Was that predictable? I think it was. Ah well I don’t care! I am so excited, my little fledgling bloglet has won an award – courtesy of the lovely Jessy at happyveganface.
I think her blog is fab so I’m really flattered that she nominated me as one of her picks. She has been very supportive and often leaves me really sweet comments so a big thank you to you Jessy!So here are the rules....
* put the logo on your blog.
* add a link to the person who awarded you.
* nominate seven other blogs.
* add links to those blogs on your blog.
* leave a message for your nominee on their blogs.
And here are my nominations – glamourous assistant, the envelope please....
1. Vegan.Chicks.Rock - I couldn’t agree more!
2. Chocolate Covered Vegan
3. Could it be seitan?
4. Indian Vegetarian Kitchen
5. Destiny’s Vegan Kitchen
6. Comfort Food Vegan
7. Megatarian
Ok and because I’m in a good mood, some food pics and a recipe. Firstly, I reworked my banana muffin recipe to make it wheat-free and also because I had to because I didn’t quite have the right ingredients. I actually preferred these to the regular ones, the texture is better and they are more peanut buttery.
So here is the tweaked recipe:Banana Peanut Butter Spelt Muffins
Wet ingredients:
2 ripe bananas (mine were frozen and just defrosted in the morning, but fresh are better)
125ml / ½ cup soy yoghurt
125ml / ½ cup soymilk (or other non-dairy milk)
4 tbsp / ¼ cup crunchy peanut butter
60ml / ¼ cup sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Dry ingredients:
320g / 2 cups spelt flour
1 cup sugar (I know a lot of bakers add this in with the wet but I put it in with the dry to make mixing easier)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
In a jug, mash together the bananas and whisk in the rest of the wet ingredients.
In a large bowl stir together the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients in and mix well. Line a muffin pan with muffin cases and fill them half way with the mixture. Bake until a knife comes out clean (about 20-30 mins depending on your oven).
Note: I got 8 muffins out of this mixture, but as you can see they were HUGE! That’s because I filled them 2/3 full, like I always do with muffins, but these rose more than normal, so only fill them half way up.
Cooking to: Audioslave – Out of Exile
A couple of other shots as well. I been trying to make sure I get my dark green veg every day and surprisingly really enjoying it.
I have also discovered my favourite new vegetable side dish: blanche some greens (sugar snap peas and string beans work especially well), just for a couple of minutes then plunge them into ice water. Then sauté a small onion or shallot (finely diced) in a little bit of olive oil. When it’s browned add the greens, grate in a clove of garlic and a bit of salt & pepper and just cook it till the veg are warmed through. This keeps them really crispy and delicious and blanching / shocking in cold water keeps them beautifully vibrant green. Perfect!
So here’s two pics of meals with the aforementioned veg:
This one was my favourite! I roasted some onions, red pepper and tomatoes in a little olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, then added some of Julie Hassons’ awesome Italian spicy sausage for the last 5-10 minutes of baking. I served some brown rice along with it, that I just tipped into the tray once I took out the veggies and mixed around to get some of the balsamicy veggie juices to coat the rice. By the way, if you’ve not made these sausages yet – try them! They freeze really well so even if you can’t eat them all in a few days it’s ok. And they’re a great recipe that is quite easy to tweak if you don’t like spicy / garlic … etc. They’re just awesome.
This was just some plain old baked tofu. But the potato wedges, now they were delicious. I baked them for almost an hour in total at 180°C (with a little olive oil, a sprinkling of paprika and sea salt) and they were perfectly crispy and soft in the middle.
And this was just some veggies, tinned tomatoes, chilli and pasta – a really quick dinner.
