Finally blogging about our indian feast

Clockwise from top: Tamarind Lentils, Chickpea Masala,
Aloo Mutter Gobi (Spicy Pea Potato and Cauliflower Curry), brown rice.

Well I was going to blog about this meal a while ago but I have been rather busy recovering. Who would have thought that I would sleep so much?!?!?! Granted the pain killers I was taking initially totally knocked me out - they also made me feel very nauseous - so I stopped taking them. I am still spending the majority of my time in bed or on the couch.

Before I tell you about this meal I want to apologise for not commenting on all of your lovely blog posts. I have been reading about all of your thanksgiving festivities but have not really had the energy to type much.

So the night before my surgery I had a group of friends over for dinner (8 friends to be precise). I thought that an Indian meal would be an easy way to serve so many people.

I served the curry with brown rice and this garlic naan. The whole meal all went down a treat. I personally loved the chickpea masala and the lentils, however most of my guests thought that the best dish was the Aloo Mutter Gobi when I found that to be the blandest of all the dishes - it goes to show how people's taste buds are different.

I finally made the Tamarind Lentils from VCon. They are so GOOD - I can't believe that it took this long for me to make them - they are easy and tasty.

Chickpea and Spinach Masala (adapted from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook).
Preparation : 15 mins
Total cooking: 30mins
Serves: 4

2 onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2tsp olive oil
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground corriander
4 cups cooked chickpeas (or 2 tins) - drained
1 tin diced tomatoes
1 tsp garam masala
150g frozen spinach

1. Heat oil in a large pan, add onion and garlic and cook over medium heat, stirring until soft.
2. Add the chili powder, salt, turmeric, paprika, cumin and coriander. Stir for 1 minute.
3. Add chickpeas and undrained tomatoes, stir until combined. Simmer, covered over low heat for 15minutes, stiring occasionally. Add spinach and garam masala and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes.
4. Serve over rice or wrapped in chapattis or naan bread.
   

Aloo Mutter Gobi (Spicy Potato Pea and Cauliflower curry)
Cooking Time: 45mins
Serves 4
800g potatoes, peeled and diced
2 tsp olive oil
1 brown onion - diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
900g cauliflower florets (approx. one small cauliflower)
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garam masala
400g (1 can) diced tomatoes
1 cup vegetable stock
1 cup frozen peas

1. In a large pan add oil, onions and garlic and cook until soft.
2. Add potatoes and spices and stir until the potatoes are covered. Add the tomatoes and vegetable stock and simmer 10-15 minutes. Add cauliflower and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes until cauliflower and potatoes are tender. Add peas and continue to simmer uncover until the peas are tender and all the liquid is absorbed.

Chickpea cutlets, exams and a new dawn for America

Chickpea cutlets with lemon drizzled potatoes,
green beans and corn kernels.

So tonight I finally got round to making chickpea cutlets from Veganomican. I have been wanting to make these since I got the book - but just when I planned to make it Nat got sick - but last night his appetite was back (and with a vengeance!) So after my exam (which went better than I thought possible - I remembered things that an hour previously I thought I was never going to get) and walking out of the exam and turning on my phone to get a text message from nat saying "president Obama", I rushed (well walked quickly) home and was there just in time to watch his victory speech. I had tears in my eyes - there is hope for the world yet.

I was in such a good mood that I thought that chickpea cutlets should be for dinner - and they were FANTASTIC. After reading a number of blogs and the PPK forums I saw that people like them better if they are baked - which is good for me because I am a fry-a-phobe. I was going to make some lemony roasted potatoes, but I ran out of time and I also thought that lots of oil might not be good for Nat's tummy - so instead I just steamed some potatoes, green beans and corn kernels and then drizzled them with lemon juice and seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

My stomach didn't feel like anything as heavy as a cutlet - but I did take a bite out of Nat's and it was good. I just had the veggies and they were simple and hit the spot.

A great dinner to finish a stressfull (from exams and election waiting) but very good day.

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??

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).

VCON sauteed seitan with mushrooms and spinach

And so my quest to discover the many faces of seitan continues... Let me just briefly say that personally - I don't go so much for the faux meats - I am much more happy with chickpeas and beans etc. I think Nat misses some of that stuff and so I have been doing a lot of experimenting on/for him. I guess that it will also be useful to show my omni friends that they don't have to go without meat if they don't want to.

So back to seitan...So far I have baked the seitan o' greatness and I steamed some seitan sausages (didn't look that pretty as I used cloth instead of al. foil - so I didn't bother blogging about it).

Today I tried boiled seitan. I used the recipe from VCON as it was titled 'Simple Seitan'. Out of all the seitans I have made this was NOT simple. I had to watch it and stress about it not boiling and also stress about all the failures that I have heard about this type of seitan.

Well, as it was cooking I was worried... really worried. It looked like one of those natural sponges that you find in the sea (all bobbly and holey and stuff). I accidentally let it boil (whoops - my stove is old and a bit temperamental - it was on the lowest setting for the 'simmer' but then it boiled).

Anyhow - I charged on with my plan to make another recipe from VCON, sauteed seitan with spinach and mushrooms. Except at the local grocery store I found some local silverbeet on special and so I decided to use that. Apart from that I didn't make many changes apart from omitting the wine and not adding as much vegetable broth as it called for as I found the seitan to be REALLY salty. I served the dish with mashed potato and sweet potato (just cause we had run out of rice)

When nat came home from guiding he couldn't believe that it was seitan (he had only seen the sausage type). He really liked the texture and said that it was nice and chewy. Mission accomplished.

I just had to post straight away because this is GOOD!!

Oh my goodness - I got Veganomican yesterday and decided to slowly work my way into it by trying the cauliflower hummus. The little blurb at the start of the recipe talked about how absent-mindedly we can just eat way too much of normal hummus and then feel terrible after - thats talking right to me - I could eat bucket loads of the stuff. So this is a lower fat version.

Anyway - I had some cauliflower left over so I thought I would give it a go.
IT'S AWESOME!!! Good thing it is a lot less fat than normal hummus cause I ate SO much after making it - and I just had to blog about it straight away.

I made a lot of substitutions... partially because I wanted to reduce the fat - partially because I didn't have some of the ingredients. So here goes

I omitted the oil
I added red onion instead of scallions
I omitted the parsley and paprika
I salted the cauliflower when it was cooking so I didn't need to add any more salt.

I suggest you all go make yourself some right now because it is just to die for :)