Banana Custard with Biscuit Crust

Now like the last soup recipe this is another attempt I wasn't going to blog. What can I say? I've had about 4 cooking and baking attempts lately that have just been....meh, or bad photos, things just not going right...sigh, it's like I've lost my cooking mojo.... That being said I don't know why I wasn't going to blog this, I actually really liked it, as did my husband and the boy liked it so much he asked for more once they were all gone! As I initially wasn't going to blog these I didn't take a picture showing the biscuit crust - sorry! But, it's just a basic digestive (graham cracker) crust pressed in and baked.

It all started just trying to think of something to do with a couple very ripe bananas I had. Tired of the usual muffins, banana bread and cupcakes I started thinking of pies, particularly banana cream pie. This is what I ended up with and it is really good, it has a very strong banana taste though so this one is for banana lovers only :) Please excuse any odd quantities, I made this one up not following any recipe, adding things as I went. I got 5 servings from this using individual serving dishes like you see in the photo.

Banana Custard:
200ml reduced fat coconut milk
300 ml rice milk
220g very ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
60g golden caster sugar
60g "Bird's" custard powder
1 tsp vanilla

Biscuit Crust:
120g vegan digestives
1 Tbsp golden caster sugar
35g vegan margarine, melted

Place the biscuits in a food processor and blitz till very crumbly(no large chunks). Tip into a bowl with the sugar and pour in the melted margarine. Stir well then spoon into dessert dishes, pressing down lightly with the back of a spoon. Pop into preheated 180C oven and bake for 10 minutes - let cool on wire rack.

For the custard, mix the custard powder and sugar together in a bowl and set aside. Mix together the coconut, rice milk and vanilla and set aside. Place the bananas in a blender and add just enough of the milk mixture so that it will blend - blend till smooth. You shouldn't need much of the milks here, it's just to 'make it go'. Pour some more of the milk into the powder/sugar mix just to make a paste. Heat the remaining milk until nearly boiling then pour into the custard mix, whisk well. Pour this back into the saucepan and heat gently, stirring and whisking constantly while you bring it to a boil and it thickens. Add the pureed banana and whisk well, you should have a smooth and thick mixture now - note this will be thicker than traditional custard. You are after a pudding here, not a pourable custard. Spoon this into the cooled bases and set in the fridge to fully cool. We had these as is but they would be nice with some vegan whipped cream on top

Coconut Lime Bundt Cake

I have a new favorite cake! This is so yummy, I got the recipe from BBC Good Food where it was already vegan :) Well, providing you replace the butter with vegan margarine... Only other changes I made was to replace the lemon with lime, as I think coconut and lime should always be together....and added some lime to the frosting as well as I felt it needed some acidity to cut through the richness. Further, the recipe called for coconut cream, I did have some but mostly had full fat coconut milk that I needed to use up so I did a combo of both. I do think the cream can be fully replaced with full fat coconut milk though and still be good.

Some of the comments on their site mention this being quite crumbly. Well, it is, but I have to say I really like that in this. With the coconut in there the crumbliness gives it a macaroon feel and as I feel a lot of vegan cakes can actually err on being too moist - this was a nice change. They cooked it in a regular springform tin but I have this bundt cake ring that doesn't get used too much so thought I would try it. Only thing is I had to take it out of the oven with about 20 minutes left - it didn't need anywhere near the 1 hour cooking time they called for.

Coconut Lime Bundt Cake:
140g vegan margarine
140g golden caster sugar
50ml coconut cream, heated just until liquid (just replace with more milk if hard to find)
100ml full fat coconut milk
juice and zest of 1 lime
50g unsweetened desiccated coconut
85g fine cornmeal (polenta)
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
140g plain flour

Coconut Lime Glaze:
210g icing sugar
juice and zest of 1 lime
about 4 Tbsp full fat coconut milk

For the cake - 'butter' and flour a springform pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 180C. Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the coconut cream, lime juice and zest and whisk well, add the rest of the coconut milk a bit at a time until all incorporated. Combine the flour, cornmeal, coconut, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add this to the milk mixture and whisk until just combined and you have a soft but not too wet mixture - it will be 'thick-ish'.

