce, served with tofu that had been marinated in a lovely tomato-y mediterranean mixture.
The sauce had a nice spicy kick to it which was complimented beautifully by the subtle sweetness of the tofu. Topped off with some parmezano, and home grown parsley and basil.

Tomorrow I get my first delivery from a local organic fruit and vegetable box scheme that I joined, so I'm excited! Expect pictures of my haul. Yay!

I'm not dead!

2008-01-04T13:45:00.000Z

Honest! My laptop was away for repairs and the desktop scares me and doesn't have my camera software on it. So, enough excuses. I have actually been cooking and taking pictures. I also have an Aerogrow update, but I can't be bothered figuring out what week it is. Who cares? Anyhoo, onto the food.
As soon as I saw Bryanna Clark Grogans stuffed seitan roasts in her newsletter, I knew I had to make one. This one is stuffed with a sage and onion stuffing and dear lord it was divine. It carved beautifully and was so tender. It is big though, so we were eating it in sandwiches for about a week, but we're not complaining. Here it is all sliced up and served with usual roast dinner things:
Next up are the chickpea cutlets from Vcon. I like them, but I don't love them. I think I'd make them again though and tinker with the seasonings. You can actually barely see the cutlets in this picture because they're drowned in onion gravy. Served with roast potato salad (currently my favourite way to eat potatoes... Mmmm... Balsamic vinegar....)
And, as promised, an Aerogrow picture:
I've started to harvest everything, and I'm really enjoying the constant access to fresh herbs, plus it smells lovely.

Curried Tofu

2007-12-23T18:52:00.001Z

The curried tofu is from Vcon, and I think I essentially followed the recipe. It's really good. Nicely spicy. It's served with sauteed kale, rice, and spicy yoghurt sauce. The sauce started out as the one from Vcon, but being me, I completely ignored the recipe and threw whatever I felt like in it. Good stuff.

Check out my Le Creuset ramekin. I own Le Creuset cookware. Aren't I fancy? Okay, so it's two ramekins, and that's probably all I'll be able to afford for some time, but still, it's nice to say it. I own Le Creuset cookware.

I'm a Tweaker...

2007-12-21T21:38:00.000Z

But not like on Dog! I don't do no ice, brah!

Ahem, yes. What I mean by this is that there is not a recipe on earth that I don't feel the need to change. I don't care if you had forty five million testers working 25 hours a day trying your recipes, I will change it. Sorry bout that. Yeah, so remember how I wasn't too sure about the white bean aioli thing from Vcon? Well, not one to waste food (or eat something I don't really like), i went back and played with it. Now what did I go and do but change a perfectly classy food into something completely tacky. Ha. Anyhoo, you know those gross sandwich filler things that come in various shades of cream, and a whole manner of horrible flavours? Well I turned it into that. Okay, so this one tastes good and I suppose is slightly classier than those shop bought ones, but still...

Anyhoo, here it is on some pumpkin seed and oat rye bread things:
Oh yeah, almost forgot to say what I actually did to it. I amped up the garlic a bit, added some fresh basil, onion, and various other herbs (yeah, like I pay attention). Anyhoo, yum.

Battered Seitan with Roast Potato Salad

2007-12-20T18:56:00.000Z

This meal was so very nearly doomed. I had intended to beer batter the seitan, and bought a pack of beer specially for it. Alas I couldn't find the bottle opener and I was getting hungry, so I just winged the batter. Maybe the art of batter making is pre-programmed into all Scottish people, or maybe I truly am just a genius, but this was the best battered anything I have ever tasted. Look how golden it is! It was also incredibly light and fluffy, and strangely not greasy, and hasn't left me feeling ill. Yay! It's served with the roasted potato salad from The Everyday Vegan, and the white bean and garlic aioli thing from Veganomicon. The potato salad was lovely, but the aioli could do with some more garlic. Usually I double the garlic in most recipes, but this one warned me it was really garlicky so I didn't. Oh well! I'll know for next time.

Aerogrow Update and Adventures in Seitan Making

2007-12-19T14:33:00.000Z

First up, here's the Aerogrow update for week 4:
Everything's spreading out and starting to encroach on each others growing space. It's kinda cute. It's like watching a little artificial community interact.

Anyhoo. This week I made the soy and seitan cutlets from Bryannas Vegan feast Newsletter (which I thoroughly reccommend). The recipe makes loads, so I've mainly been eating those for the past few days. The first night we just had them floured and fried, with potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and gravy. Delicious.The next night we had them cut up into strips and marinated in a lemony, soy, mustardy, agavey, (you know, all the stand by marinade stuff) sauce and served over stir fried vegetables.
Given the fact that I'm Scottish, you may expect to see some battered seitan in the coming days. Oh my.

Various Stuff from the Land of Lelly

2007-12-16T17:39:00.000Z

Yeah, so, I totally took the picture for my Aerogrow update, but got distracted by the overwhelming urge to sleep for a week (I had my last exam on Wednesday) so I didn't get around to posting it. So here it is:
So everything's growing great. The dill doesn't seen to be happy with it's allotted space and is trying to invade all the other herbs spaces. Big bully!

