What does one do...

...with Not!Tuna in a packet?

I recently found, at Vegan's Choice, a frozen pack of "tuna". For some reason, I felt that I had to get it and find something to do with it.

But what?

I eventually settled on steaming it (I wish I'd taken a photo - it was a very weird oil covered pink frozen block to begin with) and then breaking it up into bite size bits, and making a pasta sauce with it.

And it was delicious! Not something I'd buy again on purpose, but something to keep in mind for future weird-meat-analogue food escapades...


Chilli Not!Tuna and Pea Pasta Sauce

Makes between 2 and 4 servings (depending upon how hungry/greedy you are)

Ingredients

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons chilli flakes (or 1 fresh birds eye chilli, minced)
• 1 packet Not!Tuna (or about 1 and 1/2 cups of meat analogue of choice), steamed and broken into bite size pieces
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 to 2 tablespoons vegan Worcestershire sauce
• 1 to 2 tablespoons Braggs
• juice of one lemon
• 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• olive oil

Method

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, and fry the garlic and chilli flakes until fragrant. Add the Not!Tuna and toss to coat with the garlic and chilli. Mix in the tomato paste, and deglaze with the lemon juice, vegan Worcestershire sauce and Braggs. Mix together well.

Pour in the crushed tomatoes, and about half a can's worth of water. Combine, and leave to simmer over a medium low heat for about 15 minutes.

Put on your pasta of choice to cook. I used wholemeal spaghetti for this, and it was a lovely combination.

Add the peas, and simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Take off the heat and stir through the parsley.

Drain pasta and place on plate. Spoon as much (or as little) sauce on top of the pasta as you want.

Optional: Sprinkle with some nutritional yeast and lemon zest before serving.

What is it?

This is my favourite easy to make, quick and tasty meal. I made it last night after coming home from the gym, and ate waaaaayyyyy too much of it.

What do you think it is? (And yes, the easy way to figure that out is to read the image description...I didn't really think this through, did I?)

Description and recipe to come soon.

Recent random foods...

...and bonus cat.

Gorgeous pumpkin-oatmeal cookies received as part of a ppk sponsored cookie swap (thanks, juicyfruitz!)


Tempeh Lasagne, inspired by aduki's Tempting Tempeh cookbook. Anyone who knows me in real life knows my general reaction to tempeh (picture a pea-soup-less version of the Exorcist), so the fact that I made this at all, let alone adored it and yearned for more of it, is nothing short of a miracle!

Squeak asleep in the sun. Just because, 'kay?

Badly lit and a little bit bland, but also nice, lettuce soup (which may or may not have been served with potato bits)

I discovered the supermacro button on my camera, can you tell? Banana Cheezcake.

An example of what happens in the couple of days after this vegan gets her 3 monthly B12 injection - 17 sweet dishes cooked in just under 36 hours, all for a taste test party for my upcoming book Vegan Indulgence . It was fun and well worth it!

Millet Sushi

So I'm getting back onto the low GI bandwagon (and going to the gym three times a week, gah!), but I had the most ridiculous craving for sushi a couple of weekends ago. I had to have seaweed-y goodness stuffed with carbs and veges!

I'm currently favouring millet as my grain-to-replace-rice. I splurged on quinoa when I first discovered it, and though it is fabulous, I am really enjoying the soft yet chewy and a bit crunchy texture and the nutty flavour of millet.

So, I cooked some millet in a little too much stock, to make sure it would get soft and sticky, and then added some rice wine vinegar and mirin to it whilst it was still warm. Spread it out and let it cool. Next time I would probably work with it whilst it was warm. It does go hard fairly fast after cooling.

After cooking and flavouring the millet, the rest of the sushi was made in the usual way - except I didn't have a rolling mat, so improvised with some baking paper!! Worked out quite well, really...

Fillings were made: "fishy" tofu sticks (extra firm tofu marinated in soy sauce, kelp powder, lemon juice, vinegar, coated in polenta and then fried) with lettuce and spicy peanut sauce for one set of rolls, and lots of veges (and pickled radish!) for the other.

Aren't they all pretty?

Vege roll

Tofu peanut roll

These definitely hit the sushi desiring spot, and I think I'll be making millet sushi from here on out!

An actual recipe!

I developed these...well, just because. They were going to go into my upcoming book, but got booted in favour of another chocolate-y biscuit.

So, for all of you biscuit fans out there, I present these fabulously fudge-y

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 20 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cup plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ cup cocoa
• ¼ cup dark chocolate chips (try to find Tropical Source - I get mine from the Cruelty Free Shop)
• ¼ cup white chocolate chips (best ordered from the Cruelty Free Shop)
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ to 2/3 cup canola oil
• ¼ cup applesauce
• 1/3 cup vanilla soy milk

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celcius. Sift flour, baking soda and cocoa together. Add the chocolate chips. In another bowl, beat the canola oil and sugar together until thick and creamy. Beat in the applesauce and vanilla soy milk.

Pour half of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add the rest of the dry ingredients – you may have to give up on the spoon at this point and use your hands to mix.

Roll a dessertspoon of the mixture between your hands to form a walnut (with shell) sized ball. Place on a biscuit sheet that has been covered with baking paper. Flatten the balls slightly.

Bake for 5 minutes and then turn the baking sheets. Bake for another 5 to 7 minutes and then take out of the oven. Allow to cool on the baking sheets before transferring to a cooling rack.

These will be very soft initially but will firm up as they cool. Resist the urge to bake them for longer, so that you can maintain the great fudgey feel of them!!