Cheese & Marmite Pinwheels – VeganMoFo Day 28

When I posted a picture of these on my Instagram stories a while back, I got so many messages from people saying they liked the look of them! And to be honest, they are pretty great. Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is about making picnic food – and these would make you the star of a picnic for sure!

Now, marmite is a bit of a “love or hate” flavour, and apparently a lot of foreigners react negatively to it on their first try. I’m of the opinion that this is because they use too much.  They think of it like chocolate spread, or peanut butter, and put a huge layer of it on their toast/sandwich/whatever. And, of course, the flavour ends up being overpowering. Marmite is pretty strong, but it has such a lovely savoury flavour that it works really well in a lot of applications. Here, it’s balanced by the creaminess of the cheese, and makes a tasty picnic snack. Just don’t put an inch thick of it (or do, if that’s your thing)!

In the UK, a lot of puff pastry is “accidentally vegan”  – I used Morrison’s own brand for this, but the jus-rol brand is readily available. Check the ingredients first, of course, but most don’t actually use dairy butter and so are fine!

For the cheese, I used Violife cheese slices – I felt like slices were easier to layer over the pastry than grated cheese, but grated cheese would also work well, you could use your favourite vegan cheese.

Cheese & Marmite Pinwheels

• Servings: 20 pinwheels
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Ingredients

• 1 pack of rolled puff pastry, approx 400g
• 1 packet of vegan cheese slices OR grated vegan cheese, approx 200g
• 1 tbsp marmite

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
1. Begin by mixing your marmite in a bowl with a little warm water – just a few drops, enough to thin the marmite until it’s spreadable on your pastry.
2. Roll out your pastry to a big rectangle, long side towards you.
3. Spread the thinned marmite evenly over the pastry, making sure to reach the edges.
4. Top the marmite with the cheese slices, once again trying to cover the pastry evenly.
5. Roll the pastry tightly starting from the bottom. The cheese may crack slightly as you roll, this is ok.
6. Once completely rolled, slice into twenty pinwheels and place on a lined baking tray (you’ll need more than one tray, as they puff in the oven).
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until pastry is golden brown.
8. Leave to cool on trays, if they last that long!

Seitan Wellington – VeganMoFo Day 29

Seitan is one of those things that sound weird to non-vegans. You’re eating what for dinner?! But, once you get past the name, it’s actually really good. It’s very high in protein and extremely versatile – chop it up and use it in curries and stir fries, mould it into sausages or burgers, make slices to put in your sandwiches…and so on. It’s made from Vital Wheat Gluten, which is gluten (the protein) isolated from wheat flour. It used to be made by washing regular wheat flour over and over again to get rid of all the starch, which is a laborious process, but luckily today you can buy it in bags from your local health food shop. If they don’t have it in stock ask, they should be able to order it for you!

For today’s VeganMoFo challenge, we are to do a “Holiday Test Run” and this year we have decided to make a Wellington. Not a pair of waterproof boots, but a roast wrapped in duxelles and puff pastry.

The centre of this wellington is a steamed seitan log, which is seasoned with rosemary and oregano, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce, onion and garlic powder, and more. Spread around that are “duxelles” which are finely chopped mushrooms sauteed with onion, garlic, and parsley.  Finally, wrap the whole thing in puff pastry, brush with melted vegan butter, and put in the oven.

It bakes in the oven for 45-50 minutes – perfect timing for your roast potatoes – until lovely and golden brown and then can be sliced and served!

This recipe does take some time to do – as you need to make the seitan and cool it before assembling the wellington – but it’s well worth it. If you’re making it for your Christmas dinner you could make the seitan and the duxelles the day before, keep them in the fridge, and just assemble it all before you bake it. Easy!

