Walk like A Skint Vegan

Here Comes The Summer...

2012-05-24T17:50:00.001+01:00

You know the weather is good when...

- your shorts make an appearance.

Your kids are playing in the garden by 7.30am - waaaaaaaaay before they need to be ready for school. And you decide to have a barbecue!

I, like so many others, can be guilty of making too much food when barbecueing cos, lets face it, it would be a shame to waste the coals once you've lit them, right? (n_n)

But, bearing in mind that I didn't have tons of time to prep I decided to streamline our barbecue experience.

anti-clockwise from left: cucumber raita, jerk tofu, quinoa and rocket salad, maple-glazed squash, coconut sambol.

I made jerk tofu (in a hot-as-all hell jarred marinade - I love the numbness!) along with coconut sambol and cucumber raita - both from The World Food Café and both absolutely delicious, but I'll save that for another post - and maple-glazed squash.

But the star of the show was my quinoa and rocket salad. I LOVE quinoa and am fortunate enough to be able to buy it in mahoosive yet reasonably-priced bags from Costco because one of my workmates has a membership.

I toasted 2 cups of quinoa, then added stock and let it cook for fifteen minutes on the hob, switching it off and letting it steam up to make the quinoa really soft and flavoursome. I combined it with quartered cherry and grape tomatoes, handfuls of flat-leaf parsley, 1tsp garlic flakes, chopped rocket leaves, lots of lemon juice and coarsely-ground salt and black pepper. This was delicious - zingy, fresh and a perfect accompaniement to everything else on offer. It was SO good, I'm making it again when my Mother-in-Law comes up to visit this weekend for the kids' Big Dance Show.

Unfortunately, we didn't end-up having the barbecue as this happened:

The appearance of the inimitable Scottish weather!

Oh well, maybe the rain will keep off so we can barbecue on Saturday... here's hoping...

Leftovers are Friends... Not Food!

2012-05-21T12:21:00.000+01:00

Not quite what I mean, but you get the general idea!

In my house, leftovers rule. I baulk at the idea of throwing anything away, no matter how small the portion, because I just know, that with a little ingenuity it's possible to incorporporate it into the next delicious - or at least satisfying - meal. Plus, if you're throwing perfectly good food away because you don't know what to do with it, you're throwing money away. And that's just not-acceptable in our house! There are certain dishes that are more forgiving when re-hashing leftovers. Like hash. (n_n) Also, soup is usually a winner, as is pizza, and in our house, fried rice.

Today I was busy doing laundry - can't turn your nose up at a rare sunny day in Bathgate - and the time just got away from me. Before I knew it, I had to go pick up the kids from school. Looking in the fridge, I saw I had half a block of cauldron firm tofu, several lacklustre veggies and half a bag of curly kale. In my freezer I always keep a few bags of frozen veggies for just such an occasion, plus I had a can of mock duck from the Chinese supermarket in the cupboard. This is one of my favourite 'secret' ingredients for adding a bit of bulk to stir-frys and fried rice. My house is full of wheat-meat haters, however I have used a small can of finely shredded mock duck as a filler many, many times and I've yet to have a complaint from any of them. I don't know what they do to the gluten to make it so delicious, but it's all I can do to stop myself from eating half of it while prepping.

I put two cups of basmati rice into my microwaveable rice steamer with three cups of boiling water, 1/2 tsp of salt and a good pinch of turmeric - I swear, my compulsion to add turmeric to rice is so bad my kids think rice is naturally yellow - and set it to cook for 13 minutes. When I'm making rice for stir-frys I want it slightly drier, so my ratio of rice to water is 1:11/2. If I want moist, fluffy rice for curry or stew, I prefer a 1:2 ratio.

Once we were back from school, I made the obligatory veggie prawn crackers. These were a bargain about two years ago - I got a big box from the Chinese supermarket for £2.49 and we have been eating them every since as a side to chinese and thai food, as a snack, a lunch box filler... you name it! Once I got the hang of frying them up - I now do them in a frying pan rather than my wok, using less oil - I had them means to make an inexpensive side that has completely ruined my kids. They LOVE them!

Then, I heated my wok over a medium heat until smoking and added a little oil and my sliced onions. A couple of minutes later I added a heaped teaspoon of minced ginger, lots of garlic flakes, 1/2 tsp chilli flakes, 1/2 tsp 5-spice powder, sliced green pepper and celery, carrot sticks, cubed tofu, 1 tsp of shredded kefir lime leaves and the kale. I cooked it for about 5-minutes, until the veggies were tender, before adding peas and sweetcorn and the shredded duck. I kept cooking until the frozen veggies and duck were warmed-through before adding the rice, 2 tbsps light soya sauce, a generous drizzle of sesame oil and 4 tbsps lemon juice. Stir-stir-stir... Done.

Thrifty Kicks

2012-05-17T13:05:00.002+01:00

LOVE charity shops - ♥!

All of my dresses for work are second-hand from ebay or charity shops as, basically, when I went back to work after being at home for four years, I wanted to look nice and professional but I was still - at that point - SKINT.

A sweet colourful dress with my other wardrobe essentials - cheap black leggings from Primark, a black cardi and cheap and colourful ballet flats - and I had a capsule work wardrobe ready to rock.

Over the months I've expanded my wardrobe with a few more choice buys. And today, while I was down in Bathgate buying vegetable oil and salt, I wandered into the Marie Curie shop to get out of the rain and my eye was instantly caught by this red number.

I have been looking for a block-coloured red dress for AGES! When I first met R, I was going through a phase of only wearing red clothes (yes, I was one of those people) and now, even though my colour repertoire has expanded substantially, I still hold the idea of 'The Red Dress' fondly in my heart as a little memento of our courtship.

This dress cost me £3.00 exactly, and once I ~~banish~~ adjust the ruffled sleeves I think I will have a delightful, colourful shift dress perfect for both work and going out.

'Scuse the welly boots, btw - this is how I looked in the changing room trying it on and it amused me so much I decided to recreate the look once at home. I ROCK the wellies, man - believe!

The Skint Vegan Top Tip of the Day:

So, if like me, you go second-hand for your dresses, unless you buy a slinky fitted number you will probably find that some of the the items you buy suffer from what I like to call 'excess baggage' - all that extra material that billows around your hips and belly making you look like you're about to set sail for India, with only a feeble fabric belt to somehow try and pinion it all in at the back.

Forget the fabric belt - unpick it, make it into a boho headband for your firstborn daughter. If you're a seamstress, great! You can adjust the garment to fit! If you're like me, however, and you are only capable of adjusting a garment when equipped with wonderweb and a hot iron, then this is what you do:

Invest in a couple of waist-cincher belts. These need to be wide enough to tame that excess fabric into acceptable submission, and loose enough so you look (and feel) comfortable wearing them, rather than like you've just wandered off a Bette Page tribute shoot.

The difference?

From this... a little sack-like...

To this... defined, fitted, sweet.

I think we all know. (-_o)

When life gives you motorbike accidents, make cupcakes!

