Chickpea and Quinoa salad

I picked up some quinoa at the shop last week and wanted to try it out, so I decided to make a salad. Quinoa is high in protein, which is obviously great for a vegan diet. I was surprised at the texture of the cooked quinoa as it became quite wet and porridgy. Nevertheless is tasted great in this simple salad. James had feta cheese with his (I kept having to stop myself putting a chunk of feta in my mouth when I was preparing it, oh how I love feta!!) and I had a rather disappointing schnitzel of the Veg Deli brand.



Ingredients

Salad:

2 dl cooked quinoa
2 dl cooked chickpeas
1 dl cherry tomatoes, halved
2 red peppers, charred, skinned, deseeded and chopped
1 dl cooked broccoli, cut into small florets (don't overcook, you want crunch!!)
1/2 a red onion, finely chopped
plenty of fresh parsley, chopped

Vinagrette:

Juice of one small lemon
1/2 dl olive oil
3 tbs white wine vinegar
1/2 dl slow roasted tomatoes
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp of honey/sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients for the salad in a bowl. Mix the ingredients for the vinagrette in a separate bowl and blend with a stickblender until it is emulsified and slightly thickened. Drizzle over the salad and toss to combine. Voilà! Nutritious and delicious....

Let the sunshine in

13 days in and still going strong. So far I haven't found it particularly hard sticking to a vegan diet. My toughest moment was saturday evening when I made an effort to cook a nice dinner for us as we had the flat to ourselves. I made sweet potato chips and coleslaw. I had a nut cutlet from the freezer while James had got a big juicy organic rib eye steak. Needless to say the nut cutlet was terrible. If was far too sweet (especially accompanied by sweet potato!) and not meaty at all. I really did get that feeling that "vegans just eat vegetables with some vegetables on the side". Obviously it didn't help that the steak looked delicious. Thankfully the apple crumble I had prepared for dessert lifted my spirits!

This morning the sun is shining and it is finally beginning to feel like spring. I celebrated the sunshine with a soya latte, banana and blueberry fruit salad and hummous on crispbread with cherry tomatoes

Pasta Puttanesca (our version)

James cooked me a nice pasta dish a few days ago. It it is a vegan version of pasta puttanesca. Did I mention he is a chef?


ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tins of cherry tomatoes
2 pointed red peppers
1 handfull of pitted kalamata olives
fresh basil
salt and peppers
extra virgin olive oil

Sweat the onion in some olive oil until soft and transluscent. Add garlic and chilli, cook for one minute. Add the tinned tomatoes, season with the salt and pepper and cook gently for 30 minutes. Char the skin of the peppers by roasting over an open flame or under a grill until blackened, put them in a bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave for 20 minutes and the skin should peel off. Slice in to slivers and add to the sauce together with the olives, roughly chopped.
Once the sauce has cooked for an hour in total add some chopped fresh basil. Serve with pasta. Delicious and very satisfying.

Chilli

I made this delicious two bean chilli the other day. I made it quite spicy, but you can adjust the seasoning to your taste. The smoked whole chilli and smoked paprika gave it a nice "meaty" flavour. I served it with brown rice and topped with some fresh cherry tomatoes to cut through the heat.

Two bean chilli

2 dl cooked/tinned kidney beans

2 dl cooked/tinned canellini beans

2 tins of tomato

1 onion

1 clove of garlic

some olive oil

1 chipotle chili (smoked whole chili)

1 fresh chilli

ground cumin

ground coriander

smoked paprika

thyme

dried chili flakes

2 teaspoons of sugar

salt

black pepper

Chop the onions and sweat in some olive oil in a big saucepan. Add some salt, it helps to sweat the onions. Once the onion is soft and transluscent add the garlic and fresh chili, finely chopped. Add the chipotle, roughly chopped. Add the spices to taste. Be generous with the cumin and coriander, the onions should be coated in spices. Be more careful with the chiliflakes as these add a lot of heat. Cook for a few minutes before adding the tomatoes and sugar. Cook together for a good 40 min - 1 hour. The longer the better to intensify the flavours. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Add the beans and warm through.

cream sheeeeesy!

I've tried out the dairy free creamy sheese, garlic and herb. Obviously it is a cream cheese substitute, made with Soya. It tastes of soya and has a clay-like texture. I don't mind the soya flavour and the texture doesn't bother me but my (non-vegan) flatmates and friends thought it was horrible. I find it tastes better with something fresh, like some peppers or carrot on a piece of crisp bread. I've also used it as a dip for carrot sticks. I love cheese and generally like savoury spreads so this has been pretty useful for me. I'll definitely buy it again and would like to try some of the other sheese products.

It ain't cheap to be vegan

On a day out at High Street Kensington we had lunch at the food court in wholefoods. Hubby had two slices of pizza for £3.50, meanwhile my mezze plate (and it was a preety small plate) was £6.99 . Talk about overpriced! Having said that, it was very tasty.

Provamel soya Yofu

My raspberry and vanilla flavoured Yofu was quite delicious. It definitely has that soya taste, but otherwise tastes like a yoghurt. The only downside for me was the bits (from the raspberries), I prefer a smooth yoghurt. I will definitely buy these again.