June Menu

I can't believe we are in June already, where has the first part of the year gone, it seems to have just whizzed right by! June celebrates the start of the British Summer and this year the longest day is on 21st June. Hopefully this month we will see a lot of sunshine!

To celebrate Summer Solstice I've created a summer solstice salad which is jam packed with fresh and vibrant flavours and with natures helping hand should increase your energy for the longest day of the year.

June also includes some other weird and wonderful celebrations, such as World Environment Day on the 5th June, Pink Day on 23rd and Social Media Day on 30th.

The menu for this month celebrates Fathers Day on Sunday 15th June, Eat your Vegetables Day on 17th, International Picnic Day on 18th, the Summer Solstice on 21st and the fantastic Chocolate Pudding Day on 26th!

June is also Camping Month so the specials this month will be specifically for all you campers out there. The recipes will be easy to make just using a camping stove, quick and just as tasty as home cooked food. I'll let you know my little secrets when preparing for a camping trip.

Want to know what today is................. its go barefoot day, so throw off those shoes and socks and take a wonder round your garden.

May Menu

Hello! It's been a while since I last blogged, but between colds, coughs and spring sniffles and catching up on my gardening, time has been very short!

But I'm back with my menu for May and it has an Italian theme in honour of my two new friends Lenny and Stacy who run the VegItalyGuide and AnyWhereTraveller websites. Watch out for my exclusive BBQ Party menu which I have written especially for them, I'll keep you posted. After all it is BBQ Month!

Without further ado here is the menu for May.....................

May also celebrates some weird and wonderful days, including some yummy food celebrations such as Chocolate Chip day on the 15th, Pizza Party Day on 16th, Pick Strawberry Day on 20th and Macaroon Day on the 31st. There is also a celebration day for us gardeners with Learn About Compost Day on the 29th! 

The best day of the month is today as it's Eat What You Want Day! Yay! So I hope you enjoy a feast today what ever you are doing,and if you'e stuck for dinner ideas why not try; a lentil roast, a casserole, or a pie? Here are a few to choose from.

Spinach & Mushroom Pie

Mushroom Wellington

Sausage Casserole

Lentil & Kale Loaf

                                                           





Here's to a good month which hopefully will be full of sunshine to help with the vegetable plot and warm enough to get those BBQ's burning. Cheers!

April Menu

I'm a little late posting the menu for April, but life has been rather hectic recently (again) but as always, in a good way. The clocks have gone forward and the nights are lighter, we just need the weather to warm up a little now. 

April is "Garden Month" and there will plenty of people like me making the most of the lighter evenings and getting out and about in the garden. Late March and into April is the time to sow and by the middle of the month you will start to see those seedlings breaking through the soil, always a glorious site. "April Showers" are part and parcel to this month and the garden needs the rain to help encourage the growth of your seedlings so rather than let those showers get you down, celebrate them and enjoy a rainbow salad.

Easter is just around the corner and I will be sharing my Easter Sunday lunch recipe with you, I hope you've ordered those vegan Easter eggs!

April also celebrates the fantastic and fabulous bulb; the garlic so I had to include garlic bread on the menu, but their may just be more garlic recipes to follow. 

Have you tried greenwheat freekeh yet? It's an ancient grain which is gaining popularity by the second. It is absolutely delicious and so easy to use, if you've not tried it yet then check out my recipe for Freekeh pilaf later in the month and see what you think.

Of course, there will also be the specials board which will feature recipes from around the world, so look out for them too.

March Menu

I can't believe that as from tomorrow we're already into the second month of the virtual cafe! March is full of celebration days, including St. David's Day (1st March), Shrove Tuesday (4th March), St. Patrick's Day (17th March), French Bread Day (20th March) and of Course Mothering Sunday (30th March).

But did you know that "French Bread Day" is also the same day as Proposal Day and Kiss your Fiancee Day. So why not propose, kiss your fiancee and serve up French Bread Pizza for dinner?

Mothering Sunday lunch is a three course lunch which is full of flavour, but not full of time! You will easily knock up all three courses in no time at all and some can be made ahead to save on time. The meal will spoil all mums out there, and whether you make it for yourself or someone else makes it for you, I hope you all have a fantastic day.

Of course, there will also be the specials board which will feature recipes from around the world, so look out for them too.

Tomorrow will see the first of March's Menu recipes; Welsh Rarebit with a Leek & Thyme Garnish to celebrate St. David's Day. Welsh rarebit, I believe was first introduced in the 18th Century and is also known as Welsh Rabbit. My vegan version of this classic dish is garnished with leeks to give it that extra Welsh touch. 

Vegan Mofo Roundup

Well, its the last day of vegan mofo and I thought I would end with a round up of everything bean like that I have created during the month.

I've thoroughly enjoyed taking part in my first vegan mofo even if it has left me a little shattered creating a new recipe every day for the last 29 days! I will admit some days it was the last thing on my mind especially if it had been a long stressful day at work, but I'm so pleased I stuck to it, it has been an enjoyable experience on the whole. 

I believe that I have got more creative in the kitchen especially with beans! I have now grown to love food that I have previously hated and will continue to use in my cooking. Most of my creations have been a success story and it was only yesterday that I had my first disaster, but one out of 29 can't be too bad can it?

OK, so what have I been up to this month then, all my recipes have been created with beans as an ingredient and I have created recipes which have included the following beans:

• Adzuki
• Bean Sprouts
• Black Bean
• Black Eyed Beans
• Borlotti Beans
• Broad Beans
• Butter Beans
• Cannellini Beans
• Green Beans
• Haricot Beans
• Mung Beans
• Pinto Beans
• Purple Beans
• Red Kidney Beans
• Refried Beans
• Runner Beans
• Soya Bean Curd
• Yellow Beans

Eighteen beans in 29 days is not bad going especially when you consider the amount of runner beans and green beans that my very small veggie garden has produced. They both featured a lot in my recipes, but it was great as none went to waste. Although I'm pretty beaned out to say the least and looking out the window I can see at least another 2 kilograms of runner beans that are ready to harvest!

