New blog format

As most of you have noticed, I have been rather scarce on the blog for the last few months. It's been quite time consuming to write up the recipes from scratch every night after dinner so I've decided to post pictures of what we're having for dinner and a link of where to find the recipe. Let me know if that's alright or if you'd rather I posted the full recipe on the blog. 

I'll add a few tips and any changes I've made to the recipes to make it extra easy and yummy for you guys.

For my first updated food post, I'll simply post about what I ate today:

For lunch, I made Millet Croquettes and Parmesan Celery Salad. It does sound really healthy (which it is!) but it's also really tasty.
Changes: For the Millet Croquette, I followed the instructions to make the batter and then baked it straight away - with 3 eggs mixed in - until the top was golden brown and crispy. As you'll see in her recipe, there is a whole process I didn't have time to do so I left it out. Simply baking it also uses less fat and thus makes it more healthy!
The Celery Salad is surprisingly tasty and super easy to do! Let it sit for about 20 minutes before serving so the celery has time to soak up all the lemon and olive oil flavours.

Parmesan Celery Salad

After lunch, I was still hungry and craving chocolate so I turned to one of my favourite, 'guilt-free' dessert blogs (that also happens to be vegan!) - Chocolate Covered Katie for yet another great recipe of Brownie Batter Pancakes! I do tend to follow her recipes to the letter, especially with regards to the quantities, otherwise things can taste a bit funny. I did add a bit more sugar though....

Brownie batter pancakes with Millet Croquettes in the background

For dinner, I used up the last of our butternut making this delicious Borlotti Bean and Squash Mole.
Feel free to leave out the cocoa if you're not a big fan of mole (Damon isn't but I still managed to sneak a bit of cocoa in the dish and he liked it :-)
Changes: The original recipe asks to bake for 2 hours - again, for time constraints, I didn't. I left it on very low heat in the pan for an extra 15 minutes and it came out delicious. Serve with some bread to scoop up all the delicious sauce.

Borlotti Bean and Squash Mole

Hope you guys enjoyed this post - let me know if I can edit anything. I'll try to post daily or at least weekly from now on :-)

Post St Patrick's Day Hot Chocolate

Saturday was my first official St Patrick's Day in Cambridge and we decided to celebrate by having a braai (read barbecue) at our house. Thanks to everyone who could make it - it was such a fun party!
After most big parties, the best thing is comfort food. After St Patty's Day, I made Hot Chocolate, Spicy Stifry and Caponata (Sicilian Aubergine Stew) and hung around the garden reading "A Clash of Kings" - the second Game of Thrones book.

Coconut Hot Chocolate
While sitting outside on Sunday reading my book in the Spring sun, I had this craving for hot chocolate! Though after the previous night's Guiness drinking, I couldn't have handled a heavy hot chocolate so I decided to try and make a light yet chocolatey drink!

My reading spot in our garden

 

The coconut milk really adds a nice, exotic flavour to this hot chocolate but you can use any kind of milk though dairy will make it heavier.
 Ingredients: (for 2 people)
2 cups Coconut Milk (or any non-dairy milk to make it lighter)
2 heaped tsp Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Almond Butter (you can leave this out)
1 Tbsp Agave Nectar or enough sugar/sweetener for your taste
A few drops of Vanilla Essence
Optional: 1/2 tsp corn flour diluted in some hot water- if you like thick hot chocolate, otherwise leave out.

Coconut Hot Chocolate

How to:
Mix everything in a pan and bring to the boil, mixing well when boiling point approaches.
Pour in cups and enjoy warm!

Cabbage and Carrot Stirfry
One of my best comfort foods is a bowl of (leftover) stir-fry with noodles, eaten with chop sticks! You can pretty much use any vegetables with this basic sauce. You can add more spices/ingredients to the sauce if you like, just experiment!

