New Beginnings!!

Well, this will be my last post for awhile as we leave in 2 days now I will be without internet or a kitchen!! Didn't think I would get another post in but this beautiful and super yummy vegan carrot cake was made for us for a leaving party and I just had to blog it! It was made by http://cakesbyverna.co.uk/ who has a stall at Brick Lane Market and comes highly recommended, she makes simply beautiful and delicious cakes.....and vegan too, yay!! :-)

I probably won't get to blog for quite awhile as we are building our own house and the kitchen isn't even fitted yet, but will if I can! Thank you all for following and hope you continue to for the next stage :-)

Bye for now.....
-Deb

♥

Vegan Caesar Salad

This is a fine salad. Seriously fine. I could eat bowls and bowls of it and believe me, I don’t say that often about salads! I was inspired by Vegan Yum Yum’s last post of Avocado and Wasabi Salad. I made it the other day and it truly is amazing, I urge you all to make it. But, I couldn't get over how much the houmous in the dressing reminded me of a Caesar dressing. I’m guessing it’s the texture, the slight grain in houmous emulating the parmesan cheese and the garlic flavour coming through. So I set about using houmous in a Caesar dressing and came up with this. I think it tastes like a Caesar salad but more importantly, I think it tastes better. As it should, the raw egg has basically been replaced with houmous, and what would any sane person prefer to eat??? I will be making this one often for sure! :-)

Serves 2:

150g Romaine lettuce, torn roughly

60g houmous

1 - 2 tsp dijon (I like the kick of the higher measurement)

1/2 tsp vegan Worcester sauce

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

40g garlic and herb croutons, I just used store bought here, homemade would be lovely.

freshly ground black pepper

mature cheddar cheezly

Place the lettuce and croutons into a large bowl. In another bowl stir together the houmous and mustard, slowly stir in the oil then add the Worcester sauce and lemon juice. Stir well then add a few grinds of black pepper. Pour this over the leaf and toss well (hands are best here - get mucky!) Dish it up with a good grating of extra mature cheddar cheezly on top and some more black pepper.

♥

Nutritional Information: per serving

Calories: 229

Fat: 16.2g

Sat Fat: 2.0g

Carbs: 16.2g

Sugars: 2.2g

Fibre: 3.3g

Protein: 5.2g

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Carrot and Sesame Burger

Served with a lemon tahini soy yogurt sauce, avocado, watercress, shallots and lashings of Thai sweet chilli sauce :-)

Oh I do love a good burger, and a good burger these certainly are!! Recipe comes from BBC Good Food, was featured on their front page awhile back and I knew I had to make them right away. The recipe did call for an egg but I just replaced that with my egg replacer of choice lately - yup, the xanthan gum one, and they turned out perfect! In the comments section a lot of people said they crumbled and fell apart, well, the egg-less vegan ones don't that's for sure (vegan win!!!) Although, I didn't try bbq'ing these, just shallow fried, but I don't see why they couldn't be oven baked for an even healthier burger.

Anyway, they taste wonderful - the recipe served these with a lemon and tahini yoghurt sauce, avocado, rocket and thai sweet chilli sauce. Whenever I try a new recipe I like to follow it to a 'T' then make any changes I see fit. This time I wouldn't make any. While I didn't find the yogurt sauce that interesting on it's own it went lovely with this burger and everything else, as did the avocado. I used watercress instead of rocket due to personal preference and loved that....and the Thai sweet chilli sauce is essential!! It really made the burger and I have to say I used lashings of it!! So yummy, definitely another burger that will be on the regular dinner rotation :-)

Recipe is on their website but I'll post what I did here, mainly replacing the egg, I added 3/4 tsp salt (they just said to 'season') and their recipe said you get 6 burgers out of it, I halved it and got 5 very good sized ones out of it. Oh, and we had these with a side salad and a big old glass of Pimms - lovely!! :-)

Carrot and Sesame Burgers: (I got 5 from this)

