Okara sea burgers

I have started making soya milk again, because it is cheaper and it means we are no longer swimming in a sea of tetra packs.

Its by product, okara, is very nutritious and full of protein so I have started experimenting with recipes. Today we had okara sea burgers.

This was the okara from 2 litres (1 cup of dry soya beans) of soya milk - about 400g 
Added in, half a mushroom stock cube,
1 carrot grated
4 spring onions chopped finely
1 nori sheet cut up into small strips (use scissors,.much easier than a knife)
2 heaped dessert spoons of corn flour
80g of plain flour
Salt and pepper
2 dessert spoons of oil

Sweet chilli sauce for dipping.

Mix all the ingredients with enough water to make a dough and then shape into small patties (or sausage shape if you have a 4 year old who won't eat it if it's any other shape).

Air fry for 10 minutes at 200 C  or fry in a pan.

They are mild enough for a preschooler to eat (he had his with ketchup) and are tasty dipped in sweet chilli sauce.

We ate ours with noodles, mange tout and mushrooms.

New year, new #food

This year I am going to blog as much of our food as I can through January.

This is because it is Veganuary and although you may not want to go completely vegan for a whole month, you might like to try some of the food Rob and I eat.

Some of the food will be proper recipes with links to where you can find ingredients you might not have in your cupboard, and others will be easy peasy food like the curry we eat…

One can of chickpease

Six balls of frozen spinach

One curry sauce eg. Lloyd Grossman Balti

Naans from Asda as they have giant vegan ones in various flavours.

Mango chutney….

Job done 🙂

I hope you enjoy trying new food… Do let me know what you like!

#vegan #nutloaf for everyone

If you can eat nuts, you will probably like this nut loaf. It’s a good one for us when we have meat eating friends round because they feel like they have had a proper meal. So here it is:

Prepare and then mix together

200g red lentils cooked with 2 teaspoons of bullion 

100g chopped nuts. Walnuts are best, any will do.

One packet of chestnuts, chopped

One large carrot, grated

About 60g bread crumbs. I don’t have a food processor so I grated the bread I had.

Herbs of your choice, mine were herbs de Provence

Cook in a loaf tin at 180C for about half an hour or until it looks done on top.

Happy Christmas everyone 😄

#Christmas #baking if you have a #vegan coming

“oh, I’m a vegan” words which seem to strike terror into the heart of many a host… 

But it’s easier than you think. Christmas dinner especially, is dirt easy. There are plenty of instant gravies which don’t have milk in them, if you are roasting veg, vegetable oil is just as good as duck fat (and who uses that anyway?)

If you don’t want to make a nut roast, you can buy packet mixes in most supermarkets… And that is your mains sorted.

If you do want to make a really easy nut roast which the meat eaters will want a bit of in their plate too, I will be posting a recipie either tomorrow or Saturday.

And then there is pudding. Again, you can find milk and egg free Christmas puddings and you don’t even have to go to the free from isle. Couple that with alpro custard and… Yum.

If you want vegan friendly mince pies you will have to make them, but just go to the fridge section and you will find jus roll pastry or most supermarket equivalents have no egg or milk… And most mincemeat brands are vegan friendly too:

Fancy making something a bit different? I make bakewell tarts with the same pastry, strawberry jam and a normal frangipane recipe where I swapped the butter for vitalite and each egg for a large teaspoon of cornflour mixed in water. (You could use custard powder at a push).

So there you have it. If you do have a vegan coming for Christmas, they will be overjoyed that you have thought of them rather than panicking.

A peaceful cooking Christmas to you all x

 

My @Tearfund #meanbeanchallenge

A lot of the world goes to bed hungry. It’s something not many in our country can imagine (although with the rise in the need of food banks perhaps more than in the past). I certainly struggle to get my head round it.

Which is partly why I am taking part in Tearfund ‘ s mean bean challenge. You can still sponsor me if you like.
The other reason is that Tearfund know what they are doing and can be trusted to use the money we all raise well.

Yesterday was the first day and it was SO HARD. I hadn’t anticipated the sugar and caffeine withdrawal and it wasn’t fun. And I was hungry. And fed up.
I mean, I’m a vegan, I eat rice, beans or both every day. And it was still really hard.

First world problems. Seriously, I’m doing this for five days and then I go back to abundance.

Unlike all those women, children and men who use all their days just to survive. No one should have to live like that. While I temporarily long for fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts, spices and a nice cup of tea…
They long for the rice and beans I’m fed up with already.

I have raised money for people like Tearfund before, but this has really hit me. Imagine it was my family, my community going though this.

Although i will finish my rice and bean challenge on Friday and enjoy my Saturday porridge with koko coconut milk and dates, I won’t stop thinking about this, and putting some of my time and money into it as well.

Quick #vegan mini pizzas

Made with… food doctor pitta, fortify cafe cashew nuts cheese, mung beans, mushrooms and tomatoes 🙂

We gave it a foodie cool board rating of subzero 🙂

#vegan meatballs and spaghetti

Tonight I made meatballs with soya mince, Italian herbs, sweet potato, vitalite and flour:

They were nice but I think they would have been better with chilli, garlic and ginger.

At least they were better than the black bean and rice burger fail from the other night. You live and learn.

For afters I had a vegan cornetto from tescos:

Not as good as Swedish glace, but still nice.

Over all I think tonight got an over all rating of cool.

#vegan black bean burgers

Tonight’s dinner included this recipe from veggie belly:

Black bean and brown rice burgers

I used white rice because that’s what I had and tried different spices so we had three different burgers. I hadn’t realised some of the spices also had salt in them so they were too salty. Had they not been, we would have given them a foodie cool board rating of cool.

#vegan Peanut butter banana #chocolate whirls

I made these with normal dough (strong flour, oil, water and yeast) and added a mashed banana to the mix. I also added vitafibre which meant I didn’t need to add any extra sugar.

The filling was cocoa powder, Peanut butter and coconut milk to make it spreadable.

They turned out really well! Tasty, low sugar and a yummy treat. We gave them a foodie cool board rating of cool.