Crème brûlée

Firstly, wow.
Who'd have thought vegan Crème brûlée could be so good?!
It's even pretty simple to make.

It's basically soya cream and soya milk, with a little golden syrup, plenty of vanilla extract and a little cinnamon, boiled with Vege-gel and cornflour to thicken it. Then sprinkled with a nice soft brown sugar and put under the grill until the sugar melts into a thick crispy shell on the top. Delicious!

Jen x

Kale Chips & leaf-free salad!

Kale chips are a wonderful healthy alternative to crisps.
They taste like a cross between standard potato crisps and Chinese 'seaweed'.
Basically, they're delicious, easy to make, and can be seasoned as you like.

Essentially, you cover an oven tray with a single layer of washed and cut Curly Kale. You mainly want leaves; avoid having too much stem.

Lightly mist them with a spray cooking oil, then sprinkle them with the seasoning of your choice - I made mine paprika flavoured by sprinkling them with half a crumbled vegetable stock cube, generous amounts of dried & ground paprika, and a little Parmazano.
Then, you cook them at about 180 degrees for 7-12 minutes until they're crispy and slightly brown around the edges.

Also, in the summer, I get urges to make lots of nice cool salads. Since it's been such nice weather lately, I've been making a lot of salads (as you may have noticed). The latest is a fantastically healthy, but leaf-free salad of chopped cucumber, cherry tomatoes and avocado, drizzled with Turkish extra virgin olive oil, the aforementioned Greek oregano, freshly-ground black pepper, and all the tomato juice/seeds that came out whilst they were being chopped. Topped simply with some pine nuts. Delicious!

 

Jen x

Pizza Slices

 Once again, I've developed rather a backlog.
I think the problem is that I cook too much food!
Nevertheless, here's the first of today's offerings (actually cooked about a week ago, but lost in the backlog!); Pizza slices!
Now, the reason I say 'pizza slices', as opposed to pizza, is because they're a little different. Instead of circular pizzas on a standard base, they are rectangular slices of shortcrust pastry, topped with tomato purée, plenty of fresh basil picked from my basil plant, chopped sundried tomatoes, and liberal sprinkles of 'mozarella-style' Cheezly.

Then baked for about 20 minutes and sprinkled with on-the-stem dried Greek oregano.

Jen x

Quinoa salad, and roast root vegetables

I made these ages ago, but with the massive backlog of things to post here, I'm only just posting them...
Root vegetables (potatoes, butternut squash and carrots), roast in olive oil with salt, pepper, nutmeg and rosemary. Mmmm...

I also made a Quinoa salad for lunch lately from some leftover quinoa from the previous night's dinner.

I crumbled a vegetable stock cube over the quinoa and stirred-in some chopped sundried tomatoes and green beans, and some torn fresh coriander.

Served with a simple mixed salad with a homemade 'honey' and mustard dressing - Agave nectar, virgin olive oil, fine french mustard, standard vinegar, salt and pepper, mixed well! Then sprinkled with mixed seeds.

Jen x

Houmous & Raw Green Veg Salad

Yesterday's lunch was a simple, but delicious, one; caramelised onion houmous with crudités and sundried tomatoes.

I also made a raw green vegetable salad of broccoli, sugar snap peas and green beans, with a drizzle of sweet chili sauce and a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

 

Jen x

Baked Apples

After the mini quiches, we had baked apples for desert.
They're pretty simple (and cheap!) to make, but absolutely delicious!
Simply core an apple and fill it with either a homemade mixture of raisins, sultanas, cinnamon, ground cloves, brown sugar & a little port...or just a pre-made mincemeat :P
Then, drizzle it with golden syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon, then bake for about 25 mins.

Serve with vanilla ice cream (i.e. Swedish glace ).

 

Jen x

Vegan Quiche!

I've developed rather a backlog of things to post here, so expect several entries in a short space of time!

Firstly, after making cheeseless cheesecake, I figured I needed another similar challenge and went for eggless quiche!

It was basically a mixture of silken tofu and a soya cream, with turmeric, chopped chives, salt & pepper, chunks of 'gouda-style' cheezly and finely chopped vegetables, thickened with a little cornstarch. This was all mixed together and put on a base of shortcrust pastry in little silicone cake moulds, topped with a little more gouda-style cheezly, then baked for about 20-30 minutes.

Instead of normal 'single' soya cream, I used a special gratin cream I bought back from France. It's thicker and has a more savory taste.

The final quiches were absolutely delicious!

Mmmmmmmmm...

Jen x