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.

Breakfast food for dinner

I was all out of inspiration on Thursday night but was also desperate for a quick & healthy dinner. Staring into the fridge I saw a selection of fresh veges & a block of tofu. Now, I've only ever eaten scrambled tofu for breakfast - over toast - as a kind of substitute for scrambled eggs (a much healthier & tastier alternative!). I figured it would be easy enough to bring the dish into the evening with the addition of a whole lot of vegetables & some stronger flavourings. Here's what I came up with - D & I both devoured it so it must have been delicious :-)Scrambled Tofu with Attitude

• 1 block firm tofu, rinsed & dried (you can press it if you have the time)
  
• 1 leek, finely sliced (you could use onion)
  
• 1 carrot, grated
  
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
  
• 1/2 red capsicum, finely sliced
  
• 2 tomatoes, finely diced
  
• 2 handfuls baby spinach
  
• 1/4 cup mung bean sprouts (optional - I just added them because they came with my veg delivery & I don't know what else to do with them!)
  
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  
• 1/2 tsp minced chili (I used the jar stuff, you could also use powder or flakes)
  
• 1 tsp turmeric
  
• 1 tsp coriander
  
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  
• 1-2 TBS soy sauce, to taste
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock

Crumble the tofu into a bowl. Heat a little oil in a large frypan & add the leek, carrot, celery, capsicum & garlic. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, about 5mins. Add the tofu & all the flavourings & cook another few minutes. Add the remaining vegetables & cook until the spinach has just wilted & most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Here's a photo of my breakfast this morning - D is away again so I can freely indulge my sweet tooth :-) This is the 'Fast & Fabulous French Toast' from The Vegan Table.I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! Everything I have made from it has worked out so well! This french toast really was fast & fabulous & super simple to make. It's just soy milk, no tofu (which is good because my local supermarkets don't stock silken tofu so I rarely have any in the fridge). I warmed a handful of frozen blueberries with a teaspoon of agave syrup to serve this with - they added just the right touch of tartness to the sweetness of the toast & maple syrup.

The baking machine

I was a BAKING MACHINE when I got home last night! My motivation was to use up the veges in the fridge because I'm away this weekend & there's no way D will use them - I'm not sure he even knows where the vegetable crisper is in the fridge :-).

First up on the menu was a Baked Pumpkin Risotto for dinner - loosely based on this one. I've started making it regularly, basically because it's simple, delicious & pretty impossible to stuff up. Last night I used leek, pumpkin & silverbeet. There ended up being about the twice the weight of vegetables than the recipe called for, so I added some extra rice & stock to compensate.
While the risotto was in the oven, I started on a double-batch of Chickpea & Mushroom sausages, first attempted last week. I'm freezing these for D to eat while I'm away - he tends to subsist on a diet of frozen pizza if I don't provide a healthier alternative, plus, I had a huge bag of mushrooms to get rid of.

I didn't have any onion, so I just fried the mushrooms with some onion powder, plus some garlic powder thrown in for good measure. I also threw in about half a bunch of coriander which I had to use up. I went to mix in the breadcrumbs & realised I only had about half the required amount & didn't even have any bread in the house to make more. So I added some rolled oats instead. Finally, because there were so many of the damn things, I decided to bake, rather than grill them. You can see the result below. Yes, I KNOW what they look like, you don't need to tell me - but I stick by my assertion that it's the taste, not the presentation, that counts :-). The baking did make them a little dry, but that's nothing that lashings of tomato sauce won't fix.
Finally, I wanted to get rid of 2 beetroots - I decided to make a massive batch of Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes for freezing. I figure I'll always have some on hand now which will be very handy in cupcake emergencies.

I doubled the recipe, which ended up making a whopping 34 cupcakes! I had to pull out my nifty new cupcake carrier to store them in.
Three hours later I was completely exhausted & I never want to see a kitchen again. I figure that at least now I know how much I can cook in 3 hrs, which is:

• A risotto for 6
  
• 24 sausages
  
• 34 cupcakes

Luckily, I'm visiting Mum & Dad this weekend, so I'll be able to revert to childhood & let Mum look after me :-)

Mmmm... hot pies and sauce

I went for a 30km ride yesterday, and I haven't done a long ride in ages... afterwards I was so tired I knew I needed something easy but also filling & full of protein for dinner. I wanted to make these, but I used the last of my TVP on Saturday night in a Shepherd's Pie.

