Gluten Free Vegan Carrot Cake

Jess and Tom here!

We were craving carrot cake, but struggling to find a gluten free vegan recipe for one that didn't require a long list of weird ingredients we didn't have to hand, we decided to wing it and make it up using the contents of Jess' cupboard. And it worked. It worked so well we ate most of it in one night. Now, as happens quite often in our joint kitchen ventures, the exact method and quantities got blurred a little by wine (now Jess is eating clean this should happen less now!). But anyway, these ingredients make a large, gluten free, vegan carrot cake. 

1 cup ground almonds
1 cup plain gluten free flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
2 carrots, grated
1 apple, grated
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
3 tbsp brown/demerara sugar
3 tbsp agave syrup
1/2 cup raisins/nuts (optional)
1-2 tbsp dairy free milk
2 bananas, mashed
1 orange, juiced and zested

I think the general gist of the method is to combine the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, then add them together. The mashed bananas, juiced orange and grated apple and carrots add plenty of moisture so no additional fat is needed.  Then, once this incredible smelling cake had come out of the oven, we decided it was too good not to be iced. So we made our own orange-almond frosting up:

1 cup icing sugar (probably more like 2 or 3 cups, we just kept adding til the consistency was right)
1 orange, juiced and zested
2 tsp almond butter
2 tsp dairy free butter/spread
1 tsp vanilla essence

Add orange juice and zest to the icing sugar and mix, adding the vanilla essence along the way. Then add the butters and beat them in until you have a glossy frosting. Add more icing sugar as required until you have the right consistency.

Please do let us know if you know of a better way to spend an evening than eating carrot cake, drinking red wine and watching Girls?

Anyway, sorry this isn't the most useful recipe in the world. But do give it a try and let us know if you come up with something as amazing as we did!

Walnut Roasted Squash

Tom today!

My housemate James is a proper bargain hunter, and recently he found us an offer to get four veg boxes (from the riverford company) for 20 pounds. As a result we've had a nice variety of vegetables we've been trying out new recipes with. This is a variation on a recipe I make quite a lot with roasts. Here I've really extended the Asian flavours, and the walnuts and pumpkin mix well.

Ingredients (serves 4 as a main or around 6 as a side dish):

1 Japanese Pumpkin
3 cloves Garlic
1 Red Chili
1 tbsp Sesame Seeds
4 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Sake
3 tbsp Olive oil
120g Walnuts
Salt and Pepper (around a tsp of each)
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tbsp Sea flakes
1/2 Red onion

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius
Peel the pumpkin, then halve it and scoop out the seeds (I find it much easier to do in that order)
Chop into 1 cm chunks
Dice the garlic and chili finely
Crush the walnuts and slice the onion roughly
Throw everything in a roasting tin
Add the oil, sake, seeds, soy sauce and spices
Season to taste
Toss everything to mix and coat it all
Bake until the pumpkin is soft - around 35 mins
(If you find that quite a lot of liquid is coming out, you might like to turn the oven up for the last 15 minutes to boil off the liquid and crisp up the pumpkin slightly)

This is quite a simple recipe, and goes really tasty with the sweetness of the raisins in the baked cabbage recipe (link). Hope you enjoy it!

Hazelnut and Carrot Loaf

This is the recipe that I made with my family on actual christmas day. It went down extremely well with both me and my non-vegan family who enjoyed it as a kind of stuffing-esque side dish. It made a nice change from the parsnip and cashew nut roast (which I love but have made every roast dinner since I went vegan). This made two small loaf tins, both of which I cooked and one which I froze for a later date (which worked fine!).

Ingredients:

125g Chopped Hazelnuts
125 Wholemeal Breadcrumbs
2 tsp Olive Oil
1 medium Onion
2 large Carrots
2 sticks Celery
2 cloves Garlic
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Sage
1 tsp Mixed Herbs
1 tsp Nutmeg
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Courgette
100g Red Lentils
1/2 cup Mushrooms

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius
Chop the onion roughly and fry in oil until soft
Grate the carrot, and chop the celery, mushrooms and garlic and add these to the pan
Fry these until soft
Add the nuts, breadcrumbs and spices and mix thoroughly
Cook the lentils in salted water until soft, strain and add these to the pan
Remove from the heat, and stir through the soy sauce
Place half into a loaf tin (/a quarter into two tins if making two)
Using a peeler, make thin slices of the courgette
Layer these onto the first layer of the loaf
Cover with the rest of the mixture, and then smooth down
Bake for 40 minutes, until browned and relatively set
Either turn out into a plate and serve or leave to cool and then freeze

Not much else to say with this recipe. If you think it's lacking in seasoning a bit crumble half a vegetable stock cube on before the soy sauce, or use a teaspoon of Bouillon. I didn't think it really needed t though. I'm sure other nuts would work with this as well, almond would go nicely I think! Let us know how yours go at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

And a very belated happy Christmas from the Scurr household!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Tom again tonight,

Making soups out of squashes (and pumpkins!) is an absolute favourite of mine. When roasted the flesh almost melts down to give a really smooth and almost creamy flavour. I have…not to say perfected, but tried and tested two recipes for roasted butternut squash soup, and to be honest, I can’t decide which is better. So I’m going to list both here and you can decide which you prefer!