Spoon into your prepared tin and bake for 30min. If using a different size tin this may take longer, or less - it will look golden on top and a toothpick inserted should come out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool in pan on a wire rack. Then remove from pan and insert onto a serving plate.

For the glaze just whisk together everything until you have a thick but slightly pourable mixture. Spoon it over the cooled cake letting it pour over the sides a bit. Leave it too set then slice and serve. I got 16 slices out of my bundt pan for this.

Lentil Bolognese

With homemade vegan garlic bread

This has been a standard in our house for years. I have already blogged this on my previous vegetarian blog but it was already vegan as long as you omitted the parmesan on top.

It's a great basic sauce recipe that is not confined to pasta, anywhere you would use a meat sauce you can use this: in lasagna, in baked potatoes, shepherds pie etc.. It's very versatile and so yummy. This is one of Finn's favorites, I first gave it to him years ago with rotini pasta and I guess the stripes of the rotini and the brown/orangy sauce made him think of tigers as he instantly dubbed it 'Tiger pasta' which it is now of course always referred to in our house!

I actually got the recipe from 'Baby and Child Vegetarian Recipes' by Carol Timperley a cookbook I still use a lot and found indispensable when Finn was younger. It's basically a standard bolognese sauce recipe replacing the meat with brown lentils. The recipe makes a lot, 8 adult servings, which is really handy as it freezes really well making it an easy dinner standby.

Lentil Bolognese:

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
Pinch dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 red pepper, seeded and chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped (optional – use 2 carrots if not using)
175g button mushrooms, quartered
2 tablespoons tomato puree
150ml red wine or water (I use water when Finn is having it...which is always!)
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce (make sure to use dark, should say dark on the label)
Salt and pepper to taste
pinch of sugar
1 large tin (400g) chopped tomatoes (recipe called for a half tin, I use a whole as I find it needs it)
2 x 400g tins brown or green lentils, drained and rinsed (can't find 'brown' lentils here, the tins labeled 'green' are actually brown in colour inside)

Heat the oil, add the onion, basil, oregano and bay leaf and cook till onions are transparent. Add the garlic, stir, then add the carrot, celery and red pepper, cook for a few minutes then add the mushrooms. When the mushrooms begin to wilt, stir in the remaining ingredients, bring to the boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes, add more water if too dry but it shouldn't be overly 'saucy'. Allow to cool slightly, remove bay leaf, transfer to a food processor and blend till smooth.

I serve this with about 67g of pasta per person, as the sauce is quite filling on it's own. Some nutritional yeast sprinkled on top before serving is nice too. Lovely meal with the garlic bread and a nice glass of vegan red wine ;)

Makes 8 adult portions, 16 child size portions.

♥

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!!

I usually love preparing my thanksgiving feast and was looking forward to it this year as I really wanted to try and perfect the pumpkin pie and try another entree. However, I just couldn't get my act together this year and I've run out of time!

Anyone looking for ideas can go here for my last Thanksgiving dinner and for our last Christmas dinner we had a Tourtiere which was delicious and would make a lovely Thanksgiving centrepiece. Or, how about some Vegan Haggis to work around! See, lots of cruelty free options ;) Enjoy!

Creamy Lemon Garlic Tagliatelle

So I had some leftover coconut milk from the hot chocolate and really fancied some creamy lemony pasta. I haven't yet tried using coconut milk to substitute cream in a sauce, I thought it would taste too, well, too 'coconutty'. Well, I'm happy to report that it doesn't. This turned out so well :) :) Once you add the rather strong flavours of lemon, garlic and basil the coconut flavour gets a little lost and you are just left with a lusciously creamy sauce. And to be honest what coconut flavour is left is actually really lovely! Lemon pasta has always been one of my favorites and I will definitely make this again!

*EDIT* - just made a mushroom version of this, add 250g sliced mushrooms that you fry with the garlic and margarine until soft. Replace the basil with finely chopped fresh thyme - lovely creamy garlic mushroom sauce!

