Vegan, gluten free, soy free lasagne.

Filling mix:  Two tins of brown lentils, two small tins of diced tomatoes, 2 shredded carrots, some mushrooms, 4 cloves garlic, one onion diced, two tbsp curry powder, salt, pepper, dill, chili powder.

Pasta: Cooked strips of zucchini.

Sauce:  Just under 1L of rice milk, 4-6 tbsp nooch, 4-6tbsp cornflour, 2-4 tbsp Nuttelex.

1. Put filling mix in pot and cook til mushrooms are tender.
2. Make sauce by melting Nuttelex, adding milk, then flour and nooch, stir on high heat til thick.
3. Cook zucchini strips til about to go tender.
4. Layer: filling, strips, sauce, filling, strips, sauce.
5. Bake in oven at 180C for 30-40 minutes, til you can poke through the zucchini with ease and the sauce is cooked on top.

Chickpea Omelettes

It actually looked better than this once we watered it down more - I've put the better recipe below.  Inspiration from Holy Cow! and Julia's Kitchen.

Ingredients:
*1 cup besan/chickpea flour
*1/4 tomato diced
*1/4 cup nutritional yeast
*1/2 onion finely chopped (might be better with red onion)
*1/4 green capsicum, finely chopped
*4 button mushrooms, finely chopped
*2 cloves garlic
*3 tsp dill
*2 tsp chili powder
*2 tsp paprika
*~ 2 cups water (you want it a bit runnier than a pancake)

Method:
1.  Mix dry ingredients, then add water as you stir :).
2.  Cook on medium heat in a fry pan.

Makes about 4.

Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown rice
• 2 cubes veggie stock
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp parsley
• 3 cups mushroom (or less, depends on how much you love mushroom really - we used Portabello and Button)
• 1 tbsp Nuttelex
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small onion finely chopped (we used red as that's all we had)
• pinch salt and pepper

Method:

1. Fry mushrooms, onion and garlic in butter.
2. Cook brown rice in water with veggie stock, until just cooked.  I used about 2 cups of water and it turned out okay.  We put the parsley, salt and pepper in this.  All up, the rice took about half an hour to cook.  It depends on the type of rice you use.
3. Add mushrooms to rice, along with nutritional yeast.

Makes about 2 serves.

Vegan French Toast

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas
• 2/3 cup nondairy milk
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• bread

Method:

1. Mix together bananas, milk, cinnamon and vanilla.
2. Soak bread in mixture on both sides.
3. Fry in pan at medium heat with a bit of butter or oil.

Makes: 4-5 slices of bread

Potato and Spinach Curry

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 2 tsp ginger
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 packet of fresh spinach, chopped
• 4 large potatoes, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup of brown rice

Method:

1. Put rice on to boil.
2. Put potatoes on to cook.
3. Fry up onion and garlic in pan.
4. Drain potatoes, add onion and garlic mix, add some water, add herbs and spices, allow to simmer.
5. Add spinach for the last few minutes.
6. Mix in rice and eat.

Green Lentil Curry

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice
• 1 cup green lentils
• 1 tsp each garam masala, turmeric, cumin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 2 tbsp curry powder
• 1 tin coconut milk
• 2 cloves garlic
• salt and pepper

Optional: add chopped spinach, vegetable stock and/or onion.

If you're prepared, soak your lentil overnight so that you don't have to cook them for as long.

Method:

1. Put lentils, 1 cup of water, spices, coconut milk and garlic in one pot.  You may need to add more water as it cooks.  Cook for about 35-45 minutes, until lentils are tender.
2. Cook rice as per packet instructions.
3. Mix together and nom!

Pumpkin Chips

It's that part of the week again; there's almost nothing in my fridge.  I decided to make pumpkin chips out of the 1/4 of a pumpkin I had in there.  They're really yummy, but not as firm as the potato chips.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 Butternut pumpkin
• 1-2tbsp oil
• 2tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 cloves garlic
• paprika, oregano, thyme, any other herbs & spices you want to add

Method:

1. Chop up pumpkin.
2. Put in a container with herbs and spices.  Shake until evenly coated.
3. Bake at 220C for 20 minutes.