375g carrots (weight before prepping), peeled and grated

1/2 can chickpeas (120g drained and rinsed)

1/2 small onion, chopped

1 Tbsp tahini

1/2 tsp ground cumin

50g breadcrumbs

1 1/2 Tbsp sesame seeds

3/4 tsp fine sea salt

zest 1/2 lemon

1 Tbsp olive oil

---1 egg----

1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

1/2 Tbsp potato starch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/16 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp veg oil

50ml water

To Serve:

burger buns

avocado

watercress or rocket

shallots or red onion slices

lemon tahini soy yogurt sauce

Thai sweet chilli sauce

Whisk everything up for your egg until thick and a little frothy. Set aside. Put a third of the grated carrots into a food processor with the chickpeas, onion, tahini, cumin and 'egg'. Whizz until you have a thick paste, then scrape into a large bowl. Heat the olive oil in a large wok, tip in the remaining carrot and cook for about 8 minutes until the carrot is softened, they will become more golden as they cook. Add this cooked carrot to the paste with the breadcrumbs, lemon zest, salt and sesame seeds. Mix together well.

Lightly grease your hands with some olive oil then shape into patties whatever size you like. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour. When ready to cook, heat up some vegetable oil in a large frying pan (I shallow fried so added quite a bit) and fry the burgers about 5 minutes a side, or until golden brown on both sides. Lightly toast the buns and serve with the yogurt sauce, avocado, watercress, shallots and Thai sweet chilli sauce.

Lemon Tahini Soy Yogurt Sauce:

150ml plain soy yogurt

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp tahini

Simply mix it all together and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

EDIT - works really nice in a wrap too! Same components but shape the burger into a large sausage shape and fry. Very good!

♥

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Camp Coffee Cake

First I must apologize for not getting a good photo of this cake, it was just so good it went too fast!! That photo is the last slice from the cake and a couple days old! I've always loved coffee cake, and I mean that in coffee tasting cake not a 'coffee cake' if you know what I mean. I have made a couple vegan ones on this blog but neither were quite right. I didn't realize that the perfect recipe was under my nose all along - the 'Camp Coffee Cake' recipe from my old vegetarian blog, all I had to do was veganize it which was simple - replaced the 4 eggs with my current egg replacer of choice for 2 and all the butter with Vitalite. The flavour was perfect in this as was the texture of the cake - really impressed with this one, nice and moist but no gumminess at all!! A lovely finely crumbed cake....and the frosting is sublime....uber-sweet, but sublime ;-)

'Camp' is a thick coffee flavoured syrup also made with chicory, nasty as a drink but I do find it imparts a great coffee flavour in baking. In Ireland it's called Irel, hope it's still available there as I'll be making this cake a lot!!

Cake:

225g vegan margarine, I used Vitalite

225g golden caster sugar

225g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp Camp Syrup

---2 eggs----

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp potato starch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp vegetable oil

100ml water

Frosting:

225g vegan margarine (Vitalite imparts a lovely buttery taste here)

450g icing sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp Camp syrup

soy cream

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line the bottom of two 8 or 9 inch cake tins with greaseproof paper and grease the sides with marg and dust with flour.

In mixer with paddle attachment, or by hand with a whisk, cream the marg until soft, add the caster sugar and beat until pale and light in texture. In a separate bowl make the 'eggs' by mixing the dry ingredients then adding the water and oil slowly whisking all the time until well mixed, thick and slightly frothy. It's ok if there are tiny lumps. Add to the marg/sugar mixture bit by bit, beating well after each addition. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and fold in until well mixed. Finally stir in the Camp syrup until well mixed.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tins and bake for 25 min. approximately. When cooked the centre of the cakes will be firm and springy and the edges will have shrunk a bit from the edges. Rest in the tins a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack, remove the paper and leave to let fully cool.

When cold sandwich and frost the cake with the frosting. To make simply cream everything but the soy cream together, then if needed add some soy cream to get the right consistency. You may not need any depending on the moisture level of the marg you use.

