Chocolate and Beyond

Recipes: Caramelised Red Onion & Aubergine (Eggplant) Dip

This Caramelised Red Onion & Aubergine (Eggplant) Dip is a tasty and easy summer dip that has child appeal with the sweet flavour of red onion, and is fairly budget with the use of canned kidney beans to add thickness and texture. It's also gluten free. I came up with this recipe basically because I needed to use up an aubergine, and being a lazy cook at times, one of my favourite ways of cooking aubergine is to blast the whole thing in the microwave.

I don't use the microwave that often in my cooking, but preparing an aubergine like this - with the skin intact - is one of the simplest ways of using aubergine for recipes. It means the inside goes all soft and is very versatile for dips or sauces, but you also get to retain the skin, which doesn't char.

2000 'LIKES' Appreciation RAWR Chocolate Giveaway!

Oooooh, RAWR vegan chocolate, new and improved. What's not to love? And how about winning the above selection of this yummy stuff as a thank you for helping my Facebook page get to 2000 likes? It's like all your Christmasses have come at once!

I am delighted to report that I had the pleasure of sampling all these wonderful bars of RAWR choc over the last few weeks, including their new Gold bar, and like the first time I tried it, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I really love this chocolate, and now it's even better, since RAWR have recently made all their recipes smoother by using finer granulated coconut sugar (the flavour is still the same, just the texture is less crunchy).

Living Vegan: Vegan Vibes & Madchester at Bristol VegFest

There's nothing quite like the feeling of being around several thousand vegans and vegan-curious people when you generally live in a non-vegan world. Throw in some fabulous music, a few comedy acts, cookery workshops, talks and a banquet of free vegan food in the form of samples (believe me, you can stuff your face on these!), and being vegan has never felt so normal. Which is how it should be. And there you have Bristol VegFest.

Even better, aside from Friday evening when poor old Caravan Palace, who were playing at the opening event, almost got blown and rained off stage, the weather was perfect heat and sunshine. Which is rare in Britain these days. So the festival atmosphere really got going from Saturday morning onwards. And it has been my most-loved weekend of the year so far.

Recipe: Austerity Oat Soda Bread

So called because it costs about 70p to make a large loaf of this bread (soda bread at the supermaket is much more expensive), and it also stays fresh for at least 5 days, my Oaty Austerity Soda Bread recipe is easy-peasy and very wholesome tasting. I actually prefer it to yeast-based bread, and at least it mostly tends to turn out okay for me (unlike yeast breads!).

This is a bread which is great to make if you're living alone, because of how long it lasts. I just wrap it well in foil and it still tastes good 5-6 days after baking. So one loaf lasts pretty much the week. For the price of making it, I can't grumble. Obviously the price is kept low if you use very basic, budget ingredients. Opting for fancy flours and organic oats and so on makes it less of an austerity option.

Recipes: Vegan Tuscan Style Rice Cake - Gluten Free

 

How to make this Tuscan Soft Rice Cake, vegan stylee, and then save it for eating the next day? THAT my dear vegan foodie loving reader, is the question! Having experimented a couple of times with this recipe now to perfect it, it is definitely best served the day after making, or several hours in the least. But I promise you, it is worth the wait. Especially if you are a fan of custard or rice pudding. Because a slice of this rice cake is like a sweet, delicious, solid slice of custard pie and rice pud rolled into one.

Even better, it is also gluten free. And being that really delectable desserts are not always easy to come by in a gluten free version, I beg you to try this out on any gluten intolerant friends. Or any friends, in fact. They will lick your shoes with gratefulness.

I've Signed Up to 'Live Below the Line' on £1 a Day for Action Against Hunger

Could you live on just £1 a day? The figure (well, $1.25 to be exact) was set by the World Bank as being the definition of 'extreme poverty'. Right now, around 1.4 billion people globally live in such extreme poverty. Think about it. Imagine having to pay for EVERYTHING out of £1 a day?

But what I've become conscious of lately is that hunger is a growing problem even in places like the UK. I have been reading the incredibly inspiring and also, in parts, heart-breaking blog of A Girl Called Jack, who has to survive on a £10 per week food budget. I found out that author, Jack Monroe, was participating in the Live Below the Line challenge - where you agree to live on £1 a day for five days, to get a (very) small sense of what extreme poverty feels like, and to raise awareness for it. So I decided to sign up myself.

