Singapore

The first time I visited Singapore, in 2009, I hated it. It was hot, humid, shopping-obsessed, shiny, loud, and so clean as to feel sterilised.  All I remember about the food was economical rice for breakfast, and that all the vegetarian places seemed to close at 6.30pm.

This time, I’ve really enjoyed it. Possibily because I’m more travel-seasoned now, possibly because I’ve just spent three months in places where you freeze if you take off your heavy coat, or possibly just because everybody speaks English and the cultures are more familiar to me, which is nice as I’m a bit tired from so much change.

In any case, its been a joy this time around.

William Gibson once referred to Singapore as disneyland with the death penalty, and he wasn’t wrong.

If you haven’t been there, I’ll explain. Singapore is like the rest of region (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Lao, Indonesia and Malaysia) – hot and humid, colourful, a little smelly, and with tropical plants.

The difference is that everyone speaks English, the public transport is safe and reliable, there are footpaths, and you can drink the water. You can get great vegan food, its really easy to get around (although a little time consuming), and the public infrastructure is (in some places) exceptionally good.

On the crap side it is a heavily consumerist society – never will you visit a train station without being surrounded by people holding branded shopping bags – and a very segregated one (in terms of work, at least). Nearly without exception, all outdoor council staff (garbage collection, road works) and constructions workers are Indian or Bangladeshi men. Its also quite strict, with severe penalties for drug offences, and penalties such as corporal and capital punishment still on the books.

Four cultures are intertwined here. It is predominantly ethnic chinese, with a significant number of citizens and temporary workers from Malay, Indian and Bangladesh backgrounds. It shows in the shopping centres, with clothing stores selling short shorts and badly translated printed tee-shirts next to modesty clothing stores for Islamic Malay women, next to a sari store. It also shows in the street scopes, where you can find mosques, temples, and churches. And of course, it shows in the food.

Okay, if you can’t be vegan in Singapore, there really is no hope for you. Between the Indian options everywhere, buddhist vegetarian stalls, fresh fruit and veg, soy bean drink and supermarket fare, vegans are more than covered here.

There are plenty of dedicated vegetarian restaurants, ranging from down at heel to super fancy, but your best bet is to head to a hawker centre.

Hawker Centres and Food Courts
Within walking distance from any housing block there will be a hawker centre – a number of food stalls surrounding a shared seating area. In addition, most shopping centres (and these are everywhere) have a food court, sometimes in addition to a hawker centre.

Most of the food courts and hawker centres will have a dedicated vegetarian stall, whether Indian or Chinese, as well as a number of omni stalls, a dessert stall and a drinks stall.

The Indian option is self explanatory really – ask about dairy, then order off the menu or point at the the buffet options. I love a dosa if we find a south Indian place, Mr loves chenna masala and paratha (when we can get it vegan), but the buffet options are usually fine.

Dishes in a row from an Indian Hawker stall near Changi Village

At the Chinese Buddhist stalls you often have two options. You can order from the menu, or get economical rice. Menus vary, having soups, fried rice dishes, Malay dishes like nasi lemak, mock fish dishes, dumplings, Hainan chicken rice (flavoured rice served with some vegan and some pale, mock boiled-chicken), anything. A meal can range from $2.50 to $9 depending on what you order. The pros of ordering from the menu are that you get a fresh, hot meal, and you know what you ordered.

I prefer economical rice for the variety, even though it is often a little cold. Economical rice is when you get a plate with rice, and you choose a number of dishes-of-the-day from the buffet. The dishes usually include a number of mock meats (fish, roast pork, chicken, squid), some tofu, several vegetable options, and a curry. To get this, ask for rice, then point of self serve from the other dishes. Ask for gravy to get some curry sauce (or other sauce) over your rice. You can usually get brown rice if you want. A price of a rice plate depends on what you choose, but it is most often around $3 to $3.50 for a meal.

Economical Rice

You generally can’t buy a drink from the place you got your food. You need to find the dedicated  drinks stall to quench your thirst. You can always get bottled water, fruit juices, soft drink and beer (with ice in it), but why do that when you can often find home made ais limau, iced tea (Teh O Ice/Ais), rose cordial, water chestnut cordial, Chrysanthemum Tea, cold soy bean drink (thinner and sweeter than Aussie soy milk) or sugar cane juice?

If you want something sweet, you have to check out the dessert stall. Filled with fruits, sweet red beans, ice and (vegetarian) jelly, you can’t go wrong. My favourite is Ice Kechang. Its a bowl with sweet red beans, lychees and jelly, covered with a mountain of shaved ice, three colours of syrup, one sweet corn (admittedly not my favourite part) and sweet milk. Vegans (like me) just ask for it without the sweet milk, and sometimes you can get coconut milk if you’re lucky.

Ice Kechang with coconut milk

The top view

Underneath the Ice Kechang mountain

A note of caution: Beware the omni places at the hawker centers and the food courts. This goes especially for the ones advertising tofu (dofu or Tau Foo) or vegetables. Singaporeans eat tofu and veg, but it is usually flavoured with meat stock, ground pork, mini fried fish, fish flakes, pork floss, chicken skin, oyster sauce etc etc etc. Its up to you, but unless I couldn’t find something else, or my language skills improved, I’d steer well clear of these places.

 

Coming soon on AroundTheWorldVegan, restaurant reviews, so much soya bean drink, and a guest post by Mr!