Stir-fry served with black rice noodles, topped with some grated beetroot

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
2 Red Chillies
4-5 Carrots, chopped into thin sticks
A small head of Cabbage. shredded into small strands
One Leek
Any other vegetable including Spinach, Bean Sprouts...
2 cloves Garlic, crushed
1 cm piece Ginger, crushed
2 Tbsp Soya Sauce
1 tsp Rice Vinegar
 1/2 Cup Vegetable Stock
1 tsp Brown Sugar or Agave Nectar
1 Tbsp Pea/Whey Protein or 1 tsp Cornflour
Any type of noodles you like - Soba Noodles are delicious!
How to:
Heat up the sesame oil in a large pan or wok. Stir-fry the chillies and vegetables on medium heat for a few minutes.
In the meantime, mix up the rest of the ingredients (except noodles, of course) to make the sauce. Cook the noodles in some boiling water according to instructions.
Pour the sauce over the vegetable and cook for a minute until it thickens. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve in a bowl with vegetables spooned over noodles. You can add some more soya sauce if you'd like.

I usually also make some marinated tofu to go with this dish but we didn't have any tofu that night so I left it out.
Ingredients:
A block of tofu, chopped into cubes
2 Tbsp Soya Sauce
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tsp Rice Vinegar
1 tsp Sesame Seeds
1 tsp Brown Sugar or Agave Nectar
How to:
Heat oven to 200C. Put the tofu cubes in an oven-proof dish.
Mix up all the sauce ingredients and pour over the tofu. You can let the tofu sit for an hour if you want a stronger taste.
Grill the tofu in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the tofu is golden brown, mixing the cubes up halfway.

Caponata
This is a Sicilian Aubergine Stew traditionally seasoned with sweet vinegar and capers. I replaced the capers with olives since they're cheaper. You can serve it as a starter, spooned on some bread or as a main with rice or pasta.

Caponata - to be served with flat-leaf parsley

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Aubergine
1 small Onion, chopped finely
2 cloves of Garlic, crushed
2 handfuls ripe Cherry Tomatoes, chopped into quarters
10 Olives (kalamata or green, pitted and chopped up)
1 tsp Dried Oregano
A handful Flat-Leaf Parsley, stems chopped small and leaves chopped
1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
How to:
Chop up the aubergine into medium-sized pieces; too small pieces will soak up too much oil and become soggy.
Heat up the oil on medium-high heat and add the aubergines, oregano and a pinch of salt. Cook for 3-4 minutes, tossing every now and again until the aubergines are light brown.
Add the onion, garlic and parsley stems. Cook for a few more minutes.
Add the chopped olives, cook for a minute then add the cherry tomatoes and vinegars.
Cook until it reaches a thick consistency. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Serve with the flat-leaf parsley and some toasted bread.

Festival Food

Ever been to a music festival with a vegan? Well, I have! And I've had to get quite creative to keep the recipes tasty, cheap, quick and with the minimum amount of ingredients to take along. All the recipes below are vegan but you can substitute ingredients for more conventional alternatives - though the chocolate fudgey bites are phenomenal as they are!

Doing what I do best - cook for everyone!

So yeah, sorry I haven't posted for a few days but we spent the weekend at a music festival (a vet, vegetarian, vegan and a legendary Essex lad!) - All Tomorrow's Parties - in Minehead (across the sea from Cardiff). To prevent excessive consumption of junk food during the weekend (we did pig out once for lunch...), I decided to come up with easy, quick recipes to feed 4 people using as few ingredients as possible.
Note that this is not for your typical South African festival, you'll need basic kitchen equipment for these recipes but they'll work for a quick meal.

Lunches and dinners for 3 night stay: 
Tomato Soup
Leek and Parnsip Risotto
Roasted Potato with Beans (don't need a recipe for this one, lol!)
Butternut Mac n Cheese
Celeriac and Cauliflower Mash with Veggie Burgers

Snacks:
Chocolate Fudgey Bites
Pita and Carrots with Hummus

Tomato Soup
I absolutely love tomato soup - it is probably the best kind of soup out there. The trick to delicious tomato soup is to de-seed all the tomatoes before cooking them. It can be quite time consuming but it is really worth it. You can also use cherry tomatoes if you have the patience/time to de-seed them!

