Not-honey jumbles and cats

I made some honey jumbles (sans honey) last weekend. For those who haven't hade them, honey jumbles are basically small bars of gingerbread with a heavy glaze-style icing. I suppose that they often contain honey, hence the name. However, my old Women's Weekly biscuit cookbook has a recipe that uses golden syrup as a sweetener and not honey. I had not had honey jumbles for years, though I used to make them often as a kid, from the same recipe book (25-odd years ago!).

So I decided to veganise my old favourite. You can find the original recipe here at Taste.com. I replaced butter with nuttelex, milk with soy milk and egg-white with No Egg (egg replacer). Here they are:


As the recipe says, they are best after a day or so, as they soften and intensify in flavour. They look a bit rough, but were very nice, just as I remembered. The cakey, slightly chewy ginger bread is delicious with the slight lemon tang of the sweet glaze. They take a while to make, with the cooling and re-baking, but they were worth it. The kids loved them. They took some to school and apparently their omni friends liked them too. Vegan baking for the win!

Caturday


Two cats snapped on Z's bunk bed. They have decided they like the high bunks (the boys have bunks and M has a bunk over desk bed). If they can't be found, they'll be fast asleep on someone's high bed.

Adventures with Pastry: Pies

Yes, I am still obsessed with pastry. It's because I bought a pack of Borgs puff pastry. I also love hot pastry out of the oven on cold days. This time, its a vegan twist on Aussie pies. Mine had mushy peas in it with extra on top. Other members of the family left out the mushy peas (crazy, I know!) We served it with sweet potato oven chips and broccoli.

Aussie Pie

Makes 12 pies

Ingredients

1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
1 tin Sanitarium casserole mic (or use about 1 1/2 cups TVP)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon red wine
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup prepared gravy (I used Gravox Supreme, which is accidentally vegan, but you could use your favourite mix or homemade smooth gravy)
1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour (if needed for thickening)
3 sheets puff pastry
1 tin mushy peas (optional)

Method

1. Fry onion and garlic.
2. Add mince, vegetables, soy sauce, tomato paste and gravy.
   
3. Simmer until vegetables are tender (10-15 minutes). This will be the pie filling.
   
4. If you think the mix is a bit watery, mix the cornflour and wine and add to pie filling mix. If it is thick enough, add the wine and omit the cornflour.
5. Cool pie filling. (I put mine in the fridge overnight and used it the next night for a quick dinner).
   
6. For individual pies, cut the pastry sheets into 4 squares each. Stretch each a little.
7. Put 1/12 of the filling onto each pastry square. If you like mushy peas, put some on top of the filling. Fold corners of the pastry squares over the filling and seal edges. (You can also make these in muffin or pie dishes for a rounder and taller pie.)
8. Bake until pastry is golden (around 45 minutes).
9. Serve with mushy peas more or favoured sauce.

You can use the filling to make big pies or in a shepherds pie. Everyone loved them. It's a good way to increase the vegetables on the children's plates, without them realising. I am also going to send some to school in lunch boxes.

Adventures with Pastry: Pics of the Baked Bean Sausage Rolls

As I said the other day, I made Theresa's baked bean sausage rolls. She didn't give a detailed recipe so I just made one up, based on her description, assuming that she probably had actual home made US-style baked beans instead of the canned ones I used. I agree with her assessment, they were some of the best vegan sausage rolls I have made. The kids loved them. They have also been popular cold in the children's lunch boxes. I pop a frozen one in before school and it defrosts by lunch time.

Anyway, here's a picture:


Baked Bean Sausage Rolls (a la Theresa)

Ingredients

2 tins of baked beans (1 drained and one with liquid)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 cups oats
1 cup Weetbix crumbs (or use bread crumbs if you wish)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon each paprika, salt and pepper
4 sheets vegan puff pastry (I used Borgs)

Method

1. Heat oven to 200°C.
2. Process everything but the pastry in the food processor until the mixture is almost smooth.
3. Cut each sheet of pastry into 4 squares.
4. Put 1/16th of the bean mixture in a line in the middle of each square of pastry.
5. Roll each sausage roll into a tube shape and seal edges of pastry, using a little water if necessary.
6. Bake until golden and pastry is puffed (35-45 minutes).

Can be eaten straight away, reheated for a few minutes in the microwave or frozen for later. For smaller cocktail-sized rolls, cut each roll into 3 before baking.

Caturday

Sister cats can be very satisfactory pillows:




As you can see, Berry and Switch are very fond of each other. They are litter mates who have lived together their whole life. As the weather gets colder, they love to sleep snuggled together.