Serves 2:
10g vegan margarine (2 tsp)
200ml reduced fat coconut milk (guessing regular fat will work too, it's just what I had)
Zest of 2 lemons
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
2 large cloves garlic, pureed
handful of fresh basil, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
150g tagliatelle, or whatever pasta suits you :)

Put the pasta on to cook. Meanwhile melt the margarine in a small saucepan and add the garlic, stir over low heat for a couple minutes then add the lemon zest. Add the coconut milk slowly and stir well, add the salt, basil and some pepper. Stir over low heat while the pasta is cooking. When pasta is ready, drain well and return to the pot, pour the sauce over and over medium heat cook stirring until thickened up a bit. Serve immediately with some more black pepper. I also sprinkled a little nutritional yeast powder over top which was nice.

The Ultimate Vegan Hot Chocolate

*see edit below*

I am so happy. You see, I have always loved hot chocolate, not those pissy watered down instant jobs but real decadent hot chocolate. Finding an acceptable vegan version has been a bit of a nightmare as so far I have hated the taste of all dairy free milks heated up. That was until I tried coconut milk. OMG. This is not only the best vegan hot chocolate I have ever had but hands down the best hot chocolate I have ever had - and believe me, I've had a lot!!

Now I do need to warn you all here. This makes a very, very rich and thick hot chocolate, it's how I like it - yes, you are seeing the cinnamon stick actually dent the beverage there!! Think of this more like a dessert than a casual drink, hence the claim of 'ultimate' ;)

Now I'll post my version here but I have made it by adding some hot water to thin it out and that works just fine, the drink doesn't lose any flavour that way and is more like "regular" hot chocolate. So, if hot chocolate's that are so thick they take awhile to get to your mouth are not your kind of thing, do just add some water:) For me though, this is perfect!

Serves 2:
50g dark vegan chocolate, chopped (I used Bourneville's baking chunks and didn't need to chop)
200ml reduced fat coconut milk
1.5 fl oz kahlua
1 cinnamon stick

Place the chocolate, milk and cinnamon stick in a saucepan over low heat and stir constantly until the chocolate fully melts and there is no graininess - take your time it will all come together. Remove the cinnamon stick, stir in the kahlua and serve!

*Edit* - I wanted to make a thinner, more casual, not as rich non-alcoholic version of this that my son could enjoy. Keep in mind he's never liked hot chocolate but he loved this. As did we, it's no where near as rich as the one above but still super chocolatey. I first made it chocolate mint with peppermint extract, then chocolate orange with orange extract - lots of possibilities!

50g dark vegan chocolate, I use bourneville chunks
100ml reduced fat coconut milk
100ml rice milk
1/4 tsp extract, peppermint or orange, whatever you like
more rice milk to thin

Place the chocolate and milks in a saucepan and heat up gently until all the chocolate melts, whisk up until super smooth, you don't want any little flakes of chocolate left. Stir in the extract and heat up till hot. Pour into 2 mugs then top up with some more cold rice milk to thin out and cool down a bit. Drink right away!

♥

One Lovely Blog Award

Thanks so much to Truestarr for the "One Lovely Blog" nomination! Here are my nods:

Scottish Vegan Homemaker Love Penny's blog, lovely vegan food and just has such a warming and welcoming feel to it :)
Allotment to Kitchen Mangocheek's Vegetarian (but largely vegan too) blog is fantastic, frequent updating and just beautiful :)
Taste my Plate an omni blog I like and a fellow Canadian!

To get your award just copy the photo on my site here and paste onto your blog (if you want to!) and then pass the award to whoever you like! I decided to just give 3 otherwise this list would never end as I love all the blogs I follow, but felt one omni, one vegetarian and one vegan was the way to go :)

Vegan Cream Puffs!!!

With a coconut fondant filling and chocolate glaze.

Wahey!!! Ok, these new egg replacers are turning out great!! Really didn't think choux pastry could be veganized but these turned out really well. I have fond memories of both cream puffs and eclairs. My Danish grandmother used to make them now and again and it was always such a treat, remember running over to house whenever she would make them, as did half the kids in the neighbourhood! Now, I have never made choux pastry before, even before being vegan so when I say this was an experiment - I mean it :) I also haven't eaten cream puffs for years so I can't really say how close this is, I feel it's pretty damn accurate. What I do know is they are absolutely delicious!!!

