Tag Archives: My vegan recipes

post

Chole Rajma Curry

Posted on by

Is it just me, or do you think of Curry as well as soon as Friday is lurking around the corner? After more than 12 years of living in the UK I learnt one thing; i.e., the British love their Curries – and so do I! And who better to ask than my favourite Indian ‘mother figure’ Manjula?

My ‘Indian mother’ teaching me to cook

I first came across Manjua’s website and YouTube Channel when I turned vegeterian some seven to eight years ago. My journey continued into a purely plant-based lifestyle later on, and discovering the multitude of options I had available in the Indian cuisine most certainly helped! I’m an addict to Indian food now! I love rich flavours, spices, different textures and levels of spiciness, and the gorgeous aroma that spreads through your entire flat when you cook any Indian dish. 

Not knowing back then how to cook great Indian food, Manjula’s discovery was my saviour. With over 200 recipes she gave me plenty of opportunity to explore. Manjula tought me how to cook authentic, home-made Indian food, and I am deeply grateful for that.

Travel experience in India

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am by far no expert in the Indian cuisine, but travelling to India a couple of times now and learning even more about their colourful and rich culture, helped. Their cultural variety is greatly reflected in the variety of their dishes. Did I bring shiploads of spices back? Of course I did! That is my kind of ‘souvenir shopping’.
I’m still blown away by the fact that they have 22 major languages in India, 13 different scripts, and more than 720 dialects. That doesn’t make communication any easier, does it? I still managed to get a wholesome dish plated up in front of me, every single time. English is widely spoken, but you may as well find yourself in situations when pointing at stuff is the only option. 

None of that today though. No finger pointing. Find your mouthwatering Curry recipe !

Credit: Manjula’s kitchen

Enjoy and Namaste

post

Yellow split pea soup – Ärtsoppa

Posted on by

from Ethiopian Wednesday to Swedish Thursday

I love travelling and I love food. Can you tell? I find an amazing amount of inspiration in foreign cuisine and am easily carried away. It helps of course to have a passion for cooking, too! 

Many countried I visited over the past 20 years have, what I call, ‘specific food days’. I think that’s a great idea and takes some pressure off. I mean, I love being creative in the kitchen, don’t get me wrong; but sometimes it’s nice when you just have an ‘inherited food plan’ that you can follow. Pea soup and pancakes on a Thusdday is apparently a Swedish tradition that goes back to the middle ages! How about that?

Small but mighty peas

Dried peas are a small but nutritionally mighty member of the legume family and are a stellar fiber source. This in turn helps managing your blood sugar levels directly after a meal. Like the vast majority of legumes, vegetables and fruit, peas have so much more nutritional goodness to offer. They’re not a one trick pony and solely celebrated for their high fibre content. They’re virtually fat free but macro- and micronutrient rich, and they feature valuable phytonutrients.
These phytonutrients shield us from cell damage caused by free radicals, hence aging, chronic low-grade inflammation, bad colesterol, and infections in general.

Health-hungry now? 

I don’t know about you but I am off to prepare my pea soup now, and celebrate a long-standing tradition. No, not IKEA – but you can get split peas there too. Now you know why 🙂

You’re just one click away from the ! God aptit!

Credit: GoGreen

[wpforms id=”651″ title=”false” description=”false”]

post

Atakilt Wat

Posted on by

It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week. I feel like I want to be eating a meal that is traditioally placed in the middle of the table, and you eat in the midst of your friends and family.

That’s Ethiopian cuisine for me!

Another reason for choosing this dish for today is far more pragmatic.
I don’t know if you’ve been following my #WorldVeganMonth recipe blog so far. I’ve been sharing ‘veganized’ recipes every day to celebrate my favourite month. If you have, you and I still have about half of a cabbage left in the fridge after the delicious cabbage stir-fry the other day. Let us not waste any food, but let us make use of the leftovers for Wednesday Wat!

Once more I’ve been lucky and found a great recipe that I’m confident enough to try. Atakilt Wat is normally a quite complex dish and takes several hours in preparation. This one, from Vegan Richa shortens the process to under 1 hour! If you’re anything like me, you probably want to eat healthy and nurture your body, but not spend half a day in the kitchen to achieve that. 

So – here we go: straight to the

post

Stir-fry ginger cabbage

Posted on by

Stir–fry meals deserve a place on your menu because they’re packed with nutritious vegetables and protein. As such, they can form an essential part of a healthy diet. Stir-fries are super quick in their preparation and hence vegetables retain more nutrients than if they were boiled. What’s not to love?

