Fish Eating Vegan

Three Bean Chilli

I found this recipe on the BBC good food web site:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/477649/three-bean-mexican-chilli

… and it certainly is good !  The picture isn’t the best mind you – next day’s lunch …

I used red kidney, aduki and haricot beans and just used a couple of squirts of water and EV olive oil to sweat the veg at the start (rather than the veg oil).

Chillis can be just hot … from the chilli.  This one is great because it has more than heat.  It has quite a bit of complex flavour.  Much of it from stuff I wouldn’t have thought of for a chilli.  Cumin, ground coriander, bay, smoked paprika, cinnamon.  However, the fact I wouldn’t have thought of it probably just shows my ignorance !

All those spices and flavours combine to give a very multi layered taste, which when enjoyed with the crisp carrot and celery and the softness of the beans … lovely !  Spicy and satisfying.

I served it with roast red onions and boiled rice.

Crumble is a great mass of butter and saturated fats right ?  Wrong !

The crumble, in a dish, with custard ready to eat

This is the very tasty apple and raspberry crumble I had with custard just a couple of nights ago and it was really nice – first time I’d done the custard too !  I’ve been trying to get this post up for a while, but have never managed to get the photos looking any good – but these most recent one turned out OK.

So, for the filling I used:

• 5 medium bramley cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into really thin slices (1 – 2 mm thick) – make sure you use cooking apples, not eating apples
• A hand full of frozen raspberries
• 3 desert spoons of caster sugar (I use the golden less refined stuff, but the white is fine too)

And for the topping I used:

• 2 cups of rolled oats (you can get mixes of oats, oat bran and wheat bran – for example – too, which are fine to use as well … bit more fibre !)
• About three quarters of a cup of soft brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of ground mixed spice (NOT allspice !!)
• Approx 5 teaspoons of plain soya yogurt

And for the custard I used:

• 3 and a half tablespoons of custard powder (make sure it is egg and milk protien free)
• 3 tablespoons of caster sugar
• 1 pint of soya milk

And then I did:

1.  Put all the sliced apples into a big pan with about a tablespoon of water – do this as quickly as possible after slicing them up or they start to go brown.  Start heating them – high heat.  Once you hear it starting to steam, turn it down to a fast simmer.  Kep it simmering and regularly stir it until all the apple has pulped up nicely.  Sometimes you get a cooking apple that just doesn’t want to pulp.  If they are really reluctant don’t be afraid to get out the potato masher to give them a hand !  Then turn off the heat and add the caster sugar and the frozen raspberries.  Stir it all in and leave it to sit for a while.  Then stir it again !  Put it in the oven proof dish you are going to cook it in.

The apple and raspberry crumble filling

2.  Next, put the oats and the brown sugar in a bowl and crumble it all together with your fingers.  The sugar is nearly always a bit lumpy, so it might need breaking up a bit.  When you are happy, put in the mixed spice and mix it in with your hands again.  Now add 2 teaspoons of plain soys yogurt.  Mix it in with your fingers.  You’ll notice things starting to get a bit sticky !  Then add another teaspoon.  Mix it in.  Then another.  From here on it is a bit variable.  I’ve always put in at least 4 teaspoons.  Often 5 and sometimes 6.  It depends on how powdery the oats are – sometimes very !  Go for 5 maybe first time – you could always put in less next time if necessary.  When you’ve got the right amount of yogurt in the consistency just seems right.  The mix all sticks together a bit if you squeeze it together, but it isn’t wet, although it is damp (I’m struggling here !)  Hopefully you’ll see what I mean when you get there.  It looks like this (not that you can tell much from this but …)

All mixed, but not put on yet

3.  Put the topping onto the crumble filling and spread it out evenly with a fork.  I slowly crumble the crumble topping on (so many times – the word crumble !) with my fingers first and get it is even as possible and then use the fork very gently !  It ends up looking like this:

The crumble ready to cook

4.  Cook it for 20 to 30 minutes at Gas mark 5 (190°C, 375°F) until golden.  It doesn’t look much different cooked from uncooked, just a bit more golden, so excuse the lack of photo !

5.  For the custard, just use normal egg and milk free custard powder and caster sugar in soya milk.  The instructions on the tin said 2 tablespoons of each mixed in 1 pint of cows milk.  Soya milk is always a bit more reluctant to thicken, so I ended up putting in 3 and a half tablespoons of custard powder which did the necessary – just about.  I only put in 3 tablespoons of sugar though.  I thought that was enough !  Other than that follow the instructions on the tin …

6.  Dish it all up and eat it !  Very tasty.  The crumble topping almost tastes a bit like toffee and while not the same as normal crumble topping, isn’t bad at all.  In fact it is very good !

The grilled garlic bread

I always loved garlic bread but obviously the butter soaked stuff you buy in the supermarket is no good at all for me !  However, I don’t have to use butter if I do it myself do I ?  This is lovely and garlicky !  The parsley makes a good addition – I saw it on the garlic pizza bread down a nearby Italian restaurant and thought it looked interesting …

This is without doubt the oiliest thing I eat.  I only do it very rarely though … hopefully it is alright …

So, I used:

• 1 ciabatta loaf
• 2 – 3 cloves of garlic, depending on your taste (I often use 4) – chopped fine
• Medium handful of chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons of EV olive oil (!!)