Vegan in Turkey, Part the last – outside of Istanbul

For our second week in Turkey we visited some sites outside of Istanbul, including Canakkale (Troy and Gallipoli), Kirazli (Ephesus), and Pamukkale (Heiropolis, Travertines).

As in Istanbul, we ate a lot of simit, nuts, fruit, and pringles (because you can get them at the bus stops), but we also had a few standout meals about town.

In Canakkalewe stayed at the Kervan Saray hotel, and found that the Ev Yemekleri next door was stocked with vegan foods. I didn’t manage to write down the name of the place, but if you head there, look for the hotel, and its the place to left of the door. The staff were really helpful, paid attention to the vegan passport when we couldn’t explain things properly, and we had a great vegan meal.

Leeks, beans, stews and salads

We then headed to a small village called Kirazli, which is close to the ruins of Ephesus. We found a place to stay through AirBnB- a one bedroom/studioish flat being rented out by some expats. It turns out that the woman who owns the flat is also a fabulous cook, and we enjoyed two vegan dinners and one breakfast while we were staying there.

Menu Karyn made us (click to enlarge)

One of Karyn's gorgeous breakfast dishes

The food was really good and the flat was gorgeous, so I figured I should share with any future vegan visitors. It isn’t a vegetarian household, but we had one of the best meals we got in Turkey here. I definitely recommend it to any vegan travellers who’d like a break from the busy city and the battle for food.

Totally moreish coated cashews

Next up we travelled to Pamukkale, home of Heiropolis and the Travertines (natural hot springs flowing down the mountain to form baths and blinding white calcium formations). While every hotel was claiming to offer vegetarian food, most of the restaurants inside were actually closed for the winter. So, we went in search and found two passable options for the vegans to follow.

The reason to visit Pamukkale - that's not snow, it's calcium

Mehmet’s is a large restaurant space, covered in carpets and memorabillia, serving traditional Turkish food. Mehmet himself has very good English, and we found it easy enough to explain our requirements. He assured us the soup was vegan, so we ordered that and a platter of appertisers.

Unfortunately, while he understood that we did not eat stock, I think maybe he failed to let us know that the soup was packet mix. I don’t like to guess at these things, but it had that chicken-flavoured-flavour that I remember from powdered soup (none of which is vegan). We put it aside.

The apertiser plate was fabulous though. Fried eggplant in tomato sauce (like I made in Turkey week), stuffed vine leaves, stewed leeks (leeks seem to be season), and other delicious bits and pieces made sure we didn’t starve.

We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere here, and our host was very kind. Just don’t go for the soup.

We also ate at the Kale hotelrestaurant twice, and enjoyed it each time. The hosts made sure the food was vegan for us, and we got a specially made eggplant and zucchini dish with rice and home made chips the first time, and Imam biyaldi eggplant, rice, salad and fries the second time. They even gave us some of the homemade pomegranate juice the family was sharing, which was kind, and really tasty.

Special vegan meal at the Kale hotel

Vegan in Turkey Part 2 – The rest of Istanbul, or, what other bloggers said

Okay, I found nearly everything we ate in Istanbul with the help of other bloggers, most notably A Girl and Her Thumb and Vegan Backpacker, and with the help of our new friends Nalan and Genc. (Most recently, Vegan Soul Power blogged Istanbul too).

As did everyone else, I found there was plenty to eat in Istanbul, although it could be a little on the proteinless side.

I can second their recommendations for lokum and cig kofte, and only have a few things to add that these wonderful women didn’t already cover. First, simit. We ate simit every day, but it wasn’t until our second last day in Istanbul that we discovered that the simit available at street vendors totally sucked in comparison to the simit available in the many Simit Saray outlets around the place. SO much better. Crusty on the outside, fluffy on the inside, you buy jam to go with it, and it’s the same prices as the street vendor version, due to government control of bread prices.

While I went head over heels for cig kofte, simit, tea and lokum (Turkish Delight), we still needed to eat serious meals every now and then, which brings me to my second addition, the vegan passport.

Use the vegan passport. We forgot we had it for the first few days, and it was a revelation when we remembered. Only one person was reluctant to use it to help us, and she may not have been able to read Turkish well (my fault for not being able to pick the differences between regional peoples). It really helped us to get good food with no concerns.

I have one or two reviews to add for places around Istanbul that aren’t all veg, but helped us out.

Gurme Ev Yemekleri, near Taksim

Our Favourite

We found this place by accident, but it worked out really well, and we went back a few times during our stay.

It is just one of many Ev Yemekleri places (home cooking restaurants) around, but the guy there speaks fairly good English, and understood what we wanted. It took a little working out, but eventually we managed to work out what had “meat water” (stock) in it and what did not. Over a few meals we had a leek stew, bean stew, bean soup, vegetable soup, pilaf, salad, bread, and plenty of cig kofte.

Home cooking food

To get to it from Taksim Square, you need to find the Goldas shop, bordering the Square, but across the road, toward the Bosphorus. Go down the hill where the Goldas place is, and turn right at the fork, then the first left. Go down about a block, and it will be on your left. Tell them you are vegetarian, don’t take yoghurt, butter, cheese or eggs, and ask abut the stock.

Zencifil, also near Taksim

We found this place after a long overnight bus trip, when we were about ready to drop. It has some good reviews on HappyCow and elsewhere on the internets, but we weren’t super impressed by the food.

