Spoon Dives into Roast Veg & Cous Cous

I think it's really important that people see that Vegan does not equal complicated! This dinner took me about 20 minutes to cook, whilst running in and out the kitchen to sort out my daughter, put the washing away and get half ready for my evening commitment. So if I'd just concentrated on the cooking at hand, it would have only taken 10 minutes to prep and about 20-30 to cook.

Now, if that isn't fast food, I don't know what it! Jamie and your 2 minute meals... move aside! (ok, maybe not.... but you get the picture!)

This was my dinner last night and it's now the morning after the night before so I'm going to have to employ some serious brain cells to write this.  So here it is.......

INGREDIENTS
(Serves 2)

1/2 Red Pepper
1/2 Courgette
1/2 Aubergine
1/2 Red Onion
1/2 Sweet potato
1 Cup (250ml) Passata
2 tbsp Coconut oil
1 tbsp Dried mixed herbs
2 tsp powdered Vegetable stock
Agave Nectar to taste


1 Cup (250ml) Dry Weight Cous Cous
1/2 red onion
1 Celery Stick
2 tsp Coconut oil
1 tbsp powder vegetable stock
3 cups (approx) boiling water

I didn't have the bottle of Passata in this picture, as to begin with, it wasn't going to be included in this recipe! Ha! Evolution is wonderful!

METHOD

Riiight, so!

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade. Gas mark I don't know and I have no idea what Fahrenheit...

Chop up all your veg so that it's going to be cooked at the same time. I don't know if this is obvious but that means dicing the sweet potato to 1cm sq cubes and slicing the rest of it into fairly sizeable chunks. For example, slicing the courgette into 7mm thick rounds....

Then get a deep roasting tray and put it on your hob with the 2 tbsp of coconut oil. Get your pan high enough to fry the veg.

*Careful - make sure your pan is suitable for this. It will probably warp but that's okay as long as it hasn't got some kind of coating on it. You could also use an earthenware pot. As long as it is oven suitable. There's not much point cooking it in a frying pan. The idea is that you retain the flavours in the dish. If you're not happy to do this on the hob, put the tray/dish into the oven to heat the oil to almost smoking (quite hard with coconut oil, easier with veg oil)

Coconut Oil before melting

Now, throw in all your veg into the pan, make sure that your pan is big enough so that it's not overloaded.

Sprinkle in the herbs & stock.

Cook on the heat for as long as it takes to lightly colour the veg.

DON'T keep touching the pan like I do! I don't know why, maybe it's from my catering days? but I have this obsession with seeing how hot something has to be before I can touch it. I like to turn my pancakes by hand, pick up hot pans, move hot pans around in the oven without gloves. Maybe it's just me trying to live "On the edge" ? Ha ha! Or maybe I just enjoy the pain!

Before it's got a bit of colour but after 3 mins of cooking.

Now transfer to the oven and cook for.... 15 minutes? Keep and eye on it, depending on how you've chopped your veg and how efficient your oven is, the timings may vary ;)

On to the cous cous.
I added celery to this because it needed using but you don't have to.

Fine dice (brunoise) the celery, 1/2 red onion and garlic.

* A little tip with the celery. I snap mine in half, underneath side facing me - then strip all the tough channels out of it. It's hard to explain.... here's picture if it helps?

In a pan, heat the coconut oil to a medium heat.

Get your kettle on the boil with the water in it.

Throw in the onion and celery and sweat until translucent.

Add the garlic and sweat for another 2 mins or so.

Then add your cup of cous cous to the onion mix and stir fry for about 1 minute - careful not to let it stick to the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle in the vegetable stock and give the cous cous a good mix before adding the water slowly.

Turn off the heat and keep mixing the cous cous with a fork.

* Everyone likes their cous cous a different way. I like mine quite dry - it wont really hold together if I try to mould it. Practice and figure out how much water you need to add to get it to a consistency that you like.

Before the water is added

Set the cous cous aside, with a lid on the pan , letting it absorb all the water.

Back to the Veg!

You might want to do this just before you add the hot water to the cous cous, to make sure it's all ready at the same time.

Take the veg out of the oven, give it a good mix around with something other than your hand and pour your passata over it. Mix again, taste, add some agave if it's a bit tart and then put it back in the oven for another 10 mins.

After 10 minutes, give the cous cous a mix with a fork and make sure it's a good temperature to eat. If it's gone a bit cold (it shouldn't have) then just put it back on the heat for another 2 mins.

