RECIPE: Oatmeal with apple from the oven

VeganMoFo23
Autumn equinox eats

I don’t have too many time today, so I’m just sharing one of my favorite recipes out of the fall edition of our magazine:  De Groene Keuken Magazine Herfst 2014. It’s a delicious, comforting and warming breakfast recipe, that tastes lovely on a windy and rainy fall morning (because, yes, it’s fall)!

I also shared this Oatmeal with apple from the oven with Compassionate Cooking. If you’re going to make this dish, you can rate it over there. But of course, I also love to hear what you have to say about it here. Happy fall!

Oatmeal with apple from the oven
4 p

2 cups / 200 gr oatmeal
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tbsp flax seed
2 cups / 480 ml almond milk
¼ cup / 60 ml maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 apples
¼ cup / 40 gr raisins or cranberries
½ cup / 50 gr walnuts

Preheat the oven at 180°C.
Mix the oatmeal, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a big bowl. Add the flax seed, almond milk, maple syrup and vanilla extract and mix everything together.
Chop up the walnuts and add half of them, along with the raisins to the mixture. Slice or even grate the apples finely and add them as well.
Mix well together and put everything in an oven dish of approx. 24 x 14 cm. Sprinkle the remaining walnuts over the oven dish.
Put it in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

RECIPE: Rice pudding

VeganMofo17
Make (or eat!) a traditional local dish.

When I was thinking about a traditional Belgian dish, I immediately thought about seitan stew or vol-au-vent , but since I already used these two dishes for VeganMoFo, I had to think about something else… After spending some time on google I thought about ‘knapkoeken’ (cookies) or smurfentaart (smurfs pie – it’s an apricot pie topped with cream and white chocolate).  But eventually I thought about rice pudding! Rice pudding might not be traditional for the area I live in, but it is a typical Belgian dessert. We already ate rice pudding in the 16th century, as shown in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting ‘De Boerenbruiloft’ (The Peasant Wedding). In this painting a kid is licking it’s bowl and I completely understand this when I’ve just finished a bowl of rice pudding. In Belgium there’s this saying that even in heaven they eat a bowl of rice pudding every day, with golden spoons.

Rice pudding

6 portions

150 gr dessert rice (or risotto rice)

900 ml oat- or almond milk
1 bag vanilla sugar or 1 vanilla pod

50 gr brown sugar

pinch of salt

if desired, some saffron

1 tbsp vanille pudding powder

if desired, some cinnamon or extra brown sugar

Bring all ingredients, except for the pudding powder and extra sugar/cinnamon, to a boil on medium heat. Let it simmer for about 40 minutes and stir regularly.

In the last 3 minutes you add the pudding powder and you keep stirring.

Serve in small bowls and sprinkle some sugar or cinnamon over it.

Rice pudding is also delicious with some raisons mixed in.

For this recipe I used Sofie‘s rice pie as a guide.

RECIPE: Vegan Wellington with lentils and mushrooms

VeganMoFo15
OMG, Barack Obama is coming over because he knows you make awesome vegan food! What are you going to make?

Of course, I really doubt that Obama  one day would come and sit down to have  dinner with me. But never say never! I would feed him lots of delicious dish, a true feast. “Feast” made me think about the holiday special of our magazine (De Groene Keuken)… So I would make everything that’s in there, from the delicious appetizers to the best chocolate mokka cake. My favorite dish out of the holiday edition is the vegan wellington below. It’s served with an onion sauce (without the onion sauce it’s also delicious, but just that sauce and some potatoes is a real party for my mouth already). The recipe for the onion sauce is in the magazine, that’s online available for free. It’s in Dutch, but you could use google translate to translate it to English!

Barack Obama, come dine with me!

VEGAN WELLINGTON

1 package vegan puff pastry
140 gr green lentils
1 bay leaf
1 onion, minced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 stalk of celery, finely diced
1 large carrot, finely diced
200 gr spinach
200 gr mushrooms, in slices
1 tsp (dried) thyme
1 tsp dried basil
4 sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced
1 tbsp flax seed
2 tbsp oats
pepper & salt

Boil the lentils for 20 minutes with a bay leaf.

