mushrooms Archives | Planet Veggie

Zizzi Vegan Pizza Review

15th April 2016 1 Comment

Zizzi vegan menu — The vegan menu at Zizzi

Forget Kim Kardashian and her oversized bum, Zizzi almost broke the internet a few weeks ago when they revealed their new vegan menu. Vegans are used to visiting chain restaurants and adapting items already on the menu and asking the staff to omit cheese from their orders but Zizzi is the first (as far as I’m aware) to offer a vegan cheese on their pizzas. The vegan cheese is MozzaRisella, which is made from germinated whole rice made without milk and lactose, making it suitable for vegans and those who are allergic to dairy, gluten and soya.

I’m neither vegan nor suffer from any allergies and although I make a conscious effort to eat fewer animal products, when it comes to eating out in restaurants, ‘without cheese please’ just doesn’t manage to leave my mouth when the waiter comes to take my order. So, when I heard about Zizzi’s new vegan pizza, I had to give it a go.

Zizzi, Charlotte Street, London

A friend and I visited Zizzi in Charlotte Street, London and I’m hoping the smiley-but-slow service isn’t indicative of all their branches. The friendly waitress seated us immediately, handed us a couple of Zizzi’s usual menus but rushed off before I had a chance to ask for the vegan one. A long time passed until she came back for our drinks order, which gave me the chance to ask for the vegan menu which she immediately brought to me, but then we had a long wait for our wine to arrive (by the way, most of the wines are vegan and the ones that aren’t are listed on the menu).

To be fair to the waitress(es) though, there did only seem to be two of them but, even so, the restaurant was empty and even the chefs were standing around in the kitchen not doing anything, so I’m not sure why the service was so slow. Slow service is one of my bugbears and the reason I no longer go into my local Pizza Express (I gave them four chances but the service never got any better).

Starter – Vegan Garlic Bread

Zizzi's vegan garlic bread — Vegan garlic bread

Still, we eventually managed to order and our shared starter of garlic bread arrived. Despite – as you can see – the bread being covered in lumps of garlic, it wasn’t particularly garlicky and it was also a bit dry. I did like the green ‘vegan’ sticker stuck to the plate though (that’s as in ‘liked Zizzi thought of doing it’, not ‘mmm, yummy sticker’).

Main Course – Zizzi Vegan Pizza with MozzaRisella Cheese

But I didn’t go to Zizzi for their garlic bread, I went for the vegan cheese I’d heard so much about. Zizzi offer a vegan Margherita (including a gluten-free option), onto which you can add your own toppings. Unfortunately, my pizza was a bit burnt and I considered sending it back as I hate burnt food even more than I hate slow service but given how long my pizza had taken to arrive, I kept it. Luckily, only a part of it was burnt and the rest of it was fine and I soon cheered up and enjoyed the rest of my pizza. The vegan ‘cheese’ was more of a sauce and not the stretchy mozzarella pizza lovers have come to expect on their pizza but there are no complaints from me as it was tasty, cheesy and not artificial tasting at all (unlike a lot of vegan cheese). As someone who loves sauces and hates dry food, a sauce-like cheese on top of my pizza is fine with me.

Price/Value

My vegan Margherita cost £7.95 and I chose toppings of olives, green chillies and mushrooms so, with toppings being 80p each, this meant my pizza came to £10.35 which is excellent value in my opinion, especially when a lot of pizza restaurants charge around £12 for a pizza and extra toppings at £1.50 a pop. Unfortunately, I can’t gush about the garlic bread and, at £4.50, I won’t be getting it again.

I’d definitely go back for the vegan pizza though and hopefully more Italian/pizza restaurants and chains will follow Zizzi’s example and start offering vegan cheese on the menu.

For more information about Zizzi, view their whole menu, find your nearest branch and book a table, visit the Zizzi website.

If you’ve been to Zizzi to try their vegan pizza, I’d love to know what you thought about it.

Uncategorized

Gousto Recipe Box Review

31st March 2016 8 Comments

Gousto recipe boxes are different to the Riverford recipe boxes you might have seen me review here and here. They’re different because not only do you get to choose which recipes out of a changing choice of ten (not all vegetarian) you want to cook that week instead of having them chosen for you, but you can also choose whether to have two, three or four recipes a week, and whether you’d like them to serve two or four people.

