VeganMoFo Day 22 – Food Flops

Today’s prompt is “Silly Food” and while I couldn’t really think of anything silly that I eat, I thought I’d show a different side to being a food blogger. Now, I certainly don’t claim to be the best blogger – nowhere near – and my photos aren’t professionally done, but I can just about make my food look good. Sometimes though, that can make it seem like it’s effortless getting great looking food. Look on instagram at all the beautiful meals everyone eats…and then look down at your plate, and wonder what happened?

Well, it’s not true. My food doesn’t look any better than anyone else’s – I just take lots of photos and learn to arrange my food in pretty ways! I don’t go to the extremes that some do – I know of food bloggers who will photograph their dinners cold, so as to avoid steam, but who has time for that?

For today’s “silly food” prompt, I thought I’d share with you some of my less pretty food photography, my food mishaps, examples to demonstrate just how silly food photos can be!

Let’s start with one I call “How on earth do they do this?!”. This is from when I made Millionaire’s Shortbread and I was beating the fudge topping after cooking. I thought I’d take a photo to show how it is done. I forgot I only have two hands. At this point, the fudge was thick, the saucepan was sliding all over the counter, and I was also trying to take a photo with my camera. Beautiful, right?

Here we have “Forgetting about the Blinds”. I could claim the stripes in this photo are trendy, some new light source thing, but really, it’s because I have slatted blinds in my kitchen and I forgot to pull them up before taking the photo. This is from my Banana Muffins, which were tasty and not actually stripey.

Here is a gross looking one for you. This is my Gooey Cheese Sauce in the making and doesn’t it look delicious? Ok, no it doesnt’. It looks gross. But actually, it’s one of my favourite cheesey sauce recipes, and when I was writing it up for the blog I tried to do a step by step. That didn’t work because it just looked icky in the making. That there is tofu, nooch, garlic, and broth, which gets blended and turns out much nicer.

Here is one called “I hate this bowl”. This is my Borlotti Bean Soup which is so easy and so tasty. I was given these cute bowls that say “soup” on them (with plates that say “bread”) on them for Christmas. And I was so excited – they’re adorable and surely now I can make pretty soup pictures for my blog! Not so fast, girl. They’re black bowls, very black bowls, and my camera does not like that. It turns out that I can get a great picture of the bowl and never a great picture of what’s inside the bowl…

Here is one called “All The Steam”. Your camera, you see, like any other bit of glass, will steam up when going from somewhere cold (the living room) to somewhere hot and humid (the kitchen). When I grabbed my camera from the arctic temperatures in the living room to snap these Pea and Courgette Fritters, I ended up looking like I’d photographed them in the fog. Not a great look.

And we make so much mess. Food is messy, especially when you’re baking, especially when it’s chocolate. These Peanut Butter Cups were lovely but not exactly tidy. Chocolate is a nuisance to wash up too, and you can see it all over my bowl in the corner of this picture! Bonus camera strap also hanging around.

Finally, here’s an all round terrible photo of my samosas. It’s blurry, for one. The counter is dirty, with bits of samosa crumb and flour on top. My feet are in the picture! As is my kettle, my salt, my kitchen scales, and half the cooker. Bonus for the oily kitchen roll under the samosas.

Now, none of the food in this post tasted bad. In fact, it all tasted really rather good. Sometimes, it can be hard to see past ugly looking food and feel bad that yours isn’t quite pretty enough. But I hope this shows that food can look however it likes and still be pretty amazing tasting!

 

 

Cherry and Almond Loaf Cake – VeganMoFo day 21

Three weeks of VeganMoFo down! We’re into the final weeks of November now – how strange is that? Christmas is nearing (but not yet) and it’s definitely getting very cold.

This week in VeganMoFo is Memories and Traditions week. This will incorporate American Thanksgiving but also involves all sorts of food memories and experiences! Today’s prompt is “Your favourite food memory” which is hard because – so many!