This is a pot pie I made the other day when I new I was going to be busy for a few days. I think this was the last slice:
It had potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts, spinach, cheezly, in a nutritional yeasty type sauce thing. Damn tasty.

This year I told everyone in my family not to buy me presents for Christmas, because well, I hate Christmas. Blah blah blah commercial crap. Anyhoo, Nobody was happy with this, so I thought we'd reached a compromise in that I would make presents, and they could donate money to a charity or buy a very small present if they really felt they needed to. Alas, I just came back from Glasgow with bags of presents. Seriously people, next year, no presents! Anyhoo, here's one of the presents I (mostly) made:
It's a hamper (duh). In the jars are sundried tomato pesto, onion marmalade, and chocolate-cinnamon-almond biscotti. There's also a bottle of chilli infused oil, and the cracker looking things are chocolate chip cookies. There's also some herbal tea and hot chocolate. Oh, and don't you just love the bag the bottle's in? I made that too. It can be reused to transport all your holiday plonk to parties. I reinforced the stitching on the handles to make sure there were no plonk breakage incidents. All in all, I think I did rather well.

Trashy Food

2007-12-07T18:58:00.000Z

Today it was cold outside, and I felt no real need to put non pyjama clothes on and go to the shops. Therefore, I had to make do with whatever I had in the fridge and cupboards. What I had and felt like using was leftover tortillas from the enchiladas, spinach, an onion, potatoes, and all the usual cupboard staples. What I made was trashy food, but tasty none the less.
I took some tortillas and folded them into cones and held them together with tin foil and baked them for a bit until they got crispy. I then made a refried bean mixture with kidney beans, onions, all the usual spices, and added some spinach at the end, and filled the cone thingies and rebaked them for a bit. Served with potato wedges and garlic and herb mayo. I make the worlds best potato wedges. Fact. No, seriously.

Aerogrow - Week 2

2007-12-05T20:55:00.000Z

Reporting in for the end of week two. Good growth on everything. The parsley is coming out to play and I'll probably take it's lid off in the morning (you're supposed to do it when the light's off to reduce stress). I had begun to lose hope for the coriander at the back there, but I just had a peek and it is starting to sprout! Yay! The lights started to blink today to add nutrients and water, so I did. It's all highly exciting stuff.

Procrastination Food

2007-12-04T19:45:00.000Z

I have exams soon. Like, really soon. Some may say that this would be one of those times when eating frozen/ready made foods would be acceptable/advisable, or generally making simple foods. Not I. Maybe it's a good thing, but I just have a thing about taking at least an hour a day to cook/bake. I can't help it. It does help me relax though, so I suppose I can justify it that way.

Anyhoo, enchiladas.

Made with red kidney beans, onions, spinach, cumin, coriander, paprika, lime juice, etc. Served with home made tofu sour cream. These were delicious, and fairly quick (well, for me).

Now onto the really good stuff, Smlove.
From Veganomicon and sooooooooo good. The only thing I'd change is making more of the peanut butter caramel, and baking the pie for slightly less time, coz mine got a little hard on top, but it was still great.

Now here's a money shot of a slice:
Show me a person who doesn't want that piece of pie, and I will show you a liar my friend.

Food of the Spicy Variety

2007-11-30T17:14:00.000Z

Gary's in Glasgow and usually when that happens I end up not wanting to cook proper meals just for myself, but today I felt in dire need of decent food. Gary also doesn't like spicy food, so I took this opportunity to cook myself some spicy food.
I made this kidney bean curry with seasoned rice to satisfy my craving. I also made some spiced flatbread thingies. There was no recipe for anything, I just used stuff i had lying around. Brilliant.

Aerogrow - Week 1

2007-11-28T20:08:00.001Z

The Aerogrow was all set up a week ago so I thought I'd post the progress. I may do this every Wednesday, or I may get bored. I make no promises. Anyhoo, the italian and purple basils, dill and chives are sprouting up nicely. The chives appeared in like an hour and seem to be growing bigger by the second. Not that I sit and watch it or anything, not at all... The mint has sprouted too but not enough to remove the lid thingy yet. The coriander and parsley aren't due to sprout until the 8-15 day mark, so it could be tomorrow, it could be next week. I know I'm on the edge of my seat!

Tofu and Cookies

2007-11-26T18:20:00.000Z

Vegan staples right there (not really, obviously).

I made the Tangerine Baked Tofu from the Veganomicon for dinner tonight I pretty much followed the recipe except I used whisky instead of rum (coz I'm Scottish, duh), and I fried them with some cooking spray after the baking because they were all floppy.
I'd been hearing a lot about these potato squasher things in Dreena's new book. I don't have the book, but I, like most people was annoyed not to have thought of it first. I also thought 'how hard can it be to squash a potato without a recipe?', so here's my interpretation of the recipe. I parboiled the potatoes and then roasted them until they were nearly done. I took them out, squashed them a bit and brushed them with a spicy oil mixture (oil, cumin, paprika, cayenne, etc) and put them back in the oven. I think they turned out rather well.
The stuff on top of the tofu is a carribean chutney I picked up in the shop ages ago and had been waiting for something to use it on.

Oh, I promise to stop eating meals that consist of tofu and potatoes. Even I'm getting bored of it.

