Hef's kitchen

I have a new blog!

2015-06-03T22:35:00.001+01:00

You can find it here www.hefskitchen.me < 3

Vegan Rose and Lemon Cupcakes

2014-08-10T18:06:00.000+01:00

There's been a few recipes that I've found in the past that will stick with me forever, the fudge recipe from my Nan's 1950's Good Housekeeping book, the brownies from the Hotel Chocolat 101 book and this vegan cake recipe. I found it on The Guardian's readers recipe swap and never looked at another vegan cupcake recipe again. I've made some awful vegan cakes in my time, (the first involved cider vinegar and apple sauce, needless to say, they were gross) but these are truly amazing, soft and spongy with a proper cupcake taste. So this is basically adapted from that recipe and when I say adapted I mean I added a bit of rose and lemon and a bit of vegan frosting. I also brought some kind of fancy duo icing kit from Lakeland so that I could have 2 tone icing, but immediately broke it with my heavy hands so had to improvise.

Makes around 8 cupcakes:

Cakes:

250g vanilla soya yoghurt
80ml sunflower oil
1 tsp lemon extract
2 tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp baking powder

Butter cream icing:
200g vegan margarine
400g icing sugar
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp rose extract
1 tsp lemon food colouring
1 tsp pink food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, and fill your cupcake tin with cupcake cases.
2. Whisk together all of the wet ingredients, including the lemon extract then sieve the dry ingredients in to the mixture and whisk it all together until well combined.
3. Spoon mixture in to the cases until they are 3/4 full (any more and it will 'explode' over the sides) and pop in to the oven for 20-25 minutes until lovely and golden brown all over.
4. Remove from the oven, pop on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before icing them.
5. Cream together the margarine and icing sugar until light and fluffy and then split the mixture between 2 bowls.
6. Add the lemon extract and yellow food colouring in to one bowl and mix well, then add the rose extract and pink food colouring to the other bowl and mix well.
7. Either use a fancy duo piping bag and add each colour to one side and pipe the icing on to the cakes to your hearts content or if you don't have one or broke yours like I did, just stick alternate spoonfuls in to a piping bag and pipe on to the cakes which still gives you pink and yellow swirls.
8. Put in your mouth.

Afternoon Tea, The Grove, Narberth

2014-07-06T20:26:00.001+01:00

Afternoon tea is my favourite past time. I'd have one every day if I could. There's so much to like about them; sandwiches are better when they're tiny, cakes are better when their tiny and scones with clotted cream and jam are just good all the time. Really, really good. So a couple of weeks ago when I went on my latest Canopy and Stars adventure (I am literally addicted to this website, this will be my 4th adventure, you can check out the others here, and here) we decided that afternoon tea was a must. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere in Pembrokeshire, but after a little drive we arrived at a beautiful hotel called The Grove. We sat outside as it was a sunny day, the view was beautiful and made even better by a visit from a super curly dog that we named Mini Dougie (there was an even better St Bernadoodle who was actually called Dougie who lived where we were camping).

The afternoon tea was beautiful, stacked on two slates with the most delicious cake selection. We started with finger sandwiches, I had a vegetarian selection of cucumber, egg and cress and cheese and pickle. Everything on the menu was locally produced and made to such a high standard, which made it even better. We then moved on to the sweet part which included, mini scones with clotted cream and jam, lemon cupcakes, caramel profiteroles, some kind of coffee cake that I've forgotten the name of, banoffee macaroons, bara brith (we were in Wales after all) and panacotta (which I gave to Georgie to eat, because I'm not too sure if it was veggie).

It was the perfect setting to sit in the sun, sip Darjeeling tea and stuff our faces with lots of treats. I can safely say it was one of the best afternoon teas I've had! After we'd finished, we walked some of the cake off in Narberth (and somehow ended up buying more food from an amazing deli).

Then it was back to Matilda, the converted BT truck for the last night of our adventure. We played with the farm animals, went on a ramble through sheep fields and made dream catchers. A lovely little adventure.

Jalapeño Poppers with a Chipotle and Lime Tortilla Coating

2014-06-04T18:08:00.001+01:00

It's been just over 3 years since I left uni. THREE YEARS. I miss being a student, I miss staying in my pyjamas all day (who am I kidding, I still do that) and I miss my beautiful housemates. If there's any food that reminds me of uni it has to be jalapeño poppers. I used to live in a student area called the Polygon and pretty much every time we went for a night out, we walked down a road called Bedford Place, which was basically a road of takeaways, a few shops and a few bars. Every trip down this road after a night out ended with jalapeño poppers, they were the perfect antidote for the drunken munchies (I remember my house mate Annie crying once because someone stole hers). I don't think I've had them since I've been back home, because I never go out and I don't drink any more. But when the lovely people at Manomasa sent me some of their tortilla chips to try I knew exactly what to do with them! I used the Chipotle and Lime chips because they are a little bit spicy, a little bit smoky and totally delicious. They say that their chips are 'a delicious blend of Guajillo chili and sweet bell peppers, finished with rich, smoky chipotle chili and the fresh zing of lime'. Perfect for wrapping around fresh jalapeños and cream cheese.

Ingredients:

Makes 16

100g Manomasa Chipotle and Lime tortilla chips
170g cream cheese
100g grated cheese (I used a mix of Monterey Jack, mozzarella, cheddar and edam, but any cheddary cheese is fine)
8 jalapeño peppers
150 ml milk
50g plain flour
Lots of vegetable oil for either a deep fat fryer or heavy based pan

1. Start by blitzing the tortilla chips in a food processor, until they resemble bread crumbs, then pop in to a bowl.
2. Cut the stalks off of the jalapeños, slice length ways then scrape all of the seeds out in to a bowl (be careful not to get it all over your hands/in your eyes/on your boyfriends face or wear gloves) and pop them on to a chopping board.
3. Tip the cream cheese and grated cheese in to a bowl and mix up well, then fill your jalapeño halves with the mixture.
4. Put the milk in to one bowl and flour in to another, the start dipping the jalapeños in to the milk, then the flour, one by one, making sure they are well coated, then tap off any excess flour and pop back on to the chopping board.
5. Once all of the jalapeños are coated with flour, dip them back in to the milk, covering the whole thing, then roll it in the tortilla crumbs until it is completely covered. Repeat until they are all coated.
6. Turn your deep fat fryer on to 170 degrees, or heat your oil in a heavy based pan until it reaches 170 degrees, then fry the poppers for a couple of minutes, until golden brown.
7. Carefully remove them from the hot oil and place on a plate covered with kitchen roll to drain the excess oil.
8. Once slightly cooled, enjoy! You can also reheat them in the oven.

