Ethiopian Stew and Injera Bread

I had a shit load of tomatoes to use up and found this delicious recipe on the PPK site for Ethiopian Spicy Tomato Lentil Stew and completed the meal with injera bread from Vegan Lunchbox cook book. The injera bread lists teff flour as an ingredient but I just used more all purpose flour and they were still good.


As a habitual slack arse, I could not be bothered to get my camera and so used the closest thing to me...my phone. It does take pretty crappy photos, but in a competition, no photo vs crappy photo, I'd put my money on crappy photo (but then again, I'm not a betting woman...). Having said that, no photo wins at the moment until I work out how to blue tooth it to my Mac and then add it here (this HAS been achieved before).

(There, easier than I thought!!)


Tahn

And just  because I can, a pic of my kitties playing in a plastic bag, just because they can!

Uncheese fun and a Pot Luck Picnic

Yesterday I mentioned that I had made some cheeze from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook that I borrowed from my friends A & C.

I made two different lots, a colby uncheese and a mozzarella type uncheese (laziness prevents me from telling you the exact name of the recipe - I'm in bed and I'm not moving, not even for you!).

We have only tried the colby, we had it on grilled toasties for breakfast. It looked like this when I took it out of its container this morning:

And then like this after a stint under the grill:

I smooshed one to see if the different texture mattered. Turns out it didn't! To me, anyway! Baby preferred it smooshed, but she wasn't keen on the plain tomato sauce without cheeze. The kids wanted tomato sauce under their cheeze, Popeye had his plain, and I had good old vegemite.

It was really good! Then we had a slice or two in our sndwiches for lunch today. Mmmmm. Popeye said it tasted like American Cheese, but since I have never tasted American Cheese before I'll take his word for it! I really liked it. The cheeze lasts 5-7 days in the fridge and is really easy to make. I'm thinking that I will make it on a Sunday night so we can have it during the week for lunches. The cook book gives many variations of this cheeze to try, so we are going to try them all and see which we like best.

The mozz is for pizza, which I am planning to have tomorrow night. So I'll tell you about it then.

I attended a really fun potluck at the park tonight. There was so much yummy food! And really great company! I didn't take any photos, except of my own before I left. I took:

Roasted Capsicum Wraps (which went a bit softer than I expected, but in a yummy way) from The Vegan Table

A Fruit Platter

Chocolate Banana Bread (which also has walnuts in it and it rocks) from 1000 Vegan Recipes

I'll link to the other great blogs when the photos go up (and I'm getting tired and even more lazy).

Thanks for the invite guys, we had a great night (the kids didn't even want to leave!!).

Tahn

Caribbean Rice, Squash and Peas

I know we don't call them squash here in Australia, but that is the name of the recipe in the book (1000 Vegan Recipes). This is my first time actually using black-eyed peas ( I cooked my own, too!). It was basically B-EP's, pumpkin and rice so I didn't really expect too much from it. It was surprisingly really nice!

YM and I made some biscuits called Peachy Thumbprint Cookies although ours were Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies as we used strawberry jam. This were not too sweet and hardly used any fats (only 2T of margarine). It did have 1/2C of icing sugar, but that was about it for baddies. I was hoping to have some for the kids' lunches tomorrow, but unfortunately they are all gone!

We also made a couple more loaves of bread, as we ate the other one today and it was so good.

Yesterday's Pecan-Lentil Burgers (1000 Vegan Recipes)  were a big hit here. Here's the recipe:

 11/2C cooked brown lentils (I used 1 tin)(make sure they are really dry - dry fry them in a pan for a few minutes. It is, apparently, the key to firm burgers)

1/2C ground pecans

1/2C oats

1/4C dry unseasoned bread crumbs

1/4C Vital wheat gluten

1/2C onion, finely chopped

1/4C fresh parsley

1t dijon mustard

1/2t salt

1/8t pepper

2T olive oil

In a food processor combine all but the oil. Pulse to combine, leaving some texture. Shape the lentil mixture into 4 to 6 burgers. Heat oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Add the burgers and cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes per side.

That's for you Brisvegan :) Enjoy!

Well, I finally attacked my room today. Took me damn near ALL DAY! But it was worth it! I still have a laundry basket full of books and paperwork that I couldn't work out what to do with, but I'll get to that tomorrow. Only 3 more rooms to bog out (top to bottom, wall to wall.)

Maybe I'll get to one tomorrow.

Tahn

Baking bread

Thinking about school lunches tomorrow, it suddenly dawned on me that I had no bread in the freezer. Hmm, I wonder if I should make my own. Surely my new favourite cookbook would have a recipe or 20 to cater for my needs in this area. The very first recipe in the breads section was the Basic White Bread.
It turned out like this:

and left an awesome smell throughout my house. Years ago I used to make my own bread with a bread maker, but never in my own oven. So good. The kids can have fresh bread with the left over burgers from tonight's dinner...

Pecan-Lentil Burgers and home made wedges. We covered the wedges in paprika and nutritional yeast. We made the burgers this shape because we put them into flat bread as a wrap.

We even had home-grown lettuce in it! Very nice.

I didn't even get close to cleaning my room today! After about 4 hours playing on the computer (and Tweenie feeding me blueberry pancakes for lunch) I decided that the kids and I would ride up to the Leisure Centre and go swimming. Then by the time we came home it was time to get ready for dinner and the rest. Way to procrastinate, eh?

Tahn

I'm in love!

I am soo in love with my new cookbook 1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson.

Here's what I have made while I have been ignoring you:

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (soo damn good!)

Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea and Sweet Potato Stew

Sunset Fruit Pudding (oh, so good! Can you tell I have a sweet tooth!!) It's raw, too - just fruit.

The salad is Roasted Cauliflower and Rice Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette. And thanks to Brisvegan's quiche post I was inspired to try Isa's Broccoli Quiche. I actually found the recipe on the PPK website. I used a basic pie crust recipe from 1000 Vegan Recipes. And DAMN it was good! Will definitely make this for the vegan xmas potluck I'm going to next Saturday (although I will splash out and purchase a pie tin - all I had was a square one). I wanted to have a test run on it first. Amazing! I also thought I would take some sushi as a starter and some sort of dessert to the pot luck. I'd better do some test runs on some desserts! Just in case....

Friday night Tweenie asked if we could watch the sunrise on Saturday morning. So we got up bright and early the next morning and walked up the road to the park. Unfortunately it was quite cloudy out on the east side of the world(and wouldn't ya know it - clear everywhere else!!). The kids still enjoyed it and it fostered some great discussions about the earth's rotation and the role of the sun. We hope to do it again on a day not so cloudy, although it did make for cool pictures.

Tahn