Nothin' Fancy!

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

I'm Back!

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...

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...

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...

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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...

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

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!

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

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...

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

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

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.