For the cheese I used the not yet available melty red leicester Sheese, but I’d wager anything similar would work so long as it’s a strong cheese (I wouldn’t use Daiya, for instance). Cheezly should work fine.

One of the most noteable things about the British psyche is its obsession with the weather. It’s not an idle chit-chat conversation point, either, but a topic of great interest. Being American, it took time to grow accustomed to weather talk being a highlight of an exchange as opposed to a sign that conversation has hit a dead end. It’s not just about conversation, however, as the weather here extends beyond that into an almost comical battle-for-control relationship with outdoor life.

My theory is that Brits conceive of weather as a force manipulated by their wardrobe choices rather than a system to dictate appropriate dress. Allow me to explain.

Come that first moderately warm day of late winter/early spring (and by “warm” I mean the sun is out and it’s not raining) winter coats are shed and replaced with light rainproof outerwear. This is regardless of temperature. The sky could be throwing it down the rest of the month, complete with chilly winds and general misery, but damnit it’s spring so you will dress in prescribed seasonal clothing!

Once summer is here the phenomenon grows to often absurd levels. So what if it’s only 12 degrees (just under 54 F) in July? It’s July and therefore I must wear almost nothing. See, my thought would be to wear the skimpy sundress if it’s warm outside; here you wear the skimpy sundress to make it warm outside.

Furthermore, I often see people wearing swimsuits out and about in my town. I live 30 miles from the sea and very few Brits have pools (very few). I’m curious if they’ve had any luck bringing the beach that much further inland as a result of personal attire.

My favourite is late fall, when it’s drab, the days are getting darker, and it’s genuinely time to pack away the summer shorts. But what’s the point when you still have a perfectly serviceable midriff-trim fringed cami to call forth summer’s sweltering rays (people practically die when it hits 70 F here)?

Anyhow, it’s been a bit of a hit and miss summer here in the Southeast, not unsurprising given recent years, but in the true spirit of being British (did I mention I’m a citizen now?) I’m going to behave as if it’s summer. You know what they say: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

So I’m going to keep avoiding work, spend as many days out as much as possible before Autumn creeps in, and eat as many summer salads as I can before my imagination can no longer cope with the defense mechanism that keeps me from the truth: it’s cold and England will never be a tropical country.

Without further ado, a salad recipe (if you can’t be fussed to marinate tofu then buy a good, firm, flavoured tofu to use instead).

The idea for this came after making a glut of garlic oil for my first Food Network Friday post and discovering its awesomeness. I wanted a slightly more simple and fast way to achieve a similar result, so rather than cooking the cloves whole I smashed a couple and popped them in the warm oil for ten minutes. Close enough, right? Also this might be the first time I’ve used oil and not ruined whatever it is I’m wearing that day (seriously, I don’t have a single pair of pyjamas that aren’t grease stained).

I first made this recipe with pumpkin and potato and am confident you could mix in all sorts of different veg (think root veg mainly). The measurements don’t need to be precise, but rather within reason and according to your personal taste. It’s relatively fool-proof.

As far as what to serve the mash with, grab a few large field mushrooms and brush all over with a mixture of juice from 1/2 lemon, a tablespoon or two of olive oil, some salt, a clove of minced garlic, and some fresh thyme (pound it together with a pestle and mortar if you’ve got one). Pour any remaining juice into the open cups and bake at 175 C (350 F) for 15-20 minutes. Throw some minted peas on the plate and you’ve got a meal.

The one thing I missed, however, was the seasonal atmosphere provided by people of all ages who, for just once a year, aren’t ashamed to be publicly excited like a child over simple things like a special food or a piece of greenery in the lounge. Then a few years ago I discovered pretty much the most amazing thing in the world, my Christmas: Eurovision. And yes, just like so many people are with the holidays, I will pressure you and badger you into participating. I will attempt to make you feel guilty for not loving me enough to celebrate. I might start demanding presents.

Go on, laugh. I sure as hell do. For weeks. I piss myself in tears of laughter watching videos, listening to the entries, wondering who will win, laughing some more. I live for the televised events, where I can watch scantily clad pop acts who don’t sing so well change costumes half a dozen times while unicycles or ice skaters dance around them on stage. Then at the required key change I can see fire and more acrobatics and another costume change, all while every single person on stage is still taking themselves seriously.

Babaghanouj, Ajvar, Hummus, Olives, Pomegranate Carrot Spread, Liptaur Cheese Spread

So that’s my Christmas. It’s my absolute favourite day of the year. I prioritise it above every other day, including my birthday and anniversary. I started inviting friends around for the event in recent years, so it’s become everything I want a holiday to be: eating, dancing around to ridiculousness on telly, and smearing makeup from 1994 (thanks to Sal we got all current makeup this year) all over the wrong places on my face so I look like a 3 year old who got into her mum’s handbag.

This year’s spread was a mezze style theme, loosely based on dishes from participating countries. Served with a heaping stack of bread, Ajvar from Seitan is My Motor made the final cut this year alongside the usual suspects: hummus, banaghanouj, olives… I also threw together a tangy pomegranate and carrot spread with roasted red peppers, but one of my favourites of the night was a half-arsedly made cheese dip based on a central European dish called Liptauer.

Liptaeur is part of the cuisine of several countries in central Europe, all of which participate in Eurovision. One was sure to make it through to the finals, so I knew I’d be safe with this recipe. It’s a very creamy spread, great served alongside some toasted rye bread slices or crackers. Striking pungent caraway seed is taken up a notch with a quick toasting (this isn’t an absolutely necessary step, but it does affect the flavour), and plenty of paprika adds colour and a very subtle hint of paprika-y sweetness. You can adjust some of the ingredients to suit your own tastes: try a hotter paprika or a smoked version for an added kick, add some capers for extra saltiness, up the onion content for a stronger taste. You get the idea.

When I was five my parents moved the family from a cookie cutter 3 bed/2.5 bath home to a custom built house on land gifted to my father by my grandparents. The land was mainly forest, with a few acres dedicated to growing fruit and vegetables.

