Sausage & Tomato Pasta – VeganMoFo Day 19

Today’s VeganMoFo post continues on from yesterday’s post…yep, we’re using leftovers! Presuming you didn’t eat all eleven of the sausages you made at once (no judgement, they’re good!) you can use them in this recipe. You could use shop bought sausages too, but for frugality purposes I used my own.

This recipe is pretty simple, but it’s one of our go-to recipes for a quick and easy meal! If you don’t have leftover sausages, I’ve used beans, or different types of fake meat too – burgers can be chopped up and used!
 
 

I actually used fresh basil in mine – I have a basil plant on my kitchen windowsill, I bought one of the cheap “living” pots you can get in the supermarket and repotted it, they’re usually still living but need a much bigger pot than they came in! However, dried basil also works find and is what I use when I don’t have fresh basil!

Sausage & Tomato Pasta

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• Leftover sausages, sliced
• Enough cooked pasta for two!
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped,
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• handful fresh basil or 1 tsp dried basil
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 cup vegetable stock

Directions

1. Begin by frying your onion and garlic in a pan until turning translucent.
2. Add the sliced sausages and fry for a few more minutes until they begin to brown.
3. Stir through the tomato puree, and dried basil if you’re using.
4. Add the chopped tomatoes and vegetable stock and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
5. Stir through the fresh basil if you’re using it, and finally the cooked pasta.
6. Serve and enjoy!

Vegan Sausages – VeganMoFo Day 18

These next two days of VeganMoFo are leftover days…well, today is the beginning, where you make food, and tomorrow is the day where you use the leftover food. While leftovers can just be, well, leftovers from whatever you made, it’s an even better idea to plan your meals with leftovers in mind. Make a meal, and intend to use the leftovers for another meal. That’s what these sausages do!

These are actually, I think, my third sausage recipe on this blog. I have tomato and basil sausages, and pizza sausages! These ones are more traditionally flavoured, I think, and work great in hot dog buns with some fried onions! Once again I used Isa’s recipe as a base, but altered it a fair bit too.

Sausages made from seitan aren’t perhaps the most attractive of things, which makes them a little difficult to photograph, but they really are delicious! I actually use cups to measure this recipe out, because it all goes in the food processor so it’s easier than weighing.

Seitan Sausages

• Servings: 11 sausages
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Ingredients

• 1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup cold vegetable stock
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp marmite
• drop liquid smoke
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• several cracks black pepper
• 1.5 cups vital wheat gluten

Directions

1. Place all the ingredients, except for the vital wheat gluten, in a food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Add the vital wheat gluten and pulse until combined and forming a dough.
3. Roll the dough into sausage shaped pieces – they’ll expand as they cook so make them smaller than you want them!
4. Wrap each sausage in tin foil, making sure it’s all sealed in.
5. Place the wrapped sausages in your steamer (you may need to do this in two batches)and steam for 40 minutes.
6. Use how you fancy!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread – VeganMoFo Day 17

Carrying on with the budget theme for VeganMoFo, today we’re all about “Super Cheap Sweets”. Now, anyone who knows me will know I never skip the sweet food (OK, I’d eat sweet over savoury if I had to pick) but if you’re buying fancy vegan cakes and chocolates, it can get more expensive. Thankfully, it’s easy to make cheap and tasty sweets by yourself, like this banana bread!

Bananas are a great fruit to bake with cheaply, because the older they get, the better they are for baking – and the cheaper they are! To make banana bread, you want bananas with plenty of brown spots, and I often find these discounted in supermarkets. Using bananas, you don’t need anything like eggs in baking, which makes it even cheaper (and of course vegan).

