Rich cream-filled baked pumpkin (vegan)

Oh joy and happiness, pumpkin season is here! Years ago, in my vegetarian days, I once made this (very non-vegan) recipe for a roasted pumpkin filled with cheesy cream. I've been meaning to veganise it for a while as I remember it being delicious, and yesterday finally got around to it. It was amazing - I think I might have found my Christmas main! I took some inspiration from this 'moxarella' recipe for the filling.

This dish is rich, delicious, easy, and it looks absolutely gorgeous! You could make one large pumpkin as a centerpiece that everyone can scoop their share of roasted pumpkin and 'cheesy' cream from, or, if you can find them, use little individual pumpkins for each diner.

Pumpkin sizes vary, as does the thickness of their flesh and the size of their cavity when you remove the seeds, so you may have to play around with the amount of filling and cooking time. You may also, tragically, be forced to eat any leftover filling with bread or a spoon :)

This is a rough guide, but of course, use your own judgement and keep an eye on your pumpkin as it cooks. The recipe below uses a 700g pumpkin to serve 2, bakes for about 50 minutes in total, and makes about 400 ml of filling - I had some left over, but of course it's better to have too much than too little. 

- To serve 4, use a 1.5 kg pumpkin, and double the amount of the cream sauce below for the filling, bake for about 1hr 15 minutes or until the pumpkin flesh is tender.
- For individual pumpkins, use little 300g pumpkins, with about 100-150ml of filling each, and bake for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.

You can use any variety of pumpkin or firm yellow squash with a decent-sized seed cavity: acorn squash, cow pumpkins and hokkaido pumpkins will all work well, but a butternut squash is less suitable as its seed cavity is usually quite small.

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast 
• 1 tbsp tapioca flour 
• 1 tsp onion powder 
• 1 tsp garlic powder 
• 1/2 tsp ground mustard seed 
• salt to taste  
• 200 ml vegan cooking cream (I used an oat-based one) 
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup of raw cashews, soaked for 6-8 hours and drained (or, if like me you didn't prepare, quick-soaked in boiling water for half an hour) 
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium scallion, sliced 
• 4 garlic cloves (or to taste), finely chopped  
• 1 tsp dry thyme 
• 1 bay leaf 
• pepper to taste 
• a 700g pumpkin (or two 300-ish g ones)

Preparation:
1) Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/400°F

2) In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients: nutritional yeast, tapioca flour, onion powder, garlic powder, ground mustard seed, and salt, then transfer to a blender or wand blender container

3) Add the soaked cashew nuts, cooking cream and lemon juice, and blend until you have a smooth, creamy paste. If it seems very thick (it might if your cooking cream is thick) add a little unsweetened plant milk.

4) Prepare your pumpkin: If the pumpkin won't sit upright - some varieties like hokkaido have an outtie which can make them wobbly - carefully cut off a flat slice across the bottom: don't cut too deeply though, or the bottom will become too thin and leak. You can also build it a little support ring from tin foil to keep it straight.  
Cut a small lid from the top (keep this in one piece, you'll be using it), and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Wrap the bottom half of the pumpkin in tin foil, to stop the filling from leaking out in the unlikely event that your pumpkin bursts during cooking.

5) In a saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat, and add the scallion and garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes, until the garlic is only just beginning to brown. Then lower the heat, and pour in your cream mixture, and add the thyme, bay leaf and pepper. Stir the sauce constantly until it thickens and becomes elastic, pulling away from the sides of the pan as you stir it, about 5 minutes. Your sauce may get a strange curdled look halfway through - don't worry, it will smooth out again!
Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed. I made mine quite salty because yum, and also because the pumpkin is unsalted and dilutes the saltiness as you eat it with the filling.

6) Spoon the cream filling - including the bay leaf - into your pumpkin until it is almost full, and replace the pumpkin lid. Put the pumpkin in an oven dish (again, for the unlikely event that there is leakage), place in the hot oven, and bake for about 35 minutes, checking occasionally to make sure your pumpkin hasn't split and isn't burning - but don't worry if the lid blackens a little.
After 35 minutes (or 15 minutes before the end of cooking time if you're using a different-sized pumpkin), remove the lid, and check if it seems properly cooked. If so, remove the  lid from the oven, and let the pumpkin bake without the lid for a further 10-15 minutes, until your cream filling is starting to lightly brown.
You can use the baking time to make your side dishes - I recommend a green salad and crusty bread for dipping in your pumpkin!