Then I happily remembered that I had bought a can of Sanitarium mince a while ago - so I could make Carla's pies instead! These are awesome - super easy & best of all, there's no crazy ingredients (as long as you've got the mince - but you can buy it when you remember & then keep it in the cupboard for months).

I made up a 1/2 batch of the filling, because I used my pie-maker to make individual pies, rather than one big one. This was enough for 6 overflowing pies - the mix could have easily stretched to fill 8.

How good do they look!

Bangers & Mash

I an effort to get through my vege box this week I'm making a rule that any meal I cook must contain at least one vegetable. Last night's dinner was safe, with 3 different things from the box!

This is Chickpea & Mushroom Sausages, first seen here, using this recipe, with a few alterations as I didn't have everything on hand (see my version of the recipe below). Accompanied by a mountain of creamy sweet potato mash & peas with gravy (just the boring powdered gravox variety). I LOVE mashed potato & always make way too much - but maybe you can never have too much mashed potato? (Badger certainly agrees).
This meal was ultra-satisfying yet still super healthy, the perfect kind! D started out saying the sausages didn't have much flavour, but then changed his mind & proceeded to eat five... MEN!

Chickpea & Mushroom Sausages

• 1 large brown onion
  
• 2 TBS olive oil
  
• 200-250g mushrooms, chopped roughly
  
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
  
• 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  
• 2 tsp lemon juice
  
• 2 cups breadcrumbs
  
• Plain flour, for dusting

Thinly slice the onion & fry in 1 TBS of the oil until soft. Add the mushrooms, cook another 5mins. Blend or process the mushroom mix with the curry powder, chickpeas & lemon juice. Add the breadcrumbs & process until just mixed. Flour your hands and form the mixture into 10 sausages. Brush the remaining oil over the sausages and grill for 10 minutes each side until golden.

A couple of notes - next time I will just process the mushrooms/chickpeas roughly, then mix in the breadcrumbs by hand. My mix was too smooth which made it difficult to form into sausages. Also, don't skimp on the flour for dusting - everything will turn into a big sticky mess if you do.

Playing catch-up

I've been a little bit slack over the weekend so here I am playing catch-up again.

In my now-regular mission to use up the veges in the fridge before the new delivery arrives I wanted to do something with zucchini for breakfast on Saturday. I toyed with the idea of a zucchini quiche but I didn't have any tofu on hand & couldn't be bothered going out in the crazy-crazy wind. So I decided on zucchini & corn fritters. After checking all my cookbooks I couldn't find a decent recipe so I made these up. And they turned out to be delicious - even D loved them. He went out to get the all-important coffee & brought back a sourdough baguette so I thought I may as well add that to the plate (with a little olive oil drizzled over - yum!). I served my fritters with some tomato relish that I bought from the Williamstown Farmers Market quite some time ago - it was the perfect accompaniment.

Zucchini & Corn Fritters

• 1 large zucchini, coarsely grated
  
• 1 TBS tahini
  
• 1/3 cup besan flour (you could use plain flour - but the besan makes these super healthy & adds a lovely nutty flavour)
  
• 1/2 cup corn kernels
  
• 1/2 tsp hot paprika
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Place the grated zucchini in a colander & squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Then mix all the ingredients together. Heat a little olive oil in a frypan over medium heat & drop large spoonfuls of the batter into the pan. Use a spatula to flatten the fritters and cook 3-4 mins on each side, until golden brown.

I served these hot but I could tell they would be equally good cold - I'm thinking they would be perfect for a summer picnic (if this greyness ever goes away!)

Moving on to dinner on Sunday night. Again, trying to use the veges - particularly an abundance of carrots & celery. Since the weather was so miserable I also wanted something hot & comforting - so I made up a Vegetable & Bean chilli, served with cornbread. This was also delicious & lived up to D's fussy palate. I made heaps because I know I won't feel like cooking much this week with a few late-ish nights lined up.

