Vegan Christmas Dinner!

So this Christmas is actually my first as a vegan, so it will be interesting (i hope so anyway). As Reuben is going home to Auckland for Christmas this year and I'm heading back to Waimate, we decided to have our own Christmas dinner together.

The menu was simple but delicious, nutty vegetable rissoles, with homemade guacamole and salad with macadamias, olives and cherry tomatoes. The rissoles recipe was actually on the stuff website and I used it but adapted it. The salad was an experiment, but I firmly believe it's hard to go wrong with salads.

Rissoles:

275g marinated tofu (we used the NZ stuff that's grown and made in Motueka)

1/2 cup pics peanut butter

70g ground almonds

35g sesame seeds

1 red capsicum (grated)

1 carrot (grated)

2 small slices of pumpkin (grated)

1/2 red onion finely chopped

1 1/2 tsp paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1 Tbsp soy sauce

salt

cracked black pepper

First you need to mash the tofu in a large bowl, it should resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add all remaining ingredients and then lightly oil your hands and shape into patties and palce on an oven tray.

Bake in the oven for approx 15 mins on each side at 180 degrees, or cook them on the BBQ or fry in a shallow frying pan. We served them with fresh guacamole (recipe in Nachos post below), vegan organic basil pesto and fruit chutney with salad.

Salad:

Lettuce or mesclun leaves

1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes cut in half

olives cut in half

macadamia nuts (handful)

red and green capsicum chopped

1/2 orange diced

12 orange squeezed over salad

Serve with bread or just salad either way they're great. Christmas dinner was accompanied by fresh strawberries dipped in dark chocolate! However, on actual Christmas day I'll be bringing my Chocolate Raspberry cake to dinner!

Courgette fritters and salad!

Reuben and I love eating "burger" pattes/fritters and we decided to try out this recipe which was fantastic, we fried some in a pan and baked some in the oven (the healthier option obviously). Reuben ate his in bread with salad and I had mine chopped up n top of salad. Either way they're great!

Fritters:

1 cup flour

¼ cup cornflour1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp salt

Cracked black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano (or other italian herbs)

1 ½ tsp of egg replacer
2 Tbsp of warm water, to dissolve egg replacer
1 cup of rice or soy milk

2 1/2 cups of grated courgettes
Oil for shallow frying or greasing oven tray

Mix all above ingredients in a large bowl and then drop spoonfuls into a frying pan and press flat once immersed in oil. Or drop onto oven tray and shape using a spoon. Bake or fry ensuring to flip sides. if frying in pan you'll need lots of paper towels to absorb oil.

Serve with fresh salad and or in a sandwich or burger. This recipe is really nice with fruit chutney on the fritters, we used "watties bit on the side" fruit chutney, hummus is also a great addition with the salad.

Nachos Vegan Style!

Since becoming vegan, the only dairy product I've missed has been Cheese. Which means that nachos have never quite been the same... Well until I decided to use guacamole as a cheese substitute. It worked superbly. I really didn't miss the cheese with the guacamole! So here's what I did:

Guacamole:

2 ripe avocados mashed

2 vine tomatoes chopped finely

1 small red onion chopped finely

1 green chilli chopped finely

cracked black pepper

1/2 lemon squeezed

Nachos:

1 red onion chopped

1 red and green capsicums chopped

1-2 courgettes chopped

2 tins kidney/ chili beans

1 jar of pasta sauce or tin of tomatoes and or freshly chopped tomatoes

chili powder or sauce (if not using chili beans)

tomato paste

For the Guacamole all you need to do is mash the avocados, add the remaining ingredients, mix well and refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.

You can use a lot of different varieties of vegetables in nachos depending on what's available at the time. First you fry the onion then add remaining fresh vegetables and stir fry for 5-10mins. Once vegetables have softened a little add the kidney/chili beans and sauce and cook for

15-20 more minutes until vegetables are tender.

Add tomato paste at the end to thicken the mixture and stir for 5 mins more then serve. Note the best type of chips are "mexicano natural" flavored, they're vegan and they don't take away from the taste of the nachos. Add guacamole on top of the nacho mix and enjoy!!!

Vegan Gluten Free Choc Coconut Fudge!

This fudge was very popular at the Festival, I didn't make it though it was made by Catherine who also gave a talk on a book she is writing about the history of vegetarianism in NZ. So here's the recipe, I tried this fudge and it was sooo good.

Here is the recipe - quantities are a bit approximate as i tend to guess
rather than measure ...

Ingredients:
one and 1/2 cup Simple brand gluten free flour (you can use wheat flour if
not gluten free)
1/2 cup to 1 cup dried coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa
2 large tablespoons raspberry jam
125 g vegan margarine
1/2 cup raw sugar

Melt margarine, cocoa, sugar and jam in a saucepan, until sugar dissolved.
Allow to cool slightly, then mix in dry ingredients - should be slightly wet
without being totally runny. Spread about1 cm thick on a greased tray (baking paper is good too, and you can usually reuse it). Bake at 180 C for
15-20 mins or till cooked. Ice with chocolate icing (olivani, cocoa, lemon
juice, sugar) while still warm. Enjoy!

