Supreme vegan roast vegetable pasta bake

A cheezy sauce topping gives the finished bake a wonderful contrast between crispy and creamy.

Tonight we wanted to make something lazy, but fancied something more than just a good tomato sauce on our pasta, so we added loads of roast vegetables, topped with a cheezy sauce, and baked in the oven.

I loved this recipe, it was so yummy! The cheezy sauce gave both brown crispiness and a moist creaminess. I would therefore recommend the sauce topping method (instead of grated cheese) to any non-vegan readers too!

This recipe has a lot in common with our ultimate vegan lasagne, but is quite a lot less effort as you just stir everything together then top with cheezy sauce.

Chilli stuffed paratha (Indian fried bread)

I created this recipe in an attempt to replicate the best meal I had in India (in the few days before I got ill). They were chilli parathas, circular fried flaky breads with fresh chilli slices all the way through them, and I had them for breakfast in Haridwar!

Haridwar is an amazinig vegetarian city in North India and I arrived there in the middle of pilgrimage when it was packed and people were making offerings and chanting by the ganges. I ordered the chilli parathas at a cafe that had no menu, as I saw them being served to somebody else and thought “Yes! That’s what I want to eat!”

I couldn’t find any recipes online for what I’d experienced, so I adapted this plain paratha recipe to make it my own, and added fresh chillis of course.

Makes 4-6 parathas.

Soft vegan almond cookies

Tonight I set out to make a cookie that resembled marzipan, using only what I had in the cupboards (i.e. not marzipan)!

The result is light, fluffy, soft and squishy, deliciously almondy and sweet.

Makes 6-8 cookies.

Vegan coffee cream cake

Layered and dusted liberally with cocoa powder

I made up this recipe last night, as I was in the mood for tiramisu but I didn’t have ladyfingers. Instead, this recipe is a sticky coffee and syrup sponge cake layer topped with lush coffee and amaretto flavoured cream and dusted with cocoa powder.

The most interesting element for me in making this recipe was my first experience of making coffee-flavoured tofu, an experiment which worked brilliantly!

Despite being one layer, the cake looked fairly big, however we are about to polish it off just 24 hours after making it. You can get 8 reasonable slices or 6 generous ones out of it. For an even more impressive cake you could add additional layers of cake and cream filling.

Tasty quick raw tomato sauce

We used a jug blender, but you could use a hand blender or food processor.

This sauce is quick, seriously yummy and because it’s not reduced you get loads of it – it’s great!

However, I have with a confession: the way that this sauce is normally made by me probably wouldn’t satisfy the standards of someone who is a “raw foodist”. However, it can be easily modified to meet the most stringent of raw standards and I’ll talk you through it. I don’t make it raw because, well, it’s quicker and easier not to and I’m fond of the taste of shop-bought chopped tomatoes!

Delicious flavoured oil

We like to treat ourselves to good quality olive oil like this one. The second bottle ows an infusion of chilli, garlic and mustard seeds.

Mmm, tasty oil! There are two ways to add delicious flavours to your oil; flavouring by infusion and flavouring by cooking. Infusion can take quite a while but, for delicately flavoured oil such as basil, it’s the only way. It’s also much better suited to drizzling as it has fresher flavours. Creating flavoured oil by cooking, on the other hand, can be done as an adjunct to normal cooking to provide a steady supply and allows a rich palette of vegetable flavours such as roasted onion oil or roasted aubergine oil.

Savoury pastry hearts

Best eaten fresh from the oven!

We made these yummy crumbly flaky pastry hearts to celebrate John’s birthday and valentines day falling in the same week. They are quick, easy and yummy, and make a great snack, starter or accompaniment in place of bread.

This was so simple. I just took 1 batch of my home made vegan pastry and rolled it out. I then folded it over a couple of times (this gave them a lovely flaky layered texture, which led them to rise slightly), and rolled out to a thickness of about 1 cm. It was then ready to cut into heart shapes using a plastic cutter, and brush with olive oil. I included some garlic powder with the olive oil for extra tastiness. They took about 15 minutes in the oven at 180°C, but check them after 10 and take them out when they look golden and lovely.

