Sydney Vegan. Abolitionist. Welcome to my edition of Vegan Verve. This is a celebration of conscious eating and an empowerment of vegan products, producers and manufacturers. Vegan Verve hails all those who empower plant-based culture and we support you with our minds, our hearts and our bucks. We can create something special together for the animals, our health, the environment and all that is planet-friendly. This are a vegan run one page space.  It's also logical to support local…

This is a 5-day vegan meal plan as devised by myself.

Day 1.

Breakfast: 2 slices of wholemeal toast and a vegan spread which is Nooch (nutritional yeast)

Snack: 1 medium mango, 4 strawberries

Lunch: 1 large salad with lemon and olive oil dressing. One skillet flatbread with Spanish black olives and dried crushed chillies

Snack: 1 large bunch of grapes

Dinner: Air-ovened 3 blistered baby capsicums (red, orange and yellow) in olive oil stuffed with…

Spanish Gazpacho is a speciality cocktail drink that’s been drunk through-out the decades by a variety of well-known supporters of ‘Gazpacho’ itself. It is a regional spicy peppery tomato cocktail – different regions have their take on it. It’s iced for those sweltering hot days at the golf club etc. Ingredients include: fresh tomatoes; skinned and seeded, pepper, shallots, garlic, spring onions; chopped, choose a hot sauce from a diabolical heat range right through to a smokey heat range, a…

What I Eat – 3 Word Mantras. What's Yours?

1 big bowl of roast organic vegetables in picante sauce

Rhubarb and Strawberry Shortcake – New Zealand style

Loaded Jackfruit Bourguignon with carrots and mashed potatoes

Epic jacket potatoes with chilli con carne and all the trimmings

Leek and Silverbeet tart with Vegalomi

Plant-based sausage-rolls in puff pastry, harissa flavour

Zucchini and Cauliflower Risotto

Shitake mushrooms in a black…

The Vinegars:

Red Wine vinegar, Rice Vinegar, RAW apple cidar vinegar, Sherry vinegar

The Seasonings:

Salt and Pepper

Paprika

Sumac

The Oils:

Olive oil

Grapeseed oil

Canola oil

Safflower oil

Sunflower oil

All-purpose oil

The Olives:

Spanish black

Kalamata

Spanish green stuffed pimiento olives

mixed platter herbed olives

The Chillies:

a fresh long red…

I'd like to hear from you with your expressions from the plant and vegan kingdom. 

Of Cabbages and Kings

Brussel Sprouts with Clout

Orange Renaissance/Orange Blancmange

Hoisin Boursin

Blazin Raison Balsamic

Lemon Pepper Pot/Lemon Bad Boy/Lemon Pepper

Native Swede with cousin Turnip

Lettuce Show You Around/Lettuce Entertain You

Red Alert/Red Slaw/Kale Ale/Cauliflower Contrivance

Gutter Tactic Spud Perfumed with…

Ideas for ‘Nice Bites’ – My Mezze Plate consists of ….

Lunch box size rice balls- festive, plain or grated beetroot, Dolmades, a whipped avocado and garlic dip, a beetroot and ‘Greek-style’ dairy-free yoghurt dip, a pumpkin and cashew cream dip, slices of avocado rolled in a few black sesame seeds and served with a thyme, garlic or a saffron aioli, fresh sliced tomatoes with Greek seasonings, a selection of mixed herbed olives, onion, sesame and white miso dip, raw carrots and…

1. Sticky tamarind carrots with green chilli coconut dairy-free yoghurt

2. Avocado dippers with a chipotle sauce

3. Lentil Polpette with coriander coconut yoghurt

4. Epazote and Mexican Oregano

5. Made-with-Plants dairy-free (DF) Sour Cream

6. Garlic Chives is also called Garlic Shoots

7. Udon noodles with Gochugaru, shitake mushrooms with warm endive

8. Saffron mayonnaise, dairy-free Pesto mayonnaise and Smoky mayonnaise

9. Red…

Seasonal Farmers Market fresh produce stew with fresh garlic

Cherry Tomato, Portabello Mushrooms and Cauliflower

Chanterelles, Carrot, Celery and Leek

a la Mexicana hot chilli

Sweet Potato, spiced masala potato and baby spinach

Taro, butter mushrooms and root vegetables

Kale, Courgette and Aubergine

Bell Peppers, Tomato and Mushroom

Feisty Aubergine and Potato sambal

Mixed Vegetable stew including artichokes and fresh rosemary,…

My first No 1. Survival Food is Bouillon, sometimes known as miso paste. 

If you and a friend were stranded on a desert island and had to choose your first favourite 50 survival foods what would that be? I’d like to see your list too.

