Tomatoes on Toast

I'll let you in on my newest breakfast addiction... Sauteed tomatoes on toast. Now this probably sounds pretty boring, simple, and standard, but every time I make this I like to play around and try different twists on the flavour combination.

My first introduction to this was through a friend who made this for brunch one day in the summer, when tomatoes were at their best! His style was classic truss tomato, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, and sourdough toast, and I was amazed at how something so simple could be so flavourful! I was hooked. Since that time I've made this about 10 times, sometimes the classic way, sometimes a bit different.
The basic recipe is as follows.

~2 Medium-sized Tomatoes per person, chopped to your preferred size
1-2 Garlic cloves, smashed and finely chopped up. Use more or less depending on how garlicky you like it!
1-2 Tablespoons of good quality Olive Oil
Handful of Fresh Basil, torn up into shreds (you can do this by hand or quickly with a knife)
Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper to taste.

1. Heat oil in a frying pan or sauce pan
2. Add garlic and saute until fragrant
3. Add tomatoes and stir so they don't stick to the bottom
4. Fry gently for a few minutes until they are heated through and some of the liquid has evaporated
5. Add basil, stir through, and take off the heat while you salt & pepper to taste!
6. Serve over toast

Here are some ideas for those of you interested in trying this awesomely easy and tasty brekky:

Switch up your tomatoes - This is fun especially in summer, when you can find heirloom tomatoes of all colours, shapes, and sizes at the fresh grocers (or your backyard!). For a burst of colour, try this breakfast with Black Russian tomatoes, or maybe Green Zebras... It also works with Cherry Tomatoes and if they're small enough you don't even need to chop them up!

Switch up your bread - Try Wholemeal, Sourdough, Multigrain, Rye, Olive, Gluten Free, or any other interesting bread you can find! Even Naan works great when you spice the tomatoes in an Indian style. Which leads me to...

Switch up your spices - Generous lashings of salt and pepper are a must in my opinion, but after that it's up to you to play around. Here are some I like:

-Indian style- Try Curry Powder on the tomatoes and stir in some fresh Coriander just before serving over Naan bread (garlic, herb, or regular).
-Or for a Mexican morning, maybe some taco seasoning/chili powder/chipotle powder in your tomatoes, also with fresh coriander. Serve on toast smeared with avocado!
-Feeling the need for protein? Stir through some cannellini/white beans or butter beans, with lots of fresh basil. Or top your toast with baked beans before adding the tomatoes over them.
-No fresh basil around? Stir some pesto through your tomatoes (I use homemade, or just frozen chopped basil that I discovered at Aldi), and top your tomatoes with toasted pinenuts.
-Sprinkle Nutritional Yeast over any of these combinations for a slightly cheesy taste!

Enjoy! 

First Try at Vegan Mayonnaise

Now that the warmer weather is hitting Melbourne, my desire for BBQ-related summery foods is increasing. Salads, burgers, hot dogs, and all sorts of traditional accompaniments are coming back into rotation, and it's getting me excited for long hot sunny days! 

With this cuisine in mind, I realised there was a half cabbage sadly wilting in the fridge right next to 2kg of carrots (as a result of both T and I going food shopping without communicating!). I instantly knew what I had to do: Coleslaw! The only problem was that I had run out of mayo. When I asked T to pick some up on his way home from uni, he was only able to find one vegan mayo that cost over $8. Now I understand that vegan versions of things can sometimes be more expensive, but $8 mayo is a little bit too exorbitant for me. 

As a result of this exploitation, I thought, "Why not make my own?". I've seen it made plenty of times on Masterchef the real way, and despite many failed attempts by the monkeys on that show, it didn't look TOO hard. So I looked at a few recipes, got the general idea, and had a go. 

Turns out it was pretty much the easiest vegan-version of something I had ever made. Here's how you do it.

Depending on the quantity you want, you will add Vegetable/Canola oil to Soy milk in a 2:1 ratio. Use a teaspoon or two of something acidic- either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar for each 1/2C of soymilk you use, add a pinch of salt and some mustard powder (both to taste), and whizz in the food processor. That's it. 

I wanted a minimum amount because I didn't know how it would come out, and I still don't know how long it will last in the fridge, but this is the quantities I used:

1C Oil

1/2C Soymilk (The trick here is to get the thickest soy milk you can find. If you are using a watery one, consider using slightly less, or increase your acidic component to help curdle the milk first). 