Braise the onion for about 5 minutes on medium fire. Add the garlic, celery, carrots and spinach and braise for another 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms, thyme, basil and pepper and braise for 5 minutes more. Turn off the heat and add the sun-dried tomatoes, flax seeds, lentils and oatmeal. Mix well.
Preheat the oven on 220°C (or follow the directions on the puff pastry package).

Roll out the puff pastry and spread the mixture of lentils on it. Don’t add it all at once, it’s possible that you have some leftover stuffing. Be sure to keep some pastry free from the stuffing on the sides and ends. Put the ends over the stuffing and roll the sides over it, in such a way that you have a nice looking puff pastry roll.

Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

And for dessert a delicious chocolate mokka cake would be fantastic!

RECIPE: EGGPLANT / VEGETABLE LASAGNE

VeganMoFo14
Share something vegan (and delicious, duh!) with a non-vegan

I often cook for non-vegans, whether they’re friends or family, or for bake sales… It depends on who’s coming for dinner, but I often make my eggplant lasagne first. It’s one of those dishes which makes me happy and it’s a perfect dish for the last eggplants of the season. Of course you can swap the eggplants for another vegetable. Bell peppers or zucchini are very delicious in this lasagne. But here I combine the eggplant with spinach and (brown) mushrooms.

Eggplant / Vegetable Lasagne
4 p

3 eggplants, sliced
250 gr mushrooms, sliced
200 gr spinach
Sunflower or coconut oil
1 onion, minced
800 gr diced tomatoes
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried oregano
pinch of cayenne pepper
seasoning salt
250 gr whole wheat lasagna noodles

Béchamel sauce:
200 gr cashews (min. 3h soaked)
2 cloves of garlic
250 ml plant based milk
½ à 1 tsp mustard
3 tbsp nutritional yeast
juice of ½ lemon
pinch of salt and pepper
pinch of nutmeg

Preheat the oven at 180 °C. Cut the eggplant into slices and spread them in an oven dish. Pour some oil and sprinkle some seasoning salt over the eggplant. Put this in the oven for about 25 min. Chop the onion finely and cook it over low heat. Add the basil, oregano and cayenne pepper. After half an hour you can add the mushrooms and spinach. After an additional 5 min you add the diced tomatoes.

While the eggplant is in the oven you can prepare your béchamel sauce. Put the cashews and the 2 cloves of garlic in a blender or food processor and blend. Add the mustard, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, pepper, salt and nutmeg. Add the milk gradually and mix everything in the meantime. Continue until you have a smooth paste.

Preheat the oven at 220°C. Cover the bottom of a large oven dish with a layer of the tomato-spinach-mushroom sauce. On top of the sauce you put a layer of lasagna noodles, followed by another layer of tomato sauce, a layer of eggplant slices, a layer of tomato sauce, a layer of lasagna noodles. You repeat this until al ingredients are used (3 to 4 layers). Make sure there’s some tomato sauce left to put on top. Finally you can pour over the béchamel sauce over the whole dish. Put the lasagna in the oven at 220°C for about 40 min.

* Tip 1: You don’t have any lasagna noodles? Just use macaroni or penne or any other kind of pasta: pour half of the pasta in an oven dish, pour half of the tomato sauce on it, place the slices of eggplant on the pasta+sauce, pour over the other half of the sauce and the last half of the pasta, spread the béchamel sauce over the pasta. Just as good! Always be careful when buying lasagna noodles, since they are often made with eggs compared to other kinds of pasta.

 * Tip 2: In stead of the bechamel sauce you can use my vegan cheese recipe.

This recipe was published before in De Groene Keuken Magazine #1 and on Compassionate Cooking.

RECIPE: Vegan Vol-au-Vent / biscuits and gravy

VeganMoFo9
Most retro recipe

Until today I didn’t know what my ‘most retro recipe’ would be… And just now I realized that I have the perfect recipe for the Vegan MoFo theme of today… VOL-AU-VENT! I think it’s the easiest to translate it as biscuits and gravy, but here in Belgium we call it Vol-au-Vent, Vidé or Koninginnehapje (queen’s appetizer). I made a vegan recipe for this delicious dish about a year ago, to appear in the second edition of our vegan magazine, De Groene Keuken. We even put it in the preview, ’cause I’m so proud of it (and think it’s incredibly delicious). The funny thing is that I really hated the dish when I was a kid, but now I love it! The combinatie of the creamy filling and the puff pastry cookie is so yum!