Gousto asked me if I’d like to review a box and, well, you know me – I never say no to free food, so here’s my thoughts on what I received.

It took me a while to choose two out of the four vegetarian options; I almost went for a creamy mushroom pasta dish, but then I remembered that although the Meat Eater loves cream, mushrooms and pasta, he hates creamy mushroom pasta dishes, so that was off the menu. I can’t remember what the other dish I discounted was but I was happy with my choices of melty mushroom burger and the spinach and veggie mince lasagne.

My box of food turned up on schedule, with the products that needed to be in a fridge, wrapped up in a wool bag. I don’t know why, but these wool cool bags make me as squeamish as I would be if my food arrived inside an actual sheep and not just its coat.

As is usual with recipe boxes, the food is accompanied by a recipe card, with a list of ingredients, step-by-step instructions and a photo of how it should turn out, if you don’t mess it up too much. All the ingredients are measured out for you and clearly labelled so you don’t get your basil mixed up with your spinach. One of the good things about having everything separate is then you can leave out what you or someone you’re cooking for dislikes – in my case, I left out the olives as the Meat Eater doesn’t like them.

Gousto recipe box melty mushroom burger

Ingredients for the melty mushroom burgers in the Gousto recipe box — Ingredients for the melty mushroom burgers

We both enjoyed these melty mushroom burgers (portobello mushrooms, topped with mozzarella and served in a warmed ciabatta roll), accompanied with roasted potatoes and salsa for which the ingredients were also provided. The quantities provided were perfect for two people and this is a dish I’ll definitely be making again.

Gousto recipe box spinach and veggie mince lasagne

Ingredients for the spinach and veggie mince lasagne in the Gousto recipe box — Ingredients for the spinach and veggie mince lasagne

I thought the next dish – spinach and veggie mince lasagne – was a bit of an odd choice for a company that prides itself on fresh, organic produce. Veggie mince is usually regarded as a processed food so it’s not something I’d expect to be included but there’s nothing to complain about this tasty dish, and it’s definitely the first time I’ve had Henderson’s relish and baharat in a lasagne. In fact, it’s the first time ever I’ve had Henderson’s relish and baharat (a spice mixture used in Middle Eastern cuisine). Gousto didn’t provide the flour, butter or milk for this and I wasn’t sure why this was. Considering other chilled ingredients came in a cool bag, couldn’t the butter and milk be provided too? That’s just a slight quibble and, again, this made a perfect amount for two people and would even serve three or four if you served it with vegetables and garlic bread.

Gousto recipe box subscription service

Gousto recipe boxes work on a weekly subscription basis – you place your order three days before your preferred delivery date each week but you’re not committed to receiving a box each week, so if you want to skip a week for whatever reason or you want to cancel your subscription altogether, you can do this at any time. Gousto boxes cost:

2 recipes for 2 people – £27.49 per week
2 recipes for 4 people – £41.99 per week
3 recipes for 2 people – £34.99 per week
3 recipes for 4 people – £51.99 per week
4 recipes for 2 people – £41.99 per week
4 recipes for 4 people – £59.99 per week

but when you take into account their convenience and how much you’d spend on ingredients just to use a bit and have the rest languish in a cupboard (although I said I’ve never had Henderson’s relish before, I’m assuming you can’t just buy 1 tbsp of it) they’re not bad value, in my opinion.

For more information on Gousto’s recipe boxes, visit the Gousto website.

Gousto provided me with a recipe box to review. All opinions are my own.

Uncategorized

Vegan Haggis Stuffed Pepper Recipe

21st January 2016 4 Comments

Veganuary Day 19

I’ve been slacking off my breakfast Nutriblasts recently and the 19th of Veganuary was no exception. A side effect of slacking off breakfast means hunger kicks in mid-morning and today when the munchies kicked in, my healthy choices got pushed aside in favour of the vegan cake that’s on the kitchen worktop.

Even I don’t have cake for lunch though, which was a Warburtons Thin filled with spinach, cucumber, olives, tomatoes and sundried tomato paste.

Vegan Haggis Stuffed Pepper Recipe

For dinner, I made a vegan haggis stuffed red pepper. I’ve made these a couple of times before, although I can’t find any blog posts about them so the photos must have been bad – even for me.

