WHY CAN'T YOU JUST GIMME A SNACK PACK!

So I wanna talk about a couple of sweet snacky things we've bought recently that are delicious and you need to try them too.

Firstly, you've probably seen these on every UK based vegan facebook group over the last month or so - Frozen vegan churros! YASSSSS!! They have hazelnut chocolate filling inside, you bake them and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar. They are DELICIOUS. Each one is pretty small, it's not difficult to polish off a box between you and whoever is lucky to be sitting next to you at the time.

They are from Tesco and sadly I think they're limited edition as they're in Christmas packaging. They're £2 for a box of 12 mini churros. Definitely worth grabbing a couple (OR TEN!!) boxes and hoarding them like a crazy person.

The next thing you need to try was a find that Simon discovered in Costco (don't you just love Costco!). These are salty pretzels covered in chocolate and they are amazing. We scarfed most of this bag quicker than I'd care to admit and won't be buying anymore for a while because we cannot control ourselves with them (or with the maple twists they sell which are also great but I don't have a photo of them!).

Tell me what snacks you've been loving lately?

Sal xXx

Post title courtesy of this!

I'm forever blowing bubbles

A couple of weeks ago I was very jammy and got invited to go see an advanced screening of Cuban Fury in London, the day before it came out (a friend from salsa class won the tickets; there was a raffle at our class, as the guy who choreographed the movie was there teaching us a bit of the routine from the film - very fun!  Anyway I spent the day in Soho as that's where it was and Soho is a good day out.

First thing I did was go get bubble tea from Bubbleology. My friend Kip introduced me to bubble tea a couple of years ago and I can't walk by that place without getting one now. This is Taro flavoured, it kind of tastes like cookies! So good.  I also went back to the chinese/thai vegan buffet place that I posted about in my last post, but the pic is basically the same as last time. (It's called Tao by the way if anyone's in that area; it's on Great Windmill Street and it's super cheap and awesome! Everything's vegan on the buffet, they do serve dairy ice cream though apparently.

Then because I'm a nice sister, I made a cake for when my Bro & Sister-in-Law came to dinner. This is the vegan cupcakes take over the world basic chocolate recipe x 1.5 and baked for half an hour in 2 sandwich tins.  I also tweaked the recipe and used coconut milk instead of soy and added 1 tsp coconut extract, 1/2  a cup of dessicated coconut and a tin of cherries chopped up (less enough to decorate the top with that I didn't do in the end!)  The icing is the one from Nigella's Devils' Food Cake Recipe - I just replaced the butter with vitalite. The chocolate I used was a bit bitter (it's all my local shop had) but I really like this recipe.  It's way less sweet than buttercream, which I like but it's so sickly.

V for Vaygun! (My brother is rude)

SOUP! I love soup when the weather is crap and with the exception of today, the weather's been pretty crap.  This is a recipe I've posted on here before and I love it with crusty bread.

The other week I went to meet a friend I met on holiday last year in her home town and the first night we were pretty drunk so I probably couldn't have worked my phone to take a pic of the food, even if I had remembered. But I got pics of the next day's lunch. We went for thai food!

I started with Tom Yum soup. This was SOOOOO spicy, totally cleared my nose out! hahaha. It was great.

Then a thai red curry with steamed rice.  Loads of veg and lovely sauce, I really enjoyed this. (As with all Thai restaurants, just be sure to ask them to not put in any fish sauce, as they tend to put it in everything, even if it's marked vegetarian!)

Last weekend was my friend's birthday, so I offered to bring dessert as she was cooking dinner. I made the peanut butter criss-crosses from vegan cookies invade your cookie jar and to be honest they were a bit of a fail.  The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of molasses. I only put in one but it totally overpowered everything (maybe UK molasses is different??) so I added more PB and it was better. But I burnt the first batch. DAMMIT!  The second batch was a bit better. I sandwiched them with vanilla buttercream.

So because I felt bad about the crappy sangers, I made a cake too.  I was totally winging this, just chucked some stuff in and hoped for the best. It was some leftover coconut milk and lemon juice/zest that I used for the wet ingredients. I was kinda going off the lemon coconut bundt recipe in veconomicon but I was too lazy to get out the book. I also baked it in a loaf tin. It was a bit dense but surprisingly nice!  haha. I drizzled the top with a simple glaze of lemon juice and icing sugar.

