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Veganuary: A Weekend Weakend Resolve

18th January 2016 5 Comments

My resolve weakened at the weekend. Don’t panic, not my Veganuary pledge – not eating cheese is a breeze. No, it was my ‘I’m not going to drink alcohol in January until the 30th when I go on a pub crawl’ resolve. But I fancied a drink on Saturday, so I had one. One bottle of wine, that is. Well, make that a bottle and a half. I should also probably confess that, according to Barnivore, it wasn’t even vegan wine (Hardys, if you’re interested) but as I don’t take too much notice of whether wine is vegetarian or not at the best of times (and certainly not if I’m drinking it in a pub), I’m not going to feel too guilty about that and, in my defence, it was a bottle I’d bought before Veganuary, anyway (although that doesn’t defend it’s non-vegetarianness).

Veganuary Day 16

Saturday’s breakfast had been a superfood smoothie containing spinach, apple, clementine, raspberry, wheat grass powder, acai powder and chia seeds. I said in Friday’s post that wheat grass is great for an energy boost and it certainly powered me through Saturday morning’s spin class.

After burning all those calories at the gym, I ate them back at lunchtime in the form of a Warburtons Giant Crumpet with Vitalite, and a mug of hot chocolate.

I’ve made a few burgers from Veggie Burgers Every Which Way before, such as:

and although I’ve enjoyed them all, making burgers can be a bit of a time-consuming faff, as well as creating a lot of washing up. These vegan smoky mushroom burgers from Vegan – 100 Everyday Recipes, while not whipped up in an instant, aren’t too much of a chore and the results are worth it. I made the whole amount, cooked enough for two burgers, then froze the rest of the mixture to use another time.

The way I made these burgers is pretty much as it is in the book but I added garlic as cooking onion without garlic seemed wrong. I also left out the 30g coriander the original recipe has as I’m not keen on coriander.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Vegan smoky mushroom burgers

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

30 mins

Adapted from a recipe in Vegan - 100 Everyday Recipes

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Recipe type: Burgers

Cuisine: Vegan

Serves: 6

Ingredients

425g can red kidney beans, drained
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
115g mushrooms, finely chopped
1 large carrot, coarsely grated
2 tsp smoked paprika
70g porridge oats
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp tomato puree
plain flour
salt and pepper

Instructions

Place the kidney beans in a bowl and mash thoroughly with a potato masher.
Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion and garlic for a couple of minutes.
Add the mushroom, carrot and paprika and fry for a further 4 minutes.
Add the vegetables to the beans with the oats, soy sauce and tomato puree. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
Divide into 6 portions and shape into burgers, then lightly coat in the flour.
Heat the remaining oil in the frying pan and cook the burgers for a few minutes each side, until lightly browned.

Veganuary Day 17

I didn’t have any breakfast on Sunday and for lunch I had some of the cake my friend had sent me (which you can see on last Thursday’s post) and a mug of hot chocolate. Not the most healthiest of lunches but hey ho.

Dinner was a jacket potato with chilli, Violife and sour cream. Again. That’s the third time this month I’ve had it so I’ll spare you looking at the photo of it for the third time.

As I write this (on the 18th), there’s two weeks left of Veganuary. I still don’t feel any different. Maybe I should get a tattoo or a t-shirt or something (just kidding).

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Recipe: Jelly Tots Chocolate Cake

10th April 2015 No Comments

Had my 16-year-old-self known that one Sunday morning in the future, she’d find herself in a Kent country kitchen making a chocolate cake, she’d have probably partaken in a bit of self-harming. But, it looks as though middle-age has caught up with me, as making a chocolate cake last Sunday morning was exactly what I was doing.

You’ll remember this isn’t my first foray into cake-baking, as I made a Union Jack sponge cake last summer which, thanks to a liberal covering of cream and fruit, looked a lot better than it did when it first came out of the oven.

So why did I want to make another cake? It was The Meat Eater’s birthday, that’s why. I thought I had a box of Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix but on unearthing all the Betty Crocker bits from the box they’re currently residing in on the dining room floor (the new kitchen looks fab but it’s a bit lacking on the storage front so the dining room’s getting some goodies from Ikea next week and we might be able to see the floor again then), I found I didn’t have any chocolate cake mix, only carrot cake mix. While I don’t have anything against carrot cake, it didn’t seem very birthday-ish, so I decided to get all domestic and make a chocolate cake from scratch.

