Mini- Strawberry Cheese Cake (It's Vegan, You Know It)

I couldn't wait for it to firm up. Because blog comes first.

Hello Pigeons!

I took a break from blogging since my little Goa excursion. I ran out of cooking gas last week, some could say that was my excuse. But I was just lazy. Today I used my microwave to get the job done, and let's just say it worked.

So here's a tremendously delicious vegan dessert which has all the rich-creamy-slightly-tangy cheesecake taste, all in a 3-bite size cupcake form! The magic is using cashews, coconut cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Mmmeh, it's got all the cheese cake delight without any sad Moos.

Hello, Delicious

So let's get right into it, then!

What You Need

3/4th cup cashews

3/4th cup coconut milk (Use the creamiest part)

2 tablespoon vanilla

2 pinches salt

1.5 teaspoons agar-agar (china grass)

5 tablespoons jaggery

1/4th cup sugar

1.5 cups fresh strawberries (or frozen)

1/2 the juice of one lemon

3 tablespoons coconut oil (let it harden a bit in the fridge)

one packet of Vegan digestive biscuits (check the label, some brands have milk solids in them)


How to Make


In  bows crush one packet of digestive biscuits. Add one tablespoon vanilla and one pinch of salt. Now add jaggery and your slightly firm coconut oil. Mix with your hands till you can squeeze the biscuits crumbs into a like a pie crust.

All the good stuff in that pie-crust, you're about to make

Prepare a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Now pat down a layer of pie crust on the bottem of each cupcake liner.

Leave it alone for a bit, don't worry it won't be lonely for long.

They won't be solo for long, promise

Now in a blender add your cashews, coconut cream, lemon juice, one more tablespoon of vanilla, and sugar. You can add a bit of water too. Now blend away to glory. You should have a nice pourable (but thick) cashew cream-cheese filling. Taste it, it's yummy.

Now pour on top of your pie-crust filled cupcake liners. done? Super. Pop it into the freezer while you prepare your strawberry glaze.

That's the good stuff! 

I used a microwave because I had no gas, but this is best done in a stovetop. First blend your strawberries with with about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar ( You can add more, but let's try to keep the sugar on the low, k?).

Blended Glory

In a saucepan heat up your pureed strawberries and sugar. Once it starts to simmer add your agar-agar powder and stir completely to avoid any lumps. Pop out your cakes form the freezer, and spoon a nice layer of the strawberry glaze on top of each.

Right before them beauties go back in the freezer!

 Put that baby back in the freezer for two hours. Pop them beauties out, Un-wrap the cupcake liners for full-beauty effects. What's the point of making a 3-layered thingie if you can't see it. Share with other humans for best results.

Have a great week pups! Be good, keep it real, and keep it kind!

Vacation Vegan (Eating Vegan in Goa)

Look! It's a Vegan on Vacation! 

Good Day Gooses!

Today I have you some visual treats. I just went to Goa with my partner Indra. It was a much needed break from intense work and the hardships of being doggy parents. Oh whatever, it was a break from our privileged urban lives, who am I kidding.

 Goa has always had many culinary connotations to it. From pork vindaloo and Bebinca to batter-fried calamari and masala king fish. The list was never ending. It was one of those places that brought up that old cliche- Goa it's a foodies paradise. Now let's talk about this  goddaman 'foodie' business.


What the fish is a 'foodie' anyway? And why does it mean that vegans can't be 'foodies'. I assert my clucking rights- I am a vegan and a Goddamn Foodie. In fact, I'll argue that being vegan makes you even more of a foodie than the non-vegan counterpart. Oh please, stop rolling your eyes. Think about it. When you live in an essentially non-vegan world, you have to actually work with food differently. You have to think about textures, tastes, mixtures, and combinations far more intricately than the average non-vegan.  Being vegan doesn't mean you eat apples all day.

That said, nothing wrong with eating delicious fruit all day. Here's a fruit cup at breakfast.

