Dinner of the Day

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(We had some pilau rice we made before this and used the leftover to go with these dishes.)

From left to right:

Fried tofu with kala jeera (Black cumin), garlic, ginger and chilli flakes.

Fried potal (mini marrows) and aubergines

Tomato, hazelnut milk and barlotti and haricot bean soup (dried beans soaked/simmered beforehand because they make their own delicious broth which you can keep adding water to to make more in contrast to tinned beans).

Fried spinach, celery and chilli sauce.

And basically all the usual oils (coconut, sesame, poppyseed, mustard, olive), herbs and lemon were used.

Current and Retrospective ‘Dinners of the Days’

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Dinner (or Meal) Of The Day (instead of OOTD Outfit of The Day or WIWT What I Wore Today:P )

Mum is so awesome:

Vegetable (including tofu) vermicelli (rice noodles, not the glassy ones)

Rice and tofu curry, and Quorn curry (the smaller dark Reddish one)

I am so lucky 😀

A Black feast for a Black Goddess – International Women’s Day

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Mum made THE best dishes today in honour of International Women’s Day which uses the Black Goddess Venus symbol to mean ‘female/woman’.

Ingredients:

Aubergines
Black Eyed Beans
Dried Turtle Beans (Black)
Fresh tomatoes
Black sesame oil
Poppyseed Oil
Blackseed oil
Mustard seed (Black) Oil
Coconut Oil
Black Venus Wild Rice
Coconut Milk (used with the rice)
Almond Milk (used with the Turtle beans)
Kala Jeera (Cumin seeds), dried and fresh (the fresh is the watercress looking herbs I grew in the photo)
Ginger
Garlic
Tumeric Powder
Himalayan salt
Black pepper
Chillis
Coriander
Basil
Chives
Parsley
Lime [juice]
Kalamata [‘Black-Mother’] olives
Seaweed (as a side)
AND SHOCK HORROR – No spice at all! Everything tasted so wonderful none were necessary! :-O

Dessert:

Black grapes (or Raisins for dried fruit)
Dates

Mum was going to make date fritters but didn’t get round to it, no loss – my belly is so full right now I can barely move… *Groan (not in a bad way).*

Some of the ingredients

Dates and Grapes Dessert

LtR: Fried Black Eyed Beans, Black Eyed Bean ‘Dahl’/Lentil Version, Fried Aubergine, Black Venus Wild Rice (Sticky version)

Roasted Aubergine Boats

Stuffed Aubergine Boats!

My absolute favourite was the:

Using some of the liquid/soup from the Black Eyed Bean stew to make the Turtle Bean Stew

Turtle Bean Stew and Black Rice

Deeelicious!

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And look what else MUM made:

Drinking Straight from the [Young] Coconut!

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Ever tried drinking from a fresh coconut? I don’t mean a ripe one with the husk, I mean a young Green one to get the coconut ‘water’/juice. You may have tried it in a tropical country and there’s nothing like it when it comes to imports. You can easily pay upto £4 per litre in the UK depending on the brand but when usually they had additives like refined sugar or the ‘pure’ ones aren’t sweet enough and have an ‘acquired taste’. That’s not a problem when it’s fresh, it’s pure, sweet, thirst quenching and so good for you. (You can also eat the flesh.)

Yum! 😀

Nice & Simple Fried Plantain

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I love plantain; I usually love plantain ‘chips’ i.e. chunky crisps but those aren’t as healthy. With these you basically just slice a plantain or few and quick fry them on high heat (quick and high otherwise they get sticky and too soft) in a complimentary oil like coconut, safflower or grapeseed, and that’s it 😀

I served mine with cacao nibs and 100% fruit spread (not jam because those usually contain approx only 30-45% fruit, the rest refined sugar and other nasties).

These are so tasty but also filling so I can’t actually overeat them.

Hope you liked this quick and simple recipe! 🙂

Pizza Mania – This time a double!

