Vegan MoFo: Soup & lazy breadsticks

I really couldn't think of anything I wanted for dinner tonight so after staring into the fridge I found leftover mushrooms, soy cream and sweetcorn. So I made soup.


And twisty breadsticks. It was yummy.

I don't have a recipe for the soup, I just chucked stuff in the pot, but I do have one for the breadsticks. They're lazy breadsticks - the best kind! This makes 4 breadsticks.

Ingredients:
1 cup of plain flour
1 sachet of fast action yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp agave nectar
1/2 cup warm water

Method:
Mix together dry ingredients and then mix together wet and pour into the dry. Mix until combined and knead until combined (about 30 seconds, told you they were lazy!). Add more flour if too wet or more water if too dry.

Divide into 4 and roll into sausages then twist. Put on a baking tray and spray with a little oil

Bake at 200C/400F for 15 minutes or until just starting to brown and they sound hollow when you tap the bottom.

I'm off to watch gilmore girls and resist the urge to make another microwave mug cake!!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: The dumbass, the crap photots and the cake

The dumbass would be me! I had a tonne of photos on my camera of today's dinner and the cake that this post is about but when I put the memory card back in to take another pic, I somehow managed to delete everything else off my camera!!! DUMBASS. Oh well, the gist is this....

I got back from body jam* tonight and felt saucy and cuz dinner was quite low calorie I went with it. I decided to make my own version up of the differeent microwave mug cake recipes that's going round t'internet and this is what I came up with. I tried mixing sugar and cocoa and sprinkling it on top then adding hot water in the hope of seeing some nice sauce appear on my cake, but was disappointed.

That is until I got to the bottom of the mug and found there was a bit of sauce - squee! However, it was that discovery that lead to me taking out the memory card and... oh you know the rest! boo.

So here are a couple of hella shite pics of my microwave choccy cake, I had some soya cream on it too, that's what the white gunk is!

Sorry! But to make up for my stupidity, here is the recipe. I won't lie and tell you "this is the greatest cake you'll ever eat like OMG!" But for a cure to a chocolate craving that takes less than 10 minutes to prepare, cook and wash up, it's pretty good.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) of flour (I used white spelt)
1 tsp of cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/4 tsp coffee granules (optional)
3 tbsp of non-dairy milk
1/8 tsp cider or white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rapeseed (canola) oil
1 tbsp agave nectar or maple syrup

Optional extra:
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1.5 tbsp hot water

Method:
Stir together your dry stuff in the mug of your choice. Chuck in the wet stuff and mix till combined. Mix together sugar and cocoa powder and sprinkle over the top. Then pour the hot water over the top.

Put on a microwave safe plate (just in case there's spillage), then microwave for 1 minute. Leave it to cool a bit before scoffing or you'll burn your tongue - piggy truffler!!


*Does anyone else do body jam?? I've been a few times now and I LOVE it. It's so much fun, you honestly don't feel like you're exercising until the music stops and you realise you're an un-coordinated sweaty mess! If your gym does Les Mills BTS classes, I recommend you go shake your booty at this one!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: And you just had some kind of mushroom and your mind is moving slow!

OK so I think Jefferson Airplane may have been high when they wrote White Rabbit, and my post is about baby bella mushrooms, not magic ones!! But gimme a break, I don’t know any other songs about mushrooms.

Today was a day like many others where I have no clue what to make for dinner. But luckily I looked into the far depths of my fridge and found me some mushrooms!! So I decided on a stroganoff of sorts. I had some soy yoghurt left and some herbs but no soy sauce, damn. No recipe because it was one of those wonderous things where I just chucked stuff in and hoped for the best. I used mushrooms (duh), an onion, some paprika, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, sweetcorn, tofu, braggs and some veggie stock. Then added some soya yoghurt at the end and some fresh parsley. Yum yum.

Did you guys see aliens take over my blog yesterday!! Well not exactly but some a-hole hacked it and posted a bunch of crap about Frankfurt!! What’s that about! Sorry if you subscribe by email and got an email full of spam from me!!

One pill makes you largerrrrrr and one pill makes you smallllllll! Gonna be singing that all night!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: This bread is bananas. B.A.N.A.N.A.S!

One thing I've noticed from reading some old posts is that I make stuff and then forget to go back and perfect the recipe if I don't get it right. So I'm revisiting some recipes during MoFo and starting with some banana bread that wasn't so perfect the first time round.

I used pecans instead of hazelnuts this time. I left some of the bananas chunky again but pureed some too, I also kicked the spices up a notch. It was WAY better this time, so here's the recipe.


Dry Ingredients:
1 cup (150g) white spelt flour
1 cup/(130g) wholegrain spelt flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup, packed (120g) dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (60g) pecans, chopped. Measure before chopping!
Wet Ingredients:
3 ripe/overripe bananas
1/2 cup (125ml) soya yoghurt
1/2 cup (125ml) unsweetened non-dairy milk
1/4 cup (60ml) rapeseed (canola) oil
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp agave nectar

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Chop pecans and mix together with the other dry ingredients.

Chop the bananas and throw half in with dry ingredients and get them coated in flour. Mash the other half and mix the rest of the wet ingredients in with it.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just combined.

Spray a loaf tin with rapeseed oil and pour the mixture into the tin. Smoothe out and bake for 35 minutes. Then turn the heat down to about 160 and bake for another 25 mins or until a skewer comes out just clean.

Unfortunately my photography skills suck so this is the best cut pic I could get.

Here it is with some pure soya on while it was still warm. (It's also good with a bit of jam on!)

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo: argy bhaji!

