Monday 31 October 2011

Swede & Parsnip Bake


Finally a new recipe! That incidentally received 9/10 from a local food critic ;)
I found (and then adapted) this one on the BBC good food website which has quite a few almost vegan meals if you’re willing to have a search. I’ve looked at every recipe on The Vegan Stoner now. I love how simple it is and how cute the illustrations are! Defo worth checking out, recipes usually need a specialist ingredient though.
Cooking Time: Just over an hour, only need to be in the kitchen for the first half.
Ingredients:
1 medium sized swede
1 large turnip
3 tablespoons of golden syrup
About 4 slices worth of breadcrumbs
A hefty chunk of marg
2 eggs worth of egg replacer (I use no-egg)
A drizzle of Olive oil
Salt
A generous shake of thyme
Serves two
1. Chop the turnip and swede into small cubes and boil for around 14 mins. (put the swede in by itself for the first few minutes... I forgot.) Preheat the oven to 180 C.
2. Drain and mash the veg with some marg. Add ¾ of the breadcrumbs, egg replacer and goldon syrup. Mix well.
3.Place the mixture into a baking dish and smooth the surface. Mix the remaining breadcrumbs with a little oil and lots of thyme. Layer this on top and dot on some marg.
4. Place in the oven for 35 mins, keep an eye on it near the end, boil up some veggies and use the water to make gravy!

I am pre-empting a big shop at Single Step tomorrow so perhaps I’ll be making some new adventurous things next week...

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Caribbean Bean Stew

Found this uber healthy and filling dish at Vegan Village and I pretty much stuck entirely to their recipe minus tabasco and bay leaves. I also left out the black pepper as I haven't got round to buying any yet (quite a faux pas for a food blogger, no?) and the carrot as I didn't quite feel it fitted with the recipe.

The ingredients are all easy to get hold of and once you have done the frying;

you just need to add all the other ingredients and stir occasionally for 30 mins.

I cheated and used Uncle Bens 2mins microwave rice (possibly my last white rice for a while if my boyfriend, Josh, has anything to do with it!)
And this was the finished result:

Perhaps not the most aesthetically pleasing but still a hearty and really easy dish to prepare as long as you don't mind quite a bit of chopping. The recipe made about 4 portions this size so if cooking for less the ingredients could be halved. (Provided you don't mind using half a tin and saving the rest, it's a pet peeve of mine as I can never use the remainder before it goes off!) Having said this, I kept the leftovers of the stew in the fridge and heated it up in the microwave and it still tasted great.

This week I've also cooked Pizzas, Mish Mash Ratatouille and my favourite Mint and Pea Soup. I'll hopefully get round to blogging about the former two soon, somewhere between film editing, travelling to Dartmoor for the weekend, writing my dissertation and helping to run LU people & planet society!



Saturday 8 October 2011

Freshers Week

A week of chips, vodka, chips, soup, Chinese takeaway, chips, cider, and chips.
A very enjoyable but wonderfully unhealthy week. I have a lovely clean new kitchen and new flatmates who I haven't actually used the 'V' word around yet and I'm really looking forward to doing some cooking! I haven't got round to making peanut butter cookies or crisps yet so hopefully I'll find some time next week in between multiple societies and meetings.
I went for lunch today at the Whaletail in Lancaster (my second visit this week) and ate Thai carrot soup, spicy but sooo tasty and hopefully going some way to getting rid of my freshers flu! I also called in at Single step, the wholefood store in Lancaster to stock up on vegan cheese as well as some instant Miso soup and a Ginger cake to take to people & planet society on Wednesday. That's all folks, hopefully I'll have something a little more exciting for you next week!