Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

It is a very special little boy's birthday on New Year's Day. He can't have gluten or dairy so I decided to make some gluten free vegan cookies for him. I have only used gluten free flour once in a sponge cake and although other people liked it I definitely thought something was slightly strange in taste (although I was pregnant at the time and weirdly some things tasted slightly different). As I wasn't completely happy with the cake I was a little apprehensive about this cookies but I really like these ones!

I chose a vegan recipe from vegweb which you can find here and the only substitution I used was gluten free flour in place of the regular flour.

The dough was quite crumbly when attempting to make cookie shapes but I found the best way was to mould with my hands. They were also quite crumbly when just cooked and when I tried them warm I wasn't so sure but as they cool down they harden and when I tried them the next day I thought they were really nice and definitely something I would bake again! As you can see from the picture they still look as if they are very crumbly but as they have hardened they toughen and you can break them (rather than crumble) quite well.

I will report back with the opinion of the birthday boy- 3 year olds never lie!

OMG...vegan omelette??

As a child I was never really a fan of omelette but I love the way they are simple and can taste so different with what you add in to it. I recently saw another blog who had tried this recipe out from Chocolate and Beyond (a great blog to read; absolutely divine recipes) and decided I had to try it too. The recipe can be found here under number 5.

I didn't quite have all the ingredients- no chillies or curry powder- but I made up for this by having it with sweet chilli sauce (which went with it very well). The mushrooms with it were excellent int texture and taste and the spring onions added the perfect oniony taste without being too overpowering. The texture of the omelette was very similar to actual egg omelette (as far as I remember) and was very satisfying to eat and filling. The pictures on Chocolate and Beyond look amazing but I am sooo bad at frying things which stay in shape (pancakes never turn out well!) so my omelette turned into more of a scramble. I didn't take any pictures- take a look at the photos on Chocolate and Beyond!

This recipe makes and excellent meal at anytime of the day and would be great to serve to guests. I would love to see what non-vegans thought of it! I will be trying it out on my other half soon!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

I hadn't made any cookies from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar" (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero) for a while and even the ones I had made were some of the more simple and usual flavour cookies in the book. As I was going to a family gathering at my Aunt's I decided to take over some cookies for everyone to try and chose these ones as with the spice in them they are a bit more "adult". You can actually find the recipe online from the Post Punk Kitchen here.The teaspoon of cayenne pepper did not seem like it would be very spicy at all but these cookies definitely had a kick and the cinnamon complimented them perfectly. I also loved how the cookies look and I definitely made an effort to make them perfectly round and uniform so they looked very professional when I brought them out at the party. I had many comments about how good they were and where I got the recipe from them. These are a must bake recipe!

Easy lunch for guests!

Well, as you may have guessed, I am now a mummy! It is still sinking in even though our little one is over 3 weeks old now. Even though I thought I would be much more tired I still haven't had much time to cook, let alone try things out for the blog. Even the few things I have made which are worth writing about I forgot to take pictures of but I will tell you about a couple anyway and direct you to the recipes as they were delicious! And hopefully as we get into more of a routine here I will manage a few more recipes and remember to take photos.

As we had my boyfriend's brother and his new girlfriend coming round to meet our new addition I decided to make a nice lunch. The only instruction I was given was that he didn't like cheese which wasn't a problem! I had an idea to do stuffed peppers as they look great and most people I know love peppers. My boyfriend is not a massive fan of rice so that was out for the stuffing so I set about searching the internet for other options. I came across this recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen for Chilli-Stuffed Peppers which seemed perfect and full of flavour. I followed this recipe as closely as I could but there were a few changes due to cupboard ingredients- I used pickled jalapenos as I had half a jar which really needed using and I also used red kidney beans because there weren't any black beans in the shop. I also added some chopped courgette into the mix.  Another slight change I made was that I just cut a lid off the peppers instead of slicing them in half as I really like the look of this.

These peppers were super delicious and perfect for an impressive but easy lunch/dinner. In fact we have decided to make this a regular meal at ours. The chilli mixture was such a good change to the usual rice or couscous stuffed peppers I am used to. I really enjoyed how full of vegetables this dish is while being super filling.

On the side we had potato salad made with vegan garlic mayo and some paprika and also a fresh green salad. I think there were probably about 3 portions of vegetables in this meal!