As it was Easter Sunday and all the local supermarkets were shut (Kent has weird 80s stylee opening hours, unlike London where you can go shopping on Christmas Day if you want to), this meant I had to make do with whatever I had available in the house. I found this recipe, which looked simple enough and although I didn’t have the exact ingredients (looking at it now, the only ingredient that’s the same as the original recipe is the self-raising flour, ha), I reckoned I could substitute well enough to avoid any disasters and I had two tubs of Betty Crocker icing and four packets of Jelly Tots to cover the cake with to make it look better anyway.

This chocolate cake may not be the lightest and fluffiest cake in the world but it got a rating of ‘Yum’ from The Meat Eater, so that’s good enough for me.

Recipe: Jelly Tots Chocolate Cake

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Author: Planet Veggie

Cuisine: Dessert

Ingredients

6oz/170g Flora
6oz /170g granulated sugar
4oz/115g self-raising flour
4 medium eggs
2oz/ 55g raw cacao powder
½ tub Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Icing
½ tub Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Icing
2 packets Jelly Tots

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 190c/170c fan/gas mark 5
Grease and line two 20cm sandwich tins
Mix the Flora and sugar together by hand or in a mixer until creamy and lighter in colour
Sieve the cacao powder and flour into a bowl and crack one of the eggs into a cup or ramekin
With the mixer still going, add the egg and a third of the flour mixture into the sugar and butter, add the second egg and third of the flour and add the last two eggs and flour mixture in to the butter and sugar
Put even amounts of the mixture into the tins and spread using a knife. Put into the oven and bake for 25 minutes until springy to touch. Take out of the oven and leave them in their tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely
Sandwich together the cakes with the Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Icing
Cover the top and sides of the cake with the Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Icing
Decorate the top of the cake with the Jelly Tots

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Salter’s Great British Sponge Cake Challenge

9th September 2014 No Comments

Salter challenged me to make a cake; they’d obviously heard about my cake-making skills – which are non-existent – and wanted to laugh at me. Still, they said they’d send me some tools to use in the challenge and I’m a sucker for a gadget, so I told them I’d be happy to accept their challenge.

They asked me to make a sponge cake. I looked at the recipe they’d sent and it looked easy enough, plus, as an added bonus, I already had all the ingredients in the house, bar the icing sugar. As I didn’t want to buy a whole bag of icing sugar, just to use a tiny bit (I’d assumed this would be my first and last attempt at a cake), I decided to decorate the top with fruit instead.

The instructions weren’t very thorough – I suspect Salter are more used to dealing with people who know what they’re doing – so I spent a bit of time asking friends on Facebook for advice (does the shiny side of the silicon baking paper face up or down? Is it supposed to look like this?).

In this photo, along with my ingredients, is the Salter Aquatronic Electronic Scale. It’s just your average scale, except this one can measure liquids, which will come in handy as I never know from what angle to look at a measuring jug from. Also sent to me were a couple of Heston Multipurpose Spatulas and a (not pictured) Heston Precision Whisk. These spatulas are cool – they have a flexible end for when you’re baking and need to do all that creaming and stuff and a rigid end for frying and flipping. The whisk has a non-slip handle and a large balloon which allows lots of air to be whisked in. I didn’t whisk lots of air into my cakes as the instructions said to fold the flour in, so I just made a stiff gunk. It was probably supposed to be light and airy and this is probably why I ended up making what were closer to cookies than cakes (as you will see later). Cue Mary Berry death stare.

I added the butter to the sugar. So far so good.

Then I creamed the butter and sugar together until pale. I found this instruction quite odd – butter and sugar is already pale – is it supposed to get paler? Still, I mixed them together until they were, um, mixed.

I added the eggs. (Heston Precision Whisk now pictured)

Then beat them into the creamed sugar and butter mixture.