7) Remove from the oven, and serve! You can serve straight from the pumpkin at the table (which I think looks fantastic), or scoop the roasted flesh with cream sauce into individual bowls before serving.

Enjoy!       

Possible variations: Next time I am going to try this with leeks in stead of the scallion, and will be adding a small splash of white wine to the filling. Let me know in comments if you come up with any new and wonderful variations of your own!
 
     

Vegan mini spinach quiche recipe!

So the miracle that is aquafaba has been blowing up in the vegan blogosphere and facebook-o-sphere for the past few months: It turns out that the liquid from canned beans - the aforementioned aquafaba - can be beaten to a stiff foam, just like egg whites. It can be used to make meringues, chocolate mousse, and all kinds of other things that you'd use beaten egg whites for. Today, I used them to make these delicious little spinach mini-quiches, and I think this is going to be my new go-to party snack, they are *so* good!

I've made quiches using chickpea flour before, and found them tasty but a little stodgy. The beaten aquafaba gives the quiches an airiness which I haven't been able to achieve without eggs until now. The foam does subside after a while, so once you have folded it into the quiche filling, you should bake the quiches immediately, or you will end up with moist but flat quiches.

Aquafaba can be beaten by hand, but it will take a long time and a lot of effort: if you have one, use a mixer or a wand blender's aerator blade - I have the latter, and it gets my aquafaba to the desired stiffness in just a couple of minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C
You will need a muffin tin or muffin cups

Ingredients for 8 mini quiches:
veggies:

• 1 small onion, finely chopped  
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 
• 100 g spinach, finely chopped  
• olive oil for frying

Dry ingredients: 

• 3/4 cup besan (aka chickpea flour or gram flour)  
• 2 tbs nutritional yeast
• pinch of kala namak (black salt, you can leave it out if not available)  
• 1/2 tsp onion powder 
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder 
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (if you have it, I'm sure it would be great without as well) 
• salt and pepper to taste 

Wet ingredients:

• 1/3 cup coconut cream 
• zest of 1 lemon 
• 1 tsp miso 

To assemble: 

• 75 ml aquafaba
• vegan puff pastry, cut into 8 2inch/5cm squares (optional - you could also just pour the filling directly into the greased muffin tin for a gluten-free version) 
• olive oil to grease the muffin tin

Preparation:

1) Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil with a pinch of salt over low-medium heat until the onions are glassy, about 10 minutes. Then add the chopped spinach, and saute a little longer until the spinach has wilted. Put in a sieve to drain.

2) In a mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients: chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, kala namak, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika powder and salt and pepper to taste (you will also be adding some miso paste, so go easy on the salt)

3) In another small bowl, mix coconut cream, lemon zest and miso until there are no lumps of miso in the mix

4) Add the coconut cream mix to the dry ingredients and blend well (this should give you quite a dry, crumbly mix), then stir in the drained onion-spinach mix.

5) Whip the aquafaba to stiff peaks, and then very gently fold it into the the filling mix - this should now be quite wet, but light/foamy. The folding method is the same as that for egg whites, demonstrated here from 1:47 (sorry, I couldn't find an eggless demonstration video :( ).

6) Lightly grease muffin cups or a muffin tin with olive oil, and press the puff pastry squares (if using) into the tin. Carefully scoop filling into each of the cups until they are 3/4 full - mine covered the puff pastry completely. If you want the filling to be completely encased in pastry, use larger pastry squares or circles.

7) Bake at 180°C for 20-25 minutes, until the quiches are golden brown. A lot of quiche recipes say to open the oven halfway through to let out steam, so I did that, I'm not sure if it's necessary or not :) When they are done, let them cool in the tin for 5 minutes, and then slide a knife around the edges of the quiches to loosen them, and remove to cool further on a wire rack.

I prefer them warm, but they are delicious both warm and cold. Enjoy!!

Vegan Tempeh-Cashew Balls of Glory - a recipe

Fiiiiinally, a new recipe for you!!! These tempeh-cashew balls with their spicy tomato sauce are absolutely delicious: I'm afraid making them is quite an involved process, but I think it's worth it!