My parents and grandpa continued to use the small farm area for several years, but slowly the crops disappeared and the land was left with nothing but remnants of old growth. Today the grapevines still line the back of the field, along with a blueberry bush or two, and that’s about it.

One of the last veggies to go was the asparagus, which grew in a small seemingly random patch of land in the centre (next to the water trough I spent many a summer afternoon swimming in as a child- until the frogs came in and took it as their tadpole spawning ground). I had a love-hate relationship with the asparagus; one year I’d love it and the next I thought it was the grossest thing to ever come from the earth.

I’ve since moved to Britain and have grown up to love asparagus. Its season here is super short, so I think that helps me to appreciate it even more. This is a really simple asparagus recipe, which is how I think asparagus should be enjoyed. Traditionally cream is used but as this is a vegan cream of asparagus soup recipe the milk is omitted and cashews are used instead.

I begin every post here in my head with the same basic sentiment: this is one of my favourite something-or-other. Alas, the dairy version of this mock halloumi was a dish I did love pre-vegan; thin slices of briny halloumi fried and doused with lemon juice and freshly grated black pepper.

It was only after I started making my own tofu that I realised I had enough control over texture and density that I could probably turn out a vaguely similar vegan version. I heavily salt the bean curds that get pressed into the final tofu product, but have no fear if you’re not ridiculous enough to have a 50kg box of soy-milk-to-tofu-ready soy beans under your sofa. So long as you really make sure to go crazy with the salt, your fried tofu vegan halloumi snackytime will go unscathed.

Tofu + Halloumi = Tofoumi

The Cypriot cheese has a very high melting point, meaning its consumers have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to cooking method. Halloumi can easily stand up to a frying pan or grill, so for this particular preparation it makes sense to use equally sturdy firm bean curd. If you get the cooking method right, with the right product, you can even expect a bit of the ol’ halloumi sqeak. Just be sure to be liberal with the salt, because that’s a major feature in the cheese counterpart.

I’m not going to try to kid anyone into thinking this is just like halloumi, but I think it’s a happy marriage between veganism and something close enough to make me happy.

Recipe Notes

• Try warming the dish first (under a grill, in a low temperature oven, that sort of thing). Tofoumi can be eaten at any temperature, but I think it’s best hot.
• If you make your own tofu, you can improve this dish by sprinkling some generous pinches of salt between layers of curd before pressing. If you do this, omit the step in the instructions to rub the tofu with salt.
• The other trick is really robust tofu, and that means as little liquid as possible. Press, press, press!

This damned weather, combined with the fact that I’m currently experiencing that special bottomless-pit-of-a-stomach feeling understood only by women (once a month) and teenage boys (always), calls for lots of fast snacks to keep me going throughout the day. As I write this, I’m finishing a bowl of ice cream. I’m not close to full.

Inspired by sweet and sour Khmer and Vietnamese soups, this dead easy vegan noodle soup fills a hole and takes less than ten minutes to throw together. Great with rice or mung bean noodles, make it into a full meal by adding some veggies and tofu into the broth while it’s cooking.

Think of it as a mild mushroom based satay, this creamy Southeast Asian inspired dip isn’t one to pass by. Inspired by a lunch I had in Siem Reap a few weeks ago, this is a bowlful of creamy, fatty (hey, coconut, it’s your BFF: me) yum that’s best enjoyed with a simple warmed baguette. Quick, easy, and lunchtastic.

Recipe Notes

If you don’t have fresh grated coconut, don’t fret as it’s not a necessity. Likewise, no dark soy sauce? Add light in its place, just maybe a tad less (dark soy sauce is less salty than regular soy sauce).

Coconut milk can be used in a pinch, but it won’t be quite so creamy. I’ve used both milk and cream, however, and both end with passable, palatable results.

Call them what you will; cannelloni, roll ups, rollatini, these aubergine (that’s eggplant in American speak) rolls are stuffed with my own unique take on hummus. I mean, really, I see hummus made with all sorts of ingredients these days. Why not whip up a batch of something with a bit of Thai influence?

I’ll admit it sounds moderately wacky, but there’s something about it that works. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m a food hoover. Whatever, I liked it, and I think everyone should play around with their hummus a little bit more.

Recipe Notes

There’s something about grill fried vegetables, those streaky black lines, the hours you’ll spend trying to whip that cast iron skillet into subservience to get to the point of effective grilling. If you’re having a hard time with the outside eggplant slices, just cut the thin layer of skin off and it’ll cook the same as the other pieces.

If you make the whole recipe, they’re great little party snacks!

Despite its strong association with South-east Asia, lemongrass is a citrusy herb native to India but grown in tropical areas from Africa to Asia. In Thailand its uses are profound; without lemongrass much Thai food just wouldn’t be Thai. Curry pastes couldn’t be made without it, it provides the zesty base to soups, and it’s… it’s just, well, you can’t imagine cuisine from the region without it.

Basically it just tastes flippin’ amazing, and that’s all you need to know.

Recipe Notes

How you bake this is really up to you. Make your own simple vol au vent cases by lining the outer edge of a pastry square with more pastry, buy the cases pre-made, or just bake the squares with some of the filling in the centre. Whatever you do it’s going to be based on aesthetics alone because the taste won’t be affected.

This is a small recipe, so if you’re having guests then double it. Quadruple it. Make it into a main by making larger portions. Invite me over.

I’ve just returned from a 3.5 week holiday in Thailand, with a few days in Cambodia, so be prepared for an increase in Southeast Asian inspired meals! This delicious pomelo salad, a Thai favourite of mine, often contains fish sauce. Here it’s sea life free and equally delicious, reminiscent of a vegetarian yum som o dish I consumed (read: hoovered down my throat) in Bangkok.

Recipe Notes

There are multiple varieties of Pomelo, and from what I can see the pinker fruit variety is often more commonly found in the United States. While I’ve never had this variety, I’d say it’s a safe bet to use it in this recipe. The type used here is the fruit most commonly found in Southeast Asia, with a green skin and whiter coloured fruit.

