Adaptation may be the reason why, as we age, we believe that in our youth the sky was bluer, summer days were warmer and food tasted better.
- How to Fossilise Your Hamster by Mick O'Hare
For some reason gingerbread always reminds me of Christmas so what perfect way to kick-start the lead up to the festive season than gingerbread waffles.
I used the recipe from Vegan Brunch (but using half and half white and wholemeal flours) and served them with sliced banana and maple syrup. Perfect!
One thing I absolutely love about Christmas time is Christmas cake! This year I found this recipe on The Hungry Vegan blog and thought I’d give it a go.
I ended up over-cooking mine a bit since it needed quite a lot less time than the recipe said (well, mine did anyway...maybe it was my cake pan?) but it still turned out delicious.
We also always have our family Christmas party the last Saturday before Christmas day. Being the only vegan or vegetarian in the family usually (one of my cousins is a vegetarian but she lives in Aussie) I always bring a main dish and my famous trifle (well, famous in our family anyway). I also bought hummus because, well, hummus rocks.
The evening started with my Aunty’s rather strong (at least on an empty stomach) fruit cocktail. I could feel my head spinning after only a few sips!
The last couple of years I’ve been making a tofukey for the main dish which is really delicious but I was kind of a bit on the busy side and figured it was time for a change. Instead I made a nut loaf adapted from a recipe I found in the Australian Women’s Weekly Great Vegetarian Food cookbook. I also made a tomato sauce to go with it.
It didn’t stay together as well as usual but never mind ‘cause taste is more important! Here’s it messily plated up amongst other good food. Mum made this awesome kumara salad after I specially requested it. I really should get the recipe off her. But she was kind enough to let me take home all the leftovers which I steadily ate through over the following couple of days.
Of course, no family Christmas party is complete without trifle! This year my cousin D requested the chocolate version.
It’s really very simple although takes a bit of time to make everything. First I make a basic chocolate cake which then gets sliced up and spread with jam and laid at the bottom of the serving dish. I then mash up a tin of berries and pour this over the top and then add fresh, chopped fruit (strawberries are great with chocolate). Finally I make a thick chocolate custard which gets cooled before putting on top of the dish and then you top that with chopped dark chocolate. Super rich but super tasty!
Here’s my dessert bowl...
...trifle, fruit salad, my Uncle’s apple crumble and my Mum’s Christmas pudding. And now I’m super full which is, of course, all part of the tradition!
It was not that he had lost his will to live. It was that his brain was so exact and cold a thing that when it told him that his life, for this reason, and for that reason, was within a few hours of its end, he had no faculties wherewith to combat its logic.
- Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
In case you were concerned, I have actually eaten things other than cookies and rum balls (although I must admit a fair amount of indulgence in respect of the rum balls!). So here we go...
My flatmates were away for a couple of weeks not that long ago and left me a package of tempeh in the fridge to use up. I adore tempeh but hadn't bought any in ages so this was the perfect excuse to cook some again. For once I was organised and marinated it in the morning (okay, so I wasn't that organised but I was working from home so was probably trying to procrastinate!) and then baked it in our convection oven along with some kumara chips.
On the side I had some stir-fried veges. I grated some sheese and sprinkled that on top of the veges along with a drizzle of tahini. When such a simple combination tastes so good there's no real need to go making a sauce (in other words, I'm just plain lazy)!
This was dinner the following night. I'd cooked up a double-batch of tempeh and had some leftover kumara chips so I added all of that to one of my usual giant salads.
Yes, there are vegetables under that huge mound of tempeh! Ah, so delicious!
One night I had a girls night with my friend S and her darling daughter and she whipped us up some delicious vegetable wraps.
I filled mine with hummus, asparagus, mushrooms, red onion, lettuce, tomato and cucumber. It was so refreshing that I ate two of them! We finished our night with popcorn, strawberries and a good old chick flick! Oh yeah!
On a recent exploration of the local health food shop I discovered these random tempeh rolls (tempeh and vegetables wrapped in pastry) and, out of the curiosity that sometimes overcomes me in there, I bought a pack to try. I threw the package away before I made a note of the brand but if anyone's interested I can have a look next time I'm there.
They were actually delicious and made a great light lunch with salad but they could have done with more filling and less pastry (or maybe that's just me).
