Friday Foodies

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Friday Foodies – Vegetable Biriyani

Vegetable vegan biriyani with carrot salad

Vegetable vegan biriyani with carrot salad

Cooking time

Prep: 30 mins Cook: 40 mins

Skill level –Easy

Servings –Serves 8

A meat and dairy-free, Indian-inspired basmati rice dish with cauliflower, French beans, peas, potatoes, homemade curry paste and carrot salad

Ingredients

  • 400g basmati rice
  • pinch saffron threads (optional)
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 cauliflower, cut into florets
  • 2 potatoes, cut into chunks
  • 100g red lentils
  • 100g French beans, trimmed and cut in half
  • handful curry leaves
  • 2 handfuls frozen peas
  • small bunch coriander
  • 50g roasted cashew nuts, roughly chopped
  • poppadoms and naan bread, to serve

For the paste

  • 1 large onion, roughly chopped
  • large piece ginger, roughly chopped
  • 5 garlic cloves
  • 2 tsp curry powder
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 small green chilli

For the carrot salad

  • 4 carrots
  • pinch of golden caster sugar
  • squeeze lemon juice
  • handful cashew nuts, roughly chopped
  • handful coriander leaves, roughly chopped
  • thumb-sized piece ginger, shredded into matchsticks
  • 1 tsp cumin seed, toasted

Method

  1. Soak the rice for 30 mins, then rinse in several changes of water until it runs clear. Cover with about 1 cm water, add the saffron (if using), cover the pan, bring to the boil, stir once, then turn off the heat. Leave for 10 mins, covered, then stir again and leave to stand, covered.
  2. To make the paste, blitz all the ingredients together in a food processor. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Tip in the paste, then add the cauliflower and potatoes. Cook in the paste to colour, then add the lentils and green beans, and cover with about 400ml water. Add the curry leaves, season with salt, cover with a lid and simmer for 20 mins until the lentils and vegetables are tender Add the peas for the last 2 mins to defrost. Stir the rice through the curry until completely mixed and hot, then spoon onto a platter and scatter with coriander and cashews.
  3. For the carrot salad, use a peeler to shave the carrots into ribbons. Sprinkle with the sugar and dress with the lemon juice, then toss with the other ingredients. Serve the biryani on a large platter for everyone to help themselves, with the carrot salad on the side, poppadoms for any vegans and naan bread for the vegetarians.
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Friday Foodies – Vegan Strawberry-Caramel Mousse

From The Vegan Woman’s website

Strawberry-Caramel Layered Mousse Cake 

Serves 3-4 cups (depending on the serving dish)

Vegan Strawberry Layered Mousse Cake – pampering and simple to prepare.

Ingredients:

For the mousse layers: 
400g chilled coconut cream (1 can) – Look for the tins with the highest percentage of coconut extract
1 tbsp of Vanilla instant pudding
5 tbsp strawberry jam
4-5 tinned strawberries (though its tempting to use fresh strawberries, tinned strawberries have the benefit of having soaked up the syrup making them softer and better for the mousse)
1/2 tbsp pink food-colouring gel (optional) 
For the caramel layers:
250g caramelised biscuits (the kind you get in the complimentary hotel hot drink tray)
5 tbsp of tinned strawberry syrup
For the topping:
3-4 tbsp of strawberry jam
Fresh strawberries for decoration

Strawberry topping for a perfect Vegan Strawberry Layered Mousse Cake

How do you make it:

  • Open the chilled coconut tin and drain the excess liquid until you’re left with just the thick creamy coconut extract. Add this into a bowl and whisk with the instant pudding. 
  • Add the 5 tbsp of strawberry jam, the food-colouring gel and the 4-5 tinned strawberries. Whisk together then refrigerate for 15 min.
  • Crush the biscuits in a food processor/ blender. Add the strawberry syrup and continue to blend until the mixture is moist but not too sticky.
  • In your serving vessel start with a layer of the biscuit mixture then alternately layer with the mousse. Top with a small layer of strawberry jam and decorate with fresh strawberries. 

    Enjoy!

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Friday Foodies – Breakfast smoothie

My favourite breakfast smoothie:-

1/2 pint of orange juice, 1 banana, handful of frozen berries, all mixed together in a blender. Simples!

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Foodie Fridays – Mushroom Pâté

Here’s a recipe that I came up with for a raw vegan spread that is absolutely delicious.

Take a large handful of whatever mushroom you love. Chuck it in a bowl.

Take a large handful of sundried tomatoes. Chuck ’em in too.

Add around two teaspoons of capers.

Throw in some olives if you like olives.

Add a clove or two of garlic.

Whizz with a handblender until smooth.

Add salt and pepper to taste.  A little mushroom ketchup adds a dash of awesomeness.

