Yes, I've been away for a while... really I should have been on here a lot more, as I was off work for a fair few weeks with a broken ankle, which meant plenty of time for experiments in the kitchen!
Anywho, I'd almost forgotten I'd started this blog until I decided to make some flapjacks for the other half as he's venturing further west for the weekend (I'll be happy as long as he's back to give me some love on Valentine's day!)
So, from a basic flapjack recipe, I added sultanas, desiccated coconut, some chopped nuts and RUM flavouring! YUM! This recipe is enough for an 8"x 12" (1"deep) baking tray.
Ingredients
240g Marg
240g Demerara Sugar
2 tbsp Golden Syrup
A few drops of rum flavouring (or I guess you could always go for the real thing!!)
480g Rolled Oats
A couple of handfuls of sultanas
About a handful of desiccated coconut
A handful of chopped nuts (I would have used more, but I got bored of shelling them!) (I used walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds and didn't bother to blanch them)
1) Stick the oven on 200°C (400°F/Gas 6)
2) Melt the marg, then add the sugar, golden syrup and rum-goodness. Keep this on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved completely.
3) Whilst that's all melting away nicely, weigh out the oats and add the other ingredients, giving them a quick stir.
4) Pour the sugary syrup over the dry mixture and give them a really good stir to coat all the oats.
5) Press the mixture into the baking tray and put in the oven for about 20 minutes.
6) When the flapjack's cooked, cut into the size you want them, but then leave to cool completely in the tray. When that's done, you should be able to lift them out nice and easily!
7) Enjoy with the rest of your picnic!
Friday 12 February 2010
Monday 7 December 2009
Vegan Banoffee Cheesecake
Well, it was a complete success!! Unfortunately it was scoffed so quickly that I didn't manage to get a photo of the yummyness that was the vegan banoffee cheesecake, but believe me, it was possibly better than any cheesecake with cheese in it!
I based the recipe on a James Martin Banoffee Cheesecake, which I've veganised and also changed some of the other bits slightly... here's my animal-free version:
2. For the topping, heat a frying pan until hot then add the marg and the bananas and fry for 2-3 minutes, until golden-brown. Remove the bananas from the pan and add to the fridge to cool.
3. Next, make the caramel sauce: mix the sugar with water inside a pan and heat. In a separate bowl, mix the soya milk and corn flour. When the sugar and water mixture starts to boil, add the milk and flour mixture. When the caramel mixture becomes a reasonalby thick consistency, take it off the heat and add the marg and stir until smooth, before adding the vanilla.
4. When all the other ingredients are cool, place the tofutti, maple syrup and caramel sauce (which will have thickened even more) into a bowl and mix until smooth, then stir in the uncooked bananas.
5. Finally, put this mixture onto the base and top with the cooked bananas. I also added some chopped mixed nuts to the topping. Chill this for as long as possible (I would say overnight if you could. I managed to leave it for about 4 hours before putting into the freezer for half an hour before eating. Another thing you might want to try - which I will be experimenting with next time - is to add some agar agar to the cheesecake mixture to try and help it set a bit more).
I based the recipe on a James Martin Banoffee Cheesecake, which I've veganised and also changed some of the other bits slightly... here's my animal-free version:
For the base
150g/8 oz biscuits (I used half digestives; half gingernuts)
75g/2 oz marg (I used Pure)
2 tbsp golden syrup
For the topping
1 oz marg
2/3 bananas, peeled and cut into chunks
For the filling
2x bananas, peeled and cut into chunks
2x 225g tubs of plain tofutti
1 tbsp maple syrup
1x caramel sauce (below)
For the caramel sauce
2 oz soft light brown sugar
175ml cup cold water
50ml cold soya milk
1+1/2 tablespoons corn flour
3 teaspoons marg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2. For the topping, heat a frying pan until hot then add the marg and the bananas and fry for 2-3 minutes, until golden-brown. Remove the bananas from the pan and add to the fridge to cool.
3. Next, make the caramel sauce: mix the sugar with water inside a pan and heat. In a separate bowl, mix the soya milk and corn flour. When the sugar and water mixture starts to boil, add the milk and flour mixture. When the caramel mixture becomes a reasonalby thick consistency, take it off the heat and add the marg and stir until smooth, before adding the vanilla.
4. When all the other ingredients are cool, place the tofutti, maple syrup and caramel sauce (which will have thickened even more) into a bowl and mix until smooth, then stir in the uncooked bananas.
5. Finally, put this mixture onto the base and top with the cooked bananas. I also added some chopped mixed nuts to the topping. Chill this for as long as possible (I would say overnight if you could. I managed to leave it for about 4 hours before putting into the freezer for half an hour before eating. Another thing you might want to try - which I will be experimenting with next time - is to add some agar agar to the cheesecake mixture to try and help it set a bit more).
