bush tomato marinade

Bush tomato is not really tomato, it is more closely related to eggplants but it looks a bit tomato-y in its fruit form and colonialism and English, ugh, yo. They're found in various species and forms across Australia and are super delicious but also occasionally poisonous! Which is a great punchline for a joke about Australia, I guess. Because it's so widely spread it has a lot of indigenous names, commonly akudjura (when crushed or powdered) or kutjera.

Anyway in my quest to use more indigenous spices that have been pushed aside by racism and the euro-centricity of Australian cooking, I am currently playing with bush tomato, and at the recent vegmel 4th birthday picnic I made a bush tomato salad where I marinated basically everything in bush tomato. This is the GREATEST MARINADE ever. If I ate meat I would put it on all of them, but I don't so TOFU and maybe I have yet to try tempeh with it but I'm sure it'll work.

Bush tomato tastes smokey and kind of like amazingness.

BUSH TOMATO MARINADE

2 tbl ground bush tomato (I get mine from Gewurzhaus on Lygon Street where they love me)
2 tbl sunflower or macadamia oil
2 tbl olive oil
1 tblish of minced garlic

Mix it all together, slather it on some tofu and leave it to sit. This amount goes across about 400g of tofu (firm! as always with marinading).

I served it with shaved carrot and zucchini and some cherry tomatoes, in a bush tomato-based dressing.

BTW if anyone in the Melbournes knows where I can buy not-ground bush tomato, please let me know, I want to try turning these into scones.

Black Forest Cheezecake + a Birthday Picnic

Recently Planet Vegmel turned three! To celebrate there was a picnic at the Edinburgh Gardens, as well as our favourite new tradition of making a zine. This year's zine features secrets of not the inner North, and you should all download it!

I made the super awesome vausage rolls because I really wanted Wendy to try them (having spent the last six months in Beijing talking them up to her), but this meant bringing a gluteny savoury that K couldn't eat! To compensate, I went to extra special effort with my sweets contribution: vegan, gluten-free black forest cheezecake.


This recipe was inspired by a piece of cake I had at the Heavenly Plate on a recent trip to Perth which was amazing and I was so excited to try making some sort of black forest cheezecake myself. This version isn't quite right, there are several changes I have in mind for the next iteration, but for a first attempt (and my first cheezecake in over a year) it was not bad at all.

I used the triple threat chocolate cheesecake in My Sweet Vegan as inspiration/guidance for proportions.

black forest cheezecake

ingredients

1 packet of chocolate biscuits (I used the leda tim tam substitutes)
third of a cup of sugar (I used a mix of white and coconut sugars)
two tablespoons margarine


3 tubs of vegan cream cheese (approx 700g)
300g silken tofu
300g dark chocolate
three quarters of a cup of white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
shake of salt

a can of berries, preferably cherries but mixed will do
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
quarter cup sugar
extra chocolate for drizzling

method

Crush the biscuits, mix with the third of a cup of sugar and the margarine. Add some extra chocolate in the form of cocoa if you like. Press into a lined 22 cm cheesecake or springform pan for a thin crust, or a smaller pan for a slightly thicker crust.

Mix together the cream cheese, tofu, vanilla extract, salt and the three quarter cup of sugar until smooth. Melt the chocolate and combine through until looking delightfully brown. Pour carefully into pan on top of crust, and drop the pan a time or two to smooth it out if necessary. Bake at 175C for about 50 minutes.

After it has cooled (I usually do this overnight), over heat bring together the can of berries (mostly drained, but with a little of the syrup), the cornstarch and the lemon juice with the remaining sugar. Stir over heat until it's come together like a jam, and let cool a bit. Then pour it over the cake. When this has cooled a little more, melt the remaining chocolate and drizzle it over. Serve and eat it, it's so good.