Thanks to Catherine for sharing this wonderful recipe!!

Vegan Veggie Rolls

These are super yummy and super easy! I was so excited to discover new way vegetarian pastry. I found this recipe online and adapted it to kiwi ingredients.

Ingredients:
2 courgettes grated
2 carrots grated
red onion very finely chopped
2+ cloves of garlic crushed (depending on how much you like)
1 large orange kumara diced finely and boiled till soft
small tin of tomato paste
1 cup of crushed rolled oats (i use wholegrain- instant is fine too)
mixed herbs
sweet chilli/bbq sauce or any other sauces you like
1 packet of new way vegetarian society approved pastry

All you need to do is finely chop the onion and crush the garlic and fry in the pan on a low heat till it becomes transparent. Then add grated courgettes and carrots and stir fry for about 5 minutes. Drain away any excess liquid and set aside.

Once kumara has been boiled, drain away all liquid and mash it up. Mix in the courgette/carrot mixture with the rolled oats. Once the mixture is all mixed up together it should be a lovely orange with green speckles from the courgettes, add the sauces, herbs, paste and salt and pepper. I also like a little bit of spice so add some paprila and chiili.

Take the pastry sheets out and spooon the mixture across the bottom 1/4 of the pastry sheet, then roll up and puncture with fork holes! Bake in the oven for about 20 mins until hte pastry has browned slightly. Serve hot or cold, they're delicious either way!

P.S. You can make them as big or small as you like, for a dinner with salad or for a work morning tea snack!

Vegan Banoffee Pie Cupcakes!

Ingredients base:
1 packet budget malt biscuits
1 cup melted dark choc chips
1 cup melted vegan margarine (possibly more just add a little as you go)

So first you need to crush the malt biscuits really well so they resemble a fine powder at the end, you can do this using a rolling pin and a large bowl or pot. If you have a good food processor use that. Once the biscuits are fully and finely crushed melt the dark choc chips and marg together, then pour into the biscuit mixture. Mix it all up and if it’s still too crumbly add a little more margarine/choc mix until the biscuits are sticking together and they can be pressed into cup cake tins. Once you’ve got the mixture sticking then press into cupcake papers inside tins, or if you just want to make a pie then press into a large pie dish.

Ingredients vegan caramel:
1 ½ cups soft brown sugar
1 Tbsp water (or enough to dissolve the brown sugar
1 cup coconut cream
1 Tbsp arrowroot powder
1 Tbsp cornflour

First you need to pour the sugar into a pot and add 1 Tbsp of water, it will start to dissolve immediately put it onto a very low heat (the lowest) and let the sugar dissolve fully, adding 1 tsp of water at a time if you need to. Once the sugar and water mixture is full dissolved add the coconut cream and heat till it it dissolves into the sugar mixture turning a lovely light brown colour. The mixture will be quite runny, so this is where you add arrowroot and cornflour – turn the heat up to boil the mixture and it should start to thicken, you need to stir it constantly using a whisk to get rid of any lumps and once it starts to thicken turn the heat down. After 5 mins or so if the caramel isn’t thickening add more arrowroot and cornflour a tsp at a time and make sure the heat is high. Once you are happy with the thickness of the caramel (you can use this mixture for a caramel sauce on any desert so you may want it thinner or thicker – you can achieve this with more or less arrowroot/cornflour) then remove it from the heat and let it cool completely, perhaps overnight in the fridge.

Ingredients Choc Ganache:
1/3 block whittakers 72% dark chocolate
2 tsp margarine
2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup water

To make the ganach all you need to do is melt the marg and whittakers dark choc in a double boiler on a low heat, add the water, stir in the icing sugar slowly while mixing until it reaches a smooth, buttery consistency. You can either use a plastic bag and cut a hole, or an old school icing decorating tube with the rosette nozzle on the end and decorate!
Assembling:

So your biscuit base should be in the cup cake papers, so now you need to use a spoon to spoon the caramel mixture into the biscuit cases – don’t overfill as you will also need to spoon mashed banana on top of the caramel. Once you’ve filled all the biscuit bases with caramel take 3 bananas, mash them up or you can slice them if you want too and then add this to each of the bases on top of the caramel. Then use a piping bag or spoon depending how fancy you want the ganache topping to look and decorate with chocolate! I used an icing decorating tube as I’m a bit unco and it’s easier for me than the bag. So decorate with chocolate topping and allow it to set then serve or refrigerate and serve later!

FYI I did make this recipe up myself, so sorry if it seems a little vague in some parts, it’s better to be cautious and add a little of one ingredient first than too much because as they saying goes, you can always add more but it’s harder to take it away! Also if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I hope you can all replicate this!