Simple Hearty Butternut Squash Soup

This soup is a really good warming winter lunch when going outside is just too cold to be worth it. For those who eat cheese, this soup is amazing with chunks of gruyere dropped in to melt, or for that matter any cheese (cheddar melts gloriously). Once made the soup will freeze well and keep for…well I’ve never kept it long enough to find out. However, once you defrost it fully give it a stir before you heat it up again as it will separate (and look pretty disgusting I should warn you) but once it starts to bubble it should go back to looking more like soup.

Ingredients:

1 large Butternut Squash

2 large Onions

3 large cloves of Garlic

2 tbsp Oil (or butter)

1 tsp Nutmeg

Pinch of Cloves (optional)

1 litre of Vegetable Stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat oven to 200°C

Split the butternut squash in half

Scoop out the seeds using a spoon and discard

Place on a baking tray (flesh down) and bake for 25-30 minutes (or until flesh is soft throughout). Once it’s fully roasted, leave it on a side to cool, then carry on with the recipe (You can also stop at this point and freeze the butternut squash for a later date, the flesh is soft enough to scoop off the skin and can but put in a tub easily).

Chop the onion roughly and add the oil or butter (whether vegan or dairy). Butter gives richness and some colour to the onions but also adds fat so it’s your call.

Now put the lid on and leave it. Totally. You can stir it occasionally but that’s it. Leave it for about 20 minutes. The onions will really brown and caramelise which gives the soup a rich flavour with really goes with the roasted butternut squash.

Once the 20 minutes are up add the garlic and few for another couple of minutes, then scoop out the flesh of the butternut squash and add it to the pan.

Fry the flesh for just a couple of minutes while you season the soup with nutmeg and salt and pepper, and cloves if you want (just a really little bit).

Next add enough of the stock to cover the squash and bring the whole lot to the boil

Simmer for just a couple of minutes, then if it’s the right consistency, take it off the heat and blend.

Serve with bread and enjoy!

Nutritional Information (is made into 5 portions)

                         Calories      Carbs      Fat      Protein       Sodium        Sugar
          Total:         669           108        30           9              481             24
Per Serving:          134            22          6            2               96               5

Spicy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

This recipe has a lot more flavours added. Also the combination of garlic, squash and chili gives off a really enticing smell. (This one has photos!) If you’re not such a fan of chili I would recommend the simple version of this roasted butternut squash soup. I like using both fresh and cooked chilli as they have quite different flavours and also different levels of heat so this recipe fries 2/3 of a chilli in with the soup and then adds the final third just before blending. I like to add butterbeans to this to vary the texture slightly, but if you don’t like them, don’t add them!

1 large Butternut Squash

2 large Onions

3 large cloves of Garlic

1 Red Chili

2 tbsp Oil (or butter)

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Corriander

1 tsp Paprika

1 litre of Vegetable Stock

1/2 can Butterbeans (optional)

Dash of Soy Sauce

Salt and Pepper to taste

This recipe starts off the same as the previous – halve the squash and roast it as above (200°C for 25-30 minutes), then leave too cool before removing the skin.

Then roughly chop the two onions and add to a large pan, caramelise with a lid on for a good 20 minutes.

Once the onions have browned nicely, chop up the garlic and the chili. Add all of the garlic and 2/3 of the chili.

Fry for a further two minutes, and then add the butternut squash flesh. Heat through and then add the spices, and fry briefly.

Next pour in all the stock until it covers the ingredients. Don’t add it all if you don’t need too, it will be too runny.

Ignore the butterbeans, I added them by accident then had to fish them out again one by one. Here's an artist's impression of what that might have looked like.

Wait a minute...what did you use as bait for butterbeans?

Sorry, got a bit sidetracked there. Really trying hard not to get any work done tonight. Now bring the soup to the boil, and simmer to the correct thickness (as you like!).

Add the final 1/3 of the chilli, and blend until smooth.

Now you can add the butterbeans (if you are).

Finally serve in a bowl with a nice piece of crusty bread.

Add a dash of soy sauce to the soup to give it a nice depth of flavour.

Hope you enjoy these recipes, and as ever let us know any suggestions or improvements you made at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com. Feel free to create your own variation from the basic recipe!