Potato and Basil Lasagna

Stuff you will need:
* Lasagna sheets
* Button mushrooms (a handful)
* Spinach (a bunch)
* Potatoes (about 10 medium sized)
* Soy milk
* Vegan margarine or olive oil
* Plain flour
* Basil (shredded, about half a cup for the filling and a quarter cup for the topping)
* Tomatoes (about ten, chopped)
* One red onion (finely chopped)
* Two or three cloves garlic (finely chopped)
* Some kind of tomato chutney
* Walnut oil, if you like.

Making the potato filling:
1) Cut the potatoes into chunks and boil them. No need to remove the skins, skins are delicious.
2) Once the the potatoes are boiled, mash them. Add about half a cup of water and about a cup full of soy milk, in small batches, until they're a pleasantly delicious consistency. Add some walnut oil (or vegan margarine or olive oil), and salt.
3) Stir through the shredded basil.

Making the tomato sauce:
1) Fry the onion in olive oil until it's soft.
2) Add the garlic and fry for a minute or two. 
3) Add two or three tablespoons of the tomato chutney and stir through.
4) Add the chopped tomatoes, leave to simmer.

Preparing other stuff:
1) Thinly slice the mushrooms.
2) Wash and shred the spinach.

Assembling the lasagna:
1) Grease the pan with olive or walnut oil.
2) Put down a layer of the lasagna sheets.
3) Add other ingredients in thin layers. Maybe something like: lasagna, potato, tomato, lasagna, mushroom, spinach, potato, lasagna, tomato.

Cover the pan in alfoil and bake almost-to-cooked according to instructions on the lasagna packet (probably something like 40 minutes at 200C).

While it's baking, make the bechamel sauce:
1) Heat half a cup of olive oil, walnut oil, or vegan margarine.
2) Add about a cup and a half of plain flour, stirring constantly until it's browned.
3) Add maybe half a litre of soy milk (maybe more?), stirring constantly.
4) Wait for the sauce to thicken. You may need to whisk it to get rid of lumps. You might need to add a little more flour.
5) Season the sauce with salt and (lots of!) pepper, and stir through the shredded basil.

Once the sauce is ready, remove the lasagna from the oven and carefully pour over the bechamel sauce. You can put it back in to back with the alfoil over it for a while, but leave it uncovered for the last 15 minutes or so to let the sauce thicken.

Potato-and-Mustard-and-Seaweed Soup

My new favourite potato soup!

This is adapted from a recipe from The Vegan Cookbook ("adapted" because I didn't have all the ingredients and was too tired to go out and get them). I've included the original ingredients, in case you have those but not the stuff I used.

Stuff:

One chopped onion, (the original recipe said leeks)
One spring onion,
Two cloves of garlic, chopped or crushed,
Four potatoes (or fewer, or more), chopped,
About two tablespoons of Wakame seaweed (the recipe said "Atlantic sea vegetable flakes or finely chopped dulse", but I don't know what these things are. You could probably get by just fine without any seaweed, if you're not into that kind of thing),
Two teaspoons wholegrain mustard (the recipe said mustard powder),
Vegetable stock,
Olive oil,
Miso paste (you could probably get by just fine without this!).

Making:
1. It is probably easiest if you chop stuff up first, but that's your call. Do whatever you're most comfortable with. I'm not the boss of you.

2. Get out a pot that looks like it will fit all of your ingredients in, plus some water and stuff. Fry the onion in the olive oil until it's translucent. Add garlic and spring onion and give them a stir for a bit. Add the mustard and do the same (this smells really good to me).

3. Add the potatoes, and enough water to cover the potatoes and then some. Bring to the boil.

4. Add all of the rest of the stuff. Simmer until the potatoes are soft.

5. If you are an organised person who cooks stuff ahead of time and has appliances, wait for the soup to cool, then blend it 'til it's about as smooth as you find delicious, then reheat and serve. If you're not organised and don't like loud noises, just try smooshing it all up with a potato masher or something until it you're bored of that, then eat it.

6. Yum!

I just had the best sandwich

I know, I know. This should go on Facebook or something. But I've already talked to Facebook too much today, and I just had the best sandwich and I have to tell someone.

It was just some dip (vegan bean-and-pumkin seed dip, I'll put the recipe up later), and some soy mayonnaise (better than it sounds) and some chopped-up green sprouty things.

But it was really, really, good.

More Exciting Porridge

You will definitely need:
* Oats
* Salt

You might also want some combination of this stuff:
* brown sugar or honey or maple syrup
* milk of your choice (soy for me!)
* fruit for stewing. I like a mix of: apples, rhubarb, pear.
* prunes or sultanas (I like sultanas).
* spices: ground cinnamon and cloves are delicious.

First: cut the fruit up. Thinnish slices are good.
Next: put the fruit into a pot with a little bit of water in the bottom. Sprinkle with brown water and spices. Turn the heat on low. Check that it's not burning now and then. You can add the sultanas now, or at the end if you prefer them to be firm. The fruit is ready when it's soft and delicious.
Meanwhile: while the fruit is cooking, make your oats, according to the directions on the packet. Oats are nice with a little milk and some salt.
Finally: put your delicious stewed fruit mix on top of the oats. Put it in your face!