In the same vein as Parsifal, Zencifil had helpful staff with god English skills, a number of vegetarian and vegan items on the menu, and higher prices than the home cooking places. Unfortunately, like Parsifal, you pay for ease and atmosphere, but the food itself was pretty bland.

We got a dish of leek and chickpea, which was basically a large bowl of stringy boiled leek, with some chickpeas thrown on top. We also ordered a smoked bulgur dish, which was pretty good, but was still too bland to make up for a whole plate of leek. This said, it could just be our tastes not meeting those of Turkish tradition – I don’t know. On the upside, they made the best cup of tea I had in Turkey. I would go here again if I was hungry and tired, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

Ciya Sofrasi

Probably the best meal we had in Turkey was got at Ciya Spfrasi, when we went out for dinner with our new friends. This place is on the Asian side of Istanbul, but worth the trip.

Is a mixture of buffet and a la carte styles, where you check out the selection, and order the mains as if off the menu, but self serve salads, which get weighed. The staff knew what had stock, butter, eggs, etc, but we were certainly helped by having Turkish speaking friends with us.

Ciya Sofrasi

We had a fabulous soup, some bean stew, and a plate of assorted salads and mezze, such as stuffed eggplant, stuffed vine leaves, hummus, radish salad, and other salads. All this was fab, but the real standout (for me, anyway) was the dessert bar.

I have never seen anything quite like it. There was an array of chunks of brightly colours but unidentifiable stuff, covered in sugar syrup. A waiter explained to me that they were sweets made from tomato, pumpkin, eggplant, olive, a citrus fruit (untranslatable for the staff and friends, so I don’t know which one), and walnuts. I couldn’t choose, so elected to get a little of each to share.

My favourite was definitely the pumpkin, which tasted nothing at all like pumpkin, but more like honeycomb. It cam with sweet tahini sauce and a sprinkle of walnuts, and was one of the most perfect things I have ever tasted. I am actually considering writing to them to beg for the recipe.

The tomato sweet and the eggplant sweets were really nice too, with little of the vegetable flavour left, and plenty of sugar, but the olive sweet and the walnut sweet were a little harder to adjust to. Of course, the sweets were the only things I got a photo of

Clockwise from bottom left; eggplant, pumpkin, tomato, walnut, citrus, more tomato, olive, more citrus

Ciya Sofrasi was again a little on the pricey side, with a large plate of salads costing 18 Lira, but it was so good and filling, we weren’t complaining.

Vegan in Turkey Part 1 – Veg Restaurants

There are a few vegetarian restaurants in Istanbul, if you want to get an easy meal with no stress or confusion. We skipped the ultra-chic one attached to a club, because I didn’t know where it was, but we visited three others.

Parsifal

Parsifal was our first foray into Turkish vegetarian cuisine, and I have to say I had high hopes. I was really looking forward to a fuss0free vegan meal with Turkish flavour.

There were only a few vegan options on the menu, but they looked decent. The meal started off looking promising, with some on-the-house warm and delicious bread served with olive oil, to start us off while we waited for our meal. The bread was some of the best I’ve had while we’ve been away, which is saying something!

Best Bread

Our mains came next. I ordered the vegan patties, which came out fairly plain, with just a side salad. For me, the size was ok, but it would have disappointed most people, just three patties and some lettuce. The patties tasted good, if a little bland, but were too dry, and could really have used a sauce.

Patties

Mr ordered the eggplant dish (I cant remember the name). It was a disaster. It looked bad, all yellowy-green and mucus-like, and it tasted shockingly bland.  It may sound hard to believe that bland could get so sever as to cause shock, but this was the case. The only flavour was a slight tinge of smokeyness, but without salty, tangy, spicy or anything else to lift it into something you’d actually want to eat.

Eggplant thing

Based on the prices and the disappointing mains, we didn’t order dessert, but vegan travellers should note that there was a vegan brownie and a pumpkin sweet on the menu, and the tea was lovely.

The service was great, and the place is easy to find near to Taksim Square, and has a great atmosphere. Shame about the food.

Max Green Co.

Max Green Co is a little sandwhich and juice place in the food court at the Akmerkez shopping mall. Its a bit of a hike if you’re planning on checking out the city centre, but it was on my way home to our share-place. Actually, I found it by accident when I was sick and wandering around looking for Lysine – I went up the escalator and was confronted by a sign for raw and vegan food. Awesome.

I got a roasted zucchini and cashew cheese sandwich, and a kiwi fruit and pineapple smoothie. It was heaven. It was served up beautifully, with raw nuts and some salty olives on the side, and tasted great. I’m sure the smoothy filled with vitamin C goodness helped my cold, too.

The other downside, besides the location, was the prices. At 15 lira for a sandwhich, in a city where a cooked lunch can be 5 to 8 lira, it was pretty pricey. If you’re missing your vitamins or you’re into raw food though, this might be the place for you.

As with basically everywhere in Turkey, service was super friendly, and there was a menu in English.

Loving Hut

Everyone’s favourite international vegan cult has expanded once again, and there is now a Love Hut franchise in Istanbul.

The place is really small, so don’t plan on going with a part of more than four (and even then, you need to get thetable), but its has good food and ridiculously cheap prices. It is located a little ways from Taksim, about a 40 minute walk, or a 15 minute walk after a short ride on the 559 bus. You can find them at ıhlamurdere Cad. Şair Veysi Sok.no 4/B beşiktaş/İstanbul.

