Chickpea cutlets again!

I love this Veganomicon recipe after trying it fried, because as I said in my previous post, I found them slightly dry when baked, but frying them made them absolutely gorgeous. This is very quick and easy to make, and I think it's quickly going to become a cruelty free kitchen household favourite. :) Served here with baby potato salad made with Plamil vegan mayo and dill, and mixed Italian-style salad leaves.

Bananas...and Fudge!

This week I had a massive bunch of bananas...

Bananas are the perfect accompaniment to the world's easiest vegan crepe recipe(below). Although any healthiness bananas added to my plate is balanced out by the obscene amount of maple syrup I drizzled on top...

(Makes 2-3 10" pan-sized thin pancakes or more or thicker smaller ones)

300ml soya milk
100g of plain or wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla essence

a little vegetable oil

- blend or whisk all ingredients except the oil till frothy

- wipe the oil onto a preheated pan, then pour enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, wait till it all the batter is "dry"(should only take a few minutes) before attempting to flip it or it will fall apart!

-flip and fry other side of pancake for a minute or so, then serve

This here is banana bread from Dino Sarma's Alternative Vegan which I've made loads of times before. I've sprinkled sugar on top this time to make it more cake-like. Sadly, sugar is not the best thing for a type 1 diabetic like my boyfriend Jay to be eating, even though the scent of freshly-baked banana bread was so tempting he took a little extra insulin so he could indulge... naughty boy!

...but wait! Now this banana bread can still be successfully made by subbing the 3/4 cups of sugar for 1/2 cup of agave nectar! Here's the sugar free version below...

And last but not least, here's a photo of Fudge (The Cat, that is... you weren't expecting a veganised version of fudge after all those sweet banana dessert thing were you?)

Meet Rosie and Sophie...

These gorgeous guinea-pig ladies are Sophie, left, and Rosie, right. But no, they don't live with me(don't think that'd be safe anyway with Fudge-puss running around my flat!) but with my mum. Posted here because all vegans love looking at cute critters :)

Now for a step-by-step pie...

This is the Graham Cracker Pie Crust from How it All Vegan. Only I've used the british answer to American graham crackers, Morrisons own brand "Value" Sweetmeal Digestive biscuits. (Note; not all digestive biscuits are vegan, some, usually the more expensive shops-own ones and McVities, contain whey powder-from cows' milk- so do be sure to check the ingredients first. AFAIK Asda's cheaper own brand are vegan too btw).
The pie filling is Everyday Dish's Chocolate Espresso Truffle Pie- this website has a brilliant selection of vegan cookery shows- check it out!

Then I sprinkled chopped toasted almonds on top and put it in the fridge overnight. I've yet to taste-test it so watch this space...
I've made this Italian Marinated Tofu from VWAV before, but this time I used the leftover marinade to bake some mushrooms in (for 15 mins at 220C) and they turned out lovely.
And last but not least, Veganomicon's chickpea cutlets, served here with some broccoli and roast baby potatoes. I ate this with some ketchup, I baked mine as the book said you could do this and thought they were okay, if a little on the dry side, so I think I'll try frying them next time.

Devilishly tasty seitan cutlets!

No, don't panic, it's not meat, although Jay and I both thought our seitan cutlets looked scarily like a piece of dead animal when we saw them! It doesn't taste as we vaguely remember corpse tasting either, for it's a lot less chewy. It is, as I mentioned in the title, devilishly good though! (I do believe there's a law somewhere on the internets which states anything written about seitan must contain a poor satan pun? Right..?)

I used Veganomicon's recipe, then as they suggested, dredged the prepared cutlets in flour and fried them. This is my first attempt at making my own seitan using gluten flour(although I have tried ready-made vegan foods using it before) and I'd definitely do it again. It's very simple to make, although it is fairly time cionsuming and creates a lot of dishes(!), so it's probably best to make large batches so you can refridgerate the leftovers and use later.

I bought my gluten flour from a friend at the Yahoo! group, who'd bought a large batch of bags from the flour bin website for all in the group who were interested in buying some, so we could all save money on postage. If you have other vegan friends, then this is a great idea for ordering these hard to find items online. :)