I mixed the vegan haggis up with mushrooms and spinach but you can use whatever you fancy, e.g. leeks, tomatoes, onions, etc. I don’t add any spices or seasonings to Macsween’s haggis, as it’s tasty enough on its own.

I’ve seen on various vegan and vegetarian Facebook groups people saying they’ve bought Macsween vegetarian haggis in Sainsbury’s and Tesco. I haven’t seen it in either of those two supermarkets but I did find some before Christmas in Waitrose (it was by the cheese for some reason). My Facebook friend Cath tried making her own from this recipe in the Guardian but she said it was ‘horrible’, ‘impossible to eat’ and ‘cost me more in ingredients than if I’d just bought a Macsween veg haggis’.

Vegan Haggis Stuffed Pepper

Save Print

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

45 mins

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Cuisine: Vegan

Serves: 2

Ingredients

Olive oil spray
1 tbsp olive oil
250g Macsween vegetarian haggis, chopped
50g mushrooms, chopped
2 red peppers, destalked and deseeded
2 large handfuls of spinach

Instructions

Lightly spray the peppers with the olive oil spray and put in an ovenproof dish and bake for about 20 minutes at 180C
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the mushrooms for about 2 minutes
Add the vegetarian haggis and fry for another 3 minutes
Add the spinach and stir until wilted
Stuff the peppers with the haggis/mushroom/spinach mixture and return to the oven, covered, for 20 minutes, uncovering for the last 10

Veganuary Day 20

As I was off on a walk this morning and there are rarely toilets at the start of the walks I go on, I didn’t want to fill myself full of liquid, so I didn’t have any breakfast (yes, I know there are other things than smoothies/Nutriblasts to have for breakfast but I can’t face solid food first thing). As it turned out, there were toilets at the start of the walk so I could have had a Nutriblast before leaving the house but I’d brought two Tribe Bars with me and had one of those on my arrival (I’d cycled 4.5 miles and been in a car for 35 minutes by then, so I was up to eating something).

After the 6.5 mile walk round Shorne Wood Country Park, a friend and I went into the cafe for a drink and something to eat. I studied the menu and wondered if the veggie sausages were vegan, before deciding I wasn’t hungry enough for a sausage sandwich anyway and diverting my attention to the flapjacky type things on the counter. As I picked up each one and studied the labels for dairy and eggs, I had an insight to how vegans must feel each time they go out to eat. I settled for an apple crumble slice type thing which stated clearly it was dairy-free and I couldn’t see eggs on the label (unlike on the other products they sold) and couldn’t think of anything else I should be looking out for and asked the girl at the counter if she had any soya milk. She didn’t, so I had to go without hot chocolate and have a fruit tea instead. What do hot chocolate drinking vegans do? Take a flask of vegan hot chocolate with them everywhere they go? I don’t drink tea or coffee. I drink hot chocolate. The cranberry and raspberry tea I had was very nice but I WANT HOT CHOCOLATE, DAMMIT.

Still, I never run out of hot chocolate at home (although since doing Veganuary, I’m buying about ten times the amount of soya milk I used to as the instant hot chocolate powder I usually use contains milk) and that’s what I had when I got in, along with the last of my vegan cake (Jacqui, if you’re reading this – thank you again for sending me the gorgeous vegan cake).

Fry’s Meat Free Crispy Prawns

I had planned to make a vegan aubergine and chickpea pasta dish for dinner but I was feeling lazy after the walk so I heated up the Fry’s Vegan Prawns I’d bought from Holland & Barrett a couple of weeks ago.

Part of me had wanted to try these meat free crispy prawns for ages, especially since Linda McCartney stopped making their fish-free prawns and scampi (sob) but, because 99% of the times I’d seen them mentioned on Facebook groups, people had said they’re more like chicken and nothing like prawns, the other part of me didn’t want to try them a) because they’re not cheap (they’re £3.99 in Holland & Barrett) and b) that’s a lot of money to pay just to be disappointed.

Now I’ve tried them I can tell you that no, they’re nothing like prawns and are definitely more chicken-like in texture but there is a slight prawn-like taste so, to put it succinctly – they’re like a prawny-tasting chicken. I’m not disappointed with them and if they were cheaper, I’d buy them. I certainly wouldn’t pay £3.99 for them but if you’ve got a money-off voucher for them like I did, they’re worth trying.

