Meat Free March Recipe Swap: Vegan Cheesecake

I've given up meat for lent this year, just as I did 2 years ago. I love cooking veggie food anyway, and it's such a fun way to make yourself try out different meals. I find that when I'm veggie, rather than choosing a meat and planning my meal around that I think a bit more outside the box. Whether I start by choosing a cuisine, a carb, a protein or a veggie, I find it makes things much more varied and I end up with lots of yummy meals! It's also healthier, cheaper and better for the environment. What's not to love?! 

When I saw that Becs over at Bits and Bobs Becs and Fay at http://www.foodfables.co.uk/ were doing 'Meat Free March', and had a recipe swap to go along with it, I knew I had to get involved! The idea was that everyone got partnered up and sent a meat free recipe along with a couple of ingredients. I was partnered with vegan Sharon, who is supposed to be starting up a blog at www.virtuallyvegan.co.uk but hasn't quite got it going yet! 

When my parcel from Sharon arrived yesterday, along with a recipe for coconut and lime vegan cheesecake, I could have hugged her, for several reasons! 

a) I was supposed to be having a friend over for a dairy free dinner that evening and had no inspiration for a pud at all.

b) Her dessert included both silken tofu and avocado, both of which I have been meaning to try out in a dessert for ages and have never been brave enough to try. 

c) It involved a buttery biscuit base, and any excuse to watch this video is OK with me!  

Sharon's parcel included the silken tofu and some creamed coconut, in a lovely box

I sprinted off to the shop, and bought all the other bits and bobs I needed. (Ingredients list and recipe are at the bottom of the post), and proceeded to get started. 

All ready to get started. Doesn't that lovely interesting selection of ingredients just make you want to dive in? 

First step (melt chocolate and marg and mix into biscuit crumbs and coconut) was successfully accomplished, and as per instructions, I pushed it down in a dish. Unfortunately, this is where I had a slight wobble! Sharon said on her instructions that she's quite an instinctive cook, and the amounts were very vague. Given this, I have no idea why, when I knew the mixture was too dry and wouldn't set together properly, I didn't mix in more butter and chocolate. A combination of laziness and stupidity, clearly. After the 1 hour setting time, my mixture still looked like this when you prodded it: 

Clearly never in a million years going to set.

I then had a rethink. It wasn't going to set, and I didn't have time to melt more chocolate and try again. After a lot of flapping round the kitchen, I decided that individual glasses what what I needed. Unfortunately, I have just moved house, have very minimal kitchen equipment at the moment and so had nothing of the kind in the house, apart from one slightly dodgy wine glass. A lot more flapping later, I found a stack of hummus tubs we'd finished with stacked in the recycling. After a wash, they made very respectable dishes. Hurrah for re-purposing! 

Problem resolved, I mixed together the topping ingredients.

And spread it on to the biscuit base, with a bit of dessicated coconut and lime to decorate, and ta-dah! finished! 

Hummus tubs...

...or dodgy wine glass? 

I'm really pleased with how these turned out, both in appearance and taste. Individually, I was worried the base was too coconutty and the topping was too limey, but together they formed a delicious and harmonious whole. There was more based compared to topping than I'd expect for a cheesecake (mine was about 50/50), but when eating I actually thought that was OK. The texture of the tofu mixture was really surprisingly cheesecake like, and has to be healthier than munching normal cheesecake! And best of all, it was so easy! My boyfriend wasn't a fan of the lime (he's weird with citrus desserts), but has begged me to make a berry version soon, and my friend and I both wolfed ours down. Definitely don't be put off by the unusual ingredients, this makes for a scrummy pud! 

Vegan Lime and Coconut Cheesecake

For the base

6-8 squares of dark chocolate

3 tbsp dairy-free marg

1 packet of biscuits, crushed to crumbs (Sharon suggested ginger nuts, but I used plain old digestives)

100g dessicated coconut

For the topping 

1 packet (300g) of silken tofu

1 avocado

100g creamed coconut

3 limes, zest and juice (this was quite strong, maybe less if you want a subtler flavour)

70g castor sugar

1. Melt chocolate and marg together. Mix in coconut and biscuit crumbs. Press into bottom of a greased dish (1 big 9 inch flan tin or several individual dishes). Leave to set for an hour. 

