Start as you mean to go on - with vegan Sloppy Joes and winter coleslaw

I don't have a clue why anyone would decide to start anything on the first day of the year. The way I see it, the first week of January is a kind of glorious no man's land, the tree is still up for a few more days, there's odd bits of wine left over in the fridge and no pressing need to step outside. After a few too many late nights I wasn't quite ready to start on anything remotely righteous or from Whole Foods, so we decided to have one last winter feast. These easy recipes for a vegan diner meal meant we could use up some odds and ends left-over in the fridge from some over-ambitious Christmas dinners, whilst keeping it vegan and hearty and not at all "January".

There's a fair few different dishes here to serve up and let your friends dig in and help themselves with- (I preferred to change my Sloppy Joe into a sort of pseudo-chili dog) so you can add whatever you have as long as it fits in the burger I guess!

Serves 4 generously.

Ingredients

For the chili
Morrisons own-brand soy mince (this is vegan although many others aren't so I would check if using a different brand)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 clove crushed garlic
1 chopped onion
Pinch of dried rosemary
Pinch of dried thyme
Salt and pepper

For the winter coleslaw
Half a savoy cabbage, shredded to make long strands
1 small carrot, grated (I used a purple carrot which made a great bright colour for the coleslaw, but just use whatever you have to hand)
Handful of chopped parsley
50ml olive oil
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp chili dipping sauce (vegan from Sainsbury's)
Salt and pepper

For the burgers, chili dogs and Sloppy Joes
Bread buns
Linda McCartney sausages
Gherkins
3 onions, chopped into rings
Oil or vegan margarine

To make the chili, heat a little oil in a large pan and sweat the onion for a few minutes, before adding the garlic. Then add the mince and stir through the oil, before adding in the tomatoes. Add the dried herbs and seasoning, then allow to reduce and thicken for about five minutes.

To make the perfect onions for the top of your Sloppy Joes, just cut into rings and with a little oil, heat on a really low temperature for about fifteen to twenty minutes, keeping the onions moving all the time so they stay soft and hardly even brown.

Finally, shred the cabbage and grate in the carrot and add the parsley. In a jar or glass mix together the oil with the soy sauce and chili dipping sauce, along with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the coleslaw and mix with your hands to make sure it's thorough.

And there you have it. Detox schmetox!

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!