Paprika, pomegranate and lemon juice hummus

"But what do you do for protein?"

I've never made hummus before. It might sound ridiculous considering I eat chickpeas nearly every day now, but I always thought it was slightly more complicated than it was, a little bit trickier, a bit more expensive. In actual fact all you need is a reliable hand blender (no explosions please), some chickpeas, a bit of tahini, and anything else you want to flavour it with.

Naturally, I went a bit overboard for my first attempt, so added pomegranate seeds, paprika, pomegranate molasses, coriander and lemon to mine, but it might be better to focus on just one of those flavours. This batch of hummus lasted precisely 2 hours in my flat, so I guess the proof was in the total lack of leftovers!

Makes enough for 4
Ingredients
2 tins chickpeas, drained
2 garlic cloves, chopped small (if using a hand blender, or just crushed if using a larger blender as this will be able to handle the harder work)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch of salt
1 large tbsp tahini paste
2 tbsp water
Juice 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp paprika
Seeds of half a pomegranate
Handful of chopped coriander

Pour the majority of the chickpeas into a mixing bowl, holding back a small handful or so for serving. Add the garlic, cumin, salt, tahini, water, lemon juice, olive oil and paprika, and mix with a spoon just to get the liquid stirred in, before mixing with a hand blender.

Add more lemon juice, salt, olive oil, to taste, and then stir in a few pomegranate seeds to flavour the hummus. It should be a firm mixture, but looser than a paste.

To serve, top off with the rest of the pomegranate seeds, whole chickpeas, pomegranate molasses, coriander and a little more lemon juice.


And now for a bit of an apology for my absence:

What do I do for protein? I find it one of the strangest questions anyone can ask once you've told them you're vegan. There's a lot  more questions I'd expect- and yet 80% of the time, it comes back to this strange, peculiar obsession with protein.

Obviously, I know why people are concerned about protein- in general. I get that. I don't understand when they can hold a conversation with me and I am alive etc, why they would ask it, apart from the fact that it must be a total knee-jerk reaction, and maybe they just don't care about anything beneath asking a question back to a reply they didn't expect. Who knows. In any case, my inability to give that question a proper answer recently led to a mini hiatus from food blogging. I found myself with nothing to say apart from "Well, I eat chickpeas, everyday." Which is the truth, but it felt pretty limp in reply, especially after being told by someone I met 40 minutes beforehand that I was "unhealthy" and "selfish" for being vegan.

I didn't know how to reply, because I made a decision around a year ago not to be someone that reels off statistics when people start cross examining a vegan diet. I think if people haven't looked for those figures themselves, they become very easy to block out. I managed to do it for 22 years. In my month away from Guac and Roll I wanted to do more research, question whether writing a food blog was really the best way to start a conversation on veganism. I read a lot more studies, watched more documentaries (we need to talk about sugar, btw) but in the end, I came around full circle: I love sharing the recipes I've discovered, talking about them with friends in the park, researching where those recipes come from and adapting them to suit a vegan or vegan and gluten free diet.

There are plenty of vegan diets that are unhealthy, just as there are many, many, omnivorous diets that are also pretty unhealthy. Guac and Roll isn't ever going to be a call to arms, but hopefully something a lot more subtle.

What we talk about when we talk about cauliflower

As the UK approaches the ‘hungry gap’ in the year’s produce, I’m still way over excited about something you can grow and eat almost year-round, and that’s cauliflower.

So forget what you thought you knew: maligned to the sloppy cheesy roux sauce dishes of the world, cauliflower is actually one of the easiest and cheapest vegetables I’ve found that transform into a different beast entirely with just a little curry powder and oil.

Although I guess many think of the cauliflower as a traditionally British staple, most accounts cite it as originating from the Arab world. It’s high in vitamin C and B6, and maintains its nutrients better if you don’t boil it. For once cheese can take a back seat, because cauliflower truly shines when it is roasted, teamed with spices, oil and lemon juice.