Vegan Gluten Free Lemon Poppy Teacake

This was a hit, and the poppy seeds make it look soooo pretty, so when you make this cake - don't bother with the icing on top, we actually made a double mixture and did two layers with the icing in the middle and I grated some lemon rind on top to add some extra colour and it looked amazing!

Ingredients:
2/3 cup rice milk
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup potato flour
3/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 1/2 Tbsp gluten free baking powder
1 tsp xanthum gum
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup agave nectar
1/3 cup stewed apples
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 Tbsp pure lemon extract/juice
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest

Heat the oven to 165 degrees, lightly grease the cake tin with oil. Now onto the mixture you need to pour the rice milk, vinegar and poppy seeds into a small bowl, but do not stir; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, xanthum gum and salt. Add the oil, agave nectar, stewed apples, vanilla, lemon extract/juice and zest and stir until the batter is smooth. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the poppy seed mixture into the batter and combine until just blended. The batter will expand slightly.

Pour in the prepared tin and bake for about 35 mins, until golden brown and springy and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in tin for 20 mins then gently run a knife around th edge and invert onto a board or plate, then use another board or plate to re-invert right side up. Either cut and serve warm or wait until completely cool before storing.

Thanks to my wonderful helper Michelle for doing this cake - she was amazing on Friday I couldn't have done nearly as much, without her. However due to her help we had over 15 different vegan items and about 6 different vegan gluten free items on the stall!!!

We also made a plain icing using about a tsp of vegan margarine and a 2 tsp lemon juice and icing sugar, then we added a little bit of water to thicken it and spread it on the bottom cake and put the top cake on top!

Vegan Gluten Free Choc Chip Cookies

So after the Vegan Cake stall at last years festival, we received feedback that it would have been nice to have vegan gluten free baking! We felt sooooo bad, we hadn't even thought about it as none of us were gluten intolerant, which is terrible. So this year, I made an effort to research gluten free vegan (which is actually difficult- there are very few recipes that cater for both), and I really wanted to have a good selection for all of those gluten free, dairy free people out there.

I found a fabulous link with three gluten free vegan baking recipies and made them all for the festival! So first up here is the cookie recipe - it was really easy, and I love gluten free baking it feels lighter in your stomach and it tastes a little different but good different! I'm going to try eating less gluten, it can't be a bad thing!

Ingredients:
1 cup vegetable oil
6 Tbsp stewed apples
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp vanilla essence
1 1/4 cups raw sugar
2/3 cup rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
2/3 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup ground linseeds
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp xanthum gum (gluten replacement)
1 cup vegan choc chips

Mix together stewed apples, oil, salt, vanilla and sugar. Then mix in the dry ingredients, and stir until a grainy dough forms. Gently fold in the choch chips, don't over mix. Then roll into balls and place on a lined or greased oven tray and bake in the oven at 190 degrees for 15-20 mins. Remove and let them cool on a wire rack!! Store in an airtight container and eat within 3 days! It's really that easy!

Vegan Chocolate Berry Cake

So this is a slightly different version of the cake that won an award at the 50s bake off... This one had extra berries, which was a hit with the festival goers. So this recipe is exactly what I made for the festival today... So feel free to use more or less berries or adapt it slightly if you don't have everything... Feel free to ask questions and I'm happy to give advice.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
2 cups raw sugar
2/3 cups cocoa2 tsp baking soda1 tsp salt
2 cups warm water
2 tsp vanilla essence
2/3 cup stewed apple or vegetable oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
frozen raspberries and mixed berries

Ganache:
1/3 block whittakers 72% dark chocolate
2 tsp margarine
2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup water

So first of all you need to mix together all of the DRY ingredients in a BIG bowl till it's all even an a light brown colour. Add more cocoa if you want it more chocolatey.

In a SEPARATE bowl mix together all of the wet ingredients so they blend together really well. Once you've mixed that all up make a well in the dry ingredients bowl and pour in the wet then mix it all together nicely. Split the mixture in half to make a double layered cake. Make the first layer slightly bigger than the top layer, bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30 - 40 mins (stab a knife in to check).

After about 25 mins you need to remove the bottom layer cake and pour on the raspberries so they don't sink right in but sit on the top and melt down a little to make a raspberry type sauce. Pop it back in the oven for another 10-15 mins until it's cooked right through. Then remove, cool on a rack till its completely cold and repeat for the top layer, but instead of raspberries use mixed berries.

Once both the bottom and top layers are cooked, got their berries on and are completely cool, pop the mixed berry layer on top of the bottom raspberry layer and then make your choc ganach and decorate with rosettes around the side.

To make the ganach all you need to do is melt the marg and whittakers dark choc in a double boiler on a low heat, add the water, stir in the icing sugar slowly while mixing until it reaches a smooth, buttery consistency. You can either use a plastic bag and cut a hole, or an old school icing decorating tube with the rosette nozzle on the end and decorate!