And just to prove that even cute kitties take bad photos (just like their owners!), look at this stupid photo of Jazzy. BAAAHAHAHAHAHAH. It cracks me up. Snaggletoof!  haha.

Laterz
xXx

DUDE. SWEET!

Hurro everyone.

Mondays suck, so here's some pictures of a couple of sweet things I've made recently.

Starting with the fluffy pancake pillows from Isa Does It. I've been dying to try these for ages and I was not disappointed.  Although I did accidently leave out the half cup of water you're meant to add in, so I was wondering why I only got 5 instead of 6.  But actually the thicker texture meant they were even bigger! WIN.  (I've since made them properly and they are just as rad, just a little thinner and larger because the batter spreads out a bit more.)

Instead of maple syrup, I boiled a punnet of blueberries with half a cup of rice syrup for about 10 minutes for a lovely fruity syrup.  The rice syrup meant that it wasn't overly sweet.

And last week was Daddy Alien's birthday so I asked if he would like a cake or cupcakes and he said cupcakes. Then went on to talk about the awesome black forest gateaux that my mum used to make for his birthday years ago. Apparently there were fisticuffs over the last piece of cake!! haha

So taking that as inspiration I made the basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW and modified them a wee bit. I took a pack of cherry pie filling and sieved out the cherries, then reserved 12 for the tops and the rest went into the cake batter.  The topping was just plain vanilla butter cream with the reserved cherries to decorate and the cherry syrup drizzled over, with some choccy sprinkles to finish. 

These went down really well with everyone, but then, who doesn't love a cupcake?!

Hope that makes your Monday a little sweeter. Have a good week everyone. 

Oh and shameless plug - but if you're on Instagram, come follow me for more food pics, make-up and pics of Me Jazzy* (I don't think the button on the right works properly but this blog is way overdue an overhaul anyway!!).  I'm @sal_on_toast if you're into Instagram.

*Jazzy is my cat, you dirty birdie!!

Lotsolove.

Laters
xXx

Thread title courtesy of this awesome piece of ridiculousness.

Vegan MoFo Day 20: Birthday Cupcakes

Hello everyone.  I promised cupcake pics and here they are.  These are for my Auntie's 60th birthday party tonight, which is a barn dance and the food is a hog roast!! Blech, however my Auntie is making vegan food for me (she's awesome) and in return I offered cuppers.

I made the basic chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World which I flavoured with mint, then I added peppermint icing and some chopped mint cremes to decorate.  These are pretty much the same as I made for Daddy Alien's 60th Birthday 2 years ago.

 

I also made the Cookies & Cream variation of cupcakes except in the Basic Vanilla recipe instead of the Basic Chocolate.  I had to buy special american mini oreos, as UK oreos are not vegan! BOO.  But I think they came out pretty cute!

I found these in the American Aisle (which is basically 2 shelves) in my local big ass Tesco. Cute but they're £2.50 each and I had to buy 2 and I used them all!

 

This is my bro's 'creative' way to use up leftover minty icing, by putting it on the crispy cakes my mum made yesterday....

This then evolved to a double decker, mint creme topped, crispy sandwich of win!

And here's bellend creator himself enjoying the fruits of his labour!

 

I will leave you with a Jazzy pic. She actually laid there, still and looking at me and let me take 2 or 3 photos.  This is her all snug and comfy on her favourite spot - on her blanky!

 

Have a great Saturday all!

 

Laterz

xXx

 

Semi waffle success, McVegans and cake!

What is it about weekends - they go way too quick!!! Hope everyone is having a good one though anyway.

I started Sunday with some waffles! I made some yesterday and they were not bad but I forgot to take a pic. These are today's - chocolate with walnuts in. I'm still working on the recipe, there never seems to be enough to fill the whole waffle iron and they come out look like a big round one! But I'll get it right. They were pretty yummy with a blob of soyatoo whipped cream and chocolate syrup (just maple syrup and cocoa powder mixed together).


Lunch - I made McVegans. I had made some seitan the other night with these in mind. I cut a circle out of a seitan patty and out of a block of tofu. I dipped the tofu in chickpea flour seasoned with a little salt, onion powder, paprika and black salt and then lightly fried in a teeny bit of oil. Then stack the sucker up on a wholewheat english muffin, with a tofutti slice and stick it under the grill until it melts. YUM.

