I sure do use the word “awesome” a lot, don’t I?

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

This month marks the release of Terry Hope Romero’s much anticipated Viva Vegan! I am just dying for this book. An American expat misses Latin American food more than, well, more than a great analogy I can’t think of (suggestions are welcome). The thought of getting my grubby mits on what rumour is saying is quite the fabulous book has left me desperate for something South of the border in flavour, and these vegan taquitos are the result.

I’ve been sitting on this for a week or two, but seeing as it’s the 5th of May it seems an appropriate time to share.

It’s good. Really good. I ate them for breakfast the day I made them.

Mexican Food in the UK

Londoners searching for corn tortillas (and other goodies like corn husks) should look no further than the Cool Chile Company for authentic Mexican ingredients. And no, those Old El Paso yellow things don’t count.

Taquito making, by picture

Softening the corn tortillas

Wrapping and pinning the tortillas

Frying the taquitos

I’ve been meaning to make an Italian vegetarian meatball alternative for ages, but life caught up with me and time took me past my kitchen at light speed. Exhausted, walking barefoot through 8 feet of snow, uphill both ways to school, I’ve managed to get this done once and for all. Sigh of relief ensues. Feelings of self-pity evaporate.

Translation: I had to go out of town on a last minute emergency and I’m back home in my own kitchen now.

Recipe notes

This veggie meatball uses nutritious okara, the soy pulp left over in the soy milk making process, but feel free to use a pressed extra firm tofu if you don’t have okara on hand.

The recipe for these meatless balls is for a basic Italian style, but get playful with the herbs and spices to obtain the flavour you crave. If you like your food salty, add some more in the dry mix (I always go light on salt).

Pizza, pizza, pizza! A few weekends ago I invited my in laws over for lunch, determined to feed them something they’d never otherwise eat. I realise it seems crazy to think there are people in this world who don’t consume pizza on at least a semi-regular basis, but there you go.

The more time I spend in a kitchen, the more confident I get serving first time experiments to guests (I’ll let you know about the upcoming disaster regarding this scenario, because I’ve surely jinxed myself now). This, a thin crust pizza without a tomato in sight, was luckily a real hit.

Fry’s chicken burgers sliced, plus a creamy blue sheese base, sprinkled with a handful of walnuts, makes for a father in law who pretty much leaves no leftovers behind. Is there no better feeling in the world than a certified omnivore boldly enjoying your weeegan food so much?

I’m still ironing out some wrinkles in the recipe, but it’s essentially a thinner version of my blue cheese spread (only made with a yoghurt and cashew base with extra herbs and spices added) on this beer pizza crust base.

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning the rate at which aforementioned father in law downed the homemade vegan cookies and cream ice cream we had for afters. The speed at which he consumed it was approaching that of light.

It’s time for a killer vegan breakfast treat.

I’ve been feeling a bit of a cold the past week, not to mention the fact that I’ve hit the inevitable monthly mark on the calendar where my stomach views the world as an all you can eat pig out. These things combined are treacherous (ask my partner, whose finger I nearly bit off on Saturday whilst trying to devour food between his fingers) because they both make me feel the need to eat. Okay, not just eat, but eat a whole lot of everything. Specifically this is a time when I crave a good vegan breakfast, but I also had some samosa skins I needed to use.

And I mean, come on, who hates a fry up? And who hates deep fried? Now imagine combining the two. For realz. Vegan breakfast in a deep fried parcel!

I’ve taken all the best bits of a vegan fry up (my favourite parts of a vegan breakfast anyway): mushrooms, scrambled tofu and facon, and mashed them together into a filling for a samosa. If you have different breakfast favourites, by all means use them instead. Vegan sausages crumbled, tempeh, spinach, you name it and I bet it’d be kick-arse in these samosas. The samosa skins in this recipe were bought, but you can also make your own samosa pastry if buying them pre-packaged isn’t an option.

Raise your hand if you’re familiar with, whether as something you’ve said or heard, a variant of “…but doesn’t it all taste the same? I could never give up meat because I like flavour.”