Vegetable & Bean Chilli

• 1 can red kidney beans, rinsed & drained
  
• 1 can cannellini beans, rinsed & drained
  
• 2 cans crushed tomatoes
  
• 4 small carrots, diced finely
  
• 1 onion, diced finely
  
• 4 sticks celery, diced finely
  
• A few dashes of liquid smoke (I used the Hickory one) - if you don't have liquid smoke, use smoked paprika & other spices of choice to add some flavour
  
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  
• 1 chilli, chopped finely or 1 tsp store-bought chilli in a jar (which is what I had on hand)
  
• 1 cup veg stock - I used the Massel beef-style.
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan over medium hot. Cook the onion, carrot, celery, garlic & chilli, stirring, 5-10mins, until softened. Add the remaining ingredients & bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover, & simmer, stirring occasionally, 20-30mins. Serve hot with cornbread from The Joy of Vegan Baking.

How good is cauliflower!

Seriously! I don't know why, but I'm really loving it at the moment. Last night I made 'Spicy Cauliflower & Potatoes' from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. This was fantastic - so tasty. The spice mix was simple - cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne pepper & salt. The whole lot was sauteed in peanut oil & topped with cumin seeds & garlic fried in peanut oil until crunchy - I think the crunch was what made it so special.I served this with a side of cavalo nero cooked in salted water until soft, then mixed with a dash of olive oil & lemon juice. I saw this serving suggestion on a Jamie Oliver repeat on the weekend - perfect timing!

The meal overall could have done with one extra element (it's the protein thing again), but I was tired & feeling lazy so I just kept it simple.

Another quinoa stew

Wow, I've been cooking a lot today! You know something? I'm really enjoying spending more time in the kitchen, but I'm REALLY sick of washing up. Seriously, I'm washing up 2-3 times a day, it sucks! Now I understand why Mum wanted a dishwasher for all those years...

Anyway, this is my lunch for next week - chickpea, quinoa & vegetable stew. Inspired by my previous effort, but using regular quinoa, without the tomatoes, different vegetables & chickpeas as the protein. So, not really the same at all. Just as yummy though, looking forward to lunch tomorrow already :-)

Chickpea, quinoa & vegetable stew

• 1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed & drained
  
• 2 carrots, chopped roughly
  
• 3 celery sticks, chopped roughly
  
• 1cm piece of ginger, finely chopped
  
• 1 cup kale, finely chopped (or whatever greens you have on hand)
  
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed & drained
  
• 3/4 cup vegetable stock
  
• 1 tsp each of ground cumin, coriander & hungarian paprika
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Cook the quinoa in boiling water until tender, about 10mins, then drain well. Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a frypan - saute the carrot, celery & ginger over medium heat 5mins. Add the kale & saute another 5mins. Add the chickpeas, stock & spices. Lower the heat & simmer, stirring occasionally, 10mins, until the stock has almost all evaporated. Stir through the quinoa & add salt & pepper to taste.
The fresh ginger gives this a real kick and it's super healthy, score!

Fakin' bacon & egg muffins

In a half-hearted attempt to reduce my sugar intake (I say half-hearted because I already have plans to make cupcakes tomorrow :-)), I decided to make a savoury breakfast today. D has gone away again, so I had free reign to indulge my own tastes. I picked up some Redwood Bio Rashers (does anyone else think this is a terrible name? I don't find it appetising at all), wholemeal muffins & cheddar-style cheezly.

To replace the egg, I used a recipe I picked up a while ago for vegan omelettes. It relies on besan (chickpea) flour & it's awesome - so simple, easy & super good for you. I quartered the original recipe, because I just wanted two 'egg' sized patties, not two whole omelettes.

Fakin' fried eggs

• 1/4 cup besan flour
  
• 3/8 cup water
  
• 1/4 TBS olive oil
  
• Heaps of salt & pepper
  
• Pinch black salt (completely optional - it adds to the 'egg' flavour, but they taste great without it as well)

Whisk all the ingredients until well combined. You'll probably still have small lumps of flour & it will be really runny - trust me, it firms up quickly when cooked.