During Mac 'n' Cheese Mondays I've created 4 very different Mac 'n' Cheese recipes:

• Mac 'n' Cheese - Simple
• Mac 'n' Cheese - Spicy
• Mac 'n' Cheese - Yellow Peppers
• Mac 'n' Cheese - Sweet Potato

My favourite out of the above has to be without doubt the Yellow Pepper version and I will make this again and again. In fact I'm already considering making it for a Cauliflower Cheese as I bought a wonderful Romanesco Cauliflower the other day, it's almost too pretty to eat!

TV Tuesdays involved replicating a meal from your favourite TV show or movie, vegan of course and I chose 4 of my favourite films and created the following:

• Mystic Pizza - Bean Pizza
• The Breakfast Club - Bean Maki Rolls
• Julie & Julia - Green Beans in a Mushroom Sauce
• Bridget Jones Diary - Leek, Butter Bean & Runner Bean Soup

My favourite recreation was the Green Beans in Mushroom Sauce and it's where my love affair started with the partnering of green beans and mushrooms. They went so well together and something that I will continue to experiment with in the future.

Work With It Wednesdays was a hard one for me, how can you create recipes that you enjoy using foods that you dislike? The foods I disliked (past tense as I now like them) were peanut butter, cannellini beans, butter beans and aubergines and I made the following:

• Bean and Noodle Salad
• Butter Bean and Cauliflower Mash
• Aubergine and Cannellini Bean Cassoulet
• Aubergine and Butter Bean Rolls

My favourite dish was the aubergine and butter bean rolls, but a very close second was the butter bean and cauliflower mash, both dishes using butter beans. I will be using this ingredient far more in the future. I'm thinking a butter bean mash atop a shepherdless pie?

Thankful Thursdays was all about giving to others, which in my case was making a meal for a camping holiday with friends, a homemade Christmas present and a big thank you to my hubby for putting up with me during vegan mofo! I also managed to write about the vegan swap box which to happy vegans organise every month. Food wise I made the following:

• Five Bean Tacos
• Runner Bean Chutney
• Bean Dhal
• Aubergine and Butter Bean Moussaka

The Five Bean Tacos were a great hit, and you can make them as spicy or as mild as you want. The aubergine and butter bean moussaka was a dish made from left overs from the aubergine and butter bean rolls and was surprisingly delicious. I also received a great vegan swap box from Heather too, which made my day.

Fry-Days are pretty self explanatory and involved dishes of the fried variety. We always have a treat for a Friday meal and anything fried is a treat - wouldn't you agree? Sometimes we enjoy a take away but I've not had a take away now for over a month! Perhaps one day this week, probably Friday we will treat ourselves. The dishes I created for Fry-Days were:

• 4 Bean Stir Fry
• 3 Bean Black Bean
• Bean Fajitas
• Bean Tempura

It was hard to choose a favourite from these four dishes, fajitas are a standard Friday dish and I use whatever is in the fridge that needs using up for the filling. Stir frys are another standard dish in our house as is a black bean sauce dish. Last Friday was the first time ever I made my own tempura as its normally too much hassle to get out the deep fat fryer and the mammoth task of cleaning up after, but on this occasion I was glad I went to the trouble as the bean tempura was lovely. Note to self though, it doesn't keep! It goes soggy after it has cooled so my compost bin had the leftovers ha ha ha.

Retro Saturdays in my eyes are all about the old favourites, the nostalgic culinary classics, a throwback dish from the 1970's. I've really enjoyed all these dishes and they were:

• Bean Risotto
• Bean and Mushroom Pasta
• Bean Stroganoff
• Bean and Mushroom Wellington

I love risottos and I have made a few, a lot of people say they are so time consuming but really is 20 minutes cooking, time consuming? OK so you have to keep stirring the rice and adding more stock but in doing so, I say to myself I'm adding in love, care and attention to detail, which in my book is worth the effort. I am a massive fan of Mushroom Stroganoff and I think it has to be my all time favourite dish, the bean stroganoff was good, but in my eyes nothing beats a mushroom stroganoff. So, my favourite of these four dishes has to be the bean and mushroom wellington which not only did I enjoy on Saturday but on Sunday too and I've got it for lunch tomorrow!

Sleepy Sundays are everything related to breakfast, brunch or lazin' in bed snacks. Most of my creations fall under the category of brunch and included these 5 (yes there were 5 Sundays in vegan mofo), creations.

• Broad Bean Pate
• Bean stuffed Mushrooms
• Bean Hash
• Green Bean, Mushroom and Cherry Tomato Pancakes
• Bean Potato Cakes

My favourite without a doubt has to be the bean stuffed mushrooms, where I partnered up adzuki beans and white miso, another match made in heaven. I loved the taste experiments I have undergone throughout vegan mofo but this combination was the winner for me. The least successful dish was my disaster yesterday! The Bean Potato Cakes, although I reheated one up this morning for breakfast and it was OK, quite tasty in fact.

All in all I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of vegan mofo and creating recipes that I will come back to over and over again. Yes it has been a little stressful at times especially when I've cooked late and I am frantically typing up my creation before midnight dawns on us! But I am so pleased that I have managed to create and post a new recipe every day!

I'm going to have a well earned rest, just a couple of days, while I recharge my batteries and my creativity levels increase. So I'll be back soon with more recipes in a few days.

Many thanks to all of you who have left lovely comments, become members, subscribed to emails or just browsed through my blog. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

See you all very very soon

Jasmine x