Kale & sweetcorn fritters

And... after a shockingly long leave of absence due to a) the fact we've got an allotment and b) that work has been utterly, utterly crazed, I'm back blogging my recipes again. This time it's fritters.

So, critical question - can you get a bit of fluffy loveliness with a  vegan batter? Of course you can! Hurl bicarb of soda and baking powder together and the whole think lifts wonderfully.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 cup of soya milk
2 cups curly kale
1 tin sweetcorn
Veg oil for frying

Method:

Super easy this one. Steam the kale and set it to one side. You might want to open and drain the sweetcorn too. Sift the flour into a bowl with the bicarb, the baking powder and the sea salt. With a fork, mix in the soya milk until you've got a smooth batter. Now turn in the kale and the sweetcorn and mix well.

Heat some vegetable oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok and then add a spoonful of the fritter mixture at a time. Allow to fry for around 1.5 - 2 minutes until golden brown and then turn over and do the other side.

Serve as a starter with soy sauce for dipping - or in our case with some rice and peas.

Slightly oriental lentil and rice bake

Genuine experiment this one... Basically it's an attempt at a Asian inspired lentil and rice bake. Worked pretty well. Lovely texture. The coconut didn't come through as strong as I expected but the lemon zest lifts the whole thing. Next time might get some lemongrass in there too. Worth doing again.

Ingredients:

One onion, finely chopped
Tbsp vegetable oil
One carrot, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
One cup finely chopped pointy cabbage
Tbsp chopped fresh coriander
Tbsp chopped fresh chives
Tsp chopped fresh parsley
Zest and juice of one lemon
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp agave syrup or sugar
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
Tsp sesame oil
1 cup dried red lentils
200 ml vegetable stock
400 ml coconut milk
2 tbsp vegan margarine
2 tbsp corn meal
2 cups cooked basmati rice
Salt and some extra fresh coriander, to hurl in at the last moment!

Method:

Fry the onion in a large frying pan or wok until it starts to go translucent and is about to brown, around 5-10 minutes. Then add the carrot, garlic and cabbage and cook for a further ten minutes. Keep stirring by the way! Then add the dry lentils, and then the herbs, lemon juice, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar and oil. Stir through, let the vinegar cook off a little, and then add the vegetable stock and coconut milk. Leave to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender after 20 minutes or so. Stir through the margarine, then sprinkle over the corn meal and stir in, then cook for a further 5 minutes.

Now mix in the cooked rice. Stir through. At this point I added a little salt and some fistfuls of extra fresh herbs to add extra flavour. Press the mixture into a well greased loaf tin and cook, covered with foil, for 25 minutes.

Vegan chinese-style dumplings

Apologies for the slight absence on the food blog - I've not stopped cooking or eating, just struggled to find the time to take snaps of things as they were made. Will attempt to improve my behaviour from here on in.

Anyway today's recipe is born out of necessity. We couldn't find any dim sum/vegetable dumplings in our local chinese supermarket that didn't have MSG in them, so I decided to have a bash myself. Turns out it's pretty easy. You can prepare a load of dumplings and set them aside for later or even freeze them for a day or so. All pretty easy.

Ingredients:

Tbsp veg oil
Half an onion, finely chopped
Two medium carrots, finely chopped
150g shredded green cabbage
100g mushrooms, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1/2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
1/2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
150g dry weight fine noodles (rice or wheat)
Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
1tsp mirin (or sugar)
2 tsp sesame oil

350g dumpling flour
200 ml cold water

Method:

Gently fry the onion, carrot,cabbage, mushrooms and garlic in the vegetable oil until softened a little. Just five minutes or so should do it. Then added the coriander and chives and cook for a further five minutes. Cook the noodles as per instructions (mine took just two minutes) and then add these to the pan, too. Stir through gently. Next add the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and mirin and stir through. That's the filling sorted, which you can set to one side,

Mix the dumpling flour and water into a bread-style dough and leave to rest for 20 minutes. Separate into quarters and, a quarter at at time, roll out into a thin sheet. Now use a large round cutter to cut out 15cm diameter circles (don't worry if they're a bit bigger or smaller, get as close as you can). Now you're ready to make the dumplings. Add a tablespoon of your dumpling mixture to the middle of the round, then wet one edge with cold water, fold over and seal to create a semi-circular dumpling. Repeat to prepare all your dumplings.

Now you have two choices - you can either steam or fry the dumplings. I was naughty and fried these today, but steaming works just as well. Serve up with a little soy sauce in bowl, or another dipping sauce such as sweet chilli or plum if you have it to hand.

