Kale Chips

Ever since Christmas, I've been dying to use my food dehydrator, which my Mum and Sister gave me. For one reason and another I haven't had chance to use it until today!

As it was my first attempt I scoured the web for recipes for Kale Chips and found a few which used the same ingredients so I thought great minds think alike I'll do the same.

It wasn't until I checked my kitchen cupboards that I realised I hadn't got the main ingredient (other than the Kale); cashew nuts! I wasn't going to go to the shops just for the one ingredient so I thought I'm going to have to make do with what I've got!

Now I wanted a cheesy taste so I knew that nutritional yeast needed to be one of the main ingredients, the rest was just left overs from the fridge and a few herbs and spices. I was taking a shot in the dark with this one, but I'm happy to report it worked out just fine!

Ingredients
1 large bunch of kale
100ml ground almonds
50ml water
3 sundried tomatoes 
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp Agave nectar
½ red pepper 
½ Tsp tumeric
½ Tsp onion granules
½ Tsp salt

Method
Remove the stems from the kale and chop the leaves into smaller pieces. Wash thoroughly and pat dry with a tea towel or kitchen paper. Transfer to a large bowl. Blend the remaining ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Pour the mixture on top of the kale and mix with your hands making sure all the leaves are evenly coated with the mixture. Transfer the leaves to a food dehydrator being careful not to overlap the leaves. Dehydrate at 70°C for 6 hours or until totally crispy.

April Vegan Food Swap - What I Sent

Four days ago I blogged about the food swap box that I received from Finola, which was delicious. I have now eaten the bittersweet chocolate and the hazelnut cream wafers and started the speculoos biscuits. 

Hopefully my vegan food box of goodies has arrived at its destination and Stephen liked what he received.


I sent a mixture of sweet and savoury items and as usual sent over a box of graze vegan goodies too, my signature item if you wish.




In the graze box was roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds with soy sauce, habas tapas (jumbo chilli corn, roasted corn and chilli broad beans), herby bread basket (basil baguettes, garlic croutons and oregano rice crackers) and last but no means least tomato dipenetti.

The other savoury items I included were a packet of rosemary breadsticks, a carton of rice milk and a jar of tamarind paste.

In my world, to finish off a vegan swap box you need to add some sweet items. I added a slab of mandarin and ginger extra dark chocolate, an original flavour panda liquorice stick, a peanut brittle bar made by Mr Tom and a packet of the goody good stuff sweets, summer peaches. These really taste of summer!

I really hope Stephen enjoys his box of goodies. 

If you want to join in the vegan swap box revolution then sign up with To Happy Vegans, Sasha and Mitsu. They organise it all so all you need to do is make up a box of vegan goodies, spending £10 and send it to your assigned partner, simples!

Pizza with Spinach

We eat too much pizza! I've just checked and its not long since we ate pizza, but tonight we were both craving it. Hubby's was loaded with leftovers from the previous two nights dinners and mine, of course was a veggie pizza. I didn't have any vegan hard "sheese" at home but figured it would still taste good without it.

All I did was spread a little herb and garlic soft "sheese" onto a vegan pizza base. Next I mixed some left over salsa, a small carton of passata, mixed herbs and vegan pesto in a bowl and spread this onto the base over the top of the soft "sheese". Add your vegetables on top, I used red pepper, onion, courgette and mushrooms. Sprinkle with more mixed herbs and bake in a moderate oven for about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and pile on the spinach leaves. Dress with oils of your choice (I used chilli oil and lemon & dill oil) and stuff your face silly! This was extremely filling but so tasty I ate every last mouthful.

Gardening at last!

I was woken up this morning at 6:18am by Marco, I'm sure he was trying to tell me the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day for an early morning walk! After a cup of Earl Grey and marmite on toast I looked out of the window and had to agree with him, it was a beautiful day and yes we would go on an early morning stroll. We ended up walking miles, even though I have lived here for 10 years I'm still finding more public footpaths to explore. Today we tried out a new path and had no idea where it would lead us. I prefer to do circular walks as I don't like coming back the same way we head out, which means sometimes the walks can be long!

As the weather was good we could see for miles once we got to the top of the hill, but unfortunately I hadn't brought my camera with me this morning, doh! We saw so many spring flowers in bloom and lots of birds singing their little beaks off. It was a great morning for an early morning stroll.

I decided whilst out walking that today was going to be the day I finally get my ass into gear and get back out in the garden. With the terrible weather we've been having and hospital visits to see S, I hadn't done anything, not even sown a seed in doors! I was well behind schedule. I hadn't bought any new seed let alone looked at my crop rotation chart and to be honest I felt lost, which was ridiculous as I've been gardening for years! I just needed to get organised, once I knew what I wanted to plant and eat I could look at my charts and get planning, so what if I was later than normal.

Then a guardian angel (or gardening angel) knocked on my door! My lovely neighbour, was standing at the door holding a massive tray of plants for me. I could have cried, how did she know how I was feeling? I was overwhelmed with her generosity, I considered my ass kicked and to the garden I marched.

I have two 1.8m² raised beds and I have turned one of my borders into a vegetable patch too. I decided I would concentrate on the border veg patch first, which was overgrown with weed and a toilet for the neighbourhood cats! I sprung into action and cleared the weeds and cat doo doo's in no time. Marco wondered what on earth was going on.

My friend had given me 4 tomato plants, 3 sprout plants, 3 garlic plants, 1 elephant garlic, 3 early & 7 main crop potato sets, 1 chop suey green plant (James Wong), 2 lettuce plants (sorry can't remember the name but I remember that they are from 1800's), 2 cut and come lettuce plants, 15 red onion sets & 1 lemon eucalyptus plant.

I potted the tomatoes in larger pots and gave them pride of place on my kitchen windowsill alongside my faithful basil plant which has lasted for months even though I forget quite regularly to water it! 

In my borders spinach seeds were sown, early potatoes, garlic both the elephant and the normal varieties, 8 red onions and chop suey greens were planted and my herbs sorted out and given a bit of TLC. To finish it off I cast over some net to attempt at stopping the cats using it as a toilet and Marco using it as his digging ground!

After finishing off the border I walked over to my raised beds to take a look if anything had grown other than weeds over the winter. To my amazement I had quite a bundle of purple sprouting broccoli. This will make an appearance in my recipe collection soon.