Changes I would like to make in the future: an extra berry layer on top of the base; a thicker base (maybe half again); something "white creamish" like a real black forest cake (maybe a white chocolate tofu layer); fresh cherries on top.

eggplant salad

emilly made an eggplant salad as her savoury contribution to the planet vegmel picnic. it was super tasty, and filled the house with the smell of eggplant that was a) delicious and b) not cooked by me, which i like (cooking eggplant makes me nervous). she is not really a food blogger, so i have volunteered to blog the recipe on her behalf!



eggplant salad

this is a little bit inspired by greg + lucy malouf's soused zucchini recipe, so you could probably make this a zucchini salad, if you were that kind of person (i am not. well, not in salad).

ingredients
1 medium sized eggplant
lots and lots of salt
olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice (or red wine vinegar)
1 teaspoon castor sugar
2 teaspoons sumac (plus some extra, if you like)
fresh coriander and/or parsley

method
cut up the eggplant. thinnish slices is best but emilly did it in chunks, and was then cursing the chunks during the entire cooking process. put the eggplant into a colander with lots of salt on each surface; put a plate on the top and some cans to weigh it down and press the eggplant, and leave for at least half an hour.

rinse the eggplant off, pat it dry with a paper towel, and then get more paper towel ready so you can drain the eggplant. fry with what seems like a painful quantity of oil. if you sliced it, you could probably brush each side with some oil so that you don't end up using equal quantities of oil and eggplant, but it cooks nicer and faster with plenty of oil.

for the dressing, combine lemon juice, sugar and sumac. mix together the eggplant and the dressing. this can all go in the fridge if you have prepared it in advance! then when it is time to go to the picnic/serve the salad, add some chopped parsley and/or coriander and sprinkle it over the top!

chocolate caramel slice

For the Planet VegMel Picnic (more on the picnic later) I made chocolate caramel slice, originally seen on Johanna's blog. I had quite a different experience than Johanna. She worried that the base was too crumbly, that she might have overcooked the milk because it didn't look right, and too liquidy a chocolate layer. I on the other hand had a lovely time. The base pressed in quite well, and I've never used condensed milk of either the dairy or soy variety previously, so had no idea if it was working and just went with it; and the chocolate was a perfect consistency. And it turned out well! Very crunchy, and the base was a bit high (I used a 20x20cm tin instead of 20x30, and that was a mistake), but overall it was an easy and delicious experience. And at the end of the picnic there was only one lonely piece of slice left!

I also made this gluten free, with a direct substitution of Orgran's GF flour for the flour in Johanna's recipe. I didn't even add extra liquid the way I usually would with a GF conversion, and it turned out just fine.

This is a picnic submission for that recipe seems very familiar...



chocolate caramel slice
originally at Green Gourmet Giraffe

base
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup brown sugar
quarter of a container of nuttelex (125ish grams)
1 cup GF flour

caramel layer
330g soy condensed milk (or 1 tin)
2 tablespoons or so of golden syrup (I didn't measure, just squeezed the tube until I got bored of squeezing)
30g nuttelex

chocolate topping
150g dark chocolate
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Base: mix all the ingredients and press into a lined tin. Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes.

While the base is in the oven, in a small saucepan over a lowish medium heat, constantly stir all of the caramel ingredients until it has thickened and is a light golden brown. Hopefully the base will be ready just as the caramel is, because then you can pull it out, spread the caramel over it, and shove it back in the oven. At the same 180C temperature, bake for 10 or so minutes until it's a deep golden brown. Mine went very brown, but it wasn't burnt and it was all okay. Set this aside to cool and go about your business.

When it's cool, melt the chocolate and mix in the oil. Spread it over the caramel layer, and leave it in the fridge to set. I left mine over night. I then brought it to room temperature before cutting.

Cut it small because it's quite sweet!

mini cheezecakes

I went on a picnic and baked some mini cheezecakes (as the birthday girl didn't want an actual cake).



These cakes were coincidentally based on the cheezecake I baked for Em last year, but why change a delicious cake? I love this cheezecake a lot, and I've been a bit obsessed with mini things lately, so it seemed like a good time to give them a go.