Happy valentines day!  ♥

Spiced garlic roast aubergine

When it’s done it will be brown and squishy and melt in the mouth!

Inspired by a gorgeous meal out at Lebanese restaurant Kambis for John’s birthday earlier this week, tonight we decided to roast the aubergine that we had in the fridge and created this tasty recipe.

We used garlic, chipotle powder, coarse sea salt and olive oil, and it was divinely melt in the mouth! You could also experiment your own favourite flavours e.g. smoked paprika, ras el hanout, za’atar or lemon and herbs.

One large aubergine makes enough for two, when served with cous cous, salads, and tasty sauces, and is quick, simple and scrummy!

Tahini sauce

Enjoy drizzled on roast vegetables, salads, grains, or with bread.

I am obsessed with tahini. I buy it in massive tubs from middle eastern shops, not those piddly jars they have in the supermarkets. When John first met me, he thought all of my recipes were basically tahini soup.

Luckily that’s not the case. However, there is always a place in my heart for a quick and simple tahini sauce, and tonight we made some to go with our roast aubergine, and included chilli sesame oil. It’s really versatile, here’s the basic method for mine…

Quickie sourdough crumpets

These ones had really large bubbles!

If you have some sourdough starter, then you can make these quickie sourdough crumpets whenever you fancy, for breakfast, for afternoon tea, or for supper.

Eat them hot from the pan with your favourite spreads. We love them with marmite!

I’ve seen recipes that use rings to give them a smart shape, but we just make the batter thick and splodge it in the pan, and they come out tasty and bubbly.

Makes 8 cumpets.

Mocha cupcakes with amaretto buttercream frosting (vegan)

Tonight I had a craving for something naughty and sweet, but there was no chocolate in the cupboards, the biscuits were all gone, and it was raining outside. Surely I had the building blocks for sweet tasty vegan comfort food?

Here’s my creation: mocha cupcakes with amaretto buttercream frosting! They were so light and fluffy and moist and tasty. Even John had two (he’s not normally as into dessert as I am)!

Luckily I have one left for tomorrow, because this recipe makes 5 cupcakes. You can always scale it up if you want more. Or make a second batch in a different flavour and let me know what your favourite is!

Sourdough starter made simple – 3 Key principles, and establishing your own starter!

The starter will bubble away as the yeast release Carbon Dioxide.

Since meeting John I have got really into sourdough. He introduced me to the concept, and I dipped into my housemate’s copy of Andrew Whitley’s ‘Bread Matters’ to establish my own starter and learn a basic sourdough loaf recipe. The idea is to allow wild yeast to colonise some flour/water mix, which, once well-established, can be used as a raising agent in cooking. It also has the benefit of adding a distinctive (and delicious) sour flavour to your food.

It’s been more successful (and tasty) than I could have imagined! The sourness (caused lactic bacteria that co-exist with the yeast in your starter), gives things a really unique flavour, that I just can’t get enough of!

Sourdough is really versatile, and now, in just a couple of years, I find I’m dependent on it, even taking it on holiday with me recently so that I didn’t have to miss out on my favourite dishes! Loads of my best recipes use it, for example our yummy vegan pizza, cheeky spiced garlic bread, and ethiopian sour injera pancakes.

As you can expect to keep seeing posts from me that use it, I thought I’d better tell you how to make your own! It’s really much simpler than I was expecting, and after daily attention for a few days at the beginning to get it started, it has been really low maintenance – I keep it in the fridge and only bother to feed it when I’ve used some. I’m really slap-dash with my techniques and quantities, but the yeast seem to be quite happy with this semi-neglectful arrangement and continue to thrive (I suspect it may even make them tougher).

If you’ve been put off by overly-complicated sounding processes in the past please read my method and consider trying again. Wild yeast are fairly simple little microbes and with a few very basic principles you can easily start your own colony! Don’t be intimidated, give it a go.

