Going vegan- week 3

So things continue to go well in vegan world. I've stuck with the Bircher muesli breakfast (toast with margarine just doesn't appeal that much), but have switched up the fruit I have with it. I've been a bit pressed for time, so I thought I'd look into a few ready made options for my work lunches. I was delighted to find that Waitrose do a whole range of packaged, salad-y things which are vegan. I think they are actually all labelled as vegetarian, but they don't have any dairy in them.

I added some extra cashew nuts to the Asian slaw, which was properly zesty and sharp, with loads of lime in the dressing, and ideal for the stupidly hot weather we've had recently. Lemon and coriander humus (or indeed houmous) is pretty much a classic now, and went perfectly with the roasted cauliflower salad. These are definitely two salads I will buy again (or try and replicate at home). Anyway, with the addition of some salad leaves, tomatoes, olives, and Ryvita, these three items dealt with my weekday lunch requirements.

For dinners in the week, I accidentally made way too much Indian food. To be honest, I don't think I've ever managed to make a small amount of 'desi khanna', so this was not that surprising. I made Bengali-style greens (but with no ghee) and a Bengali-style malai curry but with mushrooms, broccoli, and baby corn instead of prawns. I also increased the spicing a bit to compensate for lack of seafood, so added in 2 tsp of ground coriander, another of ground cumin, and 1 tsp of crushed chilli flakes (mostly due to running out of fresh chillis). This was served with quinoa cooked with Indian whole spices and cashew nuts, in the style of a pilau rice, and some poppadoms. As expected this was all delicious, and the quinoa worked really well with everything else as a rice-alike neutral grain.

Weekend eating involved the appearance of a now somewhat ubiquitous Linda McCartney product (sausage rolls this time, which are actually quite nice). I also made some quinoa and mushroom stuffed, roasted peppers, which were unexpectedly tasty too (despite not having any melted cheese on top), with the sweet pepper contrasting nicely with the savoury filling.

Roasted and stuffed peppers (I'd suggest half a pepper per person as a side dish)

2 peppers (ideally red or yellow)
1 small red onion, finely sliced
2  medium cloves garlic, crushed
Around 50-75g quinoa
5 or 6 chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced
1 tblsp vegan herb cream cheese (optional)
5-6 basil leaves, torn
1 tsp Marigold vegetable bouillon powder
2-3 tblsp olive oil
Around 100ml water, or enough to cook the quinoa

Firstly the peppers- slice each one in half through it's stalk. Bring a pan of water to the boil, and then drop in the peppers. Reduce the heat a bit, and simmer for around 5-10 minutes, until the peppers are tender. Drain, pat dry, and then drizzle over a bit of olive oil. Make sure the sure the peppers are well coated in oil and then put them under a grill until they just start to char and blister a bit. Turn them at least once during the process. If you have functioning oven, you can just oil up the peppers and roast them in there on gas mark 6, but this will take around 30 minutes. While the peppers are cooking, gently fry the onion, garlic, and mushroom, in the rest of the oil. Once they've softened, add the quinoa, the bouillon powder, and hot water to cover. Simmer over a low heat for around 15 minutes, or until the quinoa is cooked, adding more water if needed. Stir in the basil leaves, and cream cheese, and spoon into the peppers. If you wanted some sort of topping I would suggest breadcrumbs, either fried in a pan first and sprinkled on top, or 'raw' drizzled with oil and then grilled.

I've also increased my snacking range, as lots of of savoury, crunchy stuff appears to be effortlessly vegan. I've never had plantain chips before, but they were excellent. And of course, it's hard to go wrong with rice crackers.

For some slightly more extravagant weekend dinners, I cooked an uber-spicy, vegan version of Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu (which has become a modern classic). Making this vegan, just means leaving out the butter, so pretty simple. I  also made quite a lot of cauliflower fried rice and a side of steamed pak choi with sesame oil. As a side note, I didn't bother blanching the cauliflower first this time (and won't bother again). I just sautéed it in a bit of oil and garlic in a non-stick pan, for a few minutes, tipped it out, cooked the other veg, and tipped it back in. This was all fantastic, and again one of those meals which I'd happily eat again, vegan or not.

So veganism so far is proving to be surprisingly delicious.

