Saturday 28 February 2015

Vegan Slow Cooking For 2 Or Just For You Last Week

This is the last week that I am cooking from this book, I have made three final recipes and come to the end of the list of 24 things I wanted to make.
This week I have made

Eggplant Tapenade:
This was quite tasty, I had to substitute green bell pepper for the olives (I like olives about as much as quinoa). It was quite filling, I don't think I will make it again but it was nice:

Indian Mashed Veggies:
I made this last time I used the book, this time I didn't mash - just used it as a sort of curry. It was really good, much better than the "Clean out the fridge curry". I served it with rice for a warming, filling midweek dinner:

Black Pepper Portobello:
This was the surprise of the week, I'm not a fan of using mushrooms as an actual main course (serving a whole mushroom as a burger etc), but this was surprisingly good. The flavours were excellent. I really enjoyed this


Overall I have enjoyed cooking from this book, there were a few disappointments and tasteless recipes but some have blown me away and I will be making them again in future. I think I prefer the other slow cooker book by this author which I will be cooking from again so we'll see!
I have listed my favourites below, those underlined are the ones I will make again without a shadow of a doubt:

Pumpkin Coconut Caramel Sauce
Bold Lemon Pear Spread
Small Batch Brownies
Creamy Tomato Basil Bisque
Italian Seitan (Tempeh) Stew
Pumpkin Caramel Breakfast Barley
Spicy Southern Chickpeas
Potato, Green and Chickpea Curry
Italian Seitan Coins with Mashed Cauliflower and Gravy
New England Tofu Rolls
Italian Seitan Coins
Lentil Quinoa Taco Filler
Black Pepper Portobello

I'm now having a week off from cooking so I will be posting again in a few weeks...

Saturday 21 February 2015

Vegan Slow Cooking For 2 Or Just For You Week 4

This week I have made another 6 recipes from the book, here are my thoughts:

Mushroom Tempeh over Potatoes and Carrots
This was bloody awful. Tasteless. I poured over a homemade mushroom gravy to make it passable but I will never be making this again


Chocolate Pumpkin Brownie Breakfast Quinoa:
I subbed the quinoa for oats as I hate quinoa, the recipe was still not great, very bitter. I added a shed load of sweetner which improved it somewhat, but not a meal I want again


Lentil Quinoa Taco Filler:
As stated I hate quinoa, but I actually left it in this recipe with hope that all the flavours would drown out the terrible quinoa, it turned out really well. It was full of flavour and very filling. I served it in lettuce tacos with salad & potatoes on the side


Italian Seitan and Pepper Stew:
I have made this before using seitan and it was great, this time I used tempeh and it was even better. The texture was more meaty and it was really delicious

Pumpkin Coconut Caramel Sauce:
I have never tried pumpkin before, but had a taste before making this. It tasted like butternut squash and I really couldn't see how it would work in a sweet recipe. Nevertheless the Breakfast Barley recipe called for it so I ploughed on. I was very very wrong. This sauce is the outstandingly good, one of the best recipes in the book it tasted like lotus biscuit spread but in a more runny (lower calorie) format. I have used it several times this week, on the following recipe, with plain soygurt, in chocolate puddings, with nakd bars dipped in, on ice cream, straight out the slow cooker with a spoon, baked into a chocolate tart and on my Thursday night almond porridge. Fantastic recipe.

Pumpkin Caramel Breakfast Barley
Another great recipe, really simple (although I used sweetened almond milk instead of unsweetened), I made a half batch and my slow cooker had this done in 90 minutes on high. I had it as a lunch on Sunday with the required Pumpkin Coconut Caramel Sauce and I really loved it.

