Chickpea Balti

January 19, 2014January 19, 2014 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

Everyone loves a good curry right? Well let us make a healthy and tasty alternative to the traditional takeaway. 🙂

Ingredients:

2 mugs of brown rice

A can of chic peas

A large handful of fresh baby leaf spinach

2 white onions

5 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon mild curry powder

1 can of chopped tomatoes

Salt

Chili flakes

Fresh coriander

Method:

Get the rice in a pan and pour over some water. Boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. (Rice always takes AGES.) Drain and plate up.
In the meantime (like the 30 mins it’s gonna take the rice to cook) chop the onions and garlic and fry in a little oil.
Add all the spices, salt and a sprinkle of chili flakes to your flavour choice.
Now drain your chic peas and add to the pan. Mix well with the spices to ensure that they are full coated.
Next, add your fresh spinach and stir into your curry mixture until it starts to wilt.
Finally add your can of chopped tomatoes and heat through adding salt if required.
Serve with fresh coriander and shop brought mango chutney.

Please enjoy responsibly! 😛

Get Your Healthy On: Vegetable Stir-fry

January 7, 2014 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

Sometimes to be healthy it’s all about taking it back to basics. Here’s one of my favourite and very basic recipes that is guaranteed to fill you up and not break the bank.

Ingredients:

A whole pack of mushrooms

2 carrots

2 sticks of celery

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

A mug of brown rice

A mug of red lentils

Method:

Place the lentils and brown rice in a pan of boiling water and cook for 30 minutes on a medium heat.
In the meantime, cut, chop and peel all of your vegetables.
Place in a hot pan without oil and stir constantly for 10 minutes so that they do not stick.
Turn the heat off and allow to cool, whilst you wait for the rice and lentils.
When the rice and lentils are nearly done, crank up the vegetable pan again.
Drain and rinse the rice and lentils and place at the bottom of a bowl. Top with your steaming hot vegetables.
Sprinkle with chilli flakes, fresh coriander and soy sauce for some epic flavour.

500 calories, low fat and high fibre – not that us vegans really worry about fibre! 😉

That recipe will serve two adults.

Mushroom Pate

December 24, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

The Facebook group, “What Fat Vegans Eat” has spoken so here is my famous mushroom pate recipe. So far served to Mykey, Herts Vegans and probably quite a few others after this post.

When I made this for my Christmas spread blog, I added dark ale and it tasted divine and for the Herts Vegans potluck, I substituted the dark ale for extra mushrooms and garlic and it worked just as well.

Ingredients:

1 whole pack of mushrooms (will make two ramekins)

8 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

2 red onions, peeled and diced

2 table spoons olive oil

1 table spoon of vegan butter

A teaspoon of herb of choice. (First time I used dill and the second time I used parsley)

Salt

Pepper

2 table spoons of dark ale (optional)

Method:

Heat a pan with the olive oil and literally put all of the ingredients in that pan straight away.

Cook whilst stirring every couple of minutes for about 10-15 minutes.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then place in a blender.

Blend until it resembles a chunky paste. Taste test and add more salt etc if needed. I’d also recommend adding some more olive oil here just to make it extra creamy.

Enjoy with toast, crostini, soya cheese or homemade wholemeal bread….or take to a potluck with some peanut butter cookies! 😉

Christmas Tapas Menu

December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

I’ve only really come around to the idea of Christmas this year. Every year previous I’ve organised an event called Big Gay Christmas, where we would typically avoid general Christmas activities, get drunk and have a laugh with our friends. I would host an open house party and people would drop in and out all day, eat food and play video games with me. It also meant CHAMPAGNE FOR BREAKFAST and who doesn’t like that one day a year? Last year unfortunately I was severely let down. I spent most of the day by myself, until a kind friend invited me over and by which point I was so drunk and upset I fell asleep on her sofa. With that in mind I decided that my generosity was no long appreciated and therefore would no longer be offered. Luckily I have a lovely Beardy who has a great family and they are having us and the woofer over for Christmas. This gives me great joy because for the first time in ten years, SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE COOKING! (Although I have agreed to make mulled wine.)

