5 Quick and Easy Pasta Recipes with Homemade Vegan Parmesan

So, I mentioned back when I posted the Creamy Almond Feta, Tomato and Basil Shells recipe that I would start posting all my easy pasta recipes that I used to deem too simple to post AND I promised you some pasta recipes that call for the homemade vegan parmesan, so...here they are! All these recipes only take as long to prepare as the pasta takes to boil, perfect for a quick mid-week dinner or a quick lunch. 

~Recipe Notes~

• A note on cooking pasta which may seem like basic information but it's often overlooked. It's so important that you salt the water well, what you want to be doing really is seasoning the pasta from the inside out so to speak. After years of just throwing some salt in the pot and ending up with either too salty pasta or really bland pasta I've finally gotten a formula I find works perfect: 1 tsp of salt for every 500ml of water. All of these recipes call for 100g of pasta which I find cooks well in 1 litre of water so I add 2 tsp of salt to the water. Just remember that you can't use the pasta water when you do it this way though as the water is too salty to add to a dish :-)

• Since all the recipes call for 2 Tbsp of the vegan parmesan I'll also give you the instructions to make up just that amount here in case you don't have a jar of the parmesan made up to save you having to go back to the vegan parmesan post all the time :-)

To make 2 Tbsp Vegan Parmesan:
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast, finely ground
1 Tbsp ground almonds, or "almond meal"
⅛ tsp salt.....and just mix it all up!

All recipes serve one generously.

This is basically the base recipe for all of these recipes but I do also love it all on it's own. Honestly, this has replaced macaroni and cheese as my big comfort bowl of creamy pasta of choice :-) Any small pasta shape is nice here, as are noodles like fettuccine or spaghetti. 

Buttery Parmesan Pasta

100g pasta, I've used De Cecco 'Gnochetti Sardi' here

1 Tbsp vegan butter

2 Tbsp of vegan parmesan

freshly ground black pepper
splash of hot water

Boil the pasta in 1 litre of water with 2 tsp salt. Drain and tip into a bowl. (Don't return it to the pot as re-heating it will dry it all out.) Add the butter and toss with the pasta until it melts then toss in the parmesan. If it's a little thick, add a splash of hot water to loosen it up, you shouldn't need more than half a tablespoon. Top with some freshly ground black pepper and some more vegan parmesan. 

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Another favourite is this orzo dish which is also one of the very few places I actually prefer dried basil to fresh. There is really no comparing fresh and dried basil - they are different products altogether and in this dish, dried works best :-)

Orzo with Black Olives, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Vegan Parmesan

100g orzo
20g (8 whole) black olives, chopped
20g (3 whole) sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
10g vegan butter (2 tsp)
2 Tbsp vegan parmesan
¼ tsp garlic granules
¼ tsp dried basil
5 grinds black pepper
Splash of hot water

Boil orzo according to package instructions in 1 litre of water and 2 tsp of salt. Drain, return to pot with the butter, olives, tomatoes, parmesan and seasoning. Heat on low heat, stirring just until butter melts. Add a splash of hot water to loosen and make it a bit creamy, I usually add about a tablespoon. Serve with extra parmesan sprinkled on top. 

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I have always loved a basic lemon pasta, this is pretty much how I used to make it with vegetarian parmesan before being vegan and I love this vegan version just as much.

Zesty Lemon Parmesan Spaghetti

100g spaghetti
10g vegan butter (2 tsp)
2 Tbsp vegan parmesan
¼ tsp garlic granules or powder
6-7 grinds freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp lemon zest
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp hot water
*optional veg - see note below

Boil spaghetti in 1 litre of water and 2 tsp salt. Mix the vegan parm, garlic, lemon zest and pepper. Drain pasta and return to the pot but turn the heat off. Add the butter and toss until melted. Add the seasoned parmesan and mix until well blended. Add the lemon juice and mix then add a splash of hot water just to loosen the mixture up and make a sort of creamy sauce. 

*Green veg would go nicely in this: peas, asparagus, broccoli or zucchini for example. For the peas, asparagus or broccoli I would just add to the pasta water with a few minutes left. For the zucchini I would slice and halve the slices and sauté them in a little olive oil then just stir into the pasta at the end.