Variations: you could pretty much introduce any finely minced veg into the dumpling filling, or small cubes of tofu or fried TVP, and you don't have to use the noodles. Have a play and make some  dumplings!

Polenta, aubergine and courgette layer

Am having stupendous fun with the new grill pan I got for Father's Day. This lunch I made yesterday was all about the grill pan - it took a while, but as long as you've got something good on the radio and no critically urgent deadline, it's quite nice to have a slow food lunch.

Ingredients:

1 litre boiling water
Sea salt
2-3 cups polenta flour
1 large aubergine, sliced lengthways
1 large courgette, sliced lengthways
4-5 stems wet garlic or spring onions, sliced
Olive oil
Black pepper

Method:

First of all make the polenta. You can of course buy polenta ready made but it is easy to do yourself and you can make tonnes and tonnes of it for a fraction of the price. Start off by bringing the water to a boil in a large saucepan. Slowly start to add the polenta flour in, as a steady trickle, while you stir. Keep adding the flour, and stirring, until the mixture is a bit like mashed potatoes. Try and keep this going for around 20 minutes or so, as the longer you cook the mixture for at this stage, the smoother the consistency of the final polenta. When you're done with this stage, smooth the mixture into a greased baking pan or loaf tin and put in the fridge to cool and set for around half an hour.

Like I said, this isn't a speedy recipe, so the next slow food action is to prepare the aubergine. Rub a little sea salt into one side of each of the slices, then stack the slices on top of each other, on a plate, in two stacks. Place another plate on top and then pop a couple of tins on top as a weight. Leave for 15 minutes or so to let the bitterness and some of the moisture out. Then drain.

Get the grill plan ready and then start grilling, starting with the courgette. Brush both sides with olive oil and a little sea salt and then grill until tender, with a few of the garlic/spring onion slices in the pan to give a bit more depth. Add a little fresh pepper if you like. Keep the courgette warm in the oven while you do the aubergine, again brushing with oil before grilling.

Finally get the polenta out of the fridge. Tip out onto a chopping board and slice into 1cm thick slices at a similar size to the aubergine and courgette slices. Grill in the grill plan for a good 6 or 7 minutes on each side. When you're done, stack up the polenta, aubergine and courgette into a gorgeous-looking tower and serve.

Tempeh quinoa plus spinach and broad beans in tahini sauce

I swept into cooking dinner at a bit of a pace last night so this is all from memory, consider it a rough guide to the dinner! Adopt and adapt as you see fit. The tahini sauce was a bit of a triumph, and was inspired by a similar recipe which arrived in our veg box from those fabulous people at Riverford.

Ingredients

225g spinach
1 cup broad beans
3 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cold water
2 cloves garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice wine vinegar

--

2 cups quinoa
1 red onion
150g tempeh
1 cup pumpkin seeds
Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
2 tsp sea salt
2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil


Method:

To give yourself a bit of time, get the tahini sauce sorted first. Put the tahini, soy sauce, sugar, cold water, garlic, lemon juice, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar in a blender and mix until creamy and smooth. if the mixture is too thick to use, add more water. The steam the spinach and broad beans until tender (around 10-15 minutes for me) and then shell the broad beans, mix together and the. Add the tahini sauce. You're ready.

At the same time (I know, you need to multitask), prepare the quinoa. First of all chop the red onion and tempeh and begin to fry in the vegetable oil. Get the quinoa going by boiling in a sauce pan, usually for 10 minutes or so. After the onion and tempeh has started to brown, add the garlic and then after a few minutes, the parsley, sea salt and pumpkin seeds. When the whole mix has browned nicely, add the quinoa and mix through.

Serve, sprinkled with sesame seeds if you want to be posh.

Courgette and Broad Bean Linguine

It's been a bit quiet on the food blog front. Apologies. I've been in France, amusing the locals with rough and ready explanations of my veganism. In the land of tortured ducks and full on foie gras, I can't say I did too well. Everyone was very jolly, though, and there was some very lovely bread, beer and wine. Anyway I'm back now and the new excitement in our kitchen is a grill pan, which was my prezzie for father's day. As a result, everything's getting grilled now! This recipe features grilled courgette, which is gorgeous, plus some lovely fresh broad beans. Yum.

Ingredients:

One large courgette, sliced diagonally
500g broad beans, in their pods
Three cloves garlic, roughly chopped
Juice of half a lemon
Sea salt
Linguine
Olive oil

Method:

Heat your grill pan and then add the courgette slices after brushing them lightly with olive oil and sprinkling lightly with sea salt. Pop the pieces of the chopped garlic in between them to let it toast. Grill on both sides - take your time - until the courgette's tender and just on the point of falling apart. Remove from the grill pan and slice roughly, and set to one side, covered.