2012-05-12T23:02:00.001+01:00

Chocolate whiskey cupcakes with fluffy vegan buttercream

It was rainy, very rainy on Friday morning. So rainy, that it came as only a muted surprise to me when I recieved a phonecall at 8.15am informing me that R had fell off his motorbike on his way to work.

Thank Goodness, he was wearing all his bike gear and waterproofs, so bar a bit of whiplash where he hit his head too hard off the road, he had nary a scratch on him and was more shocked than anything else.

The age-old remedy for shock is something sweet.

So once we etablished he was ok - it was the bike that needed fixing (u_u) - I pulled out my trusty copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and whipped up a batch of simple chocolate cupcakes with Isa and Terry's trademark fluffy vegan buttercream icing on top.

The substitutions I made were as follows:

I used wholemeal flour because I genuinely prefer wholemeal flour in chocolatey baking.
I used corn oil to give mp cuppies that dark chocolate look.
I used chocolate rice milk in place of soya milk. In retrospect, if I was to do this again, I would cut the sugar down by about 2 heaped tablespoons, because the milk is sweetened already and I found the resulting cupcakes good, but tooth-achingly sweet when combined with the icing.
I replaced the 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract prescribed in the recipe for whiskey extract - as another remedy for shock, is reputedly alcohol! (n_n)

These cupcakes went down extremely well with all in the house. A well-deserved treat for all under the circumstances.

And as R had survived unscathed, I felt it only right to make Evel Knievel cupcake toppers - as once the concern passes, it is only right for the gentle mocking to begin...

Which leads me to:

The Skint Vegan Top Tip of the Day:

Cupcake toppers are a cheap, simple yet effective way to personalise your cupcakes to the intended recipient. Half an hour spent printing out some suitable images, gluing them onto card for reinforcement and then cutting-out and attaching my little banners to cocktail sticks with some sellotape leads to a visually striking adornment. I think you will agree, with minimum effort my toppers have come a long way... (-_o)

Breakfast of Champions

2012-05-08T11:37:00.000+01:00

Did you get home from work at 10.45pm, wired to the moon?

Did you wind down by catching-up on all your crap-telly viewing with a glass of wine, then falling asleep on the sofa and waking up at 3.30am, broken, like a little rag doll?

Are your kids off school today due to a staff inset day? Meaning that the morning rush is for the toilet and the kettle, rather than to get you all out of the house by 8.35am?

And did you read that wonderful post over at Lustrous Musings - one of your favourite foodie blogs EVER - about a fried breakfast? With proper fried bread? Which made you feel hungry back then, but now is like an insistent drum-call to the frying pan? Like when The Master in 'Doctor Who' was tormented by the sound of drums?

I think we all know where this is headed....

Voila! Perfect fry-up:

Linda McCartney veggie sausages - the sausage of choice in our household.

Home fries - made from a couple of baked potatoes left over from Sunday tea and with added cherry tomatoes, NOM!

Fried mushrooms with garlic powder, black pepper and chilli salt.

Heinz baked beans.

And of course - the perfect fried bread.

All washed-down with mugs of piping hot tea.

Perfect.

Look at my Magic Potato! Also known as: My Pierogi Masterclass

2012-05-03T01:16:00.003+01:00

Yes, just like Pepe, I too have magic potatoes.

What can you make with two of the most economical of the staples we keep in our kitchens - a bag of flour and a sack of potatoes?

You can make one of my absolute favourite dishes from my childhood - pierogi.

These are little semi-circular dumplings which can be filled with an infinite variety of delicious edibles. We ate them both sweet - with fruit from the hedgerow that had been stewed into compote or plums from my Babcia Lila's plum tree - or savoury. My favourite filling has always been sauerkraut, but then, it's a well-known fact that I would eat cabbage in some form or other every single day if it was down to me. BIG love - ♥!

But you can also make a cheap, delicious and filling dinner using just potato. Think of it as pasta filled with really, really good mash. And the potential for add-ins is great - pesto for some zing, vegan sour cream, cheese, leftover beans or chilli, stewed curried pumpkin - you can really use just about whatever you have knocking around the fridge to stuff these.

My lovely friend, Krys, over at Two Vegan Boys, has asked for my pierogi recipe loads of times and being the slack puppy that I am, I never got round to emailing it to her. So, upon her request this morning I decided - spur of the moment - to devise a pierogi masterclass and put it up here as a point of reference for Krys and anyone else who might be interested.

You're going to get all my hints, tips and advice here.

And, as a bonus, I'm giving you a video of - whisper it! - The Pinch.

This is the trademark finger manouvre that creates a really good seal on your dumplings and stops them from coming unstuck in the boiling water while you're cooking them!

Normally, I would use 100% plain flour for the pasta, but as I discovered I only had 3/4 cup plain flour I subbed the rest with wholemeal plain flour. Actually, the slightly coarser, chewier texture that this high-wholemeal mix provided was kind of nice, and it was pleasantly filling - I would maybe go for 50-50 plain and wholemeal next time for a slightly lighter texture.

Potato Pierogi

(makes 53 using a 4-inch cookie cutter)

Pierogi Dough

4 cups plain flour
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp potato flour/instant potato flakes/1 small cooked potato, grated
4 tbsp vegetable oil
11/2-2 cups cold water

Filling

8-10 medium potatoes, boiled until soft.
1 cup vegan cream cheese/dairyfree yogurt/or 1/2 cup soya cream
4 spring onions, finely sliced then chopped again
2 heaped tbsp vegan margarine
Coarsely ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste

To Make The Dough:

Put the plain flour in a large bowl. Add the salt and potato flour or grated cooked potato and stir together. Add the oil and gradually add the water while mixing the ingredients together until you have achieved a dough which has cleaned the sides of the bowl and is pliable and well combined without being wet.

Now - cover the bowl and set aside for at least 30 minutes to make the dough softer and easier to handle.

In the meantime you can make your filling.

To Make the Filling:

Cook your potatoes until soft and then strain, return to the pan and steam over the hob to drive off as much water as possible. You want your filling to be dry as when you boil the pierogi later, it will heat-up and become more liquid anyway.

Then mash. Mash until it's as smooth as possible.

Sautee the chopped spring onions in the two tablespoons of marg over a gentle heat for about five minutes until soft but not too coloured. Add into the potato mix, along with the pepper, salt and your 'liquid' - cream cheeze, yogurt or cream - and mix well. Season with salt to taste and remember, it's better to go everso slightly over with the salt than to underseason with pierogi as once the filling is in the pasta it's saltiness isn't so potent.

At this point you can also add grated cheeze if you like - I did this today because there was a nubbin of cheeze winking at me from the back of the fridge, about 1/2 cups worth. This is where you can really improvise with your add-ins!

Before you start making the dumplings, get two baking trays ready for putting your finished pierogi on - flour them lightly and get a couple of clean teatowels to cover the dumplings with so they don't dry out.

Then lightly flour your worksurface and your rolling pin.

Divide your dough into two to four sections - this really depends on the size of your workspace, mine is TINY! - and roll it out as thinly as you can.

