Recipes | Vegetarian Food Directory

I made myself smile today.  I went into a bookshop in town during my lunch break.  Now and again, I will frequent this High Street bookshop, just to see what new vegetarian and vegan cookbooks they have in stock.  Whilst I was looking, this man that would nowadays be described as a Hipster, though the word hipster emerged in the 1930 for underground Black musicians, mostly jazz musicians 'in the know' about emerging sub-culturea and trends.   Anyway, I digress, I heard him yell out to one of the workers 'Do you have any vegetarian or vegan cookbooks?'.  The girl came over and looked at the shelf a bit bewildered.  I couldn't help myself and said I come here often and I can see one there , there and two there.  In fact that one is good.  He looked at the girl, and said 'Thanks anyway' and  thanked me, surprisingly picking the one that I recommended.  Just made me smile.  I should be working in the cookbook section of this shop or i...

This  Big bowl of green pasta was very nice.  The hazelnut and kale pesto clung onto the pasta like a bean pod protecting and clinging onto the peas and beans inside.   We had a big bowl of this  Kale and Hazelnut Pesto  Pasta twice, once in the evening and second - the following day for lunch.    For those of you who are unfamiliar with Purple Flower Sprouts as I was a couple of weeks back , they are a hybrid of Brussels Sprouts and Kale.     Forgive me for a short post, but I feel a little sniffly today, so I am signing off a little early so I can get an early night - I didn't sleep so well last night.  Again hardly a recipe, but here goes. Green Bowl of Pasta Serves 2 Ingredients and Method Cook enough pasta for 2 people.   Heat 2 - 3 tablespoons olive oil, add 2 cloves of garlic crushed and saute until soft and infused the oil. stir 100grams purple flower sprouts or Brussels sprout, halved.  cook for few...

I made this rustic French Lentil Soup with Capers and Fried Pine Nuts from Adam Sobel's Street Vegan a little while back.  I've had many a French Lentil style soups in my time, but what was different about this one and what I loved about this soup other than the Puy lentils was the undertones of the Balsamic vinegar, enhanced further by a garnishing of minced piquant capers and in place of croutons, some fried pine-nuts.  This soup had real depth of flavour! These pine nuts scattered over this soup were given to me by a friend who had just come back from Pakistan.  The pine nuts were still in there shells too so took time to shell, but I didn't mind it. I have never thought about it before, but Pine Nuts do have that cheesy greasy texture and I can totally now see why pine nuts are used in vegan 'Parmesan' cheese recipes.  And yes there is rosemary in the soup too, hence my soup bowl posing with it. This is the first of many The Vegetarian Library chall...

I make Banana Loaf all the time, so when I found myself with some very ripe bananas it was a toss between muffins or bread, for some reason Banana Bread won.  Whilst making this Banana Bread, I was reminded of a time when I took some into work for colleagues to try and someone at work called me over, I thought she was going to ask me for the recipe, instead she asked  What are those dark bits in the cake? Banana I responded without hesitation, yet a little bemused.     As I was fumbling in my kitchen cupboards looking for some vanilla essence, I remembered still having some Vanilla paste left over from making a vegan Vanilla Coconut Creme Brulee , its so much more powerful in flavour and scent. You get a good waft of it when you bring  to your mouth for tasting, and the pecan nuts added a fabulous buttery crunch.   Other banana recipes you will find on my blog Vegan Tiger Cake s Banana Blondies Banana and Coconut Flapjack s Banofee Toffee Curd...

A couple of weeks back I made a  Parsnip Pie with Edible flowers , I have also been tucking into a bowl o f  Parsnip Porridge for those days when I have been home alone for breakfast. This time I am sharing with you home-made Parsnip, Apple, Blueberry and Hazelnut Crumble. On one of the evenings we had this with custard, on the other it was simply with cream. What I love about this Root vegetable crumble recipe is its versatility.  You can easily swap some of the ingredients to reflect the seasons or your taste. In place of the carrots you can have Swede, beetroot or carrots. The golden caster could be demerara sugar, coconut sugar, honey, maple syrup Nuts - walnuts, pecan, almonds  Additional spices, nutmeg, ginger, mixed spices,  And of course you can veganize it too. Just experiment.  I am sharing this with Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food For All and; Food Year Link Up hosted by Charlotte's Kitchen for Br...