Whether you’re an omnivore cooking for a vegan, a long-time veggie, or somewhere in between, here are a few ingredients see as key in adding that extra little bit of oomph to a dish.

A splash of this and a pinch of that

1. Anywhere you need that little bit of extra depth, whether in gravy, pies, stews, wherever, then Marmite is your friend. Obviously you realise it’s a must-have staple for anything revolving around your typical Sunday roast. The GVC loves Marmite and wants you to love it too, so check out their “tips to help any nervous Marmite virgins earn their brown wings.” Vegemite is another option, but not my personal preference.
2. I dismissed soy sauce for many years because I hadn’t had anything other than cheap darkened soy juice. Find yourself a quality soy sauce. In fact, find yourself many. There’s light soy sauce and dark soy sauce (milder but richer in colour), tamari, and a number of other options. Vegetables and stocks will come to life with a generous splash.
3. Nutritional yeast, also know as “nooch” in some circles, is a staple in any vegan’s store cupboard. It’s a deactivated yeast with a nutty flavour which complements salads, potatoes, sauces and dressings, stir-fries, and more.
4. Dark Miso pastes are another excellent method of adding a deep and rich flavour to a dish. Light miso is good too, but the sugar content is higher so be careful when using to “beef” up a meal!
5. A personal favourite is red wine vinegar, a condiment I use in gravy for a roast dinner. A little bit goes a long way and it adds a full and zingy taste to stocks and pies.
6. That said, I suppose it’s a little unfair to discount the all important red wine and white wine, both capable of lifting any dish from the depths of dullness to the height of flavour. If you’re cooking for a vegan or vegetarian, make sure they’re suitable though because lots of alcohol isn’t.
7. Dried shiitake mushrooms make a fabulous addition to any stock. Seriously. If these aren’t in your storecupboard, get yourself to an Asian Oriental (and yes I’ve been informed this isn’t a politically correct term in the US, but “Asian” here refers to a different part of the world. I use the term purely as a regional reference) grocer and get some.
8. The darkest of dark chocolate has the capability of adding some serious depth to a dish. Sound odd? It’s been used in Central and South American cooking for many many years.

What do you think?

What staple flavour enhancers do you use? If you had to re-write my list, what would you leave out? Include?

It’s not all in a name, not here at least

“Chicken Ball” sounds very unappetising, a name more capable of winning a playground name calling contest than impressing dinner guests*. I am undecided regarding which scenario fits the name better:

Scenario 1:

“What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Chicken Balls”

Scenario 2:

“Oi, Chicken Ball, gimme your lunch money!”

What do you think?

Recipe notes

I created this recipe as a very basic and mildly flavoured staple to which other flavours can be added to suit a dish. That’s right, you can buff it up with all your favourite flavours. It’s not intended to be hugely flavourful because flavours will be added to suit the dish. Here are a few suggestions:

• Using it in a curry? Try adding some cumin or garam masala and a little extra salt.
• Want a chicken-meatball pasta dish? Try adding some more rosemary and perhaps other herbs to the mix. Maybe some celery salt, too?
• How about a spicy chili or stew? Add some cayenne pepper or go all out with some smoky chipotle!
• Change the texture by adding more vital wheat gluten. I have made the recipe both like below and with more gluten. Both are good, but added gluten yields a more solid result with a chewier texture.

Update 15 September 2008: I used these in this Rajasthani Kadhi Recipe along with a few handfuls of spinach. Highly recommended! Yum-tastic!

*luckily those include only my cats and hubby.

The following “recipe” is an idea that came to fruition in less than two weeks, nothing short of miraculous for me. I genereally opt for la-la land, an imaginary place where my creations are wholly unique, often produced, and loved by all. They just never enter the realm of reality.

Speaking of which, reality sort of sucks. I work long hours, sometimes 12 hour days, and find myself uninspired to cook and mainly just ready for bed. I need to create a cooking schedule for myself so I know to make time ahead of time. I need a stunt double, only one who limits themselves on the stunts and excels in the kitchen. I mean we have limited space you know.

