Good Friday Vegan BBQ With the Family

I thought we would use Good Friday to test out the all vegan cuisine with my family as we don't eat meat on that day anyway. I am happy to report it was a great success!

On the menu:
Pumpkin Salad
Chickpea Salad
Burgers (chickpea and lentil/Fry's hamburgers (omgdelish) and Syndian vegetable patties) with tomato, avocado, lettuce, hommus and avocado
BBQ vegies (corn on the cob, mushrooms, zucchini and capsicum sprinkled with some stirfry seasoning)






And of course, appropriately themed cupcakes!

Stew? Ok.

My Mum and Nana used to make a HEAP of stews when I was growing up so Im not sure why Ive never made them.

They're not exactly my favourite kinda meal but I admit they're a great way to pack a whole bunch of vegies and goodness into a bowl that is relatively tasty (if you're doing it right).

I cant remember exactly what went into this one but it was something like...
Potatoes
Sweet potato
Onion
Zucchini
Lentils
Corn
Garlic
Vegie stock
Spices - smoked paprika and chili were in there but not sure what else now!

It was pretty good. Didn't use a recipe so wasn't expecting greatness :P

I Love Leftovers

I think this was left overs from my first attempt at tacos.

Leftover 'meat' mix
Broken Taco shells
Avocado
Tomato and cucumber
Hommus

Scoop and Eat :D

Wrap it up

Another lazy day at work...

Wholemeal tortillas
Avocado
Tomato
Pepitas
Sunflowers
and this delicious bruschetta mix that I found at IGA

Sorry for the dodgy pics...

Excuse the iphone pictures but all the lunch pics at work are taken on them!

This was some delicious soba noodles with a little garlic and sesame oil tossed with snow peas and baby spinach.

Very simple. Very tasty.

And you thought the last one looked bad...

I know this looks foul but its sooooooooo delicious.

Everything I make the chickpea gravy there is always a heap left over. This night we had it reheated with garlic mushrooms on some toasted seedy bread. So. Good.

Punk Rock Chick Pea Gravy is My New Addiction

I seriously CRAVE this stuff. You can find the recipe here

This was about the third time made this and it gets better each time (maybe I am improving?). The nutritional yeast and lemon juice make a world of difference!

This night I served it with mashed potato, pumpkin roasted with a little rosemary and brussel sprouts with a bit of nuttlex and salt/pepper. The combination of flavours was perfect. This will be great in winter!

Tacos!

We've had these a couple of times and they are seriously good. Don't even miss the meat at all.

I chop up some onions and mushrooms and cook until the onions are tender. Add a can of chick peas and squash them a little with a potato masher. Not too much because you don't really want a paste.

And a packet of Old El Paso taco seasoning (and follow the packet instructions) and there you have it.

Top up the taco shells with avocado, lettuce, tomato, olives (not this time), etc.

WORST BLOG KEEPER EVER!!!

I admit it. I am slack and forgetful and I have no other excuse for not updating this thing!!

We officially finished Vegan Month on the 7th of March but Mick and I have decided to keep it going! I'm really really enjoying the change and have definitely noticed a boost in energy.

Even though I haven't been updating the blog daily, Ive still been taking photos of all of the food we've been eating. So here it is. In no particular order. I hope I can remember what everything is...

Day 8 - Eating out

Breakfast:
We really love going out for breakfast on the weekends! Big Brekky, Eggs Benedict, Bacon, sausages, eggs! I love love love eggs!

Today was the first time we've eaten out since Vegan Month began and the choices were pretty limited.

We headed in to New Farm but The Alibi Room was sadly closed :( so we went down to James St. Spoon had nothing on the menu that was already set so it was a meal of side dishes.

Sourdough toast
Tomato
Mushrooms
Spinach
Baked beans (for Mick)

Have to say it was pretty unimpressive. I think Spoon in general isnt very good to start with so we will not be discouraged!

Dinner:
- Lightly pan fried bread and dips.
- A beautiful tangy antipasto dip made from eggplant/onions/sundried tomatoes/olives etc
- Homemabe olive and cashew dip that turned out AMAZING!

Our dip that Mick and I both love one from Copperpot made from black olives, cashews and PARMESAN. I just wizzed up some kalamata olives and cashews in the food processor for a few seconds then added some olive oil and done!

Next time Ill probably add some garlic and a little lemon juice.

Day 7 - The Weekend

Breakfast:
Juice! Lots of sorbet in this one with watermelon and berries :)

Lunch:
We ate really late (around 3-4) so this was our only real meal for the day...

Mushroom Risotto
Mushrooms cooked in a little Nuttlex and garlic.
Basic risotto base of rice and vegetable stock.
Baby spinach
Nutritional yeast.

Day 6 - Dinner Party

Breakfast:
Juice :)

Lunch:
Wholemeal wrap
Hommus
Black Olives
Australian Eatwell Vegetable Sausages - Chickpea & Spinach

AND

Soba noodles
Snow peas
Baby spinach
Garlic
Soy
Sesame Oil

So hungry!!

Dinner:
We usually meet with D & E and their baby boy C for dinner and a movie once a week. Movie night! they werent really game enough to try vegan cooking yet so this week was our turn to host.

Cannelloni
I processed some silverbeet together with some cashews, lemon juice and some zest them mixed with mashed pumpkin. Stuff this into some cannelloni tubes, covered with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast, sliced tomato and a premade tomato sauce (no time to make my own!).

Served with a simple salad of greens, tomato, olive oil and lemon juice.