So this was my first time to Goa as a vegan and it wasn't very hard at all. You have to bug the waiters a tiny bit, and hunt for local jaunts that are taking the Vegan Movement ahead in the country. Did you know there are 3 fully-vegan cafes in Goa ( Bean Me Up, Maa Cafe, and Shantaram)? There might be more and all places can offer vegan food if you just think through some of the standard vegetarian fare. For example most places offer a vegetarian Mushroom Xacuti ( a classic Goan curry) that is default vegan, well, because coconut.

Mushroom Xacuti with Rice and Salad

Order some rice, mushroom Xacuti, and a side salad. You got some spicy-good vegan lunch!




In the city we found a small darshini near the bus station. We asked if he could do a pav-bhaji without butter. He nodded and made sure I didn't want any butter on the Pav either. And there you have it, vegan Pav-Bhaji!

No Butter Here!

Gobi Paratha for Breakfast. Say NO to Curds and YES to pickle!

A simple salad at a shack. Fresh Vegetables dressed up with olive oil, lemon salt, and pepper. So good!

We went to Maa Cafe (Ashwim Beach) which is a raw-vegan cafe, yes, that means not only is it vegan but it's all uncooked food. And boy was it delicious. Here's where the creativity kicks in - using dehydration techniques you can make 'chips'  and even sprouted 'breads' that involve no baking. In fact we had to-die -for chocolate pancakes with bananas, strawberries and coconut cream. We washed it down with a green avocado smoothie with a hearty  amount of soaked chia seeds in the bottom- it was like pudding, for real.

Maa Cafe Goods. See how BOMB it looks?

Raw-vegan by itself can be more of a lifestyle thing,  but being vegan (regular cooked food and not using any other animals products or by-products like leather, or gelatin) are at its a core an ethical movement. This was my guiding factor- I know why I am vegan, so the questions of being 'tempted' didn't arise. Of course I am prone to getting crabby when I am at a restaurant with very limited vegan options, all I want to do is go home and cook myself a grand vegan meal at home. Most of our food can be easily veganised, the more demand there is outside, the more the economy will follow it.

Bruschetta Toast Thingie. Just tell them 'Skip the Cheese Kind Sir' 

Anyway, instead of going on and on, I hope you enjoy all these pictures of what I ate in the land of sea, sand, and regrettable speedos.

We ended up eating mostly beach shack-food. Look out for Hummus, toast without butter and ask them to add toppings like mushroom, tomatoes, or baked beans.

Down below are some more Maa Cafe treats. We had Raw burritos with mushrooms and avocado, a mushroom 'burger' with raw sprouted bread and  coconut 'ice-cream':

Coconut Vegan Ice Cream at Maa Cafe 

Raw Corn 'chips' at Maa Cafe, with fresh salsa and gauc. I could have munched on these lovelies for eternity.

Raw Burrito at Maa Cafe

Falafel! Hummus! Salad! VEGAN!

It's back to work for me goats! Till my next cooking experiment keep it real, and know that travelling vegan is as easy as making vegan cookies!

3 Healthy Vegan-Ass Things to Make (And Eat)

Ola  Pups!

Today is a mish-mash of things I've been doing in the last month. A lot of it has been turning the focus away from just vegan baking and moving my passion to manic vegan-cooking in general. After you go vegan you become obsessed with food and trying new things. Like I always say, once you stop whining about what you CAN'T have, and start focusing on what you CAN have,  life gets a whole lot better. And trust, there is a plethora of stuff you can make food with.


So here are 3 cooking activities to try.


All-Rounder Award Oats

Let's start with a wholesome breakfast. It's oats, and oats, yes, can get dreadfully boring. So do this once a week, and it will start becoming more appealing promise.


