Gado Gado

Gado Gado is a delicious Indonesian salad. It is relatively quick and easy to make, especially if you use a pre-made peanut sauce.

This one includes caramelised tofu, shredded wombok (Chinese cabbage - underneath), bean sprouts, cucumber, carrot, tomato, beans, radish, sautéed mushrooms, boiled, cooled potatoes, and a handful of Vietnamese mint. Over it all, I drizzled a store-bought peanut sauce and sprinkled a handful of crushed peanuts.

If you wished, you could also use cold noodles and other herbs or salad vegetables of choice.

We served this with a choice of plain steamed rice or nasi goreng. The younger children loved the tofu and picked at the vegetables. The rest of use enjoyed it very much. It is a naturally vegan traditional Indonesian dish (vegetarian if you include the traditional boiled egg), so it is something that can easily be served without scanning as too weird.

Z's guest blog: Amazing Mango Iceblocks

I hand over to guest blogger Z who says:

At school, for a homework assignment on inventing, we to invent our own iceblocks, so I made Amazing Mango Iceblocks. I invented them all by myself. I made mini ones for school, in little cups and ice cube trays. We had some big ones for our family.

Everyone that ate them said they were 10 out of 10, even the teachers. They are delicimundo and healthy. Children will love them as snacks.

Here is the recipe:

Amazing Mango Iceblocks

Makes 8 ice block size and 28 large ice cubes

Ingredients

1 cup Weis Mango Sorbet
800g mango slices in juice (you will need both the mangoes and the juice)
1 cup Vitasoy Soy Milky Lite soy milk
1 tablespoon sugar

Method

1. Put all ingredients into a large jug (if using immersion blender) or blender.
2. Blend everything until it is smooth and there are no lumps.
3. Pour into ice cube trays or containers. Put toothpick in each iceblock.
4. Freeze 24 hours in your freezer.
5. Pull carefully our of mould and enjoy!
   

Crumbed Mushrooms

I like crumbed things. You will have seen from my earlier posts that I have crumbed a cauliflower gratin and mushrooms. Here is my recipe for crumbed mushrooms.

Crumbed Mushrooms

Serves 4 as a side dish

12 - 16 small - medium mushrooms
1 egg worth of egg replacer
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup crumbs (Pictured are cornflake crumbs, which is why they are so gold, but panko or normal bread crumbs are good)
1-2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (more if you are a fan)
1/4 teaspoon each crushed dried rosemary, paprika and salt
1/2 teaspoon each dried thyme and dried sage
Dash pepper
Cooking spray or olive oil to drizzle

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.
   
2. Clean the mushrooms.
3. Mix the egg replacer, milk and olive oil together.
   
4. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients, other than the final oil.
5. Using a wet hand/dry hand method,* dip the mushrooms in the egg replacer mix and then toss until well coated in the crumbs.
6. Put slightly spaced on a oiled or parchment paper covered baking tray.
   
7. Spray with cooking spray or drizzle with oil.
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until browned.

These mushrooms are succulent, slightly moist and crunch. I adore them. Mr BrisVegan and J also like them, though my younger two are not mushroom fans.

* Wet hand/dry hand means that you use one hand to put the item in the wet ingredients. Using the wet hand, you take the item out of the wet mix and drop it into the crumb mix. Using your dry hand, you toss the item in the crumbs. This is easier if you use the dry hand to cover it in crumbs before touching it. You then lift the item out with the dry and and put it in your cooking implement.

Dinner at the Loving Hut

Yesterday, we had a crazy, hectic day. It included shopping for new school shoes, looking for some summer clothes for children, a visit to the orthodontist and delivery of Z to a birthday party at Lazerforce (an indoor lazer shooting game place). We snatched snacks and drinks on the run, but didn't really have a proper lunch.

So, we decided to have an extra early dinner (just before 6.00pm) at Loving Hut, a wonderful vegan restaurant at Shop 2, 1420 Logan Road, Mt Gravatt. Loving Hut has excellent food in a simply decorated casual restaurant. The staff are friendly. As it is affiliated with Supreme Master Ching Hai, there are televisions playing her news channel around the restaurant. However, they are not overwhelmingly obtrusive.

The food is always top notch. Here are some of the dishes that we tried:


This is the dumplings (one missing already, thanks to Mr Brisvegan), a little bolognaise on my plate and the 10 Wonders dish, which is rice with salads, gluten and a delicious sweetish mild chilli sauce.

This is the Loving Wrap, a yuma (bean curd) skin roll with tofu, mushrooms etc inside, served with rice and stir fried vegetables. This was savoury and light, with a texture almost like omelette. It was Mr Brisvegan's favourite.