If you haven’t got a Holland & Barrett loyalty card, they’re worth getting. I thought I didn’t go into H&B very often but I keep getting discount vouchers sent to me, so I must spend more in there than I thought I did.

Uncategorized

Veganuary: Vegan Leek, Mushroom and Spinach Tart

13th January 2016 14 Comments

Hallelujah – I cooked something that wasn’t stodge! This vegan leek, mushroom and spinach tart is something I’ve cooked before, at least a variation of, anyway. Usually when I make it, I cover it in cheese, like I’ve done previously on my leek, mushroom and goat’s cheese tart, mushroom, leek and mozzarella tart, and my courgette and tomato tart.

I’ve got to admit, I had a bit of a pang when I took both mine and The Meat Eater’s tarts out of the oven, and The Meat Eater’s was covered in bubbling, oozing Cheddar but the pang faded as soon as I started eating.

This vegan tart is a great way to use up any vegetables you have in the fridge – you can substitute the leeks, mushrooms and spinach for whatever you have to hand.

Vegan Leek, Mushroom and Spinach Tart

Save Print

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

25 mins

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Recipe type: Pastry

Cuisine: Vegan

Serves: 2

Ingredients

Two-thirds of a 375g pack of vegan ready-rolled puff pastry
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp dried rosemary
2 leeks, sliced
125g mushrooms, sliced
2 large handfuls of spinach
salt and pepper

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the leeks for about 3 minutes
Add the mushrooms, garlic and rosemary and fry for another 3 minutes
Add the spinach and stir until wilted
Season with salt and pepper
Cut the pastry in half so you have two rectangles
Score a 1cm border round each rectangle of pastry and top with the leek mixture, keeping within the border
Bake in the oven at 180C for about 15 minutes

Veganuary Day 12 – Lunch

Yesterday’s lunch was a Warburton’s Thin with spinach, cucumber, olives, tomatoes, hummus and vegan mayo. Do you like my new plate? I got it in Tesco for £3. It’s almost as nice as the penguin slippers I also bought (£6).

Main Meals

Recipe: Slow Cooker Vegetarian Mushroom Risotto

3rd September 2015 2 Comments

I can’t make risotto. I know how to make it, I’m just missing some kind of key risotto-making gene which means whenever I try to make risotto, no matter how much time I take slowly pouring in the stock and patiently stirring for three weeks (or however long it is; it feels like three weeks, anyway), the rice ends up as nasty crunchy bullets. Maybe the rice knows I’m not patient by nature and can feel the hate and resentment when I’m standing there relentlessly stirring instead of doing something far more pleasurable such as, say, emptying the cat litter tray or hanging up my washing.

So, why I decided to give risotto another go, I don’t know but, instead of the stirring-for-three-weeks-on-the-hob method, I had a look for a slow cooker recipe (although, for someone who can’t be arsed to stand around stirring things, I certainly lift the slow cooker lid plenty of times to give the contents a good stir) and found this one.

Usually when I use my slow cooker, I don’t bother with any pre-cooking malarky and just chuck everything in but, given my history with risotto-making, I thought I’d better give it a decent shot at turning out okay and followed the instructions, only deviating by adding garlic as there was no garlic in the original recipe, which led to a ‘what do you mean there’s no garlic in this recipe?’ moment. I mean, how can you have onions and mushrooms in something but no garlic? Crazy.

I’d like to say this risotto turned out perfectly, but I’d be lying. It was certainly tasty and definitely un-bullet-like but it was a tad stodgy and ‘wallpaper paste’ and ‘sticks to your ribs’ wouldn’t be unfair descriptions. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t a disaster and I’d make it again and, if you give it a go, it’ll probably turn out perfectly. I just think risotto and I aren’t meant to be.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Vegetarian Mushroom Risotto

Save Print

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

3 hours

Total time

3 hours 15 mins

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Recipe type: Slow cooker

Cuisine: Vegetarian

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1.5 tbsp sunflower oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 onion, chopped
200g Arborio risotto rice
300ml vegetable stock
30g butter
225g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
30g vegetarian Parmesan-style cheese, grated

Instructions

Heat the oil and add the onion and cook for 4 - 5 mins until soft.
Add the rice and stir through so all grains are coated and cook for 2 mins.
Transfer the rice and onion to the slow cooker and cover with the stock.
Melt the butter in a pan and cook the sliced mushrooms for about 10 mins or until they have browned.
Add the garlic to the mushrooms and cook for another minute or so.
Stir the mushrooms into the rice and cook for 2 - 3 hours on low.
Stir in the vegetarian Parmesan-style cheese in the last 5 minutes.