Chocolate chips added to banana bread make it even tastier, but you could sub them out for any add ins you like – walnuts are nice, or dried fruit if you like it! Just check your chocolate chips for milk ingredients before you use them.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

• Servings: 1 loaf
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Ingredients

• 4 medium bananas, mashed
• 225g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• large pinch salt
• 110g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 75ml sunflower oil
• 100g chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 170C/340F
1. Begin by mixing the mashed bananas, sugar, salt, oil, and vanilla extract in a large bowl.
2. Stir in the flour and baking powder to form a smooth batter.
3. Add the chocolate chips and mix.
4. Pour into a lined loaf tin.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool in the tin (or eat warm!).

Spicy Pasta Soup – VeganMoFo Day 16

It’s the beginning of Week 3 of VeganMoFo 2018, and this week is Budget Week – where we aim to create meals that are both delicious, and budget friendly. A common criticism against veganism is that it’s expensive – and it’s true, if you’re constantly buying artisan vegan foods and treats, it can get expensive. But I’m of the opinion that the same is true of a non-vegan diet too – you could easily spend a lot of money on fancy food there as well! Veganism itself can be affordable and still tasty, and this week will aim to show that!

For the first day of this week, the prompt is “Storecupboard Meal” – making a meal with ingredients commonly found in your cupboards, without having to go to the shops to buy things. I made this spicy bean soup – it’s similar to my borlotti bean soup recipe, but with kidney beans and spices. The addition of pasta in the soup makes it a nice hearty meal and gorgeously warming on cold evenings! If you want it more soupy, just add more water, but I prefer my soups to be really thick.

Spicy Bean and Pasta Soup

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoky paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tsp stock powder
• 180g dry pasta
• boiling water

Directions

1. Begin by frying the onion and garlic in a little oil until fragrant and translucent. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Add the spices, and cook for a minute.
3. Stir through the tomato puree, stock powder, and kidney beans.
4. Using a fork, mash the kidney beans a little until broken up.
5. Add the pasta, and pour over the boiling water until it covers the pasta by about an inch.
6. Bring to a simmer, and cook for approximately 10 minutes, until the pasta is done.
7. Serve and eat!

 

Low FODMAP chocolate biscuits – VeganMoFo Day 15

Have you ever heard of the low-FODMAP diet? It’s an elimination diet mostly aimed at IBS sufferers, but can also be used for other chronic conditions. FODMAPs (Fermentable Oligo-saccharides Di-saccharides Mono-saccharides and Polyols) are carbohydrates that have been found to contribute to irritation in the gut in some people – basically, they’re things that people with IBS are often intolerant to. The low-FODMAP diet gets you to eliminate all FODMAPs for a certain period of time, and then slowly reintroduce them, one at a time, so you can figure out what your body can handle. It is a really boring elimination diet – I’ve been on it myself and it wasn’t fun! Here is a list of high, and low FODMAP foods. For today’s VeganMoFo, I made chocolate biscuits that are acceptable on a low FODMAP diet!

These biscuits are made with oats, rather than wheat flour, as wheat is a high fodmap food. If you use certified gluten free oats and baking powder, these biscuits are also gluten free. I used vitalite vegan butter for these, which I believe is low Fodmap, but around the world vegan butters may vary!

Low FODMAP Chocolate Biscuits

• Servings: 12
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Ingredients

• 250g oats
• 100g vegan butter (i used vitalite), melted
• 60g golden syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g white sugar
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Directions

1. Begin by pulsing the oats in a food processor until they are finely milled and flour-like.
2. Meanwhile, mix the melted butter, golden syrup, vanilla extract, and sugar together in a large bowl until well combined.
3. Stir through the oat flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Place in the fridge for half an hour at least (you can make the dough a day in advance if you prefer).
Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
5. Take the dough out of the fridge and form into walnut size balls. Place on a lined baking tray and flatten slightly.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until they’re a little browner.
7. Leave to cool on the baking tray.

 

Mushroom & Chickpea Curry – VeganMoFo Day 12

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt asks us to do spicy food, without chillies. Some people can’t eat chillies, others don’t like them…either way, it’s good to be able to make tasty spicy food without the heat!