Mung Bean Dahl

The co-op at uni had a sale on mung beans (I got just under a cup for 55c; I'm horrible at guesstimating weights) so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to finally try some out, after having a delicious mung bean dahl at Vege Rama.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp each turmeric, pepper and cumin
• 1/2 tsp chilli
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 an onion
• 1 cup dried mung beans
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 tbsp parsley
• 2 handfulls spinach
• 1 cube vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 cups of water

Method:

1. Put mung beans,water, vegetable stock, herbs and spices into a large pot on high, then turn down to let simmer.  You may need to add more water to keep it nice and liquidy.
2. Put brown rice and water in another pot to cook.
3. Fry onion and garlic in a pan with oil until onion is see-through.  Add to mung bean mix.
4. Take brown rice off heat once cooked.
5. Add finely chopped spinach to mung bean mix once there are 10 minutes to go (should have been cooking for about 25 minutes now, no need to worry about being exact, we only want the spinach to be wilted).
6. Take mung beans off heat, serve with rice.

Potato Chips

Ingredients

• Two big potatoes
• One sweet potato
• Oregano, dill, paprika, pepper, salt 1tsp
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp oil

Method

1. Chop the normal potatoes into chip size, chop sweet potato half the size.
2. Mix together herbs and spices with oil in a large container.
3. Preheat oven to 210C
4. Put the chips in the container and shake til evenly coated.
5. Put on tray in oven and cook for 35-40 minutes, turning once.

Spiced Chocolate Cookies

I had a lot of random ingredients laying around the house so I tried to make some cookies using a recipe that I made up on the spot.  They ended up being a bit bland, but could probably be helped along with nuts/chocolate chips.  My friends suggested that they would make good cookies for dipping in soy milk.  Let me know what you think and how they go!  Any suggestions would be great too of course :).

 Ingredients:
*1 tsp cinnamon
*1 tsp cloves
*1 tsp ginger
*1/3 cup + 1 tbsp Nuttelex
*1/4 cup raw sugar
*1 cup flour
*2 tbsp cocoa
*2tbsp non-dairy milk

Method:
1.  Mix all ingredients together.
2.  Roll into balls and squish down.
3.  Bake 180C for 15-20mins

Makes:  About 12.

Want to do a guest spot recipe?  Contact me at kommonerkraft@yahoo.com.au!

Vanilla Sponge Cake

Ingredients:
Cake
*2.5 cups self raising flour
*4 tsp baking powder
*3 tsp vanilla
*2/3 cup oil
*2/3 cup sugar
*1 & 3/4 cup water

Icing
*2 cups icing sugar
*1.5 tbsp Nuttelex
*3-4 tbsp nondairy milk
*1/2 tsp vanilla

Method:
1.  Mix cake ingredients together.  If you feel the need, adjust the amount of flour/water.
2.  Bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
3. Let cool.  Prepare icing.
4.  Once cake is cool, spread icing over.

Note: I coloured it red with grey icing.  I just went from an old recipe from somewhere but altered the amounts of things slightly.  If you have any alterations to the recipe add them in the comments and let me know how it goes!

Chickpea and Potato Curry

This photo is after it was refridgerated because I forgot :p

Ingredients:
*1 cup rice
*3 potatoes
*4 tsp curry powder
*1 tsp chili powder
*1 can coconut milk
*2 cans chickpeas
*6 mushrooms, sliced
*1/2 block tofu, cubed (neglect if soy free)
*1 onion, diced
 *1/2 head cauliflower, chopped
*2 cloves garlic

Method:
1.  Put rice on to cook.
2.  Put diced potato on to cook.
3.  Fry up onion, tofu, mushrooms and garlic until onion starts to go see-through.
4.  Add chickpeas, cauliflower, coconut milk and spices to the onion/tofu mix.
5.  Once potatoes are done, add to chickpea mix.
6.  Serve with the rice.

Serves: 4 to 6

Red Beans and Rice

I've found myself with an abundance of brown rice so I'm currently working my way through my bookmarked recipes (there are a lot).

I found a recipe entitled Carribean Red Beans and Rice and decided to give it a try.

I needed substantially more water; about 1 and 1/3 cup more.  I didn't include the onion either as I had none.  In my opinion, it needed more spice, more 'oomph', but all in all it was a pleasant dish.  I was also really lazy and just put everything in the pot together and it turned out fine.  It's a nice, simple dish that is yummy.

Total: $2.95, makes 2-3 serves.

Eggplant Steaks

This post is more of an idea starter than a recipe.

There are many ways that you can prepare the eggplant.  I sliced mine into 1cm thick 'fillets' and then put them on a tea towel.  I sprinkled them with salt to help drain the moisture away (the longer you leave it, the better their texture).

I then mixed together some paprika, vegetable oil and chili powder and covered them with it.

I put them in the oven (with my casserole) for 30-40 minutes at 180C until soft (I poked one with a fork to check).  Remember to flip over and brush with oil on the other side at the 15 minute mark!

