AWW Polenta Bake.

I've been meaning to start veganising recipes from the Australian Women's Weekly for a while. Some of their recipes are incidentally vegan or easily veganised by the replacement of dairy milks/butters for other less abusive products and some of their recipes depend on meat or eggs as integral players. So be it a little lazy on my part for choosing this recipe, its just so good looking and I hadn't used polenta for quite some time. The major adjustment made was with cheeses and milk as well as completely halving the recipe as I didn't have a whole litre of milk to spare, and my "lamington" tray is small.

The Australian Women's Weekly presents: Baked polenta with tomato and bocconcini (a la vegan).

INGREDIENTS (with my adjustments and substitutions)
2 cups vegetable stock (I use Massel, and had run out of their really good Chicken stock but would use that if I had it)
2 cups soy milk
pinch of sea salt
1 cup polenta
⅓ cup grated cheezly mozzarella
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
⅓ cup Napoli pasta sauce (we have this around the house sometimes, its a generic mix of tomatoes, tomato paste, and miscellaneous herbs and spices. you could use whatever you see fit, a white sauce or pesto would be nice, or a fresh passata with herbs. as you like!)
6 thin slices of cheezly mozzarella
6 seeded black olives, halved
pinch chopped fresh oregano, optional
flat-leaf parsley leaves, for serving, optional

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan forced). Grease a 20cm x 30cm
lamington pan.

Combine stock, milk and salt in a large saucepan; bring to the boil. Gradually sprinkle the polenta over the stock mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure the polenta has no lumps.
Reduce the heat to low and partially cover the saucepan. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes or until polenta is very thick and a spoon can stand upright in the centre. Remove from heat, stir in the grated cheeze and nutritional yeast.

Spread polenta into prepared pan. Stand for about 5 minutes. Spread tomato sauce over polenta, top with mozzarella slices and place an olive half in the centre of each mozzarella slice. Sprinkle with oregano.
Bake, uncovered, for about 45 minutes or until cheeze is melted.

Let sit for about 5 minutes or until the polenta is firm to touch and easily cut. Cut polenta into squares; sprinkle with parsley, if desired.

Delicious, warming and I have no idea why some people hate polenta. Its such wholesome niceness.

Martha-Choke

What you see here is a veganization of a Martha Stewart Recipe - Roasted Chicken and Jerusalem Artichokes that was the most interesting and appetizing recipe I could find when looking for ideas of what to do with the "sunchokes" as I've never had them before.
I pretty much prepared the recipe verbatim, replacing the chicken with my beloved smofu lightly pan-fried before roasting and some soya chicken slices in a marinade of tamari, umeshu, and lemon zest.

It's a really big dish and I was probably a bit too ambitious with the servings I made for just Alex and myself. I'd like to try this again for more people or with some other veggies as Al made a comment of it being extremely tastey but a bit heavy on the soy products. Otherwise, I found this recipe to be quite encouraging of my veganizing skills and am looking forward to more adventures with Martha and other meat-relying uberchefs.

I wish I'd taken a photo of this one coming out of the oven, it looked fucking fantastic. You can see a version of a vegan Martha-Choke on What the Hell does a Vegan eat anyway? where they appear to enjoy this dish quite regularly and I coincidentally happened upon whilst writing up.

I served mine with leftover brown rice, roasted potatoes & gravy, and a garnish of some of our dwindling watercress.

x

Your Dad Curry

Last night I attempted a vegan variation on trotski & ash's my dad chicken curry using what I had around. It turned out extraordinarily well and I'll make it again next week maybe to shoot a photo of the actual curry and recipe and my very first chutney.
These photos are of a reheated late lunch I had this afternoon. I love it when I successfully veganise things, it makes me feel so accomplished as a feeder, and a little bit gloaty about what I like to think of as my told-ya-so on the few people I know who still insist all I can eat is lettuce. For those interested, I'm working on a recipe for an even-better Butter Chicken, am still unemployed, and forgot to take photos of an orange and almond cake with home made marzipan that I made for the winter solstice weekend.

unapologetic photo dump.

tofu fritatta (favourite!) messy version with added "pork" sausage and home grown oregano. made without a cast-iron frying pan befuddled me in a fight against gravity and made the result turn into rustic almost scramble. for an unmessy recipe with a cast iron griddle go back in time to this post. major changes were adding a bit of umeshu and fresh tomato and yellow capsicum in place of the red.

