The proof is in the pictures

There’s nothing like a great whopping pile of vegan stodge. Exhibit A:

Simmer potatoes in water and salt until very tender. Add Nuttelex or Earth Balance or similiar. Pinch of nutmeg. A clove or three of crushed garlic, some mixed dry herbs of your choice, a heaping of nutritional yeast, and mash like you’ve never mashed before. Mash the fork out of those potatoes. You can do it. I believe in you. Then top them with strips of pan-fried marinated tempeh (organic BBQ sauce or Braggs/tamari & garlic is good), drown it all in gravy (homemade miso gravy rocks: mushrooms, low-sodium vegetable stock, miso paste, rosemary, thyme, nutritional yeast & tapioca starch to thicken), and sprinkle with shredded fresh basil. Sprinkle liberally. Do everything liberally. Except in Australia, where you want to do it Laborly or – even better – Greenly. A-hoy-hoy.

Raw pancakes? It’s entirely possible and entirely tasty fresh! Check this action out. Exhibit B:

These are great in the Australian summer – no-cooking-necessary! Mini flax pancakes (flaxmeal, coconut oil, agave, salt and water, rolled into balls then flattened into pancake shapes) topped with carob pudding (food processed carob, avocado, banana, and dates), all topped with grapes, shredded coconut, sliced banana, and chopped macadamia nuts, with a little agave nectar drizzled over & around it all.

The proof is in the tasting, actually. These pictures are a poor substitute, I’m afraid, so you’ll just have to get into the kitchen and cook up some vegan food pr0n yourself. There’s a good lad and/or lass.

Tempeh red curry

This is a tasty variation on a Thai-style dish with Indonesian tempeh. I quit making curries when I went veg, mainly because I had just started dating my partner, who has taken cooking classes in Thailand. He was the curry expert, so I left it to him! Recently I decided to dig out some old recipes and give them a go, and, surprise surprise, Mr Thai Cooking Expert approves! So here’s one of them. I’m also working on revamping an old green curry recipe with tofu, which I’ll post soon, along with some tom kha soup…

Ingredients
1 tablespoon peanut OR sesame oil
2 spring onions, sliced
1-4 tablespoons vegan red curry paste (eg. Maesri brand)
around 200mL coconut cream (half to three-quarters of a cup)
around 200g tempeh, cut into chunks (around 2cm)
1 cup veg stock (or Massel’s chicken-style veg stock)
a few medium potatoes, cut into quarters, or baby potatoes if you can get them
2 carrots, sliced medium-thin
1 zucchini, sliced thick
1 tablespoon (or to taste) palm sugar (OR brown sugar)
1 tablespoon (or to taste) Braggs OR vegan fish sauce
1 tablespoon (or to taste) freshly squeezed lime juice (or lemon juice, but lime is better!)
1 tablespoon (or to taste) shredded fresh basil leaves
a few whole basil leaves and finely sliced birdseye chillis to serve, if desired
cooked rice to serve, if desired

Method
1. Heat oil in wok or large pan. On high heat: add paste, cook until fragrant. Add onion, stir until soft. Add tempeh chunks. Stir until coated in paste and heated/browning on the outside.
2. Add stock and potatoes and carrot to pan. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
3. Add coconut cream, zucchini, palm sugar, and Braggs. (TT: to check for enough sugar and salty flavours). Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
4. Stir through juice and basil (TT: for juice, basil, sugar, salt / flavour balance). Serve over rice and top with extra basil leaves and chilli if desired.

Here’s a crappy photo of some leftover tempeh red curry:

Notes:
* These are rough measurements in this recipe. This sort of cooking should always be done to taste. (TT = some suggested Taste Test points!)
* For Maesri brand paste (I buy the wee cans of paste), a rough guide to “hotness” is: 1 tablespoon = wussy mild, 2 tablespoon = average medium, 3 tablespoon = sorta hot, 4 tablespoons or more = burning hot tasty goodness.
* Don’t buy a watery looking curry paste. It should look like a thick, dry paste, not a sauce. You use the paste to make a sauce. A sauce to make a sauce makes bland food.
* I used zucchini because it was looking kinda wilted and soft. A curry can revive old vegies – don’t waste ‘em if you can curry ‘em! You could also use green beans in this curry instead of zucchini, or throw it a handful of bean sprouts if you got ‘em.
* There are a few OR options because… it’s curry. Use what you got. Curries are supposed to be cheap and cheerful peasant food. Don’t waste time and money getting too fancy!
* Curry tastes better a day or two after it was cooked. Leftovers rock.
* If you haven’t already, check out these grouse vegan curry pastes and stocks: Maesri (always check ingredients on label, not all their stuff is veg-safe!) & Massel.