And I did:

1.  Slice the ciabatta loaf into half inch thick slices at a 45° angle.  This takes a thin, flat loaf and turns it into slices of a much greater surface area – better for garlic bread !

2.  Mix up the garlic, oil and chopped parsley.  It should look a bit like this:

All in the mix ... (parsley, garlic and olive oil)

3.  Toast one side of your ciabatta slices under a medium to hot grill.  Keep an eye on it, you don’t want to dry it out too much.

4.  Turn over the ciabatta and smear the oil, garlic and parsley mix over the un-toasted side.

5.  Grill once more, again keeping a good eye on it !

6.  Take it out and eat it !  Much better hot …

Note: If you think you can spread it around OK with less oil, go for it and let me know how it turns out.  I know it is EV olive oil and I know it isn’t being fried, but it is still being heated under the grill, so the less the better really – I possibly use too much !

This is really just a use for the cheese-ish sauce that I also put in my lasagna …  It doesn’t taste exactly the same as the stuff I used to eat, but it isn’t bad at all and the sauce is actually a pretty good replacement !  Here it is with some mash and a bit of haddock.

Cheesy cauliflower

It also made me realise just how much (lots, as it happens) of the taste of cauliflower cheese (with real cheese) was actually down to the cauliflower … rather than the cheese.

This is actually really good cake !  My wife has already eaten too much of it and says it is very good … and no, I haven’t burnt it.  That is just the light and my rotten photography skills !

Nearly a whole cake - my wife moves pretty fast when she wants ...

I hadn’t made any cakes sine I changed my diet nearly a year and a half ago.  I used to make quite a few, but they were so stuffed full of butter and eggs, I couldn’t initially think how to make them any other way – so I didn’t even bother.  Some things are as they are, maybe it was better not to think about it.  Then a couple of weeks ago, I sat there looking on while everyone else around my tucked into cake.  This isn’t right I thought.  I can do a cake …

Banana cake was an obvious candidate as I never used to put so much butter into them due to the banana.  Pectin is the thing, I read.  The pectin in bananas allows them to be used to replace the fat in your cakes.  It kind of coats the flour and gives a nice fluffy texture.  I digress …

So swap the butter for some MILD olive oil – don’t go for the EV oil … to strong in taste. But even then too much oil.  I read about apple sauce being used too in low fat cakes – more pectin – so I used some of that.  Egg whites rather than whole eggs and eventually I ended up with this …

So for the cake, I used:

• 8 oz self raising flour
• 3 oz brown sugar (I like the soft dark brown stuff for the taste as well as the sweetness)
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice
• 4 bananas (as ripe as possible)
• 2 egg whites
• 2 desert spoons of MILD olive oil
• 6 desert spoons of apple sauce
• a handful of sultanas
• 10 glace cherries cut into little bits with scissors

For the apple sauce I used:

• 2 medium cooking apples (you need cooking apples as the eating apples don’t pulp when you cook them)
• 1 desert spoon of caster sugar (I use the golden, less refined stuff)
• 2 tablespoons of water

I also had a 2 lb loaf tin which I’d greased with some mild olive oil (not much needed), lined with greaseproof paper (baking paper) and then greased the greaseproof paper a bit too.

And then I did:

1.  I started with the apple sauce and made this a couple of hours in advance to allow it time to cool.  I cored and peeled the two apples and then sliced then into thin strips (imagine the apple was an orange – I ended up with lots and lots of super thin (1-2 mm) segments – but of apple).  These went into a pan, with the 2 tablespoons of water, with the lid on.

2.  Start heating on a medium to high heat.  Keep an eye on it and turn down to medium (ish) when the time seems right – do keep looking at it as the sugar in the apple can burn.  Keep stirring it and keep it bubbling, reasonably strongly – but not too violently.

3.  As the apples bubble, they start to pulp.  After 5 – 10 minutes or so it should all be over.  Take off the heat, add the sugar, stir it in and leave it alone for a while.  Sometimes the apples don’t pulp much, even when you use cooking apples.  As long as you did use cooking apples though, they should be soft enough to break up easily into a pulp with a potato masher.  Leave it to cool.

4.  Then I put all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, bicarb and mixed spice) into a bowl and mixed them well.

5.  Then the bananas went into a bigger bowl and I mashed them (well actually my kids did) with a fork – hence ripe ones being a good idea.  Then add the oil, the egg whites and the apple sauce.  Stir it all up together.

6.  Then put the dry mix into the sloppy banana mix.  Stir it all up.  You should see the bicarb doing its thing as you stir – be gentle as you stir too !  Finally stir in the sultanas and the glace cherries.

7.  Put the mix in the loaf tin (fairly slowly and carefully again, making sure not to disrupt your paper lining).  Then into the oven, at GM 4 (180° C, 350° F) for about 40 – 45 minutes until looking risen and dark golden which I guessed would have been about right.  But in the end I put the oven up to GM 5 (190° C, 375°F) and gave it an extra 10 minutes as I’d stuck a knife in and it didn’t come out clean.  It came out cleaner after that.  Remained soft on the top though.  Not crisp at all.

8.  Leave it to cool in the tin when you’ve taken it out.  Then slice and eat.  Really good texture and really good taste.  Lovely and moist !

Here is the cut section:

The cut end ...

And here is a slice:

Sliced cake