Green tea noodle stirfry

I'm experimenting with tiny recipe photothings. This is what I made for my housemate and I's lunchsnacks:

Left-over yogurt muffins

For when you've got a thing of yogurt that's about to turn bad and you don't want to eat a bunch of yogurt straight. Adjust amounts to suit how much yogurt you have left over, and how many muffins you want to get out the whole venture. I totally didn't measure anything when I made these, so sorry about the vague instructions.

Ingredients:
* approx 1-2 cups of yogurt (natural/greek yogurt for savoury muffins, vanilla yogurt for sweet muffins, fancypants flavoured yogurt if you want to experiment)
* approx 1-2 cups self raising flour
* 1 cup plain flour
* a teaspoon (and a half) of baking soda/powder
* 1/2 cup butter or oil
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup of sugar (or whatever)
* whatever else stuff you want in there for ~flavour~

Do this stuff:
* mix flours, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl. Make sure the baking powder is well mixed in, cuz it totally sucks when you get a pocket of baking soda in a mouthful of muffin. You won't get another chance to mix the dry ingredients through the mixture, so do it now.
* melt the butter if you're using butter. If you're putting chopped up fruit in your muffins, mix the fruit into the butter or oil.
* make a well in the centre, and crack the egg into it. Add the yogurt and mix the egg and yogurt together without mixing the flour mixture into it.
* add the butter/oil fruit goop to the yogurt egg goop part in the bowl and mix a bit. Then get the flour mixture into the whole mixing process. Be super careful not to overmix the batter. It should only just come together. Mixing the batter too much will mean you get little rocks instead of muffins because they won't rise at all in the oven.
* If your batter is superdry and isn't mixing very well, maybe melt some more butter into it, or some extra yogurt, or add some water. This is why not measuring your experiments is a bit sucky. But the yogurt should make it pretty lumpy and gooey, so it won't be supersmooth runny batter.
* grease a muffin tray with butter (or use patty pan cases). Fill the muffin bits level with the top. They *should* rise a bit in the oven, so don't overfill the trays unless you want big muffins.
* cook in the top of a medium to cool oven until they're delicious. If they're browning too fast, put them down the bottom of the oven.
* let them cool a little in the tray before trying to get them out.
* celebrate!

Some pretty darn delicious combinations:

Banana and maple:
Basic recipe as above, but add one or two mushed up bananas, some cinnamon, some allspice (more cinnamon than allspice, unless you like allspice more than cinnamon), and a sploosh of maple syrup.

Pear and blue cheese:
Basic recipe as above, but add small chunks of pear and blue cheese. If you preheat the oven while you're making the muffin mixture, try putting the blue cheese on top of the oven to melt a bit before cutting it up. I reckon this'd be pretty rad with some rosemary too.

Apple and berry:
Basic recipe as above, but add small chunks of apple and a handful of berries, and some cinnamon. Alternatively, use a berry flavoured yogurt. Super delicious ommigosh.

(Kind of) Claypot Noodles

I've been very excited about vegan cooking lately, and have been spending far too long looking at wonderful vegan recipe blogs like VeganYumYum and vegan about town. Last night I decided to make claypot noodles, which ended up being very loosely based on vegan about town's recipe.

Ingredients:
* Two or three packs of udon noodles (or some other kind of noodles - vegan about town recommends against rice noodles, since they fall apart)
* Soy sauce
* Vegetarian oyster sauce
* garlic (chopped or mashed). I used about two teaspoons.
* chilli
* vegetarian stock (I used chicken flavour)
* sesame oil, olive/canola/vegetable/whatever oil
* vegetables: I used bok choi, brocolli, bean sprouts and straw mushrooms. (The straw mushrooms were not very nice - maybe shitake would be better?)
* firm tofu, chopped into about 2cm by 2cm blocks

Making:
* Preheat the oven to 180C or thereabouts.
* Heat up the oil. Fry the chilli for a little, then add the garlic. Add the soy sauce and oyster sauce, stir around for a bit. I used...about a quarter cup of soy sauce? And maybe a tablespoon of oyster sauce? Maybe more?
* Add the tofu. Fry it until it looks like you might want to eat it. Try eating some. Was it nice?
* Throw in the noodles, toss them around a bit until they are covered in sauce. If, like me, you have used too many noodles for your frypan, this should add an exciting challenge to your evening.
* Mix up the vegetable stock with some water. Not too much! Maybe a cup or two?
* Put the noodles, tofu, sauce and stock into a claypot. Or, if you don't have one, a casserole dish or something. Add the vegetables, which should (obviously!) be chopped up a bit. Not too small, though!
* Put in the oven for half an hour or so.

You know, I can see how my 'recipes' could be construed as not-at-all-helpful. It does at least explain why the things I cook can be absolutely delicious one time, and terrible the next. Just for the record, this time dinner was declared "possible the best thing you have ever cooked". Next time: disaster?