Heat 1/2 TBS olive oil in a frypan. When hot, add half the batter. Cook about 1min, until it looks quite firm, then flip & cook another minute. Fold into quarters (or small enough to fit on the muffin).

I layered my muffins with cheezly, 'egg', 'bacon', tomato & tomato sauce - yum!

Perfect Popcorn

This sounds stupidly simple, but I have been trying to make good popcorn for years & I've never really succeeded. And I really love popcorn, so it was becoming an issue for me. I actually gave up trying some time last year & started buying packets of the 'Natural' flavoured microwave popcorn (another ninja vegan product).

I just didn't feel comfortable with this - I really don't like supporting mega-companies (Uncle Tobys are owned by Nestle) & I also don't like eating too much food with artificial flavourings. So I was excited to see a segment on Better Homes & Gardens a few weeks ago on how to make popcorn.

The trick is to use oil (not butter or a mix of the two, as I've previously been advised); and to make sure it's hot enough before you add the kernels. To check this, add a couple of kernels at the start - when they both pop, the oil is ready. I use about 1 TBS of canola oil to 1/2 cup kernels - this makes a huge bowl, enough for 2 or 1 really hungry person. When the popping slows down to 1 or 2 per second, turn the heat off, add dabs of Nuttelex to the popcorn, then put the lid back on & wait for it to melt, about 1min (you can leave this out if you're being healthy). Add salt & enjoy!

Tuscan special

I have a really cool recipe app on my i-phone called 'Wholefoods Market'. Some of the reasons I like it are:

• You can limit to vegan or vegetarian
  
• You can specify a course or a category
  
• You can easily search for recipes containing an ingredient
  
• You can type in what you have on hand and bring up a list
  
• You can save favourites
  
• Best of all, it's FREE!

I have another free recipe app called 'Vegan YumYum', it isn't nearly as good - I think because there aren't as many recipes in the database.

So, after figuring out that my mystery green leafy vegetable was probably kale, I started searching for recipes. I found heaps of yummy options in Wholefoods, but I settled on one that was actually designed for kids simply called 'Pasta with greens'. Since the app is free I figure I can reproduce, so here it is.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
  
• 2 red onions, chopped (I only had brown onions, so just used 1 big one)
  
• 1 red capsicum, cored, seeded & chopped
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• 1 TBS fresh thyme, chopped (I used 1tsp of dried)
  
• 450g penne, cooked
  
• 8 cups kale, cut in 2-inch wide strips
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock
  
• 1 can cannellini beans, rinsed & drained (optional - I added these because I love them!)

Heat 3 TBS of the oil in a large pot. Add the onion, capsicum, bay leaf & thyme - cook 5mins, until the onion starts to brown. Add the kale & garlic & cook another 5mins. Add the beans & stock & cook 2mins. Add the pasta along with remaining oil & salt/pepper to taste.

This was pretty damn delicious & felt oh so healthy to wolf down. I've got enough leftovers to last another 2 meals too. A couple of things I noticed about cooking with kale:

• It's much tougher than silverbeet or chard
  
• It's much easier to peel away from the stem than either of those too
  
• It feels a little bit like you're eating... well, roughage (as in, leaves that humans weren't meant to consume). It was yummy, but maybe I didn't cook it for long enough, because even though it had reduced in volume by about 1/2, it was still quite chewy & rough.

P.s. If I'm honest, I have no idea if this is Tuscan or not. But I have a recipe for 'Tuscan white bean soup' that uses cannellini beans, garlic & thyme, so that's the first thing I thought of.

Too tired to cook

Here is an example of one of the healthier meals I eat sometimes when I'm too tired to cook. On Wednesday nights I work my second job after my regular job, so by the time I get home I'm always exhausted, starving & in no mood for food preparation. I've been eating these Indian microwave dinners for a few years now - they're quite good, actually, sometimes even better than some of the local Indian takeaways (and much cheaper). I usually get the Dhal Tadka, but there are lots of other varieties. Not everything is vegan, but the ingredient lists are all simple - no chemical names and numbers, so it's easy to work out what's safe.