~2tsp Apple cider vinegar

~1tsp Salt

~1tsp Mustard powder (I imagine you could also use prepared mustard)

It tasted great on my coleslaw and I can't wait to make some potato salad soon!!

Ethiopian Food Experimentation!

For the past few weeks I have been suffering a killer craving for Ethiopian/African food. While I would normally just head down to one of the many restaurants in the neighbouring suburb of Footscray, T & I are living on student budgets at the moment and I thought it would be a good challenge to whip up some food at home. I will admit that I did cheat a bit and get my Injera (sour pancake-like bread that you use to scoop the food up with) from Footscray as I didn't want to spend the time figuring out how to make it, but we made everything else ourselves!!

To get started we prepared the ubiquitous Ethiopian spice mix Berbere. I called out ingredients and amounts as T assembled the mix in a frying pan and lightly toasted it upon completion. This amazingly delicious spice mix is still haunting our kitchen and is still making the house smell tantalizingly good 24 hours later. 

Here is the recipe I used for the Berbere:

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon red chili flakes

1/2 teaspoon hot cayenne powder

1 tablespoon salt

Combine together, and toast in fry pan until fragrant!

Using that spice mix you can now make the following recipes- Yellow Split Pea Stew and Misir Wot. For the greens, T just picked some Silverbeet from our back garden and sauteed it with garlic, turmeric, and berbere spice mix (to taste). I know it's not much to look at, but boy was it tasty!!

When I say these were delicious, it is an understatement. I'm still flabbergasted that we made something that was restaurant quality in taste AND significantly less oily than our previous restaurant meals. These recipes come highly recommended!! If you try them please let me know how they come out. Happy cooking!!

Pizza Perfection!!

Being from the home of some of the world's best pizza, it has been a long-term goal of mine & T's to get close to replicating the pizza of my pre-Australian life. Throughout the years we've played around with all the variables- types of flour, sweeteners, mixing methods, cooking times, etc., and I thought I'd share our current leader in pizza dough recipes.

This dough is great- it's chewy, resilient under heavy toppings, doesn't rise too much, and gets crispy on the bottom with proper use of a hot oven and preheated pizza stone. And it's tasty too! Here's how we do it.

This recipe ends up making 4 pizza-stone size pizzas (5 if you stretch it). We usually make 4-5 and freeze/refrigerate some for work lunches!

1kg Plain Flour (Type 00 is preferred)
14g Dried Instant Yeast
15g Salt
2Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil + extra for drizzling over dough
2 1/2 - 3C Warm (not hot) Water
Optional: A few teaspoons of dried herbs

Firstly, put your pizza stones in the oven and crank the heat to maximum! Then pour yourself a glass of nice wine. This is essential to pizza making success!

Now for the actual dough making... We use a Breville Scraper Mixer Pro (the apple green coloured love of my life) so I dump all the dry ingredients, including herbs if they're being used, in with the dough hook attachment. Turn it on low and then slowly add the Olive Oil & Water. How much water you need will depend on your flour quality and the weather, so it's best to add a bit at a time and check the dough consistency to know when you've added enough. Once all the water has been added, it's okay to turn it up slightly higher to increase the "kneading" power. I let it knead for about 2-3 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, shiny, and elastic. If you are doing this all by hand, add the ingredients together in a bowl and then hand-knead until you arrive at the smooth, shiny, elastic result. I expect it would take about 4-5 minutes longer.

I then form the dough into a ball, put it back in the mixing bowl, drizzle some olive oil to keep it from drying out, and cover the bowl with a damp tea towel. It's a good idea to put this bowl of dough near the oven so it stays warm (but not ON the oven as it may start to cook). How's your wine level? Do you need a top up? I usually do!

After about an hour, when the dough has doubled in size, it's ready to be separated into 4-5 smaller balls from which you will make your beautiful pizzas. I find that rotating and stretching the dough is the best way to make it pizza-sized, but you may prefer rolling it out if you don't like the rustic, hand-made look!

My tip for making uniform pizzas that will transfer easily to the stone is to use a metal round pizza tray to put the dough onto. That way you can have a relatively round pizza base and quickly flip the tray upside down onto the pizza stone. This requires a bit of practice, so if it seems like too much of a challenge, you can try forming the base on the bottom side of the pizza tray and sliding it onto the stone. Then you do a super-fast pizza toppings spread and pop that baby back into the oven to incubate!

