Sisig and squash in coconut milk

Sisig is a mince dish, Filipino-style, and it is served in bars, like beer nuts. Its sort of sweet and sour, with pineapple and calamansi lime juice, ginger, garlic, onion and peppers.

I used this recipe from http://www.pinoyrecipe.net, although I subbed Sanitarium vegetarian mince for all the various parts of pig usually used (cheeks, heart, tongue, liver). Veganising also meant I skipped the grilling steps, and went straight to cooking the vegan mince in the marinade.

Vegan Sisig - much better than it looks

In all it was a tasty, quick meal, and yet another fun way of getting some fortified protein on a busy week-night.

We ate the Sisig with Ginataan Kalabasa, or Squash in Coconut Milk. The recipe generaly calls for prawns, but I just left them out.

I used this recipe from Filipino-foods.com, and left out the prawns and fish sauce. I subbed Massel stock for meat-based stock, and added a tiny bit of soy sace in place of the fish stock and shrimp paste.

The updated recipe looked like this:

Squash in Coconut Milk

• 2 tb olive oil
• 1/2 a small butternut pumpkin, large dice
• two small handfuls of green beans, top and tailed
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 1 small onion, small dice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tb ginger, minced
• 1 green chilli, sliced in half lengthwise
• 1 can Coconut Cream ( I use the Ayam brand, the green can that has no extras in it)
• 1/2 cup water mixed with 1 tb Massel chicken style stock powder
• 2 tb soy sauce

1. Heat oil on a saucepan. Cook onion until tranlucent (about 10 minutes) then add garlic and ginger and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.
2. Add the squash, tomatoes, beans, coconut cream, and stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer until the squash is almost cooked through (10 minutes or so).
3. Add the chilli and soy sauce. Continue to simmer until squash is tender, but not falling apart, about 5 minutes. Serve.

Squash in Coconut milk

This was a tasty way to eat pumpkin/squash, which isn’t my favourite vegie, I have to admit. (Except in soup, then it gets 4th or 5th place in the fave vegie stakes). I would make it again, but next time I would add a little more ginger, and a little less chilli.

I’ll introduce Belarus a little later…

…today, I’m just going to tell you about what I’ve been cooking from Belarus instead!

Draniki and Machanka

Draniki are little potato pancakes, eaten with sour cream and a meat and lard sauce, Machanka. So, you know, a variation on the general theme of meat, potatoes and lard that seems to be found throughout Belarussian cuisine.

The original draniki recipe calls for grated potato held together with egg, but I used a little more flour than called for, and some home made soy milk. They held their shape fine. I also added a little salt and pepper, because I’m wild like that (and I wasn’t sure my mock-up of “meat and lard sauce” was gonna be palatable).

I used a tiny bit of olive oil, some very well cooked onion, some tvp mince and some Massel beef style stock to create the sauce. For good measure I threw in some facon at the last minute. It turned out something between a sauce and a soup, with chunks of mince and facon floating in it. It was tasty, but it had a texture I wasn’t that into.

Draniki on the left, Machanka in the cup, and steamed veg on the right

I served our machanka and draniki with a little dollop of Tofutti sour cream and a nice big side of steamed greens and carrots in an attempt to balance out all that mock and oil.

The draniki were delicious, if a little oily – I don’t use kitchen paper towel, but haven’t yet found a good solution, as my tea towels always leave everything fluffy. I might try them again one day, but cook them in the oven with a LOT less oil.

and one in pink

A little shout out here to my Mum for giving me those beautiful cups for my birthday, and to their creater, who did a truly awesome job. I wanted to credit her, but I lost her business card. (mum, can you comment?)

I love them. I use them for tea, for sauces and whatever else I can. They’re dishwahser and microwave safe (which would be fab if I had either one) and feel really nice and solid in your hands.

Things I’m loving on VeganMoFo:

K’s posts on arranging spices and making honeycomb. Yum.

Tahn of Vegan Family vs Omni World, and the lentil biccies. I’ll have to try them.

Everyone’s ice -cream making. I think I know what I’m getting with my (still unspent!) birthday monies now.

Pizza

I used to love Lebanese pizza, but it has been a long time since I’ve had any, given it is usually covered cheese.

Lebanese pizza looks like other pizza, though the dough is covered in Zatar (a mix of oregano and spices) with only one or two other toppings added.

I cheated, which is the theme of the week really, and used zatar bread bought at my local Middle East Bakery, on Hope st. We picked a few toppings, based on what we’d seen at Tabets on the non-veg pizzas.