This is my iced coffee. If you go to Loving Hut, you need to try the iced coffee, chai, mocha or coffee. They are just like the ones I had to give up when I become vegan. The "cream" is coconut based and surprisingly delicious with the soy milk. There is also So Good ice-cream lurking under the cream. Z said his iced chocolate was better than "real milk", which is high praise, since he does not like soy milk as a rule.

Not pictured are a deep fried mushroom cutlet and inari sushi. I forgot to photograph them, as I was very hungry and we ate them quickly. The mushroom was a big portabello mushroom crumbed and deep fried, served with a salad that included some tangy pickled vegetables. I am on a mushroom kick at the moment, so the crispy coating and succulent mushroom was my favourite part of the meal. The inari had tofu, and vegetables mixed through the rice. I liked them, but M said that she prefers plain inari with simple sushi rice.

We took slices of strawberry and chocolate vegan cheesecake home. They were also delightful. The strawberry is lightly fruity with a jellied strawberry coating, which is tangy and sweet, but not sickly sweet. The chocolate, which J requested, was much better than most chocolate cheesecakes. I usually find the tanginess of the cheese conflicts with the chocolate bitterness. The Loving Hut version is creamier than usual, with a rich ganache glaze that works very will with the cake. M kept trying to help everyone eat their piece of it.

Loving Hut is probably the best vegan restaurant to use to introduce Brisbane omnis to vegan dining. It is very good value. It has both exotic dishes and familiar items like bolognaise and sweet and sour. The deserts are luscious and The bolognaise is wonderful and is probably the best vegan spaghetti bolognaise that I have ever had. It is child-friendly, with child palatable food like the spaghetti, nuggets and fries and a small play area for toddlers in a back space. However, don't expect fine dining.

Cauliflower Gratin

How do you get young children to eat their cruciferous veggies? Crumb them!

As you will have seen from this blog, I make this gratin regularly because the kids love it. It is a special favourite of Z's. He usually takes seconds and thirds of this one, despite the fact that he usually dislikes most green vegetables.


Cauliflower Gratin

Serves 6 - 8 as a side dish

Ingredients

1/2 cup strong vegan stock (I use 1/2 Massel large chicken style cube with 1/2 cup water)
10-12 large cauliflower floret or equivalent smaller pieces (enough to fill a medium casserole dish)
1/3 cup crumbs (Pictured are cornflake crumbs, which is why it is so gold, but panko or normal bread crumbs are good)
1-2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (more if you are a fan)
1/4 teaspoon each crushed dried rosemary, paprika, dried sage and salt (if using unsalted stock)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Dash pepper
Cooking spray or olive oil to drizzle

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
2. Place cauliflower in casserole dish with stock.
   
3. Bake covered until cauliflower is just tender, about 1/2 to 3/4 hour. To speed up the dish, you can microwave it for 10-15 minutes at this stage.
4. Mix remaining ingredients other than the oil. Place on top of the cauliflower.
5. Spray well with cooking spray or lightly drizzle with olive oil. You want to just moisten the top layer or crumbs to assist it to brown. You do not have to have all of it covered with oil, especially if you are drizzling with oil.
   
6. Return to oven. Bake until golden, about 20-30 minutes.

This is very good as a side dish, especially with other roasted or baked items.

Z's chocolate pretzels

Last week, my children were on school holidays. Z decided that he wanted to bake. He checked out his cook books (my children all have several cookbooks of their own). In one called Cook for Kids by Jean Pare, he found some Chocolate Cookie Pretzels.

This is not a vegan cookbook, but Z is creative. He showed me the recipe and suggested that we could replace Nuttelex for butter, Tofutti cream cheese for cow cream cheese and dark chocolate for milk.

Here are his masterpieces:



Of course, the shape and consistency of the dough did lead an almost 10 year old boy to suggest some other shapes, that you can see lurking in this picture:


I laughed at them, because apparently I have the sense of humour of an 8 year old.

They were delicious and unusual. The use of a full tub of tofutti cream cheese meant that they were rich and delightfully soft and chewy, but not overly sweet. Very good baking from Z!

Z is watching me blog. He says to tell you "It was fun!"

Roast Medley

This was a medley of roast potato, cut into wedges and sprinkle with vegan "fry sprinkle" carrots cut into battons, green beans, capsicum, onion wedges, a few vegan sausages and stale sourdough torn into pieces and tossed with olive oil and garlic.

It was served with Massel vegan gravy, cauliflower gratin and a quick toasted spinach and vegan cheese pita. It was pretty good on a cold night a few weeks ago. It also made 7 sausages stretch into a meal for 5 people, without the kids noticing that they didn't get 2 full sausages each.