7 Vegan Breakfasts

Come and visit me at Imperfectly Natural Mama where I post now, I am doing a series of blog posts about vegan breakfasts, here is the first:

40 Soups - Mushroom

This week I made mushroom soup for the first time. I didn't follow a recipe (I rarely do for soups) I just thought about what I would like to do and went ahead.  It isn't the cheapest soup to make because it required a whole pack of mushrooms, but was very very tasty.

I used:
One pack of organic chestnut mushrooms,
One large organic onion,
Three cloves of allotment garlic,
One kallo chicken stock cube,
1 tbs organic olive oil,
A dash of organic double cream.

To begin I chopped the onion and garlic and fried it in the olive oil.  I then chopped the mushrooms and addded them till they went soft and watery.  Next I added enough water to cover the mushrooms plus a bit more and added the chicken stock cube.
After cooking for about 15 mins I blended the whole thing and added the cream.
Served with crusty white bread it was absolutely delicious and tasted just like a bought fresh mushroom soup.
What soup recipes do you love?

Wake up smoothie for mums (and busy people)

 I don't know about you but recently I have been finding it difficult to look after my one year old, and look after myself, the health eating has fallen by the wayside and I most definitely have not been getting my 5 a day.  I am not being funny but it takes ages to eat an apple.  So I thought an easy way to boost my fruit and veg intake would be to drink it rather than eat it (no chewing win!) So here is my smoothie recipe:

One peeled orange,
one peeled and chopped apple,
one peeled kiwi,
a handful of spinach,
a sprinkling of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, linseed etc)
twist of lemon,
tsp of honey,
1/2 cup of water,
BLEND!

Try to get organic if you can because it tastes better (in my opinion) and local is better for the environment and local economy, I try to avoid supermarkets.
I forgot to photograph it after but I can tell you it is a wonderful green colour and is really tasty.  This makes about a pint so you might want to share it with someone.  It's a great way to start the day knowing you are a good way through your five-a-day, plus the extra benefit of the seeds, you could also add a spring of mint or some ginger, I think that would make it even more tasty.   Don't add fresh oregano though, I did once and it made it tasted like grass.  Not good.
Hope you are all having a good week, how do you busy people manage to get in all those fruits and veggies with limited time for chewing?

Valentines day Spa treatments

A few days ago I was contacted by Michelle Pino from the Skana Spa in New York wondering if I would like to share these redipes for two delicious sounding, home made body treatments.  "Yes please"  I said "so long as they can be made from natural ingredients"  and they are!  So here are two really delicious, romantic body treatments to get you in the mood this Valentines evening

Chocolate-Berry Inspired Spa Treatment

Though no excuse is needed, Valentine’s Day is the perfect one for some pampering.  And the pampering can be easy, relaxing and inexpensive if you bring the spa experience to your home.  It is possible to bring luxurious treatments home and to have a great night to enjoy on your own, with a loved one or with good friends and still keep within budget.  

These spa treatments use all-natural ingredients and center around berries and chocolate, a decadent combination that will leave your skin feeling fresh, hydrated, velvety and smelling delicious.  

Simple Chocolate Face Mask

Ingredients
1/3 natural cocoa
3 tbps heavy cream (organic)
¼ cup honey
3 tps powdered oatmeal (blend oatmeal in food processor)

Directions: In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients.  Mix well.  Apply the mixture to your face, (should be clean and make- up free), making sure to cover the entire are.  Leave it on for about 10 minutes.  Rinse with warm water.  Skin will feel fresh and moisturized.

Summer Berry Body Scrub

Ingredients
10 large strawberries
½ cup raspberries or blackberries
½ cup blueberries
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup cane sugar
1 cup sea salt (fine)

 

 

Directions: Remove the stems from the strawberries and wash all the berries together in a colander.  In a blender, puree the berries together with the oil, the sugar and the salt. Put the mixture into a small glass jar and seal with the lid. Tie the jar with a bow and you have an easy, DIY gift that will make anyone feel special.

Application: Shake the scrub well before applying it to the body.  Use a loofah or a washcloth to apply the scrub to the whole body and massage the mixture gently into the arms, the torso and the legs.  This scrub works well to purify and exfoliate the entire body and the high amount of berries in the scrub serve to deliver a powerful punch of antioxidants to the body.  Since the scrub uses all natural ingredients, it is perishable and should be stored in the refrigerator to extend its shelf life. Lasts for about a week.  