For tips on how to peel a pomelo, spend a few minutes with our old pal Google (alternatively, here’s a good tutorial on how to get into a pomelo).

In my dairy days I would fry a soft cheese such a brie or camembert in a similar manner, and it was a real treat. This isn’t a firm replacement for the latter concept, but it’s still tasty and it looks fancy (so it’s a good dish to impress).

Recipe Notes

An easy starter, yes, but one which takes some planning ahead. You’ll need to start with a batch of vegan labneh, so it’s best to plan for this salad with a day or so worth of notice. You can make the dressing in advance, too. Add some pizazz by throwing in some thyme or other herbs if you’d like, to the dressing I mean, but for this I personally prefer an extremely basic, tangy vinaigrette. Raspberries and vinegar, with sugar to adjust the tartness.

Don’t skimp on the mint and basil chiffonade, either. And if you can’t pronounce that word, let alone be arsed to do it, just chop stuff up small and you’ll be good to go.

Labneh, or strained yoghurt cheese, is a traditional Middle Eastern condiment used to prepare a number of both sweet and savoury foods. Also eaten on its own or with bread, this easy to make cheese is achieved by leaving full fat yogurt to hang in a muslin or cheesecloth sack for several hours or overnight. In my pre-vegan days, this was a favourite addition to one of my favourite meals: a gigantic mezze spread.

Ah, but how to achieve labneh without dairy?

I knew I could do this, somehow, even if not an exact replication, but how?

Miyoko Schinner’s Vegan Yoghurt

I didn’t want to simply strain soy yogurt for two major reasons: plain soy yogurt is too sweet (and is much more akin to flavourless American style “Greek” yogurts, in my opinion, than the real thing), and it’s usually far too thin.

It was this video, a cooking tutorial by Miyoko Schinner, that inspired my own endeavour. The addition of cashews thickens the yoghurt and the minimal use of store sweetened soygurts allows the bacterial to multiply and coagulate to milk sans all the other crap. It’s a fuller soy yoghurt that can be strained easily.

Recipe notes and applications

Please note that all of my suggestions and yield sizes are based on the use of homemade soy milk. That’s not to say you can’t make it with store bought milk, but if you try it I suggest buying the one with the most basic of ingredient lists. No sweeteners or artificial flavourings, por favor.

In the process of straining, you can add salt if you’d like. I usually add it after, but that’s usually out of forgetfulness rather than by preference of method. A splash of lemon juice added post-production will also add an extra tang that’s a bit more reminiscent of the original dish this is trying to mimic.

As far as other flavours go, be creative! You can add all sorts of goodies, even mixes of other non dairy cheeses, to create delicious spreads and cheeseballs. One of my favourite ways to eat this, as directed below, is with some garlic and lemon, topped with quality extra virgin olive oil and za’atar.

Stay tuned for more recipes in which to use this strained yoghurt!

For years I’ve read about this seasonal goodie, the edible flower of the summer squash which we know as courgette (or zucchini, depending on where you’re from). It’s a vegetable which takes over supermarket shelves in late summer, but sadly the blossoms rarely come attached to their counterpart. For the first time in, well, ever, I found some at a farm shop last weekend. My initial reaction was to greedily purchase the entire basket, but I settled with a mere half dozen.

I should have gone with the whole basket.

Recipe notes

What to do? Make stuffed courgette flowers? Yes. Deep fried in beer batter? Most definitely.

For the beer batter I used a moderately light lager, Becks if I remember correctly. I’d stick with light, even so much as something like Corona. If you don’t consume alcohol, try soda water instead.

And yes, I realise Daiya cheese isn’t available here in the UK. I hoard it like my mother hoards cereal on sale (sorry mom, it was the best analogy I could think of), using it sparingly for a treat (I go to the US a couple of times a year). Try any melty vegan cheese here, a cheddar or mozzarella style preferably, and it’ll be good.

When it comes to snacks and dinner party appetisers, sometimes the simplest things are best; this gourmet vegan cheese ball (hey, it looks gourmet, even if it’s easy) is no exception. I feel like I’ve said that about something else recently. I get paranoid about repeating myself too much. Four gold stars to the person who can find where I’ve already said that. Metaphorical stars. Invisible ones. Use your imagination, okay?

You remember those containers of plastic cheese (yes, the adjective “plastic” refers to the cheese as well as its receptacle) your mother would pick up from Sam’s Club or Costco, or whatever your local cash and carry megagluttony store might have been? Specifically, do you remember the port wine ones? Yeah, that stuff was pretty much one of the best tasting things ever. I mean, I don’t even know how I didn’t have a heart attack at age 11 based on how much of that I consumed.

Recipe Notes

Okay, so point being this non-dairy cheese ball is reminiscent of the port wine spread. I used sherry here, but feel free to use a port wine too for a stronger flavour (but don’t expect that red and orange streaked nonsense without astronomical rations of dye).

This makes a great vegan cheese pasta sauce too! Just mix it with a bit of margarine and/or pseudo cream cheese to bulk it up and add an extra creamy texture (if that’s your thing). Perfect with a side of garlic bread, but then again what isn’t?

Okay, so it’s just potato salad for eff’s sake. Does the world need yet another potato salad recipe, dairy free or not?

This is where I come up with a tremendously prodigious response along the lines of “OMFG one potato salad to rule them all, with stars, hearts, lots of exclamation points and stuff! YEAH!”

No.

It’s just potato salad, but it’s really good, and vegan yoghurt makes a way better sour cream substitue than any commercially available substitute I’ve tried. Give it a try. In fact, I need to make some more since the dude out there ate it all.

Recipe Notes

Branston pickle, for those who’ve never heard of it, is a sweet and tangy pickled relish containing a whole melody of uniformly diced veggies (which you can’t pick out individually). A brand suffering from low-key genericide, Branston Pickle is often used to refer to any sort of sweet brown pickle relish, and any such variety will do for the purpose of this recipe. If you don’t have any approximation then don’t stress because it’ll still taste good; you could even try dicing up some jarred pickles instead.