I’m at Mykey’s family for Christmas, so that means I’m at my parent’s for New Years. I promised them I’d make something tasty, so I decided I’d do a bit of a random tapas menu. Clearly I needed to practise it as well, due to my family being rather large. (Quite ironic for someone so avidly against population expansion.)

The menu is as follows:

Parsnip soup
Home made bread
Plant based cheeses
Chutneys and jellies
Bread crackers
Dutch apple cake (blatantly store brought)
Sweet, breaded and roasted “ham”
“Steak” and ale mini pies
Fruit jelly and custard
Roast potatoes
Thai “fish” cakes
Mushroom pate

Obviously you need to like make gravy and steam some vegetables of your choice, but that is a 4-6 person spread right there.

Sourdough Toast & Home-made Pine Nut Pesto Salsa

December 6, 2013December 6, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

I found a magazine stashed away under the sofa called, “Summer Vegetarian” recently. I had a look through and decided that pretty much everything could be veganised or was already vegan. I looked at the first recipe and instantly wanted to make it. It was called, “Ricotta toasts with rocket and pine nut salsa.” I’ve put my Queer hands all over it, veganed the shit out of it and below is the result:

Ingredients:

* 1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped.

* 50g bag of wild rocket.

* 20g of fresh basil.

* A whole small jar of capers, drained.

* Juice of half a fresh lemon.

* 3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

* Half a small bag of pine nuts.

* 1 loaf of sourdough bread.

* Two fresh tomatoes, sliced.

Method:

Put the garlic, rocket, basil leaves, capers, lemon juice and olive oil into a food processor and pulse blend until you have a chunky, bright green sauce.

Stir the pine nuts through the sauce and give another quick pulse blend.

Slice your sourdough loaf and toast under the grill or in the toaster.

Spread your pesto salsa on your toast and top with fresh sliced tomatoes. You can also add a dash of balsamic vinegar here for a little extra flavour.

The original recipe suggests that per serving you’d be looking at 279 calories. Personally I’d guess that it was much less than that because I’ve not used any animal derived ingredients.

This took approximately ten minutes to make and it will use the entire loaf.

I’d serve this as a snack, a starter or a light lunch. It’s full of protein, vitamin C and vitamin E. Enjoy! 🙂

Vanilla & Maple Syrup Cookies

November 25, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

I love cooking, but when it comes to baking I’m probably the worst person in the world at it! Don’t get me wrong, vegan cakes are no harder to make than non-vegan ones. If anything they are easier because you don’t have to mess around with eggs etc. The reason I’m so bad? Well because you have to follow the recipe using proper measurements for it all to come out right. You can imagine my surprise when I just threw a load of ingredients together the other night and they actually came out ok. No scrap that, they were amazingly tasty….even if they didn’t look it.

Here’s my made up spur of the moment recipe:

¾ tub of vegan butter (I used Vitalite.)

A phone sized wedge of vegetable shortening (I used Trex.)

2 tablespoons of vanilla essence.

Half a small bottle of maple syrup.

2 tablespoons of egg replacer (I don’t normally use this stuff, but I just thought it might work for once and it was almost out of date.)

A shot of water.

10 tablespoons of self raising flour.

Method to my madness:

Place the butter and the shortening in a bowl and mix together using an everyday fork, until it becomes a type of thick paste.
Now add the flour, vanilla essence, maple syrup and egg replacer. Mix together with clean hands and if it becomes too dry, now is the time to add the shot of water.
It should basically look….well like cookie dough! You can also try it now because it doesn’t have any nasty things in it that will make you sick. Do you like it? Does it need more vanilla? Then add it!
Now grab some greaseproof paper, put it on a baking tray and spoon out small circles which will become your cookies.
Bake for 10 minutes at 200 degrees, then turn right down to 150 degrees for another 10 minutes. (This will insure the outside is crispy and the inside is soft.)
Serve with a nice glass of plant based milk.

Seriously Tasty Time Saving Porridge Topper

November 10, 2013November 10, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

Oats are amazing! They are great for the bacteria in your gut, give you loads of energy, keep you full up and are loaded with fiber. Being vegan I don’t really need to worry about fiber because everything I eat has it in, but you can always do with more right?