The menu here is unlike most Loving Hut locations in that it has no mock meat or tofu (because they aren’t really available in Turkey). Instead there is a soup, felafel, a burger and a roasted vegie roll, as well as salads and cakes. We tried everything they had in the time we were there, and I can recommend it all. It isn’t a classy, gourmet meal, but its decent and filling. The cake is really nice, too.

Vegan sweets at Loving Hut Istanbul

In all, I was way more impressed by the meals we got at non-veg places, and I’ll post them soon.

 

 

The Super-Late Christmas Post

Okay okay, its way past time for Christmas posts now, but I never wrote mine and now I am sitting in Abu Dhabi airport with many hours to kill (13 down, 10 to go) so now is the time.

Oddly, being away from home made celebrating feel more important than usual, so I tried to pull out all the stops (within my limited means) to make up for the lack of family and decorations and what have you. This meant me trying to make food I’ve never even eaten before, such as a yule log, and a Christmas pudding.

The whole menu eventually included (or was supposed to include):

Red Currant “cider” stuff
Roast Veg
Chickpea gravy
Nut Roast
Apple Sauce
Yule log (fridge cake rolled up into a log shape)
Rum Ball Christmas Tree
Christmas Pudding

Way more than we could actually eat, but good for getting through all the ingredients still in the cupboard, as we had to move out and head to Turkey on the 28th.

Our vegan Christmas Feast

So, how did it go? Well, as usual, a few successes a few ho-hums, and a disaster or two.

The Ho-Hums
My attempt at a red currant-based hot drink was inspired by the mulled wine I saw all over the net. I don’t really drink, Mr doesn’t at all drink, and no non-alcoholic wine was available. I did, however, have way to many fresh red currants (well, I think they were red currants) and no plan for how to use them. I pictured a nice jug of pretty red drink flavoured with cinnamon and cloves. Sadly, what I got was a creepy-looking, mud brown drink with stringy bits, although it did taste pretty good. In the end we totally forgot about the stuff, as I made it the day before, and left it sitting on the bench in a saucepan. It ended up being skulled cold in the hurry to get out the door before we moved out.

The yule log was also a bit ho-hum, but I think I’ll try it again another year. I made a basic fridge cake by crushing plain biscuits, mixing them with cocoa, dried fruit and nuts, and then mixing it with a heated milk and sugar mixture (instead of sweetened condensed milk). I let is half-set in a thin layer on a baking tray, then rolled it up and rolled it in more coca with desiccated coconut. The texture was good, although it was just a little dry, and I though it looked cute, but I over did it on the cocoa and it tasted a little bitter to me. Mr, being a fan of the dark, dark chocolate, loved it.

Vegan Yule Log

The Successes
I made a nut roast out of every nut I could find (walnuts, a few almonds, and some nearly raw peanuts), mixed in with bread crumbs, herbs, salt, pepper, bulgur, cooked onion and garlic, and a little left over millet. I made my usual short crust pastry recipe to wrap it in, and chucked it in the fridge. On Christmas I baked it for about 45 minutes, which as it turns out was a bit long. I’ve never had a bad nut roast, and this was no exception. It will probably never grace my Christmas table again, because I hate using the oven in summer, but it was really yummy. It ended up in a horse-shoe shape, because I made it too long and it didn’t fit in the oven.

Oddly shaped vegan nut roast

The roast vegetables were  fabulous, but I have to thank Mr for that. He is probably the very best roaster of vegetables in the whole world. I don’t know what he does that I don’t, though I expect it has something to do with patience. They were served up with the bad chickpea gravy, and some apple and red currant sauce (the same as this recipe, but with some red currants thrown in).

Roast veg and apple-red currant sauce

The biggest food success was the rum ball tree. In the end I actually made two trees, because we ate the first one the week before Christmas. The second time I left out the marzipan centres (because I couldn’t find marzipan), and I made extra plain rum balls instead of the white ones, as the vegan white chocolate I had brought with me from the UK had run out. There’s just no replacing rum balls, so far as I’m concerned, and they made the best snack food to accompany our present enjoying in the arvo.

On an un-foodie note, I wanted to share our present giving trick this year, because it worked really well. Mr and I are both not-exactly-stuff-oriented, and to add to that we wanted to spend our cash on trade, and can’t add anything extra to our backpacks. We were going to skip presents, but even my hardened atheist heart just can’t do a December 25th without gift-giving, so I hatched a plan. This year, we each spent some time researching each other’s interests, and gave each other a bunch of free-ebooks, cheap or free movie files, and links for websites. It worked out so well. I found a bunch of obscure survivalist and 80′s electronic music stuff for Mr, and he dug out some new feminist blogs and movies for me. Best present ever.

The Disasters
The chickpea gravy was doomed from the start really, seeing as I had no blender or masher or anything. It got worse, too, as I realise when I went to make it that I was out of onions. Foolhardy me gave it a try anyway, and we had a seriously lumpy, slightly dry, chickpeas in gravy dish instead. It looked kind of grey and thin, and  didn’t really end up featuring much on our plates in the end. Too bad, because I’m usually a big big fan.

