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.
My healthiest meal of the day by far is breakfast. I used to make a smoothie in my blender most days but then I jumped on the Nutribullet bandwagon and now have a Nutriblast of spinach or kale, fruit and coconut water each morning.
I love my Nutribullet. I love it so much, I’ve also been having a Nutriblast for lunch – albeit a bigger, thicker one made with frozen banana, whatever fruit I fancy (most recently pineapple and kiwi fruit), a handful of cashews for protein and some Alpro soya yoghurt (man, I love that stuff – it’s so much nicer than the dairy yoghurt).
Although I love my Nutriblasts, sometimes I want something more substantial for lunch and, in the summer, that something is usually salad and although I love the usual salad combo of leaves, raw veg and dressing, recently, I’ve been enjoying a tapas-style lunch.
I generally don’t eat much out of jars but I can’t resist the supermarket shelves laden with artichokes, stuffed vine leaves, sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers and olives. I love to serve them with hummus (shop-bought is delicious but if you want to make your own, here’s the best ever hummus recipe) and marinated, baked tofu.
Despite this being a healthy lunch, it’s calorie-laden as the jars are packed with oil, so if you want to save some calories, pat everything (no, not the hummus!) dry with kitchen roll to mop up a load of oil.
This is such a quick, easy and tasty lunch. Simply cut a chunk of tofu off the block, squeeze it in some kitchen roll to get rid of the excess water, cut it into cubes, coat in pesto and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until the outside gets crispy. See, told you it was easy! I had mine in some pitta bread with spinach, olives, sundried tomato, cucumber, spring onion and vegan mayo (Tiger Tiger, which you can find in Asda, or you can make your own). If you want vegan pesto (which is what I used here and doesn’t taste any different to regular pesto), Sacla do one and you can find it in the ‘Free From’ section in Tesco (I don’t know where other supermarkets keep it, but probably somewhere similar).
A variety of healthy snacks were sent to me to try recently, and I’m going to share them with you below. That’s ‘share’ as in let you know about them – not share them literally. They’re my snacks, go away.
Urban Fruit – Pure Fruit Snacks
Urban Fruit – Pure Fruit Snacks
You all know what dried fruit is and these pure fruit snacks from Urban Fruit are just that – pure fruit. They’re gently baked and have nothing added to them; no sugar, no sulphites, no oils, no nothing. As well as being available in a variety of flavours, they also come in handy snack packs and big sharing bags, but if you think a big sharing bag will last you a long time, you’d be wrong – I ate a whole big bag of pineapple in one go, which is saying something for someone who’s not a huge fan of dried fruit.
Find Urban Fruit in Asda, Tesco, Co-op, Waitrose, Ocado, Wilkinsons, in the
meal deal at Boots, on Amazon, and in loads of independents.
I love adding plain seeds to salads and smoothies but these Munchy Seeds are fab for snacking on, with flavours such as Choccy Apricot, and Chilli Bites. The pumpkin seeds contain essential fatty acids which help to lower cholesterol and maintain healthy blood vessels, while the sunflower seeds work to rid you of free radicals.
Gluten-free and free from empty calories, these seeds will give you the energy to keep going without any sugar crashes which other snacks can cause.
Munchy Seeds have an RRP of 69p-£2.35 (depending on size of pack) and are available in Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Waitrose, Tesco and Co-op.
These Fossil Fuel bars are right up my street. Although I don’t follow a paleo diet and don’t know much about it other than it seems to have something to do with cavemen, I do love a raw energy bar.
As you’d expect from this kind of raw snack, Fossil Fuel bars only contain natural ingredients that you’d find in your own cupboard (they’re currently in my cupboard, anyway – I haven’t been peeking in your cupboards, honest). For example, the macadamia & cacao variety only lists dates, cashews, macadamias, raw cacao and coconut oil.
Perfect as a snack anytime or to fuel you on long bike rides, etc.
I’ve got to admit, when two chicks (that’s the name of the company, honest – look, you can see it on the packets in the photo above) asked me if I wanted to try their Chirps egg white bites, my first thought was ‘ugh, they sound revolting’. But they intrigued me, so I said yes. And, do you know what? They’re nice and nothing like you’d expect. They don’t taste like egg whites – they taste just like crisps and have a texture of something that’s in between popcorn and a chunky crunchy crisp like, say, a Kettle Chip (other premium crisps are available).
