Vegan red fruits crumble with dairy free dble cream

Serving Suggestion

 Red Fruits crumble for 6

•  3 apples
• 400grs of red fruits
• 50grs of ground almond
• 100 of plan flour
• 100grs sugar granules
• 100grs of dairy free butter
• 1teaspoon of very finely grated ginger

Crumble ingredients

1- Peel, core and cut the apples then cook them for 10 minutes in 25grs of butter, grated ginger and 25grs of sugar. This process will soften the apples. Now add the unfrozen red fruits and stir for another 2 minutes then sieve to recuperate the jus.

2 - Pour all the now ginger flavoured fruits in a buttered crumble dish. Refrigerate the jus recuperated.

3- Preheat the oven at 180C then start mixing the crumble;

4- For the Crumble mix, place in a bowl the remaining 75g of butter, 100 g of flour, 75 grs sugar and ground almond plus pinch of salt.

Ready for baking

5- Roughly mix until it look like wet sand with small lumps. With your hand, pour the mix on top of the fruits mix as if you were softly crumbling something over the fruits. Do not press the flour or it will form a lump just keep it light and shake the dish from side to side so the crumble is evenly distributed in the dish…

6- Put the dish in the oven and cook for 40 minutes at 180C.

Serve hot or cold with Alpro cream or a Dairy free ice-cream. You could also use the jus recuperated on step 2.

Enjoy... In moderation.

Nash

 

Lentils, Quinoa and soya chunks salad



Salad without parsley

Salad ingredients

  Ingredients:

• 20 or more soya chunks
• 1 small onion few
• 3 twigs of fresh thyme
• 1 medium tomato
• 1 lemon
• 1 glass of precooked quinoa
• 1 glass of precooked lentils
• A small bunch of flat parsley (optional)
• Olive oil  3 spoons
• Salt

Method:

Soak the soya chunks in a bowl with salt and boiling water. Make sure there is enough water to cover the chunks. Cover the bowl and leave the chunks to rehydrate for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes squeeze out the water and cut the chunks in smaller pieces… 2 to 3 pieces per chunk perhaps?

Cut the onion and fry into 2 spoons of olive oil with the twigs of thyme. Fry for 2 minutes and then add the cut soya chunks with one spoon of water. Simmer fry until the water dries and the chunk start browning and become crispy. The purpose of this is so that the soya chunks absorb the flavours from the onion and thyme.

Remove the chunks from the pan and set aside.

Now cut the tomato in small pieces, grate the lemon to obtain zest and squeeze the juice.

In a salad bowl, pour your lentils, the quinoa, the fried onion and soya chunks, the tomatoes, lemon zest and juice, a pinch of salt and the chopped parsley. Drizzle the last spoonful of olive oil. Mix well and leave in the fridge to cool.

This dish is best served on its own very cold. Do prepare some additional lemon quarters for serving is needed.

Serving suggestion wit parsley

This would be great for brunch and for the pack lunch.

Enjoy

Move over Ebony!

Dear Reader, this is just a pause…

I have been reading Ebony since my teenage years and have been until I discovered New African Woman!

Growing up in France, there were not many magazines that a young black woman could associate with until my big sister started to work for Johnson & Johnson selling fashion Fair products and bringing us Ebony which she got from work.

We somehow started to look to that magazine as one for us people of colour in a Western World and with ambition. America wasn’t Europe and you’d be hard pushed to find opportunities for your ambitions to become reality.

We admired the people in that Magazine because though we did not have their opportunities we could surely dream of what we could become in the western world …if only. For that reason, I have continued to read Ebony until now… until I discovered a magazine which is much closer to home, and portraying African (I’d say Afro-Caribbean) women/people making it happen at home and in the West. Whether born in Africa or Europe, or even in America, those woman are making thing happen.

In this magazine, Africa is portrayed in a positive way with inspiring people who are telling us that our dreams can come true if we worked hard at it. The Africans portrayed are telling us that, “now that you are educated and can no longer blame racism, get up GO GET IT and start helping others that need a leg up back home (where you or your parents were born)…!” I can identify with that and the content of this magazine.