4" pierogi cutouts

Use your 4" inch cookie cutter to cut out as many circles of dough as you can. Remove the excess dough, then place a heaped teaspoon of filling into the centre of each circle.

Now, The Pinch!

You take your pasta circle and fold the two sides over to meet. You then go round your little semi-circle with your thumb and forefinger - I don't pinch between fingertips, I use my thumb tip and press the dough against the knuckle-area of my forefinger to get a good seal. The best way to get a good seal? Use 'The Pinch' and don't get any filling between the two bits of dough you are pressing together. In the video you can see I press the filling back into the dumpling as I go round to make sure of this, otherwise, when cooking, you will end-up with a soggy, floppy semi-circle of pasta and a scum of filling in the cooking water! (u_u)

Put your assembled dumplings on the prepared baking trays making sure they don't touch each other and stick. When you fill the tray, cover over with a folded tea towel and stack your next bunch of dumplings on top. You can then use the other half of the towel to cover your second layer of pierogi. So on and so forth. Once you've made them all up, you can set your pierogi to one side as forget about them until it's time to cook them.

This is your cooking equipment:

l-r: covered pierogi, colander in serving dish, cooking pan filled with salted water, slotted spoon and wooden spoon.

Bring your pan of salted water to a rolling boil, then add your dumplings one by one. I normally cook about 12-15 at a time in this size cooking pan.

Plop!

Once you've dropped-in your pierogi, use the bottom of your wooden spoon to gently stir sround the base of the pan to loosen any dumplings that might have stuck.

Bring the water back-up to a rolling boil, then give the dumplings another 3-5 minutes to cook through. The best way to check for doneness - is to try one! (n_n)

Pull out the dumplings one-by-one with your slotted spoon and place into the colander in your waiting serving dish.

Pour over the melted margarine, shake to coat the dumplings and then tip out of the colander into the serving dish.

All ready to be scoffed!

Then, enjoy!

Om-nom-nom

So there you have it! Easy-peasy! But time-consuming. The results are well-worth it, though.
If you're like me, you'll have a bit of the filling leftover. The temptation might be to stick it in the bin *internal screaming!!!!* but luckily for you I have:

The Skint Vegan Top Tip of the Day:

Any leftover mash makes absolutely fantastic and incredibly quick soup. This is usually a Sunday-night trick for me after our big Sunday dinner, but it came in unexpectedly handy tonight. The 1/2 cup of potato filling I had left was combined with 250ml vegetable stock, 1/2 cup frozen chopped leeks and a good squeeze of soya cream. Heat till piping hot - about four minutes - out comes the stick blender and before you know it, I have hot, delicious soup for 3 people for lunch tomorrow. Now that's a result! (-_o)

Order and Chaos...

2012-04-26T19:13:00.000+01:00

Is a recurring theme through this compilation of minimalistic Detroit techno I have recently bought.

<3 this!

Order and Chaos are also two opposing forces that regularly co-exist in my kitchen.

I'd like to say this was unusual...

And my household in general. Like many parents with busy lives and lively children, it can sometimes feel like you're caught on a hamster wheel, constantly running but not getting anywhere. Not making progress, not moving forward, just keeping from slipping backwards.

I once watched a programme that explained Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics. Which is - if you don't keep moving everything's going to turn to sh*te.

THIS is the law I think of when housekeeping! (n_n)

So, on a typically rainy and chaotically windy spring day in Bathgate -

I have HUNDREDS of pictures of raindrops on windows.

I decided that what I wanted, what I really, really wanted, was to curl up on the sofa with a cup of Earl Grey tea and something to eat that was so decadent, so heart-warmingly good, that it would make me feel completely indulged for just a few minutes before I got back to that hamster wheel!

I wanted something gooey, and saucey and chocolatey, but bearing in mind I still had my other household chores to do - washing up, preparing dinner, dusting (groan!) - it had to be easy to throw together.

Cue Sarah Kramer's 'La Dolce Vegan!' and the recipe for Chocolate Puddin' Cake.

This recipe looks like a hot mess when you read it:

literally.

"How much sugar? You pour HOW much hot water over it? You don't STIR??"

But have faith, if you follow the quantities and timings - admittedly, I tend to err on the side of caution and bake for 45 minutes rather than the recommended 40 - you will end-up with a delicious, self-saucing chocolate cake with moist, soft chocolate sponge and a rich, gooey sauce in the bottom.

The substitutions I made were:

Bashed-up almonds in place of walnuts because that's what I had in the storecupboard.

Plain wholemeal flour instead of white - as above. :)

I also used hemp-seed oil because I LOVE my Good Oil - it's delicious, packs a nutritional punch and can be added to both sweet and savoury baking with equal success.

Best served warm with Alpro soya cream.

And then - just like my moment of midday indulgence - it's gone.

Which leads to:

The Skint Vegan Top Tip of the Day:

It doesn't have to be an expensive thing to indulge yourself, but the importance of treating yourself every now and again is priceless.

Leave the kids with their Dad, lock the bathroom door and have a long hot bath while reading that book you've been trying to start for weeks.
Paint your nails while watching a guilty pleasure you've recorded - mine is 'Four Weddings' on Pick TV!
Go to your local pool, swim a few lengths and use the steam room - we're very lucky in West Lothian that our municipal facilities are both well-maintained and inexpensive.
Or treat yourself to a spot of afternoon tea instead of running those errands that will still be there a half-hour later! (-_o)

Chocolate Rain

2012-04-19T14:29:00.006+01:00

Once upon a time, a young guy called Tay Zonday wrote a song about racism and posted it to Youtube, little realising it was unintentionally hilarious.

This vid - with it's self-concious little comments popping up, "I move away to breathe" etc - was a gem. Something I strove to share with as many people as possible from the minute I found it.
- "You've NOT seen Chocolate Rain? Where's your laptop! NOW!!"
And like chocolate rain, I am striving to share this other little gem with as many people as possible - Alpro Hazelnut Milk.

I am not a fan of Alpro soya milk as I find it too beany for my personal taste but this is really good!
It has a good pouring consistency, it doesn't seperate like oat milk and rice milk sometimes can, it is sweet but not overly so, and tastes like my favourite nut - hazelnut!
The first time I had it was on it's own, with a tofu salad sandwich for lunch. It reminded me of a less-sweet version of horchata - a delicious nut-based drink popular in Spain and Latin America. I haven't tried the almond milk yet, but going by this I will definitely give it a go.
Both are currently on special offer at Mr T's for £1 a carton, so it's a good opportunity to give them a try. (n_n)
Penny made an inspired suggestion to try hazelnut milk in - what else - hot chocolate! So, being the selfless test subject that I am, I decided to take the plunge today, on a cold, wet and busy Thursday. After sending McGonnagle off with R to dance class, I curled-up on the sofa with Ho-Tep, 'Come Dine With Me' on the goggle box and a mug of steaming hazelnut hot chocolate.
It was delicious - like liquid nutella.
The hazelnut milk reached boiling point far quicker than soya milk would have - like, a minute quicker in the microwave - and I made it up with cocoa, sugar and a good glug of soya cream as initially it was a little thin for my tastes but about two tablespoons of soya cream was enough to lend it a silky, indulgent richness.
This is the best cup of hot chocolate I have ever drank. It beats soya-based hot choc into a cocked hat. So this is:

The Skint Vegan Top Tip of the Day

To make more expensive nut milks go further, or to improve the flavour and consistency of thinner, homemade nut milks in hot beverages, add a little soya cream! (-_o)

Hi!

