Watercress and Leek Soup

I was inspired by a recipe in the October 2012 volume of Vegetarian Living, but as usual, I adapted it for our tastes. It’s really sweet and tasty, perfect for a cold night, and great with some homemade bread. This recipe makes enough for two, but it’s easily multiplied.

 

Ingredients:

oil

1 red onion

1 leek

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 vegetable stock cube

5-6 cups water

75 g pea shoots

75 g watercress

1/8 – ¼ cup cream (I use Oatly oat cream)

 

Instructions:

1. Warm the oil in a saucepan. Peel and dice the onion and leek and lightly cook them in the oil. Add the maple syrup and caramelise.

2. Add the stock cube and break it up, cook for a couple of minutes, then add the water and cook for 5-8 minutes.

3. Add the shoots and watercress and cook for another 5 or so minutes.

4. Blend with a hand blender until smooth, then stir in the cream.

Vegan Vanilla Buttercream

This is great in macarons or on top of a cake or cupcakes. Go for a taste of luxury and use a vanilla pod.

 

Ingredients:

1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup vegan margarine (such as Pure)

1½ cups icing sugar

1/8 cup vegan milk (I prefer rice milk)

 

Instructions:

1. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod, if using, and then blend all the ingredients together until creamy.

Butternut Squash Tagine

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash

100 g spinach

water

couscous (about 75 g per person)

1 tin chickpeas

spices (cinnamon, mint, smoked paprika, black pepper, etc)

 

Instructions:

1. Roast the squash for about 40 minutes at 190 C. Slice it in half and roast for another 10-15 minutes.

2. Defrost or wilt the spinach. Boil the water and pour it over the spinach and couscous (the water should just cover the couscous.

3. After a few minutes, add the chickpeas. Peel and chop the squash and add it.

4. Season to taste and serve.

 

Pear Crumble

I saw Nigel Slater’s recipe for pear crumble, but I changed it quite a bit, to suit our non-dairy diet and to make it even tastier (i.e. I added hazelnuts, but you can always use different nuts or just use more flour and oats instead).

 

Ingredients:

4 pears

50 g rapeseed oil, plus extra

1 tsp lemon juice

55 g sugar, plus extra

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 tbsp oats

60 g flour

30 g hazelnuts

30 g dark chocolate, optional

 

Instructions:

1. Wash, peel, and chop the pears.

2. Lightly oil them and toss them with lemon juice and a little sugar. Bake at 190 C for 10-15 minutes, until softened.

3. Meanwhile, mix all the other ingredients together except the dark chocolate. Grate or chop the chocolate.

4. Dot the crumble topping over the pears and sprinkle with chocolate (or mix the chocolate into the crumble topping first).

5. Bake at 190 C for 30-40 minutes.

Aubergine and Spinach with Garlic Aioli

The only time-consuming part here is roasting the aubergine. But put it in the oven, go off to do something else, then come back and throw the meal together.

 

Ingredients:

2 aubergines

olive oil

water

giant couscous (about 25-35 g per person)

50-100 g fresh spinach

garlic aioli (from previous post)

herbs and spices (I like mint and cinnamon)

 

Instructions:

1. Wash the aubergines and slice the skin, but not through to the flesh. Rub with a little olive oil and roast for 30-45 minutes at 200 C, until soft and falling apart.

2. Boil the water, pour it over the giant couscous, and simmer for 6-8 minutes, with the lid on, until soft. Add the spinach and put the lid back on, so the spinach wilts.

3. Remove the flesh from the aubergines and add it to the pan.

4. Mix in the aioli and herbs.

5. Mix everything together, then serve.

Cheat’s Aioli

I confess: I wanted a quick way to make a garlic mayonnaise. So here it is. Maybe one day I’ll make it all from scratch.

 

Ingredients:

1 head garlic

4-6 tbsp mayonnaise

black pepper

herbs (parsley and/or basil)

 

Instructions:

1. Roast the head of garlic at 200 C for 30-40 minutes.

2. Let it cool, then squeeze the garlic out and discard all the skin.

3. Mix the garlic into the mayo and season with pepper and herbs, as desired.

Raw Chocolate Mousse

At the library, I randomly picked up The Raw Food Diet by Christine Bailey. I’ve done some raw cooking before, so I was intrigued.

 

The first recipe I tried was her chocolate-orange hazelnut mousse, but I adapted it quite a bit to suit what we had at home and our tastes.

 

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado

1 orange

25 g cocoa powder (or 10 g cocoa powder plus 20 g dark chocolate)

1 tbsp agave

2 tsp icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

30 g chopped hazelnuts

¼ cup water

 

Instructions:

1. Halve, pit, and chop the avocado. Put the flesh in a food processor.

2. Juice and zest the orange and add to the avocado.

3. Mix in all the other ingredients. Process well, until smooth.

4. Chill for 30 or more minutes, then serve.

Lower Fat Granola

I decided to try to get the fat content of granola way down by replacing much of the oil with apple juice. That also allows you to leave out some of the sweetener.

 

Ingredients:

1 cup nuts

2½ cups oats

½ cup seeds (I used pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, and sunflower seeds)

½ tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

½ cup apple juice

¼ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup maple syrup

1 cup dried fruit (raisins, apricots, prunes, cherries, etc)

 

Instructions:

1. Chop the nuts. Mix them with all the other ingredients except the fruit.

2. Make sure everything gets coated with the oil and maple syrup.

3. Put a piece of parchment paper or baking paper on a baking tray, then spread the oat mixture on it in a thick layer.

4. Bake for 20 minutes at 160 C, then rotate the tray, and bake for another 15-20 minutes.

5. Leave to cool, then break up the granola into whatever size pieces you prefer. Add the fruit. Store in Tupperware or similar.