If you are a young woman with your roots in Africa, I highly recommend this magazine because since I started reading it I am impressed by the finish product and proud that the people portrayed in it are people that I might tomorrow want to imitate, people I would want my little sisters, nieces or daughters to imitate.

If you have not yet purchase a copy, give it try as soon as you can. The Mag is called New African Woman and it is published in the UK. You will find it near Ebony and Pride mags… If you are reading from France, USS or Russia the magazine can be ordered for overseas delivery.

On more thing! New African Magazine published my recipes over 4pages in their June/July 2013 issue… see the link here

If you are in the USA, can you imagine Ebony (Johnson & Johnson) publishing your recipes over 4 pages?

Well, that how it felt. I am grateful for that.

To read the 40Day lent journey, please click or copy the link below.

http://nashdoes-a-daniel.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/xl-vegan-update-august-2013.html

Thank you for reading. Next week, back for the normal recipes posts.

Lots of Love. Nash

Just a little update

Just in case you didn't see this on the Daniel post, an update I'd like to share with you.
The mag is still available to buy in WHS smiths...

http://nashdoes-a-daniel.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/xl-vegan-update-august-2013.html

See you soon.
Nash.

Herby mushrooms with Potatoes rosti

Brunch for 3      

Ingredients:

• 400g button white mushrooms
• 50g dairy free butter
• Small bunch of curly parsley
• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 tomato
• 1 small onion
• 1 small green chilly
• 2 spring of fresh thyme
• ½ vegetable stock
• 3 medium potatoes
• Grated Brazil nuts – for dusting

Prep:

1. Mushrooms: Cut the foot of the mushrooms and peel by hand the outer layer of the caps. Rinse and set aside.
2. Onion & Garlic: peel and chop separately.
3. Tomato and small green chilli: chop and set aside.
4. Curly parsley: finely chop.
5. Stock: crush and set aside.
6. Potatoes: peel, grate (the long way), and squeeze the water out, pepper & salt.

Method:

1.       Melt the butter in a heated pan and brown the onions with thyme & garlic stir for 3 minutes on high heat.
2.       Throw in the mushrooms with a bit of salt, stir and cover for 10 minutes until the mushrooms have rendered all the water.
3.       Now add the tomato, chilli, herbs and crushed stock. Stir-fry while the latest additions cook for 5 minutes. Don’t let this dry completely as we need some of the moisture. This part is ready.

Accompaniment:

The grated potatoes have already been seasoned, so, they are ready to be fried.
In a d hot frying pan with a spray of oil, place a small amount of the grated potatoes, flatten with a spatula and let fry for 2 minutes each side. (See picture)Repeat until all has been fried.

Your dish is ready to serve.

You are not a racing track… so take your time relax and enjoy the cooking… then enjoy the eating. Watch your weight though.

Instead of rosti, you can just us some toasted nutty bread. Works too!

 

Enjoy!



huuuuummmmmm! Yummy!

Red Kidney beans cooked in Garlic and Ginger

for 2 potions

This dish is one of the simpliest you will find on this blog. It is simple quick and tasty.

Ingredients:

Dry kidney beans

1. 1 tin of kidney beans
2. 3 garlic cloves
3. ½ small onion
4. ½ tea spoon of fresh grated ginger
5. 3 tablespoons of Olive oil
6. 1 barely ripen plantain
7. Spring of thyme
8.  ½ vegetable cube
9. Salt and pepper

If you prefer your beans slightly firm, I’d recommend that you use dried kidney beans and boil it in salt water for 30 mins.

Preparation:

Rinse the kidney beans, set aside.
Peel and chop garlic & onion.
Cut the plantain in half and cover with water in a deep pan.

Method:

Yellow plantain

Bring the plantain to boil for about 20 minutes, remove the skin, scrape the spongy looking layer on the plantain, rinse and set aside in a bowl with boiling water.

While the plantain is boiling, Fry the chopped onion in a very hot pan with 3 table spoons of olive oil and a spring of thyme. Fry for 2 minutes.

Add in the ginger and crushed garlic, then add the kidney beans, salt, pepper and crushed half of stock cube.

