Category Archives: Recipes

Cheap & Easy, Recipes, Side dishes

Cauliflower Tabbouleh (GF)

Serves four as a side dish

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion (Lidl 7p)
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or more to taste. (Can use ‘Jif Squeezy Lemon’ but that is more expensive than a fresh lemon, comes in plastic packaging and contains preservative.) (Lidl fresh lemon 20p)
• 2 tablespoons oil – olive oil best but not essential (Lidl 9p)
• 1 teaspoon salt or tablespoon of shoyu (Note shoyu is not GF) (2p)
• 1/2 large head of cauliflower (Lidl 48p)
• Large bunch of fresh parsley or two tablespoons of dried parsley (3 packets of Lidl fresh cut parsley £2.01)
• Fresh mint leaves (half the quantity of parsley) or one tablespoon of dried mint (2 packets of Lidl fresh cut mint £1.34)
• NOTE – I used fresh lovage from my garden instead of parsley and mint for the demonstration.
• Optional – 3 fresh tomatoes (Lidl fresh tomatoes 48p)
• Optional – 6 pieces of sun dried tomatoes soaked in water for 30 minutes (don’t soak if bought in oil).

Preparation:

1. Finely chop the onion and transfer to a large bowl
2. Juice the lemon and add to the onion along with oil and salt/shoyu. Stir thoroughly and leave to marinade while carrying out the next steps.
3. Slice and chop the cauliflower into rice-sized pieces but it still works if the cauliflower pieces are bigger. If you have a food processor, a quick spin of florets (big chunks) of cauliflower will reduce them to rice-sized pieces easily.
4. Finely chop the fresh herbs.
5. If using fresh tomatoes, quarter and then cut in half again.
6. If using sun dried tomatoes, drain and slice into strips or smaller chunks.
7. Thoroughly mix cauliflower, herbs (and tomatoes if using) with the marinaded onion.
8. Tastes even better if prepared a few hours in advance.
9. Leftovers will keep for a day or two.

Health:

Cauliflower:
• 29 calories per serving
• excellent source of vitamin C.
• very good source of vitamin K and folate
• good source of vitamin B6 and potassium
• anti-cancer properties
• fairly high level of antioxidant phytonutrients
Parsley:
Contains vitamin A, K, C, and E, thiamin,riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12,pantothenic acid, choline, folates,calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese,phosphorus, potassium, zinc, and copper.

Cost:

  • £0.86 with home-grown herbs but without tomatoes
  • £1.34 with home-grown herbs and supermarket tomatoes
  • £1.91 with dried parsley and mint from supermarket but without tomatoes
  • £2.39 with dried parsley, mint and tomatoes all from supermarket
  • £4.21 with fresh herbs bought in supermarket & without tomatoes
  • £4.69 with fresh herbs and tomatoes from supermarket

© Rob Baylis, 2018

Starters and soups

Soup pot luck – a wide selection of flavours at low cost

On 2 October 2015 we showed the film Cowspiracy. In the interval, a selection of soups were offered to the audience, made by some of the volunteers in the group.

  • Minestrone
  • Broth
  • Garden vegetable
  • Spicy tortilla
  • Raw vegetable

Soup is one of the easiest vegan dishes to make, and it can go a very long way with very money. This broad selection covered various cuisines, such as Mexican, French and a raw dish (kept under 40°C to preserve the most nutrition).

Cowspiracy soup pot luck

Main dishes

Vegan Fish and Chips (yes, really!)

Ingredients:

‘Fish’ ingredients:

  • 400g of tofu
  • Fine sea salt
  • Garlic powder
  • Some pepper
  • Sushi nori sheets

Batter ingredients:

  • 1 bottle of beer
  • 15 tbsp of any flour (or enough to make a pancake like batter)
  • 3 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp of fine sea
  • Dash of pepper
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice

Other ingredients:

  • Fine breadcrumbs
  • Cooking oil
  • 1 lemon

Method:

