Vegan potato croquettes

There's a semi-joke among my friends that my portion control is out of control. I say semi because I think everyone now knows and expects there to always be at least third helpings at any dinner at Casa del Guac, and also because leftovers are no laughing matter, and out of control portions mean a lot of these.

Too much mash is one of my favourite problems to have, which is precisely where a vegan potato croquette starts its life. You can make them from baked potatoes but as I make vegan mashed potatoes with vegetable stock and olive oil, by the next day the mash has usually developed its flavour a little and is perfect for a filing for croquettes.

I chose to add a salad and a wedge of lemon to mine, to cut through the stodge of the potato. But then again, I made this after a sober evening and I think with hungover eyes they'd go equally as well with as many other carbs as you can fit on a plate. Your call.

Makes enough for 4 with other breakfast things or 2 very hungry people!

Ingredients
400g leftover mash potato
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp paprika
Squeeze of lemon juice
Seasoning
2 handfuls of bread crumbs or a hunk of stale bread that has been grated into 2 handfuls' worth
1/2 cup of soy or almond milk

In a large mixing bowl, combine the mashed potato with the olive oil, paprika and lemon juice, and season to taste. You don't have to add these extra flavours- but I find the paprika is a great match to the smoky fried taste of the breadcrumbs, while the lemon juice freshens it all up a little.

Set aside the potato, and then get to work on your breadcrumbs- I would grate and then use a hand blender to make them extra fine- or if you have a mixer this can sort them out too! I used the stale end of a wholemeal, seeded loaf, and the seeds tasted amazing after they'd gone chewy from being fried, but whatever bread you have in will work well as long as it is a few days old.

Once your breadcrumbs have a fine, even consistency and no major lumps, pour the soy or almond milk in to a dish and arrange so you have the mashed potato ready to go on one side, then the milk, then the breadcrumbs, and a plate to pop all the prepared croquettes on, like a factory line.

Using two tablespoons, shape the potato croquettes into fat rolls and then quickly dip into the milk so they are covered all over. Then roll in the breadcrumbs, making sure the ends are covered. Leave on a plate and start the next croquette. They don't need to be perfect as you can add a few more breadcrumbs to them all once all the potato is used up, just make sure they are firm.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan and then wait until the pan is almost smoking hot before frying two or three at a time- any more and they start to bump in to each other and knock the breadcrumbs off. Once the breadcrumbs are totally brown all over, carefully remove and plate up with the rest of your breakfast. I find it easy to make beans in this time but anything else might need a bit more preparation, in which case you could set the croquettes aside and then heat them up in the oven once they're ready to go.

Summer nights: Two tarts, two pestos, easy dinner

Here's two different tarts with two different pestos as a base. Plus a recipe for vegan potato salad which isn't too late to change your summer. This post is dedicated to a friend of mine who has served as inspiration to me over the years to follow my own heart, and who told me yesterday she is going to try a vegan diet- I hope it goes really well! Xx

Grilled courgette, pepper and onion tart with spinach and garlic pesto
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 medium courgette
1/2 white onion
2 small or 1 medium red pepper
2 handfuls of spinach
Olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped small
Juice 1/2 lemon
Seasoning
160g Jus-roll Puff Pastry (half a pack of pre-rolled pastry)
10g plain flour (to aid rolling out)
10ml soy milk

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line an oven tray or dish for your tart and set aside.

Chop and prepare the courgette, onion and pepper so they're ready to use as toppings and set to one side. Remember to keep things like courgettes thinly sliced so they will bake easily and won't weigh down the tart with juice.

Using a hand blender or mixer, blend the spinach, garlic cloves and olive oil into a fine paste, adding lemon juice and seasoning to taste. (This smells AMAZING when it's just been done. I nearly stopped cooking and just ate this for dinner.)

Roll out the puff pastry onto the tray (you may need a little plain flour to aid this, especially in hot weather!) and add on the spinach pesto straight on to the pastry. Then top with the vegetables, a little more seasoning or maybe some more olive oil. Brush the edges of the tart with soy milk so it will brown and place towards the top of the oven for around 20 minutes.

Tomato, onion and caper tart with basil pesto
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 ripe onions
1/2 white onion
2 tbsp capers
Handful of basil leaves and stalks
Olive oil
Seasoning
160g Jus-roll Puff Pastry (half a pack of pre-rolled pastry)
10g plain flour (to aid rolling out)
10ml soy milk

Follow the directions as above, using tomatoes and onions as the toppings. For the vegan pesto, blend the basil, olive oil and seasoning together, and add anything extra to taste. I left out the garlic as I thought there were enough flavours with the onion and capers- but by all means add it in if you feel like it.

Amelie's potato salad
Serves 4
Ingredients
200g potatoes, chopped into quarters and boiled
Seasoning
100ml soy cream
Handful of dill, chopped

Boil the potatoes in salted water and drain. Once they've cooled a little, mix in the soy cream and dill, and serve with plenty of salt and pepper.

