Last day of mofo!! And I bought a mushroom farm!

That's right - a mushroom farm! I was in Aldi & saw them & thought that I would like to grow my own mushrooms. We got it all set up & put it in a cupboard, misting it with water most days & what do you know - we grew a mushroom!




Since then we have another 4 big mushrooms happily growing. I felt like doing something a bit special with the first mushroom but couldn't work out what to do, so it ended up going on pizza. I was inspired to make pizza after I read an easy pizza dough recipe on Yeah, that vegan shit. This recipe is insanely easy & really delicious.

The Easiest Pizza Dough in the World

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 packet of yeast


• 1 c. warm water


• 2-1/2 c. flour


• 1 t. agave nectar (or 2 t. sugar; I recommend the agave though cuz MAN does it make the crust taste lovely) - I used maple syrup & that was good!
  

• 1 t. salt


• 2 T. olive oil


• 2 T. fresh rosemary, chopped (optional) - I didn't use because I didn't have any
  


• cornmeal

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 200. In a large bowl, add in the yeast and warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Add the flour, salt, agave (or sugar), rosemary (if using), and olive oil and stir with a wooden spoon vigorously until combined. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Either sprinkle cornmeal onto a walled baking sheet and press dough into it until thin
-OR-
Sprinkle flour on your counter and roll out the pizza dough. Sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza stone and toss the dough on top. Spread olive oil over top (optional), and add all your toppings.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until pizza crust is golden and toppings are heated through.


I topped my pizza with roasted pumpkin, sliced mushrooms, caramelised onions & garlic & herb cheezly. Served with a tasty salad - this is a delicious mid week meal!

Quick & easy pasta

This is a super quick & easy pasta that I make sometimes when I really can't be bothered but have to prepare a meal.

• Roast some pumpkin
  
• While that is roasting, cook up some pasta
• While the pasta is cooking, fry some oyster mushrooms is a little bit of olive oil & plenty of garlic
• When it is all ready, add the pasta & pumpkin to the frypan with the mushrooms, add some lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, halved cherry tomatoes & baby spinach
  
• Toss it all together & serve

La Panella Apricot Bun

I had never tried the big fruit buns at La Panella because I thought they looked boring. Then one day I sent Greg off to get 2 pies & he came home with a bag FULL of La Panella goodies - I think he almost bought one of all the vegan foods, including & an apricot bun. The apricot bun is surprisingly good! The bread is kind of like brioche & it is really light & tasty. It is a good thing to
eat with a cup of tea.

World Vegan Day meet up

A few of us commented on Niki's post about World Vegan Day & the possibility of a meet up. Not sure if anything has been organised but I am definitely up for meeting fellow bloggers (& eating lots of food). So if nothing has been organised & you are interested maybe comment with suggestions of a time & place :)

Half Moon Cafe

My Saturdays at the moment are horrible. We are trying to buy a house so my Saturdays are spent driving around the Northern suburbs going to open for inspections of shit houses that we still can't afford - fun! So there is usually the need to grab lunch on the run & this Saturday I stopped into Half Moon Cafe on my way home.

Half Moon Cafe have hands down the best felafels in town. I got the Half Moon Felafel without yoghurt, it has pickles, hommous, tahini, tabouli & olives - yum.

Trippy Taco

I have had the BIGGEST craving for Trippy Taco since I saw this post on Easy as (Vegan) Pie. I work in West Melbourne & usually drive in on Fridays so thought it would be the perfect chance to do a Trippy Taco lunch run. One of my colleagues has recently become vegan & I have been telling her about all the amazing vegan food on offer in Melbourne so I got lunch for her too. I got the tofu asada tacos today & got my colleague the tofu asada burrito (which she really liked). The tacos were delish, I was starving & when the guy handed me my food I thought the tacos didn't look like much but they are really filling.


While I was waiting for the food I dropped into Las Vegan & picked up a muffin for Greg, I think it is chocolate, orange & hazlenut. I ate a little bit off the side while I was driving back to work - it was good!

Eggplant Parma

I usually buy my fruit & vegies from Vic Market before work on Friday mornings so at this time of the week I am trying to use up what I have left. I had an eggplant in the fridge & was trying to work out what to do with it & decided to do eggplant parma - I have never made it before & I loved it!

I sliced the eggplant, dipped it into soymilk mixed with egg replacer & then coated it in panko. I then cooked it in the frypan on a medium heat with a little bit of olive oil. Normally when I make parma type things I top them with pasta sauce but I didn't have any & was feeling lazy so I mixed together tomato paste, tomato sauce & fruit chutney - it did the job but was a bit too sweet. I then topped each piece of eggplant with half a piece of a tofutti cheese slice.

