Vegan MoFo - Orange Marmalade Oat Bread

For O I made this bread, which has heaps of good reviews.  However, I found it quite bland as the marmalade flavour is very, very subtle.  I do like that it isn't super sweet and I think that it might make great french toast though so I will give that a go.

Vegan MoFo - Korma

I kept changing my mind on what to make for K and in the end I went with a korma.  I used this recipe from food.com but used light coconut milk instead of soaking the coconut & used broccoli & beans as my vegetables.  I just found this quite boring & wouldn't make it again, it is also pretty ugly looking! 

However, the star of the meal was the sweet potato naan which I had on the side.  I used this recipe & it was just as delicious as it sounds.

Vegan MoFo - French Toast

Is there anything better than french toast for breakfast?  I have tried making a few different french toast recipes in the past & when I was googling recipes for the best french toast I came across a few recipes that featured nutritional yeast which I found odd but I decided to go with it.  Luckily, you can't taste the nutritional yeast in the end result at all as I was not looking forward to cheesy toast!

I used slices of baguette & soaked them in the following mixture:

• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• decent shake of cinnamon

They were then pan fried in a frypan just lightly sprayed with some canola oil.  I served these with blueberries & some tofutti cream cheese mixed with maple syrup. 

This is an awesome meal.

Some things I have cooked during my absence

Things have been pretty crazy in our house over the last month which is why I have been super slack on the blogging front.  Greg & I got married last weekend & have had our house overtaken by his New Zealand family & friends.

I have a few photos of some things we have eaten lately:

Chestnut & Mushroom Soup - This was so, so good!!  It was basically sauteed mushrooms blended with roasted chestnuts, stock & soy milk.  It was rich & velvety & divine.

Broccoli Soup - I don't really remember what was in this, but despite it looking a bit unappetising it was good.

Rosemary Bread Rolls

Easy as (vegan) Pie vegan sausage rolls - crap photo of SUPER delicious sausage rolls. 

Broccoli Quinoa - Yum

Pumpkin & Olive tart - based on this recipe

Mediterranean Olive Bread

Whenever I make soup I like to make bread to go alongside it so when I recently made a delicious tomatoey vegetable & sausage soup I decided to also make Mediterranean olive bread from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  This bread is so, so good!  It is essentially savoury cake with rosemary, olives, sundried tomatoes & olives all through it.  It doesn't have yeast in it so is really quick & easy too for a weeknight meal.  Completely delicious & goes exceptionally well with soup.

The soup that I make is a very easy soup & a good way of using up lots of vegies - I chop up whatever vegies I have on hand & cook in a little bit of olive oil & add a tin of tomato soup & massel chicken stock until I have about 4 serves worth & this time I had some vegie sausages in the freezer so I chopped up some of them & added them as well.

Easter pre-lunch

Easter Saturday was spent having a family lunch at my mum's place.  I decided to take some pre-lunch noms since she was doing the whole big lunch herself.  I bought divine marinated olives from the Vic Market & decided to make some bread & dips.  I am sure that she just thought I would go to the supermarket & buy some crackers & dips & did not intend for me to get up at on Saturday morning & start baking bread at 7am but I tend to go all out if I am given a task.  My mum bought herself 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' a while ago & is obsessed with it & everything she has made from it has been amazing so I finally got myself a copy & made the focaccia from it.  This was hands down the best focaccia I have ever eaten!  I have made focaccia a few times & have eaten plenty of it & this was divine - tasty, not dry, not too yeasty tasting, perfect!  There is lots of resting time involved but very little actual work.

The dips I made to go with the bread were muhummara, as blogged about by Where's the Beef  & sweet chilli hommus.  I make up hommus as I go by blending up chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice & salt & pepper & with this one I stirred through some sweet chilli sauce when it was done.

French toast

I was stuck at home on Saturday morning waiting for some furniture to be delivered so decided to make myself a tasty breakfast of very simple french toast. 

I just whisked together some soy milk with a couple of teaspoons of egg replacer, a bit of vanilla extract, nutmeg & cinnamon, dipped some thickly sliced bread in it coating both sides well.  Then cooked it over medium heat in a non stick frypan with a little bit of melted nuttelex - I probably should have cooked it a bit longer but I tend to get impatient where breakfast is concerned!  I drizzled it with maple syrup & it was delicious!

Muffaletta

I have been dying to go to a potluck forever so was very excited to be invited by Cindy to a potluck in Princes Park. I wanted to make something very picnicky & had no idea, so did a bit of googling & came across great advise such as "don't wear a fur coat to a vegan potluck" (seriously!) & in the end decided to make a muffaletta.

I bought an enormous loaf of bread from La Panella, in hindsight I brought the wrong bread because it was quite chewy, but it still tasted ok. I filled the loaf with:

• homemade basil & cashew pesto (spread on one side)
  
• roasted red capsicum
• grileld eggplant
  
• artichoke hearts
• kalamata olives
• baby spinach & rocket
• tofutti cream cheese with semi dried tomatoes mixed in (spread on the other side)

I made it the night before, wrapped it tightly in cling wrap & weighed it down with a big wooden chopping board & a baking dish.

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.

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!