Retro Saturday - Bean & Mushroom Wellington

Retro Saturday, what dishes does that conjure up for you? For me its the old favourites, the nostalgic culinary classics, a throwback dish from the 1970's! 

During vegan mofo I have made green bean risotto, green bean & mushroom pasta and bean stroganoff, to me all classic dishes but tonight I'm going all out there with a green bean & mushroom wellington, a real throwback from the 1970's! As you will notice my love affair with partnering green beans and mushrooms has not petered out! I'm still in the honeymoon stage!

This dish is so simple to make and only has 7 ingredients, yes only 7 ingredients (if you don't count the salt & pepper).

It is extremely easy to make too, and very tasty. With this dish you won't be in the kitchen for a long period of time you just throw the ingredients together and voila!

Ingredients
2 Onions, chopped
2 Cloves of garlic, finely chopped
300g Mushrooms, chopped
1 Tbsp Mushroom ketchup
2 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
30-40 Green beans, top and tailed
200g Ready made puff pastry

Method
First fry the onions in a little olive oil until soft and starting to brown.

Add the garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes. Next add the mushrooms and the mushroom ketchup and fry until all the liquid has reduced. Add the nutritional yeast and stir to combine.

Whilst the mushrooms are cooking, fry the green beans in a little olive oil until starting to brown. 

Roll out the puff pastry (you will need about two thirds of a pre-rolled packet. Top with the green beans, then the mushroom mixture, leaving about a 2cm edge.

Fold over the pastry to in-case the filling. Use a little almond milk to dampen the edges to help the two edges stick together. Press a fork around the edges to make a pattern and add some steam holes to the top of the pastry. 

Cook in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden. See I told you it was easy and quick. Now for the taste test..............................delicious!

Oh, one last thing HAPPY BIRTHDAY Sis!

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!

Sleepy Sunday - Green Bean, Mushroom & Cherry Tomato Pancakes

Sleepy Sunday in my eyes is all about having a lie in and chilling NOT being jumped on at 6:00am by a dog possessed! I'll let Marco off this once as he's not been very well, although the sweet potato seems to be doing the trick, well, either that or the tablets from the vet!

So my Sleepy Sunday turned into an early rise and I was starving! A quick tour round the veg patch gave me another 100g of purple and green beans. This was definitely the last haul, although there were still a few flowers on the plants, so maybe it's not the end just yet. I decided to leave the masses of runner beans on the plants until later in the day, when I will be ready to make soup for the week ahead. Recipe will feature on Tuesday.

A quick raid of the fridge demonstrated that quite a few things were getting near their shelf life or past their best including some cherry tomatoes. I wondered what I could make with these two ingredients, then I remembered discovering the greatest love affair in food heaven, green beans and mushrooms, so now I had three ingredients.

After some deliberation I decided that I would have a go at making pancakes as I thought it fit the Sleepy Sunday theme quite well. Even as a vegetarian I didn't eat eggs, jut the thought of them turned my stomach so I haven't had pancakes for quite some time. Even oat cakes remind me of eggs and I can't eat them so this was going to be a test.

Ingredients - Serves 2
60g Flour 
10g Soya flour
10g Nutritional Yeast
450ml Almond milk
Olive Oil
100g French green/purple beans
200g Chestnut mushrooms
200g Cherry tomatoes
Handful of basil
Salt & Pepper

Method
First prepare your vegetables by topping and tailing the beans and slicing, quarter the tomatoes and chunk up your mushrooms! Turn your oven on to a low heat, so you can keep your pancakes warm as you are making them.

Put the nutritional yeast flakes in a food processor and blitz until fine. Add the two flours and give the processor another whiz to combine the ingredients. Add 400ml of the almond milk and process to make a smooth batter. Set aside while you make the filling.

Add a little olive oil to a pan and saute the beans for 3 minutes, then add the mushrooms and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes break down about 5 minutes, stirring regularly so the mixture doesn't stick to the pan. Add the remaining almond milk and simmer for another 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and scatter with the basil leaves.

When the filling is almost done, heat a drop of olive oil in a frying pan (non stick is best) and add about 3 tablespoons of the batter. You will start to see little air bubbles in the surface of the pancake and this is when you need to flip it over and cook the other side for two minutes. Remove from the pan to an oven proof plate and pop in the oven to keep warm while you make the remainder of the pancakes, you will get 4 pancakes. Spray the pan with a little olive oil before adding the next batch of batter.

To serve, place a pancake on a plate and top with the filling, then place another pancake on top and add more filling. Enjoy.

These did still remind me of eggs but I did eat them, if I were to make them again I would add more almond milk as I think the batter was a little stodgy for my taste.