Adventures with Pastry: Sausages rolls

Theresa at Tropical Vegan had these sausage rolls on her blog. They looked amazing, so I stole her idea. I processed a tin of baked beans with oats, soy sauce and herbs. I rolled them in Borg's puff pastry. Yum! Thanks Theresa!

Adventures with Pastry: Spring Rolls

My kids love spring rolls. We frequently by large packs of vegetable spring rolls (60 or 64) from the supermarket, because they are quick, easy and good for dinner or lunch boxes. I have often thought that they must be easy to make. My sister-in-law (hi Madonna!) told me a while back that she makes her own spring rolls and oven bakes them for a lower fat option. When I saw spring roll pastry on special at Woolworths, I decided to give her idea a go.

They worked out pretty well. We had half of them for dinner, with rice, tofu, greens and store bought vegan BBQ buns. The kids will have the leftovers for lunch at school. One advantage of no meat is that they are much less likely to spoil in a lunch box and the kids get a nice serve of vegetables.

Oven Baked Spring Rolls

Ingredients

1 tablespoon rice bran oil or other neutral cooking oil
1/4 wombok (Chinese cabbage) chopped well
1 large carrot, grated
1 onion, chopped finely
3 dried shiitake mushroom, reconstituted in water and chopped finely
100g rice or bean vermicelli
1 cup bean sprouts
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon each salt, white pepper and ginger
pinch star anise
2 teaspoons sesame oil
Packet of 20 spring roll wrappers (check ingredients to make sure there is no egg)
Cooking spray or a few tablespoons of extra oil

(you could also add chopped coriander and chilli for a Thai flavour)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Cover 2 cookie sheets with baking paper.
2. Cook noodles as per packet instructions. Chop into 2-3 cm lengths.
3. Heat skillet. Add oil.
4. Add cabbage, onion, carrot and mushroom. Fry over low medium heat until onion has softened.
   
5. Add remaining ingredients to skillet. Cook until bean sprouts soften slightly.
6. Separate spring roll wrappers.
7. For each spring roll, put a few tablespoons of filling (1/20th of the mix) above one corner. Fold up the corner. Fold ends in. Roll up. Seal with water.
8. Spray oven trays and rolls with cooking spray or brush with oil.
9. Bake rolls until golden, turning over after 20 minutes. It will take 30-40 minutes.
10. Serve with dipping sauce of choice. We like sweet chilli sauce.
    

Enjoy!

Adventures with Pastry: Croissants

I will admit up front that I don't have a great history with pastry. I think I overwork it. However, I buy a mean puff pastry (Borg's - it says "Vegan" on the packet!"). After visiting Vegan Dad's excellent blog and seeing his croissants, and in spite of my pastry history, I decided to give them a go for Mother's Day. M asked if she could help. I used this recipe from Jennifer of Vegan Lunch box fame.

First step was to mix the simple yeast dough and let it rise. That bit was easy enough. We then punched it and M rolled it out:


After that, we added a layer of margarine (Nuttelex):


I tried rolling and freezing the margarine as Jennifer directed, but the Nuttelex did not freeze hard. Instead, I just spread it around.

After that, we folded it as directed:




We then refrigerate, re-rolled and refrigerated the folded dough several times as directed.

Finally, we shaped them:


And here is one the next morning on my breakfast tray, as arranged by M, who made me breakfast in bed:


(By the way, the tray was made by J, who gave it to me for a present last year. He is very talented at woodwork and is toying with carpentry for a career idea.)

How were the croissants? The flavour was excellent and they rose well. The whole double batch was eaten by our family on Mother's Day. However, they were a bit more bread-like than flaky inside. That's probably done to the Nuttelex not cooling hard and me over-enthusiastically rolling it. However, I need to give another recipe a go to see if it's the recipe or me. (I'm guessing me!)

Caturday

Berry's Box: Enter at Own Risk

Our cats love boxes and hiding places, so we grabbed a box the other day from a pile at the shops. Berry commandeered it, though Switch frequently sniffed it, interested in smells that we couldn't detect. We realised why it was so popular once we actually read the details on the front of the box!

Lemon Muffins

I have a few fruit trees in pots. One is a lemon tree. A bit over a month ago, I harvested a couple of lemons. Here is the first one:


If life gives you a lemon, make Lemon Muffins!



These were made using the lemon poppy seed muffin recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance. I didn't have any poppy seeds, so I left them out. They were pretty good. M and I are big fans of lemon baked goods, though the guys of the house aren't so keen. More for me!

Caturday on Sunday:


Miss Switch accepting scratches from both Z and J. She was purring like mad and rolling on her side and back to encourage tummy scratches.