For dessert I made a lemon drizzle cake from this recipe from food.com. I added the zest of an extra lemon to make sure it was very flavourful. This cake went down a treat with everyone and my boyfriend already wants me to bake another!

I really wish I had taken pictures of this food as it did look really good and is perfect for guests but hopefully you will try these out anyway!

***UPDATE*** I made the peppers again with the addition of some veggie mince (I actually preferred the original version without the mince though) and remembered to take photos! So here they are:

Hawaiian Pizza!

Over the last week I have been buying and eating a lot of pineapple (it's an old wives tale for the promotion of labour!) and was getting a little bored of just eating it on it's own. My boyfriend mentioned he used to love Hawaiian pizza (ham and pineapple) and as I had never had pineapple on a pizza I thought we would try it. I used my favourite pizza base recipe which never seems to go wrong and you don't have to pre-cook it before you put the toppings on. You can find the recipe here! If you love thin and crispy bases you may like to find a different recipe as this tends to be a bit thicker than that but I love it. Be prepared that you do have to let the dough rise for a couple of hours so don't make this if you are starving already!! This amount of dough serves around 4 people. We tend to make 2 pizzas and freeze one which works fantastically and is great for an easy dinner.

For the topping I put some tomato pasta sauce we had (although it would have usually been tomato puree but somehow we had run out- we tend to buy tonnes at a time!) then ripped up Redwoods ham, sliced mushrooms, chunks of fresh pineapple, sliced mushrooms (the addition of mushrooms to any pizza is always a bonus in my opinion!) and then grated Cheezly mozzarella. It's so easy to prepare once the base is done and can be a fun activity with children- you could split the dough into smaller pizzas and have each person design their own (good for picky eaters!). This was baked at around 180 degrees (celcius) for 10-15 mins (until it all goes lovely and brown!).

As you can see from the picture below my pizzas are a bit rough and ready and rectangle as we only have rectangle baking trays but I kind of like my pizzas a bit rough around the edges!

Another pizza we regularly make is: tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms and olives (and "cheese"!) which is super delicious and there is always an absolute mountain of veg on top of the pizza which makes me feel a little less guilty in having pizza!

Artichokes are also a much loved pizza topping of mine. What is your favourite pizza topping? Inspire me!

Spicy Parsnip and Butterbean Soup

With my due date in less than a week and soooo much to do beforehand I haven't had much time to do any non-boring cooking. We have had a lot of basic meals like stir-frys, pasta dishes and jacket potatoes which are definitely not worthy of a blog post. I have also been making big batches of soup to freeze in portions for my lunches so I get lots of veg in me and also so I will have some easy lunches for once the baby is born. They haven't been very exciting as if it is for me I tend to use little oil and salt and also don't tend to make them "creamy". If I was making them for other people they would be a bit more extravagant.

I made a delicious leek and potato soup from a recipe by the fiance of the guy that did Supersize Me which you can find here. There is a suggestion in the comment section to add non-dairy milk to make it really creamy which I might try when I make it for guests but with the potatoes in this soup it feels quite creamy anyway. I have been enjoying this soup pretty much daily without getting bored.

Anyway onto today's experiment- Spicy Parsnip and Butterbean Soup, perfect for those cold winter days! For this I was using things I already had in my cupboard..including a couple of shortcuts. The amounts are estimated as this was very much a shove in what looks good kind of recipe but here are the basics (this serves about 6)

1. Soak 250g dried butterbeans overnight and then cook them as per packet instructions (mine said boil for 10 minutes and then simmer for 40 minutes)
2. Roast 750g chopped (into sticks as if you were going to eat them roasted) and tossed in a little olive oil for around 30 mins in a hot oven. (I might try more parsnips next time)
3. Make up 1 1/2 litres of stock with any veggie stock cube.
4. Put all of this in your blender along with 2 tbs curry powder, 2-3 chopped chillis (I actually used some chopped jalepenos from a jar because they have been sitting unused in the back of the cupboard for so long) and either 1 tbs of garlic powder (another random cupboard find!) or 3-4 fried minced garlic cloves. Blend until smooth and creamy. 
5. Add more stock or water to make thinner. Add some soya cream for a more decadent soup.

I didn't add any salt or pepper while cooking and think it is fine without but you might want to add some to your own taste.

I was expecting a much paler colour but with the addition of the red chillis it went a wonderful orange!

Dinner for 10!