Uncategorized

Recipe: Aubergine Pizza – Low Carb Gluten Free

2nd September 2015 6 Comments

I got a bit carried away while I was making tonight’s dinner. Originally, I’d planned to cook a simple aubergine melt (mozzarella melted on top of half a roasted aubergine) to use up the mozzarella that was in the fridge but, while I was taking out the mozzarella, I saw the spring onion that also needed to be used up, then I saw the mushrooms, then I thought it looked like I was heading towards making a pizza out of an aubergine, so I thought I might as well go all the way and give it a tomatoey base, too. The only pizza-y thing I held off from adding was chilli, but that was only because I thought a chilli, cabbage and potato combo would confuse The Meat Eater who doesn’t like his food to be too much of a ‘challenge’ (his word for anything that doesn’t involve potatoes).

I wouldn’t usually serve pizza with cabbage and new potatoes – I mean, why do you think garlic bread and onion rings were invented? – but it worked well. Obviously, you can choose your own toppings based on your own preference or whatever you have in your fridge that needs using up.

Recipe: Aubergine Pizza

Save Print

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

45 mins

Total time

50 mins

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Cuisine: Vegetarian

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 aubergine, sliced lengthways
1 spring onion, sliced
1 mushroom, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
1 average-sized pack of mozzarella, sliced
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Instructions

Score a criss-cross pattern into the aubergine and brush with olive oil
Bake in the oven at 180C for about 30 minutes, or until tender
Brush the tomato ketchup onto the aubergine and layer with the spring onion, mushroom, mozzarella and top with the tomato slices
Season with salt and pepper and put back in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the cheese has melted

Main Meals

Recipe: Butter Bean Pie

18th August 2015 4 Comments

It occurred to me recently that I’ve been making a lot of one-pot meals, for example curries and pasta. Don’t get me wrong, I love curries and pasta but a) they don’t photograph well (at least not when I take a photo of them, anyway) so I end up not putting them on the blog and; b) sometimes I just want something a bit more traditional. And what could be more traditional than a pie?

I haven’t been completely honest here because, although it’s true I fancied something that wasn’t curry or pasta, my main motivation for making something different to curry or pasta was wanting to use up the tin of butter beans I’d found in the cupboard.

Rose Elliot has written a whole cookery book based on beans – The Bean Book – so I had a look in there and saw her bean and leek pie. Knowing The Meat Eater likes a) butter beans and; b) leeks, I knew he’d give it the thumbs up (or at the very least, an appreciative grunt).

I used Flora in this pie but it could be easily veganised by using a dairy-free spread such as Pure or Vitalite.

5.0 from 1 reviews

Recipe: Butter Bean Pie

Save Print

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

1 hour

Total time

1 hour 15 mins

Adapted from the recipe in Rose Elliot's 'The Bean Book'

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Cuisine: Vegetarian but easily veganised

Serves: 4

Ingredients

400g can butter beans, drained and rinsed
50g butter
225g carrots, diced
450g leeks, sliced
125g mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp plain flour
225g tinned tomatoes
150ml vegetable stock
salt and pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
225g ready rolled puff pastry

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas mark 7
Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the carrots, cover and cook gently for 10 minutes
Add the leeks and mushrooms and cook for a further 10 minutes
Sprinkle in the flour and mix in well
Add the tinned tomatoes, stock and dried thyme and cook gently, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until thickened
Add the beans and season with the salt and pepper
Pour the mixture into an ovenproof dish and leave to cool slightly
Cover the top of the pie with the puff pastry and bake in the oven for about 35 minutes until golden brown

Main Meals

Recipe: Asparagus and Potato Tart

8th June 2015 No Comments

I usually haven’t recovered from the weekend enough to be bothered to cook from scratch on a Monday, but because I had a rare booze-free, exercise-packed, fresh-air filled weekend, my energy levels were up and so I decided I wanted to cook something healthy.