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For this one I've added crisp spring like vegetables of asparagus, green beans and petite pois and added fresh dill and chives. It's gorgeous :-) I usually make this with orzo but was out of it so used the gnocchetti sardi again but any small pasta shape will do the trick :-) You should use a pasta size similar to that of the veg in this for the best result.

Spring Vegetable Pasta:

100g orzo or other small pasta shape

30g green beans, chopped into ½" pieces

30g petite pois

30g asparagus, chopped into ½" pieces

1 Tbsp vegan butter 

2 Tbsp vegan parmesan 

¼ tsp garlic granules

⅛ tsp dried dill or about 1/2 Tbsp fresh, chopped fine

1 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

5 grinds black pepper

1 or 2 Tbsp hot water

Boil pasta according to package instructions in 1 litre of water with 2 tsp of salt. Add the green beans, asparagus and petite pois with 4 minutes remaining. Drain, return to pot with the butter, parmesan, chives and seasoning. Heat on low heat, stirring until butter melts. Add a splash or two of hot water to loosen and make it a bit creamy. Serve with extra parmesan to sprinkle on top and some black pepper. 

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I've been making this simple pasta dish for YEARS, when I started making it back in the vegetarian days I would always stir in parmesan at the end so I am very happy to have a tasty vegan parmesan that works in it!

I often whip this up in the summer for a quick light dinner, it's especially good with fresh from the garden tomatoes, onion, garlic and basil :-) 

Tomato and Basil Fusilli

100g fusilli or rotini

2 medium tomatoes, cored and diced (about 180g)

1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped

¼ cup onion, diced small

1 Tbsp olive oil, split

¼ cup chopped fresh basil

2 Tbsp vegan parmesan

salt and pepper

Boil the pasta according to package instructions in 1 litre of water and 2 tsp salt.

In a frying pan add ½ tbsp of olive oil, heat and fry the onion with some freshly ground black pepper until the onion is soft but not browned. Add the chopped garlic and fry a minute more. Add the chopped tomatoes and a dash of salt and gently fry until the tomatoes just start to collapse and release their juices a little bit, no more than 5 minutes should do. (Be careful not to overcook them here, you don't want them mushy with lots of liquid.)

Drain the pasta and return to the pot. Add the tomato mixture to the pasta, make sure you get all the liquid in there! Now add the parmesan and basil and mix well on low heat until well mixed and warmed up. Drizzle over the other ½ Tbsp of olive oil and stir until creamy looking. Serve with more parmesan to sprinkle over top.

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Nutritional Information: for the first 'base' recipe only (all the other recipes will be similar enough in stats).

Calories: 492

Protein: 16g

Fat: 15.6g

Sat Fat: 3.4g

Fibre: 4.9g

Carbs: 72.9g

Sugar: 3.7g

Sodium: 417mg

Vegan Parmesan

Why has it taken me so long to make my own vegan parmesan style cheese? This stuff has transformed our lives, well, our culinary lives anyway! I actually made this ages ago and I've been using it in EVERYTHING - so much so that I feel like I should go back and update a lot of my recipes! I furthermore have so many recipes to blog that call for some of this stuff that I had to hurry up and blog this one so I can clear the backlog, haha! So yes, expect this to feature in a LOT of upcoming blog posts :-)

Now there are a lot of recipes out there for vegan parmesan cheese and they are all pretty much based on the same formula - nutritional yeast, nuts and or seeds and salt/seasoning. I didn't follow any other recipe here, I just kept experimenting with different ratios until I was happy with the outcome. In the end I found simple was best - just 3 ingredients with a nice balance of flavour. 

I absolutely LOVE the taste of this and while I am not going to say it tastes "just like parmesan" (because it doesn't, although close!) I will say that it works as a perfect replacement for parmesan in pretty much any recipe. You know all those risotto recipes that call for "1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese"? Yup, just use this instead - it's perfect for risotto, sprinkled over pizza, pasta (of course!) but we even love it stirred into baked beans to make them cheesier and creamy. Loads of possibilities here! 

The other great things about this recipe? Only 3 ingredients and no food processor or blender needed! Simple.