My lovely boyfriend and I thought it would be great to have a dinner party before the baby arrived with some friends we hadn't seen properly in ages even though they live really nearby. I happily invited them without really thinking of numbers and our small flat with our 6 person table. Counting them up we had 10 people..at this point I was much more worried about seating them than feeding them! But when I reached the supermarket to buy all the ingredients and was trying to work out how many vegetables it would take to feed 10 it all became clear that this would not be a walk in the park. Luckily a few weeks before I had 2 friends and my sister (who I also consider a friend!) round for dinner and had done a 3 course meal that went down really well so I thought I would do the same as I hadn't blogged about the starter and the main before but change the dessert as that time we had bakewell tart which I have written a post about previously.

So the menu was:

Starter: Marinated tofu, red pepper & red onion skewers (and some cheating vegetable spring rolls in case people were not a fan of tofu) with a homemade peanut satay sauce (and also some ready-made plum sauce and sweet chilli sauce). If I had the time and money I would have made everything from scratch but being almost 8 months pregnant (read completely knackered) I decided to give myself a break.

I used recipes I found from about.com for the Satay Sauce and the Tofu Skewers. (I would just like to add that I have just added to my blogging skills by being able to do those links!!)

Tofu Skewers before they went under the grill

I have to say I was quite worried about how tofu would go down with some of the guests (I was the only vegan) and that was the reason I cooked some ready-made vegetable spring rolls as well but everyone LOVED them...seriously loved them! Everything was eaten and even marinade eaten off the serving plates once they were gone. The peanut sauce is also the best peanut sauce I have ever eaten (and I love my peanut sauces)- it may look like a lot of ingredients but I would seriously recommend you try it. Now everytime I make it I have to make extra to give to my sister!

Main: Thai Green Curry. Once again I used a little cheat by buying the Green Curry Paste but I went specially to an oriental supermarket to get something really authentic (minus the fish sauce of course- you need to watch out for this) and got one which just had the ingredients I would have put into it myself- i.e. none of the additives I often see on jars, just fresh ingredients (the one I used is from the Lotus brand) . I didn't particularly follow a recipe for the Thai Curry other than from some guidance on the side of the jar. I used about a jar and a half of the curry paste (each jar being 210g)  and 3 tins of coconut milk. To this I added some Fry's "chicken pieces" (although I prefer it with just the vegetables) and sweet potato chunks. After the sweet potato was getting soft I added carrot pieces, cauliflower pieces and courgette pieces and then nearer the end I also added sliced mushrooms (the reason for the order is how long the vegetables need to cook- in general add the hardest ones first and the softest last). I ended up using 2 pans (one of which was absolutely huge!). I served this with rice.

Sorry this picture isn't particularly appetizing but I forgot to take a
nice picture of it in the bowls so this what was left in the pan!

Everyone liked the Thai Green Curry but I would have liked to have had a bit more of the paste in it- probably adding both jars. I also prefer the curry to have only vegetable in and not fake meat but I think that's just because I am not particularly a fan of the chicken pieces but wanted something to satisfy the meat texture for the others. But Thai Green Curry is very good for a dinner party- I would definitely recommend it- it's not too difficult and you can have it cooking while people eat the starter. I had cut up all my veg in advance so all I had to do was chuck it in and check on it once in a while. There are plenty of ideas of recipes online with lots of different vegetables listed- pretty much everything works with it!

Dessert: Maple Pecan Pie from "Vegan Pie In The Sky". I did use some walnuts instead of all the pecans because the pecans were about twice the price and it was already getting expensive to feed the masses but next time I would definitely like to try it with pecans only as you could tell it would really make this pie amazing! I think this is my favourite dessert I have cooked so far. I hadn't delved into "Vegan Pie in the Sky" yet- I have the other two in the series ("Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" and "Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar") and they have both been used quite a few times but I am now going to make an effort to make more from this book as I was truly impressed. One thing I would mention which the book doesn't is that when you pour in the mixture it seems really liquidy- I was expecting a more viscous mixture and was worried I had done it wrong. I persevered however and the pie came out beautifully. I served this with some soya cream and every scrap of it was eaten.

Not showing it in it's best light but people were desperate for dessert
so I didn't have time to retake.

I also discovered this non-alcoholic drink made from hops and citrus so it tasted like a citrus beer. I have never been a fan of beer and never had what this drink is meant to replicate so I can't comment on how good an imitation it is but I really enjoyed it and might try an alcoholic version in the future!