2012-04-14T20:38:00.002+01:00

The Bitch in the Kitch is Back!

2012-04-05T12:09:00.011+01:00

Yes, my little bloggy chums, like Frodo after his run-in with Mount Doom, I am back!

I took a break - a loooooooooooooooooooooooong break - which was nice, as my life has changed unimaginably in the year and a half since my heart went out of blogging.
"Like what, DJ?" I hear you ask.
I sigh. I take a sip of my Twinings Earl Grey tea (some things haven't changed!) and wring my napkin.
"Well, where do I begin?"

BIG Changes

1) McGonnagle and Bubba Ho-tep are BOTH at school now! In fact, Ho-tep has almost finished his first year at school! Where the time has gone I have NO IDEA, but what it does mean is:

2) I'm not Skint anymore. Both Skint Vegan Dad - who I am renaming 'R' for bloggy purposes - and I are working now! I do a job I love, dealing with lots of different kinds of people and lots of different kinds of situations so it keeps me stimulated, keeps me busy and most importantly, means we are now financially comfortable.

3) Also, our family - though still eating a predominantly vegan diet, and still adopting the same attitudes towards non-food items that we always have - is not Vegan. It was a BIG decision moving away from what we had been used to for so long, but it was one we felt we had to take and has in no small way influenced my decision to re-jig this blog a wee bit!

So this blog is NO LONGER about how I cope raising two mini-vegans in a one-income household.
As the title suggests, our circumstances might have changed, but we can still walk the same kinda walk we always have.
It's about how we try to go through life living as sustainably as we can, buying second-hand where possible, growing our own veggies, making our own ginger wine for Xmas, eating delicious vegan food and saving our money towards our future hopes and dreams in the manner that one of my favourite - but now retired - bloggers, Frugal Veggie Mama, always strove to.
Whether those dreams are more tattoos (Me), a working camper van (R), an entire summer spent camping, a semi-retirement spent fixing classic cars for others for pay or that off-the-grid hemp farm with the rammed-earth farmhouse....
I still take inspiration from the same places - Kyrs and her amazing family, Melody and her inspiring journey and Theresa and Andy, my favourite Townsville vegans and Penny in her little Perthshire idyll. My Google reader is as full as ever.
So onwards and upwards we go...

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T16:58:00.009Z

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers!

I had a great 2010, but I'm planning on having an even better 2011. Rather than listing what I want to achieve this coming year, I thought I'd take a look back at what I'd managed to do in 2010.
There were several things that I crossed-off my list of things to do last year.

I took-up running and competed in my first ever 10k road race - something I'd been wanting to do for literally years and thanks to reading the motivational blog entries of two certain ladies, I got off my ass and finally did it!

Sango Sands Beach, Durness, NW Scotland

We went on a brilliant family holiday, camping 'Up North' - the North of Scotland, that is! - and discovering some of the beautiful beaches and countryside we're so lucky to have all around us.

I took-up knitting and discovered that not only was it a heck of a lot easier than I remembered from my abortive attempts in my early twenties, but I didn't completely suck at it, yay!

We looked for second-hand first whenever making major purchases, ensuring our costs were kept down when household disasters (like the living room couch collapsing) struck. It didn't always work out - our search for a second-hand bedframe was fruitless - but between gumtree, family donations and savvy deal-making when buying new, our essential purchases came in at a lost less than they would have in 2009!

I tried my hand at 'gardening-with-children' from Easter onwards and it was a great success! From perpetual spinach, alfalfa, chia and hemp sprouts, cabbages, delicious swiss chard, cut-and-come-again salad leaves, radishes, potatoes, rhubarb and even the odd strawberry (before the birds and slugs got them) we ate a lot out of our garden last year! I'm planning on eating even more out of it in the coming year, too, as well as being a bit more savvy about storing our produce. Unfortunately, we wasted more than I would have liked simply by not knowing what to do with it and not having anywhere to put it. Knowing how much I hate unecessary waste, I don't intend to repeat those mistakes again in 2011! At least I can console myself with the knowledge that it all got re-used as compost and green compost to enrich my beds! (n_n)

I managed to get away for a blissful weekend of summertime camping and walking (and too much wine, ouch!) with my two oldest friends, despite the fact at one point our busy and conflicting schedules made it seem extremely unlikely. Lesson learnt? Always make time for old friends, oh, and always go camping in the summer, when it's actually warm!!!

I hope that you all managed to meet some of your goals in 2010 as well! I'm feeling a little too full of rich food and drink after the festive period and my body is craving lightness - what better than a nice bowl of hot and sour soup made with vegan-friendly tom-yum paste, rice noodles, sliced spring onions, wakame seaweed, rocket, firm cubed tofu seasoned with dark soya sauce and toasted sesame oil.

Happy 2011 to all!

Baking with Nick Cave: Banana Bread Resurrected

2010-11-17T23:10:00.008Z

I don't particularly like bananas. They're o.k. but I can go months without eating one and never really missing it.
The best thing to come out of bananas - apart from pancakes - is banana bread. To be honest, I don't particularly like that either. I've baked too many dense, chewy-crusted blocks of banana bread in the past to really like them. Well, thanks to this cheerful little ditty from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, I got to thinking - what if I just needed to discard that nasty-ass old banana bread recipe I'd been dragging round with me and be a little more adventurous?

Oh boy, now I have seen bananas in a new light! With my banana bread resurrected into a truly delicious, moist and decadent treat rather than just another forgettable doughy loaf I am happy to make this again for sure. It was so delicious my 4-year old son spontaneously came into the kitchen midway through eating it to take me by the hand and say, 'Mum, that banana bread? It's really, really good!' before dashing back to horse the rest down! There is no higher accolade!

Banana Malt Loaf

Track: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!

Ingredients:

2 cups plain flour
1 cup soft brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup dark chocolate chips/chunks
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3 ripe bananas
1/4 cup soya cream
2 tbsp malt extract
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp carotino oil
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method
Preheat your oven to GM^o4/180^oc/350^oF. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, chocolate chunks, chopped pecans, cinnamon and salt. Stir together until well-combined. Then blend together the bananas, soya cream, malt extract, maple syrup, carotino oil, ground flaxseed and vanilla essence until smooth before spooning into the dry mix. Stir until 'just mixed' before spooning batter into a greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour then check it's done - a skewer inserted through the thickest part should come out clean.
Let cool then just try and keep your little monkeys away from it!

With this delicious version of an old favourite currently wowing my palette, I can't help but think it could be cranked up a notch more - maybe with a caramel frosting?...

This is How I think...