Possible variations:
- You can of course spice these however you want - adjust the amounts of all the spices and garlic in the recipe to your tastes, or for instance go for an oriental version with soy sauce, five spice and ginger in the balls, and a coriander sauce in stead of tomato sauce
- I've made something similar in the past with finely ground seitan in stead of tempeh. I think a mix of the two would be good, too, and it would give them a fantastic texture. I've also made the seitan variation with half cashew and half pistachio nuts, which was delicious.
- To reduce time and effort, you can of course buy tomato sauce rather than make your own.

(makes about 15 golf-sized balls)
Ingredients: 
Tempeh Balls:

• 200g of tempeh, coarsely grated 
• 5-6 spring onions, finely chopped (or one regular onion) 
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 
• a cup (prior to processing) of raw cashew nuts, coarsely chopped in a food processor 
• olive oil for sauteeing
• 3 medium potatoes, cubed and boiled until soft
• 1 tbsp of unscented coconut oil
• half a cup of oats, ground into flour in a food processor 
• half a cup of nutritional yeast
• 1 heaping tsp of tomato paste
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tsp of onion powder 
• 1 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp of smoked paprika
• 1 tsp of dried thyme 
• salt and pepper to taste

Tomato sauce:

• 3-4 spring onions, chopped 
• olive oil for sauteeing
• 5 ripe medium-sized tomatoes
• 3 sundried tomatoes (in oil or rehydrated), finely chopped
• chili flakes to taste
• salt and pepper to taste 
• pinch of dried oregano and basil

Preparation:

1) For the balls, gently sautee the spring onions and garlic in olive oil in a large skillet until the onions are soft, then add the grated tempeh and continue to sautee until it begins to brown. If you want your balls to be more moist, add some more olive oil and let it be absorbed by the tempeh

2) Meanwhile, mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl: cashews, oat-flour, nutritional yeast, spices, herbs and seasoning

3) In a food processor, blend together half of the boiled potatoes and all of the coconut oil and tomato paste: this will become a very sticky, glutinous goo which will help bind your balls :-)

4) Mix the tempeh, onions and garlic into the dry ingredients, followed by the potato glue, and knead it all together. If the mixture is too dry and doesn't stick, blend additional potatoes and add them as needed - go by feel, you want to end up with something you can shape into balls that will hold together, and that isn't too dry. Taste the mix for seasoning, and add salt, pepper and spices as needed.

5) Refrigerate the mix for at least an hour to further bind the mixture. If your mix is sticky enough and holds together when shaped, you may be able to skip this step if pressed for time. While the mix is being chilled, pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

6) shape your mix into golf-sized balls, and place them on a baking tray or oven dish lined with greaseproof paper. Bake them in the oven for around 40 minutes, turning them over once halfway. You want them to develop a slightly crunchy brown outer layer, but not to burn of course, so keep and eye on them, different ovens can behave very differently.

7) While the balls are baking, prepare the tomato sauce if you are making your own: Sautee the spring onions in the olive oil, and meanwhile blend the fresh and sundried tomatoes in a food processor or blender until you have a slightly chunky sauce. Add the tomato sauce to the pan with the onions, along with the spices, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer until a lot of the water has evaporated and the sauce has the flavour and thickness you want. You could also add a splash of red wine or vinegar and/or a pinch of sugar or other sweetener to enhance the flavour.

8) Serve!! Delicious with saffron rice, or oven-baked potatoes, and a large salad.

Recipe for delicious vegan chocolate and strawberry pie

This one is all kinds of sinful, but no animals were harmed in the making of, the karma must cancel out some of the calories, right? :-) This has been a *huge* hit every single time I've made it - and it looks pretty, too! Don't be daunted by the recipe: Yes, it comes in three parts, and yes you need to make it in stages (the chocolate ganache needs at least a few hours to cool and set in the fridge before you can make the strawberry topping), but none of it is complicated. I purchased a pie tin with a removable bottom a while ago, and it's fantastic for this kind of pie. A spring-form tin will do the job well too, but I wouldn't use a pie tin with a fixed bottom as it will be hard to remove the pie from the tin and serve it without it falling apart.  

Enjoy!   

