Stuffed Aubergine

This is a really nice light dinner, good served with some green veg on the side or a nice salad in the summer. And it is quite simple!

Ingredients (for 2 people)

1 aubergine
50g bulgar wheat (or buckwheat or cous cous would do -or even rice)
1 stock cube made up with around 100ml hot water
1 small onion
1 clove garlic (or for a treat smoked garlic is even nicer)
1 chilli
about an inch of chopped ginger
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
a handful of mushrooms, chopped
half a courgette, chopped
1/2 tin of chickpeas
c 1/2 teaspoon cumin
fresh coriander

1. Preheat oven to 190c/gas mark 5
2. soak the bulgar wheat in the hot stock for about 10 mins
3. Cut aubergine in half and scoop out middle and chop up
4. put scooped out halves into a baking dish and set aside
5. chop up onion, chilli, ginger and the rest of your veg (you can use loads of different veg for this) and fry in a pan with the chopped aubergine until soft
6. Add the bulgar wheat, chick peas, coriander and cumin to the mixture in the pan
7. Put the mixture into the aubergine halves, cover with silver foil and bake for around 20 mins. I usually find that there is too much filling so I bake the rest in a dish and either serve on the side or save as a cold salad for another time (nice with lemon juice added).

Serve with a sprinkling of coriander and a spoon of plain soya yogurt on the side.

Happy discoveries

Today I had a very happy discovery whilst waiting at St Pancras Station for my sister (who I met after a day trip for work for a very nice glass of fizz to celebrate her having finished a massive project - well done Katie!)

Anyway the discovery was a good range of vegan food at 'Sourced' - the market place in the station, including yummy cakes by The Happy Kitchen

I'm posting a link to their website, we tried the strawberry & vanila and chocolate cherry cakes - and we'll definately have more next time I'm down that way!

The Happy Kitchen

Yorkshire Pudding!

I strongly associate Yorkshire Pudding with Sunday as a kid, big dinner, the Archers on the Radio, lots of washing up! I've been looking for a way to bring Yorkshire pud's back into my life and after trying a few different recipes these are pretty good. This is 'borrowed' from a recipe by Jade Pleming

As with 'normal' Yorkshire's you need to grease your tins well and cooking times vary depending on whether you're making a number of small ones or one big one. I recently adapted this recipe to make Toad in the Hole (using veggie sausages obviously) it was a good nostalgia based meal!

These don't quite look the same as the ones my Dad makes, but they taste pretty good!

Batter Recipe
8oz self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1/2 pint of plain vegan yogurt
1/2 pint of soya milk (unsweetened preferably)

Pre-heat the oven to 350f/180c/gas mark 4

Whisk all the ingredients together until it's just a little runny, pour into a baking tray and bake in the oven

Bake for around 15-20 mins and bake until nice and brown on top. The ones on this photo were I suspect left in the oven a tad too long so they didn't sink in the middle like the ones I had in childhood.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

The one thing that it's hard to find readily available in the shops or when eating out round here is vegan puddings and cakes (apart from a few exceptions that I will post about another time). So home made cakes are the way forward.

This is adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (see their blog here http://vegancupcakes.wordpress.com/) which is simply brilliant. It's an American recipe so is measured in cups. I have invested in a cup scoop as a lot of the recipe books I use are American. Otherwise websites like this one (http://www.calculateme.com/index.htm) are useful for converting the amounts.



Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

1 cup of soya milk
1 teaspoon of cider vinegar
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of orange extract (or if plain chocolate just put in more vanilla)
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb of soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350f/ 180c/ gas mark 4 and line a muffin tin with bun cases

2. Whisk together the soya milk and the vinegar and leave to curdle

3. Add the sugar, oil and extract to the soya milk and beat until foamy

4. In a seperate bowl sift together the flour, bicarb, baking powder, cocao and salt. Add this to the wet mixture in two batches and beat until smooth.

5. Pour into the bun cases (about 3/4 full) and bake for 18-20 mins.

For Chocolate Orange Topping

Melt vegan dark chocolate (I used to use Green & Black's but they've started using milk in their ingredients! so check the ingredients list)

Add a few drops of orange extract.

Carefully drizzle over cooled cakes and leave to set.