All you need to do is cook 1 cup of oats with a plant-based mylk (like almond, coconut, soya, or cashew mylk) and then stick one table spoon of pure coconut oil in it. Then go ahead and add one to two tablespoons of jaggery and top with fruits. I used strawberries. Here's the thing: the oats give you a healthy carb, the coconut oil gives you a health fat (that keeps you full) and fruit, because fruit yo!

Also add some crushed almonds for protein and top with Cinnamon powder. Slurp. What a solid meal no?

Now let's move on to the art of making your own masala. Our head editor at Write Leela Write, Satya, taught me to make my own south-Indian masala to use for sambar, rasam, or vegetables. It's totally flexi and you can do your own thing. But this is what I did.


Basic South Indian Influenced Masala

3 tablespoons of coriander seeds, fennel (sauf), methi seeds (fenugreek)
2 tablespoons of Pepper corns, mustard seeds, channa daal(split chick pea lentils),  cumin (jeera)
10-12 dried red chilies and one table spoon jaggery powder


Take all your ingredients and roast in on a pan for 2-3 minutes. Let the natural oil emerge, and fill your house, try not to cough. Then add it to a blender and blend away. Store your potent magic powder in an airtight container and use it all up in 3 weeks. Keep it fresh, you know?

Before and After

Now Let's move to what you could do with this powder.

Make a vegetable daal that goes with rice and salad.

Here's what I used

1 cup chopped potatoes

1/2 onion chopped

2 tomatoes chopped

1 cup chopped Spinach

one big bunch of fresh dhanya (cilantro)

3-4 tablespoons of your magic masala

2 teaspoons turmeric

a dash of hing (asafoetida)

One cup fresh grated coconut

One capsicum (green pepper) chopped

3 green chilies

2-inches of ginger chopped fine

1/2 cup masoor daal (or any lentil you want)

Salt to taste


To make

Blend onion and  green chilies into a paste

In a pressure cooker add some cooking oil.  Add hing. Then the green chili -onion paste and tomatoes. Fry for 3-4 minutes.  Add the 1/2 cup daal and dry some more. Add your potatoes and capsicum and mix well. Now add your fresh coconut and masalas (your special powder, turmeric, and salt to taste)

After frying it all together for another 3 minutes add 2.5 cups of water and seal the pressure cooker. Let it go for 2 whistles. Enjoy with brown rice and fresh salad!

One Healthy Vegan Dinner, Coming Right Up!

And lastly, we have the Fox-Tail Millet Salad with Soya chunks. And boy do I have a treat for you because it's on video. Carrots, the vegan restaurant in Bangalore invited me to live demo it.

So watch it here:  Click here for Demo Video 

Watch the Video for this HERE

And that's that Puppies! Enjoy the coming week. Keep it kind.

Stuffed Chocolate Ice-Cube Surprise ( Vegan, That's No Surprise)

Gourmet it is!

Howdy Labradors!

I was scrolling FB and my childhood friend's mom Shobha Auntie had shared this video that showed us how to make some killer stuffed chocolate. You could totally dismiss my stupid blog and just watch the video here.

Or. You could go through my blog and see how I did it myself. Let me tell you this was super fast one and you can stuff it with whatever you fancy. You just need a good giant bar of dark chocolate, an ice-cube tray and coconut oil.

A nice loaf of, err, chocolate

Here's what you need

1 giant bar of Amul Dark/Bitter Chocolate (it's vegan) (you can also use any other brand of dark chocolate, but you will need about 3-4 small regular sized bars if you can't find a big one)

1/4th cup virgin coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Fun Fillings I used just a few of these, to be precise: almonds, coconut, jaggery syrup, pistachios, and strawberries. but here is a list to help with the imagination:

almonds, fruit, coconut , caramel , jaggery , Pistachios , cashews , walnuts, jelly, even espresso beans!



How You Make It

First get all your chosen fillings and set them aside where they are easily accessible. Now grease your ice-cube tray with coconut oil, good and proper, this is VITAL to them popping out like good little children.