Ingredients:

Biscuit pie crust:

• 150 - 200 g vegan biscuits (I use wholemeal wheat and oat cookies, but any dry biscuit will do)
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder 
• 75 g vegan margarine

Chocolate ganache 

• 400 g dark chocolate (most dark chocolate is vegan, check the ingredient list to be sure) 
• one 400 ml can of coconut milk

Strawberry topping: 

• 400 g of fresh strawberries
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tbsp of maple syrup (or other sweetener of your choice)
• 1 tsp of agar agar powder 
• 200 ml water

Preparation:

Crust:

Pre-heat the oven at 180*C

1) Melt the margarine over a low heat  

2) Pulverise the biscuits using a food processor. If you don't have a food processor, try putting the cookies, 2-3 at a time, in a zip-lock bag, and rolling a glass bottle over them until they are crushed.

3) Stir the cocoa powder into the cookie crumbs, followed by the melted margarine, until they are well mixed

4) Press the sticky crumb mixture into a 22 cm pie tin to cover the bottom and sides. If you are using a higher spring-form tin, cover the sides up to about 3 cm.  

5) Bake at 180*C for 10 minutes, then set on a rack to cool. 

Chocolate ganache:
6) Break the chocolate into pieces, put into a heat-proof bowl (e.g. stainless steel or pyrex) with the coconut milk

7) Place your bowl on a small saucepan filled with water, so that part of the bowl is submerged in the water. Place the saucepan on the stove over a low heat, and stir the chocolate and coconut milk until fully melted and combined

8) Pour the chocolate mixture into the crust, and refrigerate for 3-4 hours (or longer of course, if that fits your schedule better), until the ganache has set. Only then prepare the strawberry topping.

Strawberry topping: 

9) take about 100g of the least pretty and ripe strawberries, and puree them with the water, lemon juice and maple syrup or other sweetener. Taste and add more syrup if necessary. 

10) halve the remaining strawberries, and place them cut-side-down on the chocolate ganache. I like to make concentric circles, but be creative and turn it into your own work of art :-) 

11) In a saucepan, gently bring the strawberry puree to a simmer, stir in the agar agar, and allow to simmer for a further 5 minutes, stirring regularly.

12) Carefully pour the mixture over the strawberries on the pie, until the top is evenly covered. Do this right after removing the saucepan from the heat, as the agar agar will begin to solidify immediately. 

13) Place the cake back in the fridge, until the topping has completely cooled down and set. In hot weather, store the cake in the fridge until use, or your ganache might melt :-)

This. Is. Fricking. Delicious.

Delicious raw vegan fennel, orange and avocado salad

A very tasty, whole food, quick and easy new salad to share today! Don't worry, there's a chocolate ganache and strawberry pie recipe coming up soon to compensate for for all this healthiness :-)

Serves 1 as a full meal, or 2-4 as a side dish

Ingredients: 

• 1 large fennel bulb, very thinly sliced (use a mandolin if you have one)
• 2 oranges, peeled and pith removed, halved and segmented 
• 1 avocado, peeled and roughly chopped
• 30 grams of rocket (I'm sure more would be tasty too, this was all I had) 
• 40 grams of currants (or raisins or sultanas, but note these are often coated in vegetable oil if you want to avoid that)
• 1 spring onion, finely chopped (optional) 
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
Put all the ingredients in a bowl, mix them thoroughly, and season to taste. There is no separate dressing for this: The oranges, which will give off some of their juice, provide the acid you would usually add in the form of vinegar or lemon juice, the avocado provides the fat in stead of oil. If your avocado is nice and ripe it will partly 'dissolve' and form a creamy dressing together with the orange juice. I didn't have any, but I imagine some chopped toasted walnuts or toasted almond flakes would be very nice with this too! 

Easy vegan Sushi Salad recipe

During the summer, I eat a *lot* of salads, especially for lunch at work. I have quite a variety, but this remains one of my absolute favourites: I call it my sushi salad as the combination of flavours reminds me of sushi. You can up the sushi-ness by adding some shredded nori, leaving out the orange juice, and adding a small amount of wasabi to the dressing, also very tasty!

Serves: full meal for one hungry person

Indredients:

Salad:

1 cup cooked brown rice, cooled

1 avocado, diced

2 spring onions, chopped

75 g grated carrot

1/2 cucumber, finely chopped

75g bean sprouts (mung or soy)

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

dressing:

juice of one orange

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tbsp sesame oil

(adjust to taste)

Preparation:

1) Mix salad ingredients.

