Ras El Hanout

I think I'm forever indebted to my colleague for introducing me to ras el hanout. Well, she mentioned the spice mixture, I got intrigued and investigated. Which lead to the discovery of this really quite amazing recipe. It's quick, easy and can be adjusted to suit your taste. I found the original recipe here. It called for soy curls, which don't seem to be available in the UK. I used tofu chunks instead and added an aubergine because I thought it would taste nice, but I think it would be perfectly fine with just veggies. I also went down the lazy route and used canned chopped tomatoes and substituted sultanas for the raisins because I don't like raisins but love sultanas.


Vegan Moroccan Tagine

(4-6 servings)

1 tbsp oil

3 medium carrots in big chunks

1 large yellow onion in big chunks

1 potato in big chunks

1 aubergine in big chunks

1 Tbsp fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 can chickpeas, drained

handful of sultanas 

1 pack marinated tofu pieces (160g)

juice of one orange

2 cups veg broth

salt & pepper to choice

1 Tbsp ras el-hanout

1 cup whole wheat couscous

1 1/2 c veggie broth

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp turmeric

Cut up the veggies in similar size chunks.

Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and add the carrots, onion, potatoes, aubergine, garlic and ginger  and cook for about 5 minutes until the onions have softened a bit. Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, sultanas, tofu, orange juice, veg broth and ras el-hanout. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat. Simmer for about 30 minutes (or until the veggies are nice and cooked).

While the tagine is simmering, bring 1 1/2 cups of broth seasoned with cumin and turmeric to boil in a smallish pot and prepare couscous according to package direction.

Serve tagine on a mound of couscous.

Marvel in the awesomeness of a simple and tasty dinner.

Hello Again!

This is the wagon. I fell off slightly.

Strictly speaking, I'm not vegan anymore. I'm mostly vegan, dietary vegan, that is, but I make exceptions. Basically, I make my diet fit my life and listen to my body (most of the time).

This has lead to the following: I revert to being omni when I'm at my parents, as everything else just stresses out my mum and I don't want to cause her unnecessary hassle. And while I try to eat vegan while on holiday I'm not beating myself up if foods contain ingredients that I shouldn't eat.

It was pretty easy to eat vegetarian or even strict vegetarian when I was in South India - they do amazing vegetarian food down there, it's a vegetarian's paradise. Coincidentally, I was one of the few people in the group I was travelling with that didn't experience any stomach upsets. Go figure.

The USA were a completely different case. It started on the flight to Las Vegas when the airline (British Airways, can't recommend long haul flights with them at all) messed up food orders and couldn't find my vegan dish. I got fish instead. Las Vegas is awesome, but the grasp on vegetarian or, god beware, vegan food is pretty loose. I got offered chicken when I asked for the vegetarian option, because obviously chicken grow on trees...

There probably are amazing vegan restaurants tucked away somewhere and they've got a bigger choice in vegan groceries than the UK, but we only had an RV to drive around so I wasn't really up for exploring the small streets. Then we hit the desert (Burning Man) and while my camp mates tried, they occasionally got it totally wrong. And I still had to eat.

Back home, in the UK and when I'm cooking for myself, I don't eat meat, I don't eat dairy, I only sparingly use eggs but I do eat fish now and again. I love sushi and get weird cravings for raw fish if I don't have it every other week or so. When others are cooking for me I'm vegetarian and only eat lactose-free cheese or dairy (I'm still lactose sensitive, so that part of veganism isn't a choice for me).

I do acknowledge that I feel best when I eat a strict vegan diet (although I seem to have to watch my Omega 3's somewhat) and it's what give me the best results if I'm practicing Bikram yoga (Bikram yoga hates junk food, it makes me nauseous during practice). But I also have to acknowledge that sometimes a vegan diet causes more problems than it's worth. Eating out with non-vegans or on the go becomes a huge mission and I love food too much to deny myself things I want to try.

To cut a long story short: I do my best, but I'm not stressing myself out about my food choices.

The Vegan Sandwich Dilemma

credit

Closely related to the Breakfast Conundrum aka The Scramble Shamble...

Since starting to eat vegan I've been somewhat struggling with making sandwiches. Back in my omni days it usually was bread, cheese, salad, maybe a cucumber - voila. The cheese was the main flavour, everything else was just to make it look more pretty.