Edamame Gyoza with Chili and Ginger

2014-05-29T20:46:00.000+01:00

Since living with Mr Hef, I've been finding it hard to come up with meal ideas that we will both like. I'm a proper lentil eating hippy vegetarian and he is the meat eating king of beige foods. I've been throwing in a few things that I thought he wouldn't like, such as falafel and greek salad, lentil and sweet potato shepherds pie and the occasional tofu dish and to my absolute surprise he loved it all! There are a few things we both really love though and one of those is sweet potato katsu curry. We usually have it with edamame beans on the side, but this time I thought I'd put them in little parcels of joy.

Ingredients

200g edamame beans (defrosted and shells removed)

3 spring onions trimmed and chopped

1 tsp chopped red chili

1 tsp grated ginger

10-15 wonton wrappers

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Soy sauce to serve

1. Stick the beans, onions, chili and ginger in a food processor and give it a good blitz, until its blended together.

2. Lay out the won top wrappers, take a tea spoon full of the mixture and pop in in to the middle of the wrapper.

3. Wet your index finger and run it round the outside of the wonton wrapper, then fold in half and pinch the excess pastry (is it called that?) together to seal it.

4. Once you've made your gyoza, cook straight away by heating the vegetable oil in a frying pan, and quickly frying until brown on both sides.

5. Pour 100ml of water over the gyoza and cover to steam until the water has evaporated.

6. Serve nice and hot, with soy sauce for dipping.

Chili and Lime Black Bean Burgers

2014-05-13T09:06:00.000+01:00

IT'S SUNNY! Well at the time of writing this post it was anyway, who knows about tomorrow. So that means one thing, it's time for a beer and a burger. My main reason for wanting to make this was that I wanted to make a burger with avocado on top. A few weeks ago I couldn't stop eating avocados and just as I thought I'd gotten over it, my manager was also recently struck with this horrible affliction (not really, avocados are great). Seeing her eating them brought back my terrible avocado cravings and I can't stop eating them again. Anyway, I decided on a black bean burger and wanted to bring out the flavours you'd get in a lovely fresh batch of guac, so added lots of lime and chili. It's really tasty, refreshing and not too heavy (I ate a HUGE one) so perfect for the hot weather AND it's vegan... hooray!

For 2 rather large burgers or 4 smallish ones you'll need:

Olive oil

1/2 a red onion finely chopped

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

1 small red chili finely chopped

1 can of black beans

1/2 a lime

1 slice of bread

Salt and pepper

2/4 burger buns

Fresh salsa

1 avocado sliced

Chuck your onion and garlic in to a frying pan with a little oil and soften on a low heat for around 10 minutes, add the chili and heat through for a further few minutes.
While the onions are softening mush the black beans up with a fork in a large bowl until they're nice an squished.
Pop the slice of bread in to a food processor and turn it in to bread crumbs then add it, along with the onions, chili and garlic to the black beans and mix well.
When the mixture is combined, divide it in to 2 or 4 balls and squish in to patties on a floured surface.
Heat some oil in a frying pan and pop the burgers in, cook on a medium heat until nice and browned on both sides then transfer it to the burger bun.
Top it with fresh salsa and sliced avocado, serve it up with some sweet potato wedges and salad and enjoy!

Food for Friends, Brighton

2014-04-27T14:08:00.002+01:00

I turned 25 just over a month ago, when I was younger I thought by the time I was 25 I would be married with children and a mortgage. Luckily I only have one of those things, so I'm still free to go on Birthday adventures. This year Mr Hef took me to Brighton for a beautiful day of sitting on the beach, playing in the arcade, shopping in the Lanes and eating at Food for Friends. I've wanted to go to Food for friends for ages and after a bit of convincing Mr Hef agreed to take me. The restaurant is lovely inside, it was a sunny day so it was really bright and airy. We went straight for the main meal, I ordered the Halloumi burger (I cant resist a bit of fried halloumi) which came with balsamic portobello mushroom, grilled red pepper and gherkins in homemade brioche bun served with sweet potato chips, wasabi aioli, and dressed leaves. It was perfect, I feel like all other burgers in life won't live up to it.

Mr Hef ordered the goat’s cheese, goji berries, toasted hazelnut and pear salad with dressed mizuna and lambs leaves, ‘parmesan’ crisps and pesto croutons. Which was surprising because the only time I see him eat salads is if it's a token piece of green on his plate. But I think he was attracted by the goats cheese and the pesto croutons. He really loved his dish as well (I tried a bit, I can see why) and he ate it all apart from some of the 'parmesan' crisps, which somehow ended up in my mouth.

When it came to desert I had the internal struggle of what to choose. I narrowed it down to either the coconut and black sesame ‘arancini’ with fresh coconut, black sesame and trio of mango – sorbet or the deconstructed passion fruit and vanilla cheesecake with mojito fluid gel, fresh passion fruit and mint sorbet. Then I managed to sway Mr Hef's decision so that I could try them both (always a good idea). The coconut and black sesame 'arancini' tasted like little balls of coconut/donut heaven and went perfectly with the mango sorbet.

The deconstructed mango cheesecake was equally as good, rich and creamy and topped off perfectly with the fresh passion fruit (now one of Mr Hefs favourite fruits).

We both left with smiles on our faces, full bellies and the need to go back to Brighton very soon!