Vol-au-vent might be one of the most retro recipes here in Belgium. Everyone knows it, it’s on the menu in almost every restaurant and you can find it in your grandparents cookbooks. Of course I made a vegan version that’s not only more delicious, but also way healthier.

Vol-au-vent
2 p

1 package of plant-based puff pastry  (preferably without palm oil)
plant-based milk

plant-based butter
1 onion, minced
1 clove of garlic, minced
250 gr mushrooms, in small slices
200 gr vegan chick’n, seitan, tofu, …
1 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
if desired, 1 à 3 tbsp cognac*
250 ml plant-based cream
50 ml vegetable stock
1 tsp lemon juice
pepper

fresh parsley
potato croquettes**

Braise the onion in some vegan butter on low heat. Add the garlic, herbs and mushrooms and let it simmer.
If you prefer to bake your chick’npieces or seitan first, add them to the mushrooms.

Add the cognac, cream, stock and lemon juice to the mushrooms. Let it thicken on low heat for about 20 minutes.

Preheat the  oven on 120°C. Take 2 serving rings / food molds of a different size. Cut out 6 circles with the largest mold. Take two of these circles and cut out 2 small rounds with the smaller mold. Don’t throw away the big, hollow circles. Put two of the large circles on top of each other and repeat this. Top these with a large hollow circle. Keep the small circle as a hat for your puff pastry biscuit. Place them on baking paper on an oven dish. Put them in the oven for 15 minutes.

Take the puff pastry biscuits and pour in the filling. Finish with some fresh parsley or thyme and the puff pastry hat. Serve with potato croquettes and a green salad.

* For a list of vegan cognac, you can check Barnivore.
** Be careful when buying potato croquettes, they often contain eggs. Be sure to check the ingredients!

Enjoy your meal!

RECIPE: Sopranos Inspired Vegan Baked Ziti

VeganMoFo7
Make / eat some thing inspired by a book or film.

One of my favourite tv-series ever is The Sopranos. At first it seemed like it wasn’t my cup of tea, misogynistic maffiosi… But soon the show grew on me. The humor, the acting, the setting, the language, I loved everything about it. Of course I also loved the Italian cuisine. A lot of the dishes contain meat, but: anything you can eat, I can eat vegan! The dish I remembered the most was baked ziti. In the fourth season Bobby Baccalieri’s wife, Karen, dies. Bobby saves her last baked ziti in the freezer ’till he’s ready to eat it. The dish is mentioned in a lot of other episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQXx8z0ERbQ
So what? No fucking ziti now?!

Baked ziti is a classic Italian pasta dish with a tomato-meat sauce and lots of cheese. Not particularly a vegan dish… but that’s what I like to veganize! I based myself on this recipe from The Sopranos Family Cookbook. I made balls from seitan and TVP, used my homemade vegan cheese and used penne in stead of ziti (simply because I only had penne at home). The result was lovely: delicious tomato sauce, a nice variety with the soyballs and a delightful creamy plant based cheese!

Sopranos inspired Baked Ziti

For the balls:
180 gr TVP / minced soy
2 tsp paprika
550 ml hot vegetable stock
2 tbsp soy sauce / tamari
2 tbsp oil
4 tsp tomato puree
2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
pepper
if desired, smoke salt or barbecue spices
180 gr vital wheat gluten

For the sauce:
900 ml tomato sauce
1 large onion, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp tomato puree
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
pepper
if desired, some veggie stock powder or salt

For the vegan cheese  (gebaseerd op dit recept)
2/3 cup cashews
2 2/4 cup water
4 tbsp tapioca starch
6 à 8 tbsp nutritional yest
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
10 tbsp coconut oil
if desired,. 2 tsp brown miso

500 gr ziti or penne, boiled
fresh basil

To make the balls you mix the TVP with the paprika and pour the hot veggie stock over it. Let it rest for a few minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the vital wheat gluten, and mix. Add the vital wheat gluten, mix and knead. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Make small balls out of it and roll them into a cheesecloth (muslin) or tinfoil. Steam for about 20 minutes. Take the balls out of the cloth and place them on a baking dish. Put them in the oven on 180°C for 15 minutes.

Make the tomato sauce by braising the onion ’till it’s soft. Add all the other ingredients and let it simmer on low heat.

