Mushroom, Pumpkin & Sage Risotto

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] While risotto seems like a lot of work with all the stirring required, it’s actually quite a fast meal that doesn’t require a lot of preparation, and best of all, there is only one pot to clean once you’re finished eating. I personally find risotto quite heavy and that is one of the reasons I like to add tomatoes during the last stages of cooking, I find that they lighten up the dish a little. If you wanted to make the meal without the tomatoes it would work equally well. Enjoy!

Mushroom, Pumpkin & Sage Risotto

Ingredients

1 tbs non dairy butter
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 clove garlic minced
1 medium leek, chopped
2 cups button mushrooms, chopped
1 1/2 cups pumpkin, chopped (approx 1.5cm cubes)
3/4 cup zucchini, chopped
3/4 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh sage
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

1. Melt your butter in a heavy based medium saucepan over medium heat. Add your garlic and leek, cook for 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the pumpkin, mushrooms, zucchini, vegetable stock, rice and some freshly ground black pepper.

2. Stir the mixture constantly, until the rice has completely absorbed the stock, this will take approximately 20 minutes. Test the rice at this stage, it will largely depend on the water content of your vegetables whether the rice is completely done, if it is still a bit cruchy, add another 1/2 cup of water or stock to the mixture and continue stirring until the liquid has been absorbed.

3. Stir in your tomatoes and fresh sage and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add extra salt and pepper if required. Serve the risotto, garnished with the chopped walnuts.

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Mushroom, Tomato & Olive Calzone with Tofu Ricotta

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] My friend Amy was the inspiration behind this recipe, she was visiting us last week and mentioned making calzones as her cooking specialty and I have been dreaming out them ever since. As a rule I absolutely love *anything* that is made by wrapping food in pastry: dumplings, pies, samosas, spring rolls, you name it and I love it. Calzones are no exception and they are so versatile, anything that goes well on a pizza will go well inside these babies! I used some ground up chia seeds in the dough mixture, but they are an optional ingredient, they were added for their nutritional content and not because they were required for the consistency of the dough. The tofu ricotta recipe came from the PPK website.

Mushroom, Tomato & Olive Calzone with Tofu Ricotta

Ingredients:
For the dough:
1 tbs dry active yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs ground chia seeds (optional)
Pinch of salt

For the Tofu Ricotta:
1 pckg firm tofu – pressed
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
handful fresh basil leaves, chopped
Pinch of black pepper

For the calzone filling:
1 cup button mushrooms, chopped
Fresh basil leaves, chopped
5 cherry tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup olives chopped
2 tbs tomato paste

Method:

1. Prepare the tofu ricotta according to THIS recipe from Isa Chandra and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast on the warm water, and stir to dissolve. Set aside until the yeast starts forming bubbles in about 5 minutes. Sift in the flour, add the oil and salt and mix together with a wooden spoon until ingredients are combined and then mix with your hands to form your dough. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes and then cover and set aside (preferably somewhere warm) for 1.5 – 2 hours, until the dough has doubled in size.

3. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

4. On a floured surface divide the dough into 8 equal parts (or four if you are making large calzones). Roll each segment into a circle and place your calzone filling ingredients on one half of the dough, the ratios are up to you, just make sure there is enough filling so that when you fold the dough over a nice pocket of filling is formed. I put the tomato paste first, then top with basil, mushrooms, tomato, olives and finally top with some of the ricotta filling.

4. fold the dough over to form a pocket, press the edges together with your thumb. Place your calzones on a greased oven proof tray and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

NOTE: I left the ingredients quite large for some of these photos, so that you could see, but the smaller you chop them, the better the flavour distribution will be inside your calzone. Recipe above will make 4 large calzones or 8 small ones.

Pumpkin, Sage & Walnut Ravioli

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] Long time readers of Vegan Chickie will remember bare-chested-chef, my lovely husband, who cooked for us on a regular basis during the early days of the Vegan Chickie Blog. Recently, he has been busy being an actual chef out in the real world and hasn’t had much spare time for tinkering in the kitchen at home, but this weekend, due to popular demand, he has come out of retirement and agreed to cook something delicious for us to showcase on the Vegan Chickie blog.

I am going to put the recipe into two posts, the Pumpkin and Sage Ravioli here and the Creamy Capsicum Pasta Sauce in another post to avoid things getting too confusing. Alternatively you could use any pasta sauce with this ravioli recipe. I especially like them with a spicy tomato sauce.