♥

Mushroom Pie with Potato Pastry and Pearl Barley

Well, as usual I'm flat out these days - still building a house and still moving to Ireland NEXT MONTH!! On top of that my son's first holy communion is this Saturday which so far is looking more complicated than my wedding. Seriously. So with all this going on I haven't had much time for the blog or cooking in general. Nor anytime to read all my other favourite blogs and comment, so do forgive me if you haven't heard from me in awhile - I'll be back for sure :-)

This is another dish I made ages ago, finally found a moment here to blog it. The recipe comes from one of my favourite cookbooks, Beatrice Ojakangas's 'The Great Scandinavian Baking Book' - it really is wonderful. It's mostly sweets and breads but the back has a few savoury dishes and this was one of the only vegetarian dishes. For ages I wanted to have a go veganising it as it called for eggs, butter and sour cream and finally did. We really loved this, it tasted fantastic and the potato pastry was really good. At first a little chewy but even better the next day.

I used vitalite in place of the butter, tofutti sour cream for the sour cream (straight swap) and for the eggs I decided to use this egg replacer I've gotten good results from lately using xanthan gum and potato and cornstarch. However, I forgot what happens to cornstarch when heated, of course it thickens like mad! You were to stir the eggs into the pot and cook for a few minutes, so of course mine thickened right up and I had to add quite a bit of water. This didn't affect the taste or the end product though. So, you may want to use a different egg replacer, pureed silken tofu would probably be really good in this, I try to keep my soy levels low. I'll post the recipe I used though, just keep in mind the thickening issue ;-)

Potato Pastry:

3/4 cup cold mashed potato (just potato)

210g plain flour

100g vegetable fat/shortening (I use Trex)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

60ml cold water

Filling:

40g vegan margarine (I used Vitalite)

1 cup cooked pearl barley, I cooked up 80g raw and had a bit left over.

100g chestnut mushrooms

150g regular mushrooms - or any type of mushrooms you like.

140g chopped onion

115g tofutti sour cream

1/8 tsp ground allspice

ground black pepper

First make your pastry. Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Add the fat and cut in with a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in the mashed potato until a dough forms. Now mine was too dry at this stage, I assume different potatoes will give different results and had to add some cold water. You just want it to come together as a dough you can roll out. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

For the filling, heat the margarine in a large saucepan and fry the mushrooms and onion until onions are soft and mushrooms are cooked and any pan liquids have evaporated. Mix in the cooked barley, sour cream, 2 'eggs', salt, pepper and allspice then bring to a simmer then leave to cool. Again, I'm thinking 1/2 cup silken tofu would be a good replacement for the eggs, but this is what I used: (with more water to counter the thickening that went on)

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp potato starch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp vegetable oil

100ml water

Mix the dry together then slowly whisk in the water and oil. Whisk really well until you have a thick, slightly foamy mixture.

Preheat the oven to 220C and remove the pastry from the fridge. Cut it not quite in half, you want one section slightly larger than the other. Roll out the larger section to fit a 10 inch fluted flan dish and fit it in. Tip your filling in smoothing out the top and set aside. Roll out your other section of dough and cut out strips for a lattice topping. I won't go into how to do this as I followed the instructions here. It was my first time doing lattice and besides missing a few links, not too bad a job ;-) Make sure you pinch your edges to seal then pop it into the oven for 25 - 30 minutes until the pastry is golden and the filling is set.