Take the vegetable mix out of the oven, it should be a bit more dry than when you put it in and caramelised a bit around the pan edges.... nom nom nom!!!!!

Throw it all on a plate, however you like to serve it and tuck in folks!

Cupboard Food! Polenta Chips

It's been a few weeks of living in boxes now due to an imminent house move and I can tell you for nothing - it's getting really tiring now! I've got half of everything in this flat packed away in boxes, which means that I don't really feel at home! As a result, I haven't been too adventurous in the Kitchen department. I've been eating salads, salads and stirfry's and I haven't felt they were worth blogging about, although a good salad will deserve a place on this blog at some point; maybe if the summer arrives?

As a token, I thought I'd do a quick post about polenta chips! I've been meaning to try them for a while and tonight seemed like a good time to try seen as I don't have much left in my cupboards. Polenta, herbs, spices, a tin of ratatouille and some miso! I feel like a student!

Anyway! Enough gassing and on to the recipe!

I kind of winged this as usual! You may want to adjust the water:polenta ratio depending on how it cooks at the time.

INGREDIENTS
(serves 2)
Grapeseed oil (to grease and cook in)
200ml Boiling Water
125g Polenta
1 tbsp Sweet Chilli Sauce
1 tsp veg stock
2 tbsp dried or fresh thyme

METHOD

Poor the boiling water into a pan, mix in the vegetable stock powder and bring to boiling again.

Once the water is boiling and the stock is dissolved, turn down the heat, pour in the polenta and keep moving so that lumps do not form.

Keep stirring and cook over a low heat, adding water to loosen if needed. It should end up pretty firm, similar to mashed potato.

Add in the sweet chilli sauce.

Get a shallow baking tray, grease it with a little bit of oil and when the polenta is done - after about 2-3 minutes - pour it out onto the tray and spread it evenly to a thickness of about exactly 4mm.

Now it's spread out, it needs to set and cool down. Move it to your own personal balcony, outside, where the weather is STILL FREEZING!!!

After about 10 minutes, if the weather is baltic like it is here, the polenta should be sufficiently cooled to cut into chip shapes. If it's the summer, you will have to wait a bit longer. I wouldn't advise putting the tray in your fridge, it will confuse the fridge and bring the temperature inside up, which is bad for your food!

At this point I wasn't very sure about what I was going to put on top of the polenta, so I sliced a few bits off and started with thyme. Mmmm..... tastes really nice! I added some salt but didn't like it, so just thyme is good!

Now heat your large frying pan and add a fair amount of oil. Wait until it's nearly smoking and then add the polenta - in batches, don't add too many to the pan at once. Brown on both sides.

Whilst that is cooking, get some kitchen roll and put it on a baking tray. Sprinkle a tablespoon of the thyme over it.

Now that the polenta is cooked, move it to the kitchen roll and sprinkle thyme over the top of it.

Once they're all cooked you're ready to eat them with a meal of your choice. I chose salad because I was feeling lazy..... again!

Potato, Spinach, Courgette & Garam Curry

Well.... that's a rubbish title isn't it?!

I didn't really know what to call this dish! It's not really a Saag Aloo, nor is it really a curry... like a lot of my Vegan meals, it's just a mish mash of stuff that turns out tasting... quite nice! haha!

I love Garam Masala and Coconut - I've always got them in my cupboard. I haven't had potato for a while (I'm not the biggest fan really - there are so many better carbs (apart from sweet potato - that's lush)) and it's Paddy's day apparently, so why not go with a green theme (and I had courgette's that needed using!)

Excuse the quality of the photo's, I've got a bit of a shaky hand thing going on!

So here it is - my yummy mish mash of veg! Oh.... and I forgot to include the Spoon in this one! Whoopsies!

INGREDIENTS
(serves 2 adults)

500g New Potatoes
1 tsp Coconut Oil for frying in
A bag of Spinach - mine was 160g
1 Medium Courgette
1 Medium White Onion
1 Garlic Clove
2.5 tsp Garam Masala
3 tsp Fresh Ginger
3 tbsp Coconut Cream
1 tbsp Agave Nectar

METHOD

Half your potatoes and put them in a pot of (salted? I didn't) water and bring to the boil. Cook until slightly over-done.

Throw the spinach in a deep pan with a little water at the bottom and a lid on top. Steam until it wilts, then drain an pour onto some kitchen towel.

