Maple ♥ Spice

Grilled Mediterranean Couscous Wrap with Balsamic Glaze

2012-02-02T10:48:00.000Z

♥ Couscous, Avocado, Black Olives, Cherry Tomatoes, Red Pepper, Spring Onion, Fresh Basil and Toasted Pine Nuts with a side of Balsamic Glaze ♥

So, if you follow my new food diary blog you'll know I've been having this for lunch for a few days now. It's a variation on the Couscous Houmous Salad Wrap which is one of our absolute favourite wraps and this one is now right up there with it! Everything just goes so beautifully together and that balsamic glaze is essential, you can add the glaze inside the wrap if you prefer, I liked to dip into it as you have more control over how much sauce you use.

I've used a flavoured "Mediterranean Herb" wrap here which goes perfectly, if you can find something similar, like a pesto flavoured wrap, do use it as it's perfect for this. Obviously, "check vegan" ;-) Like the other wrap you don't have to grill this one and if you put the glaze inside the wrap it then packs really well if you are out and about.

Sorry for the lack of quantities here but you really don't need it, for the tomato mixture just make sure you have an even amount of tomato, pepper, olives, spring onion and pine nuts. I use about half a large avocado per wrap and about 3 - 4 Tbsp of couscous per wrap.

Grilled Mediterranean Couscous Wrap with Balsamic Glaze:

Mediterranean Herb or Pesto Flavoured large wraps

Avocado,

Smoked Sea Salt - or regular, or garlic salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Cooked Couscous - cook in stock, I use Kallo Organic Tomato and Herb stock cube

Cherry Tomatoes, quartered

Red Pepper, diced

Black Olives, sliced

Spring Onion, chopped

Pine Nuts, toasted

Fresh Basil Leaves

Balsamic Glaze

For the couscous I like to pre-make a large quantity beforehand so that it's cooled and I'll have extra in the fridge to whip this up quickly. I measure out 125g of dry couscous into a large shallow bowl, bring 250ml of water and half a Kallo Organic Tomato and Herb Stock Cube to the boil, make sure the cube is dissolved. Pour this over the couscous, stir, then quickly cover with cling film and let sit for 5 minutes. Uncover then fluff up with a fork. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool, make sure you fluff it now and again so it doesn't clump together.

Toss together the tomatoes, olives, peppers, spring onion and toasted pine nuts in a small bowl. Heat a wrap gently just so it is more pliable. Mash half a large avocado with a pinch of smoked sea salt or alternative as mentioned and some black pepper. Spread the avocado mash down the centre of the wrap then top with the cooked couscous, about 2 - 3 tablespoons then spoon the veg mixture down the side:

Top with lots of fresh basil leaves:

Then fold the ends over then roll up tightly, making sure it all stays inside! Now place on a very hot grill pan and gently press down until grilled on both sides. Remove, slice on the diagonal with a serrated knife and serve with a balsamic glaze.

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 wrap, approximately - will depend on brand of wrap used.

Calories: 368

Protein: 7.8g

Fat: 15.2g

Sat Fat: 3.4g

Fibre: 6.6g

Carbs: 49.7g

Sugar: 2.8g

Sodium: 675mg

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Pan Fried Chive Gnocchi with Sun-Dried Tomato Coulis

2012-01-27T14:26:00.000Z

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Oh my this was good, and it would make a great Valentine's meal, especially with some homemade Garlic Bread ;-) Or any day of the week as it's been kid approved too - my son loved this and he's never liked store bought gnocchi, so yay for homemade!

I do love gnocchi and you can buy vegan ready made gnocchi in the shops, at least I was able to in London when we lived there and here in Ireland Super-Value's own label gnocchi does just happen to be vegan. But I've always wanted to make my own and was inspired here from watching Catherine Fulvio make this Spinach Gnocchi on her fab cooking show awhile back.

Not only did she make it look so easy but I loved the idea of adding chopped spinach to the dough and I really loved the way she just cut them into rustic diagonal shapes as opposed to the traditional forked orbs you usually see. It might just be me, but as much as I love gnocchi that look and shape always made me think of bugs and it put me off slightly! I think this is a much more pleasing shape and look :-)

As you can see I opted for chives instead of spinach here, I love spinach but chives and potato are just such a classic combination. The further step of pan frying was just a thought I had, I think I must be missing pierogi's (common in British Columbia) because I was craving that slightly crisp buttery outer layer you get when you fry them in butter after boiling. Delicious!

I debated for a long time what kind of sauce to serve this with, I already have some great sauces on here that I thought of using like the Creamy Tomato Sauce or the Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Sauce would both be great but not one to pass up an opportunity to create a new sauce, made this one up. It does go really well with the chive gnocchi with rich tomato and subtle sun-dried tomato flavours and I love the smoothness of it.

A good tip here is to make the sauce in advance, either the day before or earlier in the day then it simply needs heating up once you fry the gnocchi. If the sauce has thickened up too much just add some water, it has so much flavour in it it can take it!

Pan Fried Chive Gnocchi with Sun-Dried Tomato Coulis - serves 4

600g potatoes, about 4 large, I used regular white mashing potatoes here of uniform size.

150g '00' pasta flour or 1 1/4 cups

1 Tbsp potato starch

1 Tbsp water

1/8 tsp salt or more to taste

freshly ground black pepper

10g or 1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped

~ vegan butter to fry ~

Place the potatoes, whole and unpeeled into a large pot and cover with cold water, bring to the boil and cook until the centres are tender, I tested with a knife, this took about 30 minutes but will depend on the size of your potatoes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Drain and then peel the potatoes while hot. This is easiest done with a fork to hold them and a knife, unless you have unfeeling callous prone hands! The skins should just fall off.

Place the potatoes into a oven safe dish and just break them up a bit, cover the dish with foil and place in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. I have added this step to Catherine's recipe as it's recommended by Giorgio Locatelli in his gnocchi recipe to help dry out the potato. It's also good to finish off cooking the centres of the potatoes if they are not quite cooked after boiling.

Remove the dish and foil and mash really well. The Giorgio Locatelli recipe said to push the potato through a sieve but I know from experience this takes a long time and arms of steel. Thankfully Catherine's recipe didn't say to do this so I was happy to omit it.

Measure out 500g of the potato and place in a large bowl (I cook 600g to make sure I end up with 500g as you will lose some while cooking and mashing.) Mix together the potato starch and water (this will replace the egg as a binder in the recipe) and add it to the potato with 100g of the flour (about 3/4 cups) or enough to make a dough . Mix well then add the salt, pepper and chives. Taste and season as you see fit and transfer to a flour dusted surface (using some of the remaining flour.)

Knead the dough adding more of the remaining flour until you have a pliable dough, you will most likely need all of the flour stated. Divide this dough into 4 equal pieces:

Using your fingertips roll each piece out to a rope about 2" thick (sorry, didn't get a picture at this stage!) Then cut the rope into about 2" size diagonal pieces and keep on a floured surface, don't let them touch each other too so they don't stick.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and drop the gnocchi in, give it a stir then let them boil for about 3 minutes or until they float to the top. Remove with a slotted spoon and either place in a pot with sauce and stir to coat OR get a non-stick frying pan hot then add some vegan butter, when it melts add the gnocchi and fry, tossing the gnocchi about by shaking the pan until they are golden and crisp on both sides. Note: if you don't use a non-stick pan and grease it these will stick!

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Sun-Dried Tomato Coulis

400g passata ( 1 3/4 cups) this is sieved tomato sauce

3 Tbsp or 60g sun- dried tomato puree

60g shallots, chopped (1/2 cup)

1 Tbsp chopped garlic, about 2 large cloves

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

Gently fry the shallots and garlic in the olive oil with a few grinds of black pepper until the shallots are soft and the garlic is fragrant. Add the passata and sun-dried tomato puree, stir, then simmer on a low heat with the lid on for about 10 - 15 minutes. Let cool slightly then scrape it all into a blender and blitz until super smooth, transfer back to the pot and either use right away or let cool to reheat later.

Notes: First, the sun-dried tomato puree I use comes in a tube, it's by Epicure and has salt, chilli, oregano, capers, garlic and oil added. Second, the passata I use also has salt added, because of both these I haven't added any salt here as it didn't need any more. Depending on your brand of passata or puree you made need to add salt, just go by taste.

To serve, spoon some of the Sun-Dried Tomato Coulis onto a plate and place the gnocchi over top, scatter with fresh chives and serve. We found this a satisfying meal on it's own but my Garlic Bread would be a lovely side to this, especially to mop up some of that delicious leftover sauce!

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving out of 4, fried gnocchi and sauce.

Calories: 380

Protein: 9.6g

Fat: 12.1g

Sat Fat: 1.3g

Fibre: 4.7g

Carbs: 60.7g

Sugar: 7.4g

Sodium: 413mg

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Cumin Roasted Sweet Potato and Black Bean Wrap with a Chilli Lime Yogurt Dressing

2012-01-24T09:38:00.000Z

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So I don't think I mentioned it but I got a lot of great foody gifts for Christmas this year. People know me so well ;-) I got Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible Cookbook, which I can't wait to delve into, The Flavour Thesauraus which is very interesting, a spice grinder, the waffle maker of course and "Plate to Pixel" a book on food photography by Helen Dujardin who blogs at Tartelette. It has fantastic tips in there that I am already utilizing and I will hopefully get my photos as best I can with a point and shoot camera. Oh DSLR one day you will be mine!

As well as being a great reference book there are a few recipes in it to accompany the photos and one of them was a sweet potato and black bean wrap. Of course being a book on food photography it just looked stunning and as I had a huge bag of sweet potatoes to make my way through I instantly set about veganizing and making it my own.

This was so delicious and satisfying, I absolutely loved the cumin roasted sweet potato in there with the black beans - which might just be my new favourite bean (watch out Mr. Flageolet!) They both went beautifully with the Chilli Lime Yogurt Dressing which is basically soy yogurt, lime juice and zest and a bit of this spicy inferno chilli sauce by Mic's Chilli - an Irish company, yay!

I just love the bottle - how cute is that label?!?! As you can see, I bought the 'lite' and OMG it is still fierce!! I dare think what the full strength is like, but then again, I'm not the strongest when it comes to spice ;-) This sauce went so well in this as I definitely picked up flavours of cumin in it, it's very 'Mexican' flavoured but as this specific sauce will be hard to find for those outside of Ireland any spicy chilli sauce would do, possibly even Tabasco.

Cumin Roasted Sweet Potato and Black Bean Wrap with a Chilli Lime Yogurt Dressing:

makes 1 wrap

1 small sweet potato, about 100g peeled

1 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp cumin seeds

1/8 tsp salt

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1 spring onion, chopped

40g drained and rinsed black beans, about 1/4 cup

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50g soy yogurt, about 3 Tbsp

lime zest

1/2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli sauce

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1 large wholemeal wrap

Preheat the oven to 200C/ 400F. Peel and dice the sweet potato fairly small, remember this is going in a wrap so you don't want them too big.

Place the sweet potato in a small bowl and toss with the olive oil, cumin seeds and salt. Spread onto a baking tray and roast for 15 minutes, tossing them once. They should be fork tender and some edges turning golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Make your dressing by simply whisking everything together. Cover and chill in the fridge if you have done this beforehand. The soy yogurt does make this fairly runny, using tofutti sour cream would give you a thicker sauce but I'm trying to use ingredients these days that more people can buy, and I'm hoping soy yogurt is more readily available than sour cream. That being said, both will work here.

Take your wrap and heat it gently on a dry non stick frying pan, just until warm as this will make it more pliable to wrap.

Lay it out and place your sweet potato (make sure you add any wayward cumin seeds) down the centre and leave a space at the bottom for wrapping. Lay the beans beside the sweet potato then spoon over some dressing and finally sprinkle over the spring onion.

Fold the end over then roll the wrap up and enjoy! I had mine with some extra dressing near by to spoon over as I ate simply because I love that dressing ;-)

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Nutritional Information: approx based on 1 wrap, will vary depending on brand/size of wrap and how much dressing used.

Calories: 391

Fat: 13.5g

Sat Fat: 3.7g

Fibre: 10.3g

Carbs: 58.1g

Sugar: 5.6g

Protein: 11.2g

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Healthy Wholemeal Waffles with Bananas, Pecans and Maple Syrup

2012-01-19T12:30:00.000Z

♥ Ok, if these don't get you up and going in the morning nothing will! ♥

Well, as you know I got a waffle maker for Christmas and have been loving it, I've been making loads of plain waffles and freezing them, great for my son in the mornings as they can just be popped in the toaster for a quick and yummy breakfast. However, as mentioned at the start of the year I have also been aiming at eating healthier this year, mostly with less sugar but also really cutting back on the white flour and white sugar.

So I thought I would have a go at making my standard waffle recipe healthier and it turned out fantastic. These contain all wholemeal or whole wheat flour, are sweetened only with maple syrup (in the batter as well) and I have replaced the vegetable oil with extra virgin coconut oil. I'm sure there are healthy fat free waffle recipes out there but I'm not part of the fat free brigade, although that's probably a blog post on it's own so I'll leave it at that!

The waffles are delicious. They are sweet enough and although I thought the wholemeal flour would be weird here it's not at all. They don't taste of coconut either from the oil but simply have a wonderful flavour and texture. To up the nutrition I always serve these ones with slices of banana and some chopped pecans or walnuts and a minimum amount of maple syrup on top, less than you see in the picture here - more poured out while I was trying to get that classic "syrup pouring over top of waffles action shot" ;-)

Healthy Wholemeal Waffles: makes 4 rounds from a 6" waffle maker

280g wholemeal or wholewheat flour, that's 2 cups

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

300ml dairy free milk, I used soy here

2 Tbsp maple syrup

2 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil, in solid state

1 tsp vanilla extract

120ml sparkling water

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside. In a small saucepan add the milk and coconut oil and heat gently together until the coconut oil just melts then stir in the maple syrup and vanilla extract and remove from heat. Pour this and the sparkling water over the dry ingredients and whisk until it all just comes together. Do not over mix, little lumps are ok - overmixing will yield tough, rubbery waffles.

Using a scoop pour onto your pre-heated and lightly greased waffle iron and cook according to your waffle makers instructions. The batter here is quite thick so don't be worried you've done something wrong. Once cooked remove and then you can spread them with a little vegan margarine or solid coconut oil, top with slices of banana, chopped toasted pecans or walnuts and a drizzle of maple syrup and you'll be more than set up for the day!

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Nutritional Information: based on a serving of half a round, just waffles.

Calories: 219

Fat: 8.2g

Sat Fat: 6.1g

Fibre: 4.4g

Protein: 5.3g

Carbs: 32.8g

Sugar: 7.4g

Sodium: 301mg

Calcium: 180mg - depending on brand of milk used, mine is fortified.

Greek Style Orzo, Spinach and Almond Feta Bake

2012-01-15T10:19:00.001Z

Well, I couldn't go far into 2012 without a recipe featuring the blessed almond feta could I? :-) This was a complete experiment but turned out so well and is a MUCH quicker and easier way of using the almond feta - no straining and no cheesecloth - you can use it immediately so it doesn't take days to make, just the same amount of time as any pasta dish would. After blitzing all the feta ingredients in the blender you just mix it with cooked orzo and spinach, also some fresh oregano and spring onion, spread it into a buttered casserole dish and bake it, skipping the straining step altogether. Brilliant.

The end result is something that tastes remarkably like spanakopita but with orzo instead of phillo and I almost called this an Orzo and Spinach Quiche as you slice the end result, it's not a saucy pasta dish, more like one of those pasta quiches, sans pastry ;-) Whatever you want to call it it's absolutely delicious and so super easy to make. You get pretty conservative servings out of this, mostly as it's rich and although the almond feta is pretty healthy it's also pretty calorific, so I cut 6 servings out of my 8" square baking dish. That being said both my husband and I were full and satisfied after this.

To balance the richness I served this with a simple fresh side salad, just crisp lettuce and tomatoes with this amazing mustard dill vinaigrette we've been loving lately. It's quite sharp - that's how I like it and goes absolutely perfectly with the pasta dish.

** Update - this recipe is proving to be very versatile, read the comments to see changes others have made. I just made this again swapping the spinach with grated zucchini and the oregano with lots of fresh basil and it was just as good! I added the raw grated zucchini and basil to the cooked orzo and poured the sauce over then baked as per instructions. A delicious variation, somewhat light and "summery" :-) **

Greek Style Orzo, Spinach and Almond Feta Bake - serves 6

200g or 1 cup orzo, dry weight

200g chopped fresh spinach

4 spring onions, chopped

1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano

1 recipe Almond Feta:

150g ground almonds or 1 1/2 cups

60ml lemon juice or 1/4 cup

125ml water or 1/2 cup

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Get a large pot of salted water on the boil for the orzo and cook according to package instructions. Mine said to boil for 17 minutes and I cooked mine for 15, it was just al dente which is perfect as it'll get another cooking in the oven. Good thing about orzo is it seems to be pretty difficult to overcook ;-) When there is just a couple minutes left add the spinach and cook until it just wilts, it'll only take a minute if that. Drain it all together.

While it's cooking make the almond feta by simply placing everything in a blender and blitzing until super smooth.

Tip the orzo and spinach back into the pot and pour over the almond feta, add the chopped spring onions and fresh oregano and stir well. I added a splash more water here to make sure everything was coated and creamy, actually I added some water to the blender and turned it on to make sure I got all the feta stuck to the sides of the blender ;-)

Vegan butter up a casserole dish, any size that will look like the pasta will fit in will do, I used an 8" square dish. Sorry I got no photos of this, it's too dark at dinner time to take photos this time of year - you're seeing the leftovers for lunch here! Spoon the pasta into the dish, level off the top and pop into the preheated oven and bake for about 30 minutes. It won't really change colour but the top will look dryer and it will be 'set', crucially what happens when you bake it is that graininess the almond feta has when first made goes away when baking, otherwise I would say just eat it without baking!