If you make a mess then it's an unbelievable sandwich filler. the toast is Naturally Gluten Free's Classic bread which is probably the best gluten free brand I've had and luckily I only have to travel to Leura (the township next to Katoomba) to get a loaf for myself. It fared very well in french toast last night. Good sign.


okay i am a bit apologetic that i've almost abandonned my fooding blog, especially because of all the time i spend thinking about food and plants. guh, moving, unemployment and stubbornly staying off centrelink hasn't meant that i havent been making and inventing in the kitchen, i've just been unprepared in my mind to take photos or make alex wait to eat because i need to get the right photo. damnit.

and for those who are curious, i'm still putting too much salt on my portions of food for health reasons, and i'm not getting much better except for that moving to a cold cold cold place for winter has calmed my heart a bit.

this is our new house. yes, the tibetan prayer flags do mean that we are sharing with hippies.
but they're fellow coeliacs and vegans so its tolerable.

In the meantime, I'll try to pick up the recipe'ing habit again. maybe..

Banana Bread

(or, "YOU'VE NEVER EATEN WHAT???")

Before a chance taste of it in my bedroom a few months ago, my friend Damian had never eaten banana bread before. Before she came to Australia at the end of last year, she also had never eaten dumplings, risotto, ice cream sodas, mi goreng, or even a pumpkin before.
There is probably a few other things we fed her that she said "what the fuck is this" to that I can't think of. She was also quite fascinated in learning about all the different things I can't eat because of being a coeliac.

For all fairness, before I met Damian I had never had partaken of, nor heard of a sandwich cake before (if you ever befriend a Swede and they offer to make this for you, PARTAKE OF IT!!! Damian's friends Stina and Karin came and made some vegan versions for our house and one especially for me with gluten free bread a month ago, I get cravings for it once a week now).
Damian was so amazingly stoked on any cake she had a piece of that I had made whilst she stayed at our place, especially of banana bread, that I couldn't resist but make a loaf for her especially for her bon-voyage. Damian left this afternoon to return to Gothenburg.

I have a few recipes that I use/mix up between when making banana bread, but decided to go with a variation that Alex and I have agreed on based on this one from theppk.com.
This recipe is very easy but we found the original to be a bit too sweet and "cakey" for our taste and have settled on this adaptation for less-fuss bananabread. It has had a history in our trials of being able to withstand many different combinations of gluten free flours, which is probably the ultimate test of my trust in a baking recipe. I also like this one ebcause it can get quite "bready" sometimes and is delicious toasted, and has an incredibley good crust.

I myself didn't get to partake of this batch as I had to work when everyone was being Damian's company for her last hours in Sydney, but I heard incredibley encouraging reports of its worthiness for the blogosphere (also it photographed well).

• 1 cup raw sugar
• 1/3 cup margarine
• 4 overripe ladys finger bananas, mashed
• 1 cup plain flour (gluten free generic mix)
  
• 1/4 cup self raising flour (this is a gluten free thing that I do, the original recipe shouldnt need the extra boost that gf flours often do)
• 3/4 cup chickpea flour
• 1/2 t bicarb soda
• 1/4 cup rice milk mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cream the sugar and margarine, fold in the bananas and milk/vinegar mix and then the vanilla essense. Sift in the flours baking soda, salt and spices. Pour batter into a greased loaf tin and sprinkle extra sugar and cinnamon on top (this helps the crust to get all sweat and caramelised and rustic. it helps if you do this step before you put it into the oven but I forgot this time until the bread only had 15 minutes left) hour, and let cool and rest for at least half an hour before eating the fuck out of it.