2) Mix dressing ingredients.

3) Stir dressing into salad.

4) NOM :)  

Vegan Olive Tapenade Recipe

I love olives and olive tapenade, but almost all the supermarket varieties contain anchovies, so I decided to make my own, and it turned out raaaather good:


Olive-rocket tapenade
Ingredients:
115 g pitted black olives
30 g rocket (rucola) leaves
40 g raw unsalted cashew nuts
heaping tablespoon nutritional yeast
heaping teaspoon miso

Preparation:
Put it all in a deep bowl, and blend. YUM.

Be sure to store in the refrigerator. I finished this amount in about a week, and my guess would be that it wouldn't have kept much longer than that with the rocket... oh well, I suppose I'll just have to make more :)

Vegan grilled aubergine & roast tomato pasta recipe

Aubergines (eggplants) are among my favourite vegetables in the entire world, and grilling them is one of my favourite methods of preparation - and then the classic combination of aubergine, tomato and basil is just.... * swoons * :)

I can't remember exactly how I developed this recipe, but I think it's safe to say it was born from a love of that particular combination. In the days before the vegan experiment (which is becoming less and less of an experiment and more of a lifestyle as time goes on - and one I'm feeling extremely good about both mentally and physically) I used to add a cup of crumbled feta to this dish, which, if you eat cheese, works very well. If you want to include it, it just goes in when you combine all the ingredients at the end. These days however, I'm using a very basic vegan 'Parmesan' - recipe below.

Grilled aubergine & roast tomato pasta
serves 2

Ingredients:

• 3 large cloves of garlic finely chopped
• 15 medium-sized ripe sweet tomatoes, quartered 
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 small aubergines (eggplants), sliced lengthwise into 0.5 cm slices
• 200 grams of dry pasta  (I usually use spaghetti, but short pasta types work very well too)
• generous handful of fresh basil, shredded
• 2 tbsp of toasted flaked almonds 
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 
• salt 
• black pepper
• Vegan parmesan (recipe below) to taste 

Preparation:
1) Preheat oven to 180*C

2) Place the tomatoes in a baking tray, sprinkle the garlic over them and drizzle with the olive oil

3) Toss the tomatoes in the dish until they are well-coated in olive oil, place them in the oven, and roast for an hour or until they just start to char a little around the edges. I love them that way, but eating burnt anything probably isn't good for you, so turn off the oven a little earlier than I do if you're concerned :). If the other ingredients aren't ready yet, just leave the tomatoes in the turned-off oven to keep warm.

4) While the tomatoes are roasting, sprinkle the aubergine slices generously with salt (you'll be rinsing this off later), and place in a colander to drain for half an hour - this leeches out the bitterness aubergines can have.

5) After half an hour, thoroughly rinse each of the aubergine slices to get the salt off, and pat dry with kitchen towel. Lightly oil a griddle pan and grill the aubergine slices in it until they are cooked and have a nice dark criss-cross pattern. Once they are grilled, cut each of the aubergine slices into bite size pieces.

6) While the aubergine slices are grilling, set a pan of water to boil for the pasta, and cook it according to packet instructions


7) Remove the tomatoes from the oven and put them in a large bowl, also pouring in all the olive oil and juices in the baking tray with them

8) Add the basil, pasta, and aubergine to the bowl and drizzle with a bit of balsamic vinegar, add salt and pepper to taste, and toss everything together. I usually also stir in a tablespoon of the vegan Parmesan, and put the remaining Parmesan on the table for anyone who wants more. 

9) finally, garnish with the toasted almonds, and presto!


Vegan 'Parmesan' 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup of peeled almonds
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp sea salt

Preparation: 

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until the mix has a light, crumbly fine-grated parmesan-like texture.

Spicy vegan roast tomato and bell pepper soup recipe

This is an old favourite of mine, I've been making it for years and have recently switched the cream cheese I used to use in it for soy cooking cream. I'm not a big fan of many soy products and have not been able to get even this soy cream to work for me in any other recipes yet, but in this soup it is just fine! I really do make it quite spicy, just cut down on the garlic and chili if you prefer a milder taste (or have a date the night you're eating it :)). This soup freezes well, so I always make a large quantity regardless of how many people I'm cooking for.


