Latke breakfast pie

I was standing at the bus stop after work trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  I was visualising what I had in the cupboards and fridge, and I remembered that I had a box of Manischewitz latke mix that I bought when I was in NY last year.  Then it hit me - breakfast pie with a latke crust.

I started making it as soon as I got home, because my projects tend to take a while.  I blended some Vegg to mix with the latke mix to bind it and spread the mix into the bottom and up the sides of my pie plate.  I baked this for a bit while I made the filling.

For the filling, I blended some of the haricot beans that I'd cooked in the slow cooker with more Vegg, then poured the mixture into a bowl and stirred in some sriracha, garlic granules, onion granules, salt, chopped frozen spinach, and diced roasted red pepper.  I poured the filling in and threw it in the oven while I made some Tempeh Sausage Crumbles from VwaV.

Once the pie had baked for a bit, I threw the crumbles on top.  Here's where it started to go wrong.  The crumbles were more of a mush than crumbly, and they didn't go on very well.  But it wasn't a complete disaster.  I put it back in the oven thinking it would take another 20 minutes or so.

About an hour and a half after I put the pie in, it still isn't finished.  I got a slice out before I realised this.  I put it back in the oven minus that slice (which wasn't exactly slice-shaped at this point), and I ate that bit.

It was actually pretty good.  The flavours worked well together, and nothing overwhelmed.  Even if it doesn't entirely firm up, it's still edible, and I have lunch for a few days!  It's not perfect or pretty (hence the lack of pictures), but it's tasty!

You'll need a tray

I just started a new medication which, apparently, makes me really sleepy.  I came home exhausted, and I need to finish this post before I fall asleep.

I decided to make Penne Arrabiata because I'd promised Mike I'd make it at some point.  We were at the store buying food, and he decided we should buy the 39p Tesco Value penne, but I refused to buy the value sauce (it was mostly tomato paste).  So I told him I'd make arrabiata if we could buy the non-shitty sauce.  Also, pasta is so quick (especially compared to the other stuff I was thinking of making).  Just to make it a bit healthier, I threw in some chickpeas and frozen spinach.

Here's a shot of my pasta:

 

In case it isn't obvious, 39p penne isn't great.  It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't buy it again.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to do a decent post, but I'm so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open.

Bean failure

My intention for today was to make a bean-based quiche-type thing.  I threw some beans in the slow cooker and left them while I was at work (so, about 8 1/2 hours).  When I got home, I tested a bean, and it was still kinda hard.  Dammit.  So, no bean-based quiche-type thing tonight.

I was already suuuuper hungry when I got home.  I was gonna just have some toast, but then I realised that I didn't have anywhere to put the toaster because the slow cooker was in the way.  Then it hit me - grilled cheese.  Even better - grilled cheese with V Bites (formerly Redwood Foods) garlic sausage slices.  Holy crap, I love these things.

Here's a not-very-attractive phone pic of my delicious sammich:

I used Allinson's high fiber white bread, Tesco smoked-style cheese (or whatever the hell it's called), and the aforementioned V Bites garlic sausage slices.  It was one of the best sammiches I've ever eaten.  In fact, I'm really tempted to eat another.

Mike will be eating a Tesco value pot noodle for dinner because we're classy like that.


I'm ... gonna go make another sammich.

Omelets and Injuries

Day 2 and I already have a cooking-related injury!  More on that later.

Keeping with my budget theme, today's dinner used several pantry/freezer items - chickpea flour, frozen spinach, jarred roasted red peppers, and frozen chopped shallots and garlic.  I'm actually gonna have a post about some of my favourite convenience foods, so I won't go into how much I love those things.  Anyway, I also finally used a bookmarked recipe that I'd been thinking about making for ages - Chickpea Flour Omelets from Vegan Richa.

The recipe calls for fresh veg, but I'm lazy and used the aforementioned frozen/jarred veg.  I defrosted the spinach in the microwave, then threw the shallots and garlic in with it to heat up a bit before dumping everything into the batter as directed.  I also threw on some Tesco smoked cheese near the end of cooking.

The directions on the recipe aren't very clear, but once I figured out what to do, it came together pretty quickly.  I served with buttered toast because I was in the middle of another project while I made dinner.  I really liked these, but Mike ... well, he said I didn't have to make them again, which is his way of saying never ever make this again.  So I guess I'll save it for a day that he's not here, because I thought they were delicious.  Luckily, I made a double batch, which made 3 decent-sized omelets, so I'mma make a sammich out of the leftovers for my lunch tomorrow.  Woo!

