Just in case you didn't already know, this week is climate week. YAAY! Big up the awareness raising. They've got loads going on, so check it out.
Better than non-vegan chocolate cake. I swear on my next meal.
First I mixed the dry ingredients: 1 and a half cups of flour, a third of a cup of sugar (white makes a lighter cake, brown makes a tastier one), a teaspoon of baking powder and a third of a cup of cocoa.
While I was doing this, my willing helper grated three inches of fat ginger stem using the fine side of the grater. He then picked up the solid mulch, squeezed it hard in his man hands and threw it away. Other ways to do this include using a muslin cloth to strain off the liquid, but I prefer my way.
Adding water to the ginger juice, I brought its volume up to a cup and added that to the dry mixture. Next were a third of a cup of sunflower oil and a tablespoon of cider vinegar. Yes, vinegar. Don’t diss it till you’ve tried it.
This was baked in a greased pie dish (in the absence of a cake tin) in a medium heat oven for about half an hour – until a knife came out clean.
After cooling it I covered it in organic dark chocolate and left it on the side to be discovered with delight.
Wow, just wow. Maybe my favourite way to eat bread, and that’s really saying something. It’s a sort of bruschetta. With the nuts and the basil it’s reminiscent of pesto, so if you’re a pesto fan give this a go pronto!
Walnut bread is easy, easier if you have a bread maker: it is normal bread with crushed walnuts in it. This one had walnut oil too, but that’s just showing off.
So! Grill a a doorstop piece of bread – the difference in thickness will make for different textures as you get through the slice. If you’re a fan of loaves with straight edges then you could always even it up by slicing a doorstop in the opposite direction. It just means you have to eat two slices, but trust me, you will anyway.
When the toast is golden and crunchy on top rub a clove of garlic over it, then rub a few basil leaves on. Sprinkle over some olive oil, salt and pepper and there you have it – a mouth watering delight.
Apologies for the photo – the glare was intense and I couldn’t see what I was doing.
Now then, this won’t do much for debunking the myth that vegetarians only eat greens and tofu, but it happens to be one of my favourite light meals.
When I want to get my broccoli on, I steam a whole head – including the peeled stems – and add lemon juice and salt to it. In my opinion, good quality broccoli needs little more, but I am a broccoli head. Sometimes I have to be careful not to steam my own head. *Titter* This version is a little more elaborate – the lemon juice had hemp oil and veggie pesto added to make a tangy dressing, and just before the broccoli was cooked, I threw some cubes of olive tofu into the steamer to heat them up. Man, I love this olive tofu: it really makes giving up cheese a lot easier. I thoroughly recommend you explore this savoury soya delight: http://www.veggiestuff.com/acatalog/taifun-organic-olive-tofu.html
High in protein, low in carbs and fat. Which means you get to have cake for pudding. Score!
This was made as a birthday dinner for an ill Ian with very little appetite. I wasn’t feeling great either, and didn’t really feel like eating. This explains the lack of green veg or gravy with the meal – I plain forgot that it would make it a better meal, and neither of us really felt like eating, let alone going back to the shop for more food. Strange really, as we munched our way through more than a plateful each when it was put in front of us. Something to do with the SUPER MEGA DELICIOUSNESS of it! Needless to say, we were revived after our meal and proceeded to take over the world.
The nutroast was made from a packet of mixed nuts, ground finely with a coffee grinder. This was added to fried onion, garlic, courgette (grated) and American jerk flavouring. One of the reasons I bought it was because I wondered what an American jerk might taste like… Ha. Ha-ha. Jokes.
The mixture was baked until it was hard and starting to brown.
The vegetables were cut up into reasonable sized pieces, placed on a baking tray and balsamic vinegar, honey , sea salt and olive oil sprinkled over. They needed about an hour to roast nicely, and I added garlic towards the end. I saved the beetroot stalks for another meal, and boy! was it worth it. They are tasty and make things pink. Excellent.
I used to work here, so it’s always a bit strange coming back as a customer. The Quarry Café is responsible for quite a lot of my cooking style, and I find their food very comforting. Some things have been the same since it started in the 70’s, like the thick wholewheat pizza covered in so much cheese your heart almost stops just looking at it. The very best thing in my opinion are the baked potatoes – they go in the oven around 9am, and so come lunch time they have been cooking in their own skins for a good few hours so the flesh is sweet and soft and the skin is soft and starting to fall away. Perfect.
This one was served with humus – made on site to an age old recipe –unchanged since hippy began, and yet different every time. Just one of the café’s charms! This one was roughly blended and extremely garlicky. Once when I was washing up in the kitchen, my colleague who was serving out front came in with a bewildered look on his face and said “a woman just made a complaint because she found a chickpea in her hummus.” Erm…
But if you think that’s dim witted, how about the time when a tourist excitedly told me about the ‘vegetarian butchers’ a few doors down - there’s a sign in the window which reads:
“All the meat in this shop is vegetarian. The animals eat the green green grass and we just speed up the process.”
Somehow this woman had failed to see the carcasses on show, or grasp that the meat was still made from animals, and wanted to tell me what a great town it was where even meat is actually vegetarian. Although I’ve never really understood the logic of this notice, I do admire the philosophy behind the statement. If the majority of the meat trade were like this enterprise, then the world would be a much better place. It’s a family run business, with its own abbatoir which only sources from local farms. They pride themselves on traceability, and you can ask for the contact details of the farmer who reared the pig who was made into your herb chipolata. Check it: http://www.wil-lloyd.co.uk/philosophy.htm
So, back to the meat-free lunch… my potato was complimented by an interesting salad of roast butternut squash, tangerine, dry roast cashews and desiccated coconut. It was delicious, and really good to have an experimental salad. Peeking out from behind the potato there is a bit of red onion coleslaw, made with homemade vegan mayonnaise. The whole thing was pretty damn tasty, in fact, the only thing that made it better was eating the skin with my fingers.
Never have I boasted about my baking skills - I've always been a bit scared of making cakes and the like, as I was under the impression that ingredients always needed to be measured precisely, in order to be in the right proportions. 
I discovered the joys of mixing cocoa, sugar and butter as a sweet-toothed child. This is my grown-up vegan version. Experiment with proportions to suit your taste. You may need to add a little (plant based) milk to help the texture of the mixture. Soon I am going to experiment with whiskey as the liquid. Very grown up.