Take out your giant chocolate bar. Chop it up. In a pot, add your coconut oil and add the chocolate pieces.  Add vanilla and salt now too. Stir on low fame. Add about 2 tablespoons of water to get it to be a little thinner (it should still be thick).

Switch off flame and stir, you should have a nice glossy chocolate paste.

Glossy Saucy 

Add a spoon of the chocolate to each of the sections in the ice-tray, make sure it covers the sides, and is filled a little less than halfway. Now add your toppings.


I did a mix of three flavors : almonds &coconut, Pistachio &jaggery syrup, and strawberry.

Do your Filling Thang

Once you've done our filling thing, top it over with the remaining chocolate. You can add a little water to the chocolate if it has thickened but stir and then pour it over. Your ice-tray won't be neat, that's ok, move on. Pop that tray in the freezer for one hour, or better yet give it 2 hours.

Then take out, give it a shake and pop out your chocolate ice cubes!

Ice cubes ain't got nothing on these babies

YAY! it's fancy, it's gourmet, it's super exquisite,  and people will think you are God. Really.

Inside looking good!

Now eat and go back to being a nice person. Keep it real!

Mighty Vegan Veggie Fox Millet Pulav ( Demolish your Veggie Quota)

So Many Veggies. So Many Feelings

This is for real my 6th post in January, and the damn month is not even over. I am on a blog binge, and it's likely to end at some random time you least expect it. So make merry with my sort-of-amazing vegan recipes now.

Remember how I am supposed to be off rice (and all other shitty carbs and sugary sweet things?) Yeah, so it's fox millet time. Shilpa, our friend, (and founder of Jus'Amazin, plant based treats) brought in some millet salad today, and told us she makes pulav/biriyani with it too. Aha, what a great slip of tongue, had she any idea I would go right to it and make some the very same night?

So I thought, let's get a crap ton of veggies in while we're at it. Because, you know us vegans don't get enough protein (there is plenty protein in vegetables, FYI)

So all you need is your standard masalas, some fox millet (easy to get these days in a bunch of stores), and all the veggies you can find in your fridge. It's nice and spicy, and I added mint and coconut too for a little bit of a south-indian twist.

Here's What You Need

1 cup fox millet

1 green pepper (capsicum)

1 onion

2 tomatoes

1 carrot

1 cup chopped spinach 

1/2 cup frozen or fresh peas

small punch of mint leaves

small bunch of cilantro (dhanya)

3 green chilies (less if you're a wimp)

6 pods of garlic

2 inches of fresh ginger

1 packet of your favorite ready-made biryani masala (I used Shaan bombay biryani)

1/2 cup fresh or dried coconut

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon chili powder

6-8 pepper corns

2 pinches of mustard seeds

salt to taste

1/2 cup coconut milk

cooking oil

How to Make

Like hell I was going to experiment combining the masala and fox millet in one pot the very first time I used millet. So we did things separately to avoid an  epic fail. 

First you gotta add your cup of fox millet to about 11/2 cups of water and open cook it. You might need a little more water after the first 10 minutes of cooking. You'll need to cook it for about 20 min. 

Cooking them millets

Blend your ginger and garlic with a little water to make a paste. Now blend half the cilantro with your chilies and mint and make a green paste. Chop all the rest of your veggies.

In a pot, add two table spoons of oil. Add mustard seeds and peppercorns and then the fresh ginger-garlic paste. Now add your onions and fry for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes, stir, then pour the green paste over it and mix. Now is a good time to add your packet of biryani masala, chili powder, turmeric, and salt. Mix it all up. Add the rest of your veggies (peppers, carrots, peas, spinach, or whatever you decided you want to use) and mix. Add your coconut milk and fresh/dried coconut. It should be a nice thick spicy gravy with veggies. Add a little bit of water and keep letting it cook. 

Once your millet is ready, spoon it into the gravy mixture and mix well. Let it all be in one pot now on low flame for 3-4 minutes. Serve in a bowls with some vegan peanut curd or sneak in some chips or something crunchy with it ( I won't tell)

Dinner is done!