Comfort food without the guilt, on a pizza

I’m not a super health nut. I eat my fair share of fat and sugar. I don’t feel guilty about this.

This recipe was conceived of before I became vegan, in the final year where I was slowly realising cheese shouldn’t play such a primary role in my meals. I was keeping my animal fats to a minimum. Cancer, diabetes, and heart disease run in my family so while I still consumed dairy, I was still careful.

The idea of a full-fat cheese pizza even then made my stomach feel week, making pizza a once-in-a-blue-moon treat because I knew it would only leave me feeling weighed down for the rest of the day. But then I started thinking “ah, but why should a pizza be tomatoes and cheese?!” And this sos and mash pizza was born out of these thoughts.

A great way to deal with leftovers

I don’t know about you, but root vegetables always seem to accumulate in my pile of stuff to use up. They sit around in quantities not quite large enough to feed two people, so they continue to sit around a little longer. Then there’s the packages of things, like veggie sausages, that come in three or five (yes, I cheated and got these at the store. Usually I like to make my own), so there’s always one or two left over.

Never mind. This vegan sos and mash “pizza” is a great way to use up any leftover root veg. Boil ‘em and mash ‘em and there’s your base for a unique pizza.

The components of a sos and mash pizza

There’s no need for a recipe for this. If you need a recipe, find your favourite pizza recipe and use it as a guide! There are 3 basic components to this pizza:

• Pizza base, bought or home-made
• A thick gravy (think the consistency of a tomato sauce for pizza)
• Mashed potato (give it some flavour by mashing it with some soy milk plus garlic, chives, butter, and/or other favourite mash ingredients…)
• Veg sausages, sliced and lightly fried

I’m confident you can work out how to put it together, but just for reference the stack goes base + gravy + mash + sausage. Bake following the directions for your pizza base.

I know this isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s a fun and unique take on the traditional British sausage and mash dinner. It’s fun to eat, filling, and very tasty. I definitely plan to make this again, but next time I might add a little sweet potato to the mix!

I have a confession. This is the first time I’ve ever knowingly tried broad beans. It is most certainly the first time I have ever cooked them.

Result? Good, I think. I decided to try something relatively simple, and as my husband ate it I can assume it was a relative success (ignoring the “why is there chocolate sauce on the plate?” comment)! And he claims he doesn’t even like goat’s cheese!

What’s this okara stuff?

Okara is the soy pulp you are left with in the process of making soy milk. To make soy milk, soaked soy beans are ground with water. The water then filters out to make the “milk” and the pulp left in the mesh or strainer. Essentially, okara is what you are left with after the milk is made.

I’ve had my Soyquick for a few months now, and while I love it to bits I have been feeling a little guilty throwing all of the okara out time and time again. Waste not, want not and all that. I started thinking, “what can I do with this stuff?”

So for anyone looking for Soyquick recipes, specifically for an okara recipe, this vegetarian meat loaf is both easy and tasty (and gives you a great way to use what you might otherwise toss in the bin).

The mandatory inclusion of seafood-related treats such as fish sauce, oyster sauce, and shrimp paste often make eating in Southeast Asia a little difficult for a veggie (to say the least). And it’s not something worth trying to trick yourself into believing you can get around, either. Here is an example conversation a vegetarian might have with restaurant waitstaff:

“…but I’m vegetarian. I can’t have oyster sauce.”

“…it’s not meat, it’s oyster sauce! It’s vegetarian!”

and so forth. You learn to simply find vegetarian establishments, basically, and there are a fair few in the major cities. The word “vegetarian” seems to have annexed so many different meanings that it’s hard to know what’s up from down, so I don’t take anyone’s word for it anymore when I’m in this region.

Instead I just feel sorry for myself while on holiday, and save up all my annoyances to come home and make veggie versions of the dishes I gave a miss while away. Next time I won’t be so defeatist about it.