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.

Sweet and Sour Vegetables and home style salad

Sweet and Sour Stirfry

Mum has been following the posts on my blog and was very excited when I said I would like to blog about our dinner last night. She said she had the perfect dish (ie. a new dish that I had not had before). So we set about cooking this dish together. The recipe comes from this awesome cookbook that mum bought from the New Internationalist - Quick and Easy - Vegetarian Recipes from around the World for the Western Kitchen. Unfortunately it is out of publication and I have been unable to get my own copy (very very sad about this). Due to the fact that you (or I) are not going to be able to run out and get a copy of this awesome book I will put our version of the recipe (we have changed a few things).

It was really yummy - I haven't really ventured into many sweet and sour dishes - but I really like this - and it was really easy - I chopped the vegetables as I needed to add them (to reduce the total time needed). We had this on the table really quickly.

Sweet and Sour Vegetables
Serves:4
Time: 20mins

600g chopped vegetables (we used 1 red and 1 green capsicum, 1/4 cauliflower, 2 carrots, 1/2 zucchini, 1 stick celery, 1/4 cup cabbage, 5 mushrooms and 1/2 cup pineapple - other possibiliteis could be baby sweetcorn, bok choi, bean sprouts, snowpeas).
1 onion - sliced into cresent moons
4 cloves garlic - minced
1/2 - 1 red chili - deseeded and chopped finely
450g extra firm tofu - cubed and marinated in a marinade (we were lazy and just used some tamari).

Sauce
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp agave syrup
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp tomato sauce (we used Muir Glen Tomato Ketchup)
2 tbsp pineapple juice
1/2 tsp cornflour

1. Saute onion in oil or broth until it begins to soften. Then add garlic and stir fry for another minute.
2. Add the vegetables that will take the longest to cook (like carrots and capsicum). Stirfry these for 3-4 mins.
3. Add the chili and the rest of the vegetables, stiring until they are cooked.
4. Mix the sauce ingredients together and pour over vegetables. Add tofu and stir to coat everything in sauce. Leave for a few minutes so that the flavours can sink in.
5. Serve over rice or noodles (we served it over thin rice noodles)

**********
There are many different things that are exclusive to my parents home (where I spent the first 18 years of my life). One of these is the Vita Mix. I remember my brother and I convincing our parents to buy a vita mix at an Organic Gardening Festival in Penguin when I was about 10years old. I think we used the line that it would help us to eat lots of fruits.
Since then - every morning we would share a fruit smoothie (with banana, orange, apple, kiwi, avocado, and other fruits when in season - eg. pears, pineapples, berries etc etc).
Also - and this is a little more unusal - mum and dad would make themselve a whizzed salad. This is because dad's teath make it difficult for him to eat really crunchy vegetables. I used to frown upon this green smoothie - but now I really love sharing it with them when I come home - it tastes surprisingly good - it usually includes - beetroot tomato, carrot, different types of salad greenery, celery, parsley, capsicum, cucumber and a little bit of salt water. So as I am home - I thought I would document the making of the whizzed salad. It can't be called a green smoothie as the beetroot makes it pink at the moment.

The salad before it is whizzed.

The salad after it is whizzed up.

Charlotte's Web - Home with mum dad and my film star pigs

No food today - I am at home with my parents for a night or two and so I thought that I would like you to meet Rosie and Zoe - two of the pigs who starred as Wilbur's from the movie Charlotte's Web.


Mum and dad run their own business and they support a lot of organisations - especially animal welfare/rights groups. About 3 1/2 years ago Animals Australia contacted mum and dad and asked them if they would like to look after two pigs that had been used in the film Charlotte's Web (the one with Dakota Fanning). The producers were looking for good homes for the pigs and so we ended up with 2 of the numerous pigs that played Wilbur in the movie.

Here is dad in front of Mt Roland with Rosie and Zoe.

I love coming home. My parents live on 125 acres of land (a lot of it is bush) and so I enjoy just being able to go for wonderful walks whenever I want.

Here are Rosie and Zoe going for a walk with Playful, the canine member of our family who sadly passed away earlier this year from old age.

when they were little, Playful would watch over them in the paddock.

Rosie and Zoe are now MASSIVE - they are lovely but big and I guess our beautiful girls can sometimes forget how big they are. Mum and Dad feed them food scraps that are given to them by local businesses and friends and family.

