I love the idea of kedgeree - it all seems so unlikely. Victorians, not normally known for their multicultural acceptance, sitting down to I...
There are some foodw that have always seemed mysterious to me. Egg nog is one of them.
I never had as it as an omnivore or as a vegetarian, but for some reason I had a hunger for egg nog this year. Nothing else would do - I wanted something vegan and egg noggy. Granted it would have helped if I'd have known what egg nog was, or what it had in it, or even what it should have tasted like.
I came up with this, minus the agar agar, as a drink and I was rather fond of it. Then I wondered what would happen if I turned it into a blancmange - another foodstuff that hold some sway over my imagination.
Here's what happened...
Almond nog blancmange
Ingredients
300mls of almond and hazelnut flavour rice milk
3g of agar agar powder
25mls of Amaretto or more to taste
A few drops of vanilla extract
Dessertspoon of maple syrup or more to taste
Grating of nutmeg
Pinch of cinnamon
How you do it
Heat the milk gently with the agar agar for five to 10 minutes, until the agar agar powder has dissolved.
Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
Once mixed, pour into a jelly mould and leave to set, in the fridge or not - either way it'll firm up quite quickly.
There are some foodw that have always seemed mysterious to me. Egg nog is one of them. I never had as it as an omnivore or as a vegetarian, ...
The following recipe I made last week and thought 'That's a keeper, I'll stick that one up on the blog when I get a chance'. I promptly forgot all about it.
I discovered it this morning when browsing through the photos on my camera and uncovered shot after loving shot of this gratin recipe. I felt like a blogging squirrel - after putting something by for the winter months, I let all thoughts of my handy stash go out of my head.
This recipe still deserves an airing. It's more in the winter comfort food line and makes a light dinner for two people with a bit of salad and a crusty roll.
It also makes a great heavy dinner for one person in front of the telly in jogging bottoms with your phone on silent.
Ingredients
Oil
Two cloves of garlic
Two shallots, finely chopped
75g of kale, chopped and hard stalks removed
5 large charlotte potatoes, quartered
150ml of vegan cream
100ml of vegan milk
Two dessertspoons of nutritional yeast
Juice of quarter of a lemon
A teaspoon of thyme
Salt and pepper
How you do it
Fry the garlic and shallots in oil until soft. Then add the kale and wilt - allow the liquid to come out and evaporate. Set to one side.
While all that's going on, boil the quartered charlottes for five minutes, then drain.
Heat some more oil over a high heat and then fry your spuds until golden on the sides.
Add the spuds to the garlic-kale combo and mix thoroughly. Put in an ovenproof dish.
Then mix the rest of the ingredients - the cream, milk, yeast, thyme, salt and pepper together in a bowl or jug and pour over the spuds and kale.
Bake in a 200 degree oven for 25 minutes, or until the spuds are cooked through and the top is brown.
The following recipe I made last week and thought 'That's a keeper, I'll stick that one up on the blog when I get a chance'....
I forget what I was looking for at the time, but on my internet wanderings I came across a site that proclaimed "the younger generation don't eat swede."
The younger generation don't eat swede. Oh no, it's all respect shootings and N Dubz, isn't it? They're too busy with their shag bands and their shoplifting for swede. It's political correctness gone mad.
Who knows where this particular piece of folk wisdom sprang from - I'm pretty sure that there isn't a blanket diktat that those without a pension aren't down with root vegetables - but it did make me feel a defensive rush of feeling towards the humble swede that inspired me to go and cook one as soon as humanly possible.
Here's what happened.
150g of sweet potato, chopped into small dice
150g of butternut squash, chopped into small dice
one small carrot, chopped into small dice
Half a small swede, chopped into small dice
Half a white onion, chopped finely
Grating of nutmeg
Three dessertspoons of olive oil
One dessertspoon of nutritional yeast
One dessertspoon of vegetable broth powder
Zest and juice of half a lemon
Teaspoon of celery salt
One dessertspoon of agave nectar
50mls of grapefruit juice
Handful of cashew nuts and/or pine nuts
Few sprigs of thyme
Three large baking potatoes
One block smoked tofu, Cauldron for example, chopped into small dice
One dessertspoon of mustard
One teaspoon of turmeric
Milk and vegan marge to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
How you do it
Steam the carrot, swede, butternut squash, swede for 5 minutes.
Put the vegetables into a deep Pyrex dish with the onion, then add the nutmeg, oil, yeast, broth powder, lemon zest and oil, salt, agave, grapefruit juice, thyme, nuts and stir. Put to one side.
Chop the potatoes and boil until soft. Drain and add the smoked tofu.
Mash the whole lot and add turmeric, mustard, plus milk and vegan marge to taste. Add salt and pepper, again to taste, and stir.
Spread the mashed spuds over the top and stick it in a hot oven until cooked through and root veg is soft. Say about 30 minutes? Good.
I forget what I was looking for at the time, but on my internet wanderings I came across a site that proclaimed "the younger generation...
In the back streets of Soho, there's a great Lebanese restaurant called Yalla Yalla.
