Vegan meals for the new year

One of my new year resolutions this year is to eat many more vegan meals.  I've been vegetarian since I was 13, but switching to eat no dairy or eggs feels like an obvious, but also challenging step. Challenging mainly because I am cooking for 5 other people who don't always like some of the less 'traditional' meals I cook. That said, as I am in charge in the kitchen I can pretty much do as I want, so the aim of 50% of meals being vegan can be met. 
I'm having to do a lot of reading up about being vegan and have bought a range of new cooking ingredients to try out too - thank goodness for a great local healthfood shop Swindon Pulse  and getting my veggies from a local veg-box scheme  

For tonight's meal I wanted spices - and having loads of potatoes and beets from the veg box recently led me in a particular direction. (recipes below served 4 kids and 2 adults)


Spiced indian potato cakes

~400g peeled and diced potatoes
1 medium leek, sliced thinly
100g finely diced onion
80g frozen peas

1/2 tsp garam masals
1/2 tsp tikka spice
1 tsp nigella seeds
salt to taste
oil to fry

Start by boiling the potatoes in salted water until soft enough for mashing add the thinly sliced leeks in the last two minutes of cooking time
While the potato is cooking gently heat the onion until softened in a little oil with the garam masala,  tikka spice and nigella seeds.

Roughly mash the potato and leek mix, add the onions and the peas. Mix in gram flour to stiffen the whole mix.

Drop spoonfuls of the mix into a frying pan with hot oil and fry until golden

(the recipe I have adapted this from had a final step of mixing gram flour with water to make a soft batter and dipping the potato cakes into that prior to frying them - I did this and it took much longer to cook the cakes and frankly wasn't as nice in my opinion)

Beet and bean stew

300g peeled diced beets

2 sticks celery chopped

1 small chopped onion
vegetable oil
1-2 tsp ras el hanout
chipotle chillis (to your taste)
can of butter beans
can of chopped tomatoes
salt (to your taste)

Heat the beets, celery and onion in a heavy bottomed pan until all are coated in oil. Add the ras el hanout and chipotle chillis. Add water to cover and simmer until the beets are softened (~40 mins).

Add the tomatoes and butter beans and heat through.

Wierd jelly thing (that is meant to be a bit like Cranachan....)

Raspberry jelly mix
300ml Soyatoo! soy topping cream
100g porridge oats
50g spelt flakes
40g mixed seeds (linseed, sunflower. pumpkin)
1 desert spoon golden syrup

Make 'Just Wholefoods' raspberry jelly mix to 1/4 litre total volume with boiling water (this is much thicker than it normally is) allow to cool then add soy topping cream and mix.
Mix porridge oats, spelt flakes and mixed seeds with golden syrup  and the put in a baking tray in the oven, gas 5 for 10 mins until crunchy. Remove and allow to cool.

Layer up the oat mix and jelly mix in ramekins and serve.

Note: the soy topping is meant to be whippable, but I didn't read that instruction on the packet in time - it tasted surprisingly nice, not at all what I expected so I'll be making this again and trying it whipped next time.

Christmas pudding making

I'm on my own in the house this weekend, just the animals to keep me company, but lots of tidying and cleaning to be done. One of the cupboards in the kitchen was fit to burst so I decided to clean it out; its the one where dried fruit and pudding-y things go. There was a load of dried fruit in there with expiry dates that are either passed, or very soon - so rather than waste it, or wait until 'stir-up Sunday' I've made some Xmas puddings.

Rather than write out a long boring list of ingredients, you can see what has been added to the bowl at each step of the recipe. After adding the ingredients I mixed them in before adding the next lot of ingredients. Explanations and instructions in the caption below the picture

Soak the dried mixed fruit in the alcohol overnight

Mix everything together....

and mix again....

And again!

Spoon the mixture into pudding bowls

Cover each bowl with 2-3 pieces of greaseproof paper/baking parchment, then cover with foil and place into a pan with water coming two-thirds of the way up the side of the bowl. Bring to the boil then simmer for 3-4 hours.. Once cooled put the bowls into a cool dry place until Christmas (the best pudding I ever had was one that had been made 2 years previously and forgotten about - fabulous flavour!) To eat at Christmas, we just re-heat briefly in the microwave (though you can just re-boil for a couple of hours) - and ALWAYS pour over some heated brandy and set light to it for the theatrics and added flavour!

Preserving the summer

With all the gluts happening at this time of year, I love to transform them into a bulging cuboard of jams, jellies and preserves. Apples feature heavily because of the tree in the garden, and has been added to from some lovely beets int he veg box, and from the wild plum tree in the garden.