Pumpkin Sage & Walnut Ravioli

Ingredients:

For the pasta:
500g flour
300g water
1tsp salt
2 tbs chia seeds, finely ground (optional)
1tbs olive oil

For the ravioli filling:
1 medium butternut chopped
1 tbs chopped sage
1 tbs nutritional yeast
1/4 cup stock
1/4 cup oil
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbs olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and Pepper

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees, in a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin in the 1tbs of oil, garlic, salt and pepper, toss until the pumpkin is evenly coated. Place the pumpkin on a baking tray and bake for 45 mins – 1 hr.

2. Meanwhile, make the dough for the pasta. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, add the wet ingredients and mix well until the mixture forms a dough. cover the dough and set aside for half an hour.

3. Once your pumpkin is roasted, remove it from the oven and mash it, add the sage, walnuts, oil, vegetable stock, and nutritional yeast, mix well to combine. Set aside until your pasta is ready to fill.

6. Once the pasta dough has ‘rested’ roll it out with a rolling pin and then run it through your pasta machine as directed with the machine instructions. Once the pasta is rolled thinly enough place it in rows along a floured surface. Place 1/2 tbs sized portions of the pumpkin mixture about 4cm apart along one edge of the pasta as shown in the pictures below. Fold the sheet of pasta over to cover. You may need to use a small amount of water to seal the pasta around the pumpkin. Cut with a ravioli spindle (or just a knife if you don’t have a cutter).

8. Add your ravioli to a large pot of salted boiling water and cook for 4-5 minutes. Strain well.

9. Put the ravioli on a plate, top with your sauce, garnish with parsley and eat!

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Creamy Capsicum Pasta Sauce

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] This is part two of bare-chested chef’s recipe for his Pumpkin & Sage Ravioli with creamy capsicum sauce, but this sauce will work just as well as a standard pasta sauce for any dish you can think of. This sauce was adapted from Vegan Dad and is really delicious. As a vegan, I thought creamy pasta sauces would be a thing of the past so this was a really nice surprise. I’m looking forward to experimenting with the cashew cream idea in the future with some other recipes.

Creamy Capsicum Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

1 red capsicum
1 orange capsicum
1 tbs olive oil
2 small red chilis finely chopped (or 1tbs dried)
1 tbs non-dairy margarine
1 leek, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs dried basil
1 cup raw cashews
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste
Pasta of your choice (or our Ravioli)
Parsley to garnish

Method:

1. Place your capsicums in a baking dish and bake in the oven at high heat until the skin is wrinkled and blackened. Remove from the oven, remove the skin and seeds and chop roughly

2. Place the cashews in a blender and pour in enough of the water to cover. Blend into a paste. Add the rest of the water and blend until very smooth. Let the cream sit for about 20 minutes, It will appear quite watery but don’t panic the cream will thicken up as the blended cashews absorb some of the water. After 20 minutes, add the roasted capsicum, basil, chili and vegetable stock.

3. In a medium pan, over medium heat, heat the oil and margarine, add garlic and leek and cook until translucent, add the cashew cream mixture and blend with a hand-held blender until mixture is smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Heat the mixture, but don’t let it boil.

4. Once sauce is hot, pour over your cooked pasta, garnish with parsley and serve.

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Crusty Italian Bread

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] This is a really simple bread recipe, great for making delicious crusty bread without a bread-maker. We found the original recipe here, and created the vegan version below. Leave the loaf to cool for as long as you can bear it before slicing the bread, the longer you leave it the crunchier the crust will be, but I won’t blame you if you can’t wait long, who can resist the smell of freshly baked bread? Not I!

Homemade Crusty Italian Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup hot water
1/2 cup soy milk
2 tbs agave nectar
2-1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
3 cups bread flour
1 cup semolina flour
1 tsp. sea salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Cooking oil spray

Method:

In a large mixing bowl, combine water, milk, and agave nectar. Sprinkle yeast over top – do not stir. Allow to stand 10-15 minutes until foamy. Add 2 cups of flour. Using electric mixer, beat on low for 4 minutes. Cover bowl with a towel. Place in an unheated oven and allow to stand 1-2 hours.

Remove bowl from oven and add remaining cup of bread flour, semolina flour, salt and olive oil. Using your electric mixer with a dough hook, beat for 5 minutes. Spray another large mixing bowl with cooking spray. Pour dough into that bowl. Turn over until dough is covered with oil. Cover and let rest 15 minutes.

