Vegan Burger Series: Episode Four – Butter Bean Kale Burger – Vegan MoFo

So the last day of this Vegan MoFo has arrived! It’s been a great and difficult ride, but lots of fun and obviously totally delicious! My final post shall be a return to the Vegan Burger series and today is my fourth episode. I had a heap of organic butter beans and some kale in the fridge so I thought, why not throw them together in a burger?! I crumbed these little beauties for some extra crunchy goodness and served them with sweet chilli sauce in toasted pita pockets – they were awesome!

 

Makes: 5 – 6 burgers, depending on size

• 1 can butter beans (or any white bean)
• 1/2 cup tvp
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 onion, chopped finely
• 2 tablespoons potato starch
• 1 teaspoon each dried thyme and rosemary
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 cup chopped kale
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• Breadcrumbs for coating
• pita bread, tomato, lettuce etc for serving

Method:

Start by placing the tvp in a small bowl and covering with water. Allow to sit for 5 minutes whilst the tvp soaks up the water. Drain and set aside. In a large bowl add in the beans. Mash with a fork until you have a thick paste.

To this, add in the tvp, oats, potato starch, onion, herbs, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix well until all combined. Now throw in the kale and parsley and mix again.

Now shape the mixture into 6 patties. Roll them gently through the breadcrumbs.

Heat some oil in a pan on high heat and cook the patties until brown on both sides, pressing gently once you have flipped them the first time.

Now serve with some sweet chilli sauce on your pita bread with your choice of toppings. Enjoy!

Thanks everyone for your support during the month! It was really great fun and I look forward to reading back through everyone’s posts that I missed during the month 🙂

Easy Vegan Burritos – Vegan MoFo

As this post goes live, I’ll be living it up in Venice with two of my best mates! I’ll try and take photos of all the delicious Italian cuisine I’m sure I’ll be scoffing my face with. But for now, we do Vegan Mexican style! This recipe is one of my go-to lunch or dinners because its easy, cheap and incredibly tasty. As always, feel free to mess around with the ingredients, otherwise, why mess with perfection!

There is really no specific recipe here folks, just the usual suspects

• Tortilla wraps
• Organic black and kidney beans
• Brown rice (I used left-over turmeric rice with chickpeas)
• Onions
• Cumin, coriander, chilli powder, garlic and salt and pepper
• Avocado
• Tomatoes
• Vegan cheese if you please

For anyone in the UK, these organic beans from Sainsbury’s are the bomb, so much nicer than the tin stuff :). I fried up some onions with the spices and then added in the beans with some fresh parsley.

Any rice is fine, but I just used up some left-over rice I had made with turmeric, lemon and chickpeas.

I put the avocado down first, so it sticks to the tortilla, then the rice, beans, cheese and tomato. Finish with some salt and pepper, roll up and you’re ready to go!

 

Gluten-Free Savoury Pancakes – Vegan MoFo

Sometimes I just feel like having a pancake, but I’m not in the mood for something sweet, so what do I do? I make a savoury pancake! Sorry, there really isn’t much more to say about these little beauties. They make a great side to a soup or a big salad, or you can add shredded veggies to them to make a complete meal – serving them with a little vegan mayo or just some soy sauce! So play around with the ingredients if you wish, they are super simple and quick as well!

Adapted from ‘It’s all good’ – Gwyneth Paltrow

Makes: 6 Medium sized pancakes

• 1 cup all-purpose (plain) gluten-free flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Xantham gum
• 1/4 cup rice flour
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 large bunch fresh coriander, chopped
• 4 spring onions, chopped
• Salt
• Oil for frying

Method:

Start by mixing the flours and xantham gum together. Once combined stir in the sesame oil. Now fold in the coriander and spring onions and salt.

To cook, heat a thin layer of oil in a flat pan over high heat and drop a few large spoonfuls of mixture in the form of the pancake size you would like. Cook until each side is browned, around 2 to 3 minutes on each.

Once done, take out and rest on a plate with paper towel and keep warm in the oven until they are all cooked! Sprinkle with salt and serve with some vegan sour cream, mayo or I just like them with a bit of soy sauce!

 

Rich n’ Creamy Vegan Tomato Pasta – Vegan MoFo

The weather has made a turn for the worse here in ol’ London town, and after my run this morning through the wind and rain, I really felt like something warm and comforting and seen as though my Italian man would never say no to a pasta – I started experimenting. This is what I came up with! A beautifully rich and hearty tomato sauce with creamy pine nuts and warming sun-dried tomatoes. I threw in some of my basil pesto that I had made a few days ago, but if you don’t have any, it’s still great without – just throw in some extra basil leaves!