I only needed about three quarters of the biscuit base mixture, so it's a shame I accidentally poured the whole packet in to get mushed, as there is now a whole heap of biscuit mixture in my fridge! I pressed about five millimetres of biscuit in to the cupcake containers. A note: use foil cups ONLY. Do not use paper cups. It will end in tears and recriminations when you go to eat it the next day.

Other than that alle the ingredients remained the same. I poured the cake filling in to the cake cups, on top of the bases, and put in to bake at 180C for a while. Then I let them cool completely, and made the berry compote and poured it on top. Rich, delicious success!

The picnic was lots of fun, it was a perfect day for it. Shar brought soup, which was super delicious, and Danni made the most successful pizza ever. And there was scrabble! And surprisingly I enjoyed watching season one of Friends.

gluten-free derby snacks

On Saturday Jo, Em, Danni and I joined K and Toby and two of their friends at roller derby. Well, maybe they joined us. Or something. WE ALL WENT TOGETHER.



Derby bouts are always a bit epic, having to stand in the queue for a million years, elbowing away for space, having to put up with the smell of sausages and really bad toilets, but this one was twice as epic, because there were two bouts, starting at five and finishing about nine. RIGHT OVER DINNER TIME. So we prepped up with goodies.



I made some rice balls. There were more than featured here! I basically smushed together some cooked rice with some tomatoes, a little bit of onion, some herbs and some mashed chickpeas. Cashews would also have been a good addition. Then I baked them for a while, until they were golden. Seen here with some sweet chilli sauce that Vicki left at my house and I keep forgetting to give back.



Jo made some sushi. Mmmm sushi.



Em made some citrus cookies, that were light and fluffy and kind of like eating cake. CAKE COOKIES. It's like a world of revelation.

K made some of Cindy's peanut butter rice bubble chocolate slice things, maybe one of them will link me to the recipe (I always seem to be saying that lately...). These were delicious! Whilst I was at friends of the earth earlier in the day, I picked up some raw chocolate truffles to go along with the snacks.

Bringing food makes it a lot more fun! Yay!

new york cheezecake, and a barbecue

Whilst the weather is still sometimes okay, and not always freezing cold, Em thought it would be fun to have a barbecue. So Saturday afternoon, before heading out to Reservoir for Roller Derby, we ventured around to Em's place for a barbecue.

Because I love barbecues and picnics, as always I dedicated myself to awesomeness. I'm super excited about my cheezecake, it looks like this:



IT LOOKS DELICIOUS. OH YEAH

I got the recipe from Carla, who adapted the recipe from Smitten Kitten.

I made a handful of tweaks, though the recipe remains largely unchanged, so for my reference (and yours!) you can find it at the end of this post.

I also made some sushi (gluten-free), and yet another batch of the greatest vegan sausage rolls ever.



I didn't take too many other photos. Toby and Mario spent a lot of time hanging around the barbecue (I OFFERED, and was DENIED), barbecuing things. These things included a large variety of vegetables, some eggplant, and three types of awesomely marinated tofu.



Em marinated some tofu pieces in tamari, and some other tofu pieces in soy sauce. Because these were so small, they became quite fried and stiff on the outside, and sort of gooey and soft on the inside. They were delicious! Equally delicious was Toby's tofu, marinated in some sort of barbecue sauce, the recipe for which I hope he will share shortly! *hint hint*



Not pictured: the salad that Brunswick Jo brought (it was sort of gado gado inspired, with lots of veggies and dried rice noodles), and the sangria that Jo (YOU SEE WHY THERE IS A DISTINCTION?) made.

We sadly didn't have time for sweets, as we had to dash for roller derby, so after quickly stuffing our faces with cheezecake we headed off, and at roller derby we had a little sweet food picnic! Kristy had made peanut butter truffles, and Em made chocolate truffles (using leda tim tam things) and lime and coconut cupcakes (all of these desserts were gluten free).

I love barbecues. And picnics.