We stumbled on it earlier this year, when it had just opened. It's cheap, the food's great and the service is lovely. After the serendipitous discovery, we'd go back regularly and slunk into one of the comfy seats and rack up plates of hummus, falafel, baba ganoush and all the other Lebanese goodies that they serve.
A couple of months down the line, Time Out paid the restaurant a visit, found out just how good it was, and published a review extolling its virtues. Since then, every time I've been back, it's been impossible to get a table - it's always rammed with other happy dinners racking up those plates of hummus, falafel and baba ganoush, and I'm left pressing my nose against the window like a Dickensian orphan at Christmas.
Unable to get in, I've been attempting to recreate one Yalla Yalla dish - the batata harra.
I've yet to master it (darn you, Yalla Yalla, for your tasty yet unfathomable recipes) but I've come up with some alternatives.
Here's one.
Potato, pepper and onion casserole
Ingredients
Olive oil
250g of waxy potatoes, like Charlotte
One red pepper, cut into small dice
Half an onion, chopped finely
One garlic clove, finely sliced
Pinch of dried chilli flake
One dessertspoon of cumin
One dessertspoon of coriander
The juice from a quarter of a lemon
Splash of stock or white wine
Small bunch of both fresh coriander and parsley
Salt and pepper
How you do it
Chop the Charlotte potatoes into quarters, pop them into a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil.
Boil for 10-ish minutes until almost-but-not-quite cooked. Drain.
Heat a dessertspoon or so of oil in a large frying pan, and add the potatoes and toss until covered in the oil.
Cook over a high heat until they've turned brown and crispy - another five to ten minutes, say.
Push the potatoes aside to create a space in the frying pan, and pour another dessertspoon of oil into it.
Add the cumin, coriander, chilli and garlic into the oil and allow it to cook for 30 seconds or so.
Tip the pepper and onion in and stir til everything is covered in oil and spices.
Cook for another five minutes or so, adding in lemon juice when it begins to stick to the pan.
When the peppers and onions are almost cooked, tip in a big splash of stock of wine - 50mls or so, maybe more - and wait for it to cook off.
Once it's dry, add in the salt, pepper, parsley and fresh coriander, then dig in.
In the back streets of Soho, there's a great Lebanese restaurant called Yalla Yalla . We stumbled on it earlier this year, when it had ...
When Jean-Paul Satre said hell is other people, it was clearly before the invention of Twitter.I know the microblogging service is easy to knock when it's populated by tweets that say little beyond "stuck outside of Ruislip. Junction 3 is closed" or "X Factor - tonight it's Jedward LOLZ!" but I'm rather fond of it.
I don't know any vegans in the non-virtual world and it's only through the likes of Twitter that I get to keep up with what other vegans do, eat and argue about.
Without Twitter, I never would have discovered the great vegan conspiracy's hot pear and rosemary charlotte, or Foodcoops's spicy apple cake.
Here's my hat tip to both Twitter and vegan autumn fruit puddings - apple cake tatin.
Ingredients
One eating apple, peeled and sliced into thin slices
4oz vegan marge
3oz dark sugar plus a dessertspoon extra
6oz self raising flour
2oz sultanas
One teaspoon cinnamon
Enthusiastic grating of nutmeg
One scant teaspoon of baking powder
One provamel caramel dessert
Juice from one sixth of a lemon
A tablespoon of soy milk
How you do it
Toss the apple slices in the dessertspoon of sugar and layer into a greased loaf tin.
Cream the marge and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Stir in the sultanas, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Add the baking powder and flour to the mix, and stir until combined.
Add the caramel dessert and mix again, so it becomes a good stodgy mix.
Stir in the lemon juice and milk and mix once again.
Put the whole mix on top of the apples and level the top down.
Put in a 200C oven for 20 to 25 minutes until well risen, or a knife stuck in the cake comes out clean.
When Jean-Paul Satre said hell is other people, it was clearly before the invention of Twitter. I know the microblogging service is easy to ...
It's the day after Hallowe'en. There's smashed pumpkin pieces all over the streets of South London and all the pubs around here have cobwebs in their corners leftover from the celebrations of the night before.
After visiting a veggie friend yesterday and carving a pumpkin for her two-year old daughter - clearly far more entertaining for me and the friend, and bit bemusing for her - we were left with a vat of pumpkin seeds.
Friend suggested binning them.
Oh no.
Here's what you do with them instead:
Hallowe'en hangover pumpkin seeds
Ingredients
Seeds from one pumpkin, hulls left on
One teaspoon of olive oil
One teaspoon of agave nectar
The juice from one sixth of a lemon
Half teaspoon of fennel seeds
Half teaspoon of celery salt
Leaves from one big sprig of rosemary
Black pepper
How you do it
Wash and dry the pumpkin seeds so there's no stray pumpkin flesh clinging to them. Your pumpkin may be bigger than mine, so scale everything up accordingly if there's not enough to coat your seeds properly.
Stir the oil, agave and lemon juice into the pumpkin seeds.
All the rest of the ingredients and stir.
Put the coated seeds on a baking tray and cook in a hot oven - 200C - until brown and crispy.