♥

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Wheat Free Chocolate Almond Biscotti

So I'm still making it through all these things I've made but haven't gotten around to posting. I made these ages ago as well, back when I went through a wheat free kick that lasted about, oh, a day and half ;-) I was having some tummy troubles and started to suspect wheat but I really don't think it was that in the end. Regardless, these turned out really yum! I love rye flour and should use it more often really. I read online that some people cutting out wheat also cut out rye, it's a bit 'borderline' so I'm not sure how "wheat free" these are, but if you are cutting out wheat and are ok with rye - they are a great substitute. The chocolate flavour goes so nice with the almonds and these turned out nice and crunchy, like proper biscotti should be, essential to dip into a mug of coffee. I repeat, essential!! :-)

Makes 12:

40g unsweetened cocoa powder

75g blanched almonds, toasted

100g light muscovado sugar

150g rye flour

50g ground almonds

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

30g caster sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp almond extract

----2 eggs------

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp potato starch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp vegetable oil

100ml water

First make the 'eggs' by whisking the dry ingredients together then slowly whisking in the water and oil. Give it a good whisk until slightly frothy and it's thick like beaten eggs would look like. Don't worry if there are some tiny lumps. Set aside. Preheat oven to 180C and spread the almonds on a baking sheet. Toast for about 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and fragrant, remove and let cool then roughly chop. Turn oven down to 150C.

Whisk together the rye flour, cocoa powder, ground almonds, salt, baking soda and set aside. In another bowl whisk together the 'eggs', sugars, vegetable oil and almond extract until light and sugar mostly dissolved. Stir the dry ingredients in with a wooden spoon until a dough forms then add the almonds and stir in.

Flour your hands and work surface and form into a big log shape, about 10 inches long and 2 inches wide. Place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake in a 150C oven for about 30 - 40 minutes. The log will be firm to the touch and will have spread whilst baking a bit. Transfer to a wire rack to let cool for 10 minutes.

Transfer to a cutting board and slice the log into diagonal slices about 1 inch wide, I got 12 out of my log. Arrange the slices cut side down onto the baking sheet and pop back into the oven for 15 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake for another 15 minutes or until crisp and dry. Remove and let cool on a wire rack.

♥

Nutritional Analysis: Per Biscotti

Calories: 167

Fat: 7.1g

Sat Fat: 0.7g

Fibre: 3.6g

Protein: 3.3g

Carbs: 25.1g

Sugars: 11g

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Beer Cooked Sausage and Onions in Crusty French Baguette

These were featured in the latest tesco magazine and turned out really, really good! As it featured most of my favourite flavours - beer, mustard and onions I figured I would love them. I just had to swap the honey with agave, made sure my lager was vegan and used my personal favourite sausages here - Taifun's Grill Herb Sausages, they really went well with the other flavours. It's a simple recipe and makes a nice change from always using vegan hotdogs with ketchup and French's mustard ;-)

Serves 1:

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 Taifun Grill Sausage

1 onion, sliced

50ml vegan lager

1/2 tsp agave syrup

1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard

2 tsp vegan Worcester sauce

Crusty French baguette, sliced to the size of the sausage

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onions, slow fry on low heat until very soft, reduced and golden brown. Mix together the lager, agave, mustard and Worcester sauce then add to the pan with the sausage. Cook until the sausage is heated through and the sauce is reduced to a thick caramel like sauce. Spoon some of the onion mixture into the sliced bread, top with the sausage and some more of the mixture on top. Of course you want to serve this with the rest of the lager, well chilled ;-)

♥

Coconut Asparagus Frittata with Sweet Chilli Lime Sauce

Gosh, I made this AGES ago!! I have had about 5 or 6 things lined up to blog but am unbelievably busy these days and just haven't had the time. Big news for us - we are moving to Ireland this summer!! I really cannot wait, we are building a house out in the country (a very eco house I might add ;-) and it's coming along beautifully. But, needless to say, building a house while not only moving house but moving country takes up a lot of time!! I'm afraid my online life will have to take a back seat for awhile, don't expect me on twitter at all really and this blog I'll try and update now and again but it won't be as frequent. When we move at the end of July we'll be moving in with my in laws (who live next door) for a few months while the house finishes up so I won't be able to blog at all then really. Well, who knows, maybe I'll do some vegan restaurant reviews from Cork or something!

