Banana & molasses cake

August 26, 2017

I have nothing new to share with you here. You already know that over-ripe bananas are perfect for banana bread/cake. And you already have at least one great recipe for that (I've got about six such posts on the blog, myself). And what's more, I bookmarked this one from a blog in 2008.

But, but, but. This cake includes molasses, and that changes everything. In the raw batter it's too dominant, too minerally; in the baked cake it's mellow and malty. The bananas aren't as distinct as they are in other banana cakes, they're just supporting the overarching sweetness agenda and ensuring a dense, moist crumb no matter how volcanic and crusty the cake's surface becomes.

I stirred dark chocolate chips and walnuts into my banana and molasses cake, and cut thick slabs of it for afternoon tea over the course of a week. (It wasn't robust enough to sustain slices less than about 15mm thick.) I like that walnuts are a bit softer and woodier than most other nuts, melding a little into the cake and lending only a subtle texture contrast.

Banana & molasses cake
(slightly adapted from Yeah That "Vegan" Shit,
where it's credited to Veganomicon)

spray oil
3 small very ripe bananas, peeled
1/4 cup apple puree
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
2 cups plain flour
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup choc chips
1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Heat an oven to 180°C. Line a loaf pan with paper and lightly spray it with oil.

In a large bowl, thoroughly mash the bananas until as smooth as possible. Stir in the apple puree, oil, sugar and molasses, whisking to combine. Sift in the flour, bicarb soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake it for about 45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (it's OK if the batter still feels a bit damp!). Allow the loaf to cool a while before slicing and serving.

Vegetable moussaka with pine nut cream

February 17, 2014

I've had this recipe bookmarked since 2008: a time before I had my own copy of Veganomicon, the era of regular updates on Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit. Dairy substitutes were still a novelty to me, and I imagine that I was particularly taken by the pine-nut cream topping on this moussaka (it sure couldn't have been Lindy Loo's "worst picture ever" that lured me in, right?). 

I just never got around to making it until we found ourselves with five eggplants in the fridge this week. And then I decided to make it on a Monday night. Yep, I thought it'd be a good idea to thinly slice and pre-bake two and a half kilos of vegetables, make a sauce and a pine nut cream and layer it all up for a final bake, all after coming home from a full day at work. It. Took. Four. Hours.

Let's leave aside my questionable judgement for a moment, while I assure you that at least it was not a stressful four hours. There was no point at which I was wrangling three saucepans and a tray under the grill, burning one component while trying to blend another. Michael patiently sliced all the vegetables before I arrived home, then tagged me in for the bulk of the cooking: methodically baking those vegetables, tray by tray, cooking the tomato sauce and then blending the pine nut cream as the veges baked. Relying on a timer for my cues, I even caught moments to read other blogs at the kitchen table. Helping myself to a few of the baked potato slices kept my spirits up too.

With the quantities of water held in these vegetables plus the oil and salt bandied about in the recipe, there was a risk that this would end up a sludgy, salty mess. It was precisely the opposite - draining the salted eggplant kept the fluids in check, and a light touch with a can of spray oil rendered it velvety and not at all greasy in the finished moussaka. It did slice a bit sloppily, but that was to be expected - refrigerated pieces (such as the one photographed) flaunted much prettier layers.

We were very happy with the result, but it's not often that we'd set aside another four hours to earn it. I suspect we'll be turning back to our tempeh lasagne and Lancashire hotpot recipes before we go The Full Moussaka again.

Vegetable moussaka with pine nut cream
(adapted slightly from Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit,
where it's already adapted from Veganomicon)

vegetable layers
900g eggplant
450g zucchini
1.3 kg potatoes
lots of spray oil
salt

tomato sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium brown onion, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup vegetable stock
2 x 400g cans crushed tomatoes
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 bay leaf
salt

pine nut cream
1/2 cup pine nuts, plus extra to garnish
juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon arrowroot
1 clove garlic
generous pinch nutmeg
generous pinch white pepper
salt
450g silken tofu

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Preheat an oven to 200°C. Line baking trays (as many as will fit into your oven) with baking paper and spray them with oil.

Wash the eggplants, trim off the stems and slice them lengthways into large flat pieces, about 4mm thick. Rub the slices with salt and layer them in a colander over the sink to drain. Wash and trim the edges off the zucchini, slice them lengthways into 4mm-thick rectangles and set them aside. Scrub and peel the potatoes, then slice them into large rounds about 4mm thick.

Spread the potato slices across the baking trays, sprinkle over a little salt and spray them lightly with oil. Bake the potatoes for around 20 minutes, turning them over half-way through, until they're cooked through and just browning a little at the edges. Set the potatoes aside. 

Retrieve the eggplant slices from the colander, tapping off any excess water, and spread them over the baking sheets, spraying them with oil. Bake them for around 15 minutes, flipping halfway through. Finally spread out the zucchini, spray them with oil, and bake them on both sides for a total of 15 minutes. Keep the oven on.

While all of this baking is going on, you can make the sauce and the pine nut cream. Place the oil in a large saucepan and set it over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and cook it for just 30 second, then add in the onion. Cook the onion, stirring regularly, until soft - I gave it 5-10 minutes. Add the stock and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Pour in the crushed tomatoes, oregano, cinnamon, bay leaf and a little salt. Allow the sauce to simmer for at least 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally.

Use a blender to make the pine nut cream. Start with the pine nuts and lemon juice, blending them to make a paste. Next add the arrowroot, nutmeg, white pepper and salt and blend thoroughly. If you have room, blend in the tofu - otherwise whisk the tofu to a smooth creamy consistency in a bowl, using a fork, and then whisk the pine nut mixture into it.

Now you might be ready to assemble the whole shebang! Remove the bay leaf from the tomato sauce and discard it. Spoon a third of the sauce across the base of a large, high-walled baking dish. Layer half of the eggplant across the sauce, then half of the potato. Spoon over half of the remaining sauce and sprinkle over half of the breadcrumbs. Use all of the zucchini in a single layer, then finish up the eggplant, then the potatoes. Spread over the remaining sauce and sprinkle it with the rest of the breadcrumbs. Spoon the pine nut cream evenly across the dish and sprinkle over any extra pine nuts.

Bake the moussaka for 35-40 minutes, until the pine nut cream is set, golden and staring to crack. Allow it to cool on the bench for at least 10 further minutes before slicing and serving.

Strawberry-rose cobbler with a lemony lattice

September 22, 2013

We had some friends over for a Sunday roast recently. They actually ended up doing the dinner work - carving a Sanitarium vegie loaf and drowning it in onion gravy, baking potatoes in lemon and oil, with spiced cauliflower, beetroot, pumpkin and garlic - but I pitched in with this cobbler, found in Veganomicon.