It's the day after Hallowe'en. There's smashed pumpkin pieces all over the streets of South London and all the pubs around here ...
It may look a bit anemic in this photo, but trust me, this pie is a good 'un - especially with autumn leering at you. Put on an extra pair of socks, bit of Doctor Who on the telly and dig in.
Creamy mustart tofu pie
Ingredients
About a pound of potatoes
Cauldron marinated tofu pieces
Half a block of smoked tofu, cut into small pieces
Two small carrots, cut into small pieces and lightly steamed
Three ounces of green beans, chopped into 2cm lengths, light steamed
An ounce or so of green peas
Corn kernels from one corn on the cob, lightly steamed
300mls of vegan white sauce
Teaspoon of garlic powder
Teaspoon of onion powder
Couple of shakes of vegan worcestershire sauce
Two teaspoons of mustard
Large heaped dessertspoon of nutritional yeast
How you do it
Make mash out of the pound of potatoes the way you normally would. I add in some olive oil, soy milk, nutritional yeast, brewers yeast, salt and pepper, but you do whatever you like with it. I won't mind.
Put the mash to one side - we'll come back to it later.
Put your marinated peas, tofu pieces and steamed corn, beans and carrots (you want them about half cooked as the oven will do the rest) into a small ovenproof dish.
Make your vegan white sauce however you want. I add a couple of dessertspoons of oil into a pan, warm it up, and add a similar amount of flour and cook for a minute or so. Add around 300mls of soy milk a splash at a time, mixing in between until you have a white sauce, but if you have another method you're comfortable with, do that instead.
Add in the garlic and onion powders, mustard, worcestershire sauce and nutritional yeast and stir til completely mixed.
Stir the sauce into the veggies and tofu, then slather all the mashed spuds on top.
Stick in the oven at 180 for about half an hour and then eat, with green veg if you want, or just with a big old spoon if you like.
It may look a bit anemic in this photo, but trust me, this pie is a good 'un - especially with autumn leering at you. Put on an extra pa...
If you've been enjoying some nasty cough/cold/flu/whatever and expectorating angry oyster-sized lumps of wrongness, this soup's for you. It's packed with all sorts of fragrant loveliness, it's hot and spicy, and it may just penetrate that who-robbed-my-tastebuds thing you're probably experiencing.
Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients - there's not much to do apart from chuck everything in a saucepan and you'll have plenty of time to make lemsip and malinger while it's cooking.
Sickboy hot and sour soup
Ingredients
4 shallots, cut in half and then into thin wedges
3 garlic cloves, chopped finely
Pinch of chilli flakes
One bulb of lemongrass, finely chopped
Large lump of ginger, grated
Zest of one lime
Zest of a half a lemon
One tomato, seeds removed, chopped into small chunks
Juice of half a lime
Juice of quarter of a lemon
around 600mls of vegetable stock
Three dessertspoons of soy sauce
One dessertspoon of rice vinegar
A few dried woodear mushrooms, reconstituted
Half a block of smoked tofu cut into chunks
A handful of rice noodles
A few handfuls of spinach leaves
Basil or coriander leaves
How you do it
Sweat the shallots, garlic and chilli flakes in some sesame oil until translucent or beginning to catch on the bottom of the pan.
Add the ginger, lemongrass, lemon zest, lime zest and tomato and cook for another few minutes, until the tomato is giving up its moisture.
Add the stock, soy sauce, lemon juice, lime juice and rice vinegar and cook over a low to medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the shallots are soft.
Add the chopped tofu and rice noodles. Leave to cook for three to five minutes, until the rice noodles are cooked.
Add the spinach and leave for a minute or so until wilted.
Add the basil or coriander, if you're using it, and serve.
Makes two whacking great bowls. Or four if you're not hungry and being all Come Dine With Me about it.
If you've been enjoying some nasty cough/cold/flu/whatever and expectorating angry oyster-sized lumps of wrongness, this soup's for ...
Brussel sprouts. They're baaaaaa-aaaaaack.If you're one of those brussel sprout haters, sucks to be you. Brussel sprouts are too good to be just saved for Christmas, left lonely on your plate and pushed around tentatively by a fork with a touch so light you'd think they had herpes.
If you're a hater, you'll know as they're part of the brassica family, they can give off a sulphurous tang when boiled. So don't boil them - bake them.
Lemon and miso brussel sprouts
500g brussel sprouts
The zest and juice of half a lemon
One and a half dessertspoons of oil
A big lump of white miso, about the size of a golf ball
50 - 100 mls of water or wine
How you do it
Prep the sprouts - take off the hard outer leaves and, if they're big 'uns, cut them in two.
Put them in a roasting pan and add the lemon zest and juice, and oil.
Stir thoroughly.
Put in the oven at around 200 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until they begin to caramelise and crisp up.
Mix the miso with the water or wine, and then add to the sprouts.
Bake the sprouts for another 5 to 10 minutes, until they're cooked to your liking. Eat them hot if you want to, but they're cracking cold too.
Brussel sprouts. They're baaaaaa-aaaaaack. If you're one of those brussel sprout haters, sucks to be you. Brussel sprouts are too go...