The really big disaster was the pudding. I have never made a Christmas pudding before, because my family doesn’t really get into it much. Mr’s family always ha a pudding though, so I had a go this time. I scoured the internet, subbed a great number of ingredients, and boiled the thing for the required four hours a few weeks before Christmas. I was really unsure about leaving it for several weeks, but when I unwrapped it on Christmas morning I was happy to see an intact, mould-free, creation. I gloated too soon though. During the second boiling someone (not naming names here) poured the extra boiling water onto the pudding instead of beside the pudding basin. My pudding got totally soaked, and turned into a light brown, great smelling, oily sludge. No pudding for us. Many sad faces.

All in all, it was a fun Christmas day, with much Skyping of family, new movie watching, and lot and lots of food. I had fun planning the whole meal, which never happens to me usually because there are always so many people contributing food in my big and complicated family, and one, fairly obsessive cook managing the food in Mr’s family. I’m looking forward to playing with rum ball shapes more in the future, but I am never, ever making pudding again. All that boiling and worrying! Not for me, Christmas is stressful enough

Happy Hanukkah

With all the buzz about Christmas, and numerous potatoes hanging out in my kitchen, I decided it was probably time for a little Hanukkah cooking.

I made potato latkes, apple sauce and knishes (not typical Hanukkah fare, but they are Jewish and I wanted pastry).

As per usual I used the might power of the Google to find recipes, and as per usual I didn’t follow them at all. You can find what look like fabulous recipes at ChooseVeg, SunnySeedUp, HeyThatTastesGood, and of course in Vegan With A Vengeance, but here’s what I did:

An odd photo of the yummy feast

Vegan Latkes

Serves 2

Latkes generally have eggs, and vegan ones generally have corn flour (Cornstarch) or egg replacer. I have none of these things and I don’t eat eggs, so I made a slightly heavier version, with plain flour.

• 1 large potato, grated
• 1 small onion, chopped fine
• dash salt
• dash pepper
• 3 tbs plain flour
• oil, for frying

1. Put the grated potato and chopped onion in a large bowl with the salt and pepper, and let it set for about 10 minutes. The salt should pull some of the water out of the potato, to help make the batter.
2. Mix together with a spoon, then add the flour, and continue to stir until well combined.
3. In a non-stick pan heat some oil. Add spoonfulls of the latke mixture, and fry until brown on both sides. Continue until all mixture is used up.
4. Serve with apple sauce and, if you have it, vegan sour cream
   

   Latkes!

 

Apple Sauce

Serves 2 or 3

• 1 enormous apple, or two small ones, peeled, cored and diced small
• 1 cup water
• dash each of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg

1. Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Return to a simmer and cook until the apple is mushy.
3. You can mash with a fork, masher or blend.
4. Serve with latkes

I actually don’t know if the sauce is supposed to be hot or cold. I served it warm, because I made it while the knishes were in the oven. I apologise for any offence given by my inappropriate apple sauce serving.

Home made apple sauce

 

Vegan Knishes

Makes about 15

Knishes often have potato in the pastry, but I don’t have proper mashing equipment and couldn’t get it fine enough, so I left it out.

• 1 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/3 cup oil (I used sunflower and olive)
• 2 Tbs to 1/4 cup cold water

• 1 1/2 large potatoes, diced
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 200g tin kidney beans (my very untraditional addition, because we needed to use them up)
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Pre-heat oven (I only have 3 gas marks, so I’m not sure, but I had it on hot, it felt like about 200 to 220 celsius).
2. In a mixing bowl add the oil and flour and mix with a metal spoon until it resembles crumbs. In a warm climate you need to ensure the bowl and spoon are cold to ensure a flaky pastry. Where I am it’s minus 2, so no worries, I mixed by hand.
3. Add a little cold water and mix through with a metal spoon or knife, until combined. Continue to add water, 1 tbs at a time, until your dough is soft and pliable.
4. Smooth the dough into a ball and set aside.
5. Boil the potatoes until tender. Drain leaving just a little boiling water, and mash with together.
6. In a frying pan heat a little oil and fry the leek and garlic until soft.
7. Add the leek and garlic to the potatoes, along with the drained beans and salt and pepper. Mix together and set aside until cool.
8. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about 3 or 4 mm thick.
9. To fill the pastry, spoon the mixture onto the pastry. You can either spoon it down one length of the pastry, roll and chop (like sausage rolls), or spoon it onto the pastry in sections make small pouches.
10. Place knishes on a baking tray and pop into the oven for about 25 minutes.
11. If you have the goods, feel free to brush them with something to aid in colouring. I didn’t as I only had vanilla soy milk, but they coloured okay anyway.
12. Serve with mustard.
    

    Round and flat vegan knishes

 

Sweet Baby Jesus, KFC and 13 Desserts

I’ve been remiss in my continued Christmas posting, but I have three new Christmas food traditions to tell you about so I can make up for it.

 

Cougnou, Belgium

You know that nursery rhyme about blackbirds being baked in a pie? I always though that was a bit gross (notwithstanding the fact that at the time I ate chicken pie very happily).

For some reason that’s the first thing I thought of when I came across this Christmas tradition from Belgium. Yup, bread shaped like baby Jesus. I suppose it makes perfect sense, really- break this bread, its my body and all that – but I just keep balking at the idea of eating a baby. Personally, I don’t really see the resemblance, so if I came across a vegan version I just might tuck in.

13 Dessert, Provence

I was pretty darn thrilled when I heard that there was a legitimate Christmas tradition of eating 13 desserts. Of course, this fabulous food tradition is from France.

