Vegans of Melbourne: I'm letting the cat out of the bag. We've tried to keep it our dirty little secret for far too long. Miaow.

There's a little place where things are cheap. Cheap, tasty and vegan. Cheap and plentiful. Cheap and delicious. Really, really cheap.

La Panella in High Street, Preston, has long been the northern vegans' secret stash of cheap-as-chips bakery treats. Doughnuts, pies, sausage rolls, apple slices, adorable little jam tarts in two flavours, coffee scrolls, pull-apart fruit buns ... no animal products, no fuss, no sky high prices.

Buzz and recently 'found' ourselves nearby (read: I planned our route that day specifically so we'd be passing by at lunchtime. I make no excuses and feel no shame) and the drizzly, rainy day meant that we ended up eating in the car like deros, or Biggest Loser contestants in their application video. Awesome.

Another word about cheapness (cheapery?). I'm not sure if it's the combination of the state of Preston real estate or La Panella's devotion to Supreme Master TV, or perhaps both, but La Panella's prices remind me of 1986 when lemonade icypoles cost 10 cents from the tuckshop, or 1993 when you could get a little paper bag full of Mates from the milk bar at the bus stop for 20 cents, or 1996 when I could (pregan) get a packet of sour cream and chives chips and a Freddo Frog for $1 from the canteen. Last year I took in doughnuts to work for my birthday, and fed 25 people on $17. As the Birthday Cake Monitor, I can confirm that the usual birthday cake required was about $35, so a win for vegan eatering there!

So back in the car, Buzz and I probably didn't need a pie and a doughnut each and a sausage roll to share. Shut up please. But my goodness... I'd never had one of the pies before and was more than taken aback at the TVP recreation of gristle and mince - Buzz so much so that he closely examined a number of little lumps in minute detail before declaring himself satisfied. Sweet!


The pie pastry is a little wholemealy and I have to admit that I don't really remember what a meat (bone/sinew/gristle/innards/bones) pie tastes like, but I know that this one made me think about cold days at the footy which is always a positive sign of pie authenticity. The inside was saucey-gravy-like and quite chewy, and I had to stifle an inner urge to start screaming about white maggots and yelling "Baaaaaaallll!" (I do that at the footy anyway; this was just me accessing my inner bogan).


The sausage roll (that's a sossy roll to you) was lighter coloured inside with a lightly chewy texture enclosed in flaky pastry. Unlike the Fry's version which is more pig-in-blanket, this one is all mushy and incorporated. Devastatingly, we hadn't rationed our tomato sauce properly and were left a little unsauced for this one (the picture above is of Buzz's half. When I said that "we" failed to ration the sauce, I meant that "he" failed to ration the sauce and that "I" subsequently missed out), but I found it lightly spiced with a well textured sausagey part, and fantastic flakiness.


And a choc jam doughnut ... let's face it, doughnuts rock. Boiling hot from the fryer with sweet soft dough, the constant expectation of an explosion of dribbling jam at any moment and a cool, sickly sweet icing top to sink your teeth through with purdy lil' sprinkles on the side, they are the best kind of junk food - there's absolutely nothing redeemable about them at all (c'mon. We've all pretended that pizza is bread and veggies and that chips are potato). This one was everything I remembered about them, including the mild sense of regret coupled with a strange sense of sugar-rush satisfaction at the end.

A number of other bloggers have expressed their heartfelt and humble appreciation of the mighty La Panella: Pip, Lisa, and Cindy and Michael amongst others (I'll just note here that Michael is quite right when he says that Cindy's homemade sossy rolls are better; Buzz believes the same and even rates Cindy's over the meaty version). I strongly suggest that you read these blog as well to convince yourselves that I am not over-exaggerating the wonder of cheap, plentiful, vegan bakery goodness.

The Mockarena, or: I cook a whole lot of mock meat

I've never really been the biggest cheerleader for mock meat. It's usually a soy-based, chemically attempt to replicate something that I find revolting, and I think it a gives the wrong impression to oblivious omnis - either that all veg*ns really really want to eat meat; that we will do anything to substitute it; or that they'd be better off sticking with the real flesh if that's the alternative.

But that's not to say that I wouldn't give it whirl. I discovered the Fry's range in my Safeway up in the very top left corner of the top shelf in a freezer far far away ... but they did have the sausage rolls (already eaten and blogged by Pip), schnitzels and cottage pie, and also three kinds of Syndian burgers. I got stupidly excited and bought everything except the pie, wanting (natch!) to help Safeway know that there were customers for these products regardless of the Freezer Siberia they were banished to.

All this made for a night full of mock meats and chewy protein.


Buzz and I had one schnitzel, one sausage roll and one country style veggie burger each, with a satay tofu mix that I made up from our pizza leftovers (satay tofu, onion, garlic, capsicum and a dash of lime juice ... God I felt thrifty!). I added some coriander, and just fyi, people who don't like coriander are not my friends.



I found that the sausage rolls cooked a lot quicker than the estimted 40 minutes, which threw my (already poor) timing out. The schnitzels, yay me, came out crispy as intended. The veggie burgers, however, responded poorly to baking. They collapsed and thawed unevenly, and I was forced to put them in a pan with some olive oil to help then fry up a little and bind the outer bits together. Even so, they were still crumbly and I think they'd be better used thawed.

I served them with two sauces - a sweet chilli soy and a mustard/tomato relish. I tried to make the photos below look a little Nigella-organic-ceramic but with my usual slatternly housekeeping there are splatters all over the bowls. Nonetheless, I'm posting it because of my darling little avocado bowls - aren't they fantastic?


The veggie burgers, despite their unauspicious beginnings, tasted very fresh and full of parsnip. I've just noticed on the Syndian website that their formal name is 'Country Whispers', which does nothing to make me do anything but snigger, but I was touched by this little statement:

Original products with true flavors: we do our best to bring out the original flavors of the ingredients and do not attempt to imitate another ingredient, for that reason we have no meat or cheese like products, or imitation to those flavor. Given all possible ingredients we will continue to produce our products the way we are producing them now. Enjoy what is real, not what is make believe!

Awww! And that's all (sic).


Of the Fry's range, I could tell that the sausage roll was my favourite because I found myself leaving it until last. Like Pip points out, they're more in the pig-in-a-blanket mold than Four'n'Twenty. The pastry was flaky and light whilst the filling was lightly spiced and nicely chewy without ickily bringing to mind tendons and ligaments.



My grandma was Viennese, and as an omnivorous child I loved to get dressed up in my little red dirndl and go with her to the Austrian Club where I would get to order schnizel and chips off the kids' menu. Although I don't particularly recall the taste of schnitzel it's one of those childhood dishes that is inextricably bound up with love and family and excitement. Schnitzel has always occupied a little warm place in my heart for the link it provides with my grandma and the family before her that we never knew.

This Fry's schnitzel, however, had crispiness as its main virtue (and I was pretty darn proud that I got that first go, which sadly illustrates the extent of my cookering skills). The texture was thick and rather realistic I think, but was thin enough not to overwhelm. The taste was a bit forgettable, but not at all objectionable and I think I might even have a go at a parma with the leftovers (a meat parma being one of my many uneaten meaty meals ... when you ditch the flesh at 10 you don't really get to get into those pub meals).



So, after the mock-meat feast, the sausages will definitely be making a repeat appearance, although I suspect that that the recipe in Tempting Tempeh could give them a run for their money. Perhaps that's where I can next put my pastry to use...