Chocolates and Berries: The Perfect Combination
This mixture of tastes and scents is the ideal combination for Valentine’s Day. The all-natural ingredients combined with an inexpensive price tag make this the perfect treat for anyone – including your self! Add a bag of some chocolate dipped strawberries and a bottle of wine, or fresh mineral water and you will have the ultimate present that’s sure to bring a smile to your special someone’s face.

“Michelle Pino has provided this article in hopes to share some of her knowledge with others. Michelle works at Skana, a luxurious spa in central, NY, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino. When she isn’t working, Michelle will usually be found with a book in hand, baking, or starting a new project. She enjoys living a healthy lifestyle and inspiring others to do the same.”

Photos courtest of weheartit

Celeriac and Blue Cheese Soda Bread

My husband's mum gave us a calander when we went to theirs after Christmas, it's from Abel and Cole and came free with their veg box.  Every month it has a lovely looking recipe to follow and this month I decided to give the recipe a go.  It was a pretty simple looking recipe for creating a kind of bread but using self raising flour rather than yeast.  I used up a chunk of celeriac that I had loftover from making soups and the only ingredient I needed to buy was the blue cheese, I chose a vintage stilton.  The recipe said it would take 40 mins at 180 degrees but I ended up leaving it for a good hour because it was quite a wet mixture and a knife came out wet after 40 minutes.
Here is the recipe if you would loke to give it a try:

175g Self raising flour,
175g coursley grated celeriac,
Pinch of pepper,
75g crumbled stilton,
50ml natural yogurt diluted to 100ml with water,
1 egg beaten.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees,

Mix flour, celeriac pepper and cheese,
Whisk yogurt, water and egg and fold into flour mixture to form a wet bit firm dough.

Place on an oiled baking tray,
Bake for 40 mins or till golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Yummy!  We ate it with our dinner but I am sure it would be lovely with soup.  It's inspiring to have made something that is so like bread in such a short amount of time, I will remember this in future when I realise I have run out of bread and don't have 6 hours to wait for a loaf to rise, I can easily make something to go with soup and not have to rush to the shops and buy a nasty supermarket loaf. 

A couple of tasty lunches

In the spirit of trying to stick to my New Years Resolutions I have been trying to make more nutritious lunches recently.  Our usual meal would consist of toast in some form topped with either scrambled egg, baked beans or grilled cheese, so I am really being very adventurous with these dishes.
First I did homemade hummus on homemade bread (always) topped with roasted red peppers and Greek feta cheese:

 

Then a tomato salad (not very seasonal I know) with the same hummus and feta cheese and some homemade tortillas drizzled with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a sprinkling of pepper and dried parsley. Yum!

Both very delicious, and both making me feel ever so slightly pleased with myself, the hummus is really easy to make and so are the tortillas.  I really don't mind taking the time to make these sorts of things from scratch, I just really hate the washing up!

Hummus is:

400g tin of chickpeas,
2 garlic cloves,
Juice of a lemon,
2 tbsp tahini,
3 tbsp olive oil,
A pinch of paprika.

Whizz up in a blender

(Recipe is from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook by Gill Rapley)

Tortillas are:

300g plain flour,
60g butter,
175ml warm water,

Kneed together then roll out and fry on a hot dry frying pan.

(recipe adapted from step-by-step vegetarian by Rosemary Wadey etc.)

Zesty Beetroot Chutney

We often end up with a glut of vegetables in our fruit boxes (which is one of the reasons we aren't getting it any more) and a few weeks ago we had one too many beetroot, along with a growing collection of empty jars I was inspired to make some chutney.  I find that beetroot can be a bit muddy tasting sometimes, even when fresh, and don't even get me started on the picked variety, yuck!  So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this recipe transformed the beetroot into delicious fruity chutney that goes perfectly with cheese on toast. 

You can find the full recipe here,

1 1/2kg beetroot trimmed and peeled and chopped,

3 onions chopped,

3 eating apples peeled and cored and chopped,

Zest and juice of 3 oranges,

2 tbsp white or yellow mustard seeds, 

1 tbsp coriander seeds,

1 tbsp ground cloves,

1 tbsp ground cinnamon,

700ml red wine vinegar,

700g granulated sugar.

Mix ingredients together in a pan and cook until the beetroot is tender and the mixture parts when you run and spoon along the base of the pan,

Sterilise jars then put the chutney into the jars.

Eat! (It gets better with age.)

