spinach and tofu ricotta cannelloni

In the absolutely insanity that is Spring in Melbourne I find my food cravings oscillating wildly. One day its frozen mochi and coconut water in 32 degree heat the next its comfort food craving in the blustering 8 degree freezing overcast misery.


Lately I've found myself contemplating the foods I've grown up on, which I've avoided for many years until now. A combination of they always made me feel ill and I don't do things by halves (it takes at least 6 hours for me to make my lasagne). But nostalgia won out and I really feel like I perfected the "ricotta" filling in this.

This dish is so light and tasty I actually think it's better than the real deal. Doing it gluten free really makes all the difference. Let me know what you think.

ingredients
1 bottle of passata (690 gm)
1 tin of diced tomatoes (400gm)
10 large basil leaves
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp of salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 box of cannelloni shells (200gm*)
1 packet of silken japanese tofu (250gm*)
170gm firm tofu*
1 tbsp white miso paste
4 large silverbeet leaves, washed and chopped roughly
1/2 block of cheezly, grated

method
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.

2. Gently slice open the silken tofu box and run some water into the sides to flush out the tofu water. Blend in a food processor until completely smooth. Add the miso until completely combined then add the silverbeet and firm tofu and pulse a few times. You want that creamy but also crumbly texture from the firm tofu and the silverbeet still a little chunky.

3. Before you start filling the cannelloni shells you want your sauce simmering down. Slice or crushed the 4 garlic cloves and fry in the olive oil on medium heat until they start to turn colour. Add the passata, diced tomatoes and salt, getting the remaining tomato flavour from the jar and can with some water. Leave on a medium heat to bring to the boil then turn heat down low for the sauce to simmer.

4. While the sauce is simmering fill your shells. I used a piping bag with a large tip and it made the process very easy. You could also just use a teaspoon or a knife depending on the size of your shells (mine were super small). You sauce should be done by then, do check on it every 5 minutes or so to check that it's not getting too thick.

5. Finish the sauce by snipping the basil in and stirring (I use scissors in the kitchen on most things green and leafy). Lay half the sauce in your baking pan, arrange cannelloni's on top then add the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with cheezly.

6. Bake at 200 for 30-35 minutes. If the top starts going too brown turn the heat down to 180 and let it cook longer. Stick in a knife to test the cannelloni shells.

notes: I used San Remo gluten free cannelloni shells and they were awesome. I love Cheezly mozz but the word around town is if you want that super creamy mozz combine Cheezly Mozz with Cheezly Sour Cream and Chives (I tried this on a pizza once IT WAS CRAZY).

* I'm trying to get better at measurements for you guys. But basically the cannelloni shells was one standard box of gluten free shells from San Remo. The Japanese silken tofu was a standard water packed Blue Lotus box and and the firm tofu was approximately a third of a 500gm pack of Pureland Firm tofu.

gnocci with blue cheezly and broccolini

Last week I had a real craving for comfort food. Real comfort food - carb loaded, creamy, dreamy, sleepy comfort food. In the effort to clear out my cupboards I had a carton of Isola rice cooking cream that had been hanging about for 6 months so it was time it got used.

I consider mock meat junk food and barely eat it, I also try and avoid wheat and heavily process foods BUT blue cheezly is the best vegan version of a food I miss EVER. It tastes so much like blue cheese its FREAKY. The rice cream is also really good, I was surprised. This meal turned out to be the most decadent post vegan meal I've ever had.

ingredients
yields 4 medium meals
1 carton of Isola rice cooking cream
1/2 stick of blue cheezly, grated
gnocchi for 4 people*
1/2 bunch of broccolini, sliced thinly

method
1. Heat the rice cream on low and add the blue cheezly, it should be all melted and hot by the time the gnocchi has finished cooking.

