Experiments in Living » Vegan Recipes

Mystery Ingredient Monday #2

Quirky Vegan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:02 +0000

Greetings fellow travellers,

Today’s Mystery Ingredient Monday is brought to you by:

Nutritional Yeast Flakes

Animal vegetable or mineral? These fall into the vegetable category and are therefore vegan. Hooray!

What are they used in? You can sprinkle nutritional yeast flakes into soup or on top of veggie bolognaise for a cheesy, nutty taste.

What kind of nutritional value do they provide? A good source of B vitamins and well as phosphorus, magnesium and folic acid. If you are trying to conceive, a high folic acid intake is important as it lowers the chances of neural tube defects.

Cashew nut and red pepper spread.

Soak 100g of cashew nuts overnight. Drain and blend with half a red pepper and 1 tablespoon of nutrititional yeast. Spread on bread and enjoy!

~ Quirky Vegan

Raisin and Seed Flapjack

Quirky Vegan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:48 +0000

Greetings fellow travellers,

Last week I had a break from work. I had some holidays to use and since I couldn’t afford to go anywhere I stayed home. Most of the week the weather was nice, but on the day where it rained incessantly, I decided to turn my hand to some vegan baking.

This flapjack is based on a traditional Quirky Mum recipe that I have played about with and added a few goodies to. It contains raisins (chewy and nice and high in iron) and omega 3 and 6 thanks to the addition of the yummy seeds. It’s not exactly slimming due to the syrup and sugar, but I have played about with using as little as possible.

Ingredients:

100g/4oz dairy-free margarine
75g/3oz demerara sugar
3 tbsp golden syrup
50g/2oz omega seed mix (mix of pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame seeds)
75g/3oz raisins
200g/8oz porridge oats

In a large pan, melt together the margarine, sugar and syrup. Remove from heat. Stir in the dry ingredients. Press mix into shallow, greased tray and cook for 15-20 minutes at 180C/350F.

Remove from the oven, leave to cool and mark into squares.

Ideal served with a nice cup of tea or coffee.

~ Quirky Vegan

Chocolate Ganache Cake

Quirky Vegan — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:23 +0000

Greetings Fellow Travellers,

Today it’s my birthday. I’m in my prime, don’t you know? And the Quirky Family are coming over to celebrate with me, which is an opportunity for me to demonstrate how delicious vegan food can be. And to bake a cake, cos we all love cake.

Ingredients:

175g/6oz plain flour

50g/2oz cocoa powder

1tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

350ml/12 fl.oz unsweetened soya milk

125ml/4 fl.oz rapeseed oil

1tsp vanilla extract

250g/8oz sugar

Fresh strawberries for decoration.

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients and then gradually blend into the dry until you have a nice smooth batter. Pour the batter into a greased 20cm/8in cake tin (the sort with a bottom which pushes out are the best).

Bake at 180C/350F for 45-55 minutes. The cake is done when a cocktail stick or knife comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate ganache icing

175ml/6 fl.oz soy cream

100g/4 oz vegan margarine

250g/10 oz vegan chocolate

Melt together the chocolate and margarine in a bain marie (bowl over the top of a pan of boiling water). When melted, remove from heat and add the soy cream. Use to cover the cake. Decorate as desired.

Enjoy your cake. Cake is good.

~ Quirky Vegan