New York Cheezecake
modified from Carla



It should be thicker than this! Mine is only so thin because my springform pan broke, and I had to use my cheesecake tray. Oh the hardship! So this is the method for if you only have a thin cheesecake tray.

ingredients
three quarters of a pack on Nice Arnotts biscuits
5 tablespoons of melted Nuttelex
half a cup of sugar
dash or two of salt

2 packages of vegan cream cheese (this is about 500 grams)
1 heaped cup of castor sugar
1 tablespoon plain flour
zest of half a lemon (i would actually up this to three quarters of a lemon or something)
3 eggs worth of egg replacer (Orgran)
dash of vanilla essence

1 can mixed berries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
quarter of a cup of sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
approx. one third of a cup of water

method
To make the crust: mash up the biscuits (I used mortar and pestle), mix together with nuttelex, sugar and salt. Pat into the greased pan, all the way along base and all up the sides, and set aside.

To make the filling: Preheat oven to somewhere around 280C. My oven only goes to 250C but can then do fan forced, so that's what I turned it up to. Beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour, lemon zest, egg replacer and vanilla essence. Pour in to pan, and shake around to make smooth if necessary. Drop pan carefully onto counter from a height of five cm or so if you have bubbles (this helps to get rid of them).

Put that cheezecake in the oven. You may want to have a drip tray in your oven, everyone else who made this recipe reported drips but I had none. Bake for between eight and twelve minutes, until the top starts to brown a little, and also puffs up just a little. Reduce the heat to about 95C, and bake for another 45 minutes at this reduced temperature. By this time the cake will be pretty firm. Set aside and cool. Refrigerate and let cool completely.

To make the berry topping: bring all remaining ingredients (berries, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, water) to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and stir until it reduces. Leave this to cool completely, then pour it over the cheezecake.

You can leave it to sit for ages, it will still look and taste awesome! Or you can eat it straight away. Your delicious choice!

nacho cheese dip

I made a nacho cheese dip for the recent gluten-free cheese picnic. The nacho cheese dip was very tasty, and I made it again on Friday, because I had the genius idea that I was going to put it in pizza pin wheels to take to roller derby on Saturday.

This recipe is super simple, and very versatile. I've modified it a little bit from the original recipe, so I reproduce it below, with pictures! Please note that I have followed the original recipe exactly before, and it works super fine.



nacho cheese dip, originally from schmooed food.

ingredients
one and a half cups of water
one third of a cup of raw cashews
four or five cherry peppers (or pimentos, I found this in the jar section of my IGA)
1 approximate cup of savoury yeast flakes
1 tablespoon cornflour (make sure this is gf!)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
half teaspoon salt
half teaspoon onion powder
half teaspoon garlic powder
lots of cumin, four or five shakes

method
Take the stems off the peppers, but keep the seeds in. This adds a nice bite! You don't need to measure out everything in advance, but with this recipe I like to, to make sure I have everything I'm supposed to have.



Then blend it all together! I like to blend the cashews first, to ensure that they're smooth, before adding the rest all at once.

After blending, dump the whole mixture into a small saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat for about five minutes. I like to use a fork for this, but a wooden spoon would be okay also.



After simmering, it should have thickened a bit. Remove from the heat and leave to cool, and it will thicken a bit more! If you find that it is too thick, then add a bit more water during blending or simmering stages. I, however, wanted it thick more like a spread so that I could use it for:



Vegan toasted cheese sandwiches, and pizza pinwheels! This was my first vegan cheese toasted sandwich attempt, and it was awesome! The cheese went perfectly - so perfectly in fact that I am thinking about making another lot of it this afternoon to keep in the fridge for emergency sandwiches during the week!

vegan + gluten-free picnic potluck

So, I don't want to be the Spaminator or anything, so I've been holding off waiting for other people to post to Planet VeGMeL, but I am impatient and eager and cannot wait! And so I bring to you now:

THE STORY OF A GLUTEN-FREE VEGAN PICNIC POTLUCK
(please come back for updates as I link to other bloggers and posts)

On Friday afternoon I hurried out of work and jumped on the train, impatient to arrive home. I dashed off the train and to the house, straight up the stairs and into the kitchen, pausing only to kiss Danni hello.

I had important cooking to do!

But before all this: I woke up and marinated some tempeh in a mixture of tamari, garlic and sesame oil.

