Ingredients
1 cup dry red split lentils
1 onion chopped
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 potatoes cubed
2 carrots cubed
1/2 cup frozen peas (optional)
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 teaspoon chili flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cans organic chopped tomatoes in juice
Boiling water
salt & pepper to taste
Oil
Directions
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook garlic and onion until onion softens.
Add mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.
Add chili, oregano and bay leaves and stir through.
Add potatoes and carrots and stir through.
Transfer everything to a pot (unless you have a really large frying pan with a lid) and add the tomato paste and tomatoes. Add one can of boiling water using the water to get the last juice from the tomato cans.
Add the lentils and peas and simmer for 45 mins or until the veges are tender and the lentils are cooked.
Add water as needed to keep the mixture wet enough.
Serve with bread or on rice or mashed potato.
Garlic, onions, mushrooms and herbs
Add the potatoes and carrots
Transfer to a pot, add tomatoes, water, peas and simmer
The additional chocolate chunks in this recipe are by request of Cy who apparently just can’t get enough chocolate in his vegan cake!
This is such a quick and easy recipe and it’s SUCH a yummy cake with the passion-fruit and extra chocolate. It only uses one large bowl and a cup so it’s really quick to clean up and takes under 10 minutes to prepare.
Ingredients
1 & 1/4 cups white flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup dark, soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 banana
40 grams dark chocolate (the darker the better!)
2 Passion-fruits
Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Take one large bowl and sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa into it. Add the brown sugar and mix together.
Mash the banana in a cup and then add the banana, soy milk, oil and vanilla essence to the dry ingredients.
Mix all together and then pour into a greased round cake tin.
Break up the chocolate into pieces approximately 1cm square and sprinkle over cake batter. Take the back of a spoon and push them into the mixture so they are covered by batter.
Spoon the pulp of the passion-fruit over the cake mixture and spread out evenly.
Cook for 35-45 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Dust with icing sugar and enjoy!
Before going into the oven
Minutes before we devoured it!
These burgers are so good and the southern spice mix to coat the tofu is from a great little recipe book called Hot Damn and Hell Yeah by Ryan Splint. Find it here and on Amazon UK and US http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/zines/86/
The pineapple might seem odd if you don’t hail from the southern hemisphere but it’s really nice so give it a go!
Ingredients
4 Wholewheat burger buns (or rolls or any kind of bread you like really)
1 pkg tofu
1/2 cup approx of southern-fried spice mix (pg. 10 in Hot Damn and Hell Yeah)
4 Pineapple rings
1 tomato sliced
1 onion sliced
4 Portobello mushrooms
1 clove garlic finely chopped
Lettuce
BBQ sauce, vegan mayo and/or ketchup
Oil
Soy milk
Directions
Cut tofu into 4 pieces along the flat side of the tofu square so you end up with large flat pieces.
Dip them in the soy milk and then coat them in spice mix and set aside.
In a fry pan cook the garlic and onion until the onion softens.
Move the onion to the side of the pan and cook the mushrooms in the same pan (or if your pan is too small, cook them in a separate pan with a little garlic and oil).
Once the mushrooms and onions are cooked remove them from the pan and put them on some paper towels to soak up the oil.
Heat up some more oil (about 1/4 - 1/2 cup depending on the size of your pan) and cook the tofu pieces on a high heat until browned on one side. Avoid moving them around much until they’re browned so you don’t make the coating come off. Turn and cook the other side until it’s browned too.
Heat up the buns in the oven.
Layer up your buns with the tofu, lettuce, pineapple, tomato, mushroom and onion and add BBQ sauce, vegan mayo or ketchup to taste.
Serve with potato wedges cooked in Cajun spice mix.
This is a super simple snack that is great for satisfying a donut craving. It’s vegan and much healthier too!
Ingredients
2 crumpets
Vegan margarine
Agave nectar
Ground cinnamon
Directions
Toast your crumpets
Smother with margarine (or leave it out if you want to be extra healthy!)
Sprinkle a light dusting of cinnamon and drizzle agave on top
Yum!