This vegan potato salad recipe makes a fair amount of dressing (hey, I like creamy stuff), so consider cutting back on some of the yoghurt if that’s going to be an issue for your digestive bits. That’s also why I gave a range in the quantity of potatoes to use, if you must know.

Nothing beats the nutty, creamy taste of a ripe avocado, and this oven baked avocado recipe really shows off the characteristics of the decadent fruit. The avocado is baked lightly and served warm with a tangy tomato sauce and sweet cashew coulis, the entire stack resting on a bed of lightly fried vegetables.

This baked avocado recipe was inspired by one served at London’s 222 Veggie Vegan restaurant. Similar but not quite the same, I promise this avocado recipe won’t disappoint.

If you’re a bit weary of baking avocado, just go ahead and give it a try. It sounds odd, but the only difference is the fruit is a) warmer and b) creamier. The former adjective, I realise, would appear to be a given seeing as this is a baked avocado recipe, but sometimes common sense comes at a premium. I may be talking about myself.

Layering the avostack

Avostack. What an excellent word.

Look, you’re not going to screw up how it tastes so long as you have the four basic components: the tomato sauce, the baked avocado slices, the fried vegetables, and the cream sauce. Still, think of it in terms of two basic chunks of layering. First the fried julienned vegetables go down with a bit of yoghurt sauce and basil.

After that you simply want to layer the avocado slices with tomato sauce and top with a bit of both sauces and the remaining basil. Really, I promise, this baked avocado recipe looks a whole lot fancier than it actually is to put together.

As a vegetarian I used to make a similar dish using a soft brie or camembert and, as with most things, I refuse to let my change in diet limit my food opportunities. This is one of my alternative solutions to the dairy version, a healthier and happier vegan non-dairy cheese. And it involves deep frying, which means it must be good. Okay, so mostly healthy (frying really isn’t that bad for you so long as you use decent oil and don’t overheat it. I tell myself this).

Recipe Notes

My recommendation is to serve this simply on a bed of rocket (arugula) leaves with a dollop of blackcurrant or lingonberry (yes, I’ve been to Ikea recently) jam. Cranberry works too. Pretty much any leafy greens will complement this vegan side and it makes a lovely light lunch on a spring afternoon.

If you want a more tart flavour in this vegan cream cheese recipe, try adding some vegan yoghurt or lemon juice and upping the nut content to compensate for the additional moisture.

Sesame and miso get along famously, complementing each other in a way that makes a perfect base for soups, stir fry sauces, and salad dressings. This basic miso salad dressing recipe uses tahini for thickness and creaminess, but a nice sesame oil is just as delicious. The best part? It’s probably the easiest salad dressing you’ll ever have to make.

And this stuff really does go well with the ol’ stir fry. Today’s lunch involved broccoli and red onion stir fried in groundnut oil with some garlic, a splash of soy and chili sauces, a few tablespoons of coconut milk, and a splodge of this dressing. But miso enthusiasts, beware: the high heat will kill off all the healthful bacteria in that soy paste.

Basic, filling, awesome and, well, awesome, everyone needs a basic recipe for miso soup. This vegan version swaps the traditional bonito dashi for a shiitake broth alternative, with the added bonus of soft tofu clumps stirred in (think extra soft eggy flavoured spaetzel in soup). If you’d rather, omit the tofu cream and simply add a few cubes of bean curd. Feel free to throw some big, thick udon noodles in there too!

For years I had no idea what a pot sticker dumpling was, assuming it was some sort of hip kids’ terminology for the reefer. Hell, it wasn’t until I found myself in Beijing one autumn day that I was made aware of the existence of a non British style dumpling or gyoza. In fact, I’d go as far as saying those few days in China’s capital city were the basis of what blossomed into a love affair with my disaster area laboratory kitchen.

This vegan potsticker filling is both simple and delicious, meat free and an ideal party food. The ingredients can be easily juggled to suit your own tastes (don’t like broccoli? Try celery and carrot).

It’s oyster, not meat!

Anyone who knows me can attest to my obsession with Southeast Asia, my own personal respite from the never-warm-enough climate of Greatish Britain. I’ve yet to visit the country as a practising vegan, but even the vegetarian diet seemed tricky during my travels. Very little dairy is used, so it wasn’t so much the typical “is there rennet in the cheese” issue as it was the argument that fish is not, in fact, vegetarian (which reminds me, there’s a word for that: pescetarian. Yes, that’s right. Vegetarians don’t eat fish).

I could only take so many arguments regarding the “fact” that oysters don’t count as meat, so I’d settle for simple pasta to avoid conflict and chance. My most recent visit, however, introduced me to some vegetarian-friendly establishments I’d yet to try previously. Thus began my love affair with the region’s cuisine, my constant attempt to get it right in my own kitchen. And honestly, making vegan Thai food isn’t difficult at all.

A sexist meal?

You wouldn’t be the first to question the title of this Thai dish, pondering the whereabouts of its female counterpart. “Down with this patriarchal snack,” you might say, but the seemingly most frequently told story speaks quite loudly for feminism (albeit slightly on the passive aggressive side if you ask me, which you probably didn’t). It goes something like this: A mother is disgusted with her son in law’s arsey behaviour and serves him these eggs as a metaphorical representation of what’s going to happen to his man vegetables if he doesn’t snap to it.

And with that, here’s the recipe.

I’m a sucker for salads. It’s a genetic flaw, or I think my husband would see it as a flaw anyway (“there’s a piece of green stuff on my plate”), one which has been passed down from mother to daughter. My cravings come in waves, where one month I’m satiated by heavy stews and steaming piles of potatoes and the next all I crave are light bites and simple salads. Clearly the latter is suggestive of the basis of my current diet.

Last weekend I went to a vegan cheese and wine party in Brighton, hosted by the author behind Vegan in Brighton and this vegan cheese dip was one of my contributions. Slated by my mind as a fairly plain dish, the aforementioned blogger requested the recipe to pass on to her wedding caterers. Flattered beyond all means of course, I can’t take all the credit as the end result wouldn’t be what it is without the lovely folk at Bute Island Foods (i.e. the makers of the vegan blue cheese in the recipe).