Slice into 6 servings, or less - up to you, but we found this a satisfying serving with the salad and I do highly recommend the mustard dill vinaigrette here, the sharpness and flavours of dill and mustard go so well together.

Mustard-Dill Vinaigrette:

2 1/2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1/2 Tbsp dijon mustard

1/4 tsp salt

couple grinds black pepper

chopped fresh dill or 1 tsp dried dill

Measure the olive oil into a small bowl then slowly add the vinegar whisking all the while until the mixture is emulsified. Add the dijon, salt and pepper and whisk until thick-ish and creamy, there should be no specks of dijon left. Whisk in the dill.

I opted for simple fresh lettuce here, you want something really crisp, romaine and butterhead would be a nice combination, add some chopped tomatoes and spoon over some dressing. The rest will keep in the fridge for about a week.

Source: Dressing based on Tea and Cookies Blog's brilliant ratio advice.

Nutritional Information - Orzo bake only, 1 slice out of 6

Calories: 341

Protein: 10.5g

Fat: 19.7g

Sat Fat: 2g

Fibre: 4.7g

Carbs: 33g

Sugars: 2g

Sodium: 519mg

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Spiced Quinoa and Sweet Potato Cakes with Lemon Mint Yogurt and Black Bean Salad

2012-01-10T13:41:00.000Z

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These turned out so well and made such a lovely healthy meal with the salad and sauce, some lightly steamed broccoli or asparagus on the side would be a nice addition too. I rarely cook with quinoa, in fact I think this is only my second post using it, but have to say a cake or patty is a great way to use it. I also don't normally have sweet potato about, buying it only at Thanksgiving for some reason but found myself with a large bag of sweet potatoes recently and thinking what to do with them.

Everyone seems to love sweet potato and black beans together and we have been having some really nice spicy sweet potato, black bean and kale stews lately but I wanted to try something else and came up with this. The cakes are quite simple and just spices, onion, sweet potato and quinoa, I was going to add the black beans to them but thought a simple black bean salad on the side would be nicer. I'm glad I did as I absolutely love that salad and will be making it again on it's own, another great addition to the salad repertoire!

The sauce is simply soy yogurt, lemon juice and zest and fresh mint and goes perfectly with the spiced cakes. The idea though was that it would be a coolant to what was supposed to be a spicy cake but in the end mine were quite mild. Next time I would double the amount of chilli flakes and cayenne but I will post the original recipe here as they were still delicious without the heat and you can adjust to your own tastes.

Spiced Quinoa and Sweet Potato Cakes - makes 4 large cakes

100g quinoa, dry weight

500ml water

1 stock cube, I used Kallo Organic Vegetable

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1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and grated - I had 200g once grated

1 large onion, diced fine - about 150g

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp red chilli flakes

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/8 tsp salt

fresh parsley, chopped

Rinse the quinoa really well and bring 500ml of water and the stock cube to a boil. Add the quinoa, stir, cover and reduce to a simmer for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the stock is almost all absorbed, you don't actually want to cook the quinoa 'properly' here, it's essential it's slightly overcooked and dare I say, mushy? Reason being it's this mushiness that helps the cakes bind, the second time I made this I did cook the quinoa properly, so that it was fluffy with separated grains and the cakes did NOT hold together like they did this time, bit of a nightmare flipping ;-)

Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes then stir with a fork. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool, give it a stir now and again so it doesn't stick together.

Wash and peel the sweet potato then grate. I used a food processor with the grating attachment but you can do this with a hand grater. I then swapped the grater attachment for the blade and pulsed the sweet potato a few times just to chop up the strands, it makes it easier to make the cakes later if they are not so long, again, you can do this by hand with a knife. Finely chop the onion, mince the garlic and measure out your spices.

Heat the olive oil in a large wok and add the sweet potato and onion, fry over medium to low heat until the onions are soft and transparent and the sweet potato is soft and cooked, they should also change colour to a softer yellow, about 10 minutes. When they are cooked add the garlic and spices and fry gently for 2 minutes. If you find the mixture dry and you have some spices cooked on the wok, add a splash of water to deglaze.

Add this to the quinoa with some chopped fresh parsley and give it good stir, the mixture should be thick but fairly wet, something you won't think you can make patties with but it's ok, we're doing the bake then fry method here ;-)

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Fill a 1/2 cup measure with the mixture, patting down slightly then invert onto the baking sheet. Using a fork gently press down on the mound to make a 1" thick large patty. Repeat with the remaining mixture, you should get 4 large cakes out of this. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, remove and carefully flip over, they will still be soft at this stage but you should be able to flip them, albeit carefully. Bake for another 15 minutes for the other side.

**Note, this is the same bake and fry method I have used for the Gardenburger recipe and there are step by step photos in that post for it. I also used the same method for the Curried Carrot, Zucchini and Almond Feta Fritters. It's a great method to get egg-less burgers to hold their shape and be fried :-)**

Now that they can hold their shape you can fry them, of course you can eat them now but they both taste and look better fried. Heat 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and simply fry on both sides until crisp and golden. They are already hot and cooked, you just want to crisp up the outside.

That's it! We loved these with the lemon mint yogurt sauce and the black bean salad but I also had a leftover cake, gently reheated on a dry non stick pan, sliced in half and placed in a wholewheat pitta with the yogurt sauce and baby spinach and rocket - delicious!! (They would be nice in a wrap too but would be too soft for a burger bun.)

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Black Bean Salad - serves 2 or 3

150g cooked black beans, I used 1/2 tin drained and rinsed
1/2 onion, diced fine
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 whole clove
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
little lemon zest
freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl add the olive oil then slowly add the vinegar, whisking all the while until it is emulsified, add the lemon juice and whisk well, then add the salt and zest and mix well.

In a frying pan heat up a little olive oil, about 1/2 Tbsp and add the onion, bay leaf, clove and a grinding of black pepper until the onion is soft and transparent. Add the ground cumin and garlic and gently fry for another minute. Remove the bay leaf and whole clove.

Transfer to a bowl and add the black beans, give the dressing another whisk then pour over, toss well then leave to marinade and cool down in the fridge for a couple of hours.

**Edit: I just made this salad again with lime zest and juice instead of the lemon and a shallot instead of onion, all fantastic changes and stuffed the salad into a warm wholewheat pitta with some baby spinach - beautiful!**

Lemon-Mint Yogurt Sauce

130g plain soy yogurt, about 1/2 cup
2 tsp lemon juice
bit of lemon zest
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

Simply whisk all together.

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You know, recipe development isn't always straightforward!

~Click to Enlarge~

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Nutritional Information:

Spiced Quinoa and Sweet Potato Cake - based on 1 cake prior to frying as it will vary depending on how much oil you use.

Calories: 192

Protein: 4.8g

Fat: 5.1g

Sat Fat: 0.7g

Carbs: 30.4g

Sugars: 3.7g

Fibre: 3.8g

Sodium: 478mg (depending on stock cube used)

Calcium: 37.8mg

Black Bean Salad - whole recipe

Calories: 270

Protein: 9.7g

Fat: 14.6g

Sat Fat: 2g

Carbs: 32.1g

Sugars: 3.5g

Fibre: 8.8g

Sodium: 1102mg

Calcium: 81.7mg

Lemon Mint Yogurt - this will pretty much just be the nutritional information on your brand of soy yogurt.

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Back to Basics - Pancakes and Waffles

2012-01-06T13:36:00.000Z

♥ Proper Canadian style thick, light and fluffy pancakes! ♥

♥ Guess what I got for Christmas?? ♥

Now I know I just said in my last post that I was going to be focusing on healthy eating, less baking and reducing my white flour and sugar this year and I assure you I haven't failed already! My standard pancake recipe is something I have been meaning to blog for years, we do after all have them once a week and have done so for a few years now. I even based the Carrot Cake Pancake recipe on this one and still didn't manage to blog it!

Well, this Christmas my lovely in-laws got me a waffle maker - something I've wanted for a long time and while there are a lot of vegan waffle recipes out there I just had to try my standard pancake recipe in it first, and guess what? They turned out beautifully! This gave me the perfect opportunity to not only finally blog the pancake recipe but a waffle one as well :-)

Funny thing about my pancake recipe, the waffle maker is a Gordon Ramsay one (yeah, I don't like him either!) and it came with a recipe book and his basic waffle recipe is almost identical to my pancake recipe but with eggs... if I had that recipe blogged already I'd have thought the dude copied me! :-D

A few notes on the recipe, it uses sparkling water to help give lightness and rise by reacting with the baking powder. I always use the sparkling water at room temperature but I'm not sure chilled will make any difference. As for the milk, I've only used soy milk so far with the waffles, I have used both rice and coconut with the pancakes and they both work great but won't be quite as thick and fluffy as when you use soy. I think this is down to the higher protein content in soy milk, almond milk is similarly high in protein and would work too :-)

Pancakes or Waffles - makes 5 seven inch round waffles or 10 small / 15 medium pancakes.

280g plain flour or 2 cups
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
30g caster sugar or 2 Tbsp, can also use granulated
300ml dairy free milk
120ml sparkling water
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk the dry ingredients together. In a pyrex measuring jug mix together the milk, vanilla and oil give it a mix with a fork then pour over the dry ingredients. Now pour the sparkling water over and whisk the whole lot together gently until it all just comes together in a batter. Do not overmix or whisk until it is super smooth, little lumps are ok, over mixing will give you tough rubbery pancakes or waffles. I also like to add the sparkling water last like that so it first reacts with the flour and fizzes up, if you add it to the wet ingredients first I find it already loses some of it's fizz action.

For waffles simply use as per your waffle maker's instructions.

For pancakes I lightly grease non-stick pans and preheat, when hot pour on the batter, I like smaller pancakes and use a 1/3 cup scoop. 1/2 cup scoop will give you slightly bigger pancakes. When they start to bubble on top have a little peek underneath that they are golden brown then flip over. I usually turn the hob down to minumim when I flip to ensure these cook thoroughly, as they are quite thick you do have the risk of golden brown pancakes on both sides but with a raw, doughy centre - not good!

For both waffles or pancakes I always have the oven preheated quite low, 80 - 100C, and keep the cooked ones warm while I make the rest, then we can sit down and eat together :-)

These also freeze beautifully, for waffles just let them cool completely, separate into 4 wedges then place in freezer bags as you can toast them straight from the freezer for yummy instant vegan waffles! Just slather them with your vegan butter of choice and fill those little pockets with lots of maple syrup! We also like to have the pancakes with some raspberry jam, and have had the waffles with some raspberry compote that you see in the picture there, just some defrosted frozen raspberries mixed with some caster sugar - it makes it's own sauce, easy!

♥

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Couscous Houmous Salad Wrap with Chilli Sauce

2012-01-03T13:29:00.000Z

Well, Happy New Year everyone!!! I hope you all had a great Christmas and holidays, we had a nice quiet relaxed one this year. As you can tell I decided to not blog over the holidays and as much as I love blogging, it was lovely! It's nice sometimes to not have to set up a photo shoot every time you eat ;-) Plus I got a nasty cold on Christmas Eve which is still plaguing me, gutted as I seriously have not had a cold in years!

So it's on with the healthy eating! Of course we are always pretty healthy anyway, a wonderful side effect of being vegan, but I am going to make a concerted effort this year to reduce the sugar. This will mean less baking of course which is something I love but we really do need to cut back. So hopefully there will be a bit more healthy savoury dishes this year and maybe even some healthy baking options with wholegrain flour and no white refined sugars :-)

Now, this wrap has become one of our absolute favourites. Whenever we go into Cork we almost always get the Lebanese Houmous Salad Wrap, grilled, from Cafe Gusto. It's absolutely amazing and comes with this incredible chilli sauce which we almost always ask for more of it's so good! I knew pretty quickly I was going to have to try and recreate this wrap and this is my take on it. While it's certainly not spot on, it's pretty damn close and equally as delicious.

The only thing I couldn't even get my head around was the chilli sauce, we contacted them to find out if it can be bought but they make their own. Thankfully I found something really close to it - Blue Dragon's Chilli and Garlic Sauce, it's more garlicky for sure but otherwise really close and really makes this wrap, I wouldn't have it without it. So if you can find that brand do pick it up if you make this, if not any smooth chilli sauce for dipping (i.e - not a lethally hot chilli sauce meant as an ingredient) should do well here.

**Edit - lately I have been omitting the dressing and drizzling the chilli sauce into the wrap and like it even more this way. I also don't always grill it, it's just as good cold and it packs well too! I made a couple of these for when we were out all day, just wrapped it up like normal, with the chilli sauce inside, but didn't cut the wrap open, they were gorgeous and held together really well - no mess whilst eating in the car!**

Couscous Houmous Salad Wrap with Chilli Sauce:

50g couscous, dry weight

vegetable stock, cube or granules, I used Kallo Organic Tomato and Herb

red onion, diced

tomato, diced

red pepper, diced - optional, I always add this now but didn't initially.

lettuce

houmous, store bought or homemade

large wraps, any flavour, these are half white/wheat. Pitta bread would be nice too!

Dressing: (optional)

1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

♥

Blue Dragon's Chilli and Garlic Sauce, or similar

The wrap takes a little forward planning as you need to make the couscous first and let it cool to room temperature. The quantity here makes more than you need but it's nice to have leftover extra cooked couscous in the fridge so you can whip up this wrap quickly!

First dissolve the stock cube or granules in the amount of water stated on the brand you like, I used Kallo organic tomato and herb stock cube here and dissolved it in 500ml of hot water. Measure out 100ml of this and place in a pot and bring to the boil. Measure out the couscous in a shallow wide dish and pour over the boiling stock, stir and quickly cover the dish with cling film and leave for 5 minutes to absorb the stock. Fluff with a fork then scrape into a bowl to let cool. Keep fluffing it now and again so it doesn't clump together.

Now make the simple dressing, measure the olive oil into a small bowl then slowly whisk in the vinegar until emulsified, add salt and pepper to taste. You can also add a tiny pinch of sugar if it's too vinegary for you. You could also use any store bought dressing you like as long as it's a vinegrette or you can even omit it all together here. Again, this makes more dressing than you'll need but it's nice to have more in the fridge.

Take a wrap and quickly warm it on a dry hot frying pan, this will make it more pliable to wrap. Place on a flat surface and add about 2 Tbsp or 30g of houmous, spread it out along the centre of the wrap. Spoon some couscous over the houmous, again about 2 Tbsp or 40g. Top this with the diced tomato and red onion then a small drizzle of the dressing, just a couple small teaspoons will do. Top with lettuce now and wrap it up by first folding in the sides then rolling it up as tightly as you can. It's good to eat now but we love it toasted, to do this get a grill pan really hot and place it first seam side down and give it a gentle press, when it has grill lines flip it over and do the same on the other side. It's important that the pan is really hot here as you just want to quickly grill this, any longer and you'll end up with hot wilted lettuce, not a good thing!

Remove, slice with a serrated knife on the diagonal and serve with about a tablespoon of chilli sauce. Enjoy! Altogether I'm very happy with this re-creation and I'm even glad it's not exactly the same as I do love going into Cafe Gusto every weekend and will continue to do so, as well as having this version a LOT! :-D

Nutritional Information - approximately, depends on houmous and wraps used

based on 1 wrap with 1 Tbsp sauce.

Calories: 373

Protein: 9.2g

Fat: 15.8g

Sat Fat: 3.4g

Fibre: 3.9g

Carbs: 43.7g

Sugar: 5.9g

Sodium: 738 mg

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♥

Merry Christmas Everyone!! (and a festive recipe round up for you)

2011-12-21T10:52:00.000Z

First, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and fabulous New Year, thank you all for following, for commenting and e-mailing me throughout the year. You're the reason I do all this so thank you muchly!!

I realize this post may be a bit late, but I thought I would do a round up of some of our favourite holiday recipes featured on this blog, some of them from years ago. With the exception of the Nuts n Bolts and White Chocolate Cranberry Shortbread posts below I haven't been doing any 'new' recipes this December, instead I've been making our standard holiday favourites, so, here they are!

Holiday Baking Favourites:

Eggnot Knots

Mint Chocolate Thins

Christmas Cookies

Marzipan Mince Pies with Rummed up Vegan Whipped Cream

Egg Nog - Dairy, Egg, Alcohol and Soy Free! (phew!)

Hot Toddy Cupcakes

Snowball Cake Pops

Holiday Favourites from my Danish Heritage:

Vegan Rullepølse

Vegan Aebleskiver

Features from our Christmas Dinner:

Vegan Tourtiere: - we now always use the puy lentil version

...and here are the recipes for all the 'trimmings' we have, sage and onion stuffing, brussel sprouts and petite pois in lemon hazelnut butter and mushroom and onion gravy.

Chocolate Mousse Dome Cake - I made it Grand Marnier flavoured this year and decorated it like a christmas pud :-) I'll post the cake recipe when I finally perfect it!

Once again I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, that's it for me this year, I'm done my holiday baking and have put the tripod away! Looking forward to the New Year and blogging new recipes and experiments then, for now, best wishes for the holidays and thanks again for all your support!

Much love,

Deb

♥

Vegan Nuts 'n Bolts Party Mix

2011-12-12T09:25:00.001Z

Well, here's another one for the vegan ex-pats! I realize those of you not from North America will most likely have no idea what I'm on about here. Nuts 'n Bolts is a snack food back home that I have always seriously loved. I cannot tell you how many boxes of this stuff I went through as a child and as we only seemed to buy them during the Christmas holidays, they are forever connected that way to me.

