Vegan Coconut Milk Jelly (Jiggle Baby)

It's Snowing Jelly!

 Sup Polar Bears!

Today I made a snappy quick treat. I am a fan of chewy-jelly-sweet--things. In Vegan Land using cow bone (gelatin) is a big no-no, therefore,we have out vegan saviour, agar-agar or China Grass as we know it locally. You need a stove, a pot, and glass dish for it to set and your jelly treats are good to go!

So how to make this crowed pleaser?

All you need is a bunch of white stuff. 

What You Need

1 cup pure coconut milk

2.5 cups water

1/2 cup of sugar (or 3/4th if you want it super sweet)

A pinch of salt

1/4th cup agar-agar (china grass) powder/flakes

1/4th cup  dried coconut powder (optional)


How to Make

Grab a pot and se that baby on a stove. Keep your flame medium-high. Now add your coconut milk and china grass/agar-agar and give it a quick stir, it will get thick fast. Quickly add sugar and mix, then add you water and salt. Now keep stirring out the lumps and make sure it gets smooth. It will get thick pretty quick, keep stirring for 5-8 minutes.

Stir out all the lumpies

Put off the flame and pour immediately  into a glass dish. Set on the counter, it will start to set in a matter of minutes. Add your dried coconut powder on top. Check on it after 30 minutes, if it's firm (it should be), pop it out of the glass onto a plate. Slice it in shapes you fancy. Put those babies in the fridge and let them chill.

All Set

Take them out after 30-60 minutes and enjoy! Makes for the perfect light dessert. Also great for Netflix binging.

Happy Jellying!

Vegan Blueberry Cheese Cake Bities (That's Right)

Hello Ants! I've been slacking hardcore on the  blog, so I decided the this one had to be worth the wait. I've been researching vegan cheesecake for a while now, and my requirements to make my own version were few:

• Simple
• Keep exotic ingredients to the minimum
• Semi-foolproof 

I finally found the best inspiration on the Minimalist Baker blog, and basically tried to recreate it with a few original touches. Their blog is way prettier than mine, so if you ditch my post and follow the instruction on that site, I can't blame you. 

This is a rather decadent vegan dessert, so eating too much of it is not good for you (although ethically it's way better than regular cheese cake, so fill up on your karma points, folks).

So let's get to it. Disclaimer: I had to spend money on this one, because it required stocking up on nuts. However, if you come at me saying "oh, so being vegan is expensive" I will hit you. Because I am choosing to make the fancy stuff, and there is plenty you can do with a vegan budget if you cut out money on your normal food/dairy/meat intake. Anyway, not getting into vegan politics now, let's get into the recipe. 

What You Need

For the Crust

1 cup walnuts

1 cup pitted dates

For the Filling

1 cup cashews (Soaked for 2 hours)

200ml/ 3/4th cup Coconut Milk

Juice of 2 small lemons

3/4th cup sugar  (you can also use golden syrup/maple syrup)

1/4th cup coconut oil

1.5 teaspoons vanilla essence

25 frozen blueberries (also can use chopped strawberries)

How to Make

Dates in a cup, say what's up?

In a muffin tin line each section with a cupcake wrapper. If you don't have this, use foil. 

In a blender, blend your walnuts and dates real well. It might take some stirring and blending repeatedly. It's ok if it's uneven, Use this mashup to press a 1 inch layer in the bottom of each cupcake liner. Set aside. 

Pie Base be Crumbly

Now in a larger blender add your coconut milk, vanilla, coconut oil, lemon juice, sugar, and cashews together. Blend together well until you get a rich creamy mix. 

Pour this mixture on top of the date-walnut crust, fill it till the brim. Now top with blueberries. Hurray! Now all you have to do is freeze the tray for about 6 hours. When you want to eat them, pop them out of the freezer and let them thaw out for about 10 minutes. Enjoy frozen as well.

Pre-freezer picture.

That's what I got for September.  Enjoy, and be kind. 

Chocolate Chunk Walnut Cookies (Vegan, Duh)

All Ready to Be Dunked in Some Cold Almond Milk

Ola grasshoppers!

It's been a while. I've been cooking, just not posting. Let's just say that most of my cooking happens at the end of the work day, and my phone is out of battery, unwilling to take pictures, and I am too lazy to charge it in time. Yup, blogger fails.

Anyway, Yesterday I made my favorite cookie in the whole wide world. Chocolate chunk walnut cookies. I used to make a lot of chocolate chip eggless cookies before I went vegan, but I realized that this version is healthier (and delicious, promise) because we use flax seeds for eggs and olive-pomace oil instead of butter.The important thing here is to use brown sugar.That's what gives it a classic cookies taste, so don't go using regular sugar on me, k? You can get brown sugar on amazon, here you go. So let's get right to these beauties, shall we?

