food Archives - Page 18 of 19 - Vegan Family House

January 17, 2012December 15, 2013

gourmet raw brownies and crisps

But first to the crisps: completely guilt free, dried raw squares of tastiness. The three flavours are Beetroot, Spicy Thai and Red Pepper and they’re all very good…

…but the absolute winner for us was the red pepper. Reminiscent of pizza, these would be very nice little crackers too. Topped with a small slice of tomato, a basil leaf and maybe half an olive… but before these musings could be made real and captured on camera they were all scoffed by other people.

The brownies are satisfyingly sticky, soft and rich, remarkably like a cooked cake but you still feel great after eating them. No sugar rush/up/down thing going on at all.

And just look at this cacao mint brownie coming towards you:

Excuse the food porn 🙂 Other varieties are cacoa cashew which is pleasantly cinnamony, carob hazelnut and carob orange. The carob ones are nice, they got gobbled down fast, but chocolate is always preferred here.

All these delicious, healthy products are raw, organic, vegan and free from wheat and gluten 😀 You can read more about them and purchase on Gourmet Raw’s website Use code GR003 for a 10% discount.

December 27, 2011August 20, 2021

Glazed Parsnips and Carrots with Pistachio

Everyone agreed that this glazed parsnips side dish was the best part of Christmas dinner!

8 medium parsnips (you can of course use bigger/smaller and adjust quantities)
8 medium carrots
a little sunflower oil to rub
a couple of teaspoons of maple or golden syrup
a teaspoon of rough seasalt
a handful of natural pistachios (not salted or roasted)

Peel/scrape the vegetables and cut into quarters, once lengthways and once across the middle. Rub them with oil and place in roasting tin. Drizzle syrup. Sprinkle salt and pistachios. Roast in a hot oven for about half an hour.

If you liked these glazed parsnips check out all our other recipes on the Vegan Christmas or Yule page

‘Vegetarian Christmas’ by Rose Elliot. Not exclusively vegan but there is a plethora of vegan delights included and most of the lacto-ovo recipes are easily ‘veganisable’. Our favourite Christmas dinner of Chestnut and Red wine pate en croute is one of many included here along with lots of advice on taking the work out of Christmas catering. This book is full of ideas for lots of special touches which can be prepared early and frozen – a firm favourite. Now out of print but the hardcover is available cheaply from both UK and USA Amazons below and has lots of lovely photos throughout 🙂 We love this book so much we even wrote a blog post on it!
Buy UK

Plant Faced Clothing – vegan messages on clothing.

December 22, 2011October 21, 2017

Solstice Chocolate Refrigerator Christmas Cake

1 square cake tin, greased
2 100g bars of good chocolate
1 tablespoon of margarine
1 tablespoon of golden syrup
1 200g pack of bourbon biscuits (other biscuits will do), bashed up
and here’s the Christmassy part… a crumbled slice of Christmas cake including bits of marzipan and icing
a handful of raisins

Method:
Melt 1 bar of chocolate in a Bain Marie (bowl over pan of hot water) along with the marg and syrup. Once nice and smooth, stir in your other ingredients and press mixture into tin. Melt the other bar and spread on top. We topped with sugar stars… chill in fridge until set and cut into squares.

It’s gorgeous… quite different with the Christmas cake but very, very good and dangerously moreish 🙂

See more festive recipes

October 29, 2011December 18, 2013

lovely breakfast

A toasted onion and poppy seed bagel topped with hummus, chervil, rocket and tomato; a perfect mix of freshness and solidity for a cold morning 😀

A month or so ago I pulled out all the shot rocket and chervil from one of the raised beds, leaving behind only the cut and come again lettuces from the salad mix, or so I thought. The whole patch is now covered in a lawn of young plants. Beautiful.

Will be interesting to see how long it survives… self seeded parsley always goes all winter. These are in quite a sheltered spot so I have hopes for my liquoricey little friends. Love over wintering 😀

November 20, 2010December 14, 2013

a green book giveaway

We have a beautiful paperback copy of Lynne Rickard’s new book , I Do Not Eat the Colour Green to give away. A lovely title which encourages healthy eating for kids. See our review of it up here

To enter just comment on this post and tell us what your favourite green thing is. Interpret the word green in any way you like 🙂 We only have one copy so Charlotte will pick the entry that appeals most to her this time – the names will be removed before she judges so feel free to enter if we know you personally or if you’ve never set eyes on this blog before – it won’t affect your chances 😀

Competition now closed: Congratulations to Wendy 😀

November 16, 2010September 24, 2019

Vegetarian Christmas

Rose Elliot’s Vegetarian Christmas is an older book, now out of print, but I don’t think anything has come along to best it as a veggie festive title (do comment if you know otherwise!). I got the hardback out of the library something like 18/19 years ago and it impacted me. The gorgeousness of Christmas food, the hints on preparing and freezing taking the hard work away from the day itself, the photos all through it. In fact looking through the pristine copy I now own (thank you Amazon marketplace, used condition, 1 pence!) I see obvious influences there for some of the recipes on our Yule page from puff pastry mushroom trees:

to little Santa pizzas:

and parsley potato stars:

There are five complete Christmas dinner menus in Vegetarian Christmas, sections on preparation, party food, puddings and cakes, lighter festive lunches and so many cute sides. There’s also a craft bit about making your own gifts. As with all Rose Elliot books there are vegan adjustments added in where appropriate.

Amazon links: Buy UK or Buy US

Whooper swans flew over as I was taking the photographs:

THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR (a historical novel by Lucy, written under her pen name), has six whole chapters of medieval Christmas, romance, witches, and a Scottish castle and stone circle…

On Amazon and Waterstones or visit Author website

September 15, 2010October 1, 2019

Scotch Broth

Autumn. Cold winds. Rain. Hail. Even a few moments of snow yesterday between bursts of hot sunshine. Walking on the South side of the hill in the woods it is suddenly no longer autumn but the end of summer. Off with jackets, faces to the sun then round the corner into the North and winter, now walking against horizontal hailstones. It is confusing… we need soup 🙂

Method: soak a cup of broth mix overnight, then cook up for an hour or so before adding chopped potato, carrot and onion. Cook until veg is tender, add some kale or other leafy greens and either a teaspoon of Vecon Concentrated Vegetable Stock or a few sloshes of Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (like soy sauce but with less salt and all the protein). Simmer a few minutes longer then dish up and garnish with parsley or chervil. Be warm.

Set in a fictional castle in Aberdeenshire, Ailish Sinclair’s debut novel, THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR, blends an often overlooked period of history, the Scottish witchcraft accusations, in particular the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, with a love story.

Amazon

Waterstones

Author website

September 12, 2010January 14, 2015

Tomato, lentil and vegetable soup

Ingredients:
1 cup of red lentils, rinsed
1 tin of plum tomatoes
1 onion, choppped
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1 sweet potato (or carrot) diced
2 sticks of celery, chopped
a handful of pasta
10 fresh sage leaves (or 1/2 a teaspoon of dried)
1 teaspoon of Vecon Stock or other stock of choice
handful of greens, chopped (we used kale)
black pepper
salt to taste

Place the lentils in a large pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and turn down to simmer. Prepare the vegetables and add to the pan with the tomatoes, pasta, stock and herbs – add more water if you need, if too thick. Cook at a low simmer until veg and pasta are tender, (probably about 20 minutes). Add the greens for the last couple of minutes of cooking time and season to taste.