Recipe

Vegan Pancakes with Blueberry Compote Recipe

February 16, 2015

Being Vegan doesn’t mean missing out, quite the opposite actually. It opens you up to new way’s of reinventing old recipes. I often get cravings for Pancakes and since the ever popular pancake day is tomorrow, here’s my Vegan pancake recipe for you all to try.

For the pancake mixture:

150g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

300ml water (you can also try adding a little soy or almond milk to this, just substitute the water.)

1 tablespoon oil

2 tablespoons coconut sugar or brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice (optional)

1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

For the blueberry compote:

1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 cup of water

1 tablespoon coconut sugar

In a small saucepan, add the blueberries, water and coconut sugar. Bring to a very gentle boil and simmer on low whilst you make the pancakes, stirring occasionally until the blueberries have caramelised. Be careful that the compote doesn’t start to burn, you can always add more water if you feel it’s getting too thick.

Mix your pancake ingredients together either in a food processor or a bowl. If you are using a bowl, you should sift the flour first (something I’m guilty of never doing!!!). Whisk until nice and smooth.

Heat a frying pan, spray lightly with oil and once warm, pour a few tablespoons of your batter in. Once formed, you can flip them over and cook the other side.

Serve with a dollop of your blueberry compote and a drizzle of golden syrup or Vegan chocolate sauce if you’re feeling really naughty! (We recommend choc shot).

Totally hellbent for having my (pan)cake and eating it

Pants

Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian

Vegan Slow Roasted Vegetable Soup

July 11, 2014

Usually Soup is reserved for the Winter months, but at the moment I’m trying every way possible to shove as much fruit & veg into my mouth on a daily basis. More recently I’ve had a bit of a craving for a hearty homemade Vegetable Soup and I hold our guitarist Matt fully responsible – some weeks ago he invited Gem and I over to discuss some band matters and surprised us with a lovely Vegetable Soup that he’d made.

To satisfy my cravings and to test out some of the things we grew in the garden, I made a small batch of Vegan Roasted Veg Soup. This is probably one of the easiest recipes ever and you can throw whatever you like into it! My recipe serves around 2-4, so if you want to make more or less, adjust the Vegetables to suit!

Ingredients:

1 onion or 2 shallots
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 Pepper
6-10 Carrots (depending on size)
2 Sweet Potatoes
2 Stalks of Celery
3 Baby Potatoes
A few sprigs of Rosemary
1-2 Pints of Vegetable Stock (I used a Kallo cube)
1 teaspoon of Olive Oil or 1 cal Olive Oil Spray

Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees or around Gas Mark 3/4.

Peel and slice all your ingredients except the garlic and place these in a large roasting tin. I peeled both the Sweet Potatoes and the Baby Potatoes – usually I like to leave the skin on, but these were from the garden so it was easier to peel.

Add the Olive Oil to the roasting dish and coat the vegetables – I tend to use 1 cal Olive Oil spray but normal Olive Oil is fine too.

Chuck a few sprigs of fresh Rosemary on top and place in the oven for about an hour. Once they begin to soften, take them out the oven and give them a mix – add the garlic and place back in the oven for another 1-2 hours or until softened and caramelised.

Remove the roasted Veggies from the oven and set to one side.

Prepare your stock. I’ve been using Kallo who make a low sodium cube and Vecon as a lot of “Vegetable” Stock cubes contain Milk powder. I used just over 1 litre, but you can add more or less depending on how thick you want the soup. Blend all of your lovely roasted veggies (if you prefer it chunky, you can blend half of the mixture) and add to a saucepan. I like to add a little of my stock to the roasting tin just to get all of those lovely Veggie juices up.

Add the rest of your stock and your blended Veggies to a large saucepan and reheat. Season to taste.

Serve & Enjoy.

I made enough for just about 4 portions, so I’ve frozen half of this for another day. It’s great for chucking in the oven and leaving it until you are ready for dinner. It literally takes minutes to whizz it in a blender and add it to some stock in a saucepan. Depending on what (and how many) Veggies you cram it with, this dish can be really great as a snack or filling enough for a main meal.

Have you made any soups recently? If you’ve tried this recipe do share you pictures with me and tell me what yummy Vegetables you threw into the mix!

Totally hellbent for easy soup made from homegrown vegetables

-Pants

Lifestyle, Recipes, Vegetarian

Vegetarian Chicken Style Roast

February 9, 2014

I used to buy a Meat-free Roast from Tesco’s that Brains and I would have once in a while but more recently, we haven’t been able to find them anywhere! With that, I decided to make my own and figured I could share it with all of you lovely people.

You will need:

4 Quorn fillets or Vegan equivalent
2 pieces of bread
Stuffing (e.g sage & onion, garlic & herb, packet or home made)
1/2 teaspoon Parsley
1/2 teaspoon Oregano
Garlic Clove
Pinch of Salt
Something to bind the ingredients – 1 Egg (beaten), Oil or Soy butter/margarine for Vegan recipe

Begin by making the breadcrumbs first.

Heat the oven to around 180 degrees/Gas mark 4, place your bread on a baking tray and cook for 15 minutes each side until crisp. You can use any type of bread you like, usually I go for Gluten Free, but the stuff I had in the freezer was seeded, so I opted for some of Brain’s full on “bloating incoming” white bread.

Once cooled, place in a blender until fine crumbs are achieved, add a pinch of salt if desired and half a teaspoon of parsley and oregano. Set the breadcrumbs aside for now. These freeze for up to 6 months, so if you have some stale bread lying around, put them to good use. You can also experiment with the seasoning.

Next for the filling. I am having a very lazy Sunday today and used a packet of Sage & Onion Stuffing, I made this up in a bowl and left to cool before starting. Roughly cut the Quorn fillets or your Vegan replacement and place into your blender. I chucked in a clove of garlic and half an egg into the mix to bind it together, but you can use oil or soy butter for this. (Despite my cutting out of nearly all dairy, I’m still struggling with eggs)

Roll out some cling-film onto a clean surface or chopping board, and spoon your Quorn mixture onto it, spreading it evenly in a vague rectangular shape.

If you’ve pre-cooled your stuffing, spread this in the middle of your mixture. You can keep this in the fridge if the stuffing is still steaming.

Slowly take the edge of the clingfilm and fold the mixture over until you are left with a delightful sausage like roll.

Place this in the fridge to harden a little or place it in the freezer as it is. Once ready to use, remove from the fridge and coat with the other half of the beaten egg, (or oil/butter) roll it in your breadcrumbs and place on a baking tray.

Bake at 200 degrees/Gas mark 5/6 for around 25 to 30 minutes. Again, you can coat with the breadcrumbs and freeze this if you like, just remember to increase the cooking time if you are cooking from frozen. Remove from the Oven and bask in the glory of your very fine creation.

I served mine with mashed new potatoes – skin still on, broccoli, a Yorkshire pudding and some little stuffing balls.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! If anyone does find some Vegan alternatives to the Quorn that taste great please let me know in the comments below as I’d love to hear from you. I’m itching to try this out with The Vegetarian Butcher chicken that Gem and I absolutely adore, sadly it’s only available from The Netherlands so we often have to wait for Gem to whisk herself off to Rotterdam to see Roode until we can get our hands on some and because it’s so delicious, it never lasts long once we’ve got it back to England.

Totally hellbent for getting one over on all the supermarket’s and doing it myself

-Pants