Pasta sauce 2 ways

In an ideal world I would make all of my pasta sauce from scratch. After all, it's easy, cheap, healthy & it freezes well.

In reality I'm just not that organised at the moment. So, when we inevitably resort to a jar of pasta sauce for dinner, our preferred choice is the Cherry Tomato & Basil from Sacla Italia.
This sauce is full of flavour, filled with lots of whole cherry tomatoes and has a pretty simple list of ingredients with no hidden nasties. An added bonus is it's readily available in regular supermarkets.Here, we used it as a pizza sauce, a job it performs remarkably well. This is a pita bread pizza with capsicum, mushroom, pineapple, olives and some diced cheezly. Normally I don't put cheese substitutes on pizza, but I had the end bit of a cheezly roll to use up.
The next evening we had pita bread pizza again - something you couldn't really do with regular calorie & cholesterol soaked pizza. This time the toppings were baby spinach, olives, mushrooms, capsicum, pineapple & creamed corn. All I can say is, yum!
The second use for our favourite jar of pasta sauce was to make a lazy-person's lasagne - specifically Chelsey's Meaty Lasagne.

I really liked this recipe - particularly the pine nuts on the top for something a little bit different. The flavours were everything you would expect from a traditional lasagne, but obviously much healthier due to the lack of dead animals :-)

The only thing I changed was doubling the white sauce quantity - I like my lasagne very saucy. Next time, I'll probably make even more again - there wasn't quite enough to spread on the top as I would have liked.

Sweet delights

Here's 2 different desserts that I have picked up from other bloggers. One is super-healthy & deceptively simply & the other is not so healthy, but still pretty easy.

First up, Banana Soft-Serve. If you haven't discovered this awesome dessert yet, you must do it now. Go on - go and freeze some bananas because you need to try this.

I first found out about this dessert about a year ago from Tahn. I have to agree with Tahn - this post really will change your life.Look at that creamy goodness!I sifted some cocoa over mine - a lazy substitution for a chocolate sauce topping.

The second dessert I discovered was vegan honeycomb. K was the trendsetter, and it has since been re-blogged by others. I had no idea honeycomb was vegan by default, nor that it was so easy to make. Needless to say, I'm pretty damn excited now that I know.Here's my honeycomb just out of the pan - so golden & beautiful!Here it is half-covered in melted dark chocolate - I wanted to try some of the honeycomb on its own to really taste the flavour. I also didn't put chocolate on the bottom as K did, again, preferring to taste more of the honeycomb rather than the chocolate.Finally, here's some of my honeycomb chunks - perfect! It really melts on your tongue too - just like the store-bought stuff!

Grigons & Orr

I discovered this corner-shop cafe just after it opened, but that was in my pre-blogging days. We probably went there half a dozen times & for some reason stopped visiting regularly about 6 months ago.

That was a mistake. When thinking of yummy vegan breakfast options, I think Grigons & Orr is the closest cafe to home we have. The coffee is also great (served in gorgeous vintage china) & the service is relatively fast & friendly enough for an order-at-the-counter-grab-your-own-cutlery kind of place. The atmosphere is lovely - they have done a really good job recreating the corner store vibe. It's tucked away in a quieter pocket of North Melbourne, so don't go there if you're into people watching - this place is better for a laid-back Sunday breakfast.

Two warnings - this is a friendly-weather only place as the majority of the seating is outside. I think there are 2 tables inside, but it's pretty cramped in there. It also gets very busy, so you may find yourself waiting for a table if you turn up later than early morning.

On this visit I again chose the marinated tofu, with toast (it doesn't come with toast, so make sure you ask).This is a delicious meal - crispy flavoursome tofu with spinach & mushrooms & just the right amount of soy marinade.

There's also a couple of other vegan (or veganisable) options on the menu, so I highly recommend you check it out!

Grigons & Orr
Corner Queensberry & Chetwynd Streets, North Melbourne
7 days, 7am-5pm
www.grigonsorr.com.au

Pearl Oyster the second

A couple of weekends ago, we returned to Pearl Oyster (here's the first blog visit). The specials board wasn't looking very vegan-friendly, so I spent a long time looking through the regular menu. The only thing that caught my eye was the Avocado Baguette, but since I ate that last time, I was determined to get something different.

