Mushroom Pâté

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] I made this pâté as part of the Vegan Beef Wellington recipe I made a couple of weeks ago but I liked the pâté so much that I thought I would post it as a separate entry, it’s such a fast and easy recipe and it’s definitely delicious enough to deserve it’s own post. Also it will be much easier for me to find this way! Apologies in advance for the dodgy photo, I know it doesn’t look appetising, but pâté is just one of those things that looks kinda gross, you’ll have to take my word for it that it’s delicious.

Mushroom Pâté

Ingredients:

1 tbs non dairy margarine
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 small leek, chopped
2 cups button mushrooms, chopped
2 tsp tamari
1 tbs vegan mayonnaise
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup soft silken tofu
1/2 cup walnuts
1 tsp dried thyme

Method:

1. Heat half your margarine a fry pan over medium heat, add your leek, mushrooms, tamari and the thyme. Cook for approximately 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until mushrooms are cooked.

2. Place the mushroom mixture into your blender, add mayonnaise, breadcrumbs, tofu and walnuts and blend until smooth. Place in a small bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

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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.

Moroccan Vegetable Stew with Couscous

[tweetmeme source="VeganChickie"]

While I didn’t use a tagine for this recipe, it could actually be cooked in one easily enough (I don’t have one, or it would have been), I used my slow cooker for this, (you all know how much I love my slow cooker!) but if you don’t have one, it could just as easily be done in a big pot on your stove top at a low temperature.

Moroccan Vegetable Stew with Couscous

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium carrots, chopped roughly
1 medium butternut pumpkin peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
2 potatoes peeled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
1 medium leek, chopped
4 large mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup pitted prunes, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon chili flakes
2 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon paprika
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
Salt and Pepper to taste

1 cup couscous, prepared as directed on packaging
Chopped walnuts and raisins for garnish

Method:

1. Turn your slow cooker to LOW heat, add olive oil, leek, carrots, potato, pumpkin, mushrooms, prunes, walnuts, chickpeas, tomatoes, cinnamon stick, cumin, coriander, paprika, chilli flakes and vegetable stock. Stir well, cover and cook for 6 – 8 hours.

2. Prepare the couscous according the directions on the packaging.

3. Before serving, stir parsley into stew and season to taste with salt and pepper, remove the cinnamon stick and serve over hot cooked couscous. Garnish with parsley and a few chopped walnuts and maybe a handful of raisins for some extra sweetness.

NOTE: Almonds are more traditionally used in Moroccan cooking so you could substitute the walnuts for almonds if you like. If you don’t have prunes, raisins would work equally well.

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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 Stuffing

[tweetmeme source="VeganChickie"]I made this stuffing to go with my Christmas nut roast but it was so delicious that I decided that it deserved a post all on it’s own. I’m tempted to make a up another giant batch to have on sandwiches for the next fortnight. So good! For some reason I didn’t take many photos of this process.. I was cooking a bunch of things at once and it was so easy that I guess I didn’t think of it! Oops!

Vegan Stuffing

Ingredients:

1 cup bread crumbs
1 tbs olive oil
1 small leek finely chopped
3 celery ribs finely chopped
1 vegetable stock cube
100g button mushrooms finely chopped
1 clove garlic crushed
4 tbs fresh parsley finely chopped
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 cup melted non dairy butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray with baking paper, cover with breadcrumbs and put in the oven for approx 10 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are browned. It might be best to keep an eye on the breadcrumbs, some ovens might need less than 10 mins and it’s a fine line between toasted and burned!

2. Heat the oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add the leek, garlic, celery and mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes until vegetables are soft then remove from the heat.

3. Crumble the stock cube into the pan and mix well so that the vegetables are coated, add the parsley, dried herbs and salt and pepper, mixing well to combine. Stir through the melted butter and then, finally, add the toasted breadcrumbs and stir everything well so that the ingredients are evenly combined.

4. Serve it, warm or cold, as a side to your favourite meal (or on sandwiches which is what I do!).

Vegan Nut Roast

[tweetmeme source="VeganChickie"]This was my first attempt at a nut roast, before today I hadn’t even eaten one before but decided that I would give it a go for Christmas. I served it with mashed potatoes, glazed carrots with sesame seeds, fresh bread rolls and home made stuffing (recipe to come). Luckily I loved it, because I’m going to be eating it the leftovers for a whole week! I really need to get a smaller loaf tin! It was considerably more crumbly than I expected, but delicious all the same!

