Salads

I’ve had salads on my mind lately. We had an extraordinarily cheesy chicory gratin for dinner a few days ago. We made it with a mix of both white and red chicons and cooked it up using this, which cheeses up most things, the vegan way, suprisingly well actually, to be in powder form. And then we topped it with my favourite smoked cheddar Bute Island “sheese” for good measure, hence it became a tad heavy. But enter the humble green salad and as if by magic the meal felt just right.

This particular salad was a very leafy one coming from my hands as usually I’m more of a chunky-salad-person but for this meal it was just perfect. We used frisée lettuce and little bits of wild pink radicchio, seasoning, basil oil and really good balsamic vinegar. I’m on the hunt for some (for me) new interesting ingredients to add to my salads and I just bought some agretti which I am looking forward to try in my next one.

I hope you’ve had a satisfying week so far. I’m off to watch some indulgingly pointless evening television.

So Long, my little darjeelings, see you soon!

 

Yellow Goodness

Try this Finnish mustard if you want to add some oomph to the christmas table. It has to be said, it’s quite hot and quite sweet, but if you prefer you can make it milder/less sweet by upping the cream a little. This recipe is easy to make and adapted from “Falling Cloudberries” by lovely Greek-Cypriot-Finnish food fairy Tessa Kiros. Here goes:

20g (2tbsp) Hot English Mustard Powder

50g (1/4cup) Sugar

1/2 tsp Salt

125ml (1/2cup) Vegan Pouring Cream

1tbsp Olive Oil

1tbsp Good Vinegar

Juice of half  Lemon

Mix mustard powder, sugar, salt in a bowl, squashing out any lumpy bits with a wooden spoon. Put the mixture in a small saucepan over a low heat with the cream, oil, vinegar, lemon juice and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Cook for 7-8 mins, stirring often and then remove from the heat once it darkens and thickens a little bit. Presto!

This keeps in the fridge for a few weeks which means it can be made in advance and leave time for other more important things nearer to Christmas. Have a lovely week!

 

On Sunny Days

This was my breakfast a couple of days back when we had an amazinly summery day.

Later we went down to the allotments accompanied by a picnic:

including ciabatta sandwiches

and litchis

This gentle giant was to become the last of the leeks for the season; except for the ones we’ll leave to flower because I think they’re just so absurdly nice in bloom and we’ll get to look forward to the extra treat of lovely baby leek clusters next winter/spring. I don’t know why not more growers practise this little “perennialising” trick, but I guess I might have other priorities since I’m a bit spoilt for space.

When we went home the ground was covered with these “seed tassels” looking (in my mind) very much like the hand of an eight fingered giant.

They had coloured the whole path was white.

I’m sorry for being so quiet recently. Don’t really know why. Will be back with more soon! xo Bella

 

Hooray; it’s Vegan Month!!!

 

November is Vegan Month! So lets all make a wee extra effort to try and not exploit nature and other beings around us, by eating local, organic and vegan. Follow the link and you will find easy breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes for 21 of your future days. After these you’ll be on such a roll you’ll just continue on your own lurking out, probably much tastier, vegan recipes yourself.

 

 

These recipes are definitely not rocket science and some involve meat substitutes which are absolutely not necessary for a vegan diet and I don’t use them much myself, but they’re great for when in a hurry or if you’re just feeling exeptionally brain dead one day. They’re also great for the recently veganized who haven’t got into a routine yet, of how to compose with vegan ingredients, but as time passes you’ll probably find yourself using these less and less, as new exciting flavours come into your realm, wooouuuu; so GET EXPERIMENTING!