Stir fry for 2 minutes then add 50ml of water mix, cover and let the water reduce on medium heat for 5 minutes so the beans will absorb the seasoning. Do not let the water dry completely as this dish needs moisture.

It is ready to serve.
This dish isn’t great reheated. Since it takes about 10-15 to get the beans ready, it is better to just cook the quantities needed.
If the plantain the beans were to be cooked simultaneously. The whole dish will take 20 minute to get ready!

Next time, make it with some soya chunk and chopped tomato then serve with chips or rice or just a toasted slice of bread.

Enjoy!

Did you know that Kidney beans reduced cholesterol and that plantain contains vitamins A, potassium and calcium? now you know!

Home made orange sorbet

As the heat get at its best on this small island of ours here is something to cool you down! An orange sorbet… for 10 or 5

Serving suggestion

Ingredients:

100g of sugar

1 lemon juice & zest

100ml Fanta orange

10 medium oranges

2 apples

10 bay leaves for decoration

 Preparation:

1. Grate the lemon and press its juice. Set aside
2. Cut the top of every orange and carefully carve the inside completely.
3. Put all the pulp and juice collected in a bowl. Reserve the hollowed oranges and their “hats”.
4. Make a little hole on the “hats” and insert 1 bay leaf on each “hat”. Once this is done for all of them, put the “hats” and the coops in the freezer… they will later be used to serve the sorbet.
5. With a hand blender, wiz the orange pulp to liquidise it completely. Set aside.
6. Peel, core and finely chop the apples. Add it to the liquidised orange and blend again.

Method:

1. In a deep pan put the sugar, the lemon juice and zest. Simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Remove from the stove, leave to cool for 10 minutes and add the liquidised orange & apple mix and the Fanta
3. With a spatula, stir to mix. Taste and add more sugar or lemon if it not sufficient to your taste.
4. Now pour the mix in a big freezer bowl and put it on the top shelf of the freezer. Check it in an hour
5. After the hour has passed, bring the bowl out of the freezer and with a folk or with the hand blender, break the granules of ice starting to form. Once it is smooth. Put the bowl back in the freezer.
6. Repeat step 6 every hour trice. The sorbet should be ready then. It is ready to serve in the hollowed orange shells.

Enjoy!

Exotic roots stew

Ingredients for the stew
 

Lunch for 4

 

For this dish you will need:

• 500grs of yam
• 300grs of yellow sweet potato
• 100grs of coco

All the above are widely used in East Asia, south America, Caribbean and Africa. These root vegetables are mainly full of vitamin B12.

Though heavy in starch, they are actually really good for you. I cannot list all the goodness in them here, but feel free to Google them or visit this website.

The other ingredients you will need are:

• 

  Here you can see: yam, coco, taro and cassava - FYI

  Palm oil 3 table spoons
• 3 medium red tomatoes
• 100grs soya meat balls
• 1 small red onion
• 50grs leek
• 50grs parsley
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 2 vegetable stock cube.
• Few twigs of fresh thyme
• 1 medium dried chili

 Prep:

*Start by rinsing, preparing and blending the following: half the onion, leek, parsley, garlic and all the tomato. Set aside.

*Boil 200ml of salted water and pour over the dried soya meat balls to rehydrate. Leave it for 15 minutes and squeeze out the water. Set aside.
*Peel the yam, coco, and sweet potato, rinse and set aside in a container covering the content with water from the tap. Covering them with fresh waster will prevent them from darkening in the same way the avocado or aubergine does.
*Melt the two stock cubes in 700 ml of boiling water. Set aside.

Cooking the stew:

In a deep pan, heat 3 table spoons of palm oil and add finely chopped red onion with the thyme.

Once the onion is browned, add the soya meatballs and brown for 5 minutes so they can absorb the onion and thyme. Now add in the blended ingredients, stir and cover the pot for about 10 minutes, then stir again and the liquid from the ingredient dries. Add salt and black pepper.

Now drain and add the root vegetables and the whole chilli pepper. Mix well and pour in the 700ml of stock. Cover the pot and let it simmer for 40 minutes, checking that the water doesn’t run out completely.