Mushroom, Stilton and Ale Pie with Thyme Pastry

2014-04-23T22:01:00.000+01:00

This Easter I had my brothers over for a roast dinner and while I had nut roast, I cooked them and Mr Hef beef. This was hard because, I don't particularly like cooking meat and I'm also not very good at it. My older brother is a chef and has literally walked in to the kitchen when I was cooking beef before, tried a little bit, told me it was tough as old boots and left again. This time it turned out a lot better, but that was probably because my brother took over half way through! Anyway, because I really don't understand meat (it takes me about an hour and a lot of googling to decide what to buy) I managed to buy a huge piece, so there was loads left over. I really didn't want to waste it so Mr Hef is eating beef for the rest of the week. The first left over dish was beef, stilton and ale pie, so it made sense that my veggie version was a mushroom pie. Mushrooms don't feature much on here and that is quite simply because I think they're really gross. I try to make myself like them and since going to Demuths Cookery School, I've learnt how to cook them properly which helps. The flavours were so yummy that I kind of forgot I was even eating mushrooms. I made pastry from scratch for this because it's really simple and tastes so much better, but you can use ready made for a quicker recipe. The best part about making pies (apart from getting to eat them after) is that you can make little pastry decorations, mine had little mushrooms and and Mr Hefs had little willes on, because I couldn't make a cow and that seemed like the next best thing.

Serves 2 (I made 2 small pies):

For the thyme pastry

200g plain flour
100g cold butter, chopped in to chunks
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 pinch of salt
4-6 tbsp of cold water
1 egg (for egg washing if you wish)

For the filling

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
300g mushrooms of your choice, stalks removed and chopped in to large chunks
1 pinch and pepper
100ml vegetarian ale
100ml vegetable stock
100g vegetarian stilton

1. Start with the pastry. Tip the flour in to a bowl and add the chunks of butter and rub between your finger tips until you get a bread crumb texture, add the salt, thyme and water and mix in to form a ball (I usually stick my hands in at this point, it's much easier).
2. Wrap the pastry ball in cling film and pop it in to the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
3. Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees and get started on the filling.
4. Heat the vegetable oil in a large frying pan and add the onion and garlic, cooking on a medium heat until the onions turn translucent, then add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and turn up the heat.
5. Keep cooking the mushrooms, stirring regularly, until they have sweated out all of the moisture and have started to brown, then add the ale and keep cooking on a high heat until all of the ale has been absorbed/cooked off.
6. Add the vegetable stock and cook until the stock has thickened and you have a nice thick gravy. Then switch off the heat and pop to one side.
7. Get your pastry from the fridge and chop off a third for the top of the pie, roll out the rest of the pastry and line your tin/tins.
8. Chop up the stilton and add it to the filling, then pour in to the pastry in the dish. The roll out the rest of the pastry and use it to top the pie. Cut the rough sides off and use it to make decorations if you wish. Beat the egg and brush it over the top of the pie.
9. Pop into the oven and cook for 25-30 minutes, until its golden brown on the top.
10. Serve up with season veg and mash and enjoy!

Tibits, London

2014-04-18T21:41:00.002+01:00

Last week was wonderful, I took the week off of work to dog sit for 2 lovely pugs, went to Southampton for a surprise tea party for Georgie and best of all, the lovely people at Tibits invited me to go and try their newly refurbished restaurant, in Heddon Street Food Quarter, just off of Regent Street. I've heard loads of good things about Tibits and their self serve food boat, so I was really excited to go and eat there. I took my little vegan mermaid friend Hannah G, (she really is a mermaid, with long red hair and an intense love for the sea!) and after a beautiful day in London, we walked to the restaurant where we were greeted by a totally buzzing, lively atmosphere. The staff we're really friendly and after being seated we were shown the food boat, had the concept explained to us and set off to stack our plates with delicious looking veggie food!

I really enjoyed the experience of picking different dishes to load your plate with, everything on the boat looked so fresh and inviting that I wanted to try it all! We made an initial trip around the boat and then went for it. I chose the spinach quiche, with quite a few different sides (you can check out the menu here)! There were so many different dishes, there really is something for everyone. After choosing your food you take your plate to the counter and they weigh it for the price, a bit like pic and mix. You can order drinks at the counter too, we went for the special juice, which was super green and super delicious! Every dish on my plate tasted great and I loved the variety in flavours. Rather than being cheese heavy and overly rich, the food was light and there was loads of vegan options for Hannah G. I left feeling full in a good way, not a 'I need to take my clothes off for the journey home' way.

After our main we couldn't resist trying some pudding, I went for the panna cotta with a bit of vegan mango cream (seriously good!) and Hannah G went for the vegan sticky toffee pudding. Again you get your puddings from the food boat and take them to be weighed.

We both really enjoyed the meal and I loved the pay for your plate concept, because it means you can get as little or as much food as you want. My plate came to about £10.70 which I thought was amazing value for the amount of food I had. I'm not surprised they've just won Cook Vegetarians Best Restaurant award, it's definitely one of my favourites so far!

Cashew Butter, Honey and Chocolate Cookies

2014-04-13T12:27:00.003+01:00

Mr Hef and I have been living in our house for over 2 months now, which seems insane as I feel like I've lived here for ever and only just moved in yesterday all at the same time. It's been hard to find time to bake around removing wall paper, painting (these are the two jobs I can do) and all the other stuff Mr Hef has been doing. But the lovely people at Meridian Foods sent me some of their nut butters to try and it was just the thing I needed to get me on the baking train again. First I used their almond butter to make some vegan salted caramel popcorn, I don't have a recipe because it was a bit of a chuck lots of ingredients in a pan and hope it works job, but you can see a picture here and find an amazing looking recipe for almond butter popcorn on Meridian Foods website. I do however have a recipe for cookies, soft gooey cashew butter, honey and chocolate chip cookies. Once again they were a chuck lots of ingredients in a bowl and hope it works job, but this time I actually remembered to write down the recipe before they all got eaten and forgot how they were made.

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened

100g Meridian cashew butter
200g light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp cold water
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g milk chocolate chopped in to chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and line some baking sheets with grease proof paper.

2. Cream together the sugars, butter and cashew butter until fluffy.

3. Beat in the eggs, water, honey and vanilla paste until smooth.

4. Sift in the flour and baking soda, adding a bit at a time and fold the flour in.

5. Fold the chocolate chips in and make sure they are distributed well, then using a regular spoon (I think they're called a desert spoon) drop 4 spoonfuls of mixture on to the trays, with loads of space in between. You may have to do them in batches if like me you only own 2 trays.

