July 7, 2009: Spaghetti and bean mush

Time for the next installment in our series of warming winter recipes, submitted in honour of our recent giveaway. This recipe for spaghetti and beanballs was recommended by Penny, who's already posted the recipe on her own blog. As you can see, our beans didn't turn out too ball-y. Strangely, the mixture was far too wet and sloppy - this in spite of adding a few extra breadcrumbs and none of the kidney bean liquid at all! It wouldn't hold its shape when I fried the first half of the mixture, nor when I baked the rest, but it cooked happily enough as a bolognese sauce when stirred up with Heidi's hasty, tasty tomato sauce. It was in this form that we were finally able to eat and enjoy this recipe. And we did ultimately enjoy this a lot. The addition of plum sauce/relish/chutney (mango chutney in our case) is a twist I'd never think of and it adds a neat sweet dimension. You'll get something unique each time you try a different condiment.

Oh, and if you're concerned about the white mouldy appearance of the meal above, don't be - that's just a sprinkling of vegan parmesan!

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To try Penny's bean balls, you can see the recipe at Vegerati.
You can check out our rendition of Heidi's hasty, tasty tomato sauce here.

July 5, 2009: Crème brûlée

For many years, the words 'crème brûlée' just made me think of the daggy and wistful has-been (or rather, never-was) Les McQueen from the League of Gentlemen. But when I saw a novel rendition of this dessert in Leigh Drew's Vegan Indulgence and imagined serving it in still-warm ramekins, I put it on Sunday night's vegan winter menu. It was always going to be a high-risk venture, and I managed to make it extra difficult for myself.

Leigh gives directions for making about 2 cups of almond milk and supplements this with a further 2 cups of soy milk. Not being a big fan of soy milk, I thought I'd skip straight to buying a litre of almond milk and proceed from there. Only I couldn't find almond milk at the unfamiliar supermarket I was visiting. Instead I decided to buy rice milk, which has a natural sweetness that I thought could work here. Actually, once I'd made the custard and sampled the saucepan's leftovers, I didn't care for the aftertaste of the rice milk at all! While Michael protested that the rice custard was OK, I prepared myself for binning the lot and congratulated myself on purchasing some just-in-case vegan chocolate.

The recipe quantity allowed me to make one extra custard, so I rehearsed the sugar caramelising process on Sunday afternoon. In short, it was a mess. Brown, bubbly and gooey, my brûlée looked more like a swamp sample than anything you'd want to eat. But I developed a new theory or two during the process, and I reminded myself that this night's guests were the kind to appreciate an experiment and forgive a disaster dessert... especially if I could follow it up with chocolate.

And what do you know? I totally pulled these off! The key seems to be the shortest, hottest caramelisation process you can manage - heat up the grill completely before putting these in, pull them out as soon as they brown, and give them a good 5-10 minutes for the sugar to harden. Cross your fingers and it just might end up being the dish that everyone's still talking about days later.

I got so worked up about the custard flavour and toffee texture that I forgot to fret about using agar agar - thankfully it worked a treat, producing a smooth set custard that wasn't rubbery. I'm a little curious about Leigh's use of both cornflour and custard powder - custard powder is little more than cornflour and sugar, so I'd be tempted to sub it out for its main constituents if I made this again. (On the other hand, I now have most of a box of custard powder to use up...)

Les' nostalgia trips have been overtaken. Now the words 'crème brûlée' will have me thinking: problematic, possible and still to be perfected.


Crème brûlée
(adapted from a recipe in Vegan Indulgence by Leigh Drew)

1L rice milk (or almond milk, preferably!)
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
3 tablespoons agave nectar
1 tablespoon agar agar
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon custard powder
3 tablespoons water
7-10 teaspoons sugar

In a medium saucepan, stir together the milk, vanilla and agave. Sprinkle over the agar agar and set the mixture aside for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix together the cornflour, custard powder and water until the powders are dissolved.

Put the saucepan of milk over medium heat and bring it to the boil. Once it's boiling, whisk it thoroughly for a couple of minutes. Whisk in the cornflour mixture and allow it all to simmer for half a minute. Remove the custard from the heat and continue whisking it for a few more minutes as it thickens.

Pour the custard into ramekins, leave them to cool at room temperature for half an hour, then cover them with foil and store them in the fridge for 24 hours.

When you're ready to serve dessert, heat up a griller as hot as you can. Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over each ramekin of custard and put them under the grill, a few at a time. Heat them until the sugar melts and remove them as soon as the sugar has browned. Allow the custard to cool and the toffee to harden before serving.

