Easy Rosemary Roast Potatoes and Pumpkin, Chickpea and Zucchini Burgers

Once again I am sorry for not posting very often. Full time work is taking up a lot of time.

But enough of that - For christmas I got given Now Vegan by Lynda Stoner. I had seen the cookbook before but had not really had a good chance to have a look - until now. It looks awesome. I haven't had much of a chance to cook much out of it (I plan to over the next month or two) - but the photos are beautiful - the recipes look easy but also very presentable to dinner guests and she even has gluten free and sugar free recipes.
Last week I was having some friends over and I planned to make Veganomican's Lemony Roasted Potatoes (as this has been a hit every time I make it) - but I didn't have any lemons. I remembered seeing a recipe for Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Potatoes - and within 40-50 mins they were done. All my dinner guests went back for seconds and Nat requested that I make it again very soon. Two nights later I made it again (so I could take a photo and for Nat to enjoy). I served it up with some Pumpkin, Chickpea and Zucchini Burgers. This recipe was annoying and I had to make a lot of alterations. The finished product was wonderful though.

Rosemary and garlic roast potatoes with pumpkin,
zucchini and chickpea burgers

The changes I made to the burgers were: replaced the egg with Organ No-egg egg replacer. I also added about 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed and about 1/2-1 cup of flour because the mixture was just WAY too runny. Next time I make them I think I will roast rather than boil the pumpkin.

Anyway the meal was a lovely one. More posts soon - I promise!!

Sorry for my absence

Hi all, I realise that I haven't blogged here for ages - things have just been crazy.
I started work at the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. The people are all really lovely which is nice - what wasn't so nice was that on my first day of work I had to go to a work lunch and there was NOTHING vegan on the menu apart from "lettuce leaves with citrus dressing". How embarrassing to only be able to eat lettuce (thus perpetrating the image that vegans only eat rabbit food). So because I didn't want to eat only lettuce I ordered some sourdough bread which came with butter - so I ended up spending a forking fortune for some lettuce and a few pieces of bread. I was really angry and rather embarrassed. Next week is another lunch - and as I know about it before hand I got the menu - and once again all I can eat are the side dishes of salad or vegetables (and once again I will be paying about $10 per side dish). I hate eating out in Hobart :(

Nat and I have been eating (which is a good start) - but at the end of the day I have just been too tired to take a photo of what I make - Nat and I also had Nat's mum down for two nights and then my brother down for one night and so we have hardly had any time to breath - let alone cook and blog.

I just thought I would show you a few pictures of some dishes that we have had over the last fortnight. Then I think I will go and have a nap - I am so tired (I worked at the Organic Market Stall from 5.30am this morning and only just got back home). Tara nominated me for a blog award- but I think I will do that a bit later tonight.

So onto the eating!!

Pumpkin Oat Patties (made up recipe that needs
a lot of tweaking before I post it), wedges and green beans.

Zucchini Mozzarella Sticks from Happy Herbivore. These were really good. A healthy snack - I was a little lazy and didn't crush up the bread crumbs as much as I should have but it still worked well.

Chickpea and Spinach Curry from VWaV. I thought this was nice. But I have simpler chickpea spinach Marsala recipe that I enjoy much better.

I don't know how often I will be able to blog until Christmas - but I try to be a little bit more diligent. I hope you stay sane over the Christmas period.

apple cabbage and spinach salad and Pumpkin oat cookies

Apple, red cabbage and spinach salad. Yuuummmmm.

Well today was a (relatively) busy day for me. I am on holidays but I had a few pre-employment things to sort out. I had to go and get a pre-employment medical done (all clear!!) and then I went to do some op-shopping for some work clothes. I found 4 really nice shirts and one skirt and it all came to under $15 (I think it was $14 exactly). I am trying to walk everywhere so as to help lower my carbon emissions and also reduce the amount of money that we pay for transport.

By the time I got home I was pretty hungry. I initially ate a piece of corn on the cob (it was raw and beautifully sweet). Then I decided to whip up a salad inspired by The Café Fresh Cookbook. It was so simple and easy. I just thinly sliced some red cabbage (local and organic) and some baby spinach leaves (local and organic). I then added a small handful of sultanas and 1/2 a diced jonagold apple (which was the only type of apple I had on hand - this apple is crisp and has a bit of a bite to it but is still quite sweet). I then made a dressing from the juice of 1/2 orange and 1 1/2 tsp of apple juice concentrate and poured this over the salad. It was just divine - I had to stop myself from having seconds.

