The Vegan Apron

The Vegan Apron
Burninatin' Your Tastebuds

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Nipples of venus chocolate truffles

Some delicious holiday fare - my family are being spoilt this year.

Easy peasy recipe too!

Ingredients:

500 g icing sugar
2 cups of cocoa
70 g of melted copha/vegetable fat
1 generous tablespoon of vanilla essence
1 cup of cool water mixed with 2 tablespoons of eggbinder and allowed to sit for ten minutes and whisked to froth
extra cocoa for rolling
a smidgin of vegan marg (like a teaspoon)
another 4 tablespoons icing sugar
a tablespoon of cool water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Sift and combine cocoa and icing sugar, pour in egg-binder/water mixture and combine well. Add copha and combine. Consistency should be of a dough/fondant type mix.

Turn out onto a surface dusted with icing sugar. Knead for five minutes, dusting more if it sticks. Dust surface with cocoa and roll into small balls (about a teaspoon each).

Place on plate and allow to harden in fridge. Combine marg, extra icing sugar, vanilla and water to make a paste. Shovel into the corner of a small glad-bag/zip-lock sammich bag, and cut off a tiny bit of the tip of the corner (about a matchstick head's worth). You have an icing bag! Now squeeze 'nipples' onto each truffle, cover again (making sure not to smoosh your nips) and refrigerate overnight.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

cover of bite


cover of bite
Originally uploaded by missmai_chan
Announcing our upcoming cookbook - here's a taste of the cover!

Stay tuned. It will either be an e-book or it will be sold through Lulu. Half of all proceeds will be going to an animal welfare group.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Food snaps to make you fat just by looking at them

No recipes (comment if you'd like one), but here's a taste of what can be done with some funky vegan skillz in the kitchen. You don't need those cholesterol raising animal products to have a Bacchanalian feast!











Chocolate and Coconut Cake

Moist and decadent, yet (compared to other cakes) refreshingly healthy!

















Curried pumpkin pastries

Hearty, pretty and delicious by even the most hardened omni's standards!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

New fresh delicious recipes, your way cometh

Well, after a protracted hiatus (due to work and study keeping us well-in-hand), we're back!

We're sorry for the length of the radio silence; but we promise to start bringing you fresh, vegan goodies once more.

World Vegan Day is coming up on Nov 1st, so we're planning to unleash a new feast then. There'll be an entree, main AND a dessert. Voting on the ingredients will open very soon, so keep stopping by here to look out for that.

To whet your appetites, we'll be posting pictures and/or recipes of some of the tongue tingling things that have been happening in our kitchen. Here's a recipe for some banana walnut muffins I made this morning - with only five key ingredients, what could be simpler?

Big vegan love to you all!

- The Vegan Apron


Banana Walnut Muffins

Great as a breakfast, mid-morning or afternoon snack, these banana muffins are dead-set certs in the "winning friends and influencing people" recipe stakes.


Ingredients

4 mashed, large, uber-gooey ripe bananas
1 cup of bashed up california walnuts
3/4 of a cup of raw sugar (a lot of refined sugar isn't vegan)
2 tablespoons of macadamia oil/vegetable oil
2 cups of organic whole-meal self raising flour (I reckon organic flour tastes better)

**optional - this will brown them slightly**
1 level tspn of bicarb
1 tblspn of apple cider vinegar

Method

This couldn't be easier! Combine mashed bananas with oil and sugar and mix well. Add flour and walnuts and give the whole lot a good stir. If adding the optional ingredients, do so at this stage.

Dollop out into about 12 muffin cases and bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 degrees celsius for 20- 25 minutes.

Try to wait for them to cool before eating. Hot walnuts HURT. Alternately, for the kamikaze eaters among us, spread with butter and go for it.


Sunday, June 3, 2007

Challenge 3: The letter 'C'

Please vote for your favourite ingredient that starts with the letter 'C'! The ingredient with the most votes will star in the weekend cookup.

Voting closes every Friday, 5pm EST.

This week's list of challenge ingredients is as follows:

* Chocolate
* Cauliflower
* Chokoes (we have an over-productive vine out the back of our house!)
* Cinnamon

In the interest of fairness, try and keep it to one vote per person. (This means - recruit listeners for us and voters for you!!) You may split your vote by giving .5 to an ingredient and the rest to another. This is great for the indecisive among you - I know I am! However, you can't split to quarters or thirds. My brain will reduce to the consistency of agave nectar.

