Fry-Day - Bean Tempura

It's Fry-Day! Thank goodness and what a week it's been! We're in the final countdown of Vegan Mofo and I've thoroughly enjoyed taking part if a little exhausted at times!

Today I have another recipe for you, well if you can call it a recipe as its so simple! There's loads of recipes on the web for tempura batter, but I like to keep it really simple, the trick is to keep the oil hot, so don't over crowd the pan and keep the batter cold and as soon as the batter is made, use it!

I served mine with sweet chilli sauce, but once again I made far too much! I wonder what it tastes like heated up? Perhaps I'll make a salad with the rest!

Ingredients - Serves 4-6 as a starter 
85g Plain flour
15g Cornflour
½ Tsp Salt200ml Sparkling water
12 Green beans
8 Sugar snap peas
4 Runner beans4 Baby corn
2 Mushrooms


Method
Heat the oil to 140°C, I used a mini deep fat fryer, which is rarely used! 

Prepare all your vegetables top and tail the beans and peas, I kept my green beans and peas whole but I cut my runner beans into 5cm pieces, quarter the mushrooms and baby corn.

Ensure you're sparkling water is ice cold, I kept mine at the back of the fridge for a day, as I have no freezer. Sift the plain flour and cornflour into a bowl and add the salt. Slowly whisk in the sparkling water don't over whisk the batter a few lumps won't matter.

Coat the vegetables in the batter and add to the hot oil a few at a time, do not over crowd the pan as they will all stick together and the temperature of the oil will reduce.

Deep fry for 2-3 minutes and drain on kitchen roll. I kept mine warm in a low oven while I fried the rest. Serve with sweet chilli sauce. Yum!

Apologies for the bad photos, once again I was late doing tea so it was very dark.

Yesterday I said that I would share with you the vegan parcel I sent to Miss Chaela Boo, so here goes. In my parcel I included the following items:

• Pink Wafers
• Ruffle Bars
• Ruffle Fondants
• Nice & Nutty Pop Corn
• Graze Crunchy Basilico
• Tilda Mexican Chilli and Bean Rice
• The Food Doctor Cereal, Pulses & Beans Easy Grain
• Nible Wasabi Beans
• Homemade Runner Bean Chutney

There is always a packet of Pink Wafers in the biscuit tin at work, and I'm not alone in liking them! They bring fond memories back of Christmas as a child as they were always in the 'family circle' biscuit tin, does anyone else remember that?

I know Michaela loves her Ruffles bars and she finds them difficult to find in Cambridge and so a vegan swap box had to include them, but I hope I went one better as the shop in which I bought them also sold packets of small ruffle fondants.

I've not tried the nice and nutty popcorn myself yet, I should have bought two bags! I can see another trip to the farm shop where I bought them, which is not a bad thing in the slightest! I couldn't let the parcel go without including some bean items as 'everything bean like' is my vegan mofo theme! I hope Michaela enjoys them. I was a bit nervous sending a small jar of my runner bean chutney as I hadn't even tried it yet, it needs to be stored for at least a month before opening so that the flavours can mature. I hope Michaela likes it!

Fry-Day - Bean Fajitas

Thank goodness its Friday! I have had such a busy week at work I'm so glad its the weekend. I didn't get in till late tonight so all I wanted to do was chill, but its Vegan Mofo and beans are still on the menu.

I wanted something super quick, super tasty and something that would fill me up. Regular readers of my blog know that Friday nights are fajita nights and tonight was no different!

On a whistle stop shop at the local Tesco's on the way home I picked up a few ingredients, which included a packet of fajita seasoning. I know, I know that's being lazy but I was hungry! I also found a tin of black beans in the world food aisle, which aren't normally stocked so a tin of those went into my basket too.

Marco, my border collie has been poorly the last few days with a tummy bug, and the vet had recommended feeding him bland food and suggested sweet potatoes, so I decided that if Marco was having sweet potato then so was I.

So I had the fajita seasoning, tortillas, sweet potato, black beans and green beans from the garden and so bean fajitas were born.

Ingredients - Serves 4
200g Green beans
1 Tin Black beans
2 Sweet potatoes
1 Large onion
Fajita seasoning
4 Tbsp Tomato passata
8 Flour tortillas

Menu
Finely dice the onion, top and tail the green beans and slice length ways. Cube the sweet potatoes and add to a pan of boiling water, simmer for 10 minutes or until the potato is soft. Drain and roughly mash with a potato masher.

Meanwhile fry the onion and green beans until the onions are translucent and the beans are tender,between 5-10 minutes. Drain the black beans and rinse well. Add the beans to the pan with the sweet potato mash and stir to combine.

Add the fajita seasoning and mix in, then add the tomato passata and mix in, until everything is thoroughly combined. Stir over a very low heat to make sure everything is hot before you fill the tortillas.

Guess what arrived today! My vegan food swap parcel. I was lucky this month as my buddy was Heather, she sent me an awesome parcel in July and I was looking forward to another one. I was not disappointed, it was truly the best swap box I've received to date, it is A-M-A-zing! I'll write a post about what I received very soon, but now I'm off to delve into the delights of my parcel. See you tomorrow!