Pumpkin Oat Cookies

Two days ago I made VWaV's Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies. I cooked and pureed my own pumpkin because you can't buy canned pumpkin here and I added the flaxseeds, used coconut oil instead of canola oil and used sultanas instead of raisins. I also used spelt flour which seemed to work fine.

I found it a little difficult knowing when these cookies were cooked - they do firm up a LOT when they come out of the oven. They tasted a lot like ANZAC biscuits. I took them to a staff meeting and everyone loved them (and thought that they were ANZACs). I will be making these again but I have notes in my VWaV that these are still REALLY soft when they come out of the oven.

Creamy Pumpkin Quinoa

This morning, I had every intention to make one of my favourite quinoa dishes - Susan V's farmer's market quinoa. I would highly recommend this dish to anyone - I have made it numerous times.

As the day progressed, however, I began to feel like pumpkin. I still wanted quinoa but I also wanted pumpkin. This dish just progressed from there. I used Susan's recipe as a guide but made a sauce of roasted pumpkin, red capsicum and soy milk. The result was really good - a lovely creamy quinoa dish. The flavours were quite mild - but it really hit the spot for me. I think it would be really easy to adjust the spices and have a few totally different tasting dishes. I will put a few ideas below the recipe.

Creamy Pumpkin Quinoa
800g pumpkin or butternut pumpkin (squash)
1 red capsicum - halved (dice one half and leave the other half for roasting)
1 onion - diced
2 medium zucchini - chopped
1/2 green capsicum - diced
2-3 cloves garlic - minced
1x400g tin diced tomatoes
1/2 cup soymilk
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tbsp basil or 1/4 cup fresh basil chopped
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar or agave
2 cups cooked quinoa

Directions

Preheat oven to 180degrees Celsius. Slice the pumpkin into wedges and place on a greased baking tray. Place a red capsicum half on the baking tray. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and take the capsicum off the tray and flip the pumpkin before putting it back in the oven for another 20-30 mins or until tender. Place the roasted capsicum in a paper bag or wrap in aliminum foil until it is cool - then remove the skin.
Remove the pumpkin from the oven and allow to cool. Once cool, remove the skin and chop into 2cm cubes.
In a large heavy bottomed saucepan or wok, saute the onion for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, zucchini, green capsicum, the uncooked half of the red capsicum, and half of the pumpkin cubes.
Cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently but keeping the dish covered in between stirring. Add a little water if it is starting to stick.
While the vegetables are cooking, place the other half of the pumpkin cubes, the roasted capsicum, the spices and the soymilk in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
Add the tomatoes and pumpkin mix to the vegetables and stir to combine. Add the quinoa and stir until mixed through. Serve immediately.

**I didn't serve mine immediately - so when I reheated the dish when Nat came home I added another 1/4cup soy milk to moisten it up again**

Some possible variations:

Possible Additions: green beans, eggplant, chickpeas, tofu cubes

Possible Spice combinations that I will be trying in the future (I will use them to taste- if you want to use them, have an idea about what quantities usually go into dishes):
Curry - cumin, corriander, turmeric.
Moroccan - tomato paste, cinnamon, bayleaves, raisins, turmeric, corriander, cumin.

Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Saag with garlic naan

Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Saag

Well tomorrow Nat and I are driving up to our parent's homes for a little under a week. It is our nephews naming ceremony tomorrow and as I am studying for exams nat asked if he could do a few tours to Cradle Mountain for his tour guiding company. So I am busy trying to clean out the fridge of veggies so we don't have too many nasty surprises when we get back.

The thing that I was worried about the most was the pumpkin, because I had been saving it to make some cookies to take tomorrow - but now have to find something gluten free to cook. Although it has been a little chilly lately, I still didn't feel like making pumpkin soup so I flipped through Veganomican and found the recipe for pumpkin saag. I didn't have any fresh spinach but I did have some frozen so I thought that this would be the dish of the night. I remember Jessy from happyveganface making some garlic naan a few days back and I thought that it would be a nice surprise for nat when he got home from work (he is a bread lover).

For the saag I pretty much followed the recipe - with a few additions. The dish was good - but not as flavourful as I would have liked.