I made some cookies earlier today, so here are said cookies:
They're the Chewy Chocolate-Raspberry Cookies from Veganomicon. Isa totally lies when she says that they don't spread out. They totally do, and as a consequence I got a few oddly shaped ones from where they attacked each other/the side of the pan. Oh well, they were tasty so who cares.

I also made some ice cream sandwich cookie thingies (it's an American thing, we don't do this here), with these and some raspberry ice cream.
Like I said, I've never made ice cream cookie sandwich thingies so they're a bit messy, but again very tasty, so who cares.

All of todays pictures were taken in front of my Aerogrow. It has a lovely level of UV light that's so much like natural light it takes a good picture. Yet another reason why I love my Aerogrow.

Balsamic Tofu with Hasselback Potatoes and Sweet Onion Sauce

2007-11-22T20:34:00.000Z

Yum. The tofu was marinated in a balsamic (and stuff) mixture for the best part of a day and then baked and fried. Has anyone else heard of Hasselback potatoes? I've made them before, but I went to google them to check I was spelling it right and there were no results! Weird! Anyhoo, you take potatoes and cut them in half lengthwise, par boil them, and then make a few scores into them. You then roast them and when they're very nearly done you take them out and put some breadcrumbs, and parmezano on them and roast them until crispy. The sweet onion sauce started out being the one from Veganomicon, but I got bored of that one and went my own way. It's just how I roll.

The Aerogrow Is Here!

2007-11-21T15:03:00.001Z

Isn't she purdy? It came ridiculously quick, and I literally just set it up 5 minutes ago. I set it up myself which just shows how foolproof it is. I should apparently have my basil sprouting in 3 days, and everything else not long after. I've got purple basil, italian basil, coriander, chives, dill, mint, and parsley. How very exciting! Once the herbs are done (they'll apparently grow for 4-6 months) I think I'll be getting the salsa pack which has tomatoes and peppers. That is, unless they bring out something more exciting before then!

I will of course be providing periodical updates on the progress of my herbs, because well, I'm sad like that.

And now I give to you... A token Tofu Tikka Masala.

Leek and Bean Cassoulet

2007-11-18T13:04:00.000Z

From the Veganomicon. To be honest, I found this a little bit bland. Once I'd tasted a few bites I found myself reaching for the salt, and then the red pepper flakes, etc. I would definitely add more garlic next time (even though this time I already doubled the garlic), and I would also add some herbs to the dumplings.

Nonetheless, it was filling, fairly healthy, and it looked pretty. Here it is served up.

In other news, I recently ordered one of these for my incredibly poorly lit flat. I'm very excited about growing my own fresh herbs, and then tomatoes... Mmmm... I am not your average 22 year old.

Oh, and in case anyone cares, the answer to the question in my previous post was "Two plain bridies, and an onion one as well". I did love herbstsonne's answer of "There were plenty of bridies and singing a song togethaaaaa.". Brilliant! It really should mean that...

Cullen Skink Tofu Bridies

2007-11-08T15:17:00.001Z

What's Cullen Skink? What's a bridie? What's tofu?! Two of these three questions shall be answered. One shall not.

Cullen Skink is a traditional Scottish soup. It usually contains smoked haddock and cream and all sorts of nastiness. I veganised it using smoked tofu and soy milk etc.

A bridie is a type of pie. It's similar to a cornish pastie but has a shorter crust.

Hence, a Cullen Skink Bridie is a bridie filled with Cullen Skink! Huzzah! You come to Lelly's website and you learn something. I'm just good like that.

I liked these, the filling was smoky and creamy like it should be. I meant to get a picture of the bridie cut open so you could see the filling, but clearly I forgot. I think I need to work on this recipe a little, yes, indeed, it needs a little bit if tweaking. Gary also liked it. I made four of these and I had the one in the picture. Gary came home from work and ate three before he'd even said hello to me. Not surprising really.

Oh, if anyone can tell me the meaning of "Twa plenn bridies an ingan ane an aa" without looking at the wikipedia page, you will earn the title of 'person who Lelly thinks is cool'. It's an honour, believe me.

Nominominominomicon Stuff

2007-11-04T14:42:00.000Z

Yup, I got my Veganomicon last week and I have mainly been cooking from that. It's kinda weird having a Cookbook that's bigger than my Ecotoxicology textbook but there you go.

The first thing I cooked was the spaghetti and beanballs.
It was really quick and easy to make and the recipe yielded 40 gagillion beanballs (which was fine by us, we had the beanball sub for dinner the next night). It tasted quite healthy, but really, really filling too.

The next thing I tried to make seemed doomed to failure. Quite simply, the vegan gods did not want me to make this dish, but I perservered.
I was trying to make the Pasta with Spicy Tempeh and Broccoli Rabe. First of all, my trusty health store was mysteriously out of tempeh, and the shops were out of broccoli rabe. I ended up making Pasta with Spicy Tofu and Plain-Old-Boring-Regular-Broccoli. Because of subbing the Tofu, I had to adjust the method a little bit. I baked the tofu in the marinade for about 20 minutes before frying it. It didn't really matter anyway, because this turned out delicious. The tofu was strangely melt in your mouth, and the flavours worked perfectly. It really reminded us of a similar dish we got at a vegetarian restaurant in Prague (Clear Head).

