Gluten Free Choc-orange and Cashew Fudge

Long time no post. My recent return to study and a lack of blogspiration has been my undoing. I'll try to remedy that in the coming weeks.

My uni is only a short walk from Smith street so I've been checking out Las Vegan (never disappoints) and trippy tacos (trippy fries was not vegan or even vegetarian last Thursday. WTF?!) regularly and have hiked down to Soul Food (vegan breakfast good, chickpea salad puke-inducing) and FOE (too many hippy types and their cow and chicken hating ways pisses me off, particularly when I'm hungry) but won't be going to the latter two for a while.

Anyway, let's get to the business end of this post. I'm a sucker for any new vegan products that come out, like the soy condensed milk that came out last year, but am lacking when it comes to actually making something out of them. I've had a can of the condensed milk sitting around for a few months and I'd singled it out as the focus of my next big, lazy, recipe. I googled condensed milk recipes and found an easy one for fudge. Basically, microwave the contents of a can of the condensed milk with a broken up block of chocolate (I used the Lindt 70% and a few tablespoons of cacao powder) until it's all melted and then add a splash of orange extract and some chopped nuts (I used cashews). Pour into a tray and chill for a few hours. I chucked it in the freezer to speed up the process.

Not much to say about this other than it was sweet, chocolaty and fudgy.


NEW VEGAN FIND (Villa Reale: Pesto alla Trapanese)

I was at the Heidelberg Leo's a few nights ago and found a few vegan pestos. They are from Italy and pricey ($8.80 for a 180g jar). I mixed some into a bowl of rice pasta and was blown away by the taste. The ingredients are so basic that I intend to make some myself when I eventually buy my dream food processor.

GF Black Bean brownies

I'm always thinking about ways to incorporate beans into a sweet dish and stumbled upon this recipe at veganfitness.net for black bean brownies. I modified the recipe to make them GF and easier to make. Luckily Melinda's GF brownie mix is vegan. All I needed to add was margarine, which I made myself, and a tin of black beans.

I basically followed the packet instructions and used mashed black beans as a binder instead of  no-egg.
 
My margarine recipe is a blend of several I found on the net.


Vegan margarine recipe

1 part water (I used 1/4 cup)
2 parts oil (I used 1/2 cup)
Enough ground soy lecithin to emulsify the mix (About 2 tablespoons)

Blend the oil and water and add lecithin. Continue blending until it resembles a soft margarine. Add some turmeric if you want to make it yellow.

I made these for the "super duper vegan picnic" that was held last weekend and everyone who had a taste was a fan. They probably would have thought less of me if they knew how easy it was.

GF gingernut biscuit cake

A few weeks ago Craig and Bec held a potluck at their place and I re-invented the choc ripple cake to make it gluten free. This was done by substituting the choc ripple biscuits with LEDA gluten free gingernut biscuits.

The cream was made with 2 cartons of morinaga tofu, which I found in the Asian foods section of safeway/woolworths, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, caster sugar and a splash of soy milk. N.B. Make sure the blender is running while you pour in the oil.

I added the final touch by dusting it with a generous amount of cinnamon sugar.

The end result. Photo: courtesy of K from In the mood for noodles

This dish is a total winner for anyone looking for a mushy, high sugar, treat i.e. everybody.

GF Lentil Loaf

For Lisa's Christmas potluck I made the lentil loaf from CPG's, The Vegan Table, but with a GF twist. I was pretty happy with the outcome.


Ingredients

4 cups water
2 cups brown lentils
1 to 2 onions
3 garlic cloves minced
3/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup GF corn crumbs (orgran brand)
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried
1 to 2 tablespoons tamari
1 to 2 tablespoons GF vegan worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Oil a loaf tin.

Boil and simmer lentils in 4 cups of water until soft and thick. About 1 hour.

Sautee onions and garlic in some oil until onions are soft. Set aside in bowl.

Once lentils are done, take off heat and let cool for 30 mins. Combine with onion/garlic, 1/4 cup ketchup,  corn crumbs, walnuts, parsley, thyme, tamari, Worcestershire sauce and pepper. Combine and adjust to taste.

Press into loaf tin and spread 1/2 ketchup on top. Bake for 45 mins.

Choc-orange pudding pops and Molasses-Vanilla ice cream with candied walnuts

Last weekend was full of pot lucks. WTB holding an ice cream pot luck on Saturday and Lisa a Christmas themed one the next day.

