Vegetarian Foods Archive

I don't do road trips, not that I don't want to but I get travel sickness.   The closest to a road trip would be journeys to and fro Scotland to Wales; or to the other side of London, England when visiting family.  A journey that sometimes took over 8 hours depending on traffic  We always take with us bottled water, nibbles like crisps or a trail mix, but also a  flask of black coffee, vegetable wraps or pasta salad and for sweet, because there is always room for something sweet: flapjacks .    But for the prompt today I thought I would share a cake, you may find it hard to say no to this cake, its Violet and Chocolate Cake in the shape of a heart.   And remember cakes are made for sharing.  Enjoy. 

Have you noted my absence?!   I haven't had Internet since Friday thanks to BT, until this evening when I got in from work.   I made these vegan coconut macaroons at the weekend.  With St Patricks day nearing us, I decided to add a teaspoon of  spirulina   to half of the mixture. Although they turned out looking good and held well, they lacked sweetness. Of course, you could make these with matcha too.   I promise to share the recipe in not too long, just need a little more tweaking before I am happy with it.  

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 ...

Yesterday I was going to share progress in my garden , as well as a small harvest of fresh strawberries, but I was tired.  Even though I had not done much over the weekend, I was mentally tired and then coming back home from work, had me crashing to the sofa.  All week I have been sharing food from overseas and other climes, but today its back to British - not necessarily these bars which are American, but I am nodding my head to one of the Best British ingredients - Yes, lets all scream Strawberries! This was one beautiful strawberry bar.  The bottom soft spongy, the top crumbly and crunch and in between a layer of strawberries. Teasing me, first a little bit burst of fruit, then a little bit jammy and then a little bit chewy.  Nice.  Although D eats everything I make, he does not always appreciate the vegan cakes I make that often, but he loved this one and was happy that I was not going to take any slices into work to share.  Secretly I was pleased ...

This is  not a cake 'cake' with a sponge, and its not a cheesecake though on first glance that is how it appears. This is a Butternut, Mango and Orange Marigold Layer Cake,  which I have also pretentiously dubbed as Sunrise Cake. The bottom is an almond crust, the middle Mango and butternut Squash filling is infused with Mango sweetness and then the topping finished off with a zingy zesty orange  jelly made with  agar agar  and then finished off with a light scattering of dried marigold flower petals - all depicting colours of the Sunrise.  I was impressed with myself, though I have to admit the rice paper butterflies actually look a little out of place, here or maybe dare I say it tacky - I did like the scattering of the dried marigold petals. This is not a very sweet cake, needs a squirt of (soya) cream to cut the richness of the butternut mango filling and the sharp twang from the orange topping.  Its also a very big cake, you can slice i...

I have so many bookmarked banana recipes, but when it comes to finding them - Can I find them, of course not, then I find  myself making another Banana Bread. This time with the addition of dessicated Coconut and Coconut Sugar and guess what it happens to be vegan too.  D thought the bread looked dry and suggested that he may want put some jam or sunflower spread on it,  but I had to disagree with him. I thought it was plenty moist and to prove my point even further, I took some into work for some colleagues to try and they sided with me, but he wasn't haven't any of it - we agreed to differ.  I think the coconut sugar gave the banana bread a caramel colouring as it looks like it is made with wholemeal flour.  I assure you it is not, the coconut sugar also imparted a little caramel flavour, or maybe I was just imagining that.  This Banana and Coconut Bread is adapted from a recipe by  the original recipe here.    I made some little tw...

I am quite partial to violet - I think its my way of harping back to my childhood days when I adored Parma violets whereas my school friends loved the love hearts if you were a girl or fizzers if they were a boy.  It was a time of gender stereotypes.  I am so pleased that times are changing and people are more accepting, if not more tolerant.   So much is my fondness for violet that I got D to make me Violet Gin last Christmas!. This  Vegan Violet Chocolate Layer Cake with Violet 'Buttercream' C ake had intended to be a super duper three layer cake, but I managed to drop one of the sponges when it came out of the tin. I usually just go with the flow when I mess up, but this particular day I actually got stroppy and was quite miffed with myself.  I was really looking forward to having a go at making a three layer cake and had set myself a goal to achieve it, but it was not to be.  I picked up the bashed chocolate crumbly pieces from the kitchen...

Rhubarb is a vegetable, not a lot of people know that. It was the first vegetables we harvested from the garden this year.  Sticker rock stalks have been shared with neighbours on our left and right side.  I have mad a couple of recipes with it, including this Vegan Rhubarb and Strawberry American Pie.  The strawberries also came from our garden. The recipe for the Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie comes from the awesome Post Punk Kitchen vegan chefs Isa Chandra Moscowitz and Terry Hope Romero in their publication Vegan Pie In The Sky.  It's been a long while since I made this style of pie and I must admit, I did really enjoyed making it all from scratch. Yes even the pastry, no cheating here and it was totally worth it. You know the first slice never comes out perfect, all the others did.  But did D bother to retake the picture for me, of course not - he was just interested in shovelling the pie down his throat.  I don't blame him though, it was tr...