It had to be dessert, because I have a massive sweet tooth. Something baked too, because I love baking. And thinking back to times I’ve had good memories about baked goods…I came to my Granny’s house, where she always had cake. She lives in a little village and they are very…village-y, and she would always have cakes she bought from the local WI (Women’s Institute). My absolute favourite cake was the cherry and almond loaf cake – a golden cake with an almondy hit and sweet glace cherries through it.

So, I made it. Mine isn’t quite as pretty as the WI version – my slivered almonds on top seemed to migrate to the middle – but it tastes just as good!

Baked in a loaf tin, this cake slices well and is lovely with a warm cup of tea (or coffee if you must). The glace cherries are rinsed and chopped into quarters – this is to stop them sinking – and it all bakes until lovely and golden brown.

Cherry & Almond Loaf Cake

• Servings: 1 loaf
• Print

Ingredients

• 250ml almond milk
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 160g plain flour
• 80g ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• pinch salt
• 75g glace cherries, rinsed and quartered
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp almond essence
• 80g vegan butter, melted
• 130g sugar
• 10g slivered almonds

Directions

Preheat the oven to 170C/340F
1. In a jug or bowl, combine the almond milk and lemon juice, and set aside to let curdle.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, bicarbonate, and salt.
3. To the dry bowl, add the glace cherries, and toss to coat.
4. Into the almond milk mixture, add the vanilla, almond essence, melted butter, and sugar, and whisk to combine.
5. Slowly pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, and gently stir until all combined.
6. Pour into a lined loaf tin, and sprinkle on top with the slivered almonds.
7. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean!
8. Cool in the tin, and slice and serve!

Pea and Courgette Fritters – VeganMoFo Day 20

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is to do something Green. This could be interpreted two ways – green the colour, or green being environmentally friendly. This recipe could maybe fit both! It’s definitely green colour wise, and if you make it in the summer when courgettes (or zucchini, to Americans here) are abundant and perhaps even home grown, it’s pretty good for the environment too.

These fritters are actually really easy to make. They hold together with no eggs, due to the magic of chickpea flour! Also known as gram flour, you can buy this in most supermarkets in the UK in the south Asian section. This flour makes a batter that sets up like a pancake when you fry it! I used it before in last year’s VeganMoFo to actually make pancakes!

You can grate your courgettes by hand or with a food processor if you have that attachment. Either way works fine, but just make sure to grate them on the smallest setting if you do use your food processor. I defrost the peas by putting them in a bowl and pouring over boiling water, and letting them sit for five minutes. This means they don’t go mushy at all and will hold up in your fritters. I also like to add a green chilli to give a bit of a kick but this is entirely optional.

Pea and Courgette Fritters

• Servings: makes 8 fritters
• Print

Ingredients

• 3 courgettes (500g), grated
• 200g frozen peas
• 1 green chilli, finely chopped (optional)
• 150g chickpea flour
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100ml cold water
• salt and pepper
• oil for frying

Directions

1. Begin by defrosting the peas. Place them in a large bowl, and pour over boiling water to cover. Leave for 5 minutes, then drain.
2. Next, combine the peas, courgettes, and chilli in another large bowl. Sift over the chickpea flour, and add the salt and pepper.
3. Mix the chickpea flour with the vegetables well, until no dry lumps are found.
4. Add the olive oil, and gradually pour in the cold water, stirring to form a batter.
5. Leave the fritter batter to rest for half an hour before frying.
6. Once the half an hour rest is up, take large spoonfuls of the batter and place in a hot oiled pan.
7. Fry for 5 minutes on each side (depends on your heat source) until golden brown. Flip and fry until the other side is browned too.
8. Serve!

Beetroot and Black Bean Burgers – VeganMoFo Day 19

Today’s prompt is Goth Day which is a really interesting prompt! When I was a teenager I quite fancied myself a goth but thankfully there is not really any (much) photographic evidence of that. I was not a very good goth.

These burgers, however, are good goths! Coloured deep purple with beetroot with flecks of black from the beans, their colours meld well with today’s theme. I served them in burger cobs, but if you wanted to serve them on black rice or any similarly gothic-looking base, you would be most welcome!

