What's up, Doc?

                                               Carrot and Coconut Bisque...Carrot Soup

Before I went Vegan, one of my favourite dishes was Chicken Korma, it was so comforting! Now i realise it was really the coconut and so an obsession was born!  This soup doesn't taste like a health carrot soup, it tastes like korma! Made this on Sunday and its fed me for work lunches for 4 days. The dish is from Vegan With A Vegeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

                         

Shopping Basket:

1.3 kg carrots - peeled and chopped into 1cm cubes

1 large white onion

I used 2 tablespoons of coconut oil (amendment from original recipie)

2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon of Garam Masala (amendment)

Half a teaspoon salt

Black pepper

750ml Vegetable stock

375g can coconut milk (nectar of the Gods!)

1 tablespoon maple syrup - Doh, I forgot to add this in my soup, so your will probably be even better, which is crazy!

Kitchen Activites:

1) Take a large saucepan and cook the carrots in coconut oil with chopped onions. Remember to stir! Takes about 7-10 minutes

                         

        

2) Add garlic, garam masala, salt and pepper and cook for one further minute.

3) Add your stock, cover and simmer for 12 minutes until the carrot gets soft.

                       

      

4) Add th coconut milk and bring to a low boil. 

                        

5) Leave to cool and then blend! Original recipie advised to blend half so you still get chunks. I blended the whole lot. Before serving add the maple syrup!

Bread at No.29 Acacia Road

I found a new favourite post run snack: Banana Bread

Turn this:

into this:

Shopping Basket:

3 spotty and black bananas

1 cup sugar

0.5 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons molasses

2.5 cups plain flour

0.5 salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 pinches nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking powder

Kitchen Activities:

1. Preheat oven 350F

2. Mash bananas, then add sugar, oil, vanilla and extract

3. In a separate bowl mix flour, salt, spices and baking powder.

4. Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet

5. Grease a loaf tin with vegan margarine

6. Set a timer for 60 minutes 

7. Wait. Do some planks, knit some socks, watch some trashy TV*

8. Bread! Cut some slices to give to friends and show them how good vegan good can be.

Recipe adapted from "Vegan YumYum" by Lauren Ulm.

*Waiting activities optional and amendable

Firework Pinwheels

Autumn, Fireworks and Food. I rustled up a batch of savoury and sweet pastry pinwheels for a little firework get together a friend was having. Both her and her husband are vegan too, however none of the other guests were, apart from me, and pretty sure the pinwheels went down well! 

These are super fast and easy to make and you can experiment with different fillings.

Shopping Basket:

-Two rolls of jus-roll puff pastry

-Vegan chocolate spread (I used gluten free hazelnut and cocoa spread by Antony Worral Thomson - you can get it I'm Sainsburys in the Free From section)

-Chopped almonds

-Red pesto

-Black Olives

-Dried Sage

Makes around 12/15 of each type.

Dessert First! Hazelnut n Cocoa Pinwheels

1) Take your puff pastry packet out of the fridge about 10 minutes before you want to start

2) Preheat your oven to 200 degrees

3) Unwrap the sheet of pastry and lay flat. Just look at that blank canvas!

4) Cover the whole sheet with the chocolate spread. There are no specific amounts, just spread on as much as you want. I used a lot :)

5) Sprinkle over the hazelnuts

This deserved a larger picture ;)

 

6) Start at one of the pastry ends and start to roll it. Try and keep the roll tight up until you meet the other end of the pastry.

7) Using a sharp knife, cut the roll into segments and lay them out on greaseproof paper.

8) Bake for around 15 minutes - keep a close eye, you don't want them to burn but to develop some colour

9) Leave to cool. Test by eating one, or two.

10) Store in an air tight container. Transport to your friends house.

11) Bask in the glory of oohs and aahs as people feast on your puff pastry delights!

Maincourse: Red Pesto n Olive Pinwheels

1) This is the same process as above but spread the pesto all over the sheet.

2) Scatter over the chopped black olives

3) Repeat steps 6 - 11 as detailed above

Here's a picture of my friends fridge. Nothing better than a fridge full of vegan goodies, covered from top to bottom in laminated cat memes and furry monkeys :)

Enjoy :)

Pulp Fiction Protein Pancakes

Everyone loves pancakes right?

ORIGINAL RECIPIE came from www.veganbaking.net . I modified the recipie slightly to include a different protein powder and omitted ginger. I also used coconut oil to fry mine. 

