IRON CHEF Choc-Carrot-Chai Spice Pudding Pie With Oat-Carrot Cookie Crust

IRON CHEF TIME: CARROT AND OATS, OOOH YEAH.

Update! I let on to my brother that he could eat the "dessert" in the fridge. The next morning he asked "What was that? It was delicious!" Sneaky Vegetable success!
Man oh man. This is really annoying. I made 2 of these puddin' pies. One held together perfectly, it was pretty. My mum and I ate it. All. We couldn't stop.
Then. The light was fading and it was time to photograph.....The second fell apart when I took it out of the ramekin.

ARGH.

But here it is anyway.

I didn't want to do anything normal. Like muffins. Cookies. Or even a pancake (I mean, I LOVE carrot cake pancakes, and oat pancakes, so a combination would be divine!)

No. Iron Chef says to me "Think Different!"

So what is this?

Oat and Carrot Cookie base, made by whipping nutellex and sugar, then beating in carrot, LSA, Oat flour and Oats, pressed into ramekins and baked for about 20 mins.

Extra dough was disposed of thoughtfully. (and extra time on treadmill was taken accordingly)

Ka-PLOP. I didn't have the time to wait for it to set completely either, as I only like taking photos in the natural light and it was fading fast!

The pudding was made by simmering OAT MILK (I went all the way!) with more carrot, then blending that smooth. I then made it into a pudding by adding cornstarch and sugar, along with ginger, cinnamon, cardamon, clove  nutmeg and vanilla.

Finally, I topped it off with dark chocolate melted with coconut oil, cocoa and cinnamon.

Overall? Success!

You just have to imagine how good the first one looked. Trust me. Please.

In other Muchin' Mochi News:

This will be my last post for Mofo!

I have to explain, I went into this month coming off a detox which I was completing trying to get rid of my CFS. Whilst I tried my best to blog as much as I could, whenever I create something I want to share on this blog, I ended up eating it. So I was at a constant struggle between creating mofo-y goodness and keeping up eating as clean as I could.

I'll be trying my best to detox again in November, and to help me along with my cooking addiction I'm not going to be updating this blog for a month. (That's all though!)

and lastly  VEGAN-MOFO = AWESOMENESS.

I have love love loooooved everyone's work. Seeing 1000+ updates on my reader feed everyday has been insane!

Lots of love to everyone who blogged!

Can it happen more than once a year? Please?

Oh My: Vegan Mousse.

This is one of those things.

You know, when you've seen a billion blogs of people discovering banana soft serve ice cream for the first time, or the creaminess of overnight oats, or

The Awesomeness Of Avocado Chocolate Mousse.

Why oh why did it take me so long to try this?!

I cannot stress how delish this is, or how much it tastes like a decadent chocolate mousse, (I had three people try it, and loved all affirmed it's mousse-yness) and I only used cocoa powder. I can just imagine how amazing this would be with dark chocolate....

I've made tofu chocolate mousse type recipes before, but they hold nothing on this. NOTHING.

Sure, it's not lower fat than mousse made with cream, but it sure as hell is healthier.

And Amazing.

Completely. Amazing.

I blended together 2 1/2 very ripe avocados with about:

1 tsp vanilla 

1 tsp stevia

1 tbs rice syrup

2 Tbs Coconut Butter

3/4 Cup Cocoa powder

Then I slowly blended in a Tbs at a time about 1/2 cup soy milk. You need to add this to get the light texture, it doesn't make it runny or anything. Just light & amazing.

Oh how I wish I could capture the taste!!!

*Prawn* Pad Thai

The pad-thai-y goodness is hidden under the prawns, sprouts and peanuts!

Yeah, So it's almost impossible to get vegan cheese, or cream cheese, yoghurt, marshmallows (Anything vaguely useful) where I live... But I can get these!



Went to check out a new Asian mart on the weekend after the farmers market, and nearly died.
Talk about a vego heaven! Every kind of tofu you could dream of, half the price of the supermarkets, (and still made in Australia!)
But best of all... A WHOLE FLIPPIN' FREEZER of vegetarian meats!

(Cruelty free Prawns in their naturally frozen state.)

Vego Prawns, fish. duck, chicken, chicken nuggets, pepper steak, abalone, bacon, ham, you name it, someone in Asia has made a soy version of it. Weird. I'm not a massive fan of meat replacements, it really is a bit weird, but I became vego for the ethics, so I'm still eager to try all of them out!

