Eggplant and mushrooms and walnuts, of course

Kamarjoba!

(Yup, that’s the only word, other than bread, that I can say in Georgian).

Last night’s dinner was intended to be all Georgian, all the way, however, of course, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

I had intended to make my own version of the fabulous eggplant and cinnamon dish that I get at Goodwill (the supermarket), and serve it alongside mushrooms and cream, and a red bean salad. Unfortunately I forgot that I  didn’t actually have any red beans, Mr having used them all up in his signature kidney bean, soy sauce and coriander dish the night before. Also, I rarely have the patience for eggplant, and this was not an exceptional evening.

As I didn’t realise that I was out of red beans until I had already made most of the salad, I have to apologise to all of Georgia for presenting my “Georgian Red Bean Salad”, made with chickpeas. The horror!

I am posting the recipe for my version of the eggplant with cinnamon dish, and if you actually follow it, yours should turn out really nicely. I got sick of salting the eggplant and started cooking it too soon, and then didn’t wait long enough before I added the water, so mine was a little undercooked. I also burned my finger, which is bad because I don’t have patience for holding burned fingers under the tap for long enough, either.

Both the mushrooms in cream and the salad recipe originally came from GeorgianTaste, however I am re-posting them with my vegan/available ingredient related changes. If you have access to vegan cooking cream, I suggest you try to follow the original recipe for the mushrooms- mine was great, but real cream would have been even better.

From front, clockwise: Bread, Eggplant and Cinnamon, Mushrooms in Cream, and (chickpea) Bean Salad.

Eggplant and Cinnamon

We’ve been loving the eggplant and cinnamon dish I get at the deli, so I though I’d give it a try.

• 1 medium eggplant, diced, salted for 40 minutes
• 1 onion, diced finely
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• olive oil
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, or more if you like
• dash cloves
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• dash fenugreek
• 1 tablespoon minced dill (or if you don’t have any, some dill-flavoured vinegar from the pickle jar)
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 cup water
• salt,to taste

1. Leave the eggplant to salt for ages and ages, seriously! (about 30-40 minutes) I never do this for as long as I should and it makes it a bit crap. Then give it a pat down or a rinse.
2. In as much oil as you are comfortable with (between 2 tablespoons and about 1.3 cup), fry the onion, garlic and eggplant together until the eggplant is soft (this takes a while).
3. Add the tomato, spices, and water. Stir together and leave at a simmer to cook down. This takes about 25 minutes, but check it occasionally.
4. Taste, and add salt as wanted.
5. Serve sprinkled with a little chopped coriander and some pomegranate seeds.

 

Red Bean Salad

Original recipe here.

• 2 garlic clove, minced
• 4 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
• 1/2 red onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped, not ground
• 2 tablespoons white  wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp red pepper powder
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups can kidney beans, drained and rinsed (clearly, I used chickpeas)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Only one step – mix everything together!

Bean Salad

Mushrooms in Cream, Soko Arazhanit

Originally from this recipe. My version, below, makes enough for two, as a side dish.

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• a little olive oil
• 1 cups of mushrooms, trimmed and thickly sliced
• 1 tablespoon of vegan margarine (I can’t get margarine so I use vegan lard here)
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 1/2 cups soy milk (unsweetened)
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 tsp powdered cloves
• sat to taste

1. Cook the garlic and mushrooms in a little oilve oil until soft.
2. Add the margarine and flour. Stir constantly until a soft dough forms, then continue to stir and cook for about 5 minutes (this “cooks out” the floury flavour).
3. Add a 1/4 cup of soy milk, and stir into a paste. Continue to add milk, a little at a time, until you have added 1 cup.
4. Add the spices, pepper, bay, a little salt and parsley, and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Mixture should have thickened a little. Add extra soy milk if needed, and stir through. Remove bay leaf, and serve  with rice, pasta or bread.

Greek Week

Okay, so this is another of the countries we culinarily visited while I was busy packing up our house in Melbourne. In fact, I only had time to make two days worth of Greek food and this just isn’t enough, especially for a cuisine with so much linking it to food in Melbourne, so I will be revisiting Greece on the blog in the future. I will introduce Greece properly at that time.