A couple of weeks ago when B was up we decided to invite my lovely cousin D round for dinner. I'd been highly domestic the day before and cooked up a huge saucepan of chickpeas (note to self: I really should cook beans more often) so I decided we were going to have chickpea curry. The only snag was I had no curry paste so I sent B off to the supermarket on a mission to find some vegan curry paste. All he could find were pouches of Thai Kaffir Lime curry paste.
I used 2 of the pouches but it could probably have done with 3 although D still found it pretty hot. I must increase her tolerance for hot food! It was actually delicious so maybe I'll have to buy those pouches again. Pity none of the other flavours were vegan.
No post of dinners cooked at home is complete without a meal of nachos! What is it about nachos that makes them such a staple and should I be concerned?! Oh well, at least B enjoyed them too.
I keep meaning to try these with different beans (preferably some I've cooked myself) just to shake things up a little but I was lazy and used my usual can of kidney beans.
So I rather regularly have pizza as an after-climbing dinner with the rest of the climbing crew but it had been ages since I'd made it myself. I found myself trying to think of meals to make on a recent trip up to my beach house and decided pizza was an excellent idea. Being a little lazy I bought the bases so they weren't as awesome as usual but still pretty good.
I pretty much used any toppings I had on hand (a base of tomato paste topped with mushrooms, capsicum, onion, tomato, avocado and sheese as well as cooked, chopped Bean Supreme burger patties which I'd found in my freezer at home). SO good.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in the air, in the sudden calm, in the way the world felt suddenly as tough something heavy was pressing down on it.
- Nation by Terry Pratchett
A few weeks ago my mate B was up for the weekend to compete in an adventure race with me. Anyway, as a treat for after the race we bought these Leda Chocolate Rum Balls.
They were seriously good and we may have got a little addicted so we decided that next time B was up to visit we'd try and make our own.
Luckily it wasn't too long before he was in my neighbourhood again and bearing rum he'd got from his parent's liquor cabinet. Yay! After searching the internet to find a recipe but not coming up with anything that satisfied me I decided we'd just have to make it up as we went along and they turned out surprisingly well if not a little strong on the rum but hey, they're rum balls after all so I guess it's not really a problem at all!
So, here's the recipe...bearing in mind that I kind of made it up as I went along so the amounts are all rather arbitrary!
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 rum
2 cups toasted, mixed nuts (I used almonds, pecans, walnuts, almonds, cashews and coconut)
1 packet (250g) Arnott's Nice biscuits (or similar)
1 Tbsp molasses
200g dark chocolate, melted
desiccated coconut for coating
Soak the raisins in the rum for a few hours or overnight.
In a food processor, blend the nuts until they are finely chopped. Add the biscuits and process again until finely ground. Add the rum and raisin mixture and blend again. Finally, add the molasses and dark chocolate and blend until the mixture is all combined and holds together (you'll need to scrap down the sides several times).
Put the mixture in the fridge for about an hour so that it's easier to work with and then shape into balls (what ever size you fancy but don't make them too big 'cause the mixture is pretty strong!). Roll in coconut to decorate and store in the fridge.
The terrain about them was as though freshly painted, or rather, as though like an old landscape that had grown dead and dull it had been varnished and now shone out anew, each fragment of the enormous canvas, pristine, the whole, a glory.
- Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Life has been pretty hectic and exhausting (yeah, I know I say that a lot but it's been even more than normal if that's possible!) but hopefully things will calm down a little bit by the end of the month...but then again, probably not!
Since I'm so often short on time it's really handy to have super quick things around that require very little preparation and work but still taste good. I often have a container of Turkish Kitchen traditional falafel mix in my fridge for a quick dinner. Scoop out what you want, fry it up and hey presto!
It's a habit of mine to dollop spoonfuls of tahini on top of my cooked veges. I'm too lazy to make a sauce and I adore tahini so it's a win win situation! Add some kumara chips and life is beautiful (or at least dinner!).
Here's another meal using the trusty falafel mix...
Falafel, salad and toast with peanut butter and hazel cocoa malt spread - the lunch of champions!
Believe it or not there have actually been occasions of late I've had time to be more adventurous (not often enough I admit but at least they appear at times!)...
Cornmeal waffles with grilled, marinated asparagas (both from Vegan Brunch) and stir-fried veges and tofu. My waffles hated me and kept sticking to the waffle iron but they still tasted delicious which is the main thing I guess.
