Beetroot hummus with charred dippers

It's way too hot to stick anything in the oven right now, so instead I'm not ashamed to say I fantasized about beetroot hummus for most of Tuesday.

Beet hummus is a great way of brightening up some aperitifs or grab-and-go dinners, and is much lighter than regular hummus so you don't need to worry about filling up before a show-stopping main course. The deep pink shade of hummus coupled with the oily wrap dippers make a perfect understated entrance for guests and is refreshing enough to serve mid-heatwave.

I would team this with some giant green olives on ice and some herb toasted almonds, or just a few cold wheat beers and plenty of the dipper wraps pictured above and below.

Makes enough for four as a dip

Ingredients

4 beetroots, peeled and cut into quarters

1 tin of chickpeas, drained

2 garlic cloves, chopped small

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tbsp tahini

Juice of one lemon

Seasoning

Olive oil to taste

Plus flour wraps to serve

Boil the beetroot in salted water until they are soft and can be pierced with a fork. Once cooked, chop into smaller pieces to make it easier to blend.

In a large mixing bowl, add the chickpeas, garlic cloves, cumin, tahini and lemon juice, along with the chopped beetroot. Using a hand blender or mixer if you have one, blend until smooth. The consistency will be lighter than normal hummus, so don't be worried if it isn't as thick. Add olive oil and seasoning to taste once you've blended, and set aside.

For the charred dippers, use a griddle pan to fry flour wraps on a high heat with olive oil for a few seconds (about 10) on each side. Then chop into quarters or eighths and get scooping!

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.

Chana Masala

I'll be frank- I was making this at half eleven at night, which is why it is in my lunchbox the next morning and not on a plate. This chana masala is slightly re-jigged from the citrus-y affair you get from a take-away, this is a little warmer, moreish, and with about half the ingredients. I'm in an honest mood it seems!

The addition of spring onions takes way that strong onion taste, and instead is mellow and sweet with a tender texture like it's been simmering away for hours- when really this only takes 20 minutes.

This is the best dinner when the sky falls in and you just want to eat a huggggeee curry. Everyone feels like that at least once a week yes?

Serves 4....or 3.... or 2....

Ingredients

2x tin of chickpeas
2x garlic cloves, sliced small
2x large spring onions (these have a larger bulb, similar size to a shallot), sliced into circles
1 carton of chopped tomatoes
1 chili, chopped
3 tablespoons of vegetable curry powder
2 tablespoons sunflower/vegetable oil
Handful of parsley chopped loose or fine, however you like

Heat the oil and add your chopped garlic and spring onions. Keep the heat low, and let them cook without burning for about five minutes. Add the chickpeas and chili and allow everything to fry in the oil for about two minutes, before adding the carton of tomatoes.

Allow this to cook away with a lid for about five minutes, then add the curry sauce and reduce for another five minutes. Add the chopped parsley and you're done.

Lemon and sesame seed falafel

When life gives you lemons... make falafel.

I had a not-so-great experience in Marks & Spencer the other week, whereby I tried to buy a huge stack of falafel for a garden lunch, only to find that they had decided to include egg and milk in their falafel recipe. There is no need for either of those ingredients in a traditional falafel. Here's the thing: protein makes things stick together. It's why people add egg to cake. Chickpeas are a great source of protein. They will also make things stick together. Which is why falafel is great, as it is a vegan food by default- my favourite kind. It's something you don't need to mess around with or alter- it should just be vegan.

HENNYWAY. They'll see sense eventually, I'm sure. In the mean time, here's a beautiful falafel recipe to sink your teeth into. I've seen recipes that don't use the flour, and if you wanted to keep this gluten free then by all means leave it out- but I prefer to roll mine flour first to make the outer edges a little crispier when fried.

Makes around 16 falafels

Ingredients
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 onion, diced
1 large garlic clove, chopped small
1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained
1 tsp cumin
1 large handful of fresh parsley chopped down small
Juice of 1 lemon
20g plain flour
4 tbsp of sesame seeds

Heat a frying pan with 1tbsp sunflower oil, and over a very low heat, spend 5 minutes frying the onion and garlic. You want them to remain soft and not at all crispy.
In a mixing bowl, use a hand blender or potato masher to mix the chickpeas, parsley, cumin, lemon juice and 2 tbsp of sesame seeds together, adding in the onion and garlic. The fresh parsley should give it a great green colour.

In a small bowl, add half the plain flour and half the sesame seeds. Mix these in, then taking a tablespoon size of chickpea mixture, roll in the flour and sesame seed mix and shape into a patty or ball. Once you've made four of these, heat 1 tbsp of oil and fry each side for around 3 minutes. Go slow- they are much better with less oil and less heat, than if you attempt to deep fry- as they will go soggy. After you've used up the first half of the flour and sesame seed mixture, add the second, and the same with the oil, until you have a plate full of amazing, vegan, falafel.

Chickpea and red cabbage box salad

Five day box salad with chickpeas and red cabbage

A great way to sort your lunches ahead of time is a Box Salad. You can eat this salad raw, as it is, or zap in the microwave for a few minutes- the red cabbage especially is amazing hot or cold.  

Spend twenty minutes making this on a Sunday evening and you'll be sorted 'til Friday! The lime juice will keep this salad tasting fresh, and by using a study green leaf like chard you can be sure it will hold up for a good few days in the fridge. The parsley is great in the place of an onion if you're eating this at work- I find it adds a similar savory tang to salads that raw onion does, just without the long-lasting onion breath to follow! Social eating at its best, but if you don't care, then I think this would be great with a little chopped red onion too.

Ingredients:
1 tin of cooked Chickpeas, drained
1/4 red cabbage cut into long shreds
1 grated carrot
Handful of peas
Handful of chard with stems chopped off 
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
Dash of white wine vinegar

Juice of 1 lime

Salt, pepper to taste

Grab a mixing bowl, or if you don't have one, just your largest saucepan or wok. 


Add all ingredients, bearing in mind that flavours like salt will intensify as the days go by, so always add slightly less than needed. Then decant into five different tubs- supermarket soup containers or former- margarine tubs are the perfect size. 


Lunch is sorted! You can add couscous or rice to this if you fancy a little variety, or just eat as is.