The hardest to cook amongst the 3 roots vegetables is the coco. So, when the yam and the sweet potatoes are starting to loosen up and the starch is making up part of the soup, check that the coco is well cooked and falling parts. If it is the case, then your stew is ready. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Dish this might be hot… better serve it with a glass of very cold water… lol.

Looks yummy innit? Watch out it is hot!

Better have this for lunch and not dinner as it quit calorific.
Voilà!

This dish is so full of goodness. The colour will mainly come from the palm oil which contains vitamin B6, Carotene and Q10.

All three of the roots used here contain folic acid, vitamin B and C. They are a worthy replacement for the humble potato along with cassava. I highly recommend the use of these vegetables if you suffer from anaemia as I do.

Hope you’ll try it.

See you soon!

Buckwheat salad for 2

Roasted mulberries and sesame seeds

Ingredients:

1. 200grs buckwheat (precooked)
2. A small bunch of parsley (finely chopped)
3. 
4. Hand full of dried Mulberries (riced)
5. Hannd full of seame seeds roasted
6. Half a red onion (finely chopped)
7. 50grs of crinkled pickles beetroots (cut in Julienne)
8. 1 lemon (zest from a half and cut the other half in quart)
9. Salt and black pepper
10. 2 tbsp of olive oil

 Place the buckwheat, chopped parsley, mulberries, onions, onions, lemon zest salt, pepper and oil.

Mix well and add the beetroots. Beetroot must be added in just before serving as it might colour the rest of the ingredients.

Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Serve with the lemon quarts which will serve as vinaigrette.

Next time, fry the onions with thyme in olive oil & soya chunks and add in the salad… yummy!

Enjoy!

Pounded yellow plantain

This dish is from my childhood. When well made it feel like a blanket on the tongue. I just love this dish.

Its nutritional value isn’t bad either. Check this out; the plantain contains vitamin B6, Vitamin A and C. The kidney beans protect against heart diseases, and a great source of protein. As for the palm oil it contains vitamin E, beta carotene, co-enzyme Q10 … According to a Portuguese explorer palm oil smells like violets, tastes like olives, has a colour of food blended saffron”. It is not be used by amateurs.

To make this delicious but simple dish you will need:

2 ripe but firm big yellow plantains

1 tin of kidney beans

50ml of palm oil

Salt and 1 dried chilli pepper

Method:

Start by boiling the plantains in their skin for 25-30 mins until the skin splits.

In the meantime open the tin of beans rinse them before warming them up in boiling water for 5 minutes. Then, drain again. Set aside.

Remove the plantain from the boil, rinse, peel and place in a salad bowl then mash as you would potatoes.

Once the plantain has been mashed to preference, add the drained kidney beans, salt, finely chopped chilly and oil.

Mix all very gently avoiding crushing the beans. Taste, then, adjust the salt… Serve.

I love the sweet and salty taste of this dish and also the nuttiness that comes from the palm oil.

Hope you will try it and come back to tell me about it.

Enjoy. :-)

Cinnamon pear tatin for 10

Ingredients:

1. 7 medium pears halved and corked
2. 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
3. 125 grs of sugar
4. 1 pinch of salt
5. Cream for serving (use alpro soy cream for vegans)
6. 125grs of butter
7. 1 rolled pastry (made with dairy free butter, sugar and flour)

Method:

In a pot, put 100 grs of sugar and 100grs of butter. Melt both stirring until the start to brown. Add the halved pears and all the cinnamon and salt. Cover to simmer for 20 minutes until the pears soften.

In the meantime, use part of the left over butter to get the baking dish ready to receive the pears. Once buttered, dust the dish with the remaining sugar.

Put the oven to Preheat at 200c.

Place the pears in the baking dish one by one and face down, then cut the remaining piece of butter and deposit the chunks on top of the pears. Now cover with the rolled pastry. Use a fork to prick the top of the pastry all over so it will let steam out while the cake is baking.

Place the dish in the oven and cook for 40 minutes at 200c.

Take it out of the overn and leave to cool before serving.
Serve with cream and poppy seeds for presentation. Alternatively use roasted almond flakes.