To prepare the broad beans, steam them for around ten minutes or so, then rinse very briefly in cold water and proceed to undertake the rather laborious, but worthwhile, process of shelling them. I genuinely can't imagine not shelling them (you don't need to really) as the resulting 'naked' broad beans are so beautifully green and delightful. It's worth the effort. I shell them by making a small cut in the top of the bean and then squeezing the bright green inner through the cut.

Mix the beans, toasted garlic and the courgette together with a little more olive oil and squeeze the lemon juice over the top. Meanwhile cook your linguine, rinse with boiling water, and turn over in a little more olive oil before turning the vegetables through the hot pasta. Then serve.

As an added option, I also grilled some peppers to serve on the side of this one, and some slices of a fake vegan ham that we picked up at the chinese cash and carry. It's quite lovely for a faux meat, popular with the kids, and made by some folks in Bletchley at a fab sounding place called 'Veggie World'!

Rhubarb galette

Unlike the rest of this blog, this is recipe is a) a dish that my wife Anne made; and b) taken (and tweaked) from somewhere else. On this occasion it's from Anne's favourite domestic guru Martha Stewart, and I thought I'd post it up as I've got far too few desserts on here. This dish is also worth a try as the crust on this pie is lovely, courtesy of the cornmeal.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 recipe Cornmeal Pate Brisee
1 pound rhubarb, sliced 1/2-inch thick
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of ground, cinnamon
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
1 large egg, beaten
Caster sugar for dusting
1 tablespoon vegan margarine, cut into small pieces

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to a 14-inch round, about 1/8-inch thick.

Place rhubarb and lemon juice in a large bowl; toss to combine. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg until well combined. Add sugar mixture to rhubarb and toss until well coated. Arrange rhubarb mixture on top of dough, leaving a 2-inch border all the way around. Fold border over the fruit mixture, overlapping where necessary and pressing gently to adhere the folds. Brush edges of dough with egg, sprinkle with turbinado or sanding sugar, and dot with butter. Transfer to refrigerator and chill 15 to 20 minutes.

Bake until crust is deep golden brown and juices are bubbling, 55 to 60 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to a wire rack to cool the galette. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Mushroom paté with asparagus and new potatoes

It's been two weeks since I last blogged on here – we haven't stopped eating, I've just been stupidly busy. Anyway I've managed to take a snap of tonight's dinner, which centres around a mushroom paté I've just come up with. Bit of a hit this. The paté has a bit of depth to it, and is quite yummy. Would work well with some diddy toasts, bits of pitta, etc. etc.

Ingredients:

250g chestnut mushrooms
One bulb wet garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
70g breadcrumbs
100g mixed nuts
1/2 tsp sea salt
Tbsp fresh parsley
Tbsp fresh basil
1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Juice of half a lemon

And...

One bunch asparagus

A dozen small new potatoes

Juice of the other half of the lemon
More olive oil
Sea salt

Method:

Chop the wet garlic, and start to fry in the olive oil in a large pan or wok. After a couple minutes, before the garlic starts to brown, add the mushrooms. Fry for a further ten minutes or so. At the same time, chop the breadcrumbs and nuts in a blender until they're relatively fine. Back to the pan. Add the sea salt and herbs, stir through, and then add the blended breadcrumbs and nuts. Stir through, and then add the balsamic vinegar. After the mixture has cooked through for another ten minutes, return the entire mix back to the blender, add the lemon juice and blend well until nice and smooth.

Serve with the asparagus, steamed, and the new potatoes, boiled, with some lemon zest, juice, olive oil and sea salt.

Asparagus, lentil and spinach in tomato sauce

This one works pretty well... with hindsight, could have done just as well with the spinach and the lentils on their own, but the asparagus needed to be used! Both spinach and puy lentils are brilliant with a tomato sauce... I once had puy lentils in a tomato sauce with veggie sausages and mash – it was gorgeous! Anyway, on this occasion I'm serving this up with steamed rice.

Ingredients:

Bunch asparagus
1/2 cup puy lentils
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
1 tin chopped tomatoes
tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1/2 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
Tbsp vegan pesto sauce
2 tsp balsamic syrup
Tsp salt
150g fresh spinach

Method:

Put the lentils into some slightly salted boiling water and then start to simmer until tender (around 30 minutes). At the same time, chop the onions and the garlic and start to fry them in a large pan or wok, in the olive oil. When they've started to brown, add the tomatoes and bring to a boil then simmer. Now add the basil, rosemary, pesto, balsamic and salt, and let this simmer for a few minutes; it should go lovely and dark thanks to the balsamic. Let this simmer for a good five minutes or so, and then add the spinach, chopped. Bring back to a simmer and let it thicken up a bit on the hob.