As for cooking times, I generally leave the oven light on and check on the pizzas in about 7minutes. There seems to be a great variation in cooking times between ovens, and even where in the oven the pizza is. Cooking is an art and is all about feel, so as you make this recipe and become familiar with it and your ingredients you will start knowing what feels, looks, and tastes right and what doesn't.

Good luck and happy pizza making!!

Our Trip to PAWS (People & Animal Welfare Society) in Perth

It was a beautiful sunny day on our trip to Perth, and I was keen to have lunch with T at a place I had heard great things about - the People & Animal Welfare Society in Perth.

Part cruelty free shop, part cafe, part activist space, and entirely non-profit, this place is known to do some great lunches of both the raw and cooked vegan variety. Although T is a native of Perth, this was his first time here. I highly recommend checking out their website (at the bottom of this post) as they have heaps of information, an online store, and they do so many great things for the community! 



Our Table

The inside of PAWS is decorated nicely, although the business-like large tables provide an unusual seating arrangement for dining. As it was a seat-yourself and order at the bar arrangement, we chose to sit at a table near the exhibition wall which was featuring a dementia/aged care themed group of photos. This review is on the food though, so let's get started! 

It was quickly decided that we would order one medium raw plate and one medium cooked plate and share. These plates included a little sample of each of the dishes on offer, and they were a great way to be introduced to the food of PAWS.


Medium Raw Plate



The raw plate had a mix of salads, topped with a slice of their delectable raw pizza and a few raw seed crackers. I have been eating raw pizza wherever I can get it for years, and this is up there with the best! It was so flavourful and fresh... a totally guiltless indulgence. The best part about eating raw food is that you never feel too full or heavy after eating it, and I love the feeling that I get that I have done something really great for myself!



Medium Cooked Plate 

The cooked plate came with fluffy jasmine rice and a few curry-like dishes- some with faux meat chunks and some vegetable based. From memory there was a coconut chicken curry, a yellow curry, and I cannot for the life of me remember the third! The important part is that they were all tasty and filling, and great value for the $8-9 that I think we paid.

After the cooked food it was onto dessert!! I am a massive cheesecake fan, which sometimes makes vegan life difficult... but it's experiences like the one I had at PAWS that made me feel like I'm not missing out. We ordered a slice of beetroot-chocolate raw cheesecake ($6), which was a bit out of character for me as I am not a fan of beetroot. T loves it, so I thought I'd humour him and give it a try. Let's just say the cheesecake was so amazing that we started eating before I even got to photograph it! I am so crazy about this slice of cake that I think that access to it is pretty much worth the plane ticket to Perth. I can't wait to get back here and have more!!



The Best Raw Cheesecake in the WORLD



People & Animal Welfare Society(click for website, info & online store)

Address: 120 Beaufort Street Perth WA 6000

Ph: 08 9228 2435

PROS: Fresh delicious food, very affordable prices, being able to shop and eat at the same place, proximity to Perth CBD, great lolly/sweets fridge, that cheesecake, friendly staff.

CONS: The odd table settings made intimate lunches difficult, they probably don't ship that cheesecake to Melbourne.


Pupcakes for Hairy Hounds Playground!

A few weeks ago I agreed to bake 200 (180 vegan + 20 gluten free vegan) cupcakes for the 5th Birthday Extravaganza of Hairy Hounds Playground, a dog daycare that my friend owns in Williamstown. They came out great despite making me slightly crazy (a big shout out to my BEM800 mixer that made life a lot easier), and were a hit at the party (so I'm told). Here's a few snaps of them both in progress and completed! If you're wondering, the fur is toasted coconut, the ears are licorice ropes cut in half, the eyes are vanilla frosting with non-dairy chocolate chips for pupils, and the noses are chocolate chips as well! Apologies for the photos not being top notch, I was pretty frazzled and amazed that I even remembered to photograph them!

Pupcakes without mouths!

Finished Pups

Mmmm Pancakes

I was really craving some pancakes and since T and I had the luxury of this Thursday off, I decided to whip up some of my favourites. Pancakes are traditionally breakfast food in the US and for me, serving them with ice cream (Australian style) is very weird. I personally prefer them slathered in crunchy peanut butter so that it melts a little and then drizzled with maple syrup! You can't beat the combination of sweet and salty!!

Anyway, after a quick google search I used this recipe and added in some chopped banana, chocolate chips, and a pinch of cinnamon. They were a perfect way to start the day alongside a hot cup of coffee!