On the harvesting front, I have been a lucky girl, this week I have been given free produce too, so not only did I bag a bargain yesterday, but I have been given a bag full of lettuce from my Mums garden, cheers Mum, and I have been blessed by a visit from my gardening angel. After reading my blog and seeing that I was using tinned beans my gardening angel gave me a bag of borlotti beans from her allotment. So I am trying to create a recipe which showcases them. As I need to soak them over night I think this will be a task for next weekend! Thank you my lovely gardening angel.

Retro Saturday - Bean Stroganoff

You can't get more retro than a stroganoff in my book, so today I made a bean stroganoff with three beans. But before I give you the recipe let me tell you where I've been today. 

The small village where I grew up was holding a local food festival so I went along to show my support. I was told that it was a celebration of local food talent involving all sections of the community from near and far. There were tables full of local produce that had been grown by people from all ages, homemade preserves and flower displays. 

There was a lady there telling us all about hedgehogs and right up my street a vegetarian talk. Lance Bell, from the Vegetarian Society had been invited to give a talk on the benefits of being vegetarian. I was pleasantly surprised how many people attended. Lance, who is also a vegan gave a great talk on the social, economic and health benefits of being a vegetarian and the people attending were very interested in learning more about it. The approach Lance took was brilliant and he had people listening right from the start, people asked questions and we all had a fantastic time. It was a brilliant idea to invite Lance and include vegetarianism as part of the local food festival, a big round of applause goes to the organisers and of course Lance. 

At the end of the day there was an auction of all the local produce which was brilliant fun, I was outbid on nearly every occasion, but I'm pleased to report I did win two ball courgettes for a bargain price of 60p.  They were massive, see photo below, yes that's a ten pence piece! They will feature soon in a recipe, watch this space...............

Did I mention stroganoff? The green and purple french beans and the runner beans are out of my garden. I don't think the green and purple beans will be giving me any more food I think the harvest is over for them. On the other hand though, the runner beans are multiplying as I type. There is at least another 2 kilogrammes on my 6 plants, so I'm sure they will also feature in the remaining recipes for Vegan Mofo.

Ingredients
200g Green/Purple beans
200g Runner beans
250g Mushrooms
1 Red onion
2 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 Tsp Garlic puree
1 Tsp Dried thyme
3 Tsp Paprika
2 Tsp Garlic granules
1 Tbsp Flour
½ Tin of black beans
400ml Almond milk
125ml Soy cream
Salt & Pepper

Method
First prepare all your vegetables, cut the onion into half moon shapes, top and tail the beans and cut up into 3cm pieces and cut your mushrooms into chunks.

Fry the onion in a little olive oil for 3-4 minutes or until the onion is starting to go soft. Next add the green/purple beans and saute over a high heat for another 3 minutes.

Add the runner beans and continue to cook over a high heat for another 3 minutes. Next add the mushrooms and soy sauce, turn the heat down and cook for another 3 minutes.

Add the garlic puree and stir through the vegetables, then add the flour, paprika, garlic granules and dried thyme and stir to combine thoroughly. Slowly add the almond milk a little at a time, to prevent lumps. After adding ½ the milk add the black beans then the remaining milk and cook over a low heat until the sauce thickens, stirring regularly. This should take around 7 minutes. 

Slowly add the cream and stir to combine, do not boil as the cream may split. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with rice, pasta or as I did couscous.

Please excuse the mess I made of serving, I didn't mean to dribble the sauce over the couscous!

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!

TV Tuesday - Julie & Julia Movie

Once again today's daily theme is TV Tuesday, where you cook a meal from a movie or TV show. 

Today I have chosen the beautiful and fabulous film Julie and Julia. I  love this film but why wouldn't I? Its about food and blogging! (the food however is not vegan friendly). For those of you who haven't seen the movie its about two women, Julie a chef in the early stages of her culinary career and Julia, a woman living in New York who aspires to cook all the recipes from the cook book written by Julie. Julia wants to create all 524 recipes in one year or 365 days and Julia detailed the challenge on her popular blog and announced that it would make her a published author. 

My favourite scene is where Julia has another complete melt down after a disastrous attempt at one of the recipes, which was worse than her previous melt down. She sits on the floor and cries like a spoilt child saying that she's a mess. She lies down on the floor and kicks her leg in the air in a massive strop when the phone rings and Eric, her husband answers it, its a reporter wanting to write about Julia! "He does?" She says.

My favourite quote from the movie is:

Eric: See, that's what's so great about blogs. You don't have to be published. You can go online, press enter and there it is, out there!

Obviously I'm not creating one of the recipes from the book, I can't remember there being anything vegan, but I am going to recreate a chicken recipe and replace the chicken with green beans! 

Beans with cream and mushrooms
When sauteing the mushrooms do as Julia says and don't crowd the pan!