Look at the crust! So crusty! So crusty it has an I ♥ D-BEAT tattoo!**








**sorry for the personal joke, another friend of ours who has an I HEART DBEAT tattoo left for Sweden today as well, on the same flight as Damian, and there was much discussion of his tattoo last night.

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.

Make with Fruit

banana maple buckwheat pancakes with stewed apples and berries and their syrup.
for reference: we generally use this combination of ingredients for pancakes. apples were peeled and sliced thinly and brought to a boil with lots of sugar, a cinnamon stick, some nutmeg and whole cloves. berries thrown in at the end. a thicker syrup was reduced after taking out the fruit and putting in more sugar and boiling til suitable.

this was our contribution to a massive breakfast made by alex, ryan and myself for us and the swedes, for no real reason other than 'happy wednesday late breakfast'.

xo

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.

Melinzana Food Babies.

FROM THE URBAN DICTIONARY
food baby: When a person indulges in a large amount of food which makes their stomach stick out from the fullness as if they're pregnant.

I still feel like there is a Melinzana food baby in my belly from last night's gorge. Pip left her camera there during Decolonise '09 and so picking it up meant I had to make tracks to Melinzana, which inevitabley involved bringing a bunch of friends and eating ourselves to a slow happy death.

So, you may not see it on the Menu, but this place has vegan cheese. Amazing melty vegan cheese and if you pay $2 more (medium, $3 large) you can veganise your gourmet woodfired pizza. There is also vegan peperoni and ham, should you want to get into that territory. Their pizza bases are home made and they make gluten free bases in a medium size. The following was ordered:
Patata Vegetarian w/Soy Cheese & Gluten free base - Me.
Spinach w/Soy Cheese - Alex S and Rob.
Melinzana w/Soy Cheese - Harriot and Haidee.
Supreme - Richard
Gorgonzola - Alex D.

Lots of sharing went on except for me, because I was limited to one kind of base that cost $3 extra, so my extra moneys came to $5 more which is a bit spenno in my books, but man oh man.

I only got a good shot of the Patata Vegetarian, but the other pizzas looked unbelievable (expect a much-delayed post from Pip when she gets her camera back!). I really liked the base of this pizza, as a gluten-free snob of sorts, it did the trick and I didn't feel like I was missing out on much. I can believe I ate the whole thing, and I wish I could eat it over and over and over again.

Mad props to Richard for demolishing the large supreme almost 100% by himself give/take a couple of swapping of pieces between parties. Three kinds of meat!!! Holyshit.

Anyway. If you're visiting or are in the area, go to Melinzana. Be fed, be pregnant to a potato pizza, and get a bit silly-hyperactive on cheese dreams.

Melinzana Wood Fired Pizza
289 Enmore Rd
Enmore NSW 2043
Phone (02) 9516 1781

Taro Taro Taro

I'm not going to make excuses for not blogging.

Alex and Damian celebrated their birthdays at Coogee beach and I made a couple of offerings, one being a baked tofu cheesecake, and the other a HIGHLY experimental Taro Banana Coconut cake with Raw frosting (the cake was sugar fest. an absolute sugar fest).
Other food-gifts were vegan Honeycomb made by Kathy, a tofu and asparagus Toss by Louise and Alex made a soba noodle salad. Delcious.

Louise once said she was going to have an "extreme pot luck" where guests would be invited to cometo dinner and bring a dish that used either unconventional ingredients or methods or otherwise seemed kind of pointless. (Her example was a savory 'jellybean pie').
This cake may not be unconventional (it is based off of a Hawaiian recipe list I found whilst trying to figure out what to do with the taro) it was unexpected.
Flour free, lots of waiting for our frozen taro to get to mashing state, not sure whether or not we were cooking it right, also mentioning the idea of the cake to a few people tweaked some "huh?? wtf?" reactions to the concept.

Conceptual cake. Woah. Think about it. Cake concepts. Cake, as a concept. Fuck. Heavy.