For the filling, if I wasn't off the soy I would have just bought a can of soyatoo spray cream, stuck the nozzle in and given it a squirt! However being off the soy made the question of what to fill these with a little more difficult. I decided on the filling I used for the Bounty Bars but made it floppier and not as stiff. I thought a coconuty filling would be nice and it's almost as much fun freaking people out that it's made with mashed potato as it is telling some omnivores their dessert is made with tofu ;)

It definitely worked out well, the coconut filling is very yum in there, with the pastry and the chocolate on top it reminds me a bit of what deep fried bounty bars might taste like (as I don't have a clue, honest!) Just a note on the dough, it is a lot stiffer and heavier than what choux dough should be. I was unable to drop with a spoon and swirl the tops, instead having to roll them into balls with my hand. As they don't puff up like choux (of course they won't without 7 eggs!) you have to pull out some of the soft filling. What you are left with though is very similar and does the job nicely:)

Choux Pastry: (makes about 7 smallish cream puffs)

1/4 cup vegan margarine (50g)
1/2 cup boiling water (4 fl oz)
1/2 cup plain flour (75g)
1/8 tsp salt
----2 "eggs"----
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp potato starch (for those in UK -available at any tesco, simple!)
1/4 tsp baking powder (I may experiment next with doubling this)
1/8 tsp xanthan gum
100ml water
2 tsp vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. First make your "eggs" by whisking the dry ingredients together then whisking in the water until smooth, then the oil. Whisk again until slightly frothy. Bring the margarine and boiling water to a boil in a saucepan until margarine is all melted. Add the flour and salt all at once. Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a ball that cleans the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Whisk up your "eggs" again and add half to the dough, mix very well, until smooth and glossy. Repeat with the remaining liquid. Take blobs of the dough and shape into even size balls. Place on the baking sheet spread apart and bake for 30 - 40 minutes. They should be golden and crisp on the outside.

After baking.

Once they have cooled, carefully split them open with a serrated knife and pull out the gooey centre, leaving the crisp shells. Next time I may pop them back in to the oven at this stage to help dry out the inside, but they were perfectly fine this way.

NOM, NOM, NOM!!!!
(after cooling and insides pulled out, toothpicks in just to show you the inside)

Now for the filling, again, if you are fine with soy you may just want to fill these with soyatoo spray cream. Here is my recipe for the coconut fondant I filled these with:

Coconut Fondant:
2 Tbsp cold, unsalted mashed potato
1/4 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut (20g)
3/4 cup icing sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla

Cook the peeled potato in unsalted water until ready to mash. Drain and return to the pan to dry out a couple of minutes. Mash well then push it through a fine sieve until there are no lumps at all. Let cool and measure out 2 Tbsp. Place this in a bowl and stir in 1/4 cup of icing sugar. The starch from the potato reacting with the sugar will turn the mixture to liquid. Add the vanilla then keep adding the icing sugar until the mixture turns white and fondanty. Stir in the coconut - you should have a thick but slightly floppy mixture, think of the thickness of pastry cream....

Once the puffs are cool fill with the coconut mixture, about 1 Tbsp per puff.

Puffs filled.

Chocolate Glaze:
75g dark vegan chocolate
1 tsp virgin coconut oil in solid state - this works so well here, if you don't have it just use vegetable oil

Combine the chocolate and coconut oil in a bowl and set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until smooth and glossy. Let cool just enough that it's thick enough to spoon over without it running down the sides of the puffs. Spoon over each one, spreading it out a bit and leave to set!

Fin!

Vegan Yorkshire Pudding

Served with 'Veganomicon's infamous 'Chickpea Cutlets', mashed potato, steamed veg and a mushroom gravy.

I was going to post this a Sunday roast but really it's the Yorkshire puddings that I'm focusing on here! I have tried a few of these before, I can get them to rise a bit but something was always not quite right. I'm very happy with these ones though, only problem is their bottoms didn't get fully cooked, they are a little gummy there. I didn't mind it though and as they don't contain any egg - not a health problem ;)

I based this one on my mom's popover recipe, popovers are an American thing (mommy's American :)) but very similar to Yorkshire puddings. I guess the only thing is they rise even better than Yorkshire's so thought they would fare well veganizing. I swapped the eggs with this new egg replacer I've been enjoying using xanthan gum and replaced the water with sparkling water. I find the taste very similar AND the texture, minus the bases not fully cooking. I think I can get around that by cooking longer at a lower temp perhaps.....I'll mess around with them I'm sure but at this stage I'm very happy with these!! Always loved popovers/Yorkshire puds and am so glad to have a replacement :) :)

I also absolutely love the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon, I know they are all over the vegan blogging sphere and rightfully so! They do call for vital wheat gluten which is very hard to find here. I had a box of harvest direct seitan mix and used that. It's not straight vital wheat gluten but a mix however it works just fine in the recipe.

