Asparagus risotto

It's amazing how many times a risotto has come to my vegan rescue in restaurants or at catered bashes of one sort or another. Dead easy, always lovely and of course you can chuck all manner of gubbins in at the end to make it funky and adventurous. I've got basil in this one, but you could try mint, or a little rosemary; in terms of other ingredients asparagus is always a winner but then so are mushrooms, aubergine...

Ingredients:

350g risotto rice
Small onion, chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
175 g asparagus
4 cloves garlic
500ml vegetable bouillon or stock
200ml White wine
200ml soya milk
1 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp fresh chopped basil
Fresh basil and toasted pine nuts to serve
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method:

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan or wok, finely chop the onion, and then fry with the rice for 5-10 minutes. Then add the garlic, and start to add the vegetable stock or bouillon*, and the wine, stirring continuously and adding more as the liquid is absorbed. You can start with the stock, or the wine, it doesn't make a great difference in my experience. This process should take around 20 minutes, but you can pretty much gauge it by tasting a grain of rice every so often to see if it's done.

While all this stirring is going on, chop the asparagus into bite-sized pieces as steam for 4-5 minutes; now would also be a good time to toast the pine nuts lightly in a dry frying pan.

When you're happy with the consistency of your risotto mixture, add the soya milk, asparagus, peas and chopped basil and continue to stir over a low heat for another couple of minutes.

Serve with the toasted pine nuts, some more fresh basil and salt and pepper to taste.

*As with previous postings on this blog, I've indicated vegetable bouillon or stock. We tend to use a low salt vegetable bouillon powder that is widely available and is my preferred option, for me it's slightly thicker and has a bit more umame than regular stock.

Spinach and Chick Pea Wraps

Now then. The picture's a bit dicky on this one as I left my Olympus Pen at work and had to use my wife's Canon Ixus (lovely though it is, it's not up to food photos), so apologies for slight drop in standards. This dish was a complete experiment but worked out really well - it's very, very difficult to cock up chick peas and spinach, a dream combo. The only other thing I'd say is that this filling was fun in the wraps but would be quite dreamy in filo or puff pastry; hell you could even use it as the filling for vegan vol-au-vents!

Ingredients

Tbsp vegetable oil
One small onion
3 cloves garlic
300g chick peas, drained
Tbsp tahini
Tsp sea salt
Tsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp mirin (or syrup)
Tbsp dried coriander
3 splashes hot pepper sauce
Tbsp sesame oil
220g frozen leaf spinach, decorated and drained
100g bean sprouts
100 ml veg stock
3 or 4 deli style wraps

Mix the tahini, sea salt, vinegar, mirin, coriander, hot pepper sauce and sesame oil together and set to one side for use in a moment.  In a wok, fry the onion in the vegetable oil until it starts to brown,  then add garlic and continue to fry another minute or two. You want them a bit crispy; a bit caramelised; so let hem take their time. Then add the chick peas and fry for another five minutes or until the chick peas look to be browning a bit. Don't cook for too long as they can explode, take to the air, and possibly take you out in a way you thought impossible for a chick pea. At this point add the sauce and cook for another five minutes, then add the spinach and the beansprouts. Cook for five more minutes and leave to rest.

In a dry frying pan heat the wraps through for 15 seconds or so, then spoon in the mixture and wrap them up. I served the wraps up with a little salad and some homemade chips.

Watch out, it's the tahini mousse!

It's the accidental discoveries that make pottering in the kitchen a sight more rewarding than feeling your synapses slowly dissolve as you watch another episode of Strictly Come Boredom. Here's my latest incidental dish - tahini mousse. What began as an asian salad dressing morphed, through a slight misjudging of measures, into the fluffy, delicate and playful cousin of that vegan staple, houmous. It was served up last night with a similarly asian-inspired chick pea salad, a green salad and some crusty bread.

