Easy Veggie Nuggets

These veggie nuggets are aimed at children but I think would be just as good for adults - and I wonder if instead of shaping into individual nuggets or patties, it would work made into a log and sliced - a bit like a nut roast for Sunday dinner.

The recipe came from an Instagram account called @zaynesplate - it’s really easy to make and you can adapt it with your own vegetables. You can see the recipe here.

I used broccoli, carrots, chickpeas, rolled oats and cheese as the recipe suggests. I think if you were making this for adults or older children I wouldn’t blend it and would leave the texture more varied, and perhaps add sweet corn as well. My daughter enjoyed these and there was plenty left to go into the freezer for next time.

Chicken topped with Homemade Houmous

This is a good way to make chicken a bit more interesting without using a complicated recipe or using something calorific (like melting cheese over the top).  You simply top the chicken with houmous and cook it in the oven to create a crust. You can use shop-bought houmous but I made my own.

 

This recipe makes plenty of houmous so you will have some left over.

 

You need:

400g tin of chickpeas, drained (but before you discard the liquid, check out this recipe!)

Juice of half a lemon

1 clove garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp tahini paste

Pinch of salt

 

Simply mix everything in a blender until smooth. This will keep in the fridge for about 5 days.

 

To make the chicken recipe, simply spread the houmous over a chicken breast, as thick as you like, and bake in the oven.




 

Vegan Meringue and Pavlova (yes it exists!)

Can you make vegan meringue? Yes you can! I bet you didn’t know that – and I bet you will be surprised by the secret ingredient.

I had a barbecue recently and served up this meringue and cream, and waved it under the nose of my vegan friend… not to tease her, but to tell her that I’d made it for her! The meringue doesn’t contain egg and the cream doesn’t contain cream!

I am ridiculously excited at having found out about this and have been spreading the word; each time I tell someone the main ingredient in the vegan meringue- and the fact that it looks and tastes great – they are amazed.

No, not chickpeas… but the water that is in the tin. It’s called aquafaba and you can read the fascinating story of how people have been looking for egg replacers which work in meringue. It seems to be a relatively recent discovery.

The meringue is really easy to make – just the same as a regular meringue, though the aquafaba did seem to need a bit more whisking than egg whites, so I was very glad of my Kitchenaid stand mixer.

You need:

For the meringue:

liquid from a 400g tin of chickpeas

1 cup caster sugar

1 tbsp arrowroot powder (available in supermarkets in sachets from Dr. Oetker)

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

1 tsp white wine vinegar or cider vinegar

For the cream:

400ml tin coconut milk

Icing sugar to taste

Fresh berries to decorate (optional)

Preheat oven to 140C. Drain the liquid from the tin of chickpeas into a bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer and whisk, starting off at low speed and gradually increasing the speed to high, for several minutes until the liquid foams up and then forms soft peaks, much like whisking egg whites.

Add the sugar and arrowroot powder and mix on medium speed and then high until you have stiff glossy peaks.

Add the vanilla and vinegar and whisk briefly to combine.

Place a piece of greaseproof paper on a flat baking tray and spoon out the ‘meringue’ into a circular shape. Turn the oven down to 120C and bake for 2 – 2.5 hours. Turn the oven off and leave the meringue in the oven to fully cool overnight if you can. At the same time, place the can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight.

The next day, carefully peel the greaseproof paper off the meringue – rather than the other way around – and place on a plate to serve. Mine did break up a little unfortunately!

To make the cream, open the tin of coconut milk – the contents will have separated into a thin water-like liquid and a thick, almost solid, top layer. The tins will often separate in this way even in the cupboard and you can easily mix the two layers together to add to a curry and so on – but for this recipe, you want the solid layer. Carefully spoon it out into a bowl and add icing sugar to taste (add about 3 tbsp initially then taste it). Whisk until you have the consistency of double cream.

Spoon on top of the pavlova and top with fresh berries - I used strawberries and blueberries. And there you have it  - a vegan pavlova!

I'm sending this to Tea Time Treats as they have a theme of summer holiday baking; the strawberries and blueberries make this quite summery and this is a good dessert to have after a BBQ as you can make the meringue in advance then assemble it very quickly. The challenge is hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Jane at The Hedgecombers,

I'm also sharing it with the Vegetable Palette challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen; the theme is 'more glorious reds' and she accepts fruits as well as veg.

In addition I'm sending this to the Food Year Linkup hosted by Charlottes Lively Kitchen. This would be lovely if you were holding a Breast Cancer Care's Strawberry Tea fundraiser.

 

Bulgur wheat, apricot and chickpea salad

 

I always say that I don’t like salads, but what I really mean is that I don’t like lettuce – unless I’m in absolutely the right mood for it which usually means a sunny day! When I was a child salads were “lettuce, tomato, cucumber” – the words almost run into each other. But it’s not the 1980s any more and you can put pretty much anything in a salad – and it doesn’t even have to have lettuce as a base.

 

I was going through some recipe cuttings – actually pages I had photocopied from a diet cookery book of some kind – and trying to make space in the kitchen by throwing them out. Most of the recipes in that folder were not interesting enough to keep or even to cook – or very similar to ones I already have in recipe books. I did keep a few however, one of which was this salad – but now the recipe is on my blog, I can throw out the photocopy as well!

 

T

he recipe didn’t actually include instructions for a salad dressing but instead advised that a fat-free vinaigrette would go nicely with this. So you could make your own dressing or use a shop-bought one – or even eat this plain.

 

To make at least two decent-sized lunches (this travels well in a lunchbox to work) you need:

200g bulgur wheat

200g tinned chickpeas

50g ready-to-eat dried apricots, chopped

1 stick celery, chopped

2 spring onions, chopped

1 piece stem ginger in syrup, drained – this is optional and I actually left it out

1 tbsp fresh parsley or mint, chopped

 

 

Put the bulgur wheat in a large bowl and pour over 250ml boiling water. Leave for 20-25 minutes to soften and swell and break up any clumps with a fork.

Add the other ingredients and toss well, and add your dressing if required.

I'm sending this to No Croutons Required, the veggie salad and soups linkup, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Roast Chicken with Zesty Chickpea Stuffing

This is a variation on a roast chicken recipe that you could try over Easter. The recipe comes from Franglais Kitchen, though she says to use a whole can of chickpeas and I could only get half a tin into the cavity. So once you have the chicken that you plan to roast, you need:
half a can of chickpeas
half a lemon
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp garam masala
pinch of chilli flakes
salt and pepper

Mix the chickpeas with the seasoning in a bowl

Spoon inside the cavity of the chicken and block the gap with half a lemon

Roast the chicken as normal, remembering to add on the cooking time for the extra weight of the stuffing

Carve the chicken and serve with the spicy chickpeas

I'm sending this to Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Low-fat Slimming World Falafel

I made these for a tasting session at my Slimming World group; they are low fat and easy to make, and can be served hot or cold, either with salad or in a pitta bread or wrap for instance.

You need:

1 tin of chickpeas

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 small red chilli, finely chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1/2 tsp baking powder

FryLight 

If you are using dried chickpeas you will need to soak them overnight, or tinned ones can be used straight from the tin (rinse and drain).

Put the chickpeas in a food processor with the onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, chilli and herbs and pulse until smooth.

Add the baking powder, salt and pepper and mix in. Place in a bowl in the fridge for about an hour then shape into patties.

Line a baking tray with oil, spray with Fry Light and cook the falafel in the oven for about 5 mins.

I'm sending these to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker  as our letter this month is F.