I think that sometimes curry can be nice when it’s not hot and spicy, but instead fragrant and flavourful from the mix of spices used. Which is what I did with this creamy mushroom and chickpea curry.

It would appear that I only have one photo of this curry currently, excuse me for that as I am having Internet problems – if I remember I’ll update in the future!

Mushroom and Chickpea Curry

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

– 1 onion, chopped
– 2 cloves garlic, chopped
– 350g mushrooms, sliced
– 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
– 1 tsp ground cumin
– 1 tsp ground coriander
– 1 tsp turmeric
– 1 tsp garam masala (make sure your mix doesn’t have chillies!)
– 2 tbsp tomato puree
– 1 can coconut milk

Directions

1. Begin by frying your onion and garlic in a large pan until golden.
2. Add the sliced mushrooms and continue to fry as they let their moisture out and begin to brown.
3. Add the chickpeas and stir.
4. Stir through the spices and cook for a minute, stirring.
5. Add in the tomato puree and coconut milk and bring to a simmer.
6. Cook for ten minutes, season to taste, and serve!

Creamy Vegan Mac & Cheese – VeganMoFo Day 9

We’re onto week 2 of VeganMoFo 2018! This week is about Dietary Restrictions…which sounds slightly boring but isn’t actually, it’s a good challenge to think about things people can and can’t eat and learn to cook for them. After all, we’re vegans and there are things we can’t eat – shouldn’t we try to be inclusive too?

Today’s prompt is “creamy without nuts”  – a lot of vegan cream/cheese is cashew based, making it unsuitable for those with nut allergies. But there’s an easy way around that – tofu! Using tofu as a cream base is a little old school, but I based it off my gooey cheese sauce which is honestly really good, and has no nuts!

Of course, if you’re cooking for someone with allergies you must be very diligent about what ingredients you use. This recipe has breadcrumbs in – make sure your breadcrumbs are nut free. It’s always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to allergies.

I make up the sauce for this pasta, combine it with cooked pasta, top with breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for a crispy topping. It’s so creamy and moreish!

You could use whatever pasta you want for this – shells would work well – but I used macaroni for the pictures!

 

Creamy Mac & Cheese

• Servings: 2-4
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Ingredients

• 250g macaroni pasta, cooked
• 100g breadcrumbs
• 350g silken tofu
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 40g cornstarch
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and add the minced garlic, cook until beginning to brown (keep an eye on it as it turns quickly!).
2. Remove from the heat, and add the tofu, nutritional yeast, salt, cornstarch, and vegetable stock.
3. Using a stick blender (or transfer to a stand blender) blend the mixture until smooth.
4. Return the saucepan to a low heat, and whisk continually until the mixture has thickened.
5. Once thickened, continue to whisk for a further minute, before removing from the heat.
6. Mix in the cooked pasta, and pour into a baking dish.
7. Top with the breadcrumbs, and place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, until browning on top.
8. Serve and enjoy!

Spiced Pumpkin & Barley Soup – VeganMoFo Day 31

It’s the last day of VeganMoFo 2017!! Can you believe it?! It’s always a challenge – I’ve posted 28 days this month which is more than I posted all year (!) and it’s not always easy coming up with ideas to fill the whole month. But so many people have done it, and it just shows how much creativity there is out there. You can check out roundups of this year’s participants on the VeganMoFo website – the final one will be up soon!

Today’s final VeganMoFo day coincides with Halloween, so that was our prompt for the day. I don’t do Halloween, but I decided to make something using an ingredient you may have plenty of…

Pumpkin! This recipe will be great for all those pumpkins that will go on sale after Halloween. It’s the one you saw in my roasted chickpea recipe – they really do go very well together.

It’s got all lovely wintery spices in – cinnamon and paprika and cloves – and the addition of pearl barley makes it hearty and warming for the cold days (like today! where has this cold front come from?!).