Vegan Gluten Free Almond Macaroons

Yesterday was Nat and my nephew's first birthday/naming ceremony celebration.

I really wanted to help with the catering but as we were driving up that morning (they live in the north of the state) and I don't have any big containers for transporting things like cakes, muffins or cupcakes I thought I would make some cookies.

Just before Nat left for work the day before yesterday (when I planned to do my baking) he reminded me that I should make sure that the cookies are Gluten Free. I had forgotten that two of his siblings have a gluten intolerance (and I don't think nat appreciates the difficulty I have had cooking gluten free sweets and breads). So off to the net I went and I searched and searched - my biggest limitation being that the only gf flour I had was buckwheat and I wasn't able to get to the shops to get any more flours or gf ingredients.

Just before I gave up and resorted back to my original plan of pumpkin oatmeal cookies, I saw this recipe for Almond Macaroons. Of course it wasn't vegan, but it wasn't hard to veganize either. They are SO simple and took hardly any time - well they wouldn't have taken much time but I did have to blanch my own almonds.

These were really good!!! They were a hit for all who tried them. I made two batches (just to make sure the first ones worked before making the second lot. Nat tried one and it was difficult to convince him that he couldn't have any more before the party. The second batch I made, I didn't pulse the almonds quite as much as the first lot - they still held together but they didn't look as nice (so almond flour is the consistency that I want in the future).

***Beware, these are VERY soft when they come out of the oven - and they fall apart. But I let them cool a little on the tray and then transferred them to the rack after they started to firm up - best thing about them initially being so soft was that I could squeeze them back together if they fell apart!!

Everyone who tried them at the party loved them so through sheer easiness and taste I will be making these a lot in the future.

Vegan Almond Macaroons
Makes approx 16
Time: less than 45mins (incl. blanching almonds)

1 cup blanched whole almonds
1/2 cup raw sugar (or other granulated sugar)
1 1/2 tsp egg replacer (I use Organ no-egg)
1 tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
icing sugar for dusting (optional - I didn't use it)
approx 16 almonds

1. Preheat oven to 180degrees celsius
2. Blend almonds in a food processor (I pulse them to a flour as the cookies look better). When they are processed add the sugar and pulse to mix it through.
3. Add the egg replacer, water and vanilla extract and blend (I thought that the mixture would not stick together but when I grabed a small handful and pressed it together it did - if it doesn't add a little more water)
4. Roll mixture into 16 balls and place on lightly greased baking tray. Press the ball down and place an almond on the top.
5. Bake in the oven for 10 mins. Remove and allow to cook slightly on the tray (so that they harden up a bit) and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completly.
6. Keeps at least 4 days in an airtight container.

Parsnip and pear soup on a cooler spring evening

One thing I love about spring is that you get lovely days that provide hope that summer is on the way - but you also get the cooler weather so that you can occasionally have your favourite winter dish.

Last night was one of the chillier nights and so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to try out another parsnip soup. (Actually I had a parsnip to use up before going up to see the parents today). Nat and I really enjoyed the parsnip and pumpkin soup - but we didn't have any pumpkin - so I went looking for inspiration and I found this recipe created by Ricki at Diet, Dessert and Dogs.

I didn't have any leeks but I had everything else (really simple easy recipe so there wasn't much else to need which is good because our fridge is pretty empty of vegetables). I altered the recipe a little so, while staying faithful to Ricki's recipe mine is a little different. It was lovely - sweet but with the lovely parsnip flavour (you could taste it but it was not overpowering which was good). It reminded me a bit of applesauce in consistancy (not in a bad way) and I can now understand how parsnips can be used in desserts, like in this recipe at the Vegan Feast Kitchen.

Thanks Ricki for a great recipe.

Pear and Parsnip Soup
1 onion - diced
1 large parsnip - cubed
1 stick celery - chopped
4 small pears - peeled and cubed
1 litre vegetable stock (I cheated and used bullion)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion in a little water or broth for about 5 mins. Over medium heat, add celery, parsnip and pear and saute for about 15 mins, stirring constantly. Add vegetable broth and simmer over low heat for a further 15 mins. Turn off the heat and let the soup cool a little before pureeing it using an immersion blender or in batches in a blender.
Serve hot - we served ours with crusty bread.