I also put a red chilli in these burgers for some added spice but it wasn’t very spicy – if you want it to have a big kick, add even more chillies! The more the merrier, or should I say the more the miserable-r, considering today’s theme?

The cooked beets get pureed in a blender along with some fried off onions and garlic, the chilli, some vegan worcestershire sauce, and a little tomato puree. Next, they’re mixed with the mashed black beans and some breadcrumbs and formed in to patties. Finally, they’re fried!

These patties are pretty soft, unlike the more “meaty” seitan ones from earlier this month, but they are still lovely!

Beetroot and Black Bean Burgers

• Servings: 8 burgers
• Print

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 red chilli (or more), chopped
• 450g cooked beetroot
• 1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 100g breadcrumbs
• salt + pepper
• oil for frying

Directions

1. In a frying pan, fry the onion, garlic, and chilli, until the onion is softened.
2. Roughly chop the beetroot, and put it in a food processor. Add the cooked onion mixture, the worcestershire sauce, tomato puree, and paprika.
3. Blend until well chopped.
4. In a large bowl, mash the black beans – leaving a few whole remaining!
5. Add the blended beetroot mixture, salt and pepper, and the breadcrumbs, and mix well to form a stiff mixture.
6. Form into patties, and fry on each side for about 4-5 minutes, until browned.
7. Serve however you like!

Marble Cookies – VeganMoFo Day 18

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is to make something in greyscale, or black and white. As with yesterday, I must admit I uh, strayed a little from the prompt. I tried taking photos in black and white and they just didn’t look very good. And as for actual black and white, well the black tends to come from when I forget about whatever is cooking on the hob…

So I am going for the next best, two contrasting colours (and flavours), chocolate and vanilla! These are the same flavours as used in black and white cookies so I think I’m ok.

These cookies, which I call “marble cookies” are round like marbles and made with a half chocolate dough and a half vanilla dough.

I make them with icing sugar (or powdered sugar for the Americans!) which gives a smoother, almost fondant like texture to the cookie, and these are great little cookies to snack on or give as gifts!

Marble Cookies

• Servings: 24 cookies
• Print

Ingredients

• 175g vegan butter
• 150g icing sugar
• 20g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Directions

Preheat the oven to 160C/320F
1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and icing sugar.
2. Remove half the creamed mixture and place in a separate bowl.
3. To the first bowl, add the cocoa powder and mix well.
4. To the second bowl, add the vanilla extract and again mix well.
5. Now, to each bowl, add 150g (half) of the flour, and a quarter teaspoon of the bicarbonate of soda. Mix well.
6. Next make your marbles. Take a teaspoon sized bit of dough from each bowl, and in your hands, roll together to form a ball.
7. Place on a baking sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough.
8. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, then leave to cool.

Chickpea Tahini Pasta – VeganMoFo Day 17

Okay, I cheated a little on this prompt. The prompt is to make food in “a colour you rarely eat” and I just couldn’t think of anything. So I flipped the prompt on its head and decided to go with a colour I always eat – beige. Beige food has a reputation. Fried, carby, bland food is often beige food and this means that beige food has a reputation for not being particularly good. Not so with this meal! It may be beige but it is healthy, packed with protein from the chickpeas, and tastes delicious!

With the addition of tahini giving this dish a nice sharp flavour – tahini pairs so well with chickpeas (see: hummus) and parsley stirred though at the end to lighten it up, this is one of my favourite pasta dishes!

Seen above served with my homemade garlic bread, this meal is so warming and comforting and creamy!

Chickpea Tahini Pasta

• Servings: 2
• Print

Ingredients

• 180g pasta
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 tbsp tahini
• 400ml vegetable stock
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 15g parsley, chopped
• salt + pepper

Directions

1. Begin by frying the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent.
2. Add the cumin, and cook for thirty seconds, stirring constantly.
3. Next, add three quarters of the chickpeas (leave the rest aside for now), the nutritional yeast, tahini, vegetable stock, and lemon juice.
4. Stir well, and simmer for ten minutes.
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta to your specifications!
6. Either use a stick blender, or transfer the mixture to a stand-alone blender, and blend until smooth.
7. Next, add the rest of the chickpeas and the parsley, and cook for a further five minutes.
8. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed, then stir through the pasta and serve!