Now go tell your veggie quota for the day what's up. 

That's right! You ate all you veggies. And it was delicious. 

Till next time!

The Epic Vegan Sandwich ( Lentil Patties +Sweet Secret Sauce)

Is that epic or waa?

Wassup Gorillas!

So, if you've been reading my posts you might have heard that I am supposed to be eating super healthy and knocking off the bad carbs, because our trainer said so. Anyway, I am trying to lay off bread/rice/roti at lunch and eat some whole wheat/brown rice at dinner.

Today, I wanted a hearty sandwich and I thought about the glorious number of ways one can go about doing that. Vegan ingredients are plenty, you just have to refocus on all the stuff there is instead of thinking of the things that you can't eat. The best part about this recipe is that it's all about the macro idea here. The micro stuff (the sauce, the salad, the seasoning) is all up to you and how you like it. Also, it's a great go-to when you have random shit lying around the kitchen.


I  used Jus'Amazin Salted Caramel Cashew butter which is to die for and is available to order through Shilpa Mogilishetty, founder of this bomb-ass company. She makes all things plant-based and delish. Our company Write Leela Write also just did the branding for it. If you want some, hassle the lady on facebook here. Her website will up soon enough.

That's that amazing Cashew Butter from Jus'Amazin

So  basically you want to have for sure these things: A solid yummy bread. Go to a nice bakery, make your own, or if you must buy store bought regular vegan brown bread. I got me some bread from a local organic store. You'll need moong daal (Split Green Gram), seasonings like garlic powder, salt, pepper, chili sauce, herbs, basically whatever you have and like. You also need something sweet to balance it out like jaggery or date paste. You can also make your own cashew butter by blending some cashews with a tiny amount of water, jaggery, and a pinch of salt.

 Fresh Bread Makes Everything Ok

The Main Stuff You'll Need

A good whole wheat bread (as fresh as you can get it)

1 cup moong daal

2 green chilies chopped

fresh spinach

onions slices

tomato slices

Any other fresh veggies you want as the salad on top

jaggery paste/cashew butter

2 tb chia seeds (to coat patties and dunk in rebad crumbs)

1 cup breadcrumbs or rava (semolina)

chili sauce

lots of seasonings (of choice)



How To Make

In a pressure cooker add one cup moong daal and 2 cups of water with one teaspoon of oil. Let that cook for about 2 whistles. Once it's done, mash up the cooked daal, add salt, pepper, garlic powder, chilies and a little bit of sweet (sugar/jaggery/date paste). You can also add chopped cilantro.

Right before coating with breadcrumbs

Make small patties out of your lentil-mash. In a bowl with 5-6 Tablespoons of water add your chia seeds. Let it sit for about 3 minutes, it will become gooey, and basically work like an egg. Now dunk your lentil patty into the chia seed mix and then coat on a plate of bread crumbs (or semolina) and set aside. After all your patties are coated with chia-water and breadcrumbs/semolina, start an epic medium fire on your stove. On a pan add 2 small spoons of oil and pan fry your patties. About 4 minutes on each side.

Set them babies aside.

Make your salad, chopped veggies of choice (onion, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, spinach, lettuce, whatever) and add salt/pepper and some chili sauce or any other dressing you might have in the fridge.

Salad of choice

Get you bread out and spread some cashew butter on each side. Make it a thick layer now. Add your patties to a slice of cashew-buttered bread, mash it on there. Heap some spoons of the salad, and cover with another slice of cashew-buttered bread.

Assemble Away!

Go eat that epic thing. Now.

Till next time. Keep that shit real.

Konkani Style Sprouted Cow Pea Curry (Vegan, Yo!)

A Wholesome Vegan Meal (But I had them with chips. Shh.)

Hello there Anteaters!