It's a seasoned mix of pretzel sticks (the bolts) cherrios (the nuts) shreddies (or similar) and back home they had either these weird cheesy squares that were hard OR the last time I had them these light cheesy sticks in them. I couldn't veganize those but thankfully they were always my least favourite in the mix so not missed at all! Oh and yes, it is essential to stick the cherrios onto the pretzels whilst eating these - food and a toy! Win, Win!!

I've been wanting to make my own for awhile now as I know lots of people do. A quick search online will show up LOADS of recipes but the seasoning mix seems to be basically the same: oil, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, celery salt and onion salt. This was pretty darn easy to make vegan, simply use vegan Worcestershire sauce and my only concern in making this was as only ex-pats know: European Cherrios are quite different from North American Cherrios. They are multi-grain here and crucially sweeter which I wasn't sure would work but it's all I had so went ahead anyway...

Thankfully this turned out really good, the Cherrios are sweeter which isn't authentic but in the end I really liked them in there! The seasoning was almost just like the original Nuts 'n Bolts, it reminded me SO much of them and while it is not spot on it is a beautiful homage to them. The most common thing they with the original however is their more-ishness - these are impossible to stop eating!!!

Just don't drink too much whisky and ginger ale with them like I did and start calling them Buts 'n Nolts.... :-)

Nuts 'n Bolts Party Mix:

80g plain Shreddies

50g plain Cherrios

60g pretzle sticks

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce ( I love Biona brand)

1/8 tsp garlic salt

1/8 tsp onion salt

1/8 tsp celery salt

First a note on the seasoning mix there, I only had celery seed and onion powder so used those and added some salt instead and it worked fine. You could use garlic powder as well and adjust the salt yourself. I suggest making half this the first time so you can adjust the seasoning to suit yourself, the recipe is very forgiving and adjustable :-)

If your pretzel sticks are too long as mine were simply snap them into smaller pieces and toss in a bowl with the Cherrios and Shreddies (both of which are labelled as vegan on Nestle's European website, other countries may be different so do check your own).

Preheat the oven to a very low 100C/ 200F. Whisk together the oil, Worcester sauce and salts then pour over the mix and toss very well with your hands until everything is lightly coated. Spread out onto a baking sheet or two and bake for about an hour - give the mix a toss about every 15 minutes. Leave to cool then tip into a serving bowl and serve, great for parties and holiday get-togethers. Makes 1 medium size bowl of mix, double or triple as you need.

♥

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Cranberry White Chocolate Shortbread

2011-12-01T10:13:00.001Z

Yay for December! I've been a little jealous of all the holiday baking, blog posts and talk of Christmas decorations going up but I have one rule: NOTHING in November! Ok, sure, I made those mince pie croissants but otherwise no, it's too early. Well, it's game on now :-) After this blog post I'm getting out the boxes of decorations and going for it. Have I mentioned I love Christmas?

These turned out beautifully. Cranberry and white chocolate is such a nice combination, it's one of my favourites and while I have made cookies before which were nice I haven't had a hand at vegan shortbread and saw these in a recipe so thought I would have a go veganizing it. The cookie itself has a great texture, holds together really well - it doesn't even crumble apart whilst cutting it and is nice and crisp yet melts in your mouth like a shortbread should. As much as I love the cranberries and white chocolate in these I will also try this recipe plain as I think it would make great 'regular' shortbread too.

The flavour is so good as well but I did a little cheat here: butter flavour extract. Even though the vegan margarine I use, Vitalite, has a really buttery flavour I felt shortbread needed a little boost to get it super buttery... and yes, it is actually vegan! You don't want to use much of it though as too much will give your shortbread a rather artificial taste but just a touch of it does give sweet treats that are normally very buttery tasting, well, buttery tasting!

We all have loved these, including the boy who actually came home from school when these were baking and said, "It smells great in here!! I smell white chocolate!" Oh, to be the child of a food blogger :-)

Cranberry White Chocolate Shortbread: makes 8 large wedges or 12 smaller wedges.

120g plain flour - 1 cup minus 2 Tbsp
30g cornstarch - 1/4 cup
1/4 tsp salt
120g vegan butter - 1/2 cup
75g icing sugar - 1/2 cup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp butter extract - optional, can replace with more vanilla or almond
50g dried sweetened cranberries - 1/3 cup chopped
50g vegan white chocolate buttons - 1/3 cup chopped

Line the bottom of a 7" round cake tin with baking paper. You can easily double this recipe as well and line 2 cake tins or one 9 x 13" cake tin. Preheat the oven to 150C (300F).

Mix together the flour, cornstarch and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl beat the butter with the icing sugar and extracts until very creamy. Stir in the flour until all combined then fold in the chopped cranberries and white chocolate.

Spoon it into the prepared pan/s and with well floured hands press the mixture evenly into the prepared tins. Prick all over with a floured fork and bake for between 40 - 50 minutes. My first batch I did 50 minutes but it was a little overcooked, you just want the edges turning lightly golden. My second batch I did 45 and that was just right for my oven.

Let cool in the tin on a wire rack for 30 minutes then remove and slice while warm. I used a serrated knife here as I found it easiest. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm or let cool to warm temperature.

Once fully cool these also pack up really well as they don't fall apart making perfect gifts. I wrapped some up in brown baking paper and tied a ribbon around with a little hand made label.

♥

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Other Blogger's Recipes - Part 2

2011-11-25T10:52:00.001Z

So, this is a continuation of the blog post I did back in May of this year of other blogger's recipes. Something I do not do as often as I should! One is from a blog that is no longer available and the other is from a restaurant's website. Both are amazing and we now have them regularly - well, maybe not the brownies regularly ;-) Honest!!

Super Fudgy Brownies - originally from the (now gone) blog "Not A Rabbit" reposted at "Cooking Vegan Food Up North"

♥ Aaaah, look at that perfect crackly topping!! ♥

♥ RECIPE ♥

I have so many people to thank for this recipe. First, the original author of the blog "Not a Rabbit" - unfortunately I had never seen this blog and it's now gone, sad, because if this brownie recipe is anything to go by it must have been a good one! Second, Fanny at "Cooking Vegan Food Up North" for saving the recipe and reposting it, and third, Julia at "Snarky Vegan" for tweeting about this recipe and providing the link to it.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have this recipe in my life. You may have noticed that despite having over 250 recipes on this blog I don't have a basic brownie recipe. This is down to me searching for the perfect one, I tried so many, and to be fair they were all good. I mean a brownie can't really be bad can it?!? But I really wanted that crackly thin skin topping ALL good brownies should have, as well as a really dense super fudgy texture bursting with full on chocolate flavour. This one ticks all those boxes. So the search is over and this one is so perfect in every way I'm not even gutted I didn't come up with it!! It really is the BEST brownie recipe. EVER!

I hope this is ok but as the original blog is gone I'm also going to post the recipe here because I have converted the one posted at Northern Veg there into grams and ml's for those of us on this side of the Atlantic. I also didn't have vanilla sugar so added some vanilla extract. Just click on the recipe link above to get the original in cups if you prefer.

Super Fudgy Brownies:

150g granulated sugar - must be this type, not caster

60ml vegetable oil

125ml chocolate soya milk

160g dark chocolate

80g plain flour

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Line a 7 or 8 inch square baking tin with baking paper, mine was actually 6 inch, and preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the sugar in a blender and whizz until it's a fine powder and tip into a large bowl. As the original poster states, do not omit this part, it's what gives the brownies their crackly topping. I also thought I would just omit this step and use caster sugar instead but I'm glad I didn't. Granulated sugar blended comes out somewhat in between caster and icing sugar so I'm sure this step is essential, at any rate it's dead simple!

Mix together the flour and sifted cocoa powder and set aside.

Pour the oil, chocolate soya milk and vanilla into the sugar and mix well.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave and quickly whisk into the oil/sugar mixture.

Quickly stir in the flour/cocoa mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon until it all comes together.

Pour/scrape into the prepared tin and bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Mine took 20 minutes in a fan oven.

Leave to fully cool then refrigerate for a couple of hours before cutting. It wasn't explained why this is but I think if you try and cut them whilst warm they might just fall apart. I did as told and they came out perfect, once I cut them though I stored them at room temperature.

Cut into whatever size you like, I got 16 small squares out of this as even though they are small, they are 140 calories per square ;-) SO worth it though!

♥

Slow Roasted Red Peppers with Chickpeas, Smoked Paprika and Fresh Sage by Demuths Vegetarian Restaurant

♥ RECIPE ♥

Demuth's is a Vegetarian restaurant in Bath, England who also have a blog. Sadly despite living in England for 12 years we never got the pleasure to eat there. Thankfully I follow them on twitter and one day they tweeted a link to this recipe on their website. I knew I had to try it right away as it had all my favourite flavours there and just sounded amazing!

This is absolutely delicious, so simple, versatile and now on our regular dinner rotation. Once, I had no cherry tomatoes but had mushrooms so added those instead, it was equally as good. So good in fact I now add both mushrooms and tomatoes on most occasions. They recommended a side with it and I opted for a lemon couscous which I think goes lovely with the flavours in the slow roasted peppers.

What's really nice in this is besides the deeply roasted peppers is that the chickpeas in the peppers stay soft but the ones outside of the peppers get all roasted crispy providing a different taste and texture in the dish. Sometimes I use fresh sage, sometimes dried, like I said, it's very versatile. Their recipe called for sweet paprika but I used smoked as I'm sure most of you who have followed me for awhile it's hands down my favourite spice :-)

♥ Before going in the oven ♥

So there you go, a couple more outstanding recipes found online, mostly thanks to twitter!

I keep looking at these two recipes here thinking, damn, that would make a fine meal, roasted red peppers and couscous and brownies for dessert :-) Being vegan is fantastically tasty!

♥

Perfect Gingerbread from Kake's Vegan Cookery Site

♥ RECIPE ♥

Please excuse the rather boring photo here, I took this last year in a rush and haven't gotten around to taking better photos of this. Regardless, I have been making this gingerbread for years now, ever since we became vegan and it really is perfection. The flavour and spices are spot on and look at that texture! It's absolutely heavenly and fills your kitchen with the most amazing wintry spices. I've served this to many omnivores who have also raved about it. The cream there is my rummed up vegan whipped cream I like to serve with my Marzipan Mince Pies, they go really well together :-)

♥

I was also very honoured to be given a 'Liebster Blog' award by Sophia over at 'What Your Momma Didn't Know' (BEST Blog name EVER!!) :-D Thank you so much!

Here are the rules if you would like to participate:

1. Show your thanks by linking back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Choose 5 of your picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Post the award on your blog.

4. Enjoy the blogger love!

I've decided to use this opportunity to pimp some great Irish Vegan Blogs, here they are!

1. Adventures in Veg

2. All About....Vegan Food

3. Velove Vegan

4. Full Irish Vegan - sadly not sure this is updated anymore :-(

...and I think that's it! If I am missing any Vegan Irish Blogs here, please let me know, would love to connect!

♥

Champagne Celebration Cake with Peach Bellini Buttercream

2011-11-18T10:21:00.001Z

♥ Vanilla Champagne cake with Peach Bellini Buttercream ♥

♥ Mmmm, cake at many angles! ♥

♥ Mini Non-Alcoholic version I made for my son - adult only this cake people! ♥

Yay! I'm back to cake with no ready made ingredients!! I decided to bake up a rather special cake to celebrate us living in our new house 1 year, not that I usually need an excuse ;-) This turned out so well but was a rather glorious mistake.... I came up with this idea whilst on my personal baking holy grail - the perfect vegan white cake. It has eluded me so far despite numerous attempts and nothing online works. I should add here I'm being very picky, I want my vegan white cake to be white, fluffy with a delicate crumb and perfect vanilla flavour. Surely that's not too much to ask is it?

Now, the chocolate cake I always use is perfect. It's the basic wacky cake recipe that's out there and I love it. Chocolaty but also really light and fluffy with a fine crumb. Not a dense, gummy or heavy crumb in sight, which got me thinking it you omit the cocoa powder it should be the same, right? No. I believe this is the version on veg web that others seem to like but it's not for me. Without the cocoa powder we were back to dense, heavy and gummy. I used the veg web version there for my son's cake and he wasn't very happy with it :-(

The wacky cake works by the acid of the vinegar reacting with the alkaline baking soda which was still in the white cake version so I couldn't' figure out why it didn't' work. Turns out that cocoa powder is itself acidic and can't really be omitted. I then looked into replacing the water with sparkling water to help give it a lift. Sparkling water has a slightly more acidity level than regular water but not as much as cocoa powder. I then wondered about Champagne. Turns out it has the same acidity level as cocoa powder. Perfect!! I was convinced this would work, it certainly did on paper.

Well, sadly no. I didn't' get my white, fluffy cake here, but I did get a really moist, flipping delicious cake! I was so obsessed with getting the texture right in this cake that I forgot just how much Champagne was going into it, and believe me, you can taste it! This is a good thing :-) This cake has a really nice and boozy taste to it which went beautifully with the Peach Bellini Buttercream. If I could describe the texture here, it's somewhat like what a cake drizzled with a syrup might be like, a boozy syrup at that, it really is that moist and tastes incredible.

SO, the quest for the perfect vegan white cake continues, but, I have at least found another albeit completely different style cake I love in the process, and that's never a bad thing!

Oh and that buttercream is amazing, I am so glad it turned out as you can't buy peach extract here I debated on how to make it. I would have liked to have used fresh peaches but felt as they are not in season they would just be too watery. The canned worked great as the flavour was more concentrated and made it a bit easier too :-)

Champagne Celebration Cake with Peach Bellini Buttercream:

400g plain flour

300g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

160ml vegetable oil

2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

480ml chilled Champagne, or sparkling wine

♥

1 can peaches in light syrup (standard 400g tin)

100g vegan butter

6 cups or about 840g icing sugar

1 Tbsp Champagne

For the cake, I used a loose bottomed, high sided 6" cake pan. This is probably a unique sized pan and you can just use 2 standard sized cake pans here. Your cake will probably be wider and not as high as mine however. Line the bottoms of the pans with baking paper and grease the sides. Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large bowl whisk together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl whisk together the wet. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk until combined and no lumps remain. Pour into the prepared pan/s and bake, mine took 1 hour as it was all cooked together, if you are cooking 2 pans, check with a toothpick after 1/2 hour, if it comes out doughy keep cooking until it is firm to the touch, golden and the toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for about 15 minutes then remove from the pans onto a wire rack to fully cool.

Peach Bellini Buttercream:

First you want to make a concentrated peach puree. Drain the peaches - you don't have to save the liquid. I used peaches in light syrup here, I'm sure peaches in juice would work as well. Tip them all into a blender and blend until very smooth. Push this mixture through a fine sieve to get it as fine as possible. Now pour this into a saucepan and bring to the heat. You want to simmer this mixture down until it is much thicker and more concentrated. That way it won't make your icing runny, resulting in having to add even more sugar and it will give you a strong peachy taste. Simmer, stirring constantly until it is thick enough that when you move the wooden spoon along the middle of the mixture it stays separated for a brief time before coming together again. In the end you should have 1/2 cup of puree. Pop this into the fridge to fully cool and thicken some more.

In a mixer add the vegan butter and mix until soften, or by hand. Add some of the peach puree and some of the icing sugar and mix until well blended. When it's a bit dry add the Champagne then continue to add the puree and icing sugar until all is added. If it's too wet, add some more icing sugar, too dry, add a bit more Champagne. You want it too be a thick yet spreadable frosting.

Assembly:

If you have cooked just one large cake like I did, carefully slice it in half and separate the halves. Place one half on a cake stand and frost generously with the peach buttercream. Place the other half on top and frost the whole cake, top and sides. The buttercream recipe makes way more than you need for this cake as it's nice to have extra if you would like to pipe designs along the cake. I kept mine simple as I found these super cute Wafer Daisy's by Dr. Oetker - so cute and vegan! Actually they're not just vegan but really not bad for you at all, just rice and potato flour and the colours come from beetroot and turmeric- all natural! Nice.

♥

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Vegan Chicken Noodle Soup

2011-11-18T09:41:00.001Z

♥ Based on Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup ♥

First, I must apologize for posting another 'chicken' post featuring a ready made product - my 3rd this month! My new followers must be thinking, wtf?!? I don't normally post so much with a ready made product but I have recently discovered these and absolutely love them.

More than that though I have been doing a lot of "nostalgia cooking" lately. Like the Crispy Almond Chicken post below this is another dish I had growing up and have missed. It's veganizing dishes like this that I think are the most enjoyable, the ones that bring a smile to your face because they bring back so many memories. My rullepolse post probably was my favourite one to veganize for that reason, it was like every single Christmas brought right back to me :-)

Back in elementary school I used to walk home for lunch almost every day as we lived so close and more often than not I would have a bowl of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. Let's face it, it might not be very healthy but it's a standard. I thought it would veganize well for two reasons:

1. Finding that vegan chicken I like and
2. The vegan stock powder I use is a golden yellow hue like Campbell's due to having some turmeric in it and even though it's not based on a chicken stock I've always found it reminded me of a light chicken stock.

This does of course mean that I have veganized a product you can only buy in North America (Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup) with ingredients I think you can only buy in Europe. Oh well, one for all the vegan ex-pats over here then!!

I opted for Udon Noodles here to replicate the thickness of Campbell's and just broke them up into 4ths to be easier to eat. I chopped the chicken into small pieces while still frozen, it's easy to do and you do want to cook these from frozen so they don't cook to mush. It's all simply cooked in the stock powder which does remind me so much of Campbell's broth and when you cook the chicken in it the chicken flavouring comes out in the broth as well. In the end I stir in a pat of vegan butter just for a bit of richness and to help give the broth a glossy hue.