Add the balls to the sauce and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

For the vegan cheese: place all  the ingredients in a blender and blend ’till it’s all liquid. (If your coconut oil wasn’t melted, it can seem like the cheese ‘sauce’ is curdled, but when you heat it up it will become completely fluid).  Pour all of it into a small cooking pan and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Once the structure gets more firm and become a little bit stretchy like dairy cheese, your vegan cheese is ready.

Mix the pasta with the balls and tomato sauce and put half of it in a casserole/oven dish. Drizzle about 1/3 of the vegan cheese over the pasta and pour the rest of the pasta with sauce on it. Spread the rest of the vegan cheese all over the pasta. Put it in the oven (180°C) for about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with fresh basil.

If you would like some more veggies in this pasta dish, you can always add some bell pepper and eggplant.

Quick, easy, delicious: PIZZA!

VeganMoFo3
Quick, easy and delicious

Nothing beats homemade pizza dough, but sometimes it’s so damn easy to use a store bought pizza crust. There are some shops here in Belgium where you can buy a pre-made pizza crust. They taste pretty good, they keep in the fridge for a long time and you can even freeze them.

Most of the time I throw whatever’s available on my pizza. Onions, olives and artichokes are standard in our household. But a pizza is even better when I add some bell peppers and mushrooms. Yesterday I made a pizza with a pre-made crust and it only took 20 minutes (chopping, preparing and oven time included)!

(Oh yeah, I know that in the US there are frozen vegan pizza’s options. Here in Belgium, we’re not that lucky…)

Quick pizza
1 p

1 pre-made vegan pizza crust
2 tbsp tomato puree + some water
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 clove of garlic, minced
pepper
2 artichokes, chopped
+/- 3 tbsp olives
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1/4 to 1/2 bell pepper, finely chopped
4 mushrooms, sliced

Mix the tomato puree with some water, basil, garlic and pepper and cover the pizza crust. Top with the vegetables.
Put it in the oven for 10 minutes on 220°C (425°F).

In the fourth edition of our magazine (De Groene Keuken – a.k.a. The Green Cuisine) I made a delicious pizza recipe, including a pizza crust, be sure to take a look at our preview!

RECIPE: Vegan bacon pasta dish with broccoli

VeganMoFo2
“Recreate a meal from your childhood”

When I was a kid, my mom often made this delicious pasta dish with braised onion and baked bacon, I absolutely loved it! I enjoyed it most when there wasn’t too much onion in it, white fusilli pasta, small bits of well-done bacon and lots of cheese.

Of course it’s been ages ago that I ate the original dish. About two years ago I made a vegan version with backon bits from the Vegetarian Butcher and grated cheese from Wilmersburger, but it didn’t hit the right spot. Last week I was suddenly craving this dish, so I made another vegan version, from scratch. I made ‘bacon’ out of seitan and ‘cheese’ based on tapioca starch and nutritional yeast (what else?)… it was exactly what I was looking for. I added some broccoli to get in my veggies. Unlike my days as a pre-teen, I now love this dish with lots of onion, crispy smoked seitan, a little bit of my homemade melty vegan cheese and some broccoli thrown in. Actually my current version is better then the one I remember out of my childhood, cause not only is it delicious, it’s also healthier and, very important, it’s totally cruelty free!
You should definitely try this one!

Vegan bacon pasta dish with broccoli

3 à 4 p

Seitan bacon
250 gr vital wheat gluten
40 gr buckwheat flour
2 tbsp nutritional yeast 
1 1/2 tsp paprika 
1 clove of look, finely chopped
pepper
360 ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp maple syrup 
2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
1 tbsp + 1 tsp liquid smoke
1 1/2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce*
1 tbsp olive oil 

Vegan cheese  (based on  this recipe)
1/3 cup cashews
1 1/4 cup water
2 tbsp tapioca starch
3 à 4 tbsp nutritional yeast 
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt 
5 tbsp coconut oil
if desired, 1 tsp brown miso

500 gr fusilli pasta, cooked
3 large onions, thinly sliced
pinch of salt
1 large broccoli, in small florets

For the seitan: mix the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients, mix everything together.
Knead the dough for a few minutes and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Knead the dough again and cut 4 equally sized pieces out of the dough. Wrap each piece of seitan dough into a cheese cloth or in foil and steam for 30 minutes.