Cobblers and latticed pastry aren't my typical territory but this worked out pretty well - the flush of pride I felt when I saw golden woven dough over bubbly baking strawberries will likely spur me on to other similar dishes. Still, it wasn't perfect. The arrowroot wasn't evenly distributed and there were pockets of strawberry juice and jelly instead of a thick, smooth sauce. While golden on top, the pastry was still very doughy underneath. 

Both these issues can surely be addressed with a bit more care. The important thing is that the flavours here are worth the repetition. A dash of rosewater gives the strawberries a lolly-ish note, while the pastry is only slightly sweet and extra lemony. I served them with a small scoop of vanilla-almond icecream.

Strawberry-rose cobbler with a lemony lattice
(slightly adapted from a recipe in Veganomicon)

filling
1 kg strawberries, washed, hulled and chopped into quarters
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons rosewater

pastry
1/2 cup soy milk
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons poppy seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
generous pinch of salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Place the strawberries in a baking dish. Stir through the arrowroot, water and rosewater (next time I might mix the arrowroot and water into a paste before adding them to the strawberries). Set the dish aside.

Preheat an oven to 190°C. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy milk, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. In a larger bowl stir together the flour, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, the poppy seeds, baking powder and salt. Pour the oil into the flour mixture and use a fork to work it in. Pour in the soy milk mixture and combine until it all just forms a dough. You want to be able to knead and roll this dough, so add a bit more flour if it's very sticky.

Knead the dough a little in the bowl, then turn it onto a clean floured surface. Gently roll the dough into a shape that matches your baking dish. Slice the dough into parallel strips about 1.5cm wide; take every second piece of dough and place them in parallel spaced lines across the strawberry filling in the baking dish. Go back to your first strip of dough and weave it over-and-under the strips in the baking tray; repeat - alternating under-and-over, then back again - with the remaining dough strips.

Sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar over the dough and bake the cobbler uncovered for 35 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and the dough is browning on top. Allow the cobbler to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Spinach, mushroom & poblano enchiladas in a tomatillo sauce

April 1, 2012

Our good friend Troy is something of a gardening superstar, churning out all kinds of delicious produce in his backyard plots. He had a bumper crop of tomatillos this year and was kind enough to drop around a handful for us to work our magic on. Even more kindly, he'd already blogged a great recipe to turn tomatillos into salsa verde.

The sauce is deliciously tangy - tomatillos have an almost citrussy kind of flavour, which is boosted by the lime. The coriander, jalapeno and garlic add a bit of depth and bite to it all, resulting in a wonderfully tasty salsa. First up we just used it as a topping for refried bean burritos but it was a bit on the runny side, so we reconsidered its ideal use. I figured it would be great baked onto some enchiladas and, after some quick googling, we came up with this recipe, which had the added bonus of using up some leftover poblano chillies from our last Mexican cook-up.

It's a very simple recipe - especially when you've pre-made the tomatillo sauce and use store-bought tortillas rather than making your own corn ones. Some quick frying of the filling and half an hour in the oven and you've got a tangy, spicy and immensely satisfying serve of enchiladas. Both the tomatillo salsa and the poblanos have an interesting spiciness - there's a rich warmth, without any of the burn that you can get from chilli-heavy meals. Pretty damn excellent.

Salsa Verde

(courtesy of In the Mood for Noodles, originally from Veganomicon)

8 tomatillos, roughly diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
A forkful of pickled jalapeno pieces
1.5 cups of Massel 'chicken' stock
Juice of a lime
1 bunch of coriander, roughly chopped

In a small pot, heat the oil and cook the jalapeno and garlic for a few minutes, until fragrant. Add the tomatillos and cook for about 8 minutes, until they soften. Pour in the stock and bring the mix to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Leave the sauce to cool down and then add the lime juice and coriander. Blend, until everything is combined in a saucy liquid.  


Spinach, mushroom and poblano enchiladas
(adapted from For the Love of Cooking)

About half of the salsa verde from the above recipe
1 tablespoon olive oil
A dozen button mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 small brown onion, chopped 1 poblano pepper (from a can, courtesy of Casa Iberica)
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups spinach leaves
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
5 tortillas
2/3 cup grated cheddar

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and then add the mushrooms. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring periodically, until they're nicely browned. Add the onion and poblano and cook, stirring regularly, for another few minutes. Add the garlic, the spinach, spices, salt and pepper and cook, stirring constantly, for another couple of minutes. Kill the heat and let the filling cool for 10 minutes or so.

Next, stuff the tortillas - sprinkle grated cheese down the middle of each one and spoon the filling on top. Wrap and place them (seam down) in a greased baking tray. Slather the tortillas with the salsa verde and cover the baking tray in foil. Bake for 20 minutes and serve.

I'm sure these would be great with a side salad or some refried beans, but we just ate them on their own and had no complaints at all.

June 16, 2011: Apple peanut butter crumble slice

I have had my eye on this recipe for a very long time. It's from Veganomicon but I saw a version of it on Get Sconed! before I had the book. With baked apples in the middle and peanut butter caramel on top, it's something that appeals greatly to both Michael and I (look, no chocolate!). Even so, I actually planned it for sharing amongst my workmates. We've a new wheat-intolerant person who's joined our team and I reckoned I could adapt this - the small amounts of plain flour are easily replaced with the Orgran equivalent and I knew I'd find some gluten-free biscuits to sub for the graham cracker crumbs that aren't widely available in Australia anyway.

Of course, one-for-one substitutions don't always work when de-glutenising recipes. The crust mixture looked really soggy and didn't spread nearly as far as it was supposed to. I transferred it to a tray half the original size, then set about halving the quantities of everything else and worrying about whether there'd be enough to go around. Nothing else was quite the texture I anticipated either. The apples had a lot of liquid running off them, which I drained through my fingers as I arranged them on the crust. The crumble topping was mushy with margarine, and the highly anticipated peanut butter caramel gave me the biggest trouble of all. It was supposed to melt to an elegant drizzling texture in minutes but mine remained thick and muddy. I whisked in some soy milk but this just rendered it lumpy, forcing me to start again. I never got those silky ribbons I sought, and dolefully spooned it onto the slice in big globs.

The globs were just an unflattering finish to what looked like a disaster slice. The crumble tasted like chalk, as gluten-free flours sometimes can, the apples were leaking liquid everywhere and the crust did not look set. I'd decided that there was no way I could share this with my colleagues, hid it under some foil and shoved it to the back of the fridge. I couldn't really blame Veganomicon for my problems given the alterations I'd made. This was just my own stupid over-confident de-glutenising fault.

Almost a day later I returned to it, hungry and headachey and craving sugar. I dug a spoon in and could barely believe the firm golden crust it unearthed! The apples had set nicely and the peanut butter caramel was damn tasty, if not glamorous. It was too late to share it with my colleagues, but just in time to present a generous slab to an eager Michael over the weekend.

This recipe needs work, but it's work well worth doing.