I'm just back from a few days in Paris, a city I'm fonder of than a dog is of its genitals.
But for all its wonders, you could never call Paris a vegetarian or vegan friendly city. While I was there, I headed over one of the handful of veg*n restaurants, Le Grenier de Notre Dame, for a bit of a blowout on my last night there.
My joy of dining in a restaurant that catered to the dietary quirks of my boyfriend and I was somewhat tempered by the underwhelming food - it reminded me a little of how veg*n food was in the early nineties before supermarkets and restaurants realised that flavouring was in and culinary self-flagellation was out.
That said, the main course I enjoyed was accompanied by the most delicious potatoes I've had for a while. In honour of their tuber greatness, here's a spud recipe of my own.
Lemon and parsley potato salad
Ingredients
250 - 300g of new potatoes
The juice and zest of about half a lemon
Half teaspoon of garlic powder
Half teaspoon of onion powder
Shake or two of celery salt
Handful of chopped parsley
Half teaspoon of brewers yeast
Scant teaspoon of nutritional yeast
Scant teaspoon of apple cider vinegar
Pepper
Vegan mayonnaise to taste (I used two incredibly generous heaped teaspoons)
How you do it
It's pretty simple this one, as recipes go - halve the larger new potatoes and boil until tender.
Drain.
Add all the ingredients bar the mayonnaise to the drained spuds whilst they're still hot.
Once the mixture has cooled, stir in your mayonnaise. My suggested amount for mayonnaise - and the vinegar for that matter - are a guide, rather than a hardcore rule. Adjust them to your taste.
I'm just back from a few days in Paris, a city I'm fonder of than a dog is of its genitals. But for all its wonders, you could never...
This recipe isn't big or clever. Quite literally - it has very few ingredients and it requires almost no effort on your part.
It's also a cheap-arse recipe in that it uses up all those berries that are on special offer at the moment or, if you're a lucky sod, lurking in your garden.
So without further ado here's the recipe for berry soup. Good as a pudding, a snack or a garnish for ice cream and comes with a colour so good you'll want to paint your walls with it (and if you don't work your blender right, you can do just that...)
Berry soup
A handful of three or four different types of berries - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or blackberries for example - even cherries if you've got any hanging around (I recommend making a larger part of the berries strawbs or any sweeter kind)
A squeeze of agave nectar
A splash of water
How you do it
Put a tiny splash of water in the pan.
Add all your berries and heat the pan gently.
Heat the berries gently for 10 to 15 minutes (or longer, depending on how big your handfuls are) until they've released all their juices and have broken down.
Add agave to taste (or vegan sugar if you fancy)
Take off the heat and blend.
Serve - maybe with a whacking great lump of Swedish Glace (how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...)
This recipe isn't big or clever. Quite literally - it has very few ingredients and it requires almost no effort on your part. It's a...
While my garden (read a cat toilet out the back of my flat and two window boxes) have been yielding not much in the vegetable stakes, it looks like everyone else has been experiencing something in the way of a vegetable glut with tomatoes being the gluttiest (yeah, it's not a word).
Consequently, my lovely gardeny friends have been donating a metric truckload of tomatoes to me. Here's what I did with them - a soup-booze crossover. Go on, you know you want to.
Ingredients
Oil
Four garlic cloves
One small onion
Three small shallots (not the banana type)
Two ribs of celery
150g of new potatoes
350g ripe tomatoes
Approx 250-300mls of vegetable stock
two bay leaves
One very heaped dessertspoons of tomato puree
Lemon juice
Vegan Worcestershire sauce (I'm using Life Free From brand)
Celery salt
Cider vinegar
Tobasco sauce
Shot of vodka (optional)
Two dessertspoons or thereabouts of soya cream or other vegan cream
How you do it
Finely chop the garlic and cook in oil over a medium heat for two minutes.
Chop the onions, shallots and celery as finely as you can be bothered and then add to the garlic, and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, until they're translucent.
Chop the new potatoes into small chunks, and add to the pan. While the potato cooks, chop up the tomatoes (I'm using a mix of cherry and normal types) and then add to the pan.
Pour on the stock, add the bay leaves and tomato puree and simmer gently until the new potatoes are soft.
Using a stick blender, puree the soup.
Now you need to add the spices. Making a Bloody Mary is a kind of personal thing - everyone thinks they know how to make the best one. I wouldn't dream of coming between a person and their booze, so the following spice measures are my suggestions - you go ahead and modify them as much as you like.
So, here's what I added: One and a half dessertspoons of Worcestershire sauce, the juice of a quarter of a lemon, a teaspoon of cider vinegar, a scant teaspoon of celery salt, some black pepper and a good few shakes of tobasco sauce.
Now stir in your vodka and the soya cream (although you could leave both out if you're feeling like it), garnish with a bit more cream and some celery leaves and enjoy.
While my garden (read a cat toilet out the back of my flat and two window boxes) have been yielding not much in the vegetable stakes, it loo...
Anyone been watching Economy Gastronomy on BBC 2? It's the usual use seasonal ingredients, cook from scratch blah blah blah. One of the things it reminded me to do was to go through my cupboards and freezer and clear out the crap.