This is a softly scented Darjeeling Pecan Tea Loaf. I was prompted to make when vegan Jaffa Cake' , after responding to her comment.  I had a little nosy around a blog she followed and clocked a Tea Loaf recipe that would use up 2 tablespoons of marmalade sitting at the bottom of the jar left over from the Jaffa Cake recipe ,  It was not long before I found myself in the kitchen measuring out the ingredients and those I d id not have, I substituted with what I had. For example her cake was made with Orange flavour Redbush (Rooibos), I used Darjeeling.     I am not a Darjeeling tea drinker, my husband is and I've used his teabags in the past for Banana and Darjeeling Cake : this loaf though is suitable for vegans.   There was something Welsh  Bara Brith  about it too which I liked. So even though this cake is made with tea, you still need a cuppa with it to wash it down.  I am sharing these 'Cake' with Love Cake: the theme is...

I am not organised enough today cook something from a country on the other side of the world, so for  Vegan Mof o prompt Far Away   I share something that I associate with the vegan Western world - non dairy nut 'cheese' spread. I have been wanting to make both a hard and soft spreadable vegan 'cheese' for a while.  The first time I came across a vegan alternative for 'cheese'  was in an old secondhand copy of a 1970s vegan paperback cookbook that I found a charity shop in Glasgow.  This vegan cheese alternative was made with soy flour. I wanted t make it, but at the time I could not track down soy flour, then I forgot all about it  (I must dig out the cookbook), but in the last 10 years there has been a rise of modern and contemporary versions are made with rejuvenac and probiotic capsules.  Today though, I am still keeping it basic or traditional as this is the first time I have made a spreadable vegan cashew 'cheese' spread.  I d...

I am not organised enough today cook something from a country on the other side of the world, so for  Vegan Mof o prompt Far Away   I share something that I associate with the vegan Western world - non dairy nut 'cheese' spread. I have been wanting to make both a hard and soft spreadable vegan 'cheese' for a while.  The first time I came across a vegan alternative for 'cheese'  was in an old secondhand copy of a 1970s vegan paperback cookbook that I found a charity shop in Glasgow.  This vegan cheese alternative was made with soy flour. I wanted t make it, but at the time I could not track down soy flour, then I forgot all about it  (I must dig out the cookbook), but in the last 10 years there has been a rise of modern and contemporary versions are made with rejuvenac and probiotic capsules.  Today though, I am still keeping it basic or traditional as this is the first time I have made a spreadable vegan cashew 'cheese' spread.  I d...

This is  not a cake 'cake' with a sponge, and its not a cheesecake though on first glance that is how it appears. This is a Butternut, Mango and Orange Marigold Layer Cake,  which I have also pretentiously dubbed as Sunrise Cake. The bottom is an almond crust, the middle Mango and butternut Squash filling is infused with Mango sweetness and then the topping finished off with a zingy zesty orange  jelly made with  agar agar  and then finished off with a light scattering of dried marigold flower petals - all depicting colours of the Sunrise.  I was impressed with myself, though I have to admit the rice paper butterflies actually look a little out of place, here or maybe dare I say it tacky - I did like the scattering of the dried marigold petals. This is not a very sweet cake, needs a squirt of (soya) cream to cut the richness of the butternut mango filling and the sharp twang from the orange topping.  Its also a very big cake, you can slice i...