The results were:

Tomato, sundried tomato and capers,

Tomato pizza

Mince pizza,

Mince and capsicum

and Cheezly with olives and tomatoes, not pictured.

Zatar pizza made for a quick and delicious meal. Using pre-baked Zatar means you get a cripsy pizza, and you need to use pre-cooked or no-cook toppings. You could make your own dough to get a softer base.

 

Mezze 1

• Babaganoyj (eggplant)
• Tomato salad
• chickpea dip with “beef”
• potato kibbeh

The list above is what I had intended to make for our first mezze night. It didn’t work out exactly as I had hoped though.

First to make the babaganoyj (spelling taken from the book I used, but there seem to be a few ways). The recipe, from the book Arak and Mezze: The Taste of Lebanon, said to put the whole eggplant in the oven and roast it, turning, until the skin was brown. It seemed unlikely to happen in the 5 minutes prescribed, but I gave it a go. It took 15 minutes, but it did get there, to my relief.

Next was to scoop out the flesh and mash it. As I sliced into the eggplant I could sense there might be a problem – it was a really, really seedy one. I was supposed to remove the seeds, but there were just too many, so I left them in. I then tried to mash it, only to find that some of it was better cooked than other parts.

I tried to keep on, and added the tahini, lemon juice, etc, but in the end it was a seedy, uneven, overwhelmingly-tahini-flavoured mush, that just didin’t work. Even Mr thought it was a bit crap, and he eats just about anything. I didn’t get a photo before it was added to the compost, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Ah well, on to the potato kibbeh and tomato salad.

However, I got home, looked through the pantry and realised I didn’t actually buy any potatoes or sour cream (for the tomato salad).

So, onwards and upwards I turned my hand to making cauliflower kibbeh instead. Kibbeh, in this context, seems to mean mashed something with burghul. So, I steamed and mashed and soaked and salted, and it turned out like this:

Kibbeh, tastes much less bland than it looks

A very yummy use of my second favourite vegetable.

For the salad, I just cut up tomatoes, marinated them in lemon juice and sumac, then mixed them with cucumber, parsley and some spinach from our garden. Yum.

Tomato salad, Keira-style

The last part of our meal was the best, and certainly the easiest, due to some cheating on my part.

We had hommus with “beef”, however I used bought hommus from Aldi (perhaps the best bought hommus in Australia) and Sanitarium mince, so it was pretty easy. This was tasty, filling, and a little different than our usual use of hommus, so I’ve added the recipe for you to recreate some fast food at home.

Hommus with "beef" and pine nuts

Easy-Peasy Cheaters’ Vegan Hommus with Beef

• 250g Hommus
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 1 packet Sanitarium (or other) vegan mince
• 1/2 tsp fennel powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tbsp dried parsley flakes
• salt and pepper to taste

1. In a dry pan toast the pine nuts. Watch them closely, as they burn easily. Put aside.
2. In the same pan heat some olive oil, and cook the onion for 5-10 minutes, until translucent.
3. Add the mince, and mash with a fork.
4. Stir the spices through, and add salt to your tastes.
5. Remove from heat, stir the pine nuts through.
6. On a serving plate, arrange the hommus in a ring, with a well in the middle. Put the mince and pine-nut mixture into the ring. Serve with vegetables and flat bread.

Picadillo and a Bean Bonanza

Picadillo is a mince-based dish, sometimes eaten alone, and sometimes used as a filling for various tortilla dishes like burritos and tacos. It is served in many countries, including the Phillipines, and is basically just mince and vegetables.

I used this recipe from MexicanFoodie and served it up with some rice cooked with tomatoes, chillies, capsicum and onions, as a sort of Mexican Risotto.

It was the perfect weeknight dinner- fast, filling, tasty, and with a nice protein hit from the vegan mince we used.

Picadillo and rice - not exactly photogenic

On the last day of Mexico week, it was time to make refried beans. I had a lot of bits and pieces in the cupboard and the fridge, and decided to turn this into meal less ordinary, with some inspiration drawn from Vegan Mexican Food’s 7 layer Fiesta Bean Dip.

I used variations on this recipe to produce to versions of refired beans: a typical kidney bean version with chilli, and my own canellini (white) bean version with some nooch, liquid smoke and cumin.

I made a quick red salsa and green salsa, and mashed some avocado, then layered them to make a 5 layered bean dip in the colours of the Mexican flag (kinda, and with repeats).

It was tasty and filling, and I served it with steamed vegies and some bread. Top marks, if I do say so myself, for creative use of fridge dregs.

Layers - not exactly neat, but you get the idea

Its pretty from this angle