Getting Kinky in the Voluptuous Vegan’s Kitchen…

Well, kinky might be a bit strong (unless PVC aprons are your thing!) but it got your attention, eh?! Anyhoo, as mentioned last week, I like to cook. I like to cook a lot. Therefore this week, dear friends, I would like to share with you some of my hits (and misses) in…

all veg is sexy...
but some veg is just rude!

The Voluptuous Vegan’s Guide to What Goes on in Her Kitchen!

Since becoming a vegan, my shopping trips have invariably relocated to the Asian supermarket whereupon I indulge myself in spices and sauces of complete illegibility. Thereafter, my Sundays usually consist of baking bread, marinating tofu, making humous, spicing couscous and so forth. A lot of my cooking involves experimentation, crossed fingers, optimism and a sheer determination to eat the stuff no matter what, even if the bottle translates as ‘extremely hot chilli sauce’ upon tasting! However, this determination was really put to the test about a month ago...

One weekend I made a batch of delicious potato and spinach cakes. I had a few left over, so the next morning I decided to heat them up for lunch. As tasty as they were, I couldn’t help thinking that something was missing; that seemingly insignificant ingredient which tips the balance between a good potato and spinach cake and a great one. Yes, I was missing cheese.

'Ah ha,' thought I, 'but I will indeed have cheese with them!'

'Cheese?' I hear you cry, 'cheese isn't vegan!'

'Ahh, but this is special cheese,' I reply, with a knowing wink.

'Oooooooh' say ye.

Yes, I had acquired some vegan cheese at a health shop the day before. It was actually called ‘Sheese’ and as I doubted its ability to taste like anything remotely cheesy, I’d opted for the 'extra strong cheddar style’. So that morning I thought I'd whack a bit on my potato cake...

Oh. My. God!

.....It was truly the work of the DEVIL!! The stuff was VILE!! Holy crap, I can't emphasis just how awful the rotten stuff was!! It had an odd polystyrene-like texture, didn’t melt and smelt wrong, very wrong. But that wasn’t the worst of it; in a rather morbid manner I was really intrigued by this crazy matter masquerading as ‘food’ and so couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. The vile impostor stayed in my fridge, unwrapped, for a month and didn’t go off! However, last week I decided enough was enough and, after having done the rounds amongst equally as intrigued guests at my party, it’s now safely in a landfill somewhere (probably multiplying and plotting to take over the world!).

Refusing to take it lying down, the next day I tried out a roasted veggie and lentil lasagna, sans cheese, and using soya milk for the béchamel sauce. Can I just say it tasted GREAT!! Seriously, it was so full of flavour that the absent cheese was soon forgotten. As well as the lasagna I’ve made a couple of vegan birthday cakes (using a crazy egg replacer stuff that takes me back to chemistry class at school!), lotsa tasty pastries, yummy flapjacks, dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), falafel, curries, choc-chip and peanut cookies, all array of chickpea dishes, bowls of flavoured humous and of course the wonderful breads. I’ve also taken to chucking loadsa red wine in anything with tomatoes, which is proving dangerously habitual, but oh so tasty! It really jazzes up my Patatas Bravas and Spag Bol, though I notice I am sleepy a lot more after lunch these days, hmmm…

So that, dear friends, was a teasing glimpse into my culinary world, I do hope you enjoyed it. I would like to say a big thank you to Manuel for hosting my literary forays into veganism over the past few weeks. However, like the best of them, I’m bowing out whilst on a high, but hope to return at some point in the future with more witty repartees for your general amusement.
With lots of lentil loving,

The Voluptuous Vegan xxx

She'll be back with a Christmas special.....just like Only Fools and Horses