Month: September 2014

Sweet Potato & Fig Salad

/ Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

I don’t normally buy figs because they tend to be very expensive. However I walked into my local Morrison’s the other night and found a pack of four figs for 25p on offer. I had no idea what to do with them so I made a seasonal salad. You can adjust the spice in the recipe to your taste. Me? I like it reasonably hot!

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Ingredients:

4 large sweet potatoes

4 large figs

1 red chilli

250 ml balsamic vinegar

4 spring onions

2 teaspoons of caster sugar

Salt

Pepper

2 teaspoons of oil of choice. (I use rapeseed.)

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1) Get the oven on full whack.

2) Chop the sweet potatoes into wedges and place in a baking tray. Do the same with the figs.

3) Drizzle your oil over the tray mixture and add salt and pepper to season. Place into the oven for 30 minutes.

4) In the meantime stir fry a chopped red chilli and spring onions for a couple of minutes and leave to cool.

5) Now we need to make a balsamic reduction for the dressing. Pour the balsamic vinegar in a small pan and heat until it boils.

6) Add the caster sugar, stir well and leave to cool. the dressing should thicken to a syrup whilst cooling.

7) Remove the sweet potatoes and figs from the oven and mix in with the spring onions and chilli.

8) Serve drizzled with the sweet balsamic reduction.

 

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This could be great as a side dish or even a full main course salad.

 

Enjoy!

Growing Garlic

/ Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

And so my adventure in Queer Vegan gardening begins! I’ve always thought that growing your own food is one of the most revolutionary things you can do, so why not let’s all do it together?

The first week in October is the ideal time to plant garlic so that you get lovely big bulbs in spring apparently. I’m going to do it one week early so that everyone has time to get the stuff they need to get this going.

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Stuff you will need:

An upcycled container. (I have used an old Ronseal container I found laying around.)

Compost. (Homemade is ideal, but if you’re just starting out like me, go and buy some.)

10 garlic bulbs. (Some guides say you need to buy these specially and can’t use the ones from supermarkets because they have been treated. I say, let’s try the cheap way and use the supermarket ones and see what happens. A lot of other people have had success with this.)

Method:

Wash out your container and fill it with compost.

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Now get your bulbs with flat bit facing down and cover with soil.

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This tub can be left outside, but don’t let it get too covered in frost and snow in the winter. I’m going to keep this in a corner to protect it a little bit, but not too much. Hopefully in the spring we’ll see some shoots. Let me know how you all get on and take some pictures! 🙂

Tesco Value Vegetable Sausages. (Product Review)

/ Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

This is hardly going to be an exceptional blog post with lots of pretty pictures. The Tesco Value range does what it says on the tin. It’s cheap and it’s cheerful. These six sausages come in at £1. I know what all you UK vegans are thinking. You can get the meaty Linda McCartney sausages for a quid in most cheap supermarkets like Lidl, but here me out. These are really quite savoury considering they are basically vegetables in a tube and they might come in handy if you are struggling to get kids to eat vegetables. They are also lower in calories than the meaty versions. Have a look below:

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I served them up with herby mashed potato and broccoli. They were incredibly filling. I guess all I can say is, I’d probably buy them again just for something different. They are cheap and they are cheerful.

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