Spicy Tomato and Bell Pepper Soup
(serves 4-6 as a main meal with bread)

Ingredients

• 15 ripe medium-sized tomatoes, quartered
• 2 red bell peppers, deseeded and cut into large chunks
• 2 yellow bell peppers, deseeded and cut into large chunks
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2-3 small dried red chili peppers, crushed
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 medium onions, roughly chopped
• water as needed
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• 250 ml of soy single cream alternative (unsweetened)
• salt and pepper to taste
• handful of roughly chopped rocket for garnishing (optional)

Preparation

1) Preheat the oven to 180*C, and place the chopped tomatoes and bell peppers in a large baking tray. Sprinkle with the garlic and chili, drizzle with 2 tbs of the olive oil, and toss until the vegetables are lightly coated with the oil. Roast in the oven until cooked and just beginning to char at the corners, about 45 minutes. Toss the vegetables again once or twice while they are cooking.

2) When the tomatoes and peppers have been in the oven for about 20 minutes, heat the remaining olive oil in a large pan (big enough to hold all the vegetables with some space to spare), and gently saute the onions over a medium heat until they turn glassy.

3) When the tomatoes and peppers are roasted, add them to the pan with the onions, also pouring in the cooking juices from the baking dish. Add enough water to just cover the vegetables, crumble in the stock cubes, and bring to the boil.

4) When the stock cubes have dissolved, remove the pan from the heat, add the soy cream, and puree the soup using a blender.

5) Add salt and pepper to taste, garnish with the rocket, and serve with bread and anything else you fancy!

Recipes for vegan spicy stuffed aubergines, sweet potatoes and mango and avocado salad

My recent forays into veganism are forcing me to experiment and learn a lot of new recipes and techniques, and I'm really enjoying it! I've been using the Fitday Calorie Counter, not to count calories since I don't want to lose weight, but to track nutrients. So far, this has told me that I am quite lacking in potassium, calcium and protein today, so I will be doing a squash and spinach risotto, briefly baked in the oven with a pine nut and almond 'cheese' topping - if it turns out well I'll post it here. It's an interesting way to plan meals - fill out the counter throughout the day, and then plan dinner based on your deficiencies. It's educational, too - until I had to go googling "vegetarian potassium sources" I had no idea squashes and leafy greens were potassium-rich - or that significant amounts of potassium can be lost in the cooking process. That's okay, I'll just eat more :-)  

Since my first attempt at a cashew-based sauce I've done quite a few more, including an adaptation of this recipe for asparagus linguine alfredo: I used cashews since macadamias cost  a fortune, and it turned out rather delicious, I'll have to make it again before asparagus season is out! I also found this great recipe for a faux-cheese sauce which tastes remarkably cheesy: I've used it as a pizza topping, as a sandwich topping, in pasta sauces, and on one of today's recipes, the stuffed aubergines.

Three recipes today, which between them make a very nice 4 person meal.

Spicy stuffed aubergines
This recipe developed from an attempt to recreate a very nice takeaway lunch I got from a Turkish restaurant in The Hague. It doesn't much resemble the original anymore, but I rather like the result :)

Ingredients

• 4 large aubergines (eggplants), halved lengthwise
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 150 grams finely chopped carrots 
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (or more, or less, depending on how much of a garlic-head you are... I ADORE garlic myself :))
• 6 finely chopped plum tomatoes (a 400 gram can of chopped tomatoes also works fine) 
• 1 can of tomato puree
• 3/4 cup of dried green lentils (I'm sure it would work just fine with other lentils, too, this is just what I happened to have in the house) 
• 1 bayleaf (optional) 
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 small dried chili, crushed
• 7 - 8 green peppercorns in vinegar (like this, I think you can get them in brine, too), crushed
• handful of flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• Optional toppings: vegan cashew cheese, vegetarian cheese of your choice or toasted breadcrumbs - also fine without any topping though

Preparation:

1) Preheat the oven to 200*C, and place the aubergines cut-side up in a lightly greased baking tray. Roast them until they are mostly cooked and lightly browned on top - about half an hour - and while they are roasting prepare the other ingredients

2) put the lentils in a pan with plenty of water with the bay leaf (do not add salt), bring to the boil, and simmer until the lentils are quite soft (20-30 minutes). When they are done, remove from heat and pour off excess water