I think the dhal has deteriorated in quality though, it used to be thick & creamy, but now it's pretty much like a soup. I always have it with pappadums (good for scooping). I bought these organic Eaternal ones recently. I didn't like them as much as the regular ones I buy from the supermarket, but they did a nice job of scooping up the dhal, so can't complain too much :-)

More winter warmers

I had actually run out of vegetables yesterday (except for 4 potatoes in the cupboard) so decided to make something simple for my lunch. I picked up a couple of carrots & some celery from the supermarket & decided to make vegetable & barley soup from my Mums recipe. This soup is really easy (there can't be many soups that aren't) & you can use whatever vegetables you have in the fridge. It's healthy too - I really enjoyed it today, left me feeling full all afternoon.

Mums Vegetable & Barley Soup

• 4 potatoes, peeled & roughly chopped
  
• 2 carrots, peeled & roughly chopped
  
• 2 celery sticks, roughly chopped
  
• 1 tsp ginger, crushed
  
• 1/2 cup pearl barley
  
• 1/2 cup green split peas
  
• 1/2 cup yellow split peas
  
• 4 cups vegetable stock
  
• Bouquet garni, or dried herbs of choice
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Cover the barley & peas with boiling water & stand 30mins. Drain & set aside. Heat a little olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the vegetables and ginger & cook, stirring, about 5 minutes. Add the barley, peas, stock, herbs & salt/pepper to taste. Bring to the boil, then cover & reduce heat to simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, about 30mins, until the peas are tender.

That's it! You can add more or less stock, depending on how thick you like your soup. You could also puree the soup in a food processor, but I prefer this with the chunky vegetables.

I got home a little late tonight & wanted something quick & healthy, which is good, because normally I feel like something quick & UNhealthy. I realised I hadn't made my lentil bolognese for ages - it used to be my favourite dinner so I decided to resurrect it. This ticks all the boxes - quick, healthy, filling, yummy, healthy & I could serve it to my non-veg friends.

Lentil Bolognese

• 1 onion, finely diced (I didn't have an onion, so just used an extra celery stick)
  
• 1 carrot, peeled & grated
  
• 2 sticks celery, finely diced
  
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
  
• 1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed & drained
  
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
  
• 1/2 TBS tomato paste
  
• 2 tsp dried marjoram
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan & add the onion, carrot, celery & garlic. Saute for 5mins, until softened. Add the remaining ingredients & bring to boil. Reduce heat & simmer, covered, 20mins, until the lentils are tender & the sauce has thickened.

Serve with wholemeal spaghetti for a wholesome meal!

You know what I realised tonight - I'm really enjoying cooking lots again & eating more healthy meals; but I really hate the washing up! Seriously, I'm washing up 2-3 times a day & it sucks, now I understand why Mum wanted a dishwasher for all those years.

Same old same old

Dinner time was approaching last night so I opened the fridge & it was looking pretty bare. All that was left in the veg crisper was 2 carrots & an enormous green capsicum left over from the last veg delivery (next one's due on Tuesday). Plus I had 1 huge onion & a block of firm tofu. I couldn't think of anything else to make with this but a stir-fry. This one was pretty similar to the last.

Just finely slice 1 onion, 2 carrots & 1 capsicum. Dice the tofu & fry in a little sesame oil with garlic, ginger & chilli until brown. Add the vegies, fry 2 minutes, then add soy sauce (about 1/4 cup), some vegetable stock (about 1/2 cup), a squeeze of sweet chilli sauce & about 1/2 TBS of lemon juice. Cook another few minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Mix through some noodles (or serve over rice - I really need to get a rice cooker so I don't keep eating everything with noodles!).

It's not a traditional stir-fry in any sense, but it's yummy & a pretty healthy meal for a Friday night; especially when all I feel like doing is collapsing in front of the TV with a pizza or something equally bad for me :-)

P.S. Look what we got at work yesterday - an orange with a little flag stuck in it saying 'Beat the cold this winter! Winter health tips are online now'. We all got one from the OHS committee - what a fantastic marketing idea, I love it!

