Veggie Burger and Schnitzel Sandwiches Deluxe

Sometimes you just need a really quick and filling meal after work. It needs to be easy to cook and almost ready to eat as soon as you walk in the door. Oh and it also needs to be something you want to eat – toast can only go so far. This is a quick and easy meal we eat a lot and stops us going out to tea or spending millions of dollars on take away.

Burgers are simple and the best thing about them is that they are totally customisable. And as we know variety is the spice of life which is what some non-vegans say can’t be achieved with a vegan diet. Well that may have been true 15 years ago but now there is so much choice that it’s simple to get a lot of variety into a vegan diet. So burgers are one way you can facilitate this as you can put on what ever you want. We have three easy tips to help you out!

Tip One:
Good Veggie Burgers!
The secret to great burgers is the veggie patty itself. If you don’t have a good patty no matter what you do your burgers are going to suffer.
Now if we are making burgers we absolutely love Papa Nutal burgers. Our favourites are the Curry burgers and Mediterranean burgers. They have a great texture and a great flavour.
Another version of the burger is a schnitzel sandwich. We love Redwood Vegi Deli Organic Schnitzels. They also have a great texture and go great in a sandwich (we prefer a sandwich to a burger as the burger bun can be too overpowering for these guys).
The great thing about these products is they take absolutely no time to cook. So even if you’re not vegan they are a great mid-week meal that’s quick and healthy.

Tip Two:
Mix up the sauces.
Now if we are having schnitzel we like to have hommus or baba ganoush. If it’s burgers we may have mayonnaise (Melrose Organic Safflower) or dijonaise (Melrose Organic Safflower). Mix this with some tomato or barbeque sauce and you have a winner.
The trick is not to over power your burgers with sauce.
Note a variety of sauces can also accommodate for fussy eaters.

Tip Three:
Fresh salad.
Always use fresh salad ingredients. We generally use tomato, mixed lettuce and fry up some onion. We generally don’t get to fancy on the salad as it’s the patty which should be the feature.
We also melt some Tofutti mozzarella slices on the bun or bread – these melt fairly well under the grill. You could nuke them in the microwave but this can make the underside of the bread a little soggy. Plus the grill is a good way to keep your onions warm while you fry your patty.

Stir-fried Noodles with Mushroom Nuggets

We love easy Chinese recipes as they are really simple and give great authentic flavours. However as with most celebrity chefs their recipes are meat filled and often meat is the centrepiece. However why should vegans miss out on such good flavours of well-balanced sauces and vegetable stir-fries. So here is a favourite of ours. Last week we had made a great Laksa with some great ingredients we found at Kim Wangs, which is an Asian supermarket in China Town. So we were encouraged by some nice fried tofu, mushroom nuggets and vegan vegetable balls to use as the protein substance for this stir-fry. We sliced the fried tofu and marinaded for about 15 minutes in dry sherry, hoisin sauce, malt vinegar, sugar, light soy sauce and sesame oil. It didn't take long as the tofu absorbed it in an instant.

So that left us time to start on the veggies. We used a variety of veggies including capsicum, onion, spring onions and of course lots and lots of ginger and garlic. We try not to over do the veggies in each stir-fry we make for a couple of reasons. Firstly it takes too long to chop them all after work and secondly we want to make each stir-fry unique. If we added every vegetable to each stir-fry they would become very similar and reduce many different meal options to one. And if you buy good produce then it gives you a chance to enjoy each veggies flavour. We then prepared our favourite frozen vegan products, mushroom nuggets and veggie balls, by chopping them a little or in half.

Just some quick info on the products we were using:

• Lamyong Vegetarian Mushroom Nugget: http://www.lamyong.com.au/index.htm
• Formosa Vegetarian Eating House Vegan Multivegetable Ball: A Taiwanese company.

So I guess as everyone knows the secret to Asian cooking is having everything chopped, mixed and ready to go as you don’t get much time when everything is up and running. So we chucked in the tofu, mushroom nuggets and vegetable balls and stir-fried that for a couple of minutes. Once they were cooked we removed them from the wok and cooked veggies.

Then we combined it all together with your favourite rice noodle, added some sauce (dry sherry, light soy, vegetarian oyster sauce, sesame oil) and there you have it Chinese Bliss!!!! So if you’re looking for a really easy and quick meal I suggest you give a veggie stir-fry a go – adding a few of your own favourite Asian vegan products.

Last tip if you want a good wok just pick up a cheapie from China Town and season it per the instructions (most are Australian made and under $20). They are cheap and quickly pay themselves off rather than the more expensive ones you can buy in retail outlets that are heavy, hard to handle and don't heat up well enough.

Oh hello...

Welcome to our blog, I hope it satisfies all your dreams and visions towards an amazing exploration of culinary delights, fine dining locations, fine drinking options, extravagant and simple cooking, organic and vegan choices.

There is no consistency other than good quality, but essentially we'd love to showcase the wonders that are on offer in Adelaide locally, but also anything else we find along the way.

We like to cook and have a large cookbook collection so here journey with us as we travel through them, through other countries and through our lives.