We're caught in a trap: The perils of potato dauphinoise

Few people are able to understand the heartache that comes with adoring potato dauphinoise. Amelie is one of these people. Not only did she cook me, Ruth and Keelan the most perfect vegan potato dauphinoise ever, but in the same week managed to get into some kind of virtual tussle with Felicity Cloake over what exactly makes up such a flawless yet infamously tricky dish.

See, the problem with potato dauphinoise is that when it's done right, it's a wall of creamy potato, infused in garlic with an impossible-to-place yet omnipresent nutmeg seasoning. It's the kind of side dish that people row over at Sunday lunch. It's the kind of dinner I've been known to simply take out of the oven and walk off to my room with, oven mits still in hand.

So, conversely, when it's done wrong, when there's cheese, clumps of garlic, onion, ham, bacon, egg, (THESE HAVE ALL HAPPENED TO ME) it's heartbreaking, and why, until now, I had never even attempted to go near it with soy cream.

My Nanny was also one of the few people who fully comprehended the gravity of the gratin. Her potato dauphinoise was secretly also Marks and Spencer's, carefully re-assembled in her own crockery, heated to perfection and shared out among my aunts and uncles. Everyone always wanted more dauphinoise, but once it had all been served up, my portion never seemed big enough. I soon worked out that if I went to see my Nanny in the kitchen twenty minutes after dessert, she'd let me help her 'tidy up' the plastic microwave-able dish the dauphinoise came in, our stealth second helpings disguised by the rumble of the dishwasher.

Just as I tried to savour my helping of creamy potatoes as a child, I now only ever make dauphinoise when nothing else will do. Sick days, birthdays and bad days, when life gives me lemons, I can still be found in the kitchen tidying up bits of leftover potato. This one is for you Nanny!

This is based on Amelie's recipe for potato dauphinoise. I would use fresh nutmeg over ground anytime, but ground is better than nothing, so just use what you have in. Unlike some other recipes I've seen, the potatoes are not parboiled, as this means any moisture they soak up is also from the cream, making it far richer and less likely to go gloopy or too sloppy. A slice of this should stand up on its own.

Makes enough for 4, or 2 if you are not in a sharing mood. Let's be realistic.

Ingredients
500ml cartons soy cream
Fresh nutmeg
Salt, pepper
4 garlic cloves, sliced in half
400g potatoes, peeled and sliced as thinly as possible, around 1mm- 4mm thick.

Gently heat the soy cream in a pan, with a good amount of seasoning and about 1 tsp of nutmeg. Add in three of the garlic cloves and allow to simmer. It's much better to add the salt here, so taste the cream to test if it needs any more. Once heated through, remove and discard the garlic from the cream and set aside while you prepare the dauphinoise dish.

Preheat the oven to around 180 degrees Celsius.

Using the remaining garlic clove, rub a wide, shallow dish all over with the cut-open side of the clove. You may need to use both halves to get a thorough coating.

Then begin to layer up the potatoes, slightly overlapping the edges as you work across the dish. Once you've completed a layer, pour over a quarter of the cream and grate some more fresh nutmeg over. You should be able to do around 3-4 of these layers, before pouring the rest of the cream over the last of the potatoes.

Place in the middle of the oven and cook for at least 40 minutes. The top potatoes should be crispy, the middle and bottom piping hot. Allow to stand for a few minutes before serving, or bribing everyone else to leave.

Bubble, squeak and spice

Yesterday, determined to beat the rain, I cycled down to the e5 Bakehouse to get a loaf of Hackney Wild. Naturally vegan, this pain de campagne loaf is perfect with anything fried or soupy because it holds together so well, the crust is thin but firm and it will last a good few days under wraps. Teamed together with spicy bubble and squeak, another recipe that's vegan-by-default, and you've got a match made in carb heaven.

Like most recipes that use up leftovers, bubble and squeak isn't meant to look pretty, but the flavour, especially after adding chili oil and paprika, more than makes up for anything lacking looks-wise. It's also the ideal culinary-mop for a hangover, teaming a bit of grease with carbs and something spicy.

Makes a good amount for two, or enough with other dishes for 3-4.
Ingredients
5-6 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped in quarters
Salt, pepper
50-100ml of chili oil (depending on your own taste)
1 chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Around 200g cabbage leaves, cut into strips with any thick stalk removed

Toasted bread to serve. A simple tomato and basil salad (as pictured) also works really well with the flavours here.

Put the chopped potatoes in a large pan of boiling water with some salt and allow to cook through with a lid on top.

Heat some of the chili oil in a medium frying pan. (You'll be cooking the whole thing in this so it needs to have a large enough bottom to cook evenly, but- not a wok or anything too big that won't be able to keep together when you turn it over.) Sweat the onions and garlic in the pan until they begin to go translucent and season to get the salt and pepper flavouring the dish. After around 3 minutes of frying, add the cabbage and spread it out over the pan and let it cook. Sprinkle over a little paprika and a bit more oil if needed.

Once the potato is cooked, mash and add some oil and paprika also, and mix through. Add some seasoning to taste, keeping in mind the seasoning you've already added to the cabbage and onion. Then begin to spoon into the frying pan, packing it in as you go, so that it is eventually smooth on top and firm.