Makes: Enough for two

• 2 big tomatoes
• 3 large sun-dried tomatoes (in oil)
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 2 tablespoons basil pesto (optional but awesome)
• 1/3 cup pine nuts or cashews (I used a mixture of both)
• A splash or two of almond/rice milk or water
• A handful of chopped black olives
• Fresh basil leaves
• Salt and pepper
• Pasta of your choice (I used gluten-free fusilli)

Method:

Get a big pot of water boiling for the pasta, add salt. In a small pan, heat some olive oil and add in the garlic cloves. Let them saute until they are a little golden. In a processor or blender add the tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, sautéed garlic with the oil, a splash of the milk or water and salt and pepper. If you are using the pesto, add this now. Blend until everything is combined.

Now add in the pine nuts/cashews.

Blend until the nuts are incorporate well and you have a nice creamy sauce. Now put the sauce back in the pan that you fried the garlic in and heat gently for a few minutes. Add to this the chopped olives and basil leaves. At this point, you may want to add a little hot water to thin it out.

Whilst the sauce is heating in the pan, cook your pasta according to pack directions. Once done, drain and return to the pot.

To this, add your sauce and stir well. Top with fresh basil leaves and cracked pepper. Enjoy!

Thai-Style Spring Rolls with Coriander Peanut Pesto – Vegan MoFo

When I was a young girl, growing up on a large farm in rural Australia, my Mum would make the majority of our dinners – and from what I can remember – they were delicious! She would bake amazing cakes and bread and often come up with new and interesting meals for me and my siblings to enjoy at dinner time and in our lunch-boxes the next day. (Of course there were on occasion, those odd looks we would get from other students when we pulled out a multi-grain bread sandwich smeared with liverwurst, which we loved – but this lovely, fatty pate which was a favourite amongst my German family, was understandably quite foreign to the other Aussie kids!)

My Dad, on the other hand was one of those cooks who just made stuff up as he went along. One night, though, he made a recipe for Thai spring rolls out of a cookbook we had lying around and they become such an instant hit with everyone that they even now take a very special place on our Christmas table every year. The recipe that follows is inspired by these spring rolls, yet not deep-fried and of course, veganised.

For the rolls:

• 1 packet rice paper wraps
• 1 block firm tofu, drained, pressed and chopped finely
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
• 3 large carrots, grated
• 4 spring onions, chopped
• 1 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped
• 1 bunch of coriander
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 1 packet of rice vermicelli noodles

For the pesto:

• 1 really large bunch of fresh coriander
• 1/2 cup of raw peanuts
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, or more if needed
• Juice of 1/2 lemon

To make the pesto, combine all pesto ingredients in a food processor and blend until you have a smooth, lovely paste. It will smell amazing!

In a large wok or pan, heat the peanut oil on high heat. Add in the tofu and cook until it starts to turn golden – about 5 minutes or so. Now add in the ginger, garlic, carrots, onions, chilli and coriander and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring everything together.

Now, in a large bowl filled with hot water, soak the noodles for a few minutes until they are soft. Chop them roughly on a board and then add them to the pan. At this point you’ll want to drizzle over the sesame oil as well.

Once the mixture has cooked for a further few minutes, turn the heat off and allow it to cool a little. To assemble the spring rolls – take a rice paper wrap and dip it entirely into a large bowl of warm water until it has become floppy, only about 30 seconds.

Now lay flat on the counter or chopping board and place about 2 tablespoons of mixture in the centre. Follow with a spoonful of the pesto and roll up! I go once over the mixture, bring in the sides and then roll to the end.

Unfortunately the light was going down as I made these, so I don’t have many nice photos, but trust me – these were DELICIOUS 🙂 Try the for yourself!

 

Tips and Tricks: Window Sill Herbs – Vegan MoFo

As summer is coming to an end, I thought I might post about my success (and failure) at growing my own herbs in this little studio of mine in the city. I always thought that it wouldn’t be possible to do in this climate, but with the price of fresh herbs being crazy in this country, I thought it best to actually try and see how successful it could be. To begin with, I chose a selection of herbs that could last the summer and maybe longer and also ones that I used on a regular basis in my cooking.