First I made Pad Thai!

... The prawns smelt fishy. Fair enough. but EW. And they were all squishy and fishy tasting. Now I admit, I've never had a real prawn before (yay!) so I had others tasted them.

Apparently the texture was spot on, but the taste was more like seafood extender. 

Far out I love Pad thai. Mmm. But I think I'll stick to my soy in tofu form for future Pad Thai.

^__^

Thank you so much to Jun from Smooch Panda's Sweet Creations for picking my blog for a Liebester Blog award! Wow, seriously!

Liebester is German for dearest or favorite and is an award given to lesser known blogs (blogs with <200 followers). 

When receiving a Liebester award, do the following:
1) Show your thanks to those who gave you the award by linking back to them
2) Link 5 of your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
3) Post the award on your blog
4) Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people

I've seen so many amazing posts during MoFo, and I'm sorry I don't know if these are well know or not, but here's my top 5:
1) I have to throw this back to Smooch Panda's Sweet Creations for making me drool at my favourite foods in the world everyday; Japanese sweets. Dorayaki with Tofu Chocolate Cream or Sweet potato filling is on my to make list!
2) The Tolerant Vegan's with Maple peanut butter french toast. Wow.
3)Veg-am with Sweet and Sour Cashew and Chickpea nuggets. Om nom nom
4) Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist with Vegan Picnic bars. I'm actually in heaven just reading this recipe.
5)  Vganjar with raw snickers bars. Raw. Snickers. Seriously?

I am absoulutly loving all the creative and delish posts from everyone in VeganMofo. How awesome is it?!

Food Is better the Second Time Around + Mac and Cheese Pizza!

First, food recycling! I had some leftover raspberry lemon coconut scrolls that were going stale, so I chucked them in the food processor, combined with coconut and oats then rubbed in some nuttelex, and used to top some mixed berries that were mixed with a little stevia, tapioca and water before baking for around 45 mins.

 =Easy Mixed Berry Crumble, Gluten free, sugar free and vegan, of course!

Next, Mac and Cheese Pizza!

 I have seen this idea floating around the internet and knew I had to try it

(Straight out of the oven)

For the mac and cheese, I made a basic roux with nuttelex, gluten free flour and soy milk, then when it was done, threw in a large handful of raw cashews and lottsa nutritional yeast, blender with a stick belnder then mixed with GF pasta. I then Spread it on my homemade GF pizza base, topped with GF bread crumbs and baked until crispy!

Side note about how much Vegan food rules, some in my family were a little bit iffy about nooch, so I put some roux aside and they made a bit with normal cheese. Verdict on the final product though? Mine was better. Hell Yeah!

Usually I have to make 2 Pizzas to feed everyone, but this is so filling, it's like a meal on a meal!

Crispy Puffy Square....things.

Random question, does anyone else happen to insert "Mofo" In place of "Riverside"(sidney samson)& sing in their head, every time they see the word mofo? No?

Moving on then.

Puffed Millet Slice! 

(Vegan, GF, No added sugar option)

I had a bag of puffed millet chilling in my pantry, because it was disappointingly not crunchy and let's be honest, if we're talking cereal for brekky, it's gotta be some form of oatmeal (or other grain equiv). Man I love porridge. And overnight Oats. mmmmm

Back to the Millet.

This is really a method, because you can make this out of anything you fancy!

What You'll Need:
Something sweet and sticky (Brown rice syrup, maple syrup, date syrup (no added sugar option))
Coconut butter
Peanut butter (or other nut butter, or other flavours.)
Puffy cereal.

If you're using a disappointingly un crispy puff, pop it in the oven on a high heat for a few mins. It'll crisp right up.
Melt large spoonfuls of each of the Sweetener, oil and peanut butter in the microwave, then mix in enough puffy stuff to lightly coat. Press into a suitably sized container lined with lightly oiled foil, cover with a piece of baking paper and squish squish squish!
When firmly pressed down, pop in fridge or freezer until set. It won't take long cos of the coconut butter.
Play around with the sweeteners and flavours!

They look rather boring, but they're tasty tasty (^____^)

Cupcakes!

I Love Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World.

 Go forth, buy, and make COOKIES AND CREAM cupcakes for a charity, have them sell out before everything else and shock everyone when you say they're vegan.

Guilt Free Ice-cream. Really. I Promise.

Oh. Hello. How did this picture of Mochi get here?