Recipe Notes

In the recipe I call for the use of vegan cream cheese. I used Tofutti brand cream cheese but have heard from others that it’s not as easy to find where they are in the UK (I know it’s easily available in the US). First check your local Holland and Barratt but if that fails you can sub another cream cheese. One brand I’d not recommend, however, is the Pure brand cream cheese because it tastes like nasty things. Bute Island also makes a vegan cream cheese.

Oh, and I swear the company’s reformed their blue sheese recipe. If you tried it a couple of years ago and weren’t so impressed I’d recommend giving it another go. It really does mimic a mild blue cheese flavour.

A lot of people don’t understand how it’s the case that eggs were and are still my greatest craving during the process of giving up all animal products. Cheese? No, not really (and believe you me I was the biggest cheese fan on this dear planet). The flavour and texture I miss are bog standard hard boiled eggs, the main ingredient in the favourite finger food that is the deviled egg.

At family gatherings I would, as a child, scarf the deviled eggs like they were my only sustenance in weeks. It’s a party snack I’ve always loved, but in adulthood my increasingly underachieving social life has prevented me from an encounter. Only last week did I suddenly recall this food memory, and behold the result.

Recipe Notes

I used a batch of fresh, firm nigari tofu which I made myself, but firm-ish bean curd should do. As far as quantities are concerned, the ingredients and amounts listed below are to be viewed as more of a suggestion. Maybe you don’t have that much tofu or you want smaller pieces, or perhaps you just want to eat a chunk of curd with a squirt of the deviled filling.

Make a huge tray for vegan party food!

On the day I first made this, my husband arrived home for lunch to my question: would he eat a sandwich if I made it? I informed him it would be good but that I didn’t want to say what it was until he took a bite. I wanted to know if he’d be able to guess what I was mimicking without me having to say.

And upon that bite he was as impressed as I, asking “where’s my other sandwich?”

Picnic fodder, baby!

Recipe Notes

Welcome to the world of not too many ingredients. For that reason, I take the opinion that there’s not so much room to take away with this vegan egg mayo. The turmeric adds colour, the black salt an eggy flavour, the mustard a bit of a tang (okay if you must you could probably live without this ingredient). The tofu subs for the egg and the vegan mayo plays its usual role. By the way, I use Plamil vegan mayonnaise. It’s the best, at least here in the UK.

By all means, add things, just like I added chopped up dill pickle (about a tablespoon).

This tofu egg salad recipe makes only enough for a single sandwich, so get out your maths brain to calculate just how much you’ll need.

I was just finishing a batch of this as P, the husband, came in the door for lunch. “It’s good,” I said, “but it’s not going to interest you because it’s salad dressing.”

“I like salad dressing. I just don’t like the salad,” was his reply.

Before you go judging him for being saladist, you must understand the English concept of salad has come leaps and bounds in the past 8-10 years. This is not as complimentary a statement as it seems. Instead of quizzical looks from restaurant staff and the concept of salad as a piece of lettuce with a slice of tomato and cucumber, a decorative side to your main meal, you might now get 3 pieces of lettuce and perhaps even some oil and vinegar. If you’re lucky, an onion and a slice of pepper or two might be thrown in.

This is not as salad-friendly a country as the United States.

Recipe Notes

This is reminiscent of a thick creamy Italian dressing, the sort made with hard fat cheese (think Olive Garden), only there’s no cheese and it’s completely cruelty free.

It can be consumed straight away, but like with many dressings and sauces the flavour develops if left for a little while before use. It’s tasty on pasta dishes, too!

I used okara in this because I like the added grainy texture, but that’s not an obligatory ingredient. In fact it’s a perfectly good dressing without any of the cheesy components either, but it does add a nice bonus if you can include them. If you don’t use okara, you can leave the tablespoon of water out if you’d like. Nobody will suffer either way, I promise.

Finally, I apologise for my vagueness in how much this recipe makes. What I got out of it was around 110ml, but I also lost a whole lot to the counter, floor, and my body due to unexpected flinging issues. Thus I suspect it’s possible to produce more if you can manage to keep it all in one place.

Like most other veggie lovers in this dear world, I am capable of consuming hummus at a rate to surpass even your granny’s incessant tirades about kids today.

Okay, I know, I know. As if the four billion alternative preparations out there aren’t enough, this is just what the world needs: another hummus recipe. Variation upon variation of this chickpea paste exists, but this one contains delicious caramelised onion as an added ingredient. Make this by the truckload and share it with everyone you know; even the aforementioned grandma will be impressed.

Recipe Notes

The reason onions caramelise is because they contain some sugar. Perhaps this is a common sense fact, but for most people sugar isn’t what comes to mind when they think of an onion. Try to use onion with a fairly high sugar content, like sweet onions or vidalia, but the standard yellow variety works too. If you’re using a really strong onion, feel free to add a bit of sugar a few minutes into the cooking process in order to aid in caramelisation.

I always use dried chickpeas and soak them overnight, but that’s not to say you can’t cheat and use a can of ‘em. But if you’ve never followed the soaking method I suggest you try it because, in my opinion anyway, it produces a superior taste. It really doesn’t take much extra time (especially if you have a pressure cooker), and it’s also a lot cheaper than buying tins! If you’re using chickpeas from a can then you may not need to add any extra salt to the recipe (depending on whether the beans are in brine), so just be mindful of what’s in the tin.

Inspired by a cute little Japanese snackhouse in Brighton called Pompoko, the idea for these easy veggie treats are completely down to a menu suggestion by Vegan in Brighton.

Maki doesn’t refer to a dish’s content but rather to the method of rolling, hence yubamaki is a yuba roll. Wait, but what’s a yuba!? While you may believe it sounds disctinctly like a Star Wars character, be relieved to know it’s nothing more than soya milk skin. Similar to the skin you find on top of boiled milk, yuba is the soya equivalent; it’s delicately removed from the top of hot soya milk and enjoyed in a variety of different dishes.