Taro-Banana Coconut Cake

• 2 cups. hot peeled and cooked mashed taro
  (we used two pieces of frozen fresh taro that alex got from a asian supermarket. these took a while to cook until mashing state - its ready when kind of purpley)
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup melted nondairy margarine
• 1/4 tsp. each ground nutmeg and cinnamon
• 1 cup dessicated/shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup nondairy milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Grease a shallow cake pan (we used a loaf tin, but this would make a lovely round cake. it may help to put this off until you've completed making the batter so you know what sort of volume you're dealing with. this cake doesnt rise, so if it's shallow it'll cook more thoroughly. i feel that the loaf tine depth was why we had a very moist cake, which we enjoyed a lot).
Preheat the oven to 180c (350f i think!).
Combine the hot taro with the melted margarine, mashing again as you work the two into each other.
Add the coconut, bananas and sugar, mix in well.
Then the cinnamon, nutmeg, milk and vanilla, beat all together for about a minute. We may have done a better job if we used an electric mixer but we don't have one Also it was 1am.
Pour into cake pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (or until firm).

I made a Raw "whipped cream" icing (my first time using a piping bag. didn't win) using the cream section of this recipe.
I have a lot of opinions about the whole 'raw-food' thing, so I got scoffed at by Louise and Al when making this recipe because I've had a history of scoffing at raw food (well. not the food, but diet. I am scared of cults) but as I used maple syrup not honey (for true-to-vegan purity) it became a cooked food because maple syrup is not raw!! Yay, I win, etc.
Fucking delicious, by the way. Made for good ice cream when kept in the freezer, or like a yoghurt with cereal the next day. Whee.

The post-digestion swim in Coogee was amazing and we did some great explorations into the rockpools, hanging out with hermit crabs, bigger crabs, molluscs and tiny fish.

POST SCRIPT: Pip keeps getting me to mention if the recipe is any good, because apparently the inclusion into my blag doesn't actually promise that it is a good recipe and you should try it.
THIS IS. Also, you'll note that my blagging is very sporadic and this is generally because I can't be bothered writing a recipe out for something I only kind-of enjoyed eating.
I enjoyed this cake, Alex enjoyed this cake, everyone at the potfuck enjoyed this cake (albiet, not as intensely was the enjoyment as my tofu cheesecake, but still, people did surprise faces and happy faces for this cake).
ALSO: I have no plan on sticking the "air-humping" tag onto just any ol' recipe, willy-nilly.
NILLY.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Banaspberry Pancakes

Gluten freedom is hard to have, hardest when it is forced upon you and you don't really want to accept it (in my case), but also half but also very brave to take on as possibly a sympathetic arm around a shoulder (in Alex's case when we cook together). There's a lot to consider and when you throw veganism into the mix sometimes its sort of like "why bother?".

we shall perservere.

Because that's what you do, y'know. Just go with it. Options keep opening up to people with gluten intolerances, more cafes and restaurants are providing alternatives, some have tkaen the option of not charging extra to provide for those who have dietary requirements and that is pretty awesome. Once upon a time, pancakes that I could eat (gluten free and vegan and not disgusting, thanks) and enjoy eating seemed quite far-fetched and a lot of wasted batter were chucked in attempts to make something that might do for particular cravings, at whatever hour of the day. For some reason, this seemingly simple dish baffled us. Was it because of the gluten free? Was it because of no eggs? we couldn't figure it out.

A very simple recipe from Tony Weston and Yvonne Bishop's "Vegan: Over 90 mouthwatering recipes for all occasions" sent us on the right trail. Their recipe gave us ideas for a very simple fail-proof formula for the vegan pancake, that is easily transferrable to gluten free flours, if you make the adjustments to liquid and flours as you see fit whilst combining.

2.5c SELF RAISING FLOUR + 2c MILK + SALT + LIME JUICE.

