And now for something 'a little different'....

Since I have been struggling this past week with a bad dose of the 'flu, I have not felt too much like cooking, writing about cooking or even really thinking about food. However, yesterday I started to feel a mite more like my old self and decided to pull out a few stops and 'Make Dinner'. Not only that, I thought I would document it for your delectation and delight!

My Beloved fancied something 'a little different' and to my surprise he chose a recipe from Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink and Be Vegan that combined sweet elements - in this case dried apricots - in a savory entree: Moroccan-Infused Vegetable Phyllo Rolls

This is what I started with.....

Loads of fresh produce, a can of chickpeas and some filo/phyllo dough

And once the vegetables were chopped they lined up glamourously like this:

From left to right the cast is as follows:

orange pepper, red pepper, yellow squash, onions, dried apricots, fennel bulb...and some whole cloves of garlic hiding shyly in the top left of the board.

In essence, this is a really easy recipe, but there *are* a couple of stages to get through so it's probably not a week-night option. First, you have to chop the veg and then collect together some seasonings to roast them in:

Headlining here are powdered ginger, cumin seeds, cinnamon, paprika, salt and black pepper.

Toss all of these into a large bowl along with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and combine well. Add in the chopped veg and make sure they get nicely coated. Roast on 425 for about 30 mins.

When they're done, mix them with a cup of chickpeas and about a half cup of freshly torn basil leaves. Now the mix will look somewhat like this:



Now the fun part: reduce the oven temperature to 375 and take your first sheet of filo/phyllo dough and brush it lightly with some olive oil. Place another sheet on top and repeat the process until you have about 6 sheets all stacked up.

Then take some of your mix and place it along the length of the dough sheets, folding it up burrito-style. I find it easiest to start with the long edge closest to you and fold the sides in gently as you roll this into a strudel shape. You can seal the final edge with a little olive oil if you like.

Place roll gently - seam-side down - onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and then brush the top lightly with olive oil so that it will brown nicely. I made one roll per person, but I am greedy so you could probably get by on one roll per couple. (But who wants to just 'get by'....I ask you!!!!)



OK, so when you have all of your rolls in a row, bake them for about 25-30 minutes until they are a gorgeous golden brown color and piping hot inside.


A glory shot courtesy of My Beloved who just wanted me to hurry up so he could get his tastebuds around this little lot!

So, I served them with garlic smashed potatoes and garlic-soy green and waxed beans. Oh and a nice glass of chardonnay. Perfect!



Plus a poached pear with vanilla ice-cream for dessert.....



...by god, the SHEER DEPRIVATION of the vegan lifestyle!
Ho Ho! ;)

Eat well and stay vegan, friends!

PS......watch this space for something else exciting to do with pears....coming soon! :)

I (heart) Leftovers...

A casual conversation at work today started me thinking about time. Not in a profound 'What Is The Nature of Time?' or 'Are We Living a Post-Temporal Reality?' kind of way, but ruminating more along the lines of how chronically busy people are and how they seem to have little time to actually cook.

And, unpopular as this observation may prove to be, it seems to me that time is not really the issue - motivation is. Let me explain....

My friend at work was saying she was pushed for time to actually cook from scratch but was uncomfortable relying on frozen/canned/packet foods. She is a busy person, works full-time and hard, has a life and myriad responsibilities and is probably pretty typical in this regard. Anyways, she'd noticed my lunch (leftovers from last night's dinner) and made flattering comments on how good it looked. And so I launched into the talk about how cooking fresh food does not necessarily have to be more time consuming than eating convenience foods.

But it quickly became apparent to me that actually this is not necessarily so.

And thinking about it all a little more, I realised that I am fighting a losing battle trying to convince someone in this argument. It will *always* be quicker to stop at McDonald's on the way home or throw an oven-ready pizza in the microwave than to put together a home-cooked dinner - whether vegan or otherwise. But as the light dawned, it also hit me that the question needs to be reframed. It should be positioned not as 'Do I have time to cook something for dinner tonight?' but rather as 'Do I have time to be sick later in life?'.

Because every vegetable I chop, every leaf of spinach I wash, every bean I rinse is an investment not only *of time* at that moment but an investment *in time* for my own future.

And that is motivation for me.

Oh, and food like this too....

Nava Atlas' Seitan and Polenta Skillet with Fresh Greens.

It starts with these:

1 tube polenta, sliced and quartered
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 lb seitan, cut into strips (actually I used a couple of fauxsages instead)
4-6 stalks of bok choy, sliced
5-6 oz baby spinach
4 scallions, sliced
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes

And it's simpicity itself!