Seddon breakfast & carrot muffins

I've been to 2 cafes this weekend - 1 new & 1 old favourite. The new was Apte Cafe in Fairfield. I met the library 'girls' for lunch to farewell C - she is heading to Europe to live for a couple of years, lucky thing. I'm going to miss you :-(.

I wouldn't recommend Apte for vegans, there isn't really anything on the menu that is easily adaptable. I ended up getting the fruit toast with jam (no butter). The toast was huge, easily double the thickness of normal toast, & delicious. The strawberry jam was great too - possibly home-made. Coffee 5/5, service was friendly but very slow (apparently we had been warned to expect a wait though so it may not always be that bad). There is a nice courtyard out the back, a great spot for summer.

Today D had to work so we got up early & headed to one of our local favourites - Le Chien in Seddon. We only ever come here for breakfast as the lunch & dinner menus are not very vegan-friendly. For breakfast I always get the Avocado & Tomato on Sourdough (no butter). It's always delicious, but you get sick of it after a while which is why we tend to travel around a lot so that I can find something interesting. I noticed today that they have added Beans on Toast to the menu; I'll check the vegan credentials of this next time. The ambience is great at Le Chien, as is the service & the coffee (they use Supreme - organic, fair-trade & yummy!)

When D had left for work I set about making some savoury muffins for his morning tea this week. I wanted to use some of the carrots in the fridge, so I went through all of my books until I found the perfect recipe. I chose the Zucchini & Carrot Muffins from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook. I didn't actually have any zucchini, having used them in the pasta bake, so I added walnuts in addition to the pecans already in the recipe. I also added an extra 1/4 cup of soy milk to substitute for the moisture lost from the missing zucchini. I did a straight substitution for the eggs (Orgran No-Egg) & Nuttelex for butter.

These turned out perfectly, though D finds them a bit too nutty (that would be from the extra walnuts I added :-)), but I like the nuttiness. There's also just a hint of the cinnamon & nutmeg, which ensures they aren't too bland.

Zucchini, Tomato & Lentil Pasta-Bake

There wasn't much mid-week cooking worth posting about last week - this is about the most interesting. Looking back on my previous posts there is definitely a theme of winter comfort food - soups, stews & bakes; so this at least fits the theme. Going through the vege box, I wanted to use the 2 large zucchini next. It's been a while since we had pasta & the week before seemed to be quite heavy on rice so I figured a pasta-bake would hit the spot.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, finely diced
  
• 2 large zucchini, diced
  
• 1 large carrot, diced
  
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  
• 1 x 400g can diced tomatoes
  
• 2 TBS tomato paste
  
• 1/4 cup red wine (optional)
  
• 1 x 400g can brown lentils, rinsed & drained
  
• 1 tsp each dried basil, oregano & marjoram
  
• Salt & pepper to taste
  
• 4 cups cooked pasta of choice (I used wholemeal spirals)
  
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
  
• 1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast flakes

Preheat the oven to 180. Saute the onion, carrot & garlic in olive oil 5mins until softened. Add the zucchini & saute another few minutes. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, lentils, herbs, salt & pepper. Cook, stirring, 10-15mins, until the sauce has thickened & reduced a little.

In a large oven-proof casserole dish combine the pasta & sauce. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs & Nutritional Yeast over the top & bake, uncovered, 20-25mins, until browned.

This made heaps & heaps - enough for about 2-3 nights of leftovers for D & I, so make sure you adjust the amounts if you don't want to be eating the same thing all week.

Baked Pumpkin Risotto

On Friday night I skipped the gym (& I'm still feeling guilty!), but because I got home earlier, I could actually cook a real meal on a weeknight for a change. I was cold and tired so chose something easy - a baked risotto. I had half a jap pumpkin & some chard in the fridge from the vegetable delivery, so I just added some onion & was good to go!

Ingredients

• 1 cup arborio rice
  
• 2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 400g pumpkin, diced
  
• 4-5 stalks chard, chopped
  
• 30g Nuttelex
  
• 1/2 cup Nutritional Yeast flakes
  
• Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 190. Mix all the ingredients well in an oven-proof casserole dish. Bake 40 minutes, until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is cooked through.