Altogether this was a beautiful version of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup and even with the highly processed vegan ready made chicken, bags healthier than their version!

Vegan Chicken Noodle Soup - a la Campbell's ;-) - Serves 1

40g Udon Noodles, broken into third's

40g Fry's Chicken Style Strips, frozen, chopped small

1 tsp Marigold Vegan Stock Powder

1 tsp vegan butter, I use Vitalite

400ml water

Note - you can pre boil the udon for 8 -10 minutes in salted water, drain then use as instructed below if you want a softer noodle as Campbell's noodles are very soft. I did this the second time I made it and preferred it this way. I also discovered that it's pretty much impossible to overcook udon!

Bring the water and stock powder to the boil and add the noodles. Cover and simmer for 8 -10 minutes, or according to your package directions. When there is a few minutes left add the chicken and simmer until cooked, it'll only take a few minutes. At the very end stir in the butter until melted. Serve immediately with some fresh bread and vegan butter, perfect on a cold wintry day.

♥

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Crispy Fried Almond 'Chicken' with Gravy (Soo Guy)

2011-11-15T12:17:00.001Z

♥ Crispy fried breaded 'chicken' with a soy sauce gravy and toasted almonds ♥

You know what's winning? Having a massive craving for this crispy almond chicken you used to get from your local Chinese takeaway in Canada ages ago and instantly veganizing it to perfection. Word. I simply cannot get over how perfect this turned out, it really is just as I remembered! I really have no idea what made me think of this dish I used to love so much, but I did, and had to make it then and there.

So I had a search online and discovered that it's actually quite a uniquely Canadian-Chinese dish. Sometimes just called 'Crispy Almond Chicken' or 'Soo Guy' it is usually a chicken breast, either breaded or battered, fried and served sliced on a bed of shredded lettuce with a brown gravy and toasted almonds. Back home when we would order Chinese this was always what I looked forward to the most. So much so that my mom used to have to buy two because despite ordering a large selection of food I would pretty much eat just the crispy fried almond chicken. Yeah...she's surprised I'm now vegan too.

Despite there not really being a lot of recipes out there for this I got the general idea: fried breaded chicken, gravy - probably soy sauce based, lettuce and toasted almonds. As I mentioned in the Vegan Chicken, Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Sausage Roll post I have finally found ready made vegan chicken I love - Fry's chicken strips and thought to base this on those. Similarly to the rolls I first lightly boiled the frozen chicken to defrost, soften and to make a chicken stock which I then used to make the gravy.

As for the breading part - this I am most excited about. I have been struggling to get breaded items to have a really crispy coating that does not fall apart whilst frying without eggs. For these I tossed the lightly boiled chicken strips in cornflour, then my homemade 'egg' mixture of cornflour, baking powder, xanthan gum, water and vegetable oil then into the breadcrumbs. Once fried these came out perfect! Thick, super crispy breadcrumb coating that does not fall apart. I really can't wait to try this with other foods too.

Without the gravy - look how crispy!!

Altogether this was such a win. I cannot convey to you how much this reminded me of that dish I used to love so much. The best part is having that gravy soak into the crispy breaded coating - heaven!

Crispy Fried Almond Chicken with Gravy (Soo Guy) - serves 2 as a side

50g Fry's chicken style strips, or similar, frozen
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1 Tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp vegetable oil
50 ml water
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25g breadcrumbs, I like to use freshly made from stale bread here, or panko.
2 Tbsp chopped almonds
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extra cornflour to coat
shredded lettuce to serve
vegetable oil to fry

Sauce:
2 Tbsp cornflour
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp vegan butter
4 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 cups water

First toast the chopped almonds in a wok until lightly golden and fragrant. Set aside and give the wok a wipe with a dry towel as you'll be using it to fry later.

In a small saucepan bring the 1 1/2 cups of water for the sauce to the boil. Add the frozen chicken strips and lightly boil with the lid on for 3 minutes. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon or a couple of forks and drain on a clean kitchen towel. Do not dump the water! Add the vegan butter and soy sauce to the chicken stock and heat until the butter melts then turn off the heat. In another saucepan mix the cornstarch with 3 Tbsp water until smooth then slowly add the chicken soy stock until all is added. Heat and stir until thick and glossy. Check seasoning, turn off heat and set aside.

In a small bowl add the cornflour, baking powder and xanthan gum and whisk. Add the water and vegetable oil and whisk really well until it is smooth and really thick. Toss the drained chicken strips into some more cornflour, then coat them in the batter then into the breadcrumbs. It's easiest to have one hand for the batter and the other hand for the breadcrumbs here. Keep going until all the strips are coated and place them on a plate ready to fry.

Heat about an inch or two of vegetable oil in the wok you used to toast the almonds until it is very hot. Gently place the breaded chicken into the oil and fry until crisp and golden on both sides. Remove and drain on paper towels. Repeat until all the chicken is fried.

Reheat the gravy and give it a whisk- if it has thickened too much, you can also add a bit more water. Place some shredded lettuce on a plate, top with the fried chicken then spoon over the gravy generously. Sprinkle over the toasted almonds and serve immediately. These are nice on their own, with a bowl of rice or as part of a larger Chinese style buffet.

The only photo I got of them cut open, too busy eating!!

♥

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Marzipan Mince Pie Croissants

2011-11-13T09:20:00.001Z

♥ Marzipan and Mince filled croissants with a drizzle of Almond Icing ♥

So, basically I've been having a mince pie craving lately but felt it was a little early to dig out the mince pie tart pan. Enter the mince pie croissant. These are so amazingly delicious I'm not sure I'll go back to the traditional mince pie :-) They are also a great example that there are vegan ready made ingredients out there, and no we don't have to make everything from scratch! The tube of croissant dough, mince pie filling and marzipan are all ready made and all vegan making these dead simple to whip up.

I've made these with Jus-Rol brand croissant tubes which just happen to be vegan. Back when we lived in London I used to buy the Aldi brand ones which were also vegan but they stopped making them. I cannot tell you how happy I was to discover the Jus-Rol ones were vegan. They make fantastic croissants, although, me being me I've never made them plain! I always either fill them with chocolate for a Pain au Chocolate or my personal favourite, Frangipane. I'm very happy to add these to the list.

The addition of marzipan is simply a personal favourite of mine as I make my regular mince pie's that way but is easily omittable if it's not your thing. Make sure you roll out it very thin and don't line the entire triangle with marzipan, a simple strip will do. These are very rich, in a good way, and make for a fine, sweet breakfast. Next time I may try slicing the triangles in half again to make smaller croissants for afternoon coffee. Either way they are so flipping good!

Marzipan Mince Pie Croissants:

1 tube Jus-Rol Croissant dough

1 jar of mince pie filling, you'll need about half

marzipan

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100g icing sugar

1 Tbsp dairy free milk

1/4 tsp almond extract

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flaked almonds

icing sugar to dust

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Unroll the croissant dough and cut out the triangles where perforated. Very thinly roll out the marzipan and lay a strip down each triangle. Spoon in some mince pie filling, about 1-2 tsp, be careful not to overfill these. Roll up the dough starting from the wide end and place on the baking sheet.

If you are adding flaked almonds, mix up cornstarch with a little cold water to make a 'glue' add enough water to just make it brush-able. Brush this on top of each croissant then add some flaked almonds making sure they stick.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 - 15 minutes, turn the pan if need be if they are not evenly browning. Due to the mince pie filling in these, give them a little more time than you think they'll need so that the bottoms are not soggy. Remove from the pan and let cool. You can either eat them warm now but if you would like the almond drizzle you'll have to wait for them to fully cool or the icing will melt.

To make the drizzle simply whisk the icing sugar, milk and extract together until you have a thick but pour-able icing and drizzle this back and forth over the croissants. Dust with a little icing sugar and serve, these are absolutely gorgeous with coffee!

Nutritional Information: per croissant

Calories: 375

Protein: 4.6g

Fat: 11.2g

Carbs: 54.3g

Sugar: 29.4g

Fibre: 1g

Sodium: 200mg

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Chilli and Rosemary Socca

2011-11-09T21:32:00.000Z

I introduce you to my new beer snack of choice - socca. We are loving this at the moment, I have been whipping up a plate of these almost every evening lately to have with an ice cold ale as they go perfectly together. No boring nuts or pretzels for us, puh-lease!

So what is socca? I'm sure most of you are asking as such, it's something that's only come into my radar recently, having seen it in a cookbook and a take on this version in the October issue of Irish Food and Wine magazine. Apparently it's French street food, particularly from Nice and despite variations it's basic ingredients are chickpea flour and olive oil. It's like a soft, thin pancake and I've seen images of it thinner than this and thicker, so do what you like. It's also traditionally served warm with lots of black pepper and a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Wikipedia has a nice entry on it, just scroll down to France for the socca version.

I've changed the way I cook mine a few times now and am pleased with this version. Socca, by nature, sticks like mad to the pan. The impression I get in France is that they use very well seasoned copper pans and a wood burning oven, techniques us average home cooks simply cannot recreate. So my primary concern was to get all that yummy socca off the pan and not worry so much about authenticity, after all, I've never even had socca before! So to combat that I now line a baking sheet with baking paper, pour the batter on, thin it out with a pallette knife then bake. The baking paper ensures that all the socca comes off and is so much less stressful. Is it traditional? Probably not, but then again, neither is being vegan and we're cool with that, right? :-)

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White and Dark Chocolate Mocha Hazelnut Layered Mousse

2011-11-02T18:58:00.000Z

♥ Dark Chocolate Kahlua Layer ♥

♥ White Chocolate Frangelico Layer ♥

♥ White and Dark Chocolate Mocha Hazelnut Layer ♥

Well, you all know I love my mousse! This was really a test as I have made mousse many times to layer within cakes and have made it on it's own in parfait glasses but I haven't tried a slice-able version. I really wasn't sure if the mousse would be firm enough to slice and hold it's shape once removed from the tin but as you can see it was all a success!

I based this on a recipe I saw for triple chocolate mousse which layered dark, white and milk chocolate. As the milk chocolate layer isn't really veganizable (is that a word??) I opted to mix the dark and white mousse for a contrast in colour for the top layer. This meant that the liqueur that I added to the dark and white had to go together as they would be mixed for the top layer. After much deliberation I settled on Kahlua (coffee) for the dark chocolate and Frangelico (hazelnut) for the white chocolate. This also meant that the white chocolate didn't change colour much as it's quite a pale liqueur. Combined they make a kind of mocha hazlenut top layer and altogether this mousse is sublime!

White Chocolate Mocha Hazelnut Layered Mousse: serves 8

200g dark chocolate, chopped
200ml soya whipping cream, chilled
3 Tbsp icing sugar, sifted after measuring
3 Tbsp Kahlua
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200g vegan white chocolate
200ml soya whipping cream, chilled
3 Tbsp icing sugar, sifted after measuring
3 Tbsp Frangelico

First a warning - this needs a shed load of bowls so get prepared! Now completely line a standard size loaf tin with cling film so that it overhangs all edges. Melt the dark and the white chocolate separately, I did this placing bowls over pots of simmering water but you could also microwave. Once they have melted scrape them into separate bowls to cool down, they will take too long to cool if you leave them in the bowl you melted them in. Keep giving them a stir to help them cool.

Place the whipping cream into 2 large bowls (200ml in each bowl) and whisk in the icing sugar. Now you have to wait until the chocolates are close to room temperature, if you whisk hot or too warm chocolate into the cold soya cream it will seize up. When ready start with the dark chocolate and scrape it slowly into the whipping cream whisking all the time. When it looks all combined then you can slowly start to whisk in the Kahlua a bit at a time then set it aside.

Repeat the same process with the white chocolate and Frangelico but don't worry if this one seems floppier than the dark chocolate, they set the same.

Now take 1/3 of the dark chocolate mousse and place in another bowl (told you it takes a lot of bowls!) and take 1/3 of the white chocolate mousse and add that and whisk these together well. Now you should have equal bowls of dark chocolate, white chocolate and mixed mousse. Being precise as I am I weighed the mousse to figure out exactly 1/3, but you could just eyeball it of course!

Spoon the dark chocolate mousse into the loaf tin and level off as best you can. Top with the white chocolate mousse then the mixed mousse levelling off each layer. Now place it in the fridge to fully set, best to leave it overnight but 5 hours should do it.

To remove, carefully lift the whole mousse out of the tin, it helps to have someone else around to pull the tin down while you lift up. Place the mousse on a chopping board or serving plate. Now, the cling film will be impossible to get off the bottom here so I sliced the film off around the mousse leaving it underneath (no one can see it anyway) then carefully transferred the whole mousse to my serving plate with 2 large spatulas. Of course, you could just spoon these layered into individual parfait glasses too :-)

I opted to decorate this with some shaved dark chocolate on top and made some dark and white chocolate stars just for fun. You simply melt some chocolate and pipe some shapes onto baking paper, chill then lift off the paper and decorate as you wish.

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Vegan Chicken, Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Sausage Rolls

2011-11-01T12:21:00.000Z

Happy World Vegan Day!!!!

So, I made these the other day and I'm not kidding when I say this: they are the best sausage rolls I've ever had!! Simply delicious, and considering it's World Vegan Day I felt a party food post would be most appropriate. Seriously, if you're having a get together tonight whip a plate of these and watch them go ;-)

The idea came from a BBC Good Food recipe for "summer sausage rolls" that contained chicken, bacon, sundried tomatoes and basil. I thought they sounded nice and now that I have finally found vegan chicken style pieces I love - Fry's brand - thought I would veganize them up. I opted to omit the bacon as I didn't want faux meat overload here and the vegan bacon I buy really wouldn't process very well. I added a bit of smoked sea salt instead and also added a spring onion.

Altogether they came out beautifully, these are full of flavour and have a perfect texture. Obviously they will vary in taste and texture depending on your brand of faux chicken but I can say that these, with Fry's, are so, so good. I'll be making these quite often I'm sure, especially for get together's as they make perfect party food. As they are so full of flavour I would advise making them small like this, a full size sausage roll might be a bit much.... that being said, I ate 7 in one sitting - oooops!

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Barmbrack

2011-10-29T18:48:00.000+01:00

Happy Halloween!! Vegan Irish Stylie!! ;-)

So, a slight change from my previous Creepy Halloween Food post from a couple years back ;-)

Barmbrack is a traditional Irish Halloween yeast bread made with raisins and sultanas, slightly sweet and spiced with mixed spice and so very yummy. Traditionally various objects were baked into the brack and used to tell ones fortune: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin and a ring. Since we have moved back to Ireland my husband has been pretty outraged that the barmbrack for sale in the shops have only carried the ring. In his day all the items were there and I got it into my head to not only make one but to make it vegan (of course) and add ALL the items, just for him.

Then I read what the pieces mean if you were to find one:

The Pea - the person would not marry
The Cloth - the person would have bad luck or would be poor
The Coin - the person would have good fortune or be wealthy
The Ring - the person would wed within the year
The Stick - "to beat one's wife with" (would have an unhappy marriage) :-O

Yes, you read that last one right, suddenly it became apparent why the modern ones just go with the ring! Blimey. I also decided that it would be much easier to just shove a ring in there than all the other stuff. So apologies to my husband who was hoping for a proper traditional "Báirín Breac" but I think that stick is best left out of the bread ;-) I was also not very comfortable baking a ring in there so I inserted a very well washed plain old ring of mine deep into the bread after it baked and cooled with a wooden skewer.

Vegan Barmbrack: makes one large loaf

500ml strong black tea
140g sultanas
140g raisins
250ml dairy free milk, I use Kara Coconut Milk
100g vegan butter
520g - 600g plain flour
75g sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp mixed spice
1 package instant yeast

Soak the raisins and sultanas in the tea for at least 1 hour, it can even be left overnight.

In a small saucepan heat the milk and butter until the butter melts. Transfer to a bowl and let cool slightly, if you have a thermometer you want it to be between 120F and 130F. If you don't have a thermometer you want it to be hand hot, if you stick your finger in it's hot but you can leave it in there comfortably.

In a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer add the flour, sugar, salt, spice and yeast and give it a whisk. Pour in the milk/butter mixture then with the dough hook attached knead for 5 - 8 minutes until you have a ball of dough, slightly sticky. Do the same if kneading by hand then transfer to a floured surface.

Drain the fruit well and add to the dough a small amount at a time kneading the fruit in. Continue until all the fruit is added, it may seem like it won't all go in but just keep at it. Meanwhile keep adding more flour when it gets sticky. Once all the fruit is added and you have a nice non-sticky ball of dough transfer to a greased bowl, grease the surface of the dough, cover the bowl with cling film and place in a warm place to double in bulk, about 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Give it a few more kneads, shape into a large flatish ball then place in a greased 8" cake pan. Loosely cover the surface with greased cling film and place in a warm place again for about 1/2 hour until risen slightly again, it should fill out the pan.

Preheat the oven to 200C and pop the bread in. Bake for between 35 - 45 minutes, or until golden brown, risen and it should sound hollow when tapped underneath. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly then insert the ring (if using) with a wooden skewer then slice and serve with vegan butter. It's also beautiful lightly toasted the next day, spread with butter for breakfast with a nice mug of tea. :-)

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Chilli Roasted Butternut Squash with Soba Noodles and a Creamy Miso-Tahini Sauce

2011-10-21T14:53:00.000+01:00

You know what I love about this dish? Besides it being absolutely delicious of course, is that it's one of those dishes only a vegan could come up with... Ok, maybe that's a bit bold of a statement, but: miso, tahini, soba, squash, chilli, mirin....I love that we can and do brazingly use such ingredients together. I'll say it again, my food repertoire has skyrocketed since turning vegan and I love it. Back when I was vegetarian this squash probably would have been with spaghetti and a cream sauce. This dish proves that being forced to think outside the box definitely has it's advantages.