And before this: I cooked dinner Thursday night, and as the beans simmered, I prepared a nacho cheesy dip.

We were going to a potluck!

Kristy is new to the world of gluten-free living. Prior to this, she had been planning a cheese-themed picnic potluck for Friday afternoon, so she modified it to a gluten-free and maybe cheesy (vegan OF COURSE) picnic potluck. So keep in mind as you look at these delicious foods that everything that follows is vegan, gluten-free, and VERY TASTY.

So, you may be thinking, in what did all Steph's rushing about result? Well, I am glad you asked! It resulted in an amazing nacho cheese dip, about which I will blog (in detail) shortly. It tasted just like nacho cheese doritos, it was excellent! I do wish that we'd perhaps allowed it to soften a bit before we'd served it, as it was a bit on the solid side. And, since we were a bit time poor, Danni made a guacamole to accompany it.





We rounded out with a quickly thrown-together set of sushi - it's the perfect picnic food, though admittedly not very cheesy!

Cindy and Michael astounded us with these cheese and sausage stick things - they were pretty nifty! I really enjoyed both their taste and the novelty factor (cheese and sausage on a stick! Reminds me of primary school).



I know (because she told me) that Jo really wanted to stick with the cheese theme, so went with 'things you might find on a cheese platter.' I think she should be commended for commitment to accuracy, because the mushroom pate she made included a thin film of oil across the top, similar to one you might find on actual pate. (gross but) Awesome! :o) The recipe she used was this one here.

Her submission also included an olive tapenade, no opinion on its awesomeness because I can't stand olives.



Vicki managed to track down the mysterious and elusive (and expensive) vegan and gluten-free pastry, rumoured to exist somewhere in the supermarkets of Melbourne. With this critical item in hand, she rocked in with spinach and 'cheese' sausage rolls! The pastry was a bit crumbly (to be expected, as Vicki reported it was falling apart as she tried to roll it), but the filling was delicious and it was an excellent and tasty addition to our picnic! She has blogged the recipe here.



In VERY delicious news, Bec and Craig turned up with some amazing potato products. Craig made some potato cakes, which I am going to attempt to replicate ASAP, and because Craig refuses to blog, I am also going to replicate the recipe here shortly, so that everyone else can try them. They were deep-fried battered fatty potato goodness, they were so tasty. I want to make these for Amanda immediately!



Then Bec produced this mashed potato. "So what?" you might say. "Anyone can do mashed potato." Well, anyone can do mash potato, but this mash potato included some Tofutti sour cream, and I have never done that before but I am totally going to do it from now onwards. It added something awesome to the potatoes (I love potatoes).



Kristy and Toby made some cheese-related items. Toby made a goat's cheese sort of thing, that a lot of people declared was more like a loaf, and Kristy made this cheesy dip - I didn't try either of these, they were on the wrong side of the blanket and I was too full! Hooray picnics!



I didn't manage to sample everything savoury, nor did I get close-ups of everything. Some of the stuff I missed: a beetroot salad; crumbed tofu (actually I tried this, it was like fish fingers); strawberries; more chocolate things; olives; more chocolate things; a rice salad; crackers; and apparently my feet. And apparently also whatever Johanna made, but I'm sure I ate it. Hmm.



I am really enjoying this obsession with ice cream. Every picnic, every gathering, it seems we have amazing ice cream with which to contend. This potluck, fantastically, was no different! Cindy pulled out a raspberry ripple coconut ice cream, constructed at Craig's request. What an amazing idea! This idea, plus the execution of the potato cakes, may possibly have made Craig the winner of the potluck, but that is open to a vote and he would have to contend with Kristy's blueberry cheesecake ice cream! BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE ICE CREAM. My word, we may be vegans but we do not sacrifice taste and deliciousness, I hope that is obvious.