This is  not a cake 'cake' with a sponge, and its not a cheesecake though on first glance that is how it appears. This is a Butternut, Mango and Orange Marigold Layer Cake,  which I have also pretentiously dubbed as Sunrise Cake. The bottom is an almond crust, the middle Mango and butternut Squash filling is infused with Mango sweetness and then the topping finished off with a zingy zesty orange  jelly made with  agar agar  and then finished off with a light scattering of dried marigold flower petals - all depicting colours of the Sunrise.  I was impressed with myself, though I have to admit the rice paper butterflies actually look a little out of place, here or maybe dare I say it tacky - I did like the scattering of the dried marigold petals. This is not a very sweet cake, needs a squirt of (soya) cream to cut the richness of the butternut mango filling and the sharp twang from the orange topping.  Its also a very big cake, you can slice i...

Over the weekend, I was going  through my larder, well its not really a larder I pretend it is.  Its just space under the stairs where I store excess things mostly from the kitchen as space in the kitchen comes at a premium, so things like my Kitchenaid Food Processor and Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer (both Birthday presents from D many years back) live under the stairs.  As I was fumbling about I came across the box that contained loads of homemade jars of preserves, jams and chutneys that I made last year including a Marrow Curd.   I decided to approach the jar of Marrow Curd in the way I would approach Lemon Curd, so this cake is really a Lemon Pistachio cake with the lemon curd substituted with homemade marrow curd. I guess you  can make this Marrow Curd Pistachio Cake with other fancy pants curds like blackberry curd,  strawberry curd ,   clementine curd ,   banana curd   and many others  - experiment, but then make sure you m...

This prettily dressed up Hazelnut Swede Lemon Drenched Cake  has come and gone in our home and while it lasted, it made every one who had a slice or a taste, first crinkle their noses and then purse their lips and nod their heads in approval. It was intriguing.  For my overseas readers, you may know Swede as Rutabaga.  It is a vegetable that I avoid eating in savoury meals, I find it sweet like parsnips and don't often enjoy it, but hide it in a cake then it takes on a different flavour all together.  I know it won't convince everybody, but all I can say is try it before you pass judgement. I  have made a few dishes with both swede and turnips  of late.  Previous to this blog post you may have seen my   Turnip, Kale and White Bean Stew , Swede Mash on top of a Veggie 'Meatball' dish and of course that   dark   Rutabaga Cinnamon Nutmeg Cake  with Miso Caramel Sauce  reminisce of Sticky Toffee Pudding.    I hav...

I am slowly going through some of my bookmarked recipes and starting to tick them off. Today, I share with you this Raw Vegan Carrot Cake with Cashew Cream .  This Raw Vegan Carrot Cake comes from Lorraine Pascale. I have to be honest, I don't really do celebrity chefs, so when I first saw Lorraine Pascale  on British TV.  the first thought that came to me was, here we go again another model turned celebrity chef, but her approach was really different from all those domestic goddess wannabees. Lorraine Pascale gained popularity without the gimmicks.  She really did win me over on her first cookery show and her down to earth honest approach, I have also come to have a much deeper respect for her as a person too.   Anyway, this Raw Vegan Carrot Cake was the first that I had bookmarked from her  Eating Well Made Easy from Lorraine Pascale.  T he only change I have made to the recipe was the use of hazelnut, the original recipe uses walnuts and I ...

D moved my bread  loaf tins somewhere and could not remember where he moved them.  I have looked in all the obvious places. I told him many times, if he is unsure where to put kitchenalia to let me know and I will put them away.  He has done this to me a few times and it makes me frown when I go to look for whatever it is, even some of the ingredients for shopping are put away in wrong places.  Grrr He looked everywhere he would put them and he could not find them either. so over the weekend, we went shopping in Cardiff and I picked up a decent loaf tin as I wanted to make Zucchini Bread.   Ah if this is all the grief he gives me, then I am in a happy relationship.  I know I am blessed and very very lucky. The Zucchini Bread was very nice by the way.  D of course had his with a bit of butter, I don't think it needs it, but it definitely does need a  cuppa  of some sort with it to wash it down. Apricots are optional, but they are in s...