Vegan Parmesan:

2 Tbsp ground almonds

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

1/4 tsp salt

Grind up the nutritional yeast flakes in a mortar and pestle until they are a fine powder. If you don't have one you can easily just powder the flakes by hand or by placing in a zip-lock bag and running a rolling pin over. Add the ground almonds and salt and mix. That's it!

Notes:  Recipe makes just 1/4 cup of parmesan which I find is the perfect amount for meals that serve 2-3 people. If I am making say, just a pasta for myself I will make up half this recipe to throw in. If you want a large jar of this then simply double, triple, quadruple or more! Personally, I tend to just make this up as I need it as it's so easy to do :-)

....and for another variation - Smoked Vegan Parmesan! This stuff is gorgeous thrown into anything you want to add a cheesy, smoky, almost dare I say, "bacon-y" flavour to? ;-)

Smoked Vegan Parmesan:

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast, ground

2 Tbsp ground almonds

1/2 tsp smoked sea salt

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Make as instructed above.

....there will be a dedicated pasta blog post coming up featuring some of my favourite simple recipes using the parmesan!

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Nutritional Information: full recipe

Calories: 102

Protein: 6.0g

Fat: 7.2g

Sat Fat: 0.5g

Fibre: 3.0g

Carbs: 5.5g

Sugar: 0.5g

Sodium: 586.4mg

Dark Chocolate filled Raspberries

Just an idea for you today rather than a recipe - these are absolutely delicious, super easy and really quite a healthy sweet!

I saw the idea of filling strawberries with chocolate on Pinterest and as someone who has always loved chocolate covered strawberries I thought this would make an even easier way too eat them. You pare out a hole from the strawberry and fill with dark chocolate. 

It was good but was a bit fiddly with all the paring out, plus my strawberries were too big to eat in one bite which meant they were just as messy to eat as the chocolate covered type, you know, with chocolate crumbling everywhere!

Enter raspberries - bite sized and no paring necessary! Perfect. I've always loved dark chocolate and raspberry together so this was an easy match.

Simply melt some dark vegan chocolate of your choice, I used the microwave to melt and used 50g of chopped chocolate but only used about 20g. Scrape it all into a ziplock baggy, placing this in a mug or glass makes it easier, then snip off the tiniest of corner of the bag. 

To make them easy to fill I placed my raspberries in an empty ice cube tray - 2 fit upright in each cube hole. Then simply pipe the chocolate in. When done place in the fridge to set - mine were set in about an hour.

They work out at about 5 calories each - nice :-)

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Cheezy Pizza Tofu Fillet in Puff Pastry

Taifun brand pizza tofu fillet, topped with mozza cheezly and baked in puff pastry.

I actually posted this on my daily food diary awhile ago, a place I tend to stick things that are more "simple ideas" than actual "recipes" but I felt this was too good to not get a bigger audience, so here it is!

Plus, I've not been well lately. My son picked up that 'slapped cheek syndrome' or 5th disease as it's otherwise known and while it didn't affect him much I got it. Turns out it can cause lupus to flare up in sufferers and can cause acute anaemia in people who are immune suppressed (me) So, of course I had to go and get BOTH a nasty lupus flare up and anaemia on top of the virus itself.

Needless to say I wasn't doing much cooking and was living off ready made foods and anything easy to grab. I'm feeling better now, still weak from the anaemia but better anyway, but it took awhile. SO, since I haven't got anything lined up to blog I felt I might as well post this up here as it was really, really good - it tasted like a Mediterranean herb sausage roll - amazing! Will definitely make this again for a quick, easy and almost fancy main dish. I also bet it would be good cold and great to take on picnics!

Pizza Tofu Fillet in Puff Pastry: serves 2 (or 1 if you don't give a toss about calories!)

1 Taifun Tofu Pizza Fillet
Cheezly Mozza, about 20g - optional
Ready Rolled Puff Pastry - Jus-Rol is labelled vegan, I used 100g

Preheat the oven to 220C.

Cut out 2 rectangles from 1 sheet of puff pastry one about an inch larger than the fillet and the other one slightly larger again. Place the tofu fillet in the middle of the smaller one and top with the cheezly.

Wet around the edges of the pastry then place the larger sheet over top. Press around the edges then seal with a fork all around the pastry.