Friday night I had the girlies over for dinner and cooked us up a mushroom risotto. I've never made a proper one with arborio rice and adding the stock slowly before, so I was glad it all worked out. In fact it was really yummy. I added a bit of tofutti cream cheese and some nooch in at the end. We had it with steamed green beans and sugar snaps.


For dessert - a choccy cake. I cut the sugar and oil right down in this and added some apple sauce to make it lower fat - it was really good. I also chucked in some dried sour cherries. Although I hiked the calories right back up by putting chocolate ganache on top. Ah well, it was yummy and friday night!! (I'm still working on this recipe!) I struggled to get a decent pic of this.


With a blob of soyatoo!

And to drink we had Nigella's apple martinis (vodka not gin!). I bought the apple syrup online and got some apple sourz liqueur last time I was shopping so that I could make these. I thought I'd have to up the syrup because I'm not one for really strong drinks but I didn't - they were perfect. They need ice though in my opinion! So good but pretty sweet though. I've just realised that I bought granny smith apples to serve a wedge of apple in them and forgot. DOH!

This was dinner on Thursday I think. Roasty sprouts and butternut squash and potatoes with a seitan cutlet. I also made the merciful miso gravy from La Dolce Vegan to go with it. That stuff rocks.

This was another meal from last week that was awesome! The squash was a bit crap - it's one of the most tasteless ones I've ever had. The tofu I just sprayed with braggs and sprinkled it with spices then baked it. The lentils were the star though. I stole the idea of the barefoot contessa and veganised / spiced it up a bit. Recipe at the end of the post.

Lunch last week - blended up chickpeas with some mayo and nori flakes and some sweetcorn added, with a salad of rocket, shredded carrots, cucumber and avocado. The dressing was just some lime juice, soy and wasabi powder. YUM.

And another lunch - miso soup: Veggie stock, soy sauce, lime juice, pak choi, red pepper, tofu, spring onion and miso. really quick but really yummy.

Edit: I forgot the lentils recipe - so here it is:

Spicy lentils
Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 Small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste - dep on how salty your stock is)
1/4 tsp black pepper
1- 1.5 cups (250 - 375 ml) veggie stock
1 medium carrot, diced
125g green puy lentils
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Method:
Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onion for a few minutes. Add the garlic and spices and cook for about a minute.

Add the lentils, carrot and about a cup of stock and stir well. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are cooked. Add more stock if the pan goes dry at any time. If at the end of the 20 mins there's stock un-absorbed, turn up the heat and cook it uncovered a few minutes till most of it's absorbed.

Stir in the tomato puree/paste and vinegar and then serve.

This makes 2-4 servings, depending on how big you want the portions to be.

That's all for now folks. Enjoy what's left of your weekend.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: Thank Crunchie it's Ice Cream

Here is my ice cream post as promised. Brought to you from the tiniest laptop ever that I am using onsite to procrastinate.

I used to LOVE crunchie bars. I know they are dirty cadbury’s milk chocolate but they taste good and so when I found out that it is piss easy to make the honeycomb in the middle AND that the middle is nothing to do with honey and is, in fact, vegan, I knew I had to put this knowledge to good use.

Thus, this ice-cream recipe was born and let me tell ya, it is fucking awesome! It would be gorgeous just as a plain chocolate ice cream but the honeycomb makes it super special.


Chocolate Crunchie Ice cream

Ingredients:
2 cups / 500ml of soya cream (or full fat non-daiy milk)
1 cup / 250ml of vanilla soya milk (or more non dairy milk)
3 tsp arrowroot
4 tbsp / 1/4 cup sugar*
½ cup / 100g semi sweet chocolate chips
1 tsp orange extract
1 recipe of 'honeycomb' (about a cup - I used this recipe** but you can also buy it in bags in Julian Graves - they call it cinder toffee!)

Method:
If you're making your own honeycomb, it's good to do it the night before so it can really chill and firm up and it makes smashing it much easier!

To make the ice cream: Mix the arrowroot with about 4 tbsp of the vanilla soymilk. Add into the rest of it and pour into a saucepan. Add half the cream and the sugar and whisk it all together.

Heat over a low flame, stirring to dissolve the sugar, until it just starts to bubble – at this stage it will thicken slightly.

Turn off the heat and add the chocolate chips and stir until melted and evenly combined. Add the rest of the cream and the orange extract and leave to cool before chilling in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (I left it overnight).

