Trying New Things - fast, easy Indian

For a quick, easy, delicious dinner I love these Tasty Bite dishes. They're vegan and available in most supermarkets. All you need to do is heat them up and serve with rice (or whatever you like). 

One pack is a good sized meal for one person - if I'm cooking for two I like to mix two flavours together. 

Here's what I do;

Choose a mix of two. My faves are Mumbai Mushroom mixed with Punjab Eggplant, or Bombay Potatoes with either. All you have to do is heat them up, so I heat them together and add a bit of tomato sauce ... yep, just old-school White Crow tomato sauce, it makes it a bit tastier and I love tomato flavoured curries. You could go nuts with what you add to it, but I'm usually in a hurry when I'm serving up this dish.

I serve it on brown rice, with a bit of Tofutti Sour Supreme Better than Sour Cream and fresh parsley or coriander. This is a really quick, really easy meal - particularly if you always cook extra rice and have some in the fridge ready to go.

When people find out I'm vegan they say things like "gosh, you must find that really hard". I actually find it the complete opposite. Particularly when there are great products like these on the shelves (so I too can make a bang-up meal and feel like I'm cheating *wink*).

Cheers, M

Trying new things - Pearl couscous

I was stalking the aisles of my local supermarket the other day and the beaming smile of Australia's original favourite French chef*,  Mr Gabriel Gate caught my eye on this Blu Gourmet Pearl Couscous. 

I cooked it using the recipe on the side of the box - genius, I know - onions, stock and parsley. And I served it with mushrooms (cooked using that amazing recipe from a few posts ago). It turned out to be a really filling and delicious meal. 

I'd been looking for pearl couscous for ages  after eating it at Maha's and couldn't find it - even in the market spice shops. How ironic that I found it in the local Coles with a celebrity chef on the pack!

Here's how the meal turned out. Yes, I waited a few seconds and took a pic before I shoved it in my gob. 

 

Have you noticed that seemingly everything in my kitchen is green?! I promise there are some other colours in there somewhere. Also, my friend Jodie gave me a really simple little recipe today to help me with my "I'm going to learn to love avocado" self-imposed challenge. I'll whip it up later in the week and post it asap.

Cheers, M 

* Before Manu

Trying new things

I made a yummy dinner tonight - so yummy I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it before it was devoured - I'm sure I'll be making it again though.

Three things on the plate;

This awesome mushroom recipe I found on Taste.com.au.

To accompany the mushrooms I made cous cous in Massel chicken stock (vegan) with crushed peanuts, fresh parsley and Parmazano (vegan parmesan cheese substitute). The third thing on the plate was grilled asparagus covered in olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt.

Speaking of cheese substitutes, I generally don't love 'em, but Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese is a really nice spread.

 

I usually eat Helga's bread but was getting a bit bored with it so picked up something new today. Lawson's Traditional Bread is so delicious!

I hadn't tried it before. I got the seed and grain one and put the Tofutti on it with sliced tomato and a bit of salt. So simple and so yummy. I'm hoping it freezes well because the loaf is pretty big. A great new find. Yay for Lawson's!