The butternut squash is roasted with olive oil, bit of thyme, salt and lots of chilli, the natural sweetness of the squash comes out here to balance the heat. Another counter to the heat is the sauce: sweet white miso with a touch of sweet mirin balances really well with the chilli squash. Oh and it's amazing too, super creamy and sublime! Then the nutty tahini and soba noodles simply add another taste dimension here and brings it all together.

For a fancy looking dish this was so easy to put together and feels like it has more calories than it does. With all the lovely butternut squash in the shops right now it's a perfect autumn dinner. The garnish of black sesame seeds and chives are entirely optional but do make a really nice touch.

A note about the chilli, I initially used 1 tsp as I've written in the recipe here but that was probably my heat limit here. You might want to use 3/4 tsp if you don't like things too hot, although I am a bit of a heat wimp!

Chilli Roasted Butternut Squash with Soba Noodles and a Creamy Miso-Tahini Sauce: serves 2

1/2 a med/large butternut squash. I used about 380g prepared weight
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1/8 tsp dried thyme
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2 Tbsp sweet white miso
2 Tbsp tahini
1 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
1/2 Tbsp mirin
1/2 clove garlic, pureed
1/8 tsp salt
50 - 100ml water
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100g dry weight soba noodles
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fresh chives
black sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 220C. To prepare the squash, slice it in half lengthways then scoop out any seeds and fibrous parts. Next slice it into 1 " slices. Peel these slices then chop them into chunks, about the size you in the picture there. In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, thyme, salt and chilli flakes. Tip the squash into a roasting tin then pour over the oil. Toss it well until the squash is well coated then pop it in the oven. Roast for about 20 - 30 minutes giving the pan a shake now and again. I also pulled it out and turned each squash about halfway through as shaking wasn't flipping them over. You want them soft and some edges getting nicely charred.

Meanwhile cook the soba noodles according to package instructions. You want them warm here so don't do it too early, they tend to only take about 6-7 minutes to cook.

For the sauce simply add everything but the water to a small saucepan and bring to heat stirring all the while. Add the water, 50 ml first then add more if needed until it is a thick yet pourable sauce. Taste and check seasoning.

When everything is ready simply place the soba noodles onto plates, top with the squash then spoon over the sauce, you probably won't need all of it here so you can leave any extra on the table for family/guests to add more if they like. Garnish with a sprinkling of chopped fresh chives and black sesame seeds and serve warm.

Source: Sauce recipe based on Clearspring's Miso-Tahini Dressing.

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving

Calories: 443

Fat: 16.2g

Sat Fat: 2.2g

Protein: 11.9g

Fibre: 6.1g

Carbs: 67.9g

Sugar: 6.7g

Sodium: 1312mg

Calcium: 114mg

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Cranberry Almond Tea Cake

2011-10-20T10:50:00.000+01:00

♥ Cranberry studded almond infused cake with a simple almond glaze ♥

This was always one of my favourite tea cakes and is on my old vegetarian blog, why it has taken me so long to veganize it I don't know! I kept the veganizing pretty simple here, threw in some cornstarch to help bind and increased the baking powder to help rise, then of course swapped the milk with dairy free and the butter with vegan butter. Simple. It turned out fantastic too, great flavour and lovely texture, light yet moist and no gumminess at all. My original version had chopped almonds on top and the glaze just drizzled on top. I was unable to put nuts on top due to this batter being runnier than the last so opted for a whole covering glaze instead. It was a good call as I like this even better :-)

Cranberry Almond Tea Cake:
260g flour
120g caster sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
175ml dairy free milk
4 Tbsp cornstarch
110g vegan butter, melted
2 tsp natural almond extract
100g sweetened dried cranberries

Glaze:
1/2 cup or 75g icing sugar
1 Tbsp dairy free milk
1/2 tsp natural almond extract

Grease an 8.5" x 4.5" x 2" loaf pan and set aside. Preheat the oven to 190C.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cranberries in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl whisk together the cornstarch and milk until dissolved and no lumps remain. Whisk in the almond extract then slowly whisk in the melted butter until well blended. Pour the liquid over the dry and mix with a rubber spatula in a folding motion until just combined - do not overmix.

Pour into the prepared tin then bake for about 45 minutes or until risen, golden on top and a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with dry crumbs on it. Cool in the tin on a wire rack for 15 minutes then remove to cool completely on the wire rack.

For the glaze simply whisk everything together and spoon over the top of the loaf pushing it out gently over the sides. Make sure the cake is no longer warm when you do this. Allow the glaze to set then slice and serve! Beautiful with tea :-)

*Sigh* Blogging with a Doctor Who mad child running around. THIS is why you never see the "larger picture" with my photos!

♥

Chocolate Frangelico Mousse Gateau

2011-10-11T14:27:00.002+01:00

Light and fluffy chocolate cake, scattering of Frangelico candied hazelnuts and topped with silky smooth Frangelico Chocolate Mousse - heaven!

Oh my this was good! Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile might recognize some aspects of it as it is a variation on the Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake that I made for my son's 8th birthday. I was inspired to do 2 large layers of cake and mousse from BBC Good Food. They had this Chocolate Cherry Mousse cake as their cake of the week and it just looked too good. I love cherry flavours but my husband doesn't so I opted for his favourite flavour of hazelnut using Frangelico. He was away in London at the time and thought it would be a nice 'welcome home cake; ;-) I have made my mousse with Frangelico before with the Chocolate Frangelico Mousse Tart and knew it turns out really nice. For the cake I stuck with my standard chocolate cake recipe, it's just the traditional 'wacky cake' recipe that's out there. It has a fantastic moist yet light and fluffy texture and always turns out well.

The Frangelico candied hazelnuts were entirely my addition and creation and honestly, they make this cake. I have always loved the maple candied pecans from Veganomicon and have used them in many recipes, as well as just to snack on. I wanted to candy some hazelnuts for this cake but didn't want maple flavour here. I started to wonder if you could candy nuts with liquere but was worried there wouldn't be enough sugar in them to candy. Well, there is and they turned out beautiful! Nicely roasted then crisply coated in Frangelico but not too sweet making them a perfect addition between layers of cake and mousse. While eating this cake the best bites definitely had the nuts in them.

As for layering the nuts between the cake and mousse, this was flavour wise the best place for them as it meant you can get all three layers while eating...BUT...they do cause the mousse to seperate from the cake when serving on a plate. If you are making this for guests and are worried about that then just sprinkle the nuts over top instead. Whatever you do, do not omit those nuts! They really do bring this cake together into something very special indeed.

Now the mousse....I have made this mousse many times, in the Double Chocolate Mousse Layer cake, the Chocolate Frangelico Mousse Tart, Chocolate Mousse Dome Cake and many other times when we just wanted mousse for dessert. In all my instructions I always say to wait until the chocolate cools to room temperature before adding to the whipped soy cream or else it will seize up and you will get little flakes of chocolate in your mousse. This happened to me the first time I made this. I got cocky. I thought, "I've made this loads of times and it's never happened....." Yes, because I usually listen to my own instructions!! *Sigh* So please, do I as I say not as I do here and wait. Be patient. The chocolate must be closer in temperature to the whipped cream. I'm glad I didn't dump this and start again though as even though you could see flecks, it did not affect the taste at all, nor could you feel them while eating. I still had a perfect tasting mousse, it just didn't look as smooth as it should have. Oh, and this is proper mousse here - not pudding, it really has that moussy texture!

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Light and Fluffy Pull Apart Rolls

2011-10-04T18:27:00.000+01:00

Rosemary and Smoked Sea Salt

Garlic and Herb

Dilled Cheeze and Onion Pinwheels

Well, as promised here is the pull apart roll recipe from the Puy Lentil Soup post below. These are all absolutely gorgeous and are going in the same blog post here as they are all based on the same basic recipe.

It's such a versatile recipe and the possibilities are endless but these are a few I've made with it so far and loved. Their texture is just stunning, really light and fluffy,such a joy to tear them away from each other! (That sounds awful!) They are really easy too and I've been whipping these up to go with homemade soups and my son loves the garlic and herb ones as a snack after school ;-)

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Puy Lentil Soup with Rosemary Pull Apart Rolls

2011-10-04T10:48:00.000+01:00

Well, I really just whipped up this soup so I had something to go with these stunning rolls, or rather, to stop myself eating a tray of freshly baked fluffy buns! That being said, it turned out really nice and is a soup I will certainly make again. Beautiful roll recipe post coming next ;-) ! *Edit - here it is!*

Puy Lentil Soup:

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 carrots, diced, about 130g

2 shallots diced, about 40g

2 small leeks, sliced, about 100g

2 smallish new potatoes diced, about 150g

4 cloves garlic, pureed

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 litre vegetable stock, I made mine with 1 oxo cube

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 tsp dried thyme

100g dry weight puy lentils, about 1/2 cup

1/2 tsp smoked sea salt, or to taste, can use regular salt

freshly ground black pepper

fresh parsley, chopped - optional

First give the lentils a good wash then place in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and fast boil for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse and set aside.

Add the carrots and potatoes and fry on low heat for 5 minutes, add the garlic with 1 minute remaining and stir well. Add the stock, tomatoes, herbs and lentils stir well, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the veg and lentils are soft. Stir in the smoked sea salt to taste and parsley if using.

♥

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Curried Carrot, Zucchini and Almond Feta Fritters

2011-10-02T15:15:00.000+01:00

With homemade ketchup!

(But I can't share the recipe yet as it needs tweaking, but was still very good)

This recipe is based on one in a quite old vegetarian cookbook I've had for years. I made them once before back when we were vegetarian and absolutely loved them. It's one of those flavour combinations I never would have thought up - curry with feta and poppy seeds?? It's odd but they were so, so good! I haven't' thought about having a go with them again since being vegan as they had egg and feta cheese, but since discovering that almond feta I have been on a quest to veganize them.

It's taken a few go's to be fair but I have finally gotten there. The problem was getting them to hold together and not stick to the pan whilst cooking, which I recall even being an issue with the egg based version. I got around it all but draining the grated carrot and zucchini well so they are not so wet, and crucially, taking the idea from my veganized Gardenburger post, oven baking the fritters first till they dry out and can hold their shape then frying until crisp and golden brown. Worked perfectly, even if that first flip out of the oven can be a little precarious!

Read more, including recipe »

Warm Roasted Butternut Squash and Pecan Salad

2011-09-28T11:16:00.000+01:00

This is such a simple but delicious salad, it's perfect as a main dish salad but a smaller portion would make a fantastic starter if you have guests over. Recipe is based on one I saw in the Irish Food and Wine magazine and I couldn't resist making it as I love roasted squash and pecans. It's lightly spiced with warming cumin seed and ground ginger and slightly sweetened with some maple syrup. I made this after a long day shopping in Cork and it was one of those meals you just relaxed and savoured with a good glass of white wine and some lightly toasted slices of ciabatta. Perfect.... :-)

Warm Roasted Butternut Squash and Pecan Salad: serves 2 as a main

1 small butternut squash, about 300 - 350g before prepping
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cumin seed
12 whole pecans
75g rocket
juice of 1/4 of a lemon
black pepper

Preheat oven to 180C. Slice the squash in half, slice off the top then scoop out the seeds. Slice each half into equal size wedges, I got 6 slices out of each half. In a bowl mix together 1 Tbsp of the olive oil, maple syrup, salt, cumin seeds, ginger and a couple grinds of black pepper. Toss the squash in this then scrape it all into a roasting tin and roast for 25 - 30 minutes or until tender. The original recipe also said to cook until lightly charred and the skins in their photo looked quite black. As you can see mine never got near to that but the flesh was perfectly cooked at that point so I took them out then. Add the pecans with 5 minutes remaining to heat them up.

Remove the squash and pecans to a large bowl. Deglaze the pan with the lemon juice and 1 Tbsp cold water. Pour roasting juices into a bowl then slowly whisk in the other 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Toss the rocket in this dressing with your hands until all leaves are coated then place on a plate. Top with the warm squash and pecans and serve immediately.

♥

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Old-Fashioned Buckwheat Griddle Cakes with Brown Sugar Syrup

2011-09-25T15:47:00.001+01:00

So, although I didn't have to make my own birthday cake this year I did make my own birthday breakfast, but, only because I really wanted to try these. Those of you who buy your buckwheat flour here in Ireland or the UK from Dove's Farm may recognize this recipe as it's on the bag :-) After making the buckwheat crêpes and realizing I love buckwheat these were next on the list. I also had some brown sugar syrup left over from the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Granola and thought, hmmm?

These are different from a standard pancake recipe in that they are yeast risen as opposed to using baking powder or soda. This means they need a little forward planning as the batter needs to sit for an hour but, they are worth it. We really loved these but I gotta say what we loved the most was the brown sugar syrup with them! As a true Canadian I like nothing more but copious amounts of real maple syrup on my regular pancakes but it just did not go as well with these as the brown sugar syrup did. Something about the slightly nutty taste of the buckwheat with that pure brown sugar flavour was really lovely together.

Altogether it was a beautiful birthday breakkie and as I now have to make this brown sugar syrup ALL the time as my son won't eat any other cereal but my oatmeal chocolate chip cookie granola, I will certainly be whipping these up again ;-)

Old-Fashioned Buckwheat Griddle Cakes with Brown Sugar Syrup:

200g buckwheat flour

75g golden caster sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp quick yeast
300ml warm water
1 Tbsp treacle or molasses
50g melted vegan butter

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Measure out the warm water and dissolve the treacle or molasses into it. Stir in to the dry ingredients and leave for 1 hour. It didn't say to leave in a warm place or to cover it but I did, not sure it made any difference though. After an hour stir in the melted butter.

Batter before sitting for 1 hour:

Batter after sitting for 1 hour:

Heat a frying pan and grease with some vegetable oil. Spoon the batter onto the hot pan, I used a 1/4 cup measure for these. I did find this batter quite thin, certainly thinner than my usual basic pancake recipe - just something to keep in mind. When they are golden underneath and bubbling on the surface, carefully flip over and cook the other side. Keep them warm in a low temperature oven until all are cooked.

Brown Sugar Syrup:

500g light muscovado sugar
250ml water

These quantities make quite a lot of syrup, as long as you use half the quantity water to the sugar it will work. I like to make quite a bit as I use it for making the granola as well as for these pancakes. It keeps really well in the fridge, just decant into a nice bottle, easy for pouring.

Simply add the sugar and water to a saucepan and bring to a boil, simmer for 3 - 4 minutes, don't walk away and keep stirring as it can really foam up and over the pan! Remove to another glass container to cool and thicken. It won't seem "syrupy" right away but will thicken up like a syrup as it cools. You could make this while the batter is resting as it would certainly be ready after the hour.

If using from the fridge, you'll want to warm it up, a really handy way to do this is just place the whole bottle in some warm water until heated. Otherwise you can decant some into a smaller jug and microwave briefly.

♥

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Healthier Banana Bread

2011-09-23T18:39:00.000+01:00

Ah, banana bread, I made banana bread a lot when we were vegetarian and I had it a lot growing up omni too. My mom made it quite often and it was always one of my favourites. After all, is there anything better than the smell of banana bread baking?? Since turning vegan however I haven't found the perfect recipe. I tried veganizing my moms and trying others and I find they all taste great but the texture is too dense and not 'banana bread' like. I once again had a glut of really ripe bananas to use and thought I would try something different altogether, a healthier banana bread. After all, nothing else has been working and why not? One thing that always annoyed me about banana bread is how high in calories one simple slice was.

So, I devised this one - it is sweetened only with the minimum amount of maple syrup, barring the optional sprinkle of demerara sugar on top, and the fat has been drastically cut back by only using 2 Tbsp of the much healthier organic coconut oil. I also increased the bananas for sweetness and texture and swapped some of the white flour with wholemeal, in keeping with the healthier tag of course ;-)

I gotta admit I did not have high hopes for this, as anyone who reads this blogs knows - I love my sugar. In fact I un-apologetically love my sugar. And anyone who follows me on twitter will know I was ready to eat this with a bottle of maple syrup at my side. Well, as you can guess as it's being blogged it was bloody fantastic! Out of all the vegan banana breads I have made this one was hands down my favourite, and with about half the calories! Unlike the usual moist bricks I get this one had a really nice texture which I hope comes out in the photos here and it tasted great, just sweet enough although I would consider the demerara sugar topping there essential ;-)

So, there you go, a great tasting fantastic textured banana bread that just happens to be better for you to boot! Win-win!!

Oh yeah, it's also another huge hit with my son who was having a slice at breakfast and a slice after school!

:-)

**Edit - just made this again (as it's my new favourite banana bread recipe) but was out of a few ingredients. So, FYI -It also works really well with melted vegan butter in place of the coconut oil and the brown sugar syrup from my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Granola recipe in place of the maple syrup (I used 80ml instead of 60ml) I was also a little short of the 400g of bananas but it turned out just as good with the same great texture :-) **

Healthier Banana Bread:

140g plain flour

140g wholemeal flour

60ml maple syrup (1/4 cup or 4 Tbsp)

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

75ml rice milk

400g really ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp organic coconut oil, melted

1 tsp vanilla

optional - 1 Tbsp demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C and line the bottom of a loaf tin with baking paper, spray the sides with cooking spray. In a large bowl mix together the flours, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and baking soda. In another bowl whisk together the mashed banana, maple syrup, coconut oil, rice milk and vanilla. Add this to the flour mixture, mixing and folding with a rubber spatula until just mixed, do not over mix.