There were other dessert things, some of which I tried, many of which I did not. I made the tactical error of trying the chocolate goods before any other sweets (aside from the ice cream, of course, which had to be eaten first before it melted, oh the horror). I really have to remember that chocolate, in bulk, does not agree with me, and there was a large number of chocolate sweets with which to contend, including chocolate balls and a number of slices (not all of which are pictured below, mostly because my camera skills - and the fading light - failed me).

Other sweets included carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting by Vicki, buttery cupcakes by Carla, and a pear torte by Bec (the latter of which was so rich). Also pumpkin cheesecake brownies.



There should be more picnics. Because they're awesome.

all photos here

vegan potluck picnic - princes park

Yesterday we went on a Vegan Pot Luck Picnic to Princes Park, just a short tram ride from our house. There were lots of Melbourne vegans in attendance, and this resulted in lots of yummy vegan food.

In an amazing turn of events for any picnic, most everyone arrived at or close to the start time. This was because Cindy had let us know that she would be bringing savoury ice cream, and as it was a picnic the ice cream would simply have to be eaten first, before it melted!

This was a lie. Although the weather was warm, it took the ice cream a good half hour to soften sufficiently for serving!



Opinions were divided on this new treat. Cindy provided us with two savoury ice creams to sample, one avocado and one tomato. The avocado was likened to eating frozen guacamole; the tomato, to frozen tomato soup. Cindy has blogged the recipe and process here.

In the meantime, as we waited for the ice cream to melt, we started in on the ample savoury goods.



It was awesome to meet Carla for the first time. She brought along a delicious roast carrot dip, and a great basil pesto. Both of these were amazing deliciousness.



Vicki brought along a muffaletta. I was really excited about this because I haven't had one in ages! It was really dense, and filled with pesto, sun-dried tomato, capsicum, olives, and artichokes, and I think perhaps some other things I have forgotten.



Tahn brought some wraps filled with hommous, avocado, carrot, lettuce and some other delicious things. They were tightly wrapped and soft and squidgy, which made them lots of fun to eat (and dare I say it, even more delicious than usual?). She also brought three children, Popeye, and a whole lot of fruit and some chocolate banana bread (which I didn't get to try! sadface). She's already blogged about the picnic here.

Other raw and refreshing foods were provided by Craigiepants (has a blog, refuses to use it), who brought along some rice paper rolls. He claimed that these were poorly rolled, but he lies, because these were well rolled and very delicious.



Bec made vol au vonts, and these were GIANT. Fortunately they were delicious (so delicious that Toby refused to share them). The pastries for these were store bought, so they do exist!



Kristy and Toby rocked in with a basket full of delights, starting with this vegan pate. Being a pate disliker from way back, I ended up passing on this veganised version, so I can't tell you what it tasted like! For the very first time EVER, Toby tried his hand at sushi. He used the recipe from Tempting Tempeh for the tempeh and avocado rolls, and then made a sushi version of a classic sandwich, cucumber and (tofutti) cream cheese. These were great, I love the idea! (also sushi)



I brought along some gado gado. I love making gado gado and lontong! It's all cold and squishy and delicious. I use the same recipe every time, which I've previously blogged here. Plus it gave me the opportunity to use up the yao chao guai that had been languishing in the freezer for two months.



For drinking, we had an assortment of picnic delights. Kristy made up some raspberry lemonade (with actual raspberries lurking in the pitcher) (recipe here), and then we ventured into alcoholic territory with some gin and tonics, and a whole lot of beers. I wished desperately that I had brought some pimms, but our picnic basket was just too heavy!



Utilising the recipes of others, Lisa brought some chocolate hedgehog slice (based on my recipe); and D made some oreo truffles, based on sj's recipe.



Continuing with the truffles, Kristy made some cheesecake truffles, recipe inspired by Tahn. Vicki made her own jam, and then made jam thumbprint cookies! This was inspired and excellent. More people should make jam! (and then give it to meeee)



Johanna made some more truffle-y things (awesome), and something sweet and fruity that I didn't get to try, I was so stuffed!

Did I miss anything? I'm not sure, there was so much food and it was so incredible. This was an amazingly delicious picnic, and I was so delightfully full at the end of it. There should be more awesome vegan picnics!