The desserts include dried and fresh fruit, nuts, bread, cake, biscuits and nougat.  Some desserts have specific reasons for their inclusion. Light and dark nougats represent good and evil, dates are included to represent the journey from the middle east, dried fruits and nuts represent four monastic orders, a bread to break (not to be cut), and a famous Provencial dessert, Calissons d’Aix.

I am considering doing something like this, because, hello, 13 desserts! If I could do it in Australia I would have:

1. Dates stuffed with marzipan
2. Almonds
3. Raisins
4. Figs
5. Hazelnuts
6. Vegan Christmas log (a log made out of rum ball mixture, instead of yule log, because I’m just not a fan of sponge)
7. Sweet Olive Oil Bread (already vegan)
8. Mango (the French use oranges, but I don’t like them much)
9. Cherries (because why use winter apples when there are cherries in season?)
10. Chocolate fudge (non-traditional, my addition)
11. Mini vegan cheesecake (non traditional, my addition)
12. Gingerbread (not traditional, my addition)
13. Vegan Calissons, because they look fantastic.

If I do it here in Tbilisi, I will have to come up with something to sub for the cheesecake, hazelnuts and Calissons, and I would use the traditional winter fruits (apples, pears, citrus). I wouldn’t be using light and dark nougat to symbolise good and evil, because food is never evil and neither are dark colours.

 

Fried chicken with your honey, Japan

It turns out the Christmas is becoming a widely celebrated event in Japan. The celebrations are generally secular (most Japanese not being Christian), and is generally celebrated on Christmas eve, with a partner or lover. They have a special Christmas cake, a white sponge with cream an strawberries, and like to eat KFC fried chicken for Christmas eve dinner. Yup, you read right.

Apparently KFC may have become popular as a Christmas meal due to an ad some decades ago. It seems to have worked, as people are known to place their order weeks in advance, and line up around the block to pick up their bucket.

If I had anything here that was worth battering and frying I would totally get into this tradition, because I love the “Southern Fried” flavour. Sadly, I am without any tofu, tempeh, seitan, or any other mock, so I think I will make do with nut roast.

(I can see this Christmas food traditions research could turn our meal into a truly decadent event – 13 desserts, deep fried something, bread-babies – its all sounding pretty good.)

A little shout out to the lonely Christmas vegan

Hi there,

I noticed you found my blog, at least three times now, by googling “vegan alone at Christmas” and “vegan–xmas alone”.

I don’t know how you feel about being alone at Christmas, but I guess you’re searching for recipes for one, or things to do? If you want to be less lonely, leave me a comment, and we’ll totally skype you from our own, semi-lonely, Christmas for two.

Well, in case you are looking for inspiration, here’s what I would do, if I were alone this Christmas:

Presents: I would get myself a present, even if it were something free, like a book I already have but haven’t read, or cheap, like a once-off face mask or bubble bath or food I liked. If you save it up, you have something to look forward to.

Contact: If you’re in contact with family, or have friends, I would try to call or Skype them at some point during Christmas day. Just be sure to have something fun planned for afterwards, because sometimes contact people at a party when you’re alone can leave you a little bummed afterwards. If you’re working, why not take something special to work, to share with whoever you meet? If you’re not working, you might also be able to volunteer somewhere at Christmas, and get your social contact that way.

Food: If it was just me for Christmas, I would still focus on good food. If I were in a cold climate, with access to fake bacon, I would make myself some creamy, facon-y pasta, some green beans and brocoli with oil and garlic, and a hot chocolate or mulled wine, and I would buy a Christmas pudding from the shops and microwave it, to have with vegan ice cream. If I didn’t have access to vegan stuff (like here in Tbilisi), I’d chop one carrot, one potato and roast them with herbs and garlic, and make myself a mini stuffing. There are some good recipes here. I’d still have the hot chocolate, and I might dip some chocolate into my hot chocolate, for good measure.

If I was in a warm climate (hello, down there!), I would make myself some panzanella. Its easy and yummy – fry some chopped bread in oil, and set aside. Chop a tomato, a bit of parsely, a clove of garlic, and any salad veg you like. Toss together in a bowl with some chickpeas and walnuts, olive oil, add the bread, add some salt, pepper and herbs and you’re all set. Awesome. I’d also have some cherries or mango, and some favourite ice cream. Instead of hot chocolate, I’d have some sweet, sparkly wine or some apple cider.

Entertainment: I would have a bath, then set myself up on the couch with a good book (maybe a christmas present book), some hand cream (for self-given foot rubs), a blanket (in cold weather), liquids (preferably hot chocolate), and some cherries or strawberries, and a nice, big pile of movies.

When I’m alone, I love me some romantic comedies – a little weepy, but happy in the end- a buddy movie, or something no one will watch with me. Some Christmas favourites of mine are The Holiday, Love Actually, and the Family Stone. TV shows are good, too. I don’t know about you, but the other thing I do when I’m alone is sing along to everything and anything I can find in my music collection.