6. Bake for 12 minutes, until golden all over and leave to cool on the trays, otherwise they might implode (they're very soft).

7. Once cooled, shove in your mouth and enjoy!

The Cider Pantry

2014-03-24T07:47:00.001+00:00

Every time I go to visit my friend Georgie there is some seriously good food involved, wether it's homemade pizzas, a picnic or an cute cafe, she literally has an eye for an amazing eat. After spending the week in Poole on a Lush related thing, I thought it would be silly not to pop to the New Forest for a Georgie visit. And boy, did she not dissapoint on the food front! She took me to a place called The Cider Pantry in Burley (a town that used to be full of witches, according to Georgies local knowledge), which was not only super cute, but also had the most amazing ploughmans I have ever experienced in my life.

I think the picture does most of the describing here. 3 New Forest cheeses with cider chutney, pickle and salad, what's not to like. We also had a side of rarebit, which I forgot to take a photo of, as it was pretty much straight I'm my mouth as soon as it hit the table, needless to say, it was also incredible.

You'd think we might have been done after all of that cheese. Well, there was something else tempting us on the menu. Cider and sultana scones, with jam, clotted cream and tea.

They were the lightest, fluffiest and most delicious scones I have ever eaten. They literally melted in your mouth. It was the perfect place to sit, relax and ingest a really large amount of food. I'm already thinking of when I can next go back.

The Breakfast Club, Soho

2014-02-19T18:38:00.004+00:00

Every time I go to post recently it seems that I'm looking for a reason why I haven't posted in ages. This time I have an actual reason, Mr Hef and I just brought our first house! We moved just over 3 weeks ago and have only had the internet for 1 and I've spent most of my internet time so far watching videos of puppies on Youtube. I've always been told that moving house is stressful, but to be honest it wasn't that bad. Buying the house on the other hand was on a whole other level, we put the offer in over 6 months ago and literally had one thing go wrong after the other. As I mentioned in my last post, we went to London to see The Book of Mormon in January and it was a much needed break from house stress. And one of the best parts of the trip? I ate myself stupid, like literally felt sick. One of the best parts of the eating/Book of Mormoning adventure, was going to The Breakfast Club. I love a good breakfast as much as the next person (actually probably more) and the menu for The Breakfast Club looks insanely good, so I was very much looking forward to it.

I decided what I wanted from the menu before we even got to London, because there was SO MANY amazing vegetarian options and I basically wanted to eat them all. Breakfast is without a doubt my favorite meal and I think a good breakfast should contain the following things (in order of importance) 1. Avocado (I could eat them all day every day, but there's something special about having them for breakfast) 2. Chili (who doesn't love a bit of spice in the morning) and 3. This isn't really a thing, but it should be massive, you haven't eaten for at least 8 hours! I wake up every morning feeling like I haven't eaten in about 3 years, so it has to be big! So that's why I chose the Huevos Al Benny (minus the chorizo) with poached eggs, roast peppers, avocado, fresh chillies, spicy hollandaise on toasted English Muffin. It's basically the perfect breakfast and I can confirm that it also tastes incredible. The whole Breakfast Club experience was great, our waiter was super nice, it was busy (we queued, but only for about 10 minutes) but comfy and both Mr Hef and I left with full bellies and smiles on our faces! I should also mention that I found the tiniest bit of bacon on my plate, it's not the first time its happened and i'm sure it wont be the last. I've been super upset about it in the past, but after all we're humans and we make human errors, so I decided, as I hadn't actually eaten it and could hide it on Mr Hefs plate to ignore it. I didn't even want to mention it to the waiter, but Mr Hef did anyway and he wrote off the rest of our bill. Overall, I thought it was amazing! I'm already planning what to have on my next visit.

Maple and Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

2014-01-19T19:31:00.001+00:00

When you've been with someone for 7 Christmases (I just googled that to see if it's a real life word, but it still doesn't look right) it's hard to know what to get them. This year I took the easy option and brought Mr Hef Book of Mormon tickets. We're both massive South Park fans so it seemed like an easy gift. The tickets turned in to tickets and a hotel, which then turned in to tickets, a hotel and some gift vouchers for The Breakfast Club (thank you mummy Allford). The Book of Mormon was incredible, I would thoroughly recommend it, unless you are easily offended, a couple walked out about 10 minutes in (they were oldies though, they don't like the swears so much). The whole trip was just lovely, we checked in to our hotel and had a quick trip to Hummus Bros, avoided the rain by having a nap and then took ourselves off to Patty & Bun. Because this was Mr Hef's Christmas present, I wanted to find somewhere that he would like (I would prefer a vegetarian restaurant, obviously, but I save those for my romantic trips with vegan Emma). He loves a good burger, so it seemed like the obvious choice. After my giant portobello mushroom burger, I couldn't fit in a peanut butter choc ice, which left me craving some kind of sweet treat when my burger had gone down. I remembered seeing a Cinnabon somewhere near the hotel, so after the show myself and Mr Hef ran through the rain trying to find it, by the time we found it, ordered and got back to the hotel I was soaked through (the Cinnabon was fine, I carried it under my coat as if it was a small child), but it was totally worth it. Warm cinnamony goodness covered with maple frosting and pecans. Mmmmmm. So basically, the story goes, one wasn't enough, so I made myself a whole batch. Here's the recipe... Enjoy!