I served these with garlicky broccoli (steamed broccoli tossed in massel chicken stock & garlic) & lemony smashed potatoes.

Melindas White Choc Custard Biscuits

These biscuits are delicious. I know that I can make similar biscuits from scratch but when you arefeeling super lazy, they are really easy & really fast. I had some passionfruits in my fruit bowl so added the pulp of 3 passionfruits to the icing which sandwiches them together which makes them all the yummier.

Finally some salad weather!

It was a gorgeous sunny day in Melbourne today & was perfect salad weather. So I made a salad for dinner with all of my favourite things:

• rocket
• roasted red capsicum
• cherry tomatoes
• roasted sweet potato
• avocado
• olives
• balsamic glaze
  

I wanted to add some tofu & couldn't work out what to do with it, so I flicked through the Vegan Yum Yum book & came across this recipe for smoky miso tofu. I decided to give it a go because I had all the ingredients, it looked easy & I am won over by anything with miso, I could quite happily eat straight miso paste I love it so much. This tofu rocks - it has heaps of flavour & roasting it gives it a really nice texture.

Cauliflower Dal & Parathas

When I saw this recipe on Fatfree Vegan Kitchen for Cauliflower Dal I immediately went out & bought panch phoran with the intention of making it but forgot about it until I was walking through the Vic Market last week & saw whole cauliflowers for $1.20. So this ended up being a super cheap meal & it made heaps - 6 huge serves. Besides being cheap it was really tasty & really easy so a winner all round!

I served it with basmati rice & parathas. The parathas are from this recipe on Vegan Yum Yum. I have made the aloo parathas before & I really like them but I couldn't really be bothered tonight so I just made plain parathas & they were also delicious!

This was a great meal!

Sushi

Sushi for dinner tonight. I used this recipe for the rice & filled the sushi with tofu (which I marinated in okonomiyaki sauce, crumbed in panko & fried in a tiny but of peanut oil), cucumber & avocado. I served it with the same salad from last night.


Plus a picture of Sawyer when he was on his way to the cattery for a holiday :)

Okonomiyaki

I have lost my mofo mojo a bit this week. Work has been busy, I have been working long hours & it has actually been kind of hard - I have found myself having to think a lot & do a lot of problem solving. So I have really just been coming home & crashing & trying not to do anything involving thinking!

Anyway, I got to leave work an hour early today so thought I would actually make a decent meal for dinner tonight. I saw this recipe today & started reminiscing about okonomiyaki from my pregan days so thought I would give it a go.

This was seriously one of the best meals I have made for ages & it was ridiculously quick & easy, it was ready in about 30 minutes. I halved the recipe & it still made quite a lot for the 2 of us.

This is the recipe with my changes :

• 2 cups plain flour
• 4 eggs lightly beaten (I used 2 tsps egg replacer)
  
• 300ml water or milk
• 1/2 cup green shallots, sliced (I didn't use because I didn't have any)
  
• 1 1/2 cups Cabbage, torn into smallish pieces (I used wonga bok)
  
• 1/3 cup thin carrot batons
• 1/2 cup chicken sliced or prawns or bacon or whatever you have (I had some mock chicken so used that but I didn't even notice it so would leave it out next time)
  
• Oil for frying
• Mayonnaise (I used the praise vegan mayo)
• Okonomiyaki sauce
  

I just mixed everything up, put into a heated frypan which I had put a little bit of peanut oil in & cooked on a low heat. The recipe says to cover the frypan, but my frypan didn't have a lid so I just covered it with some foil & cooked until the bottom was brown & then flipped over. Once it was cooked I covered it in okonomiyaki sauce & some mayo - yum!

I seem to buy enormous wonga boks for one thing & then have to find heaps of different ways to use them so I served this with a salad of wonga bok, carrot, red capsicum & sesame seeds which was tossed in a sesame vinegarette.

Fried rice & Scallion Flatbread

I wanted to make a stir fry recently & I wanted rice so I decided to make a fried rice type of thing but with mostly vegies & a little bit of rice. I stir fried some onion, broccoli, red capsicum, oyster mushrooms, mock chicken, cashews & water chestnuts. (I am pretty sure I could live solely on oyster mushrooms, they are so, so good.) I cooked it all with some ginger, garlic, dark soy sauce & vego oyster sauce & stirred through cooked basmati rice at the end & it was really delicious!