Tips at Random

My totally subjective tips for being alone on special occasions (and I’ve had some practice with many a birthday or Easter spent on my own):

• Act like it was a choice – whether or not it is, acting like you want to be alone, and focusing on doing what you like, totally helps.
• Celebrate – for me, at least, ignoring it doesn’t work. Bring on the Christmas music and a little tinsel.
• Pick a few things you love, and do them.
• Do stuff your friends/family/partner don’t like doing. This could be eating food you love but they hate, watching something they wouldn’t sit through, going out to to something that bores them, what have you. It helps make it special.
• Cake, but not alcohol. I have found that some “special” food like a really nicely decorated cake, or boxed chocolates, or what have you, makes it feel like a celebration. A little wine also feels celebratory, but a bottle of wine leads you to drunkenly calling everyone you ever liked and sobbing about your aloneness.
• Ditto on the staying up late. If you’re not usually a night owl, go to bed on time. Watching movies at 3am seems to have a similar affect as the whole bottle of wine.
• Light some candles. If you’re like me, and live somewhere with shitty fluro lighting, this helps. Its means you don’t have to choose between being in the dark and being in the harash, glaring light of up-too-late-watching-bad-movies.

Good luck, Vegan Alone At Christmas, and don’t forget to leave me a comment if you want a solidarity skype session.

xoxo

Sweet Vegan Centerpiece for the White Christmas Challenge

I have never participated in a blog challenge before, not even Vegan MoFo. But there’s a first for everything and this year I have decided to enter the Very Good Recipes’ White Christmas Challenge.

The challenge is quite simple: create a new recipe on the theme of “white christmas”.

I knew immediately what I wanted to do. For a few Christmases now I have been thinking of making a sweet, Christmas table centerpiece out of rum balls. I make rum balls every year, but I always cop out of the presentation part (presentation really isn’t my strong suit), so the challenge was the perfect motivation to finally get around to it.

One of the rules of the challenge is to make sure its a new recipe. Well, there are rum ball recipes everywhere, even vegan rum ball recipes, but I have added my own touch and created four new rum ball-style recipes; Chocolate Balls, Lamington Bites, Ginger Bread and Marzipan Balls, and Coconut White Chocolate Balls.

In keeping with this blog’s theme, I made Lamington Bites, based on the popular Aussie dessert, and the Gingerbread and Marzipan balls were German-inspried.

For the “white” part of the theme, I used coconut, white chocolate, and powdered sugar to give a (hopefully) snowy impression.

So here it is, my four-part, vegan, Christmas centerpiece recipe for the sweet tooth in any family.

Vegan Christmas Centrepiece

Vegan Christmas Centerpiece

I have given amounts based on the number of balls I used, however my tree is a little squat, so if your skill surpasses mine, go ahead and use all the balls. I had about 12 balls left over for pre-Christmas enjoyment.

• 1/2 recipe of Chocolate Balls
• 2/3 recipe of Coconut White Chocolate Balls
• Whole recipe Ginger and Marzipan Balls
• Whole Recipe Lamington Bites
• 1 Tbs vegetable shortening
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar or icing mixture
• about 2 tsp marzipan for decorations (you could use any lolly here)
• 2 tsp soy milk
• Large, decorative plate
• 10-20 toothpicks

1. On a pastry board, roll out a small piece of marzipan to about 7mm thickness, and cut into a star shape. Carefully slide a toothpick vertically through the star, so that about 1/2 the toothpick remains visible, and set aside.
2. In a small saucepan, melt the vegetable shortening.
3. Remove from heat and add the sugar, stirring until all lumps are removed and the two are combined.
4. Add soy milk, and stir to combine well.
5. Pour the mixture in a dollop onto the middle of your plate. Encourage the mixture to spread into a circle, taking up about two thirds of the surface of the plate.
6. Arrange your bottom layer of balls so that they cover the icing mixture. Allow to set.
7. Carefully, place a second layer of balls above the first layer, use toothpicks to secure. Make this second layer in a slightly smaller circle than the first.
8. Repeat until you have one single ball as a pinnacle.
9. Top with the marzipan star, by sliding the remaining end of the toothpick into the top ball

You could decorate with sifted powdered sugar, and/or Christmas themed or sparkly lollies. I didn’t as I cant find vegan lollies, and powdered sugar only comes at a premium (and I ran out of my stock). I think it would look great with some sparkly sprinkles, but I don’t have access to them in Tbilisi.

I make so-called “rum balls”, in various incarnations, every Christmas. When I was a (non-vegan) kid, they had sweetened condensed milk and Marie biscuits. In Melbourne I make my own condensed milk from powdered soy milk, and prefer gluten free biscuits. Mostly I leave out the rum, having half a family populated by children, non-drinkers, and rum-haters. That said, for the other side I the family, I have been known to make them with a shot of any spirit that comes to hand, including vodka, schnapps, and one time, tequila.

Here in Tbilisi I have to cook without vegan candy, food colouring, vanilla, flavourings, margarine, rum or anything resembling soy condensed milk or soy milk powder. This makes these versions extra special, but maybe a little more fiddly than usual.

The bottom layer, on top of the icing

During construction

Chocolate Balls

makes about 20

•    150 g plain biscuits (any kind – tea biscuits, digestive, animals, whatever)
•    1/4 cup coconut milk
•    2 tbs brown sugar
•    1 tbs vegetable shortening
•    1/4 cup cocoa
•    1/3 cup powdered sugar
•    3tbs sultanas
•    about 30g dessicated coconut, for rolling

1. Crush the biscuits, either with a food processor, or in a bowl with the bottom of a cup.
2. Add cocoa and powdered sugar, and combine well. Set aside in a clean mixing bowl.
3. In a small saucepan heat the coconut milk and brown sugar, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
4. Remove from heat, add the vegetable shortening, and stir until melted.
5. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry, and mix well with a wooden spoon. Add the sultanas and stir through.
6. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls with your hands, and then roll them through a small bowl of dessicated coconut, to coat.
7. Set on a plate and refrigerate until ready to use (at least 20 minutes).