Apple peanut butter crumble slice
(based on a recipe from Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)

crust
125g packet plain gluten-free biscuits/cookies
1/3 cup margarine, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons soy milk

apple filling
2 large Fuji apples
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons plain gluten-free flour
pinches of ground cinnamon, ground ginger and star anise

crumble topping
1/4 cup plain gluten-free flour
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
pinches of ground cinnamon, ground ginger and star anise
1 tablespoon margarine

peanut butter caramel
1/3 cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons maple syrup

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray (mine was ~22cm square) with paper.

Begin with the crust. Crush the biscuits in a bowl; I used a pestle for the job. Stir in the melted margarine, vanilla and soy milk. Pour the crust mixture into the baking tray and use the back of a spoon to flatten it out evenly across the bottom.

For the apple filling, peel and remove the cores of the apples. Slice them thinly, transfer them to a bowl, and stir through the apple cider vinegar to prevent them from browning. Next stir through the oil, sugar, flour and spices. Spread the apples over the crust - you could layer them prettily but I just piled them in and shook them around a little to even out.

To make the crumble topping, stir together the flour, sugar and spices in a small bowl. Use a fork to thoroughly mix in the margarine. Use your fingers to crumble it into chunks and sprinkle them over the slice.

Bake the slice for 40-45 minutes, until the apples are tender. I was worried about how my slice looked at this point - the apples had leaked a lot of water and the base didn't look set. This was fine after a night in the fridge.

When the slice has been in the oven for 20-30 minutes, melt together the peanut butter and maple syrup in a small saucepan. Whisk them until they're well combined, hot and liquidy. When the slice comes out of the oven, drizzle the peanut butter mixture over in stripes or blobs.

Allow the slice to cool (again, the fridge really helped for me!) and cut it into squares to serve.

May 30, 2011: Gleegan crepe bake

After surprising myself with some bloody good crepes, I dared to experiment with a vegan, gluten-free version... on a weeknight. I figured it was worth a shot: after all, I knew that French galettes used buckwheat flour and I've plenty of experience making 'cheesy' vegan sauces.

Actually most of the buckwheat crepe recipes that the internet turned up used at least as much plain wheat flour as buckwheat so there was still some substituting required. My strike rate wasn't quite as impressive as last time (now 2 duds of 9 crepes) but I was still satisfied - these crepes were tasty and pliable. I just found that they needed more oil than their gluteny counterparts for fail-safe flipping.

For the ricotta filling, tofu was always going to feature - I took inspiration from Veganomicon's cashew ricotta to dress it up. It ended up just a smidge astringent; next time I'd reduce the quantity of lemon juice. We had leftover filling, and it was delish on toasted sandwiches with just a drop of agave nectar to balance the flavour.

The white sauce was a cinch with substitutes, the parmesan-breadcrumb topping less so. I found rice and cornflake crumbs in the cupboard (be warned that Kellogg's cornflakes are not strictly gluten-free!) and they did well enough, though I'd be open to alternatives. This was finally my chance to try wanting kneading's parmesan recipe and I was left wanting more (next time: half the crumbs to this full quantity of parmesan flavour).

All pulled together this was passable, promising. Not as pretty, with sauce overflowing and too many powdery crumbs, but with enough flavour that we forgave it. Again, cannelloni would be easier but the crepes are pretty great - I would make them again and smother them less.

Gleegan crepe bake
(a gluten-free, vegan adaptation of this recipe)

crepe batter (inspired by David Lebovitz)
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
1/3 cup gluten-free plain flour
1 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
spray oil for frying

crunchy topping (inspired by wanting kneading)
2 tablespoons raw cashews
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
a modest shake of garlic powder
a shake of salt
1 cup gluten-free crumbs - rice, polenta, gf cornflake... (I'd recommend halving this)

filling (inspired by Veganomicon)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 bunch spinach, chopped
1/2 cup raw cashews
juice of 1 lemon (I'd recommend halving this)
300g medium-firm tofu
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 1/4 cups soy milk

Start by making the crepes. Sift together the flours into a medium-large bowl. Gradually pour the milk and oil over the flours, whisking as you go, until it makes a smooth batter. Cover the bowl and allow the batter to stand for 1-2 hours.

Heat up a fry-pan and give it a spraying of oil. Pour a 1/4 cup of crepe batter into the centre of the pan, using the back of a spoon to gently spread it out into a circle of just a couple of millimetres thickness. When the crepe's visibly dried out around the edges, carefully flip it over. After roughly another minute it should be cooked; transfer the crepe to a plate and repeat the process with the rest of the batter.

Use a food processor for the crunchy topping. Grind the cashews to a coarse powder, then add the remaining ingredients and blend until well combined.

Next, prepare the filling. Heat the oil in the fry-pan and sauté the garlic and spinach until the spinach has wilted - this will only take a few minutes. Take them off the heat and allow them to cool a little. In a food processor, grind the raw cashews to a coarse powder. Add the spinach and remaining filling ingredients and whiz everything together until it's nicely combined.

This is probably a good time to start preheating the oven - 180°C. Then get rolling! Place just a tablespoon or two of filling along the centre of each crepe, roll them up and place them in a baking dish.

In a small-medium saucepan, make the sauce. Start by heating the oil, then mix in the cornflour to make a smooth paste. After it's been cooking a minute, gradually whisk in the milk, doing your best to avoid lumps (I added the milk in very small batches to begin with). Bring the sauce to the boil and, once it's thickened, take it off the heat and pour it over the crepes.

Sprinkle the crunchy topping over the sauce-slathered crepes. Bake them for about 30 minutes, or until the top is crisp and golden.

January 9, 2011: Pumpkin sage pasta bake

On Sunday nights we often spend a bit of time in the kitchen, cooking up something that'll both serve us as dinner and set us up for a few packed lunches early in the work week.  On this occasion we had a cool change and some leftover sage leaves; this had me thinking of gnocchi and pasta dishes dressed with sage and brown butter.  Veganomicon offered me a recipe in this vein that was a little more nutritious and far more practical - a pumpkin sage pasta bake.  Pasta gets coated with a sauce made from pumpkin puree, cashew ricotta and warm spices, then topped with crunchy herbed breadcrumbs.

We made a few changes to suit us, the main one being that we roasted and pureed our own pumpkin instead of buying it canned (that's just... really not a thing in Australia).  Then we reduced the dried sage quantity in the crumbing and fried our fresh sage leaves as a crispy garnish.

This recipe was a thorough workout for our brand new food processor (yay!) - the breadcrumbs, cashew ricotta and pumpkin all went through it at some stage.  Even with those rotating blades doing their share, this was a labour intensive recipe and I was glad to have Michael's assistance throughout.  We were rewarded with many hearty meals throughout the week.  Michael liked this best with a shake of Tobasco sauce, while I'll be looking to replace a little of the pasta with bake-friendly veges in future.