Next I had to sift in the flour. I don’t usually bother with sifting flour because a) it’s a faff (actually it isn’t, I just think it’s going to be); and b) it involves sticking my arm into a dark dingy floor cupboard while trying to find the sieve and I’m scared I’ll find a spider or dead mouse instead.

But, I’m undertaking a challenge and a bit of professionalism would be appropriate so I risk the cupboard of doom and dig out the sieve.

I then folded in the flour to the eggs, sugar and butter mixture.

The next instruction confused me. It said the mixture should be of a dropping consistency. Dropping? Like if I turn the bowl upside down, if it drops on my head it’s right? Like a reverse egg-white-for-meringue thing? I decided it meant it should drop off the spatula. Which it didn’t, even if I shook the spatula up and down.

The instructions said if it isn’t dropping consistency, add a little milk, which I did.

I wasn’t sure if it was dropping consistency after I’d added some milk but it did drop off if I shook the spatula hard enough, so I decided that’d do.

I poured the mixture evenly (sort of) into the two tins (lined with baking paper – shiny side up).

When they came out of the oven, they looked a bit thin and burnt. Oops.

They looked even worse when I took them out of the tins.

In fact, they looked more like cookies than cakes.

After the cakes had cooled, I whipped up the cream. I’d like to say I was hardcore and did it by hand, but I’d be lying – this was done with an electric whisk. Do you really think Heston stands there for three hours, whipping cream by hand? He probably gets a minion to do it and the minion probably uses an electric one, anyway.

I spread one of the cakes with cream, the other with jam. Looks better already, doesn’t it?

Then I sandwiched them together. Oh, okay, it still looks a bit crap.

I covered the top with cream. Admit it, you’re jealous of my cake-decorating skillz.

As the challenge was called The Great British Sponge Cake Challenge – how more British do you get than the Union Jack? The fruit transforms it and not only that but it actually tastes fine and the sponge isn’t as thin and dry as it looks in the photos. Honest. The Meat Eater, upon being asked if it was nice, said ‘nice enough’, which I’ll take as a compliment.

Because I was so pleased with my creation, I took it into the garden to photograph – I thought the grass added a nice summery feel to it.

Great British Sponge Cake Challenge

Ingredients

125g/4oz butter or margarine, softened
125g/4oz caster sugar
2 medium eggs
125g/4oz self raising flour
Jam
Whipped cream
Strawberries
Blueberries

Preparation method

1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

2. Line two 18cm/7in cake tins with baking parchment.

3. Measure your ingredients with the Salter Aquatronic Electronic Scale.

4. Use the Heston Multipurpose Spatula to cream the butter and the sugar together until pale.

5. Beat in the eggs using the Heston Precision whisk.

6. Sift over the flour and fold in using the Heston Multipurpose Spatula.

7. The mixture should be of a dropping consistency; if it is not, add a little milk.

8. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and gently spread out with the Heston Spatula.

9. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The cakes are done when they’re golden-brown and coming away from the edge of the tins. Press them gently to check – they should be springy to the touch. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before turning on to a wire rack to cool.

10. Sandwich the cakes together with jam and whipped cream.

11. Spread more cream on the top and decorate with the strawberries and blueberries.

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Date Nut Bread

3rd May 2014 No Comments

I did one of those quizzes on Facebook last night. This quiz was ‘What ridiculous food day is your birthday?’ My friend Helen got some weirdy meat thing so I wasn’t feeling too hopeful I’d get anything decent but I was happy when ‘date nut bread’ popped up for my birthday as I thought that sounded suitably vegetarian.

Helen said ‘you should make it’ and I agreed, so today I scouted around the internet looking at a few recipes, then came across one for which I already had all the ingredients. Sorted.

Apparently, the flavour improves after standing for 24 hours but I can’t imagine how it could be any nicer – it’s absolutely blinking delicious. I’m going on a 45 mile charity bike ride tomorrow, and the date nut bread will be coming with me to keep me going (if there’s any left by then).