Scrape into the prepared loaf tin and sprinkle the demerara sugar over top, if using. Pop in the oven and bake for 45min - 1 hour until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool for 10 minutes then remove and leave on a wire rack to fully cool.

Great warm with a spreading of vegan butter:

♥

Nutritional Information: per 100g

Calories: 252

Fat: 4.5g

Sat Fat: 3.3g

Fibre: 4.3g

Protein: 5g

Carbs: 50g

Sugar: 15.3g

Calcium: 124g

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Cumin Seed not-so Flatbreads

2011-09-21T09:30:00.000+01:00

No, not naan - not-so-flatbreads ;-) I had some of this spicy carrot and bean soup in the freezer and felt like it one recent rainy and windy day. Soup for me, and most people to be fair, must have bread with it but I always feel regular bread just doesn't really go with curry based soups. I always want something more naan like for some reason. So I thought I would whip these up. I very loosely based the recipe on Nigella's 'Nigella Seed Flatbreads' out of How to be a Domestic Goddess, veganizing and replacing some things with stuff I had on hand. I opted for cumin seed instead of nigella seeds mostly as that's what I had in the cupboard but it works amazingly well. They really give this bread a naan like taste and I wouldn't dream of changing it now. As for the not-so-flat part, they were supposed to be flatbreads but rose so well in the oven some could only be described as buns! I wouldn't change that next time either though as the texture was fantastic.

The breads themselves are beautiful, really light and fluffy softly spiced with cumin and went so well with the soup. The next evening I made a simple chick pea and veg curry and we had one on the side of that - very nice. I will always whip these up before a curry night, or indeed any time I make a curry spiced soup as they are really quite easy.

Perfect with a bowl of spiced carrot soup!

Cumin Seed not-so-Flatbreads: makes 12

500g white bread flour
1 sachet easy blend or quick yeast (7g)
2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp full fat coconut milk
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp cumin seeds

Mix the flour, salt, yeast and cumin seeds in a large bowl. Measure the coconut milk in a pyrex measuring cup and fill up to 350ml with quite warm water. Give it a stir then pour over the flour and mix well. Tip the mixture onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until it's smooth and elastic, add more flour to prevent sticking as need be. Shape into a ball and place into a greased bowl and grease the surface. Cover the bowl with cling film and place in a warm place to rise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Punch the dough down, give it a couple kneads and cut into 12 even size pieces. Gently knead each piece into a ball then give it a quick back and forth roll with a rolling pin to flatten out. Repeat with all the pieces placing them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

Funny how uncooked bread looks like a black and white photo.

Preheat the oven to 220C and loosely cover the sheet of breads with cling film and place in a warm place for 20 minutes. Now remove the cling film and bake for 8 - 10 minutes until golden and risen again. Remove and place on a wire rack to cool, although they are best warm from the oven :-)

There, that's better!

The soup I served these with is a spicy citrus carrot and bean soup. Recipe comes from BBC Good Food, available here. It was really good but reminded me too much of my absolute favorite carrot curry soup which given the choice I would always opt for that one. Still, I can highly recommend it, had really nice taste and the addition of beans added a nice texture.

♥

Nutritional Information: based on 1 flatbread

Calories: 179

Fat: 4.2g

Sat Fat: 0.5g

Protein: 5.5g

Carbs: 28.5g

Sugar: 0.6g

Fibre: 2.1g

Sodium: 421mg

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Granola

2011-09-17T17:33:00.000+01:00

Love my old-fashioned French milk bottle filled with rice milk - "the good milk" indeed!

Why yes, I did grow up on Cookie Crisp cereal, why do you ask? You may have recalled in my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie post below that I said I loved them so much I was having them for breakfast. I started to think it would be nice to have this without all the guilt and thought of a granola with all the flavours of an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie, after all, both are oatmeal based.

I have never made my own granola so had a search online and was happy to see how easy it is. However almost all the recipes called for using maple syrup, honey, agave, golden syrup to coat the oats in. While I would normally be more than happy to use maple syrup it just wasn't keeping with the cookie flavour I really wanted here.

Whenever I think of the main flavours in an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie I think primarily brown sugar, butter, vanilla and chocolate. So I thought I would make a brown sugar syrup to help replicate that, using just light muscovado sugar and water. It turned out beautifully and I set about making the granola with that instead. To that I added some melted vegan butter, vanilla and a bit of cinnamon, just like in my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

The end result was fantastic! This really does have the aura of an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie BUT without being overly sweet. By aura I mean it doesn't taste like you are eating a bowl of chopped up cookies - NOT what I was after, but rather, tastes just like granola with all the hints of an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. The best praise came from my son who had 2 bowls and said it "was the best cereal I have ever eaten and probably ever will". Aw shucks!

I know this might seem excessive but it has the same amount of calories of a healthy store bought granola I have in the cupboard and almost the EXACT same amount of sugar (their 20g/100g to my 23/100g) so there you go - I got my guilt free oatmeal chocolate chip cookie breakfast, yay!

Oh, and ultimately I wanted to make this with chocolate chips, but if you read my cookie post below the chips I used to buy are no longer vegan so had to resort to chopping some dark vegan chocolate instead. It's still chocolate, it's still good ;-)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Granola: makes 500g

300g oats
150ml brown sugar syrup - recipe below
2 Tbsp vegan butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
100g dark chocolate chips or a chopped bar

Brown Sugar Syrup:
200g light muscovado sugar
100ml water

First make the syrup, simply add the sugar and water to a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring all the while. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes, stirring very often, watch it as it can bubble up pretty quickly, just reduce the heat more and keep stirring if it does. Pour into a heat safe jug and leave to cool where it will thicken up into a syrup. You can keep it in the fridge as well but it will get even thicker.

Preheat the oven to 150C and line a large baking sheet with baking paper. In a large bowl add the oats and cinnamon and mix well. In a pyrex measuring dish add the syrup, melted butter and vanilla give it a good whisk and pour over the oats. Stir really well until everything is coated and it's evenly blended. It may seem like not enough syrup but it's fine.

Tip this onto the baking sheet and spread out evenly. Pop in the oven for 15 minutes, remove give it a mix around, spread it out again and pop it back in the oven for another 15 minutes. Give it another mix, if it's golden and feeling crisp then it's done. Mine needed another 5 minutes here, when done simply leave to fully cool.

When cool, tip it all into a large bowl and add the chocolate, give it a toss and that's it, it's ready for the morning. Keep in an airtight container or ziplock bag.

♥

Nutritional Information: based on a 50g or 1/3 cup serving

Calories: 210

Fat: 7.1g

Sat Fat: 2.8g

Protein: 5.6g

Carbs: 31.6g

Sugar: 11.2g

Fibre: 3.9g

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-09-16T09:58:00.001+01:00

I do love a basic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and this is a real good one! As you can see, in keeping with my tastes these are jam packed with as many chocolate chips as was possible to get in ;-) I tried an oatmeal cookie prior to this one but they were way too crisp, these are just lightly crisp on the outside but still nice and chewy too. I love them so much I was having them for breakfast :-) You can easily swap the chocolate chips here for raisins too for a really nice oatmeal raisin cookie, just use less than the chocolate chips, 100g maybe, just eyeball it. :-)

Just a note on the vegan margarine here. I use Vitalite (UK/Ireland) and it's a really soft margarine. If the vegan marg you use is firmer you may have to add a bit more water. I used to use Pure Sunflower and I know if I was using that I would need to add a bit more water. Just add enough so you have a firm drop cookie dough :-)

Also, regarding the chocolate chips, I had some old packages of Dr. Oetker plain chocolate chips which always appeared to be vegan. When I went to go buy some more I noticed the ingredients now had whey powder listed but with a little number 2 by it, almost like it was just a cross contamination issue. I called the company and they weren't sure but said they would ask the head guy (Dr. Oetker himself???) and get him to call back. He said that they recently changed suppliers but would be changing suppliers again at the end of the year and will try to ensure they are dairy free. You go Doctor!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies: makes about 19

100g vegan margarine
120g caster sugar
50g light muscovado sugar
1 tsp vanilla
115g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
90g oats
140g plain/dark/semi-sweet chocolate chips (again, this is the absolute maximum you'll get in there!)
1 tsp or more water

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. In a bowl whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a large bowl cream together the margarine, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy. Stir the flour mixture into the sugar mixture until it comes together. Add 1 tsp or more water if necessary, then stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop by tablespoon onto the pan keeping them about an inch apart and bake for 12 - 15 minutes until the just start to go golden around the edges. Leave on the pan for 5 minutes then when they are firm enough to move, transfer to a rack to fully cool. Enjoy!

♥

Nutritional Information: 1 cookie (out of 19)

Calories: 136

Protein: 1.9g

Carbs: 21.6g

Sugar: 12.8g

Fibre: 1.2g

Fat: 5.3g

Sat Fat: 1.9g

Sodium: 97mg

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Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Bundt Cake

2011-09-13T18:11:00.000+01:00

With chocolate glaze, I mean, why not??

So I might just have a little addiction to cake. On the day my lovely birthday cake finished I made this, like I can't cope without cake or something! Basically I had some tofutti sour cream that I needed to use, to be honest I don't know how that happened as that stuff usually goes pretty quick in this house with nachos, burritos, tacos etc.. being much loved, but there you go.

Regardless, I thought of trying a sour cream cake and came up with this, I'm glad I did as it turned out beautiful, first try and all! The cake has a wonderful moist yet nicely crumbed texture, not too heavy at all and the flavour is perfect. I wasn't planning on adding anything on top as I was envisioning a simple snack cake but felt it just needed something. So I was toying with the idea of a ganache, chocolate glaze, sifted icing sugar or chocolate drizzle and settled on a chocolate glaze. It's the same one as I use on my doughnuts and worked well with this. I felt ganache would be a bit rich and not really suit the cake as I just wanted something thin and light, this works really well but of course you can do any of those options, or simply leave it plain, any way it'll be very good! If you do want a ganache, I highly recommend my recipe here, it's one of the best ganache's I've ever had.

Just a note on the sour cream, I don't know if others have found this but I find sometimes tofutti sour cream is really wet, other times, really thick. This time it was really thick and after whisking it to soften it I did have to add about 1 Tbsp water to the end batter. If it was thinner, I probably wouldn't have needed to. It is a very thick batter but if it's looking excessively dry, as in you can still see flour, just add a bit of water - a tsp at a time should do. It's still a 'spooning in' batter and not a pouring batter. :-)

Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Bundt Cake: serves 16

280g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

100g vegan butter

200g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

225 pack tofutti sour cream, whisked

100g plain chocolate chips

2 'eggs':

2 Tbsp cornstarch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp vegetable oil

100ml water

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and flour a bundt pan. In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside. In a small bowl make up your 'eggs': add the cornstarch, baking powder and xanthan gum and give it a whisk. Mix together the vegetable oil and water and pour this over slowly, whisking all the while. When it is all added give it a really good whisk until slightly thick and gloopy. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer add the butter, sugar, vanilla and the 'eggs'. Turn mixer on and slowly go up to high speed. Stop and scrape down sides to get all the butter incorporated. Keep it running for a couple minutes until light in colour and everything is mixed well. When you stop the machine and lift the paddle attachment the batter should run down in a ribbon.

Now add some of the flour mixture to this and mix well, then some of the sour cream. Keep adding flour then sour cream mixing well after each addition. When all has been added spoon the batter into the prepared pan and level off with the back of a spoon. The batter will be very thick. Pop it in the oven and bake for 40 minutes until risen, golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. It should feel firm but bouncy to the touch as well. Do check if after 30 minutes however as all ovens are different.

Cake once inverted.

Leave it in the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes then invert onto the wire rack, removing the pan. Mine came out real easy, it's a springform pan so I first removed the outside part then ran a knife around the middle cone. I then placed the wire rack upside down over the top and flipped the whole thing over and the cake just came away from the pan in one go. Maybe I was lucky though! Now just leave it to fully cool on the wire rack.

Chocolate Glaze:

1 1/2 Tbsp vegan butter

75g icing sugar

1/8 tsp vanilla

2 Tbsp hot water

75g dark chocolate, chopped

Simply place everything in a bowl and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir until the chocolate melts and everything is blended well. Remove from the heat and give it a good whisk. Leave it until it thickens up slightly. You still want this runny enough to pour over but thick enough that it actually coats, to be fair I was probably I little impatient with mine there and it could have done with thickening up a bit more. As it's sitting and thickening up whisk it now and again to stop the surface crisping up. When ready simply spoon over the cake letting it run down the sides. Let it sit some more to let the glaze set, about an hour then it's ready to serve, so get the coffee on! :-)

♥

Nutritional Information: based on 1/16th of cake

Calories: 259

Fat: 9.9g

Sat Fat: 3.7g

Protein: 2.8g

Carbs: 40.8g

Sugar: 22g

Fibre: 1.1g

Sodium: 263mg

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Morning Sausage and Hash-brown Burger

2011-09-12T10:45:00.000+01:00

"Butter" grilled bun, Fry's burger patty top with slow fried onions, a hash-brown and ketchup.

Ok, just an uncharacteristic non-recipe 'simple idea' post for you today. Mostly to prove I don't make semi-complicated meals all the time and enjoy some almost ready made food as much as the next person :-) This was, of course, delicious and I dare say would make a great hangover breakfast. Actually, I can confirm that.

For the patty there I used a Fry's burger patty which works perfectly here. I absolutely love them but I don't think they taste like burger patties. To me they taste like a perfect sausage patty and therefore work really well here. This was just whipped up one morning but if I really wanted to go for it I would make the English Muffins from Vegan Brunch and "butter" grill one of those for the ultimate Vegan Sausage McMuffin, screw the egg!

Morning Sausage and Hash-brown Burger:

1 x Burger Bun
1 x Fry's Burger Patty
1 x Large Hash-brown, cooked
Onion
Vegetable Oil, I used 1 tsp
Ketchup
Vegan Butter

Simply spread 'butter' on both sides of a bun or English Muffin and place on a grill pan toasting until nice and grilled. Press down on it while cooking to help get the lines, doens't matter if it gets squished as it's a pretty high burger in the end anyway!

In a fry pan fry the onion nice and slow in the oil until very soft, golden and a bit crispy on some edges, remove. Now in the same pan fry the burger patty for 8 - 10 minutes until golden on both sides, add more oil if need be. Add the onion to the pan at the end to re-heat slightly.

Now simply top the bun with the patty, onion, cooked hash-brown and lots of ketchup. Enjoy!

Nutritional Information: approx, depending on bun used, how much ketchup etc..

Calories: 385

Fat: 13.5

Sat Fat: 2.7g

Fibre: 2.1g

Protein: 18.4g

Carbs: 50.5g

Sugar: 11.5g

Sodium: 1027mg

♥

Jumbo Pasta Shells stuffed with Basil Almond Feta with a Creamy Tomato Basil Sauce

2011-09-10T09:11:00.000+01:00

The whole dish, prior to baking.

Ok, I would like to promise that this will be my last post with the almond feta for awhile, but I can't guarantee that! It's just so good, and so versatile :-) This dish is particularly fantastic - jumbo pasta shells stuffed with the almond feta mixed with lots of fresh basil and all topped with my new favourite tomato cream sauce (blog post below). Seriously delicious and really special, I can see us having this one for many special occasions....or any weeknight really as it's not hard!

I realize the quantities may look skimpy but this was very satisfying with just the right amount of filling and sauce. I went with 4 shells per person but I will let you choose how many shells per person and will write the recipe accordingly. Yes, I could have easily eaten 3 times that amount but an almond cheese stuffed inside pasta with a cream sauce does have the calories you would expect! If you have any leftover filling or sauce, don't worry, it'll get used elsewhere!

Another great thing about this dish - I discovered the almond feta can be made on the same day you are making this so it won't take you 2 - 3 days to make :-) I whipped up the feta in the morning, let it drain in the fridge until it was time to make it then half cooked the feta for 20 minutes. I then stirred in some chopped basil, filled the par cooked shells, poured the sauce under and over then baked it off for another 20 minutes. This meant the feta didn't get overcooked as it still got it's full 40 minutes :-)

Jumbo Pasta Shells stuffed with Basil Feta with a Tomato Basil Cream Sauce

Large pasta shells
1 x recipe almond feta
1 x recipe Tomato Cream Sauce
fresh basil

In the morning make the almond feta up to the stage where it is draining in the cheesecloth in the fridge. I also like to make the sauce in the morning and have it ready and waiting in the fridge. About an hour before you want to eat remove the feta from the cheesecloth and place in a lightly greased oven proof dish. Bake at 200C for 20 minutes. It usually takes 40 but remove it now and stir in lots of chopped fresh basil, it will be quite soft.

Now the shells, it will depend on what the package instructions say but I parboiled mine for 10 minutes then ran them under cold water and drained well. Stuff the shells with a bit of the basil feta but don't fill them up or worry about fully fulling them up. The basil feta is strong in flavour (as well as calories) and you don't need a lot here. Also, I filled a piping bag with the cheese and piped it into the shells but don't recommend doing that. It was fiddly and would have been much easier to spoon it in. When the amount of shells you want are stuffed heat up the tomato cream sauce and stir in some chopped fresh basil into the sauce.

Now place some of the sauce in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and lay the stuffed shells on top.

Spoon over some more of the sauce, don't worry it it doesn't cover all the shells, like the basil feta this sauce is full of flavour and I found this amount to be just right:

Now, fully cover the whole dish with foil and pop back into the 200C oven for 20 minutes. My shells after this stage where just al dente but could have maybe done with a little more so give them a little test and see if they need a little longer in the oven.

Scoop out the shells onto a plate, again, I would say 4 or 5 per person but do as you wish! Entirely optional - grate with a little cheddar cheezly and serve. Would be great with a glass of red wine and garlic bread.