The recipe in the book says to cook them with rapeseed oil but as the idea of that seems just way too healthy for me, I tend to go with a dairy free margarine if I have it around in the fridge. Apologies for being a bit 'tradish'. This recipe makes HEAPS but sent us on our way.
The next trick was getting a handle on how hot the pan should be and how much oil/marg should be on the pan before/whilst cooking each pancake. Go with your instinct and like Pip's said: Remember to give the first pancake to the dog. Them's the rules. Which I don't 100% agree with, maybe because I don't have a dog - but I do have the powers of the deduction required to see what alterations need to be made after the first pancake if it isn't a success. and sometimes I'll eat anything, god damn.
The self raising flour is optional but offers a fluffly pancake and the aeration in the batter provided from the baking powder or bicarb or whatever seems to work in favour for the gluten free flours I use. It's easy to go without, for a thinner pancake, but I'm already using margarine to cook them with, so I'm going to stick with my nostalgia, thankyouverymuch.
I'll make a goddamn crepe when I feel like it, but these are banana and raspberry pancakes for lovers who are not concerned with risking diabetes or belly-expansion.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE:

1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1 healthy pinch of salt
1.5 cups rice milk mixed with 2 teaspoonse apple cider vinegar and left to curdle
.5 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 overripe banana
and as many frozen raspberries as we thought seemed to be reasonable

Combine flours, Baking powder and salt.
In a seperate bowl mash your banana (the riper, the easier to do this. my favourite trick is to pre-mash the banana whilst it's still in it's skin by gently squeezing it from either side till the firm fruit becomes (he he he) a floppy phallus and then peeling it into a bowl and finishing it off with a fork.
To the banana, add the vanilla essence, curdled milk+vinegar mix and sugar.
Make a well into the flour mix bowl and combine well. Add more flour or milk as you see fit, if necessary. When you're happy with the consistency, throw in the raspberries and fold.

I feel like I need to stress the importance of coverage with the oil base you're using in the pan for this recipe. I've had way too many "scrambled" pancakes to not be paranoid. When melting the margarine into the pan, make sure you're oiling up the whole pan and not just spots. When you're happy with the coverage and the heat of the pan, its time to get to work.
Ladle out the mixture into the pan (I like to see how far one batch of batter can go and do half-ladles of it and tip the pan from side-to-side to spread out the batter), when bubbles start to surface, this is when i start lifting the pancake, so we know it's time to get going.
The second side of the pancake should take about or even less than 2 thirds of the time it took to get the first side cooked, depending on taste and heat variables.
It's good to be careful not to burn the pancakes but too much urgency can weild a mushy inside pancake, which can be tastey but is not what you should be aiming for.

This should make a moist pancake that you can taste the banana from (some vegan banana pancake recipes ignore the flavour of the banana and use the fruit solely as an egg subsitute which I find disappointing) and are completely deserving of the impending heart attacks that Alex and I are likely to suffer from if we keep up the marg/sugar kick. If we hadn't spread the batter on the pan and left them thicker they would have been quite delightful as pikelets, but we were pancaking.

Festivus Bird.

Or: FUCK YOU MOTHER FUCKAZ I GOT 2xTOFURKEY WITHIN 3 DAYS OF EACHOTHER AND Y'ALL IS JUST JEALOUSES.
Or: I shouldn't write food-blog posts whilst thinking about listening to Wu-Tang Clan because the echo-effect of being hip hop isn't actually as reflective of bringing the mother-fucking ruckus (ain't nuttin to fuck with, etcetera).

Tofurkey of the Festive Season #1:
Prepared quite hastily (well, considering that it is a recipe that requires resting over night, i did it pretty chaotically) for Fjorn's birthday pot luck (other contributions to the luck included: olive loaf and coffee scrolls - from Ruth, a curry yum from Sam, salad by Tim and Fjorn herself provided some delicious chickpea stuffed mushrooms from the grill!) - to the stuffing I added cranberries for festive charm or some shit. Mostly because I had intened to probide a cranberry sauce but napping happened instead.
Fjorn's birthday is the 24th of December which makes her Jesus' totally cooler and more-legit twin. The pot luck was on the traditionally (like, according precisely to the episode of Seinfeld that it comes from - information I collected from WIKIPEDIA, TELLER OF TRUTHS) celebrated date of Festivus. For the rest of us.