Although the egg bit does put me off, I really like these. They’re high in protein, low in carbohydrates, low in fat, low in sugar and have fewer calories than other crisps, so give them a try.
For more information and to find stockists in your area, visit www.twochicks.co.uk/chirps-snack
The Coach & Horses – London’s First Vegetarian Pub
Norman’s Coach & Horses, Soho
The ‘West End’s Best Known Pub’ is famous for a few reasons. Mostly for its legendary self-proclaimed ‘rudest landlord’ – Norman Balon – who reigned over the bar for 62 years before handing over the keys to its current owners in 2006, and also for its clientele of writerly types, including late columnist Jeffery Bernard (you’ll be pleased to hear I’m going to resist making *that*joke). Now it’s famous for being London’s first vegetarian pub.
‘Vegetarian pub’ is a slight misnomer; on entering the pub, I spied a Guinness pump on the bar. As any self-respecting vegetarian will tell you – because it contains isinglass – Guinness isn’t vegetarian. For the uninitiated, isinglass is bits of fish bladder. Mmm, tasty. Pedantry aside, the menu served in the upstairs restaurant is 100% vegetarian, including customers’ favourites such as vegan tofush and chips, vegetarian pies and beetroot ravioli. Despite the downstairs bar serving non-vegetarian drinks, all the alcoholic drinks on the restaurant’s menu are labelled as suitable for vegetarians, with a few also labelled suitable for vegans.
Tofush and chips – not for the squeamish
The entrance to the restaurant is behind the bar and, as the management isn’t keen on any old riff raff wandering about the staff only areas, you need to let a member of staff know you’d like a table, then they’ll show you up (to your table, that is; I don’t mean they embarrass you in front of your friends). The Coach & Horses hosts the Private Eye fortnightly lunches, which explains the Private Eye covers and photos of Ian Hislop adorning the walls. Ian Hislop aside though, the upstairs is charmingly decorated like a 50s tearoom.
I’m informed by a friend who knows more about these things than I do, that the music is ‘ambient’. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it’s certainly not something I’d listen to in my house. On entering the toilet, the first thing I notice is an art deco mirror, the likes of which can be seen in bedsits across the country. Old-style graffiti is scrawled on the door; my favourites being ‘I take it the cat went down the loo as there is no room to swing it’ and ‘Nigella Lawson is innocent’. The toilets were – to be blunt – downright disgusting, but as this is an old-fashioned boozer, not a high-end gastro pub, I can’t really complain. Not that I would complain, I’m far too British. I’d just moan to my mates about it. Or update my Facebook status.
Our starters arrived quickly. My blue cheese quiche was luke warm; I’m not sure if it was supposed to be but I don’t like food that can’t make its mind up. Be hot or cold but not in between. The apple and cranberry chutney it came with certainly knew what it was – it was so cold it set my teeth on edge. The quiche was fine but slightly lacked blue cheese flavour. My friend described her soup of the day as, ‘Okay but the chickpeas were a bit hard’ but we were impressed that the bread accompanying the soup came with a choice of spreads; butter, or dairy-free for vegans and those (as in my friend’s case) who are dairy intolerant.
After a long wait, our main meals arrived. I’d been looking forward all day to the tofush and chips (tofu wrapped in seaweed and battered with organic ale batter, served with minted peas and avocado tartar sauce). The tofush was fab and even better than I’d remembered but the chips were obviously mass-produced frozen ones. They’re certainly missing a trick here by not serving homemade wedges or Heston-esque twice (or is it thrice?) cooked handcut chips. I loved the avocado tartar sauce, despite me usually hating avocado and the peas were, well, they were peas. I gave a bit of the tofush to my friend to try, warning her it would probably be too fishy for her. I was right; she screwed up her face and said, ‘Ew, too fishy.’ Well, she can’t say I didn’t warn her.
‘Too much bun and it wasn’t that nice a bun’
My friend’s burger (chickpeas, red kidney beans, onion, carrot, garlic and paprika) arrived with a slice of halloumi, despite her asking for it to be left out. It didn’t particularly bother her as she’s not vegan, but said if she was a vegan, she wouldn’t be very happy. I was happy though – delighted, even – as I love halloumi, so she gave it to me. She agreed the chips were rubbish and she wasn’t a fan of her burger either. ‘Too much bun and it wasn’t that nice a bun,’ she said and took the burger out of the bun to eat on its own but complained it was dry and bland.