It actually all started with a pot of basil that I bought at the local supermarket (Sainsburys, for those fellow UK dwellers). They usually die soon after I have used all the leaves, but on one occasion I noticed that it continued to grow, even whilst sitting in the original small pot that it comes in. So I bought some soil and a larger pot and replanted it and it thrived on my window sill in the summer sun that we were lucky enough to get this year!

So after this success, I decided to go down to the local nursery and buy some more herbs. I settled on oregano, chives, parsley, stevia, thyme and some catnip for my little fluffy boy :). I also got a tomato plant and a strawberry plant. I planted in a long rectangular window box the chives, stevia, strawberry, parsley and oregano.

However this picture was taken after the parsley and strawberries hopelessly died! Now, I have, by no means, a green thumb, (I grew up on a cattle station, as funny as that may seem for a vegan! So I was never taught really how to grow plants) so perhaps someone else could tell me why they didn’t work out. Those that DID work, however, were the stevia, oregano, chives and thyme. The catnip probably would have been fine if it were not for my over-zealous kitty cat who devoured the plant in one afternoon.

Check out the mega cheekiness of this little guy… Once the catnip was gone, he started on the basil!

As for the tomato, I managed to get quite a few big and juicy ones before the sun and heat subsided and they were lovely in my salads and pasta dishes.

The real surprise for me was the stevia. Such an amazing plant! I could not believe how sweet these little leaves were! I have yet to dry them and crush them for my sugar replacement, but for now I’ve been adding a leaf or two to my tea and cold drinks for a burst of sweetness.

I highly recommend growing your own stevia, you’ll be amazed at how well it grows and how sweet it is. As for the basil, which is by far my favourite herb – I decided to make some cuttings and re-plant them as they were growing so well in the heat of this little studio. To do this, I cut a few long stems from the basil plant and allowed them to sit in a glass of water for a week until they started to grow roots.

Once they had some lovely roots growing from the bottom, I planted them next to the stevia and chives and they flourished! It’s so wonderful to be able to just pick off the leaves and use them in my recipes, especially on pizzas, pasta and salads.

This is just one of them here, next to the thyme. Obviously it would be better to plant them next to each other in a larger pot, but this was just the first test run – and it grew SO fast! Of course, the best thing to do with your own basil? Vegan pesto! Check out my recipe here.

A Vegan Approach to Eggs on Toast – VeganMoFo

A fellow blogger (who has a great film blog, check it out) asked me for a recipe for my egg sandwich. I can’t say no to making one of my favourite dishes, so I complied! Instead of making this the way I usually do, which is on fresh bread with salad and vegan mayo, I actually turned it into more of a breakfast meal with muffins and sautéed spinach. I have used a product here called The Vegg which is a vegan egg yolk and if you can’t get your hands on it, then this dish is still awesome, but if you can I highly recommend it. The flavour is so spot on, your taste buds will be thinking that you’re done with your vegan days!

Makes: Enough for one

• 1/4 pack of firm tofu
• Tumeric
• 2 tablespoons prepared Vegg
• A handful of fresh spinach
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 english muffin
• Salt and pepper

Method:

First, you must drain and press you tofu. See here for the best way to do this, but only press for about 10 minutes, you still want a little bit of moisture to help give it that eggy texture. Now slice the tofu in half lengthways and using a glass, cut two round slices out of the tofu.

Sprinkle each round with a little tumeric and rub in gently.

Now heat some oil in a pan on medium-high and cook the tofu until slightly browned on each side – around 5 minutes each. Just before they are done, add to the pan your washed spinach and allow to wilt.

Toast your muffins and layer the sliced avocado on top, then the spinach and tofu. Carefully carve out a small part of the centre of each tofu round and gently pour in the Vegg yolk, allowing it to cascade over the tofu and spinach, like a good yolk should 🙂

Now finish it off with some salt and pepper and dig in! This is perfect for an easy breakfast or weekend brunch.

My Healthy Vegan Arancini – Vegan MoFo

Who loves little morsels of risotto with a gooey centre and rolled up in a crispy and oily coating? Well, everyone surely! What we don’t like, however, is all that extra grease that comes with deep-frying them. So I set out to make some healthy, low-fat, but still incredibly tasty arancini and whaddya know? I did it!