I use very little sugar because I am not a big fan. If your guests have a suit tooth, serve the cake with a coulis or ice cream.

ENJOY!

Don't forget to post a comment!

All vegan fry up!

For 2 people:

 ·         Half a mug of oat bran  ·       Half a mug of soya milk or rice milk  ·         2 tomatoes ·         2 giant mushrooms

·         2 cloves of garlic  ·         Herbes de Provence  ·         White ground pepper  & salt ·         Sunflower oil

Ready batter

 The pancakes:  mix the oat bran, milk and 2 pinches of salt in a bowl. Stir well, leave to soften and bind for 15 minutes. After, stir again until the mixture looks like batter… it is ready to fry.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a non-stick pan. Measure 3 tablespoons of the batter then spread it in the pan.  Leave it to cook for one and half to three minutes each side depending on how crispy you want the edges to be.  With the measurements given, you should obtain 3 medium size pancakes.  The third one is for the road!

The stack

The mushroom and 1 tomato: Peel the mushroom and remove the stalk. Slice 1 tomato in 3 rondelles.

Dust the tomato and the mushroom with salt, white pepper, diced garlic and herbes de Provence.  Heat  a tablespoon of Sunflower oil into a frying pan. place the tomato rondelles and mushroom in the pan and let them fry until brown on each side. Leave to one side.

Chunky tomato sauce: Dice the last tomato and garlic cloves then fry both together until they are soft. Cook for no more than 3 minutes in a hot oily pan. Add 3 tablespoons of water then let it cook for another 1 minute. (Don’t let this dry as the moisture from the mixture is essential for the whole dish. Just as bake beans would.)

Breakfast is ready w/red fruits tea & compote

Now all the elements are ready to serve. I served mine stacked in this order: pancake, mushroom, tomato rondelles, then the chunky tomato sauce on top.

Bon Appétit.

Red Camargue rice salad

To make this beautiful colourful salad, all you need is red Camargue rice cooked salted water and rinsed (rinsing after cooking removes the starch).

Fresh broccoli florets (better picked by hand).

1 peeled carrot, cut in a very fine julienne way.

½  a red sweet pepper, chopped.

1 chopped tomato.

A hand full of Roasted peanut, crushed.

Once all it chopped sliced and crushed, mix them all in a bowl with a drop of mustard oil. If you want a bigger kick to this salad, add a finely chopped chilli pepper.

Serve as it is or with a slice of lemon for some sourness.

This is great for a work summer lunch.

Hope you’ll enjoy it. Let me know what you have added or changed.

A bientot!

Stuffed onion (“Olivier") with parsnips chips

So, my friend came to work the other day, pulls out this massive onion from her bag and say… look! I brought this for you!

I took the onion and It was the most perfect onion I have ever seen; the colour, the shape… I proceeded to make and exposé to my colleagues about the onion for the rest of the week. I displayed it on my desk and everyone passing by asked me why I had this onion on my desk… we had by now named it “Olivier”. Unless you can see beyond the fact that it was an onion, you’d know why “Olivier” was on my desk. I thought about exhibiting it in the London National gallery but the urge to cook something special with it was much stronger! So here it is:

Stuffed “Olivier” with parsnips chips and tahini sauce.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

“Olivier” the onion

Fresh parsley

 5 Brazil nuts

1 table spoon of flour

3 garlic cloves

1 carrot

10 soya meat balls

3 parsnips

1 vegetable stock cube.

1 table spoon of Tahini and mustard paste.

Ready to be stuffed!

Start by hollowing the onion leaving at least 3 layers for the shell.  In a hot frying pan with olive oil, brown the extremities of the onion shell and leave aside.

Prepare the stuffing:

Boil some water and pour over the soya meat balls with a pinch of salt. Leave to soften for 10 minutes, then squeeze out the water and cut finely.

The soya meat is a bit like a sponge and need a lot of seasoning. So, after cutting it finely, fry it for 3 minutes in Olive oil and chopped onion. Set aside.

Roast and grate the brazil nuts, peel and grate the carrot, finely chop the parsley, chop onion and garlic.