Yesterday morning I was awake at the crack of dawn (not unusual) and bored so I decided to cook me and Gary a big American style Brunch.
I made scrambled tofu, toast, sliced tomatoes, and the Diner Style Home Fries from the nominominomicon. I thought us Scottish folk had mastered the art of the fried potato for breakfast (tattie scones), but these were also pretty damn good. I'd definitely make them again. Even Gary hoovered his up and he's a crazy non-potato lover. Also, because I'm actually the nicest person in the world, I made Gary some garlic mushrooms for his brunch, even though I have the mushroom fear.

Stuffed Tofu... Again.

2007-10-24T18:59:00.000Z

Yep, third appearance now, but this time with recipe and tutorial, yay!

Stuff you'll need for the filling:

4 tbsp margarine
1 tbsp dijon mustard
4/5 cloves garlic (I like my food really garlicky, reduce this amount if you don't share my passion)
1 tsp oregano
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
Handful basil leaves, chopped.

Stuff you'll need for the coating:

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tbsp dijon mustard

And obviously you'll need a block of tofu! You'll want a really firm tofu, with no cracks or holes in it. This is the kind I use:

What you do:

1. First make the filling by mixing together all the filling ingredients in a bowl. Simple as. This is what mine usually looks like:
2. Now drain your tofu and pat it dry. Cut block of tofu in half like this:
3. Now, using your sharpest knife score a rectangle into one of the sides. Keep scoring deeper and deeper. Go quite far into the tofu, but not too far, as you don't want the tofu to split open.
4. Scoop out the insides of the tofu. Set aside some of the scoopy out bits.
5. Put filling in tofu. Don't overfill it, you don't want the filling to explode the tofu.
6. I sometimes put a little basil leaf on top of the filling, it probably doesn't do anything, but I'm strange like that. Put some of the scooped out tofu in the end.

7. Brush some of the remaining filling onto the outside of the tofu and cover in foil. Leave to marinate, anything over an hour is great, but it tastes fine with no marinating too.

8. Now it's time to bake. I've baked it standing up, and on it's side. It's okay on it's side as long as it's tightly wrapped in foil. This time I baked it standing up. I leave the top of the tin foil open, and wrap and excess round the back of the pan to keep it upright. This probably isn't making any sense, so here's a picture:
9. Bake at around 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye on it to make sure it hasn't fallen over.

10. Take tofu out and leave it to rest until it's cooled down a bit. Why? Well the easiest way to do the next bit is with your hands, and right now, that filling is like molten lava. I did it with tongs tonight, but I wouldn't really recommend it.

11. Right, now put the remaining mustard on a plate, and mix the flour and nutritional yeast together (on a separate plate if you like, I just use a big plate)

12. Turn on your frying pan and put some oil in it. You want to let it get really hot before you put anything in it.

13. Dip tofu in mustard, and then dredge in flour mixture.

14. Fry for a few minutes on each side. Should be nicely browned.

Eat!
Got any leftover filling? Cook your vegetables in it!

Seems like a lot of instructions, but most of it involves waiting for things to happen so it's not too bad.

Some Stuff What I Eated Recently

2007-10-23T15:55:00.001Z

Yeah, that was me trying to do lolcatz speak. I fail at life sometimes.

As I anxiously await the arrival of my Veganomicon, I thought I'd make something from Vegan with a Vengeance that I'd never tried before. So, I give to you, Tempeh and White Bean Sausage Patties. I had four of these babies in some lovely organic pitta bread. Then I went to bed and when I woke the rest of the patties had miraculously disappeared! Funny how that happens sometimes.

Sometimes Gary cooks. When this happens it's always chilli. Sometimes I complain that I get bored of chilli. Sometimes Gary listens and makes things other than chilli. This was one of those times. He took some gorgeous ciabattas and scooped out the insides and stuffed them with roasted vegetables, cheezly, and probably all sorts of other lovely stuff. As I didn't make it, I'm not sure. He also roasted some tomatoes, and toasted the scooped out bread and served it with some garlic olive oil. It was all highly delicious.

I made this soup today and it was the best tomato soup I've ever eaten (even if I do say so myself). It's lovely and rich, and chunky, and flavourful. It also has some cannelini beans in it for some protein (coz you know, none of us are getting enough). It's served with some toasted organic bread I got at the health store, which is spread with lovely garlic and herb butter.

So, I Perfected That Stuffed Tofu Recipe...

2007-10-09T15:16:00.000Z

... but I'm being a total tease and not posting the recipe yet. Why? Well because I have a tendency to not measure anything when I'm cooking, but I promise I'll measure stuff next time I cook it. In the meantime, here's a picture of it, in all its oozy glory.
Gary says it's the best thing I've ever cooked and offered me 50 quid if I would surrender my portion right then and there. I politely declined.

So, on Sunday we had a small vegan brunch at our flat. It was fun. So, I give to you... brunch food!
Balsamic Bruschetta
Tomato Tarts
Aubergine Pomodoro

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff.

2007-09-30T15:24:00.000Z

Indeed.

I started back uni which kind of explains my absence. I have been cooking and taking pictures, just not posting, whoops!