After deciding I wanted tonight’s dinner to involve asparagus, I perused the BBC Good Food website, filtering the results down to healthy options. None of the healthy options particularly appealed, so I took the healthy filter off and saw their free-form asparagus and potato tart, which is what I loosely based mine on. It’s not healthy in the slightest but it’s a big step up from the processed junk I usually heat up in the oven on a Monday.

Recipe: Asparagus and Potato Tart

Save Print

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

45 mins

Author: Cathy @ Planet Veggie

Recipe type: Tart

Cuisine: Vegetarian

Serves: 4

Ingredients

375g pack ready-made shortcrust pastry
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
2 eggs
200ml soured cream
75g asparagus, woody stems snapped off
200g potatoes, sliced
3 chestnut mushrooms, sliced
100g Cheddar cheese, grated
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
salt and black pepper

Instructions

Boil the sliced potatoes for about 5 minutes until tender.
Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and soured cream, then add the rosemary and season with salt and black pepper.
Line an 8" round pie dish with the pastry, leaving the edges overhanging.
Brush the bottom of the pastry with the mustard.
Layer the pastry with the potatoes, mushrooms and asparagus and top with half the cheese.
Pour the soured cream/egg mixture over the vegetables and top with the remaining cheese.
Fold over the edges of the pastry, trimming if necessary.
Cook in the oven at 200C/180C fan for about 30 minutes.

Main Meals

Recipe: Vegan Spinach and Mushroom Galette

12th March 2015 No Comments

Spinach and mushroom galette from Greens 24/7 by Jessica Nadel

Unfortunately, this didn’t go down too well with The Meat Eater. I loved it – I especially loved the pastry because – round of applause, please – I made it all by myself. I don’t think I’ve ever made pastry before; I might have made some at school I suppose, but that would have been a *cough* few *cough* years ago now.

You’ve got to hand it to The Meat Eater though – he’d do well on Masterchef’s palette test. He said the pastry had an odd taste to it and as I thought back to what had gone into it, I remembered the coconut oil, so that was probably the ‘odd taste’ he was referring to. He did admit to liking ‘bits of it’ though.

Hopefully, the coconut oil hasn’t put you off, so I’m going to post the recipe below as I made it (which is pretty much as it appears in Greens 24/7 by Jessica Nadel, which I talked about a bit more in yesterday’s post – my version is only slightly simplified). The end result is a kind of quiche-like dish which I reckon would be just as nice cold, as hot.

Please don’t be put off by making your own pastry – this was about as simple as it gets and if I can be bothered to do it, so can you.

Although the recipe below states 240g tofu, I used a normal (normal for the UK, anyway) sized block of Cauldron tofu and pressed it (nothing fancy – just between two saucers), this left me with 275g tofu and I used all of it.

Recipe: Vegan Spinach and Mushroom Galette

Save Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

50 mins

(adapted from Greens 24/7 by Jessica Nadel)

Author: Cathy

Serves: 4

Ingredients

125g wholemeal flour
30g plain flour
60ml coconut oil
125ml iced water
2 portobello mushrooms, sliced
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 whole garlic clove
125g spinach
240g firm tofu
3 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp nutritional yeast
salt and pepper

Instructions

Make the pastry. In a large bowl, mix together the flours and ½ tsp salt. Work the coconut oil into the flour, leaving small lumps. Add the water gradually and work until the dough comes together. Roll into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large frying pan, add the crushed garlic, mushrooms and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, until the mushrooms release their juices and the juices evaporate. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Meanwhile, steam the spinach until partially wilted, then leave to cool.
Place the tofu, lemon juice, 1½ tsp olive oil, nutritional yeast and the whole garlic clove in a food processor and process until fairly smooth (you might need to add a bit more oil). Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add the spinach and fold in by hand.
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6. On a piece of baking paper, roll out the pastry to a 30-cm (12") round. Transfer the pastry and baking paper onto a baking sheet and spread the spinach-tofu mixture over, leaving a 5cm (2") border. Top with the mushrooms and gently fold the extra pastry up and onto the toppings, pleating as you move around the outside.
Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Uncategorized

Review: Bodychef Vegetarian Diet Plan – Day 4

16th February 2015 No Comments

Friday meant new hamper day – hooray! I’d been looking forward to the new delivery because, let’s face it, everyone loves a food delivery, don’t they? I met the same cheery delivery chap as before in my front garden on my way back in from the gym. Because I’d been out, he’d left the hamper in the arranged ‘safe place’ (not to be confused with ‘safe word’ – this ain’t no 50 Shades-esque blog, okay?)