You can use them on burgers, by themselves with some veggies, chopped up on a wrap...  They're very versatile!

Smoothie Muffins

These are called smoothie muffins because they were made out of my leftover smoothie ingredients; peaches and banana.

Ingredients:
*1 banana
*1/2 cup raw sugar
*3/4 cup non dairy milk
*2/3 tin peaches
*2 cups self raising flour

Method:
1.  Blend peaches and milk together.
2.  Add everything together and mix.
3.  Bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes.

Gingerbread Cookies

Unfortunately I cannot remember where I got this recipe from, so if anyone knows, please tell me so I can credit the original creator!  Pretty sure it was somewhere on vegweb.com though.

Ingredients:
*1/3 cup oil
*3/4 cup raw sugar
*1/4 cup molasses
*1/4 cup non-dairy milk
*2 cups flour
*1/2 tsp each: baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon
*1.5 tsp ground ginger

Method:
1.  Mix all ingredients together.
2.  Wrap in plastic, refridgerate for 1 hour.
3.  Roll out flat and cut out shapes, or into balls and press flat.
4.  Bake at 180C for aprox. 8-10 minutes.

Makes: 16

Potato and Corn Patties

Cooked without oil, gummy.

Fried in oil, crispy.

Ingredients:
*1/2 onion, finely chopped  $0.27
*1 clove garlic
*1 tin corn kernels               $1.46
*parsley, salt, pepper, oregano, paprika
*4 potatoes                          $1.68
*1 tbsp flaxseed
*1/4 cup water
*1/2 cup plain flour            $0.05

Method:
1.  Fry onion and garlic.
2.  Boil potatoes and then mash.
3.  Mix all ingredients together, spoon into fry pan and cook.

Makes: 10

Note:  I don't think that I made them quite thin enough.  If you make them thinner they're more likely to cook nicely through to the middle.  I have not tried baking them but I'd be interested to hear if you do!

Total: $3.46 or $0.35 each.

Lentil Spaghetti

I was scrounging through the remains of my food and discovered that I had enough left to make me some awesome lentil spaghetti.  I had originally intended to make spaghetti and meatballs but I used all my tvp on pies!  I used this recipe and this one for inspiration, as well as a few others I looked at.

With tin of tomatoes

Without tin of tomatoes.

Ingredients:
*1 cup dry red lentils        $1.00
*1 onion, chopped            $0.54
*1 zucchini, grated           $0.84
*1 carrot, grated                $0.34
*2 garlic cloves, minced   $0.10
*2 cubes vegetable stock  $0.54
*basil, oregano, thyme
*handfull of spaghetti      $0.35
*1 can diced tomatoes      $0.80

Variations:  Add chopped celery, mushrooms, make some tvpballs.

Method:
1.  Prepare 2 cups of water with the veggie stock, boiling.
2.  Add the lentils, zucchini, carrot (and/or celery, mushrooms) and tomatoes.
3.  Fry onion and garlic in pan.
4.  Cook pasta.
5.  Add onion and garlic to lentil mix.
6.  Pour lentil mix onto drained pasta (add tvpballs if you made some).

Makes:  Two serves.

Total: $4.51 or $2.25 per serve.

Pasta Bake

Ingredients:
*500g mix frozen broccoli and cauliflower  $2.66
*250g pasta  $0.50
*1 jar pasta sauce  $1.07
*basil
*white sauce: 4tbsp flour, 2.5 cups nondairy milk, 2 tbsp Nuttelex, 1 tsp paprika  ~$1.95

Method:
1.  Cook brocolli, cauliflower, basil and pasta in a pot.
2.  Make white sauce in another pot, stirring until thick.  Add in order: Nuttelex, milk, flour, paprika.
3.  Drain pasta mix.
4.  Combine all ingredients.
5.  Put in baking dish.  Bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Makes:  Two serves.

Total:  $6.18 or $3.09 per serve.

Calories: 1297 or 648.5 per serve.
Protein: 61.9 or 30.95 per serve.

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:
*1 medium zucchini, grated  $0.63
*1.5 cups self raising flour   $0.16
*1/4 cup water
*1.5 tsp cinnamon
*1/2 cup raw sugar               $0.10
*1/2 tsp salt
*1/2 cup vegetable oil         $0.57
*1/2 tsp nutmeg
*1 tsp vanilla

Method:
1.  Mix all the ingredients together.
2.  Pour into a tin.
3.  Bake at 180C for 25-35 minutes until top is golden brown.

Makes:  8 slices.

Total:  $1.46 or 18c/slice.

Calories: 2176 or 272/slice.

Protein: 24.8 or 3.1/slice.