Anyhoo, we had a potluck a few weekends back, so I thought I'd post some of the stuff from there.
Chocolate Chip Cookies from VwaV. Always a hit.
Raspberry Blackout Cake also from VwaV. First time I've made it, and I only had one tiny slice, but it was good.
These were brought by our friend. She hand made the tortillas without a tortilla press! They were delicious. Inside them was a mexican beany mixture. Fantastic.
I'm not entirely sure what to call this. The inside of the tofu was hollowed out and stuffed with various things (I would say what, but I'm still working on the recipe), and then sealed over with some of the scooped out tofu. It was then marinated and baked wrapped in foil. I then dipped it in the remainder of the marinade and dredged it in a flour and nutritional yeast misture and fried it. It was really really good, but the recipe needs a little bit of work.
That's an action shot of the stuffing.

Ciabatta Pizza - Now With Go Faster Stripes.

2007-09-11T11:02:00.000Z

I spent most of yesterday clearing junk out of our bedroom coz we're moving a few things around, so when it came to dinner time, I wasn't in the mood for anything complicated. Ciabatta pizzas to the rescue!
On the pizzas are stripes of basil tofu ricotta and pesto (from a jar). Hit the spot, it did.

The Chinese Supermarket is Fun!

2007-09-09T12:01:00.000Z

I love the chinese supermarket, I really do. We went there yesterday and looked at all the cool vegan junk food (it's there! you just have to look). We ended up with a ridiculous amount of junk and not enough vegetables.
Amongst our haul is yam cookies, black rice mochi, weird looking vegetable and fruit muffins, veggie ham, and weirdly enough, a bottle of Irn Bru (not pictured). Indeed.

With all the wonderful stuff we got, I made the Hongshao Doufu (I think that's how it's spelled) from Please Don't Feed The Bears. It was delicious. Gary took some leftovers to work today and I have just been informed that it was much tastier the day after, but it was plenty tasty just cooked too!

In an unrelated note, I sometimes like to make things. When I make things I sometimes like to show them off. So that's what I'm going to do.

Behold! The amazing D10 earrings and necklace!
I love these so much! They're so simple but they look quite impressive when I wear them. They're basically three D10's (ten sided dice) wrapped in wire. Brilliant. Love em.

I made this bracelet two days ago and went out to the pub wearing it, where it was officially named "The Bracelet What Would Make Mozza My Friend". Apparently it's hard to become his friend, and I decided this bracelet would impress him enough to form a life long friendship.
In case you can't tell, that's the vegan society logo. This bracelet probably breaks all kind of copyright laws, but I'm not selling it or anything! *looks scared* You have to catch me first!

Mr Blobby...

2007-09-07T10:36:00.000Z

Is who I'll look like if I eat too much of this:
Ever have one of those days where you feel like you need to eat something with an ungodly amount of fat in it? For me, yesterday was one of those days. New Farm Mac and Cheese to the rescue! Well kinda. This is without a shadow of a doubt the best vegan mac and cheese recipe out there (and it was published in 1988!), but sweet jeebus there is so much fat in it!

I used whole spelt penne (that makes it healthy, right?) instead of mac, and served it with wholemeal garlic bread (I think I ate one bit).

Gary went back for seconds whilst I rolled onto the couch wimpering and having cold sweats.

Penne Arrabiata

2007-09-05T11:14:00.000Z

I've blogged this meal before, so sue me! I'm allowed to cook the same meal twice you know! Anyhoo, this is whole spelt penne with arrabiata sauce and meatballs (recipe from New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook), served with wholemeal garlic bread. We couldn't eat it all, but it was yummy.
In slightly unrelated news, I'm totally loving being unemployed! I get to cook good food every day, bake stuff, craft stuff whenever I want, and the flat has never been so consistently tidy! It won't last long though, I'm back at uni soon, and I've spent most of the morning today sending my CV off to anyone who'll take it. Anybody in the Tayside area looking for an amateur vegan cook/baker? Part time? No? Didn't think so.

Barbecue Ribs

2007-09-04T11:17:00.000Z

This is that baked seitan recipe from Fat Free Vegan that's been doing the rounds in blog land. It is absolutely amazing. Gary demanded I make another batch right there and then, to which I said "shut up, you fat pie", but you know, I probably could've eaten another batch too.

Living in a tiny flat I don't have a barbecue, so I cooked them on my cast iron griddle pan and it worked out just fine. If you haven't tried this recipe yet, you have to try it!
Oh, it's served with the leftover vegetables from the other night.

Tofu and Veggies

2007-09-03T11:23:00.000Z

Sounds dull, doesn't it? It really wasn't. The tofu is marinated and baked, in a random assortment of things I had at hand. Let's see, there was soy sauce, basil, oregano, thyme, lemon, lime, agave, mustard. It was yummy. The potatoes were tossed in a similar sort of mixture before being roasted. The brussel sprouts were roasted with some garlic and sea salt, as was the purple sprouting broccoli. Yum.

Some cakes I didn't eat.

2007-09-02T09:57:00.001Z

I've noticed a strange phenomenon every time I bake cakes. I rarely eat any. I don't know why, I just like baking them to give away. Plus I usually eat some of the batter, which makes me feel sick.

