How to make vegan potato cakes with leftover mashed potatoes.

What kind of person has left over mashed potatoes I hear you ask!  Not me usually, but if I know I want to make potato cakes I deliberately make double the amount of mash then try not to eat it all so there are actually leftovers. 

Potato cakes are my favourite thing to make and eat at the moment, and they're really easy and cheap to do!

You'll need, 

leftover mashed potatoes 

flour (any kind will do!)

oil

seasoning

anything else you want to add in - I like chives or spring onions in mine.

1.  Add a spoonful or two of flour at a time to your mash, and mix until it forms a stiff dough.

2. Add any seasoning (how much depends on if your mash was seasoned already) or herbs if you want to use them.

3. With floured hands take a golf-ball-ish sized amount of mixture, roll it then flatten it between your hands, then put into a medium hot pan with a little oil in in.   TOP TIP - cold mash, that's been in the fridge before you use it, is a lot easier to handle!

4. I carry on making potato cakes and putting them in the pan as I go.

5. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes per side, until they're golden brown, then serve hot, or keep in the fridge or freezer.

See, easy peasy!  I like them for breakfast or lunch with lots of vegan margarine spread on and sprinkling of sea salt.  If you make a big batch they store well in the fridge or freezer too.

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My favourite way to eat left over chips.

What's that I hear you say, left over chips?  Surely such a thing doesn't happen, you eat up all your yummy chips as soon as they pop out of the fryer/oven/takeaway.  But surprisingly sometimes there are left over chips, and this is how I like to eat them up.

Chop the chips up roughly into bite size pieces.

Heat a frying pan and spray in a couple of squirts of oil.

Put the chopped chips into the pan, with a good sprinkle of paprika and

a finely chopped clove of garlic.

Fry for about 5 minutes, add a chopped spring onion for the last minute.

That's it.  Easy peasy, I like to eat it for brunch! 

How do you use up your left over chips?  (if you ever have any, haha!)

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How to make vegan potato and lentil bake, the perfect autumnal comfort food.

Now it's officially autumn it's officially time for comfort food!  Yey!

This vegan potato and lentil bake is my take on one of my Mum's vegan recipes.  We call it Monday Bake because Mum would cook it on Sunday night in the oven with the Sunday dinner then reheat it to eat on Monday after we'd all had a busy day at work and school.

I still call it Monday Bake, although it can be eaten any day of the week, and it's even good zapped in the microwave at work for lunch too.

 

You will need

2 large carrots

3 medium sweet potatoes

6 medium potatoes

2 leeks

3 cloves garlic

6 handfuls fresh spinach, or a couple of handfuls of frozen spinach

2/3 cereal bowl of red lentils

a little oil

2 oxo cubes.

Steaming pan

ovenproof dish

bowl

jug

serves 6 (you can make it in a big huge oven dish, or split it into smaller dishes to store or freeze)

How to make your yummy vegan lentil and potato bake

Put the kettle on, or get some water boiling in the steamer pan.

First slice all the root veg into slices about half a centimetre or so thick.  Peel any veg you think needs peeling, but I usually make do with giving everything a good scrub.  Mix up the sliced veg and add it to the steaming baskets, then steam until they're soft.

Put the red lentils in the cereal bowl, and top up with water, just to soak them and help speed up the cooking time.

While the veg is steaming, cut the leeks up into fine slices, then fry in a little oil until they're soft and a bit caramelised.  Add the garlic, sliced or crushed, about 5 minutes before the leeks are finished.

Roughly chop the spinach.

Make up some vegetable stock, I do about 500ml boiling water with 2 veg oxo cubes.

Ok, so that's your prep all done and you're ready to layer up the bake then bake it! 

Put a layer of the leeks in the bottom of your dish, then a layer of lentils, then a layer of spinach, then a layer of the potato, sweet potato and carrot slice mixture.  Pour a little stock on to just cover the layers.  Carry on building layers until the dish is full up, or you've run out of mixture! 

Pop the dish in the oven to bake, about 200 degrees for an hour.  If you use a glass dish you can see all the layers and keep an eye on the lentils to let you know when it's cooked, if they're still orange and hard looking it needs more time! 

After an hour you can eat it, or let it cool and fridge or freeze it.  It's waaay better eaten the day after, the flavours get better the longer you leave it.  And it's best served with homemade garlic bread! 

 

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How to make vegan Thai spiced noodles.

This is my recipe for spiced Thai noodles, they've become a bit of an obsession round these parts!

Every couple of months Joe and I go to a seasonal market with food and crafts, down the street-art-ified back alleys of Digbeth, Birmingham.  I am IN LOVE with some 'lightly spiced Thai noodles' sold at one of the street food stalls (these ones!), I even dream about them!  

Sadly, I don't have 24 hour access to those yummy Thai noodles, so I've been trying out a recipe of my own and I've finally perfected it.  