Pumpkin sage pasta bake
(adapted slightly from Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)

600g pumpkin
5 tablespoons olive oil
375g penne pasta
2 onions
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
white pepper
cayenne
1/4 cup vegetable stock
5-8 fresh sage leaves
salt and pepper

cashew ricotta
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
600g tofu, drained
1 tablespoon fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

crumb topping
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 cups bread crumbs
1/3 cup walnut pieces, ground to coarse crumbs in a food processor
1 teaspoon sage powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Remove the pumpkin's skin and chop the flesh roughly. Place the pumpkin chunks into a baking tray, stir through 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake the pumpkin until soft, about 30 minutes. Set the pumpkin aside.

While the pumpkin is baking, bring a medium-large saucepan of water to boil and cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. When it's done, drain the pasta, rinse it with cold water and drain again. Set the pasta aside.

While the pumpkin and pasta are cooking, you will probably have time to prepare the onions. Slice them into thin rings then fry them on low heat in a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook them until they're very soft and sweet, 10-40 minutes, stirring them occasionally. Be sure to take them off the heat before they burn.

Next up, make the cashew ricotta. In a food processor, blend together the cashews, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic until thick and smooth-ish. Crumble in the tofu, sprinkle over the basil and salt, and process further until the mixture is smooth. Transfer the mixture to your largest mixing bowl.

Hopefully by this time your pumpkin has cooled a little. Place it in the food processor (doesn't matter if there's still ricotta dregs in there) and blend it to a smooth puree. Transfer the pumpkin to the bowl of ricotta, adding the brown sugar, nutmeg, white pepper and cayenne to taste, and stock. Stir it all together until well mixed. Fold in the pasta and onions.

Get the crumb topping going whenever you have a spare moment. We used the frypan that had cooked the onions and didn't bother to clean it out in between. Heat the olive oil then add the remaining crumb ingredients. Fry the crumbs for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring regularly, until they're golden and crunchy.

In a large baking tray, spread out the pasta mixture evenly. Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and bake the casserole until the crumbs are well browned, about 30 minutes. Allow the pasta bake to rest 10 minutes before serving. In this time, heat a tablespoon of olive oil on high heat and fry the fresh sage leaves until crisp. Serve the pasta bake garnished with the fried sage leaves.

January 8, 2011: Banana Notella Tortillas

For the Saturday night BYO dinner, I decided to expand my tortilla trials to dessert.  I've seen Nutella tortillas and Nutella-banana tortillas at Mexi-inspired eateries like Trippy Taco and it seemed the obvious way to go.  This being a vegan gathering, it meant I'd also be making my own Nutella, or "notella" as Veganomicon's Isa and Terry dubbed their version.

Notella requires a food processor but is otherwise very, very easy.  My ingredient list takes inspiration from two recipes, the not-tella in Veganomicon and the recipe for easy chocolate-hazelnut spread on Su Good Sweets.  It's nigh on impossible to grind hazelnuts to Ferrero's silky smoothness but with a little persistence it is possible to blend nuts to a velvetty butter.  This notella is rich though not quite as sickeningly oily as its namesake; I reckon I'll find some other good uses for it in vegan desserts.

The tortillas came together in the same manner as my previous attempt.  Without the aid of a tortilla press this time, I flattened them the best I could with the back of a frypan (à la Anna) and then pushed them out a bit further with a rolling pin.  I added a little icing sugar to the dough to enhance the sweetness but didn't notice it at all in the finished dessert.

Assembly was pretty simple - spread half of each tortilla thickly with notella, add a few banana slices and fold into half moons.  These were pretty good when assembled fresh with warm tortillas, OK after some time in transit and frankly terrible as fridge-stored leftovers the next day.  So go fresh or go home.

Sweet tortillas were a worthwhile experiment but probably not one I'll revisit.  The notella, on the other hand, is worthy of numerous replications.

Notella
(inspired by recipes from Veganomicon and Su Good Sweets)

2 cups skinned, roasted hazelnuts
3/4 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons Frangelico
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
generous pinch salt
1/4 cup cocoa
up to 1/2 cup peanut oil, as needed

Process the hazelnuts to a butter, scraping down the sides of the container occasionally. This will take several minutes; keep an eye on your food processor and potential overheating.  Add the icing sugar, Frangelico, vanilla, salt and cocoa and blend thoroughly.  Add the peanut oil, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you reach the consistency you want.

Sweet tortillas
(an adaptation of the tortilla recipe in Viva Vegan)

2 cups Mexican-style masa harina
1 tablespoon icing sugar
generous pinch of salt
1 cup warm water

Mix together the masa harina, icing sugar and salt in a bowl.  Add the water gradually, mixing it with the flour to form a firm, smooth dough (not too sticky).  Knead the dough briefly.  

Break off generous tablespoons of the dough and place them between two sheets of baking paper.  Squash and/or roll the dough balls into rounds that are 1-2mm thick.  Fry the tortillas in an ungreased pan for no more than a minute on each side.  Rest cooked tortillas under a damp teatowel and serve them as soon as they're all ready.

May 9, 2010: Choc-coconut banana muffins

Something something use up bananas blah blah workday snacks rhubarb rhubarb healthier than cake.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know the drill.  No prizes for surmising that I made banana muffins.  These take inspiration from the Lower-Fat Banana Bread recipe in Veganomicon and the coconut-embellished banana bread I made last spring.  The notable alterations are wholemeal flour for filling fibre, dark chocolate chips for fun, and a grated past-its-best apple in place of applesauce.

These were pretty good!  Make no mistake, they're not the fluffy fist-sized muffins widely sold in cafes.  They're smaller and dense and chewy and not at all cake-like.  They're also sweet and moist and something to get my teeth into when 3:30 rolls around.  Win.

Choc-coconut banana muffins

1 medium apple
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
3 small ripe bananas
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dark choc chips

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Peel and grate the apple. Place the grated apple in a small saucepan with the vinegar and water. Bring it to the boil, then simmer until the apple is very soft, about 10 minutes. Pour the apples over the bananas and mash them together thoroughly with a fork. I ended up with a little over a cup of puree.

Whisk in the oil, sugar and coconut. Sift over the wholemeal flour, plain flour, baking soda, nutmeg and salt, stirring until just combined. Fold in the choc chips.

Lightly grease a muffin pan and spoon the mixture in. The batter should be stiff but not dry, and make about 10 muffins. Bake until they pass the skewer test, up to 20 minutes.

October 28, 2009: Spicy tempeh and broccolini pasta

A couple of weekends ago, Michael and I wandered down Nicholson St and ran into Maria's Pasta Shop. Vaguely remembering some positive blog reviews, we picked out some frozen pasta packages for future meals. The eggplant and roasted capsicum ravioli made its way into this slight adaptation of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's spicy tempeh and broccoli rabe with rotelle. While the recipe's rotelle isn't a filled pasta, I can highly recommend the complexity and comfort that ravioli add to this dish. In particular, Maria's pasta is the most enjoyable store-bought ravioli I've eaten - it actually tastes of roasted capsicum!