  1. Squeeze out water from a block of tofu. This is quite important as it helps to absorb flavours better.
  2. Preheat the oven and bake your chips as per chips pack instructions or make your own
  3. Add 1 bottle of beer into a large bowl, add all other batter ingredients and whisk until you get a pancake like batter.
  4. Cut the tofu into 1 cm thick ‘fish pieces’. Sprinkle lemon juice on the tofu pieces and add garlic powder, some pepper and sea salt – season generously.
  5. Wrap into a sushi nori sheet (if the sheet is too long and goes over the sides, just cut them off). The tofu will be a bit moist so the sushi nori sheet should stick to it well.
  6. Add a generous amount of fine breadcrumbs to a plate.
  7. Dunk the tofu ‘fish’ pieces into the batter and then move to the plate with breadcrumbs and cover well on all sides.
  8. Fry in hot cooking oil until golden brown.
  9. When the ‘fish’ pieces are done transfer them to a plate that’s covered with kitchen towel to absorb some of the excess oil.
  10. Sprinkle some lemon juice on the ‘fish’ pieces for extra flavour and serve with chips.

Enjoy!

Recipe Adapted from Exceedingly Vegan

Snacks

Veggie Lunch Meat

Ingredients:

  •  1 cup white beans
  •  2 cups water
  •  1/4 cup oil
  •  2 tsp salt
  •  2 tsp paprika
  •  2 tsp onion powder
  •  1 tsp garlic
  •  1/4 tsp tumeric
  •  1 tsp ground fennel
  •  1 tsp sage
  •  1 tsp pepper
  •  1 tsp soy sauce
  •  2 3/4 cup vital wheat gluten

Method:

Get water steaming in your steamer.
  1. Place all ingredients except the gluten flour in a blender and process until smooth.
  2. Pour into a bowl. Add gluten flour and work into a dough.
  3. Shape dough into a log and wrap in heavy duty foil. Try to make the roll as thick as possible. Steam for 1 hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees in the last 15 mins of steaming. Remove seitan from steamer and bake for 45-60 mins. Seitan should swell and press against the foil.
  5. Cool and slice as needed for sandwiches. This seitan holds up very well and can be shaved very thin. Store in the fridge

Recipe by Vegan Dad

Cakes

Vegan + Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Banana Bread

Choc-banana-breadIngredients

  • 3 cups oatmeal {make sure you use gluten-free oats}
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1 tablespoon olive, vegetable or coconut oil
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2/3 cup vegan chocolate chips (or roughly chopped dark chocolate)
  • 1/3 cup desiccated coconut (optional
  • 3 tablespoons oatmeal

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Spray 9×5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
  2. Make oat flour: Place oatmeal into blender and blend for 1-2 minutes until oatmeal resembles flour. You may need to stop blender and stir oats a couple of times to ensure that all oats have been blended.
  3. Measure out just 2 cups of the oat flour and place in a medium bowl. Whisk in baking powder, baking soda, coconut and salt; set aside.
  4. In a separate large bowl, beat mashed bananas, 1/3 cup brown sugar, vanilla extract, and oil for 1-2 minutes until the consistency is smooth and creamy. Slowly add in oat flour mixture and mix until just combined.
  5. Gently fold in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and sprinkle 3 tablespoons oatmeal and 1 tablespoon brown sugar on top.
  6. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted into centre comes out clean. Cool 10-15 minutes, then remove from pan and place on wire rack to finish cooling. Cut into thick slices.
  7. Bread will stay good for up to 3 days if wrapped well.

From ambitiouskitchen.com, adapted by Kim (@adventureandcake)

Cakes

Vegan Lemon Cake

lemon-cake.jpgIngredients:

  • 275g Self Raising Flour
  • 200g Caster Sugar (+ 1 tbsp for topping)
  • 1tsp Baking Powder
  • Zest of 1 Lemon
  • 100ml vegetable oil
  • 170ml cold water
  • Juice of ½ lemon (+ ½ lemon for topping)

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 200C/ 180C fan oven/ Gas Mark 6.
  2. Grease and line a loaf tin.
  3. Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and zest in a large bowl.
  4. Add the juice, oil and water and mix thoroughly until smooth.
  5. Pour into the lined loaf tin and bake for 30mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
  6. Sprinkle 1tbsp caster sugar over the top of the cake.
  7. Pour remaining juice (½ lemon) over top.
  8. Leave to cool in the tin for 10mins then remove.

From BBC Good Food, adapted by Kim (@adventureandcake)