2. Throw the gnocchi in salted boiling water, when it rises to the top its cooked.

3. Toss the gnocchi in the sauce and add the broccolini. The heat will be enough to cook the broccolini.

notes: Store bought dried gnocchi is vegan, I use 2 handfuls per person for a serving.
style points: For extra deliciousness add 1/4 block of smoked tofu, cubed small to the heated cream sauce.

mac n cheese

Ahh mac n cheese, the much fetishised vegan dish - there's even a whole blog dedicated to it. It's more of an American thing than an Australian thing, I do remember having a few KDs (Kraft Dinners as they're known) as a kid but it was by no means part of our regular meals. Sometimes you just want some comfort food, something creamy, something cheesy, something so full of carbs you feel like you're being hugged by God. This is the best BEST and most perfect mac recipe I've made, I'm not going to experiment anymore. I DIE.

ingredients
1/2 cup of raw alfredo sauce
1 1/2 cup of short noodle pasta, cooked and drained (should yield 2-3 cups cooked)
handful of frozen peas, beans, spinach, broadbeans - some kind of green so we can pretend its not completely devoid of nutritional value
1/2 cup of grated cheezly mozz
healthy lashing of salt and pepper

method
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees

2. Toss the cooked noodles in the alfredo sauce then add the token greens. Combine and put into a casserole dish sprinkling the cheezly on top.

3. Bake until golden brown, start checking on it at the 20 minute mark.

raw fettucine with cashew alfredo

Inspired by the Vegie Bars raw menu I have started experimenting at home. I had a raw uncookbook about 8 years ago, put it in storage when I went overseas and it never surfaced again (seriously where did it go?). I also had a dehydrator for 3 years but used it twice and sold it. So the interest has been there, but much like veganism in the beginning it just seemed too hard.

This recipe is ridiculously easy, though I have to admit I don't know what I'm doing wrong because all of the vegan alfredo recipes I've made I've found them too thin. So I subtracted 1/2 a cup of water from the recipe if you find it too thick you can always add more. This recipe has been adapted from The Rawtarian.

ingredients - serves 3-4 people

2 cups soaked cashews (soaked for 20 minutes)
1/2 cup pine nuts (or just use more cashews if you don’t have pine nuts)
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cups water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tbsp miso*
1 tbsp nooch
4 medium zucchinis
1/2 cup of packet, washed, spinach leaves
5 large basil leaves, shredded (I roll really tighter and snip with a pair of scissors)

method
1. Whizz the cashews, pine nuts, lemon juice, garlic, water, salt, miso and nooch in a food processor until smooth. Add another handful of raw cashews if its too thin for your tastes.

2. To make the zucchini 'noodles' peel the skin and slice the whole zucchini thinly on a mandolin or use a vegetable peeler. If you use a vegie peeler, peel down to the seed core - don't use.

3. Toss the noodles, spinach and basil in a 1/4 cup of sauce, adding more if you need it.

note: omit miso paste to make meal soy free. This made A TONNE of sauce which I later used for a mac'n'cheese bake, you might want to halve the recipe if you only intend on making one meal out of it.

pumpkin risotto

Ingredients (makes 2 huge servings)
1/2 cup of roasted pumpkin (cut small)
1 brown onion, diced small
1 cup of arborio rice, rinsed
4-6 cups of warm stock (vegie or chicken flavour)
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
Sea salt and cracked pepper to taste

method
1. Roast your small pieces of pumpkin on high while you cook the risotto rice.

2. In a deep, non stick pan, sweat the onions with a drizzle of olive oil until they start to turn colour. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes. Then cup by cup add the stock, by shaking* the pan until the liquid combines. Once the cup of stock is absorbed then onto the next cup of stock. Stop adding stock when the rice is cooked and tender. Usually about half an hour.