2. Heat creamed coconut with lime zest and juice. Put into bowl with rest of topping ingredients and blend until smooth. 

3. Add to the top of the base(s) and decorate with dessicated coconut and sliced lime rind (or something else, Sharon suggested kiwi but I'm not a big fan)

4. Leave to set for about 3 hours, then grab a spoon and dig in! 

Thank you very much to Becs and Fay for the organising, and Sharon for sending me such an interesting, delicious recipe! 

Bento No.23, An egg bento for 4

John's parents have been visiting us the last couple of weeks, which has been lovely! They were a bit overwhelmed by all the Japanese food all the time though, so I made us all bentos one day. It was fun to experiment with a more western style lunch for a change, but I find it a lot harder to make it all fit than I do with Japanese food. I don't know if it's because the food's less dense (especially rice vs bread), or because I've got more assumptions about the amount of food I need when it's the food I've always eaten. We all found these bentos filled us up anyway, especially with an ice cream for pudding! 

Everyone had different likes, but I managed to use the same basis for everyone's. It was fun trying to work out how to tailor it to suit John's hatred of "boring foods", John's mum want for not too many carbs, and John's dad's hatred of dry food. I think everyone was happy in the end though!

All four bentos contain, in some way, Homemade brown bread, Egg (David's has egg mayo, the rest of us have boiled eggs), Camembert, Salad (made out of varying amounts of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado and edamame).

John and I also have pumpkin (boiled, then with cumin, curry powder and chilli powder sprinkled on it), and John has some spicy curry peanuts

On the side, I took a small box of salad dressing which we shared.

I like how colourful this bento is

I gave John 3 boxes so I could squeeze in a bit of extra bread for him to share with me! 

Palak Paneer

In my last post, there was a photo of the curry I made to go with my naan breads, palak paneer.

Palak Paneer is one of my favourite Indian dishes. Spicy, flavourful spinach, with chunks of deliciously creamy paneer cheese. The best dish of it I've ever had was at a small Indian restaurant near where I used to live in England (if you happen to live in Norfolk, it's Rose of India in Attleborough). Living in Japan, I though it would be fairly unobtainable. All cheese is expensive here, and I knew we'd never find paneer anywhere. Luckily, there is an alternative, all be it a bizarre one. While looking for something completely different, I came across this recipe, which suggests substituting tofu for paneer cheese. My initial reaction was one of incredulity, but I found a few other recipes that suggest the same and so I decided to try it. The results were surprisingly good. It wasn't perfect, but it'll do as a substitute! And since it's healthier, cheaper and vegetarian (easily made vegan), I think it'll stay as a regular even once I'm back home.

This recipe is an combination of a few I found online, with a few tweaks. It makes enough for 2 people, if you make another curry dish of some sort too.

This might look like a long list of ingredients, but if you don't have something, just miss it or substitute it. The only essentials here are tofu and spinach.

Ingredients
½ pack firm tofu
Marinade:
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp lemon juice
½ tsp tumeric
Sauce:
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp fresh ginger
1 chilli
1tsp ground coriander
1½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp tumeric
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp garam masala (or extra curry powder)
½ tsp chilli powder (adjust to taste)
½ or less salt
1 pack spinach
Extra cheesiness:
1tsp miso
1tbsp water
1tbsp yoghurt
1½ tbsp grated cheese

Method
1. Drain the tofu, either by putting it on kitchen towel on a plate and microwaving it for a minute or so, then wiping off OR wrap in a clean tea towel and put something heavy on top and leave it for 30 mins or so.
2. Mix marinade ingredients together. Cut tofu into bite sized pieces and marinate for about 30 mins.
3. Mix "extra cheesiness" ingredients together in a bowl.
4. Heat up a non-stick pan. Fry tofu a few pieces at a time, until they start getting golden. Set aside.
5. Chop onion, garlic and ginger. Heat a little oil in a pan. Fry onions until soft then add garlic and ginger and all the spices. Fry for a few minutes then add the spinach. Cook until the spinach has wilted.
6. Blend/Food process this mixture until fairly smooth. Re-add to pan.
7. Add the tofu and gently combine. Add the "extra cheesiness" and mix well but gently.
8. Serve.