Spiced Pumpkin & Barley Soup

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• Pinch ground cloves (be careful – these are strong!)
• Half a medium sized pumpkin, diced
• 100g pearl barley
• 1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 700ml vegetable stock

Directions

1. Begin by heating the oil in a saucepan, and frying the onion and garlic until translucent.
2. Add the cinnamon, paprika, and cloves, and cook for thirty seconds.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients, stir well, bring to the boil, and lower the heat and simmer for 50 minutes, stirring regularly.
4. The soup is done when the barley is tender, and the pumpkin is melting away to create a nice thick soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

 

Nut Roast Burgers – VeganMoFo Day 30

Today, the penultimate VeganMoFo 2017 day, is about doing a practice run for an upcoming holiday. Well, I’m a Brit, so I don’t celebrate thanksgiving. It’s my birthday in November, but I’m secretly hoping someone else will take care of that. And Christmas? Uhh…I kinda haven’t thought at all about what I’m going to eat for Christmas yet, except some cranberry marzipan cookies which are the best thing about the season. So, I went with something familiar, but Christmassy enough.

These are nut roast burgers! Side note: how difficult is it to take good photos of burgers?! I like making burgers but it’s really hard to post recipes, because I can never get good photos… Anyway, I made these nut roast balls earlier in the month, and they were so tasty that I thought I’d make them into burgers. They’re almost the same recipe as the balls, except they also have beans in, to make them more burger-y. They’d be really great for a casual kind of Christmas meal!

These are baked in the oven, which means you don’t have the hassle of frying them, and I bet they’d work really well served with more seasonal flavours like brussels, cranberry sauce, and so on!

 

Nut Roast Burgers

• Servings: Makes 6 burgers
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Ingredients

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 can white beans, drained & rinsed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 150g mixed nuts
• 50g walnuts
• 50g ground almonds (almond flour)
• 2 tsp peanut butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 200ml vegetable stock
• 200g breadcrumbs

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
1. Begin by frying the onion and garlic in the olive oil, until translucent.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mash the beans until thoroughly mashed.
3. In a food processor, blitz the walnuts and mixed nuts until they are finely chopped. Transfer to the bowl with the beans.
4. Into the nuts and beans, add the cooked onion and garlic, and the remaining ingredients, and stir until completely combined.
5. Form the mixture into six burger shaped patties, and place on a baking tray.
6. Put the burgers in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, turning once half way.

Cumin Roasted Chickpeas – VeganMoFo Day 2

Are you a fricti ciceris emptor? Sorry, what now? For today’s VeganMoFo, we’re taking a long leap back in time to visit Horace in the 1st Century BC, and find out what exactly he meant by this (and why he was perhaps so very wrong).

A fricti ciceris emptor was a buyer of roasted (or toasted) chickpeas. Horace, in his Ars Poetica, descripes chickpea eaters as paupers, and uses them in an illustration as people who crude drama appeals to, rather than the more desired wealthy audience.

Chickpeas were not an uncommon food in Roman times, and in the Apicius collection of recipes (compiled a few hundred years after Horace, but still in Roman times) several recipes using legumes and nuts, including chickpeas, are published. So for today’s historical prompt, I decided I would join the plebeians and make a Roman inspired snack.

Cumin was a very popular spice in Roman times – it’s actually a very ancient spice, and is even mentioned in the Bible! So pairing chickpeas with cumin for this recipe seemed a good idea. Perhaps you could buy something like this before going to watch sports in Rome – who knows? These are certainly very more-ish, you won’t be able to resist snacking on them! I used some as croutons on top of soup, too – the recipe will be coming later to the blog!

Cumin Roasted Chickpeas

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1.5 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
1. Begin by placing all the ingredients in a large bowl, and mixing thoroughly till all the chickpeas are coated.
2. Tip the coated chickpeas onto a baking tray, and place in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, until crisp, stirring halfway.
3. That’s it! They’re done!