Pour into ice cream maker and let it rip! The ice cream maker takes it up to a soft “mr whippy” like stage and mine took around 20-30 minutes - I didn't want to overfreeze it as that affects the texture.

After this time, remove it and transfer to a freezer safe tub with a secure fitting lid. Stir in the honeycomb and freeze for at least an hour before serving. Once it’s been in the freezer a good few hours it sets SOLID! So bring it out 10 mins or so before you want to eat it.

I kept back a bit of the toffee to sprinkle on the top but you can add it all in.

*The cream is slightly sweetened and the vanilla soymilk is pretty sweet so go easy on the sugar. If you use unsweetened versions you might need more, so taste it before you chill it.

** The link for the honeycomb/hokey pokey is an american one, English version is 100g caster sugar, 4 tbsp golden syrup and 1.5 tsp baking soda!

EDITED TO ADD...... this honeycomb recipe does not freeze well! The first day or so it was ok but today (after a week in the freezer) weirdly enough the honeycomb had melted into sweet little puddles. Luckily the ice cream is still awesome but I might try it with bought cinder toffee next time. Either that or just serve it the same day - don't leave it in the freezer too long.

Trashy Foodz

I did a little baking this weekend, but more on that in a bit. Mostly I have eaten trash this week so I think a week of salads and stir fries awaits me!

The day after my last post, I cooked up the remainder of the ribz and this time did them in a regular non-stick frying pan and they worked MUCH better. I just served them with some greens sauted with spring onion and garlic. mmmm.


For lunch on Thursday & Friday, I made some spicy carrot soup. I know it's still technically summer (for about 3 more hours anyway) but the weather in this country sucks so I decided on soup instead of salad. Please don't laugh at my rubbish effort of a chef-y (read: tossy!) swirl of soya cream on top! I went a bit trigger happy on the pepper so it was a tad over-spicy but when I get it right, I'll post the recipe.


Friday's dinner, I was in the mood for some trash! So I cooked up some Hot Damn & Hell Yeah's Country Fried Tofu (although I think the original recipe has breadcrumbs and mine didn't), with some chipped potatoes baked with sea salt, thyme, olive oil and paprika and some mushy peas.


So onto the baking then. My friend celebrated her birthday yesterday and she requested bran muffins (most people want cupcakes, but noooo) and bran muffins she got. We even stuck a candle in it, lit it an sang happy birthday! I used this recipe but I added 2 defrosted frozen bananas to the wet ingredients as well.

But what kind of friend would I be if I only provided healthy snacks for a birthday? The type the other guests would not be best pleased with! So I made VCTOtW basic vanilla cupcakes and I came up with a new peanut butter/choc frosting recipe. I wanted something soft enough to spread, not pipe and not be sickly sweet like butter cream and this came out perfect! huzzah.....

....only there was way too much of it for 12 cupcakes! So what to do with the rest? Make another batch of golden vanilla batter, pour it in a sheet tin and make one big choc/pb cake to take to work tomorrow. Good plan.


I didn't take pictures of the rest of the food, but I also made a couple of salads and a tofu dish to go with the potato wedges and mushrooms that my friend bought (and some disgusting processed chicken things and fishcakes for the omnis).

When I got home today, I wanted something quick so I cooked up some tofu in barbecue sauce, put it on a ciabatta roll with a tofutti slice and some gherkin and it rocked! TRASH!

For dinner, I had another go at veggie hash. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, onion, red pepper, mushrooms & peas. YUM!

That's all folks.

Cooking to: (Cupcakes) Matchbox 20 - Mad Season / (today's dinner) DVD: Season 2 of Alias

Do you want to love me sexy?

You will when you bake this cake! I promised a chocolate cake and a chocolate cake I give you. Recipe is at the end of this post.

I made the cakes Tuesday and refrigerated them overnight to help them firm up a bit. Then I frosted it today when I was slacking off instead of studying for my safety exams – bad me! (I did make up for the studying later though!)

I wanted a cake with a softer icing than normal. Also, much as I love buttercream, it can be a bit sickly. Although it’s not the prettiest cake ever, I think it turned out absolutely freaking awesome. You could replace the vanilla extract (in the cake and the icing) with orange for a chocolate orange cake too.