Saturday 5 December 2009
Why the default vegan?
Well, not quite vegan.
When I first met my partner, James, I spent almost the whole of our first date asking him about his veganism. He said that most people tended to do that when they first met him, so he didn't mind me quizzing him.
As a teenager, I'd been a vegetarian, but this had been due to a home economics class focusing on fish. We had a chef come in to cook up a number of dishes and the class were basically forced to eat what the chef had cooked up. I despised fish. So of course, a simple 'sorry, but I'm a vegetarian' was enough to get me out of that pickle! Somehow I kept up the charade for 4 years, before a friend's chicken chow mein whilst at college was enough to send me back to being an omni.
I've also tried being vegan. But this was a month long test at University I'd set myself just to see if it was possible! And of course, it was! I'd always said since how I'd never eaten better in my whole life than during that month. But as a self-confessed cheese lover, it was not to continue.
Mine and James' first few dates were a real eye-opener; when I cooked for him, I'd scour the internet looking for interesting recipes for the two of us, and when he cooked, I'd get to try things that I never would have considered for one reason or another (the puy lentil soup was amazing; then he admitted it was straight out of a tub from the supermarket!).
2 months later, we found ourselves living together!!! (Yes, quick work!) And the fridge became stocked with soya milk (sooo much better than cow's milk on your cereal!); the cupboards dwindled of any animal-derived products; and the spices... well, there were certainly more jars of these than you could shake a wooden spoon at!
Having lived by myself for a number of years, I was so excited to finally be able to cook for someone else, and even moreso at the prospect that I'd fallen for someone that loved his food so much! I'm told that most vegans are big eaters; but not having come across too many, I have yet to prove this... although the number of yummy recipes I've come across in the last few months have certainly gone some way to proving the point!
So, I should note here that I have not (yet) made the decision to cut out animal products from my diet; but perhaps in the future, this may well be the direction for me. At home, I am pretty much entirely vegan (although a bit of cheese occasionally finds its way into my shopping basket!), and hence, to give it a name, I have become a default vegan.
I decided today to start sharing some of the recipes I come across. Why today? Well, I purchased some tofutti the other day to give it a try and decided that I should try making some cheesecake. We also had some over-ripe bananas. I figured therefore that I should attempt a banoffee cheesecake! It seems so far to be getting on well. But as they say... the proof of the pudding!!
So, if it does turn out as hoped.... my first recipe to be featured here will be CHEESECAKE!!! (with no cheese of course!!!)
When I first met my partner, James, I spent almost the whole of our first date asking him about his veganism. He said that most people tended to do that when they first met him, so he didn't mind me quizzing him.
As a teenager, I'd been a vegetarian, but this had been due to a home economics class focusing on fish. We had a chef come in to cook up a number of dishes and the class were basically forced to eat what the chef had cooked up. I despised fish. So of course, a simple 'sorry, but I'm a vegetarian' was enough to get me out of that pickle! Somehow I kept up the charade for 4 years, before a friend's chicken chow mein whilst at college was enough to send me back to being an omni.
I've also tried being vegan. But this was a month long test at University I'd set myself just to see if it was possible! And of course, it was! I'd always said since how I'd never eaten better in my whole life than during that month. But as a self-confessed cheese lover, it was not to continue.
Mine and James' first few dates were a real eye-opener; when I cooked for him, I'd scour the internet looking for interesting recipes for the two of us, and when he cooked, I'd get to try things that I never would have considered for one reason or another (the puy lentil soup was amazing; then he admitted it was straight out of a tub from the supermarket!).
2 months later, we found ourselves living together!!! (Yes, quick work!) And the fridge became stocked with soya milk (sooo much better than cow's milk on your cereal!); the cupboards dwindled of any animal-derived products; and the spices... well, there were certainly more jars of these than you could shake a wooden spoon at!
Having lived by myself for a number of years, I was so excited to finally be able to cook for someone else, and even moreso at the prospect that I'd fallen for someone that loved his food so much! I'm told that most vegans are big eaters; but not having come across too many, I have yet to prove this... although the number of yummy recipes I've come across in the last few months have certainly gone some way to proving the point!
So, I should note here that I have not (yet) made the decision to cut out animal products from my diet; but perhaps in the future, this may well be the direction for me. At home, I am pretty much entirely vegan (although a bit of cheese occasionally finds its way into my shopping basket!), and hence, to give it a name, I have become a default vegan.
I decided today to start sharing some of the recipes I come across. Why today? Well, I purchased some tofutti the other day to give it a try and decided that I should try making some cheesecake. We also had some over-ripe bananas. I figured therefore that I should attempt a banoffee cheesecake! It seems so far to be getting on well. But as they say... the proof of the pudding!!
So, if it does turn out as hoped.... my first recipe to be featured here will be CHEESECAKE!!! (with no cheese of course!!!)
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