Walnut Burgers

Some of you may know that after five long months of job hunting since we got back from our trip I've finally found a new job (yippee!) On my last weekend before returning to work I decided to plan ahead for a few meals & made a batch of veggie burgers to freeze for those nights when you really can't be bothered to cook anything from scratch.

These ones are made with beetroot, walnuts, hazelnuts, tofu, breadcrumbs, carrot, onion, soy sauce & a whole host of other goodies. Sometimes it's hard to make vegan burgers stay together in patties without the egg to bind them but these beauties turned out just perfect. And most importantly, they spank the behind of any shop bought veggie burger I've had. Even Paul (long suffering omnivore partner) likes them so they must be good.

Posh Beans on Toast

We eat this loads. I suppose it's proper title should be 'garlc & sage infused cannellini bean crostini' or some such but you get the idea. Heinz & Hovis have taken a trip to Waitrose.

Anyway, it's delicious, easy to make & contains tons of protein, calcium & iron (all essential for healthy vegans). This is one of those recipes that started out being followed from a book & has changed into something else with tweaking & happy surprises from bunging in whatever was in the cupboard.

Ingredients:

ciabatta
2 tins of cannellini beans
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
a bit of fresh sage (chopped)
olive oil
half a pack of spinach
vegetarian worcestershire sauce
vegan parmesan
salt & pepper

Heat some oil in a big pan, throw in the garlic & sage for a minute & stir. Add the drained beans, spinach, a dash of worcestershire sauce, some parmesan & as much hot water as you need to give the mixture a little bit of sauce. Cook until the spinach has completely wilted & the beans are warm through & a few are starting to fall apart (10-15 mins). Meanwhile, cut the ciabatta in half lengthwise & grill the cut side till it's lightly toasted. Season the beans & serve on top of the ciabatta with a bit of extra parmesan & olive oil if you like.

Will feed two hungry people.

Spring Peeking Through

Had a lovely wander around Regents Park last Sunday. We visted the inner circle, watched the sleeping ducks & got very overexcited about the few spring flowers that were starting to appear.

Valentine's Night

Had a delicious meal at Saf on Valentine's night. Diners could choose from the 'Lovers' or the 'Broken Hearts' menu & a number of special cocktails had been created for our enjoyment. Possibly the best bit of this all vegan feast was the strawberry & geranium tart I had for pudding. Mmmm.

An Ital Feast

I've been looking for some new ideas for vegan recipes & started to read about 'Ital' which is a rastafarian food culture. It's quite a nuanced concept but basically it's a vegan diet which emphasises the power of food from the earth in its natural state. Last night I created this Ital stew which turned out quite well I think. Here's the recipe in case you want to try it:

Ingredients:
1 onion (sliced)
1 scotch bonnet pepper (diced)
a bunch of thyme
a green pepper (chopped)
4 or 5 tomatoes (chopped)
1 tin of black eyed beans
1 tin of callaloo
4 or 5 sweet potatoes (peeled & diced)
1 tin of coconut milk
half a litre of stock

Basically, you just fry all the veg in a little oil, add the stock, herbs & coconut milk & simmer it until the sweet potato is cooked through. Serve with rice or roti.

We decided that our food ought really to be accompanied by a cocktail using the Trinidadian rum lurking at the back of our cupboard & chose a Mary Pickford (not strickly Ital but hey it was good). This cocktail was created for Mary (a silent film star) in Cuba during prohibition.

Mary Pickford
5-6 ice cubes
1 and a quarter measures white Caribbean rum
half measure pineapple juice
1 teaspoom grenadine

Enjoy!

Old World v New World

Paul & I did tons of wine tasting while we were on our trip: Shiraz in Oz, Sauvignon Blanc in New Zealand, Ice wine in Canada & even Dalat mulberry wine in Vietnam. The happy side effect of this is that we seem to have actually learned somethng about wine (Paul scared the bejesus out of me last week by having a sip from my glass, stroking his chin & saying 'Mmm, South African Semillion').

Anyhow, since we got back home we've been looking for a chance to take up this hobby again & it presented itself on Monday with an 'Old World v New World' tasting at Saf a fairly new vegan restaurant in Shoreditch. We got to compare six wines and eat some tasty vegan canapes. We learned about 'terroir' which is the earthy, aroma you usually get from Old World & not New World wines. Not bad for a fiver.

Soya & Linseed Loaf

According to baking oracle Dan Lepard substituting warm soya milk for the water in your bread makes the loaf softer & last for longer. Here's my first experiment with this approach. Tastes pretty good. Not sure it'll be around for long enough to properly test his theory.

Crikey!

There's nothing to make you realise you're getting older than seeing your skinny-boy teenage crush naked as a stocky middle-aged man.

Mozzer's still got it though. Even if you can't stomach all the flesh, the vinyl version of his new single is worth buying for the great live version of 'Death of a Disco Dancer' on the B side. He's still got that alluring mixture of aggression & vulnerability in his voice.

Squirrel Update!

Those of you who've been following my blog for a while might remember that I have a squirrel friend who visits me most mornings. He shimmies up the vine on the front of our building & leaves me bits of bread on our balcony. Well, the squirrel has now diversified & switched to bringing me shiny things too, like this chocolate wrapper. He's a strange little creature but we enjoy looking at each other & he poses beautifully for photos.

What A Girl's Got to Do to Get Her Bread to Rise?

It's so cold in London at the moment that I'm having to invent all kinds of strange structures to get my bread to rise. After waiting & waiting to no avail I hit upon this idea to get my dough close to the hot air coming out of the oven vent. Seemed to do the trick. I got a lovely malted loaf... eventually.

Bye, Snowman

A couple of days after the joys of snowday (or Monday in London as it's otherwise known) I opened the curtains to find that this is what had happened to my lovely snowman. Already! Oh well, more snow to come I think.

Snow Creatures

Well, why should it be only men who get immortalised in snow? Why not Kangaroos, camels & elephants too?

The Biggest Snowball

This whopper was rolled all the way to the top of Parliament Hill & then pushed down it, chased by a few lunatics one of whom decided to jump on top of it while it was still rolling. He didn't last long.

Sledging on the Heath

When the happy news comes that Paul's office is to close at lunchtime he persuades me to walk up to Hampstead Heath for an afternoon of snowy fun. Seems like the whole of London is up there with their improvised sledges. Londoners are an innovative lot. If we want to go sledging on a Monday afternoon we're not going to let the small matter of not having a sledge stop us. We used fertiliser bags when I was a kid (Yorkshire childhood) but here we spot tea trays, dustbin lids, surfboards, lilos, skateboards (wheels removed), bookshelves, recycling boxes, rubber rings and 'for sale' signs, all being used to slide down Parliament Hill. There were lots of snowboarders and a couple of skiers and a lot of people in their thirties and forties acting like they were five again. Great fun!

Men of Snow

Seems I'm not the only one who's been building a snowman today. Phil's is definitely the best though.

And Making One of These ...

So We'll Be Looking Like This ...

By This Morning It Looked Like This ...

So I Stayed In & Did This ...

Last Night It Did This ...