On to the other project and my injury!  In line with my Sunday theme, I decided that, rather than make straight-up coffee ice cream, I'd make hazelnut latte ice cream.  So I decided to make my own hazelnut syrup.  Everything went fine - I toasted and skinned the hazelnuts and cooked the mixture down with no mishaps.  Well, there was a slight mishap in that I accidentally overcooked it and ended up with candied hazelnuts and a chunk of hazelnut-flavoured sugar or something - I'm not even sure what it is.

You know when you make something, and you want to taste it - it was hot, but you think it's cooled off enough.  It hasn't cooled off enough.  I stuck my finger in molten sugar (essentially).  It burned like hell, and despite running my finger (my little finger!) under cold water for ages, I still have a wee blister right on the pad.  So I'm kinda typing with my fingernail to avoid touching the blister.  It could be worse, but I still feel pretty stupid for doing that.  And that's why I don't have pictures - I was trying to minimise my injury (also it was already pretty dark when I finished cooking).

Vegan MoFo VII - Overview and Sundae Sunday

I'm having a pretty bad allergy attack for probably the 3rd/4th weekend in a row, but I wrote most of this early.  Suck on that, allergies!

I can't believe it's MoFo time already!  Well, mostly because it's in September this year rather than October/November.  But it's for good reason - different food availability, better lighting, and less chance of a month of pumpkin recipes (though I have no problem with pumpkin recipes).

I'm not gonna go crazy with themes this year.  I only have three - budget meals, Southern Saturdays, and Sundae Sunday.  I'll also have some lazy days where I talk about products/restaurants, as per usual, and I'll be baking at least once because Mike's birthday is on the 20th.

The budget meals theme is pretty much gonna be an ongoing thing in my life for the foreseeable future.  The cost of living keeps rising a lot faster than my salary (we only get c-o-l increases, which don't even keep up with inflation, instead of merit increases, so in real terms, I make less now than when I started), and I'm now paying nearly half of my salary into my student loans.  I also put a lot into savings - I suppose I could save less, and tbh I end up spending half of my savings anyway, but it's important to me, as a person who is terrible with money, to have something (anything) going into savings.

But this won't be a month of beans and rice!  I'm totally gonna post a beans and rice recipe, but it's killer, and I promise it'll just be the one.

My plan is to live off of my online shop of non-perishables that I did at the end of August and what I have in the cupboards and only buy perishables (bread, fresh fruit/veg) for the rest of the month.  I'll be buying as few convenience foods as I can (I still have to buy lunch meat for Mike's lunches because I can't seem to force myself to make seitan often enough, though Mike has volunteered to make seitan) and making as much as possible from scratch (I'm gonna make my own baked beans!).  Hopefully this'll force me to get through all the stuff I've been buying over the years and never getting around to using (I'm looking at you, sticky rice and multiple bags of cornmeal).  My goal is to spend less than £125 on food for the month (including the rare convenience food) - so that averages to about £25 per week from payday to payday.

I'll talk more about my Southern theme on Saturday.  Needless to say, I'm super excited about that.  I might (might) buy in extra stuff for these recipes, but I'm hoping I can stick to my budget plan for this part as well.  I'm gonna try to pick recipes for which I already have most/all of the ingredients.

And since it's Sunday, it's Sundae Sunday!  This one is pretty straightforward - I'll make ice cream, and I might make some toppings (if I don't already have them), and then I'll make a sundae.

For my first Sundae Sunday, I started pretty easy.  I made one of my favourite ice creams - PB Speculoos, which is based on the PB variation of the Veganomicon recipe.

PB Speculoos Ice Cream

Ingredients:
6 oz silken tofu (about 1/2 pack)
1c soy cream*
1/2 c soy milk
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c peanut butter (or PB substitute like Freenut Butter)
1/4 c Speculoos**
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.  Pour the mixture into a lidded bowl and chill for at least an hour or overnight if you have time/patience.  Churn in your ice cream maker as per the machine instructions.  You can either eat it as is (I like it melty right out of the ice cream maker) or freeze until hard.

*I use a full container of Alpro soy cream, which is actually 250ml, but those extra 10ml don't really make much difference.
**I use crunchy Speculoos because I always seem to have a jar even though I don't really like it as much as smooth.

