Slow-roast tomatoes

This is a simple, yet delicious dish. It goes nicely with all kinds of things; pasta, polenta, pizza...etc





I made this with regular cherry tomatoes this time, but it's even better with baby plum tomatoes, or better still; a mix of different red and yellow baby tomato varieties.





Basically, it's whole tomatoes in (mild) olive oil, with vast amounts of fresh, chopped garlic, lots of fresh basil (from my garden, in my case!), oregano, and a pinch of salt. It's all stirred together then roast at a low temperature (around 100 degrees C) for about 1.5 hours. Drain the tomatoes from the oil, then serve. Mmmm.....

Jen x

Salade de Chevre Chaud

Salade de Chevre Chaud is a classic salad from the North of France.

It's usually made with Chevre (goats cheese), but I found that mildly-aromatic vegusto works very nicely!

It also involves bacon, but that can easily be replaced with any vegan 'bacon'.

For the dressing, just add some Provencal herbs to a French vinaigrette.

Another key thing that makes this salad extra special is adding plenty of chunks of cox apple.

For the cheese toasts, simply cut-up a piece of (white, or French) bread, grill them lightly on one side. Then, flip them over, grill a little on this side, then  lightly butter (margarine!) this side, top with a piece of vegan cheese, then grill a little longer.

Use a mixture of crispy watery leaves, like iceberg lettuce, and darker baby leaves.

Jen x

Cookies!

You know how bakeries and supermarkets sell those delicious moist, chewy cookies at super-high prices?...

Well, after literally spending hours doing research, I have come up with the perfect vegan cookie recipe that tastes just like those. Mmmm.........

As they are so spectacularly good, I'm going to include the full recipe in this post (Yay!), but be warned, there are rather a lot of ingredients, and it can be a little time-consuming.

Jen's Vegan Cookies


Ingredients:

• 1 cup regular plain flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 3/4 cup light brown soft sugar
• 1/4 cup (white) caster sugar
• 1 heaped tsp baking powder
• 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 cup of non-dairy margarine
• 1.5 tsps vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup unsweetened soya milk
• 2 tsps golden syrup
• 1 tsp (good-quality) vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• Pinch cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chunks (or ingredient of your choice, e.g. cranberries & orange peel, dark chocolate and glacé cherries...)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (C).
2. Remove the margarine from the fridge at least 20 mins before cooking so that it reaches room temperature and softens.
3. Combine all the dry ingredients (except the chocolate) in a large bowl and mix together thoroughly with a fork.
4. Add all the other ingredients (except the chocolate) and stir until it becomes a very thick, smooth paste.
5. Add the chocolate chunks and stir them in. FYI, don't feel you have to splash-out on expensive non-dairy chocolate chips. It's cheaper, not to mention more delicious, to simply cut-up bars (or buttons) of chocolate into chunks.
6. Line a couple of baking trays with greaseproof paper, then grease the paper with margarine.
7. Take scoops/handfuls of the mixture and roll them into balls, then squish them so that they make discs approx. 5cm wide and 1.5cm thick.
8. Place the discs on the baking trays, each at least 5cm from it's nearest neighbour - these will melt and flatten considerably, so if you don't put them far enough apart, you may just end up with one giant baking tray-shaped cookie!
9. Bake them for 10 minutes at 180 degrees (C). When done, they will be a creamy colour, just beginning to go golden (and certainly not brown!). They will seem far too soft and squishy, but unless there is a greasy-looking patch in the middle, then they are, in fact, done! They will set and become much more firm, so give them a minute out of the oven before you take them off the tray. Then simply remove them with as flat a spatula or fish-slice as you have and leave them to cool on a wire cooling rack until you can't resist eating them any longer!

Enjoy!

Jen x

Polenta Bake

Polenta is incredibly cheap and amazingly versatile, especially when bought by the bag, as opposed to ready-made.
This polenta bake is a perfect example of the kind of nutritious dish you can make with polenta.
It's essentially polenta made with vegetable stock and packed full of fresh vegetables (green beans, courgettes, red onions...) and slow-roast tomatoes, then topped with a large dose of Parmazano, or any other powdered cheese replacer.

Jen x

Mini donuts

Of all the things I've cooked in my time, these mini donuts have been one of the most popular by far.
On one day, I cooked 50 of them, and they were all gone within 48 hours!

That said, this is one of those rare occasions where I didn't use my own recipe! I used this fantastic recipe from veganyumyum (albeit with a little less nutmeg, more like a pinch).

I made some iced in a proper Homer Simpson pink:

And I made chocolate ones, using a strange chocolate I've only managed to find in France, labelled not as milk, plain or dark, but simply as 'Chocolate'. It's rich and dairy-free, but not bitter or overly strong.

This wonderful recipe is soft and sweet with the perfect crumb:

Jen x

Mini cupcakes!

Sometimes, you want something little that makes the perfect two-bite snack with a cup of tea...and mini-cupcakes fit that category perfectly.

I used silicone petits fours cases to make these rich chocolate cupcakes.
I always make my chocolate cakes with pure chocolate extract, to make the flavour extra-rich!
And when making non-iced cupcakes, I tend to use a little extra cocoa powder to make the batter thicker, so they rise better and make that perfect domed-top.

Delicious!

Jen x

Chocolate Sandwich Shortcake Biscuits

Once again, I've left it far too long and have endless things to update about. But i will start with these wonderful biscuits.

I used a basic shortbread recipe to make little circular biscuits.

Once almost cooled, I dusted them in vanilla sugar and, meanwhile, prepared the filling. The filling is basically melted dark chocolate with a little added soya milk to stop it setting fully again and, instead, stay nice and creamy.

Once the biscuits were fully cooled, I put them together to make the final product; two crumbly shortbread biscuits with a rich, creamy chocolate filling. Mmmm...

Jen x