Stuffed Peppers

Spicy, tasty, colourful and packed full of vitamin C, try some stuffed roasted peppers to warm yourselves as the cooler weather draws in.

First cook the filling, in this case a packet of curried rice I'm afraid, I will definitely make my own next time - how hard can it be? Also try other flavoured rice or cous cous. Chop the tops of the peppers and de-seed them, fill the peppers and then spray or drizzle with oil. Put the tops back of the peppers and roast until they start to turn brown. Serve quickly and enjoy!

Lasagna

I finally found something to make a lasagna in not the ceramic dish I was searching for but the loaf tin that was already in my cupboard something clicked yesterday and this was the result:



I used a the white sauce recipe from Vegan Village, which really was easy to make as long as you keep stirring it, I added some ground black pepper for flavour but there are many possibilities here garlic, onion or maybe some kind of cheese replacement as you prefer.

For the tomato sauce I made do with a generic supermarket jar I'm afraid - life is just way to hectic to do everything from scratch right?

I began the layering process with white sauce followed by a lasagna sheet, then tomato sauce then a layer of sliced mushrooms, onion and green peppers and repeat. Ending with the tomato sauce and vegetable layer avoided a previous issue that I had encountered with the white sauce drying out while cooking. The vegetables on the top were roasted to perfection after about 30 mins.

Top the lasagna with Parmazano and serve with freshly baked garlic and herb baguette.

Bliss.

Chick Pea Pasta Salad

I couldn't face a hot meal tonight, I needed something quick and cool. I based this dish on the tuna pasta salad that my Mum made me as a kid. It's very simple but it's filling and makes a bit of a change. Basically I just cooked some pasta, whizzed up some chick peas in the blender, mixed the cooked pasta with the chick peas, some sunflower seeds and some salad cream and that's it. Almost too simple, try adding other seeds, sweetcorn, or whatever you fancy.

Quick Pitta Pockets

This is hardly a recipe but time is short and I love these so I thought I would share.



Ingredients:

Two small pitta breads,
Half an onion,
A small pepper,
A few mushrooms,
A third of a jar of tomato pasta sauce,
Paprika,
A little oil

Method:

• Heat a little oil in a frying pan


• Slice the onion and add it to the pan


• Slice the pepper and the mushrooms


• When the onion is browning add the pepper and mushrooms


• Fry together for a few minutes then add the tomato sauce and paprika


• Put the pitta bread into your toaster or heat them in the oven


• Cut the pitta bread in half and when the tomato sauce is hot you can stuff the pitta pockets and serve

Pizza!

These individual pizzas focus on the flavour of the base and the tomato sauce so the cheese will not be missed. The base is kind of crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, it can be herby and garlicky or can feature a mixture of seeds. The sauce is simple and inexpensive but still bursting with flavour. The recipe that follows makes the pizzas the way I love them, obviously there are many possible variations and I urge you to experiment.


To make two pizzas,

Ingredients:

For the bases:
220g/8oz self-raising flour,
55ml/2oz oil,
110ml 4oz soya/rice milk,
a few pumpkin seeds,
a few sunflower seeds

For the sauce:
1 small onion,
1 tin plum tomatoes,
1 small pepper,
2 tbs tomato purée,
a little oil,
basil,
oregano

And also:
10 medium size mushrooms,
1 tsp garlic purée,
mixed herbs

Method:

• Peel the onion and cut it in half
  
• Heat a little oil in a small saucepan
• Chop the onion and pepper into small chunks
  
• Sauté the onions and pepper
  
• Tip the tin of tomatoes into a bowl and chop off any remaining skin or green parts
• Chop the tomatoes in the bowl
• When the onion is just becoming brown add the tomatoes with juice
• Add the tomato purée, oregano and basil and simmer until the sauce is no longer watery
  
• In a large bowl or food processor mix together the flour and oil into a bread crumb like mixture
• Add seeds to the flour mixture
• Add the milk and form into dough
• Divide the dough into two equal parts and form into a circle with a slight rim around the edge
• Spread some garlic purée along the base
• Peel and slice the mushrooms
• Divide the sauce between the two bases and cover with the mushrooms
• Sprinkle mixed herbs over the top
  
• Serve with parmazano and vegan Worcestershire sauce
  

Chocolate Easter Cake

To me Easter is mostly about chocolate and time off. Why use some of your time off to try making this chocolate cake recipe, the cake is gorgeous and adding Whizzers mini eggs makes it the perfect Easter dessert. This recipe comes from a site designed for omnivores who are cooking for or more specifically in a relationship with a vegan. You might like to point you omni friends or family at this site as they might not feel so judged whilst learning about some vegan issues.

