Jessy's Sweet and Spicy Adzuki buddah bowls

I am sorry I haven't been posting for a while (apart from the other day). I have been flat out with work and although I have been cooking - it has been later in the evening and the light in our kitchen isn't that great and so many photos are coming out very blurry. But not this one!!

I love food in a bowl - its just very comforting - and with winter creeping up on us I think I will be making a lot more heavier/bowl friendly meals over the next few months.

I was feeling like something a bit different for dinner - I had some broccoli and kale and then I saw Jessy's recipe for sweet 'n sour adzuki buddah bowls and I knew that it was meant to be.

I love adzuki beans because they don't take that long to cook and they have a really distinctive flavour - now they don't win in my favourite bean contest (that is easily butter beans and chickpeas) but they are pretty good (but aren't all beans good??)

These bowls are awesome - I didn't have any cashews or sriracha but I did put in a little hot sauce. I also couldn't be bothered removing the veggies from the pan and then working with the beans before mixing it all back together - after the veggies were cooked I just shoved in the beans and then heated through.

I served this over buckwheat beause I love it and don't eat it enough. Mmmmmm it was wonderful - but then all of the recipes of Jessy's that I have tried are so it is no surprise. If you haven't seen Jessy's blog Happyveganface you should totally check it out!!!

Mum's Zucchini and corn stew

I have for you all another of those 'mum' recipes. There are recipes that my mum used to cook all the time and are tried and true and just yum. This is the first time I have made this since I moved out of home (about 3 years ago) - I don't know why I haven't made it for Nat yet - I guess I have had other things to make - or never had all three main ingredients (kidney beans, zucchini and corn) on hand together. My kidney beans were a little different in colour to what you find in cans (more purple) but they are still wonderful.

I served the stew over some quinoa but it is also wonderful over rice or cous cous. Nat cleaned up his plate and by the time I was home from work the next day he had also devoured all the left overs.

The copy of the recipe that I have is handwritten and I don't know where it came from - so apologies for not giving credit where credit is due (that includes if mum is the creator)

Mum's Zucchini and Sweet-corn Stew
1 onion - chopped finely
2 cloves garlic- crushed or minced
3-4 medium zucchini's - sliced (mum had written 450g of zucchini)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cummin
1 cup sweet corn kernels
2 cups (or 1 can) red kidney beans - drained and rinsed
1/2 large or 1 small red capsicum cut into 1cm cubes
1 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 - 1 tsp chili paste (to taste)
sea salt to taste

1. Heat a small amount of oil (or water) in a large saucepan and saute onion 5-10mins until soft and transparent.
2. Add garlic, spices, red capsicum and zucchini and cook for a further 5 minutes.
3. Add tomatoes, sweetcorn, beans and chili paste.
4. Simmer for 10-15mins.
5. Serve over rice, cous cous or quinoa.

Pot-luck fun and food

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately - I have been pretty vague since the end of exams and through sheer vagueness I have had a few too many kitchen disasters since I last posted - the sheer number of brain-farts I have experienced has been astounding... for example - I made hummus and totally forgot the lemon juice!!! What is hummus without lemon juice??? And that is just the beginning of the disasters - but I don't want to dwell on those because today I went to an awesome potluck for the group Vegetarian Tasmania.

I knew that there were some raw foodies going and so I decided to make a raw dessert and then I complimented it with a fresh (and easy) salad because another brain-fart made me think that I had an extra hour of preparation time up my sleeve and so I wasn't able to make the other raw main dish that I was going to make - so I settled with the simplest quickest salad in the world. Looks fresh and appatising and also is able to be thrown together in 10minutes with minimal effort (shouldn't every meal be like that sometimes??

This simple bean salad has frozen green beans and corn that have been lightly steamed and then rinsed. A can of 4bean mix, about a can of chickpeas (I had some that I had cooked and left in the fridge), some celery, cucumber, red capsicum and spring onion or red onion. I just sprinkled the salad with a little salt water but it is also really good with any of your favourite french or italian dressing.

