Vegan Food Swap Box - November

Phew the monthly vegan food swap box comes round quicker each month, I'm sure. This month I was sending to Sammy who's known in the twitter world as @cleaning girl. For those of you who are not with the programme here's what happens. Every month tohappy vegans, who organise the swap box (thank you!) assign you a partner to send a parcel of vegan goodies to and in return you will receive your own parcel of surprise delights from someone else. It really is good fun and its like getting a birthday every month!

Because of the time of year I couldn't resist sending a vegan advent calendar. I hope Sammy enjoys her vegan chocolate breakfast sample each morning in December!
My vegan swap box also included the following goodies:

• The Food Doctor Sweet Chilli Soya & Corn Crisp Thins   
• The Delicatessan Beetroot & Red Onion Chutney
• The Delicatessan Sicilian Style Sticks
• Packet of Olives ou Marche
• Blackfriars Fruit Flapjack
• Urban Fruit Superberry Mix
• Pukka Relax Teabag

I'm hoping Sammy loves olives as much as me. I guess you either love them or hate them! I'm a lover of all things olives and I always have some in the fridge or a stand by packet in my cupboards. Sammy is lucky these didn't get gobbled up before I posted them. I also love the Food Doctor crisp thins especially the sweet chilli flavour. 

The Beetroot and Red Onion Chutney was once sent to me as part of the vegan swap box and I used mine in a stiry fry which worked out a treat but you could use it as a dip or on crackers with a bit of vegan cheese or houmous. The Sicilian Sticks would work a treat dipped into it!

For the sweet items I included the advent calendar, I don't care how old you are everyone loves an advent calendar. I actually bought two, one for myself!

Another handy store cupboard snack is the Blackfriars flapjacks, I prefer the fruit one but they are rather large and I always cut into two portions so you definitely get your moneys worth. I've just realised I included one of these in last months swap box too!

I've not tried a packet of Urban Fruit Superberry yet, I'm starting to wish I'd bought two of these too, they look rather tasty. Finally but no means least a Pukka Teabag - Relax, which is a blend of organic chamomile, fennel and marshmallow root.

I hope you like your vegan swap box Sammy, and I hope you enjoy your bit of chocolate for every December morning. Is it too early to say Merry Christmas!

Artichoke, Butterbean & Olive Pie

I hadn't shopped for over a week, and if I'm honest the thought of driving to the supermarket and then walking round the busy aisles did not appeal to me today! So, once again I raided my store cupboards and fridge of things that I could use and needed using up. I do like a challenge. My cupboards were opened and the items that I chose included, a jar of sundried tomatoes and a tin of butterbeans. Next stop was the fridge, and it was rather bare to say the least, but I found a small jar of black chopped olives, a jar of artichokes, a lemon, 6 garlic and lemon olives, a packet of filo pastry and some bedraggled salad.

The next bit was the interesting bit, what could I make with these ingredients plus any herbs or spices that I had. If I was to use the filo pastry it needed to be a pie type dinner, but I didn't want anything rich and heavy, so a squeeze of lemon should help with that I thought.

After staring at the ingredients for what seemed like an age I decided that the butterbeans would be the main ingredient of the pie as this was the ingredient I had the most of, and the other ingredients would perk them up. And so artichoke, butterbean and olive pie was born.

Ingredients

2 small onions

1 Can of butterbeans

6 Sundried tomatoes

6 garlic and lemon olives

3 Tsp chopped black olives

120g Artichoke pieces

½ Lemon

1 Tsp garlic granules

Leaves from 3 stems of basil

Salt and Pepper

2 Sheets filo pastry

Method

Saute the onions in a little olive oil, until translucent, about five minutes. Whilst the onions are cooking drain the butterbeans and put ¾ of the tin in a food processor and blitz. The other ¼ of the tin cut each bean in half. This gives a little texture to the filling.  Add the beans and lemon juice to the onions and stir to combine thoroughly. Cut the sundried tomatoes into slithers, the garlic and lemon olives in half and dice the artichokes. Add to the butterbean and onion mixture with the chopped black olives and stir to combine. Finely shred the basil leaves and add to the mixture with the garlic granules, salt and pepper. Take off the heat and mix so every ingredient is distributed evenly throughout the mixture. 