Otherwise the dish has an Italian sausage theme, featuring tempeh chunks cooked in a spicy tomato broth - they've a strong yet pleasant aftertaste of fennel seeds. I don't know that I've come across Isa's preferred broccoli rabe, and after some internet browsing came to the conclusion that broccolini would make an adequate, if different, substitute. And even though I overcooked those greens, this was one fine meal. Michael loved it, and ended up torn between eating seconds and saving leftovers for lunch (he managed to do both).

My one difficulty with this recipe was that it demanded the tempeh, greens and pasta be cooked in separate pots. It made for a messy, busy kitchen and I didn't schedule things well. Next round, I'll be experimenting with cooking the tempeh and green veges in a single pan while the pasta bubbles in the background.

(Vegans beware: The ravioli we used on this night isn't vegan, though I believe some of Maria's other products might be. I've appended the vegan or vegan-friendly tag because this recipe is likely to do brilliantly using any number of other pastas.)

Spicy tempeh and broccolini pasta
(based on spicy tempeh and broccoli rabe with rotelle in Veganomicon)

600g tempeh, diced
1 cup stock
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons tomato paste
10 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons chilli flakes
2 teaspoons oregano
4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
2 small bunches broccolini, chopped coarsely
500g pasta
salt and pepper

Place the tempeh in a large frypan over medium heat. Whisk together the stock, soy sauce, tomato paste, 2 of the garlic cloves, the fennel seeds, chilli flakes, and oregano. Pour the mixture over the tempeh, stir it through, and allow the tempeh to cook for 8-10 minutes. Isa recommends covering the frypan during this time, but I found that I had too much liquid left at the end - instead I'd suggest allowing some of the liquid to evaporate away by cooking the tempeh uncovered.

When most of the liquid is gone and the tempeh is tender, transfer the tempeh to a bowl and smush it briefly with a wooden spoon, so that it's half cubes and half mush. Give the frypan a quick clean and heat up about 2 tablespoons of oil in it. Drop the tempeh back in, stir-frying it for 4-5 minutes, until it begins to brown. Sprinkle over a teaspoon of the balsamic vinegar.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the pasta until tender (time required will vary a lot amongst types).

In another frypan, heat the remaining oil and add the remaining garlic, cooking it for just a minute or two. Add the broccolini, toss them around to coat them in oil, and sprinkle over a little salt. Sprinkle over the remaining balsamic vinegar. Cook the broccolini for 5-8 minutes, until it's just tender and still bright green (I overcooked ours).

Drain the pasta and gently toss everything together in the dry pot. Season to taste and serve.

June 14, 2009: Baked beans and hushpuppies

This Sunday night dinner looks more like a big vegan breakfast! Here's what we ate...

Baked beans with 'sausages'. I tried Veganomicon's recipe for Cheater Baked Beans and liked them a lot. If you have a cooking pot that can be used both on the stove-top and in the oven, then this is a one pot wonder. We don't, so unfortunately it dirtied a few more dishes along the way. The sauce is very sweet, owing to a heapin' half-cup of molasses/golden syrup, and I'll try reducing that next time. My special addition to the mix was a couple of home-made vegan sausages, retrieved from the freezer, cooked in amongst the beans towards the end of the oven time, then sliced into small chunks once tender. Highly recommended.

Hushpuppies. I'd never heard of hushpuppies before, but I got caught up in Lindyloo's nostalgia and enthusiasm and gave them a go. By contrast, Michael was distraught at having to eat anything with 'puppies' in the name. These little balls of crunchy corn eventually won his reluctant approval, being perfect for dipping into those saucy baked beans. Though they went down a treat, I'll probably revert to my usual cornbread recipe next time I'm in the mood for such a thing.

Sauteed mushrooms. I just finished these fungi off with a couple of teaspoons of vegetarian oyster sauce and loved the salty-sweet effect.

Sauteed spinach. Much-needed greens.

Multi-grain toast spread with Nuttelex. A cook-up staple, brilliant with the mushrooms.


It's rare that I prepare a meal with so many separate components, but they were all well appreciated. The quantity of beans and hushpuppies made for a couple of envy-inducing workday lunches too.




Baked beans
(based on the Cheater Baked Beans in Veganomicon, by Isa Moskowitz & Terry Romero)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 x 400g can crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup golden syrup
2 teaspoons mustard powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 bay leaf
2 x 400g cans canellini beans, drained and rinsed
3 vegan sausages, chopped into chunks

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan - use an oven-proof pan if you have one. Cook the onions in the oil for about 10 minutes, until they're soft and starting to brown. Add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Stir through the crushed tomatoes, golden syrup, mustard powder, salt, allspice and bay leaf; cook the sauce for about 5 minutes.

Add the beans. You need to bake the lot in a covered container, so either pop the lid onto your oven-proof pan or transfer the beans into a casserole dish. Bake for 30 minutes, stir it around. Bake for a further 20 minutes, stir in the sausage chunks. Bake for 10 minutes more, until the sausage is tender.



Hushpuppies
(adapted from Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit, where it's credited to VegCooking)

1 teaspoon powdered egg replacer
2/3 cup rice milk
1 1/4 cups polenta
1/2 cup plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup corn kernels
1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon pickled jalapeno, minced
spray oil

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with paper and lightly spray it with oil.

In a large bowl, whisk the powdered egg replacer into the rice milk. Stir in the polenta, flour, baking powder, sugar and pepper. Next stir in the corn kernels, green onion and jalapenos.

With clean wet hands, form the mixture into balls and place them on the baking tray. Spray them with more oil. Bake the hushpuppies for 10 minutes, turn them over and bake for a further 5-10 minutes, until they're crispy on the outside and lightly browning.

April 25, 2009: Cryptic cookies

This is my first attempt at something from the sweeter side of Veganomicon. For all their Plain Jane looks, I've dubbed these cryptic cookies for a reason - they have a lot more going on than they let on at first glance. The initial hint for the non-scoffer is the curious aroma. The first bite confirms it to be rose water; then there's sourness before sweetness and as chewing continues, a golden roastedness and hint of salt to round out the flavour.

The rose water's backed up with an all-star line-up of vanilla, lime, cardamom and sesame seeds. These are actually supposed to be decorated with chopped pistachios (hence their original name, pistachio-rosewater cookies) but designated shopper Michael lamented that there wasn't a pistachio to be had in Fitzroy, and I took a chance on the sesame seeds in the pantry. I wasn't immediately convinced, yet they snuck their way into my favour over the course of a few cookies.