I baked these to take in on my last day of work. First up are cinnamon buns. This is a recipe that was posted on the Vegan Freak Forums. One girl at work said that these were the best thing she'd ever put in her mouth. Praise indeed.
Next up are Orange Pudding Cupcakes which I made on the request of one of my colleagues who'd absolutely loved them the last time I brought cakes in. They're based on the VCTOW recipe, but I've been tweaking it a little, coz I'm like that.

Dinner O' Citrus!

2007-08-29T19:49:00.000Z

Lemon-Herb Tofu and Lemon-Rosemary Potatoes. Both from Vive le Vegan. Both unbelievably delicious.

Tomorrow I'm going to be baking lots of cakes etc to take into work on Friday. Why? Because Friday is my last day at work and I thought I'd be nice. Oh yeah! Last day of work and back to studentdom soon. Bring on the daytime telly and afternoon drinking... Umm, I mean long nights in the library, and stuff...

Ubiquitous

2007-08-28T20:44:00.000Z

Stuffed peppers - A (very) short story:

Whenever me and Gary go out to eat at somewhere not very vegan friendly and ask them to make us something 'off menu' (or phone ahead and arrange it), we always have a bet on that we'll end up with stuffed peppers. We always win. So when I suggested stuffed peppers for tea tonight Gary was sceptical. There is one fundamental difference between the fancy pants restaurant stuffed peppers and mine though - mine taste good.

So here they are, first rubbed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and roasted and then stuffed with rice, tomatoes, basil, sliced sausages (vegi deli), red onion, and topped off with some cheezly (the non melting kind, which is why it's not... melty) and baked.

Teh yum.

I also made orange scones a few days ago, but I eated them.

Long Time No Blog!

2007-08-23T08:49:00.000Z

It's been nearly a month since I posted anything!! That's terrible! I'm bad, I apologise.

Okay, so I've got some food and some product reviews (well really me going "mmm... these are good..."), so lets get on with it.

We had some leftover Venn Pongal (from Dino Sarma's Alternative Vegan), so I decided the best way to go was to take this lovely, healthy, wholesome meal, and make it unhealthy! Yeah! I added some gram flour to it and made venn pongal cakes. Topped off with some mango chutney. Delicious.

Here's a picture I found on my camera of something I made for lunch ages ago. It's tofu (marinated in teriyaki sauce), tomatoes, spinach, and mayo, all in a wholemeal bun. It was so very good.
You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and feel like being a 1950s housewife? Just me? Meh. A few weekends ago, I woke up at 7 (I know, I'm insane) and made a pie. I don't know why I did it. It just sorta happened. So I made a pie with a layer of chocolate mousse and a layer of peanut butter mousse. I didn't use a recipe, I just kinda flung stuff in a blender, still half asleep. I ate one slice, Gary ate the rest, for he is a huge fatty.

Sorry about the rubbish photo, I must have been itching to eat it.
Okay, now we have some product reviews (kinda) and the best damn salad the world has ever seen. The product review pictures were taken by Gary whilst I was making the salad, which is why they're rubbish.

First up is Redwoods new(ish) feta cheese. Me and Gary both loved this stuff. It is so creamy. I don't quite understand why it's in the crazy oil, but I tried to drain as much off as possible before eating it. After we had it in the salad, we had some on pizza, and it was great. It didn't quite melt, but it went gooey (like, you know... feta). Uh, devine!
Next up is Redwoods new Chorizo. Also delicious (and I swear I'm not being paid by redwoods, although all bribes are graciously received). I've never tasted deathy chorizo, so I can't make a comparison, but this was lovely, and smoky, and spicy, oh my! It comes in little cubes, which is... handy? We also had this on pizza after the salad (not the same night obviously), and Gary said it was 'the best pizza he'd ever had' but he says that every time we have pizza.
On now to the salad. besides the feta and chorizo, there was spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, avocado, onion. I think that was all. As previously mentioned this was the best salad in the world, eva! The picture totally doesn't do it justice. Behind the salad is lovely crusty bread with this really good spread we got at our health store. I think its tomato, basil and olive. It's something like that, and it was perfect for mopping up 'bottom of the bowl salad juices'

Lelly is a crafty vegan!

2007-07-24T20:34:00.000Z

Well kinda. I also speak in the third person apparently. Meh.

Anyhoo, I've got loads of t shirts that don't fit me or are just meh, and I've always fancied adapting them so I'll actually wear them, so I did. I took my old pink herbivore t shirt (the one less meat eater one) and, well, cut it up and put it back together with bits on.I made it into a halter top and added buttons. The buttons are partly for decorative purposes and partly to (kind of) cover the stitching where I sewed the straps on. It's all fairly shoddily made, but it was stitched by hand, cos I'm a poor student and we don't have the moneez for sewing machines, so considering that it's not too bad. It's also squinty in parts, but I'm going to blame that on my atrocious eye sight (uh huh). Just so you know quite how anal I am, the buttons were white, but I hand painted them pink. Indeed.

Here's another shot of it (I am aware that at this point, this mainly becomes me posting close ups of my boobs, but shh)

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

2007-07-21T11:07:00.000Z

So, a few weeks ago our oven exploded in quite a spectacular fashion. So it's broken and we're not getting a new one fitted until the 31st. This has made me actually have to think whilst cooking, and making sure everything can be done on the hob. *sigh*

So I totally had a craving for lasagne the other day, but, duh, you need an oven to make lasagne. So instead, I very craftily made lasagne rolls.