Serves enough for 2, or maybe 3, but it’s really moreish. I’m saying 2.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower, curds (the florets) cut into large bitesize pieces

Sunflower or vegetable oil for roasting

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp turmeric

Juice of one lemon

Salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Lightly coat a roasting dish with oil, then place in the chopped cauliflower. Sprinkle over the spices and seasoning, and mix well so it is lightly covered. You don’t want to lose the clean taste of the cauliflower beneath the curry spices.

Roast for around 30-40 minutes until the cauliflower pieces are soft and a little sticky at the edges. Squeeze over the lemon juice and serve hot. This tastes great added to a larger biryani dish or just with dahl and rice. Hell, it even tastes great with air. 

Winter salads: warm sprout top, kale, macadamia nut, lemon and cranberry salad

Having a veg box delivery means I'm often on the hunt for any recipes that do something a bit different with what's in season. This warm winter salad was initially inspired by a recipe from Cookie + Kate, which I've simplified and veganised, focusing instead on the lemon and cranberry flavours. It's perfect for cold January evenings- full of contrasting flavours, as well as being quick and easy to keep for lunch the next day.

I used homemade cranberry sauce here as it needed using, but fresh cranberries would probably be tastier if you've got them! Likewise, I used a mix of nuts as I seem to have a weird store of them. The macadamia nuts work really well with the sourness of the cranberries while the pecans add crunch and are a rich source of calcium and iron, which is the kind of thing that makes my Mum happy.

Ingredients
Handful of sprout tops or sprouts
Handful of kale
Bowl of leftover rice (or enough for two people)
Around 100g cranberries, or 2tbsp cranberry sauce
Handful macadamia nuts and pecans
Juice 1/2 lemon
Few glugs of olive oil
Seasoning

Start by gently heating the nuts in a pan to toast them lightly. You'll know they're done when they start to brown and you can smell them. Set aside.

Prepare the rice or thoroughly reheat if leftover.

Boil the sprout tops and kale in a saucepan for 3 minutes, or until the kale stalks are just soft enough to eat (I like mine quite crunchy!) Then drain and squeeze over the juice of half a lemon, a little oil and salt and pepper. If you are using fresh cranberries, just boil these with water to cover until they begin to pop so the juices can mix in the salad.

Pile up the rice, greens and nuts in a big bowl, along with the cranberries or dollops of cranberry sauce, and add a little more lemon juice or seasoning to taste.

Easy peasy biryani

So the sunshine caught me a little off guard with my bowl of spicy biryani on the rooftop... but I'm not complaining.

This vegetable biryani was the first recipe I tried from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg Everyday! cookbook. I didn't have all the ingredients to hand, so instead just used whatever was left from the Growing Communities vegetable bag. It's a little re-jigged, and A LOT amazing. The new potatoes add a creamy taste that counteracts with the chili and curry powder, while I love the texture of the almonds, chickpeas and rice mixed together. It might not be the most traditional recipe, but when it comes to biryani, I think the only rule you need is to always make double. I was so upset when I finished eating this.

Makes enough for four meals

 Ingredients
2 cups of rice
2 onions, one diced small, the other left in larger chunks
2 cloves of garlic, diced
2 carrots, sliced
2 handfuls of new potatoes, sliced
1 handful of toasted, sliced almonds
1 handful of parsley or coriander
1 tin (drained) of chickpeas
3 tbsp of your favourite curry powder
1 chili, chopped small
1 juice of lemon
Seasoning
2 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil


Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and add the onions and garlic, and cook for a few minutes making sure they don't crisp. Boil the kettle with about 300ml of water and add the carrots and onions to the pan, pouring in the boiling water to just about over the vegetables. Put a lid on the pan and allow this to simmer away for about 5 minutes, until everything is coming up to parboiled.

Remove the lid and add in the curry powder and chili. You want the biryani mix to begin reducing now, so add in the chickpeas and stir occasionally, making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. In another saucepan, prepare the rice, as there's about ten minutes until the sauce is ready.


Once the vegetable curry mix has reduced, add in the almonds, lemon juice and fresh herbs, and any seasoning if you think it needs it. When the rice is ready, drain and stir into the curry mix. This will keep for two days but be sure to reheat the rice properly for leftovers- even if the temperatures outside are soaring!

The London sky. For real.