Ingredients:
1kg tomatoes (you can use 1kg cherry tomatoes or half cherry tomatoes/half normal tomatoes)
1 onion, sliced
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 liter vegetable stock (use as much as desired depending how thick you like your soup)
Salt and pepper
Optional: butter, bread (we used wholemeal sourdough from the Earth's Crust in the Cambridge market) and cream to serve

How to:
If you'd like, you can skin the tomatoes but it is not necessary.
Start by chopping up the tomatoes and remove the seeds. 
Heat up some olive oil in a large pan and cook the onion until soft.
Add the tomatoes and cook for about 3 minutes.
Add the stock and the balsamic vinegar. Cook for 10 minutes.
Blend, season and serve warm with some cream and buttered bread.

Leek and Parsnip Risotto (with Ruby Orange Vodka Cocktail)

Eating lunch outside in the sun - an ATP festival first!

Ingredients (for 4 people):
1 onion, chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 fennel, chopped into small cubes
2 leeks, sliced thinly
400 grams risotto rice
150ml white wine - I used Pinto Grigio but I think a drier white would work best
1 liter of vegetable stock, keep warm in a separate pan
juice of one lemon
parsley or thyme - I only had thyme handy but I think parsley would work better
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

How to:
Heat up some olive oil in a pan on medium heat and add the onion. Cook on low heat until the onions are translucent but not brown. Add the garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.
Add the fennel and leek and cook on low-medium heat until both are soft.
Add the risotto rice and make sure it is nicely coated with the leftover oil in the pan. Keep mixing gently for a minute.
Pour the white wine in the pan and wait until it has mostly evaporated.
Add ladles of the warm stock one at a time. Wait a bit in between each ladle until the water has been absorbed by the rice - make sure the stove's not too hot or the stock will just evaporate and not cook the rice.
You can always add a bit more stock if needs be, just taste the rice along the way until it is al dente!
Once the rice is cooked, add chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste and the lemon juice.
Serve immediately on a sunny patio with a cool glass of white wine.

For the Ruby Orange Vodka Cocktail:

Eating tasty Butternut Mac n Cheese

Pour some Vanilla Vodka (I tend to be heavy handed so I won't give you any guidelines there, but the usual "single, double" rule should be alright here) in a tall glass. The mix is made up of 2/3 blood orange juice (or ruby orange juice) and 1/3 cranberry juice. Drink cold.

By the way, I need a creative name for the above cocktail - please help me with one!

Butternut Mac n Cheese
I stole this recipe from "Oh She Glows" so I'll link this up to her website where the original recipe is. I follow it to the letter and it comes out perfect, comforting and delicious.

Celeriac and Cauliflower Mash with Veggie Burgers (or any other burger for that matter)

Ingredients:
1 celeriac, peeled and chopped - I guess you could use parsnip or any other root vegetable
1 cauliflower, chopped
Thyme
A knob of butter (vegan or not)
A splash of milk (dairy or not) - adjust quantities depending on how thick/runny you like your mash
Salt and pepper

How to:
Boil the celeriac and cauliflower until very tender.
Drain and put into a large bowl. Add the thyme, salt, pepper, milk and butter.
Mash using a hand-held blender or a masher.
Adjust seasoning if necessary. 

Serve with the burger of your choice - we ate Aduki Bean Kiev and they were delicious!

Chocolate Fudge Bites! Nom Nom Nom

Chocolate Fudgey Bites
For snacks, I made these little devils: German Chocolate Fudge Bites and they came out so chocolatey and addictive!

Mark E Smith and Me! - "Good Evening, we are the Fall"

Damon's musical note: Music wise, the weekend's highlights included the Boredoms, the mighty Fall, Group Doueh's infectious Saharan grooves, Mount Eerie, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the monumental Earth and Matana Roberts.

The Boredoms (and me!) - Acid Police!