Beetroot, onion and apple chutney on the left, Wild plum, apple and chilli chutney on the right

Beetroot, onion and apple chutney
1lb apples - peeled, cored and a half chopped, half grated
1lb red onions - diced
1lb beetroots chopped (~5mm cubes)
1/2 pint cider vinegar
1/4 pint red wine vinegar
10-15g fresh chopped ginger
40g raisins
1tsp pickling spice
12oz brown sugar

Heat all the ingredients together until the beetroots are softened and the overall consistency is thick and syrupy. Spoon into sterilised jars and seal.

Wild plum and apple chilli chutney
400g apples peeled, cored and chopped
400g wild plums, halved and all the stones removed
100ml cider vinegar
1/4 tsp pickling spice
10g fresh chopped ginger
1/2 chilli - finely diced

Heat all the ingredients together until the apples and plum are softened and broken down and the overall consistency is thick and syrupy. Spoon into sterilised jars and seal.

An experimental chocolate torte

In the search for the perfect home-made chocolate torte, I'm always trying out new recipes. This one worked out well:

200g chocolate (Green and Blacks slightly darker milk chocolate)
80g butter
100g brown sugar
4 eggs (medium sized)
25 g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla essence

Melt the chocolate and butter, mix in the sugar. Add the eggs one by one, then mix in the flour and vanilla essence.
Spoon into a cake tin and cook at gas mark 4 for about half an hour.
The top wasn't quite as crusty, and the inner quite as 'squidgy' as I would like - but it tasted good!

Chocolate torte served with cream and raspberries

Squash soup

The veg box and the veg plot have yielded us a few nice squashes recently, so I decided that  soup was in order. I'm rather suspicious of this soup as my impression of it is a bit watery and insipid; probably inspired by soup made with Halloween-type pumpkins. How wrong I have proved myself to be, and how glad I am I tried with a different variety.

I started with a Hubbard squash from the veg box - about 2lb in weight (but see note at end). I removed the top and scooped out all the seeds. (I wanted to serve the soup from the shell of the squash so didn't remove a lot of flesh, just scraped the inside a bit - leaving a shell about a centimetre and a half thick.)

Hollowed out Hubbard squash on the left, dwarfing the Honey Bear squash, left.

The flesh was added to a pan with some oil and a large diced onion, and the chopped flesh of a 'Honey Bear' squash, courtesy of the garden (about 8 oz).

The hollowed out pumpkin went into the oven and I periodically scraped more of the flesh out of it while I cooked it for the next 40 minutes or so, and added this to the mix cooking on the hob.

I added water, salt, about 10oz butter, a large handful of thyme to the soup and simmered for about half an hour until the  mix was thickening up and the squash was breaking down. I then added a can of tinned sweetcorn, heated the whole lot up and then blitzed with a blended to make it smooth.

Just before serving I added some small cubes of cheese and then poured it all into the hollowed out squash for serving

It was lovely served with a dollop of natural yogurt and some drops of chilli oil. The taste was so much richer, sweeter and better than I expected, and everyone (including the six year old) finished it up.

After serving there was still the shell of the squash left, so I scraped all the soup mix out, and ate it, and sliced up the remains of the shell and put it in the oven to soften a bit more - I'll use that to make another squash soup later in the week to take into work.

Preserving from the garden

Our lovely apple tree has been dropping apples since late July and I'm struggling to keep up with it. Last year we froze peeled,cored and sliced apples by the pound, but I wanted to be a bit more creative this year, so have tried a few apple and chilli jam recipes.
In the two jam recipes I use a mix of brown sugar and jam sugar which helps achieve a nice set, in the jelly recipe in which I wanted a slightly looser consistency, I just used light brown sugar

Apple and chilli jam
800g of peeled, cored and roughly chopped apples
2 de-seeded very finely diced chillis
800g brown sugar/jam sugar mix

Gently heat the apples with the sugar until it has all dissolved. Turn up the heat and continue to heat until the apples start to soften and break down, add the diced chillis. Continue to heat until the jam reaches the 'jam point' and the surface wrinkles when a drop is put onto a cooled saucer. Pot and seal in sterilised jam jars

Apple and chilli jelly
3lb of chopped apples (no need to peel and core_
finely diced chilli (amount required depend how spicy you like it)
Light brown sugar (exact amount depends on the yield of apple 'juice'

Heat the apples with a splash of water to prevent it burning, and continue to simmer and stir so they break down.
Take the mushy apples and strain through a jelly bag. For every pint of apple 'juice', add a pound of sugar. Gently heat and stir the sugar and apple juice mix until the sugar has dissolved, then turn the heat up. As the jelly mix reaches the 'jam point' add the diced chillis. Once the surface wrinkles when placed on a cooled sauced, pot and seal in sterilised jars