Raw Carrot Cake... so much tastier than I expected

Ok I'll get down to business, so this recipe comes from an allergy cook book, which the lovely Sandy lent me, as I mentioned in the previous post. So it's two days out from the festival, everything must be fresh (my ex chef workmate Janine saved me from potential no fresh baking disaster yesterday) which has meant that instead I've been planning, planning, planning...

Ingredients:

5.5 cups grated carrot
1.5 cups finely chopped walnuts
1/2 desiccated coconut
1 cup finely chopped dried mango or papaya
2 Tbsp grated orange zest
1.5 cups dried pitted dates
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp ground flaxseeds
1/3 cup agave nectar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch sea salt
grated coconut to decorate

Cashew nut puree frosting:
1.5 cups raw cashew nuts, or any other untreated nut
3 Tbsp agave nextar
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together the carrots, walnuts, coconut, mango/papaya and orange zest in a large bowl. Puree dates, orange juice, vanilla, flax seeds, agave nectar, cinnamon in a food processor. Blend until it's a smooth puree. Add the puree to the carrot mixture and mix thoroughly, use your hands if necessary. If it seems too wet to you, just add more coconut and flaxseeds little at a time. Line a cake tin with glad wrap, leaving room for glad wrap to hang over the edges. Press the mixture into the tin using your hands and smooth it down, cover with glad wrap and refrigerate over night.

To make the frosting you need to first soak cashew nuts in a bowl for 2 hours. Just cover with water and leave. Once two hours is up discard water and place cashews into a blender, with the agave nectar, orange juice and vanilla. Add more sweetness (agave) if necessary. Blend until smooth and creamy.

Remove carrot cake from fridge and flip onto serving dish, remove glad wrap and shape if you need to. Frost with cashew nut frosting and decorate with grated coconut and ground nutmeg to serve.

I'll add photos later, once the cake is finished!

Celebrating World Vegetarian Day this Saturday the second of October!

It's also world farm day, so please take this opportunity to think about all those poor farm animals locked up away from natural light, living in miserable conditions, just for us humans to consume!

I don't think I've talked about it before, but I'm on the committee which is organising the Wellington Vegetarian Festival to celebrate World Vegetarian Day! The Festival is this Saturday the 2nd of October, I'm pretty excited about it but have a lot of planning to do. You see I'm organising the Wellington Vegetarian Societies Vegan Cake Stall. Last year we had a lot of volunteers that bought along baking and we sold it on our stall, to raise funds for the society to hold future Festivals etc.

This year however, we have a lot less volunteers, so I've taken it on and as a consequence am doing most of the baking.. It is exciting but a little stressful, I hope I don't run out or have a major cake disaster on the day..! I've really been getting into vegan and gluten free baking lately and I say gluten free because last year we had a comment that there was no gluten free food. So this year I've been made an effort to learn how to bake G.F so there will be plenty of goodies for everyone on the day!

A lovely woman named Sandy who came along to our last meeting to volunteer on the day of the Festival lent me some allergy and special diet cookbooks. So I'm going to be making a few of the recipes from there (raw vegan & G.F Carrot Cake and the vegan G.F short bread cookies. Tonight I experimented with a vegan gluten free shortbread recipe and it turned out superbly! It actually tastes how I remember my Nana making it (except it's not full wit butter and white wheat flour- which is only a good thing!!).

Another lovely volunteer who came along to out last meeting with Sandy has offered to help me bake on Friday after she does some leafleting at the train station. What's great about this is she's an ex pastry chef and is keen to help out for the whole day. It's going to make things so much easier and more productive. Hopefully together we can make twice as much, twice as tasty and have twice as much fun doing it!

So moving on, as my plan is to put up every recipe that I bake for the festival, so whether you are there or not you'll be bale to try and remake the tasty and healthy goodies that will be there on the day! Soooo because I practiced the shortbread today here's the recipe... and a cute picture to give you a taste of what's to come. (I'm so tempted to put these cute little cookie animals into cages on the day...)

Ingredients:
1 cup dairy free margarine
1/3 cup soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp xanthum gum
pinch of salt

Cream the marg, sugar and vanilla. Then add all remaining ingredients and fold the mixture until it's well blended. Roll out on a floured surface (remember gluten free flour only if you're baking for gluten free peeps), then use your cookie cutters or hands to shape and cut out the short bread. Bake in a lined tray for 10-12mins at 180 degrees. Don't let the cookies brown too much or burn around the edges.
Ice and decorate as you please! I used icing sugar and a tiny bit of marg and water and some food colouring.

Spring market salad!

Dear Salad,

You are sooooo damn tasty I could eat you forever! I love my Sunday ritual of visiting the local market to buy the weekly supply of vegetables. Although today we went to a different market that wasn't as good, less variety and missing lots of basics, perhaps we were just too late. I created this amaaaaaaazing tasty and fresh salad, using mesclun, roasted pumpkin, tomatoes, avocado, yellow peppers, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds . So healthy and tasty for a lovely Sunday lunch!

