White bean & mint dip

The other day I decided to give Lily some cannellini beans for lunch and so I had to figure out what to do with the rest of the can (I know, I should use the dried beans, but I am simply not that organised at the moment). So, I grabbed a bunch of mint from the garden, added the juice of half a fresh lemon, a little salt and some olive oil and blended them all together to make a white bean & mint dip. And, it was really yummy.

It tasted really fresh and minty and just perfect for a sandwich of tempeh, tomatoes and lettuce (from the garden). It also made a good dipping sauce the next day when I was feeling snacky.

Mezze Lunch Box

It was my brother's 30th birthday this week and since he was in town we were able to have him around to have a celebratory dinner. This lunch box is the 'morning after' result:


It contains a grilled mushroom, some baba ganoush, some stuffed green olives, some kalamata olives, some tabouli, some Moroccan chickpeas on couscous, some pitta bread and a slice of orange & almond cake covered in chocolate ganache.

Some recipes to follow.

Have a lovely day!

Spinach and tofu pie

I made this yummy tofu and spinach pie with lots of nutritional yeast, lemon juice and herbs. It makes a great dinner (with a side salad if you have the energy) and also saves well for a yummy lunch the next day.

Apple-raspberry tart lunch box

Today's lunch box contains two soy sausage, tahini, pesto, tomato, carrot, shallot & spinach sandwiches, a container of 'cheezy chickpeas', a container of red grapes, raisins & dried apricots and a slice of apple-raspberry & coconut tart (recipe below).


The tart was an idea that came to me early yesterday morning as I lay there wondering whether to get up at 5am or hope for a little more sleep. I remembered that we had some apples that needed using and thought that they would be yummy with a bit of cinnamon, coconut, almond meal & raspberries. Turns out that I was right. P. and I gobbled up a quarter of it last night and only stopped in order to avoid making ourselves sick.

Apple-raspberry and coconut tart

Ingredients

Pastry
2/3 cup plain flour
2/3 cup almond meal
1.5 tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of sugar (optional)
water

Filling
3 Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
2/3 cup raspberries
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup plain flour
1/3 cup almond meal
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Egg replacer equivalent of 3 eggs


Instructions

Pastry
Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Combine the ingredients together and knead into a ball. Roll flat with a rolling pin (sprinkle some extra flour on top if it feels too sticky) and then press evenly into a greased shallow pie dish (or a pyrex one - they don't stick, which is nice).

Bake for around 8 minutes or until slightly brown (start preparing the filling while the pastry is baking).

Remove from the oven, but leave the oven on.

Filling
Sprinkle one of the teaspoons of cinnamon over the slices of apple and stir through. Place half of the apple slices on the base of the tart in a spiral pattern.

Combine the remaining dry ingredients together in a bowl and stir thoroughly. Add the vegetable oil, egg replacer and stir together. Add water if the mixture is too dry. When well combined, add the raspberries and stir through gently.

Pour the mixture over the apple and spread it out so that it covers the tart evenly.

Place the remaining half of the apple slices on top of the mixture in a spiral pattern, pushing gently so that they sit into the filling. Sprinkle with a small amount of sugar if desired.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the apples are browning and the filling is starting to become crumbly (it will be more sticky than a cake though and so your knife will not come out clean if you stick it in the centre of the tart).

Beans, rice & Muhamarra dip lunch box

Today's lunchbox contains a spicy bean and vegetable soup over brown rice, a container of Muhamarra dip (recipe below), some celery & carrot sticks, some corn crackers and an apple crumb-cake muffin.

The Muhamarra dip is something that we always used to eat at Cafe Mint and it was a real favourite of mine. I have been wanting to make it myself for quite some time and was really happy with the results. It takes just the way I wanted it to. The apple crumb-cake muffin is from Vegan with a Vengeance. It is yummy, but, again, I think that the recipe is too sweet (especially the topping) and you could halve the sugar and receive better results.