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Yesterday I wrote a pizza post which I enjoyed thoroughly and for your viewing pleasure today is another!

Ingredients
– Two wholemeal bread wraps,
– Tomatoes and Avocado,
– Green beans,
– Broccoli,
– Lady fingers,
– Green bell pepper,
– Red onion
– Green Chillies,

– Turmeric powder
– Garlic powder
– Ginger powder
– Himalayan Salt
– Poppyseed Oil

– Three types of vegan cheese (these are solid cheeses but you can also use cream cheeses or after cooking add yeast flakes instead)
– Coriander

End product! Finis!

The ‘cheese’ is so addictive!

This tasted absolutely amazing, far better than any shop pizza I’ve ever tasted! 😀

Pizza with pizzazz!

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Here’s another one of my perfect Mum’s perfect creations: vegan pizza!

We’ve been pitta pizzas for ages in all sorts of combinations but for some reason hadn’t in a while until…

Note that there’s no need for cheese, vegan or otherwise. The mango was for dessert.

Ingredients
– Large round pitta bread, two wraps or homemade version flatbread.
– Tomato passata is best but tinned tomato or fresh tomatoes work just as well for the base (Mum doesn’t always use a base because of the spice and oil on top of everything which sinks through in the cooking).
– Fried aubergines (fried them separately, aubergine skin has a lot of oil in it so we don’t usually add any for that, just keep the temperature low enough to fry gently.)
– Bell pepper; Green, Red, Orange or Yellow
– Mushrooms
– Red onion
– Turmeric
– Fresh garlic
– Fresh ginger
– Papaya seeds
– Chilli
– Olive oil drizzled over the top
– Fresh coriander and dill after cooking as seasoning (and massive health benefits obviously 🙂 )

Once you’ve got everything you want on there that needs cooking place in the grill on high for approx 10-15 minutes. If you’re using an oven you’ll have to experiment.

Tips: We’ve made many variations over the years from simple homemade baked beans (cannelleni beans in tomato sauce, paprika, rock salt and unrefined sugar) and pineapple with cayenne pepper or chilli sauce to more traditional like the one above to my more interesting concoctions e.g. green lentils as a base, almost any other savoury toppings including sprouted beans and vegan mozzarella.

Vegan pizza is great (just make sure your bread is vegan friendly e.g. no tartaric acid or cream of tartar – very common ingredients, and gluten free for those that need it) and so addictive without all the additives! Have a go and have fun!

Super Squash Stew!

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So, yesterday Mum made some awesome squash stew and here’s how she did it:

Ingredients (quantities depend on your taste)
– 1x small-medium squash
– Fresh homemade nut milk
– Fresh homemade nut ‘okara’ (okara is a leftover from the sieving/grinding of soy beans to milk but I’m using it here to describe the same for nut milk)
– The ‘cream’/thick bit left over at the bottom of the milk
– Mustard oil
– 1/2 a lime (the juice)
– Fresh garlic
– Fresh ginger
– Turmeric powder
– Himalayan salt
– 2x Fresh Green chillis
– Fresh parsley (added at the end as a seasoning)

Served with tomato and onion salad, and strawberries for dessert.

Mum’s tip: Remember if you want a soup and not a stew (chunky soup) just blend all the ingredients together with a blender before of after cooking, or use a hand blender once everything is cooked and most importantly once the squash is softened. If you’re makeshifting i.e. don’t have either blender, there’s a masher and/or whisk (don’t worry, we makeshift all the time!)

Enjoy! 😀

Apple and Pear Crumble – Yum!

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Today is Worldwide Chocolate Minty Day but hey we just have to be different 😉

This cake is a variation of a recipe Mum and I came up with HERE

However this time we weren’t foraging (not the right time of year) and we had to finish the fruit we had quickly!
So I came up with the idea of an apple and pear crumble instead of simply apple.

