Black Bean Brownies

Hey guys, Jess and Tom here today again,

This is part two of our christmas meal. These are very simple, and if you own a food processor then it's even easier! Tom: The recipe is pretty much lifted from the Happy Herbivore website (all credit to her! -http://happyherbivore.com/recipe/vegan-blackbean-brownies/) but I'm experimenting with a Toffee Apple Fudge brownie so hopefully a different version will be to follow! We won't try to convince you further of pulse-based baking, we are fully converted but if you need more convincing, these brownies will do it by themselves. However, if this is the first pulse-baking recipe you've seen, have a look at the butterbean cookies made previously for more of an explanation of how this type of cooking works. This is vegan and gluten free (as long as you use certified oats).

Ingredients:

1 can of Black Beans (drained and washed thoroughly)
1 Banana
1/3 cup Cocoa
1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Oats
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste (you can use extract, but this has so much a richer and generally better flavour that it's worth investing in a pot, providing you can stop yourself from eating it by the spoonful -  we didn't manage this)
Handful of Cashews

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius
If you have a food processor, chuck everything in a food processor, pulse until mixed and then scrape into a dish and bake
If you don't; blend the beans using a hand blender, then add the rest of the ingredients except for the cashews and then blend until mixed (not smooth)
Scrape into a baking dish and then stud with cashews (if you can blend nuts using your hand blender feel free but we were pretty sure the cheap one we had would break so we left it)
Bake for roughly 20 minutes until a knife or toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean
Cut into six and eat warm or cold

We served ours with alpro soya caramel dessert - a definite winning combination!

Hope you enjoy this recipe, and we will hopefully have a different version up soon! Let us know how youg et on making them at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

A Vegan, Gluten Free Christmas!

Okay so in the true spirit of this blog me and Jess have got together and made an epic christmas dinner that's suitable for just about anyone! And not too unhealthy either!

We're going to be making a cashew and parsnip nut roast, roast potatoes (what christmas dinner would be complete without), roasted carrots, onions and more parsnips, an adapted recipe for roasted butternut squash, steamed vegetables, grilled courgettes and a red wine and basil sauce. We will explain the cooking all together as we did it, so the timings should be roughly right.

For the Cashew and Parsnip Nut Roast:

150g Cashews
3 large Parsnips
1 medium Onion
3 cloves Garlic
1 gluten-free ciabatta roll/bread roll/2 slices gf bread (/normal bread if you're not gf)
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
150 ml Vegetable Stock
1 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tsp Rosemary
1 tsp Thyme
1 tbsp Seaweed Flakes
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Mixed Herbs
1 tbsp Cornflour
Salt and Pepper to taste
4 medium Chestnut Mushrooms
Handful of french Basil Leaves

For the Butternut Squashed (yes this is an adaptation of a Jamie Oliver recipe, but we like terrible puns so the name is sticking):

1/2 Butternut Squash
2 large cloves Garlic
1 medium Green Chili
Handful (50g?) of Peanuts (or cashews or walnuts or pine nuts or anything really)
1 tsp Sake
1 tsp Light Soy Sauce
1 tsp Olive Oil

For the Roasted Potatoes:

400g Potatoes
1 tbsp Olive Oil

For the Roasted Vegetables:

1/2 an Onion
3 Carrots
2 Parsnips
1 tbsp Olive Oil
Sprinkling of Brown Sugar (optional)

For the Steamed Vegetables:

1/2 pack (200g?) Dwarf Beans
1 pack Asparagus (this was on special offer in Sainsbury's, but anything you like steamed such as broccoli or cauliflower will do)

For the Grilled Courgettes:

1 large Courgette
1 large clove Garlic

For the Red Wine and Basil Sauce:

1/2 Red Onion
1 tsp Olive Oil (really don't go over on this, you need a tiny amount to soften the onion and any more will just sit on the top of the sauce and look scummy)
1/4 cup Red Wine
1 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce (optional, I think it helps to bring the flavours of the meal together)
1 large handful Basil Leaves
200 ml Stock
1 tbsp Cornflour
Salt and Pepper to taste

There's quite a lot going on with this roast (as usual for roasts) so allow plenty of time! It took us just over an hour and a half and we've made it a couple of times. However if you're short on time I'll list the cooking times for everything below and you can cut things out as you like to reduce the time.

Nut Roast - Prep: 30 mins; Cook: 45 mins
Butternut Squashed - Prep: 5 mins; Cook: 30 mins
Roasted Potatoes - Prep: 15 mins; Cook: 30 mins - 1 hour
Roasted Vegetables - Prep: 5 mins; Cook: 30 mins
Steamed Vegetables - Prep: 5 mins; Cook: 10 mins
Grilled Courgettes- Prep: 10 mins; Cook: 5 mins
Red Wine and Basil Sauce: Prep: 10 mins; Cook: 10-20 mins

As you can see there's a pretty logical order to go by as things take shorter amounts of time to cook. We will list recipes separately for ease of reading, but point out parts in the recipes where you will want to start other parts of the roast dinner.