This hamper for the second part of the week’s diet was huge. Look at all the food.

Bodychef vegetarian diet plan hamper — I don’t think I’m going to starve

There was so much food, I couldn’t fit it in neat piles for each day.

I may have squealed when I saw the tub of coleslaw. I imagined thick, creamy, tangy coleslaw, but I’d have to wait until Saturday to have it, dammit.

Still, although I had to wait until Saturday to have coleslaw – today’s breakfast was low fat spread (a single serving of Flora at 40 cals) jam (18 cals) and crumpets (108 cals).

Bodychef crumpets and jam — My kind of ‘diet’ food

As usual though, I didn’t have breakfast and didn’t feel hungry enough in the morning to warrant wasting them by eating them just because they were there.

I’d also been looking forward to today’s lunch of egg mayonnaise. Egg mayonnaise as diet food? Get in! As with the feta and pepper spread, and the roasted aubergine and chickpea pâté, Bodychef had supplied a generous portion of egg mayonnaise (114 cals), pitta bread (161 cals) and salad (7 cals).

Bodychef egg mayonnaise and pitta bread — Oh yes, I’m enjoying this diet

Obviously, Bodychef hadn’t gone overboard with the mayo; this is a diet after all – if it’d had the amount of mayo I’d have spooned into it, left to my own devices, that would have been my calorie allowance for the next two days gone in one soggy sandwich. Still, it just goes to show what a bit of moderation and restraint can do – this was a perfectly acceptable egg mayonnaise and not dry at all.

This kept me full all afternoon but I kept thinking about those crumpets so I gave in and had them about 4pm-ish and yes, they were as good as they looked.

Since The Meat Eater started mountain biking on a Friday evening, Friday nights have traditionally become ‘chippy night’. Not tonight for me though, eh? Nope, my dinner was – instead of my usual veggie burger and chips or battered veggie sausage and chips – leek and mushroom kedgeree (306 cals) and Persian cucumber salad (27 cals). I’ve never seen such a small pot of salad.

Bodychef leek and mushroom kedgeree — More an aside salad, than a side salad

Bodychef supply only basic cooking instructions for the diet as a whole, not individual dishes, so I wasn’t sure if the hard-boiled egg should be reheated, as it’s not something I’ve done before. I’ve had hard-boiled eggs in curries in the past, and if you’ve never tried a curry that contains hard-boiled egg – please do, they’re fantastic, but the only time I froze the curry with egg, when it had defrosted, the egg was as rubbery as an old balloon stuffed inside another old balloon. This was a fresh egg though, so I heated it up in the oven along with the rice and it was fine.

The kedgeree reminded me of egg fried rice, which is no bad thing. The salad, despite being small, was dressed, fresh and crisp.

While I was eating this, The Meat Eater came in with his chippy take-out and offered me a chip. I wondered if this would be the start of a slippery slope into obesity but I decided one wouldn’t hurt.

Don’t laugh at this next photo because despite what it looks like, this trifle (151 cals) containing jelly, sponge and some kind of watery blancmange-type substance was great – in a flashback-to-your-childhood-parties kind of way.

Bodychef trifle — Don’t judge a trifle by its watery blancmange-like cover

My cat started begging for some, so it got the cat approval, which is always a good sign. Cats don’t eat any old rubbish, you know.

Day 4 conclusion

Buy a bigger fridge. Crumpets are diet food. You don’t need a whole jar of mayo in an egg mayonnaise sandwich. Kedgeree is like egg fried rice. Put ‘trifle’ on the shopping list.

Special offer for Planet Veggie readers

If you’d like to try out the Bodychef diet, readers of Planet Veggie can get 15% off any plan by using the code PLANET15.

1 2 3 4 Next »