Ingredients

200g Green beans

½ Tsp Freshly ground pepper

¼ Tsp Salt

1 Tbsp Olive oil

1 Onion, finely diced

250g Chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced

160ml Vegetable stock

125ml Soy cream

2 Tbsp Fresh Chives or Spring Onions, finely shredded

Method

Top and tail the green beans and put to one side.

In a frying pan add half the oil and add the finely diced onion, saute until the onion is translucent. Add the finely sliced mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally until tender, about 2-3 minutes.

Pour in the vegetable stock and cook until the liquid has reduced by half. Next stir in the cream and chives and bring to a gentle simmer, turn down the heat you don't want the cream to curdle.

Meanwhile heat the remaining oil in a ridged skillet over a medium heat and add the beans. You're looking for charred lines across the beans, turn carefully so you get the lines on two sides. I would recommend using a good olive oil for this, it makes all the difference in the taste.

Transfer the beans to a serving plate and top with the mushroom and cream sauce. Serve with vegetables of your choice and a potato or bean side, like bean mash or new potatoes. I served mine with potato mash, carrots and cauliflower.

The mushrooms really complimented the green beans it was a match made in heaven. I'll definitely being pairing up the two again and soon.

Retro Saturday - Bean & Mushroom Pasta

Once again today's theme is Retro Saturday, where you dress up and veganise your favourite meal. I've always been a lover of pasta and whilst I was vegetarian I loved visiting Italian restaurants and devouring the creamiest pasta dishes. In the 25 years I was vegetarian that was a lot of visits to Italian restaurants. Since turning vegan, January 1st this year I haven't visited an Italian restaurant once, what can you eat as a vegan that you can't cook up at home just as delicious if not more so?

Today's recipe is creamy, without cream, extremely easy, quick and very tasty; even 5 meat eaters lapped it up when I cooked it up one camping trip.

I haven't posted many pasta recipes before, which is strange as I'm always cooking them as they are so easy and so quick to rustle up. Everyone will have something lurking in their store cupboard or fridge which can be transformed into a pasta dish. The two previous pasta dishes I've posted are garden pasta, which was rustled up from veg grown in the garden, hence the name and soba veganaise, which is a great recipe to use when you need to use up your vegetables lurking in the bottom of your fridge. Anyway on with today's recipe. 

Bean and Mushroom Pasta 
I am still harvesting green beans, from my garden, not many I grant you but they keep coming!

Ingredients
150g Green beans
150g Mushrooms
1 Onion
1 Courgette (optional)
2 Spring onions
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1 Tbsp Flour
1 Tsp Vegetable bouillon powder
500ml Soy milk or other alternative
2 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
2 Tsp English mustard
1 Tsp Dried parsley
½ Tsp Dried thyme 
400g Pasta

Method - serves 4-5
Prepare all the vegetables so you're ready to cook, top and tail the beans and cut to 5cm lengths, slice the courgette, spring onions, mushrooms and onion.

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and add the pasta of choice, cook as per the packet instructions. Drain just before you add the sauce.

Saute the onion until translucent about 5 minutes, and add the beans, continue to saute stirring regularly so the vegetables don't stick to the pan. Add a little water if they start sticking. After 5 minutes the beans should start to become tender so add the mushrooms, courgette and spring onions and saute for another 2 minutes.

Sprinkle the vegetables with the flour, herbs and vegetable bouillon powder (I use Marigold Swiss vegetable) and stir to combine. Continue to cook for about 30 seconds whilst turning the mixture with a spoon.

Add the soy milk slowly, a bit at a time, continually stirring until the mixture becomes sauce like thick. You may need to add more soy milk or not as much it depends on the age and type of the flour you are using. Add the mustard and stir through, then the nutritional yeast and stir again. 

Season to taste and tip in the drained pasta a little at a time and stir to incorporate the sauce and pasta. Serve with salad or as I did with a side of runner beans! I actually cooked the sauce at home and boxed it up. Then all I needed to do was cook the pasta at the camp site, heat up the sauce and combine - easy! The bottom photo was the left overs after first helpings, but as soon as I'd taken the photo the saucepan was gone and the 'leftovers' were on plates being gobbled up!

'Stir' Fry-Day - 3 Bean Black Bean

Welcome to the second Fry-Day of Vegan Mofo where I post recipes which have been fried. Today sees another Stir Fry-Day, 3 Bean Black Bean, try saying that 10 times fast!

I was craving a Chinese tonight but there was nothing on the menu which was vegan that included beans unless of course you count black bean sauce. So I decided that I'd make a black bean dish with yep you've guessed it beans. Tonight's beans are green beans, runner beans and bean curd. 

I raided the store cupboard and thankfully found a sachet of Blue Dragon Black Bean Sauce so my tea was going to be made super fast! Good because I was starving!

