2023 Vegan Storecupboard Challenge

RHemmings

We went on an office (partner's) trip to the beach yesterday. We made some things to take including packet burger mix burgers (with home-made bread), stuffed tofu, pineapple biscuits (made with oil - a very light and crumbly consistency, samosas (not wonderful, but we tried), chocolate cakes, fruit, and other things. 

RHemmings

I deliberately gave us a challenge with all the food we bought. I've tried making cakes here before in the very primitive oven (a simple metal box that sits on top of a camping gas ring thing). As well as the chocolate cakes in the previous pictures, I made a vanilla rectangular cake last night, and it turned out fine. Mostly eaten already, and what is left is not photogenic. 

Going back to my supplies, I cooked up a box of the falafel this morning, and they turned out fine though I had troubles keeping the oil at the right temperature and they cooked in a fraction of the 3 minutes they should have. I ate them for breakfast with some of the spicy (actually not very) hummous from Bali. 



My partner likes the locally unavailable exotic food 'chick peas' and grabbed a bunch that I cooked in the pressure cooker for part of her breakfast. Straight from the cooker, not cooked in salted water or anything. 



I tried making the flatbread from 2x water and 1x red lentils, plus a bit of salt. It didn't work for me. A bit like a pancake, but I didn't like the flavour. I've got some as yet untouched gram flour, and am wondering about making this: https://www.veganricha.com/socca-recipe-chickpea-flatbread-vegan-gf/

There is also a lentil dish, and a repeat (spicier this time) of the tofu korma-ish curry in the freezer. Both with basmati rice. When people come over to visit we're planning to amaze them with basmati XXL rice, which is far longer than anything most people will have seen. 

RHemmings

There's no way we're going to get near finishing the 'storecupboard challenge'. Too much food and more arriving every day as we both want to cook stuff. My partner is cooking some sort of purple sweet potato tapioca cake in a steamer right now. 

This morning I made a chickpea and potato curry and my partner cooked up more of the XXL Basmati rice. 



Vanilla cake with some (Stork Block including) vanilla cream is being eaten slowly as it is too sweet for my partner's taste.



This morning I finished off the spicy (not very) hummous but there are still some falafel left. 

There's so much in the way of edible stuff growing around here. It's part of the local culture to plant stuff. Just on the road from where we are to the top end of the main road in town there are all sorts of trees with edible fruits. Jackfruit, bananas, coconuts, papaya, avocado, mango, and more. Just two photos of trees here - jackfruit and avocado. I'd like to buy both from the people whose houses the trees are on, but they are not ready. And, ..., too many cooking ingredients already. Whole jackfruit here will cost about £1 each, which might sound a lot if you don't know how huge the fruit are. But, it's an absolute bargain compared to the UK. 

I'm told that these are avocados, but they are smaller and greener than I am used to. 



The following are small for jackfruit. I believe that jackfruit are the world's largest tree-born fruit. Last year there was a monster sized jackfruit on one tree, which disappeared half-way through the time that I was here. 



Cheap to buy these, but what can I do with them. 

EDIT: Tapioca Cake

RHemmings

Bit behind here, here is one meal from yesterday (and leftovers will be breakfast this morning.)  It's an approximation of recipes on the internet where you make pasta sauce by cooking the pasta in a mix including double concentrated tomato paste. This paste came from the UK with me, and there is only single concentrate paste here, so I might be able to make this once more then have to adapt. The bottom line is that tomatoes themselves are easily available. The white stuff is vegan cheese ready to be put on top. 





Today we leave for a couple of days on the other side of the island. So, things will be a bit more challenging. We're cooking things like bhaji, chocolate filled bread, chocolate cake (already cooked), and other things to take. 

Here's the chocolate cake. It isn't iced or filled as I've been asked not to make it too sweet. 



The cake looks liquid, but it's not. 

I see I haven't posted this yet, and here are some freshly cooked bhaji for the four hour road trip to the other side of the island. 



The pasta was a satisfying breakfast. The double concentrate recipe is something I thought of as a cheap stop-gap for when I don't have pasta sauce, but I'm going to be cooking it again. The double concentrate does give it a bit of a 'sundried tomato' flavour. And, for when I'm back in the UK (and when we both are later), it's a good way of extending what can be done with basic ingredients rather than having jars of single-purpose sauces. 

leftatthetrafficlights

It's all looking good @RHemmings!! 😁 

Haven't been on here much as food has been pretty much leftovers since solstice plus I've got elderly rellies here until tomorrow so very little time!! 😳 

I'll do the inventory tomorrow and post it here for comparison - normal food service will resume on Monday - between now and then it will be random fridge clearing meals!! 

I have put up my new thread but it isn't just about vegan storecupboard eating (although from Monday I will be putting my meals on it 😉) : 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6493531/slow-living-2024-doing-it-old-style/p1

RHemmings

We've been away on the other side of the island for a few days. We took various cooking stuff including a tiny electric ring with us to be able to cook, but we found that there was a big communal kitchen. We ate mostly what we had been eating but with simplified recipes. We didn't take any basmati rice which in hindsight was a mistake. Usually when I make red lentil dishes I use tomato paste, but we didn't take any so tomatoes were used instead. We did take some gram flour, salt, and curry powder, so made primitive bhaji. The following are broccoli and aubergine bhaji (if that name fits), which I think tasted better than they look, along with lentil mixture. It's the only photo of food we have from the trip. The aubergine bhaji have proved popular. We gave one to our driver who pronounced it 'extremely delicious'. And, I don't think he was being polite as he kept asking if there were any more and eating them  



There is onion in the lentil mix. But, only a little as we searched the entire market and only found one small onion. Not one shop selling onions, but only one small actual onion. 

Right now I'm making bread to use as burger-ish buns with burger mix or falafel mix shaped into burgers - we haven't decided yet. 

KajiKita

Loving that the driver kept taking more and more of the bhaji …. 😊👏
No onions …? <KK’s cooking capability smashed> 😉

KK

RHemmings

KajiKita said:

Loving that the driver kept taking more and more of the bhaji …. 😊👏
No onions …? <KK’s cooking capability smashed> 😉

KK

They have proved popular. We're back in our main city now (and onions are a thing again). We had a discussion on what to eat for a very late lunch and the answer was 'aubergine bhaji'. I am still cooling down in the only room with AC, but dry ingredients were bought to me by my partner who later returned with: 



And now the discussion is that we are running out of gram flour (pre-trip it was my No 1. choice for something that might not get used at all, let alone used up.) But, we have loads of dry chickpeas and a food processor with a grinding attachment. 

EDIT: It looks plausible. https://www.thebutterhalf.com/how-to-make-homemade-chickpea-flour/

EDIT2: Visually, at least, the attempt to make gram flour out of dried whole chickpeas appears to have succeeded. 
 

It looks a bit gritty or lumpy in the photo, but in real life it isn't. It's a soft fine flour that has been sifted through a very fine meshed sieve. 

RHemmings

I seem to be making worse and worse looking bhaji, but these potato bhaji were made with the flour we made from dried chickpeas, and there is clearly nothing wrong with the flour. The recipe in general needs to be developed a bit. 

KajiKita

@RHemmings, yaaay for 🧅s! 😉

What do you think the recipe needs?

KK