This is a great lunch dish or light dinner and serving it over quinoa bumps up your protein. Add other veges to taste and you could add tofu or tempeh when you cook the garlic and onion if you want to make it more of a main dish.
Ingredients
Small head of broccoli – chopped
Small onion – sliced
1 cup of mushrooms – sliced
1 carrot – sliced
1 or 2 cloves of garlic – finely chopped
1 Tablespoon agave nectar
1 teaspoon chilli powder or flakes (add less or more to taste)
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
1 cup dried quinoa
1 vegetable stock cube
Directions
Heat the oil and then add the garlic, chili and onion. Cook until the onion softens.
Add the carrots and cook for a few minutes, add the mushrooms and cook for approx 5 mins.
Add the soy sauce and agave and stir through. Add water as needed to keep the food from sticking to the pan.
Add broccoli and cover the pan to allow the broccoli to steam cook.
Cook until the broccoli is just tender.
Serve over the quinoa cooked in vegetable stock using the absorption method (1 cup quinoa to 2 cups stock, bring to a boil and then cover and lower the heat).
Serves 2.
I know it may seem odd to be writing about tomatoes… something so simple and already well loved, but to me they are a new friend. I’ve always been ok with cooked tomatoes, chutneys and definitely a bit of tomato sauce, but until recently I absolutely hated fresh tomatoes. They were slimy and bland and seemed to ruin everything they got near, be it sandwich or salad.
Then I discovered organic tomatoes, fresh from the tomato man at the farmers market. Organic food has a lot going for it already but one incredibly compelling argument for buying organic has got to be flavour! Organic tomatoes taste like nothing I’ve ever had before, almost like a completely different species of food compared to those big, bland shiny red ones you get in the supermarket.
My new favourite snack is centered around this new love and the recipe is below.
Tomato and Hummus on Grainy Bread
Take thick slices of your favourite grainy or spelt bread. Toast it, smother it in hummus and lay slices of organic tomatoes on top. Add cracked black pepper and you’ve got a delicious lunch or snack.
Simple but so good!
A gorgeous, dark ginger cake I found on www.uncaged.co.uk
I did have to bake mine for a bit longer than 1 and 1/2 hours, more like 2 hours, but it was well worth it!
Ingredients
½ cup sunflower oil
½ cup dark muscovado sugar
¾ cup golden syrup
2 and ¼ cups plain
4 tsp ginger
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ cup soy milk
1 Tbs vinegar
Directions
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Blend together the oil, sugar, and syrup
Add the rest of the ingredients, then mix thoroughly.
Bake for 1 to 1½ hours at the above temperature. Check after the first hour, and if not yet ready cover with foil to prevent burning.
Ingredients
1/2 cup raisins or cranberries
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup bran
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flax seed
6 tablespoons water
2 medium bananas, mashed
1/4 cup alternative milk
2/3 cup agave syrup
2 tablespoons canola oil
Instructions
Preheat oven to 200º celcius.
In a small bowl, cover the cup raisins or cranberries with plenty of water. Set aside to soak (to prevent them burning while cooking).
In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and bran.
In another bowl, mash the bananas and then add the milk, agave syrup, and canola oil.
In a separate small bowl, place the 2 tablespoons of flax meal. In the bowl the raisins/cranberries are soaking in, give a good stir. Then take 6 tablespoons of the raisin water and mix it in with the flax meal. Add this to the wet mixture and combine.
Add the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring until it just comes together. Fold in the raisins/cranberries. Spoon batter into a standard 12-cup muffin tin lined with paper muffin cases.
Bake at 200º celcius for about 20 minutes, or until tops are golden and a knife comes out clean.
Before baking
Butter cream icing is delicious on cakes and cupcakes, but using vegan margarine can sometimes give it a slightly weird flavour. If you flavour the icing using another strong flavour like coffee, lemon juice or passion-fruit pulp you can mask the slight margarine flavour and have a delicious, creamy frosting for your cakes.
Mix together icing suger, margarine and either a shot of coffee, the juice of a lemon or the pulp of 1 or 2 passion-fruits, and then whip into a thick, smooth icing.