Ingredients
125g Green beans
125g Runner beans
1 Packet Bean curd (Tofu)
(Mine was 396g with water)
Small bunch of coriander
1 Tbsp Groundnut oil
1 Green Chilli
1 Onion
1 Sachet Blue Dragon Black Bean Sauce
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce

Method - Serves 2 hungry people
First, press your tofu any which way you choose, I normally use my laden fruit bowl as the weight!

Once the tofu has been pressed cut into 1 inch pieces length ways and fry in the ground nut oil in a frying pan, browning both sides, about 4 minutes each side if your pan is hot. Transfer to an oven proof dish, which has been spritzed with a little oil to stop the tofu sticking. Sprinkle with a few chopped coriander leaves, salt and freshly ground pepper and 1 table spoon of soy sauce. Bake in a moderate oven for the time remaining to cook the beans, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile slice the onion and chilli and top, tail and slice the runner beans on the diagonal. Top and tail the green beans and slice them into 3cm pieces. Finely shred the coriander.

Add the remaining groundnut oilto the pan and heat till hot. Throw in the onion and green beans to the pan and saute for about 5 minutes over a high heat. Add the runner beans and finely sliced chilli and stir fry for another 5 minutes. Its up to you whether you remove the seeds or not - it really depends on how hot you like it.

Add the Black Bean Sauce and 1 table spoon of the soy sauce and stir to combine. Continue to cook for another 3 minutes being careful not to let the veg stick to the pan and burn. Add a splash of water if it starts to stick.

Remove the tofu from the oven and cut into pieces (Leave two strips of tofu for the final touch of the dish). Add the cut pieces of tofu to the pan and stir to combine all the ingredients, if the mixture is a little stiff add another table spoon of soy sauce.

Add the remaining coriander to the pan and stir to combine. Serve straight away on a bed of fluffy rice and top with a tofu slice.

TV Tuesday - The Breakfast Club Movie

Once again today's daily theme is TV Tuesday, where you cook a meal from a movie or TV show.

Today I have chosen the film called The Breakfast Club. This is an old classic, I think from 1985, yep remember them 80's! For those of you who have not seen it, the movie is about five teenagers at high school who each belong to a different social group. The five teenagers comprise of a geek, a princess, an athlete, a bad boy and one who is silent and disturbed. They spend a Saturday detention together for eight hours and at first they seem to have nothing in common and they all want the day to be over. However throughout the eight hours of detention slowly they start to help each other out, open up about their lives and come to understand that each of them is not that different from another.

My favourite scene is where they all let them selves go and dance like they've never danced before.

My favourite quote is related to the recipe I'm going to recreate with beans of course! 

John: What's in there?
Claire: Guess? Where's your lunch?
John: You're wearing it.
Claire: You're nauseating.
John: What's that? (Pointing to her lunch)
Claire: Sushi
John: Sushi?

Bean Sushi
Now, I know what you're thinking, how on earth can this work? Beans are not going to be the only ingredient in the sushi. In fact I think this Japanese dish is actually called maki sushi or sushi rolls.

Ingredients
2 Sheets of Nori seaweed
1 Cup Sushi rice - I just used leftover basmati rice
6 Green beans
½ Carrot
½ Avocado

¼ Lemon

Wasabi paste

Soy Sauce

Mirin or rice vinegar (optional)

Method
Wash the rice a few times in cold water and drain. Cook following the directions on the packet but as a general rule you will need 1 1/8 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. Simmer for about 20 minutes then take off the heat and let stand for another 15-20 minutes. Do not remove the lid, no peeking allowed.

Transfer the rice to a glass bowl to cool completely and add the mirin or rice vinegar, if using. Very carefully stir through you don't want to break down the rice.

While the rice is cooking and cooling prepare the other ingredients. Grate the carrot and transfer to a bowl. Mash the avocado with a little lemon juice to stop it discolouring. Top and tail the green beans and cook in boiling water for two minutes, no longer. You just want to blanche the beans they still need a crunch. Remove the beans from the heat and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.

Once the rice has completely cooled you're ready to make the maki sushi. On a folded T-towel (or sushi mat if you have one) place a sheet of nori seaweed and top with rice. Top with a line of grated carrot, a line of mashed avocado and then top with a line of beans.

Take the edge of the T-towel and carefully start to roll the sheet of nori, don't worry you may lose some rice. Brush a little water on the far edge of the nori seaweed so it stick together and forms a roll.

Wrap the roll in cling film and put in the fridge for 30 minutes. Unwrap and carefully slice into rounds, the end rounds will be messy but that's the chef's treat. Serve with a small bowl of soy sauce to dip into and a dot of wasabi, careful its hot!   

I made double quantities and packed some up for lunch tomorrow. Apologies for the rubbish photographs, it was dark before I finished!