Chocolate Zucchini Bread

So yes, I am still making my way through zucchini's!! I have always wanted to try zucchini bread, somehow never getting around to making it either vegan or pre-vegan. It's not normally chocolate but plain and spiced with cinnamon and allspice, the zucchini adding moistness but no flavour, like carrot cake. However, I saw this chocolate version and it looked so good I had to try it. I also saw online another method for replacing eggs using xanthan gum and I've been wanting to test out so this seemed like a good time.

Well, the new egg replacer worked brilliantly - the cake held together, rose and was really moist without any 'gumminess' or strange taste. The bread had the texture of brownies and even got that crackly skin on top that brownies get. However, this recipe still added the cinnamon and allspice as well as chocolate and I really wasn't liking that flavour combination. I think the cinnamon would work on it's own but the allspice was too strong and added a bitterness - not good. I would certainly make it again without the spices and can't wait to try this method for replacing eggs in other things - like proper brownies :)

227g shredded raw zucchini
140g plain flour
45g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
120ml vegetable oil
100g caster sugar
105g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g plain chocolate chips

Egg Replacer: This is to replace 2 eggs.
1 Tbsp corn starch (corn flour)
1 Tbsp potato starch
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp vegetable oil
scant 1/2 cup water

Slowly whisk in the oil and water to the other ingredients until well combined and a bit frothy.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C and grease a 9x5x3 in loaf pan. Set aside. Grate the zucchini using a medium grater - I used a food processor with a grate attachment, much easier! In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. Whisk together the oil, sugars, egg replacer and vanilla until well blended. Due to the xanthan gum it will get rather gloopy but don't worry, it works in the end :)

Fold in the grated zucchini then the flour mixture, stirring until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about an hour. It should be risen and a toothpick should come out clean (crumbs ok). Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then remove the bread from the pan to cool completely.

Sources: Joy of Baking
Egg Replacers

Stuffed Zucchini with Curried Potatoes and Peas

So I'm still very happily making my way through all the zucchini given to us - good thing I love them! We got these round ones that are simply designed to be stuffed. Then found this recipe online which I thought would make a nice change from rice which is usually stuffed into these things. It was originally meant to stuff regular zucchini's but I figured it would work with these.

Well, it didn't......don't get me wrong, the filling is very good and the reason I'm blogging this but the zucchini never got fully cooked and then the salt from the filling drew out all the moisture of the flesh resulting in a large pool of curry water in the bottom of the zucchinis. Sigh. Oh well, they were still cooked enough to eat and like the recipe said the salty spiciness of the filling does go well with the cool almost blandness of the zucchini.

I did make one change which may have accounted for the liquid. Recipe called for 2 Tbsp chickpea flour or to substitute with wholemeal flour, it acts as a binder. I decided to use ground almonds as I love adding that to curries but maybe it wasn't enough to absorb, but, it was very yummy and I would still recommend adding it.

My version (slightly different, here is the original.)

240g peeled and diced baking potatoes
2 tsp vegan margarine
2 tsp vegetable oil
240g chopped onion
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chile, seeded and chopped finely
2 Tbsp ground almonds
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp ground cumin
200g frozen peas
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
3/4 tsp salt
zucchini's to stuff (if you want to attempt it!)

Cook the diced potato in boiling water until just tender. Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside. Heat the marg and oil in a large pot and gently fry the onion, ginger, garlic and chile until onions are soft. Stir in the ground almonds, peas and spices and cook gently for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the salt, potatoes and parley and stir gently until potato is heated through.

If stuffing - cut the zucchini and scoop out centre (whether it's round or a regular zucchini) and sprinkle with salt (do this before you make the filling). Place cut side up in a roasting pan. Preheat oven to 190C/375F. When filling is made pat the zucchini dry with paper towels and stuff with filling. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. If using round just put the tops back on to bake but also you may want to slightly par boil them before filling. They still weren't quite cooked after half an hour.

Heidi Swanson's Carrot, Dill and White Bean Salad

...or in my case, carrot, dill and flageolet beans....