Apple, marrow and chilli jam
200g peeled, de-seeded and chopped marrow
300g peeled cored and chopped apples
finely diced chilli (amount depends on how spicy you like it)
500g brown sugar

Gently heat the chopped apple and marrow with the sugar until it has all dissolved. Turn up the heat and continue to heat until the apple and marrow start to soften and break down, add the diced chillis. Continue to heat until the jam reaches the 'jam point' and the surface wrinkles when a drop is put onto a cooled saucer. Pot and seal in sterilised jam jars

Left to right: Apple and chilli jelly, Apple and chilli jam, Apple, marrow and chilli jam

 For a better description of the jam point and how best to sterilise jars go to the ever reliable Delia: http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/preserves/ten-steps-to-jam-making.html

Sweetcorn

My favourite thing about this time of year in terms of food from
the garden:  picking corn on the cob for tea.

This year I have grown a different variety from previous years, normally I grow 'supersweet' but I couldn't find the seeds anywhere this spring), and while the taste is good, most of the plants only have one cob and are pretty small, so I'll go back to supersweet next year.

And this is the very best bit - removing the husk,dropping them in to boiling water for a couple of minutes and eating slathered with butter!

Blackberry time

Yay! its blackberry time. After last year's bumper crop I didn't think we'd have so many again but there's a whopping harvest to be had out there, so I'm making the most of the morning dog walk and picking as I go.

I had a look through the homemade jam cupboard before I started making anything and as there were still about 10 pots of blackberry jams and jellies left from 2013, it seemed silly to make more. So, having loved the blackberry cordial and syrup I made last year, and regretting that it was used up all too soon I made that again.

Its been a kitchen-y kind of day so I've also made some wild-plum jam as the tree at the bottom of the garden is heavy with them (and most of what I have used so far is windfalls, I haven't even started picking from the tree properly yet).

Blackberry cordial, blackberry syrup and wild plum jam

The Blackberry cordial recipe is here: http://poppylkitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/foraging-produce-2013.html

Blackberry syrup
(from Pamela Michael's 'Edible wild plants and herbs')

Blackberries and sugar in kilner jar before heating

Put 1lb of blackberries and 1/2lb of sugar into a kilner jar and place into a pan with water around it - bring to the boil and then simmer for an hour. Sieve the contents into a pan and add a further 1/2lb of sugar, bring to the boil again, dissolve  the sugar and keep boiling for a further 5 minutes. Pour into a clean sterile bottle and cork.

Chocolate Torte for Liz

At a BBQ recently I made a couple of chocolate tortes for pudding. They didn't turn out as well as they have  in the past  - I couldn't find the recipe, and was using an unfamiliar kitchen - but I have in the past made some really brilliant chocolate torte and here is the recipe.
(This one's for you Liz!)

Chocolate torte - New Years Eve 2012

Start with 200g of good quality melted chocolate (the darker the better in theory but I always use milk chocolate). Add 200g of melted butter/margarine and mix till well combined. Then slowly beat in 4 medium sized eggs.

Mix in 200g of brown sugar  and then add 100g of a plain flour/ground almonds mix (I tend to up the almonds and decrease the flour for a richer torte)

I usually add about 25g of cocoa powder and some vanilla essence too at this point.

Pour into a greased lined cake tin and bake for about 35 mins at gas mark 4. It should be slightly squidgy inside with a nice crisp crust on top. Fab served with chantilly cream and fresh berries!

Summer meal from the garden

Having wandered down to the veg patch to do some much needed weeding and watering, I actually ended up picking things for my tea - I couldn't resist the rumbling tummy any further. (I did a little bit of half-hearted weeding, the rest will have to wait until tomorrow now)

There were a range of things ready for the picking - purple podded peas, french beans ( cosse violeto, north eastern and norwegian dry varieties), tomatoes (small cherry varieties inc sungold), baby courgettes ( yellow zucchini and patty pan) various leaves (wild carrot, lambs lettuce, purple and green orache, baby chard, mixed lettuce, nasturtium leaves, comfrey), a small whole garlic bulb and a lemon balm plant - pulled up by accident with poor weeding technique.

From left to right: fresh garlic, nasturtium flower, cherry tomatoes, purple podded peas, baby courgettes, wild carrot leaf,  cosse violetto beans, lambs lettuce,  nasturtium leaves, norwegian dry beans, mixed lettuce, purple and green orache, northeastern beans, lemon balm

As the hens have been laying well recently, and one of my favourite ways to use our eggs is home-made pasta, I decided to make some goats cheese tortellini and have them with the veg.