I roasted and added some sweet potato with the pumpkin. I also used frozen rather than fresh spinach. I also added a little chili paste. The dish wasn't as moist as I would have liked - I think next time I will add a little vegetable stock and maybe some canned tomatoes or tomato paste. Also - if you want a spicey dish (and I think this would be good spicey) add more chili paste.
But I will definatly be making this again with those few more alterations.

Garlic Naan

What I am most excited about are these little beauties!!! Garlic Naan. I am not going to post the recipe because it is exactly like Jessy's which can be found here. It is WONDERFUL and easy though so I think you should try making it. From first bite nat commented on the wonderful garlic flavour and that it would rival indian naan (now he may have been stretching the truth a little there).

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

Chunky Parsnip and Pumpkin Soup

Don't you hate it when you get home... have a fridge full of wonderful veggies but just feel like getting leftovers out of the freezer. Well, I have a horrible (but yet wonderful) habit of getting a little too excited when I go veggie shopping at our local market and ending up with so many fresh veggies that I really need to do something with. Well... at the moment I have broccoli, zucchini, organic parsnips (lots of parsnips), capsicum, pumpkin, celery, corn, cabbage, carrots and leek (yes I warned you that I got excited). What I was worried about using up most was the parsnips. I have not really used parsnips that much apart from in casseroles, vegetable soups and shepherds pie. But I had about 5 parsnips!!! So I did a little searching on the net and found this yummy looking soup by Mihl at Seitan is my Motor. So I had all the vegetables that were needed... but no panch poran. So I just added the spices that make up panch poran to the soup... then I added some chilli paste and then some red curry paste. It was THICK!!



As dinner was a lot later than it should have been - in my rush to get it ready I didn't blend it quite as well as I should have... so it had chuncky bits of parsnip and pumpkin - which actually was really nice.

So here is my version of the soup.

Roasted Parsnip and Pumpkin Soup

600g pumpkin - cubed
3 large parsnips - cubed
1 red capsicum - halved

1 onion diced
1 Tbsp fresh ginger - minced
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp chili paste (I use sambel olek)
1 tsp red curry paste
1 1/2 cups red lentils - rinsed
6 cups vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.
2. Spray two baking trays with oil and place the vegetables on the trays. Roast in oven for 40mins or until cooked but not mushy.
3. Meanwhile, spray the bottom of a large saucepan with cooking spray, chuck in the spices and stir for a minute. Add onion and ginger and pastes (and a little bit of water) and saute until onion is cooked.
4. Add lentils and stock. Cover and cook for 10-15 mins.
5. Add vegetables and cook a further 10 mins.
6. Blend with an immersion blender or blend in batches in a blender. Add more water if it is too thick - I liked it being thick - I was hungry!
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Serve with crusy bread.

Vegan Mofo #10- Ultimate comfort - Pumpkin-lentil Soup and La Dolce Vegan.

**I just got La Dolce Vegan from the library (I am now in the habit of borrowing cookbooks before I buy them so I can see if it is my sort of cookbook). If you have some favourites from there I would love to hear them as there are just SO many recipes. I am rather excited about trying as many as possible. Your suggestions would be appreciated. **

Thick and spicy soup on a windy night... could it get any better?? I don't think so. I discovered this soup in winter this year and Nat and I make it at least once every couple of weeks. The recipe is an adaptation of a recipe I found on recipezaar. It is thick, it is spicy, it has protein because of the lentils - and it is easy to make a large batch so that we are guaranteed leftovers. I make this differently every time and every time it just turns out yummy. For instance, tonight I used 2 turnips and 2 potatoes (usually I just use potatoes) as the turnips needed to be used up.

Indian style pumpkin soup

1 onion - chopped
3 cloves garlic - minced
1 - 2 red chillies- chopped (or 1-2 tsp chilli paste)
2 tsp curry powder
2 cups pumpkin - chopped
2 stalks celery - (I omitted this tonight as I didn't have any)
1 sweet potato - chopped
4 potatoes (I used 2 turnips and 2 potatoes and it turned out just fine)
1 cup red lentils
1 1/2 litres vegetable stock (I used stock powder and water)

1. Saute onion, garlic and chilli in water
2. Add vegetables, stock and lentils and bring to the boil
3. Lower heat and simmer soup until vegetables are tender (about 20mins)
4. Blend the soup and serve. If its too thin, simmer until it is reduced. If it is too thick add extra stock or water.