Sunday 19 February 2012

Sunday morning blues and some more product reviews

With pancake day coming up I thought I would sharpen my pancake making skills, so for breakfast Sunday morning I made pancakes from the Happy Herbivore cookbook, with blueberries and Provamel blueberry yogurt. They were delicious:



I have tried a couple of new products over the last week or two and all have been wonderful, the first was Fry's pepper steak style pie, it was lovely and had great pastry (although the pepper was quite hot!):

The second was Hippo Hyfryd white cacao coconut bar. Its coconut white chocolate truffle, wrapped in dark chocolate. After my first bite I thought "this isn't that great", but with each bite it got better and better and when I finished it I was craving more - its the closest thing to a vegan "Bounty" that I have tried so far and I will definitely be buying them again:


The third/fourth were the new Hazelnut/Almond milks from Alpro, I wasn't a big fan of the Almond (never have been a big fan of almond milks) but it is just as good (if not better) than its rivals and far cheaper, the Hazelnut however has become one of my favourite "milks" and will be making regular appearances in my kitchen. They both come in UHT and fresh versions, I tried UHT and they were both £1.59:

 Finally (and I have saved the best for last) Kara Chocolate Coconut Milk, this is just excellent beyond words. In my opinion - the nicest vegan chocolate milk there is:

Thursday 16 February 2012

Vegan Quiche

Quiche is one of things that I was never really bothered about when I was  an omnivore, but since becoming Vegan I started missing it. One day I Googled "Vegan Quiche" and to my surprise found that it was quite easy to make one, so here is my recipe for Vegan quiche (originally inspired by and adapted from Fat Free Vegan's quiche):




Quiche (Single Serving)
Ingredients:

The Filling:

110 Grams blended silken tofu (blend to a thick creamy consistency first, then weigh 110 grams)
5 Grams Nutrition yeast
5 Grams Corn flour
Splash of liquid Aminos (if you have any)
Good pinch Onion powder/granules (about 1/8 Tsp)
Good pinch Garlic powder/granules (about 1/8 Tsp)
Approx ¼ Tsp Turmeric
Salt and Pepper

Crust:
Use a crust of your choice (I sometimes use a Tortilla as a quick and healthy alternative to pastry, or you can use pasty).

Filling:
Choose whatever you want as a filling, depending on what filling you are using you will need approximately 160-180 grams of it.

A good example is:
30 Grams Soya Cheddar style cheese
30 Grams Soya Ham
50-60 Grams diced onion
50-60 Grams mushrooms

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4
Dice the mushrooms and onion, place in a parcel made of kitchen foil with a few tablespoons water poured in, then seal the parcel and cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes (you can also place the mushrooms, onions and water into a bowl covered with foil and cook that way).
This will precook the onions and mushrooms and reduces them in size, while they are cooking mix all the filling ingredients together, grate the cheese and cut the ham into thin slices.
Remove the parcel from the oven, drain the water off using a sieve and let the veg cool for a few minutes.
Mix the veg into the filling mixture followed by the cheese and ham.
Line a dish* with your crust and then spoon the filling in, using the back of a spoon to spread it evenly (you might want to make it slightly more shallow in the middle as this is the bit that will cook last).
Cook on gas mark 4 for about 1 hour or until it is golden yellow on top and cooked through – it should be firm but not too firm.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes before eating.
It can also be cooled completely and kept in the fridge to eat later (it sometimes tasted better cooled), but if you have used a tortilla crust it will quickly become soggy.
*The dish I use is a rectangular dish and is 15cm X 11cm X5cm – but this is only about ¾ full when made with this recipe-you could make the filling before deciding what dish to make it with so you get a better idea of the size of dish needed.