So yuba maki. Think spring rolls, only made with soy milk skin.

Recipe Notes

As an experiment, I used two different types of bean curd skin: fresh and dried. Both were delicious, but my suggestion is not to use the frozen variety unless you plan on serving these straight away. Both varieties are best if served immediately after coming out of the the oil, but those using the fresh skin re-heat better in the oven later (they tend remain very crisp without burning). Just for reference, the image at the beginning of the post uses the fresh and the image below uses the frozen variety.

This is less of a recipe than a suggestion. Only you know your favourite vegetables, so go crazy with your favourites. My choice was simple, and I recommend retaining that simplicity, with spring onions, carrots, and ginger as the base flavour. I also added some miso paste for more depth.

I went crazy at Wing Yip a few weeks ago, and completely forgot until now that I’d picked up a packet of abura age, a Japanese method of deep frying tofu to create puffy pouches of yumminess. In my recent vegan attempts, I’ve also gone a bit crazy purchasing mock cheese products, and as a result have quite possibly paid the wages of the entire Cheezly company in the weeks since.

Recipe Notes

Age is not particularly difficult to make, and I have done so in the past (it’s been years), but it’s very cheap and easy to obtain at an Oriental-Asian supermarket. Look for it in rectangular form for this recipe. If you want to make your own, then search the Googlenets and you’ll find plenty of advice on the subject.

The sauce combination is one I’ve played around with as a base for curry sauces. The combination of garlic, chili, coriander, turmeric, salt, sugar, and tomato has a lovely summer vibe and a refreshing flavour which isn’t too far beyond that of your standard quality tomato-based sauce. My choice for using it over another sauce in this recipe is because I wanted it to be the prominent flavour, with the cheese as an undertone. You can then guess I didn’t add a great deal of the latter, but that was my choice; feel free to stuff these suckers full to bursting point with your own favourite sauce and vegan cheese!

I’ve tried this with a selection of different Cheezly cheeses, with my preference being the Greek Style chunks sliced up.

The portion I made is tiny, a snack sized portion, but could easily be expanded to make an excellent addition to any hors d’oeuvre platter. These would also make awesome vegan picnic treats!

Oh, and what you see in the picture alongside are mild wasabi cashews.

Without a doubt I am a summer-loving individual. I loathe the achy cold and bloom into a somewhat pleasant human being when the sun’s shining and, most important, the season’s offerings come to fruit. Jersey Royals, spinach, broad beans, the beginnings of tomatoes, asparagus, and more. Food-wise this is my favourite time of year to be alive, and feeling alive is just what I need after a long and dark English winter.

As a child my parents grew asparagus and like my own personal marmite advertising campaign, I recall going through very defined and specific periods of loving and hating it. I think my body has always craved greens but perhaps my mind was not in tune enough to accept that fact! I can say without a doubt that now, like marmite, I have come around to love this green shoot.

Recipe Notes

These are great hot, but equally good cold, and can be served either on their own or with a nice grain. The first time I made them I prepared a version of Susan’s Spring Green Quinoa (without as many veg and with a wine base) and it was a great combination. I have no doubt these these babies would make for some awesome picnic fodder.

The sushi ginger is optional, really, but it’s well worth adding a few slivers as it really complements the sesame and vinegar combination. No agave nectar? Just add a pinch of fine sugar instead.

In my Riverford box last week came a treat of which I had not yet heard, let alone tried: wild garlic leaves. Unsure of how to use this potently tasteful leaf, I took to the interwebs. Should I use it to add delicate flavour to a risotto, to steam-wrap a veggie protein, to garnish a salad? How about pesto! Alas, it seems that was not a unique idea as many a foodie presented a recipe.

“But they aren’t vegan and I can do something different,” said I. Thus I gave myself the task of creating a tasty vegan version.

Recipe Notes

Pesto generally contains a hard fat cheese like parmesan or pecorino (which are not vegetarian- you need to find a specially made hard fat veggie cheese like Twineham Grange). As this is a vegan recipe, I used a mixture of nuts as replacement. If you don’t have the exact mixture I chose, feel free to experiment with what’s in your store cupboard!

I generally start the process by chopping the leaves up finely first and slowly adding more to the mortar as the leaves are pounded down. This is because my pestle and mortar is quite small and if I do it any other way then bit spill over the side, furthering my already terrible reputation as a messy cook. If you have a great big pestle and mortar then this won’t be a big issue, or if you don’t want to bother with it then a food processor works too. I personally like to take my anger out on things with this particular kitchen instrument, but that’s just me.

Oh, and don’t fear if you’re using almonds which still have skins. The easiest way to de-skin almonds is to simply place them in boiling water for a few minutes. After you drain them you’ll see the almonds pop easily out of their skin. Be careful not to shoot them across the kitchen, however, a warning I must impart based on personal experience.

Kohl rabi is a member of the brassica family, a group which includes broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and more. Roughly translated from german as “cabbage turnip,” this is a pretty accurate description for this sputnik shaped vegetable. I only discovered it a year or two ago when it was included in a veg box I ordered, and I’ve really grown to enjoy it. Some vegetables are just so much better raw!

Recipe Notes

I go back and forth between using cider vinegar and white wine vinegar in this salad recipe. I think cider vinegar provides a slightly stronger taste, but both are good. Rice vinegar is also an option.

If you’re not keen on the peanuts, try mixing some peanut butter in with the dressing instead. A similar flavour but with a different texture, this is equally good. I know a lot of peanut butter fans who aren’t keen on peanuts (I used to be one of them).

Be careful with the garlic if you’re planning to serve this immediately; I’m as big a fan as the next guy but fresh garlic can be a bit much for some people. This is less a worry if you use a pestle and mortar to grind everything together because you won’t have any lumps of hot garlic to sneak out and bite your mouthly innards.

As with many of my recipes, the ingredient proportions are more of a suggestion. You should taste as you go to decide what you do and don’t like and what flavours you want to stand out or blend in (soy sauce vs vinegar vs sesame oil, ginger vs garlic, etc…). Add more carrot, add celery, add whatever you think works (then report back and let me know how it went)!