Recipe: Spaghetti Alla Carbonara Vegan Style

Oh my, oh my, oh my. If you have been craving a serving of thick, creamy, pasta stodge, and haven't quite managed to find that in vegan form yet, then this Spaghetti Alla Carbonara Vegan Style is just the thing that you have been looking for. The essential vegan comfort food, very tasty, and very filling.

I have been itching to make an animal-friendly version of this dish, which normally contains ham or pancetta. Not that I ever ate it all that much, at least not with the pig flesh, though I probably had veggie adaptations. However, I just love creamy pasta (who doesn't?!), and sometimes a big, heaped serving of the stuff is just what you need to fill your boots. And if you want a quick, impressive supper in less than 15 minutes (other than the time for the cashews to soak), then this is your pick.

Recipes: Black-Eyed Bean, Celeriac & Wild Garlic Burgers (Gluten Free)

Are you are forager? If so, get out and start harvesting the wild garlic that is in season right now! It won't be around for much longer, and gone by June, but you can still find plants that are ripe for picking. I am lucky enough to have abundant access to wild garlic via my parents garden, which is overgrowing with the stuff. And I can't believe it has taken me this long to actually bother using it.

The leaves are edible as long as they are healthy-looking - though they turn more bitter once lots of flowers start appearing, you can still eat them if you don't mind the taste. In some recipes, bitterness of the later season leaves is not likely to come through - it would be more noticable eating in a salad. But if you find a crop of them, you may as well just pick and see what you think.

Lose Weight with a 'Late Breakfast, Early Dinner' Diet? Can Intermittent Fasting Work Intuitively?

Call me slow on the uptake, but I've just heard about this thing called 'intermittent fasting', after getting the latest issue Red magazine which has a plan formulated by Amanda Hamilton. And I'm intrigued, because the most palatable version of it - the 16/8 method (16 hours fasting, mostly while you sleep, and 8 hours eating) - seems like the easiest way of dropping pounds I've ever come across. But as with many new weight loss crazes, it sounds too good to be true?!

In its essence, for this plan, you basically finish eating by 7pm at night, or whatever time suits your lifestyle, and then you don't have your breakfast until 11am the next morning, or whichever time leaves 16 hours between when you last ate.

What you're 'supposed' to eat in between varies considerably on who is doing the talking, but it appears a standard, healthy approach (which means vegan, in my opinion!) with three meals and a snack or two could do the trick (read Mama's Weeds account).

Cabbaging Out at Bristol VegFest May 24th-26th & CARAVAN PALACE TICKETS GIVEAWAY!

I'm REALLY looking forward to the end of May bank holiday weekend this year. After all the fun at Brighton VegFest in March, there is now Bristol VegFest 2013 to get excited about. The festival is pretty much the veggie event of the year, and it's also virtually sold-out. The organisers think the horsemeat scandal has given rise to a massive increase in interest into all things vegan - which is good news for animals, and for all the amazing vegan businesses that will be there.

As well as exceptional, big-time artists and performers like the Happy Mondays (YES! Madchester comes to Bristol! I first saw the Mondays at a free gig in Manchester's Platt Fields Park, when I was 17!), Caravan Palace, Peter Hook, Macca B, and many more - there are going to be over 120 stalls at Bristol Vegfest 2013 representing all things vegan and animal-friendly.

Recipes: French Green Olive Vegan Tapenade

In France, among the gastronomics, there is debate as to whether tapenade was traditionally always a vegetarian (though I say, vegan) delicacy, rather than the fishy version. And Monsieur Rémy Pierre, olive grower and tapenade-maker in Octon, in the Languedoc, insists that this is the case.

Of course, many people will know tapenade as having anchovies in it, but these little fishes escape their deaths in the tapenade promoted by Rémy Pierre, and the recipe given by little old moi in this post. I whizzed up this simple tapenade for a vegan potluck evening, and along with some organic breadsticks (made with olive oil, of course), it was a tasty dip and accompaniment to the rest of the meal.