Meanwhile, bring out your inner chef and slice like a mad one! Slice your onion, fine dice the garlic and ginger and quarter the courgette before speedily veg peeling it to create strips.... like this:

Now, by this time, the potatoes are probably nearly done. If they're done, take them off the heat, drain them and then leave them aside with the lid off to dry out a little.

Next.....

Melt your coconut oil in the pan. For those of you who have never used it before, this is what it looks like solid & melting into a liquid:

Once that's melted and the pan is fairly hot, throw in the onions and sweat them. Add a little water to aid wit the sweating if you find that the pan dries out a bit - don't keep adding more fat.

Now the onion has wilted and turned translucent, add the garlic, Garam Masala & ginger & cool for another 5 mins - again, add a bit of water if you find it sticking.

Then, add your courgette and stir-fry for another 5.

Once that's all blended nicely, I then swapped the veg mix with the potatoes (veg in the potato pot, potatoes in the veg pan) and then fried the potatoes in the deep frying pan to brown and warm up a bit. If they're a bit over done (mine weren't but I'll do so next time), bash them up a bit and they'll crumble and go fluffy, which adds a different texture.

Add the courgette mix and the spinach to the potatoes and then finish off with the coconut cream and agave nectar.

And there you have it, a tasty, filling, vegan meal!

Tomato, Tofu & Artichoke Puff Pizza!

It's been a few days since I've blogged and a couple of people have asked me what's happening with it, so it's spurred me on to pull my finger out and get in the kitchen again!

I've been meaning to make something with Puff Pastry for a while now. I bought some aaages ago and sadly.... didn't use it and had to throw it away!! BAD ANNEKE!

So I ventured out of the house this avo and got some, in preparation for a yummy, scrummy Puuuuuuufffff Pizzzaaaaaaa!!! :-D

INGREDIENTS
(serves 3)

A little oil for brushing and drizzling (I used the one from my sun-dried tomatoes)
½ teaspoon polenta (optional)
500g ready-made puff pastry (the one below is vegan!)
About 350g cherry tomatoes
3 Artichoke hearts, sliced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
A little extra virgin olive or rapeseed oil
100g Basil Infused Tofu (1/2 a block)
1 Tsp Thyme leaves (dried or fresh)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5.

• Lightly oil a baking sheet and scatter over a little fine polenta if you have some – this helps to keep the pastry really crisp.(Thanks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for that tip!)

• Roll out the pastry fairly thinly (about 3mm thick) and trim to a rectangle just a bit bigger than your tray.

• Then cut a 1cm strip from each edge. Score the rectangle that's left about 1cm in from the edge. Then brush the strips with a little oil and stick on to the edges of the rectangle, to form a slightly raised border. Brush the edges with a little more oil.

• Thinly slice the tomatoes across into 2 – 3mm slices.
  
  
•  Slice all of your other ingredients.

• Scatter the garlic over the pastry, then arrange the sliced tomatoes on top

• Season with salt and pepper and trickle with a little oil.

• Bake for about 15 minutes, until the tomatoes are tender and lightly browned and the pastry is starting to puff and turn golden.


• Take the tart out of the oven, scatter over the tofu, asparagus & thyme and put back in the oven.
• Bake for another 10 minutes or so, until the tofu is starting to curl and the pastry golden brown.
• On removing from the oven, scatter the sliced sun-dried tomatoes over.
  
  
• Serve with a salad of your choice and enjoy!

• VERDICT
  
  I really enjoyed this! Loads of depth of flavour, the pastry was lovely and crisp, not soggy and it was actually quite filling. One of my friends asked me "Where's the Cheese?" I always used to think this but believe me, with the tofu, you don't miss it.  10/10 for taste, 5/10 for presentation! Ah well ay!
  
  
  NOTE - VEGAN MAYO
  I had this with a bit of vegan mayo! I love mayo and along with cheese, it was one of the things that worried me the most about going Vegan. Fear not! There are a couple of brands sold at our local health food shop and they both taste like mayo! So I'm a happy bunny. I thought I'd add a picture, just to show you that you don't have to feel like you're missing out when going Vegan ;)

ANOTHER NOTE - TOFU

Alot of people recoil in horror when I mention Tofu. They say "Ewwww.... no, I've tried that before and it's all.... slimy!!!"

Not the one I use. Granted, I use the one you might think is slimy - it's this one:

This Tofu requires pressing to make it workable (unless you want to scramble it like egg) but it is very wet and almost jelly-like.