Tofurkey of the festive season #2:
At Mgtvle, the warehouse my partner and friends live in - in Sydney. Alex had bared witness and ploayed an integral part to the creating of the tofurkey we celebrated winter in Anglesea with in July and had prepared the 'tofu mold' for this bird before I got to Sydney to help finish it off with stuffing, basting, etcetera.
I have little doubt that we're going to make this roast a off the cuff thing tradtion very soon considering I only checked the recipe for cooking times and how to make the cornbread (which I pretty much disregarded in both cases) for stuffing.
Despite being a quite involved, messy and slow cooking recipe, it has become really easy for this to be made based purely on instinct and taste. I realise whilst writing thist post that this was roasted 1 year exactly from the day I first roasted this kind of tofurkey. December 26th, the day of boxes.
We charred it a little on the skin - this bird has a crispy beancurd 'skin' that was marinated and thrown over the top of the roasting tofu halfway through it's time in the oven- because we got a little distracted and excited about the deep frying machine that has recently surfaced at Mgtvle. I have no shame in this fact: I HAVE WANTED TO HAVE A DEEP FRYING MACHINE SINCE I WAS 15 YEARS OLD. Now, I am pretty young, so this is only 5 years ago but still. I am so excited and bouncy.
It's a bit tricky to decide how to slice and transfer the bird from dish to plate elegantly. Here served with sweet potato chips (deep fried). The alterations to the stuffing were carrots in place of celery, and the addition of flat beer with the stock.
Another difference between these two birds were the variables of herbs and stock put into the tofu mould, the kind firm tofu used in either (I can't tell you what Alex used because I wasn't there. I know he didn't have "chicken" stock and that his tofu felt different to the stuff I used on the 23rd) also that Alex left the bird in the mold in the refrigerater for at least 48 hours longer than I did (I only had mine in over one night) which I think spoke for much in terms of what kind of texture we got from the bird.

It took me forever to re-surface the link from which I first decided to make this kind of tofurkey over a year ago, but I found it originally from, and adapted it from here: at What Do I Know? by Kathy - who adapted her recipe from a popular one at VegWeb. I made the bean curd skin from inspiration taken from Bryanna Clark Grogan and what I did was basically just get a sheet of dry bean curd skin, soak it in a watered-down warm version of the marinade we gave to the rest of the bird and wrapped the top of the tofu-lump with it after it had been in the oven for a little over half it's roasting time.

I really wish I'd taken photos of the FUCKING LOVELY Apple & Strawberry custard crumble Alex made for me (with a short crust base that blows my gluten-freed mind) as well as the Veganomicon feast that Louise made for a bunch of us on Christmas Day as well.

Louise made for desert following the bird, a cake based on the Brooklyn/Boston cream pie cupcakes from VCTOW using wheat flour that I should not have partaken of. hehe.

The Struggle

THE STRUGGLE, comrades of the blogosphere, is about how I am desperately wishing to write in here but am coming up constantly against great odds:
- Blogspot is actually a bit of a nightmare. I am currently testing out another blog that hopefully will be more entertaining at least for myself, and therefore less deterring to write in and hopefully more active on wordpress.
- Whilst I have two blogs this one will either dissolve or becoming completely food-based. I have had little time to be incredibley inspired in the kitchen lately, and I don't have a camera to document and proof to myself. Also I don't notate whilst creating recipes exactly how much of x,y or z i am putting into w recipe. This is also dettering.
- I can be incredibley critical, of food I eat (that i purchase, make myself, or someone makes for me), I do not want to be 'that bitchy blog' at all.
- My relocation to NSW is very very upcoming, and happens in about one month's time. Experimentation in the kitchen sometimes requires an amount of mess to be made, and often new ingredients to be purchased. I am being as frugal as possible leading up to the move, though I am pretty sur ethat I won't struggle when I move, I am still quite scared of not being able to afford to feed myself, considering the limits of my stomach.
- My recent battles with my health have put me onto an incredibley high-sodium diet as a part of treatment. My appetite is smaller and I am supposed to be eating 5 small salty-as-fuck meals a day, which is basically nothing to blog about. How many times could I blog about a different variation on miso soup?