Muhamarra
(Roasted Red Capsicum and Walnut Dip)

3 roasted red capsicums, rinsed and partly drained, coarsely chopped
1 & 1/2 cups broken walnuts
1 slice of crusty bread (crumbed)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 small red chili (diced)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat your oven to 180 C and then place three whole red capsicums inside, in an oven proof dish. Bake for around 40 minutes or until sunken and soft, turning regularly (say every 15 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Peel the skin off the capsicums (if they are properly cooked, this should be very easy), remove the core and the seeds and chop into one inch slices. Allow it to drain, but keep some of the liquid for the dip.

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. (You may wish to add the walnuts and olive oil slowly as the mixture reduces in size). Add extra olive oil if it looks too dry.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Yummy as a dip with pita bread, crackers or veggies, or as a spread for sandwiches etc.

Penne, pumpkin muffin & chickpea lunch box

Today's lunch box contains penne with a tomato, garlic, basil & olive sauce, a pumpkin muffin, and some 'cheezy chickpeas'.

The pumpkin muffin recipe came from Vegan with a Vengeance and they are delicious. I would recommend using far less sugar than suggested in the recipe though. I cut it down a little and they were still sweeter than they needed to me.

The 'cheezy chickpeas' recipe came from Vegan Lunch Box. They are basically just chickpeas, nutritional yeast, sea salt & canola oil baked in the oven for 30 minutes, but they really are very yummy.

Tofu burger lunch box

Sorry about the presentation, I wrapped the tofu burger up in a paper bag before remembering to take a photo. Anyway, I can tell you what was in it - a sourdough roll with tahini, strips of tofu dry fried with garlic, ginger and Braggs, tomato, baby spinach, shredded carrot, shallots, fresh chilli, and grilled mushroom.

The rest of the lunch is a baby version of the tofu burger on sour dough olive bread (for that hungry time around 11am), some corn crackers, baby tomatoes, almonds, dried apricots and a lemon poppy seed muffin.

Salad & baba ghanoush lunchbox

I started maternity leave yesterday and suddenly everything seems easier again despite my enormous belly. So, to get back on track again, here is another lunch box for you (because I know that you were all having withdrawal symptoms):


The salads are wholemeal penne, a mixed bean salad (with red kidney beans, cannellini beans, chickpeas, butter beans, baby spinach, baby tomatoes, carrot, celery and shallots topped with olive oil & balsalmic vinegar) and a potato salad with tahini dressing (chat potatoes, celery, green beans and shallots with a delicious tahini dressing from Vegan with a Vengeance).

In the other container there is a little tub of baba ganoush, some corn crackers and a lemon-poppyseed muffin (also from Vegan with a Vengeance).

I hope that you all have a lovely day.

Lentil-rice balls lunch box

Lentil-rice balls, tomato sauce (tomatoes, garlic, onion, chilli & parsley), potato scone, apple-cinnamon muffin, and strawberries.

Pesto pasta lunch box

OK, so the pesto pasta is not the most photogenic thing that I have ever seen, but it was yummy. P made it with basil, tomatoes and chilli from our balcony, plus some store-bought rocket, garlic, walnuts and olive oil.

The rest of the lunch box consists of corn crackers, baba ghanoush, green grapes and an orange cupcake.

The orange cake was fairly yummy, but tasted slightly baking soda-y so I will have to play with the recipe. Once I have, I will post it here. Next time I am contemplating coating it in chocolate and making it into a birthday cake...

Weekend cooking fest and baba ghanoush

In keeping with our new mission to get organised about food, P. and I had our first cook up this weekend in order to prepare for the week.


It took a few hours, but by the end we had made orange cupcakes, potato scones, baba ghanoush, spinach and chickpea curry, and lentil-rice balls with pasta & tomato sauce (the last of which we also decided to have for dinner). They all worked out pretty well, but I was particularly happy with the baba ghanoush (recipe below) and the lentil-rice balls (from Vegan Lunch Box).