Place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until puffed up and deeply golden brown. Slice in half and serve with a side salad, or just eat the whole damn thing!! You'll see the reason I only have half below but I also must stress I found half with a salad filling and satisfying :-)

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Nutritional Information: (for the WHOLE thing and the reason I only have half!!)

Calories: 660

Fat: 43.6

Sat Fat: 17.4g

Protein: 18.5g

Carbs: 35.4g

Sugar: 0.7mg

Fibre: 1.6g

Sodium: 564mg

Some other ideas I've made with the Pizza Fillets:

Simply fried on the side of Tomato and Herb Couscous and Steamed Asparagus.

These are the fillets and that's the Kallo brand stock cube I cooked the couscous in.

Fried and placed in a warm crusty baguette with vegan mayo, lettuce and tomato - delish!

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Vegan Butter Grilled Bagel Toasties

♥ Vegan Chicken, Avocado and Basil on Plain Butter Grilled Bagel ♥

♥ White Bean Houmous, Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil on Butter Grilled Caramelized Onion and Poppyseed Bagel ♥

♥ Avocado, Tomato, Almond Feta and Basil on Butter Grilled Caramelized Onion and Poppyseed Bagel ♥

♥ The Elvis Breakfast Bagel: Peanut Butter and Banana on a Butter Grilled Multigrain Seeded Bagel ♥

I've been having these for lunch lately and as they are so simple I was going to post the recipes on the food diary blog but you know what? They've been so delicious they've been promoted! I'm usually not keen on bagel sandwiches only because I find they are too thick to eat and for me bagels HAVE to be toasted. This way of grilling the bagel first works great as you don't end up squishing out all of your filling while grilling and the butter spread side gets nice and crisp with a wonderful "buttery" flavour, much better than grilling the bagel sandwich whole or by simply toasting the bagel first.

Oh, and I never know what to call vegan equivalents of meat and dairy products, am I supposed to give it a funny name? Chikn? Not use the word butter? "Margarine grilled" doesn't have the same ring to it. I never know, but part of me simply cannot purposely spell anything wrong! It's a vegan blog, you guys know I'm talking about the vegan versions ;-)

I was quite fancying something with vegan chicken and avocado and first came up with the chicken and avocado version and it was absolutely delicious. Then, I had made up some white bean houmous - long story short but I think I've developed an intolerance to chickpeas! As I could not live without houmous I had a go at making my usual houmous recipe with haricot beans as well as cannellini and it turned out perfect, I  couldn't even tell the difference and I had no reaction to it, thank God for that! Can you imagine a life without houmous? Me neither.

As I had some Caramelized Onion and Poppyseed Bagels (Tesco brand) I had a go at making another bagel toasty, this one screaming out for sun-dried tomatoes and basil. O.M.G - this was amazing! I love discovering new and delicious sandwiches. Sometimes I think I'm like Joey from Friends :-)

Lastly, as I wanted to include as many bagel variations as possible here and also had some multigrain seeded bagels I figured some peanut butter and banana a la Elvis would make another great version. Oddly enough I don't actually like banana with bread but my husband does so made that one for him and he loved it. Oh and it would also be delicious with vegan nutella instead of the peanut butter. If you live in Ireland, Spar's own label Hazelnut Spread is vegan!

Obviously there are loads of variations possible here, I didn't even get into any using vegan cream cheese! But here are a few simple and yummy options for you:

Marzipan Mince Pie Croissants

♥ 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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Breakfast Sausage and Hash-brown Burger

"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!

Breakfast 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

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Beer Cooked Sausage and Onions in Crusty French Baguette

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

Serves 1:

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 Taifun Grill Sausage

1 onion, sliced

50ml vegan lager

1/2 tsp agave syrup

1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard

2 tsp vegan Worcester sauce

Crusty French baguette, sliced to the size of the sausage

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

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Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Well, a cheater's version anyway ;-)

Well, I hope you all had a nice Easter! I didn't do much cooking or blogging (obviously!) myself as I've had my son home on holidays and just wanted to spend time with him. The weather has been gorgeous lately and as well as going our for bike rides and days at the park I've been thinking about ice cream, as you do ;)

I really, really want to get myself an ice cream maker but until then this is such an easy idea to make your own flavoured vegan ice cream. Back in our vegetarian days we used to love some Ben and Jerry's - I would always get Phish Food and my husband would get the Cookie Dough. haven't been particularly missing that in any great quantities but awhile back I made my other favourite flavour ice cream - chocolate chip mint, by simply stirring in some vegan chocolate chips and a few drops peppermint extract and green food colouring into some vegan vanilla ice cream. It turned out so well I started thinking about other flavours and thought I would have a go at recreating my husband's old favourite - cookie dough.