Free recipe with every mousse!
Our meals filled us up but I’d been eyeing up the vegan chocolate mousse on the dessert board. We decided to share one and it’s just as well we didn’t get one each as the mousse was huge as well as being wonderfully thick and rich. After telling the waitress how much we loved it, she wrote down the recipe for us.
We left with our bellies full and our wallets about £28 lighter (not including drinks) between the two of us. I noticed on the way out four flavours of pickled eggs in jars behind the bar. I bet they all taste like mouldy balloons inside mouldy balloons though – I’ll stick to my tofush and chips, thanks.
I love these energy balls. They’re healthy, use only a few ingredients, are made in minutes and don’t require any baking. As an added bonus, you’ve probably already got the ingredients in your cupboard, so there’s not even any need to go out shopping.
I originally got the idea from Ani Phyo’s book, Raw Food Desserts (although her recipe uses raisins, while I used sultanas), but the mixture was too dry to form into balls, so I added the coconut oil which made it stick together while giving it an extra dimension with the coconut taste.
In the olden days, being vegetarian was – let’s say – a tad tricky. It was especially tricky for me because a) I didn’t like vegetables; and b) I didn’t know how to cook. These two things combined made life difficult because the only vegetarian items you could buy back in the early 90s was Sosmix (we’ll talk about that later) and vegetables. As an Essex girl, the only vegetables I’d had previously were the bits of salad that came with my kebab on a Saturday night. I gradually introduced greenery into my diet and so the only barrier left was learning to cook the flipping things.
This wasn’t made any easier by my living arrangements at the time – a bedsit in Leytonstone, east London where the only cooking facilities were an electric two-ring hob thing. My saviour appeared in the form of my very first vegetarian cookbook: No Meat For Me Please by Jan Arkless. Jan’s superb book contained lots of simple recipes that could be done in a saucepan; I cooked vegetable stews and vegetable curries and pasta sauces. What was even better was all the recipes were just for one person, perfect for a 22-year-old in a bedsit. There was a section of recipes that all used a strange beige substance called TVP (textured vegetable protein) that came in chunks or mince-form. I ventured into the supermarket and found some on the shelves. Okay, so it was textured – the texture of cardboard, to be precise. I’m not sure from which part of the unspecified vegetable the protein was extracted but it was probably the bit that ends up in the compost bin. Still, it meant I could make old ‘meaty’ favourites such as shepherd’s pie and spaghetti bolognaise.
Sosmix – the staple food of students and veggies in the 80s
I mentioned Sosmix earlier. I’d stumbled across Sosmix before I was vegetarian. Back in 1989, I was skint, living in a bedsit in Liverpool, on the dole and surviving on potatoes. Potatoes were cheap back then; 50p would buy me 5kg worth of the starchy carbs and they’d last me a week. Then on Giro day I’d splash out and buy a tin of baked beans to go with them (not Heinz, obviously – I couldn’t afford anything that posh). I was living as a vegetarian but only because I was too poor to buy anything other than economy burgers and if you’ve ever eaten economy burgers you’ll know why being vegetarian was the better option. After a few months of living on potatoes, some student friends of mine who were equally skint introduced me to Sosmix. They practically lived off the stuff because it was cheap and, being students, they’d spent all their money in the student bar which, at £1 a pint, you couldn’t really blame them. Also, because it was dried, you didn’t need a fridge (students who had the luxury of owning a fridge filled it with beer, and milk that was always on the point of going off). As Sosmix was a powder, you added water to it, left it to sit for about ten minutes or so then made it into sausage shapes (the ‘Sos’ in ‘Sosmix’ – whoever thought up the name was clearly a genius), into patties or wrap it in pastry and make sausage rolls or pies. Sosmix was the staple diet of students and vegetarians around the country and I think I must be the only person who didn’t like it. Sosmix refuses to die and is still around. It even has its own Facebook page. Another mince-type product available back then, one which is still around now, was Beanfeast. Made from soya, it came in three different varieties; Bolognaise Style, Savoury Mince and Mexican Chilli. As you can probably guess, they were identical in form and texture; they just contained different herbs and spices. I liked Beanfeast; my friend Zoe hated it though, and when I reminded her about it recently, she called it, ‘That terrible Beanfeast crap.’