3. Toast the pine nuts in a pan then add them and the pumpkin to the rice and combine. Season to taste (love LOTS of fresh pepper on risotto) and Bobs your uncle! Poverty food at its best!

notes: I used my WONDERFUL AMAZING new rice cooker and the rice came out perfectly. In a rice cooker you cook it like brown rice, so add 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of stock and leave to cook. Cook the onion on the stove and add to the rice with the pumpkin and pine nuts when its ready. The rice gets a bit of a crust at the bottom so be careful when you're combining it at the end not to get that in the risotto. There's a little bit of waste using the rice cooker with this method, but its SO EASY it should be a crime (and less salt as you use half the amount of stock). I got my rice cooker for $25 at kmart with a steamer plate attachment. Its become my most used kitchen item!

* The school of thinking behind shake and not stir risotto is the stirring releases too much of the starch making it glugy. If you shake it you get more separated rice grains and a better texture.

other rice cooker recipes: black sticky rice and stuffed artichokes

pasta with basil pesto, chilli and fried garlic

A quick winter meal that hits the spot and delivers some much need garlic to my system. I am really loving the Orgran gluten free pasta.

basil pesto
1 cup of pine nuts, toasted
2 packed cups of basil leaves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp of barley miso (or in a pinch yellow miso/white miso)
1/4 cup of nooch
1/4 to 1/2 a cup of olive oil (I used chilli oil and grabbed chunks of chilli out of the jar)

method
1. Toast the pinenuts in a pan on high heat until they turn golden brown (they burn quickly so don't stop watching them!).

2. Whizz all the pesto ingredients in a food processor until blended. Slice 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and toast in a pan (I used very little oil for this) until they are crispy and almost burnt. Toss the freshly cooked pasta in a buttload of pesto and sprinkle the garlic on top. This was so good and so much what I needed I almost cried.

notes: Nooch = nutritional yeast or 'savoury yeast flakes' as it is sometimes called. You can buy at any health food store. Is a high source of B vitamins for vegans. It adds a cheesy flavour. You can make the pesto without.

mac daddy

The challenge has been thrown down. My lovely friend Dave has said MacnCheese will be his hardest, most dearly loved and held onto food to give up going vegan. Never to back away from a challenge I am going to cook up a few of the vegan mac and cheese recipes out there and see if I can sway his taste buds. This was super easy but check out the notes before attempting it. I am going to try Vegan Dads recipe next, but please send me some links of some tried and true as well!

What Dave had to say "Smells and tastes are power triggers of memory. There's nothing quite like having food that reminds you, of childhood, home and being cared for to cheer you up when your down. One of the biggest problems of giving up meat for me has been giving up comfort foods. We all have strong emotional conditioning with food and unless you were raised vegan, just like ex-smokers wanting a cigarette at the end of a hard day, those who have given up meat will unavoidably crave foods that associate with better times. For me its Mac and Cheese. As long as I can remember a glass of red and a good mac and cheese has been the food equivalent of spooning. There were times in my childhood when it was all I would eat. I was very sceptical of vegan Mac and cheese. It was never going to be the same as the delicious cruel rennet produced environmentally irresponsible product of from my childhood that was lovingly prepared by my mother, but it was really really delicious. It ended up sitting somewhere between actually Mac and Cheese and palm oil and msg soaked mee gorang noodles (another comfort food and another story) but unlike those other two it was healthy and ethical . What’s perhaps made it really comforting thought was it had been made with care and pride and was shared between good friends."

mac daddy (from memory from veganomicon)

3 cups of cooked short noodles (it was a bag of gluten free noodles for me)
1 small block of extra firm tofu
2 tsp of fresh lemon juice
For extra points (if you're into it) some finely chopped up broccoli and a few handful of peas.

cheezy sauce

1/4 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 cups stock
2 tbs olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbs yellow mustard
1/8 tsp of tumeric
2 tbsp of lemon juice (I didn’t use this and it still tasted amazing)

1. Sweat garlic in olive oil until just starting to turn. Warm the stock with the garlic then slowly whisk in the flour. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir continually over medium heat until sauce reaches desired consistency (about 5 minutes for a thick sauce).

for mac attack:

1. Crumble the tofu into a baking dish, add the lemon juice, peas and broccoli if you're using them. Stir in half a cup of the cheesy sauce until well combined. Add the hot noodles, toss it up and slather the rest of the cheesy sauce on top. At this point I was sad I hadn't made it to Radical Grocery before they closed to get some Cheezly to grate onto the top. Bake at about 200 till the top goes brown (took about 40 minutes for me). Yum!

notes: For the uninitiated, Nutritional Yeast Flakes (or Nooch as Vegans lovingly refer to it) can be purchased at any health food store (and some Safeways). I used gluten free Organ spirals and they soaked up every last stitch of the sauce, so next time I would only grill this quickly to get the top brown. It wasnt the saucy, voluptuous affair I wanted it to be but it was a good first try and I know how I'm going to tackle the next round of MacnCheese tastings.

For previous cheesy sauce action check out Roast Vegie Cheesy Pie.

alfredo with asparagus, mushroom and broccolini

Alfredo Sauce - Vegan Yum Yum. I found this sauce too thin so I added a tin of butter beans. This thickened it up and gave it a protein punch.

ingredients
1 cup soymilk
1/3 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup nooch
3 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs margarine
1 tbs tahini
1 tbs lemon juice
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp paprika (smoked is awesome
pinch of nutmeg
1 can of butter beans, drained and rinsed
2-4 cloves of garlic (optional)
black pepper to taste

method
1. Blend all the ingredients. Serve over cooked pasta!

I fried up some thinly sliced asparagus, mushroom and broccolini in the pan, added the pasta, then the sauce, combined and seasoned. Truly delicious!

spinach ricotta raviolis

Inspired by wonton wrapper fever, I had some spinach about to go bad in the fridge so I decided to make spinach "ricotta" raviolis. Again this made a metric BUTTLOAD so you might want to halve the recipe. Also, as I discovered, you need to freeze them all individually not in one huge clump haha.

ingredients (recipe from The Voluptuous Vegan)

Stack of fresh wonton wrappers
500 gm of tofu (firm)
3 tbsp of olive oil
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp of mellow barley miso
some steamed spinach I used about half a bunch of silverbeet, you going to have to wing the amounts...

method
1. Whizz the mixture in a food processor. Voila. Fold into whatever shapes you like. Place into boiling water to cook (make sure they dont stick to the bottom), they take about 2-4 minutes to cook, they are ready when they float to the top of the water. I ate them with a basic red sauce, a recipe I will give you another time. Cindy and Michael posted this awesome you tube video on how to pleat them, here it is:

pumpkin, sage and pecan raviloi with white bean and garlic sauce and frizzled leeks

Recipe directly from The Voluptuous Vegan

This was one of my epic dinner parties, where I think oh yes I'll make all this food, nothing I've ever made before and it will be totally fine and I wont get stressed at all. WRONG (because I served this with coconut cream pie with chocolate ganache as well - recipe to come). Only do this when you have the time. This made a serious BUTTLOAD of raviolis, so you may want to halve the recipe? You can get fresh wonton wrappers in a stack from an asian supermarket in the fridge. Wonton wrappers have been a complete revelation, easy, fresh, vegan pasta!

ingredients

1 butternut, halved (you will need 2 cups of cooked squash)
3 tbsp of olive oil
1 onion, finely diced (1 cup)
1/2 cup of chopped pecans
2 tbsp of fresh minced sage
Fresh ground salt and pepper
Wonton wrappers

method
1. Roast the pumpkin face down in an oven heated at 350 (I have an old oven so American cookbooks work for me, but that’s about 180 degrees). Bake for 45 minutes or until tender (I found it needed at least an hour but again maybe my ancient oven).

2. Scoop the flesh into a bowl and mash. While its cooking fry up the onion in the oil until they are brown then add the pecans and the sage until heated. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Next time I'm going to throw in a teaspoon of maple syrup too, I think this will really bring out the flavours of the pumpkin and the pecans. I then blended the ingredients, the cookbook just uses them as is. I found it was a little too chunky to work with.

