Nominominominomicon Stuff

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.

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

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...

... 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.

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.

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!

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...

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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!

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.

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...

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.