Isa and Terry promise cookies "pretty as a picture" and I'm sure they'd be a little more eye-catching if studded with the recommended pistachios. However, my dough was far too runny to roll into balls so they seemed doomed to this blobbly shape. I can imagine, though, how lovely they'd look if the dough was piped into thick S shapes using a star-shaped nozzle. Warm from the oven, the cookies had the perfect balance of crisp outer and chewy centre; once cool they were uniformly crunchy, a fine candidate for dunking in tea.

Cryptic cookies
(based on the pistachio-rose water cookies in Veganomicon, by Isa Moskowitz & Terry Romero)

1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
3 tablespoons oat milk
1 tablespoon rose water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
juice and zest of 1 lime
1/4 cup cornflour
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 cup sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray or two with paper.

Whisk together the sugar, oil, milk, rose water, vanilla, lime juice and zest in a bowl. Whisk in the cornflour until the mixture is smooth. Thoroughly mix through the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom.

Drop large teaspoons of the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving plenty of space between cookies. Sprinkle the blobs with sesames seeds, then bake them for 10-13 minutes (mine needed no more than 10 minutes). Allow them to cool and firm up on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring them to a rack.

April 4, 2009: Green pumpkin-seed mole

Emily's Tex-Mex themed potluck has already been well covered by bloggers far more timely than Cindy and I. I'm not going to go through all the wonders that were produced - suffice to say the food was plentiful and consistently amazing. I gorged myself almost to bursting point.

Our contributions to the food fiesta were relatively modest - Cindy whipped up something sweet (which will no doubt appear here shortly) while I went mad with savoury accompaniments. Cindy recommended two of her previous Mexi-themed successes: the chipotle-onion sauce and the coleslaw from this post, and I added something new: green pumpkin-seed mole.

This is another Veganomicon recipe, and is as simple as the two linked to above - the only cooking required is a bit of pepitas toasting and then it's everything in a food processor. It did require a brief jaunt to Casa Iberica for canned tomatillos, but everything else was pretty straightforward. And it turned out a treat - only a little bit spicy, with the flavours coming more from the fresh herbs and onions, it was a nice cooling sauce to go with the more firey chipotle-based option.

Green pumpkin-seed mole

1 cup pepitas
4 black peppercorns
1 cup fresh coriander
1 cup fresh parsley
1 x 250ml can tomatillos
1 chilli, seeded and chopped
2 shallots, chopped coarsely
2 lettuce leaves, torn into pieces (although it's worth noting that I didn't notice the influence of the lettuce leaves, and you're probably better off just skipping this ingredient if you don't have any greens in the fridge)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and toast the pumpkin seeds, turning regularly. It took me about 10 minutes, but it can probably be done in less if you crank the heat up a bit.

Put the toasted pepitas and the peppercorns in a food processor and blend into a coarse powder.

Add everything else except the oil and blend it all together. Throw in the oil and give it a last whizz and voila, you're done.

March 9, 2009: Lime mayonnaise

Here's a calendar recipe that's right up my alley - lime mayonnaise. I love mayonnaise on burgers and sandwiches, and chips dipped in aioli would rate as one of my favourite foods; back in my pre-veg days, battered fish with tartare sauce would have rated as highly. However, after a weekend of (over)indulgence, we needed to scale back a bit and I decided to team this lime mayonnaise with oven-baked tofu 'fish' bites. The freshest half of the plate features mixed green leaves and a coleslaw recipe from Veganomicon with bonus radishes.

As if lime juice and zest aren't enough pep, this condiment also includes horseradish and mustard. Fresh horseradish root isn't quite in season so we took the second option listed and bought horseradish cream from the supermarket. I've not tried horseradish before but it's in the same plant family as mustard and wasabi - it has that same acidic heat that punches you in the nose. The only other alteration I made to this recipe was downsizing - the original ingredient list added up to over a litre of mayo!


Lime mayonnaise

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup light sour cream
juice and zest of 1 lime
1 teaspoon horseradish cream
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Whisk all the ingredients together and refrigerate until serving.

February 16-17, 2009: Sushi II

We are on a roll. My sushi habits have progressed from not-eaten-in-years to home-made-every-fortnight. Each roll here includes a subset of:

• tempeh not-bacon slices
• Japanese-style marinated tofu with Veganomicon's recommended dressing of mayonnaise, sesame oil, chilli flakes and spring onion
• carrot
• capsicum
• some rather unorthodox rocket.
  

We would've liked to add some avocado to the party, but it seemed unlikely to survive as we prepared our sushi 24 hours in advance of a picnic. Our expedition to the Moonlight Cinema failed, with the patron two places ahead of Michael in the queue snagging the last tickets, but with stiff upper lips we proceeded to picnic anyway. Kristy and Toby shared beer, soft and 'cheesy' savoury muffins, baked chickpeas, Turkish bread sloshed through olive oil and za'atar, and the creamiest, most delectable coconut fudge. (You can check out the goods over on Kristy's blog.) Neither darkness nor a time-set sprinkler system deterred us and we finished off with a drink at Markov Place before calling it a night. And a fine night at that.

February 1, 2009: Tempeh tacos and black beans

The last week of January was not one for cooking. With a string of record-breakingly hot days and only myself to feed, I nipped into the kitchen only long enough to fetch crackers and cheese, fruit, or my umpteenth refill of iced water. By the weekend I was ready for cooking and company so I offered a vaguely Mexican-themed Sunday night meal to Mike, Jo, Marty and Alana. They responded enthusiastically with beer (some with chilli!) and in Jo's case, white wine sangria.

On Saturday morning I picked out some recipes and hit the markets. Beer-marinated tempeh, coleslaw, black beans, lime-yoghurt sauce and smokin' hot chipotle-onion sauce; all taken from Veganomicon. I was able to prepare almost everything in advance, just frying the tempeh, reheating the beans and chopping up the fresh stuff while my guests crunched on corn chips.

So, let's take it from the top with my latest love, tempeh. Unfortunately, this incarnation was merely meh. Though my tempeh had marinated for hours in a potent mix of beer, lime juice, soy sauce and spices, the freshly fried strips tasted of tempeh, nothing more. They still made a pleasant and mild taco filling, but I suspect I could achieve the same effect by just stir-frying the strips in a little peanut oil.

Its accompaniments fared better. The coleslaw seemed an odd choice and I was a little apprehensive that the other eaters might avoid it. (Let's face it, vegetables don't get much less cool than cabbage.) Yet it won the first favourable remark! To be fair, this recipe is no mayonnaise mush - the shredded cabbage and carrot are dressed more elegantly in apple cider vinegar, a couple of minced pickled jalapenos, and some salt and pepper.

The evening's cooling condiment was the lime crema. All it takes is plain yoghurt (soy for the vegan version), a handful of coriander, the juice of a lime, a dash of salt, and a hearty whizz in the food processor. Only the most committed coriander-hater could turn up their nose at this one.