I made Cinnamon Pancakes from Cookin' Crunk for brunch, and we had 2 left over, so I used those for the sundae base.  I topped the pancake with the ice cream and, because of the allergies, I just topped everything with Hershey's syrup and soya whip (from a can).

I wasn't sure if the pancake would work out, but it was really good!  The cinnamony Speculoos flavour from the ice cream complimented the pancake well, and the chocolate tied everything together.  The only thing that I thought was not quite right was the spray cream - it was maybe just a bit too beany.  Overall, this was a winner.

I know there are lots of other people who are doing some amazing themes (such as Lazy Smurf's taco cleanse and the Seinfeld theme at Naked Vegan Lunch, to name just a few), so I'm really excited to see what other people come up with.  Happy MoFoing!

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 31 - This is Hallowe'en!

And this is why I'll never be a professional baker.

I didn't post yesterday because I was working on my stuff for today.  And frankly, this is so epic, it should count as 2 posts.

You know how, when Facebook first started up, you filled out all your info about what stuff you like - favourite bands, movies, books, etc. - but they changed at some point and sorta automatically subscribed you to the pages for the things you like?  So I get posts from movies that I like, usually stills from the film.  But every once in a while, they post other stuff - related but not exactly stuff from the film.

A few months ago, The Nightmare Before Christmas posted some Oogie Boogie cupcakes.  They looked pretty awesome.  Well, about a week ago, they posted Jack Skellington cupcakes.  How I didn't have this idea on my own I'll never fully understand, but I saw them and immediately thought, I am going to make those.

Well, their idea was to use chocolate cupcakes and vanilla buttercream.  But he's the Pumpkin King, so of course pumpkin cupcakes would be more appropriate.  But since vanilla buttercream would be a bit much for pumpkin cupcakes, I made cream cheese frosting.

I used the recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World but left out the chocolate chips, used pumpkin pie spice instead of just cinnamon, and made them gluten free.  For the frosting, I used the cream cheese frosting recipe from the same book.

That's right - I am the Pumpkin King!

Back to those Oogie Boogie cupcakes.  One batch of pumpkin cupcakes wasn't enough to take to the office, but I didn't have enough pumpkin to make a double batch (why did I only buy one can?!).  So I decided to make chocolate cupcakes.  Once I'd frosted the pumpkin cupcakes, I thought, what the hell, and threw some green food colouring into the rest of the frosting.

Looks like it's Oogie's turn to boogie!

Both varieties of cupcake tasted great.  The only problems I had were that doing small decorations like that is kinda a pain in the ass, and cream cheese frosting doesn't really take to being built up.  I probably should've made two separate batches (a cream cheese and a buttercream).  That's what laziness gets you, children - melty looking Oogie Boogies.  Also, a number of cupcakes didn't make the journey to my office, so there was a bit of carnage.  But I've only been at work for 20 minutes and I think about half of them are already gone, so meh.

I can't believe MoFo is over already!  I've really enjoyed it, even though I did reach a burnout stage.  I'm already looking forward to next year!

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 29 - Sunday Baking (on Monday)

Obviously today is Monday, but Mike hurt his hand and didn't feel like cooking tonight, so we just had leftover tofu scramble for dinner.  And I did bake yesterday, but I didn't write about it.  So I'll do that now!

Last night I made the Snickerdoodle cake from Have Your Cake and Vegan Too!  It was pretty easy to make and put together.  The only not-easy (but still not particularly difficult) part was putting the topping on.  My frosting had already set a bit and wasn't as sticky as it maybe should've been, so the sugar crystals kept bouncing off (all over the worktop and floor that I'd just cleaned).

We didn't have any last night, but I took it into work.  One person said it was lush; another said she was glad she didn't live with me because she'd be really fat.  And I believe 2 people had cake for lunch.  So, I'd say it was pretty successful.  I did get a piece in the end, and it was pretty good, though (I can't believe I'm saying this) it maybe had a bit too much cinnamon.  But it really did taste like a snickerdoodle, which is one of my favourite cookies, so overall I'm happy with the outcome.

The whole point of my Sunday baking theme was to make a few different cakes from Have Your Cake and Vegan Too! to determine if I want to buy the book.  Of the things I've made, I'd say the majority have been good to outstanding.  I could definitely see myself baking my way through the rest of this book (or at least the rest of the recipes that I liked the look of).  So, if anyone in my family is reading this - I want this book for Xmas!