What You Need

2 cups flour
1/2 cup olive/blend or even sunflower will do
2 pinches sea salt
1.5 ts vanilla
3/4th cup almond milk (or soy milk)
1 cup brown sugar (please don't use regular)
1 large bar AMUL Dark Chocolate (this is the only Indian-vegan chocolate I know of, you can use imported vegan chocolate too)
3/4th cup walnuts (you can crush or keep them whole, up to you, puppy)
2 tb ground falx seeds
1 ts baking powder
1ts baking soda


How To Make

First things first. Take your 2 tb of flax seeds and put them in a  small blender so they become a powder.

In a bowl add your oil and almond/soy milk, whisk. Add your brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. Mix it up. Slowly add you flour and keep mixing, add your baking powder and soda, and flax seeds. combine fully.

To the right, ground flax seeds, to the left, oil and almond milk. 

Now take out the cover of the chocolate and while it's still inside the foil wrap, crush it with a hammer or something heavy ( I used a pressure cooker, so I appeared to the average onlooker, completely insane). Let it basically become big chunks of chocolate, tear open the foil packet now and pour into the batter. Add your walnuts. It will stick out of your batter- that' fine. Mix it up good, make sure it's a proper dough. You can use more flour if it's too wet, or some splashes of almond/soy milk if it's too dry.

That's how it should look once you have everything in. You pop this into the freezer for 15. Isn't this fun?

Preheat oven to 180c. Put your dough in the freezer for 15 min. This helps it keep form. 15 min later, divide batter into medium balls and flatten onto a greased pan. You should be able to make 12-15 cookies. Bake for 15 min each. Let cool and enjoy. Super delish, I tell ya.

I am going to go check on my new vegan mayonnaise I made from scratch with coconut milk. You will just have to wait for the post, which I swear will be here soon.

Toodles!

Vegan Peanut Butter Brownies (Heck Yes)

Hello, Brownie

Wassup Kangaroos,

Sorry I've been off the radar for a couple of weeks. I can mostly owe it to being distracted by discussions on FB, debating, trolling, and reading about other people.  Anyway, we digress.
So, I know, I am getting repetitive, this is my second brownie recipe. But if you don't like brownies (and all possible variations of them), then you might need to reevaluate your priorities.


 Today we have a recipe that will delight them chocolate and p&b lovers. This creamy-chocolaty vegan heaven. So I've used a blended olive-pomace oil. (pomace is basically oil extracted from grape skins and olive skins and seeds). It's rather neutral so, it's not as strong as coconut oil. You can also use coconut oil if you want (but in m y opinion it will dilute the peanut butter taste), or you can also use regular vegetable or canola oil. Anyway let's get to it.


What You Need

1 cup almond milk (or soya)
3/4th cup pure cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1 cup olive-pomace oil (or vegetable/canola)
2 tb chia seeds (soaked in 6 tb water to get it gel-like)
1tb sea salt
1 cup brown sugar (or regular)
1ts Vanilla
1.5 ts baking powder
1.5 cups flour
1/2 cup peanut butter



How To Make

In one lovely bowl add your oil, almond milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Give it a stir. Now add your chia seeds (that should be gel-like after soaking them in the water for a couple of minutes). Now add your cocoa powder and stir till you have a nice chocolate paste.

Chocolate Paste, Lover

Done? Cool, now add your baking powder to your flour and mix. Go ahead and add your flour (slowly) to the chocolate mixture  and keep stirring. You will get a thick slightly wet dough.

Get your oven pre-heated to 180c

On a greased pan press your chocolate brownie dough to fit the pan, about 3/4th inch in thickness. Now pop your peanut butter in the microwave (or on a stove) and melt it for 30 seconds, you don't want it to be complete liquid, just to soften it up a bit.

How it looks once it's pressed into the pan (melted peanutbutter saying hi on the right) 

Dip into the soft peanut butter with a fork and graze the top of your brownie dough. Keep grazing all over till there are Peanut butter stripes all over. Now pop it into the oven for 20 minutes.

Once it's all grazed with peanutbutter. Pretty cool, eh?

You're done! Let it cool for a few. Cut into pieces and enjoy them blissful brownies. Go back into the world, rejuvenated. Share your brownies. Be kind. And tell the haters to go home.

Mocking Meat (Vegan Chilifry Meat)

That shit is vegan?

Ho Ho Ho Cubs!