For now, some photos and links for recipes.

Of course, one of the first things I knew I had to make for Greek week was a salad. A Greek salad, of course. It happened to be very well timed – my garden was producing copious amounts of lovely, tasty, brightly coloured mini tomatoes, crisp green capsicum and glossy, leafy greens. I added kalamata olives, cucumber and chickpeas, and left out the cheese. Yum.

Vegan Greek Salad

Next up was stuffed capsicums. Not the green ones from my garden this time, but some pretty yellow ones I picked up at the Preston Market. I stuffed them with herbed rice (parsley, thyme, oregano, sultanas, pine nuts and almonds) and baked them.

Beautiful stuffed yellow capsicum

All plated up with herbed rice

The next day we were heading off on a road trip to see some family for the last time before we set off on our big adventure (the adventure we’re currently on). I decided keep or road food on-theme, and made some spanakopita triangles and baklava, and cheated by buying some dolmades from the supermarket.

Spanakopita

I perused a number of recipes for Spanakopita, then made up my own. The amounts are gone from my memory though, so a brief description will have to do.

You will need:

• Filo pastry
• lots and lots of fresh spinach
• oil
• an onion, diced
• fresh parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper
• vegan cheese, crumbled
• tofu (hard), crumbled
• nutmeg
• soy milk for brushing

1. Pre-heat the oven to (probably) around 180 celsius. Defrost filo if required
2. Chop and steam the spinach.Drain it, squeezing out excess water, and put aside.
3. Saute the chopped onion in a little olive oil.
4. Remove from heat. Add drained spinach, chopped parsley,crumbled tofu and vegan cheese. Mix loosely.
5. Taste, and add salt, pepper and nutmeg as desired (The nutmeg is my addition, as I am a big big fan, feel free to leave it out).
6. Peel off a few filo sheets as one. Fill with the spinach mixture and seal the edges with a little water, to make a triangle shape. Repeat with remaining filling
7. Brush the tops of the triangles with a little soy milk and bake until lightly browned.
8. Allow to cool a little before serving. If you are going to travel with them, allow to cool completely before putting them in a container (or they get soggy).

Melty, wonderful baklava

I was so impressed with how easy and fabulous the baklava turned out to be. I used this recipe, and substituted vegan margarine for the butter. Easy as.

Have Greek food, will travel

We were very satisfied travelers, munching on spanakopita and dolmades and baklava at the truck stop. This will definitely be repeated.

Links

http://rawvegangreece.blogspot.com/  - as it suggestes, this is a blog about a Greek raw vegan. Awesome.

http://www.thisdishisvegetarian.com/2011/03/1408greek-vegetarian-couple-goes-to.html – a story about a Greek couple being refused an adoption due to their vegetarianism.

Also, I know someone f who is a Planet VeGMeL recently made vegan spanakopita, but for the life of me I can’t find the recipe now… any help?

 

 

 

More Italian Stuff

There are a few Italian things I didn’t get around to making this time, partly due to a 10 hour, unconsummated hospital visit (everyone is fine) which will have to repeated sometime this week partly due to stupid drunk people who had accidents on Australia Day. This means that sadly I used up all the vegies I had planned to make antipasti with in a midnight stirfry, and also used some of the ingredients intended for polenta.

There are a few Italian things I have made though, which haven’t made it into the blog so far.  This is a post about them.

Tomato Bread

I love making bread – its very calming, it smells good, and there’s just something satisfying about easting home made bread. This one has tomato paste and chopped sun dried tomatoes in it. I made one loaf, and one group of tomato scrolls, with extra tomato paste, cheezly and olives.

The loaf

Sliced

Scrolls

Big Salads

Contrary to what the posts might show, we have also been eating a lot of delicious vegies! Here are a few pics as proof.

Big sweet potato and brocoli salad

Berries and mint salad dressing

Roast onion and tomato salad

Eggplant

Bean and facon salad

Bruschetta

I made Brushcetta with my home made tomato bread. I don’t seem to have a picture, which is sad because it was very pretty. So, you’re just gonna have to trust me that it was fab. We used mashed cannellini beans with lemon juice, and a mixture of chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil and olive oil. Yummy lunch.