The finished dish plated up, shame it's not a great picture as this was amazing!!

♥

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Creamy Tomato Pasta Sauce

2011-09-08T20:04:00.000+01:00

Served with Spaghetti and my Garlic Bread

Well, we had quite a bit of leftover Tomato Cream Sauce from the Buckwheat Crêpes recipe below and I just had to try it with pasta as it was so good on it's own. Wow. This is a seriously good pasta sauce and will be a staple in our house for sure, even the kid loved it, yay! I'm going to re-post the recipe here as I've increased the quantities for a pasta sauce. The photo there is with parsley but I prefer basil for a pasta sauce and parsley for a crêpe sauce, although both work well. I also took some step by step photos for you here, although it's a dead easy sauce ;-) I've showed this sauce on it's own here so you can see it clearly but any kind of vegetables added would be great.

Sauce is loosely based on/inspired by The Pioneer Woman's "Penne a la Betsy" :-)

Creamy Tomato Pasta Sauce: makes 1/2 litre, good for about 6 servings.

1 1/2 Tbsp vegan butter
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
60g chopped shallots
4 -6 cloves garlic, I used 4 large ones, use 6 if they are small, chopped fine
150ml white wine
375g passata
200ml full fat coconut milk
1/4 + 1/8 tsp salt
6 -8 grinds black pepper
2 - 4 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (to be honest, I didn't measure here, I just eyeballed it)

First, heat up the butter and olive oil until the butter melts. Add the shallots and garlic and fry until the shallots are soft and transparent, a few minutes should do.

Pour in the wine and bring to a strong simmer, cook until the wine reduces by about a third. Now add the passata, salt and pepper. Stir well, bring to a boil then reduce to low heat, put the lid on and simmer for 20 minutes. Make sure to stir it now and again. It should cook down considerably and be fairly thick.

Pour in the coconut milk, stir and remove from the heat.

Pour it all into a blender and blend until super smooth, it should thicken up and change colour to a glorious orange:

Now simply pour it back into the pot, stir in the basil and or parsley and bring it back up to heat. Check seasoning and it's ready to use!

Fantastic with penne too, or of course, any pasta :-)

Nutritional Information: just the sauce - per 1 serving out of 6
Calories: 151
Protein: 1.3g
Fat: 5.9g
Sat Fat: 1g
Fibre: 0.6g
Carbs: 7g
Sugar: 3.5g
Sodium: 358mg

♥

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Buckwheat Crêpes filled with Spinach, Almond Feta and Walnuts with a Tomato Cream Sauce - Soy and Gluten Free!

2011-09-04T15:27:00.000+01:00

So we had the Sweet Cinnamon Berry Buns for our anniversary breakfast, and this was the dinner. I cannot convey to you how good this was! It's a bit involved to make but so, so worth it. I will most definitly be making this one again, and not just for special occasions. I will also be making that sauce over and over again, especially for pasta as it's sublimely good!

The crêpes were an experiment and took a few go's. I've never worked with buckwheat before, the only thing I've had close to it is in soba noodles. Initially I attempted a batter with coconut milk and a bit of chick pea flour added, like my wild rice and coconut crêpes but they didn't turn out well. They tore way too easily while trying to turn AND stuck to the pan. I had a search online and saw quite a few vegan buckwheat crêpe recipes with quite a few ingredients but then saw that you can buy pre-made buckwheat crêpes in France made with just 3 ingredients - buckwheat flour, salt and water. I then thought, well, if a French factory can do it, then so can I and set to work. My god, they turned out perfect! Tasted great but also didn't stick to the pan, flipped easily and were altogether easy to work with. I cannot tell you how happy this made me. Three ingredients. I love it!

This made me realize they were both gluten and soy free, yay! I was wondering what to stuff them with and felt my spanakopita filling would be nice here (also gluten and soy free) with some added walnuts for taste and texture. I then thought I might as well go all the way and make a gluten and soy free sauce, I wanted to do a creamy tomato sauce and would normally use soy cream but opted for full fat coconut milk here and it turned out amazing!! That sauce is unbelievable good, I will be using it in loads of recipes for sure :-)

Buckwheat Crêpes filled with Spinach, Almond Feta and Walnuts with a Tomato Cream Sauce serves 2

Crêpes:
100g pure buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
300ml water

Filling:
200g baby spinach
1 onion, chopped fine
100g almond feta
1/2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
freshly grated nutmeg
about 40g walnuts, toasted

Tomato Cream Sauce: this makes more than you need, trust me, that's good, it'll get used ;-)

1 Tbsp vegan margarine *if wanting gluten and soy free please check ingredients of yours*
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large shallot, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
100ml white wine
250g passata
125ml full fat coconut milk, from a can
1/4 tsp salt
about 5 grinds black pepper
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

First I made the filling early on in the day to make things easier. Pull off any large stems from the spinach place it all in the sink. Wash well then pour salt all over the leaves, don't worry as it gets washed off. Now rub the salt into the leaves tearing as you go into small pieces. The bulk of spinach should reduce down dramatically in size, rinse well and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. It should be fairly fine now but I like to give it another chop here to make sure it's as fine as possible. My spanakopita post has a lot of photos showing the steps for all of this.

In a small saucepan heat the olive oil and add the onion and some freshly ground black pepper. Fry until very soft and a little golden. Let cool slightly. Add this to the spinach, crumble in the feta, add a pinch of salt and a small grating of nutmeg and stir until the mixture is all creamy. If making this earlier in the day you can now cover with cling film and pop it in the fridge.

Next make your sauce - *Edit - I have step by step photos for this sauce here* Heat the margarine and olive oil in a medium saucepan until the marg melts. Add the shallots and garlic and fry for a few minutes over low heat until the shallots are soft. Add the wine and let simmer until it has reduced about a third. Now add passata, salt and pepper, stir well, bring back to a simmer, cover and let simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes stirring occasionally. At this point it should have reduced quite a bit and look almost thick. Pour in the coconut milk and stir well. Turn off the heat and let cool slightly then tip it all into a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Pour it back into the pan and wait to heat again while you make the crêpes.

Now, the crêpes. Simply add the buckwheat flour and salt to a large bowl then pour in the water. Give it a really good whisk and let sit a few minutes then whisk again. It should be the consistency of a crêpe batter now, perhaps a tad thicker. Heat a small non stick frying pan, I only greased with a quick spray of cooking oil and using about 1/3 cup of the batter pour into the hot pan turning it as you do to make sure the batter covers the whole frying pan surface. Cook for a few minutes then flip. I found it easiest to flip these by loosening them all around and picking them up by the side and just turning them over by hand. Once they are flipped they will not stick and you can even "fancy flip" with the pan ;-) After cooking one place it on a plate and cover with a sheet of baking paper. Continue until all are cooked, you should get about 5 here, depending on size of pan.

Now, lay a crêpe out and place a strip of the spinach/almond feta mixture, about a couple tablespoons down the middle, top with a sprinkling of toasted, chopped walnuts and roll up. Place in a greased baking dish and repeat with the remaining crêpes. You may have some filling left over. Cover the dish with foil and pop in a 200C oven for 15 minutes.

While they are in the oven, add the parsley to the sauce, bring back up to a simmer and check seasoning. It should be thick enough to spoon over like in the photo here. If not, keep simmering until it cooks down a bit. When they crêpes are done, place 2 on a plate and spoon the sauce over. Serve immediately, this dish is lovely with a glass of white wine that you used in the sauce :-)

♥

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Sweet Cinnamon Berry Buns

2011-09-02T12:12:00.002+01:00

Beautiful sweet cinnamony bun filled with raspberry jam and drizzled with an almond glaze - yum!

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary! Time sure flies, hard to believe it was all those years ago we were getting married in my hometown in British Columbia, Canada. Here we are now settled and living in Cork, Ireland, it's all been grand!

To be honest we usually don't ever go out for our anniversary. I always like to make a really nice meal and we just stay in with some champagne. This is partly down to not getting great vegan meals out but also simply down to my love of cooking fancy stuff! I'm thinking dinner tonight might be some sort of stuffed crepe with sauce....hmmm, watch this space, it'll get blogged if it turns out ;-)

I have never made anything nice for an anniversary breakfast though and was inspired to make these by a recipe in the latest BBC Garden Illustrated magazine. I know. You become a homeowner with land and suddenly turn into the kind of person who buys garden magazines. Blimey. Anyway, they sounded so nice and I had to try them, of course I made quite a few changes, me being me and all! First they needed veganizing, I swapped the butter for vegan marg, milk for coconut milk and just omitted the egg altogether. I've been doing that lately, just ignoring the eggs in things and you know what? Stuff has been turning out great! I also added cinnamon to the dough, and topped them off with a drizzle of almond glaze as they were just calling out for it. I also changed the fresh yeast to quick yeast. I actually have fresh yeast and love to bake with it but understand that it's hard to find and tricky to work with if you are not used to it. Everyone can buy and use quick yeast though ;-)

I also started making these about 7:30 last night so didn't get a lot of step by step photos, but they are really very easy, they just take time as yeast risen breads do. It was pretty tortuous waiting to the morning to scoff one of these but the wait was worth it. They are absolutely gorgeous! Keep in mind they are a bun or roll, bread dough, not like a cinnamon roll would be. They kind of reminded me of an iced bun but miles better. I could never understand those things as I always felt like I was eating a highly processed hot dog bun questionably covered in icing. These are how those should be, sweet cinnamony dough, just the right amount of jam and then a nice almond glaze. Perfect.

Sweet Cinnamon Berry Buns - makes 12

75g vegan margarine (1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp)
250ml dairy free milk (1 cup)
1 sachet quick yeast, 7g
1/2 tsp salt
50g golden caster sugar (1/4 cup)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
500g plain flour (about 3 1/2 cups)
about 125g jam - whatever flavour you like
apricot jam - optional, to glaze

Almond Drizzle Glaze:
100g icing sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 Tbsp dairy free milk

Place the margarine, milk and sugar in a saucepan and heat until the margarine melts and the sugar dissolves. If using caster sugar when the marg is melted the sugar will be dissolved. Pour into a small bowl to let cool. If you have a thermomenter you want it to be 45C if not you want to able to put your finger in comfortably, so still quite warm but not steaming hot.

In a large bowl whisk together 400g of the flour, salt, cinnamon and yeast. When the liquid is the right temperature pour it in and stir with a wooden spoon until a dough comes together. Now add the remaining 100g as you'll most likely need it. Tip mixture onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Keep adding small bits of flour if it's sticking. It should after 10 minutes not need any more flour and feel smooth and elastic. Now place the ball in a greased warm bowl, cover with cling film and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Punch the dough down, give it a couple of kneads and shape into a log. Using a knife cut this into 12 equal size pieces. Give each piece a little knead and shape into a ball, flatten slightly and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. When all are done press and tear a large hole in the middle of them, making sure you don't go all the way through, just an indentation here. Fill the hole with your jam, when they are all done, cover with a sheet of baking paper and place back in a warm place for 20 minutes to rise a little more.

Please excuse the bad photo, this is why I don't usually work at night!

Preheat the oven to 220C, remove the top sheet of baking paper and bake for 10 - 15 minutes. It will depend on your oven, mine took 10 minutes. They will have risen again and be golden brown on top.

Now, this next step is entirely optional but I like to take some apricot jam, warm it up in the microwave, push it through a seive and add a few drops of water to make a glaze. I like to brush this on sweet yeast risen baked goods as it gives a really nice shiny glaze to them that you don't get without an egg wash. It really is just aesthetics though, so not necessary but they do look better for it.

Leave the buns to cool then make your glaze, simply stir everything together until smooth and runny enough to drizzle over but thick enough it'll stay on. Just add more milk and or icing sugar till you get the right consistency. Drizzle this over the buns and leave it to set. Then they are ready to serve, perfect with a steaming hot cup of coffee :-)

I actually wanted to call these "Anniversary Love Buns" but was outvoted :-(

Nutritional Information: per bun
Calories: 263
Fat: 4.4g
Sat Fat: 1.3g
Protein: 4.7g
Carbs: 50.7g
Sugar: 18.3g
Fibre: 1.5g
Sodium: 145mg

♥

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Golden Onion Soup with Sesame Puffs

2011-08-26T14:28:00.000+01:00

First, my apologies posting a soup recipe for those of you melting in the summer heat but I live in Ireland. 'Nuff said. ;-) Ah well, you can bookmark this and make it on a cooler autumnal evening and you should as it's really, really good. I got the recipe from one of my BBC Good Food Vegetarian Christmas magazines that I always would buy back in London.

This one was essentially vegan, just needed vegan marg in place of butter and dairy free milk to brush on the puff pastry. I otherwise followed the recipe as was and found it needed no changes. It's a really beautiful soup with sweet tender onions and those sesame puffs go so well with it! Think I'll be making those again and again for other soups too. Or just to snack on, as they are seriously that good :-)

As for the onions I was very lucky to receive some very large, fresh yellow and red onions from my in-laws garden - they were just dug up the day before I made this, so mine were really fresh and I'm thinking they didn't get as golden as they should have. The photo in the magazine for example is a dark brown a la French Onion soup. Regardless of the onions you use just cook them down till really soft and as golden as they can get without falling apart. Oh, and the chives are fresh from their garden too! :-)

Golden Onion Soup with Sesame Puffs - serves 3 as a main, 4 - 6 as a starter
25g vegan margarine
2 large mild onions, sliced thin
1 large red onion, sliced thin - my combined onion weight was 700g once sliced
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp wholegrain mustard
4 Tbsp dry sherry*
1.5 pints vegetable stock, I made mine with 3 vegetable oxo cubes
chopped fresh chives - optional
Sesame Puffs:
100g ready rolled puff pastry
some dairy free milk
about 1 - 2 Tbsp sesame seeds

Melt the margarine in a large saucepan and add the onions and sugar. Stir well cover and gently cook for between 20 - 25 minutes or until very soft and deeply golden in colour. Stir in the sherry and mustard and simmer for 3 minutes to reduce the sherry. Add the stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

While it's simmering, preheat the oven to 220C or fan 210C and line a baking sheet with baking paper or foil. Unroll the puff pastry, cut into a strip and then into squares, or whatever shape you like! If doing squares just dip the whole square into some dairy free milk then dip into sesame seeds, coating both sides. Pop in the oven for about 7 - 12 minutes or until puffed up and golden. Spoon the soup into bowls, sprinkle with chopped fresh chives and 4 of the sesame puffs.

Original recipe had the sesame puffs in diamond shapes which I did at first. Just as yummy but I prefer the convenience of the crouton size puffs. Up to you!

* as for the sherry, I had a terrible time searching online for sherry's that are vegan. Eventually I found this link which says that Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry is vegan and is apparently in the Animal Free Shopper book, so, there you go. Was very happy this one is vegan as I never buy sherry and my inlaws next door just happened to have a bottle :-)

Nutritional Information: based on a serving of 3 as a main dish.
Calories: 353
Protein: 4.6g
Fat: 15.5g
Sat Fat: 6g
Fibre: 4.1g
Carbs: 37.9g
Sugar: 11.8g
Sodium: 1243mg

♥

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Simple Suppers

2011-08-24T11:21:00.001+01:00

Stir Fried Veg with Basmati Rice

Red Pepper and Zucchini Pasta Bake

Simple Couscous with Veg and Chickpeas

A slightly different multi post for you today! I was going through my recipe folder the other day, long overdue by the way.... I had stacks and stacks of handwritten notes jotted down here and there - such a mess! I decided to go through my blog and nicely print out everything I make regularly into one binder. What I soon realized is that a lot of what we eat regularly for dinner isn't even on the blog! I always found these things to be too simple to blog I suppose but I forgot that I started this blog to be a record of what we eat and things I make.

Furthermore while I know a lot of you are experienced cooks I'm sure a lot of you are not, are just starting out with either veganism or cooking and might appreciate even the simplest of ideas. Furthermore, these are the dinners we all eat here, meaning my son as well. These are all very kid friendly and very adaptable, for each one you can change the vegetables to whatever you like, or more precisely, whatever your kids like as those with children know, their tastes tend to dictate mealtimes ;-)

So, these are a few of the things we eat often, as no, my son doesn't sit down to a dinner of coconut crepes filled with asparagus and lime chilli sauce!! (I wish!!) That being said, we all love these, they are simple, nutritious and delicious. All recipes serve 3 as that's the number in our house ;-)

Stir Fried Veg with Basmati Rice:

225g dry weight basmati rice

1 Tbsp peanut oil

100g carrots, sliced

100g mixed peppers, diced large

100g pak choi, seperate leaves and stalks, chop stalks into large dice and slice leaves

100g mangetout or snow peas, halved diagonally

1 large clove garlic, pureed

few slices fresh ginger

2 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 Tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce*

1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil

sesame seeds for garnish
~optional protein add in: fried marinated tofu, tempeh, half tin of chick peas, "chicken" or "beef" style pieces

First the rice, I cook mine as so but you may want to follow the directions on your packet. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and rinse the rice well. When boiling tip in the rice, give it a stir and when it comes back to the boil reduce to a simmer with the lid on for 10 minutes. Drain and tip it back into the pot, give it a stir over low heat for just a couple seconds to remove any more water.

While the rice is cooking, heat the oil in a large wok and fry the onion with slices of ginger until the onions are very soft, I like to go until the edges are just starting to go golden. Add all the veg except the pak choi leaves, fry on high heat for about 5 minutes or until just tender. Reduce heat to low and add the soy sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce, garlic and sesame oil. Stir until mixed well and thickened slightly. Stir in the pak choi leaves until just wilted.

Spoon the rice onto plates and top with the veg mixture and sauce. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top for garnish.