2010-11-16T18:27:00.011Z

I like to have one big cooking day a week to set me up for the rest of the week. My schedule is crazy-busy these days - with no car but plenty of after-school clubs, football, dancing, gymnastics and Parent Committees to attend - so if I have a well-thought-out plan of action, I can spend a couple of hours in the kitchen one day prepping ahead and then have dinner ready in twenty minutes on subsequent nights.

Today was my 'Big' cook-off - I started after lunch. My aim was to make the following meals:

1) Mince and tatties for tonight's dinner.
2) Vegan Shepherds Pie for tomorrow's dinner.
3) Sea Salt and Rosemary Focaccia to go with this week's lunchtime soup.
4) Scotch Broth - this week's lunchtime soup.
5) Creamy white bean and chickpea hummus to go with veggie sticks and toasted pitta strips as snacks and to fill any gaps in my lunch menu this week.
6) To prepare ahead for the curry I'm going to put in the slow cooker tomorrow morning for Thursday night.

I've pre-soaked broth-mix for the soup and chickpeas and cannelinni beans for my hummus dip in boiling water with a pinch of baking soda to soften them. After rinsing, I put the chickpeas and cannelinni beans in the slow cooker with more hot water and leave them to cook on high while I get on with the rest of my cooking.

I mix and knead my dough for my focaccia and leave it to prove as I then whip out my trusty pressure cooker to make my mince - tvp granules, buckwheat, frozen mixed veggies, frozen sliced mushrooms, chopped onion, shake of mixed herbs, teaspoon of marmite and lots of instant roasted winter veggie gravy. Fifteen minutes later it's done, and my crap-tonne of sliced potatoes is bubbling away in the minimum of water I can get away with.

I'm cooking a vast amount because I have no desire to spend tommorrow cooking a load more potatoes again, so I'm just going to prepare it all today. My spuds are sliced thinly so they cook quickly - I don't care if they fall apart as I'm mashing them anyway! Once they're cooked I strain the water into the pan I'll be using to cook my thinly sliced savoy cabbage to go with dinner. I mash the spuds with loads of soya milk, pure soya margarine, salt and black pepper then prep my shepherds pie.

Foil-wrapped, it's ready to put away for tomorrow and dinner is almost ready for tonight.
Once we've walked down and collected McGonnagle from school, I put my cabbage on to cook and reheat the savoury mince. I turn off the slow cooker - my beans are now cooked - and strain them, reserving some of the cooking broth to make the hummus -

- and soup. I reserve a third of the beans for the curry, make the hummus and put it in the fridge, by which time the cabbage is cooked. I strain the cabbage, pouring the cooking water into the slow cooker with the rest of the chickpea liquor and a few stock cubes, putting it on high to warm it up - then we eat dinner - delicious!

After I wash up, my focaccia gets punched down, rolled out and left to prove a second time with its delicious herb and olive oil topping as the oven pre-heats. I tip my broth mix into my heated stock-veggie water soup base, and quickly peel and chop some carrots and a parsnip and a rib of celery before adding to the pot with some dried onions and a pinch of white pepper. That will be left to cook overnight so it's ready to spoon into flasks tomorrow morning for lunches. Focaccia in the oven and it's just left for me to clean down and put away the pots until it's baked - 20 minutes. Once my focaccia is cool enough I wrap it in foil and put it away.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow after dinner I'll blitz together a curry in the pressure cooker while I wash-up and leave it overnight for the flavours to develop till Thursday, and with Friday being Pizza night, that's my dinners and lunches taken care of, leaving me free to - I don't know, sit on my ass and eat bon-bons or whatever the hell else the Mister seems to think I do in those long sprawling hours of the day between his going to work and returning home! (~_^)
Now, I'm not always this well organised, as my penchant for quickly thrown together pasta dishes and fried rice proves, but I try to be, so that's a little dull insight into the domino-rally style way my brain likes to navigate the kitchen - It's all about Time and Motion, as my mum always used to say to me!

Manic Monday...

2010-11-15T21:44:00.005Z

Manic Weekend, in fact - dance classes, birthday parties (not so good remembering it's a joint birthday party fifteen minutes before you're due to set off for it!) motorbike lessons, swimming and a trip to the play park - so I'm just back for long enough to say:

Westons cider - vegan and currently selling for a pound a bottle at Lidl's, making it a very good deal indeed! So now that you know what I've been drinking this weekend, I'll come back tomorrow to get back to the food!

Burgarmix I love you..

2010-11-13T18:33:00.007Z

But you're bringing me do-own....

Burgamix is a quaint, British vegan institution - that of the dried mock meat mix that you re-constitute with water to make a delicious meat analogue. Yes, sounds kind of... uninspiring and weird, I know, and I readily admit that as a fledgling teenaged vegetarian, I was rather snooty about it. "What, powdered veggie burgers? How droll... " *takes drag on a Gauloise and returns to her copy of 'The Dharma Bums'.*
But actually, I have a confession to make - Burgamix rocks! The first time I made Burgamix burgers for tea, the Mister came home and eschewed his usual habit of polishing off the kids' leftovers because they looked too 'meaty'!

I know some vegans never enjoyed meat to start off with - fair enough - but a lot of us who have renounced meat for health or ethical reasons really did enjoy meat and though there are lots of delicious and nutritious dishes that standalone without the need for any kind of replacement, sometimes it's just nice to have something familiar and delicious you can tuck into - hence the hundreds of 'neat loaf' and seitan burger recipes out there on the internet.
Burgarmix was great because it was cheap, was shelf-stable for months at a time, didn't take up much space and was ridiculously easy to make-up - add half a pint of water and chill. That was it!

And once you'd shaped it into patties and fried it up in the cooking oil of your choice, you had a delicious, juicy, savoury burger that paired delightfully with lettuce, some homemade 'secret sauce', sliced polish pickles and tofutti's special plasticky cheeze slices - a burger staple!
You could also make a pretty damn faithful meatloaf with it and my famous veggie roast - 1 sachet burgamix combined with 1 sachet sage and onion stuffing mix made up with half water half red wine - need I go on?

Unfortunately, Direct Foods Burgamix no longer exists, the product was discontinued in 2008 when the multinational company Hain Celestial who had owned Direct Foods for some years decided to sell off it's dry mix division. It has been relaunched under the revamped Granose brand, but the recipe had been tweaked enough to ensure it was different and not as satisfying. Plus the packets were smaller, meaning less value for money. Luckily, my affinity for buying near-dated food in bulk meant that I bought a ton of Burgamix when it was being cleared through at 99p for a case of 12 boxes through Approved Foods.

We're getting near to the end of our supply. End of an Era. I was idly wondering if I could eke out the last six boxes until I formed a multinational company- Clive-Cussler style - to re-start production of Trad Burgamix and Sosmix, but frankly, I think the chances are unlikely.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're right...

Baking with Nick Cave.

2010-11-11T14:46:00.003Z

No, much as I'd like to say I have got the brooding, misanthropic Australian singer in my kitchen borrowing my festive snowman apron and whipping up some black-bottomed blondies, I'm talking about something far less thrilling. Having developed a bit of an obsession with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds recently, I've decided for the rest of Vegan Mofo, my Hump-Day baking posts will be directly inspired by the songs I'm listening to (over and over and over again) on Spotify.