For the vegan cheese: place all  the ingredients in a blender and blend ’till it’s all liquid. (If your coconut oil wasn’t melted, it can seem like the cheese ‘sauce’ is curdled, but when you heat it up it will become completely fluid).  Pour all of it into a small cooking pan and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Once the structure gets more firm and become a little bit stretchy like dairy cheese, your vegan cheese is ready.

Sauté the onion in a little bit of oil and some salt on low heat until it is lightly caramelized. Steam the broccoli.

Meanwhile, take two of the four pieces of seitan and slice them into small cubes. Bake until crispy in a little bit of oil.

Add the seitan bacon, pasta, onion and broccoli in a large oven dish and mix together. Then spread out the vegan cheese over the pasta and put it in an oven of 180 ° C for 15 minutes.

* If you don’t have any vegan Worcestershire sauce, replace 1 tbsp of it with 2 tsp soy sauce, 1/4 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 tsp sugar and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

You will notice that there are two pieces of seitan bacon left. You can slice them up, fry them and serve them with some potatoes and vegetables, but it is also delicious with a tofu scramble or between a sandwich with tomato, lettuce, ketchup or barbecue sauce and fried onion.

RECIPE: Cinnamon-Raisinbread

VeganMoFo1
Rise and Shine! It’s MoFo time! Tell us about your breakfast.

It’s my favorite time of the year! Today does not only mark my third veganniversary, it’s also the beginning of the Vegan Month of Food.

Today I’m sharing a recipe for delicious cinnamon raisin bread. It’s pure cinnamony goodness! It tastes like cinnamon buns, but it’s  made with coconut oil, coconut (or brown) sugar and a mixture of whole wheat and white flour. I like it for breakfast in the weekend, a slice or two with a coffee or hot chocolate, lazy on the couch watching a Miyazaki movie. Sounds great right? Oh I love weekends…
You can also serve it as one of a few dishes for a brunch. Everyone is going to want a slice. Did I mention it’s very easy to make?
Be sure to try this perfect way to start your day!

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

500 ml soy milk on room temperature
1/4 cup neutral oil (like sunflower or corn oil)
1/4 cup coconut or brown sugar
3 tsp dry active yeast
2 3/4 cups white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
¾ à 1 cup raisins
+/- 1/4 cup vegan butter or coconut oil
+/- 1/4 cup coconut or brown sugar
3 tbsp cinnamon

Put the soy milk, oil and 1/4 cup sugar in a big bowl and add the yeast. Mix and let it rest for 5 minutes.
Add the flour and the salt and mix again. Cover with a dishcloth and let it rise for about 1 hour.
Mix the raisins into the dough. Roll out the dough into a square of +/- 1,5 cm thick.
Spread the coconut oil out on the dough (it’s easier when the oil is on room temperature), be sure to cover all of the top of the dough.
Spread the sugar on the dough and sprinkle the cinnamon on it.
Roll it up and put it in a greased bread baking tin. Let it rise for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven on 180°C and put the cinnamon raisin bread in the oven for about 30 to 35 minutes.

When the bread is done, you can finish it with some frosting. Just mix a little bit of water of plantbased milk with powdered sugar and drizzle it all over the bread.

Enjoy!

Vegan Burger Day: Asian Inspired Chickpea Burger

Asian inspired chickpea burger

for 4 burgers

240 gr boiled chickpeas
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger, finely chopped
½ tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp ground flaxseeds
1 ½ tsp tahin
1 tsp lemon juice
1 ½ tsp tamari or soy sauce
2 tbsp buckwheat flour
¼ red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, grated
½ cup fresh coriander leaves
pinch of cayenne or chili
pinch of salt

200 gr chard*
tamari

4 burger buns
ketchup

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them with a handheld mixer. Make sure that you don’t mix everything, so that there’s some structure left in your burgers.
Shape 4 burgers out of the burger mixture and bake them in some oil of choice on a high heat.
Slice of the stems of the chard and bake it on a high heat for 5 minutes with a splash of tamari. Next, braise the chard leaves for about 3 minutes on medium heat, till the leaves are soft.
Put some ketchup on your burger buns, place the burger on the buns and slice up the chard stems. Place the stems on your burger, together with the leaves.
*If you can’t find any chard, you can also use spinach.

Enjoy your Vegan Burger Day!