Cook Salad

On days where I need lunch RIGHT NOW and I am depending on not going out to the shops to pick something up, I cook a salad.

My housemate louise, who is also a vegan, went through a stage earlier this year of refusing to call a cooked salad a "salad" or many other "salad" things, she was avoiding using the word in protest of the stereotypical view of veganism and vegan food, can't make friends with salad, etc.
I believe the term she used to replace salads was "throw-together". Alex had a field day with this on louise, calling everything salad, left right and centre.

I wonder if anyone else feels similarly about the word salad and the normal feelings about how omni-folk (muggles) put on vegans/vegetarians from stereotypes of low food choices and stuff? Do people still even think that all we can eat is salad or rice or whatever? I've never been picked on in such a way because of my veganism, but my friend Tim (who is a very proud vegan) has joked at me that because I'm a gluten free vegan, all I can eat is lettuce...

I like cooked salads because they're fresh and warm at the same time, and because I'm generally a bit wary of raw food and undercooked food (this is a childhood pickishness thing, I guess).
This one is steamed pak choy, steamed oyster mushroom, crispy spicy salt and pepper tofu, green chilli, kim chi (home made for our house by my beautiful friend Jackson!!!) with a miso-mayonaise dressing that i spilled on one of my best dresses!

This was the first time I got to take a photo of a meal I've whipped up for a while/been bothered to.

This was the first time I'd cooked oyster mushrooms, I really really love them and their special taste and texture. I put them in pho a couple of days ago and it woked a treat! I really should experiment with enoki mushrooms soon.

What are your favourite kind of mushrooms and how do you like to use them?


ps: of course i know this isn't a salad but when it's lunchtime and i think I'M GOING TO MAKE A SALAD, i generally end up cooking something like this. don't judge me, i just like cooking delicious food, ok.

Apple of my Thigh!

Here is my adaptation of the German Apple Cake recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking (thanks little Ruth for getting this for my 20th last year, you're a superstar!) which has pages falling out of it all over the place from over-bending (I don't know if I actually use this book a lot but it is REALLY GOOD and I read it so much when I first got it, like bedtime reading for a couple of months kinda crazily) and this recipe actually fell into my mixing bowl when I opened the book! What a sign!!! I adapted it for the sake of flours and such, and what I had available and how I felt about the flavour of the batter and stuff.

It turned out marvelously and as it ended up being the only cake at Katrina's Housewarming Pot Luck, it shined for everyone.

German Apple Cake (adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau) my adaptations are asterixed

PREHEAT YR OVEN TO 180c.
GREASE A CIRCULAR TIN
SPRINKLE IT WITH BROWN SUGAR AND CINNAMON (TO TASTE)*

3 apples, peeled and cut into thin slices.
1/2 c. non dairy margarine.
1/2 c. raw sugar
3 T. rice milk*
1/2 c. applesauce (I used a bit more than this because I had a little bit left in the jar and didn't wanna waste)
1 t. natural vanilla essence*
1.5 t. maple syrup *
1/2 t. cinnamon*
1/3 c. buckwheat flour*
1/3 c. chickpea flour*
1/3 c. white maize flour*
1/2 c. generic gluten free "plain" flour mix* (THATS ONE AND A HALF CUPS OF FLOUR)
2.5 t. baking powder

topping: 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1/2 t. cinnamon, 1/4 t. cardamom* mixed.

depending on how you slice your apples you should have enough for both the top and the bottom of the cake. line the bottom of the cake (after you've sugared it) tin with some apples, try to get them in a nice arrangement because this will be the top of the cake. put the remaining apples to the side to do something similar after you've poured the batter in.

Cream the margarine and sugar either by hand or with an electric hand mixer. Add the apple sauce, milk, vanilla essence. Add the flours and baking powder and stir until just combined. Pour onto the apples, and tap the tin a bit to make sure all the apples are covered and there are no gaps or air bubbles.

Arrange the remaining apples to the top of the cake, hopefully you'll be able to cover the whole thing. sprinkle with the sugar spice mix heavily and bake for about 35 minutes.

The cake is done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean and the top is crisp and brown. let it cool for at least 15 minutes before putting a plate on top of it and turning it upside down. the bottom (now top) apples should be soft and sweet smelling.

I think this is sort of what I imagine a 'tea cake' is like. It had a really lovely crumb, a moist top and crisp bottom, almost like a pie-cake. Will make again. yay. Hopefully next time I'll get to have some whilst it's still warm, with vanilla ice cream (we did serve it with ice cream, which was a star of an accompaniment brought by the extra lovely Lizzie!) for more homely-ness.

nb: i just realised how yellow toned my pictures are! my computer must have a red bias in its screen! aaaah. sorry for the acid trip, guyz.

Red Emma's Sausage Fest.

There's a couple of habits A and I have when it comes to cooking together.
Alex is really good at making use of all the spare/going bad veggies in the fridge (there's a lot of prolific dumpster divers living in MGTVLE, plus there's 7 of us and only one fridge) before they're totally uselessly expired. This sometimes frustrates me (because I really don't think we have to put EVERYTHING in one dish just cos it's there and the chances are that noone will use xyz thing before it's too late) but sometimes it works well, and it works especially well when we have a couple of "stock" meals that we like to make quite regularly that have very basic guidelines and lots of room to move with, so the meal can be as simple or as heavy as you like/require, based on the likelyhood of chucking out some old veggies.

Red Emma is a pasta dish that has incredibley loose rules. Which should be so, considering the dish's namesake, couldn't be more appropriate!
The "rules" for Red Emma are: at least one chargrilled red capsicum in the sauce. Hopefully the chargrilled capsicum is a stand-out feature of the sauce for the pasta, otherwise it's good to put in other red things (chillies and paprika and tomato paste are smiled upon!).

This version made use of a very intriguing vegetarian "roast sausage" I found in a asian grocery store on Marrickville Rd that seems to be made completely out of soy. I've found the sausages to be almost overwhelmingly pork-like (the only meat that really repels me unless it is in the form of salami) but it found it's place well used in this pasta sauce. I don't often get the chance to cook with sausage (most vege sausages are wheat laden) so felt a bit at a loss with these guys and took a chance for Monday night's dinner..

Fried the sausages (2 small sized sausages cut into circles) with lots of garlic and mushrooms, balsamic and tamari. added chillies, tomato paste and one large charred capsicum, skin peeled off. to make it more 'saucey' I added a thickening mix of cornflour and water, let the sauce come together and added a bit more tomato paste before throwing in a roughly chopped bunch of basil.

This turned out pretty well. Alex was impressed with my soy-heavy sausages' flavour and said in this sauce they smelled/tasted like Csabai sausage!! Which is disgusting if you think about it too long but is really impressive, suitabley european for miss Emma G.