Really sayin' something

It might have all fallen a little quiet on the Guac & Roll front over here, but rest assured there's more than a little something in the works for next week...

As well as recipe testing and scrawling ideas on my work roof at any given moment, I managed to finally get my hands on some of the gorgeous magazines pictured above- Kinfolk, Cereal, Wilder and Chickpea. I decided to buy the spring/summer issues as I think I'm in some major seasonal denial and wanted to read about ice cream and sorbets for another few months. If you come across any of these, they're all sumptuous reads, and I don't think anything can replace that luxury of having an evening or even just an hour to spend reading a magazine you've been trying to track down for months. I cycled home with all four weighing down my rucksack like a treasure trove.

See you shortly, and follow me on Instagram for vegan ideas and mishaps with burritos in the mean time!

Back to school

Unlike January, I think September is one of the best months to start something new. Maybe it's the back to school feeling ingrained into what the start of autumn means, but I love making a new beginning at this time of year. With three months to go until the New Year and the warm nights still here, I feel like it's an ideal time to start a good habit or research a change you want to make.

I've had some amazing conversations with a load of people over the past few days that have really got me excited about being vegan and making further changes to my lifestyle. I've also been able to change my work balance specifically so I can spend what currently feels like an AMAZING amount of time working on all things Guac & Roll, and devoting way more time and energy to researching and making vegan food for me and the people around me. 

                      

So I thought it would be a great time to post the two things that got me here in the first place- Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, which I cannot recommend enough, and have talked about here. Along with Foer's book is the interview above with Ellen DeGeneres, where she discusses why she turned vegan. It was these two pieces of information that made me make a decision to try being a vegan, and I still end up in tears every time I watch this video, Ellen is such a babe.

Finally- for all my friends trying out veganism over the next few months- here's a link to how Guac started out, as a tumblr diary of my first few months as a vegan- which included a disastrous mac and cheese, a lot of fry ups and marmite on toast before things started to get easier! 

Good luck everyone! I know there's a ton of resources and books out there to help vegans just starting out- if any of them speak as clearly to you as these did to me then please let me know, I always love some new inspiration! 

Vegan Burns Night supper with haggis, clapshot and kale

On Sunday I made a belated Burns Night supper using this vegan haggis recipe, along with clapshot (very fun to say), curly kale, roast carrots, parsnips and onions, roasted cabbage, homemade cranberry sauce and red onion and balsamic gravy.

Clapshot, which originates from Orkney, is traditionally made with mashed turnips (swede), potatoes, butter, chives and seasoning. I chose thyme to mash with mine, and exchanged the butter for sunflower oil and plenty of mashing. You could also use a vegan margarine replacement if you're looking for a really creamy 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.

Ratatouille and doorstep bread

Monday nights are great for this reason: at no point in the week will you ever be further away from a Monday morning. So grab some friends and make some dinner. This recipe is inspired by @Vegan's tweet on Sunday evening, suggesting that vegetarians try going vegan for #meatlessmonday. A simple, hearty ratatouille is a great place to start, chock full of flavour and low maintenance enough for a week night.

All the vegetables pictured above came from my Growing Communities vegetable bag this week, so they are all in season and taste amazing. Aubergine, courgette and chopped tomatoes are usually a good place to start, and after that, just stick in whatever takes your fancy (in my case, broad beans).

Serves 4, or two people for dinner and lunch the next day

Ingredients

1 courgette, chopped into 1-2 cm thick chunks

2 aubergine, chopped into 1-2 cm think chunks

3 carrots, roughly chopped

2 large handfuls of small potatoes- I like to leave them whole after peeling

1 onion or 2 large spring onions, diced

Anything extra that takes your fancy, such as broad beans, peas, a red pepper, red onion. 

2 cartons of chopped tomatoes

4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly

400ml vegan vegetable stock

2 sprigs of rosemary

Seasoning

150ml vegetable/sunflower oil

Heating 100ml of oil in a large saucepan and add the chopped onions and garlic. Allow these to heat through, before adding the potatoes and carrots. Cover in the oil and onions and garlic. Boil the kettle to make your vegetable stock. Add the rest of your chosen vegetables, pour in the stock and add the rosemary. Stir so it's all combined- the water doesn't need to cover the vegetables but just help cook them a little and take on some flavour from the stock. Season and leave to simmer for 15 minutes.

Once the water has reduced, add the tomatoes and turn up the heat a little so it simmers on high. Carry on seasoning and tasting as the ratatouille begins to reduce and the vegetables cook the whole way through. I chose to take the rosemary out about 10 minutes before the end of cooking so as not to overpower the other flavours- so be sure to season, add extra oil, or leave the rosemary in all to your own taste. Once the potatoes are cooked the whole way through, you're ready to serve. 