In the end I went with the marinated mushrooms on toast. I wasn't really in the mood for mushrooms (for some reason, the taste of mushrooms can sometimes make me feel quite sick - I wonder if other people feel that too?). These turned out to be field mushrooms & came with some lovely roasted spring onions, garlic, rocket & lemon.As always, the service was outstanding, the coffee even better & the food was divine. Thank you Pearl Oyster, you make me very happy - but I would be even happier if you moved to Yarraville :-)

Pearl Oyster
114 Miller St, Thornbury
Mon,Wed-Sat 8am-4:30pm; Sun 9am-4pm

La Panella, take 2

La Panella, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
1. This light, buttery, chocolaty vegan croissant.2. This sweet, sticky, jam-filled chocolate vegan donut.

3. The 10 vegan sausage rolls we bought for $1.50 each for D's lunch this week.

I could go on, but if you're vegan in Melbourne, you know what I'm talking about. In the end we walked out with 10 sausage rolls, 3 jam tarts, 1 caramel slice, 1 chocolate donut & 1 chocolate croissant for $22!

You can read about 1 of my previous visits here. And yes, there was another visit to Pearl Oyster - review coming soon.

La Panella
465 High St, Thornbury
Mon-Fri 6am-6pm; Sat 6am-5pm; Sun 6am-4pm

And that's it from me for a few days - I'm exhausted after all this vegan mofoing!

Beany Pasta

Only 2 days of Vegan Mofo to go. I let it go at the end of last week - just too tired & too busy...

In an attempt to clear out the old vegies in the fridge, I threw this pasta sauce together last night. I make variations of it all the time - sometimes using lentils or chickpeas instead of the kidney beans & always with a different variety of veg. This one turned out really well - I'm glad we have leftovers for tonight.Start by dicing your vegies - I used 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, 1 carrot, 1 zucchini & 1 cup of mushrooms. Cook the onion, celery & carrot in some olive oil with 1 clove of crushed garlic for about 7 mins, until they're nice & soft. Then add the zucchini & mushrooms & cook another couple of minutes.

Add 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 can of kidney beans (drained & rinsed), about 1TBS of balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp dry basil & salt/pepper to taste. Simmer the sauce, stirring occasionally, about 20mins, until thick & rich. Serve with the pasta of your choice (I used wholemeal spaghetti).

The most important meal of the day

Is breakfast of course! During the cooler months, my daily breakfast is porridge with LSA, blueberries & soy milk (plus a little swirl of maple syrup for sweetness). Sometimes I use brown sugar instead, and I've often wondered which is the healthier option. I'm time-poor though, so I haven't done any research into it.In the warmer months, my daily breakfast is a couple of weetbix with LSA, soy milk & fruit - strawberries or bananas or both. No sugar necessary for this one - I find bananas do the sweetening just fine on their own. Sorry, I don't have a photo of that one, because I ran out of bananas yesterday & I figured a picture of a bowl with mushy weetbix wasn't going to be all that interesting (not that the rest of this post is!).

On an unrelated issue, the space bar on my laptop isn't working properly. I really hope it doesn't get worse, orallofmysentenceswilllooklikethis...

Mess, Glorious Mess

You may have noticed a theme emerging in my meals over the past couple of weeks (or maybe longer). If you haven't - I'll tell you - it's one of simple, lazy, and sometimes not-so-healthy meals. That's because life (mostly work-life) is so busy at the moment I don't have time to think about preparing proper meals anymore. I'm hoping the wind-down to Christmas will provide some relief, but we shall see.

Dinner last night proudly continued the theme - look at this awful mess - isn't it beautiful! It may not look like it, but this is Nachos - simply corn chips, topped with heated up refried beans, tomato salsa (store-bought) & creamed corn. I've found creamed corn to be a great substitute for sour-cream and/or avocado in these kinds of meals.

Mix & Match Potato Salad

I really felt like potato salad on Sunday night but I didn't have the right ingredients for any of my recipes. So, I decided to piece something together using inspiration from all of them. Luckily I succeeded & the result was this delicious & filling dinner.Mix & Match Potato Salad

• 1kg kipfler potatoes, peeled & chopped into bite-sized pieces
  
• 1 TBS semi or sun-dried tomatoes, chopped finely
  
• 2 TBS capers
  
• 1/3 cup macadamias, roasted & chopped roughly
  
• 1 cup mixed frozen corn & peas, thawed
  
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
  
• 2 TBS lemon juice
  
• 1 finely chopped scallion (I didn't have one, so added a dash of onion powder)
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Cook the diced potatoes boiling, salted water until just tender, about 10-15min. Drain well. Add all of the salad ingredients to a large bowl & toss gently (I used my hands to make sure I didn't break up the potato).