Awhile ago I made the scallion flatbreads from Veganomicon & froze them uncooked so I just had to take them out, cook them in a frypan with a little bit of peanut oil & they were done - quick, easy & really tasty!

Felafels

I have never made my own felafels before but thought I would try them out tonight since I had a bunch of parsley in the fridge which was calling out to be made into tabouli. I used this recipe, but I baked them instead of frying & pressed some sesame seeds into the top before baking. I served them on top of tabouli which I poured a tahini dressing on (just tahini, lemon juice, warm water & garlic). The felafels were ok but I found them quite onion-y & a bit bland. Mixed with the tabouli they were better but, to be perfectly honest, I think I prefer the packet mix that you
can buy! Maybe I just need a better recipe?



And just because she is super cute & the reason that I am vegan, here is a photo of Miss Roxy.

Cupcakes!!

My mum invited us over for lunch today to have a look at her garden since we are getting married there at this time next year. She is in charge of our wedding cake, which will be cupcakes & my sister & I suggested that she trial some of her cupcakes for us. When we got to her house we were greeted with 2 stands of cupcakes that she had made - plain vanilla cupcakes & mango cupcakes. These were so delicious & my cousin's 7 year old daughter proceeded to eat 4 of them!!

When I first went vegan my biggest concern was that I wouldn't be able to partake in our big family lunches any more, but my family have been amazing. They are all really supportive & my mum bought Veganomicon & she loves to try new things things to make us & always sends us away with containers of vegan goodies.

Chickpea cutlets

I love the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon, they are easy & really delicious whether you are eating with vegies for dinner or on a sandwich. This was a great meal, one that I should probably make more often because it is so good! It is chickpea cutlets, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted kipfler potates & steamed broccoli - all covered in miso gravy.

The miso gravy recipe is from drbenkim.com which I found when I was googling a healthy miso gravy recipe. it is really delicious & I froze some of it & it freezes really well.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of red or yellow miso
1 and 1/2 cups of water
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons of unbleached flour
2 teaspoons of minced fresh basil or 1/4 teaspoon of dried basil (I didn't add this because I didn't have any)

Directions:

1. In a medium-sized pan, bring olive oil to medium heat, then add onion and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes, or until onion is tender and translucent.

2. Reduce heat to low setting and add flour and nutritional yeast. Stir steadily for 1-2 minutes.

3. Add water in a slow drizzle while stirring briskly. Bring heat up to medium setting and continue to stir regularly for about 10 minutes, or until gravy begins to thicken.

4. Once the gravy has just started to thicken, reduce heat to medium-low setting and add miso and basil. Keep the pan uncovered and stir occasionally. It typically takes about 15 minutes for the gravy to fully thicken and become smooth.

Vegan Yum Yum Apple Strudel

I got the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook recently & immediately bookmarked the apple streudel recipe. Last week I was feeling like making dessert so decided to give it a go because I had all the ingredients on hand. This is really, really quick & easy & tastes delicious! I think it would be better with ice cream, but sadly I had none.

Baked potato of deliciousness

Tonight I made baked potatoes for dinner. All day I had been thinking about making a stir fry but at the last minute I decided to change plans & I am glad I did because these were the goods - one of those easy meals that is super tasty. I wrapped some potatoes in foil & put them in the oven until soft, & then topped them with avocado, a kind of chilli con carne (which I made up on the spot with the ingredients I had), corn kernels & cashew sour cream.

The cashew sour cream is from vegan brunch & is really good - it says in the book that it doesn't taste like sour cream & it doesn't but it is really tasty nonetheless.

Kind of chilli con carne

1 onion diced
1 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cups passata
1 tin 4 bean mix
1/2 cup shredded mock chicken (I used a vincents one which has a really nice smoky flavour)
*I also added about 2 tsps of some burrito seasoning that I had in the cupboard, but cumin & paprika would be really nice

Fry onion in olive oil until soft
Add garlic & tomato paste & stir & cook for about another minute
Add seasoning, passata, 4 bean mix & mock chicken, lower heat & leave to cook away slowly while you get everything else ready

Vegan Yum Yum Rustic Bread & Eggplant Lasagne

I love the blog Vegan Yum Yum & have made a few recipes from there which have all been really good. When I saw this recipe I thought it was a brilliant idea because it includes all of my favourite ingredients & it looked amazing. I made it with some day old ciabatta bread & the only thing I did differently was to add a bit of red wine to the tomato sauce. I thought that the bread would end up super soggy & mushy but it didn't at all, even when I had it for lunch for the next two days. Greg wasn't a huge fan of it but I liked it & would like to make it again, maybe varying it with different sorts of vegies in it.