Now, well, there is no cheese. I haven't found a tasty vegan cheese yet and soy turkey/ham/chicken feels a bit like not making enough effort. I came up with the combination of Swedish rye bread, mayo/hummus, mixed leaves, sundried tomatos & cucumber today, which was very tasty. I've also had an amazingly tasty bagel while travelling last summer, which consisted of hummus, rocket, alfalfa sprouts, avocado and red onions. Other good sandwich toppers are mayo, leaves & fried tofu and leaves (there's a pattern here), red onions & guacamole.

In general I've got the feeling that vegan sandwiches just need more ingredients than omni sandwiches to be tasty & interesting. Or maybe I'm just going a tiny bit OCD here...

Busy!!!

I've been a bit busy recently, because after job hunting for quite a while (3 months or so), I've landed myself a job! Not the most prestigious or ambitious one, but a nice job nevertheless. I started last week, took some time to settle back into working life (i.e. was really tired most of the time) and can now say that I'm back into the swing of things.

It's nice to know that I'm not just spending money anymore but there's actually some money coming in as well. I like balance. It's not so nice that I have less time to think/shop for/prepare food. In times like that I can't help but thinking that being an omnivore was so much easier. You could just grab something without having to worry what might be in there. I'm trying hard not to revert back to old ways and so far have been quite successful. I got into making stuffed pita breads for breakfast, with tasty results. I still haven't managed to re-create that tasty bagel I had while on holiday in the USA as I never seem to have all the ingredients at the same time, but I'm working on that. Our canteen does decent food and if you only have side orders you can get by being a vegan pretty well.

I've got plans for interesting foods, so there will be foodie updates soon.

More Cupcakes!

These are the peanut butter cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. For some reason they came out a lot darker than the ones in the book, I suspect it's a combination of darker molasses and the peanut butter I used. They are incredibly tasty, in a peanut buttery way. Not extremely sweet, but with a nice tang. I was unsure wether to use salted or unsalted peanut butter, in the end I opted for salted and judging by the taste that was the right choice. Although it would be interesting to see what they taste like with plain unsalted nut butter. And maybe next time I'll get over my fear of making buttercream frosting...

Altogether, I'm very pleased with Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. All the cupcakes I've made so far came out great and no one can tell that they're vegan unless you tell them.

Restaurant Review - Imli (SoHo)

 
The time had come for me & a dear friend to have a major catch up session. She has got one of those Taste London cards that give you either a 2 for 1 meal deal or 50% discount for selected restaurants. Seeing that I'm the one with the "special needs" in regards to food I did a bit of searching on their website and found Imli. They advertise their food as Indian tapas and that's pretty much what you get. Small taster portions of extremely tasty Indian food. I had the roast vegetable salad and aubergine masala for mains and a mango & basil sorbet for dessert. My friend (who's omni) had the stuffed paneer and chicken makhani with Indian caramel custard for dessert.

We went there on a Thursday evening and it got very busy very fast, with people queueing for tables. They must've hated us, because we took ages to decide what to eat and then kept eating very slowly because we had so much talking to do. The waiter got a tiny bit impatient, which made the dining experience only 4 instead of 5 star for us. Also, when I inquired about the dessert the waiter was unable to tell me if the caramel custard had dairy in it (it said it was made with coconut milk, but I thought I'd better check) and pretty much clueless what vegans eat. I would've expected a bit more of an Indian restaurant, which goes through the effort of labelling their dishes vegetarian and gluten free.

That said, we were both very happy with our choices and would definitely go there again. With the Taste London card we paid around £12 for the food and a non-alcoholic drink (drinks are not included in the discounts).

Fall Foods

The weather has been grey & cold for a while now, which is making me crave warm & carb rich foods. I'm a huge fan of butternut squash, so the Caramelized Onion & Butternut Squash casserole from the Veganomicon looked like just the right thing.

I was a bit worried about the time & effort it would take, as much as I love butternut squashes, peeling & cutting them is just a pain. I cheated & bought peeled & roasted chestnuts, which cut the prep time a little. And in the end, preparing the squash wasn't too bad. I even managed to prepare roasted brussels sprouts (with balsamic vinaigrette & garam masala) as well!

The casserole was all I wanted - rich, tasty fall food with great textures. It makes about 5-6 servings, so I will be eating it for a while :)