Makes around 16

For the dough

1 packet of dry yeast
230 ml warm milk
75g golden caster sugar
110g butter
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
550g plain white flour

For the filling

75g melted butter
225g brown sugar
2 tbsp ground cinnamon

125g pecans

For the frosting

100g icing sugar

25g softened butter
50ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp maple syrup

25g pecans to decorate

Start by tipping the dry yeast in to the warm milk in a large bowl, add a tea spoon of the golden caster sugar and leave for around 10 minutes until it's all bubbly.
Then pop the rest of the caster sugar, butter, salt and eggs and mix together with the yeasty milk with and electric mixer until well combined.
Add the flour and fold it, mixing until it forms a dough.
Tip the dough out on to a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, until you have a lovely smooth dough.
Pop the dough back in to the bowl, cover it with a tea towel and leave it in a warm place to rise for at least an hour (it should double in size).
Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees then tip to dough on to a floured surface and roll out in to one large rectangle! (21 inches by 16 inches).
Smash up your pecans quite small in a pestle and mortar/food processor/bag with a rolling pin.
Once it's rolled out brush the butter all over it, then mix the cinnamon, sugar and crushed pecans together and sprinkle it all over!
Cut up in to around 16 even sized slices, then pop them in to a greased 8inch baking pan (I put 7 around the outside and 1 in the middle, which fit perfectly!)
Then pop them in to the oven for 15-20 minutes.
While they're baking, make up the icing by creaming the butter and icing sugar together until smooth, then add the milk, vanilla extract and maple syrup and whisk up until smooth.
When the rolls are golden brown, remove from the oven, cover them in icing and the rest of the pecans and enjoy!

Terre a Terre, Brighton

2014-01-10T09:42:00.000+00:00

Happy New Year! It seems that I managed to avoid posting anything for the whole of December, usually me not posting is due to laziness. But the lack of posting in December is due to working a million hours a week and living off of food solely produced by Pret. It's not the best existence and I'm looking forward to reintroducing vegetables and fruit (other than the fruit in mince pies) in to my diet. I'm currently still in the dietary land between Christmas and the rest of the year where it's still totally acceptable to live off of chocolate for a day and treat yourself to decadent meals. So as a post Christmas treat, myself and my friend Hannah G went to Brighton to try the Terre a Terre tapas. I've been to Terre a Terre once before with Mr Hef and I can easily say that it was one of the best meals I've ever had. My meat eating brother has been many more times and claims it's his favourite restaurant!

We got to Brighton and suffered through some freezing torrential rain, a hail storm and winds so strong they nearly blew me off of the street, but it was totally worth it for this. I wish I could remember what everything on this plate was, but when the lady was explaining all I could think about was shoving it in my mouth and it was so good when I did, that I have since forgotten. Everything tasted delicious though and despite there being a lot of different things on the plate the flavours went really well together. The Tapas comes with chunky chips and wine for £39.25, but Hannah and I went for non alcholic cocktails instead (she had a Lychee Blush, lychee and apple juice shaken with ice, topped up with lemonade and drizzled with pomegranate juice and I had can't remember the name of mine, but it contained spiced fruit punch, ginger beer and fresh berries. They were both amazing). I am still in love with Terre a Terre and Brighton in general, so I hope to be off there again soon for more vegetarian delights.

Cider and Seasonal Vegetable Stew

2013-11-13T08:41:00.000+00:00

I have been really lucky this year. I've been on a lot of adventures and adventures are my favourite thing ever. I don't really drink, I don't go and spend a ridiculous amount of money on nights out, I save my money for as many little adventures as I can! This year I went to Dorset with mummy Hef, Cornwall with Daddy Hef, on a few adventures with Mr Hef, Gwendoline with vegan Emma and my last adventure (probably) of this year to a yurt in a cider orchard with ginger Georgie. I've definitely mentioned Georgie on my blog before, but just to remind you, she is awesome and also loves a good adventure. So on the way back from Bath, Mr Hef and I picked Georgie up from Oxford and she treated us to an Atomic Burger (seriously, awesome) and we went back to my house to begin our adventure! After packing the essentials (and by essentials I mean long johns and a couple of pairs of pants) we set off to Gloucestershire. The yurt was incredibly beautiful with a big king sized bed (perfect for our romantic weekend) and a cute little wood burner to keep us warm. It also had a kotlich in the garden, so I came prepared with root vegetables and a dumpling kit!

750 kg seasonal veg (such as potatoes, parsnip, suede)

2 medium onions

2 cloves of garlic crushed

About half a bottle of cider

1 litre of vegetable stock

1. Chuck all of the ingredients in to the kotlich and start your fire, or if you're cooking it at home pop in in to the slow cooker, or pop it in to a pan over a low heat. Cook for ages, adding water when needed.

2. When the stew is nearly done (when you have soft vegetables), add some dumplings if you wish (I brought ready made dumpling mixture and added a bit of grated cheese) and turn the heat up/stick some more wood on the fire.

3. Wait for around 15 minutes, until the dumplings are all fluffed up and cooked, then eat!

Demuths Vegetarian Cookery School

2013-11-06T11:39:00.000+00:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I luckily won the chance to go to Demuths vegetarian cookery school. I have always wanted to go, so I was super, super excited for the course. I chose to go on the Autumn fast and delicious course, because I really enjoy cooking with seasonal vegetables and I spend SO much time cooking! Seriously, I spent the whole of today and yesterday cooking, so it was great to be taught some quick meals to make after work! We started the day with knife skills, which I found really useful. We have the worst knives ever in our house, so I'm looking forward to buying some proper ones and putting my newly learned skills in to action when I move in to my new house. We then made a delicious Brazilian bean stew with quinoa for lunch, spinach balls and wild mushroom pie and were shown how to make loads more yummy seasonal dishes, including an apple cake with caramel sauce.

I really felt like I took a lot away from it. One of the main things was not to cook with olive oil, which I literally do for every single meal. I've made the switch to vegetable oil and can confirm it is much better! I would thoroughly recommend going, I'm already working out how I can get there again! Check out some pictures of the yummy food we made.

Acorn @ Demuths

2013-10-23T12:47:00.000+01:00

In May this year I won a competition with Demuths and Meat Free Monday for a meal for 2 in Demuths restaurant and a day at the vegetarian cookery school. I was absolutely over the moon as I'd been to Demuths before and loved it and have always, always wanted to go to the cookery school! So Mr Hef and I booked a super cute B&B just outside of Bath (It was called Fern Cottage and run by the nicest couple I have ever met in my life!) and enjoyed a weekend of relaxation and amazing food! Since I won the competition the restaurant has been taken over by it's head chef Richard Buckley and is now called Acorns, but the amazing food and wonderful atmosphere is exactly the same as I remember it and if I didn't live over 100 miles away I would visit this restaurant as much as physically possible!

