Strawberry Tofu 'cheesecake'

Strawberry Tofu 'cheesecake'

This is one recipe I’ve been really wanting to try since turning vegan, though my hesitation at the idea of using tofu has stopped me doing so all these years!

Finally, I convinced myself I might as well give it a go.

This worked out so well and it’s much less complicated than other recipes out there (especially ones using cashew nuts, which cost double or triple the price for unsalted ones in shops here as compared with the salted ones, and you can’t really use the salted ones for a ‘cheesecake’)

Base

1 packet biscuits crushed (we used Oaties - basically like Hobnobs)

3tbsp butter

2.5 tbsp golden syrup

Filling:

6 tbsp cornflour

3/4 cup sugar

1 block firm tofu (I guess you could use silken, but this works better for me I’ve found)

1/4 cup oil

1 tbsp vanilla essence

1 cup strawberries (fresh or canned - we used canned as they're soft and mix in easily)

1. Preheat oven to 200°. Make the base: crush the biscuits. Then add the butter and golden syrup.

Line a cake tin with baking paper and grease it. Put the base mix into it and press it evenly on the bottom. Put in the oven for about 15mins. (it may harden in the oven or when you take it out and let it cool. If it doesn’t harden when it cools, put it in again at 5-10min intervals until it does)

3. Make the filling: put all the ingredients in a blender. Pour the mixture in the blender over the cooled base.

4. Put in oven for about 30 mins or until very very slightly browned or feels firm enough to touch without being goo-ey.

When the top part was mixed it was indeed very runny – though after pouring it onto the base and popping it into the oven, and leaving it for a few hours in the fridge to chill it had really firmed up.

Such a delicious cake, as our non vegan friends agreed!

Chana Masala Hummus & Tofu-Cheese Pizza

Chana Masala Hummus & Tofu-Cheese Pizza

We made two Pizzas in order to try out some recipes (and a craving for pizza)

We found two nice ones on the hobbies and more blog, and from the Blazing salads cookbook,

To make the dough we just used:

-          ½ cups of water                            - 1  ½ cups of flour

-          1 teaspoon of sugar                       -1 teaspoon of salt

-          2 teaspoons of Yeast

Put Yeast into water. Mix all ingredients together and leave to rise for 30 mins.

1.       Chana Masala Hummus pizza

For making the Chana Masala Hummus we found it HERE.

We divided the dough in half, then rolled it Rectangularly, filled it with the Hummus and toppings.

We used the following toppings:

-          Sun dried tomato                      -  Chopped Tomatoes

-          Olives (on Hope’s half)              -  Courgette

-          Onion                                           -  Peppers

 

2.       Tofu Pizza

For this we got the recipe from the Blazing Salads cookbook.

-          We got some tofu, added a little bit of soy sauce, and blended until creamy.

-          We spread it over the tomato sauce, then added toppings.

Then we just used the following toppings:

-          Mushrooms                                        - Aubergine

-          Sun dried tomato                             - Courgette

-          Peppers                                               - Avocado

Both Pizza’s turned out great!

We shared them with my housemates as there was a seriously large amount of food.

Unfortunately the bases of the pizza fell apart a bit while trying to move them. I suspect that we should cook the base before topping-ing them to make better.

Good recipes to try out, and the use of Hummus on a pizza instead of tomato is a definite win.

First time we saw it was in France (Hummus, Shaved carrot (instead of cheese) pizza.. interesting)

We enjoyed making it, and hope you do to!   :D

-Conor

Tofu quiche

Tofu Quiche

As Conor may have said, we’re backtracking a bit as we’ve been doing this a few weeks and only recently decided to make a blog about it. Just to explain why there’s more than one post per week or so here!

The next recipe was a lovely tofu quiche, adapted from the recipe from here: http://www.vegangela.com/2011/04/18/versatile-vegan-quiche/

The pictures looked so good we just had to try it!

We followed the recipe exactly, except for the nutritional yeast. This possibly could’ve helped it taste more cheesy or egg-like, but being students in a small Irish town, nutritional yeast wasn’t easy to find (or heard of!). Instead we used some dried baking yeast and added about 2 tablespoons of water to it… perhaps this was a silly thing to do or maybe it just gave it some added flavour.

We also made our own shortcrust pastry to go with it.

The tofu quiche turned out so delicious! We sprinkled a good bit of paprika on top.

I would say some sundried tomatoes would have been lovely in it too, though the tomato topping on top made it look rather appealing.

Here’s some photos of the two quiches we madeJ

Cannelloni and Stuffed Mushrooms

Delicious Stuffed Cannelloni and Stuffed Mushrooms (good stuff)

As our Frist delicious meal Idea we decided to start with something that we haven’t eaten in years, Cannelloni!

This tantalising dish is very yummy and easy to make, (and is a lot of fun too…)

As with most of our recipes, we wandered around online and got the basic gist of what the food is, then just made up our own recipe for it:

All you will need is the following:

-    -      12 tubes of Cannelloni Pasta,              -      2 Onions

-    -      1 red pepper & 1 green pepper,         -       2 tomatoes & 2 tin of chopped tomatoes
-    -      Some tomato Purée                            -       A Carrot

-    -      A tin of Kidney beans, drained           -       About a cup of Soy mince (doesn’t really matter, can use lentils)

-    -      Garlic, about 5 things of it, + to taste  -      Mushrooms, (to taste) (as Hope loves them more than me)

-    -      A bag of Spinach (mmmm, spinach)     -      Some herbs & spices, Oregano, Basil, Salt & Pepper etc.

   1.     Simply fry the first onion in some Olive oil, then add the peppers (diced) and Mushrooms, and fry for a bit, (oh, and pre-heat oven to 180˚C (or 453.15Kelvin, (or 1/28,000 times the Sun's Coronal temp) ) >.< )

   2.  Add in the crushed Garlic, the soy mince (probably from frozen, the Tesco brand is yummy & Vegan), Kidney beans, diced tomatoes, tin of chopped tomatoes & a generous amount of the purée.

   3.      Add in the Spinach with all the mixed herbs & Spices, and then cook till soft.

   4.      While waiting for it to cool a bit, make the sauce:

a.      Chop the other onion, a bit more garlic and grate the carrot.

b.      Blend up one of the tins of tomatoes.

c.       Fry the onion a bit, then add the other ingredients (maybe with a cube of stock)

d.      Cook for a bit and there’s your yummy sauce 

   5.      Now that your food has cooled slightly, get the cannelloni pasta and stuff them as packed up as you can! (Trust me, Use your hands, it’s really the best way to do it. It’s messy but efficient) Place as many as you can in a dish, and pour the sauce all over it.

   6.      Put in the Oven for 30minutes (or until it looks done)

We had a spot of red wine & Stuffed mushrooms with it and it went down a treat.
You can pretty much use any ingredients you want to make your own Cannelloni, (the most common one being Spinach & Ricotta) but I think this worked out well.

I hope you Enjoy!

-Conor

(Hope adored the mushrooms, so she ate mine..)

(ps, Stuffed Mushrooms Recipe: fry an onion with some red & green pepper, add a chopped tomato. Add a good bit of Garlic and some Spinach. Add some (previously cooked) rice and fry with herbs and spices to taste all together. Stuff some Portobello mushrooms (as photo’d) and stick in oven)