Anyway, back to the food! This is just a twist on the post below, I loved the flavour of those crepes so much I wanted to see how it fared as a frittata. It cooked up fine and tasted great but the texture isn't great to be honest. It turned out quite gummy, although I still went back for seconds!! So, why blog it? Well, as my husband pointed out the texture was really like set polenta. Which although not my favourite thing obviously lots of people do like it so thought I would throw this up here too ;-)

Recipe is the same as the post below but I poured the whole crepe batter into a small non stick frying pan brushed with some peanut oil. Cook over medium heat and when it is sort of half set add some pre-steamed asparagus and the finely chopped spring onion. Continue to cook until golden underneath then place under the grill to continue cooking the top. Grill until golden on top. When I first cut mine open it looked like it could do with some more cooking so grilled it a little more as the middle wasn't quite set. I didn't bother with the almonds or peanuts this time but again, that sauce is essential with this - it really makes the dish.

So, it wasn't a bad attempt but I must stress that the crepe version is miles better and will always be the one I make.

♥

Coconut Crêpes with Asparagus and a Sweet Chilli Lime Dipping Sauce

I took one bite of these and instantly knew these would become a dinner staple, they are seriously delicious!!! The recipe was on BBC Good Food and I found it intriguing as I just wouldn't think to use asparagus this way. It's hands down my favourite vegetable so I'm always keen to find new ways of using it. Plus the 'in season' British stuff is out now so a good time to use it!

I had to veganize the crêpe recipe they used and am pleased to say it turned out fantastic, I sort of combined their flavours with the quantities I used in my Wild Rice Crêpe recipe. Only thing was these were possibly a little more delicate to work with. The first one had to be scrapped, as seems to always be the case when I make crêpes ;-) The next two didn't tear or rip but it was touch and go....so just bear that in mind when making these. That being said I later ate the first crepe, all ripped up and cold just by dipping it in the sauce and it was just as good. So don't stress if they tear just serve it all together in a bowl!

Oh and that dipping sauce is perfect with these and omg good, I just swapped the honey with some light agave and added a bit more garlic. I also used bird's eye chilli's as that's all I had, I made sure I removed all the seeds and membranes and it still packed a punch. So you may want to only use 2 or a different chilli altogether, depending on how hot you like things.

They included some roasted peanuts in the dipping sauce but I thought they would be better in the crêpe itself. Their version had some hard boiled egg in the filling (bleurgh!) so without it my filling would just be steamed asparagus. I then forgot to buy peanuts so lightly toasted some almond flakes and added that. I really liked the flavour in their and the thin crunchiness was really nice. Later, I made these for my husband with the peanuts and while he liked the flavour of the peanuts in their preferred the texture of the almonds. The peanuts were just a bit too hard.

Whatever way you go - those crêpes with that sauce and the asparagus is amazing! I got 5 crêpes out of this with my large crêpe pan....

Coconut Crêpes with Asparagus and a Sweet Chilli Lime Dipping Sauce:

200ml reduced fat coconut milk

200ml water

120g plain flour

30g chickpea flour

1 Tbsp cornstarch (cornflour) or arrowroot

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

1/2 tsp turmeric

-------------------------------------

4 spring onions, finely chopped

1 Tbsp peanut oil, for greasing the pan

-------------------------------------

25 spears asparagus, 5 for each wrap

25g flaked almonds or finely chopped roasted peanuts (optional)

-------------------------------------

2 Tbsp light agave syrup

2 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp fresh lime juice, strained

2 cloves garlic, minced

2-4 Bird's Eye chilli's, deseeded and membranes removed, chop fine

First make your batter, simply whisk everything together until super smooth, or use the blender. Cover and place in the fridge for about an hour.

Next make your dipping sauce. Whisk the agave, soy and lime juice and well mixed then whisk in the garlic and chillies. Set aside to let the flavours mingle up a bit.

