Seaweed Burger with Fried Cabbage and Mushrom mix and a Tahini and Miso gravy.

One morning, after more than enough beers the night before, a vegan woke up with a bacon craving. This is the story of what happened next…

First I scrubbed, chopped and boiled some potatoes. It’s tempting to dice them into small pieces so that they cook extra quickly, but this means that they get a bit watery, so have a bit of patience and make them Aunt Bessy sized. If you’re making this, have a beer while you’re waiting for them to cook– the cheap Caribbean kind is best for breakfast.  Finish your beer as the skin on the potatoes starts to detach itself from the flesh and then drain them well. Mash them up without adding any extra liquid. If you’re making this in a state like me, then some extra liquid to yourself, liquid of the watery kind. Some fruit juice too. One hair of the dog is just right: any more and you’re just delaying the inevitable.

While this was happening I soaked some dried mushrooms and fried some finely diced onion until it was soft and browning then added a load of garlic. In the same water as the mushrooms I soaked some dulce and cut them up roughly with scissors, then heated up the whole lot and when it came to the boil added some TVP. The right amount is the amount that soaks up pretty much all the water after a few minutes. Next I threw in a lot of nutritional yeast and then mixed the whole lot up with the potatoes. Knead in a bit of flour, and that’s a dough/burger mix.

Then I really had some fun: I covered a plate in flour and made patties in my hands before covering them in a coating of flour and piling them up. After so much effort it was a satisfying moment to see a pile of burgers, uniform in size, and begging to be fried.

While they fried in much more vegetable oil than I would normally use, I finely chopped up some savoy cabbage, mushrooms, garlic, ginger and a little fresh chilly and stir fried that in toasted sesame oil. At the end I added a significant amount of honey and tamari, which bubbled up satisfyingly.

To make the gravy I poured some boiling water in to the a jar of light tahini which had just a few spoonfuls left, then stirred in some miso. Lazy gravy. Nutrient packed gravy. Tasty gravy.

So! After patting the burgers with kitchen towel I served them up with the veg and sauce.

Because they were so labour intensive to make I made a batch and froze some. These were cooked by spraying with oil and grilling, and the freezing melded the flavours and made them much more mellow and with a more consistent texture. They reminded me of fish cakes. If you’d prefer a bit of bite then keep decent chunks of mushroom and seaweed.

Much. Much. Better. Than. A. Bacon. Sarnie. 

Carrot, Cabbage, Dulce and Ginger Miso soup with Crispy Tofu and Pak Choi

 Crispy topping:

Half a packet of plain firm tofu, cubed into about 3.5mm cubes

Enough tamari for the tofu to soak up nicely

Two teaspoons of dried ginger powder

Toasted sesame oil, enough to cover the bottom of your best frying pan

About the same amount of pak choi as tofu, sliced into thick enough slices to keep a good bite

A subtle squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Soup:

½ an onion, finely sliced

4 small carrots, or 2 big ones, grated

A large fist sized amount of cabbage

A handful of dried dulce seaweed, soaked as per instructions on packet and sliced thinly

A bit more than an inch of fresh ginger

A tablespoon or so of genmai miso

Marinade the tofu pieces in tamari and ginger powder for at least 10 minutes. If you want extra crispiness then squeeze as much water out of the tofu first. Some people use elaborate contraptions of tea towels and heavy things. I used my hand.

Fry this on a medium heat, ideally using a pan big enough for the tofu cubes to not be touching its little tofu neighbours. It should get nicely crispy after ten minutes or so.

Boil the onion and carrot in plenty of water until it’s soft and has exciting looking orange foam.  Add the cabbage and seaweed and let them soften too.

At this point, throw in the pak choi with the tofu and give it a shake. I see you baby.

Take away a bit of the water and mix it with the miso. Mix it up until it’s dissolved and pour back into the soup just before eating time. Boiling miso reduces its nutritional value, which is something really rather special, so I advise you keep as much of it as possible by avoiding boiling miso. Some people claim that miso reduces the risk of high blood pressure, although it’s pretty salty so you’d have to conscious of sodium intake in the rest of your diet. I used genmai miso which is made from brown rice, and has a nice sweet flavour which goes really well with the ginger here.

Shake your tofu and pak choi some more and when it’s crisped to perfection sprinkle just a bit of lemon juice over it.

Mix the miso stock into the soup, ladle it out and top with crispy tofu and pak choi.

 

“The best soup I’ve ever had.” Ian Cole, 22 March 2012, 7.19pm.

“Pretty good for a using-things-up soup.” Gwen Rowland, 22 March 2012, 7.20pm.

Yes, I’m smug about this one. Try it and you’ll see why.

Store Cupboard Risotto – Spinach, Mushroom, Butterbean and Brazil Nut Rice. Also: The wonders of a freezer.

More than once my kitchen has been referred to as a health food shop: it is pretty well stocked. I don't think this is overly luxurious, I think it makes my life a lot easier when I come in tired from work and haven't had a chance to plan a meal and buy fresh ingredients for it. This recipe's ingredients are all things that can be kept for a long time and can be used in so many different ways. I recommend that you challenge your definition of ‘stock essentials’. Goodbye sliced bread and frozen chips, hello canned spinach and frozen rice.