To make the dressing, whisk the olive oil,lemon juice, scallion/onion powder & salt/pepper really well until it becomes thick. Pour over the salad just before serving & mix gently.

I actually served this salad warm because, as usual, I'd left making dinner too late & was hungry & impatient. I think it was really lovely warm, but I'm sure it would make a nice cold salad too.

In hindsight, I could have left the corn/peas out, but please don't leave out the macadamias - they give such a lovely texture & really made all the difference.

Scrambled Tofu take 2

It's been while since I made the old favourite so I decided that Sunday breakfast was the time to resurrect it. It was pretty similar to this version.In there was half a sliced red capsicum, a finely diced tomato, one grated carrot, one finely diced celery stick and about 1 1/2 cups of quartered button mushrooms. One of the reasons I loved scrambled tofu so much is the way you can just throw in whatever veg you have in the fridge - I probably got my entire day's servings in one meal! And, I don't have kids, but I get the feeling it would be a great way to trick them into eating their vegetables.

The spice mix was a bit of everything thrown in - 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp dry basil, 1 tsp ground coriander, a splash of liquid smoke & about 2-3 TBS of tamari.

Poetic Pizza

I'll admit there's nothing particularly poetic about this pizza. But when I typed 'adjectives starting with p...' into Google it came up and I thought it sounded good :-)Just a quick post - this is a takeaway pizza from my local - Godfathers Pizza. It's a vegetarian without the cheese. Simple. $7. Delicious.

Another stir-fry... ho hum

I had chopped up all the vegetables to make some kind of pasta dish on Monday night but changed my mind at the last minute & turned to my old recipe collection for inspiration. I was particularly looking for a way to use up asparagus & green beans. I found this simple recipe for stir-fried sesame vegetables. I normally make my stir-fries the same way, but I figured a little change couldn't hurt.
This is the recipe as I had it written down (no idea where it came from!), but I improvised with the ingredients I had on hand. I really enjoyed this meal - it's just a little different from my standard stir-fries. I think it was the asparagus that really made all the difference.

Stir fried sesame vegetables with rice

• 1 1/4 cups vegetable stock
  
• 1 cup long grain white rice (I used brown rice)
  
• 1 TBS Nuttelex
  
• 1 TBS sesame seeds
  
• 1 TBS peanut oil
  
• 225g fresh asparagus, trimmed & cut into 1 inch pieces
  
• 1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
  
• 1 large onion, sliced (I used green beans & zucchini instead)
  
• 140g sliced mushrooms
  
• 1/2 TBS minced fresh ginger
  
• 2 tsp minced garlic
  
• 2-3 TBS soy sauce, to taste (I used tamari)
  
• 1/2 TBS sesame oil

In a saucepan combine stock, rice & Nuttelex. Cover & bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low & simmer for 20-25mins, until liquid is absorbed. (I used brown rice & found that the absorption method didn't work as well, so just keep an eye on it).

Place the sesame seeds in a small frypan & dry-fry them over a medium heat 3-4mins, until golden brown.

Heat peanut oil in a wok over med-high heat until very hot. Add vegetables, ginger & garlic. Stir-fry 4-5mins or until vegetables are tender but still crisp. Add soy sauce & cook 30 seconds. Remove from heat & stir in sesame oil & seeds. Serve over rice.

The Monster Calzones

In all the years I have been baking I have always stayed away from making my own pizza dough (or any bread for that matter). I think I may have tried it once & failed, so since then whenever we have home-made pizza it's always on a pita-bread base.

But last weekend I had an afternoon to fill so I decided to give it another go. I chose the Spinach & Tofu Calzones from Vegan Planet. The recipe uses a traditional pizza dough and a pretty standard spinach & tofu 'ricotta' mix.

I was so surprised at how easy it was to make the dough! I checked it about 10 times during the hour that it was rising & was so excited to see it getting bigger, then when it was time to roll it out I was like a little kid. It was just like the dough I see in pizza shops - smooth & stretchy & beautiful! So, I think I'm a convert to home-made pizza dough now... it's just a shame you need to leave it for that hour, because it pretty much means I'll never be able to make it on a weeknight.Now for the Calzones themselves. Firstly - they were huge! The recipe said to split the dough in half & make 2, so that's what I did. I think next time I'll split it into 4 (or maybe even 6). The dough cooked beautifully though - all golden & crispy, just the way I like it.D & I both found the filling a bit bland. It needed a fair amount of sauce to make it interesting. Next time I will probably use the tofu 'ricotta' recipe from The Vegan Table, which I have previously made here.

