I just attended two weeks worth of Professional Practice seminars for my MFA, and now have three weeks to write 2000 words about myself for assessment. As a professional writer, I agree that it is hard, so I decided to procrastinate practice with this blog post about cake.

At the end of the seminars, we had a pot luck lunch. Although I’m not actually vegan, I do cook vegan meals most of the time, especially when I have to cook for others. I get a slightly roguish thrill from proving people wrong through deliciousness.

It infuriates me when people insist that you need to use eggs and dairy when baking. Unless you are baking lemon meringue pie, which is indeed a noble pursuit, you do not need to bake with eggs. Take this date cake for example. More traditional date loaves involve the soaking of the dates in bicarb soda and water, but I wanted a more cakey number with flecks of date that resemble chocolate chips.

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Preheat your oven to 180ºC. Grease and line two loaf tins.

Finely chop 40 pitted dates and soak them in 1.5 cups of coconut cream with a splash of apple cider vinegar.

In a separate bowl, cream 1 cup of vegan margarine with 1.5 cups of sugar. Beat in a dash of vanilla essence, 2 cups of sifted self-raising flour and a pinch of salt. The mixture will be very dry at this point.

Beat in the coconut cream and dates until you have a thick batter. Divide this into the tins then bake for 45-50 minutes, or until your knife comes out clean in a poking test (heh…). Allow it to cool (hah!) then enjoy its moist deliciousness and the pretence that it’s healthy due to the lack of dairy and inclusion of fruit.

The war, it rages on in our house.

(I love the stuff so much that I had to pause this mid song and go make myself a delicious, delicious salty snack. It’s an addiction. Seriously.)

Another damn fine slow cooker recipe from Teh Internets. I did want to make something tasty, but I admit my main goal in making Unbeef Stew was to take a better photograph than all the other horrible looking ones on the recipe page. Stew is not the most photogenic thing in the world.

I didn’t stray too far from the recipe this time — just added a little less cornstarch, threw in some red wine and honey, and bought some good quality Asian Grocery “dried” tofu (you’ll still find this in the fridge section, it’s just a lot firmer than regular tofu) instead of bothering with the freezing and liquid draining malarkey. Also, I didn’t peel my potatoes or seed my tomato. I’m such a rebel.

Six or so years ago, I was painting and watching Jamie Oliver on the tellie when he cooked this. I scrounged around and managed to write it down on a scrap of newspaper I was using as a dropsheet. Probably with a pastel. It doesn’t look like much, but trust me when I say it’s fan-freaking-tastic.

Cook around two cups of basmati rice. In another pan, heat a tablespoon of mustard seeds in 1-2 tablespoons of sunflower or coconut oil. Bash a few cardamom pods in your mortar and pestle and add this to the pan with a small handful of curry leaves. Toss everything round a bit, then peel and slice a knob of ginger and add it to the mix. Grind up a teaspoon of cumin seeds and throw them into the pan with half a teaspoon of chilli powder, followed by one teaspoon of turmeric. Cut a fresh pineapple into large chunks and stir it through the mix. Slice a banana on an angle and add (the recipe calls for a plantain, but I can never find these in Melbourne). Pour in a can of coconut milk, season with salt and simmer until it’s ready. Serve over the basmati rice. Omnomnom.

Banana Curry, slightly altered from Flip Shelton’s wonderful yet sadly out-of-print cookbook, Green. This version serves 4-5, or 2 plus tomorrows lunch.

Sauté 2 onions and a small jar of red curry paste in a few tablespoons of oil. Add 4 roughly chopped bananas, 500g of diced firm tofu, a cup of frozen peas and half a cup of vegetable stock. Simmer for around 10 minutes, until everything is cooked through. Roll 2 limes on a benchtop under your palm to soften them up as much as possible. Cut them in half, then use a citrus reamer (heh) to extract every last drop of juice and stir it through the curry, followed by a small tin of coconut cream. Season to taste, serve with rice and top with tasty fresh basil. I got mine from the amazing Stacking Theory garden because I am a lucky duck. Particularly good on 43ºC days. Sheesh.