Baba Ghanoush

Ingredients
One large eggplant (washed)
3 tablespoons of tahini
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180c.
Poke a few holes in the eggplant with a fork and place in preheated oven for about 45 minutes (or until it sort of collapses).
Remove eggplant from oven and let it cool.
Cut the eggplant in half, remove the seeds and discard them. With a spoon, remove the remaining flesh from inside the skin (it should be soft and gooey) and place in a blender or food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge.



This was our dinner after the cook up - lentil-rice balls with wholemeal pasta and tomato sauce (tomatoes, onions and garlic). It was delicious!



These are the orange cupcakes and potato scones (which are just mashed potato, flour and a bit of salt kneaded together and baked at 240c for 10 minutes). We haven't actually tried either of these yet - I put them straight in the freezer once they were cool - but the orange cake looked (and smelt) particularly yummy.



Finally, here is the curry - which is supposed to last us for three meals (one lunch, one dinner and one for the freezer for later). The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance, but it was a pretty standard curry recipe really.

Rice paper lunch box

Ingredients:
Rice paper (from an Asian grocer, or the supermarket)
1/4 pack of Vermincilli rice noodles
150g Firm tofu (sliced into narrow strips)
1 cup small button mushrooms (quartered)
1/2 bunch of shallots (chopped finely)
1 carrot (cut into thin julienne strips)
1/2 bunch baby buk choy (chopped finely)
1 cup mung bean sprouts (washed well)
1 clove garlic (diced finely)
small square of fresh ginger (diced finely)
1 fresh chilli (diced finely)
vegetable oil
sesame seeds

Sauces:
sesame oil
lemon juice
fresh chilli - diced finely
Braggs (or soy sauce)


Brush a wok or pan with a small amount of vegetable oil and heat over medium. Add half of the garlic, ginger & chilli. Stir for a couple of minutes and add the mushrooms. Raise heat and fry for up to five minutes adding some Braggs or soy sauce towards the end.

Repeat this process with the tofu.

Cover the carrots with a small amount of lemon juice and sesame oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Fill a wide bowl or serving dish with about an inch of cold water and slide in one sheet of rice paper. Remove after about 30 seconds, it should still be a little stiff (it will soften afterwards). Lay flat on a clean surface and place a small amount of each of the ingredients in a narrow strip along the centre, leaving space up the top and bottom of the strip.


Dribble a teaspoon of the sauce over the ingredients so that you don't have to dip them later for flavour (this makes them more portable).

Fold the top and bottom over and then pick up one side and bring it over the strip to lay on to the other side, before rolling the remaining package into a roll.


Set aside and repeat the process.

Lunchtime Pitta Pizza

Not sure of what to have for lunch today, I decided to make a quick pizza on pitta bread. Since it turned out to be quite yummy, I thought that I would share it with you.


Ingredients:
2 x pitta bread
2 large tablespoons of tomato paste
3 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
2 small red chillies, diced
5 sprigs of spring onions, diced
150 grams of firm tofu, crumbled
teaspoon of Bragg's
teaspoon of olive oil
2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast
2 handfuls of baby spinach
1 tomato, sliced
A few slices of red capsicum
4 button mushrooms, sliced thinly
6 kalamata olives, pitted and halved

Preheat oven to about 180 degrees Celsius.

Fry half of the garlic, chili and spring onions in olive oil for about a minutes over medium heat before adding crumbled tofu. Let it brown and add Bragg's and nutritional yeast (optional, it would be yummy, but I had run out and didn't use it). Set aside.

Spread tomato paste evenly over the two pitta bread pieces. Top with remaining garlic, chili and spring onions - spread them around. Cover based with baby spinach, top with mushrooms, olives, tomato, and capsicum (I only used this on P's - I am not a capsicum fan). Sprinkle tofu mix on top and put into the oven for around 8 minutes.

Slice into quarters and serve.


Can I just add that the little one in my tummy appears to like the pizza very much. S/he is kicking up a storm right now...