Going to a vegetarian meal with Mr Hef is always a joy because he doesn't know which vegetable is which (really!) which keeps me laughing for the whole meal! He also never really knows what to pick, so I usually get to choose for him and (selfishly) pick things that I want so that I can eat them too. So for his starter he had carrot and cashew pate with spelt toast, seasonal leaves and herbs, ginger gastrique and tamari cashews.

I had truffled broccoli with cauliflower pannacotta, pickled Kohl Rabi and a thyme dressing. I definitely preferred my starter, but both of them were absolutely delicious! The cauliflower pannacotta was particularly yummy, with a caramelised top and a soft creamy base it went perfectly with the truffled broccoli.

For the main meal I went for the stuffed courgette flower with smoked Dorset red and ricotta, cannellini beans and chard, in a romesco sauce. I've always wanted to try a stuffed courgette flower, and it definitely didn't disappoint. It was full of flavour, and the courgette flower was litterally oozing with smoked Dorset red and ricotta goodness. So much so that Mr Hef got a bit jealous and wished he'd ordered it.

I also really liked the look of his white onion tatin with heritage carrots, runner beans and greens, rosary goat's cheese mousse and curried emulsion, so we swapped halfway through (which makes me seriously happy, I never get to do that in restaurants!) The tatin was also extremely yummy, half an onion in a delicious pastry case, what's not to like!

By this point I was feeling pretty full, but not too full to miss desert. There's always room for desert, especially if it's chocolate ganache with salted caramel, candied pistachios, raspberries and what can only be described as a chunk of chocolate on the side. I pretty much want to eat anything that has salted carmel involved, so this was the obvious choice. It was as rich and delicious as it looks, the perfect end to the incredible meal and enough to make me need a little lie down afterwards.

Mr Hef went for the vanilla pannacotta with plum gazpacho, seared plums and shortbread, which was equally delicious. Mr Hef particularly liked the short bread on the side, I can also confirm that it was amazing.

The restaurant it's self is so cute and comfortable, it literally looks like someone's front room. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend giving it a try!

Vegan Apple and Blackberry Crumble Muffins

2013-10-04T10:34:00.000+01:00

Last week wasn't the best week in Hef history. I lost my domain name to a horrible man who is trying to sell it back to me for a ridiculous price (which is why it's back to its old blogspot name). My car broke down after I told a story about my old car, and how it never broke down and it was only finally defeated by a tree in the road (even then it kept on going, it was just time for me to get a new car). After the car breakage I got home at 3.30am and tried to console myself with a pug cuddle, only to be wee'd on (but I can't really be too upset about that because I still got to cuddle a pug). Then after talking about how I'd never had any problems with my wisdom teeth, I got a wisdom tooth infection, which is pretty much the most painful thing ever (probably). So I was feeling a bit miserable and the only thing that could cheer me up is some good old baking. So that's exactly what I did. It's the time of year where apples and blackberries are literally falling off of the trees. And after picking some blackberries with my mum, I popped to my local community orchard and got some beautiful apples as well. I combined them with vegan muffin mixture and topped with crumble and ended up with these. Pretty, autumnal, fruity muffins.

What you need for 12 muffins:

For the crumble:

15g vegan margarine

25g plain white flour

20g light brown sugar

For the muffin

250g apples
100g blackberries

225g plain white flour

200g Billingtons golden caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
100ml soya milk
100ml vegetable oil
1 large ripe banana squished

Start by pre-heating the oven to 200 degrees and lining your muffin tins (I used lakelands parchment lined foil, it's amazing)
Then make the crumble topping by sticking all of the ingredients in a bowl and rubbing the butter and flour together to make a light crumb mixture. Pop to one side until needed.
Then peel, core and chop your apples in to little chunks, mix with the black berries in a bowl and pop to one side.
Put all of the other ingredients in to a separate bowl and mix until well combined, then fold the fruit in.
Spoon the mixture in to the cases, filling it all the way to the top. Then sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top.
Pop in to the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.
Leave to cool (if you can wait) then enjoy!

France

2013-09-23T13:14:00.002+01:00

Did I ever write about my holiday last year? If I did, I can't find it. Well it started terribly. I moaned and moaned at Mr Hef until he finally said yes to going to France and pretty much booked a little gite to stay in at random, just because I had a good feeling about it. It was the first time Mr Hef had ever driven on the other side of the road and after about an hour, he accidently slipped on to the wrong side of the road and nearly crashed in to a car. Now that is bad enough as it is, but then the lady we nearly crashed in to proceeded to turn her car around and chase us. We were absolutely terrified and decided that the best course of action was to try and loose her by driving down tiny streets. Of course, this crazy French lady was not even a tiny bit put off by that and after about 10 minutes she overtook us, slammed on her breaks and started screaming at us. So after that little drama, we got back on the road and were nearly there, but I couldn't get through to the guy who was supposed to give us the keys. We thought we might not even have a place to stay and started to panic. After sort of finding the place, but still not getting through we went to the shops and started to think of a back up plan. Then, luckily we finally got through (we had the wrong number) and proceeded back to the gite. Only we managed to get totally lost. Luckily the man who was giving us the keys came and found us and we finally got there. And when we did, we seriously could not believe our eyes. It was absolutely beautiful, comfortable and we had a whole pool all to ourselves, the holiday was quite simply perfect. So perfect we booked to go back again this year. This year was just as amazing as the last and with all of my adventures, it contained some lovely food as well.

I really enjoy self catering, because I love cooking and when you're on holiday you can take as much time as possible. We ate in most days, but on the days we did go out we went all out. On the third day of our holiday we went to Aubeterre, which is dubbed the prettiest village in France. As as soon as you walk the paths there you can see why. We went to a restaurant called Creperie de la Source and had galettes, which are sort of a crepe meets a pizza. I had one filled with 4 types of cheeses and tomato, it was so delcious and the view from our table on the balcony (pictuted below) was incredible.

We also ate in a beautiful town called Brantome, it's surrounded a large river which you can canoe around (Mr Hef made me last year, we got stuck on a weir, we decided to give it a miss this year).