I have no excuse for how long it’s been since I’ve posted a new recipe. I have no excuse for how long it’s been since I’ve developed many new goodies. Okay, I have a little excuse and that’s to do with a combination of the election and Christmas. As some of you know, despite living in the UK, I am an American ex-pat and the election is/was important to me on a number of levels. Primarily I wanted to see my guy win for all sorts of reasons, but I also deal with a lot of election-related merchandise and my energy just had to be focused on that all month. The story with Christmas is similar; as with anything in retail December is a very important month so I needed to be prepared. Unfortunately this site has been neglected as a result of those factors.

I can assure you I will have plenty of other excuses later on, like how miserable and depressing it is that the sun starts going down at 3:30pm and how terrible the light is for photography once the natural light has dipped away. And that I haven’t seen a proper summer in Britain for nearly three years. On the plus side I am hoping to buy a better camera soon! The bottom line is I need some inspiration right now and good tools always help (and would have been handy shooting the roasted tomatoes – my current camera sucks fruitcake).

On to the hummus

Back to business, I have to say I have always claimed to hate tomatoes. This doesn’t count for the cooked variety but rather for anything that’s less than pulverised and heated beyond the consistency and flavour of the original raw thing. This is a viewpoint that changed marginally when I discovered roasted tomatoes, and I highly suggest to anyone who hates tomatoes to give this method a go because it will give you a whole new perspective (at least it did for me).

My local supermarket had about 76,152 kilos of tomatoes discounted one evening so I of course purchased them all. Part of them went into this recipe (because I also had 82,137 chickpeas). The rest just went straight into my belly.

The flavour, in my opinion, is best within just a few hours of preparation, but it will last for quite awhile in the fridge. It’s awesome on sandwiches with a little basil added and of course makes a fabulous dip for pitta bread.

Raw or fried, the carrot is a versatile beast. It forms the base of our vegetable stocks and complements many a Sunday lunch, boiled with peas or roasted with a glaze of delicious olive oil. Yes, the carrot forms a major part of our diet, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

I’d just bought some smokey chipotle chili powder at Borough Market and I had some carrots in desperate need of use. Faced with both the guilt of letting perfectly good vegetables go to waste and the desire to try out my new purchase, I combined the two in this oven roasted recipe.

One of the best ways to cook carrots, in my opinion, is rolled up in foil with a bunch of agave or brown sugar with a vegan butter substitute, and simply baked. Sweet and spicy similarly sounded like a good combination, one that would work well with the already sweet flavour carrots naturally provide, so I decided to go with an agave nectar based marinade.

I baked the carrots in a lattice for aesthetic reasons, but I’m not going to go into that here. The flavour is the same if you bung them in foil and the lattice is a pain in the arse (a pretty pain in the arse, but a pain nevertheless). If you do want to get fancy and you don’t bake in foil, however, you’ll need to reduce the cooking time (especially if you slice the carrots as thin as in the picture above).

The ingredients provided below are more of a suggestion than a recipe. I admittedly didn’t measure, so if your oven goes into meltdown then… well, anyway.

Hmm, that doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? Here’s the thing: I got a mandolin slicer, I had a huge bag of carrots, and I wanted to play. Enough said.

To make the pinwheel carrot shape, just score down 4 sides of each carrot and cut a small sliver out before slicing the carrots as usual. If you don’t have a mandolin, feel free to cut with a plain ol’ knife!

This doesn’t really merit a recipe as such because it’s so easy. The carrots (2) are raw, tossed in a dressing of garlic (mucho, mucho!), a pinch of fenugreek powder, and and a pinch of cumin. I simply fried the dressing ingredients in a little bit of olive oil before tossing in the carrots. It’s very yummy. Very, very yummy. And so easy!

And boy is this a short entry. Enjoy your carrots (a vegetable that is usually so much better raw than cooked).

Despite the fact that my Soyquick caught fire a few weeks ago (!!), I have not had any more problems and have got back to fulfilling my regular fresh tofu cravings.

Once you have your tofu, this recipe is both easy, tasty, and nutritious. The key, like with many things I cook, is heaps of ginger and boat-loads of garlic. I am perfectly happy to give up the concept of friendship and company if it means I can ingest copious amounts of garlic. I will never have to fear vampires.

The base is a simple vegan-friendly dashi, made with dried shiitake mushrooms. As I didn’t use the soaked mushrooms with the tofu recipe, I saved them and sliced them over a simple salad of edamame, broad beans, carrot, garlic, and ginger.

There is no need to be precise with ingredients for this recipe because it’s so simple and can be dealt with via constant taste-tests throughout the creation process (broth not salty enough? Throw in some more soy sauce). Be creative and experiment! I’m sure this would also be lovely with some freshly sliced spring onions on top.

With my Abel and Cole deliveries I receive a weekly newsletter (available online), each containing a few simple recipes. I was grateful for the newsletter that came with my first box because they sent me fennel and, believe it or not, I’d never tried this vegetable before. Anyhow, the newsletter contained a recipe for orange-fennel salsa, which is for the most part what my recipe is based on (I have only adjusted some ingredient uses and quantities).

When people heard I had never consumed fennel (aside from the seeds in little bowls by the door at Indian restaurants), they have been astounded.

“But you love liquorice!” they would say. “How can you not have tried fennel?!”

The truth is, I have been told many times I should try it, but neither my husband nor his kids are keen on it so I figured it wouldn’t be worth bringing home. I must remind myself of a couple of things, the first being that what I just mentioned is a very poor excuse for not trying new things myself. The second is that they will try anything once, and I’ve managed to get all of them to eat foods they would never have considered otherwise (which is not surprising as their general view of eating a vegetable is boiled and served with one of two condiments: salt and/or butter).

There’s also a third reason, that being if I’m going to bust my arse in the kitchen then everyone will bloody well eat what I put on their plates. This too is something I think they mostly understand.