*If you can't find the vegetarian oyster sauce you can just omit this. It's a thick, soy based but sweet sauce so a sweet soy sauce or something like hoisin sauce would work in it's place.*

Nutritional Information:
Calories: 360
Protein: 9.1g
Fat: 6.4g
Sat Fat: 0.9g
Carbs: 69.4g
Sugars: 6.4g
Sodium: 806mg
Calcium: 83.7mg
Fibre: 3.5g

♥

Red Pepper and Zucchini Pasta Bake:

1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil

225g chopped onion

2 large cloves garlic, pureed

225g red pepper, diced large

225g zucchini (courgettes), sliced and halved if small, quartered if large

300g chopped tomatoes, from a tin

40g sun dried tomato puree

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp sugar

4 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

190g pasta, dry weight

90g super melting mozza cheezly (30g per person)
~optional protein add in: half a tin drained and rinsed flageolet beans

We've been having this one for years even back when we were vegetarian and the cheese topping was veggie parmesan. Recipe comes from an old vegetarian cookbook or ours that always produced some gems.

Put the pasta on to cook according to package instructions. Meanwhile in a large saucepan heat the olive oil and fry the onion with about 15 grinds of freshly ground black pepper. When really soft and slightly golden add the zucchini, peppers and an extra 1/8 tsp of salt. Stir and fry for 5 minutes over medium heat until the veg start to go soft. Stir in the tomato sauce mixture, cover and simmer for 5 minutes more. Check that the veg is tender then add the drained pasta, stirring until well mixed. Transfer to an oven safe casserole dish and top with the grated cheezly and some more black pepper. Grill till bubbly and serve.

My son however has not developed a taste for cheezly and likes this without the cheezly on top - it's just as good!

Beautiful with my garlic bread and a glass of red wine!

Nutritional Information: per serving with cheezly
Calories: 439
Protein: 12g
Fat: 18.6g
Sat Fat: 6.3g
Fibre: 5.7g
Carbs: 59.7g
Sugar: 8.3g
Sodium: 691mg

♥

Simple Couscous with Veg and Chickpeas:

1 Tbsp olive oil

100g onion, diced large

100g carrot, sliced diagonally

100g red pepper, diced large

100g zucchini (courgettes), sliced and halved or quartered if very large

100g green beans, fresh or frozen, sliced or chopped into 1" pieces

125g chickpeas from a tin, that's half a 400g tin, drained and rinsed

450ml water made with 3 tsp marigold vegan stock powder*

1 Tbsp cornstarch - optional

~~~~~~~~~~~~

150g dry weight couscous

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tsp marigold vegan stock powder

1/4 tsp turmeric

300ml water

*First a note on the stock powder, I'm not insisting you use the brand I use here but as this is such a simple dish flavour wise, you want to use a stock powder that you like the taste of on it's own or it might be quite bland. I love the marigold vegan powder (the orange one) as it has a lot of flavour and the yellow colour works well here, it has turmeric in it but I like to add a little more to the couscous as well. That being said, just use a stock you really like but you may have to adjust the amount you add - just follow the directions for making stock on the package.

Now. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and add the onions and carrot and fry for 5 minutes. Add the stock, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the peppers, zucchini, green beans and chickpeas, cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make the couscous. This is how I like to make mine and it always turns out great, although I realize it's not the most traditional ;-) Mix the couscous, stock powder and turmeric in a large shallow dish, you want the surface area to be large here, you don't want a deep dish of couscous as it won't cook properly otherwise. Bring the water and olive oil to a boil and pour over. Give it a quick stir then cover promptly with cling film and let sit for 5 minutes. Uncover and fluff with a fork. It should be ready now but I'm a little unconventional here and like to recover it and pop it in the microwave for just 30 seconds to reheat as I find it cools down a bit in those 5 minutes. Totally not necessary though ;-)

Spoon the couscous onto plates. Now you can either spoon the veg and broth over of the couscous, like in the photo above, or you can mix some water with 1 Tbsp cornstarch and stir this in until the broth and veg mixture thickens up like a light gravy and spoon this over. Up to you, I've done it both ways, both are good, just depends on my mood, or how watery the broth is as vegetables can vary wildly in how much liquid they release.

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 386

Fat: 11.6g

Sat Fat: 1.9g

Fibre: 7.6g

Carbs: 58.7g

Sugar: 6.4g

Sodium: 1533mg, but less as you unlikely will spoon over all the broth

Protein: 12.5g

Calcium: 64mg

♥

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Banana White Chocolate Muffins

2011-08-22T10:49:00.000+01:00

These were so good! I always used to make a banana white chocolate muffin in the vegetarian days and based this recipe on that one. It does of course require a specific ingredient - vegan white chocolate buttons, which I have used before, they taste so much like white chocolate and always turn out great in baking. Some vegan white chocolate melts to a watery liquid in baking and doesn't reset when the product cools - I learned the hard way. These buttons are perfect though, for those in Cork I get mine at the Quay Co-op, sometimes at Tesco and Holland & Barratt.

To veganize the original recipe I swapped the butter for vegan margarine, the white chocolate for vegan white chocolate and the eggs for my favourite egg replacer, a mixture of cornstarch, baking powder, xanthan gum, oil and water. I know a lot of vegan sites put banana alone down as an egg replacer and yes, it is very good at binding, but eggs do a lot more than binding. I have had quite a lot of banana flavoured baked goods that can only be described as moist bricks. Texture matters. These have a great texture, really light and still moist but not dense at all. Very happy with them :-)

Makes 12 - 14 muffins, depending on size of tin - I got 14 using silicone muffin cases but they are a little smaller than a traditional muffin tin.

Banana White Chocolate Muffins:
245g plain flour
100g caster sugar
50 grams light muscovado sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
75g vegan white chocolate buttons - 3 bags
100g vegan margarine, melted and cooled slightly
about 400g very ripe bananas, mashed well - about 3 large
1 tsp vanilla extract
~egg mixture~
2 Tbsp cornflour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp vegetable oil
100ml water

about 50g extra white chocolate buttons for garnish - optional

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and grease a muffin tin or individual silicon muffin moulds, I used a spray as it's so much easier. First make up your 'eggs' by adding the cornflour, baking powder and xanthan gum in a small bowl, slowly whisk in the vegetable oil and water. When all added give it a really good whisk till thickened and smoothish. In a large bowl add the flour, sugars, baking powder, soda and salt. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the mashed banana, melted margarine, egg mixture and vanilla until well blended. Now fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just blended, do not overmix, it should not be smooth. If you overmix the muffins will be tough and rubbery. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin about 3/4 full and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one comes out clean. Place tin on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes then remove the muffins. Serve warm or at room temperature.

If you would like the drizzle extra white chocolate on top (which I highly recommend!) melt 50g (2 packages) white chocolate buttons in the microwave, should only take 20 - 30 seconds. At this stage it is still a bit too thick to drizzle so stir in about 1/2 tsp vegetable oil, or more until it is drizzling down when you dip a spoon in it. When the muffins are fully cool drizzle the mixture back and forth, let the chocolate cool then serve. :-)

Nutritional Information - based on 12 large muffins, with drizzle on top
Calories: 241
Fat: 7.7g
Sat Fat: 2.3g
Fibre: 1.8g
Carbs: 41g
Sugars: 19.8g
Protein: 2.6g
Sodium: 162mg

♥

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Gardenburger Original Patty - Veganized! (aka - super delicious mushroom burger)

2011-08-15T14:22:00.001+01:00

With a homemade burger bun!

The flavour in this patty is so good I like to keep it simple with vegan mayo, lettuce, tomato and onion.

I think I say this whenever I blog a new burger, but, I have a new favourite burger!! What can I say? I love my burgers and truthfully I love them all on the blog here but this is a most welcome new addition ;-) Back in Canada in my vegetarian days I LOVED the Original Gardenburger patty, or "Money's Mushroom Burger" I think it was called at first. I had quite a few of them in my day and you couldn't buy them in England so was happy to find a copycat recipe online.

I was still vegetarian at the time so had a go making them - I could see the taste was there but they were an absolute disaster! The mixture was very wet which you were to go about frying and they stuck to the pan like glue! I put the recipe away and never went back to it. Then, I was rifling through some old recipe printouts the other day and came across it.

Now, what possessed me to not only try it again but veganize it too boot I'll never know but man am I glad I did. This tastes just like I remember the Gardenburger tasting like, so delicious and I got around the whole sticking to the pan thing! These cook up beautifully and while they are a little effort they freeze and reheat really well. So get in there and make up a huge bunch! Whether you know the original Gardenburger or not you'll be glad you did :-)

Gardenburger Patties - makes 6 large patties or more if you want them smaller

1 Tbsp olive oil

450g mushrooms (1 pound)

120g diced onion (1 cup)

1/4 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 Tbsp bulgar wheat

50g oats (1/2 cup)

50g brown basmati rice, raw weight (2/3 cup cooked)

80g shredded mozza cheezly, super melting (3/4 cup)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

4 Tbsp cornstarch
vegetable oil to fry

First cook the brown basmati rice. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and stir in the rice. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. Check if tender then drain and rinse under hot water.

Place the bulgar in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover with cling film and let sit 5 minutes. Stir with a fork, check if tender then drain well.

Place the oats in a bowl with 100ml cold water and leave to soften for 10 minutes. Then place in a sieve and press the water out with the back of a spoon.

Place the rice, oats and bulgar into a large bowl:

Now heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the mushrooms and onion. Sprinkle over 1/4 tsp of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Fry until the liquid that comes out is reabsorbed, you want this mixture quite dry and the onion and mushrooms and cooked and slightly golden: (if it's starting to stick to the pan, that's good)

Tip mushroom mixture in with the grains and add the shredded cheezly, garlic powder and salt:

Give it all a good stir until well mixed and the cheezly melts from the heat of the mushroom mixture:

Now transfer the mixture to a food processor and pulse it about 8 - 10 times until it is all finely chopped but not pureed, you want a coarse texture here:

Tip it all back into a large bowl and stir in the cornflour:

and stir it up well, the mixture will be quite wet:

Now, this is where I changed the instructions. Original recipe had you frying these first then baking them but whenever I tried that the really wet mixture just stuck to the pan like glue no matter how much oil I used. I then thought- of course, bake them first then fry once they can hold their shape. D'oh! facepalm. Should have thought of that first!! Works perfectly.

Preheat the oven to 150C (fan if you have it) that's about 300F, quite a low tempurature. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and lightly grease it. Take a 1/2 cup scoop, or 1/3 if you want smaller burgers and fill up the scoop:

Scrape the mixture out of the scoop onto the baking sheet then with a fork shape into a burger patty:

Repeat until all the mixture is used up: (I'm doing a half recipe here, so just 3)

Place in the preheated oven and cook for 15 minutes, they will now be firm enough to hold their shape and be able to flip:

Place back in the oven and cook the other side for another 15 minutes. Then that's it, they are cooked. But yeah, they don't look great do they? Pale and aneamic looking isn't the most appetizing. Take a non-stick frying pan and add some oil. I fried these individually and used 1 tsp vegetable oil per burger. Fry on high heat just until golden and crispy on both sides. They are already cooked, you just want to colour and crisp them up:

That's it! Super yummy vegan mushroom burgers just waiting for a nice homemade bun maybe?

Note: If you are going to freeze these, and they freeze really well, after frying place them on a cooling rack lined with baking paper. Leave to cool for not more than an hour then wrap in cling film and freeze. You can reheat these various ways: fry from frozen, oven grill from frozen, microwave a couple minutes a side, or you can defrost first in the fridge then fry/grill/microwave. Just ensure they are piping hot throughout.

Nutritional Information: per large patty (making 6) after frying
Calories: 213
Fat: 11.4g
Sat Fat: 3.0g
Protein: 5.8g
Fibre: 3.0g
Carbs: 24g
Sugar: 2.4g
Sodium: 402 mg

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Burger Buns

2011-08-15T14:14:00.000+01:00

I do love my burgers and usually just go for store bought burger buns. However when you go to all the trouble to make your own burgers sometimes it is nice to go all the way and make the buns too. I've had great success with this recipe although I should let you know those are way too big! I got greedy and made 4 out of a recipe that should have made 8 :-) That's the great thing about making your own though, you can make them any size you like, just like the burger patties themselves.

315g strong white bread flour, plus 20g more

15g or 1 Tbsp caster sugar

3/4 tsp salt

50g vegan margarine

1 sachet easy blend yeast, that's 7g

200ml dairy free milk, I used rice

cornflour, water and sesame seeds

In a saucepan add the milk, sugar and margarine, bring to heat until the butter and sugar melts, when the butter melts the sugar will have too. Transfer to a bowl and let cool to 45C, I used a cooking thermometer here, if you don't have one you want it to be quite warm but not hot. You should be able to leave your finger in it comfortably. In the bowl of your mixing machine or a regular large bowl mix the flour, salt and yeast. Stir in the lukewarm liquid and using the dough attachment on your mixer knead for 5 minutes. Alternatively, stir in the liquid then transfer to a flour dusted surface and knead for 10 minutes. With the machine running add the extra 20g flour if it seems sticky, same if you are doing it by hand. I use the machine and when the 5 min is up I like to still transfer it to a floured surface and give it a few kneads, just to shape it up and get a feel of it. It should be smooth and elastic now. Oil a large clean bowl, place the circle of dough in it, oil the surface and cover the bowl with cling film. Place in a warm place to double in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Mine took 1 1/2 but I do have a "dough proving" feature on my oven. God I love my oven.

Take it out, give it a punch, knead a couple times then cut out how many shapes you like, the maximum amount of rolls you'll get out of this recipe is 8, any more and they will be mini buns! Knead each cut piece a few times and shape in to a ball, flatten slightly and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. When all done grease a sheet of cling film and place over the top, return to a warm place and preheat your oven to 200C

When the oven is ready take the sheet and remove the cling film. Now to make the sesame seeds stick I like to make a 'glue' out of cornflour and water, till it's fairly thick, brush it over the top and sprinkle the seeds on, give them a gentle press in as well. The ones you see in the photo here I didn't do this, I thought I would try a new method of just spraying the tops with cooking spray and sprinkling the seeds on. Doesn't work. ALL of those fell off! So next time I will stick to my regular cornflour glue method :-)

Now pop them in the oven and bake for 10 - 15 minutes. It will depend on what size you made the buns and your oven but they will have risen again and be golden. Remove and let cool.

Nutritional Information: based on 8 rolls

Calories: 192

Protein: 5.6g

Fat: 4.5g

Sat Fat: 0.9g

Fibre: 2.1g

Calcium: 30.7g (depending on milk used)

Carbs: 32.4g

Sugar: 3.1g

Sodium: 284 mg

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Hickory Smoked Baked Almond Cheese

2011-08-06T14:00:00.000+01:00

Damn. This is good! You all know how much I love the Baked Almond Feta, going so far as to claim it's changed my life - and this confirms that. Going for a smoked flavour came about as I was able to get a couple bottles of liquid smoke here. For those that don't know it's nigh impossible to get in Ireland/UK but I found some online at American Food, a Dublin based American grocer. They sell two bottles, one hickory the other mesquite. I went with hickory here as it seemed better suited to cheese. Now I had similar stuff growing up in Canada and I remember it being pretty much just liquid smoke in the ingredients. This stuff isn't, it's soy sauce and other stuff with liquid smoke.

Still, I'm not complaining, it's wonderfully smokey and I instantly started to think about smoked cheeses as I used to love them. Naturally I turned to the Baked Almond Feta as it is vegan cheese perfection and set about changing the recipe. For this I omitted the lemon juice, added some liquid smoke and reduced the salt as the liquid smoke already had some in the form of salt and soy sauce. I also reduced the garlic and swapped the olive oil for vegetable oil as I didn't want a strong flavour from the oil here but rather wanted the smokey flavour to shine through.

Texture wise, it initially seemed the same as the original when it got wrapped up in cheesecloth. Then some of the liquid did drain away just like the original but when it came time to bake it this cheese was a lot softer. With the original you end up with a firm disc of cheese to bake. This one needed scraping into the dish to bake as it was still quite soft. I baked it for basically the same amount of time 200C for 30 - 40 minutes, until golden and cracked on top. The end product was really nice, bit of a crust but soft and creamy inside and wonderfully smokey (but no smoke overkill here!) Also the different texture with this one meant you can slice it a bit easier than the original, which was more of a crumble or spreading type cheese.

Altogether a success, will definitely make this variation again. Now, what to do with it - smoked cheeses for me are calling out for a sandwich, especially anything with avocado - a match made in heaven! So I present you with the open faced sandwich of my dreams:

Warm Crispy Ciabatta, spread with vegan margarine until all melty then topped with slices of tomato, avocado and the hickory smoked almond cheese (aka - pure sandwich heaven)

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Now, before you go about making the cheese please note this - the brand or type of liquid smoke really matters. Like I mentioned above mine is more of a smoked soy sauce than straight up liquid smoke and 1 Tablespoon in the recipe is perfect. If you use one that is much more concentrated you'll end up with something way too smokey! You've been warned ;-)

Hickory Smoked Baked Almond Feta:
145g ground almonds (1 1/2 cups)
1 Tbsp hickory liquid smoke
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water

Simply add everything to a blender and blend until thick and really creamy - a few minutes is fine. Line a bowl with three layers of cheesecloth and scrape the mixture into it. Tie the cheesecloth up into a ball and place in a colander over a bowl and refrigerate overnight. The next day, preheat the oven to 200C and remove the cheese from the cloth and place in an oven proof dish. Like I mentioned before this cheese stays a bit soft at this stage and you may have to scrape some in. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes, or until golden, firm to the touch and cracking a bit on top. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Then it's ready to slice into sandwiches, spread onto crackers, crumble into pasta - endless possibilities!

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