I was bored the other day so I watched Market Kitchen (I have to pretty dang bored to watch that!!) and this dude was making onion bhajis. I had already planned a curry for dinner so thought I'd give them a go, but deep frying them is not good for my diet.

So I decided to make my own up as I went along and to bake them instead and they worked too!! They are really easy to make as well.


Here's the recipe if you want to have a go yourself (good news for gluten free folks, they use chickpea flour!!)

Ingredients:
1-2 tbsp olive oil (plus extra for baking)
1 nice large onion, finely sliced (you need about 2 cups of onion)
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) chickpea (gram) flour
2 tsp rice flour (I used brown rice flour)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala or curry powder
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) water

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

Heat the oil over a medium heat and add the onions and a pinch of salt (don't go nuts or it'll overpower the flavour of the bhajis). Cook them for a good 10-15 minutes until they are cooked through and are starting to get golden, just don't burn them.

Transfer the onions to a bowl and dump the other ingredients in. Mix everything well.

Spray a cookie sheet with oil or line with greaseproof paper. Divide the mixure into 4 and spoon it onto the baking sheet. Flatten a little the spray the tops with a teeny bit of oil.

Bake for 10 minutes, then spray a little more oil over them and bake another 5-10 minutes until cooked and starting to get golden.

I served mine with curry and basmati rice. YUM YUM.

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo: Easy Tiger!!

I know I wrote a post about this when I first started this blog, but goddamit I love tiger bread.

Just look at this magnificent beast! There is no week crap enough, no day full of idiots phoning me, no ailment that can't be soothed somewhat by some freshly baked tiger bread. Well maybe not exactly but in my head today, that's how it goes.

Tiger Tim (take that Henman, I stole your nickname!!) - he is happy with just a bit of pure soya....


But he really shines with a big dollop of chocoreale or spekuloos spread.

But he is not a fussy beast, no. He is just as happy with a generous coating of hummus.

I brought the small loaf - wasn't that restrained of me! And it was still warm, oh happy day. I'm off now to see what I can dig out of my cupboard to put on more tiger bread.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 1: Muffins – how I love thee!

Wooooo MoFo!!

Yesterday I was baking muffins and thinking about what to make my first MoFo post about, when it hit me that the answer was staring at me crazily from the cooling rack: Muffins!

I love muffins. LOVE THEM. And anyone that reads this blog will not be surprised by that as they feature pretty regularly. It’s just that they are they are so easy to put together and there are a million and one combinations that you can dream up, with whatever is lurking your pantry.

I don’t even need to get a book out for a recipe anymore as I know the basics off by heart – I just open the cupboard, see what falls out and hits me on the head and pray it’s not dehydrated potato. Although come to think of it, maybe that would be awesome!

I’ve settled upon a basic recipe for muffins that’s a combination of a few I found, god knows where on the interwebs! It is this base that I use for all muffins now and here it is (I always use cups to bake - I didn’t include weights here because different flours and sugars vary in weight):

Dry:
2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
Wet:
1 cup of non-dairy milk of your choice *
1 tsp apple cider or white wine vinegar (leave out if using yoghurt)
¼ cup (4 tbsp) light oil (such as rapeseed/canola or sunflower)
1 tsp good vanilla

*you may need more or less milk, depending on your flour / other additives, so star by adding about ¾ of it and add the rest if you need it. If you use gluten free flours, you’ll probably need a fair bit more liquid and you’ll need to add probably 1 tsp of xantham gum if you’re not using pre-mixed GF flour.

Method:
Couldn’t be easier. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix together the wet ingredients and pour into the dry then mix until just combined – don’t overmix. Then put into muffin cups.

This mixture will make around 12 muffins, depending on how high you fill the cups and you need to bake them at 180C/350F for around 20-30 minutes. Cooking time depends on many factors: individual ovens, additives, how high you fill the cups..... etc.So that’s the basics and it’d be a tasty muffin but a freakin boring one!! So jazz it up.....

- Experiment with spices (anywhere from ½ a tsp to 2 tsp, depending on what spices you chuck in there!)
- Throw in some nuts
- .....or dried fruits
- ..... or vegan chocolate chips
- .....or fresh chunked up fruit.....
- ..... or chopped stem ginger
- Replace your non-dairy milk of choice with fruit juice, or coconut milk or chocolate soymilk....
- Replace some of the liquid with vegan yoghurt (I love doing this – it gives the muffins a lovely texture)
- Experiment with different flours (I like to use spelt flour for most baking)
- Replace some of the sugar with maple syrup or agave or brown rice syrup...
- Add some molasses
- Add some wheat or oat bran mixed with a bit of non-dairy milk to your mixture for a healthy bran muffin
- Add a couple of mashed bananas
- Add some peanut butter
- Add some grated lemon zest, or orange, or lime....
- Replace some of the flour with cocoa powder or carob**
- Replace half the flour with cornmeal for yummy corn muffins
- If you make your own nut/soy milk, don’t bin the pulp/okara, chuck some into your muffins!
- Make savoury muffins, add some spices, herbs and nooch! Some grated courgette or carrot or some tinned/frozen sweetcorn are all awesome additions too.

And on and on and on it can go!And a tip – if you’re adding stuff like chocolate chips or fruit... etc, then toss them in with the dry stuff and mix them in well – the coating of flour will stop them sinking to the bottom of the muffin.

And just so this post isn’t pictureless – here are the muffins that inspired this post. I only made half a batch and here is the recipe – I put it on spark so that I can add it into my calorie tracker!

*I would just like to state that I’m not advocating the use of carob in any way, I have nothing but hatred for the stuff but I know some of you like it! Weirdos! ;0) Whoever said carob is the new cocoa was seriously disturbed!!

Laterz
xXx