You can use up any old veg that you have lying in the bottom drawer in this way, padding out the recipe above and making it go further. Courgettes are good, as are aubergines.  Total time to make – under 5 mins from start to finish. Serve on toast, oak cakes, or with raw veggies.

Enjoy!

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Friday Foodies – Vegan Banana Cake!

This recipe is from the lovely Christine, who like me has recently make the vegan switch. We all enjoyed this lovely cake the other weekend, decorated with a marzipan topping. Divine!

My favourite banana cake recipe:
250 g wholemeal flour
150 g oatflakes
100 g unrefined cane sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
A little bit of Salt
200 ml coconut oil (raw organic for best taste)
1 apple
3 bananas
150 g blueberries
Blueberry jam
Marzipan (I use vegan ready to roll from Sainsbury)

All ingredients I use are organic, as it tastes better. And the best: it’s Vegan and cruelty-free!

First I put the oatflakes into the food processor and cut them so that they have the consistency of flour, but that is up to you really. If you like whole oatflakes in your cake then using them so is fine. Put that into a bowl. Add the flour the sugar, the baking powder and the salt and mix it up.

Coconut has a solid consistency when it’s cold, so you have to heat it up a little bit to make it liquid. Mix it with the already mixed up ingredients until all has been soaked with the oil. You could also put in the oil at last but having tried that already the cake seems to be more oily and that’s not happening when you put in the oil before adding the fruits.
Oh, and you could also use sunflower oil instead, as it’s much cheaper, but the taste will be very different.

At this stage I pre-heat the oven (200 celcius).

Then I put the apple into the food processor and cut it really small and then I add the bananas and that should make a nice smooth fruit mash. Together they should be around 400 g. Add these to the other ingredients into the bowl.

The cake form needs to be “oiled and floured” in order to prevent the cake to stick to it when taking it out. I use coconut oil and the wholemeal flour for this as well, again for best taste results.

Put the mix into the cake form. After that I put the blueberries in and push them under so that they are not visible. This will let the blueberries stay in the cake rather then having them at the top or bottom of it.

Baking time is 40 minutes only (if you make muffins, which I tried too and it works well, then max. 30 minutes at 175 celcius). Actually 175 works as well for the cake, but you’ll have to leave it in a bit longer (have tried that as well and yes, I have done this cake a lot of times by now). The baking time also depends on the form you are using. I use one with a whole in the middle which reduces the time as the heat comes also from the middle of the cake.

Prepare this cake a day before you want to eat it for best taste results. If you will eat it the same day it will feel very dry.

I let the cake cool down completely.

The next day I put blueberry jam on top and at the sides to make the roll out marzipan stick to the cake. Roll out the marzipan, put it on the cake and push it down a little so that it sticks to the cake.

Add some icing sugar if you want for decoration (or whatever comes into your mind).

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Friday Foodies- Boulawnee

This is a recipe from a friend of mine, Steve – thanks Steve!

For a really nice Afghan dish (again, really simple) of fried leek pastries (called boolawnee), first make a filling of finely chopped leek, a pinch of cayenne pepper, some salt, and a splash of olive oil – squeeze it all up with your hands to soften it. Then make a simple dough with plain or bread flour and a pinch of salt; need till it’s elastic and springy. Roll into a cylinder and cut into disks. Roll the disks into small circles (around 8 inches across). Place a dollop of your filling into the centre of each dough circle and pinch up into little pasties (I use this method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9NkKQY-Qvg). Deep fry until they are golden brown and serve with salad and a sweet chilli or soy yoghurt dip). They’re supposed to be appetizers, but they’re so tasty we usually eat them as the centrepiece to a large salad spread.

For an amazing salad to go with the above – grate cooked beetroot, carrot, and a little apple (3:3:1 ratio), add a few drops of orange blossom water and a splash of lime juice, boom!

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Friday recipes!

So, I’m going to try out something a little different on this blog, and every Friday try to post a great new food recipe. I’m trying out loads of new quick and easy vegan food recipes, and will post the best ones up here on a Friday Foodie section! Something a little light-hearted – and please share your recipes too! (Vegan or vegetarian).

Recipe for Jo’s Spicy Vegan Bean Burgers:

Fry off an onion, half a grated carrot and half a red pepper in some oil
Chop into chunks and boil a sweet potato and the other half of the carrot
Heat up a can of kidney beans so that you can mash them
Mash the boiled sweet potato and carrot with the beans
Add the fried onion and carrot
Add as much fresh chopped or dried chili as you like
Add salt and pepper to taste
Add 100g of bread crumbs and about 3/4 cup of flour
Work with hands and make into patties, then pop in fridge for about half hour
Fry up (about 5 mins either side) and serve with salsa, or Jo’s easy quacamole (mash an avocado with some egg-free mayonaise)

Makes about 4 enormous burgers, or six normal size…

Enjoy! x