I decided to make two dishes for the ice cream pot luck. If one of them was crap hopefully the other one could make up for it. For weeks I had my heart set on making the "choc-orange pudding pops" from Vegan Soul Kitchen, but was lazy in tracking down popsicle molds. I eventually found some cheap ones at woolworths on Friday, but I'd already decided to just make the "molasses-vanilla ice cream with candied walnuts" by then. However, I eventually managed to twist my own arm into doing what I had originally intended and made both dishes.

Chocolate-Orange pudding pops

This is just the recipe for choc-orange pudding, but you freeze it, after placing it in molds, rather than putting it in the fridge.

Ingredients

6 tbs coconut millk
1/2 cup agave syrup
1/2 tsp orange extract (I made my own using this recipe)
1/2 cup cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used raw cacao powder)
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
340 grams silken firm tofu (I used the joyce brand from woolworths)

• Whisk everything but the tofu together in a saucepan and bring to a boil and then simmer for a minute.
• Blend in tofu.
• Let cool and pour into molds.
• Freeze until frozen ;)

I struggled to get these out of the molds in one piece, but there was success later in the day when I took some over to an MVS training session, where the skilled ice cream hands of my friend Dan pulled out the excalibur of popsicles (pictured above).

Molasses-Vanilla ice cream with candied walnuts

3 cups coconut milk
2 tbs arrowroot powder (I was tricked into buying tapioca powder thanks to tricky labelling, but seems to work okay)
6 tbs agave syrup
1 tbs black strap molasses (probably could/should have used carob molasses)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 cup candied walnuts (toast walnuts for 8 mins, rub off skins through sieve, mix in EV olive oil, agave and raw sugar and stir constantly in a frying pan on med-high heat until liquid has mostly evaporated)

• Mix 1/4 cup of cocount milk with arrowroot powder.
• Heat rest of coconut milk with agave, molasses, vanilla and salt with the coconut & arrowroot mixture.
• Refrigerate until totally chilled.
• Pour into ice cream maker and hope for the best. Add nuts in the last minute of freezing. Place in freezer for a couple of hours until it firms up.

The flavour of this was quite interesting, tasting a bit like licorice with an occasional kick of sweet candied walnut. A different type of molasses would probably add a milder and fruitier element.

Black bean salad

My continuing relationship with black beans is, er, continuing, and rather than making a dish that involves mashing the beans, I opted for the simplicity of a salad.

This recipe is based on the one in La Dolce Vegan, substituting white onion for red because the ones at the supermarket are always rotten. 1 tsp of cumin, a Tbs of oil and 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar ensures the salad will be dressed for success. The pic will show you what else goes in.

 
This may not be of interest to those who are not etymologically inclined, but the word "salad" comes from the Latin word for salt, sal, so I encourage you to add plenty to this dish.

Required soundtrack - Salad days by Minor Threat

choc ripple cake

At WVD I saw a cooking demonstration by Yahvinah from soulveg, who also has the website, The cheapest Vegan. She cooked up quite a few tasty dishes, with many that included tofu cream. After tasting some of this cream, I knew I had to make some for myself. You can find the recipe on her site. Basically it involves blending a soft tofu and adding sugar and vanilla to taste. If it is still too thin, add some oil. I used the Joyce silken firm tofu and this was perhaps too soft as no matter how much oil I added it wouldn't thicken up enough.

As you may have guessed by the blog title, I was looking to make a choc ripple cake. Arnott's choc ripple biscuits are vegan and convenient for someone who doesn't feel like making a bunch of chocolate biscuits. They also come with a handy recipe on the back of the packet that is easily cruelty-free-ified so there is no real reason to post the recipe as it is fairly self-explanatory.

Since my cream wasn't quite thick enough, I assembled the cake in a small plastic container, making little cream sandwiches with all the biscuits and pouring the left over cream on top. After leavin it in the fridge over night, I raised the classiness of the dish by sprinkling raw cacao powder on top of it.

I don't think I've ever had a choc ripple cake before, so I had nothing to compare it to, but it was pretty good and I could have eaten all of it in one sitting if it were not for my strict discipline in controlling my calorie intake. It probably could have had more sugar though.

Recommended soundtrack - "Cream" by Prince and The New Power Generation from the album Diamonds and Pearls