Tahini mousse ingredients:

2 cloves garlic
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp tahini
Juice of a lemon
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
3 tbsp water
Dash of soya sauce
Dash of mirin or tsp of sugar

Method:

First of all crush and then finely chopped the garlic. Top tip on garlic that I learned from a tutor at the Vegetarian Society cookery school called Ursula Ferrigno, is that it likes to get crushed first, chopped later. Then lightly fry the garlic in half the olive oil, which I find takes the edge off and sweetens it a little. Then add this, plus all the other ingredients barring the water, into a small food blender. Blend it for a minute or so, and then start adding the water, bit by bit, until the mixture in the blender is light and comes up to a fluffy little point if you stick your finger into it. Not hugely hygienic that last bit, but if you're cooking for family and haven't just changed a nappy, I reckon it's ok.

Slightly asian chick pea salad ingredients:

2 peeled carrots
Tin chick peas
Juice two limes
Tbsp fresh coriander
Tbsp sesame oil
Cup of soy-toasted sunflower seeds

First of all toast the sunflower seeds. To do this put a good couple of handfuls of them into a frying pan, without oil, and then start to toast them on a low to medium heat. As they start to brown, hurl in a few dashes of soya sauce, preferably tamari if you have it, and continue to toast, stirring steadily to mix the soya sauce through. Continue for a couple of minutes and then leave to one side. As they cool down, they'll crisp up, and make a really good snack with beer, if you're not about to mix them into another dish.

Peel and finely chop the carrots, rinse the chick peas, and then turn through in a bowl with the lime juice,  coriander and sesame oil. Then at the last minute introduce the seeds, this stops the salad dressing taking a bit of their crunchy edge off.

To serve:

Last night we had the mousse above and the chick pea salad with a mixture of watercress, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and cucumber all from those lovely people at Riverford, who leave a box of veggie goodies on our doorstep every week. Yum.

The chick pea mash-up

Time to blend up these bad boys...

Oh I know... it's a cliché of monstrous proportions but let's face it, I had to get houmous onto this blog good and early otherwise, quite rightly, my vegan credentials would have been roundly doubted. If you've never made it for yourself, it's bloody easy and ludicrously cheap if you soak your own chick peas. In fact, for price of a few tubs of the stuff from M&S you could make enough to fill a decent sized paddling pool. So get blending comrades!

If you're starting from dried chick peas, much respect, and don't forget to soak them overnight and simmer them for a good half hour or so before using. Otherwise it's out with the tin opener. The other essential ingredient is tahini, which is basically crushed sesame seeds, which are also good for making oriential-style salad dressings, amongst other vegan goodies.

You'll need a decent blender for this unless you like your houmous a little on the lumpy side; I remember trying it with a hand blender in my student days and finding the whole process thoroughly dispiriting. Decent blender or food processor... essential.

Houmous and pitta - proof that there is a higher being?

Ingredients:

450g soaked and cooked chick peas
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
Tsp sea salt
2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp water

Optional:

2tsp paprika
Handful of coriander leaves

Method:

Put the chick peas, lemon juice, garlic, tahini, olive oil and sea salt into your food processor and start blending. I've used the juice of two lemons here as I think really lemony houmous is a winner. You'll need to blend for a good minute or so and then make a judgement call about how much water needs to go in. When I was making this batch this afternoon, just one tablespoon did the job – add the water and continue to blend for a few minutes until really smooth. If the mixture looks a little thick, add tiny amounts of water at time to get it right. DON'T add too much, as watery houmous is the work of the devil and not to be tolerated.

Pimp my houmous:

That's the basic houmous done and the one we have at home as my lot have simple tastes. At this point though you could add paprika or coriander or even go really made and lob an avocado in there and make a kind of wacky houmous/guacamole fusion.

Serve:

With pitta bread, obviously! Dreamy combo, never to be beaten. Or you could go for little carrot and cucumber batons if you're trying to kid the little ones into eating more veg.