Jam making

I made jam for the first time last week, it was perhaps the most stressful thing I have ever done in the kitchen, all that heat and steam, testing and measuring, boiling and bubbling, sterilising and stirring!  But I am pleased with the results, 9 jars of delicious plum jam which should keep me going for oh say 9 weeks!! (I love jam!)
It was definitely worth doing and I have a general sense of smugness knowing that I have saved money on jam and jars having foraged for the plums, so they were free and re-used old jars, also free, and I am now self-sufficient for jam for a good few months I hope.
Gathering the plums was also a delight, I used my cherry picker (looks a bit like a finshing net with a claw on the end) the plums are smaller than the commercial kind, but jkust as sweet and tasty!  We gatheres small yellow ones from a group of bushes wild red ones, and purple ones that were over hanging onto a foot path from someone's garden (used thos for a plum cake).
I thought I would share the recipe with you, not many photos I am afraid, I was too stressed to take any!

6lbs (2.7kg) plums, de stoned,
61/2lbs (3kg) sugar,
1/2pint (0.3 litre) water,
1 packet of pectin (optional).

Wash and de-stone the plums and cut in half, crush the stones and place in a muslin bag, they have most of the pectin in them and this process saves straining them out after).  Simmer with the water until tender, test for pectin by putting a teaspoon of cooled fruit juice into a jar with 3 tsp of methylated spirit, shake and leave a minute, it the fruit juice has formed a lump then you have enough pectin, if not add commercial pectin.
Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Remove the stones and boil hard until setting point (222 degrees f or 105 degrees c), test for set by putting a little jam onto a saucer, if the surface wrinkles when you push it with your finger then it should set.  Pour the jam into sterilised jars and put the lid on tight.

 

As as if by magic:

40 soups - 2. creamy chicken

Hi folks, so sorry for my absense, my laptop charger cable has broked and my hubby has been using the main PC in the house so haven't been able to get online much the last few weeks, also I have just been so busy; and not the kind of  "look how fun and exciting my life s I am far to busy for such trivialities as blogging" and more like a "I am so damn busy cleaning up poo and doing laundry and making dinners I literally havn't found a second to do a blog post, as soon as I sit down I fall asleep!"  kind of way.  Anhyhow, lets get going with a long awaited blog post that I started weeks ago and might noe finish:

A few months ago, a lovely lady from one of the blogs I follow, Elise Blaha, posted a series of recipes entitled "40 Loaves" where she baked 40 different bread recipes, blogged about each of them and included recipes for each.  After finishing this project she decided to embark on a new one.  Initially she thought "4 Soups" would be a fun idea, but she realised her husband didn't enjoy soups and thought the project wouldn't be so much fun to do alone, so instead she decided to a project called "40 pizzas"!  I however LOVE soups and make them often, so I thought it would be a really fun idea to blog about each of them and give you a recipe and photo to go with.

My second soup in this series is Creamy Chicken Soup.  I made this soup after wanting something tasty to do with leftover chicken bits and carcass.  As per usual, weights and measurements are approximate.  (You know me!)

Ingredients:

Olive oil,

1/2 onion,

1 clove of garlic,

Chicken carcass and bits,

1 chicken stock cube,

1/2 cup double cream.

Bring a large pan with the chicken carcass and pieces to the boil then let simmer with enough water to cover the bits.  

Cook until the chicken falls from the bones.

Leave to cool then remove all the chicken from the bones.  Take out any skin and fat that you can.
Fry the roughly chopped onion in a little olive oil, add some roughly chopped garlic.  Pour into the chickeny water and mix, heat till the mis if heated through.  Add the stock cude and stir it in.  Remove the chicken mixture from the pan and blend in a blender or leave in the pan and blend with a stick blender to a fine soup.  Add the double cream and stir in being careful not to let the soup boil.  Serve immediately with toast, yum!

40 Soups - 1. Spicy Lentil

A few months ago, a lovely lady from one of the blogs I follow, Elise Blaha, posted a series of recipes entitled "40 Loaves" where she baked 40 different bread recipes, blogged about each of them and included recipes for each.  After finishing this project she decided to embark on a new one.  Initially she thought "4 Soups" would be a fun idea, but she realised her husband didn't enjoy soups and thought the project wouldn't be so much fun to do alone, so instead she decided to a project called "40 pizzas"!  I however LOVE soups and make them often, so I thought it would be a really fun idea to blog about each of them and give you a recipe and photo to go with.

My first soup for this series is Spicy Lentil. It is a great recipe to make if you don't have much in the way of fresh veg in the house and good for tight budgets. Plus lentils have loads of wonderful vitamins and minerals.  The recipe serves 2 and I am afraid that (as with all my recipes and tutorials) measurements are approximate!  So I will leave you to be the judge when it comes to quantities and you can take my numbers as a guide.