Vegan Nut Roast:

Ingredients:
1 tbs olive oil
1 carrot finely chopped
1 leek finely chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 small red chili finely chopped
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1 vegetable stock cube
1/2 cup non diary butter melted
200g cashews finely ground
100g walnuts chopped roughly
100g pinenuts
400g firm tofu chopped into 1/2 centimeter cubes
100g button mushrooms chopped finely
1 can brown lentils drained
2 tbs fresh basil chopped finely
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
2 tbs tomato paste
Orgran egg replacer (equiv 3 eggs)
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1.Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Heat the oil in a medium pan on medium heat, add the leeks, garlic, chili and carrots and cook for 5 minutes to soften the vegetables, add the wine, vegetable stock and additional stock cube and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

3. In a large bowl combine nuts, mushrooms, tofu, lentils and herbs. Mix thoroughly. Add the wet ingredients (melted butter, egg replacer mix and tomato paste) and mix well to combine. Finally add the garlic and leek mixture from the pan and mix it all through so that your ingredients are evenly mixed through.

4. Pour the mixture into a loaf tin lined with baking paper and bake the roast for 40 minutes. Depending on the size of your pan it may take longer to cook. It is done when a knife to the centre of the roast comes out clean. Leave it to stand for 10 minutes before upending onto a plate to serve.

Quinoa and Red Lentil Daal (slow-cooker)

[tweetmeme source="VeganChickie"]I can never remember the right way to spell daal! Oh well! Today’s recipe is a quinoa and red lentil daal in the slow cooker, you could probably do it in a big pot on the stove if you wanted to easily enough though. My version is quite spicy, so you might want to reduce the chillies if you like things mild. I recommend serving it with some sweet chutney or jam and some crunchy poppadums or warmed taco shells.

Quinoa and Red Lentil Daal

Ingredients:
1/2 tbs olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
3 small red chillies, chopped finely
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped finely (optional)
1 medium leek, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
10 button mushrooms, quartered
1/2 small cauliflower, broken into small florets
3/4 cup red lentils, rinsed
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp hot curry powder
2 tsp cayenne pepper
7 cups of vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh coriander to garnish

Method:
1. Turn the slow cooker onto HIGH and add oil, garlic and leek. Cover and leave for 10 minutes.
2. Add the zucchini, celery, mushrooms, cauliflower, lentils, quinoa, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, thyme, tumeric, cumin, ground coriander, mixed spice, curry powder, cayenne pepper and water. Mix and cover.
3. Heat on high for 4 hours, or on low for 7 – 8 hours

(If you are cooking this in a pan, cover and keep on low heat, stirring occasionally, until lentils are tender and vegetables are cooked)

PS: I discovered today that it is entirely impossible to photograph daal and make it look appetising! Impossible I tell you!

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 Burgers

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]Lets go back to basics shall we? Sometimes I spend so much time focusing on my main meal of the day (and my baked goodies) that I forget to mention the simpler meals that I make. I was talking yesterday with a friend (you know who you are!) who is thinking about trying a vegan lifestyle and it occurred to me that sometimes the easiest meals are the best ones, especially when you are just getting started so here is a look at my lunch today:

Vegan Burgers! We have a whole bunch of vegan patties out the back in the freezer just waiting for a lazy day dinner or a quick lunch. Sometime they are bought ones, sometimes we make them, there are loads of great recipes online if you want to go that way.. and next time I make my own I’ll be sure to add the recipe to the blog, but for this burger I just used whatever we had in the freezer. Depending on how much time you have you can add extra veggies, I love zucchini sliced thinly and fried off in some olive oil until it’s browned on both sides, and grilled red capsicum as well. Ahh, but I’m getting ahead of myself, here is my basic burger:

Vegan Burgers

Vegan patty of your choice, cooked according to directions
3 button mushrooms, sliced
Bread roll
Hummus
1 Tomato, sliced
Fresh Basil
Beetroot
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Slice the burger bun in half and toast or grill it until brown, spread hummus on both toasted sides. In a small pan, fry your mushrooms in a little oil, place them on one side of the burger, top with sliced tomato and fresh basil leaves, sprinkle with salt and pepper, then add the beetroot and the burger patty. Put the top on and you’re all done.

If I’m having this for lunch I’ll have it as is, for dinner I usually serve it with salad and fries or chips. It’s a really simple meal that doesn’t take a lot of time, and it’s super delicious too.