While all this is going on, and while the lentils are still chugging away, get your asparagus ready. I've chopped it into 2-3 centimetre chunks. then get ready to steam it for a minute or so before adding to the sauce. Also about now, get the rice on. I've used LOVELY broken jasmine rice from the ever brilliant W H Lung cash and carry in Manchester. It's great. I tend to wash it before cooking, then boil in just enough water so that it starts to dry out after 8 minutes or so and then I get a tint lid on it, turn off the heat and let it steam through for another 5 or 6 minutes.

Anyway back to the sauce. When the lentils are almost al dente, steam the asparagus for a couple of minutes until tender. Then add to the sauce and stir through well. Serve up, with the rice,

Squashed up noodles...

There's been a butternut squash lurking in our kitchen for a good few weeks now and tonight was its night for fame and glory... I combined it with some courgette and leeks in a very light sub-satay over some noodles and topped with some roasted tofu and toasted seeds. Here's the drill:

Ingredients:

Half a butternut squash
One courgette
One leek
Tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp sugar
250ml vegetable stock or bouillon
Tbsp peanut butter
Tbsp light soy sauce
Tbsp corn syrup
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp cornflour
3 bundles noodles, cooked and rinsed in cold water
500g firm tofu
Tbsp sesame oil
3 tsp sea salt
3-4 tbsp mixed sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Method:

First of all get the tofu going as it takes 20 minutes or so. Tofu is really great baked - crispy, chewy and and generally yummy. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Drain the tofu and slice into thick, long slices. Place on an oiled baking tray, brush with sesame oil and then sprinkle with salt. Then bake the tofu for 20-30 minutes or until brown and crispy.

Skin and chop the squash into small-ish cubes and then start to fry in a large wok, chop the courgette and (well-washed) leek into similar sized pieces and, after around ten minutes when the squash has started to brown really well, add these pieces to the wok and fry with the squash. While the vegetables are cooking, sprinkle with the sugar and with a tsp of sea salt.

Now make the sauce. In a blender combine the stock/bouillon, peanut butter, soy sauce, syrup and garlic. Blend until nice and smooth. Then add to the cooking vegetables and cook for 3 more minutes to take the edge of the garlic and to let the sweetness of the syrup lift the vegetables. Combine the cornflour with a little cold water and add to the mix gradually until the vegetables and sauce are thickened up nicely. Set to one side.

With ten minutes or so to go for the tofu, you can do the noodles and the seeds. I used udon noodles here, boiled for 4 or 5 minutes in a large-ish pan and then rinsed well in cold water and tossed in a tiny bit of sesame oil to stop them from sticking together.

To prepare the seeds, sprinkle them over a baking tray covered with a little soy sauce and 2 tsp sea salt. Mix through well and bake in the over with the tofu for 5-6 minutes only, until they start to brown.

When the tofu and seeds are done, serve the noodles topped with the vegetables, the tofu and the seeds. Yum. As ever, this dish was designed to be kiddy/wife friendly and so wouldn't suffer at all if there was some cheeky chilli included.

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.

Satay tofu & aubergine skewers

The sun's out today and we've got a few folks over for little person's birthday... but have resisted the BBQ in favour of a buffet type-thing that's largely asian, including dumplings, rice buns and, as you can see, some satay skewers. Quite yummy these.

Ingredients:

500g firm tofu
1 medium sized aubergine
Tbsp light soy sauce
Tbsp sesame oil
Tbsp tomato ketchup
4 tbsp peanut butter
150 ml boiling water
3 tsp tamari or dark soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine vinegar

Method:

First of all make a marinade with the light soy sauce, sesame oil and ketchup. Slice the tofu into small cubes and then cover with the marinade and set aside for 30 minutes or so. Slice the aubergine into similar sized cubes and then salt (to reduce bitterness later) and leave to one side for 10 minutes or so, then cover with boiling water and leave for another 5 minutes, then drain. Toss the aubergine in a little sesame oil and then bake it, along with the tofu cubes, at 200 degrees C for around 30 minutes.

While the cubes are baking, crack on with the marinade. Put the peanut butter (crunchy or smooth, doesn't matter), boiling water, tamari and rice wine vinegar in a blender and blend down to a smooth sauce. I'm cooking for toddlers, so that's as far as I go with the sauce but if you're not worried about spiciness, add a little fresh chilli and ginger at this point too.

When the cubes are baked, pop them onto the skewers, smother with the satay, and serve! I did these on cocktail sticks today, to make them bite-sized, and you could even put them on a barbecue...