Sprinkle a cookie sheet with several teaspoons of flour to stop the dough from sticking. Divide dough in half. Shape each half into an oval mound. Flatten slightly until each half is about 6 inches across. Spray tops of dough loaves with nonstick spray. Put cookie sheet into unheated oven to rise another 30 minutes to 1 hour, until doubled. Remove dough from oven. Preheat oven to 230 degrees.

Using a sharp knife, make 3 slits across top of bread about 1/4 inch deep. Fill a small round cake pan with 1/2 inch of water. Place on cake pan on bottom rack in oven. Place cookie sheet with bread dough on it on the middle rack of the oven. Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned. If bread browns too quickly, cover it with foil for the last 5-10 minutes of baking.

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Mock Mince Vegan Bolognese

[tweetmeme source="VeganChickie"]Based on a recommendation from T over at Blog-of-Nathan, I bought some Planet Organic Vegetarian Mince last week. I’m not usually one for mock meat products, I use them every so often but they aren’t really a staple in my vegan diet, but I stumbled across the box when we were checking out the new organic grocery in town so I thought I would buy it and give it a go. I didn’t actually take photos of the progress of this recipe because to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting it to be that good. Well, boy was I surprised! Lucky it was good, because I made a GIANT batch of the stuff. I’ve got masses of the stuff stored in the freezer now, but I don’t know if it was last very long because I’m pretty sure I’m going to eat the whole lot in a matter of days.. this bolognese is just that good! Beware, the amounts below make a massive quantity. Use your discretion for a smaller batch.

Mock Mince Vegan Bolognese

Ingredients:
1tbs olive oil
1 Leek, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small red chili, finely chopped
1 carrots, chopped
250g button mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup vegetable stock
4 large cans of chopped tomatoes
2 tbs tomato paste
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried marjoram
1 tsp sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 packet planet organic vegetarian mince
Fresh basil
Pasta of your choice

Method
Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat, add the garlic, chili, leek, carrot and mushrooms and cook for 5 – 10 minutes, or until vegetables are soft. Add the red wine and simmer for 2 minutes. Add the stock, tomatoes, tomato paste, dried herbs, sugar, salt and pepper, mix well and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Add the vegetarian mince, straight from the box, mix well, and simmer for a further 10 minutes (minimum, after this stage you can leave the pot cooking for as long as you wish, the longer you leave it, the more delicious it will be!). 5 minutes before serving, add the fresh basil. Serve with pasta of your choice.

Vegan Lasagne

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]This is another one of those dishes that is SUPER yummy but somehow looks kinda yuk when you take photos of it, but I promise you, it’s very delicious! And quiet easy too despite all the different pans you will use!

Vegan Lasagne

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large can of chopped tomatoes
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 clove garlic minced
1 small red chili chopped finely
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 large red capsicum
10 button mushrooms sliced finely
1 large eggplant sliced finely
2 large zucchini sliced finely
2 fresh tomatoes sliced finely
3 layers of lasagne sheets
Salt and Pepper to taste
Fresh herbs (Basil & Thyme)

Method:

1. Quarter and deseed the capsicum and place it skin side up on a non stick baking tray. Place in the oven on high until skin blisters and blackens – about 20 minutes. Remove and discard the blackened skin and slice capsicum into thin strips. Reduce oven head to 180 degrees.

2. While the capsicum is roasting, make your tomato sauce: in a medium sized pan, on low heat, heat 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil, add garlic, browning for 30 seconds before adding the tinned tomatoes, chilli, stock cubes and fresh herbs. Leave the pan on low heat, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes.

3. While the tomato sauce is cooking, in a small fry pan and using the rest of the olive oil in batches, brown 8 of your mushrooms, the eggplant and the zucchini. Set vegetables aside.

4. In a baking dish, place half a cup of your tomato sauce mixture and then place one layer of lasagne sheets on top. top with 1 third of each of the capsicum, mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini, fresh tomatoes and then 1 third of the remaining tomato sauce. Repeat until all your ingredients are used up. Top with the remaining uncooked mushrooms.