I did it, people, I did it. I recreated meat and it tastes spectacular. OK, it tastes like how meat should taste - plant-based, cruelty-free. Maybe that's why it tastes bombass. But here is my serious note: vegan processed cheese (for the most part) is shit. But vegan meat has so much potential. If you really love animal meat but feel badly about the horrendous industry, consider substituting, at least some of the time. The impact of going meatless a few times a week (consciously) can have ridiculous amounts of positive impact on our environment and help create more of a demand for plant-based meat.

In other countries, mock meats have been created so well that meat-eaters can't tell the difference, and as we move forward into an unsustainable world, it's really time to start thinking about the fantastic movement towards plant-based meat.

Now my blog (as promised from the start) is not about lecturing you on veganism or showing you PETA videos of cow torture. But thinking about sustainability and living in a less cruel world should be something we should all be thinking about - vegan, vegetarian, or not.

So anyway, this vegan meat is homemade seitan. If I was in the U.S, I could've bought this off the shelf, but in India, not so much. It's basically gluten meat made from wholewheat. The good news is that we have all the ingredients to make it in any stereotypical Indian kitchen. The bad news? It takes a fuck lot of time. But it did get me thinking: when we consume meat and it ends up on our plates, we are so distanced from the whole act of processing. Chicken drumsticks and pork ribs - think about the process, the feathers, the skinning, the cutting. It's our distance that keeps us from thinking about the reality. So when I was making my 'meat', I had new respect for adding the processing time to my meal. I understood what I was creating from my hands. Literally, the form from atta (roti bread batter) to 'meat' happened in my hands. Let's get to it:


What You Need

A cow. Just joking.

6 cups of atta (whole wheat flour)
1.5 cups of water (maybe more, you will figure this out when you start kneading)
3TB sea salt
3TB seasoning of choice (I used chili flakes, pepper, some minced garlic)
A big pot filled with water and more seasoning (salt, pepper, soy sauce, chili flakes, anything)



How To Make

OK, so first we'll make our regular roti-dough. In a bowl, start to knead your wholewheat flour with your hands with some of the water. Keep adding until you have a smooth (not dry, not too wet, bread-kind-of-dough). You should knead it for approx 15 min. Set aside for 5 minutes to let it hold its composition. Now get a big strainer and another bowl and get to your sink. Put the strainer on top of the bowl and run the faucet. Using your hands 'wash' the dough by gently massaging it. You'll see white water (starch) pour out into the bowl. Dump the water out and repeat. You will repeat this about 30 times. In other words, this will take you 20-25 minutes. The atta/dough will start to reduce, and become gummy, seriously, like a wad of chewed up gum. Keep going. Only when the water washes out clear are you done. At this point, your atta/dough would have reduced by half. Now squeeze out the water. You can take a pair of scissors and chop off pieces. It will be gummy-meat like. Now, fill your big pot of water up, add your seasoning and then dump your meat pieces into the pot of water. Set on a medium flame for 35-45 minutes. Your meat is cooked! All you have to do now is strain out the water by squeezing your meat pieces (which would have swollen after being cooked so you get a little more than you thought). This meat is ready to be fried, deep fried, stir-fried, or cooked in a curry. Here's a video of a super stoic woman showing you how to do it.

That't ain't no goat (uncooked seitan, after washing and chopping into pieces)

Chili Fry?

This is is easy. In a small bowl, add cornflour, your favorite "meat masala" and some salt. Make a paste with some water. Dip your meat pieces into the cornflour paste and drop them into a pot filled with oil (deep fry or shallow fry). Let them fry for 5-10 minutes, while turning the pieces gently. Drain out the oil and blot the oil from the pieces.

Deep-frying the 'meat'

I basically made a dry chili fry paste by mixing ginger-garlic paste, more meat masala, onions, spring onions, tomato and salt, and 4 sliced green chilies. Then I added the corn-flour fried pieces to this mix and stir-fry for another 5-8 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and onion.

Added the fried pieces to that hot masala gravy. 

SLURP. This shit is amazeballs. So try it, puppies. It's worth the patience. I promise. Keep it real.

The Case Of The Vegan Mozzarella (Shit Got Weird)

Hello Stretchy-Sticky Vegan Blobs

Ola Orangutans!


You know you're a  vegan newbie when you go ahead and try to make every non-vegan favorite into something vegan. Some vegans even get annoyed by it, but I am all for mock-meat, mock-cheese and veganizing everything, because hey chances are you'll replace some of your dairy and meat with some inspiration, right? Right.

Anyway, pardon my whole annoying  "look what I just veganized" phase. It most likely will be temporary for a few reasons. The number one being that becoming vegan means really having to let go of some things, we can try to make things like them old dairy-meat filled days, but the answer more likely lies in just making new things with vegan ingredients instead of obsessing over recreating .But hey, this is a damn chemistry experiment, and I was no good at chemistry, so this is like a life win for me. So pretend to get excited about it.