These are protein enriched, and a batch will last about 5 days. I made these on a Monday evening, frying off pancakes two by two at 11pm. Normal behaviour, everyone makes batches of pancakes in their pjs on a Monday evening right? Well if not, what not? Preparation is key! I spent the remaining of that working week feasting on delicious pancakes every morning with minimal effort! Here's how:

Shopping Basket:

3.5 cups of soya or almond milk

2 tablespoons of ground flax

2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2.75 cups flour

.75 cup of protein powder (I used pea protein isolate)

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of baking powder

0.5 teaspoon of baking soda

0.5 teaspoon of salt

0.5 teaspoon nutmeg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Pecans and walnuts (1/2 cup optional)

Kitchen Activities:

1) Whisk your milk, flax, cider vinegar and vanilla extract. Leave for 10 minutes. This allows the milk to curdle. Yes this sounds gross but go with it;)

2) Then in a separate bowl you want to whisk together your flour, protein powder, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. 

3) Whisk the vegetable oil into your flour mix. Then whisk in your milk mixture, ensuring all evening mixed. Add your chopped nuts.,

4) The frying bit...

Take a flat bottomed frying pan and melt about a tablespoon of coconut oil. Use a ladle and drop some liquid onto the pan. Leave to cool, you'll know to flip over when small bubbles appear on the surface. Cook on the other side for about two minutes. Remove pancake from pan with a large spatula and leave to cook on greaseproof paper. REPEAT the process until all the mix has been used. This makes about 12 to 14 thick American style pancakes. 

Tips:

My first pancake attempts were dire.....but stick with it..

.

It can take a while for the pan to get nicely oiled to get a round shape. No idea why, not a professional cook, but this always seems the way. Make sure you leave the pancake to cook evenly on one side before attempting to flip it with the spatula. 

I used coconut oil because its healthy and gives a nice flavour, had to keep adding extra amounts to ensure the pancakes didn't stick. 

I stored them in greaseproof paper int the fridge for 5 days. 

Each morning, take two pancakes and stick the, under the grill, this will reheat them and get some nice crispy edges. Serve with banana, blueberries, maple syrup, a spindle of icing sugar or whatever else you have.

 

Strawberry Fields Forever

Simple Strawberry Smoothie

Let me tell you about this strawberry smoothie - it's ridiculously easy to make, and ridiculously delicious. You can blend up this beauty in a couple of minutes. Made this one after a long weekend run, I added additional protein* too but that's optional. 

Shopping Basket:

This makes roughly one smoothie.  There's really no specific measurements really,.

Cup of strawberries

Soya milk

Pea protein isolate *

Tea spoon  ground flax seeds

Drop of vanilla extract

Activities:

Throw everything into the blender.

Blend.

Add a chopped strawberry as garnish if you wanna be fancy ;)

Honestly, this is so simple there's hardly any point in writing a recipie, but shows how easy it is to add anything to make a healthy post work out snack. You can't taste the flax seeds at all but they are going to give you an extra source of good fats. 

 

Vegan Treats at The Northern Vegan Festival...

...need I say more?

New blog post on The Northern Vegan Festival and new finds coming soon!

 

Peanut Oaty Date Balls!!

A super quick post for a super quick recipe to create some delightful protein balls, ideal for a snack pre or post gym.

Your kitchen cupboard will need to provide;

Three large heaped table spoons of peanut butter. I used smooth organic but whatever you have will be fine. Obviously there are healthier versions of this stuff so go with what you have and you can always make changes.

A tiny dash of maple syrup (optional)

1/4 cup of old fashioned rolled oats baby

1/2 cup or about 5-6 medjool dates. 

Protein powder (optional) I used pea protein powder from myprotein which is vegan.

Activities;

1. De pit your dates and chip into small pieces. If its anything like mine, they will end up all sticking together in one lump but have no fear.

 2. Mix the peanut butter and oats together in a bowl. 

3. Fold in the dates. Use a dash of maple syrup if you want. I also added a tiny pinch of cinnamon and protein powder.

4. Rollin' dem balls...

    With clean hands, take a heaped teaspoon amount of your mix and roll into a ball between the   palms of your hands. This should make a nice bite size ball. 

 One down, 10-15 to go....repeat process 4.

I stored mine between grease proof paper in the fridge. Generally end up taking 3 or 4 to work in a small Tupperware and eat as one on my snacks during the day. 

Hope this helps Tom!