Lots of Thai curry paste isn't vegan due to the presence of fish sauce.  We found some that's suitable for vegans in Tesco, so that's what I've been using.

You will need

1 teaspoon Thai curry paste

small thumb sized piece of ginger

2 fat garlic cloves

veg - whatever you like but I use1 carrot, 1/2 red pepper, 1 small onion, frozen peas, spring onions

oil

2 servings of your noodles of choice - we use ramen or whole wheat noodles

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

salt/half a vegetable stock cube

frying pan

sauce pan

serves 2

How to make your yummy Thai spiced noodles

First chop all the veg into small pieces and the garlic and ginger into tiny pieces.

Put some water in the kettle and boil it, while you fry the carrot and onion in some oil in the frying pan.

Add the peppers and peas, garlic, ginger and curry paste to the frying pan.

Add turmeric, salt (or stock cube) and the noodles to boiling water in the saucepan and cook following the packet instructions (usually for about 4 minutes).

Drain the noodles.

Add spring onions to the frying pan and fry for 1 minute.

Add the noodles to the frying pan with a tiny drop of oil and stir through.

That's it, pour those noodles into a bowl and get slurping.  The best thing about this recipe, apart from it being delicious, is it's so quick!  It takes me no longer than 10 minutes to chop, fry and boil my way to lovely Thai spiced noodles, much quicker than a trip to Digbeth!

 

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How to make mandarin orange ice lollies.

These mandarin orange ice lollies are the easiest things to make, ever!  I don't even want to call it a recipe, it's basically frozen fruit! 

You will need

1 can of mandarin orange segments, in juice.

ice lolly molds

How to make your yummy vegan ice lollies

Open the can of mandarin orange segments and use a fork to help you scoop the segments out of the can and into the ice lolly moulds.  

Use the fork to scooch the orange down to the bottom of the mould and try to eliminate air gaps.  Nothing bad will happen if you have air gaps, the lollies just don't hold together so well.  It's probably best to use the push up type lolly mould for this reason, to contain them in case they get a bit fallling-apart-y.  

You can add a little of the juice from the can to each mold too if you like.  

After a couple of hours in the freezer they'll be ready to eat!

These ice lollies are loads healthier and cheaper than shop bought ones, especially if you get the orange in juice rather than in syrup - then there's no added sugar. This tin of oranges was £1, so each of my lollies cost 25 pennies!  Incidentally, one small can of mandarin orange segments it enough to fill my 4 silicone push up ice lolly moulds.  Yey!  

If you liked this you might also like my 2 ingredient recipe for chocolate milk ice lollies.

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3 ways to eat vegan yogurt, and a Koko dairy free yogurt review.

Koko dairy free sent me some of their vegan yogurt to try.  It turns out that if you haven't eaten yogurt for 10+ years because you're vegan and can't eat soya you probably don't know what to do with yogurt!

However, with a little help from the internet, and a little sweet inspiration from the past, I've come up with 3 ways to eat vegan yogurt. 

Here they are,

Naan bread.  I found a naan bread recipe online and veganised it

by swapping the dairy milk and yogurt for Koko dairy free versions.  (Other changes I made the recipe?  Added in nigella seeds, kneaded the dough after it had risen and rolled the naans out a lot thinner than recommended!). 

I made plain ones and a yummy garlic and onion version with finely diced spring onion and garlic kneaded into the dough.  I've made naan bread before, but the addition of vegan milk and yogurt made the texture loads lighter and fluffier and the taste is richer and yummier.

 

Frozen yogurt and fruit.  I saw this idea on Koko dairy free's Instagram.  Mix a little icing sugar with vegan yogurt, spoon blobs onto a baking tray covered in foil, top with fruit then pop in the freezer for a couple of hours.  I've used tinned mandarins and chia seeds on mine, they're a nice, refreshing treat.

Chocolate and coconut vegan yogurt.  My mum had a yogurt maker when we were kids and me and my brother were allowed to add either cocoa powder or strawberry nesquik and desiccated coconut to our yogurts.  I always chose cocoa, a little bit of sugar and loads of desiccated coconut on top.  I haven't eaten yogurt for years, but this took me right back to eating little tubs of homemade yogurt as a little girl.  Except better, 'cos this version is vegan.

Koko Dairy Free original plain alternative to yogurt is really nice, it's also dairy free and soya free - yey!  It's very close to dairy yogurt, in taste and consistency.  When you eat it plain there's a faint coconut aftertaste, which I quite like, but when used in something savory, like the naan breads, it's not coconutty at all.  I love that all the Koko dairy free range has added vitamins and calcium, it makes me feel like I'm eating something good for me as well as something yummy!

What's your favourite kind of vegan yogurt?  Have you tried Koko dairy free?

Disclosure - I was sent some Koko dairy free yogurt to try.  I only write about brands I like, and I like Koko dairy free, and all opinions expressed here are my very own.

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