I’m going to post below how I made it, as I somewhat deviated from the original recipe, as I didn’t have a sieve, so I just stirred the ingredients and hoped I’d got the floury lumps out; I didn’t add the egg and sugar to the dates, alternatively with the sifted ingredients, as I didn’t know what they meant by ‘alternatively’ (yes, I know what ‘alternatively’ means, I just didn’t know what they meant here); I didn’t dredge the nuts in flour, and I forgot to add any salt at all. Also, it said to let it rise, but mine didn’t rise at all, so you could probably skip that bit – unless there’s some scientific explanation to do with the baking powder that means it should sit for a while.

If you want to follow the proper instructions, you can see the original recipe at Food.com.

Date Nut Bread

1 cup dates, pitted and chopped (I used soft dates)
1 cup boiling water
1 tbsp butter (I used Flora)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup nuts, chopped (I used cashews)

Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl, cover and let cool.
Grease a loaf pan.
Beat sugar and egg together and add to the dates.
Add the flour and baking powder and mix thoroughly.
Pour into prepared pan and let rise for 20 minutes.
While batter is rising, preheat oven to 160C.
Bake for 50-60 minutes.
Turn out onto cooling rack to cool.

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Bara brith (eventually)

20th January 2014 3 Comments

Well, what a lot of hassle that was! I reckoned if I googled ‘Bara brith’ it would probably turn out to be Welsh for ‘don’t try and make this in a bread machine’.

I have no idea why, but it came into my head I fancied some teacake/fruit loaf type bread, so I had a look in my bread machine books and Bara brith was the closest I could find.

It looked simple enough; soak some fruit and sugar in tea, then add to the machine with flour, egg, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon, then press start.

The problem was, I think (I’m not an expert on bread machines), the instructions to use the ‘cake’ setting. It just wasn’t long enough. It did its mixing thing nicely, but only had about an hour for the whole program and although the book said if it’s not cooked properly, set the machine to extra bake and cook for 10 more minutes, mine doesn’t have an extra bake setting and it was nowhere near cooked – it was a gungy mess. I emptied the gungy mess into a loaf tin and baked it in the oven for a while but it was still a disaster and ended up in the bin.

I thought I’d try again today and asked Facebook if it thought if I used a bread setting instead of a cake setting, would that work? The general consensus was ‘don’t know’ although Adele (being Welsh and therefore knowing about Welsh things) said there was no need to use a machine as it’s not bread and there would therefore be none of that mucky getting your hands dirty thing I hate. All it needed was to mix the ingredients and put it in the oven for about 90 minutes but to check it after an hour.

I didn’t fancy my chances of mixing the ingredients thoroughly, so I let the bread machine do that (I put it on the fastbake setting until it looked thoroughly mixed, then turned the machine off – would probably have been easier to use a food processor), then poured the mixture into a loaf tin and baked it in the oven for about 90 minutes.

After a bit of a struggle, I eventually got it out of the tin in one piece (should have used lining, duh) and I’d love to say it was worth the hassle but, although the inside is delicious and moist, the crust is a bit too hard and chewy.

That didn’t stop me having two slices though and I can’t see the rest of it lasting much longer.

Yum.

Bara brith

150g dried fruit (I used sultanas, raisins, mixed fruit and prunes)
175g soft light brown sugar
300ml strong tea
1 egg, beaten
275g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Put the dried fruit and sugar into a bowl and cover with the tea. Leave to soak for 4 hours or overnight.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Pour the mixture into a greased and lined loaf tin and cook at 150C for about 90 minutes (check on it after an hour).

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Apple cake

6th April 2013 No Comments

The Meat Eater had a birthday yesterday so I made him a cake. Not a very traditional cake – this one was low fat and healthy. I didn’t make it because it was low fat and healthy, I made it because I’ve never made a proper cake before and icing and jam and cream and stuff sounded difficult, fiddly, time-consuming, messy and anyway, I don’t really like cakes so I wanted to make something I would eat too.

This apple cake is easy, you just bung the ingredients together and bake it for about an hour.

It’s moist and appley and much nicer than a chocolate cake, I reckon.

Apple cake (12 slices)
Taken from Food for Fitness by Anita Bean

3 eating apples, grated
300g self raising flour
100g brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 egg whites
100ml apple juice

Mix all the ingredients together and spoon into a lightly oiled loaf tin and bake at 160C/gas mark 3 for about 1-1¼ hours. Check the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer or knife into the centre. It should come out clean.