This is one of those dishes were the photo just does not do it justice. I know it just looks like carrots with beans, but the carrots are caramelized and together with the shallots, dill and crunchy toasted almond slices and a touch of brown sugar makes a very yummy salad indeed! It's another gem from Heidi's blog which she just posted yesterday that I had to make right away, thankful I actually had all the ingredients in the house. Well, minus the alubia beans which I have never even heard of, I replaced with flageolet, which, yes I think I'm addicted too! But also I think I read somewhere they are a good replacement for 'white beans'.

I'm going to be lazy and just send you over to her blog for the original recipe and instructions but will post quantities here. Her recipe served 6 - 8 as a side - this is for 1 serving as a main and I've converted all those cups into grams for those of us this side of the pond.

1 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/16 tsp salt
2 thinly sliced shallots

1 tsp olive oil
80g sliced carrots
150g tinned flageolet beans, drained and rinsed well
1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
15g toasted almond flakes

Instructions and tips and much better photo over on Heidi's blog .

Beer Battered Zucchini Sticks with a Vegan Ranch Style Dip

sorry for dark picture - hard to get natural light during a thunderstorm :)

Oh my these turned out so well!!! Battered deep fried zucchini sticks have always been my favorite appetizer back home but for some reason they are just not done here. So with no outlet to satisfy my craving had to make my own. Plus we just got a whole bunch of zucchini from lovely friends and relatives that grow their own and I can't think of a better way to have it, well, healthier yes, but never mind that!! I have made my own before but breaded them and shallow fried, this time I wanted to batter and deep fry (as is served in pubs and restaurants back home) but had trouble finding a recipe that didn't include egg. Came across this beer batter one, which is just beer and flour, and it worked perfectly.

Now for the dip, zucchini sticks are almost always served with a ranch style dip which is most certainly not vegan. I found a non-vegan recipe and just decided to replace the mayo/buttermilk/sour cream with their vegan replacements. Trying it once made I wasn't too sure, seemed there was too much of a 'different' taste. However, with the sticks it's perfect - it simply needs to be dipped! Will definitely be making both these again and am thinking the batter will make great onion rings that will also go great with the dip.
*EDIT* have made an even better ranch dip - recipe below!!

Beer Battered Zucchini Sticks:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup vegan lager
Vegetable oil for frying

Whisk 1 cup of the flour with the beer in a large bowl until smooth. Pour through a sieve into another bowl and let sit for 1 hour. When finished thin with more beer if necessary, it should be like pancake batter - I didn't need to add any more lager though.

Cut the zucchini into sticks about 3/4 inch wide and 4 inches long. You need to have skin on each one. Heat the oil in a large pot - you want about 3 - 4 inches of oil until quite hot (360F if you have a thermometer) I didn't have one but found the oil needed to be hot - it was on maximum the whole time.

Combine the remaining 1/2 cup of flour with some salt and pepper in a shallow bowl. Coat the sticks shaking off any excess flour. Give the batter a good whisk then dip the sticks in the batter letting excess drip off. Carefully drop into the hot oil in batches and fry until crisp and golden brown. Remove and let drain on paper towels.

Vegan Ranch Style Dip:
1/2 cup vegan mayo (I used plamil)
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp plain soy yogurt
2 Tbsp vegan sour cream
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper (I used 1/8 tsp)
1/8 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/16th tsp dried thyme
fresh dill, about a Tbsp, just eye ball it

Whisk all together really well and chill in the fridge.

EDIT - New and better version ranch dip:
75g tofutti cream cheese
2 Tbsp dairy free milk
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/8 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried dillweed

Whisk all together until super creamy then chill in the fridge. Perfection. :-)

Sources: zucchini sticks,
ranch dip.

Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes

First, apologies for not blogging for so long, I did end up in hospital again (the vegan food as outstanding as ever) and have been slowly recovering at home here.

Anyway, back to business! I know these don't look pretty at all - they didn't turn out the way I wanted. I had envisioned little sponge cakes baked in my mince pan, spread with jam on top then topped with a pretty piped swirl of vanilla buttercream. Well, the bottoms were too soft after baking so when I tried to remove them all the tops popped off! So they had to be filled instead and put upside down as the tops were firmer than the bottoms, hence their strange appearance!