Cabbage greatness

The main star of the show here is cabbage, which is packed with beneficial nutrients. Being a member of the cruciferous vegetable family this low-calorie vegetable can protect, prevent, and even revserse many of our modern society’s diseases. 
One of the many beneficial chemical compounds that make cruciferous vegetables so healthy is the fact that they are rich in sulforaphane. Sulfurophane is one of nature’s generous health insurances. It enhances brain function and at the same time reduces the risk of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. Additionally, it greatly reduces the risk to develop diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and many forms of cancer. 
That’s not all though! Cabbage has an impressive nutrient profile despite it being low in calories. It’s loaded with Vitamin C, K, and B6. It’s rich in folate, high in fiber, and contains powerful antioxidants. Not bad for such an unassuming veg, right? 

Healthy servings

Only 3-5 servings a week of either Broccoli, Chinese broccoli, broccoli raab, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, bok choy, kale, collards, kohlrabi, mustard, turnip, radish, watercress, or arugula may decrease the risk of developing cancer by 30% – 40%.
This doesn’t mean though that the more cruciferous vegetables you eat the better it is. Like with everything else in nature, the dosis matters. Ingesting large portions of these vegetables, more so in their raw form, can impair thyroid function and can be toxic. So – include them into your diet but stick to a healthy limit.

Let me know in the comments below if I forgot any of the healt benefits of stir fries or the wonderful cabbage!

post

Yorkshire Parkin with Whisky Caramel sauce

Posted on by

Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night, and what would this UK tradition be without the ‘Parkin’? For unknown reasons this sticky oat and molasses cake is inextricably linked to Guy Fawkes Night. So, rather than questioning this tradition – let’s make it!

Now – I am always attracted by ‘traditional recipes with a modern twist’ and Meera Sodha must have just heard my wishes this weekend, as she came up with this ! How could she possibly know I love Whisky and Caramel? 

If you’re abstaining from alcohol or have little ones running around who’d like a piece of cake too:

Keep it traditional

Credit: The Everyday Vegetarian

Ingredients for the Parkin:
•       100g porridge oats
•       100g wholemeal flour 
•       2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
•       4 tsp ground ginger
•       1 tsp mixed spice
•       100g sugar
•       100g blackstrap molasses (or treacle if you can’t find molasses)
•       220g lukewarm water
•       80g vegetable oil

Ingredients for the Whisky Caramel sauce:

  • 150g sunflower spread
  • 100ml golden syrup
  • 80g soft dark brown sugar
  • 1 large pinch sea salt
  • 1 Tbsp bourbon whisky

Method:

  1. Preheat your oven to 180C
  2. Mix the oats, flour, baking powder, ginger and mixed spice in a bowl
  3.  Gently heat the molasses and water together to appr. 35-40C, and add to dry ingredients
  4. Add the oil to the mix, and stir initially with a large spoon or spatula, then with a whisk
  5. Pour the mix in to a greased or lined cake tin 20cm (8” inch) 
  6. Place in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean)
  7.  Leave on a cooling rack in the tin for ten minutes and then turn out on to the cooling tray cut into squares – size the squares to your likig
  8. To make the sauce, put the sunflower spread, golden syrup, sugar and salt into a small saucepan, and leave to melt over a low heat. Simmer for four to five minutes, until treacly, then take off the heat. Leave to cool for a few minutes, then stir in the whisky.
  9. Prick the cake all over with a fork, cover with hot whisky caramel sauce and top with the banana coins.
Credit: The Guardian

Enjoy fresh, once cooled down, with a nice cuppa!
Or place the squares into a cookie tin for next couple of days. Can be frozen too.

post

Baked Buckwheat Pancakes

Posted on by

What’s better than pancakes on a Sunday morning? Not much springs to my mind, other than a good cup of coffee. 

Credit: Pick Up Limes

These are delicious – and you don’t even need to your frying pan out to prepare them. This is a healthier and gluten-free version (if you want). Thanks to Pick Up Limes we can now all enjoy these Sunday morning treats 🙂 Pick Up Limes is my absolute favourite website and for plant-based recipes, is a constant resource for me when I’m browsing for wholesome and healthy foods. The heart and soul behind the website and the channel is Sadia, an amazing Canadian dietitian. I love her thoughtful advise and amazing energy! A true inspiration – go check her contents out – I’m sure you’ll fall in love too!

Preheat your oven, get your coffee machine going, and have a fabulous Sunday!

post

Sweet potato and kale casserole

Posted on by

Say cheese?!

Missing a bit of cheese in your new vegan life? I hear you!! It was one of the hardest things to give up, and probably still is.