3) Meanwhile, in a large pan saute the onions in olive oil with a little salt for about five minutes, then add the carrots. Continue to saute until the onions are soft and sweet, then add the garlic and saute for a couple more minutes - don't let the garlic burn

4) Add the tomatoes, tomato puree, spices, crushed green peppercorns and salt to the mix, heat through and adjust spices to taste

5) When the aubergines are done, carefully scoop out the flesh, leaving the shell at least 1/2 inch thick. Finely chop the flesh, and add it, the lentils and the flat leaf parsley to the tomato sauce. Mix it all together, taste for final seasoning, and fill the aubergine shells. (I usually have some stuffing left over, and have it with toast for lunch the next day)

6) Top the stuffed aubergines with the topping of your choice or leave them as they are, and bake them in the oven for a final ten minutes - or slightly longer if your topping needs it.  

Avocado and Mango salad
This is again a recipe improvised based on a dish I had in a restaurant - the lovely Moorings restaurant in Mtwapa, Kenya, to be precise: if you ever find yourself near Mombasa, I heartily recommend it for the lovely food, incredibly friendly service, relaxed atmosphere and gorgeous location!

Ingredients:

• 2 very ripe mangoes, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 4 ripe avocados, cut into same chunks as mango
• bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro) 
• small red onion or spring onion, very finely chopped  
• olive oil to taste
• salt and pepper to taste 

Preparation:  Mix it all together :)
Fresh coriander is one of those love-or-hate foods, so check with your fellow diners, and leave it on the side if anyone can't stand the stuff.

Finally, I accompanied these dishes with roast sweet potato - I can't even really call it a recipe, I just scrubbed them (1 large sweet potato per person), cut them into small chunks, and roasted them in the oven at the same time as the aubergines, tossed with some olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a pinch of dried thyme.

I thought the three worked really well together!

Vegan cashew cream pasta recipe

I've been experimenting with vegan food a lot recently: I've been re-evaluating after reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, even though neither of them specifically advocate turning vegan.

I don't intend to go fully vegan either, but I've been trying to go for fewer animal products, more organic, and more local and seasonal - within the restrictions of my budget and working hours: a lot of the time I still have to go to the major supermarkets and settle for the most ethical/affordable option they have. Oh... and another boundary is stuff that won't grow here no matter what the season :) I'll cut down on the exotics, sure, but no WAY am I giving up coffee, to name just one thing.

So, for the next recipe, the cashew nuts were most definitely not local, and to be honest I'm not quite sure where the pasta and the sun-dried tomatoes came from... but the courgette was local, and organic, and from the little eco cornershop rather than the big supermarket, and the cashew nuts also came from said cornershop.

I've found that I'm not wild about a lot of soy-based dairy replacements (though some have worked well for me, recipes to follow), so in search of other options I came across cashew nuts as a base for faux creams and sour creams, which is what I was trying out in this experiment. It's not a culinary masterpiece, but it's quick and tasty, and I thought the cashew sauce worked beautifully - will definitely be experimenting further with that!


Cashew cream pasta
(serves 2)
Need:
blender or immersion blender

Ingredients:

(the 'cup' used in this and other recipes is a mug, which, as I have just measured and used teh interwebz to convert, holds just over one US cup of water or 8.45 fl.oz)

• 1 cup of raw cashew nuts  
• 2 cups of water
• 2-3 tbs lemon juice (optional)
• 1 medium courgette (zucchini), halved and thinly sliced 
• 10-15 sundried tomatoes in oil, coarsely chopped (if you're health/calorie conscious, drain the oil and pat the tomatoes dry with kitchen towel. I just fished them out of the jar, but didn't try to get rid of excess oil)
• 2 tbs pine nuts
• 250 g./9 oz spaghetti
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil

Preparation:
1) blend the cashew nuts, water and a little salt for a few minutes or until very, very smooth.

2) Heat the cashew sauce in a heavy saucepan, stirring frequently, until it has significantly thickened - careful not to let it burn - and turn off the heat

3) Put on water for the pasta, and in a large skillet gently dry-toast the pine nuts: careful, they can burn very suddenly. While they are toasting, chop the tomatoes and slice the courgette.