The frosting is really runny when you make it and personally I like to frost it when it’s still pretty soft – I like the messy homemade look! If you don’t though, just refrigerate the frosting an hour or so and it will thicken up enough (not overnight though, it wouldn’t be very easy to spread if you did this). I kept the cake refrigerated once I assembled it. I’m not sure how the frosting would hold up out of the fridge.

A couple of things I learnt from watching the Barefoot Contessa: 1) that cornflour in combination with regular flour lightens the batter; and 2) that a bit of coffee added to chocolate cake intensifies the chocolateyness! I got love for Ina, even though her recipes are full of butter, cream and eggs, she does come up with some good stuff! I’ve printed off a couple of her cake recipes that I’m gonna try and veganise – I’ll post the results of any successes!

This cake is super chocolately and really REALLY messy to decorate; that is the joy of it. But the absolute best thing about this cake? You can feed it to un-suspecting omnis, wait for them to moan with pleasure then smugly inform them it contains tofu and wait for the nauseated look to appear on their face. Score!

My friends loved this cake, one had seconds and one took a piece home for her fiancé, as he gets upset if he doesn’t get cake too! She also told me last night that she wants me to make cupcakes for her wedding reception next year! I’m so thrilled, but a bit terrified too. I’m already doing the wedding make-up and I’m a bridesmaid – I think she wants to give me a nervous breakdown! Haha just kidding, I can’t wait.

Back to tonight’s dinner and I know the main course is not really that important when cake is on the cards but this is what we had; mushroom & sun-dried tomato pilaff and garlicky spring greens! Mmm mmm! Weird that you can hardly see any mushrooms in this pic considering it was chock-full of 'em!


OK onto the important part - the cake.

UK peeps, I weighed the frosting ingredients but not the actual cake so the cake ingredients are in cups - but if you don’t have American cups you just need a measuring jug. The 250ml / ¼ litre mark is one American cup! (But go buy some cup measures seriously, they are a couple of quid in the supermarket and are SO much easier than weighing!)

Sal’s superrad messy chocolate cake
Wet ingredients:
185 ml / ¾ cup non dairy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
125ml / ½ cup light oil (I used sunflower)
½ a pack of firm silken tofu (I used Mori-Nu) – or you could use 125ml / ½ cup soya yoghurt
1½ tsp good vanilla extract
1 tsp instant coffee powder (I know that’s dry, but trust me!)
Dry Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
¼ cup / 4 tbsp cornflour
⅓ cup cocoa powder
1½ tsp (level) baking powder
½ tsp (level) baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ cup golden caster sugar
Frosting:
140g / ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
125ml / ½ cup soya cream (I used alpro)
4 tbsp / ¼ cup vegetable shortening
4 tbsp / ¼ cup vegan margarine
1 tsp good vanilla extract
80g / ½ cup icing/confectioners’ sugar
Optional:
2-4 tbsp jam
Chocolate sprinkles or shavings to decorate

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.

Combine the non-dairy milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle.

Whizz the tofu in a blender until smooth, then add the rest of the wet ingredients. Mix the coffee into the soymilk mixture, then add to the tofu mixture and blend well. I use a hand immersion blender and a pyrex jug, because I don’t have a stand blender yet.

Then sieve together the dry ingredients into a large bowl (except the sugar). Don’t skip this step, cocoa really needs to be sieved or you get mingin lumps in your cake! Blech. Stir together and add the sugar and mix well.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well until no large lumps remain, a few small ones are ok – just don’t over-mix or you’ll get tough chewy cake – ick.

Pour into 2 round sandwich tins and bake for around 25 mins or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Cool for 5-10 minutes then carefully turn out and leave on a cooling rack until completely cold. I put them in the fridge overnight to firm up.

Then make the frosting. Melt together the chocolate and soy cream gently in a double boiler, mixing well until smooth and shiny.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool a bit while you mix the other ingredients.

Measure out the other frosting ingredients into a large bowl and cream them together with a fork until just combined. Pour in the chocolate/cream mixture (don’t add the other ingredients to the chocolate, the residual heat in the bowl will be too high!) and use an electric hand beater to mix it till smooth and creamy (a minute or so), scraping down the sides as necessary.

Put the frosting in the fridge and leave it for about 20-30 minutes before assembling the cake.