My parents gave us a slow cooker for Christmas. The first thing I made in it was a cauliflower soup, slightly altered from the version I made up for the stove* a while back. It worked out quite well.

The second thing I made was an Italian Not-Dog spaghetti.

It did not work out so well.

I’d found the recipe on the internet and apparently failed to look at the star rating. It had 2/10. It’s now 1.5/10. It was possibly the worst thing I’ve ever cooked.

I was determined for the crockpot to succeed though, and have since found a bunch of vegan recipes for stews and whatnot that look entirely promising. The one pictured above was last nights meal, Mushroom Stew. I added a bunch of enoki mushrooms to the mix, used two tablespoons of cornstarch in place of the tapioca, then tested it halfway through and added a good pinch of salt, some red wine, Nuttelex margarine and honey. I don’t do well with such straightedge recipes — things NEED salt, damnit, it is not evil and works to enhance the flavours of the other ingredients.

Anyway, it was quite delicious. Will make again.

*Cauliflower soup: sauté an onion, some garlic, chilli and ginger. Add cauliflower pieces, a cup or so of red lentils and one or two diced potatoes. Add good amounts of red and yellow spices (paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, curry powder, mustard seeds, garam masala, cloves, turmeric, etc.) and about 10 cups of vegetable stock. Perhaps some beer, perhaps some nutritional yeast flakes or some sharp shaved cheese. Definitely some sweet chilli sauce and a tomato puree of some kind. Freshly crushed salt and pepper, obviously. Cook for a while. Better the next day.)

And then she etted it.

And then she went back and found another plum.

And etted that one too!

Yesterday morning, knitting happily on the tram while travelling to work, I happened to look out the window and noticed a truck driving past. It told me not to drink science, because I don’t know where it’s been. This, quite frankly, horrified me. And what disappointed me even more is that the brand in question was Phoenix Organic Drinks. Phoenix are a New Zealand company who make tasty, tasty beverages that I like a lot, and now I can’t drink them because their marketing people are happily, blatantly promoting ignorance and stupidity. It’s almost as if Phoenix have taken a leaf from Barbie’s book and proclaimed, “Math is hard! Let’s go shopping!” And I say all this as a public servant who votes Green, studied fine art, has been vegetarian for over ten years, makes her own soap, and whose pantry contains vast amounts of brand-free dried legumes and 5kg cotton bags of rice.

1 : the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
2 a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study [the science of theology] b : something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge [have it down to a science]
3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science
4 : a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws [cooking is both a science and an art]

As noted in the dictionary definition above, science is not something separate from the natural world. It is a study of the natural world. Science is not merely random equations, chemicals and words that are hard to spell. It is a continual system of knowledge and understanding. I would never buy a mass-produced food item from a company that is proud of not having a science department. I want to know that the products I consume have been formulated, tested and proven not to make me sick, regardless of them being made from natural or synthesised ingredients. Just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it won’t hurt me. Like anthrax. Or arsenic. Or any number of ingredients or components of common ‘natural’ items. Hell, even regular issue Coca-Cola is made of all-natural products in Australia. We even still make it with cane sugar instead of corn syrup. Doesn’t mean it’s good for me. And you know what I do when I don’t know what something is, what a word means or how to spell an ingredient? I look it up. Simple as that. I’m sick to death of the anti-science ignorance that proponents of ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ lifestyles banter about. Science is not the enemy, and until you learn that I won’t be your friend. Or buy your things.

I wanted to add, I lifted these images off the Phoenix website because I think it’s important in this instance to see a physical representation of what I’m criticising. But I’m hosting them here as I’m not mean enough to hotlink.

Eat like a Roman.

I got a pizza stone, and have been cooking up a storm since.

The recipe I’m using for the base is from Vegan with a Vengeance.*

I split one lot of dough into three instead of two, as I like a super-thin crust and have a smaller stone.

The title of this post was inspired by this little piece of genius, tweeted by Jodi yesterday. So gold.

*With blaring capitalism in mind, I’ve decided that I talk about books enough that I should just affiliate link with a bookseller and perhaps get something for it, and I’ve chosen to go with the Australian/New Zealand company Fishpond. Just so you know.