Method:

For the Nut Roast -

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius
Start off by chopping the parsnips up nice and small (so they cook quick) and then boilin them in salted water until soft
Drain, but reserve the water to use for the stock (it just adds a nice extra level of flavour)
Mash the parsnips (add a little bit of water back if you need too) until smooth-ish
Either grind the nuts in a nut grinder if you are lucky enough to own one, or cover them with a teatowel and whack/roll with a rolling pin until as broken up as you can be bothered to do (you can't really go too far) and add to the parsnips
Make the bread roll into breadcrumbs and add into the pan
Add the stock to the pan and leave to absorb for 10-15 minutes
At this point start on the roast potatoes
When the potatoes are boiling, chop up the onion finely and fry in half the oil until brown around the edges and soft, add to the pan (I would usually add all the oil and just fry the mushrooms in the same pan without adding any more)
Add the spices, cornflour, soy sauce, garlic and salt and pepper to the pan
Mix the pan thoroughly
Chop up the mushrooms roughly and fry in the rest of the oil
Layer half the nut roast in a baking dish, top with the mushrooms and the basil leaves
Add the rest of the nut roast and press down lightly so the top is a smooth layer
Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until golden on top, and until there is no more liquid bubbling around the edges

For the Roast Potatoes -

Peel the potatoes
Boil in salted water for 15 minutes
Toss in the oil and place in a pan and put in the oven to roast

For the Roast Vegetables -

Peel and top and tail the carrots and parsnips
Cut lengthways and then into sticks
Chop the onion into large chunks
Toss in the oil, sprinkle sugar on top and place in the oven to roast as well

For the Butternut Squashed -

Peel and chop the butternut squash
Place in a small ovenproof dish
Finely chop the garlic and chili
Add the nuts you are using
Add in the sake, soy sauce and oil and toss everything to mix and coat
Place in the oven to roast

For the Sauce -

Chop the onion lengthways and then fry in the oil until soft
Add the red wine and boil briefly over a high heat
Add the basil and soy sauce and stir
Stir in the stock and bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer
Mix the cornflour with a couple of tablespoons of water and then stir in quickly to the sauce
Stir CONSTANTLY until the sauce thickens (really really do watch this the entire time, cornflour thickens so quickly that it you leave it it will cook and burn at the bottom and not at the top and be lumpy and generally gross)
Reduce further if you prefer a thicker sauce or leave as it is
Season and leave until you are ready to serve

For the Grilled Courgettes -

Preheat a George Foreman or other panini maker/grill, or your oven grill or griddle pan if you're using
Slice the courgette longways
Cut the garlic in half longways and then rub over the courgette on both sides
Grill until browned on both sides, flipping half way through if necessary

We added the garlic to the grill for an extra flavour boost

For the Steamed Vegetables -

This will probably be the last thing you do as they don't take long
Top and tail the dwarf beans, place in a steaming pan or tray if you own one, or if you're a poor student like us then a colander above a pan of boiling water (protip!)
Cut off the bottom inch of the asparagus and add to the steamer

When everything is fully cooked/roasted, plate up, add the sauce and enjoy!

We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as us. Nutritional Information to follow. We also made a batch of Black Bean Brownies for afters which go extremely well!

And a happy christmas from a very full Jess and Tom x

Try not to do a Tom and throw the sauce everywhere, it helps to have it on the plate.

Dark Chocolate and Cranberry Monkey Bars

Group effort today!

We will readily admit we got the idea (and the basic recipe) for this from makeitnaked.com. This blog is fantastic for gluten free recipes and we will sure be trying (and varying) many more of their recipes too. But this is the first one we did. Monkey bars are basically a peanutty cashewy chocolatey bananaey cranberry-y mapley syrupy granola bar. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? Well it is. If you can make these without eating half the mixture before it's made, hats off to you. This recipe is incredible. It's high in protein, so a great one for the gym-goers, and because it's high in energy it works well as a mid afternoon snack to stop you craving a sugar rush (OK, so it's kind of a sugar rush in itself, but it contains healthy stuff too like flax and nuts so it's OK, right?). And you can change it up however you like. This is what we did though...

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled or jumbo oats (gluten free if needed)
1/2 cup cashews
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup oat bran
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp golden syrup (you can use 4 tbsp of one of these but we decided to try a bit of both)
1/2 cup peanut butter (we used crunchy)
1/4 cup honey
1 large banana, very ripe and mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
50g dark chocolate chunks, 50g dried cranberries (this bit can be whatever you like!)

Preheat oven to 350C. In a large bowl, mix the oats, oat bran, flax, cashews, cinnamon and syrup so that the mixture is coated. Place in a oven suitable dish and toast in the oven for 10 minutes, turning after five. KEEP CHECKING IT and do not let this mixture burn. Once golden, remove from the oven and let it cool down completely.
Whilst the oats are in the oven, mash the banana and add the peanut butter and honey. Cook this in a pan on medium heat until it becomes a runny mixture, and after about 5 minutes remove from the heat and add the vanilla and salt. Let this mixture cool completely too.
Once cooled (and make sure they are cool, especially if you're using something melty such as chocolate), mix the oat mixture and butter mixture together, and add the chocolate/cranberries/whatever your flavour in here.
Spread the mixture flat in the dish you're using (we found this was enough to fill two pyrex dishes, but the original recipe recommends a 9x5 baking pan) and bake for about 25 minutes, again do not let burn. Once baked, cut into your desired size bar, and there you have it: monkey bars.

I think there are loads of variations that need to be tried with this recipe - try adding the zest of an orange to the buttery mixture, use other berries such as raspberries and blueberries, replace the cranberries with raisins, add some dessicated coconut, grate an apple and add that instead of chocolate...the list is endless. You could also try other nut butters - almond would be lovely - and other nuts such as peanuts, hazelnuts or macadamia (white chocolate macadamia monkey bars anyone?).  Let us know what you think and what works best for you. And don't eat them all as quickly as Jess did :)

Also, when we say cup, don't go on the internet trying to convert cups to grams. Just literally measure everything out using the same cup. A coffee mug is perfect. Cups are actually a really sensible way to keep the proportions right without having to bother with scales, and recipes like this really don't require strict adherence to grams or lbs!