Bean and Vegetable Chili

This is my basic chili recipe. I've made it many times. This time I served it over a purple baked potato with a side of kale sauteed with smoked garlic. It also goes well with rice or tortilla chips. You can add extra vegetables to the recipe if you wish - courgette and aubergine work well.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red pepper, chopped
1/2-1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp cocoa powder
400g tin chopped tomatoes
400g tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed

Directions:
Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, garlic and red pepper. Fry for ten minutes. Add the cayenne, cumin, oregano and cocoa powder. Stir the spices into the vegetables. Add the tomatoes and beans. Heat through slowly.

Snobby Joes

Serves 4-6

This recipe is from Veganomicon. I made half the quantity listed below and served it over home made wholemeal buns with sweet potato oven fries.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked lentils (green or red, I've tried it with both)

4 cups water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, small dice

1 green bell pepper, small dice

2 cloves garlic, minced 3 tblsp chili powder (or less, depending on how spicy you want it)

2 tsp oregano

1 tsp salt

1 (8-oz/220) can tomato sauce (I pureed tinned tomatoes for this)

1/4 cup tomato paste/puree

2-3 tbsp maple syrup (I used golden syrup instead)

1 tbsp prepared yellow mustard

Directions:
1. Pour the lentils and water into a small saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil; once the mixture is boiling, lower the heat and simmer for ~ 20 minutes, until the lentils are soft. Drain and set aside.

2. About 10 mins before the lentils are done, preheat a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Saute the onion and pepper in the oil for about 7 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and saute for a minute more.

3. Stir in the cooked lentils, chili powder, oregan, and salt. Add the tomato sauce and tomato paste. Cook for about 10 minutes. Add the maple syrup and mustard and heat through.

4. Turn off the heat and let the pot sit on the warm burner for about 10 minutes so that the flavors can meld.

Onion Soup and Carrot, Wild Rocket & Jerusalem Artichoke Salad

No photos for these two, I'm afraid. We ate them before they could pose for photographs.

Onion Soup

Ingredients:
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 tbsp white wine (I used a non-alcoholic kind)
500ml vegetable stock
White pepper, to taste

Directions:
Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion. Saute over a low heat until the onions are well browned. Add the wine and vegetable stock and heat through. Add pepper to taste.


Carrot, Wild Rocket and Jerusalem Artichoke Salad
Ingredients:
60g wild rocket
1 large carrot, grated
1 Jerusalem artichoke, thinly sliced
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tbsp olive oil

Directions:
Put all the ingredients in a serving bowl and toss together.

Lemony Apple and Berry Crumble

Serves 4 (or 2 if you're feeling especially greedy, like I was)

Ingredients:
2 apples, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup frozen berries
juice of 1/2 a lemon
zest of 1 lemon
50g + 1 tbsp sugar
50g plain flour
50g oats
50g vegan margarine

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4.
Evenly cover the base of a pie dish with the apple slices, then pour the frozen berries on top. Squeeze the lemon juice over the fruit, then sprinkle on 1 tbsp of sugar.
Mix together the flour, oats and remaining sugar, then rub in the margarine. Top the fruit with the crumble mixture.
Place the crumble in the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Swede & Horseradish Cakes and Minted Purple Potato Cakes

In my latest Sainsbury's order I received, amongst other goodies, some purple potatoes and some jarred horseradish (made by English Provender Company, I think Biona also make a vegan horseradish sauce). So I decided to put these to use. I served the swede and potato cakes with a mixture of garlic, mushrooms, butterbeans and spinach, thrown together in a pan and sauteed.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

200g purple potatoes, cubed (you could use ordinary potato, but it won't look as pretty)

10g fresh mint leaves, chopped

200g swede, cubed

1 tbsp horseradish

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Directions:

Boil the swede until tender. In a separate pan boil the purple potatoes with the mint. Drain and mash the potato, when it is cool enough to handle, form into two patties. Drain and mash the swede with the horseradish, wait for it to cool, before forming into two patties. Heat the oil in a frying pan fry the cakes on one side for 5 minutes, flip over and fry for a further five minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 10-12 cookies

Ingredients:
80g sugar
80g vegan margarine
120g plain flour
1 tbsp rice flour
60g chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Lightly grease a baking tray with margarine or vegetable oil.
Cream together the sugar and margarine. Add the plain flour, rice flour, chocolate chips, vanilla essence and cinnamon and mix until it forms a dough.
Form the dough into walnut-sized balls and flatten onto the baking tray. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Farmers' Market

No recipe this time. Instead I'm going to show off the haul of vegetables I got at Winchester farmers' market today.

In the picture you can see red and yellow chard, jerusalem artichokes and romanesco broccoli. I've never had chard or romanesco broccoli before and I've only managed to find jerusalem artichokes on rare occasions, so I was very happy to find this lot. I haven't tried the chard or artichokes yet, but I steamed the broccoli  and had it with my dinner (the rest of my dinner consisted of leftovers, so no recipes for that either). It had a mild flavour, somewhere between broccoli and cauliflower. I plan to use the leaves to make a stock.

I think romanesco broccoli is one of the most beautiful vegetables, so here's a couple more photos of it.