Allow to sizzle away for about five minutes- then turn off the heat and place a plate over the frying pan. Flip the whole thing over so the plate is now on the bottom, and gently nudge the bubble and squeak out of the frying pan (this takes some guts but just go for it, it doesn't need to look perfect). Hopefully the cabbage and onion have meant everything has stuck together, so slide it back into the pan on the un-fried side and cook for another five minutes.

Serve straight from the pan, on top of toast or fresh salad to counter the oil and potatoes, or just solo with plenty of brown sauce.

Soups to mend a broken heart: Hoskers' lentil soup

I'm not saying anyone's got a broken heart. What I'm saying is this soup is the culinary equivalent of Petula Clark's 1965 hit Downtown. This soup mends everything, fixes everything, warms everything and quells everything. This soup pretty much brought me up.

My best friend Rachael's Mum used to cook vats of this soup in a huge pressure cooker at their house over the weekend, when we'd wait in the kitchen to eat bowl after bowl. It would simmer away for hours before being blended into a smooth, rich liquid we'd dip pitta bread and bagels in to. When I moved away from home, the first thing I asked for to put in my new kitchen was a pressure cooker and a blender, so I could make this soup. It's not glamorous or show-stopping, it's delicious, cheap and sustaining.

We eat it before gigs, coming home from nights out, for Sunday lunch, for Monday lunch, for catch ups and for late-night suppers. It freezes well and will keep on the stove for around a day, deepening in flavour after a few hours. I've kept the Hoskers' recipe the same, just switching chicken stock for vegetable stock instead.

Makes enough for six bowls

Ingredients
1 mugful of red lentils, rinsed with a sieve
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
400 ml (or more) of vegetable stock
Few glugs of oil
Salt, pepper, and extra seasoning if you fancy it (chili, paprika, coriander all work well added at the end)

Take the largest pan you can find. Sweat an onion in oil for around five minutes. Add the chopped potato and carrot and stir in. Boil the kettle or prepare your stock so it is ready to pour in. Add the red lentils to the pan, mix in with all the vegetables, then add in the stock to ensure the lentils don't burn to the bottom of the pan. I would leave off seasoning for now until everything is cooked to gauage how the stock is absorbed by the lentils and vegetables.

Allow to simmer for around 30-40 minutes. Check back every 10 or 15 minutes or so to ensure the lentils haven't absorbed all the water. Top up with any leftover stock or water if this happens. Once the potatoes and lentils are cooked through, take off the heat and blend with a hand blender or mixer. Now season to taste, it may need quite a bit of salt to take the bitterness away from the lentils. I like to toast croutons to have along side this, or a huge loaf of bread to tear apart- so bowl up and enjoy.

Homemade rosemary plait bread with vegan potato and leek soup

When I was 14, I circulated a petition around an entire school assembly. It wasn't for a change in uniform or longer break times or whatever- it was because I wanted soup for lunch. In the days before Jamie Oliver's coup of the nation's canteens, when Turkey Twizzlers roamed free and the vegetarian option was a spoonful of cheese, I worked out the mark-up on soup would be through the roof for someone that did it properly, and went to see the head chef of school dinners to ask why he didn't. He told me he needed 30 signatures from me, "real names" of people that would actually eat soup for lunch, and then they would think about it. I delivered 207 to him the next day, and soup made its much-awaited debut on the school dinner rota the next week. Unsurprisingly, it was gross: industrial-sized packet soup thinned down with boiling water served in polystyrene cups. In retrospect, I should have just made and sold my own.

Good soup is easy to get right, and here's a recipe I would have used to feed the masses at lunchtime- the bread is fragrant and just the right amount of stodginess to mop up the naturally creamy potato and leek soup.

Makes enough for six

Ingredients
For the soup
1 onion, chopped
6-7 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
3-4 leeks, washed and chopped
500ml vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Few glugs of olive oil

For the bread
Sainsbury's Crusty White Bread Mix
Few sprigs rosemary
Olive Oil
Warm water

The bread will need to prove so start by following the instructions on the packet for the bread, adding in the rosemary as you knead it.*

While the bread is being left to rise, begin the soup by sweating the chopped onion in a large pan with some olive oil for about three minutes. I always add the leeks first as I like them to fry a little in the olive oil to start to bring out their flavour. Now add the potatoes and stir through with the oil, onion and leeks, before adding 500ml of vegetable stock. Allow to simmer.

At this point it will probably be time to knock back the bread and knead it again. I chose to do a plait as my bread tin is currently being used to store a vegan haggis (!?) but I think the crusty mix would also work well as individual rolls.

Following the instructions, allow the bread to prove once more and turn the oven on to preheat at the required temperature. Once the bread is ready and in the oven, blitz the soup with a hand blender and season to taste. I love eating the bread almost scolding hot, with lots of pepper to contrast the leek flavour. Lunch for under £3 for 6 portions, and no petitions in sight.

*I feel a major pang of shame writing the words 'follow the instructions'... I am working on some of my own bread recipes from scratch, I promise, just not on chilly, hungover Sunday mornings.