Runner Bean Pie

Runner Bean Pie & Vegan Mofo Day 4

Firstly, apologies for the photographs, they really don't do this dish justice! It really was delicious, more so than it looks. Put it another way even though I've now got a freezer, I'm not freezing any as I'm going to take some to work tomorrow for lunch and save the rest for the weekend! I actually went back for seconds too!

My runner bean plants aren't thriving as they have done for the past few years but I think perhaps my seeds are a little too old. Four years ago I had an amazing harvest, I mean I was picking handfuls every morning, I was giving them away (no freezer in those days)! No beans were "stringy" and the taste was out of this world. I would literally eat bowls full of 'just cooked' beans with a splash of vinegar for lunch and dinner! The beans were that good that I decided to let some beans get really big and dry on the plant, once the harvest season was over. Once the beans had dried I removed the bean from the pod and stored in jam jars in a dark cupboard in my shed. The next season I used these beans to grow my next crop. I've been doing this ever since. Last year I did have an amazing crop but I did notice that if a bean was left on the plant for just one day more than I would have liked it did start to become a little stringy. AND there is nothing worse than finding a stringy bean on your plate! Trust me, it puts me right off!

This was my first harvest of the year and I must admit I did have to throw away a couple of beans. When I say throw away I mean on my compost, nothing gets wasted here! So next year I think I will treat myself to some new beans to sow. Unless anyone out there want to do a seed swap? Get in touch if you do!

OK So on to the recipe.


Ingredients
335g Runner beans, top & tailed weight (a good handful)
750g potatoes, peeled
350ml Almond milk (non sweetened)
1½ Tbsp Vitalite

250ml Water
75g Cashews
2 Tsp Porcini powder
4 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
1 Mushroom stock cube (I used Kallo organic)

Method

Cook the potatoes in boiling water until s knife pierces them easily. Drain and leave in the pan to steam dry for about 5 minutes. This removes the excess moisture.

Mash the potatoes with 100ml of the almond milk and 1 Tbsp of the Vitalite until creamy and lump free.

While the potatoes are cooking place the prepared runner beans in a pan of boiling water and bring back to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes, or until they are al dente, you don't want to cook them too much, they taste better with a little bight in my opinion. Drain and transfer to an oven proof dish.

Saute the mushrooms in the remaining ½ Tbsp of Vitalite for 5 minutes and transfer to the oven dish with the beans.

Add the remaining 250ml of almond milk to a blender along with the last 5 ingredients and blitz until you have a sauce like consistency. Don't worry if you think the sauce is too thin it will thicken up as it heats up. Pour the sauce over the runner beans and mushrooms and top with the mas potato.

Bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling and the potatoes are golden brown.

Now, don't judge me here, but I ate mine with baked beans! I don't know what it is but I love creamy sauces and baked beans together! If you don't agree with my taste buds then serve with extra vegetables.

Specials Board: Courgette & Chocolate Brownie Cakes

Courgette & Chocolate Brownie Cakes & Vegan Mofo Day 3

My courgette plants are still producing fruits, in all I have 3 different varieties, pattypan squash, eight ball courgette and courgette Atena Polka F1. The most productive have been the pattypan squash but a close second is the eight ball courgette, pictured below.

Eight Ball Courgette

This one was huge and I only used half of it for this recipe! When they get this big they do have a cavity like a winter squash where the seeds are growing. I normally scoop them out when the courgettes are this big! You can dry out the seeds and try planting them next year!

Now, I love courgettes, but when you have so many, you need to be creative on how you eat them. One can only eat so much ratatouille! Shaheen over at Allotment2Kitchen made a gorgeous looking chocolate and courgette loaf cake, (which I need to bake soon) but today I fancied something a little different. I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted brownies or cupcakes so my recipe is somewhere in between, hence the name!

I'd still got a packet of unopened coconut sugar in my cupboards which was included in a past vegan kind box. I'd been meaning to try it for ages so I thought this might be the perfect opportunity.