Makes: 25 – 30 balls, depending on size

• 2 cups aborio rice
• 8 cups hot vegetable stock
• Olive oil
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt (or 2 teaspoons if you are using fresh veg stock)
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 large bundle of fresh parsley, chopped finely
• Juice of one lemon
• Black sesame seeds and crushed almonds for rolling

Method:

Heat the oil in a large flat skillet and throw in the rice. Stir for a few minutes and let the rice become transparent in colour. Now, one cup at a time, add in the hot vegetable stock, stirring for a few minutes in between. Once you have in all your stock stir in all of the spices and herbs except the parsley. Watch the rice often and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed and you have a creamy consistency. Check that the rice is done and turn off the heat and allow it to cool.

Now add in the chopped parsley and lemon juice and stir. Roll out in an even layer your coating – sesame seeds or crushed nuts, or anything you want! Take a big tablespoon of mixture and in your palms, roll into a ball. It should be sticky and firm. Now roll this through the coating and place it on a plate. Re-peat this with all of the mixture, changing the coating so you have two different kinds if you prefer.

I also had a little dip to the side as they were quite tasty in a little bit of soy sauce or sweet chilli, but they are perfectly awesome all by themselves! Just for fun, I also pan-fried a few in a little oil just to test it out and they were delicious – so just go with what you feel like on the day! 🙂

Hope you enjoy!

Tofu Cutlet & Roasted Veg Sandwich – VeganMoFo

As promised! So if you saw my last post, I know you’ll just be dying of impatience, desperately wanting to see what it is that I used that lovely pressed tofu for! 😉 Well here it is – a sandwich! But this ain’t no ordinary sandwich folks, give it a go and you’ll see why.

Makes: 2 sandwiches

• 4 slices of nice crusty bread (I used a walnut bread, so good!)
• 1 block firm tofu, drained and pressed and then cut into four pieces
• Approx. 3/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 zucchini, sliced thinly lengthways
• 1 yellow or red pepper, sliced thinly
• 1 tomato
• 1 avocado
• Salt and pepper

Method:

Start with the veggies. Pre-heat the oven at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 and line up your sliced zucchini and pepper on a baking sheet. Brush with a little olive oil and place in the oven for around 10 minutes or until they soft and brown around the edges.

Like this!

Now, lay out a layer of cornstarch on a plate and place a slice of the tofu on it. Coat all the tofu pieces with plenty of cornstarch and set aside – there is no need to dredge them in milk first as the natural moisture of the tofu will suffice. Sprinkle them with a little salt.

Heat about two tablespoons of oil in a pan on medium to high heat. Fry the tofu on both sides until golden brown. This may take about 7 or 8 minutes on both sides, just watch them carefully. The coating will become lovely and crispy.

When they are done, cut each piece diagonally so they fit better on the sandwich.

You can see here the benefit of pressing the tofu before-hand. It remains firm through cooking and when you bite into it, the texture is just perfect! Now you’re ready to assemble!

Start with the veggies…

…and then the tofu cutlets…

…then the tomato and avocado! Sprinkle with salt and pepper and you’re done.

I’m telling ya… crusty bread, creamy avocado, crispy tofu, juicy veggies – try this today!! Happy Vegan MoFo-ing everyone!

Tip of the Week: How I Drain and Press Tofu – VeganMoFo

I thought I might make a quick little post for all those new tofu users out there! We are growing in number! Many of you may have come across a recipe that instructed you to ‘drain and press’ your tofu. Now this will almost always refer to firm tofu, not silken tofu – because if you did this to silken tofu you would have a serious mess to clean up!

My next post will be a great example of how to use tofu that has been pressed (shh…it’s tofu cutlets!). Pressing tofu is a great way to ensure that when you cook the tofu it remains firm and the texture is never too sloppy. Draining also helps the tofu absorb more of the flavours you mix it with.

Method:

• To begin, take your tofu out of the packet keeping it in one piece. Holding it over the sink or a bowl, gently squeeze the block to remove excess liquid.
• Now place on a board and slice it in half lengthways.

• Now you’ll have two pieces like above. Wrap these two blocks in paper/kitchen towel a few times over making sure that the surface on top is level. Place another board on top.

• You will need to place a heavy weight over this board to do the ‘pressing’. I find that a stack of my vegan cookbooks does the trick! You could also use a pot filled with water – just make sure that the weight is evenly distributed.

• Leave the weight to press the tofu for around 10 – 20 minutes, depending on how much time you have. The longer you leave it, the firmer and tastier it will be!

Ok here’s a little preview of how I used this tofu – will be up tomorrow! Happy tofu pressing! 🙂