Happy Easter!

Lentil Curry

This week I made a lentil curry from Parsley Soup which was OK as a curry but it made an amazing sandwich filling. Try it hot or cold in a pitta bread or on some thick toast or just in a normal sandwich, I'm sure you wont be disappointed.

This recipe several spices that should be staples in any vegan's spice rack - providing you like spicy food of course. Lentils are a classic vegan food which, according to www.veg-it.com, are high in protein, fibre, potassium and iron. They are also a good source of calcium. Which is nice.

Really Easy Mushroom Risotto

Although risotto didn't strike me as a particularly simple dish this one was easy. It is something you have to continually pay attention to, but it is hard to get wrong. It is also a recipe which scales quite simply, say about 85g of rice per person, it doesn't matter if you have extra onion in there and all the other ingredients can be halved or quartered. To keep things simple and cheaper I left out the porcini mushrooms, it didn't make much difference.

Finding vegan wine can be a bit difficult but some supermarkets do label their own make bottles, try COOP or Sainsburys. Tesco's online Wine Club has a vegan section and check out this vegan wine guide. Obviously you'll have to replace the butter with a vegan alternative - my thoughts on this are on the Vegan Essentials page of my website. And instead of Parmesan try Parmazano available from some supermarkets, most health food shops and online at the Vegan Store and Veggie Stuff.

Vanilla Fairy Cakes

Gorgeous vanilla fairy cakes topped with intense lemon icing and a single chocolate bean.

This sponge is so light and the lemon in the icing gives the cakes a real zing. I found this recipe on Realfood's site as a basic sponge and, as stated, the recipe made 34 fairy cakes. I made the lemon icing simply by adding lemon juice a few drops at a time until the icing just starts to drip from a spoon. The chocolate beans are Whizzers from Allergycare available from a variety of places including the Vegan Store, VeggieStuff, Goodness Direct and hopefully your local health food shop. Also look out for Whizzers Speckled Eggs ready for Easter.

Bean Burgers

This week I am making bean burgers, the recipe is from Parsley Soup the home of Cherry's vegan recipes. Her website has a great selection of recipes laid out logically and cleanly but colourfully and with photos. This specific recipe takes some time to prepare but is well worth it if you are cooking for several people.

I halved the recipe to make the above burgers but that did leave me with leftover beans which I need to find a use for tomorrow. I would recommend a food processor for this recipe as it useful for making the bread crumbs and mashing the beans but it is not necessary. The burgers tasted lovely, they are most satisfying and have an interesting texture. Give them a try!

Chana Masala

This weeks recipe is Chana Masala, the recipe is from Mary Jane Kelly on vegweb.comI found this recipe simple to make and very tasty. This is a great basic recipe which would be easy to modify to suit different tastes. I am thinking about using more onions next time and adding some chopped red pepper. I kept half of the Chana Masala in the fridge and it did not taste as good the next day; the chickpeas had a slightly different texture and had come away from the skins so bear that in mind.

Steph's Chilli

For starters I will share one of my recipes - a hearty chilli:


Ingredients:
2 medium/large onions
1 large carrot
1 red pepper
2 cans of chilli beans (420g)
100g TVP
a little oil
extra chilli powder as required







Method:

• Firstly put the TVP in a heat proof bowl and cover with boiling water
  
• Peel the onions and cut them in half
  
• Heat a little oil in a large saucepan
• Slice the onion one way and then in half the other way
• Add the onion to the saucepan
• Peel the carrot and thinly slice it
• Cut the pepper in to smallish chunks
• Add the carrot and pepper to the onion
  
• Stir the vegetables occasionally until the onions become translucent
• Add the tins of chilli beans and the TVP to the vegetables and stir
• Add chilli powder for an extra kick
  
• Cover the the chilli and simmer for twenty minutes stir every few minutes
• Uncover the chilli and simmer until the chilli reduces

Serve over rice, potatoes, pasta or with naan bread.