I completely missed out on the Bad Seeds at the time (i.e. when I was an awkward, Kraftwerk-obsessed teenager - how could I have passed-up this opportunity to be even more of a social outcast?!!!) and so have pretty much confirmed my suspicion that in life, just as in school, I am still the last one to find out about the party.

Rum Truffle Slice.

Track of Choice: Red Right Hand

Synopsis: Something deceptively wicked this way comes!

Crust:
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 cup flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Ganache:
1 cup semisweet dark chocolate
1/4 cup soya cream
1 tsp vegan margarine
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp rum

Topping:
1 cup semisweet dark chocolate

Method:
Preheat oven to GM4/350^oF/180^oC . Grease and flour an 8x8" baking tin. Cream icing sugar and margarine together in a food processor until fluffy. Add flour and cocoa powder and blend until the dough just starts to come together. Dust your hands well with flour and dollop the sticky dough into the middle of your baking pan. Then use your hands to spread, press and tease the dough across the bottom of the pan. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove and allow to cool.
In the meantime, to make the ganache, combine the chocolate, soya cream and margarine in a small saucepan over a low heat, stirring continuously until melted and well-combined. Remove from the heat and add rum and maple syrup. Pour over the baked crust before putting in the fridge until firm.
Finally, to make the topping, melt the chocolate in a double boiler and the pour and spread into a thin layer over the well-chilled ganache. Shake over chocolate sprinkles, shredded coconut or grated dark chocolate to finish and - dare I say it - chill-chill-chill again!
Yummy - but don't let the kids at it, this is strictly for adults!

Yes, it's time for that survey...

2010-11-09T22:14:00.003Z

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?
Steak. I prefer tofu, these days. And it's easier to digest.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?
Mushrooms and fried onions. I think it was a textural dislike more than anything else!

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t?
Tempeh - holy mother of God, it tastes like ass.

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?
Tea

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings?
I'm a notorious cake baker. My parents still fondly reminisce about a really 'gooey' red velvet cake I made for my brother's birthday one year...

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)?
I don't like hard or crunchy things - granary bread, muesli, jagged crisps, toast crusts etc - because of a lifetime of dealing with bad teeth. One misplaced rye grain can cause a lot of pain if you bite on it wrong...

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home?
Tofutti cream cheese. It's just too good to leave alone for long...

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged?

Bread

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”?
Tea. Seriously, that's the only area I'm fussy these days!

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks?
I try not to snack, but if I do, I try to choose sensible things like fruit and the odd spoonful of hummus to compensate for the big pudding I'll eat at dinner, and the crisps I like to eat after dark...

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?
I like any kind of tangy sauce - tapenade or ketchup and passata - combined with lots of grated cheeze. I'm a margherita kind of girl, basically.

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit?
Difficult, but I'd have to say carrot (so versatile and so delicious raw) and watermelon.

What is the best salad dressing?
A simple vinagrette of olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and black pepper.

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?
Marmite, of course.

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best?
Very, very simple lentil broth.

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?

Lemon Poppyseed cupcake with cream cheeze frosting.

What is your favorite kind of cookie?

Coconut chocolate chip cookies from La Dolce Vegan. Chewy and delicious.

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”?
Pasta with fridge pesto. Yummy, fast and nutritious.

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat?
Seitan.

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day?
Too long - 2-4 hours.

Tea-ny Tiny Tea Cosy!

2010-11-08T08:57:00.006Z

Well, I don't know about you guys, but all I can say after the first week of Vegan Mofo is just 'Phewee!!!'. I made the (un?)wise decision of picking up the blog bundle for my Google reader and suffice to say, for the first time in my life I know what Talking Heads meant when they sang about being on 'The Road to Nowhere' - Hah!

So many fantastic blogs, so few hours in the day! On the bright side, as I'm skimming the top of my Google reader like a patient cook skimming the froth off the top of my pan of beans, I'm coming across some brilliant blogs that I was completely unaware existed out here in the blogosphere. It seems like there's the twenty or so blogs you know about and about another six hundred or so lurking round the corner waiting to surprise you with their wit and inventiveness! One such blog - quite literally around the corner from me as the blogger is based in my old stomping ground of Manchester - is 'Tea and Sympatico'. Not only has Caroline got a great name for her blog but she's also part of The Cake Liberation Front (seriously, where am I when these movements happen?!!) and she knits the cutest vegan teacosies. She's the kind of girl I like to imagine my McGonnagle will grow up to be like - compassion, cupcakes, knitting, it's all good!

Now, I'm quite partial to a cup of tea, as you all know, and I've got a little thing about having to brew my tea in a teapot, even if it's only for one cup. Must be the way I was raised - and when I say 'raised', I actually mean 'must be the way I married a tea-gulping monster' where it's easier and less time-consuming to brew a pot of tea than make individual cups. So recently I acquired a very cute, single-serving teapot that's the perfect size for making me a nice strong mug of char, or making enough tea for me and the kids to take afternoon tea with one of my car-boot sale tea sets.

Little teapot next to Big teapot, for comparison purposes.

But, of course, I was lacking the obligatory tea cosy for it, meaning that it cooled down too quickly. Teapots - like babies - should be kept at a constant temperature to get the best out of them. Let them get too cold, and they quickly begin to stew and get bitter. (Yes, babies too.) Lo and Behold, Caroline understands this, and makes baby-tea-cosies as well as regular-sized ones perfect for slipping over a single-serving teapot like my own.

Awww!

I ordered one, it arrived promptly with a few nice teabags thrown in for good measure -

Thanks very much!

and needless to say, I am very, very happy.

Looks like a babies hat - for a teapot!

I love the opportunity to give a fellow blogger a boost, so if you're partial to perfectly-warm tea and craving something quirky to brighten up your plain old teapot, I suggest you give the Tea and Sympatico folksy shop a try!
Talking of babies, I became 'Auntie Dee' for real for the very first time over the weekend when my brother-in-law and his wife had a gorgeous little boy. I'm sure you'll all raise your cup of tea with me to welcome Baby Harry into the world. Though with all these tyro-tea drinkers in the family now, I might need to get myself a bigger teapot...

Things that make you go...

2010-11-05T20:54:00.005Z

...Oooooh!

Seabrooks Hot and Spicy Wasabi Horseradish Crisps -

The Mister liked them so much he wanted two more...

Yes, these crisps are not only Ninja-vegan, but hot as all-hell. So much so, that I almost cried as I was eating them, but they were so damn good I had to keep going. I felt a bit like Homer Simpson crying as he was eating Mr Pinchy - but in this case, the tears weren't because I was eating a little lobster chum, but because I thought I was going to have a horseradish-induced heart attack at any moment! I'm now sat here with a stomach ache, but, Man, it was worth it...

Yes, it's really that green!