Doesn't matter though as they are so, so good, the raspberry jam going so nicely with the buttercream, lovely with a cup of tea! This post is more of an idea so no real recipe - I used a cake mix replacing the egg with sparkling water but any vegan white cake recipe would do. Then just spread with raspberry jam and some vanilla buttercream - I used Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World's recipe here.

Strawberry Vanilla Muffins

Well, so much for me reducing my sugar! In my defense though I had some strawberries and soy yogurt that needed using and I have been wanting to try a muffin recipe for awhile now.... These turned out really well despite all my efforts to the contrary. I didn't have enough soy yogurt so topped up with vegan sour cream, I didn't have enough strawberries, I ran out of plain flour and had to top up with self - raising flour, then the batter was too dry and I had to add some rice milk at the end (right at the stage where you should not be adding liquid in a muffin batter!) But, despite all that they turned out lovely, great flavour, super moist and were even better the next day. I then made them again as I was supposed to and I couldn't tell the difference, still light and moist and tasted great, so I will post that recipe.

Now, almost all baked goods call for some vanilla extract but I wanted these to really, really taste of vanilla - as it's a flavour that goes so well with strawberries. So in these I used 1 tsp vanilla extract (real stuff please!) as well as the seeds from one vanilla pod. If you click on the pics below you can see the little black specks in the muffins. Do dust with powdered sugar once cool - I left them plain just for the photo but they taste great with a good dusting.

Strawberry and Vanilla Muffins:

350g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
150g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
♥
240ml (1 cup) plain, unsweetened soy yogurt
120ml (1/2 cup) rice milk
160ml (2/3 cup) vegetable oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 vanilla pod, split open and seeds scraped out
♥
2 cups chopped fresh strawberries

Preheat oven to 190C. Brush a 12 hole muffin tin with vegetable oil and set aside. In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients then fold in the strawberries. In another bowl whisk together the soy yogurt, milk, oil and vanilla's - whisk well so that the vanilla seeds don't clump together. Pour the wet into the dry and fold gently until just moistened - do not overmix. Fill each muffin cup until almost full and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Leave in the pan to cool for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool fully. I had to let them cool upside down due to the bottoms being quite delicate at this stage. Dust with powdered sugar once cool, or at least room temp, and serve.

Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking .

♥

Banana Coconut Chocolate Drops

I really didn't know what to call these, it's not my recipe but was featured on Heidi Swanson's blog as 'Nikki's Healthy Cookies' - but I had to give them a different name so, Banana Coconut Chocolate Drops it is! Now, how are they healthy? Mainly from no added sugar and the use of coconut oil, but also they are butter, flour and egg-less.... now, obviously I can get on without butter, flour and eggs but the sugar-less aspect had me very skeptical. However, they are very good and I will definitely be making these again! I can't say I missed the sugar, they are still sweet and as Heidi says the coconut gives them an almost macaroon quality -yum! I really want to cut down on the sugar and it's a great way to still have something sweet and not stress about it too much. They are still quite calorific mind you, so don't confuse 'health cookie' with 'diet cookie'! Just click on the link above for the original recipe in cups, I have adapted it here in grams, I also recommend halving this as I did, recipe makes a lot!

3 large ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla
60ml extra-virgin coconut oil, barely warm so liquid
220g rolled oats
70g ground almonds
44g shredded coconut (recipe calls for unsweetened, I did use desiccated sweetened as that's what I had)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
170 - 200g dark chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat oven to 180C and line baking sheets with paper. Combine the bananas, coconut oil and vanilla and set aside. Combine oats, almonds, coconut, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Add dry to wet and stir till combined, it will be 'wetter' than most cookie doughs. Fold in chocolate then drop dough 2 tsp apart on sheets and bake for 12 - 14 minutes or until golden. Let cool on racks.

3 Bean Salad with a Lemon Dill Vinaigrette

I love this salad, it's a change from 'traditional' 3 bean salads as I personally don't like all that sugar in those. As I love dill and lemon I thought I would try them together and it works really well, a nice light fresh salad. 

While the green and kidney beans are traditional I know the flageolet are not....but they should be, their mild creaminess go perfectly in this. Besides, given the choice I would use flageolet in place of almost all beans, king of beans they are!! Salad is best the next day when it's had time to soak in the flavours.