1. Saute the polenta wedges in a little of the olive oil and set aside.
2. Heat the remaining oil and soy sauce and saute the seitan for about 5 mins. Add in the bok choy, spinach and scallions.
3. Cover and cook until the greens are nicely wilted.
4. Spinkle the vinegar over the greens mix and fold in the cooked polenta and sun-dried tomatoes.
5. Season with salt and pepper if you like and serve.

Like this:



I added a few small red garlicky potatoes and the meal was complete. Plus there was enough for the now somewhat celebrated 'leftovers'.....

Bon appetit!
....and stay vegan, friends!

Happy New Year!

Yes, it's an unimaginative title for the year's first post, but I guess that I - not unlike a few others around the blogosphere - am feeling perhaps slightly below par. Under the weather. A little fried.

No, send no sympathy my way. I know it's mostly my own fault for ringing in the new year with - arguably - one glass of champagne too many. But actually, to be fair, my pounding head does owe something to the fact that My Beloved and I just returned from taking the boys for a run in the forest and they screamed all the way there and most of the way back. The walk itself was tremendous - the sky today is a piercingly bright blue, the white of the snow blinding. And the simple contrast of the evergreens was exquisitely refreshing and invigorating.

But the barking....and the high pitched screaming from Humphrey...was just horrendous.

And so, while My Beloved labors to bring up a stack of firewood and build a fire to doze in front of, I thought I'd quickly share some pix of last night's revelries with you. We were fortunate enough to get a reservation at a local restaurant here in Westfield, the School Street Bistro. They were offering a 6-course meal beginning at 9pm which was just perfect. My Beloved, while making the reservation, had 'used the v-word' and, although the evening's fixed menu was a veritable Noah's Ark of animals, they assured him that I would not go hungry. So, in we went!

The appetizer was a choice of cold cucumber soup (which given that there's 2 feet of snow outside did not seem overly appealing last night!) or a fresh salad of arugula, grilled lemons and toasted cashews. We both chose the latter and it was delicious! I have never toasted cashews before but if you like pinenuts, you will love the cashews done in this way. They're slightly salty and utterly more-ish! So much so that this is all the evidence I have of it:



Eek, sorry, that's kinda gross, I admit!

Next came a special dish for me in place of the non-vegan options. It consisted of portabello mushrooms in a balsamic reduction with roasted red peppers and grilled fennel. It was just delightful. Again, grilling fennel is new to me and I really enjoyed it this way. It has a much more mellow flavour and it's one that I will be trying to reproduce from here on in. I think it would be a super topping for a pizza....but that's a thought for a whole other post!

Anyways, since their presentation was very nice, I managed to contain my enthusiasm long enough to get a pic this time:



Then, the intercourse, or whatever the real, fancy name is: eggplant rollatini. Thin slices of grilled eggplant were generously stuffed with a mix of fresh and sun-dried tomato, red peppers and mushrooms, rolled up and scattered with pinenuts. A sprig of fresh dill finished off the mis en place nicely. The eggplant rolls almost looked like stuffed crepes at first and - although I adore crepes - I was glad to see the whole vegetables instead.




After a palate-cleansing dish of home-made lemon sorbet (which was delightfully more like a granita than a sorbet - refreshingly icy and not at all sugary) we moved onto the entree which, for me, was off-menu again. A massive plate of succulently marinated and fire roasted squash, eggplant, onions and peppers lay atop a ring of light and fluffy rice. As you see, a little sweetness was offered by the balsamic reduction playing across the plate:



Towards the end, I could manage no more and was actually relieved when our waitperson returned from surveying the dessert options to pronouce - uncomfortably - that there were no vegan choices. I was extremely happy to accept a coffee in lieu! My Beloved did partake of a chocolate-hazlenut moussecake and pronounced it admirable:



At the stroke of midnight (about 15 minutes before we finally finished eating!) we had a champagne toast to our absent friends. Our families are spread as far afield as the UK and New Zealand, whilst our friends are as close as Westfield and as far away as California. But we thought about you all and quietly wished you everything you wish for yourselves in 2009 and beyond.

Happy New Year, Friends....and...stay vegan!

Happy Christmas!

Or Kwanzaa...Hannukah...Festivus...Happy Whatever You Celebrate!

My Beloved and I, although secular in disposition, do enjoy a good celebration - especially when it entails a couple of days off work, alone with each other and our Little Ones, and the chance to sit by the fire, drink wine and open presents that we really do not deserve.

So yesterday - Christmas Day - was just a delight.

