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.

Back to the books!

I have a degree in Biochemistry, I think it became clear quite early on that I was on the wrong course, but instead of changing to something more suitable I decided to bury my head in the sand and carry on regardless.  Unsurprisingly, this meant that not only did I not enjoy university as much as I could have done, but I found it extremely stressful and ended up with a classification lower than I expected.

After this, I decided to turn my back to science altogether, and so have been working in administration since graduating in 2007.  Which was going fine until recently, when the itch to go back into science became too much as I saw course mates become Doctors (both Ph.D. and medical) one of these, despite not having completed her Ph.D. yet had a paper published in Nature (scientific journal). EDIT: Another friend, has now completed a Ph.D, and on top of that is a cycling blogger who has been quoted in the Guardian!

But I've been out of the science area for quite a while, and it's not one to stand still, plus I don't want to go back to Biochemistry. So instead of doing what I did at A level and just rush into it (I really think young people are under too much pressure to make such life changing decisions in so little time) I started to think about what I WANTED to do.

During A Levels, I considered Dietetics, as from an early age I've been interest in food and health. As a child, I was quite a fussy eater and my Mum often persuaded me to eat food by telling me it was good for me. I remember being delighted that Beetroot had great health benefits and it tasted good too!  But I dismissed it as an possibility because at the time I didn't feel like my diet was particularly healthy, and I hate feeling like a hypocrite- I don't get how health professionals can lecture patients on smoking and then nip out to the smoking shelter to puff on their own cancer sticks. However, my diet has now improved (and on reflection, my diet wasn't as bad as I thought) so I looked into that again, but again, dismissed it as due to not getting the grades I expected, I would need to do a four year undergraduate course, which I'm not prepared to do, plus the more I looked into it, the more it didn't seem to be for me.

When I started looking into Dietetics, another possibility came to light- nutrition. It seems like it may be a bit more up my street, and seems a bit more 'sciency' than dietetics. Plus I would be able to study it at Masters level.  However, I still wasn't too sure- it looks great on paper, but will it be something I enjoy? Or will it turn out exactly like my first degree?

So when I read that Open University do a short course in Understanding Human Nutrition, I saw a chance to test the waters before diving in. So I signed up for the May start date, and my course materials came today!

I'm really looking forward to getting back into studying again, and I'm hoping to share some of the things I learn along the way on this blog, so watch this space....

Warm Asparagus Salad

After reading May's edition of Cook Vegetarian and seeing Masterchef Finalist Dean Edwards' recipe for Minted pesto British asparagus and potato salad, I decided to do my own version, substituting the minted pesto for the rest of the vegan red pesto I had left over from earlier that week.

There was a slight disaster when I attempted to roast the cherry tomatoes for a full hour as instructed in the recipe- they just burnt and I spent a good while trying to remove the charred remains from my oven dish! So I decided to stick with uncooked cherry tomatoes instead!

Served with some tear and share Garlic bread- a bit too garlicky for  my liking (and I LOVE garlic!). Please note, I did have more than this, I was underestimating my portion size a little here.

Ingredients (Serves 2):
125g cherry tomatoes (halved)
1 bundle of asparagus ('woody' end removed and cut diagonally into three)
125g new potatoes (halved)
Salt and pepper to taste
About quarter of a jar of vegan red pesto (but more would be better)
Olive oil
Pine nuts (toasted)

Recipe (around 25 mins)
1) Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6
2) Boil new potatoes until cooked through
3) Put asparagus in oven proof dish, drizzle with olive oil, season and roast in oven 6-8 minutes
4) Add a a little olive olive to pesto to loosen it
5) When potatoes and asparagus are cooked, toss together with cherry tomatoes, pesto and pine nuts.
6) Serve warm with whatever you desire!

The boy, who had never had asparagus before approved of this recipe (despite not sounding overjoyed when I told him we were having salad for tea) especially the pine nuts but thought it could be improved with cheese (his response to everything!). I quite enjoyed it, but when I have a food processor and don't have any pesto that needs using up I'd love to give this a go with the minted pesto as suggested in the original recipe.