Challenge 2 now closed: Blueberries wins!

Thanks to everyone who voted! Challenge two is now closed and blueberries were the clear winner. Apparently you guys are nuts over those little anti-oxidant rich orbs of delight.

We're going to make you a scrumptious dessert with blueberries which should go up tomorrow. Until then, you can prick your brains with some uber-facts about blueberries from World's Healthiest Foods.

"With flavors that range from mildly sweet to tart and tangy, blueberries are nutritional stars bursting with nutrition and flavor while being very low in calories..."

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Challenge 2: The letter 'B'

Please vote for your favourite ingredient that starts with the letter 'B'! The ingredient with the most votes will star in the weekend cookup.

Voting closes every Friday, 5pm EST.

This week's list of challenge ingredients is as follows:

* Bananas
* Borlotti beans
* Basil
* Blueberries

In the interest of fairness, try and keep it to one vote per person. (This means - recruit listeners for us and voters for you!!)

You may split your vote by giving .5 to an ingredient and the rest to another. This is great for the indecisive among you - I know I am! However, you can't split to quarters or thirds. My brain will reduce to the consistency of agave nectar.

Challenge week 1, Episode 1: Eggplant and polenta stack with avocado mash


Recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup of polenta
1 cup of breadcrumbs
2 pinches of salt

4 tbspns of soy milk
2 tspns egg replacer (mixed w) 4 tspns water
1 tbspn of flour
Pinch of salt

1 large eggplant

1-2 large hass avocados
1 red onion, finely diced
1-2 tspns wasabi
1 tspn minced garlic
1 tspn chilli powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 handful chopped coriander
olive or vegetable oil for frying




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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Winner of challenge 1!

Avocados won out in the voting for challenge 1: A. Thanks to everyone who voted!

Stay tuned for our weekend cookup creation - think avo, think eggplant - think wasabi....

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Episode 0: Chili non carne and hand-made flour tortillas

Recipe:

Tortillas

1.5 cups of unbleached self raising flour (organic if poss.)
4-5 tbsp of olive oil
3 pinches of salt
1 tbsp of sugar
1/2 cup of warm water

Chili non-Carne

4 cups of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 brown onion, diced
2 tbsp of coriander
2 tbsp of cumin
1 tbsp of chilli powder (or paprika for a milder chili)
1 tsp of sugar
3 tbsp of tomato paste
Salt to taste
Water for consistency and to avoid sticking


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Monday, May 21, 2007

Challenge week #1: A

This challenge is now closed. Thanks to all who voted! Avocados were the winner of the week. Stay tuned!

Please vote for your favourite ingredient! The ingredient with the most votes will star in the weekend cookup.

As you can see, we're going to work our way through the alphabet, with four potentials up each week.

Voting closes every Friday, 5pm EST.

This week's list of challenge ingredients (with a running tally of votes):
  • Apples: 3.5
  • Avocados: 13.5
  • Almonds: 4.5
  • Artichokes: 4.5
In the interest of fairness, try and keep it to one vote per person. Heh. (Doesn't mean you can't recruit your flatmates, though.)

EDIT: You may split your vote by giving .5 to an ingredient and the rest to another. This is great for the indecisive among you - I know I am! (However, you can't split to quarters or thirds. My brain will reduce to the consistency of agave nectar.)

The Vegan Apron: An Introduction

To all our new (potential) listeners,

What the hell is The Vegan Apron, you ask? A good question. First, let's start with who we are and go from there.

We're a cheerful, food obsessed husband and wife team from Newcastle, NSW, Australia (yes, that's right - downunda).

Both of us grew up in homes that taught a love of food and hearty cooking but it wasn't until six months ago that we made the choice to go vegan. It has been a colourful and joyful journey of innovation and discovery and now we're proud to say that we can hold our own without exploiting our animal neighbours.

We want to invite you to listen and contribute as we wend our way through a plethora of curries, chilis and hand-made goodies. Using fresh produce - including some organic veggies and herbs from our garden - and not a skerrick of animal, we'll cook nutritionally sound, budget friendly meals.

Our big feature will be our weekly challenge. This is where you, our listener, get to vote on a list of ingredients and the winner will star in the weekend cookup.

All recipes made on the show will be posted on our blog with pictures, making for a multimedia jamboree any sane person - vegan or not! - can't resist.

May the Fork be with you!