I don't usually eat white rice sweet mochi (I'm always "munchin' Genmai Mochi"- Recipe soon) but my lovely mumma brought this for me, because she knows I love mochi and green tea, so what else could I want in a food? (Plus, it's vegannnn!) Ah mums. Love em.

Know what else I love?

GUILT FREE ICE-CREAM

Vegan, Gluten Free, No added Sugar

 Oh how I wish I'd taken the time to take a picture worthy of this simple, delish treat. I didn't make much as it was an experiment, so it was incredibly hard to scoop it out all pretty-like. Also, it soon ended like this:

Why is it guilt free? Let me ask you this:

Do you feel more guilty eating A) a handful of raw cashews and dates or B) A few scoops of ice-cream?

Healthy serve of important things found in nuts in ice-cream form.  I'm sold.

Ratios:

1:1:1

Cashews: Water: Dates

That's it.

Blend until completely smooth.

Leave as is for a caramel like flavour, or 

Add whatever flavour suits your fancy (hello raw cacao or healthy (low sugar) dark chocolate), 

Add a Tbs of liquor if you're so inclined, and a pinch of salt.

Place in shallow container, freeze for an hour, whip, freeze, whip, freeze, whip. You get the idea. 

Or, place into icecream maker if you're that lucky.

I get wary of desserts that use nuts as it's so easy to overeat them per serve, but I used 1 cup each of cashews and dates, and it made about 8 servings, so per serve, it's only 1/4C sized of a mix of cashews and dates. Personally, that's a "YAY" from me ^_^

Triple Protein Punch Cookie Dough, and bunnies

Cookie Dough Protein Bars!!

I've been making these into cookies for some months now, the inspiration came from a chickpea chocolate cake I make my brother (which tastes exactly like normal cake)

The only ingredients are chickpeas, peanut butter, sweetener, hemp protein, oats and chocolate chips! How's that for a protein hit?

The only problem was the sweetener. I'd been using brown sugar, but I wanted healthier.  So, I got inventing!

For those who couldn't really give a damn about protein ( a well know side effect of the "but where do you get your protein from?")  these are a completely healthy form of cookie dough, have no added sugar and still taste naughty!

This recipe is a mix between these baked hummus balls (inspiration, mine is quite different) and date syrup  (I love date syrup!)

Plus, there's bunnies in my photos!

Triple Protein Cookie Dough

Vegan, gluten free, No added Sugar

3 Tbs apple juice

large handful dates (about 125g)

1 Can Chickpeas

1/4 Cup natural peanut butter

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 cup protein powder (optional)

1/2 to 1 cup Oats

3/4 Cup choc chips

Whiz the dates with the apple juice until smooth. Add the chickpeas and process and pulse again until completely smooth. Add Peanut butter, salt, and protein and process again. Mix in oats and choc-chips, this amount really is to personal preferences. Also check if it's peanut buttery enough. It's really personal taste.

Press into a tin, and store in fridge or freezer.

This cup and plate are mine from when I was a little girl <3 

Eye Candy

Ah. It's Wednesday. Hump day. Hardest day of the week. So I'm going to take a detour from the usual recipe post and just provide some simple eye candy.
 These are all from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, Which is basically awesomeness in cook book form.

 Now you're all inspired, go forth a bake!

These guys don't hold back; Not the sorta cookies you serve on your fine china

"Cowboy Cookies" Or "Everything delish in the world is shoved into these cookies"

"Macadamia and Ginger Cookies"

Some with choc-coated sunflower seeds to please the ginger haters

Double Dose: Pumpkin Cookies and Expresso Choc Chip Cookies

I don't even like coffee but those Expresso ones are amazing

and finally :
The Churro Cookies. Conventionally called "City- Girl Snicker Doodles"
My inspiration for my vegan Subway Cookies!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cups, What else?

 Chocolate and Peanut butter need no introduction, it's just one of those things like avocado and tomato, or  hot chips and ice cream (Yes. Try it)

This creation seemed inevitable. One of my favouristest people loves everything that is a Reese peanut butter creation. At one stage I think she was (seriously) talking about ordering a box to save money as she ate them every day.

Um.  To me, the filling in the Reese's cups tasted like the middle of The Greatest Peanut butter  and Chocolate Pillows, but not as good. So, I knew with a bit of experimentation, I could beat Reese's!

 Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
vegan (option: gluten free)

Filling adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

Makes about 9 cupcake sized cups

First, Make the chocolate shells:

150g "Milk" Chocolate (Vegan)

150g Dark Chocolate (Vegan)

1 Tbs Coconut Cream 

Chuck everything in a bowl, microwave for 30 second intervals stirring in between until almost melted. Meanwhile, boil the kettle. When there's only a few lumps left in the chocolate, don't keep microwaving, just keep stirring. Pour boiling water in a smaller bowl and sit your chocolate bowl on top, making sure the bottom doesn't touch the water.

Get your cupcake liners. For each one, spoon about 2 tsps of melted chocolate inside, then roll the chocolate around each side until they are fully coated. Pop into a cupcake pan to help them keep their shape. Repeat until you've used about half the chocolate (I made 9)

Place in freezer for about 5 mins, or until firm to touch.

Now, the filling!

3/4 Cup natural chunky peanut butter

2/3 Cup Icing Sugar

2 heaped Tbs Vegan Margarine (I use nutellex)

1/4 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt
Optional but Highly recommended: 1/2 C finely crushed wheaten biscuits (seriously, sounds strange but tester confirmed the batch made with these was absolutely delish)

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat with a hand held beater until creamy. If it's not sticking together, add some soy milk (or favourite milk) by the teaspoon. 

Rolls into balls about um, 3/4 of a golf ball, and slightly flatten out. Press into the bottom of your prepared shells then spoon 2 tsps of chocolate over the top.

Leave to set then... Well, you know what to do with these babies.

Footy Final Fever Fare: Vegan Pies

I have taken this recipe to a family dinner and everyone thought it was the "real thing". The shock when I told them was amazing.Not only does it taste authentic, it uses no meat substitutes and is super healthy it you make it in a casserole dish without the pastry.

There's only one type of footy us *true* Australians get excited about, and that's the AFL.

Men in short shorts, What's not appealing about it?

Okay, my Blues aren't in the Grand Final  but as if I'ld post a picture of a damn dirty Collingwoord player.

So how does one survive in a culture of meat pies and beer?

Veganise! These pies are about as sneaky as the (Collingwood) magpies, as no-one knows their actually super healthy.

Sneaky Veggies

Damn Dirty Pies 

Vegan, Gluten Free

Filling:

1 Onion finely chopped

1 Carrot finely chopped

1/2 Zucchini finely chopped

10 mushrooms finely chopped

1/4 Sweet Potato finely chopped

1 Can brown lentils, drained and rinsed

1 Tsp Garlic

2 TBS Oil

3 Tbs Tomato sauce

1 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar

2 Tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

2 Tbs Molasses 

2 Tsp mixed dried herbs

2 Tsp Soy sauce

This is the gravy ~Adjust these to your own tastes

1 Tbs Yeast Extract (vegemite!)

2 Tbs Cornflour

Veggie stock

Salt

Pepper

Saute Onion and garlic in oil, add rest of veggies, cook for about 5 mins, stirring often.

Add lentils, then everything listed from the tomato sauce to the soy sauce. Stir well.

Add vege stock, enough to cover everything in the saucepan, and about 2 cms more. Bring to boil, then simmer uncovered for about 30 mins, or until the liquid is reduced down to just covering the veggies and lentils. 

Scoop out some of the stock and blend with the yeast extract and cornflour in a small bowl.

Add back to the pan, stir well, season to taste.

Continue simmering with the lid on, on the lowest heat until everything is tender.

If the gravy isn't thick, scoop out some and add more cornflour.

Gluten Free Pastry:

 (If you have your own recipe, use that, this is my first attempt at GF pastry, and although it's good, it's not perfect)

2 Cups GF flour

pinch of cream of tartar

1 tsp baking powder

120 grams vegan margarine

1/4 Cup cold water

Rub together the flour, tartar and baking powder with the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add water gradually, stirring with a knife, until mixture comes together. This can also all be done in a food processor, pulsing to not overwork it.

Knead lightly on a floured surface and refrigerate until ready. 

Assembly:

Roll out the pasty and cut out to whatever size you need. I used a cupcake pan, so used a large glass to cut my pastry.

Bake in oven at 200C for 8-10 mins.

Take out of oven, fill with filling.

Cover with more pastry, or with potato mash.

These guys will keep well in the fridge or freezer until needed, just pop them back in the oven and re heat.  Now just grab a beer and enjoy being an Aussie! (or pretending to be)