We started the day comparatively early by making some vegan yummy french toast (from Sarah Kramer's La Dolce Vegan) with local maple syrup and a pot of steaming coffee. The sun was out, the sky a gorgeous shade of blue and the snow had receded just a touch, so we planned the hearty brunch to sustain us through the later walk with the boys. With temperatures actually above freezing, we figured Sir Humphrey wouldn't mind a little ambulation around the neighbourhood - to sniff his p-mail, shout at passing dogs and greet random folks on the street with his customery nose to the groin.

So this was the breakfast:



The boys were unsure were unsure as to whether they'd been naughty or nice all year and were worried that Santa Paws may have skipped them altogether. Sir Humphrey (aka 'Captain Piddles') was particularly concerned.....



However, the scene that greeted us was one of plenty:



How thoughtful of Santa Paws to put all of the gifts out of doggie-reach!

The boys had a great time:







And My Beloved was thrilled with his vegan cordials....



The rest of the day was spent lounging by the fire, Skyping with our relatives in New Zealand (Hi Kiwis!!) and playing with our own toys. I was totally spoiled by My Beloved this year and received an iPod Touch! Oh man, I love that little gadget! The first app I downloaded was from VeganYumYum and it's a recipe database, complete with step-by-step photo instructions for each dish. Magic! I was like having a tiny laptop in the kitchen and meant I no longer have to run between kitchen and study to check a recipe, or wastefully print out the recipe. The app's available free through iTunes and I am in love with it already!

So much so that we made VYY's stuffed seitan roulade for Xmas dinner. OK, it didn't come out as fancy as the original, but we enjoyed it with lemon roasted potatoes, herb roasted roots (carrots, parsnips, garlic cloves, celery and onions), and a garlic-mustard gravy. The stuffing was forbidden rice-pistchio-pear-cranberry, based on a recipe over at Nava Atlas' site here and slightly adapted.

And this was the end result:








We had a chocolate bundt cake sitting in the sidelines but were waaaaaaay too stuffed to contemplate even a slice-let, so that survived the day!

Darwin was exhausted by all the gift opening and the strain started to tell:






Snooze well, little guy!

Oh, and stay vegan, Friends! :)

One Down, Three to Go

Squash. Everywhere I look in our (admittedly compact and bijou) kitchen I see squash.

And so I took it into my head to bake one of the cheeky little things for dinner and this is the result:



In essence, all I did was to split an acorn squash in half, drizzle the inside with a little olive oil, scatter on some salt, pepper and a tad of garlic powder, invert both halves onto a baking sheet and bake until soft.

While that was happening, I roughly chopped an onion and a pepper (colour = your choice) and sauteed them off in a little oil basil, oregano and thyme. I added some Gimme Lean (sausage-style), chopped mushrooms, sliced sun-dried tomatoes and a baby bok choy that struck me as a novel ingredient. (Although I guess celery would have been more appropriate!) As a side, I threw a mix of brown and forbidden (purple!) rice into a pan with boiling water and let it cook until chewy and beautiful to behold!

Pulling the end result together was simplicity itself: rice is rice, say no more. I spooned the stuffing mix into the hollowed out, baked squash and was dissuaded from topping with grated Vegan-rella by My Beloved who felt it would have been overkill.

And that was that. A really nice meal, pulled together fairly quickly (even quicker, I guess, if you microwave the squash - although I've never tried that so I can't really recommend it, as such) and perfect for a Wednesday night.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the other three squash gracing the vegetable rack.....

Stay Vegan, Friends!

Saturday Evening with Dreena

Well, this year Father Christmas was kind indeed to me - I guess I must have been a good girl after all. Or perhaps Old Saint Nick is a herbivore too...!! As a gift (from My Beloved, I suspect from the inscription) I received Dreena Burton's 'Eat, Drink and Be Vegan', from which today's dish was created.

My Beloved and I adore Caribbean food, it must be said....well, we adore the Caribbean - the sun, sea, sand, diving, cocktails, swinging in a hammock in the shade of a coconut tree, fish, turtles, rum....yeah, you get the idea. So anyhow, when I clapped eyes on Dreena's Blackened Tofu...I just knew it had to be tried!

Here it is, in glorious, sumptuous technicolour:






And here's a saucy close-up....




We served it with Cayman-style rice n' beans which is both spicy, fiery and rum-soaked all at the same time. The heat comes from the habanero chilli (aka 'scotch bonnet' pepper), the spicyness from the mix of scallions ('green onions'), garlic and coconut, and the rum...well, it's an integral part of Caribbean cuisine, don't you know?????

:)

Yummmmm......

Am returning to the table soon for a slice of the remaining carrot-ginger-coconut cake....Life Is Good!

Stay Vegan, Friends!