These black beans were the first dish to be completely gobbled up; their flavour belies their simplicity. To make them, you bring two drained cans of black beans, 3 cups of water, a halved onion and 2 bay leaves to boil. Let 'em simmer for 40 minutes, fish out the onion and bay leaves and you're done! Actually I found that my beans didn't want to break down at all, so I gave them an encouraging little mash to get the thicker consistency you see above.

Isa and Terry must be made of sterner stuff than I; there is no way I could handle this quantity of smokin' chipotle-onion sauce on such a modest serve of black beans. Even so, it's a gem of a recipe (I've included it below) - smoky, savoury and super-spicy - and we all gleefully spooned it onto our tortillas, some with heavier hands than others.

Even with a little hiccup or two and a couple of tweaks on my part, it's those Veganomiconers who deserve mad props for another stellar line-up of savoury dishes. Methinks it's time to start trialling those cookies and desserts tucked away at the back of this book.



Chipotle-onion sauce

1 large onion, diced finely
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 chipotle chillis in adobo, minced
2 tablespoons adobo sauce (from the chipotles)

Put the onion, garlic and olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook them, stirring occasionally to prevent the onion from sticking, until the onion is very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the chipotles and adobo sauce, stir through thoroughly, and cook for just 30 seconds more. Allow the sauce to cool, then whizz it briefly in a food processor to obtain a chunky sauce.

January 18, 2009: Wokked-up cashews, quinoa and pineapple

I bought a pineapple. A whole one. I'm not sure why I picked a surly, spiny whole one when there were neat little containers of cored and chopped pineapple flesh sitting nearby; perhaps I hoped it'd keep me company in the kitchen for a couple of days while Michael's away. Perhaps I thought it was something that Michael would disapprove of - on several of our early dates we ate at a cheap Malaysian restaurant where Michael was a regular, and he consistently ordered the satay and picked out all the pineapple chunks. He has since protested that he's not an across-the-board pineapple hater, but I can't remember ever seeing him eat it and the conviction lingers in the back of my mind.

So I can't help thinking that this is a meal that Michael would disapprove of. He shouldn't - it's filling yet summery, fits into his favourite wok, and uses the combination of pineapple and chilli to great effect. Never tried pineapple and chilli together? Neither had I, but it is mouth-tinglingly good.

This is Veganomicon's Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry and though it was many good things, it wasn't a quick meal. The quinoa's to be cooked and cooled ahead of time, as you would for fried rice. I'm something of a slow chopper, and inexpertly cutting down that pineapple was quite a task. Finally, the recipe recommends about 20 minutes cooking time all up, not exactly the quick-and-hot in-and-out that stir-fries are supposed to be. I sped up this phase, as I like to keep my veges crunchy. I made a couple of substitutions, too - orange juice masqueraded as pineapple juice, and I preferred the latest crop of sugar snap peas to Veganomicon's frozen peas.

Wokked-up cashews, quinoa and pineapple
(based on the Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry in Veganomicon)

1 cup quinoa
1 cup orange juice
1 cup cold water
1/4 teaspoon + 3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons vegetable stock
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
120g cashews, raw and unsalted
3 tablespoons peanut oil
2 spring onions, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red chilli, chopped finely
2cm piece of ginger, peeled and minced
1 red capsicum, chopped
1 cup sugar snap peas, trimmed and halved
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped roughly
2 tablespoons mint, chopped finely
2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped
lime wedges, to garnish

Rinse and drain the quinoa, than plonk it into a medium-sized saucepan. Pour over the orange juice, water, and 1/4 teaspoon of soy sauce. Pop the lid on and put the saucepan on high heat, bringing the quinoa to boil. Give it a little stir, put the lid back on, and turn down the heat to medium-low; cook the quinoa until all the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove the lid, give the quinoa a gentle stir, and let it cool. Store it in the refrigerator until you're ready to cook, preferrably overnight.

In a cup or small bowl, stir together the 3 tablespoons soy sauce, stock and rice wine vinegar. Set it aside.

Put a wok or very large frypan on low heat and toast the cashews in it, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Set the cashews aside.

Turn the wok/frypan heat up to medium and toss in the peanut oil, spring onions and garlic. When it's all sizzling, add the chilli and ginger. Stir-fry it all for a minute or two, then add the capsicum and sugar snap peas. Stir-fry for another minute or two, until the vegetables are bright and glistening, then stir through the basil and mint. Add the pineapple and quinoa, using your spatula to break up any quinoa chunks. Stir-fry for just a minute, then pour over the stock mixture and stir it through. Continue to stir-fry just until everything is hot and well-combined.

Scoop the stir-fry into bowls, sprinkling over the cashews and serving lime wedges on the side.

January 9, 2009: Sushi

OK, so they're probably not the most elegant sushi rolls you've ever seen, but be kind! These are Michael's and my first attempts at making our own. It's been a while - I discovered Sushi Station as a uni student and became almost instantly hooked, but once I went vegetarian they had less appeal. So much fish! (And chicken...) Since moving to Melbourne, some great Japanese restaurants have rekindled my interest in this cuisine but it took a flick through Veganomicon on Friday morning to get the nori rolling.

Veganomicon did well to reel me in - their nori rolls are one of the few recipes that win a colour photo and they feature my newly-rediscovered buddy tempeh. Throw in some avocado and sesame oil and it's difficult to imagine how they could get any better. Isa and Terry helpfully listed all the extras a sushi novice needs in a pop-out box - in addition to the recipe ingredients, we bought bamboo rolling mats (<$2 each at the supermarket!), pickled ginger, a tube of wasabi paste and a bottle of shoyu (soy sauce).

We tried three different fillings. On the left is steamed spinach, dressed with rice vinegar, sesame oil and sesame seeds. It was OK, but I think I'll mix it with other fillings in the future. On the right are elephant rolls, with avocado and roasted peanuts. This unexpected combination was unexpectedly good! I think I'll always be adding peanuts (or other nuts) to my avocado rolls in future. The centre rolls are an attempt at Veganomicon's featured filling; sadly we were unable to track down any tempeh on Friday evening (but oh, how we tried!) so we substituted marinated tofu. It's steamed and then mashed up a little with mayonnaise, sesame oil and chilli powder, before being rolled with avocado and chopped shallots. The result is outstanding! We were sneaking tastes out of the bowl, jealously guarding our own shares of the rolls and then when we ran out of rice, spooning it onto crackers.

So our rolls ain't the prettiest and they created one heck of a mess in our kitchen. But their terrific taste and novel assembly made for a fab Friday night in, one that we're bound to repeat in the future.


Basic nori rolls

Combine 1 cup of sushi rice and 1 1/4 cups of water in a saucepan. Put the saucepan on high heat and bring the rice to the boil. Stir it once, lower the heat, cover the saucepan and cook the rice until it's tender and all the water is absorbed. Veganomicon estimates 20-22 minutes, but ours was perfect in just 15 minutes.