Pizza GoGo now has Quorn pizza on the menu
It wasn’t just the absence of veggie burgers or ready meals in those days that made life difficult for a vegetarian – lots of other food items would be made with animal fats. For example, biscuits, cakes and pastry. What made it worse was that labels stating ‘suitable for vegetarians’ were non-existent so you had to carefully study the label and know what it was you were looking for. Brands – especially supermarket own brands – are now great for labelling and most products are labelled if they’re suitable for vegetarians (even if sometimes it’s in titchy tiny writing on the back, hidden amongst the ingredients – yes Tesco, I’m looking at you).
Lacto-ovo vegetarians, of course, eat dairy and eggs. Despite most cheese being vegetarian these days, twenty years ago you’d find a curiously named ‘vegetarian cheese’ next to the Cheddar. It looked the same, smelt the same and tasted the same and I was convinced it simply had a different wrapper on it. These days, practically every cheese you pick up (with the exception of the harder cheeses such as Parmesan, which is never vegetarian) has a ‘suitable for vegetarians’ sign on it. No more freakily named ‘vegetarian cheese’ – it’s just cheese.
For vegetarians who didn’t include dairy in their diet, if they wanted soya milk – tough. I’m told by a friend that in 1976, soya milk was only available in powder form. Another friend also told me that in the 80s, there was only one brand of soya milk and it was disgusting. Look on the shelves today and you’ll find soya milk in many flavours such as chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, along with nut milk, oat milk and rice milk from many manufacturers, including supermarket own brand.
So that’s eating in, what about eating out? Even in London, there weren’t a huge number of vegetarian restaurants. Although, even if there were, shortly after I became vegetarian I started going out with a voracious carnivore who, although was okay with me being vegetarian, was most definitely not okay going somewhere where there would be no meat on the menu. This meant my eating out diet consisted mainly of pizza – which was hardly a bad thing, given my love for those cheesy discs of delight – and dishes I suspected were simply meaty ones without the meat (think spaghetti and tomato sauce). Speaking of vegetarian restaurants, one thing I do remember was walking past Mildreds in Soho one day in the early 90s. Mildreds is a well established popular vegetarian restaurant which has been around since 1988. I stood at the door admiring its ‘Time Out’s Best Vegetarian Restaurant’ award, then looked at the menu. It had fish on it. Fish on a vegetarian menu? The Vegetarian Society’s definition of a vegetarian clearly states that, ‘A vegetarian does not eat meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, or by-products of slaughter.’ Tut tut, Mildreds, you should have known better. I’m not sure when Mildreds corrected its fishy error but that’s certainly not something that would happen today.
One of the most astonishing breakthroughs in recent years has been the introduction of meat replacements – most notably Quorn – in the large chains. No more ubiquitous spicy bean burgers – vegetarians can now get ‘meaty’ burgers in Mcdonald’s and Wimpy. Pizza GoGo have just started offering Quorn pizzas in four different varieties topped with Quorn’s chicken-style strips, meatballs and pepperoni style cubes, along with a side dish of Quorn spicy wings and dip. As there’s no Pizza GoGo near me, I’m hoping Papa John’s follow suit.
I have these boots. Admit it, you’re jealous.
When it comes to clothing, although The Vegetarian Society doesn’t explicitly state that vegetarians don’t wear leather, I suspect were you to rock up to their head office wearing bits of dead cow on your feet, you’d be met with a disapproving look similar to the one your mum gave you upon discovering a mouldy plate under your bed. Personally, I wore leather until I started going out with a vegetarian who didn’t (yes, me and the carnivore had parted ways some years previously). Before then, I lived in Dr Martens. I had a black pair, a red pair, a red and black pair, an orange pair, a blue pair and a silver pair. I loved them all. Then I decided to stop wearing bits of dead cow and changed my allegiance to Converse, which also came in lots of lovely colours (I have, at the time of writing, eight pairs in various colours). For the die-hard Dr Marten fans though, non-leather ones were available from Brighton-based Vegetarian Shoes, but these were expensive. Now, however, you can buy non-leather Dr Marten-style boots in your local Shoe Zone for about twenty-five quid. I’ve got a fabulous pair of shiny red ones. Cheap shoe shops such as Shoe Zone are fantastic for cheap non-leather shoes. I’ve also bought great non-leather biker boots in other high street stores such as New Look and Tesco. That’s right, Tesco. I can now buy vegetarian boots at the same time as buying my soya milk and Linda McCartney sausages.