This is my homemade salsa verde. It's based on Italian salsa verde rather than the Mexican tomatillo-based sauce of the same name. Jamie Oliver bish-bash-boshed this up on his new TV programme and once I'd seen that irresistable combination of fresh herbs, garlic, lemon juice, olives and capers (hold the anchovies!) whizzed up into an easy sauce, I just knew this would make the PERFECT topping for a white pizza.
My version contains baby leaf spinach, basil (from the reduced shelf in Mr T's), fresh parsley from my friend's garden, juice of one lemon, 3 garlic cloves, a good handful of green olives, and about half a handful of capers. Some olive oil to bind it all together and it's ready to go! I made absolutely masses so I can see this getting used up on pasta tomorrow - or maybe on boiled new potatoes as recommended by the Cheeky Chappie himself!!!
OOOOHHH!!!

Thrifty Thursday: Posh Coffee on the Cheap

2010-11-04T14:27:00.012Z

I love me a nice vanilla soya latte from a coffee-shop, but my conscience and my purse really don't! So, with my thrifty head on the solution is obvious. I have a plain old coffee percolator -

(well, I say that, it's an old-fashioned Cona coffee percolator and I love it like an inanimate child!) and a whisk attachment for my hand blender that is too flimsy to be of any real use for anything other than frothing hot milk up.
All I have to do is make a pot of coffee on the stove and in the meantime heat some soya milk in the microwave and froth it up with said attachment before pouring it into my extra-large coffee mug.

Pour your coffee in on top and you have yourself a creamy, frothy, faux-latte that you can enjoy as is or sprinkle some cinnamon, vanilla sugar or cocoa powder on top for a touch of easy indulgence. If you want to recreate that coffee shop vibe, why not invite some friends round, put on an early '90s Acid Jazz compilation CD, make some vegan biscotti and add a touch of flavoured syrup to your coffee? These are a synch to make as you're basically making a simple syrup that you add some kind of flavouring to. Again, far cheaper than buying yukky commercially-produced syrups and you can adjust the flavouring to suit your individual tastes. Chocolate Gingerbread syrup? Go for it! Coconut Banana? Each to their own, I guess... For more information check out Steven's blog for a detailed how-to guide to making syrups, in fact, just check out his blog anyway because he's come up with the brilliant theme of 'MoBo' for this year's Mofo which is keeping me inspired and entertained in equal measures.

Oh! And before I go, did I mention you can use your frother to make your little one a babychino?

No mess, no waste, no packaging to worry about recycling and all for a fraction of a cost you would pay in a coffee-chain. Sounds good to me!

Hump-Day Baking: Lancashire Parkin

2010-11-03T14:52:00.009Z

It's traditional in the North of England to make this sticky, treacle and oatmeal-rich version of gingerbread for eating on November 5th - Guy Fawkes Night - though why gingerbread is associated with the attempted overthrow of the Government by the Catholic proletariat I have no idea! Probably because it's yummy and filling and moreish and good to eat while you watch the fireworks we traditionally launch to commemorate said failed coup. Now, like everything in the North (because God knows, we like to fight) each region - nay, each household! - has it's own variant that is THE BEST. Yorkshire parkin is the most famous version and is commercially produced in Yorkshire to this day. In the ex-Mill towns of Lancashire (where it's made with less oats, more flour in case you were wondering) you just have to wait for your Auntie Pat to make it come Bonfire Night. Because, as everyone on your street will testify, Auntie Pat's Parkin will be THE BEST. They make a version of it in the Midlands called 'Perkin' but we don't talk about that as 1: They're all a bit funny down there and 2) They call it 'Perkin' - err, hello??

The first rule of parkin is that you don't eat it on the day you make it unless you're from the South and you don't know any better. Like fruitcake, this gets better with age. A bit of waxed paper, an airtight container and a week later you have a cake that will make grown men go weak at the knees. That's right, I said a week. If - like me - you live in a household of greedy, impatient fools, you make a massive amount of parkin so that you can eat your way through half while waiting for the other half to mature.

The second rule of parkin is that you want it everso slightly underdone so the cake is almost fudgy in the centre. Dry parkin is neither use nor treacle flapjack to anyone so just keep an eye on it an don't worry if it seems a bit soft upon taking out of the oven.
This is my Parkin recipe and as everyone in my house will tell you it is THE BEST.

Auntie Dee's Parkin
(please feel free to double this recipe if you live in an equally greedy household!)

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp (heaped) of baking soda
1 cup non-dairy milk
3/4 cup vegan margarine
2 tbsp treacle/blackstrap molasses

Method

Preheat your oven to GM5/190^oC/375^oF. Line an 8x8" baking tin with greaseproof paper. Mix the flour, oatmeal, rolled oats, dark brown sugar, ginger, mixed spice and salt together in a large bowl. Heat the milk up in the microwave until lukewarm, then add the baking soda. In the meantime, melt the margarine and treacle together in a pan until warm before pouring the milk-soda and treacle-marg mix onto the dry ingredients and mixing well.
Pour the batter - and it will be very wet - into the baking tin before baking in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. Check after 45 minutes, it's done when the top springs back when you press it.
Let it cool down completely before removing from the baking tin, wrapping in greaseproof paper and storing in a cake tin or other airtight container for a week. Then take the box down, open it and wonder why there's only a little treacley square left in the corner... (~_^)

Ten-Minute Trifle

2010-11-02T13:34:00.008Z

I think the title is pretty self-explanatory but if I'm honest, ten minutes is a bit of a stretch, this was ready in five minutes tops. You can eat it straight away but I like it best if you leave it for a few hours to chill and let all the syrupy fruit juices soak into the biscuit base to sogify it - then it takes on that wonderful moistness that traditional trifles and tiramisu have.

This pudding arose as a way of using up some leftovers I had knocking about the fridge as I have a well-documented, almost pathalogical inability to throw anything away without at least trying to re-use it!
Remember this cake? I still had about a cup and a half of summer fruits pie filling left over from making this cake. It had sat patiently in the fridge while I debated what to use it in - bake another cake? Make a steamed sponge pudding? (I know what you're thinking - 'Ye Gads, that was ages ago, is she trying to poison everyone?!' But I'd stored it in a sealed airtight container in the fridge and lets not forget, this is a commercially-prepared pie-filling. Which means it's basically chunky jam. And as we all know, jam lasts forever.... )
The answer came to me when I was making double chocolate chunk cookies for a Halloween party on Sunday. The first tray of cookies were a bit off as the batter needed to be more floury. After adding more flour the remaining cookies were delicious and a big hit at the party, but I was left with seven of the less than perfect original cookies.

So, I broke them up into bite-sized chunks into a small glass bowl. I can see this working with just about any leftover or slighly defective baked goods, though. Got a few leftover muffins going stale? That batch of molasses cookies just a wee bit too cakey? Trifle 'em!
I then drizzled over a little creme de cassis and mixed in the aforementioned pie filling, making sure all the pieces were well-covered in the saucy fruit. You could use any preserved fruit in syrup for this really - the kind you get in glass jars is best. If you (or your Gran) have a backlog of macerated soft fruit in decorative jars from last Christmas then this is a delicious way of using them up!

I sliced a ripe banana from the fruit bowl over the fruit-biscuit base - then made a super-quick tofu cream to go on top - one packet of mori-nu soft silken tofu blended with 2 tbsp caster sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder and 1/2 tsp vanilla essence.