5. Bake, covered, in the oven at 180 degrees for 50 minutes, and then uncovered for a further 10.

Vegan Conchiglie Cacciatore

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]Technically this recipe is called Pappardelle Cacciatore, but I’m quite lazy when it comes to eating pasta and eating pappardelle or fettuccine really is a lot of effort, so generally I prefer to use Penne or Shell pasta, which is the reason for the name change. The recipe is from “Vegan Planet” and is based on a chicken cacciatore recipe. Vegan Planet is one of my favourite cookbooks and it’s yet to let me down, this recipe was no exception. The recipe actually calls for tempeh, but I wasn’t able to find any tempeh at all in our town so instead I used some vegan sausages (sundried tomato and kalmata olive). It worked quite well, I cooked it the same as the recipe suggested for the tempeh. Personally I think the recipe would be fine with just the vegetables, but tempeh is a great source of protein so I can definitely see the benefit of including it.

Note: The second time I made this I made it with mashed potato instead of pasta and I actually enjoyed it even more that way, so that is definitely an option as well.

Vegan Conchiglie Cacciatore:
(VEGAN PLANET)

Ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil
1 8oz package of tempeh cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 celery ribs, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
1 green capsicum, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 large can undrained diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon minded fresh marjoram, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pasta of your choice

Method:
1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the tempeh and cook, stirring, until lightly browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

2. Deglaze the pan with the wine, stirring to scrape up any browned bits of tempeh from the bottom. Reduce the wine by one-half on medium heat and set aside.

3. Heat the remaining oil in the pan. Add the celery, carrot, capsicum and garlic. Cover and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, rosemary, marjoram, salt and pepper and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the tempeh and wine and simmer for 15 minutes to blend the flavors. Reduce the heat to low and keep warm.

4. Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, drain and plate, top with the sauce and serve immediately.

Vegan Pizza

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]One of the foods that I always thought I would miss when I became a vegan was pizza, in my head there just wasn’t a way to have pizza without cheese, but it turns out that vegan pizza is not only delicious, but super fast and easy too.

You can make your own dough if you want to, but I was a bit of a cheat and bought some ready made bases from the supermarket. The toppings are totally up to you of course but here is what I have on mine:

Tomato paste/Pizza Sauce
Green olives
Mushrooms
Roasted Cashew Nuts (salty is best!)
Capsicum
Jalapenos
Artichokes
Tomato
Fresh Basil

Put the whole thing in the oven for 10 minutes and you’re done! So yum!
You can also use pita bread as a base if you like your pizza base thin and crispy.

What are your favourite vegan pizza toppings?

Vegan Lentil Bolognese

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]I’ve decided that this week is going to be slow cooker week in the foodie household, starting with Vegan Lentil Bolognese.. and oh wow, this recipe was good! And I don’t just mean that in the being polite to the cook kind of way, I mean that in the oh my goodness I need another bowl even though I’m so full I can barely move kind of way. Bolognese was always one of my favourites when I was a kid and it’s one of those dishes that I have really missed as a vegetarian (that and the Hainanese Chicken Rice I used to love to eat when I was in Singapore – Anyone got a good vegan substitute for that recipe?). Well, I will no longer be pining for the bolognese of my past because I’ve definitely found a replacement for this particular comfort food.

The inspiration for this recipe came from “Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker” but I’ve modified it quite a bit.

Note: Although I used fettuccine in this recipe I actually prefer to use a shell pasta, that way the lentils are cupped in the pasta and more evenly distributed throughout the meal.. with fettuccine or other long pasta then you are likely to end up with a pile of lentils on your plate at the end.

Vegan Lentil Bolognese

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1 medium leek, minced
2 carrots, minced
2 celery rib, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red chili, minced
1 800g can of crushed tomatoes
1 cup dried brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
2 tablespoons tomato paste dissolved in 1 cup of hot water
Pinch of mixed spice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
Fettuccine or other pasta of your choice
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese or soy Parmesan to serve

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the leek, carrot, celery, chili and garlic. Cover, and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Stir in the wine and simmer for 2 minutes.

2. Transfer the vegetable mixture to the slowcooker. Add the tomatoes, lentils, tomato paste mixture, mixed spice and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 7 hours (couldn’t be easier!!!)

3. When ready to serve, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally. Drain well.

4. Just prior to serving, stir the parsley into the sauce. Place the cooked pasta in a serving bowl, top with the bolognese and serve immediately with the cheese (or not, it’s just as good without it!).

Tomorrow I’m pulling out the slow cooker again but I’m not sure yet whether I’ll make White Bean Cassoulet, Minestrone, or Irish Stew, they are all on the menu for the coming week.. any requests?