I'm happy to report it turned out fantastic!! This is so good, and so easy, he says it's a very spot on version, certainly the cookie dough itself is, obviously the ice cream won't taste like Ben and Jerry's as it's vegan but as long as you use a vegan vanilla ice cream you like, it'll be good.... Too good!!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream:

1 x 750ml tub Swedish Glace vanilla ice cream (or your favourite vegan vanilla ice cream)

57g vegan margarine

50g caster sugar

54g light muscovado sugar, ground up a little in a mortar and pestle

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

100g plain flour

90g finely chopped vegan dark chocolate

First make your cookie dough. Cream the margarine with the sugars until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and beat with a whisk. Add the flour and stir until a stiff dough forms. Stir in the chopped chocolate. The dough will be 'dry-ish' and stiff - that's good. Now take little 1/2 tsp heaped blobs of dough and squish them together with you hands. Then roll into a ball and flatten into little cylinder shapes. You can leave them round if you like - I just wanted to recreate the shape in Ben and Jerry's.

Now, lay them out not touching and place in the freezer until frozen - at least 5 hours.

Now, take the ice cream out of the freezer to soften. This is the slightly tricky part. Obviously it's not good food hygiene to re-freeze previously frozen food. You don't want to thaw this!! You just want it to be just manageable to fold in the cookie dough's. It should still be firm and have ice crystals. Thankfully Swedish Glace gets soft enough pretty quick to do this. I think mine was only out 10-15 minutes -not long enough to cause any problems. Spoon out the ice cream into a large bowl and as best you can fold in the frozen cookie dough's. Don't worry if it's all a bit clumpy, it's more important to keep it as frozen as possible than stress it's mixing in enough. Now press it back into the tub and pop it back into freezer to fully set. Again, do not let it thaw!

Now, just remove it from the freezer 5 -10 minutes before serving and scoop it out! Delicious!! :)

I don't have a recipe per say for the chocolate chip mint I made awhile ago but it was the same process simply adding some peppermint extract to taste, green food colour (optional) and some vegan dark chocolate chips, stirred in and popped back in the freezer.

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Nutritional Analysis: based on using Swedish Glace Vanilla Ice Cream, per 100g:

Calories: 453 (yeah, I know!! It is worth it though!!)

Fat: 22g

Sat Fat: 10g

Fibre: 1.3g

Protein: 5.6g

Carbohydrates: 33.7g

Sugars: 47.7g

Sodium: 167mg

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Custard Creams (cheat!)

Not a recipe this time but just an idea. We got these 'morning coffee biscuits' from Waitrose the other day - they are on their vegan list. While I found them dead boring on their own, felt they would make excellent sandwich biscuits due to their thinness. I was right - made up a batch of vanilla buttercream and was surprised how much that turned these into custard creams! I've always missed those and have always been annoyed that all brands have whey in them - seriously, what's the point???

Obviously any flavour frosting can be used here but if you fancy some custard creams - go for straight vanilla. I just mixed up some vegan margarine, vanilla extract, icing sugar and rice milk until I got a slightly thicker buttercream than I would use for cupcakes and sandwiched them up :)

Quick and Easy Vegan Fudgsicle

This was just an idea I wanted to test out. I do miss fudgsicles, which you can't even buy here vegan or not. British readers might not know what I'm on about but they are basically a rich chocolate ice cream on a stick, but not ice cream, more fudge like.... Anyway, I got wondering if Alpro's dark chocolate soya pudding (my fav) would freeze well and it does! This wasn't exactly like fudgsicles but was a nice cool chocolaty treat - perfect in the heat. Oh and dead easy, just spoon the pudding into popsicle moulds and freeze :)