Jam & Oats make a muffin

Here's another recipe from my favourite cookbook author Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. These are the Jam-Filled Oat Bran Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking.Following the theme of everything else in the book the recipe is quite easy. The muffins are filled with oat bran, oat milk, walnuts, cinnamon & strawberry jam - which sounded like a winning combination to me. The oat milk was optional, but I'm glad I used it - I think it gave a nice rich flavour to the finished product.As you can see from the photo above, I probably wasn't careful enough when dropping my jam into the batter, because it mostly ended up seeping out the sides of the muffins, making them stick to the pan.

That also meant that when cut open, my muffins didn't look nearly as pretty as Colleens did.They did taste pretty damn good though. The only downfall for these muffins was that they didn't hold up too well the next day. They lost the nice crumbly texture & quickly became quite moist & dense. So just make sure you have some friends around to help you polish them off on the day you make them :-)

A bucket of hommus!

That's right, no need to adjust your computer screens. That really is a 1kg bucket of hommus! Now, I'm sure it's been possible to bulk purchase hommus for decades, but I've never seen it, so bear with me through this period of excitement.Last week was not a particularly foodie week for me - I was just too tired from too much work. I was wandering the aisles of the local supermarket, looking for something easy & snack-like for dinner when I saw the bucket - I knew I had to have it. It's Yumi's brand, which I really like anyway, and it was really cheap - only about $6-7 from memory.I teamed the bucket up with a more suitably sized Spicy Pumpkin Dip (love this one!) & some toasted turkish bread for the laziest dinner I know how to prepare. At least it was a little bit healthy.

And I promise that most of the bucket is still in the fridge - it's got a January use-by-date - and I think I'll probably need that long to get through it.

A frozen burger

I know I missed posting yesterday, and it was for the same reason that I made this cop-out dinner last night. In one word - work. It's tiring me out & there's no sign of things slowing down soon - I'm exhausted!This is a Sanitarium Not Burger, which went through a period of not being vegan due to egg white in the mix, but are OK again now. I actually quite like these - they have a pleasant flavour & a nice crispy coating. They're also cheaper than many other brands(& are actually the only brand available in my local supermarket).

Simply served on a wholemeal grain roll with tomato, lettuce, wholegrain mustard & tomato sauce - a very satisfying meal. I still feel like a cop-out though, knowing how easy it is to make home-made burger patties. These ones from K & Toby look particularly good.

Daylesford delights

D & I headed off very early Saturday morning to have breakfast in Daylesford. I was looking forward to visiting Himalaya Bakery again after a year or so away. Unfortunately they're closed at the moment & I was devastated. Our stomachs wouldn't stop rumbling though, so we had to keep up the search for food.I remembered a nice meal at Frangos & Frangos, but that must have been lunch because when we looked at their breakfast menu there wasn't anything particularly veganisable on it. In the end we trudged back down the hill to Harvest Cafe. This is an organic cafe and grocer and we had eaten there before but remembered it being quite average.

This time we were pleasantly surprised. We were told on arrival there would be a long wait so we nabbed ourselves a table by the window & settled in. I'm glad we decided to wait because the food was great! I ordered the Vegan Scrambled Tofu, which came with spinach, capsicum & olives. It was flavoured quite simply but perfectly (with tamari I think). I thought the side-salad was a bit strange on a breakfast plate but I was so hungry I ate it all anyway. The kalamata olives were also quite overpowering and are probably more suited to a lunch or dinner-style scrambled tofu. The toast was delicious & they even gave me Nuttelex!D ordered the Vegetarian Omelet, which had cheese, spinach, mushroom & tomato inside. His also came with a side salad (which he didn't eat). He said the omelet was quite tasty - definitely better than last time.As you can see from the photos the serving sizes are large - just the thing to satisfy a big appetite after an 1.5 hour drive. The prices are around mid-range, but since the cafe is organic, I actually think are quite reasonable. The staff are friendly and it's also a handy place to go if you need to pick up some vegan goodies on the way out from the grocery store. The only thing they could probably do better is the coffee - mine was OK but D couldn't finish his.

After breakfast the weather had turned gorgeous so we took a stroll around the lake where I saw this very cute duck.I think ducks are probably my favourite animal - isn't it beautiful!

