Showing posts with label savory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label savory. Show all posts

Friday, January 27, 2012

A couple of Avoca soups.


I've had these two Avoca cookbooks for quite some time. I got the most recent one last year off Chris ( http://www.tootiredtodrivehome.blogspot.com/ ) and I've only used it once before but I used one of the soup recipes yesterday. The book is divided into seasons. Within each seasons there are soups that can mostly made vegan! There is also a vegetarian section too which is great.


I made a roast pepper and tomato soup from the first cookbook. This tasted really good. I added some ingredients like basil, chilli and garlic!

2 red peppers roasted until soft
2 onions chopped
1 litre of veg stock
2 cloved of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
some tomato puree
1 tin of tomatoes
thyme
basil
salt and pepper
About half a chilli.

So I roasted off the peppers and meanwhile, I fried off the onions until clear, added the garlic and sauteed for about a minute. I then added the tinned tomatoes, veg stock, cinnamon, tomato puree, thyme, basil, chilli and roasted peppers when they were done. Cooked for about 2o mins and then pureed. However, this only made about 3 bowls, so if you are cooking for more, double the recipe!


I also made the root vegetable and squash soup from the newest book. I wasn't to into this as the parsnip really took over.Not a big fan of parsnip in soup.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Vegan Pesto

I've been making this a fair bit. It's really so simple and also so yummy.
I add:
-Semi-sundried tomatoes
-Rocket/Spinach
-Cashew nuts (pine nuts are insanely expensive)
-Chilli
-Salt and Pepper.
-A couple cloves of garlic

And all into the food processor. I have some Basil in the fridge so I will make some tomorrow for my dinner.






Wednesday, January 4, 2012

My first vegan Christmas.

...wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. For once, I didn't feel horrible and unhealthy from the copious amounts of chocolate. So no weight gain what so ever!

As I said previously, I went to Cork for Christmas, down to my Aunt's. It was a long drive down and a very long and squishy one on the way back (4 people+2 dogs and a flat tyre on the m50). I didn't have my digital camera with me so all my pictures were taken on my phone. I had a surprisinly delicious dinner anyway. My aunt made me roasted sweet potatoes and gave me a lesson in roasting. I also had falafel, peas and roasted potatoes. As plain and boring as that sounds it was really tasty when put together with some gravy and ballymaloe country relish.


For dessert, My aunt had gotten me a slice of Natasha's Living food Raw Coaco Orange Ganache Tart. It's 4 euro for a small slice but was so worth it! It was so creamy.


I received 3 vegan baking cookbooks for Christmas.
I had picked out 'Sweet Vegan' myself for my mum to get me. I choose it mainly due to the fact all the recipes are in grams. I really don't trust my cups to grams conversions. Different sites have different calculations! I have marked out all the reicpes I want to try.

However.. a lot of the recipes have ' unprocessed cane juice'.. or un processed cane sugar. I've asked around a few health shops and they have no idea what I am talking about. Does anyone know where to get some??

And Jesse got me Vegan Cookies-Invade your cookie jar and Babycakes! They both have amazing looking recipes and are lovely books. Once my exams finish, I will get stuck in.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Vegan Pepperoni.

                                                                                                                                             Picked this up after work in The Organic Supermarket in Blackrock. Wasn't to sure at first but Ailbhe convinced me it was delish and at 99c, why not! It tastes just like the real thing too. Oh, it's vegan pepperoni and apparently packed with protein.
I thought it would go great with pasta so I made some sort of pesto. With semi sundried tomatoes plus some of the oil,a handful of rocket rocket, cashew nuts, 2 cloves of garlic and a chunk of chilli.




And put it with pasta along with the pepperoni and spinach. Very nice.

Followed by..!



Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Avocado Love and my biscuit downfall.



I've only realised in the past few days how good avocados are. I've never really tried them or used them until I made guacamole last week. They're often in my fridge as my sister always eats them with balsamic vinegar.

I threw some into the sandwich I eat all the time and it was an excellent addition! It tastes unreal and adds a whole load of added nutrition. However with a high calorie intake with each avocado they seem to be avoided. The nutritional benefits of them definitively outweigh the high calories.

So with a pitta bread add hummous, chilli sauce, cucumbers, red onion, spinach, balsamic vinegar and of course half a mashed up avocado. I mash it up with the chilli sauce. I tend to use the same ingredients in my sandwiches but I can't get enough of all of them combined. I guarantee that this is delicious! I made one and had to make another right after it was so good. My mum had a try and got me to make her one too!

And at about 69c in Dunnes stores per avocado, it's a bargain! I've seem them priced up to 1.50 euro in other shops.

In other news. I have been informed by other vegans I know that biscuits such as Tesco's bourbon creams and Boland's cookies are vegan( and are sooo addictive). I wish I didn't know this to an extent! I am a biscuit junkie and would be my biggest downfall in terms of junk food. I was glad when I decided to become vegan that I would be cutting out all the biscuits I previously ate and maybe I would loose some weight. However, this hasn't been the case! I come home with cravings and if they are there, I pig out. Oh my addiction to sugar! So if you didn't know they were vegan, pretend you didn't read this. Unless you're able to control yourself.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Lentil, Quinoa and falafel stuffed peppers.

I had made some of the Lentil and Quiona salad, mentioned below on this blog and had some left over. I also had some falafels in the fridge and lots of peppers. So a stuffed pepper was made. I added lots of chopped chilli and garlic into the mixture of cooked lentils and Quinoa along with some broken up falafel and sweet chilli sauce.


My mum bought me some Cheezly mozzerela. I had seen this in the health food shops but I'm quite wary of it. I grated a little bit on top and tasted grand. I didn't really put enough on to make it stand out to much though.


I baked the peppers until tender and served it with left over guacamole, spinach, sun dried tomatoes and balsamic dressing. It was very tasty but sooo spicy!







Bagels!


I go to Itsa Bagel a fair bit as I am in love with their Kind Veggie Bagel. It never fails to please me but It always promises a messy lunch. There is no way to eat it gracefully without getting food allover your face. I have managed to eat it neatly once, but I was alone so Bring lots of tissue if you are going to eat it. I have talked about it on this blog before but It needs another mention as It is Vegan. This bagel is Vegan and the Vegetable and Lentil soup, which is also unreal. There is an Itsa Bagel in Dun Laoghaire, Abbey Street in Arnottss, Sandyford, Fitzwilliam lane, Malahide. They're Irish, reasonably priced BUT I do not like the coffee one bit.


I tried to make one myself at home, didn't taste as good but still very good.
I started off by making some guacamole. It was my first time and it went as follows:
1 avocado
2 cloves of garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
Half a red chilli ( I made mine spicy)
1/4 of a chopped onion
salt and pepper
 all in the food processor
I then grilled some strips of red pepper and sweet potato.
Layered it up with some of the guac, hummous, strips of veg, spinach and balsamic dressing.

The photo isn't very pleasing but I was in a rush and just wanted to eat!

And another bagel idea, I have posted before.
Bagel with Hummous, sweet chilli sauce, Grilled or roasted thin strips of sweet potato in sweet chilli sauce and a salad on top!