IN ANY CASE. I still have the abilityn to google-image search pictures of things to talk about.

I would like to finally talk about House of Biskota biscuits - which I started seeing around about 6 months ago but never had my VEGANBYNUMBERS card with me when I saw them so I'd never given into temptation. Until yesterday, at allergyblock, I noticed that their labelling now SPECIFIES the lack of dairy or eggs.
SICK.

Have almost eaten through a box of the tiramisu flavour. Am content. Would eat again. Will.

Got Sconed!

BTWYFYI I have been spending almost the past month or two organising a festival and a split cassette release. Times have been hectic, I've also been working on havign enough information in my folio for review as assessment at the end of my course in 2 weeks, and an installation for the end of year show. I do stuff with plants, it's hopefully going to be cool.

A big shout out goes to one of my favourites, Fjorn, who has been overwhelmingly useful and happy to help and working hard on her own work as well as being my co-host in the fest and my bandmate, and helping me with art and stuff. Last night I made dinner for her and her boyfriend, Sean (who's been real busy rattling out a thesis all year) of: lemon asparugus, grilled tomatoes, grilled field mushrooms, and a tofu/almond/mint/pomegranite salad. sitting next to it were some cream cheese&chives scones, stealing the show.

I now present to you, the recipe for the scones WITH PICTURES with love from google image search. heheh.

This is actually the first time I've ever made scones, ever. F'serious, I ate them heaps as a kid but they were something mum always made for us and never showed us how, I guess because they're ridiculously easy. I got the recipe for regular cheese&chives scones and wrote it down and forgot it and then remembered and found it in my Back pocket.

225 g. self raising flour (i used my least preffered GF mix of flours, orgran).

50 g butter (used nuttelex)
1 c cheese (i used tofutti cream cheese)

¼ t sea salt
1 T chives
¼ c milk

rub flour and butter together. lop in the cheese, salt,, milk. put more flour in if necessary. put in chives, etc. its too easy.

220c oven, 10-15 min.

i was scared they'd be too biscuitty btu they came out fine, nice and robust and beautiful with the grilled mushrooms.

also apologies i am actualyl quite shit at writing out recipes.

White Goji Antidote CUPCAKED

It's been a really long time since I've invented a cupcake recipe on my own. Or since I've even wanted to. I don't make cupcakes that often anyway. The last time I created a cupcake recipe, I invented two at the same time and they travelled to New South Wales with me to feed lovers and stoners. The recipes were for a chocolate-licorice type (that was inspired by my partner as well as being stuck on reading Emma Goldman's autobiography, Living my Life) and a coconut-lime-ginger "butter"cupcake.

As I've been sick too often these days, I've actually been really slack with my eating habits or even being organised and motivated enough to cook something and eat it. The most I've been eating has often been different combination of spreads and salad on a corn thin. Seriously. It's been pretty fucked up and I get frustrated when people tell me to eat and I just-can't-do-it. The antidote to this sort of a rut is to bake something.

Even though I make sweets often and eat them often, I actually kind of feel really spiteful towards them. I can't even explain how that works, but baking or making sweet things when I'm unwell seems to get me in a mode of "I can do this cooking stuff, and then I have to eat it or it goes to waste" which is better than "I can't even think about chewing on food". It gets me to this good better-eating habit place because I THEORETICALLY dislike sweets, therefore I must be making sweets for someone else. right? like, that totally makes sense.
Except for in the house I live in now its just Riva and I and though she does love delicious things, she is a small lady, and its still just two of us.

ANYWAY
WHATEVERI made a white chocolate chip cupcake using Quinoa flour and hid Goji berries in 'em and a white chocolate ganache icing. You can do it too!

Preheat your oven to 180c. Learn the metric system if you don't know it.