P.S. It was soooo good I didn't even use a dressing!

Chocolate banana cupcakes!

Ok so I actually happened to make these divine cupcakes by accident... You see I printed out several recipes yesterday and had decided to try out the chocolate banana cake but as cup cakes. However I was a little to eager beaver and didn't read the title correctly. It wasn't until I got to the end of the recipe and was wondering why it wasn't telling me where and when to put my bananas in that I looked and realised I had actually made the recipe for "the most amazing vegan chocolate cake". So I simply cross checked the two and added a little extra baking soda and of course my mashed bananas! In the end, my accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise, these cupcakes really are decadent, they're sooooo moist and light and a little too easy to eat.

Ingredients:
2.5 cups of flour
2/3 cup vegan cocoa
2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups water
2/3 cup vegetable oil (or stewed apple)
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cider or white vinegar
2 mashed bananas

First I mixed all of the dry ingredients in a big bowl until there were no lumps and they were all combined and a light brown colour. Then in a separate bowl I mixed all of the wet ingredients together including the mashed banana. Then I combined them all on the dry ingredients bowl and mixed them up until everything was really well combined. I then got my cupcake tins and moulds out and sprayed them with cooking oil. Carefully put the mixture into each cupcake mould making sure not to overfill it as it will go everywhere! Bake in the oven till a knife can be stuck in and removed with no moist mixture remaining. This will be around 30 mins but probably a little more. I baked at 180 degrees.

Once the cupcakes had cooled I iced them with chocolate ganache made from Whittaker’s 72% dark chocolate, a little bit of icing sugar and some margarine, all melted together on the stove. Spread the ganache on top of the cupcakes and then let them set in the fridge. I felt like decorating a little so I melted down some more Whittaker’s chocolate and drew some shapes onto baking paper and then let them cool. When drawing the shapes be sure to draw a stick at the bottom to push into the top of the cupcakes.

Cut the top off the cupcakes (ganache topping should be hard by now) and make a slit to push in the chocolate decoration shape. Once you've done this spread some mashed banana on the bottom half of the cupcake, and place the top on with the chocolate decoration poking out the top!! You must try it it really is amazing, especially with the mashed banana in the middle, simply divine!

Enjoy xxxx

Vegetable Makhani on a freezing stormy day!

Yesterday we had a rather large storm the size of Australia on our shores, which meant freezing cold blustery winds, sporadic rain and generally just a more intensified Wellington Spring day. It did however make me in the mood for a lovely hot belly warming Indian Curry.

My favourite curry place is the lovely Holy Cow in Kelburn, and my favourite dish is vegetable makhani. So recipe in hand, Reuben and I visited the supermarket for supplies and drove home to our equally freezing flat. First up I was too keen to try a new recipe for banana chocolate cup cakes so I made these first (post to come) then cleaned up and prepared to start the Vegetable Makhani.

Ingredients:
Onion
Garlic (2-3 cloves)
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tin coconut cream
1-3 tsps red chili powder
2 tsps coriander
2 tsps cumin
2Tbsp ginger
3Tbsp tomato paste
Vegetables of your choice
I used:
1 head of broccoli
1 cup of frozen peas
a handful of green beans
1 tin lentils

First of all you sautee the onion until browned then add the garlic, tomato paste and ginger and fry for about a minute or so. I then added about half a tin of tomatoes and let it simmer for a while longer, then adding the remainder of the first tin. Next I added the chili, cumin and coriander stirred it in and cooked for a little more. Next add the vegetables and the tin of lentils mix it all in then add the remaining tin of chopped tomatoes and a tin of coconut cream. Stir it all in and the colour should turn from a dark red to a creamy orange.

It's important to let it simmer for half an hour or so for the sauce to thicken and all the flavours to explode! Also taste the mixture regularly as you may prefer more or less spice or more or less of some flavours, so feel free to add more coconut cream if it's too spicy or more chili if you need the extra kick! We certainly did on such a cold dark evening! Serve with rice or naan or a combination of both, we bought frozen naan from the supermarket and baked it in the oven it was lovely!

Vegan Chocolate Raspberry Cake wins award!

My Vegan Chocolate Cake with a Raspberry centre and chocolate ganache won the audiences favorite cake at Miss La Belles Burlesque bake off! I'm so excited, and happy I entered the competition. It was a fundraiser held at a Bar on Cuba St in Wellington (Mighty Mighty) the theme was fifties burlesque bake off. My contribution to the theme was my dark chocolate lattices intended to represent "fish net" stockings which are so often seen in burlesque costumes.