Survival Foods A List:

Bouillon/Miso paste, Brown rice, Millet, Peas, Carrots, Corn, Spinach, Apples, Oranges , Berries, Mango, Potatoes, Sweet Potato, Broccoli, Scallions, Capsicum, Lemon, Lime, Pineapple, Red Cabbage and White Cabbage…

The questions been asked: What have you done for other individuals today? Well, I have searched my recipe index and found a few vegan recipes I am reclaiming as my own. They are: Dry-roasted buckwheat with crispy made with plants bacon, avocado and roasted balsamic tomatoes with majoram and Quinoa with roasted garlic, eggplant and greek Vegaloumi. I'll be cooking them shortly for my friends. Lunch consisted of a warm Lebanese Levant wrap with Spanish spices, garlic, and leftover plant-based…

Lunch at Dana's Cafe in Marrickville consisted of a vegan roll, avocado, mushrooms, spinach and grilled onions on a vegan bun. Your choice of plant-based sauce. I chose mayonnaise. The Greeks know how to make something as simple as a vegan roll delicious! The vegan rolls are made on the premises the proprietor told me. 

Cactus Jack: 7 Char-grilled Vegetables in 7 Days

Day 1: Strips of red pepper (2 large Bell peppers) marinated in Spanish spices (paprika, chilli powder, chipotle) and paint on the olive oil. Blister for 10-15 minutes, air-fried. Salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Day 2. 1 large potato, cut finely. Air-fry in a crust of garlic granules firstly then dip the other side in nutritional yeast for the last 5 minutes of grilling. It takes 10-15 minutes. Garnish with cilantro. Salt and…

Salsa a la veracruzana. Tomato, Onion and Green stuffed olives (pimento).

Salsa bandera. 'flag sauce' named for the red of the tomato, the white of the onion and the green of the chilli.

Salsa borracha. Drunken sauce made from smoky chilli pasilla, garlic, onion, white vegan cheese e.g., vegan feta and puique vegan-style. Puique is a white, thick sweet alcoholic drink made from agave.

Salsa de tomatillos. With green chillies, onion and cilantro.

Salsa. Spanish…

The Village Wholefood place in Marrickville is closing down. There are still plenty of bargains. My stash today includes a lovely little kitchen blackboard for recipe writing, 30% off unhulled tahini, an enamel fruit bowl at .50cents, turkish rosemary for under $1.50 and a bag of buckwheat flour at $4.00. Not bad for a days shopping

Foodies Love Food. Name 10 Ways the 'Foodie' Tag Benefits a Vegan

1. It can provide a broader canvas to work from.

2. It might create larger supermarket shelf space and some vegans believe this is where the future lies.

3. Everyday of our life, and our families lives, we eat to survive 3 times a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. We can't live without food or water. It pays to be a vegan foodie.

4. Foodies grow more food.

5. Foodies form lasting…

Whether it be Black, White, Green or Pink peppercorns did you know they all come from the same stem it's just a case of maturity as represented by their colour.  They are all anti-inflammatories, circulatory stimulants, antioxidents and suit Mexican cooking. Pink peppercorns are used in mojos as a garnish, black and white peppercorns  in culinary use are powerful agents in small doses that lends contrast to a dish and green peppercorns are briny, the youngest of all the peppercorns and are…

The 12 tastes are useful to build a vegan pantry repertoire based on taste. They are: Bitter A.K.A. some lettuce leaves for salad, Sweet A.K.A. vegan cream and Sour A.K.A. balsamic and the vinegars, Astringent A.K.A. citrus, Spicy A.K.A. the spices, Salty A.K.A. miso, Hot A.K.A paprika powder, cayenne powder and chilli powder, Plum A.K.A. Japanese plum sauce, umeboshi plum, vegan plum wine etc, Pungent A.K.A. quinoa, mustard etc Tart A.K.A. tamarind, granny smith apples, the Aromatic Herbs…

This is a formula on salsa. It is not unlike what Do Re Mi is in music. The base ingredients in salsa are what notes are to song. e.g., Red Onion, Cilantro and Lemon or Lime quarters are the base and that is what we build on.

Choose 2 from this category

Vegetables and Fruits

Tomato, English Cucumber, Capsicum, Red Chillies, Green Chillies, Habanero, Serrano, Jalapeno, Mango, Pineapple, Spring Onion, Shallots, Red Apple, Green Apple, Kalamata olives, Black Spanish olives,…

There is a saying amongst salsa aficionados when the question is asked: What makes a successful salsa? The answer is "No less than 3 from the categories and no more than 6 from the categories". See previous post. Here are two more salsas I would like to share with you today.

Fresh Pineapple and Red Hot Chilli Peppers

1 fully ripe pineapple

a handful of red hot chilli peppers

1/2 red onion

1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed

a splash of rice vinegar or…