Dry hump: 1.5 c quinoa flour
1 t bicarb soda
1 t baking powder
0.5 t sea salt
1 c brown sugar
5 T soy milk powder

Wet love: 1.25 c non dairy milk
(this is a rough estimate. see how much you feel is necessary after one cup)
1 T apple cider vinegar
2 t vanilla extract

And then: 0.75 c mini non dairy white chocolate chips
(i got mine from rishon's)
0.5 c dried goji berries.
-this is completely to taste. i think i probably scrimped a bit on the gogoji as their taste is pretty subtle.

These were done after about 20/25 minutes. I think if I do it again I'll look into using a different combo of flours, they tasted delicious but like, earthy. With a nice whisper of SECRET QUINOA LURKING WITHIN.

For the ganache (which there is too much of now sitting in a tub in the freezer) I did this:
double-boil 1c white chocolate chips with 3 T margarine. mixed with 0.25 c water, 3 c icing sugar, 1 t vanilla extract and the juice of half a lemon. oh and a pinch of sea salt. whip-it. freeze it. whip it. freeze it. whip it onto cupped cakes.

INFORMATION ABOUT GO-GOJI!

BackTrack : Pip's Birthday Cake.

The wonderpuss, miss Phlippila celebrated her birthday in (gluttonous!) style through food in September. She hosted a potfuck which you can read about on her blog. I am going to now talk about the cake I made for Pips.

I have to say at the outset that because of the use of Stout (coopers. my favourite) in the cake batter, it isn't really 100% gluten free, but I made it okay for myself by just putting lots of booze in it and in my belly anyway so I was due to suffer from -something- that night, in any case. Wheee!

I've finally gotten around to looking at the photos my housemate, Riva let me take using her camera, so I can blog with pictures about food. like it's actually a food blog, for reals.

I used this recipe from Susie's Parsnip Parsimony. Which is a blog I love and adore and wish she would get bloggin' again because I feel like I'm for-real really learning when I read her blog. And she does cute things and is a big science nerd. A few things went wrong in the making of this cake so it only ended up as two-tiere and I didnt want to waste the icing if I fucked up with my piping bag (I don't know how to use it, ok. i use a spatula. that'll do) but it was all my fault, and not Susie's. Susie can do no wrong. Science can do no wrong. Well. That last sentence, maybe.

Things that went wrong (from my memory, this feels like ages ago!):

• I bought a really delicious looking raspberry jam to use, that came in a big jar so I could still have some for myself to do private-things with (like, put it on rice and gross stuff like that which I do when noone's looking), hehe, and would make a good storage jar after I was done with the jam. My sister called me whilst I was on the tram to the bus that I take to get home (I travel an hour each way between my house and work, three times a week, lots of room for conversation) and as I walked from the tram to the bus, the jam jar kamikaze'd itself infront of the bus. I cut up my hand a fair bit cleaning up the mess, and missed the bus. Damn distracting family exploits! bah! So I had to buy cheaper smaller jars of raspberry jam the following day, for a less friendly price.
• I am absolutely USELESS with our oven in this flat. It is electric, and I think it tells me lies. and the oven thermometer confuses me. and I just can't bake like I used to. so the first layer was slightly burnt. and then collapsed a little. so I couldn't split the damn thing and make the ultimate decadance of cake-piss-ups for the Pips.
• WTF would I get liquid lecithin drops for? I settled for lecithin granules, and they seemed to do the job? I don't know why I needed them, but they didn't ruin anything so Its okay.

I replaced the flour with a standard general-mix of Gluten Free Flour, from a supermarket. For the icing I used Bacardi and I found a vegan vanilla pudding mix at Rishon's in Balaclava. Ummmm.... I also melted down some lindt chocolate and mixed in coffee essence, because the Pip loves coffee.

When the cake collapsed, it left this chunk crumb. I put the filling, some chocolate and some icing and a raspberry on it to serve to Riva as she had international guests staying with her and couldn't attend the potfuck. The mini-cake was much more photogenic and adorable than the mama-cake, but man did the mama-cake work a treat with booze.

x x