Harvest Cafe
29 Albert St, Daylesford
Mon-Sat 8:30am-5:30pm; Sun 8:30am-4pm
http://harvestcafe.net.au

Meditteranean Pasta

There's nothing particularly mind-blowing about this dinner - it's just an example of one of the quick, simple meals I eat when I'm not feeling particularly inspired. Despite that, it remains one of my favourites (I practically lived on this when I was a student), and it can easily be adapted for whatever veg you have in your fridge.For this one I chopped 1 onion finely, diced 1 large carrot, diced 2 stalks of celery & diced about 1 cup of mushrooms. I fried the onion, carrot & celery with a crushed garlic clove & a tiny bit of chilli paste in olive oil for about 5 mins. Then I added the mushrooms & cooked them for a couple of minutes. I added 1 can of diced tomatoes, a slurp of balsamic vinegar (you could also use red or white wine), a pinch of dry basil & some salt & pepper. I turned the heat down & let it all simmer for about 20-30mins until the sauce was nice and thick. While that was happening I cooked some wholemeal spaghetti & that's it!

I often add some protein to this sauce - lentils or kidney beans - but I wasn't in the mood. I also added some chopped black olives to my sauce after serving (D hates olives).

The leaning tower of pies

It's a funny story really. A little while ago I had a bag of mushrooms to use up so decided to make some of my lentil & mushroom pies for freezing. Everything went well until I got a bit impatient when I was trying to freeze them. I put them in a container all stacked on top of each other while they were still warm. This must have created some kind of unbreakable bond, because now, whenever I try to get a pie out of the freezer for dinner, I can only get 3. The pies in the photo below have actually been defrosted & heated in the oven & still wouldn't come apart!So, D & I have had to resign ourselves to eating 3 at a time. Obviously, we save them for those times when we are starving - lucky they're not full-sized pies. The important part in all of this is the pie itself. This is my basic recipe. I've tried Carla's and Cindy's pies this year, both of which I loved, but this is my own quick and easy favourite recipe. It relies mostly on frozen & canned food so I pretty much always have the ingredients on hand.

Lentil, Mushroom & Pea Pies

• 1-1 1/2 cups mushrooms, finely diced
  
• 1 can brown lentils, rinsed & drained
  
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
  
• 1 can diced tomatoes
  
• Salt & Pepper to taste
  
• 4 sheets puffy pastry, thawed

Heat a little olive oil over medium heat in a frypan. Add the mushrooms & cook a few minutes, until just starting to shrink. Add the remaining ingredients to the pan & cook, stirring occasionally, about 10-15mins, until the mix has thickened.

I use my pie-maker for these, so at this stage, just cut out your pastry & fit it to whatever pie-making device you are going to use. Add some filling, pop a pastry lid on it & bake for as long as it takes for the pastry to turn golden brown (if baking in the oven, just use a moderate heat - it will probably take around 15mins).Here's a pretty terrible shot of the filling. These are definitely best enjoyed with some good old tomato sauce.

Mum's scones

I've been eating these scones ever since I can remember - it's my Mum's recipe & it seems like she used to make them at least once a week (but it was probably more like once a month). Then I grew up and started making scones myself. And then I became vegan, but that was OK because the recipe was easily veganisable.

This time I made them for breakfast - they only take about 30min from prep to eating.The photo makes it seem like there are tons of the things - but I used a small cutter (5cm I think) so they're really more like mini scones.

Mum's Scones

• 3 cups SR flour
  
• ½ tsp salt
  
• 3 TBS Nuttelex, cold
  
• 1 ½ cups soy milk

Preheat oven to 210C & grease or line an oven tray.

Combine the flour & salt in a large bowl, then rub the Nuttelex in with your fingertips until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Add milk & mix until it just comes together.

Turn dough onto a floured board & pat out until 1-2 inches high (don't overwork the dough). Use a floured scone cutter or glass to cut out the scones. Place them onto the tray with edges touching & brush the tops with a little extra soy milk. Bake 10-15mins until golden & they sound hollow when tapped on the top.

I know there are lots of ways to customise scones but I pretty much just leave the recipe alone - after all, I know it works!My toppings of choice are jam (this is Raspberry) & Nuttlex with Marmite. D thinks putting marmite on them is disgusting but I really like it and no matter what he says I don't think I'm crazy :-)We had a few scones left over after breakfast, so they served as afternoon tea as well. This is raspberry jam again with some Soyatoo Whipped Cream. I haven't had the cream before & I don't really like it - too much of a soy flavour for me. I definitely wouldn't serve it to a non-vegan.