I found a few surprises in there - namely a sushi ingredient that I'm a little scared to use as it's titled something like 'boiled gourd', as well as a pack of sausages that may predate the last ice age and may already be sentient - and a few things that really should have been used up already.
One of them is a delicious punnet of redcurrants that was a present from Mr Flicking the Vs' mum who, because she lives outside the capital, has the unheard-of-in-London luxury of a garden.
The other great and underused ingredients that I managed to unearth was jar of wild hibiscus flowers in syrup - great in sparkling wine and, as it turns out, cupcakes. Alas, the flavour doesn't come through massively in the fairy cakes, but it turns them a little pinky-reddy and that's alright with me.
Ingredients
50g vegan margarine
35g sugar
75g self raising flour
Teaspoon of cider vinegar
Couple of pinches of baking powder
50-75g redcurrants (depends how fruity you like your fairy cakes)
One Alpro vanilla dessert (125ml, I think - one pot anyway)
Three dessertspoons of wild hibiscus syrup and a bit more for decorating
How you do it
Cream together the marge and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in the flour and mix well.
Stir in the Alpro dessert until well mixed, then add the vinegar and baking powder and mix again.
Finally add in the redcurrants and hibiscus syrup and stir gently so the fruit is evenly mixed. Drizzle a little syrup over the top and decorate with a few spare redcurrants if you're of a mind to.
Spoon into cupcake cases (there should be enough mix for about six cupcakes) and bake in the oven at about 200 for 20/25 minutes, or until a knife or skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Anyone been watching Economy Gastronomy on BBC 2? It's the usual use seasonal ingredients, cook from scratch blah blah blah. One of the...
This weekend, I went to see a pregnant friend of mine and the subject of cravings came up. Interestingly, rather than craving a particular food, she said she's been craving colours - orange food, for example, or green.
It sounds a little bit on the weird side, but think about it again and there's clearly a rationale behind her colour-lust - if you're after orange, maybe your body is hankering after some vitamin C or beta carotene. If it's green you're thirsting for, maybe you're after the iron that leafy greens bring.
As for myself, without the excuse of pregnancy, I've simply been craving cakes - fruit cakes to be precise. Here's the result.
(Incidently, another friend of mine told me when she was pregnant she had an all consuming hunger for a Mars bar in a pancake, so maybe cake does have something my body really needs...)
Apricot, cherry and sultana cakes
Ingredients
50g of vegan marge
35g of vegan sugar
50g of self raising flour
25g of rice flour
25g of sultanas
25g of glace cherries, chopped into small pieces
1 apricot, chopped into small pieces
1 pot of vanilla Alpro dessert
one half teaspoon of cider vinegar
one half teaspoon of baking powder
How you do it
Cream together the marge and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in the two flours and baking powder- you should get something a little like chunky breadcrumbs.
Stir in the chopped apricot, chopped cherries and sultanas and mix thoroughly.
Stir in the Alpro vanilla dessert and vinegar and mix until you have something resembling cake mix!
Spoon tablespoonfuls of the mixture into cupcake cases - you want to have the mix three-quarters of the way up the cases.
Bake in the oven at 200 degrees until risen, golden and a fork or skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. (Unfortunately, I forgot to time how long the cooking takes, but you're looking at 30 minutes or more, I think)
This weekend, I went to see a pregnant friend of mine and the subject of cravings came up. Interestingly, rather than craving a particular f...
This is a bit of a work in progress. Why? Quite simply, because my scales broke in the process of making this recipe (this may or may not be connected to the fact that I dropped them in the sink) so the amount of flour is a guess at best.
These little biscuits are sweet, crunchy and a perfect mid morning complement to good cuppa.
Lemon and Pine Nut Biscuits
Ingredients
40g vegan margarine, plus extra for greasing
50g sugar
50g self raising flour (plus extra)
30g pine nuts
the grated zest of 2/3 of a lemon
a pinch of salt
two teaspoons of soy milk (or other non dairy milk)
How you do it
Cream together the marge and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in the zest and pine nuts and stir until well mixed
Add the flour and mix again.
Add the soy milk and mix thoroughly again.
You should have something approaching a dough at this point, albeit a bit of wet dough.
This is the point at which my scales broke, so at this point, I know the dough needs a bit of extra flour, only I couldn't weight it to tell you how much. I'm guessing another 10g or so, but I can't be sure, so I'd suggest adding a teaspoon at a time. Keep adding until the dough isn't wet or greasy and comes cleanly away from the sides of the bowl in a single large ball.
Break off walnut-sized pieces and roll into balls. Place on a greased baking sheet and press down gently with the back of a fork. Give the biscuits a good inch or two between them as they will spread on cooking.
Bake in the oven for about 8 to 10 minutes at 200 degrees C. Whip them out once the edges are just starting to go brown and crisp.
Serve with a barrel-sized vat of tea.
This is a bit of a work in progress. Why? Quite simply, because my scales broke in the process of making this recipe (this may or may not be...