Burmese Potato & Chickpea Yellow Curry

Ingredients
1 large tablespoon vegan yellow Thai curry paste*
1 tablespoon curry powder
400mL can coconut cream
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
2 large potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
200g cooked chickpeas
fresh coriander, chopped, to serve
cooked rice, to serve

How To
1. In a wok, fry yellow curry paste with curry powder and 1/4 of a tin of coconut cream.
2. Keep frying till it becomes aromatic.
3. Add turmeric and coriander, stir until combined.
4. Add the potatoes, chickpeas, and the rest of the coconut cream.
5. Cook over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are cooked through and the sauce is thick.
6. Serve over rice, topped with chopped fresh coriander leaves.

* The vegan, shrimp-free stuff. If the curry paste is runny or contains a lot of coriander, it’s probably crappy stuff. Try to get your paste from Asian grocers if possible.

Masoor Tamatar Dal

… aka red lentil and tomato dal. Serves about a million. Don’t worry – it freezes well!

Ingredients:
3L vegetable stock
3 cups masoor dal (red lentils), rinsed/cleaned
1 large onion, chopped
800g chopped tomatoes (canned is fine)
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 1/4 teaspoons powdered/ground cumin
salt + pepper to taste
1-2 lemons

How To:
1. Bring stock to boil in a large pot (the biggest you’ve got, probably). Add lentils, onion, tomato, and garlic.
2. Simmer 40-50 minutes, uncovered, until lentils cooked, breaking down, and sauce reduced. Stir occasionally during this time (if you remember) making sure the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Add more water if mixture gets too thick before lentils are cooked (unlikely, unless the lentils are old).
3. Stir through cumin. Add salt + pepper to taste.
4. Serve over rice, with wedges of lemon to squeeze over it. (You add lemon juice after cooking so the vitamin C/taste isn’t destroyed by the heat.)

Dal – as well as a decent main dish – goes well as a side dish to all sorts of curries, too, or with soups. You can also serve this as a dip with pappadums, crackers or chips… Don’t forget to stir through some lemon juice first! (Note that if this tastes funny, you’ve probably added too much cumin – be careful not to add too much! Powdered cumin is much stronger than jeera/cumin seeds. If it’s bland, there’s probably not enough salt/stock or garlic/cumin, or you forgot the lemon – getting the right balance of flavours in this recipe is important, but pretty easy.

Indonesian Tofu Rendang

This rendang has been approved by a friend who grew up in Indonesia, and was created by my partner who has travelled there. It’s fantastic.

Ingredients
400mL can coconut cream
400mL can coconut milk
5 garlic cloves, crushed
2 large onions, finely diced
1 teaspoon laos powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 inch piece ginger, grated
4 tablespoons of vegetarian hot red curry paste*
curry leaves (fresh, instead of dry, if possible!)
4 tablespoons tamarind (or lemon juice if tamarind is unavailable)
500g fried tofu
wheat-free light soy sauce, to taste
fresh coriander to taste, chopped
fresh hot chillis, chopped (optional)
rice, to serve

Method
Reduce 1/2 of a can of coconut cream in a wok until it starts to become oily.
Add crushed cloves of garlic and fry them for a few seconds.
Add onions and fry everything until the onions are cooked.
Add laos powder, coriander, cumin, and turmeric. Stir briefly.
Add fresh grated ginger, curry paste, curry leaves.
Stir the lot until it becomes aromatic.
Add tamarind to taste.
Add the rest of the coconut cream and the can of coconut milk.
Add fried tofu.
Add wheat-free light soy sauce to taste.
Reduce until it is very thick. For best results, reduce over low heat for a few hours+.
Serve with rice. Top with fresh coriander and extra chillis (optional… you wuss).

Notes:
I tend to do alot of things to taste, so the quantities can vary a little. Taste test as you go!
You can also add vegetable stock before you reduce the mix, if you want that flavour soaked into the tofu (just remember to be light with the soy sauce if you do).
If you can’t get wheat-free light soy sauce, use Braggs or wheat-free tamari – but very sparingly! These are dark soy sauce rather than light.

*Curry Paste:
Any vegetarian Thai-style curry paste will do. The hotter the better – rendang should be wonderfully burning. Using vegetarian red curry paste is an alternative to spending time pounding lemon grass into paste. Just don’t use one containing prawn/shrimp paste, because (a) it has a different flavour, (b) it’s not vegetarian or vegan, (c) yuck!, and (d) I’m allergic to crustacea.

To make your own curry paste for this recipe, mix together:
5 stalks of lemon grass, chopped finely, then ground to paste.
5 large hot chillis ground to paste (with seeds).