Beans and Sausage and Philipino Spring Rolls

Ah, the perils of waiting too long between cooking the thing and writing about the thing. I can’t for the life of me remember the real name of this bean dish, or anything much about it, except that it was good.

A mixture of tomatoes, green capsicum, beans and sausage, it was similar to an Italian salad, but had very Spanish flavours. Really yum.

I do remember, also, that it was the first time I had tried the picnicker sausages from The Radical Grocery Store, and I have been completely in love with them since!

Unfortunately, you’ll just have to make do with a picture, because that’s everything I remember!:

Philipino Beans and Sausage

I remember a lot more about the spring rolls.

Philipino spring rolls are called Lumpia. They have a slightly different filling than chinese spring rolls – relying more on beef and garlic, although they still include the cabbage and other vegetables. To make mine, I used frozen spring roll wrappers, not trusting my think-pancake-type-food skills, and I used tempeh as the main filling ingredient, along with lots of cabbage.

I usually love spring rolls, but I wasn’t so hot about these. I think that’s due to the tempeh filling which had a very bitter flavour for some reason. If I make them again, I will use seitan, tofu or just vegetables.

Lumpia

 

 

What’s been going on lately

I’ve been loving everyone’s VeganMoFo posts, which I’ve just caught up with this morning. November (and October before it) have been for me more like VeganMoPho – Month Of Phones. So, so busy at the moment, and my phone rings constantly. (On Friday night I turned my phone off at midnight, and had two missed work calls when I got up in the morning at 8am).

I haven’t had time to write, but I have (of course!) found time to cook. I’ll post some RoundTheWorld updates soon (we’ve been doing Belarus and the Philippines) but for now I want to gloat about some recent kitchen successes.

Success number 1 – home made pasta

Homemade pasta

I LOVE homemade pasta. I learned to make it at high school, and have made it as often as I can ever since. It had been a while, and I had a Sunday afternoon to myself, so I whipped some up.

My ‘recipe’ is really based on what it should look and feel like, so it isn’t easily recordable. However, I can give a description. It is really very easy. I get some good Type 00 white flour, and put in on a bench in a volcano shape. Make a well. Add water slowly, a little at a time, slowly mixing the flour in. Keep doing this until you form a dough that is light, malleable, and not too sticky. If it is too dry, add water, if it is too wet, add flour.

Flour the bench and knead just until the dough is smooth. It should be consistent and not have lumps or dry bits. Let the dough rest for a while, until you can poke it and the indent doesn’t shrink back much ( a little is ok). This takes between 10 and 30 minutes, depending on how long you had to knead it.

Now, roll it out and cut it into shapes. I have a pasta maker to do this, but usually I just use a rolling pin and a knife.

Cook the pasta for about 7 minutes in boiling water with a little olive oil. Top with anything you like. I used facon, cherry tomatoes, basil leaves, olive oil, lemon juice, almonds, spinach, capers and broad beans. Yum!

Success 2 – Fridge Dregs Feast

The next success came on a weekday morning, before work. We had lots of vegetables, but no soy or beans to speak of. It was going to be hot and I didn’t feel like eating a bake or nut roast, or coming home and cooking.

Instead, I decided to take some mezze/antipasti inspirations, and went to town with the vegies at the bottom of my fridge before work.

The result was: Sun dried zucchini with mint, ‘Honey’ roast carrot and parsnips, almonds, olives, quinoa, dregs ratatouille, and saffron potatoes. No recipes for this one, just a dodgy pic.

Fridge Dregs Feast

Success 3 – Garden soup and potato salad

The most recent success was last week, when we had (again) not much in the fridge, but LOTS in the garden.

Check out the garden haul:

Broad beans, kale, silverbeet, onion, spinach and herbs!

I decided I wanted potato and broad bean salad (I love this combo), and wanted to eat the greens in a soup.

Again, no recipes for this, just pics:

Green soup

A fried decided to come round for dinner (yay!) so I added some fry’s strips to the potato salad mix, to make it go a little further. It was an awesome combination, and I will definitely do it again. I added some oregano, watercress and rosemary from the garden, too.

Boss potato salad with strips, broad beans and herbs

And that’s it for the moment.