Spray a small oven dish with a little oil and place 1 sheet of filo pastry over the dish, pushing the pastry into the sides and bottom of the dish but leaving the remaining pastry hanging over the side. Spray this sheet of filo with a little more oil and place the other sheet of filo pastry on top but at a 90° angle, so you have a cross and there is filo pastry hanging over each of the four sides of your dish. Transfer the butterbean filling into the dish and fold the pastry over the top to incase the filling completely.

Bake the pie in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 15-20 minutes or until the filo pastry is golden and crispy on top. Serve with a garden salad, I used lettuce, rocket, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Enjoy.

Asparagus & Olive Pizza

Hubby fancied Pizza tonight, and was missing the take outs we used to get every now and then. He said he was actually craving pizza and nothing else would suffice. There was only one thing for it, we made pizza. I had bought a bunch of asparagus for a knock down price of 75p only the day before and I was wondering what I could do with it. Asparagus and Olive pizza was born.

I also had a tube of Cheddar style Teese in the fridge, which I wanted to try out and as the packet said it melted I thought it would be suitable for the pizza.

As you can see from the photograph it was very orange and it didn't melt particularly well. In fact I probably won't buy this product again. It tasted chemically almost plastic and it didn't have a very 'cheesy' flavour if I can remember what cheese tastes like!

The asparagus, chopped black olives, basil and onion worked a treat though, you should try this combination. I bet it would work well in a pasta dish to, which I might try as I have 4 spears of asparagus left.

St Patrick's Pie

OK I may be a day or so late with this one! But after I'd made the pie I couldn't call it anything else it was full of greens. On returning home from work tonight my lovely friend gave me a bag of olives that she had bought at the edible garden show. They looked lovely and the cogs started turning as to what I could do with them. Of course, I could have eaten them on there own and I did eat a couple whilst contemplating what I could make. The first thing that sprung to mind was to make an olive tapenade, delicious as it is these olives needed to be turned into tonight's tea. I also had a delivery of my weekly graze box and lo and behold there were some more olives included in this weeks box. Both green and black in a lemon and rosemary dressing.

I raided my fridge to see what else I had or needed using up. I found half a bag of spinach and kale, some peas and a packet of purple sprouting broccoli. I've never bought purple sprouting broccoli before as its a regular in my raised garden but unfortunately last years plants haven't yet produced any and the local supermarket was selling it at a reduced price. I also had a packet of ready rolled puff pastry, the jus-roll is vegan, I bet you didn't know that!

No herbs or spices were added as I wanted the taste of the olives to shine

So that was it, St. Patrick's pie was born. Here's what I did:

Ingredients

½ packet of jus-roll puff pastry
1 oinion, sliced
1 packet of purple sprouting broccoli
Handful of frozen peas
30 mixed olives*
½ packet of mixed spinach and kale
400ml soy milk
1 tbsp plain flour
Salt and pepper

* The olives given to me also contained pickled garlic, jalapenos and peppers



Method

Saute the onion in a little olive oil until translucent, then add the purple sprouting broccoli and stir fry for around 5 minutes until the broccoli has softened. Add the washed spinach and kale and stir till the leaves have wilted. Add the frozen peas, and stir to combine. Be careful not to mash up the purple sprouting broccoli. Add the flour and mix thoroughly, then slowly add the soy milk, stirring all the time. Cook until thickened and add the olives, salt and pepper. Pour into an oven proof dish and top with the puff pastry. Bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Serve with a green avocado salad, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Houmous Salad Sanga

Readers of my blog will know that I used to be a cheese addict and since turning vegan I have tried many vegan 'cheese' but nothing has taken me by storm. However recently I ordered Teese after hearing about how good it was and how well it melted. I will update you all on my findings once I use it.

My cheese replacement however, is houmous! Today I enjoyed houmous on a granary baguette with lettuce, tomato, spring onion, beetroot, pickled gherkin, olives and vegan garlic mayonnaise. Delicious!

I think houmous and beetroot are the perfect partners and I need to experiment further with these two ingredients. Watch this space..................