Once again the views from the resturant are incredible, I can't remember what it's called, but it's right on the river so you can relax and soak up the sights. Both times we've been away, Mr Hef has eaten a lot of vegetarian food (or so he thinks, he sometimes forgets that ham in sandwiches, or peperoni on pizza counts as meat) and then he seems to get an overbearing craving for steak. So he had a steak and chips and I had a warm goats cheese on toast salad.

We were both super-satisfied with our meals and went to a patisserie in the town to buy some tarts. But after a whole week of blue skies and 30 degree heat, the skies opened and I was left running to the car, protecting my box of tarts like it was my only child. Luckily they remained (mostly) intact and tasted amazing.

Since the gite has been refurbished and now has a beautiful new BBQ, we decided to take advantage and cook up a storm one night. I made some yummy garlic butter corn on the cobs, baked sweet potatoes and potato salad for mine and Mr Hef had burgers. This is what self catering is made for!

As we ate in most nights we let ourselves have one really fancy meal out at a restaurant called Le Citronnier. We ate there last year as well and even though we arrived really late, they were really accommodating and had a separate vegetarian menu. To start with I had a whole baked camembert, because when you're in France that is totally acceptable.

There was only one option for the main, which the manager apologised for profusely, but I didn't mind at all because to be honest, that's more option than in some restaurants in France! The main option was a kind of mushroom omlette made with local mushrooms that had some fancy names. If you have read this blog before you will know that I HATE mushrooms, but this was actually really nice. Beautifully presented and it wasn't really affected by my hatred of those brown slimey things.

Next there was cheese, there's not much to say about cheese, but it looked pretty so I added the picture in anyway.

Then there was pudding, delicious, decadent profiterole pudding. It was stunning. We also had some fancy local wine, I don't normally drink, so the one glass I had lead to me falling in the pool when we got home.

The holiday was incredible, I didn't want to go home and I definitely want to go back. If you fancy going you can find the gite here.

Vegan Tales from Gwendoline, Part 4

2013-09-11T21:53:00.000+01:00

The last full day of our adventure was a great one. One of the things that attracted us to the cabin was that it had a tin bath, which you could fill with water heated by your very own campfire and enjoy a bath by the stream. Pretty idyllic right? Well I woke up at 7am that day and went to collect some sticks, harvested 60 litres of water from the tap which was connected to a spring up in the mountains, (lovely) filled up the kelly kettle (crazy massive green kettle, used to heat loads of water) and started a fire. That doesn't sound that difficult, but believe me, if there's anything to make you appreciate hot water, it was that. I had to carry the water 10 litres at a time from the tap to the kettle, keep the fire going for around 2 hours (which required a lot of sitting in awkward positions and blowing on the flames until I felt dizzy). But it was totally worth it, the bath by the stream was just amazing! I took all of my Lush goodies and just relaxed. It was also a great day because vegan Emma cooked for me all day long. She made me some kind of delightful vegan yoghurt, granola, yummy fruit thing for breakfast. After the bath, I was pretty tired, so I went back to bed and Emma made me Facon and avocado on toast (we always use Redwoods cheatin rashers, they're the best)

After lunch it was time for a stick collecting ramble for some more firewood. The surroundings literally looked like an enchanted forest.

Then it was back to the cabin and it was vegan Emma's turn to make dinner. She went for one pot cooking too and made an incredible lentil dhal, which she made by chopping up tomatoes, chili, garlic, onion and carrot and cooking them slowly with red lentils, yellow split peas and water, adding more water when needed.

We sat around the campfire and enjoyed our last meal in the cabin. There really is nothing better than toasting yourself by a fire with the sounds of the stream behind you (until it gets dark and then it's really scary).

It really is the perfect getaway. We had no phones, no internet, no nothing. Just ourselves, the outdoors and around 100 magazines. I can't recommend it enough, it's our second time booking with Canopy and Stars and I love it so much, I've already booked my third for in a months time! If you want to book Gwendoline you can find her here. I'll leave you with a picture of the bath... seriously, does it get better that that!

Vegan Tales from Gwendoline, Part 3

2013-09-08T09:19:00.002+01:00

This part is my favourite part, because 1. I love to cook, 2. I love to be outdoors and 3. I love starting fires (in a non weird way). This meal combined all 3 and the best part is, I got to cook it in my pajamas because I was on holiday. As it was a clear evening and I wanted to use the hungarian cooking pot thingy, I decided to cook this night. It was a super simple dish, to make it just chuck 1 chopped sweet potato, one can of black beans, one chopped onion, some garlic and some chili power in to your pot and cook very slowly for around 2 hours.

Of course, if you're not cooking outside, it would be a lot easier. As you can probably see from the absolute dismay on my face in the next photo, starting a fire is hard.

Once we finally did have it going, we hung the pot over the flames and hoped for the best. Luckily it started to bubble and was finally on its way to cooking. It smelled absolutely amazing mixed with with the smell of the fire and sitting around a campfire watching your dinner cook for 2 hours is a sure fire way of making you really, really hungry.

we served it up with some fresh guacamole (we needed to use up some of the 16 avocados) wild rice, tortilla chips and salad. It's a pretty simple dish, but putting this much love and effort in to a meal really does make it taste 1000 times better.

Vegan Tales from Gwendoline, Part 2

2013-08-24T13:58:00.000+01:00

I've decided to split this day in to 2 posts, because I ate way too much for it to all fit in to one, but holidays are for eating yourself stupid after all. So... After a lovely long nights sleep we woke up and started a fire. On the instructions we were given for the cabin it said that you could toast bread on the stove.

Any excuse to start a fire and I'm there! I made some spelt bread at home using this recipe and it turned out okay, but after a few days you could have probably mistaken it for house building materials, so it was best toasted. In hindsight, I may have cut it a bit thick, but it made a good veggie bacon sandwich anyway, even if it did take me over an hour to toast it.