But do not worry, for there is hope with this recipe for die-hard fennel haters. If the flavour is too overpowering for you, leave this salsa to sit for a few hours. The flavour will mellow substantially, to the point where the potent aniseseed flavour of the fennel is brought down to a very mild level. On the other hand, if you love this flavour, serve the salsa as fresh as possible.

But I love Cavolo Nero, and as it’s one of the few seasonal vegetables available only in the growing season here in the UK, it’s one thing that keeps winter bright for me. It charms me year after year; I forget by the time summer comes that it exists and just when I’m starting to feel I’ll never last the winter, it appears on the supermarket shelves.

Also known as Tuscan kale, black kale, black cabbage, and dinosaur kale, cavolo nero is a popular Italian vegetable and is a quite versatile one at that. The thing I really love about kale generally is the texture. I love that there’s a green you can boil, fry, or bake, and after all that it still has a chewable texture and doesn’t go slimey.

What do you do with it, you ask? Well, this is one food that I like pretty simple, fried up with a bit of garlic and shallot, with some added vinegar.

When my youngest step-son requested a Mexican meal for his birthday dinner, I decided to experiment with some old favourites. I urge everyone to understand that “Mexican” to an average American pretty much entails any recipe involving cheese and a tortilla, so I hardly consider my style to be authentic in any way. Like I tell the boys: were I cooking true Mexican food for them, they wouldn’t be able to cope with the heat. Hence I’ll just stick with the good fall back of “Southwestern style” cooking, as I think that’s probably a more appropriate title for the type of food I would generally categorise as “Mexican.”

Along with enchiladas (“my favourite thing you do,” as said by my eldest step-son), I decided to make some accompanying sides. Rather than the mild, flavourless store-bought salsas, I decided to experiment with my own tomato-based goodness. I made this the day before, so it had a good 24 hours to sit and let the flavours infuse. On the day it was a hit, and I’ll certainly be making it to accompany future “Mexican” meals.

So my mom bought me a pressure cooker while I was in the states. It’s not a kitchen appliance I’d ever used, nor is it one I’d ever given much thought to owning. But then, when my mother handed me this monstrous thing to go into my already crammed suitcase, I remembered some dish my parents used to make when I was little. This was of course when I still ate meat, but it was at the time of my favourite meals. All I remembered was that it involved pork, potatoes, and carrots. When I mentioned this to my mother, she said that it was something she had in fact done in the pressure cooker. Awesome, because I loved those potatoes and carrots! I graciously and greedily packed my new toy away in my evil basement den (i.e. my mom’s work room in downstairs).

And now I’m experimenting with it. I tried a recipe a few months ago (I can’t remember exactly where from, sadly) that involved covering a saucepan with damp wax paper and a lid so to better steam the soup ingredients inside. Well what better way to keep the steam in the cooking container than with a pressure cooker?

Had I more time, I’d have used my own pre-made vegetable stock. I just used up the last frozen batch last night, so that’s on this week’s to-do list!

“And lemon,” I replied. “Don’t forget the lemon. Why?”

He laughed again and explained to me that a character on The Fast Show often referenced cheesy peas, citing them frequently in various situations (“You like Cheese!? You like Peas!? Then you’ll love Cheesy-Peas!!”)

I punched him in the face and told him to eat his vegetables.

Well, I told him to eat his vegetables anyway.

I’m constantly trying to come up with recipe ideas which incorporate tofu, but the problem with a lot of tofu recipes is they use tofu as a secondary ingredient. I want ways to eat this glorious food and enjoy it in its own simplicity because, and I think people fail to realise this, a nice fresh tofu tastes good. This tofu teriyaki recipe is a great way to enjoy bean curd on it’s own, with a minimal list of ingredients and time necessary to prepare.

I discovered the flavour of pomegranate molasses at a Syrian restaurant in Yerevan, Armenia. My taste buds had never experienced anything like it before and I was instantly in love with what I would soon learn to be a food product to consume my life. I am referring to the hunt I went on after returning home. What was this stuff and where could I find it? Eventually I found a bottle in Sainsbury’s (and have since found it in a few other places in London) and went home to try to re-create the masterpiece of a meal I’d had in this Syrian cafe on the streets of Yerevan.

If you’ve never experienced the sweet-tart taste of pomegranate molasses, I suggest you hunt a bottle down. I would probably have to say that in 2006 it was my food discovery of the year!

This treat is fabulous served with fresh bread, like Syrian onion bread, pitta or lavash as part of a great mezze spread.

I recently discovered Edamame (by “recently” I mean within the last 6 months) when walking through London’s Victoria mainline station toward the tube station. England, unlike the U.S., is not generally a land of free samples, so imagine my delight when a young woman shoved a free sample of frozen Birds Eye brand Edamame in my hand (complete with complimentary freezer bag!). I brought the little packet home, shoved it in the freezer, and promptly forgot it was there until a couple of months later.

Then along came one of those nights where my imagination just couldn’t come up with any clever dinner ideas, and at the same time I didn’t feel like doing much at all. That’s when I remembered the soy beans in my freezer and decided to check out some recipe ideas quickly online. In the end I ended up serving them with fried sage leaves and garlic and both my husband and I were impressed with the results. The texture of the beans are lovely and they taste nice, too.

Since then I have cooked them up with margarine (try Vitalite) and garlic (yum!) but wanted to have them as a side to a Japanese-style noodle dinner. That’s where this simple but delicious recipe comes from (and yes, I know it’s not very original… but who cares about originality so long as it tastes good?!)

This one’s dead easy, folks, and tastes great to boot! This miso soup recipe will serve two comfortably as an appetiser, but if you want to make a main meal out of it then you may want to double the recipe.

…and even if you are fussy about your stench, set aside your stink-paranoia to try this delicious and incredibly simple dish! I first tried this dish in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan, in a cozy Syrian restaurant. The great thing about this recipe is that it’s really tough to mess up, and is equally tough to make a mess while making it!

This vegan version uses lemon juice to add that tangy punch missing from most dairy-free yoghurts.