For anyone of a vegetarian or vegan bent in search of some interesting new ingredients, I can heartily recommend Japan Centre. It does pretty much what it says on the tin - sells more Japanese food than you can shake a stick at.
It's particularly good if you're craving a sushi binge or you're looking for some cracking tofu. It also gets a massive thumbs up from this quarter for selling umeshu - plum wine - which is pretty much as close to alcoholic heaven as you can get. Especially after three of them.
As well as giving you a chance to pick up a new bento box or a noodle roll (yep, noodles in a roll) it's obviously the place to go for your classic Japanese goodies, like soy sauce and mirin.
After wandering in for some dumpling wrappers and coming out having spent £20, I came up with this little recipe.
Japanese-inspired tofu fritters
Ingredients
1 250g pack of tofu (I used Cauldron here), grated
3 dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced thinly
5 spring onions, chopped finely
One carrot, grated
3 dessertspoons of soy sauce
3 dessertspoons of mirin, chopped finely
3 shiso leaves*
50g cornflour
Sesame oil
How you do it
Put the grated carrot in the centre of a clean tea towel, gather the four corners and twist so the carrot is in a bulb at the bottom. Keep wringing the tea towel in order to extract water from the carrot.
Combine the tofu, carrot, mushroom, spring onions, soy sauce, mirin, shiso leaves, and cornflour. Mix well.
If the mix feels damp, add a little more cornflour.
Leave to refrigerate for half an hour.
Warm some sesame oil in a frying pan. Take out a handful of the refrigerated mix, form into a small ball and pat down to make a small fritter. Repeat til all the mix is used up.
Fry the fritters on one side until brown, then flip over. Serve with a glass of umeshu or two.
*If you're not familiar with shiso leaves, they're the two green scamps pictured with the fritter. You can pick them up, needless to say, at Japan Centre.
For anyone of a vegetarian or vegan bent in search of some interesting new ingredients, I can heartily recommend Japan Centre . It does pret...
The tastiness factor of this soup depends on the ripeness of the avocado. You pretty much want it to be on the cusp of ripeness - a little bit under is fine, a little bit over and the whole thing isn't quite as good.
There's something deliciously creamy about this soup - so avocados may be a bit fatty but it's all good fats and if this soup is wrong, it's probably best not to be right.
Creamy avocado soup
Ingredients
3 cloves of garlic
1 large leek
Olive oil
One medium avocado, slightly underripe
300mls approx vegetable stock
2 ounces of sweetcorn
Five/six cherry tomatoes, quartered
Half a teaspoon of paprika
Salt and pepper
How you do it
Finely chop the garlic and leek and fry in a little oil for 5 to 10 minutes until soft.
Chop the avocado, add to the pan and fry for a minute.
Add the vegetable stock and simmer gently for 10 minutes.
Take off the heat and blend until smooth, add more stock if too thick.
Stir in the corn, tomatoes, paprika and warm for another couple of minutes until the tomatoes are starting to give out their juices.
Season with salt and pepper and then eat.
The tastiness factor of this soup depends on the ripeness of the avocado. You pretty much want it to be on the cusp of ripeness - a little b...
Last week, I was staring at a beautifully sunny, if sweaty, London - blue skies and temperatures that most Brits would associate with their two weeks' holiday on the Med. Naturally, the summer was crying out for food to match - something light and delicate and fresh to the taste.
Summer rolls sprang to mind - a bit of tofu, some raw veg and herbs, and you're done.
Happily, it also takes a few minutes to prepare and a few more to compile, giving you more time to spend drinking wine outdoors.
So, having bought all the ingredients necessary for these Vietnamese rice paper rolls, the weather promptly raised two fingers at me and proceeded to send rain down like stair rods, smashing my early efforts at growing Swiss chard and putting the mockers on all thoughts of sun bathing.
Still, if you fancy recreating summer indoors, you could do worse than whipping up a batch of these.
Summer rolls
Ingredients
One or two ribs of celery (depends how much you like celery, really)
One carrot
One block of smoked tofu
A handful of peanuts
A 5cm length of cucumber
Big handful of chopped mint
Big handful of chopped fresh coriander
Zest of half a lime
A tablespoon of soy sauce
A dessertspoon of sesame oil
One bunch of rice noodles (I'm thinking Sharwoods here, which handily divides its packets of rice noodles into bundles)
A packet of rice paper pancakes
How you do it
Cut the celery, cucumber, carrot and tofu into matchsticks and mix.
Add the peanuts, coriander, mint, lime zest, soy sauce and sesame oil, and mix together.
Break the noodles into thirds, prepare according to pack instructions and stir into the rest of the mixture.
You should now have one big bowl of goodness and a pack of rice paper pancakes.
Get a baking sheet, and fill it with water, and get yourself two plates.
Put one rice paper pancake into the water, and leave for 30 seconds, or until it's pliable.
Pick it up, and let the water drain from it. Put it on one of the plates, and dab dry with a clean tea towel.
Put a spoonful or two into the centre of the pancake, about two thirds of the way down (the side of the pancake furthest away from you should have the two thirds of blank pancake).
Flip the bottom of the pancake up, so it partially covers the filling.
