Plates of munchables

UPDATE: I've added the lemon cream recipe at the end of this post.

A very quick post today - this week is just going ridiculously fast!
These photos are of items I made for a recent fundraising event.

Slices of some new salami sticks which I'm bringing in from Germany, and a cheese spread simply made from mozzarella Cheezly blended with some water, and then some finely-chopped spring onions stirred through. It reminds me of that Kiwi classic, reduced cream + onion soup powder!

Mini desserts: tart cases filled with lemon cream (a last minute problem-solver which turned out to be wonderful!), mocha truffle cubes, and mini macaroons.

Lemon cream

1 pack silken tofu

1 pack Soyatoo! soy topping cream

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup Instant Clear Jel

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Pipe into small tart cases or use between two layers of cake or as a cheesecake filling.

Cheezly, cute calves and a serious discount!

This is one of my family's favourite recipes: pasties which are known as 'stegs' in our house, because of the knobbly bits along the spine (which, oops, you can't actually see in this photo...).

 You could also call them a great way to use up various leftovers that are clogging the back of your fridge. This batch contained slices of pumpkin, some black beans and leeks, and mozzarella Cheezly.
To make the stegs, you make a basic bread dough, roll out vaguely oval shapes, put your fillings (which should be already cooked) along the centre, pull the edges together and fold/crimp them.
Pierce to allow steam to escape, and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes.

I've probably mentioned this before, but I used to be a huge consumer of cheese before I went vegan. At high school, a regular after-school snack I'd make for myself was a cheese and Marmite sandwich - that was two big slabs of cheddar, with Marmite in the middle, no bread. Hmm.

When I went vegan six years ago, I was amazed just how easy it was to live without cheese. Actually, I was amazed that it was even possible to live without cheese!! I lost 10kg in a couple of months, and I put that down mostly to kicking the cheese habit.

Of course, now that I'm the New Zealand importer of Cheezly soy cheese, we do have (vegan) cheese in the house again. It's great! But I reckon it's not as addictive as dairy cheese, because although I love its rich, creamy texture on pizzas and on crackers and especially in toasted sandwiches, I don't feel driven to eat it every day - let alone twice a day like I did with cow cheese :-)

There are a few fields around the organic gardens where our monthly food co-op operates from, and on Saturday when we went to purchase our organic beans and grains and nuts and seeds, we met some beautiful calves.

That's my boy Mack with some of the calves. I loved meeting them, and stroking them, and seeing the steam rise off their flanks, and gazing into their big dark eyes, but I felt so so sad knowing what lies ahead for these babies. All I can do is help more people along the path to veganism, so that fewer animals suffer. It's not enough, but it's all I can do.

I promised you a discount, and here it is: I have a swag of Cheezly (mostly mozzarella, but some cheddar too) which is officially best-before 20-08-10... i.e. tomorrow! I need to move it out of my fridge, so I'm selling it off at 2 blocks for $10 (in New Zealand only...), or 4 for $20 etc etc. In fact if you want to buy 10 or more blocks, just make me an offer via email (alice at angelfood.co.nz) and we'll talk. Despite what the label says, the cheese will still be perfect for weeks to come, or even months if you freeze it. Maybe you know some vegans or dairy-intolerant folks who haven't tried soy cheese? This would make a perfect gift for them, right?

Sourdough's first appearance

I'm always trying to tweak our household's eating habits to make things slightly healthier. My latest project is bread - shop-bought bread is either very expensive (if it's any good) or nutritionally pretty vacant.

I made a sourdough starter last week, using this recipe, and on Friday evening I used my first batch of sourdough to make pizza for dinner. It was great! It probably should have risen a lot longer, but I'll figure out that sort of thing as I go along. Today I'm making my first sourdough loaf, and I've allowed plenty of rising time.
Sourdough is supposed to be a lot easier to digest than regular wheat bread, and I'll be adding in a variety of flours for extra nutrition.

Our pizza toppings were tomato paste, artichoke hearts, black olives, sweet corn, diced tomatoes, butter beans and vege 'chicken'. It was generously sprinkled with nutritional yeast, black pepper and dried basil.

I'll let you know how the loaf turns out!

Mmm, roast veges for dinner!

Well, steam-roasted veges, actually.

I lined a roasting dish with baking paper and filled the dish with yams, red-skinned potatoes, these gorgeous 'radical kumara' (see that deep purple colour?) Billy bought at Harvest Wholefoods, and swede.
I simply sprinkled salt, coarse-ground black pepper and smoked paprika over the whole lot, stirred it around for better spice coverage, and popped it in a hot oven covered with a silicon baking mat.
The baking mat is no good for its intended purpose but is a great help for oil-free roasting. Without the mat and without oil, the veges tend to dry out before they're cooked.

Vegan lemon curd recipe

I'd already planned to post this recipe, in response to a customer request about making lemon meringue pie with our vegan meringue mix.

And then I was asked to do the catering for a funeral last week with the main condition being that there be plenty "of those delicious little lemon tarts you make".  Sure thing!

Delicious little lemon curd tarts

This is one of my* best recipes, because:

• a. It's delicious
• b. It's a much healthier vegan version of an old favourite
• c. The key ingredient takes most people by surprise, which is always gratifying!
  

Where traditional lemon curd is full of egg yolks and butter, this low-fat lemony twist is based on golden kumara (New Zealand sweet potato). So, along with the delicious sweet lemonyness, you get you get fibre and lots of other phyto-goodness, instead of saturated fat and cholesterol. Pretty good deal, huh?

* To give due credit, this recipe was based on this one by the wonderful Bryanna Clark-Grogan. But I have altered it considerably!

VEGAN LEMON CURD
250g golden kumara, thickly peeled and diced
¾ cup sugar
6 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juiceZest of one large lemon

1. Steam the kumara until very tender.
2. Place in a food processor with the remaining ingredients, and process until very smooth.
3. If I want it thicker, I add about 1/2 teaspoon of Instant Clear Jel.

This makes a great filling between two vanilla cakes - or you can drop a spoonful of the curd into cupcakes before you bake them. Delicious.

And, of course, it also works for vegan lemon meringue pie!

I made a double batch of the lemon curd, and while the kumara was steaming I shaped and baked a crust from the new New Way short crust pastry (finally, ready-made vegan short crust pastry in New Zealand!).
The curd was spread into the crust while still warm.
Then I whipped up a batch of meringue (adding 4 teaspoons of Instant Clear Jel for extra strength!) and piped it on top.  I popped it into a low oven for about 15 minutes, until the outside was just firming up.
Mmmm, so good!