Talking of Tesco – you’ve only got to peek in their freezers to see how far society’s acceptance of vegetarianism has come. Gone are the days when you’d have to hunt for a pack of veggie burgers, now there are freezers full of the stuff. So when it comes to food and footwear, vegetarians can now – literally – fill their boots.
Ever since I picked up a copy of Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Googled to see what other people made from it, these chickpea cutlets came up time and time again. I’m not sure why I haven’t made them before now – the only reason I can think of is because they contain vital wheat gluten and, when I first got the book, I didn’t have a clue where to get vital wheat gluten from; I thought it was some strange substance only to be found in America.
UK suppliers soon caught up though and now, although I’ve never seen any in any shops, vital wheat gluten (sometimes just called wheat gluten) is easy enough and cheap enough to buy online from a number of places.
The other day, I fancied making some seitan and had a look in Veganomicon for a recipe and saw the famous recipe for chickpea cutlets and decided to give them a go.
At the risk of sounding like a letter on Points of View (ask your parents, kids), why oh why oh why did I leave it so long to make them? They’re a lot simpler than seitan and ready to eat in about 30 minutes.
If you want Isa’s original recipe, it’s here on the PPK website but, as usual, I omitted ingredients I didn’t have; using other ingredients instead and, instead of baking or frying, I put the chickpea cutlets in my George Foreman, which worked wonderfully.
I suggest making a double batch and freezing the leftover uncooked cutlets to have another day. As you can see from the photos, I’ve had the cutlets in pitta bread with salad and vegan mayo but I can confirm they go just as well with potatoes and green veg.
In a mixing bowl, mash the chickpeas with the oil with a potato masher or fork until no whole chickpeas are left. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead for a few minutes until strings of gluten have formed.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces and form into patties.
Fry in a little olive oil for 6 to 7 minutes each side, bake in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes, or grill in a George Foreman for about 10 minutes.
I tried some of Inspiral’s Crispy Baobab & Onion Kale Chips the other day and loved them so much, I wanted to recreate my own, but without the baobab bit, as I have no idea what baobab is. According to the list of ingredients on the back of the packet, the chips seemed to mostly involve kale, cashew nuts and onion powder, and so I thought, ‘I can do that’ and I also thought, ‘I can do that for a lot cheaper than £2.19 for 30g’.
So I did. What I also did is make them cheesy, so they’re kind of like cheese and onion flavour crisps, kale-stylee. Oh yeah.
If you have a high-powered blender, such as a Vitamix (and if you do have a Vitamix, I am green-eyed with jealousy), you might not need to add as much olive oil. I needed to add it though because my cashews refused to blend without some liquid added (this is because I only have a £20 blender and not a Vitamix, sniff).
I ended up dehydrating these kale chips for about 24 hours. Depending on how big your kale pieces are and also on how efficient your dehydrator is, you may need less time. Just keep checking until they’re crispy enough for you.
Recipe: Dehydrated Vegan Cheese and Onion Kale Chips
As I was only cooking for myself on Friday evening, that meant that a) I could make something I like but The Meat Eater doesn’t and; b) it could as vegan as I liked (I’m not even allowed to use the word ‘vegan’ in this house and if The Meat Eater suspects something might be vegan, he’ll pour salad cream all over it).
My usual ‘what can I make that I love but don’t get to make very often’ is a vegetarian savoury pancake but, obviously, pancakes traditionally contain milk and eggs, and since becoming addicted to vegan Facebook groups such as the fun, friendly and welcoming Little Vegan Kitchen, eggs and dairy just seem ick to me and I’ve been cutting them out a lot more than I have done previously.
So, how to make a vegan pancake? I remembered the Mexican vegan quiche I made that used chickpea flour, so I scouted around the internet looking for a vegan pancake recipe that also used chickpea flour and came across this Jumbo Chickpea Pancake recipe on Oh She Glows and loosely based the batter for my pancake on that.
This may be a large pancake but after I’d finished it all I could think of was, ‘why did I only make one? I want more!’ it was that good. Absolutely delicious.
My toppings were sliced portobello mushrooms fried with garlic, kale, onion, cherry tomatoes and olives, then drizzled with vegan pesto. What toppings would you choose for yours? Let me know!