Yorkshire Puddings - makes 8
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp potato starch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp oil (I used peanut, veg should be fine)
just under 1/2 cup water
-------------------------
3/4 cup rice milk (180ml)
1/4 cup sparkling water (60ml)
1 Tbsp vegan margarine, melted
1 cup minus 2 Tbsp flour (120g)
1/2 tsp salt
more oil for the muffin tin

Place 1/2 tsp of oil into each of the 8 muffin tin holes and place the tin in the oven. Preheat the oven to 375F/180C to get the oil hot. Next make your 'eggs', in a large bowl whisk together the cornstarch, potato starch, xanthan gum and baking powder. Add the water and whisk well until no more lumps (there may be a few, that's ok). Add the oil and whisk well again until slightly frothy. Whisk in the rice milk and sparkling water until well incorporated. While whisking pour in the melted margarine in a steady stream until all added. Add the flour and salt and whisk until combined but lumpy. Remove the pan from the preheated oven and pour the mixture in until almost full. Pop back into the oven and bake for 20 minutes, remove and slice the tops and slightly open then bake for another 20 minutes. Check after they have had 1/2 hour but they may need longer for the bottoms to fully cook. Let cool slightly in pan then remove and serve with lots of vegan gravy of your choice!

Mushroom Gravy:
15g vegan margarine
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
60g button mushrooms, finely sliced
15g plain flour
1/4 litre veg stock, I made mine with 1 oxo veg cube
some fresh thyme, a few strands - optional

Melt the marg in a saucepan and fry the onion gently until golden, add some black pepper. Stir in the mushrooms and fresh thyme and fry for a couple minutes until they start to sweat. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute on low heat. Slowly start adding the hot stock, a little at a time, stirring well between each addition. Keep going until all added then turn the heat up and cook until thickened. Remove the thyme and serve.

Source for the egg replacers .

Banana Pecan Cake with Peanut Butter Caramel Swirl

Sometimes a complete experiment turns out something altogether new. This cake for instance, I wanted to make some banana blondies then thought the peanut butter caramel from Veganomicon's 'Smlove Pie' swirled throughout would be yummy. I envisioned banana flavoured blondies, brownie like not too cakey with yummy caramel swirled throughout.....so I went creating what I thought was a cookie recipe but ended up with banana cake.

It is however one of the best banana cakes I've had, so not a total loss! As for the caramel.....I placed dollops of the caramel over the dough then swirled it in with a knife and baked it. It was very resistant to swirling in and stayed at the top. This resulted in it getting baked and losing the 'caramely'-ness I wanted it to have. But, again, it's still good! You get the taste of the peanut butter caramel on top, slightly crunchy which is nice. Oh, I also placed this in a much too small of tin - should have used a 9 x 13" pan not the 8" pan I did - hence the height of it :)

So, it's not what I went about making but still decided to blog it as it's good and I may still return to this - back to the drawing board!!

Makes about 16 squares:
115g vegan margarine
175g caster sugar
310g very ripe bananas, mashed well (about 3)
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/8tsp salt
50g chopped pecans

Peanut Butter Caramel:
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp natural peanut butter
1 1/2 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp brown rice syrup

Prepare your pan and preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the margarine, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix together the flour and salt and set aside. Mix the bananas and baking soda together and let sit a couple minutes. Stir this into the margarine mixture - it will go curdly, that's ok. Fold in the flour until it just comes together, fold in pecans. Spread into pan and even out the top.

For the caramel, place everything into a saucepan and heat up, stirring all the time until it is thick and falls like ribbons off a fork. Place dollops over the cake and swirl with a knife. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan but it is nice warm too.