Hopefully I’ll be posting on the theme again shortly… that said, my phone just got a message.

Mezze two

On Mezze night number two, we had pumpkin kibbeh, tabouli, bean dip, flat bread chips, and fried tempeh kibbeh. Overall, it was delicious, and I have to say I’m pretty proud of my new creation, the fried tempeh kibbeh.

The pumpkin Kibbeh was bought from the Middle East Bakery on Hope st. I just happened upon them in the freezer while I was looking for the ill-fated felafel. They are vegan, and cooked straight from frozen, so they’re quick and hard to stuff up, which is always a winning combination.

I picked the bean dip after a cursory net serach about Lebanese food. I have since discovered that it is not Lebanese, but Egyptian. For that I apoligse. However I did make it, because it is what I had the ingredients for, and I have to say it was very yummy.  I used this recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, and served it with vegetable crudites and flat bread chips.

Bean dip with capsicum, carrot and snow peas from our garden

I made the tabouli from a recipe in Arak and Mezze (available from the Moreland Libraries), however I overestimated the amount of parsley I had left so it was a little heavy on the burghul.

As tasty as all of this was, the main event was the tempeh kibbeh. I made these up because we had some tempeh that needed using, and I wanted to try my hand at veganising the meat kibbeh I always see at Lebanese restaurants.

Pumpkin kibbeh to the right, Tempeh Kibbeh on the left

Vegan Tempeh Kibbeh

• 250 g tempeh, mashed
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 3 tablespoons of soaked burghul
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• pinch cayenne pepper
• 2 chopped spring onions
• salt, to taste
• oil, for frying

1. With your hands, mash all ingredients together very well, until there are very few tempeh lumps left. If it is too dry, add a little oil. If it is too wet, add some more bread crumbs.
2. Taste the mixture, add salt if necessary.
3. Roll the mixture into balls.
4. Deep fry the balls in batches, in a wok or deep fryer. You could also bake the balls in the oven for a lighter dish.
5. Serve with bread and salad.

 

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.

Felafel – my fail, and some reviews

Felafel is a vegan staple, for Melbournians at least, as its widely available and always vegan (so long as you remember to hold off on the yoghurt and garlic sauce).

We buy it when we can’t be bothered to cook, but we also make it at home sometimes, albeit from a packet mix.

I had intended to make it from scratch, but that really wasn’t going to help me with my new lack of kitchen time. So, this time, I bought the frozen ones from the Middle Eastern Bakery on Hope st.

I rushed out of the house the morning of intended felafel night, pulling them from the freezer for Mr, who had agreed to make the dinner that night. I briefly glimpsed a warning on the packet, “this product should be defrosted in…”. I assumed fridge, and put them in. I should have actually read the packet.

That night I got home, with bought hommus (SUPER slack week), to find Mr in the kitchen, none to happy.Turns out it does not say to defrost them in the freezer, it says to defrost them in a collander. Because they get soggy if you don’t, and then they don’t fry. In fact, it makes them fall to pieces and turn into felafel crumbs, like this:

Fall-apart Felafel

So, that’s how we managed to stuff up frozen felafel. They did turn out yummy nonetheless, though next time I’ll go back to using the Orgran mix, which is fail-proof.

The rest o it worked though. Yummy tomatoes, fresh bread, Aldi hommus (the King of bought hommus, IMHO), and greens from the garden.

A quick tip for newbies – When you lay the bread out, rip it gently along the edges so that you end up with two disks. Offset these a little, then add the filling and roll up. I often wondered why my felafel rolls dripped, and so I paid close attention to the people at the Middle East Restaurant. This is what they do, and it works

Bread in two pieces stops drips

I thought I had taken a photo of the finished felafel, but clearly i didn’t. Sorry

___________________________________

If you’re feeling really slack, or want to pretend that felafel isn’t deepfried (you can’t deny the truth if you make them at home), you can always go out. Here are my top three picks for Brunswick/Coburg felafel.

Middle East Restaurant, Sydney Road. I can’t find the address for this at the moment, but its the sit-down restaurant above Moreland road, on the East side of the street, that claims to have the best vegetarian felafel. This shop is my pick if you love the trimmings – pickels, tabouli, tahini sauce, and lots of chilli, as well as Tamarind drink to wash it down with.