Now in a hollow dish mix all the above with the flour and 3 table spoons of water, a bit of salt and pepper, half a crushed vegetable stock cube and the fired soya meat.

Olivier halves ready for the oven

Scoop the mélange into the onions halves, put them in an oven dish and drizzle olive oil on the top. Cover the dish with aluminium and put in the oven at 175C for 1hr.

The aluminium will help produce the steam needed in to cook through the mince. Remove the aluminium after 30 minutes and leave the onion to finish cooking and browning for the other 30 minutes.

For the tahini sauce.

In a frying pan, add a table spoon of olive oil, add a hand full of onion and brown. Add the tahini paste and mustard paste with half a glass of water. Leave to cook for about 5 the time for the water to dry and you can no longer smell the mustard on it own or taste the bitterness of the tahini.

For the parsnip:

Peel, cut and fry like regular potatoes chips… (simples!)

All is ready to serve.

Here it is... Stuffed "Olivier with parsnips chips & Tahini sauce". Enjoy!



Pulse Party for 2

Proportions here are for 2 portions 

For this colourful pulses salad we need the following:

½ Chick peas tin

100grs of green lentil (preferably dry) – or half a tin

100grs black kidney beans (preferably dry) – or half a tin

 1 small tin sweet corn

Toasted sesame seeds (1 table spoon)

 Sundried tomato (5 pieces)

Orange sweet pepper (optional)

Salt & ground thyme

2 Table spoons of garlic flavoured olive oil. You will get this if you buy a jar of garlic in Olive oil

If you are thinking of making this dish, it is best to use dried bean & lentils. This is just because they remain firm after cooking compared to the tinned beans for example. And they maintain their colour, plus it works out cheaper on the quantity purchased. And you just cook the quantity you need for the dish that you are making.

If using dry beans and lentils start by soaking them for 12 hours or more… What? Tasty stuff takes time so get on with it! After soaking rinse them out. Put them to boil in salty water for about 30 minutes minimum. When cooked to your taste. Drain and leave aside.

Open the tin of sweet corn, and half a tin of chick peas, rind them out under running water.

Take the sundries tomato slices and cut them as small as the beans be about the size of the beans.

Roast the sesame seeds until slightly brown.

Now all you have to do is mix all the above in a bowl, with a pinch of salt and grounded thyme.

once served, drizzle on it the of garlic flavoured olive oil.  A squeeze of lemon work well in place of olive oil too.

Et voila!

This can be served with fresh baguette or rice cake like mine.

Bon Appétit



Mustardy Lentils soup

 Mustardy Lentils soup - Soup served with hard baguette.

Ingredients:

1 onion, 5 garlic cloves

4 medium potatoes

300 grams of lentils – preferably dry

Two chilli peppers

1 stock cube

Mustard oil & black Pepper

Part cooked baguette

Roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds or poppy seeds

For the lentils:

If using dry lentils, soak them for 20 minutes and bring them to boil with a pinch of salt for another 20. Rinse and drain. Put aside.

For the hard baguette:

Buy a part cooked baguette from any supermarket, cook in the oven following instructions on the package. Slice and leave it to dry and harden or an hour before using for the soup. It could be cooked in the morning and used in the evening. You will find the part cooked baguettes in the bread aisle in Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose or Morrison’s.

Cooking the soup:

Heat 2 table spoons of mustard oil in a cooking pan

Throw in a twig of thyme, chopped onion and garlic.

Add the peeled and cut potatoes, fry until really brown. This will add to the flavour of the soup.

Once the potatoes are brown on all sides, add the lentils, stock, water and chilli peppers. Cover the pot and leave to cook until the potatoes are completely cooked and nearly mushy. Add a bit of black pepper if necessary. Then blend to taste; smooth or with bits. It is ready to serve. 

Once the soup is in the bowl, top with a drizzle of mustard oil and a dust of poppy seed… I just love the way that poppy seeds crush under the tooth…

Yeah! I changed my mind about the seeds.

For best taste, It is better to dunk the bread... uhmmmmm the rush... mouth watering thinking of it again.

Bon appétit!

Nash!