Three main principles of yeast-keeping are explained here, to enable you to keep your starter going indefinitely with minimal effort, as well as a simple technique to get your starter established.

Injera Sourdough Ethiopian Pancakes

Here’s another, very key component for an Ethiopian feast – the sour injera pancake!

These pancakes are uniquely sour and bubbly, and go perfectly with lentil dishes, spiced vegetables, and ayib (lemony tofu ‘cheese’).

Usually made with Teff flour and fermented for several days, this recipe uses wheat sourdough starter instead. It is possible to make them with vinegar, soda water and baking powder, but I read that the baking powder reduces the sourness of the vinegar, so I have stuck with my sourdough starter because I find it so easy to use.

Makes 6-8 pancakes.

Spongy bubbly pancakes, ready to add your main dishes.

Tofu Ayib (Ethiopian lemony cheese)

When creating our very own Ethiopian feast, we adapted this Ayib recipe that is usually made with cottage cheese, to make a tasty vegan version.

Lemon rind is what makes this dish distinctive, while soy sauce adds depth of flavour. We didn’t add soya yoghurt because John hates it, but you could try adding some when you make it – let us know how you get on!

This alternative to cottage cheese is crumbly and fresh

Mouth-Watering Guacamole

If we want to make a pot of tasty hot chilli into a banquet, we serve it with guacamole, home made tortilla chips, fresh tomato salsa, and vegan cheesy sauce.

Traditional guacamole should always be dairy free and suitable for vegans, don’t truck with adding cream to your guacamole, this is just something supermarkets do to rip you off so that they don’t need to use so much avocado!

This recipe is my own spin on a technique I was originally shown by Ms Marmite Lover, which I have never forgotten. She taught me that with a couple of avocados and a pinch of pinache it was possible to cater for my hungry party guests at zero notice (“always provide food at a party!”). Thanks to her I always feed my guests, and I always add grated onion to my guac…

Makes 1 side portion suitable for sharing between 2-4 people.

Ten secrets for golden crunchy roast potatoes

Today John’s brother Rob and his girlfriend Steph came to visit. We made roast vegetable quiche with onion gravy and roast potatoes. The roast potatoes were a particular hit with our non-vegan guests, so I thought you might be interested to know our technique for mouth-watering golden crunchy roasties that hit the spot every time!

Golden Crunchy Roast Potatoes – perfect every time!

So, our ten secrets for a yummy golden crunch on your roast taters are:

Onion and Red Wine Gravy

Being from Manchester, I (Lorraine) am obsessed, as all northerners are, with gravy! I like a little island of food in an ocean of gravy. I like it on chips, I like it on mash, and I like it with roast potatoes, the more the better – I just can’t have too much gravy.

Tomorrow is Sunday and we’ll be making quiche with roast potatoes and gravy, yum!

Cornflour is used in this recipe as it’s easy and gives a glossy and translucent gravy. As I like my gravy really thick we err on the generous side with the cornflour. For a thinner gravy just use less cornflour as this is what thickens it. Wheat flour will work too but gives a more opaque gravy with a richer flavour (which I love), and you will need to use about 50% more of it to get a the same thickness. Obviously avoid this if you want to make your meal wheat free or gluten free.

Steamy rich onion gravy

So here goes, this is our method for sure-fire rich and tasty gravy. Mmmmm.

Ultimate Vegan Lasagne

Excellent tomato and cheese sauces layered with fresh pasta are the key to perfect lasagne.

This is our favourite indulgance meal! John tells me that before we met he would take a whole day to make one and then a whole evening to eat it!

It’s much quicker now with two of us. I do the pasta and the cheezy sauce, while John does the roast veg and the tomato sauce, then we put it all together! For a slightly quicker version use dried lasagne sheets, but it’s going to take a long time to make either way and once we tried it with fresh pasta we never went back to dried!

We have tried various combinations of vegetables and lentils, but recently made our favourite one ever so I think it’s time to share the recipe! I can’t get enough of the creamy cheezy sauce, so we put loads in, but you could adjust to suit your preference.

This makes 4 huge portions or 6 moderate portions.