4) remove the pine nuts from the pan and set aside. Heat a little olive oil in the same pan, and gently saute the courgette unlil soft and translucent. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions

5) add the sundried tomatoes to the pan with the courgette and briefly cook, then add the cashew sauce. I wanted to go for a slight creme fraiche/sour cream-like sourness, so at this point I stirred in the lemon juice.

6) Finally, stir in the pine nuts, and add the pasta to the sauce, add salt and pepper to taste.

Presto!

Pancake Day!!! A vegetarian pancake cannelloni recipe

Growing up, pancakes were not considered a main course in our house, they were always a desert, usually following a traditional Dutch pea soup. At the ripe old age of 29, I am still not able to overcome this part of my upbringing, not even for Shrove Tuesday. In stead, I decided to make a savoury pancake dish, an adaptation of my usual cannelloni recipe: Introducing Panelloni! (yeah, I know.... * groan *)

Ingredients:
(serves 4 when served with side salad & bread)

Pancakes:
I used a pancake batter recipe from BBC Good Food (great site by the way), and made my pancakes as thin as possible so the end result wouldn't be too doughy. My oven dish - dimensions to be added later when I've measured it :) - fit 8 filled pancake rolls.

Filling:

• 1 300g bag of fresh spinach, chopped
• 1 250g tub of ricotta
• 1 large onion finely chopped
• couple of cloves of garlic finely chopped
• 80g freshly grated pecorino
• finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 50g pine nuts, toasted
• 2 tbs olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste
  

Tomato sauce:

• 2 400g cartons/cans of chopped tomatoes
• 1 onion finely chopped
• handful of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbs olive oil

• 50g grated pecorino to sprinkle on top

(errr... I'm actually not to sure about the amounts of pecorino, I didn't weigh them... will do and edit next time I make this. In the mean time, trust your own judgment - if it looks like a ridiculous amount, stop)

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 190°C / gas mark 5

Pancakes:
I suggest getting a minion to make the pancake batter and pancakes while you prepare the filling and tomato sauce. While none of this is complicated, it involves a lot of parallel processes, rendering minions very useful.


Filling:

• gently fry the onions in the olive oil until they start to change colour
• add the garlic and spinach and fry until the spinach has fully reduced, pour off any excess water
• stir in the ricotta, lemon zest, pecorino, pine nuts, and salt and pepper to taste (taste before adding the salt, as pecorino is a fairly salty cheese)
  

Tomato sauce

• fry the onion in the olive oil over a low heat until soft and sweet
• add chopped tomatoes
• add the basil
  
• add salt & pepper to taste
• cook until hot but not boiling
  

Assembly

• Put a thin layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a large square or oblong oven dish
• divide the filling over the pancakes and roll them up, then place side by side in the oven dish
• cover in remaining tomato sauce
• sprinkle with remaining pecorino
• bake in oven for 20 – 30 minutes, until the pecorino is melted and beginning to turn brown

Enjoy!


...Oh, and of course I had my minion make extra batter, so we had pancakes for desert as well.

Vegetarian pumpkin and cherry tomato pasta recipe

Ingredients
(serves 2-3)

• 1 small pumpkin, peeled, seeded and diced
• 500 g. ripe cherry tomatoes
• 2-3 spring onions, finely sliced
  
• garlic to taste, finely chopped (I tend to use 2-3 large cloves)
  
• 150 g. coarsely chopped rucola (rocket)
• 300-400 g tagliatelle, preferably fresh
• 100 g flaked almonds, toasted
  
• 100 g fresh finely grated parmesan
• 1 tsp of dried thyme
• olive oil
  
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation
1) preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the pumpkin cubes in a baking tray or oven dish, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir the pumpkin until pieces are evenly coated with oil, and roast for half an hour or until the cubes are soft. Stir halfway if the cubes are beginning to char.

2) When the pumpkin has been cooking for about fifteen minutes, gently sauté the spring onions for about five minutes, then add the garlic to the pan. After another five minutes, add the cherry tomatoes, sautéing them for five minutes. Remove the pumpkin from the oven, and add them to the tomatoes and spring onions in the pan. At the last moment, add the rucola, and fry for one more minute.

3) While the tomatoes and spring onions are cooking, prepare the pasta according to packet instructions. Distribute the pasta and sauce evenly over the plates and garnish with a little of the almonds and parmesan. Serve the remaining parmesan and almonds with the dish to be used to taste.