My cake was very similar to the one I discussed in my previous post, except I added raspberries on the bottom layer and a thin layer of white frosting largely made up of icing sugar as its a must with raspberries. The ganache was made with my favourite whittakers 72% dark chocolate, coconut cream and some icing sugar. The ganache was lovely and creamy soooooo tasty and smooth.

It took me five attempts to get it right but I can still definitely improve, the outside was still a bit too crunchy, I think next time I need to cook the majority of the cake and add the raspberries near the end. Cooking it with the raspberries from the start causes them to sink in and create a lot of moisture which takes a long time to cook. I will get it right one day though! It was lovely having people come up to me and commenting on how tasty it was and also I had a lovely man who told me his wife was Vegan and that he'd buy a slice to take home for her, how sweet!

Thanks to Alastair Moore for the fabulous photo at the top!

Chocolate cake: decadent and cruelty free!!

I'm proud to announce I am no longer a Vegan Cake Baking Virgin! Plus after sampling my first attempt I'm quite happy with where this journey may lead me... So I've been searching for recipes for a while now and finally settled on a chocolate cake, it's simple everyone loves chocolate cake so it seemed like a logical place to start!

As usual I adapted the recipe in accordance with some healthier new tricks I've discovered lately, so here goes... First of all mix together 3 cups of flour (I used wholemeal) and 2 cups of sugar (i used raw). I then added 6 Tbps of Vegan cocoa (be sure to check as cocoa often contains cows milk), 2 tsps baking soda and 1 tsp of salt. I ten peeled and sliced 3 granny smith apples (green apples) and boiled them, when they were soft enough and mashed them very well to create a very smooth texture.

In a separate bowl i mixed 1 cup of stewed apples with 2 Tbsps of white vinegar and 2 tsps of vanilla. I added about 1/2 cup of water and mixed this together then added it to the dry mixture. Mix thoroughly till mixture is a smooth consistency. If the mixture seems too dry add more stewed apples. Pour into a round cake tin and bake in the oven at 200 degrees celsius for about 45 minutes. Oh I forgot to mention to halve the mixture for a double layer, otherwise if you cook it in one tin it will take a lot longer to cook may result in a crispy outside.

Taste tester a very rich, dense and moist cake with a grainy texture due to the wholemeal flour! Oh I forgot to mention the icing, I used 1/3rd of a block of Whittakers 72% dark Ghana chocolate, 2 Tbsps of olivani margarine spread, about 1-2 cups of icing sugar and about 1/4 cup of water.

I dare you to try it!!!

Creamed Spinach with Roast Tomatoes and Char grilled Cauliflower Salad

Tonight after having a ridiculously long bus ride home in the rush hour traffic I felt grumpy and tired! However, thinking about what to create for dinner did help improve my mood a little. So with the help of my lovely Veggie Recipe book from my good friends Emily and Triona I adapted a few recipes (veganised them) and made a delicious creamy spinach and silverbeet pasta sauce and a fresh char grilled cauliflower salad!

I didn't really know where to start in order to time everything for when Laurence arrived home, but it turned out pretty well. First I took two tomatoes and sliced them into about 8 wedges each then placed them skin side down on a greased oven tray and popped them in the oven to roast away.

Next I prepared the silverbeet and spinach and cooked this in the frying pan on a low heat. Once it was wilted enough I drained it rinsed with cold water then chopped it very finely. I crushed about 6 or 7 garlic cloves and finely chopped the onion, sautéed the onion in the cast iron pan (good for vegan cooking to get that extra iron) and then I added half on the crushed garlic and once this was cooked I added some Coconut Cream.

Only a little coconut cream to start with and gradually more and more. I then finished finely chopping the silverbeet and spinach and added this to the cream/garlic and onion mixture and cooked this slowly on a low heat.

For the Char grilled salad I mixed the remaining crushed garlic cloves with some olive oil and sliced half a cauliflower into small pieces. I rubbed the garlic and olive oil mixture into the cauliflower and popped in the oven to char grill, turning regularly to as not to burn (important!!).

Next I boiled a pot of water for the pasta and at the same time I prepared the dressing for the cauliflower salad. The dressing I made up with lemon juice about 2-3 Tbsps, about 2-3 tsps olive oil about 5 Tbsps of Balsamic Vinegar and about half a cup of fresh coriander. I blended this altogether in my coffee grinder (clean first of course!!!) and then popped it in the fridge once I was satisfied with he flavours.

Back to the pasta sauce meanwhile doing the other stuff I checked and stirred this regularly and added more coconut cream and ended up sing one tin of the cream. I blended it all together (this isn't necessary) to create a very smooth and green thick and creamy sauce, it looks amazing!

Once the pasta was cooked I drained it and mixed the green creamy sauce. I placed it on a serving dish and popped the roasted tomatoes on top - more the better these are just divine after they've been cooking for an hour or so, soooo sweet they really do go perfectly with the spinach sauce. The cauliflower was served with mesclun salad and the coriander/olive oil and balsamic dressing!