Pumpkin Coconut Caramel Sauce served with almond milk porridge & chocolate chips

Saturday 14 February 2015

Vegan Slow Cooking For 2 Or Just For You Week 3

This week I have cooked 6 recipes from this book, here's what I though:

Spicy Southern Chickpeas
This was a lovely recipe, quite spicy, packed with flavour and perfect with a big sausage roll

Clean out the fridge curry
Bloody awful.Will never make this again (its the pie of veg at the bottom of the photo)

Old Fashioned Tomato & Veg soup
This was a good recipe, more filling than normal soup (potatoes always help with that). I subbed the Okra for Cabbage because I hate Okra. I served it with more potatoes, broccoli & vegg for dipping

New England Tofu Rolls
I didn't expect to like these but they were really good, creamy and spicy at the same time they were filling and substantial sandwiches

Bold Lemon Pear Spread
Excellent recipe, very similar to lemon curd. It was quite thin (probably because I only cooked it for 3 hours and because I left out the silken tofu). In future I would reduce the lemon a bit, maybe add more arrowroot to thicken it more, but overall a really tasty spread and very good on the calories. The recipe made about 300 grams with a total calorie count of 216 calories (thats 72 cals per 100 G). I have been using this on lots of things - bread, toast, plain yoghurt, porridge and if there is any left I will be using it on pancakes on Tuesday


And finally - Small Batch Brownies
I made these in the oven because my history of using slowcookers for cakes/cookies is bad. I divided the recipe by 3 to make 1 big single serving. It was lovely, cooked really well and tasted great. I would cook it for a few minutes less in future to make it more gooey inside (I just like gooey brownies).  I served it with Booja Booja Vanilla "Ice Cream":




Sunday 8 February 2015

Slow Cookers

This is a quick post regarding slow cookers, my usual slow cooker is a 2.4 litre Crockpot which I love. But sometimes I find it a bit big for one person so have been looking for a smaller 1 litre version.
Eventually I found a company called Team who make a 1liter, super compact slow cooker so I ordered one. I have to say its brilliant, it cooks food just as well as the Crockpot but makes much less and takes less room.
I will still be using my Crockpot for bigger recipes (making batches of food or making seitan) but this little guy is my new favourite kitchen gadget. If you're looking for a small, 1-2 person slow cooker I can't recommend this highly enough:
Click here to have a look at the companys website


Saturday 7 February 2015

Vegan Slow Cooking For 2 Or Just For You Week 2

This week I have cooked another 4 recipes from this book and have enjoyed it much more than last week:

Banana Fosters For Breakfast
OK I have to admit that I baked this in the oven. This is for 2 reasons, firstly I reduced it down to a 1 person serving, secondly my history with slow cooking these types of recipes is bad and usually ends up with the smoke alarms going off
So what was the recipe like? Really tasty, filling and moreish. A great breakfast for a cold morning



Can't Be Beat Curried Bean Dip
I really didn't think this would be good, but it tasted great. Warming and spicy without too much heat. A nice recipe but be warned it does make a mess of the slow cooker


Potato, Green and Chickpea Curry
I love this. It was quite watery for a curry, but the flavour was excellent. I really enjoyed this


Creamy Green Chili Corn Chowder
Again I really loved this, it was full of flavour. I did reduce the amount of chili quite a bit, but it still packed a punch.


Sunday 1 February 2015

Cookbook Challenge - The Chosen Books

I have been thinking over the last month about precisely which books I want to cook from and I think I have come up with a preliminary list, I'm posting here primarily as a record for myself as there is a good chance I will loose the list. The top 9 are the ones I want to cook from first, other than that I have no order decided for the rest (those books underlined are books I have not cooked from or posted about before)

Happy herbivore holidays and gatherings
Slow cooking for two or just for you
Vegan slow cooking
Vegan diner
American vegan kitchen
World vegan feast
Teff love
Vegan sandwiches save the day
Keep it vegan

Isa does it
Big vegan
Betty goes vegan
Oh she glows
Vegan pizza
Bake and destroy
Skinny bitch in the kitch
Crunk cooking
The uncheese cookbook
Appetite for reduction
Vegan comfort food
Low calorie vegan comfort food
Animal aids favourite recipes
Nut butter universe
Chocolate covered Katie
Thug kitchen
Instead of chicken, instead of turkey