I doubled and altered our old recipe (it was made slightly piquant on purpose last time but I gave the traditional recipe in the aforementioned post as well):

Crumble:
16 ounces (1 heaped tbs x16) of flour (we used plain White, can’t remember last time)
1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
8 ounces of muscovado sugar
8 ounces of dairy free butter

Fruit layer(s):
Enough apples and pears to fill 1/3 or 1/4 in height of the baking dish
Nut milk (enough to reach the top of the fruit)

Cooking Steps

1. Wash, chop/dice your fruit and place in baking tray.

2. Preheat oven to gas mark 4 or 180°C/350°F.

3. Add the dairy free milk of your choice upto half the level of fruit (I ADDED TOO MUCH UNFORTUNATELY THIS TIME and had to turn the oven off 10min early to allow it to cool because the liquid was boiling). We add milk (or filtered water) to the fruit specifically to make it more creamy and less gooey (good if you’re lacking cream/custard to serve it with) but you don’t have to.

4. Add the 2 ounces of sugar to the fruit in the baking tray and mix in gently. Or sprinkle over each layer of fruit if you’ve decided not to mix e.g. one layer of apples, one of pears etc.

5. Mix the all the crumble ingredients together in a larger than necessary bowl/dish; it needs space to dry and spread as you’re mixing it otherwise it will stick together too much and not cover enough of the fruit. Once crumbly leave and allow to breathe. Mix either using a fork or with your fingertips – which is called ‘rubbing’. Or Mum’s new method – using a table knife just keep slicing through, it’s very easy and makes a nice consistent texture.

6. Very gently spread the crumble over the fruit (don’t squash it) and then place the baking tray either low or middle height in the oven; for 45min until Browned.

7. Voila! They way you serve it is up to you 🙂

To Vegans Everywhere

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Getty Images

New £5 notes contain animal fat, says Bank of England, drawing anger from vegetarians

Having a fat wallet has taken on a whole new meaning.

Vegans and vegetarians have voiced outrage after it emerged the new £5 notes contain tallow, a substance made from animal fat that is often used in the making of soap and candles.

The news came to light when the Bank of England replied to a question on Twitter.

“There is a trace of tallow in the polymer pellets used in the base substrate of the polymer £5 notes,” it confirmed.

More than 1,700 people so far have signed a petition demanding that the substance is no longer used in the production of the currency.

“The new £5 notes contain animal fat in the form of tallow. This is unacceptable to millions of vegans & vegetarians in the UK. We demand that you cease to use animal products in the production of currency that we have to use,” the petition read.

As the tweet was shared, social media users expressed their disgust at the news.

“New £5 note isn’t vegan. Was everyone’s 2016 New Year’s resolution to do ridiculously insane stuff like adding meat to money?” on user, Dan Hanks, wrote.

Another said: “So unnecessary in 2016! I will no longer be accepting these notes. Ironic I donated my first fiver to a Vegan sanctuary.”

Others, however, were not too worried by the news.

“As a vegetarian I really find myself laughing at vegan-militant tweets. So now we shouldn’t use the new £5 note coz it’s not vegan? Get out,” one user wrote.

The new £5 notes are printed on polymer – a thin flexible plastic film that is more durable and secure than the current paper notes.

It is about 15 per cent smaller than the previous one and the new material will repel dirt and moisture – meaning that if a drink is spilled on it, the note can be wiped clean.

The arrival of plastic banknotes meant Britain joined a list of more than 30 countries that already used them. Australia was the first to launch plastic notes in 1988, followed by countries including New Zealand and Singapore.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/new-%C2%A35-notes-contain-animal-fat-says-bank-of-england-drawing-anger-from-vegetarians/ar-AAkSfWg?li=BBoPWjQ

Just remember veganism is not about being perfect, everything lives and dies; there’s life and death in the soil, in the water, in the air. From the micro-organisms all over you to the grass you walk on to the oil/petroleum to the cow parts used in plastics etc. Veganism basically means that you do your best all the time to abstain from normalized atrocity.