The Sun's Out?

Today it got to 14 degrees celcius in the mountains. That's warm (for the mountains, at this time of year)*. Tshirt warm. And provided good lighting for a picture of our kitchen. Also, had me in the centrelink office to reap the rewards of unemployment and to hide from possible sunburn. Alex played in the garden, which is coming along nicely.

I made this kim chi pancake for dinner using tofu, buckwheat, black salt, and some dumpstered chinese cabbage. topped with steamed pak choy, baked beancurd skin chicken and some kingland soy mayonaise.




*Unfortunately, Al reminds me that this probably means that we won't see snow during our time up here and that's very sad, because we thought and hoped that we might. I have my eyes set on Europe for the end of this year so there might be a chance for my first glimpse of snow then.

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.

Tuna Baked

As I mentioned below I bought a package of Vegetarian Tuna from Vina's on Thursday after being tricked by my loving partner (because clearly I have no will of my own and blah blah blah who gives a shit, I bought some fake tuna).
I get excited about mock meat because I LOVE MEAT and mock meat is commonly made from gluten products which, because I HATE THE A.W.B., I don't partake of (this is a lie but being a coeliac is BORING) but will happily munch down on any "meaty" product that I can.

Tuna however, I never ever ever ate as an omnivore because I don't eat things that smell like yucky (see: Vegemite -maybe YOU like it, whatever) unless they look good or I'm given a reason to believe I'll enjoy it.
So it would only be a case of trickery that I would venture into untouched meat territory with this purchase, and with a waste-not-want-not policy of purchasing I set out to use it. I was not going to be making some sort of tuna dip or soup or spread for a sandwich (gluten free bread is too expensive for yucky risk taking) and the Vegan Tuna Bakes had been making the rounds through Melbourne's Vegan blogging and pot lucking scene with great success so I thought I may as well give it a go. (ZB also did one recently with tempeh, so maybe there is a national wave of mock tuna happening)

I'd never eaten a tuna bake before, but I do enjoy a macaroni cheese casserole (which is essentially what this is) whenever it's on offer so I figured the only risk was that I'd have to pick out the bits of tuna if I didn't take to it.

I went by Harriet's basic formula of Pasta + Beschamel + Veggies + Tuna topped with Breadcrumbs (naturally gluten free's crunch loaf is what I have around at the moment) and some grated Cheezly Edam in the oven for half an hour and seasoned servings with the good ol S&P, savoury yeast and some home grown parsley.

The veggies I used were red capsicum, mushrooms and broccolini.

The Beschamel/Cheese sauce I make is based on Karina's "Best Cheesey unCheese Sauce" and I combined it with some of Kingland's soy mayonaise on a whim and popped it into the oven at 180c for half an hour which was enough time for the dishes to be done and for Alex to come home with some cola he snatched from his pizza delivery job up here.

The Result? A warming, nourishing meal that had my trickster of a love making incredibley happy "as good as my mum's" noises which (considering the fact that his mum is all about meat and cheese) is enough to satisfy my checklist for a good meal, despite what I think about a certain fish.

I'm not convinced that I'm going to run out and buy another packet of this stuff unless tricked again but I did enjoy it quite enough to eat two servings and feel happy. If you ever liked tuna but can't eat it anymore, this stuff probably does everything you want it to.

SMOFU UPDATE

*smofu: smoked tofu.
IMO blue lotus brand smoked tofu is more delicious than the earnest bean smoked tofu. better texture (smoother) and flavour (more subtle).
thank you, carry on, etc.

note: my opinion on brands of smofu is based on my own requirements and tolerances of a smoked product. the earnest bean has its merits but the blue lotus brand is the origin of my smofu love and therefore, my preferred.

Jinhua Vegetarian Ham

This is that "Ham" used in my sweet-n-sour ham dish. It's a beancurd mock very similar in texture to ZhangXiaoBao's Vegetarian Duck (which you can have served at the Shanghai Dumpling house for between $1/$2 more than the price at the grocery store I get it from), and the flavour is only a little bit different to the duck. The main difference is the shape tha tit comes in. It looks like pork chops (I GUESS? I THINK I KNOW WHAT PORK CHOPS LOOK LIKE?) and kind of steaky.

I actually have a recipe for preparing a "Vegetarian Duck" with beancurd sheets which one day I will prepare again and you will all star at me in awe and devotion and OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE THERE IS NO MSG IN IT. Until I buy a packet of MSG, for tastey stomach-hurting good times. (Alex's kitchen has one of these bags -which at last check remains unopened- and it has contact information on the bag for emergency services on it. AMAZING.).

love and kisses, L.

Sweet & Sour Ham

I'm not even going to write much about this one because I only made it as a quick lunch and to see what the flavor of a soy mock product i have in my fridge tastes like.
The thing about being a vegetarian or vegan is that after a while, you can't really remember what meat is like to eat or to have in a meal. When presented with the option of cooking a mock ham, I was curious but really really confused. Even in my staunch meat-eating days, I never touched anything that came from a pig. I just have no idea when it comes to cooking meat, though I often look at meat based recipes and think "that'd probably be delicious, maybe i could replace the meat with eggplant or mushroom or capsicum and it'd be the same" maybe because I cannot eat gluten mock, i just realy on plant subsitutes generally. WHATEVER.
I used a bottled sweet n sour sauce and simmered some fake ham in it and some snake beans. served on a nest of baby choy sum steamed with (australian) garlic for good measure.
almost immediately after topping with slivered almonds, i dropped the bag of them on the kitchen floor and it looked like an explosion.



+++++ POST SCRIPT: yes Pip, it was tastey. i over steamed the baby choy sum though.