I've never been able to master south indian cooking, and by saying 'south indian cooking' I am already making a lot of people cringe. That is too generic a term to cover the vast complexity of region, flavour, and ingredients that the many south indian regions offer.

I was brought up on a more generic 'indian food' diet, sabji, daal, curry that were all a mish-mash between my mother's Mangalore roots, father's taste for heavily spiced curries, and other resulting amalgamations of spices, lentils and vegetables. This is not to say this food wasn't good, it was rather amazing, but it never allowed me to look at spices and combinations in context to region. Those of you living in Bangalore will be familiar with darshini food: quick-cheap south Indian food like idlies, vadas, pongal and various types of flavoured rices.Yes, that stuff I live for. But I also used to swap my 'katta alu' for simple south indian sambar/saarus and lightly spiced vegetables with coconut when I was in school. Then ask my mother to try to recreate them, but we could never get the flavours right.

You could say today's recipe is konkani/mangalore style, but some of the flavours also remind me of food from Kerala. What do I know? This city has shredded the original roots of food and rendered a cosmopolitan tongue, things that once you eat kind of remind you of 'this one time you were at someone's house'.

Anyway, the star ingredient in this ( a part from the sprouts themselves) is  dried red chilies and coconut. Yum-num, this is so good, I was licking the paste before it was cooked. Although i might have over done the ginger.

Did someone say coconut?

Ok without making a complete fool out of myself and writing about where this curry really comes from (it comes, truly, from my kitchen) I'll go a head and tell you that my friend Chaithali and I have been having  a FB messenger affair of late. We chat all day and it's mostly about food. She sent me this recipe and I took inspiration from it.

Chaithali makes some simple yummy shit and she's been sharing some south-inspired bean recipes with me too, so stay tuned,  I'll try and share those soon too. Anyway, the blog she shared with me is here.

I've used store-bought sprouted cow-peas. You can use any sprouts, and yes you can sprout them yourself by using the raw beans, but leaving this 12-24 hour sprouting trick in my hands would spell disaster. So just go and buy some sprouts from your local vender.

Here's What You Need

1 cup fresh coconut + the water of the coconut inside if there is any

1 inch fresh ginger ( I used 2 inches and it was a tad too heavy)

7 garlic pods

3-4 dried red chilies

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 small (or 1 large) potato chopped

1 cup sprouts of choice

3/4th of an onion

1 1/2 tomatoes chopped finally

3 heaped tablespoons vegetable masala ( I used Mangalore veg masala from the store)

1 1/2 teaspoons of jaggery

5-6 curry leaves roughly chopped

A pinch of asafoetida  (hing)

Salt to taste

2 pinches of pepper

2-3 tablespoons coconut oil

Some of that fresh flavour in the palm of my hands

How to Make

First grind your fresh coconut in a blender with a little water. Set aside. In a pan heat your coconut oil and add cumin seeds to splutter. Add your ginger, garlic, red chilies, onion, curry leaves, and hing and fry for 2 minutes.

frying before pasting this stuff up

Then put off the fire, and stick all of this in a blender. I popped the hot mixture into the freezer to cool so I could blend faster. If you had some reserved sweet coconut water from your coconut you can add it here, or else don't worry about it.

Blend the mixture to a paste, you'll have a slightly red paste.

spicy!

Now in a pressure cooker on medium flame, dump your red paste in and add your cup of grated fresh coconut. Fry for a minute then add your chopped tomatoes and mash into the paste nicely. You can add your vegetable masala now (feel free to add more or less depending on your taste), salt and pepper. Finally add your chopped potatoes and sprouts and mix.  Add jaggery and then throw in two cups of water and let the pressure cooker cook for about 3 whistles. Shut off flame and serve hot. I made some brown rice and salad to go with it. I'd say having a simple indian salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, chili, cilantro  and onion) is a bomb combination with this curry whether you have it with bread, roti, or rice.

Yum-num

Now go watch something on tv, eat, and get ready for Monday!

Keep it Kind.