Just add thickly sliced brown bread and your #meatlessmonday is made!

Vegan Summer Raindance Rolls

Vegan Summer Raindance Rolls 


You've heard of a raindance yes? Well this is the opposite. I've decided to start cooking the most summer-synonymous dishes I can think of, hoping that big ball of burning gas in the sky will take note. 


Summer rolls are perfect for adding something different to a run-of-the-mill-midweek stir fry. They are similar to their less-jolly Spring roll cousin, but with a thinner wrapping that is also normally vegan. They don't need to be fried, instead serve at room temperature or slighlty warm, with chilli sauce or a peanut butter/hoisin sauce. I chose to keep mine simple with just a salad and leftover rice for the perfect Raindance lunch. 


Ingredients
(Makes enough for 10- which is roughly how many pancake wraps there should be in a single pack)
One pack of Blue Dragon rice flour pancakes
Handful of red cabbage, cut as thin as possible (julienned if possible, or just do it yourself)
Handful of julienned greens
One large carrot, julienned
Two handfuls of bean sprouts
One onion, cubed 
Soy sauce
Oil
Sweet chilli sauce for dipping


Prepare your vegetables first- cooking so they reduce a little and will be soft enough to easily use in the pancake rolls. Then drain away any extra liquid- you don't want this going into the wraps as they won't fold as easily.
One at a time, soak the rice pancake in a bowl of hot water for 15 seconds. Carefully remove and place on  a wet tea towel.  Using the corners of the tea towel, blot the pancake dry until it becomes sticky. This will make it easier to keep in place when folding up.
Take a tablespoon of stir fry mixture and place in the centre of the roll, in the same roll shape as seen above. Then fold both top and bottom ends into the middle of the wrap, take the right hand side of the wrap and fold over the mixture, then roll the whole thing towards the left hand side, making sure the pancake is tightly wrapped at either end. Leave on a plate while you do the rest.


A quick scan across Pinterest and other vegan blogs makes me so excited to try these out again- you could add coriander before putting any mixture on the pancake to give it a pretty translucent effect when wrapped up, tofu, alfafa sprouts, or keep the whole thing raw with radishes and magoes! The world is your summer roll.

Fix-all chickpea burgers: surviving your first BBQ as a vegan

Fix-all chickpea burgers 


Barbecuing is a bit of a foodie minefield even among hardcore meat-eaters, so it was with some trepidation that I made my way down to my first barbecue as a vegan. But I came duly prepared with these fix-all chickpea burgers and a trusty pack of Linda McCartney sausages in case of emergency (i.e. if everyone pounced on the chickpea burgers, which, of course, they did) and it was a BBQ breeeeeze.


A a vegan, the key tip to surviving any barbecue you've been invited to is to cook what you can before-hand, or be prepared to ask your host for a fresh frying pan/oven that hasn't been cooking meat. If there's already meat on the barbecue there's not much you can do, but if you've cooked your food once before, you can tuck in without causing too much fuss over at the grill. 


And the other thing to bear in mind? Barbecuing is essentially an outdoor pot-luck party. It's a great chance to bring your favourite vegan recipes for all your friends/family to try when they load up their plates. So bring extra and leave a platter for everyone to sample. 

Makes around 12 small-sized burgers


Ingredients:
1 400g tin of cooked chickpeas- drained (check the 'World Foods' aisle of your local supermarket- they're always cheaper there)
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves 
Handful of chopped parsley
1/4 tin chopped tomatoes, or half a jar of tomato salsa
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
Plain flour to add to consistency, around 200g.


Grab the biggest mixing bowl you can find, and add all ingredients apart from the flour. Mix in a blender or hand blender until you have a coarse paste where you can still see bits of onion and parsley. Then begin to add the flour as you mix by hand. No-one likes a crumbly burger so the burger mix needs to be strong enough to hold up a table spoon in the middle of the mixing bowl. Remember you can taste as you go- so add more pepper, herbs or oil until you're satisfied with your mixture.


Sprinkle a little flour on a side dish, take a handful of the mixture and roll it in the flour dish until it isn't sticky to touch. Then pat into a burger shape. Once you've done three or four, heat your pan with oil and place them in once hot. As long as you keep your attention on the pan, you can carry on making the burgers at the side of the stove. 


Check how your burgers are getting on every one-two minutes, and then flip over to cook on the other side, spending about three/four minutes on each side. 


Allow to cool on a plate, then box up and they're ready to go! They'll only need a few minutes on a hot grill at a barbecue, or five minutes in a hot oven. Hey presto! You survived! Just remember to nab yourself a burger before everyone else does.

P.S. I've got plenty more ideas for vegan burger recipes to try out over summer, so will be honing this recipe to perfection in the coming months. Let me know if you've got any other vegan burger recipes you can't barbecue without!

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.