This risotto isn't the most amazing I've ever eaten but it is tasty, healthy & quick. Plus it's a one-pot wonder and extremely satisfying on a cold winter night.

Winter Vegetable Soup with Cornbread

I was in a baking mood yesterday so this week I did some Saturday baking, not Sunday baking as usual. I wanted to use the last of the vegetables from my delivery (in preparation for a new delivery this Tuesday). I lined up half a butternut pumpkin, 6 potatoes, 1 onion & heaps of carrots... & decided on a winter vegetable soup. To continue the yellow & orange theme I added some red lentils & yellow split peas to the mix.

Dice the vegetables & rinse the legumes, then fry the onions with 3 cloves of garlic & 1tsp of minced ginger in a stockpot for 5 minutes, until softened. Add the remaining vegetables with about 1 litre of vegetable stock, 1tsp each of ground cumin, ground coriander & bouquet garni mix, 1/4tsp hot paprika & salt/pepper to taste. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat & simmer 20-30mins, until the split peas are tender. Puree the soup in a food processor or blender, in batches, until smooth (mine was so thick it's really more of a vegetable puree than a soup - perfect to keep me warm on these cold winter nights).

I decided to serve the soup with cornbread, mainly because we only had unhealthy white supermarket bread in the house & I felt like something a little more nutritious. I have made cornbread once before, using the recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking (recipe available here). This is so easy & quick, I can't believe I didn't know about cornbread before! The first time I followed the recipe exactly & served the bread with some bean chilli, it was divine! This time, because the soup already had some sweetness from the pumpkin & carrot, I left the sugar out of the bread mix & also used wholemeal flour instead of white flour. The result was a more savoury, denser bread.

Final step - serve the soup with the warmed bread and enjoy!

Monday baking - Sausage Rolls & more Vegetable Goodness

This morning started well - I met a girlfriend for breakfast at A Minor Place in Brunswick. This was only my second time there - my first was last weekend; I sense that this will become one of my regular haunts (if only it wasn't so far away!) I ordered Henry's White Beans again - just divine. The coffee was awesome this time too - definitely 5/5. Service also 5/5 - outstanding all round!

Being a long-weekend, today became my Sunday baking/cooking day. This week for my lunch I made the Quinoa, Chickpea & Tomato stew again - it was so yummy I've been thinking about it all weekend!

For D I made some Vegan Sausage Rolls, using this recipe. I used to make a variation of this recipe when I was vegetarian, using cottage cheese instead of silken tofu. When I became vegan I thought that was the end of sausage rolls for me. I remember that I once tried to replace the cottage cheese with firm tofu & the result wasn't very nice so I didn't try again. So I was really excited when I saw this recipe pop up on various blogs - such a simple thing to use silken tofu instead of cottage cheese - and so delicious!

Two of the things I got in my vegetable box last week were cauliflower & spinach (actually I think it was chard because it had red stalks, but I used it like I would spinach). I was going to make a cauliflower soup but then a colleague told me about a yummy Sri Lankan cauliflower dish that is super easy to make & ninja vegan. I didn't end up making the Sri Lankan dish, but the idea of it put me in the mood for something spicy and warm. I found a recipe for Spinach & Cauliflower Bhaji in Ulimate Recipes: Vegetarian. The recipe called for onion, cauliflower, spinach, tomatoes & a selection of spices - all things that were on my shelf - perfect!

I served mine with Pappadams because I couldn't be bothered cooking rice (I know, so lazy!) The end result was good, though extremely spicy - next time I think I'll reduce the 1 1/2tsp of cayenne pepper to 1/2tsp... To sum up, this was a quick, easy, tasty & healthy recipe - all my boxes were ticked. I have an informal rating system for my 'test' recipes, known as 'Could I serve this to my non-veg friends'? The answer in this case - a resounding YES!

On a unrelated point - according to BOM it's going to be 4 degrees here overnight, and that, in my opinion, is just stupid.