While the pasta cooked a took a block of tofu, drained and mashed it, and seasoned it. I chucked in some nutritional yeast, garlic, sea salt, oregano, basil, spinach, etc and cooked it on the hob for a little while. I then rolled all this up in the pasta, put them on plates and (gasp) microwaved them to make sure it was all hot. Whilst they were in the microwave, I made some sundried tomato sauce on the hob and chucked it on top.

The results were truly yum.
Very much indeed so.

Oh, I got tagged by Drasch to do a meme thingamibob, but my brain is not currently functioning, so I'll have a think and do it later.

Post O' Randomness...

2007-07-16T17:52:00.000Z

Yup, random indeed. Why? Meh, who knows. Maybe I like to keep you on your toes, or maybe I'm clearing out my camera. You'll never know.

Okay, so like, here's my kitchen..

I mainly took this picture because it was cleaner than usual because Gary's family was visiting, but also because I'm a nosy mare and I like to see peoples houses, and especially their kitchens, so I figure someone else must be nosy...

Okay, so now for some midweek dinners. Mainly of the 'thrown together at the last minute' variety.

Here's some linguine alfreda. The recipe is mainly from Vegan with a Vengeance, but as always, I never actually follow recipes. It was deliciously spicy and creamy, which are two of my favourite food adjectives.
Next up is a pasta bake, and I know what you're thinking - "oh my god, someone vomited on your pasta", but it was lovely! Honest! It has tomatoes, and herbs, and vegideli sausages, and cheezly. It was quite heavy though, so not something for all the time.
This is what we just had for dinner. Tacos. Not much you can really say about tacos. Lets see, there was spinach, refried beans, jalapenos... I think that was all. Yup. Oh, and salsa on the side. Luurvley.
Let's top off the randomness with some more randomness. Yes, I think so. Here's a picture of a fighter jet (? I dunno, I'm a girl) that appeared in town one day. The jolly man in front of the jet is just a bonus.

Beware! Huge post ahead!

2007-06-24T12:18:00.000Z

Yup, to make up for my lack of frequent posts, I thought I better make this post big. I have been cooking and taking pictures of everything, I just haven't gotten around to blogging.

Anyway, this is another one from Alternative Vegan. It's banana bread, and it was delicious.
Have I mentioned how much I love living next to a huge oriental supermarket? If not, I do. It's even open on a Sunday, so I popped in there and got some abura age (tofu pouches) and stuffed them with some sushi rice. It was loosely based on the recipe from Japanese Cooking. They were really delicious and the rice stayed inside the pouches really well. The dipping sauce is Teriyaki.
The next night we had something else from Japanese Cooking, the Crispy Fried Tempeh. It's basically tempeh marinated in soy sauce, mirin etc and then dredged in some flour and fried. I served it with wholegrain rice and topped it off with a little teriyaki sauce. I'm totally digging the teriyaki sauce these days. To be honest, I found this meal a little bit on the salty side, but Gary loved it so, meh.
Next up we have the Hungarian Potato Paprikash from Please Don't Feed The Bears. It's basically a whole load of vegetables chucked in a pot. I baked it in the oven for a while too, to let the potatoes crisp up a bit. Its was really tasty and comforting.
The next night we stuck with Please Don't Feed The Bears and made the Taco Thrasherole. It was kinda like a chilli casserole. There are more tortilla chips on the bottom. I thought it was great, but Gary thought it was too spicy, but he is a spice wimp.
This is something we had for lunch during the week. It's a soba noodle salad from Japanese Cooking. It was good, but we both found it far too oily.
Finally, we have a bit of a product review. I'd seen this tofu ravioli before, but it was really expensive and I couldn't bring myself to buy it in case we didn't like it. So when I saw it 20% Gratuit, I snapped it up!
Here it is cooked. We really enjoyed it! The tofu filling could have been a little more flavoursome, but it's fine for a cupboard standby when you can't be bothered cooking.
That's all! I've started planning my meals on a Sunday. As sad as it sounds, it saves us money if we buy all the food at once, instead of nipping to the shops for this or that. It also saves a lot of hassle, and if I have something written down I will actually make it, instead of eating rubbish!

Alternative Vegam Yummyness!

2007-06-10T19:15:00.001Z

I've had Dino Sarma's cookbook Alternative Vegan on preorder for quite some time now, so it was a nice surprise to come home from work last week and have a lovely present waiting for me!
If you haven't heard of Dino Sarma, where have you been? He does regular cooking segments on Vegan Freak Radio, and is a prolific member of the forums. Enough of the adoration, and onto the food!

This is the Venn Pongal. It's a delicious mix of rice, moong daal, cashews, spices, and I can't remember what else. It was really nice, comforting food. Unfortunately I couldn't find curry leaves anywhere, which was an ingredient, so I just went without. I'll have to have a good look around the shops next time I get a chance.
It's been weirdly hot here the past few days, but that's Scotland for you, we get all the seasons, all the time, mainly cold, but meh. Anyhoo, yes it was hot, so I decided the next thing I was going to make would be his Pomegranate Wine Slushies.
These were also delicious. So refreshing! As well as the obvious pomegranate juice, wine, and ice, there's also strawberries and some lovely seasonings. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? It was.