Transfer the rice to a heatproof bowl, and sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Gently but thoroughly fold them through the rice, then cover the bowl and leave the rice to cool for 10-15 minutes. It should still be a little warmer than room temperature when you use it.

Prepare your fillings while the rice is cooking and cooling - guides for the ones we used are below.

Place a nori sheet on your bamboo mat, and spoon some rice onto the bottom two-thirds of it. It is much, much easier to smooth the rice out (aim for a layer ~0.5cm thick) using wet hands, or the back of a wet spoon. The Veganomicon folks suggest keeping a small bowl of water mixed with a little rice vinegar by your side.

Near the bottom of the roll, arrange a stripe of your filling ingredients from the left side all the way to the right. The less you use, the easier this'll be to roll, so go light on for at least the first time.

OK, let's roll! Start with the side closest to you - it should have rice on it with the filling stripe close by. Use the bamboo mat to gently but firmly roll the sushi sheet over, away from you. Try not to do what Michael first did, and get the bamboo mat caught inside the sushi layers! You'll probably have to fold the mat back towards you once the sushi coil starts overlapping with itself. When you get to the naked nori at the other end, pat it with a bit of water to create a seal.

Transfer the sushi roll to a board, and use a serrated knife to slice it into pieces ~2cm thick.

Have you made it this far? If so, then you rock! Taste one of the messy end pieces (with a dab of wasabi if you please) - hopefully it'll spur you on to finish the rest of your rolling.


Elephant roll
Slice two avocado halves into lengthwise strips, and arrange them with a tablespoon or two of roasted peanuts.


Steamed sesame spinach
Wash 150-200g of spinach and steam it until just wilted - it won't take long! Chop it up a bit, then toss it in a bowl with 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, and a splash of rice vinegar.


Spicy tempeh (or tofu)
Steam 100g tempeh/tofu, a let it cool for about 10 minutes. Chop it roughly into cubes, and pop it into a bowl with 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon sesame oil and chilli powder to taste. Mash it all together, but keep it chunky.

Spoon the tempeh/tofu in a line along your rice and nori, then top it with avocado strips and the sliced green part of a shallot.

December 12, 2008: Po' boys

It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a good vege burger. So when Michael offered to cook me anything I liked out of Veganomicon on Friday night, I zeroed in on the Sammich section and selected the po' boy. Po' boys originated in Louisiana and traditionally involve some sort of fried seafood stuffed into a baguette. Not this baby - it starts with smoky chipotle mayo, is filled out with crunchy cornmeal-crumbed tofu and coleslaw, with a grand finale of pickles! This book is sadly lacking in the photo department, but regardless I was picturing a fine sandwich.

And you know what? It's about three times BETTER than I hoped. It's frickin' mardi gras in a crusty bread roll - just look at it! The chipotle mayo's got bite, the tofu crust is golden delicious with a hint of lime zest, the slaw freshens things up and the pickles are the sweet-and-sour icing on the cake. I ate this for breakfast on Saturday, and on Sunday too. Then I ate the last bit for lunch on Monday. I still loved it, and I reckon you will too.

Po' boys

Chipotle mayo
Hunt down a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (here in Melbourne, you can buy them from Casa Iberica). Finely chop one pepper, and stir it into 1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise; additionally, stir in about 1/2 teaspoon of the adobo sauce. Taste and add more adobo sauce if you want spicier mayo.


Cornmeal-crusted tofu
You can bake or fry these. Michael fried them as a birthday treat but we'll probably bake them in the future; we've previously had crunchy-crust baking success with 'fish' fingers. The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of chilli powder but ours is really potent, so I nagged Michael into reducing it to a measly teaspoon.

vegetable oil for frying
500g firm tofu
1 cup rice milk
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 cup cornmeal (usually called 'polenta' here)
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon grated lime zest
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Stir together the milk and cornflour in a shallow bowl. In a separate shallow bowl, stir together the cornmeal, chilli powder, cumin, cayenne, lime zest and salt.

Slice the tofu lengthways into1.5cm-thick slabs, then slice the slabs diagonally into triangles.

To fry the tofu: Liberally coat the base of a frypan with oil and turn it up to medium heat. Once it's ready, dip a tofu slice into the milk until all sides are coated, then into the cornmeal for the same treatment. If you're a smartie, you can try having one 'wet' hand and one 'dry' hand to reduce mess. Place the crumbed tofu into the frypan, and repeat with the other tofu slices until the frypan's full. Fry the tofu for a couple of minutes on each side, then plonk it onto some absorbent paper and repeat with any remaining tofu.

To bake the tofu: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and lightly oil a baking dish. Dip the tofu slices into the milk, then the cornmeal as above, and place them in the baking dish - no overlapping and preferrably no pieces touching! Bake the tofu for about 15 minutes, turning once.

Coleslaw
Finely shred 3 cups-worth of cabbage (ours was purple!) and grate a carrot. In a large bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons rice milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and a pinch each of pepper and mustard powder. Add the cabbage and carrot, and toss them to distribute the dressing through.

For the final assembly:
sandwich pickles
2 loaves of French baguette

Cut the baguettes into half-lengths, then slice them lengthways into sandwiches. Spread the bottom of each sandwich with the chipotle mayo, then stack it with tofu and coleslaw. Slice the pickles and balance them on top, and round it all off with the top piece of bread. Eat, eat, eat.

December 11, 2008: My edible birthday

On turning 28, my friend, colleague and fellow maths-nerd Alana reminded me that my new age is a perfect number. As if that's not enough to be pleased about, take a look at the food-themed gifts I've been treated to, to celebrate the occasion.

This cute card arrived in the mail from my brother, Liam.

Michael's mum, Robyn, posted me this brand new recipe calendar to replace the 2008 World In Your Kitchen Calendar that she bought us for Christmas last year. This time she designed and printed her own calendar full of vegetarian recipes! I'm impressed and mighty chuffed that she went to that effort - you can be sure that this blog will document us testing each recipe throughout the year.

Yes, it's Veganomicon! The ultimate reference for vegan cooking, source of the fabulous chickpea cutlet. Michael picked it out after a little internet research, and offered to cook me my choice of dinner from it on Friday night. I can't wait to get my teeth into more of these cruelty-free recipes in the coming weeks and months.

But he didn't stop there. Michael also tucked away some sweet little earrings and badges amongst a bag full of newspaper. The newspaper concealed this vintage drink set! I'll swizzle up Pimm's punch all summer, if only the weather warms up.

My December birthday melds most agreeably into Christmas. I spent the afternoon lazing around a barbecue and playing bocce with my lab-mates while in Dr Who-themed costume - that's what passes for an office Christmas party 'round these parts. And I think there's at least one more fabulous food-themed gift on its way to me. During the planning and parties of these few weeks, I'm looking forward to my turn to do the giving.