Salad Days

Another extended break from an internet connection has left blog posts a little thin on the ground for August- but it wasn't all bbqs on the beach and home cooking... at least not all the time!

For my Dad's birthday this year I made him a cook book of all my favourite recipes I have so far discovered. In fact there's been quite a few new dishes I've had to keep under wraps from here as I know he checks it from time to time!

Here's a little look at the finished cook book, which we looked through with fried mushrooms and parsley from the garden for breakfast. Happy Birthday Dad!

Brunch at Naomi's: Gluten-free, vegan crepes

A few Sundays ago Naomi made brunch and we talked about the missing local cat and the weirdness of strangers. These crepes are vegan and gluten free, less oily and greasy than standard pancakes and really really tasty. We had them with berries from Deptford Market, soy vanilla yoghurt and too much tea.

Naomi told me she used Dove's Farm bread flour (I think you could use either brown or white but she used brown in this instance) as it comes with Xanthan Gum in it already, which helps with any gluten-free cooking.

Naomi's (Not at all) Crepe Brunch

Ingredients

1/2 cup Soymilk

2/3 cup Water

1/4 cup Pure soy margarine

1 cup  Dove’s Farm gluten free brown bread flour

1/4 tsp Salt

1 tbsp Sugar (sweet crepes only, optional)

2 tsp Vanilla Extract (sweet crepes only, optional)

2 tbsp Water, to thin if needed

Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and whisk until smooth. Transfer to a pourable jug and refrigerate for 30 minutes. While the batter is refrigerating, wash the fruit or other fillings.

Heat a small frying pan and add a little oil, and once the oil is smoking in the pan, add enough crepe batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Allow the mixture to cook and once the edges begin to dry and come away from the side of the pan, use a spatula to loosen the edges and eventually the middle, so you can flip it over. The first crepe is never the best so be patient and use that one for a taste test (yum). Carry on doing the same method for each crepe, adding a little more oil between every few crepes. 

P.S. As well as brunches, Naomi is also amazing at making illustrations- you can see them here.

Spicy bean burger leftovers

Spicy bean burgers made from this recipe, with giant cous cous and chick pea salad, gherkins and toasted pitta. I'm sadly not working from home, but if I was, this is my dream lunch. Yes, it's okay to have those.

Work in progress: Chocolate and cherry Bundt cake

Last Sunday I got up at the crack of dawn to get this little blighter in the oven. Eating cake for breakfast is certainly a decadent pursuit, but unlike most involves getting up very early! A bowl of leftover cherries from the vegetable box became the perfect excuse to try the Bundt tin my Mum gave me- they are so much fun!!

I added some glace chocolate icing and cherries to finish it off. No recipe this time as there's still some parts to the ingredients and method I want to tweak- but here's a visual taster...

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.

Vegan Summer Lovin' Spicy Bean Burger

So on my journey to finding the perfect vegan burger I've so far come across falafel, chickpea burgers and red lentil and rice burgers. But no mission would be complete without a pit stop at the SPICY BEAN BURGER aka the best food on the planet.

--- Cue Scooby-Doo time warp frame---

Way back when service stations didn't have Prets and M&S Food in them, all they used to have was a Burger King and a coffee kiosk. As my whole family were vegetarian back then, the only thing we could eat out of the entire menu was the Spicy Bean Burger, and I used to dream about that burger the whole four hour car journey to our stop-off point. See, spicy bean burgers mean fun is on the horizon and that summer has just begun. At least to an eight year old me, that is.

Now I won't be eating chez Burger King anymore, but this burger recipe is based on what I can remember them tasting like. Minus the bad stuff, obvs.

This recipe will make around 10 burgers, cost about £1.50 for the ingredients you use, and fill you up so much second portions become out of the question.

Ingredients
4 tbsp vegetable/sunflower oil
1 carrot grated
1 onion diced small
1 tin (drained) cooked kidney beans
1 tin (drained) chickpeas
2 garlic cloves
1 chili
1 small tin (drained) sweetcorn
1 handful peas (frozen or fresh)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1tsp ground coriander
Around 300g flour

Take a big mixing bowl or wok and add everything to it apart from the flour. Once thoroughly mixed in, give the burger mix a try to see if you want to add any salt or pepper, or maybe some lemon juice or extra chili. Using a hand blender or potato masher, roughly blend the mix so it can be shaped into patties, although I like to keep it so you can see some peas, sweetcorn and kidney beans in the burger.

Add around 200g of the flour, until you are able to make burger shapes in your hand, and then use the remaining 100g of flour to roll the burgers into to keep their shape together (as above).

Then heat 1 tbsp of oil and once this is hot, carefully add two burgers to the pan to fry, turning after around 3 minutes on each side. Make sure the pan doesn't get too hot- you want to cook the mixture the whole way through without burning the tops. Once your first batch is done, repeat with two more burgers, adding more oil when the pan begins to dry out.

While you're waiting for the burgers to fry (and keeping an eye on the pan at all times) you can make a quick cous cous salad like the one below, or slice up gherkins, or toast your burger buns. Whatever tickles your summer lovin' fancy!

The tomato stall haul

Now don't get me wrong, I love tomatoes as much as the next gazpatcho obsessive. But until heading home with a brown paper bag full of tomatoes from the Tomato Stall, I didn't know they could taste quite so good.


Tomatoes are often used as a base, a general flavour-filler, or simply to add colour to a dish. But good tomatoes, like mushrooms, stand up to just a little seasoning all by themselves. After spending a few hours hearing how great tomatoes could be, I wanted to see exactly what the fuss was about. So I grilled some vine and plum tomatoes for breakfast, keeping it simple with just some balsamic vinegar and rosemary.


The vine tomatoes were fleshy and great with toast, but the plum tomatoes were something else. Grilled with the rosemary they went very sweet, and sort of like how I imagine sundried tomatoes should really taste. This is a great example of how stripping back flavours and ingredients can leave you with something totally new to try- no oil, onions, eggs, cheese, or anything else needed- just one amazing key ingredient.

Ingredients
Handful of tomatoes, some chopped in half or left whole
Few sprigs of rosemary
Balsamic vinegar
Seasoning
Toast
Salad leaves

Turn the grill up high, and get the kettle on. Place the tomatoes on an oven tray with some rosemary to sit along side, then season with salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Place in the grill for around 3-5 minutes- I like my tomatoes to just be beginning to cook through but if you like yours a little more cremated, leave longer.

In this time, sort out your toast and tea. Once the tomatoes are grilled, top the toast with washed salad leaves. Then scrape everything that's on the oven tray on- all the bits of rosemary and seasoning, and of course, as many tomatoes as you can fit.