Savoury Breakfast Pancakes

July 16, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

Mykey and I have recently taken so eating low fat, minimal ingredient pancakes one day a week. We often have ones stuffed with fruit, for example today I have blueberry pancakes. We actually mixed the blueberries in the batter and it came out an absolute treat. It also fuelled my gym work out perfectly. I’m hoping to move away from wheat pancakes soon and experiment with rice flour etc.

On Sunday we had a busy day planned. A baking hot car boot sale and then the rest of the day doing the garden so having a very large breakfast was certainly on the cards. (We burnt it off, don’t you worry!)

Ingredients:

Self raising flour 250g
Oat milk 500ml
Two rashers of Redwood’s tempeh bacon
Half a can of reduced sugar and salt baked beans (or your own home made version if you have more time than we did.)
Two cloves of garlic
A large handful of fresh babyleaf spinach

Method:

Mix the self raising flour with the oat milk until you get a thick batter like mixture. Add more of each ingredient as appropriate.
Leave to sit for 1 minute.
Pour a teaspoon of rapeseed oil into a hot pan and make sure it runs over as much surface as possible.
Pour about half the mixture into the pan and leave to cook until the edges start to change colour and bubbles appear in the middle and then flip and repeat on the opposite side.
Place on a plate whilst you prepare the second pancake.
Once both pancakes are cooked, start heating your beans and gently fry your baby leaf spinach with the garlic and tempeh bacon until soft.
Pour over the top of the pancakes and sprinkle with some nutritional yeast for extra flavour and nutrition.

Chorizo “carbonara” with catalan market salad

June 4, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

I’ve placed the word carbonara in speech marks because on the Jamie Oliver page there is a massive argument about it not really being a carbonara because it doesn’t conform with the traditional Italian perception of that dish. Personally I don’t care what conforms to what norms. I didn’t event this recipe, but what I can tell you is that it was bloody delicious and nutritious.

I fed this to my fussy eating vegan parents, brother, grandmother and little sister and they all very much enjoyed it. It however took me 20 minutes because I had to double the quantity of pasta due to the amount of people I was serving. The recipe below is the quantities for 4 people.

Ingredients

For the salad
25 g pine nuts
2 green chicory
2 clementines
100 g baby spinach
4 sprigs of fresh mint
45 g vegan cheese
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon agave nectar
For the pasta
320 g wholemeal dried penne
70 g vegan chorizo (My parents live in the middle of nowhere so I had to improvise and use Redwoods sausages with lots of chilli.)
½–1 fresh red chilli
2 teaspoons of dried rosemary
olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
2 heaped tablespoons vegan soya yoghurt
juice of ½ a lemon

Method

Ingredients out • Kettle boiled • Large frying pan, medium heat • Large lidded pan, high heat

START COOKING

Toast the pine nuts in the frying pan for a few minutes, tossing often

Put the pasta into the lidded pan, cover with boiling salted water and cook according to packet instructions

• Finely slice the stalk ends of the chicory and click apart the upper leaves into a serving bowl. Peel and finely slice the clementines, add to the bowl with the baby spinach, then pick over the mint leaves. Shave over a tiny bit of vegan cheese and scatter with the hot nuts.

In a cup, make your dressing with the vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and agave nectar, then season to taste and put aside.

Finely slice the sausages or chorizo, chilli and rosemary and put into the frying pan with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and a pinch of pepper, then squash in the unpeeled garlic through a garlic crusher and move everything around until lightly golden.

Place the lemon juice, soya yoghurt and remaining finely grated vegan cheese together in a food processor and blend until it looks like the below image. I also added some nutritional yeast for extra cheeseyness.

Drain the pasta, reserving a cupful of the starchy cooking water. Toss the pasta into the chorizo pan, remove from the heat and mix well with the creamy sauce, loosening with a splash of cooking water, if needed, then season to taste

Dress and toss the salad, then serve with the pasta

Then me and my Mummy went out for a walk to burn off the extra calories! (Approx 600 per serving which is fine if you are training or if you are not trying to lose weight. Otherwise do what I did and have loads of salad and only a little bit of the pasta.)

Let’s talk about fats baby! Let’s talk about you & me!

April 9, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

Fat gets a really bad rep in the media. Low fat this and low fat that. A healthy vegan diet is naturally low in fat. We must strive to remember however that fats help in the transportation of certain vitamins around the body, improve skin and hair, insulate and protect your internal organs and especially the fatty acids, help with nervous function and therefore brain power.

If you eat junk food that is laden with fat and do very little exercise, of course you’re going to put on weight. You can also be at risk of heart disease and cancer. However if you eat a small amount of healthy fat each day, you can improve your health, lose/maintain weight and look great.

So what are the fats to avoid?

Chinese takeways or any takeaways for that matter are often deep fried in vegetable oils or lard. An average takeaway can have up to 20 grams of fat. That’s a woman’s entirely RDA. Having a takeaway isn’t forbidden, but it’s probably better to make it more of a rare thing than a regular thing.

100 grams of crisps (a couple of bags) contains over 30 grams of fat. Don’t even think about going for the low fat versions either. Cut them out altogether. They are nutritionally void, especially if you’re trying to lose weight or stay fit.

Fast food burgers and chips are again absolutely full of fat and especially trans and saturated fat which are really bad for your heart and circulatory system.

Cakes and sweets are also loaded with unnecessary fat that you don’t need.

junk-food-sm

What are good sources of fat then?

Linseed and flaxseed. I put half a teaspoon in a smoothie or on porridge everyday and it doesn’t taste of anything.

Now this might surprise you, but leafy green vegetables. They don’t provide huge amounts, but they do have enough Omega 3’s to keep you going. I love kale and spinach and I’ll eat it for both lunch and dinner if I can.

Avocados are quite calorific and that’s because they are full of good fats. As long as you don’t eat like 5 a day, you’ll be fine. I generally have about 3 a week and normally in salad, although I do like making guacamole out of them.

Nuts and especially almonds and hazelnuts. They are at their best when they are unsalted and eaten as a snack instead of a bag of crisps. images

Good luck guys and make healthy choices.

Chic Pea, Spinach & Red Pepper Medley

April 4, 2013April 4, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

This dish is brilliant for protein, iron and calcium. I often eat this as a post workout meal You can also make it raw by sprouting the chic peas and not cooking the spinach or red pepper.

Ingredients:

Either a can or 400g of soaked chic peas.
A whole red bell pepper, chopped.
A handful of washed baby leaf spinach.
1 Tsp. olive oil.
1 Tsp of parsley, basil and sea salt.

Method:

Heat chic peas in water for 10 minutes if from a can and 20 minutes if soaked.

Fry the red pepper and baby leaf spinach in the olive oil for 5/6 minutes.

Drain the chic peas and mix in with the pepper and spinach.
Add parsley, basil and sea salt.
Serve warm or cold for lunch the next day.

Queer Vegan

Food, fitness and culture from a queer, vegan, metal head.

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