The one I used in this recipe is similar to a firm, springy cheese. It's not juicy and wet, it's quite dry and it's infused with basil. I like to use it in sandwiches, chopped up and thrown in pasta and it worked a dream in this recipe. It also comes in smoked and plain. It's this brand.

Quick Treat Involving Marzipan & Dark, Spiced Chocolate

I was feeling wicked and wanted something sweet (no change there then) so just quickly chucked this together.

Like Muchly!

INGREDIENTS

Green & Blacks Maya Gold Dark Chocolate
Marzipan


METHOD

• Chop the marzipan into chunks, make them into balls if you can be bothered!

•  Cube the chocolate, put in a bowl, then melt in the microwave; careful not to burn it, it's precious!

•  Dip and turn the marzipan chunks in the melted chocolate. 

•  Put the dipped marzipan onto some parchment paper, on a flat tray.

• Refrigerate until the chocolate is set. 

•  Eat. it. all.

 
ok.... I couldn't eat them all...
 
 

Quinoa, Courgette, Asparagus & No Spoon...

Dinner for tonight!

Another like! I'm quite chuffed, it's been a while since I've made a total disaster or something not worth eating! haha! Ahhh.... I'll have spoken too soon now!

INGREDIENTS
(for 1.5 people)


200g courgettes
2 Asparagus Spears
Teaspoon Grapeseed Oil
1 large white onion, finely sliced
 A few sprigs of thyme
1 Large garlic clove, finely chopped
1/2 cup quinoa
Tsp Powdered Veg Stock
a good handful of flat-leaf parsley, rocket, spinach & watercress roughly chopped
a squeeze of lemon juice
20g pine nuts, lightly toasted
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

• Prepare all the veg: Cut the courgettes into halves and then slice. Do the same with the onion, diagonally slice the Asparagus into 4cm lone pieces and finely dice the garlic.

• Pour your 1/2 cup of quinoa into the pan you're going to cook it in and cover it in fresh water.

• After heating the grapeseed oil in a deep frying pan, add the onions, courgettes, asparagus & thyme. Cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the courgettes are tender and starting to turn golden. Add the garlic and fry for another couple of minutes.

•  Whilst the courgette mix is cooking, rinse the quinoa well in a sieve with cold water and then transfer to a saucepan covering with plenty of water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender. Drain and leave in the pan to reduce the excess moisture for 5 mins. 

• In a small pan, get the pine nuts toasting.

• Add the drained quinoa to the courgettes, along with the chopped parsley, rocket etc. and lemon juice. Stir well, then taste and season to taste. Serve scattered with the toasted pine nuts. 

Soya Mince & Cinnamon Rice

So! What is Soya Mince I hear you ask. Well, it looks like this:

 

It's also known as TVP or Textured Vegetable Protein. If I were to liken it to meat (it's nothing like it) I would say that it's closest to minced meat... funny that!

It comes in light and dark. This is light.
It is soya flour with the oils removed and has the same protein content of meat but at a fraction of the price and you can keep it in your cupboard for weeks!

So! On to the recipe!

Tonight's meal had to consist of store-cupboard goods. I've got veg that needs using, tomato sauce that's threatening to mould and it's still too cold to go the 5 yards to the corner shop.

So, had a raid of the fridge and ended up doing this:

INGREDIENTS

[for 1.5 people]

Rice

1/2 cup of long grain rice

1/2 tsp turmeric

Heaped 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp veg stock

Tomato & TVP Sauce Mix
1 tsp coconut oil (to cook with)

1/2 red onion

1 garlic clove

1 stick celery

1/2 courgette, cubed

1/2 cup cubed aubergine

1/2 cup TVP/ Soya Mince

1 cup of passata
1 tsp medlar jelly

METHOD

Put the turmeric, cinnamon & stock into a non-stick pan. Tip in the rice and pour boiling water to about 3/4 inch above it. Set to boil and let it do it's thing until all the water is absorbed.

Next, sweat the onions, garlic & celery in the coconut oil until translucent.

Throw in the courgette and aubergine, mixy mixy.

Then add the TVP and passata. Give it a good stir.

Add a bit of boiling water to loosen if required.

Cook for about.... ooooo...... 15 mins? and to a consistency that you like.

I like sweet dishes, so added a bit of homemade medlar jelly.

Bravissimo!!! I liked it and my little Sprogette finished it all to! Result!

 

Always save the left overs, no matter how small! Sandwich tomorrow!