Bring in both sides of the pancake so more of the filling is covered.
Then roll the pancake up as tightly as you can without breaking it.
Put the completed summer roll on the other plate, and cover with a lightly damp clean tea towel til you're done.
Keep making the summer rolls til all your mixture is used up.
Last week, I was staring at a beautifully sunny, if sweaty, London - blue skies and temperatures that most Brits would associate with their ...
One of the great things about summer (there are many, obviously - picnics and drinking beer outdoors are top of my list at the moment) is the little boom of summer fruits on sale. Raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, peaches, apricots and all the rest, all just begging to be used in some sugary way.
Here's a simple way of using up fistfuls of goodness and then making it all deliciously unhealthy.
Rather than making one whacking great crumble, I've put the crumble mixture into cupcake cases. The recipe makes about 4 cases' worth - if you're feeling virtuous, quarter the recipe and put a single crumble case in when you're cooking your tea. At the end, you'll have a tiny ready-made pudding.
Summer crumble
Ingredients
4 or 5 strawberries, quartered
1 small handful of blueberries
6 or 7 cherries, stoned and cut into small chunks
25 g sugar, plus a little extra
25 g vegan margarine
50 g flour
How you do it
Add a little sugar - half a teaspoon or so - to the chopped fruit if you think it needs it. Chances are it'll be all juicy and sweet and you won't need to bother, but if you've got a sweet tooth, knock yourself out.
Rub the flour and marge together until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. You may find you need less flour than I've given - maybe by half. Add the flour a little at a time til the consistency looks right.
Stir the sugar into the marge and flour.
Spoon the fruit into the cupcake cases and then top with the crumble mix.
Bake at around 20o degrees until the crumble topping colours slightly and the fruit has become all gooey.
Serve with soya cream, Swedish Glace, custard or whatever else you fancy.
One of the great things about summer (there are many, obviously - picnics and drinking beer outdoors are top of my list at the moment) is th...
What on earth are pop cakes, you may well be wanting to ask. A valid question.Let me explain: I set out to veganise a recipe for rock cakes. The end result turned out to be a bit more of a lighter, fluffier version of the traditional rock cakes I remembered my mum making as a kid. And what's lighter and fluffier than rock? Pop!
Pop cakes
Ingredients
50 g sultanas, soaked in tea for as long as you can be bothered
115 g self raising flour
50 g vegan margarine
Pinch of baking powder
Pinch of salt
Couple of pinches of cinnamon
Little squeeze of lemon juice
Soy milk
How you do it
Put the marge and flour in a bowl and rub through your fingers until the mixture turns into something that looks a bit like breadcrumbs
Add the sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and sultanas (feel free to skip the tea soaking if you're short of time) to the mixture and stir.
Add the milk. Alas, I was making this recipe with a massive hangover and I don't have a measuring jug, so I can't give you an exact measure of how much goes in. I tried weighing it and you're looking at around 40 or 50g in weight. Alternatively, just add milk a glug at a time until the mixture looks a decent thick consistency.
Put the mixture in big dessertspoonfuls onto a greased baking tray and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned.
Serve with a big-assed cup of tea.
What on earth are pop cakes, you may well be wanting to ask. A valid question. Let me explain: I set out to veganise a recipe for rock cakes...
I really like - whisper it - salads. I see nothing shameful in liking salads, despite their regular appearance as the default herbivorous option on restaurant menus. And dammit, summer's looking suspiciously like it's here, so everyone - whether they're herbivorous or not - will be chowing down on some leaves in these next few weeks.
Here's my little contribution to the salad repertoire - Carrot and Hijiki Salad.
Carrot and Hijiki Salad
Ingredients
1 large carrot
A few pinches of hijiki
3 spring onions
A big handful of coriander leaves
1 teaspoon of lime juice
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
How you do it
It's pretty goshdarn simple: prepare your hijiki according to the instructions. You know - let it soak, cook it, blah blah blah.
Top and tail your carrot, and then grate it.
Slice the onions finely and do the same with the coriander leaves.
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl.
Let it sit for a while if you have time. If not, scoff it straight away.
I really like - whisper it - salads. I see nothing shameful in liking salads, despite their regular appearance as the default herbivorous op...
Granted, it's not the best picture in the world and it's not one that does justice to the flaky, warm, oh-so-slightly greasy deliciousness that is a Cornish pasty.Yes, the humble-yet-proud Cornish pasty is presented a little sparsely here - but hey, dressing up a Cornish pasty is a bit like trying to put make up on the Mona Lisa.
The recipe for these beauties is a bit of a work in progress, so if you've made your own, let me know how it went. I suspect thyme instead of sage mightn't be such a bad idea.
Cornish pasties
Ingredients
Packed of ready made frozen vegan puff pastry
40g or so of soya mince (dehydrated weight)
100 grams of swede
100 grams of potato
100 grams of carrot
Water/vegetable stock
a couple of shallots
A little olive oil
a dessertspoon or two of gravy granules
a teaspoon of brewers yeast
a teaspoon and a half of dried sage
a teaspoon and a half of dried rosemary
Soy milk or something similar
How you do it
Pour some water on the soya mince til it's covered and leave to hydrate undisturbed somewhere for a good while. Feel free to use the vegan mince of your choice if TVP's not your thing.
