Vegetarian Foods Archive

This marigold yellow pasta with marmalade coloured roasted peppers and butternut squash was lunch for work - twice, last week.   As I was tucking in, it got some of my colleagues all intrigued and curious 'Gosh, that pasta is glowing'. The pasta is simply infused with turmeric powder.  I've also tried this method with beetroot See HERE .   Although I have used ready made penne pasta here, you could easily make vegan Turmeric pasta from scratch too, just add a teaspoon or half to the flour when your mixing and kneading.  Anyway, the turmeric pasta on its own was a bit bland, so I decided to make make a vinaigrette dressing for it with some Blood Oranges that were mingling with the lemons in a bowl. The Blood Orange Chilli Oil was spicy and quite tasty elevated by the addition of my bottle of Welsh Blodyn Aur Rapeseed Chilli Oil.    Of course, you can make your own Chilli Oil at home and I probably would had I grown my own chillies, but sometimes whe...

How Golden Am I?  Have you noted the last four recipes have been made with gold coloured vegetables and also happen to be accidentally vegan too. Well here is another - my Giant 'Jaffa' Cake.   I was inspired to make this by the groovy chics at  Kind Cakes, Mean Bakes  in Bristol.  They make  awesome biscuit shaped Jaffa Orange and Raspberry Fakes.   I thought I would give Jaffa Cake a go too, but in the form of one big cake that could be sliced and shared.  I decided to enhance and a dapt  my own vegan Chocolate Orange Cake . To demonstrate how large this cake it, hence the deliberate use of the descriptive giant in the title of the blog, look at my hands on the side. This is a whopper of a cake  measuring 36cm, just over 14 inches .  I made in my new PushPan, I have to admit I did struggle pushing the pan out of the tin, but it came out with a bit of patience, good job I am not doing a honest review on it as it was g...

This is a softly scented Darjeeling Pecan Tea Loaf. I was prompted to make when vegan Jaffa Cake' , after responding to her comment.  I had a little nosy around a blog she followed and clocked a Tea Loaf recipe that would use up 2 tablespoons of marmalade sitting at the bottom of the jar left over from the Jaffa Cake recipe ,  It was not long before I found myself in the kitchen measuring out the ingredients and those I d id not have, I substituted with what I had. For example her cake was made with Orange flavour Redbush (Rooibos), I used Darjeeling.     I am not a Darjeeling tea drinker, my husband is and I've used his teabags in the past for Banana and Darjeeling Cake : this loaf though is suitable for vegans.   There was something Welsh  Bara Brith  about it too which I liked. So even though this cake is made with tea, you still need a cuppa with it to wash it down.  I am sharing these 'Cake' with Love Cake: the theme is...

Another cake to enjoy with a cuppa tea if you so wish. I won't fib, this is really a Lemon Poppy Seed Drizzle blinged up.  The Lemon is replaced with seasonal Blood Oranges and the Poppy seeds replaced with the trendy chia seeds.   After all chia seeds are the new poppy seed! I am not going to give you a recipe either, just adapt a recipe you already have for a Lemon Poppy seed cake with the ingredients mentioned above.  Saying that though I did not adapt the vegan Lemon Poppy Seed cake recipe on my blog , but adapted a different one - still vegan.   The blood orange icing glaze was a pink from the freshly squeezed Blood Orange, its just a shame that is not picked up in the photograph.   I've made this cake in a loaf tin here, but it could easily have been an 8 inch round cake tin.   Whilst the cake is cooling, I tend to poke a few holes with the skewer to allow the icing sugar glaze to seep though, a bit like Lemon Drizzle cake, but this ...

It is the Blood Orange Season. I had picked up some Sicilian Blood Oranges from a supermarket and wasn't completely sure what to do with them other than just peel and eat them, of course. It was only when I started reading  an on line article by Claudia Roden for sharing the recipe with the Western world. Sicilian Blood Orange Almond Cake   9 inch round baking tin Ingredients 4 blood organic oranges, rinsed 6 free range eggs 250grams ground almonds 250grams caster sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder Method 9 inch spring form round tin, with a removable base, buttered and floured Place 3 or the oranges, unpeeled, into a saucepan and cover with water and allow to boil for 1 ½-2 hours, until the oranges have completely softened. Drain water and allow the oranges cool, then cut them open and remove the pips.  Make the oranges into a pulp by putting them in a food processor. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl, and then add these along with the ground almonds,...

This Upside Down Sicilian Blood Orange Chocolate Cake  is my second  Sicilian Blood Orange  recipe.  This cake, like the gluten free Blood Orange Almond Cake was also very  delicious and I say that with a bit of surprise.   Why?  Well for those of you who know me now, will know that I don't really do sweet cakes, and I don't go gaga  or doolally tap for chocolate either.  I am drawn more towards savoury eats and treats, but my man, my husband has a very sweet tooth - be it for cakes or chocolate.  He likes them both but not always together. This cake was wonderfully moist on the first day.  A couple of days later the chocolate sponge had got a bit cold and stiff, but it was still very good.  I think it is best served at room temperature too.   I especially loved the Blood Orange topping and the orange caramelised and became both sticky and chewy.  We enjoyed the cake without cream, but it could benefit with ...

Some of you may remember last month I made a Beetroot Rose Rice Pudding , my husband loudly asserted  You can make that again !  Well I have been looking for a reason to make  a variation of it again and it came with the   Wendy at A Day In The Life on a Farm . The movie chosen this month is  The Martian .   I had not watched it, so we picked it up when we were in Bath, Somerset for the day.  I watched it that evening.   The Martian is about an astronaut  Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) a Botanist who is accidentally presumed to be dead and is left by his crew on Mars.  When he wakes up, he realises he is all alone and has to survive.  He embarks on a journey, a journey of survival where he attempts to grow potato crops on a land where nothing grows, biding time for his colleagues to come and rescue him.   Here is a trailer to the movie if you have not watched it.   The most obvious food reference was of cour...

Early on in the month, I made a Blood Orange Tart when blood oranges were still in season.   I have been wanting to make this for a while, and when I saw blood oranges at a supermarket, it was decided that this was my weekend mission.  I started with great excitement, measuring out the ingredients, bringing out bowls, whisks and measuring spoons.  I made everything from scratch, the shortcrust pastry.  The orange custard creme  brulee -like filling and then sliced the blood orange as thinly as I could with such concentration that you think I had telepathic skills.   However, as I slowly progressed with each stage, my heart began to sink beginning with the shortcrust pastry that began to shrink from the sides of the cake tin when it came out of the oven.  It bothered me as I thought the filling was going to overflow.  Then came the blood orange custard filling which I thought was never going to thicken to a luscious Orange curd lik...