For dessert I made raw bliss balls. They were so good - I really had to stop myself from eating the mixture while making the balls because it was SO good. They were a hit with the poeple at the lunch and the lady who gave the raw food demonstration and her husband were really impressed and wanted the recipe. That is a sucess in my book :)

Lady's Raw Bliss Surprise

5 dates - soaked in water for a few hours or overnight
110g dessicated coconut (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 1/2 tbsp raw cacao powder
enough raw agave syrup to bind the mixture into balls (between 1/4 and 1/2 cup)
almonds (optional)

Drain the dates and blend in a food processor with the oil, coconut and cacao powder. When processed quite finely, add 1/4 cup agave syrup and process for about 30 seconds. Stop and grab a ball of mixture and squeeze gently to see if it sicks together. If it holds together well the mixture is ready. If not, add a little more agave, process and then test the mixture again.

Once the mixture is ready you can either roll the mix into balls or you can use an almond as the centre of the ball and form the mix around the almond. I was able to take these straight to the potluck and they held together well, but the 3 that I kept for Nat in the fridge were much firmer and really nice.

Nat after he bit through his bliss ball.

It makes 20-24 balls - depending on wether you use almonds or not.

Another keeper - Spaghetti and Beanballs

Well its the day after Vegan Mofo - but technically I cooked this last night which was during Mofo.I have been trying to make better use of my cook books and with Veganomicon it is not hard to find really yummy looking new recipes. I feel a bit guilty as I have not had pasta for a few months (I just haven't bought any). I know Nat loves spaghetti and so I got some spelt spaghetti from my parents business with the intention to finally try spaghetti and beanballs. Well its taken a little while but I finally got round to making this beauty of a recipe.

I defrosted some kidney beans but they weren't quite enough to make the full recipe. So, after I ate some of the kidney beans before and during the mashing phase (whoops) I realised I should probably half the recipe. The only substitution was that I used cornflake crumbs instead of bread crumbs (after my horror of a discovery).

I have read that other people have found that their beanballs were a bit mushy. I think my disregard for following recipes and the fact that I wasn't sure when Nathan would come home from work saved this from occurring for me. I added extra gluten flour (half because I forgot I was halving the recipe and half because the mixture looked a little wet). I also baked these balls using olive oil cooking spray. After I had cooked them and turned them and cooked them again I realised that Nat wasn't going to be home for a while. So I let the balls cool in my toaster oven until Nat came home. Then I completed the baking of the balls by adding the spaghetti sauce. I think this helped the balls to stick well together - they weren't going to fall apart at all.

I didn't use the marinara sauce from Vcon, instead I used a spaghetti sauce recipe that I use for lasagne's. Basically, I sauté some onion and garlic in broth (or oil) then add 800g (2 cans) diced tomatoes and tomato paste, basil, thyme, oregano, a bay leaf, salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. I won't bother posting exact quantities for two reasons; 1. people tend to have their favourite pasta sauce and 2. I often adjust the seasonings to taste instead of following a recipe - pasta sauce is a good recipe to start this practice.

We loved these balls -but don't be fooled - they taste nothing like meatballs (which is probably better for me) but Nat thought that it would be cool if I could find a 'meatier' texture for the meatball (he also really wants me to make these again though).

So... what would be a good meaty texture?? I was thinking TVP or some sort of seitan creation... does anyone have any suggestions or good recipes??

Tried and True Mexican Chili Beans

Home again. Nat and I drove down a day earlier than expected so that he could catch up with a friend today. Once we arrived home and I had unpacked and put away everything from our trip it was quite late in the day. My parents own a organic wholesaler business and so I always home home with all the staples that I am running low on. This time I returned with Agave, red lentils, brown rice, dried red kidney beans and chickpeas, quinoa, dried dates, nutritional yeast, spelt spaghetti, kamut tubes, flax seeds, raw sugar, a box of soymilk, some chocolate samples that they had been sent (yummy) and probably lots of other things that I can't remember.

So - I was too tired to go to the shops to stock up on vegetables. On the way home we briefly called into a grocer and I picked up some celery and capsicum as being at home had reminded me of another of those recipes I grew up on: mum's mexican chili beans.