To assemble, upturn one cake onto a plate or cake tray so you have a nice flat surface. Spread a generous dollop of jam over the cake if using (it is easier if the jam is at room temp, if it’s cold it will be hard to spread). I like to add the jam because sometimes chocolate cake can be a bit too much without some fruit to break it up a bit. I used blueberry because blueberry & chocolate make sweet sweet love together!


Then spread a good blob of the frosting over the jam and sandwich the second cake on top.


Pour about half to ¾ of the remaining frosting into the middle of the top cake and using a spatula, spread it gently out and ‘encourage’ it to drop over the sides, then use the remainder to build up the top and cover any holes. (Alternatively, leave the frosting in the fridge for an hour or so and spread it on.)

Decorate with sprinkles or shavings and put back in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Inside shot of what was left this morning - it was excellent for breakfast by the way :-) :


Cooking while watching Semi-Pro (hence stupid post title)

Whew! Spicy.

The good thing about Sundays are that you have extra time to make something awesome! So I decided that I would try my hand at a tagine style stew and it turned out really well. I made some lemon couscous to go with it.

Edited recipe is at the end of this post - I forgot the chickpeas and added extra chilli which made it realllllly hot. I added the chickpeas in when I reheated it for dinner last night and they definitely belong in there!!


For dessert, I had some puff pastry that I defrosted that needed using up so I came up with these. Basically I just cut the pastry into rounds and bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes until they are lightly golden. Then I filled them with some rosewater pastry creme (recipe from VCTOTW, I just replaced the vanilla extract with rosewater). On the top I just mixed some icing sugar and rosewater together until it was a runny paste, drizzled it on top then sprinkled on some smashed up pistachios. These were tasty but MESSY! Luckily I live alone!

What to do with the leftover pastry? hmmm. I know, roll it out, fill it full of peanut butter and chocolate chips and bake it along with the pastry circles! Excellent with a cup of tea - 70's Animal agrees!

As promised, the recipe for the tagine-esque stew. It feels wrong calling it a tagine as, a) it was cooked in a crockpot and b) I don't really have any idea what should be in a tagine. So forgive the shite name and I give you...

Moroccan Inspired Veggie Stew
Ingredients:
1 small onion
Tbsp or so of olive oil
3 or 4 carrots (dep. on size – I used 4 small ones)
½ a large aubergine / eggplant
¼ small butternut squash
1 medium sweet potato
1 red pepper
1 can (400g) chick peas
500ml (2 cups) veg stock or water (in my case water from a kettle and 2 tbsp of oxo veggie stock concentrate!)
2 tbsp harissa (you can alter this to lower / raise the heat – if you don’t like spicy, start with one and add more later if it needs it!)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp cinnamon or a cin. stick
¼ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp smoked paprika
A 500g box of creamed tomatoes or passata (you can use a tin of tomatoes and just blend them if you don’t have passata)
2 bay dried leaves
Salt & pepper to taste
Juice of half a lemon
Small handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Couscous ingredients:
1 cup dried couscous
250ml / 1 cup hot veg stock or water
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Salt & pepper to taste
4 tbsp / ¼ cup sultanas
4 tbsp / ¼ cup pine nuts

Method:
While you prepare the veg, turn the crockpot on high and add the olive oil.

Peel and chunk up the sweet potato, squash, carrots and onions into large dice. Cut the pepper and aubergine the same sort of size.

Add the onion to the olive oil and stir around then add the rest of the veg, except the chick peas.

Veggies in the pot - I took a pic cuz they were so pretty and colourful!

Mix the harissa and spices into the stock and add to the crock, with the bay leaves and tomatoes and a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Turn the crock down to low, cover and cook for 8 hours. Stir every now and then. When there’s an hour or so left of cooking time, check for seasoning and heat. Add some chilli flakes if needed and adjust seasoning (this needs quite a bit of salt I found, but then I like lots of seasoning!)

To make the couscous, mix together all the ingredients, except the pine nuts, in a bowl and cover with a plate. Set aside for at least 5 minutes. Toast the pine nuts in a dry non stick pan, over a med-high heat for a few minutes until golden and toasty. Keep your eye on them – they go quick!

Fork through the couscous (don’t use a spoon or it’ll get claggy) and then mix in the pine nuts (I like to reserve a few to sprinkle on top).

This will easily feed 4 people but tastes great reheated the next day as well!

Cooking to: Weezer – Pinkerton