I got my basic recipe for this here

So if you want to try this out yourself there is both good news and bad news. Let's start with the good news. It's actually rather quick to make and you don't need too many things. OK, bad news, those 'few things' you need are probably not in your cupboard right now. But thanks to amazon you can have all of them in 5- days.

Aite so let's get at this shall we?

What You Need

2 cups of soaked cashews (soaked for about 2-3 hours)
6 TB of tapioca starch (amazon puppies)
3TB nutrional yeast
1TB sea salt
1TB black pepper
1TB red chili flakes (if you want, you can ditch this)
2TB lemon juice (fresh)
400ml hot water
A large bowl of ice-cold water with salt

See? It doesn't take much.

How To Make

Now all you do is take ALL you ingredients (including the freshly boiled hot water) and dump it into a blender. Now pulverize that stuff real good, don't burn your hands because the blender will be really hot.

After you Blend, shit looks like this

Now dump this milky mess into a pot on a medium flame and keep stirring it for about 10 min. It will start to thicken, and at one point it will really be stretchy-sticky. Keep stirring till you have the consistency of semi-melted mozzarella. Now put of your heat.

Your hard work at stirring always yields  results 

Grab your pot of ice-cold water with salt and scoop out balls of your thickened mozzarella and dump it into the cold water. You can re-shape them in the cold water, but it will most likely still look like white turds floating in a toilet bowl.

Told you it ain't pretty

Now just wait like 30 min for them to firm up, and voila you have your fresh vegan mozzarella balls ready! You can cut them up and put it on pizza, salads, and sandwiches. When you heat it it will melt.

I made pizza with it. I got store-bought vegan pizza base, made my tomato sauce (blended 3 juicy tomatoes and  put it in a pot with salt, pepper, chili flake, brown sugar, basil and oregano) topped it with green peppers, onions and mushrooms and hunks of my mozzarella and baked at 180c for 20 min.

Before Baking

After That Baby is Baked

Mozzarella Notes: Can you live without vegan mozzarella? Hell yes. But it does taste rather nice on pizza. You don't need to put too much, and you must eat it hot.

Now you guys have a stellar-ass Sunday!

Vegan Mac & Cheese (Say What?)

Mac & Nutritional Yeast. I hipster, shoot me. 

Sup Baby Caterpillars?

I totally made vegan mac and cheese today. I went full Desi on it by by adding lots of green chilies, green peppers, onion and tomato. So, this is a good recipe to kind of make your own.

This recipe needs nutritional yeast, which is not the most Indian-grocery-friendly thing to get. But don't panic, I did get this  most economical version available for only 400 rupees. Buy it here 

OK, so let's get to it, chop chop.

What You Need

2 cups macaroni
1 firm tomato diced
1/2 medium onion diced
1 green pepper (capsicum), diced
1/4th cup nutritional yeast
2 cups soya or almond milk
3 tablespoons of  cornflour, arrowroot powder or flour
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or juice of half a lemon)
2-3 green chilies chopped (omit if you can't take the heat)
1 tablespoon mustard
1 table spoon black pepper
3 garlic pods minced
 sea salt to taste
1 tablespoon sugar/brown sugar
Italian seasoning/oregano and any other seasoning of choice
1 tablespoon crushed chili flakes
4 tablespoons oil ( I used olive)

That's the red star stuff I was talking about

How You Make It

In a pot bowl your water and add some salt to it. When the water is bubbling add your uncooked pasta. Cook for exactly 11 minutes, drain, and rise under cold water and set that baby aside.

Set a pot on medium flame. Add oil and garlic. Now add your soy/almond milk and stir. It won't really mix because the oil will separate your mylk. Now add your cornflour/flour and keep stirring until it starts to thicken. You can add your nutritional yeast now, and keep stirring. Add more soy/almond milk and cornflour/flour to get your desired quantity and thickness. Now add your pepper, salt, seasoning, sugar, chili flakes and vinegar/lemon juice and mustard. Add your veggies to this bubbling sauce. I really like my veggies to be crisp and semi-raw not over cooked, so if you are like me, then put of the flame about 4 minutes after you add the veggies. If you like your veggies soggier (yuck, ok no judgement) then let it cook some more.

Now add your cooked pasta to the sauce and give it a good stir. Check for salt. Eat this lovely baby-bum soft pasta piping hot. Makes for a great (healthy-essh) dinner.

Vegan Cheese Sauce Notes : Nutritional yeast gives a nutty cheesy flavor. Mustard and apple cider vinegar balance the nutty taste with that fermented taste of cheese. This combination gives you the closest cheese replacement. It's also the least complicated and usually you can make it without bursting into tears mid-recipe.

It's Friday tomorrow. Get your groove on.