Chocolate Balls

Lamington Bites

Makes about 10

• 120g biscuits with a good flavour. I used Louts this time, but tea biscuits work well.
• 1/4 cup jam (you could use any, but here I used cornell jam)
• 2 tbsp soy milk
• about 30g dessicated coconut
• 1 tbs cocoa powder

1. In a small bowl, combine cocoa and coconut and set aside.
2. Crush biscuits very finely, using a food processor, or smooshing them with the bottom of a cup.
3. Add jam and milk to the crumbs, and work into a dough with your hands.
4. Roll the mixture into around 10 balls
5. Roll each ball in the cocoa and coconut mixture to coat, and refrigerate until ready to use.
   

   Lamington Bites

Coconut and White Chocolate Balls

makes about 15

•    80ml coconut mik
•    1/4 cup white sugar
•    1 tbs vanilla sugar
•    3 tbs vegetable shortening
•    70g white chocolate
•    40g dessicated coconut
•    1 1/2 cup crushed plain biscuits (I use animal biscuits)
•    30g coconut, for dusting

1. Crush the biscuits in a food processor, or with the bottom of a cup, and set aside.
2. In a small saucepan heat the coconut milk, white sugar and vanilla sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves.
3. Remove from heat and add the shortening and chocolate, stirring until melted and combined.
4. Add coconut and biscuit crumbs, stir to combine. Spread mixture on a plate and refrigerate until cool, about 30 minutes.
5. Roll tablespoon sized balls, coat in more coconut, and refrigerate until ready to use.

Coconut-White Chocolate Balls

Gingerbread and Marzipan Balls

Makes 10.

•    1 1/2 tbs brown sugar
•    3 tbs soy milk
•    2tbs vegetable shortening
•    100g lotus biscuits
•    2 tsp ginger powder
•    1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
•    dash clove powder
•    dash grated nutmeg
•    10 marzipan spuds (if you can’t by them, roll small balls of marzipan)
•    1/3 cup powdered sugar, for coating

1. In a small saucepan heat the milk and sugar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Remove from heat and add the shortening, stirring until melted.
3. In a clean, dry bowl, crush the biscuits finely, and combine with spices.
4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients, then spread on a plate and refrigerate until cool (20 minutes).
5. Divide the mixture into 10 and wrap carefully around the marzipan spuds.
6. Roll in powdered sugar until well coated, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Gingerbread and marzipan balls

I think these ones turned out a little ugly, but you could always roll them in coconut or cocoa instead. I was going for a German christmas cookie look, but I don’t think I got it .

Last but not least, and on a bit of a tangent… The answers for the Christmas Traditions Quiz!

1. Norway
2. Catalonia (so found in Spain, parts of France, Andorra)
3. USA
4. Italy
5. UK
6. Ukraine
7. Georgia
8. Wales

Next up on AroundTheWorlVegan, what do people eat at Christmas around the world?

Merry Bloggy Christmas!

Merry Bloggy Christmas!

Roast meats, ham, potatoes, roasted vegetables, gravy, cake and pudding – we all know what the North Americans and the British eat at Christmas. But what about everyone else?

Because I have time now, and because I keep getting search terms like “What do they eat in Australia for Christmas” on my stats, I’ve decided to set my own little 9 days of Vegan Christmas Blog Theme going (not 12, because I am too late, and I won’t have reliable internet after the 26th).

To have it in keeping with this blog’s theme, I intend to look at some interesting (to me) traditional Christmas foods from a round the world. I clearly don’t have time to cover everyone, but maybe if I miss your country (or a tradition that interests you) I’ll get to it another year.

To start off with, let’s test your Christmas traditions knowledge.

Which country would you hail from if you:

1)    Hide Brooms on Christmas Eve
2)    Have small figurines of people defecating in your nativity scene.
3)    Watch a roaring fire on TV (for 24 hours) instead of having a real one.
4)    Have a witch delivering the presents instead of/as well as an old dude (albeit not at Christmas).
5)    Made a wish when it was your turn to stir the Christmas pudding.
6)    Hang a (plastic) spider web on the Christmas tree.
7)    Join a big march made up mostly of children wearing white on Christmas day.
8)    Carry a horse’s skull on a pole around your town.

I’ll pop the answers up tomorrow, but leave yours in the comments if you want.

Sadly there is no reward for right answers unless you count self satisfaction

So, what are your Christmas traditions? If you’re not religious, do you celebrate Christmas at all?

I recognise that the majority of people in the world do not celebrate Christmas, and that groups celebrate other things at this time of year, such as Hanukha, Kwanzaa, and the New Year, and if you do, I’d love to hear about it.  My focus is on Christmas mainly because its what I know, and I’m interested in the different ways it is celebrated, especially as many people celebrate it even though they have no Christian beliefs.

My little family (Mr and I) are devout atheists, and in my big family there is a little more atheism, a lot of agnosticism, spiritualism and such, but only a little actual Christianity, and yet we still do presents and food and family. Some habits die hard, especially habits involving delicious cake.