Spinach Risotto with Roasted Tomatoes – VeganMoFo Day 16

Today’s prompt is for “complementary colours” – colours that fall on opposite sides of a colour wheel, they provide a high contrast and make the other colour stand out well! Thanks high school art class. The colours I chose today are red and green, which incidentally are also the colours that were or will be featured yesterday and Sunday! You can get some great food with red and green.

For the green part of the meal, I made a garlicky spinach risotto – spinach and garlic are flavours that go really well together and putting all that in a risotto is delicious. For the red part, I simply roasted tomatoes! Small ones work best – I used baby plum – and roasting them really enhances the flavour. Especially this time of year, when tomatoes are not really that tasty raw, roasting gives them a really rich, deep flavour.

I used frozen spinach in this risotto, which I defrosted before pureeing, but you could use fresh if you like, you’d have to blanch it first and use a fair amount! The photo above shows the risotto topped with my Tofu Cheese which will be coming to the blog later this month.

Spinach Risotto with Roasted Tomatoes

• Servings: 2-3
• Print

Ingredients

• 500g baby plum tomatoes, halved lengthways
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 300g frozen spinach, defrosted
• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 200g risotto rice
• 1 tsp dried basil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
1. Toss the halved tomatoes gently with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Arrange on baking trays, rounded side down, and place in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.
2. Next, make the risotto. Melt the butter in a pan, and fry off the onion and garlic until softened.
3. Add the rice, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
4. Next, add the vegetable stock to the rice a ladleful at a time, stirring constantly, until the stock is absorbed. Repeat this until all the stock is used up or the rice is tender.
5. Meanwhile, in a food processor or blender, add the spinach and a couple of tablespoons of water. Blend until pureed.
6. Just before the rice is cooked, add the pureed spinach and mix well.
7. Serve the risotto topped with the roasted tomatoes!

Roasted Vegetable Couscous – VeganMoFo Day 15

Today’s VeganMoFo theme is Multicolour! To make a meal with as many colours as possible in it. I instantly was drawn towards roasted vegetables, as not only are they delicious, they tend to be full of different colours.

Roasting vegetables is a really easy way of making your vegetables taste wonderful. It takes a little prep work – chopping your veg into similar sized pieces – but then you can just put it in the oven and forget until done! I decided to serve these vegetables with couscous, which is another really easy grain to prepare – just pour over hot vegetable stock (or boiling water) and leave for 5-10 minutes, then it’s done!

For this recipe I tried to use lots of coloured vegetables, and did peppers (four colours), courgettes, butternut squash, red and white onion, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, and garlic. However you could use whatever you have on hand if you are not as into getting it multicoloured!

Roasted Vegetable Couscous

• Servings: 4
• Print

Ingredients

Vegetables of your choice, I used:
• 3 courgettes
• 1 red onion
• 1 white onion
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 butternut squash
• 4 peppers
• 3 small beetroot
• 1 punnet cherry tomatoes

You also need:

• 200g couscous
• 500ml hot vegetable stock
• Salt & Pepper for seasoning
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil

Directions

Preheat Oven to 200C/400F
1. Begin preparing your vegetables. Wash and peel those that need it, and chop them all, apart from the garlic and tomatoes, in to similar sized chunks – about half an inch across.
2. Chop your garlic into rough chunks, not too small else it will burn.
3. Place all the vegetables, except the tomatoes, on baking trays – you’ll need more than one – and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
4. Toss the vegetables with the olive oil, and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
5. After thirty minutes, add the cherry tomatoes and toss again. Place back in the oven for a further 20 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, make the couscous. Combine the couscous and hot stock in a large bowl, stir, and cover tightly with cling-film. Leave for 10 minutes, then fluff up with a fork.
7. Once the vegetables are cooked, stir them through the couscous. Season to taste, and serve.