From LHS: tomatoes, baby courgettes and peas, mixed salad, goat cheese and lemon balm tortellini and frazzled garlicky beans

Goats cheese and lemon balm tortellini
This was just a standard pasta mix which I stuffed with a mix of goats cheese and chopped comfrey - but I laid a lemon balm leaf onto each piece of pasta before I put the cheese stuffing in. The lemon balm was stronger in flavour than I expected, but to get a really strong lemony -goat cheese filling  I'd put an extra leaf in each tortellini. I tossed the coooked tortellini in butter, pepper and some torn tarragon leaves before serving.

Frazzled garlicky beans
Having sliced the beans diagonally into bite-sized pieces, I quickly boiled them then tossed them into melted butter with some of the fresh garlic and freshly ground black pepper and 'frazzled' them a bit.

Baby courgettes, tomatoes and peas
The courgettes and tomatoes were sliced in half and lightly cooked in olive oil for a few minutes. Towards the end of the cooking time as the tomatoes were softening slightly, I threw in the peas that had been boiled for about a minute, and some of the chopped fresh garlic.

Salad
I used the various salad leaves (not the comfrey which was used in the goat cheese and lemon balm tortellini) and added some olive oil and balsamic vinegar and mixed together to make a vinaigrette

Enjoy!

The wildflower bed

One of the beds in the garden when we arrived had a horrible straggly hedge along it, and all sorts of rubbish dumped beneath it. It was completely wasted space, and I was keen to put more plants in to provide food for both us and all the animals and insects that visit the garden.
So out came the hedge, the bed was cleared of all the rubbish, and in went a wild plum hedge (with some wild pears and a few others thrown in too). I then spent the next 6 months planting wildflowers seeds and plants that will need to be in a permanent position (cardoons and jerusalem artichokes)

In all these pictures it is the hedge/bed on the very right hand side of the pictures (although you can also track the changes to other bits of the garden in these pictures)

March 2013: its unclear that there is even a bed under all the plastic rubbish, book case and the straggly hedge....

April 2013: ...yes there is a bed under there, straggly hedge still there, but most of the rubbish has been removed

May 2013: and now the hedge has been removed too

May 2013: with the wild plum hedge in and two cardoons planted too

June 2013: the wild flowers are starting to take over and the hedge is growing well

September 2013: the bed is looking very lush with lots of wildflowers getting established

May 2014: the wildflower bed -  the wild plum hedge survived the July 2013 heatwave (thanks to all the waterbutts). Lots of wildflowers are in the bed now: salsify, red campion, white nettle, poppies, forget-me-nots. Its buzzing with all sorts of insect activity now.

Foraging produce 2013

2013 was a fantastic year for berries and fruits so the larder was bursting by Christmas with jams, conserves and various alcoholic concoctions!

I've made the usual - bramble jams and jellies, crabapple jelly, wild plum jams and jellies, Apple butters, Greengage jams, and lots of blackberry and apple jams and jellies.
Sloes were also abundant so we made lots of sloe gin, and also tried our hand at sloe vodka and blackberry vodka.

But by far the best drink I made was blackberry cordial. This is a recipe in Pamela Michael's wonderful 'Edible wild plants & herbs'.

Blackberry Cordial

I made 500ml of blackberry juice by rubbing blackberries through a sieve,  then added a 500g of sugar and honey (the recipe says either so I added half of each). 8 cloves are meant to be added next, but as I'm not keen on them I only added 2, and then I included 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. This was all brought to the boil, simmered for 5 minutes then left to cool at which point I added 8 tablespoons of brandy and bottled it. Its a wonderful rich thick syrupy drink, it needed to be diluted about 1:6 and I guzzled loads when I had a really bad sore throat as it seemed to be the only thing that soothed my throat.

2013 Garden produce

Produce from the first year in the Broadway garden

Artichokes (Jerusalem) - Novembers

Aubergines - August

Beans (Cobra variety?) - October

Beetroots (Yellow and Chioggia) - September

Carrots (Purple dragon) - August

Chilli peppers - September

Courgettes (De Nice, Lebanese, Black Beauty) - Augusr

Courgettes - late September

Leeks (Bleu de solaise and Jeune Pitou)

Leeks - May (2014)

Potatoes (pink fir apple) - November

Potatoes (Vivaldi) - August

Squash (Acorn?) -  September

Squash (unsure of variety) - September

Squash (no idea of variety, has been referred to as the 'willy squash' in our family for obvious reasons - delicious flavour!) - September

Sweetcorn (Supersweet) - October

Sweetcorn (Supersweet) - October

Tomatoes (Mixed varieties) - August

Wild plums - August

Courgettes, Beans, Tomatoes -  August

Purple orache, Sunderland Kale, Purple-podded peas, Courgettes - June

Mixed courgettes and Chillis - October

Tomatoes (mixed varieties) - November

Mixed courgettes, Beans - September