I am baking some gluten free goodies for our nephew's naming ceremony/birthday celebration. Stay tuned people as I just realised I have no gluten free flour... this could be interesting!!!

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).

Lunch time and Jessy's AWESOME pickled cuc and onions

Today's lunch wrap - Spicy Pumpkin Dip with alfalfa,
capsicum, red onion and baby spinach

I am a grazer - I think I was a horse (or maybe more an elephant) in a previous life because I LOVE grazing. I love having a piece of fruit for breakfast and then having another one a little later... and then having another a little later. Same goes for lunch - I grab something from the fridge and have a little and then have a little something else a little later.

Anyway - instead of talking about grazing I am going to talk about my lunches while I am at home studying. During winter I would make a pot of whatever (usually lentils and whatever vegetables I had on hand) but during summer I don't often feel like hot stuff.

So what do you have for lunch thats healthy - but filling. I have found vegetable wraps are great because then I can graze later ;)

I always make them differently because I have different ingredients and varying levels of spare time. I usually have some form of dip that I use as a base then I pile on some home sprouted alfalfa, capsicum, cucumber, grated carrot, red onion, baby spinach leaves - roll it up and YUM!!

I saw an awesome quick recipe for pickled cucumbers and onions posted by Jessy at happyveganface. I love her recipes and I thought that this looked fantastic so I had to give it a go. Initially I was worried that I wouldn't use it up before Nat and I went to our parents place this weekend... how silly of me - I ate it within a day!!! It was fantastic!!


Because I wasn't thinking of keeping it for a while and because I am trying to not use extra oils/fats I ommitted the oil and sugar and just used rice wine vinegar (cause that is all I had) and salt and pepper. It was FLIPPIN AWESOME!!! I think that if your were not an oil-phobic like me you should definatly rock on to check out the Jessy' s recipe.

So I am sure that I will be posting more summer time lunches over the coming months. When I start working (and can only have one lunch) I am sure my lunches will be more substantial - so I guess these are really just a grazing snack ;)

Having my lovely husband cook me anniversary dinner

This morning I got woken up with Nat proclaiming "Happy 6year anniversary". So it was that 6 years ago Nat and I were sitting on the beach on the east coast when he told me he liked me (I can't tell you how happy I was that day until I ended up with the most severe sunstroke that night and had to go to bed at about 8pm with a fever). I had really liked him from the moment I met him (about 8 months previously) and so we started to date - for the first 5 years of the relationship we didn't live in the same city (and sometimes even the same country). On Friday it will be a year since Nat proposed. It would be lovely to do something for that but we will be travelling to the north of the state to celebrate his nephews first birthday the next day. Oh well.

So what did we do for our anniversary - not much really. It was pretty miserable weather here :( Typical spring weather in Tassie - 4 seasons in one day (and sometimes 1 hour). I am the treasurer of a local animal welfare group and we had a meeting this evening and so I had to prepare the books and go to the meeting. This meant that I didn't have time to cook dinner. Not to fear - when I came home Nat was cooking one of my favourite dishes - Ratatouille. The flavours are subtle - I think I like that sometimes. He served it with tri-colour cous cous.

I love the dish - but I realised that Nat had cooked it just for me because he doesn't really like it that much - so sweet (in more ways then one cause it means that I don't have to fight with him for the leftovers).

So without further ado - here is Nat's ratatoullie

Ratatouille Cous Cous

1 medium onion, sliced or diced (depending how chunky you want it)
2 cloves garlic -crushed
1 large red capsicum - chopped
1 large green capsicum - chopped
2 medium zucchini - chopped
1 medium/large eggplant - chopped
1 x 400g dices tomatoes
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1 1/2 cups chickpeas - cooked (or 1 can)
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp fresh basil - chopped (or 1 tsp dried)
2 tbsp fresh parsley -chopped (optional)

2 cups boiling water
2 cups cous cous
salt to taste

parsley (or other herbs) to garnish

1. Saute onion, garlic, capsicum, zucchini and eggplants in oil or water, cook stirring until vegetables are lightly browned.
2. Add undrained crushed tomatoes, stock and dried herbs - bring to the boil, simmer covered for about 30 mins or until vegetables are tender- stir in chickpeas.
3. Combine water, cous cous and salt in a medium bowl, mix well. Leave cous cous until the liquid is absorbed, fluff with a fork and stir in basil and parsley.
4. Serve ratatouille over cous cous and garnish with fresh herbs.