July 5, 2009: Tofu, tempeh and pumpkin stew

The second course of our vegan feast came courtesy of the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen, although it was a far from fat free recipe: Tofu, tempeh and pumpkin in peanut mole. One of our guests is always chasing more protein in his meals, so we thought that a stew containing both tempeh and tofu would be a sure-fire success. And it was, but not just because of its high protein. This has a rich and complex flavour - the peanut butter gave it a nutty saltiness, the pumpkin a mild sweetness and the spices a warming... spiciness. We made some minor changes from Susan's recipe - predominantly thanks to our lack of either a slow cooker or the organisational prowess to have food ready hours in advance - but everything worked out well and a hearty, warming feast was had by all.


Tofu, tempeh and pumpkin stew

2 chopped up dried chilli peppers
2 cups vegie stock
5 allspice berries
5 black peppercorns
5 cloves
3/4 tsp. ground cinammon
1 large onion, chopped
1.5 cups diced roasted tomatoes (we popped ours under the grill until the skin blackened and could be pulled off)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 slice bread
2-3 chipotles with liberal dollops of their adobo sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
500g tofu, frozen, defrosted and cubed
200g tempeh, cut in small cubes
700g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
1 teaspoon sugar

De-seed the dried chillies, chop them up and soak them in 1/2 cup of the vegie stock to soften for about half an hour.

Saute the onion for about 7 minutes, until it browns slightly, and then add in the garlic and saute for another minute.

Whie the onion is frying, grind up the all-spice, peppercorns and cloves with the cinnamon.

Put the fried onion and garlic, ground spices, soaked chillies (along with their soaking stock and the rest of the stock), tomatoes, salt, peanut butter, bread, chipotles and adobo sauce into a food processor and blend until you've got a reasonably smooth paste. We just managed to squeeze it all into our food processor - it may be worth doing it in batches.

Heat some oil in a large saucepan over a low heat. Add the tofu, tempeh and pumpkin cubes to the pot and then pour the sauce over them. Stir everything together and simmer gently for about half an hour. We let ours go a bit too long and the pumpkin basically broke down and became part of the sauce. Not that this was really a big problem.

Before serving, stir through the sugar and add more salt if required. We served ours up over rice and tortillas, but you could also use delicious naan or roti breads.

July 5, 2009: Baked artichoke dip

Michael and I invited a few friends over for a vegan evening meal and kicked things off with this creamy spinach-artichoke dip from Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit. Actually, ours was a creamy spinach-artichoke-chard dip thanks to our Green Line box. I was inordinately excited by the idea of a serving a baked dip in winter, and this one was exactly the comforting appetiser that I was hoping for. It'd make a great lunch, just scooped onto crusty bread.

This is the kind of recipe where soy cream cheese is at its best. In combination with blended cannelini beans and yeast flakes, it provides a rich savoury base without any of the odd aftertaste it can have on its own. The flaky texture of the artichoke hearts is a little like tuna, and the greens prevent it all from becoming too bland and flabby. This is one of those dishes that you'll barely believe is vegan, terrific for sharing with a crowd of mixed eaters.

Baked artichoke dip
(adapted very slightly from Lindy Loo's version, which itself was inspired by the Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk! zine)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups rainbow chard, chopped
2 cups baby spinach leaves, roughly shredded
400g can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
250g vegan cream cheese
400g can artichoke hearts, drained and roughly chopped
1/4 cup rice crumbs
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
extra rice crumbs and yeast to sprinkle over the top (optional)
black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Heat the oil in a frypan, drop the onion in and cook it until the onion is nearly translucent. Add the garlic and cook it all for a further minute. Add the chard, cooking until the leaves just start to wilt, and then the baby spinach leaves. Cook until the spinach is also just wilting, then take the pan off the heat and set it aside.

Plonk the cannelini beans into a food processor and blend them until smooth. Transfer them to a casserole dish and stir in the vegan cream cheese. Add the pan-fried greens, artichoke hearts, rice crumbs and yeast flakes and stir everything until it's roughly combined. Spread the dip out evenly across the dish, then sprinkle over more crumbs and nooch if you want. Grind some black pepper over the top.

Cover the dish and bake the dip for about 20 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for a further 10-15 minutes, until the top begins to brown just a little.

July 5, 2009: Mitte II

Here's an update on Mitte's sweet breakfasts - there's more to the menu than that muddled Middle Eastern compote I tried the first time. Our Sunday morning companions Jos, Libby and Mike confirmed that the alternative berry and maple syrup topping to the pikelets works very well indeed. Meanwhile, I ordered the breakfast crumble ($9.50, pictured above). The poached apples and pears were steeped in a lot of liquid, but it was sweet, flavoursome liquid. The crumble was granola-y rather than biscuity, with some lovely bursts of toasted macadamias.

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You can read about our previous visit to Mitte here.