Mum and Dad decided to become vegan when my brother and I were very little. This was before the internet, and so mum's recipes were based on her cookbooks. For a little rural community in Tasmania, for mum to be cooking the weird and wonderful stuff she did was just awesome considering all of my friends parents cooked meat and three veg every night for dinner.

So - I consider myself very lucky - its funny now though - "mum's recipes' as my brother and I call them were so weird when we were growing up - we loved them. But now times are a changing and they are not so different to all the other recipes that you can find on the web. Each of those recipes still holds a special place in my heart (and tastebuds).

This recipe is DEAD simple. It takes no time and mostly uses staple kitchen ingredients (in my kitchen anyway).

Note to all parents reading this blog: I grew up on these recipes so they are pretty kid friendly (if the kid likes vegetables) - ie. they are not overly spicy.

This recipe one based on a recipe from a book that one of mum's friends made called Tried and True. I highly doubt you will be able to get a copy (as I can't even get one and I rely on photocopies of scribbled on cooking stained recipes) I feel that I should be able to share it.

Nat had these wrapped up in tortillas. I served mine over rice. I whipped up some vegan sour cream using this recipe I found on Tara's blog. My cream didn't come out as firm as I would have liked - my silken tofu may not have been the right type - I am not too sure. It was still really tasty!


Mexican Chilli Beans

2 cloves of garlic
1 onion - diced
1/2 green capsicum - diced
1 stalk celery - chopped
2 cups (or 1 can) kidney beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 cup Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP)
1 tsp chilli paste (optional)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 veggie bouillon cube (optional)

Brown garlic, onions, celery and capsicum in oil or saute in water. Add other ingredients, including a little liquid if necessary. Simmer until vegetables are cooked.

Moroccan inspired foods - pumpkin dip and tajine

**Thanks to all the well wishers - Nat is feeling much better - he had a day off yesterday and was able to relax. Last night he was barely coughing at all and not so cloggy. YAY!!**

I love the subtle flavours of Moroccan foods. The sweet spices and fruity flavours just make me enjoy the food - even if it is slightly mushy and over cooked (like last nights dinner). Yesterday I ran out of hummus - so overnight I defrosted a container of chickpeas and today I made some spicy pumpkin dip - now - I know that its not moroccan. But it does have a Moroccan spice blend in it - does that count?? So here is my Moroccan inspired day.



Spicy Pumpkin Dip
- This is another of mum's recipes - she found it in a magazine and cut it out years ago - but didn't keep anything that let me know which magazine to credit. I have changed it a little bit to reduce the fat content.

500g butternut pumpkin - cut into cubes
1 clove garlic
400g chickpeas (rinsed and drained if from a can - reserve the cooking liquid if you cooked them)
2 tbsp tahini
1 lemon - juiced
1 1/2 tsp Moroccan Spice Mix*
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (depending how hot you like your dips - I don't use much at all)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Spray a baking tray with cooking spray - roast for about 40mins until soft
2. Process garlic in food processor (putting it in first means it gets chopped up enough)
3. Add remaining ingredients - season with salt and ground pepper.
4. Add cooking liquid (or water) to reach desired consistency. I found that this sets a lot, so if refrigerating it - make it runnier than you want - otherwise it will be a pate rather than a dip.
5. Devour!!!

*The ingredients in my moroccan spice mix are: salt, garlic (11%), cumin, paprika (10%), sugar, onion, tumeric (6%), pepper, citric food acid, parsley, red pepper, coriander (1%)


Moroccan Bean Stew
I got the flavour inspiration for this dish from the New Internationalist cookbook - Vegetarian Main Dishes From Around the World. I changed many of the veggies to suit what was in my fridge and so got a bit confused as to when I should add each vegetable in. The result was that my eggplant turned out quite mushy. Next time I will add it later. I have adjusted the recipe so that it will not be too overdone. You could really add any veggies that you wanted to - green beans, carrots and zucchini would all work really well.

This recipe was really comforting and damn easy (I still had some black eyed peas/beans in my freezer so I thought it would be a good dish to have.