Banana bars with butter cream frosting - La Dolce Vegan

What is this delectable creation you ask?? Well if you are only interested in hearing about healthy vegan food than I suggest that you stop reading now - as this, apart from having banana in the base, is quite possibly the most unhealthy sweet thing I have cooked for a while (I have probably cooked worse in my pre-vegan days).
It is just divine though - so if you feel like splashing out and making something a little decadent but still ridiculously simple - than this is the thing for you.

This my friends is Wolffie's B'nanner Bars from La Dolce Vegan. It is topped with their Butter Cream Frosting (which was the recommended frosting for this bar). As I was taking this to a housewarming (and therefore would not be able to try it before giving it to anyone else) - I thought I should stick to the recipe to be on the safe side.

For the bar I followed the recipe and used a flax mix as my chosen egg replacer. When the bars came out of the oven - they looked moist and wonderful. However I decided to proceede with my plan and frost them.

Thats when I met Trouble!

I assumed that the frosting in the recipe would set - I was wrong. I don't know if its because we don't have Earth Balance here - I just had to use Nuttalex which is our non-hydrogenated margarine spread.
It was still REALLY runny by the time it came to frosting the bars. And even after I put the whole dish into the freezer for a while it still hadn't set. So off to the potluck I went with what was now more like a pudding than a bar.

Despite my frosting issues everyone LOVED this dish. Although there weren't many of us at the housewarming and mountains of food - most of the 'pudding' got eaten. When Nat came home from work he was glad that I had saved him some and he thinks it is fantastic.

So I give this recipe the thumbs up - but beware with the frosting ;)

Ok - not the best photo - but you get the idea of how it turned out in the dish after I got home.

Roasted Asparagus, tofu and portabella mushrooms

Well - it happened again. I was at the local grocery store and I found two bunches of asparagus had been put into the quick sell box. They looked alright - and I just couldn't help myself - so I changed my plans for dinner and decided to try a version of a dish I had been eyeing off on Fat Free Vegan. Every one of Susan's recipes that I have used has just been amazing and this was no exception.

As it was going to be our main meal I added some Chinese style firm tofu (which is softer than the extra firm tofu that I normally buy). I was trying to work out how to cook this type of tofu and I found a website that talked about pressing, freezing or boiling the tofu. Well I have never boiled tofu and I was curious to try it so I boiled it in some left over broth from making seitan. The tofu didn't change much in texture but it did soak up the broth - so I just stuck the cubes in the oven to roast with the asparagus and mushrooms and that crisped up the outside just a little - it was quite nice - I don't know whether I would do it like that again - but it wasn't bad.

I also didn't have any horseradish - but I did have horseradish mustard - so I used that instead of the horseradish. I also just realised that I forgot to put in the pepper - it tasted fine without it. I suggest you check out Susan's original version of the recipe - it rocks.

The sauce was a hit as Nat immediately asked for some more after he tasted it as apparently I hadn't given him enough. That's as good enough as a thumbs up in my books!! The whole dish was easy, quick and really yummy!!

Roasted Asparagus, Tofu and Portabella Mushrooms with Horseradish Mustard Sauce
recipe: adapted from Susan from Fat Free Vegan
Serves 1-2

400g extra firm tofu
500g asparagus - trimmed
2 large portabella mushrooms - sliced
2 cloves garlic - minced

1 cup soymilk
1 tsp garlic
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp horseradish mustard
1 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch dissolved in a little water.

Directions

If using extra firm tofu - chop into desired shape and marinate for a few hours in your favourite marinade. (If using Chinese firm tofu - either press and then follow the directions above OR cube and boil in broth for 10 mins.)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius. Place the asparagus, mushrooms and tofu in a large baking tray that has been lightly oiled (I sprayed it with cooking spray) and sprinkle with 2 cloves garlic. Roast, stirring every few mins for about 15mins or until the asparagus starts to brown.

While you are roasting, heat the soymilk in the saucepan, add the garlic, basil, salt, nutritional yeast and horseradish mustard. Stir the mixture until it boils then add the cornstarch/water mixture and stir until the sauce thickens.

Serve the vegetables and tofu over brown rice and drizzle with the sauce.