This recipe involves:

Olive oil

Garlic (NEVER run out of garlic. This is an unimaginable situation.)

Frozen sliced mushrooms

Dried mushrooms

Vegetable stock powder (again, ABSOLUTE essential)

Canned spinach

Oat cream

Frozen brown rice

Frozen butterbeans
Grated brazil nuts

Freshly ground black pepper

Fry crushed garlic in olive oil for a few minutes, then add the mushrooms (having soaked the dried ones first). Stir in some veg stock when they’re soft then add the spinach, oat cream, rice, butterbeans and brazils. Keep it simmering until you can’t bear it anymore. Stir in the pepper then serve with a bit of grated brazil nut on top to make it look fancy.

Sure, this would be amazing made with fresh ingredients, but sometimes a busy life means a lack of fresh ingredients. Fortunately, a busy life can still be once with tasty and interesting cooking in it.

A word on freezing: make friends with your freezer. Frozen foods are truly  liberating for someone who follows a diet which makes eating out a little difficult sometimes. I’ve recently acquired three whole shelves of freezer all for myself, which means that I can have plenty of choice at any time, and can cook large batches of foods to access in the future. This means less time spent waiting for things to cook and more time being spontaneous. Pulses are perfect for this – cook three saucepans at once then freeze them in portions which can be thrown into sauces where they’ll defrost in minutes. I’ve been experimenting with freezing sauce bases too: curries, chillies, herby sauces… To my mind a sauce base is a load of flavours to which you just add some sort of liquid ingredient, e.g. water / tinned tomatoes / plant milk / peanut butter etc.

The frozen rice in this recipe above is just that: a portion of boiled brown rice frozen in a sandwich bag. It’s good to label foods with a date, as bacteria can still multiply at those temperatures, just at a much slower rate than at room or fridge temperatures. Rice should be cooled very quickly and put in the freezer as soon as it is lukewarm because it can harbour a particularly nasty type of food poisoning which is really best avoided. Some people avoid it by doing things like cooling rice by spreading it on a baking tray or running it under the cold tap. The number of times I have survived reheated rice not treated in any special way demonstrates that this is probably unnecessary, but just be extra careful whenever using pre-cooked rice.

Lovely bags of frozen foods in my freezer

My freezer contains:

• ·         Lots of packets bread and crumpets that were reduced to 10p each in a supermarket I am ashamed to have a slight fetish for. Oh, ASDA, delight of the yellow label whore. *sighs*
• ·         Frozen berries – perfect for smoothies, and MUCH cheaper than fresh
• ·         Smilies (Just like potato waffles, you can cook them in the toaster and they’re oh so satisfying with baked beans at the end of a night out)
• ·         Sauce bases
• ·         Tofu. As plain tofu is so much cheaper than that with stuff added, I like to add my own stuff en masse then freeze it in bite sized chunks. After being frozen, tofu’s texture alters considerable to be harder and more chewy. I guess this is due to it losing water. I love the way it comes closer to resembling meat in bite and mouthfeel, but some people prefer to keep away from meatlike foods… It’s a matter of opinion. Try it and see what you think
• ·         Sorbet
• ·         Processed things, e.g. mushroom kievs, nut cutlets (Good Life, excellent company)
• ·         Linda McCartney’s veggie sausages (£1 for 5 in Iceland. Go Iceland!)
• ·         Portions in sandwich bags of various pulses and grains. Most plain for cooking with at will, some in sauces so that they can be taken out of a morning and eaten at work for lunch. Chickpeas for batches of hummous is particularly exciting
• ·         Frozen veg. My favourites are peas, spinach and mushrooms
• ·         Ice. It’s a sad day when you make a gin and tonic and there’s no ice. It’s also a good way to fill your freezer cheaply if you don’t have food in it. This keeps the freezer’s energy usage down as there’s less airflow when you open the door which means less need to cool down the freezer each time you open it
• ·         Herbs. All right, I admit it: this is a lie. But I fully intend to freeze some fresh herbs and use them in cooking soon. My mission in the next few months is to get good at herbs. Bring it on basil! Come on coriander! Stand back sage! I am ready to take you all on.

So what do you use your freezer for?

Eating out in Edinburgh: The Scottish Parliament

Sometimes eating out as a vegan can get tricky, but sometimes it's wonderful and you get something specially made. Some of the best places to go are catered events held by very conspicuously inclusive and PC organisations. Not only do you get something interesting, but you get your own plate of it while everyone else has to politely fight over something which might be chicken, but equally might be cheese. The Scottish parliament is a prime example. Just look at this plate of canapes:

• Polenta towers with beetroot
• Butternut squash with creamy coriander and plum fans
• Sun blushed and cherry tomatoes with red pepper and olives on cocktail sticks mush
• Lettuce boats stuffed with avocado and onion

I'd vote for whoever made these!