Pit Stop Kebab, cnr Moreland rd and Sydney rd. This place makes toasted felefel rolls, without pickels, but with the added benefit of having vegan hot chips and wonderful home made dolmades. Yum!

Aghadeer, Sydney road, west side, near Moreland road. Aghadeer does your basic felafel – tabouli, tomato and onion with hommus. Its open more often that Pit Stop though, and you get to listen/watch singing and dancing that is usually going on in the function room behind.

 

“Edible” Playdough: at least it wasn’t blue

Next up in our culinary trip to Tanzania, we tried Kuku Paka (tofu in coconut milk), Kachumbali salad, and Ugali, the national grain dish. I let you know now, it was a dreary night, with a rush to eat, bad photos, and not my best cooking effort. Sorry.

For the tofu in coconut milk, I reformed this omni recipe, substituting tofu for the chicken. It tasted great – a lovely mild curry, with lots of yummy coconut milk – but turned out a little thin. I figured that would be ok though, as it would be served with the Ugali.

Ugali is usually made with maize, and is basically a grain-mush, so far as I can tell. It is eaten with curries, by scooping some into your hand, putting a thumb-sized well in it, and using it to scoop up sauces and stews. We are big fans of eating sans-utensils, so I thought this would be fun.

I looked up various recipes, and eventually settled on this one. It is supposedly very popular, and served with most meals, and I was hopeful that it would turn out better than it sounded. Alas, water and corn-grit mixed together and heated until it is the consistency of playdough tastes and feels quite a lot like it sounds… gritty and beyond-bland.

After a few determined mouthfuls, I caved, and made some very quick cous cous instead, to help us finish the meal. This is one of those times when I just have to admit defeat, and sigh over the immense Western-ness of my palate. *sigh*

We also had Kachumbali salad, which is apparently the most ubiquitous salad in Tanzanian cooking. It consists of cabbage, tomato, chilli, onion, corriander, oil and salt. I used this recipe from Taste of Tanzania. I’m not usually a fan of cabbage, however this salad was divine.

A little salty, sour and slightly warm, it was the perfect accompaniment to the curry, but I think it would also work well with vegan BBQ or a spicy tomato-based dish. The dish I wasn’t sure about ended up saving the night!

It was, as I said, a bit of a rushed night, but I’m not sure that even that can excuse this photo:

Top left: Ugali. Everything else: Tofu in coconut milk

Quesadillas

Tasty, easy Quesadillas with guacamole and salsa fresca made up our first meal from Mexico.

Quesadillas are popular in Mexico and in the United States, but there are some differences. Mexican Quesadillas use corn tortillas, not flour, tend to have only one or two fillings, and are made by folding one tortilla in half, not putting one on top of the other.

The word Quesadilla just means “cheese in a tortilla”, and that’s what I went with in ours. I used Cheezly vegan cheese, which tasted great, but didn’t stick the tortilla halves together like dairy cheese does. We don’t possess a press of any sort either (tortilla, sandwich, other), which may have contributed to this problem, as I just slid them under the grill attached to my oven.

Despite the lack of sticking, the meal was delicious. I am a bit of a fake-cheese fanatic, and will eat any variety in any way, so I was bound to be impressed.

Quesdailla, a difficult photo for my little camera to get.

The tortilla and cheeze went well with the salsa fresca and guacamole, mixing spicy, creamy and tangy. Recipes, if you can call them that, for such easy fare, are below.

Salsa Fresca

• 3 tomatoes, diced (use ripe red ones)
• 2 spring onions, chopped finely
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 a Jalepeño chilli (the short, fat, green ones)
• a small bunch (technical, I know) of corriander, chopped
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 2 tsp oil (I used flax to up our Omega 3, but you could use any oil)
• pinch salt

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl immediately before serving.

Spicy salsa fresca

Guacamole

• 2 Avocados
• 2 spring onions, chopped finely
• 1 small tomato, diced finely
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• small dash of Tabasco Sauce (yeah, i cheated)
• pinch of sea salt

Mash all ingredients together in a small bowl immediately before serving.

Creamy Guacamole