Ingredients 

250g Plain flour

50g Cocoa powder

1 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1 Tsp Baking powder

½ Tsp Salt

165g Coconut sugar

80ml Light olive oil

250ml Soy yoghurt

1 Tsp Vanilla Paste

315g Courgette, grated

100g chocolate chips

Method

Set your oven to a moderate heat, as a regular reader you will know that I have 'cleaned' off my  oven temperatures from around my oven knob! 

Sieve the first 5 ingredients into a bowl and add the coconut sugar. 

In a separate bowl add the soy yoghurt and olive oil and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla paste and whisk again, then add the grated courgette and mix. 

Tip the wet ingredients into the dry.

Give everything a good stir until all the dry ingredients have been mixed into the wet ingredients. Add the chocolate chips and stir through so they are evenly distributed.

Pour the batter into cup cake cases and fill to two thirds up. I use silicone cake cases as they are easy to remove after baking. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until you insert a skewer into a cake and it comes out clean. The tops should spring back too if you press them lightly.

Leave the brownie cakes to cool in the cases before removing, especially if you have used paper cupcake cases.

Enjoy! Now I have a freezer, I like mine served with a dollop of vegan vanilla ice cream and some melted chocolate drizzled over. Naughty but nice! 

Specials Board: Broadbean Pesto

Broad Bean Pesto & Vegan Mofo Day 2

The first recipe I'm sharing with you during Vegan Mofo 2014 is using broad beans from my garden. They're at their end now and this will be the penultimate recipe from my last harvest picked at the weekend. I'm going to miss them! Now I have a freezer I think I will grow twice the amount next year!

Broad beans are so easy to grow, you sow the seed, water and watch it grow! However this year I had a little visitor in the way of a field mouse, I named him Sammy. Now I don't mind sharing my veggies but this little munchkin was devouring all of the young plants night after night until I had none left! I kept sowing in the hope that he would get fed up of the broad bean plant but no Sammy just seemed to love them, he couldn't get enough! 

I started to sow each bean encased by a toilet roll, which acted as a barrier to my little field mousse friend and that seemed to do the trick. But as soft as I am I did plant a couple without the toilet roll just for Sammy! And yes he found them and munched his way through but he did leave the toilet roll beans alone, so we were both happy.

My last broad bean recipe, in a few days time, will give you some top tips on how to grow broad beans, when to sow, how to stop the usual critters and when to harvest. But for now on with this recipe.

Broad Bean Pesto (Serves 4-6)

Ingredients
235g Podded broad beans
3-4 Cloves of Garlic
10g Pine nuts
2 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp Lemon juice
4 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Method
Remove the skin from the garlic and cook with the beans in boiling water for 5 minutes, I've noticed the beans float to the top when they are cooked so if your beans are small they might need less than 5 minutes.

Drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and are cool enough to handle. Remove the outer grey skin to reveal the bright green bean! Transfer the bean and garlic to a food processor.

Add the pine nuts and pulse a few times to chop the ingredients. Add the remainder of the ingredients to the processor and blitz until you have the texture you prefer. I don't like mine completely smooth, I like a bit of texture.

The pesto is great spread on toast, used to make a dip (my fried green tomatoes recipe) or stirred through pasta, which is what I did for tea tonight. 

Menu - September Harvest

As always on the first day of the month I am sharing with you the menu for the month ahead. But this month there will be more meals and ideas from the specials board as its also Vegan Mofo and I am hoping to post most days throughout September.

I hope the above gets your taste buds tingling but if not come back each day to see what else is being featured from the specials board. There may be quite a few courgette recipes popping up as my courgette plants are still producing lots of fruit!

Each recipe I share will include produce harvested from my garden alongside store cupboard or other bought ingredients. On occasion there may be a recipe using foraged produce too! If I had more time I would also like to provide the cost per portion and the nutritional values of each meal, but unfortunately I don't think time will allow, unless anyone out there can offer their services to calculate the nutritional values for me? Cheeky ;o)

I'll also give you some tips on how to grow the vegetable I am featuring or at least a little tale from its growing life, which will probably be dominated by stories about my battle against the little critters that I have trying to fend off!