Out at the Wedding

This film is very silly, so if you are going to watch it, you need to be prepared for a ridiculous plot and some less than stellar acting (Reginald VelJohnson is good, and one wishes Mink Stole had been encouraged to camp it up a bit).

 

Basically, the main character, Alex, is a woman in love with a man. So far so uncomplicated. But Alex doesn’t seem to care much for her family, so she’s told the man that her entire family is dead. Meanwhile, she rarely sees her father and sister (her mother actually is dead). Somehow, when she goes to her sister’s wedding, her best friend accidentally tells everyone there that Alex is gay, when in fact it’s the best friend who is.

 

Alex’s sister doesn’t take kindly to being upstaged at her wedding, but she is sympathetic to the idea that Alex felt unable to tell the family about being a lesbian. Rather than let her sister believe that she ruined the wedding for no reason, Alex lets her sister continue to believe that she is gay and that she’s in a relationship with a half-black, half-Jewish woman named Dana (in fact her boyfriend is a half-black, half-Jewish man named Dana).

 

When her sister comes to visit her, she ends up hiring an actual lesbian to pretend to be this half-black, half-Jewish woman named Dana. As you can imagine, much ridiculousness ensues.

 

The whole premise is unbelievable, but if you can get past that, it’s an easy watch. Alex ends up reconciled with her family, one woman gets her man, and another woman gets her woman. Happily ever after.

 

The most I can say is that at least it’s not depressing and at least it doesn’t feature a predatory lesbian, as many gay films seem to.

Scrambled Eggs

This is a fast, tasty breakfast. Top with chives and serve with toast.

 

Ingredients:

butter or margarine

4 eggs

6-8 tbsp cream (I use Oatly)

 

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter or margarine in a non-stick pan.

2. Whisk the eggs and cream together. Pour into the pan.

3. Let the eggs set for about 30 seconds, then continue to heat over a low flame while stirring (with a silicone or wooden spoon). The eggs should form into curd-like shapes.

4. When still soft and just barely set (about 3-4 minutes), serve.

Sourdough Pancakes

This is a nice change on the usual pancakes. Great with fruit and syrup/agave or cream.

 

Ingredients:

115 g flour (about 1 cup)

2 eggs

120 ml milk (I used rice milk – about 100 g)

150 ml sourdough starter (about 120 g)

1 pinch salt

1 tbsp sugar

oil

 

Instructions:

1. Mix all the ingredients together but the oil.

2. Warm the oil in a frying pan and fry the pancakes until golden on both sides.

Sourdough Bread

If you want, you can use an egg or milk wash on top of the bread, and/or you can also sprinkle it with seeds.

 

Ingredients:

130 ml milk (I use rice milk)

6 g fast-action dry yeast (about 1 tsp)

340 g strong white bread flour

20 g sugar

pinch of salt

15 g oil

190 g starter (about ¾ cup)

 

Instructions:

1. Warm the milk and sprinkle the yeast over it.

2. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, and oil together, then add the yeasty milk.

3. Mix in the starter. Knead well, then leave to rise for about an hour.

4. Knead, shape into a loaf, and let rise for another hour or so.

5. Bake at 190 C for about 30 minutes.

Sourdough Starter

The longer you leave it, the sourer the flavour. Often, the first breads you make with it don’t taste that sour, so keep trying. If it gets a strange colour, do not use it. It should be brownish-grey.

 

Remember to add back whatever you use from it. So if you use 100 g, add another 100 g flour and 100 g water.

 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp fast-action dried yeast

250 g flour

475 ml lukewarm water

 

Instructions:

1. Mix the ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

2. Cover and leave in a warm place for 4-8 days, until it has developed a sour smell.

Macarons

We’ve finally given in and made a trendy dessert. Yes, we made macarons. They seem fiddly but as long as you’ve got the proportions right, it’s not too hard. I looked at lots of recipes and it seems the egg to almond ratio should be about 120% and the egg to sugar (both types) about 50%.

 

To make chocolate macarons, replace 25 g of sugar with cocoa.

 

Make any buttercream or other filling you like. We used my chocolate ganache.

 

Ingredients:

140 g egg whites (about 4 medium eggs)

75 g granulated sugar

1 pinch salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

230 g icing sugar

115 g ground almonds (if they are not fine enough, mix in a food processor with the icing sugar)

 

Instructions:

1. Whisk the egg whites, granulated sugar, and salt until stiff. Add in the vanilla and whisk a little more.

2. Mix the icing sugar and almonds together and then add to the meringue. Stir well, until no longer stiff but not liquid either (25-35 strokes).

3. Pipe evenly onto parchment-lined baking trays. Knock the trays to get out any air.

4. Bake for 12-18 minutes at 150 C.

5. Let cool, then sandwich pairs of macarons together with filling.

Vegan Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream

This is a really simple, pleasant vegan ice cream. I like to serve it in the Scandinavian way, with jam (cloudberry jam is perfect).

 

Ingredients:

1 tin coconut milk

4-5 tbsp icing sugar, or more to taste

3 tsp vanilla

 

Instructions:

1. Blend all the ingredients together until smooth. Adjust amounts according to taste.

2. Freeze, then serve.