Get your frozen puff pastry out (Jus Rol is one vegan option) and allow it to defrost. That will take you a bit of time too, so make yourself a cup of tea and read a book or something while you wait.
Cut the potato, swede and carrot into small dice. Bring some water or stock to the boil, then add the vegetables. Cook for three minutes covered and drain.
Finely chop the shallots and fry in a little oil for three minutes or so, until they start to soften.
Mix up the hydrated mince, vegetables, and the rest of the ingredients (except the pastry obviously - that would be madness) together and stick in a bit of salt and pepper for good measure.
Unroll your pastry, and find yourself a saucer. Cut the pastry around the saucer so you've got a pastry circle. Add stick a spoon or two in the middle of the circle then bring two sides together, so you're looking at a semi-circular pasty shape.
Pinch along the join to give the typical pasty look (and make sure the whole thing doesn't burst apart like the fella in Aliens while it's cooking).
Brush them all over with soy milk or whatever vegan milk you have knocking about.
Put in the oven at around 200 degrees until the pastry is brown and you can smell the delicious pasty smell wafting out of your kitchen.
Serve just as friends or your significant other gets back from the pub for maximum appreciation.
Granted, it's not the best picture in the world and it's not one that does justice to the flaky, warm, oh-so-slightly greasy delicio...
After a failed attempt to give blood earlier this year - "Take it, damn you, take it!" "But we don't want it!" "Take it - it's good stuff. I can spare it - go on..." - the thought that getting some more iron into my diet was probably a good idea has been nagging at me. Hence, I turned to kale.
Which is funny, because I really, really don't like it.
But, as a kid, I thought beer tasted weird and anyone who drank wine was a tad simple. Needless to say, after persistent experiments with grain and grape, a love affair with both began.
Maybe, I thought, kale could be my new crush and embarked on this little dish.
And blow me, this could well be the start of a love affair. A second date with me and kale is definitely on the cards.
Potato and kale cakes
Ingredients
4 garlic cloves
A big-ass potato, about the size of a good big fist
1 teaspoon of caraway seeds
1 teaspoon of black onion seeds
Half a teaspoon of onion granules/powder
Good shaking of celery salt
A few fistfuls of kale, chopped into ribbons
1 heaped dessertspoon of gram flour (also goes by the stage name of besan flour or chickpea flour)
Oil for frying
How to do it
Cut the potato into dice and boil until tender. Mash and set to one side to cool.
Meanwhile, slice the garlic and fry for a couple of minutes.
When the garlic has had a chance to cook a bit, chuck in the kale and fry lightly for about 10 minutes until cooked through and slightly crispy.
Stir the kale, the onion seeds, powder, celery salt, caraway seeds and gram flour into the mashed potato and mix well.
Roll into balls a bit bigger than a golf ball, than pat down into patties.
Fry in a little olive oil until slightly brown then flip and do the other side, like you're trying to give it a good tan.
Once browned, put the cakes in a oven at about 200 degrees for about 15 minutes.
They're good shit.
Note: all the spice measures are approximate. I get too excited when I'm cooking to record the measures properly. Add more to taste.
After a failed attempt to give blood earlier this year - "Take it, damn you, take it!" "But we don't want it!" &quo...
Hey - good to see you. You're looking good - did you do something new to your hair? You washed it, huh? Well, it suits you.
You've stumbled onto my blog, Flicking the Vs - a celebration of my two true loves: vegan food and pointlessly childish swears.
I'm going to kick off the blog with a soup that I made earlier this week with a lump of celeriac that had been eyeballing me from the fridge for a while and mutely but friskily demanding to be used.
"I'm on the verge of going off," it whispered. "If you have to throw me away, you'll have wasted 70p, and I know you hate that, you cheap little bastard."
So use it I did. And it went a little something like this.
Cream of celeriac soup
Ingredients
Four cloves of garlic
Three large shallots
Two ribs of celery
Olive oil
250 or so grams of peeled celeriac
Two bay leaves
Bouquet garni
Stock
Soy cream
A few springs of chervil
Salt and pepper to taste
How you do it
Finely slice the garlic and shallots and chop the celery. Sweat them all in the olive oil until they give up the fight and begin to go translucent and maybe a little brown at the edges.
Chop the celeriac into dice and chuck it into the pan with the onions and friends. Add in the bay leaves and bouquet garni, and pour in stock so that it doesn't quite cover the vegetables and everything looks a bit crowded.
Let that simmer til the celeriac has gone soft. Take it off the heat, fish out the bouquet garni and bay leaves and blend the whole damn lot til smooth.
Nearly there.
Chop up a few sprigs of chervil, add some salt and pepper to taste.
Then, the piece de resistance - add in some soy cream. I'd say a good couple of dessert spoons per bowl.
You're done - serve with a big hunk of bred and a good documentary.
Hey - good to see you. You're looking good - did you do something new to your hair? You washed it, huh? Well, it suits you. You've s...