Serves 4

1 onion - chopped
1 red capsicum - chopped
1 medium sweet potato - chopped
1 medium eggplant - cubed
4 tomatoes - chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
400g black eyed peas (retain the cooking water)
400g spinach - chopped
1/4 cup sultanas (or raisins)

1. Saute the onion in oil or water until it is transparent.
2. Add red capsicum and sweet potato and a little bit of the black-eyed peas cooking water. Cook about 10 minutes.
3. Put in the tomatoes, tomato paste, cinnamon, nutmeg, peas and eggplant and stir well. Season with salt and pepper and then place the spinach on top. Add more reserved liquid and stew until vegetables are tender (but not mushy) - about 20 mins.
4. Serve over rice or cous cous

Vegan MoFo #7 - Call them what you like... black eyed peas rock

I bought some dried black eyed peas (or black eyed beans or cow peas) from the health food shop the other day with a stew in mind. Anyway - I started soaking them last night and then asked my husband what he would like for dinner only to hear him say soup... well the only black-eyed pea soup recipe I could find was more of a broth than a nice chunky soup... so I decided to create my own soup. Now when I start getting creative - the results are usually so so. But this soup was amazing. It was warming, spicy and just the perfect texture for sitting listening to the windy night outside.

This recipe is definitely a keeper. I think I will be making it again rather soon.


Thick and Spicy Black Eyed Pea Soup

2 onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 tsps chili paste (or 2-3 mild fresh chillies)
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 large potato diced
2 cups of black eyed peas cooked (or 1 can)
1 can tomatoes, diced (or equivalent fresh)
2 cups vegetable stock
1 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped (optional)

1. Saute the onion, garlic and chilli in oil or water until the onion is browned.
2. Add tumeric, cumin and coriander and combine with the onion mix
3. Add the beans, potato, tomatoes and stock and simmer 20-30 mins or until potato is soft.
4. Blend with a hand blender- don't puree too much - leave it a little bit chunky - just make sure you get the bits of potato blended.
   
5. Stir in coriander (if using) just before serving.
   

Vegan MoFo - #2 - I have an assignment due... so instead I make a stew

Ok, so my rhyme isn't the greatest. But it's true. Whenever I have assignments and tests and exams where will you find me?? In the kitchen of course!! I find cooking is the best form of procrastination as I get the most lovely hugs and kisses from nat when he comes home from work to a house that is filled with yummy smells. Speaking of smells - the worst thing about our unit is that we get to smell what the unit downstairs are cooking for breakfast or dinner (or lunch if it is a weekend). That wouldn't be so bad if they baked nice things - but they live on the SAD (Standard Australian Diet - very closely related to the Standard American Diet) and so all we smell is fried foods - be it chips, fish, beef, lamb - its aweful. This morning at 7am it smelt like fish - and this evening it smelt like they hadn't changed the oil in their deep fryer for a while - yuck!

Wow I got off track. This dish has different flavours to what I usually make. I loosely based it on a recipe I found in a magazine a while back but I added the beans and changed the spices slightly. It tasted wonderful. There are heaps of leftovers and since I am going out tomorrow night - nat is more than happy to have leftovers tomorrow night which is a good indicator of how good a recipe is (usually I get leftovers if it is not so great).

Sweet potato, corn and bean stew

• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 3 medium zucchini, cubed
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 green capsicum, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2x 400g cans diced tomatoes, drained (reserve the liquid in case it needs moistening)
• 1 can of kidney beans, drained (or equivalent soaked and cooked)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, to taste
• 2 cups frozen corn kernels

1. Saute onion, garlic, pepper and celery in oil or water, stirring, until onion begins to brown, about 7 minutes.
2. Add the kidney beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, bay leaf, paprika, salt and pepper and bring to a boil.
3. Simmer uncovered over medium heat for 6 minutes.
4. Add the zucchini and cook covered about 20mins.
5. Remove the bay leaf.
6. Add the oregano, thyme and hot sauce to taste.
7. Add the corn.
8. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
9. Simmer uncovered for 10-15 mins until vegetables are tender and sauce is thick.
10. Serve over rice.