Then it was time to get showered. This is not so simple in the cabin, you're supposed to heat water in a giant kelly kettle, which I discovered the next day takes an actual age. So Emma and I, being the lazy people we are decided to heat a few kettles on the stove and transfer it to the shower. I say shower... it was actually a watering can hoisted in a tree. I was super excited about the shower, so I stood in the stream, Emma helped me hoist the watering can up, tipped it over my head and I had just about enough time to cover my body in shower gel when it ran out. My only option was a dip in the freezing cold stream... the best way to wake yourself up. We then decided to explore our surroundings and went for a ramble up the mountains, we ran around in fields, climbed trees, collected stick for fire and generally rambled around. Upon our return we had left over BBQ for lunch, with avocado on toast (Emma adds Tabasco, she is a genius) and come crisps and hummus. It was perfect for refuelling, and filling us up for a much needed nap.

I don't know if you get this after you nap, but I wake up either really grumpy or really hungry, or both. This day I woke up starving, luckily Emma and I stocked up on fruit from the market and I had my Abel and Cole veg box, so I had a large plate of fruit with some home-made vegan banana bread (recipe here) and was happy again.

After this it was time to prepare dinner, which, as mentioned was so epically long that it requires it's own post.

Vegan Tales from Gwendoline, Part 1

2013-08-18T21:07:00.000+01:00

You may or may not remember that last year I went on a magical glamping adventure with vegan Emma to a wagon we dubbed 'The Creepy Death Cabin' if you don't remember you can read about it here, here and here. If you do, well then you'll remember that we had the best time ever and cooked loads and loads of yummy vegan food. This year we went to one we dubbed 'Gwendoline' (her actual name is Gwenol) in Wales and cooked even more yummy vegan food whilst also having another amazing adventure. This one was a bit more secluded so we had to plan our food wisely, we took an abundance of fresh fruit and veg and 16 avocados, which we got for £1 (yep really, and we ate every single one as well).

On the first night we wanted something relatively easy and saw that there was a BBQ at the cabin. I don't know if other people do this, or if Emma and I are a bit weird, but we sometimes like to pretend to be husband and wife. So I took on the role of the husband and started the fire (I really enjoy starting fires) while Emma whipped up some vegetable skewers and corn of the cob rubbed with chili and garlic.

I can't claim that I was the best at BBQing as the vegetables were still slighty (really) crunchy, but it was still a lovely meal, served up with some giant cous cous and a yummy salad.

After the BBQ it was pretty much pitch black and time to go to bed. We settled in to the most wondefully warm and cosy bed in our little cabin, blew out our tea lights and had a wonderful sleep, with only the sound of the stream in our heads.

Cafe Boscanova, Bournemouth

2013-08-12T19:47:00.001+01:00

I haven't posted in a really long time, but there is good reason for this. I've been off adventuring all across the land (England that is) The weekend before last I was in Bournemouth, then the weekend after that I was in Devon and I've just returned from the latest weekend in Wales. So I have a bit of catching up to do. So anyway, we're starting with Bournemouth. Bournemouth holds a special place in Mr Hefs and my heart, because way back, over 7 years ago we went there, before we were really a couple and had a little cuddle on the beach and a little kiss in the sea. Little did I know that 7 years later we would still be wanting to take trips to the beach together. A few weekends ago I begged him to take me back and camp in the new forest and go to Cafe Boscanova for breakfast. And as he is a super nice boyfriend, he agreed to all 3.

So after work on Saturday, we hopped in the car, drove down to the campsite, set up camp, went to visit my friend Georgie, (this made me very happy) then got back to our tent, had a midnight snack and settled in to our blow up bed ready for the next day. After a good nights sleep we drove to Boscombe beach and parked there. It was at that point that I realised that the cafe was a 20 minute walk away, and we had already paid to park on the beach. So begrudgingly Mr Hef walked the 20 minute walk with me for breakfast. Cafe Boscanova is a super cute, kitsch cafe that serves what can only be described as incredible monster breakfasts. I had the Corn Stacks, organic polenta and sweetcorn pancakes
served on fresh greens, with cooked tomato and a poached egg, topped with chipotle mayo and chilli jam and also had a bit of extra halloumi on the side, because, why not! It was literally one of the best breakfasts I've ever had, I never wanted it to end. The flavours were amazing and it pretty much had all of the components I could ever need in a breakfast, so I was pretty happy. Mr Hef had the East End breakfast and said 'just those 2 bites were worth that stupid walk', so I guess he was pretty happy too! There are quite a few veggie and vegan options on the menu, so the next time I'm in Bournemouth (which I hope is really soon) I'll be trying something else on the menu!

Smoky Butter Bean Burger with 'Pulled Pork' and Beer Braised Onions

2013-07-22T20:43:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a BBQ last weekend and this is the beast of a burger I had. With a home made butter bean and smoked cheese burger, vegan pulled pork made from jack fruit and beer braised onions. It's not pretty, but it tasted blooming good and like they say, it's what's on the inside (of the buns) that counts. I've made vegan pulled pork before (the recipe is here) and this time I put a lot more love and a lot less ingredients in it and it was even better the second time around. If you want something that's a bit more (wo)man vs food rather than a tiny fake meat burger, this is for you.

Makes 2 burgers

For the pulled pork:

1 can of jackfruit (I buy mine from a local asian shop)
1 bottle of vegetarian BBQ marinade
Yep that's really it

For the butter bean burgers:

1 large can of butter beans
1/2 a small white onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
25g smoked vegetarian cheddar, grated
1/2 a slice of bread turned in to breadcrumbs
A bun to serve it in

For the beer braised onions:

A large knob of butter
1 small white onion sliced
300ml vegetarian beer

Start by preparing your jackfruit, chop off all of the hard bits and the seedy bits and discard, then pop the stringy bits in to an ovenproof dish, coat in the BBQ sauce and pop in to fridge overnight to marinade.
When you get up in the morning, pop your jackfruit either in to a slow cooker, or in to an actual cooker (covered in foil) for around 6 hours.
At around the 5 hour mark you can start making your burgers, basically just put all of the ingredients in to a bowl and mash with a fork until well combined.
Use your hands to shape in to a burger shape, then put on to a lightly greased baking tray and pop them in to the oven for 20-30 minutes.
While the burgers are cooking, make the onions by melting the butter in a frying pan, stick the onions in and fry them on a low heat until softened.
Then cover the onions in beer and leave to simmer for around 20 minutes, until all of the beer has been absorbed.
All of your burger components should be ready, so assemble any way you wish and enjoy!