Luckily I found Anja on youtube! She’s German, just as me, but now lives and prepares plant-based plates of happiness in Australia. I’m not sure that counts for something on my quest to quench my cheese appetite, but her does a very good job! 

There’s more benefits to this dish though than my cheesy happiness!

Seasonal eating 

Let’s not steal the show for the main ingredients: Sweet potato and Kale!
Both are in season now in the UK, which makes this dish even more healthy and benefits the environment. Seaonal food even tastes better as it ripens naturally and is picked at the right time. Generally, seasonal and local vegetables (and fruit) retain more nutrients than their non-seasonal counterparts because they travel less milage before landing on your kitchen counter.
Less travel and less refrigeration means less fuel and energy usage, hence less CO2 emissions and other pollutants into our atmosphere. As a consequence, our planet is happy too!

Enough said – now: Guten Appetit!

post

Pumpkin-Chickpea-Coconut Curry

Posted on by
vegan Pumpkin-Chickpea-Coconut curry with rice
Credit: Meat Free Monday

This is absolutely one of my favourite Autumn and Winter dishes! I cannot even count how many times I’ve prepared it since its’ discovery. It always hits the spot.  Perfectly balanced flavours of ginger spice and coconut creaminess – bliss after a cold day out! 

Thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one! I slightly tweaked his recipe though as it is a huge portion size. I halved the amount. You may want to pre-prepare this for Guy Fawkes night. It’ll be developing wonderful flavors if you prepare it some time ahead. 

Ingredients

  • 1/2 butternut squash or pumpkin (appr. 450 gr)
  • 4 cm piece of ginger
  • 4 shallots or 1 small to medium sized red onion
  • 3-4 cloves of garlic
  • 1 fresh red chili
  • 1 bunch of fresh coriander – separate stems from leaves and don’t throw the stems away!
  • coconut oil
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • 20 curry leaves, preferably fresh but if you cannot get them, use dried ones
  • 1 tsp turmeric powder
  • 200 gr (1/2 tin) chopped tomatoes
  • 400 gr (1 tin) coconut cream/coconut milk
  • 400gr (1 tin) chickpeas

Preparation

  1. Remove the hard squash/pumpkin skin and chop into bitesize pieces
  2. Finely chop or grate the ginger, chop the shallots/red onion, chop the garlic, and the coriander stems. Seed and chop the red chili.
  3. Heat some coconut oil in a large pot at medium to high heat. Add the ginger, garlic, red chili and shallots/red onion, and reduce to medium heat. Cook until golden, stirring occasionally.
  4. Add the mustard seeds, curry leaves, and coriander stalks and fry until the curry leaves go crispy.
  5. Add the turmeric, tomatoes and coconut milk, and bring to the boil.
  6. Then, add the squash/pumpkin pieces and chickpeas and reduce to low heat. Cover with a lid and simmer for 45 minutes. Check occasionally. (add a splash of water if it looks a bit dry)
  7. When the time’s up, take the lid off and cook for a further 15 minutes or so until the sauce is lovely and thick.
  8. Scatter with coriander leaves and serve with rice or naan bread.

For more plant-based inspirations please leave us your details below, and we’ll inform you via email when we upload new recipes to our website!

[wpforms id=”651″]

post

Pan de Muerto – Bread of the Dead

Posted on by
Mexican Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, Altar offering, ofrenda, colourful flowers, pained clay skulls, traditional mexican art, artisan
Credit: Las Cruces Sun-News

Celebrating World Vegan Day and the Day of the Dead – Día de los Muertos– on the same day is fabulous!! 
Not only can I induldge in some sweet baked bread, but it also allows me to time and space travel whilst munching away.

Its’ flavour and texture take me back to my first Día de los Muertos experience. My friends invited me to join celebrations in a small village in the State of Veracruz, Mexico. After a short ride from Xalapa, I found myself surrounded by exotic aromas, scents, vibrant colours, music, and beautifully decorated streets, door frames, and ofrendas. Ofrendas are lovingly decorated altars, set up in families’ homes, which are overflowing with candles, flowers, fruit, candy skulls, and A LOT OF FOOD! 
A center piece is the Pan de Muerto – absolutely essential to the ofrenda!

Credit: La Jolla Mom

I spent quite some time to find a ‘veganized‘ version of the traditional sweet treat. I’m happy I finally found a  (Thank you Dora!!) that’ll take you closer to the mystical tradition that the Aztecs started some 3,000 years ago. What a legacy, amongst so many other traditions and relics!

Enjoy with a hot chocolate, or coffee, to dip – then lean back, close your eyes, and allow your mind to travel….

Credit: México Destinos