Stuffed Roast Capsicums with Garlic and herb Roasted potatoes!

I really do love my flatmate, last night I came home from work and she had already told me I would LOVE what she'd done... I sure did!!

I walked in the door, she was so excited and so was I... I had to close my eyes and then she held this dish filled with bright red crisp capsiums stuffed with a green and creamy looking filling sitting in a herby tomato looking sauce in front of my etyes- which almost popped out of my head by the way!

OMG I was soooo excited, it was too early for dinner and it hadn't been cooked yet but I could hardly wait!!! She gave me a taste of the green filling and it was devine, it tasted soooo creamy (totally Vegan though) and good. She'd made a soupy type mixture using Brocolli, Courgettes, Eggplant and I'm not sure what else (details to come later) then blended it all up.

When Dinner time eventually came around (the capsicums roasted for about an hour) it was a treat, the red capsicums were soft and sooo sweet and the creamy soupy mixture was a perfect combination. The roasted herby potatoes were great too and with a side of mesclun salad, what more could one want!

Recipe to come, bon apetit!!

Homemade Pizza and Chocolates!

Today at work I had a fabulous idea, it just popped into my head, as fabulous ideas tend to do... So i thought it would be fun to melt down my favorite 72% cocoa chocolate and remake it with a secret ingredient in the middle! Now it will remain secret for now but I'm willing to spill the beans at an unknown time in the future!

So I arrived home shopping bags filled with Pizza ingredients - fresh sun dried tomatoes, half a pineapple, capsicums, olives, mozzarella (for the non vegan) among other goodies! Laurence had already prepared the dough using whole meal flour and the standard Edmonds pizza dough recipe. She prepared a basic tomato sauce using red wine dolmios pasta sauce, paste and chopped tomatoes. The toppings for my vegan pizzas included courgettes, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, olives, capers, pineapple etc!

Whilst Laurence prepared the pizzas I melted my chocolate and started making little heart shaped and filled chocolates... Which are devine, the secret ingredient is somewhat earthy and very natural and with the dark chocolate makes the ultimate flavour combination! Laurence had a brilliant idea to use our last pizza dough ball and the leftover chocolate to create a dessert pizza! She topped the chocolate with bananas, apple and boysenberries!

The end result - my first vegan pizza was good, I think I’ll use Cheezly next time though and I think we'll stick to plain white flour for the dough as the whole meal version didn't rise much and crumbled a bit. The dessert pizza was very rich and very tasty, I wouldn't put apple on it but the banana, berry and chocolate combination was lovely!

As for the chocolate hearts wit the secret ingredient…. Perfection!!!

Reuben will love them, he shall receive some in the mail by Monday, and I’ll bring the rest to work to celebrate our new staff room tomorrow!!

Rich Chocolate Sorbet - for all Chocolate lovers!

Ok so this morning I turned on my work computer and this is what was in my inbox! My manager found this recipe among a few other goodies and sent them to me late last night, I'm soooo excited!

The one thing I thought I'd miss most as a Vegan was cheese, but I'm almost over that already. Now that Summer's coming though and when Wellington occassionally (i do mean occassionally) put's on a nice day, I can't help but stare and envy the kids with icecream all over their faces...

So now I can make my own it looks so easy I had to share the recipe! By the way I say double, triple or quadruple the mixture and then just keep it in the freezer till you get that craving, or for a dinner party!

Preparation will take about 15 mins plus freezing time. You'll need to buy some Molasses sugar the recipe reccommends "Billington's" and you'll use 115grams, some Dark Chocolate I'd recommend Whittakers 72% Cacao - you'll need 100g, and then 50g of Cocoa powder (make sure it hasn't got milk solids). Yes that's all only three ingredients!

First you'll need to put the molasses sugar, cocoa powder and 600mls of water into a pot and bring to the boil, stir it occassionally to stop the sugar from sticking. Simmer it for 5 mins. Next you'll need to take this mixture off the heat and add the chocolate and stir until it's melted. Once this has been done leave the mixture to cool down.

Next you'll need to put the mixture into an icecream maker and churn till frozen or alternatively, place in the freezer in a freezer proof container and freeze. Whisk after 45mins with a fork to break up the ice crystals. Repeat 3 times and then freeze for atleast 6 hours. When you want to eat the sorbet remove it from the freezer 15mins before so it has time to soften.

Enjoy your sorbet! (Recipe from http://www.foodlovers.co.nz/)

Red wine flavoured moussaka in baked potatoes!

Laurence my new flatmate is planning to have her own French Restaurant in Belgium and she really is an excellent cook, she's very inspiring and her creativity fuels mine! So tonight after my run I was thinking about what I could make that would be super easy, super tasty, and slow cooking because I felt like researching vegan gluten free cake recipes at the same time.