Ingredients:
1 tbs olive oil,
1/2 onion,
1 clove garlic,
1 cup red lentils,
1/4 tsp ground corriander,
1/4 tsp paprike,
1/4 tsp ground cumin,
1/4 tsp chilli,
1 chicken stock cube,
600ml boiled water.

Chop the onion, and garlic and fry in a little olive oil in a large sauce pan, when softened add the lentils and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the stock cube and water and sprinkle in the spices. Stir to mix everything together.  Cover and leave until all the water is soaked up.  Continue to add water until you achieve a pleasing consistency and the lentils and cooked soft. Take out half the soup and blend, add back to the mixture and stir together.  Serve with toasted wholemeal bread and butter.  Perfect, thick warming and tasty.

Making Elderflower Cordial and Elderflower Champagne

Now is the time to get out and pick some elderflowers on a hot dry day if you want to make some elderflower cordial or elderflower champagne.  I made some a few days ago, already drinking the cordial and will have some lovely elderflower champagne in a couple of weeks. Don't forget to only pick elderflowers from trees that are away from roads.
Here are some simple recipes to follow:

Elderflower cordial (Adapted from a recipe in "The Selfsufficient-ish Bible by Andy and Dave Hamilton):

25 flower heads,
1.5kg (3lbs) sugar,
2 pints of water boiling water,
The juice of 2 1/2 lemons and the grated zest of 1 lemon,
1 cinnamon stick.

Place layers of flowers and sugar in a bowl or pan, pour over boiling water, add lemon juice and zest, ad cinnamon stick and leave overnight.
Next day, strain through a muslin and pour into sterilised bottles. Will keep for a few months in a cool place, once opened will last or about a week.

Elderflower Champagne (Adapted from a recipe in The new complete book of self-sufficiency by John Seymour):

15 flower heads,
1 1/2 lbs (0.7 kg) sugar,
4 litres of water,
Juice and zest of one lemon,
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

Put the flowers in a bowl and add lemon juice and zest, add the sugar, vinegar and 4 litres of water.  leave for 24 hours then strain through a muslin and poor into sterilised bottles.  Leave for two weeks, drink before it is 3 weeks old.

Tasty Hot Cross Buns

Easter is fast approaching so appropriately I have been baking hot cross buns, yummy and spicy and delicious hot with butter.  They are fairly easy to make but you have to be a bit patient because they contain yeast so there is a bit of waiting for it to rise.

Here is the tasty recipe:

Ingredients:
Two tsps yeast,
500g/1lb plain flour,
4 tbsps caster sugar,
1 tsp mixed spice,
1 tsp cinnamon,
40g/1 1/4oz butter
155g/5oz mixed dried fruit.

paste for the crosses:
30g plain flour,
1/4 tsp caster sugar.

Glaze:
1 1/2 tbsps caster sugar,
1 tsp gelatine.

Place yeast, two teaspoons of the flour, 1 teaspoon of the sugar and 125ml/4fl warm water.  Leave in a war place until foamy.
Sift the flour and spices into a bowl, mix in the sugar then rub in the butter with fingertips.  Add fruit.
Stir in the yeasty water and add up to 185ml/6fl water to  make a soft dough.  Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for about 5 mins or until smooth.
Leave the dough to rise in a warm place for about 30-40 mins or until doubled in size.
Pre-heat the over to 200 degrees C.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface, knead gently to deflate and divide into 12 portions.  Place on a greased baking tray, cover and leave for about 20 mins or until doubled in size.
To make the crosses, mix the flour and sigar with enough water to make a paste, pipe onto the buns in crosses.
Bake for 20 mins or until golden brown.
For the glaze mix the gelatine and sugar with 1 tablespoon of water and stir over a low heat unti dissolved.  Brush over the buns.
Leave to cool, or eat immediately and enjoy!

Yummy pumpkin pie

Not a fan of Halloween, but I am a fan of pumpkin pie. This is my favourite recipe:

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees, serves 6.

Make a sweet pastry crust, blind bake.

For pie filling:

425g blended fresh peeled pumpkin,

1 large egg and 1 yolk,

50g soft brown sugar,

1/2 tsp cinnamon,

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg,

1/4 tsp ground allspice,

1/4 tsp ground cloves,

1/4 tsp ground ginger.

142 ml double cream (approx)

Lightly whisk the egg and extra yolk together in a large bowl. Put sugar, spices and cream in a pan and bring to simmering point on the hob, whisking. Pour this over the eggs and whisk briefly. Add the blended pumpkin still whisking. Pour into pastry case.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until filling has puffed up but is still slightly wobbly. Remove and leave to cool. Lasts for a few days in the fridge.