It went down pretty well with the meat eaters so it was good to show D that vegan doesnt mean just lettuce :)

Dessert:
Mango sorbet with grapes while the boys had a maple syrup/blueberry/raspberry sauce.

Day 5 - Risotto!

Breakfast:
Juice :)

Lunch:
Wholemeal wrap
Mixed greens
Tomato
Avocado
Hommus
Black Olives
Australian Eatwell Vegetable Sausages - Chickpea & Spinach

Dinner:
One of our favourite emals is a mediterranean risotto that I make quite frequently. The only thing I had to leave out was our beloved parmesan :)

Arborio rice
Vegetable stock
Semi dried tomatoes
Kalamata olives
Baby spinach
Nutritional Yeast

Dessert:
Strawberry sorbet with watermelon and blueberries.

Day 4 - Family Dinner....

Breakfast:
Surprise! Juice :)

Lunch:
Wholemeal wrap
Mixed greens
Tomato
Avocado
Australian Eatwell Vegetable Burger - Satay

Dinner:
My sister just got back from OS so we went to her hosue for dinner. They had a lovely roast beef with all the trimmings so we had roast vegies and salad.

Day 3 - Mushrooms. MEAT for vegetarians... and vegans.

BREAKFAST:
Again running late so boring old watermelon and apple juice with vegemite toast :)

LUNCH:
Didn't feel like something big today so had strawberry jam sandwiches. Took me right back to school!

DINNER:
Burritos. And they were DE. LISH.


1 Onion
Can of chickpeas
About 6 mushrooms
I packet of taco seasoning (YUM)
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Black Olives
Avocado mashed with lemon juice, salt, pepper and a bit of garlic salt

The flavours just go so well together and the chickpea/mushroom combo totally makes you forget there's no meat inside!

Just fry the chopped onion for a few minutes and add chopped mushrooms and a can of rinsed chickpeas (I popped half the tin in a food processor but probably won't bother next time).

Add the taco seasoning and a cup of water and simmer til it thickens. I did have to add a bit of cornflour to thicken it up a bit more so 1/2 a cup of water is probably enough.

DESSERT:
Apple Coffee Cake. You can find the recipe HERE. From what I can tell, Americans call our tea cake coffee cake as sadly there was no coffee in this cake :)


I ran out of plain flour so had to replace it with self raising flour so I just reduced the amount of baking powder. I don't even know if this makes sense but it seemed to work! The batter in my cake wasn't as thick as on Vegan Yum Yum (maybe the lack of plain flour is why?) so I added an extra half cup of flour.

I don't know if US canned pie apples are different to ours but the apples were still a little bitter/tangy which is great if you dont like really sweet stuff. It made a nice contrast.

Day 2 - What are Pinto beans?

BREAKFAST:
Running late today so didn't have time to properly juice. Threw a heap of watermelon into the blender with some apple juice and had 2 pieces of vegemite toast. Thank baby Jesus that vegemite is animal free!

LUNCH:
Leftover lasagna and salad

DINNER:
I really wanted to try out the Punkrock Chickpea Gravy that a friend recommended so decided to pair it with some mashed potatoes (with baby spinach) and mushroom burger patties.


I used THIS Mushroom Veggie Burger recipe but couldn't find pinto beans at the local Woolworths so I used a three bean mix instead.

The chickpea gravy recipe is HERE and it is really, really good. I dont have any nutritional yeast yet so I just used a couple of teaspoons of vege stock powder and it worked well. I also left out the lemon juice after reading the comments on the site and the coriander because it smells like a wet dog! :P

My mum came for dinner and she is allergic to EVERYTHING so it was good to share something different with her that she can actually eat. One of her allergies is soy so we tried oat milk for the first time (in the potatoes). Great success!

Day 1 - I think Im going to get sick of tomatoes very quickly...

So today was day one of the Great Vegan Challenge. I think the hardest part about us going vegan is being prepared.

We visited the Brisbane Markets yesterday at Rocklea and stocked up on tonnes of fresh vegies. The pantry looks like we are preparing for a zombie apocalypse with all the tinned tomatoes, chickpeas and kidney beans that I bought as well!

Something tells me we are going to go through a heap of bread as I run out of meal ideas as well! :D

BREAKFAST:
This was no different to our regular weekday breakfast. On the weekends though, we usually have bacon and/or scrambled eggs with lots of baby spinach and parmesan (my fav). I miss you already eggs!

Fresh juice:
Silverbeet
Watermelon
Frozen strawberries/raspberries/blueberries
Apple juice
A scoop of berry sorbet that was left in the freezer.

Toast:
One slice of white bread with Nuttlex and vegemite

LUNCH:
I customised a recipe from a friend that was supposed to have curry powder and chilli in it. Mick isn't a fan of the hot stuff but I didn't actually have any curry powder in the house so...





One leek sliced
Garlic
One can of chickpeas
About 1-2 cups of silverbeet
2 cans of tomatoes
Sliced black olives
Served with more toast!

This turned out pretty ok! It made enough for lunch leftovers so no need to stress about what to have tomorrow!

DINNER:

Lasagna! Id never made any kind of lasagna before and I'm so happy with how this turned out. Pumpkin makes EVERYTHING delicious!


Homemade tomato sauce (tinned tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, oregano and tomato paste)
1 Eggplant sliced finely and fried
1/4 Jap pumpkin mashed with a little garlic
1 cup silverbeet chopped
Pine nuts and silverbeet ground into a type of pesto
Lasagna sheets

We ate ours served with a salad of mixed greens, tomato, grapes, walnuts and a garlic balsamic dressing.