M&S 'Ever So Posh' Hand Cooked crisps

The regularly occurring crisp-related posts on this blog are an obvious indicator of my fondness for this fried potato snack. These days I try and limit my regular crisp consumption a bit, but am always quite keen to try out a new flavour. I remembered a tweet from the delightful Sabrina Ghayour a few weeks ago when she spotted these crisps, and when I was in Marks and Spencer recently and saw they were part of a BOGOF offer I thought I had better buy some (for ahem, research purposes).

So this 'Ever So Posh' range are hand cooked crisps which come in a choice of lobster cocktail (pretty posh); parmesan, asparagus and truffle (posh), and some sort of salt and vinegar-type flavour I can't exactly remember (less posh). I bought the first two flavours as they sounded the most unusual.
The lobster cocktail flavour reminded me a little of a more refined prawn cracker (a good thing I think). They had a mild seafood-y aroma which matched the taste, and hefty dose of paprika which made up the rest of the flavour. They weren't overly sweet in the way that 'prawn cocktail' crisps often are, and I was very happy to scoff a large bowl of these.
The parmesan, asparagus and truffle flavour was a little more unique than its lobster brethren. There was a distinct grassy taste from the asparagus, which was a bit unexpected but not unpleasant. And I think this actually worked quite well against the cheese-y background of the parmesan. I'm not sure that I could detect much truffle flavour, but then again I'm also not sure that I've really eaten enough truffle to recognise it. These crisps seem to be quite a nice variation on the traditional cheese 'and something' flavours, and as with the lobster cocktail I was very happy to eat them.
Both these flavours of crisps were pretty grease-free and had a good crunchy texture but without turning into bits of shrapnel when eating. They were both very much standalone crisps though, and I would predict that the distinctive flavours wouldn't work that well when dipped into other things like hummous. And neither flavour appear to be suitable for proper vegetarians, due to the presence of dried lobster and parmesan cheese.
These seem more than just novelty flavours from M&S, and it looks as if some thought has gone into putting them together. Anyway, my overall verdict on both these crisp flavours is a positive one as I'd very happy to eat either again.

M&S Ever So Posh Hand Cooked Crisps
I rate them 8/10
Around £1.80 for a 150g bag, (may still be on a buy-one-get-one free offer)

Anita's dill and mint raitha crisps

So in the search for further snack innovation I stumbled across these crisps by Anita's a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if there really is a little ethnic auntie (Anita) behind it all as claimed, or whether this is just clever marketing, but the unique feature of this brand is its range of Indian flavours.
Their offerings are made up of chicken tikka, mango and lime chutney, achaari paneer, and a dill and mint raitha variety which I tried recently. And I have to say I was very impressed. A bit like the Hairy Bikers coconut prawn crisps, this is a flavour that sounds a bit wrong to combine with fried potatoes but actually works. The herb flavours are not too strong, but still distinguishable, and the yoghurt element of the raitha comes through too. Overall this leads to quite a fresh tasting crisp, with the raitha flavour cutting through any oiliness from the potato.

I'm looking forward to sampling some of the other flavours (all of them except the chicken tikka variety are vegetarian). And though I still a remain a stout (in all senses) advocate of the plain salted crisp, I think I will be adding these to my list of acceptable alternatives.

Anita's Dill and Mint Raitha Crisps
I rate them 8/10
Cost: Around £1.70 for a 150g bag

Chilli and thyme spiced nuts

Crisps are usually my snack of choice, but I do occasionally switch to a nut-based option. Nice as they are salted cashews are now a bit ubiquitous, so I thought I'd make something a little different when snacks were required this weekend.
These walnuts and pecans flavoured with chilli and thyme are incredibly simple to make but very tasty. It's probably a bit much to call the below a recipe, as you can adjust any of the amounts or the type of nut as you see fit.

Recipe (enough for one generous snacking portion)
Handful of walnut halves
Handful of pecan halves
1 tbsp olive oil
Around 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
Around 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
Around 1/2 tsp coarsely ground salt
A few grinds of black pepper

Heat up the oil in a small frying pan until it's warm (but not seriously hot). Throw in the nuts and toast over a medium heat for a couple of minutes, and then add in all the other flavourings. Keep things moving around in the pan until the walnuts have changed colour to a golden brown. This should take about six or seven minutes, but do not leave the pan alone as the nuts will inevitably catch and burn. When they're done, scoff while making hi-larious jokes about hot, salty nuts!