Sorry but I am a bit of a story teller so will get to the point. Baked potatoes are so easy to cook and a great source to get your daily vitamin C intake as well as Vitamin B6, fiber and all sorts of others (it's on the worlds healthiest food list - http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php this is my bible seriously it's amazing) - so I grabbed the 4 biggest potatoes I could find, cut them in half so that each half was the thinnest possible (cooks easier), lightly greased an oven tray and placed the potatoes face down and popped them in the oven at 200 degrees.

I proceeded to research some cake recipies and found a few good ones, I'm looking forward to trying out this Chocolate Mocha cake although I would like to gluten free inise it... I'm yet to learn how to effectively gluten free baking recipies. Veganising baking recipies is so easy, I mean think of all the alternatives to butter - canola oil, olive oil, stewed apples (this is what I use very time now) and the list goes on. For eggs I use ground flaxseeds and water (1 egg = 1 Tbsp flaxseeds + 3 Tbsps water) its super easy and flaxseeds are so healthy they go excellent in muffins.

However, gluten freeing recipies is going to be a challenge, I majorly failed trying to make gluten free wraps in the summer. I figured I could just replace 1 cup of white flour with 1/2 cup of chick pea flour and 1/2cup of almond flour - it seemed too easy and it just didn't work, it turned into a grainy, oily bird feed type mixture that didn't bind and certainly wasn't going to let me roll it into wraps.

Back to the moussaka, so I finely chopped an onion, sauteed it in a pan on the lowest heat in olive oil (it's not good to cook olive oil at high temperatures -(http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=56), I then grated and finely chopped an organic carrot into tiny cubes and threw that in the pan mixed in with the sauteed onion. Next I finely chopped the organic broccoli florets eating the raw stems cause I love them, I added this to the pan with the tin of pre soaked lentils.

I let this cook for a while on a low heat then added some finely chopped fresh tomatoes and mixed this in with some salt and pepper. I found some left over red wine from our BYO dinner on Sat night "Old Cocah Road Merlot Cabernet" and poured in just under 1/4 of a cup, I let the entire mixture simmer for about half an hour perhaps a little longer and at the end I added a few Tbsps of tomato paste to thicken it up a little.

During this whole process I turned the potatoes over 4 times to try and bake them evenly and once I was satisfied I scooped out the middles and spooned in the cooked moussaka. As I'm still of the student mindset I didn't want to just through away perfectly good potato - so I ate the scooped out bits with some moussaka on the side from the lovely looking stuffed potato! They key when cooking for me is to taste it regularly and cook to your tastes, and don't be afraid to add more of something, in small quanities you can't go wrong!

Bon Appetit!

J'aime mia colocataine!

.... I love my flatmate! She loves to cook, just like me and today she prepared three different Vietnamese dishes, all vegan and they were all divine! First course was fresh Vietnamese spring rolls, with ginger, carrots, mushrooms, bean sprouts, mint, coriander, vermicelli and rice paper, served with sweet chilli sauce! Now these are good served fresh and also deep fried. They are so versatile you can literally put anything in them. Next time, we will make fruity fresh spring rolls and serve as dessert.

The second was a Vietnamese soup, with cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, vermicelli, vegetable stock, coriander, soy sauce and I'm not sure what else but it was lovely. Third was rice with soy sauce, served with finely chopped spring onions and peas! It sounds simple, but trust me it was divine... Before adding water to the rice it was fried in olive oil for a few minutes, then boiled until cooked and lastly the peas and spring onions were added. Normally you would also add corn, it was still great without it though!

I'm celebrating my three week "vegan" anniversary

Hello again, sorry it's been so long, my name is still Natalia however I can now proudly say I haven't eaten a dead animal for four years and 4 months, and I haven't eaten any animal products e.g. dairy and eggs in 3 weeks!

So my boyfriend moved out, back to the cold south to finish his Phd. This gave me an exciting opportunity to explore the so called "too extreme" vegan diet. My original intention was to become completely raw vegan, however being the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, this proved too difficult even for me. After a major shopping "fail" at the farmers market, I decided a vegan diet would be an interesting experiment instead of raw, well until Summer comes anyway.

As a vegetarian I figured that transitioning to a vegan diet would eventually be a natural progression that I'd eventually delve into. Living with someone who is still a meat eater, though 99% vegetarian (e.g. does not eat any meat in the house) meant it took me longer to take the jump. However, I'm starting to feel confident that before long I will be cooking up all sorts of delicious meals that not only will you not miss the meat, but you won't miss the dairy either. Making everything I cook, completely cruelty free!

So far it's proving to be a culinary delight, I'm discovering all sorts of new healthy secrets and tricks in cooking. One delightful trick I discovered which is great for vegan baking, is that "apple sauce" or "stewed apple" in my case can be used instead of "oil" which is often a reaplcement for butter in vegan cooking. Now how exciting is that?!! I tried it out in blueberry muffins and also in my super chocolatey chunky cookies. They both turned out devine, however I think I'll use a little more next time, just to add some extra moisture.