Lelly is a bad blogger!

2007-06-03T18:54:00.001Z

It's true. The only excuse I have is that I don't get home from work till late so Gary has been cooking quite a lot and we've been forgetting to take pictures. I truly am rubbish.

Anyway, I promise I'm trying to get back into the habit! Now onto the food...

You know sometimes you just want to eat some comforting stodge even though it's June? Today was one of those days. To be fair though, it's not like it's warm in Scotland, it's been bloody freezing the past few days.

Anyhoo, here is said comforting stodge.

It's vegetable pie and potatoes. Can you really get a stodgier meal? No, didn't think so.

Okay now, remember the giant monkey balloon in my last post? Well it had been gone for a while, and then we went out on Saturday and it was back! Even more surreal was the fact that a huge climbing wall had been erected at practically the end of our street (if I haven't mentioned it before, we live right in the centre of town, near all the craziness). Again, I decided that photographic evidence was required to stop us thinking we were going mad.

Weird.

Tandoori Burgers and a Giant Monkey Balloon!

2007-05-12T20:40:00.000Z

We saw these burgers today at the health store and thought we'd give them a whirl. I'm such a sucker for having to try something if I've never seen it before. The packaging is a bit retro, isn't it?
Here it is cooked. As you can see it looks absolutely nothing like the picture on the package. It just looks like a regular veggie burger. That's pretty much how it tasted too, I didn't get a strong tandoori taste at all, which was disappointing. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything special. I give it a 'meh'.

So, onto the giant monkey balloon... We were walking through town yesterday and saw this:
This is right in the middle of Dundee city centre. It's City Square, where all of our 'important' people (council and such like) buildings are. We were very confused. That's Gary in the picture there to give a little bit of perspective. Gary's over six feet tall, so as you can see, this thing is huge! We were also confused by the sign, 'Everybody' what? And why was it all cordoned off? We want answers, people!

Strangely enough, I was walking by City Square today and it was gone. If we didn't have these pictures as proof, I may well have thought I was going insane. I wasn't though... Not this time...

Banana Omelettes O' Wrongness!

2007-05-06T20:19:00.000Z

I thought I would be nice this morning and cook Gary (and me) a nice breakfast. How wrong could I be picking this recipe! It's the Banana Omelette recipe from the Vegan World Fusion Cookbook. When I first saw it I thought "hmm, that'd be nice with some peanut butter and maple syrup", but then I looked at the recipe and it had a savoury filling in it. I was highly sceptical but I thought I'd give it a go.

This started out completely horrible, and ended up pretty much the same way. You have to boil the bananas with their skins on for 20 minutes to soften them up. Boiling banana skins is one of the most foil smells I've ever been unfortunate enough to smell in my entire life. For some reason I persevered with the rest of the recipe. It started out okay, but the more you ate, the more the weirdness of the banana/savoury mixture got too unbearable. The last bite I took made me gag, and I had to go spit it out.

It was an altogether unpleasant experience and I wish I'd just stayed in bed for an extra hour.

Has anybody else made this recipe? Did I somehow mess it up completely?

Tofu Tacos and Grilled Cheez Sammiches

2007-05-05T18:26:00.000Z

These are from another new addition to my cookbook collection, The Everyday Vegan. I swear at this rate there will be no room in the flat for me and Gary with all the cookbooks! These were really tasty. Gry thought they were a little too spicy, but he's a bit of a spicy food wimp, so let's not listen to him. Its basically mashed tofu with lots of chopped veg and spices all chucked in a pan and cooked. It makes loads, which is a huge bonus for me just now as I am insanely busy with work and studying, but one more week and it'll all be over!

In the background is something we drink far too much of - Curiosity Cola. Our friend Alice turned us on to the stuff and it's been a downward spiral since then. Alice will of course be receiving our dentist's bills.

Today for lunch we had something that is really not very healthy but we don't eat lunch together a whole lot, and rarely ever eat crap like this (well I don't, Gary is another story...), so it was a treat.

Behold... The grilled cheez sandwich o' clogged artery goodness!

Besides the insanely unhealthy tofutti slices there is sundried tomatoes, onions, sea salt and red pepper flakes.

Don't judge me!

Pasta With Loads of Veggies

2007-04-29T15:47:00.000Z

Not the most imaginative post title, but what can I say? That's what it is, so... yeah. It's lumache pasta with spinach, sundried tomatoes, asparagus, corn, onion, oregano, and red pepper flakes, and it was delicious.

I made some garlic bread to go with it. Isn't home made garlic bread just like so much better than any rubbish you buy in shops? I think so.

In unrelated news I ordered a really cool lunch thermos thingy. It looks like a regular thermos flask, but it has three compartments in it for storing different foods, so I'll be able to take dinner leftovers to work. No more sandwiches! Man, I am so sick of sandwiches. I have to get up ridiculously early for work every day, and then study in the evenings and weekends so I've not had time to make lunch other than sandwiches. My exams are finished soon though so th nightmare will end soon!