Seitan Wellington

• Servings: 6-8 slices
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Ingredients

For the Seitan

Dry Ingredients

• 225g vital wheat gluten
• 25g nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• few grinds black pepper

Wet Ingredients

• 1 tbsp marmite (sub miso if you don’t have marmite)
• 1 tbsp boiling water
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp ketchup
• 250ml water

For the Duxelles

• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 350g mushrooms, finely chopped or pulsed to a mince in a food processor
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 sheet vegan puff pastry
• 1 tbsp vegan butter, melted, for brushing

Directions

1. First, prepare your seitan. Get a steamer ready to use as it won’t take long to bring the ingredients together.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients for the seitan together in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the marmite and boiling water together and mix to a paste.
4. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and whisk to combine.
5. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix to form a dough. Knead for 3 minutes until springy.
6. Form the dough into a rough log shape – about 2 inches in diameter – and place on a sheet of tin foil.
7. Wrap the dough in the tinfoil like you would a Christmas cracker. Don’t worry about getting it too neat – just make sure it’s all enclosed – as the seitan will spring into shape whilst steaming.
8. Place the wrapped seitan in your steamer and steam for 35 minutes.
9. Remove the seitan from the foil and leave to cool completely.
10. Next, make the duxelles. Begin by melting the butter in a frying pan and adding the onion and garlic.
11. Fry those until translucent, and then add the mushrooms and parsley.
12. Fry until the mushrooms have released all their liquid and it has cooked off – 15-20 minutes. You should be left with a paste-like mixture. Season to taste and leave to cool.
Preheat your oven to 200C/400F
13. Finally, assemble the wellington. Spread a layer of the duxelles on the puff pastry (the same length and width as your seitan).
14. Place your seitan on top of the duxelles, and spread the rest of the mushrooms on top and on the sides of the seitan.
15. Wrap the wellington in the puff pastry sheet and score the top to allow air to release.
16. Brush with the melted vegan butter – this gives it the golden colour when baked.
17. Place in your preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden.
18. Serve with your preferred sides!

Cheese and Onion Pasties – VeganMoFo Day 23

Today in VeganMoFo we’re challenged to show what seasonal food we make. It’s well and truly autumn/winter here, this week has been cold and rainy and really quite horrible. Seasonal vegetables – such as butternut squash, beetroot, swede – are all very well but sometimes you just want some cosy food.

Enter, pasties! Crisp pastry wrapped around a warm, melt in your mouth filling. What could be better?

Look, I even served it with vegetables (broad beans and peas) so it’s healthy! Perfect kinda meal, right?

This pasty has the best kind of filling: cheese and onion! This was my husband’s request, as he used to enjoy the cheese and onion pasties you could get before he was vegan. I thought I’d see if I could make it vegan and – I could, easily. I used Violife cheese, but use whatever you like, just make sure it is a cheese that actually melts!

The first step is to fry the onions and potatoes. The potatoes are diced very small, so they cook slightly in the pan and then can finish cooking completely in the pasties. If they’re cut too large, they won’t cook through.

Then, once cooled, the potato onion mixture goes in a bowl with the grated cheese and seasoning. I used a food processor attachment to grate my cheese because I find it annoying grating so much by hand, but it can be done by hand if you don’t have a food processor.

Next, the pastry gets rolled out and filled with the potato-onion-cheese mixture. Make this generous as the pastry will puff up and you don’t want an empty pasty!

Finally, the pasties are baked in the oven for thirty minutes until lovely and golden brown! You can serve them how you like – on their own, with vegetables, in your packed lunch…however. Hot or cold, they’re lovely comfort food.

Cheese and Onion Pasties

• Servings: 6 pasties
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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 large onion, diced
• 325g potatoes, peeled and diced small (1cm cubes roughly)
• 150g vegan cheese (I used Violife), grated
• Salt & Pepper
• 450g puff pastry
• 2 tbsp vegan butter, melted (for brushing on top of the pasties)

Directions

1. Melt the tablespoon of vegan butter in a large pan.
2. Add the onion and fry for 5 minutes until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the potato cubes and a slosh of water and fry for a further 5 minutes, adding more water if it starts to stick to the bottom.
4. Remove from the heat, place in a large bowl, and leave to cool.
Preheat your oven to 180C/355F
5. Once cool, mix in the grated cheese and the seasonings.
6. Next, roll out your puff pastry. Cut it into small rectangles – about A5 size – place on a baking tray, and place a big scoop of the potato filling on top of half of your rectangles.
7. Top the pasties with the other half of the rolled out pastry. Seal the sides by brushing with a little water and squishing together with the tines of a fork. Push the fork into the top of the pastry to create a hole to allow steam to escape.
8. Brush the pasties with the melted butter – this gives them a lovely golden colour once cooked.
9. Bake in your preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy.
10. Can be eaten hot or cold.