Mykey and I live a very hectic lifestyle. We are guardians to five cats and one very lively American Bulldog called Bailey. We also work full time and train twice a day everyday at the gym. A little while ago I decided we needed to cut down on the amount of time we spent getting ready in the morning for work, so I came up with this great time saving idea that gives porridge an extra health boost and tastes great.

I make up a jar full of super foods that I then sprinkle on top. Before I used to spend and extra twenty minutes in the morning making sure our breakfasts were as packed with nutrients as possible. Now I stick my spoon in my jar and throw it on top of my bowl of oats, before smothering in soya milk and sometimes heating in the microwave.

Yum!

The jar lasts about a month if two of you are eating porridge everyday for 5 out of 7 days a week. I also like to put different things in it each month, but this month I’ve gone with flaked almonds, pecan nuts, pumpkin seeds, dried goji berries, shredded coconut, walnuts, milled flaxseed, chia seeds and if I put anything else in there, I can’t remember!

Enjoy! 🙂

Red Lentil Dahl

November 3, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

This is a dish I have been making for years. It’s really simple and totally yummy! 🙂

Firstly you’re gonna need some ingredients:

* Two handfuls of red lentils

* 800 grams of chopped tomatoes

* 4 cloves of garlic, crushed

* 1 can of coconut milk

* 2 cubes of vegetable stock

* 2 white onions

* 1 tablespoon of garam masala, cayenne pepper and cumin (each)

1) Heat some oil in a large pan. I used a wok because this makes plenty.

2) Now add in your two chopped onions and garlic. Give it a good stir to cover everything in the oil.

3) Turn the heat off and place the red lentils in the pan. Mix through thoroughly adding all the spices as you go.

4) Now add the whole can of coconut milk and again mix and stir through. (Turn the heat back on now.)

5) Open and pour the chopped tomatoes into the pan.

6) Place your stock cubes in the pan, add half a pint of cold water and again mix through.

7) Turn the heat right down to it’s lowest and stir the pan every few minutes for about 20-30 minutes, or until a good chunk of the liquid has been absorbed.

8) Serve with garlic and parsley vegan buttered chapatis.

Vegetable Paella

October 21, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

Sorry I’ve not posted in a while! I’ve unfortunately had a lot of anxiety issues lately but fear not, I’m back on track to being a super fitness fiend.

Seeing as we’re all feeling the squeeze at the moment, I thought I’d do another one of my Cheap as Chips meals. Most of the ingredients you should have in your cupboard or fridge and if you don’t, you should be able to source them from your local corner shop.

Ingredients

1 red onion
2 bell peppers (you can even go for frozen ones if you’re super skint.)
A large handful of frozen peas
2 cloves of garlic
2 fresh tomatoes
1 tablespoon paprika
1 pint of long grain rice
2 pints of vegetable stock
A good pinch of black pepper

Method

Chop your peppers, onion and garlic and place in a heated pan with some oil. Add your frozen ingredients (which for me was just peas) and mix.

Then create a well in the middle of the pan and fill with your two chopped fresh tomatoes and the paprika.

Now pour the vegetable stock straight into the well in the middle and mix everything around thoroughly.

Add the rice and mix through thoroughly.

Allow to simmer on the lowest heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. In this time the liquid will start to be absorbed by the rice, so make sure it doesn’t burn to the bottom of the pan.

Once 20 minutes has passed, sprinkle with pepper and allow to stand for another five minutes. (The longer you leave it the thicker it will become.)

Spaghetti & Meatballs – Not What You Think!

October 3, 2013 / Frankie Mouche / 3 Comments

This can be made raw if you have a dehydrator, which I do, however for the interest of the general public I’ll do this the traditional way…..for a very untraditional take on this classic Italian dish.

Ingredients

1 pack of sun dried tomatoes

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

4 garlic cloves

2 tsp flax seed

1 tsp hemp seeds

A large handful of standard mushrooms

A good sprinkle of both oregano and basil

A small sprinkle of fennel seed

Half a small bag of walnuts

4 large tomatoes

Fresh basil leaves

Sea salt

2 large courgettes

Method:

Get the oven on at full whack.

Place the sundried tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, 2 garlic cloves (peeled), flax, hemp seeds, herbs, walnuts and sea salt in the blender and pulse blend until it forms into a crumbly mixture.