Served with corn on the cob and fresh from the oven biscuits. (recipe below!)

3 Bean Salad

1/2 tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed (130g)
1/2 tin flageolet beans, drained and rinsed (130g)
130g fresh green beans, topped, tailed and chopped into 1" pieces
♥
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp vegan mayo
1 clove garlic, pureed (I use a fine microplane)
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
fresh dill or 1/4 tsp dried dill
-optional - 1/4 tsp of sweetener of your choice. Only if you feel it needs it, sometimes I add 1/4 tsp of Sweet Freedom Syrup (it's vegan and tastes just like honey) depending on my mood!

Steam the green beans until just fork tender then refresh under cold water until cool. Place in a bowl with the other beans and mix. In a small bowl add the olive oil then slowly whisk in the lemon juice and mayo until well mixed. Whisk in the salt and dill then pour over the beans and gently fold in with a rubber spatula. Chill well, preferably overnight.

2013 update - I've been loving this salad wrapped up into large romaine leaves - goes beautifully together! It is a *little* messy, but worth it :-) Just spoon some of the bean salad on a large leaf, trim the stem to make it easy to wrap, fold the ends in then roll up.

Hot "Buttery" Biscuits

These biscuits go great with this meal which is why I'm blogging them together. So quick and easy to throw together and very yum. British readers may be a bit confused on their name, these are biscuits in the American sense, more like a savoury scone I guess, but lighter and flakier. I grew up with these, my brother and I impatiently waiting for them to come out of the oven to slather them with butter right away! Sometimes I add 1 finely chopped spring onion and 1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh dill to the flour stage - very good....

Biscuits:
140g plain flour (1 cup)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
30g vegetable fat (shortening - 2 Tbsp)
80ml dairy free milk (1/3 cup)
- lots of vegan butter to spread on!

Preheat oven to 200C/ 400F. Whisk all the dry ingredients together. Add the fat and cut in with a pasty cutter or two knives until crumbly. Stir in milk with a fork until it just comes together. Gently knead on a floured surface 8 - 10 times. Pat out a thick circle (about 1 1/2 - 2 ") and cut out circles, you should get 4 depending on size of cutter . Place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake for 12 minutes or until risen and golden on top. Serve immediately split open and spread with vegan margarine.

Mixed Leaf and Avocado Salad with a Ginger, Sesame and Lime Dressing

This post is mostly just about the dressing here. One of our favorite restaurants, Mizu, does this amazing side salad which is simply mixed leaf with sliced avocado on top but with a delicious ginger sesame dressing. Everytime I have it it reminds me of the Otsu dressing minus the cayenne and with lime instead of lemon. So, I tried it without the cayenne and replaced the lemon with lime and it is almost identical to the restaurant version, soooo good! I also had to omit the salt, for some reason the spicy otsu version isn't too salty but this did not need it. I highly recommend it served simply like this or you can toss it with cold soba noodles and tofu cubes, like with otsu - either way it absolutely has to be served with avocodo - essential!

Ginger, Sesame and Lime dressing: (this should serve 2)
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp peanut oil
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp caster sugar
7g peeled fresh ginger (about a 2 inch cube), pureed or grated finely
zest of 1/2 lime

Add the oils to a small bowl then slowly whisk in the vinegar, lime juice and soy sauce. Whisk in everything else. Place some mixed leaf in a bowl and top with half a hass avocado, sliced, pour dressing over and sprinkle with black sesame seeds (optional).

Strawberry Lemonade

Well as it has gotten so lovely and hot here lately it's time to stop the baking and get on with cool drinks and fresh salads. Haven't made this since last summer but it is so refreshing, you can use blackberries too but the nice British strawberries in the shops now are so good! For some reason it went a little thick this time, more smoothie like so I had to add a bit more water, just adjust to how you like it.

200ml fresh lemon juice, about 7 lemons squeezed and pulp strained away
400ml water
400g strawberries
100g caster sugar

Process in blender till liquidized, add more water and or lemon juice if too thick. Serve with lots of ice and slices of strawberries and lime.