Vegan Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

So operation use up all my perishables before my move in July continues!

I've been so caught up in trying to use up all my savoury items that I totally forgot my glut of baking supplies that I hoard, so I thought I would start and try and use it up.

I have a fascination with vegan food, I love the show Come Dine With Me and my favourite shows are the ones with vegan contestants because I love to see the creative ways that vegan cooking gets around the problem of not using any animal products. Especially in the case of using egg as a 'glue' in cooking, which is why the thought of vegan baking is so intriguing...

However I did want to use egg replacers or other fancy ingredients, which is when I stumbled upon this recipe from the lovely We Don't Eat Anything With A Face which uses grated apple hold the cakes together.  The only thing I did differently was add 3 tbsp of bicarb as I realised that I only had 60g of self raising flour and the rest of my supply was plain. On reflection the three tablespoons was a bit too much (I was quite scared that the cakes might actually explode in the over, they just kept growing!).

These cakes have to be the best chocolate cakes I have ever made, and the grated apple makes them really moist and yummy inside- I'm salivating at the thought as I write this!

I took them into work and told everyone that they were 'special' chocolate orange cupcakes and didn't tell them they were vegan.  After making 'mmm' noises, and making ridiculous guesses at what made them special, I finally told them that they were vegan and everyone was surprised.  Once colleague actually said that if he know they were vegan beforehand he wouldn't have had one, but will now think again about vegan cakes- then another colleague agreed!

If your reading this and thinking the same- please don't judge, keep and open mind about vegan cooking and try this recipe- it's awesome!

Looking Yummy

Yummier

Pretty Awesome

With the yummy icing- I licked it out the bowl after I made it!

Nutty Sweet Potato and Spinach Pie

Yet another adaptation from Joy May's book!

This was suppose to be a low cost meal using ingredients I had in, as I was planning to use the rest of the sweet potatoes from the Country Vegetable Pie but I forgot to bring them with us (I made this meal at mine) so I had to buy more and the The Boy insisted on the addition of goats cheese (no surprise there!).  However it still ended up a cheap meal.

If I was to do this again, I would probably spread the goats cheese over half the pie and leave the other half cheese less, as me and The Boy disagree when it comes to cheese!

Creative use of left over pastry! 

Country Vegetable Pie.

This week, The Boy had the week off, and his parents were on holiday and offered the use of the family home for the week. This turned out to be cooking heaven, as I'm use to my tiny little kitchen with one single cupboard for supplies and a small work surface (even a simple meal of beans on toast can result in the place looking like a bomb site!). Instead this week I had the use of a large family size kitchen which is well equipped and stocked.  So I put it to good use...

The Boy's Mum's has received was Mary Berry's updated Complete Cookbook as a recent birthday present, which we were told we were quite welcome to use. So I did!

I came across Mary's recipe for County Vegetable Pie and decided to give it a go, adding my own twist including the addition of sweetcorn and peas (not enough things contain sweetcorn and peas!), substituting the ordinary potato topping with sweet potato (The Boy's suggestion) and adjustments to the cooking instructions.

I really need to work on my 'pot to plate' technique with pies!

The result went down well, I was a bit worried by the parsley sauce as I'm not a big fan of creamy sauces but this was quite nice. I've attempted to freeze the leftovers, and I'm hoping this won't effect the taste. There were quite a few good vegetarian recipes in the book (a whole section on vegetarian recipes, plus a few more dotted about in different sections) so I will definitely be 'borrowing' the book more often!

D.I.Y Bean 'burgers' roti wrap.

The Boy was coming over. I needed an idea for tea, that wouldn't cost a fortune. I also had some rotis left over from the curry I've been eating during the week.

So I opened May's Cook Vegetarian and flicked to Rose Elliot's Veggie Bites, my eyes were drawn to D.I.Y. bean burgers, so I decided to have my first ever attempt making bean burgers.  Using the rotis as an alternative to a traditional tortilla wrap.

Ingredients:
1 tin of kidney beans, 1 tin of cannellini beans, drained (you can use any beans, a tin of mixed beans would work well, but I couldn't find any)
Spring onions (chopped)
Paprika (the original recipe says mixed herbs)
Soy sauce
Cheese (I wanted to leave this out, but The Boy being a cheese nut insisted!)
4 Rotis

1) Mash the beans
2) Stir in the spring onions, soy sauce, paprika and cheese (the amount which you add is up to you)
3) Make mixture into individual burgers and fry in oil until browned.
4) Heat a frying pan and warm up the rotis, 15 seconds per side
5) Place bean burgers in middle of rotis, add salad and sauces and wrap!

My attempt refused to stay together, I'm not too sure if this was because I didn't mash the beans enough (I really need a better masher!) or because I was trying to be healthy and didn't use enough oil.  I think the latter may be the case as The Boy eventually took over the frying process and added a lot more oil than I did, and his seemed to stay together better!  Alternatively, adding egg to the recipe would perhaps help the gluing process.

Anyway, since they were used in a wrap, it didn't matter too much that they didn't stay together and they were still tasty. And the grand total came to £2.42, but could be made cheaper.

You can see in this picture why I called this post 'bean burgers'.
This picture was taken before the addition of relish

Why buy high welfare meat

I came across a shocking video today via twitter regarding Animal Equality's undercover investigation into East Anglican Pig Company, which is quoted as "the third largest pork producer and leading supermarket supplier in the UK". 


Please be aware the below video has graphic scenes that some viewers may find distressing (me being one, I watched it once and can't bring myself to watch it again)

Although I think that the end message pleading with people to become vegan somewhat spoils the video (I don't think trying to guilt trip people into going vegan is the way to gain support) I still find the video shocking.


I don't think many of us realise how animals in the meat industry are really treated, I think we have this nice vision of pigs running around and being happy and being treated with dignity and respect- but from this video this isn't always the case.  OK, so (hopefully!) this is a one off case, and since this footage has been taken the farms shown are under investigation- but how can we be sure? The scary thing is this company provides major supermarkets in the UK, and how many of us check the welfare standards of the pigs that made our bacon? Or do we go for the cheapest?


It's likely that people's desire to eat meat regularly, and to pay less for it has gone to increase the need for intensive farming methods as shown in the video.


I really do not want this blog to turn in another vegetarian blog ranting about how "meat is murder" because I don't believe that is the best way to get a message across, and I don't think meat is murder, but I disagree with the way meat is produced and therefore have chose to become vegetarian. However, I would urge people, PLEASE try and buy high welfare meat, it may mean that you may have to cut down on the meat you eat but you're not going to keel over from a few meat-free meals. And it will stop incidents like this occurring again.