Red Pasta – VeganMoFo Day 14

Today’s meal is all about one colour. The prompt is to make a meal that is all made up of a single colour. I could have gone the hard route, and chosen blue, or black, or something difficult like that, but I am lazy so I decided to make a meal that was all red.

I have heard that in America, pasta can simply have a “red sauce” which is apparently some indistinguishable red coloured sauce. I can’t exactly complain – we have “brown sauce” in the UK, which isn’t a pasta sauce but a condiment much like ketchup.

My “red sauce” however is pretty simple, and nice and fresh – using red peppers, fresh tomatoes, some smoked paprika and some bright red sriracha to add some heat.

I also found this red coloured pasta in the supermarket too, meaning that not only was the sauce red, the pasta itself was too! It added another element of heat to the dish which was really nice, although you could definitely use regular pasta if you like.

This pasta would go really well with some vegan cheese grated on top, but I didn’t do that for the photo as it would somewhat ruin the “red” look!

Red Pasta

• Servings: 2
• Print

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 red pepper, diced small
• 400g tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tsp red chilli flakes
• 1 tbsp sriracha
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp vegetable bouillon powder
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 500ml passata
• 180g pasta

Directions

1. Begin by frying the onion and garlic in the oil until softened, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the diced pepper, tomatoes, and chilli flakes, and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes until the tomatoes soften.
3. Add the paprika, sriracha, bouillon powder, basil, and passata, and stir well.
4. Cook for 10 minutes (or longer if you like) until a thick sauce is formed.
5. Meanwhile, boil the pasta in salted water until cooked.
6. Once cooked, drain the pasta and stir through the red sauce.
7. Serve (with vegan cheese if you like!)

Best Ever Burgers – VeganMoFo Day 13

For VeganMoFo day 13, the prompt is “An alien lands on your doorstep. What are they going to eat?” Now goodness knows, these days, I’d probably ask if they could take me with them and we’d go dine on their planet. But my husband says the aliens would like to eat burgers, because everyone likes burgers. I have to agree to be honest, burgers are pretty great.

Vegan burgers can often be full of vegetables and beans – which are tasty, but mean the burger tends to end up quite squishy. You bite into the burger bun and the burger goes squishing out the other end! A messy business. These burgers, however, are made from seitan and TVP mince, which makes the burger firm with a nice bite to them. These would be great for grilling on the barbecue!

The burgers take a while to do – you have to steam them first before frying/grilling them, but once steamed you can keep them or even freeze them until you want to use them.

Start by hydrating the TVP in vegetable stock, mix it with the vital wheat gluten and seasonings, then stir in the liquid ingredients and knead until springy. Form into patties and wrap in foil, then steam for 45 minutes. Once steamed you can either fry them straight away or leave to cool and save for another time! You could also form this into little balls for meatballs if you like.

Best Ever Vegan Burgers

• Servings: 6 patties
• Print

Ingredients

• 50g TVP mince
• 150ml hot vegetable stock

Dry Ingredients

• 175g vital wheat gluten
• 1 tsp onion granules
• 1 tsp garlic granules
• 1/4 tsp mustard powder
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Wet Ingredients

• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 120ml cold water

Directions

1. Begin by rehydrating the TVP. Mix the TVP and hot vegetable stock together in a bowl, and leave for 5-10 minutes until all the water is absorbed.
2. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients until well mixed.
3. Stir through the rehydrated TVP with the dry ingredient mix.
4. Make a well in the middle and add the wet ingredients. Mix very well.
5. Knead for 3-5 minutes until the mixture is firm but elastic.
6. Form the burger mix into 6 burger patty shapes, and wrap in packets of tin foil.
7. Place in a steamer and steam for 45 minutes.
8. Remove from steamer (careful – hot!) and unwrap.
9. If you intend to eat them now, heat up some oil in a frying pan and fry each burger over medium-high heat for 3 or so minutes on each side, until crisp and golden.
10. Serve in burger buns with salad, tomatoes, and condiments of your choice!