Take the batter out of the fridge and give it another good whisk. Heat your crepe pan on medium heat and brush on some peanut oil. Using 1/2 cup measure pour the batter in the centre of the pan and swirl it around making sure it coats all the pan. Immediately sprinkle on some of the spring onion before it sets. Now, turning these are a little tricky. The best way I found was to loosen the edges and pick it up and move it to a plate. I then brushed a little more oil on the pan, picked it up again and placed the other side down. I also wore a pair of (clean!) washing up gloved to do this otherwise I would have burnt my fingers!! Once both sides are cooked, it should be ever so lightly golden at spots, it's a bit more hardy. Turn over onto a plate so that the spring onions are facing up. Continue with the rest of the batter and meanwhile start steaming your asparagus: 3-5 minutes should do it.

When ready to serve, simply place 5 asparagus in the middle of the crêpe and sprinkle on some of the almonds or peanuts, if using. Fold the bottom over then roll them up, you could cut them on the diagonal or just leave whole.

Give the dipping sauce another little mix and serve on the side. I spooned a little bit of the sauce over the crêpes and do recommend this as it's an easier way to eat these than dipping them.

♥

Nutritional Analysis: based on 2 filled crêpes with sauce

Calories: 516

Protein: 14.8g

Carbs: 69.8g

Fat: 20.7g (if you use all the peanut oil )

Sat Fat: 1.4g

Fibre: 7.3g

Sugars: 14.3g

Sodium: 1200mg *this is only if you use 2/5 of the sauce recipe, which is unlikely, so really it's not that high :-)

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Healthy Banana Blueberry Maple Cookies

Fat free, wholemeal flour and no refined sugar to boot!! Yup, you're on the right blog ;-)

I am so pleased with how these turned out. It wasn't my intention when I started these to make a 'healthy' cookie. I simply had some blueberries that I wanted to bake with and thought cookies would make a nice change. I started off with my standard raisin oatmeal cookie recipe but decided to swap the white and brown sugar in that with maple syrup. Then, I figured I might as well go all the way and omit the margarine, making them fat free and swap the white flour with wholemeal.

Even though this was a total experiment they turned out fantastic! They are certainly sweet enough and nice and soft in the middle with a crunchy topping and edges, the blueberries in there are particularly good! In my second attempt I baked them in a jelly roll pan and sprinkled with demerara sugar. My first attempt I made them cookie shaped and dipped them in maple sugar - a hard to find and expensive yet delicious addition. Although, my husband felt the maple sugar was a bit too big and crunchy and distracted from the cookie I did like the taste with them. Again, demerara could be substituted or you can just leave the top plain as they are sweet enough anyway.

'Cookie' version with maple sugar on top

I'm so glad these turned out, we have all been wanting to cut down on our sugar intake, particularly refined sugars and I'm happy to report even the 8 year old loved these!

Makes 12 cookies or bars:

85g mashed ripe banana, about 1 small-medium

80g fresh blueberries

60ml maple syrup

1/2 tsp almond extract

70g plain wholewheat flour

70g rolled oats

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp fine sea salt

maple sugar or demerara sugar (optional)

Mash the banana in a large bowl until well mashed. Slowly whisk in the maple syrup then beat well, whisk in the almond extract. In a seperate bowl whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to the banana mixture and beat with a rubber spatula till it comes together. Add the blueberries and gently fold in until incorporated being careful not to burst them. It's best to buy the smallest berries you can find here, if they are too big you may want to cut them in half although that may give you purple cookies....not that that's a bad thing!

If making cookies take about 1 tablespoon of mixture and roll it in your hands and flatten, dip into either maple sugar or demerara (or leave plain) and place on a sheet lined with baking paper.

If making bars, gently press into a foil lined jelly roll pan and sprinkle with the sugar. I used a jelly roll pan which was 7.5 x 11 x 1" but only filled it half way, double the recipe to fill the whole pan.

Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 12 - 13 minutes. They should be golden at the edges and a little puffy. Let cool on the sheet then transfer to a wire rack .

♥

Nutritional Analysis: per cookie

Calories: 68

Fat: 0.3g

Sat Fat: 0.1g

Protein: 1.6g

Fibre: 1.7g

Carbs: 15.8g

Sugars: 5.5g

Sodium: 41mg

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