4. Put a big teaspoon at the back end of a wonton wrapper and wet the sides with your finger tips (dipped in a bit of water), fold over and press together with a fork. This made approx 40 raviolis, but will probably make more because I was experimenting with wrappers/amounts/folding etc. Cook the raviolis in boiling water for a few minutes, they are done when they float to the top (make sure they're not sticking to the bottom like mine were!).

white bean and garlic sauce

1 tin of butter beans, rinsed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
5 sprigs of fresh sage
Handful of fresh thyme twigs
1 bay leaf
2.5 cups of stock
2 tsp of lemon juice
Fresh pepper

1. Cook the onions in the oil until they are starting to brown, add the garlic and cook a few more minutes. Add the beans and 2.5 cups of stock. Tie herbs together with a string (I didn’t and just fished them out later), bring to a simmer for 15 minutes to allow the flavours to marry. Add the lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaf and herbs. Ladle over raviolis.

frizzled leeks

3 medium leeks
1 tbsp of olive oil (I used way more but that’s because I'm a fatty)

1. Trim and clean the leeks, cut in half lengthwise then cut into 2 inch pieces, toss in the oil and salt and put in a baking tray in an oven heated to 375. Stir every 5 minutes or so for half an hour until they are brown and crispy. Serve a blob on top of the pasta! This seriously took the dish to the next level.

pizza dough and "anything goes" pizza

It was my new years resolution this year to master bread and yeast products. I haven't 'mastered' it yet, but I can make a mean sourdough ciabatta and yeasty things like pizza dough and cinnamon scrolls! (a LETHAL skill to have). Yeasty stuff is a bit difficult to grasp at first but eventually you will get it! I make this batch of pizza dough, roll them out into mini pizzas and keep them in the freezer in between pieces of baking paper, ready to go whenever I feel like it.

pizza dough: ingredients

2 tsp of yeast
1 tsbp sugar
1 1/2 cups water warm
3 cups of flour
Pinch of salt

method
1. Mix warm water, sugar and yeast together and leave for 10 minutes. The yeast should 'foam' and/or come to the top of the water like this:



2. Then add flour slowly until the dough is pliable and slightly sticky (you don't want it so sticky however that you cant knead it). All flour is different so you may need to add more flour, or less, so always mix bread products minus 1/2 cup of flour until you know how much you need (boom chic!). Dust your work surface and work that bread! About 6-8 minutes of kneading should get it elastic, you can feel the difference immensely, in the beginning it was kind of rough and un-uniform, by the time its ready it should be smooth, elastic, fully worked in almost exactly like "play-dough".



3. Lightly oil a bowl and put your dough baby in it. Turn the dough so it is covered in oil and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Yeast is like mold (or is a mold I cant remember) it loves moisture and warmth. I usually turn my oven on to heat up for pizza time and let the bowl sit on top of the oven. Unless its hot hot summer you will need some heat help with making dough rise in Melbourne. It should take between 45-60 minutes to double in size. You can notice the difference, the dough basically becomes 'alive' and puffy (and be patient! if you have that warmth there the dough WILL rise, stop looking at it!). The marker on the bowl was where the top of my dough baby came to before it was left to rise:



4. Punch that dough! No I mean it! Punch in the centre to deflate all the air out of it and knead it for a minute. At this point in regular bread making you would shape it into a loaf and let rise again until doubled, but we don't need that for pizza bases.

5. Break off handfuls and roll out into pizza rounds (I'm rolling them out for single servings, use your noggin to cater to a larger bunch). I usually roll them out quite thin because the pizzas rise a fair bit and I like a thin crust. You will see when you're rolling it out that air bubbles will form in the dough constantly, its alive and burbling! so cool! Store in the freezer between pieces of baking paper.

6. Pizza is a great poor option. Next comes "anything goes" pizza, I had sun dried tomato tapenade, used that as a base, then used all the vegies I had in my fridge that were about to die, spanish onion, mushrooms, asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, and thin slices of garlic on top. Yum yum.