I no longer have to trek through to the Chinese supermarket in Glasgow for Mori-Nu anymore because - Skint Vegan Spot - my local Asda in Livingston stocks Mori-Nu vacuum packed tofu next to its lentils and dried peas in both soft and medium varieties for only £1.00 a packet.

That was it. Some sprinkles to make it pretty, and some large spoons to eat it with and everyone (but especially trifle-loving me) is happy! It tastes like Black Forest Gateux for babies. I think I'm going to make it again for Christmas, that's how good it is...

Om-nom-nom!

Throw-It-Together Post-Halloween Supper

2010-11-01T20:58:00.003Z

It's time to batten down the hatches in preparation for Winter. What?! But winter is two months away!! I hear you say. Not in Bathgate, I'm afraid. With frosty mornings, torrential rain and pervasive darkness now the norm, I feel like I've turned into Alice's dormouse - I keep wanting to drop off into my cup of tea! The food I want to cook is dependent on two things: what's in the fridge and cupboards and what tastes yummy. I don't want to venture into a shop or supermarket except to pick up my weekly soya milk consignment (10 cartons - we love our soya milk here!) cos, y'know, I'm just not feeling the weather quite frankly, and I'd rather be at home, nodding off into said cuppa tea!

This skeleton is bone-tired!

After an exhausting Halloween weekend (who knew two children could have 5 parties to go to in the space of 48 hours?!) I had some leftover cooked pasta in the fridge.

I knew the kids would be tired after school and nursery having had little sleep and too much excitement for the past three nights, so a quick and easy pasta dinner seemed to tick all the boxes.
I sauteed a small diced red onion in a little oil for about five minutes. I then added some leftover burgermix I had made-up in the fridge from our traditional Saturday night 'Strictly and Junkfood' dinner.

You could use tvp or ground seitan in its place quite easily. Fry for a couple of minutes over a medium heat - not too high or you just end up with a crust of burnt burgermix at the bottom of the pan!

Add two tins of baked beans, one can of chopped tomatoes, 1/2 can of water, 1 tsp dried mixed herbs, 1/2 tsp chilli flakes and 1/2 tsp garlic granules along with a good pinch of paprika and simmer over a low heat for 10-15 minutes. Throw in your cooked pasta and stir through for thirty seconds until well-mixed - the heat of the sauce will warm-up the pasta for you rendering it perfect eating temperature for children and impatient adults. You can grate some cheeze over it if you fancy but it doesn't need it. Serve with thickly cut hunks of buttered french bread, wedges of toast or get a part-baked baguette you've had sat in the freezer for a few months and slap in the oven before slathering with warm garlic and herb butter. The aubergine antipasto is an optional extra!

Delicious, easy and economical - a perfect Monday night tea after a busy and chilly All Saints Day.

Midnight Snack

2010-11-01T00:39:00.000Z

Courtesy of Nigella. Me & the boy were completely mesmerised by her rendition of Anna Del Conte's spaghetti with marmite on Nigella Kitchen as we waited for McGonnagle to finish-up her dance class. It was an unspoken agreement that we would enjoy this as soon as is humanly possible.

I decided to trial it on a night in front of the telly when carb cravings finally overtook me!
All this dish is, is cooked spaghetti tossed with a quickly made sauce of marmite, butter (I subbed vegan margarine) and enough of the pasta cooking water to make a thick, unctuous sauce.

OMG. If you like tangy, salty or savoury, you will LOVE this! I can see this becoming a stock recipe in my post-pub or pre-payday repetiore and even better, I just know my wee marnite lovers are going to go a bundle on it!
N.B: If you have any ethical objections or geographical limitations to eating marmite, then any other salty black yeast extract will do nicely!

This is my low key entry into the month of madness that is Vegan Mofo and though it may be simple, boy is it delicious! I'll be reading the daily digest over at Vegan Mofo headquarters and will try and keep up with everyone's entries - my google reader is going to be full to bursting this month, with a record number of participants!

DJ xo

Update: I made this again as a quick lunch for me and the kids adding a good grate of vegan mozarella. It went down very, very well!!!!

Kale, Yellow Squash and Sweet Potato Stew

2010-10-11T21:34:00.016+01:00

Sometimes, The Mister has spates of being frantically busy at work which means he gets home late, missing the kids bedtime completely and his dinner is a solo pasta salad/hummus and crackers/sandwich kind of affair right in front of the fridge right before his bedtime.

While this makes me kinda sad, in that I don't have as much opportunity to annoy him by doing stuff like throwing his old toothbrush out without buying a replacement, hiding his pyjamas or playing bursts of the Vertigo soundtrack at him to render even the most innocent question sinister -
- "Do you want a cup of tea... or coffee?"

(cue music)

the upside is I don't have any pressure to make 'proper' meals because I'm only cooking for me and the kids. Which means I'm catering to the three most undemanding palates in the house - yay!! I can get away with making veggie rice two nights on the trot, or I can make bruschetta and after eating it nobody gives me that look that says 'nice starter, where's the main?' or, like tonight, I can make soup and garlic bread for dinner and everyone leaves the dinner table sated and happy.
I tried a soup from the Nava Atlas book 'Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons' as I'd bought and browsed this a good few months ago but had yet to try any of the recipes. I make a lot of soup on a day-to-day basis and it's very easy to fall into a rut of making the same family favourites over and over. Autumn is great weather for making and eating soup, so when a recipe for Kale, yellow squash and sweet potato stew caught my eye I decided to splash out and make something different for a change. I always have a bag of chopped kale in the freezer anyway, so when the other ingredients came up for sale at budget supermarket Lidl, I bought them up and decided to make soup for tea. This soup was exactly what I wanted today - hearty, nourishing and healthy with the sweetness of the squash and sweet potato cut by the addition of balsamic vinegar and mustard. I really enjoyed this soup and would definitely make it again - the only tweaks I made were:
1) I cooked it in the pressure cooker so omitted the frying onions stage and cooked the rice in with the soup.
2) I used short grain pudding rice in place of brown rice as that's what I had, and I really like the way pudding rice cooks up in soup anyway.
3) I added a bit more veggie stock than specified in the recipe - about a cup more. I think I was justified as the soup was still pretty thick when I served it.
There are so many other enticing soups and stews in this cookbook using delicious seasonal ingredients I think I'll definitely be venturing out of my comfort zone over the next few weeks.
In other news - I found a readymade Christmas Pudding for sale for 99p at Poundstretcher which was ninja vegan and nut-free - I was AMAZED!!!

Ticking both dietary boxes for our household, this pudding has a long date and is labelled as suitable for vegetarians but a thorough check of the ingredients label seems to suggest it's vegan-suitable too.

Needless to say, it's going into my Christmas box along with my bread sauce mix and veggie roast ingredients and I urge any of my fellow thrify British vegans to check out the food aisle in Poundstretcher if you're into Christmas pud but not into all the fannying about that comes with preparing it!
And speaking of fannying about....

One-Two Silly-Billys