Vegan Pancake Day

Tom here,

Sadly me and Jess didn't see each other this pancake day, however we make pancakes an average of once a week anyway so it's probably a good thing...however I spent the day in Lancaster with my friend Phoebe and we made some pretty epic hangover pancakes. So here they are

Cinna-blue-bana-maca-choco Pancakes

There is absolutely nothing healthy about these pancakes so don't ask me to work out the nutritional information. Please. I don't want too.

Ingredients: (makes 5 heeeeeeeefty pancakes - plenty for two, even with hangover munchies)

500 ml Soya Milk
2 Bananas
6 oz Self Raising Flour
1 large pinch Sea Salt
150g Macademia Nuts
1.5 cups Blueberries
1 tbsp Cinnamon
1 bar Dark Chocolate (we used Divine)

Topping: all of the fruits and some golden syrups, or phoebe had peanut butter and jam on one (it did look epic to be fair), mix and match as you like!

Method:
Blend the milk, banana, flour and cinnamon together using a kenwood, magimix or hand blender or any other brand of food processor, or if you don't have one of these mash the bananas with a fork and then beat everything together
Stir in the rest of the ingredients except for the dark chocolate (crush the Macademia nuts if they are whole using a tea towel and rolling pin)
Heat some oil in a frying pan to the low end of medium heat (these pancakes with be thick so they need to cool through before they burn)
Pour a good pancakes worth into the frying pan and let it spread out
Break the chocolate into pieces and dot over the pancake (we found three or four was a good ratio)
Wait until cooked about a centimetre from the edge, then flip (if you can do this without a spatula I will be very impressed) and cook on the other side
Slather in fruit, cream, syrup, Nutella, dark chocolate spread (a personal favourite of mine), sugar, more cinnamon, whatever you want
Enjoy. We certainly did.

Raw Food Truffles

Tom here,

These truffles are a recipe from my mum, which make a regular appearance each christmas. Despite being really delicious they are about as close to healthy as truffles get and have no added sugar at all. Quite a simply recipe to make as well, and would be even simpler if you had a nut grinder (instead of a pestle and mortar that I used to hand grind all the cashews!) Raw foods recipes are becoming more and more popular and these are a tasty and simple way to introduce people to raw food cooking styles.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup ground Cashews
1 tbsp Cashew Butter (I made mine by accident whilst breaking my coffee grinder - oops, worked well though!)
1/2 cup of Dates
1 tbsp Coconut Oil
1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
1 tbsp Cocoa Powder
1-2 tbsp Apple Juice (optional)
Icing Sugar to coat

The extra cashew butter is entirely optional but give a nice richness to the truffles.

Method:

Soak the dates in boiling water until the water is cooled
While this happens, mix together the cashews, oil, paste and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl
Once the dates are soaked (should take around 15 minutes) pour away the excess water as you don't want this and then blend the dates down using a hand blender or food processor
Mix everything together into a dough-like paste (you could equally do this simply by throwing everything into a food processor, if you're lucky enough to own one!)
If the mixture seems a bit dry add tablespoons of apple juice until the dough comes together
I then like to pinch off walnut-sized lumps and roll them in icing sugar to give a nice coating
Make sure your hands a damp as you roll them in your palms so the dough doesn't stick too badly (it will somewhat anyway)
Refrigerate for an hour or two and serve

These should last for around a week in an airtight container in the fridge. This recipe can be easily added too or adapted to other flavours. Originally the recipe used ground almonds which work well. Most other nuts could be used as well.

I really didn't think these would go down very well at the wine and cheese night, so only made a few as well as the dark chocolate and orange truffles (the definitely less healthy version!) but actually everyone seemed to love these and prefer them to the others. They're really sweet without being overly rich (which after an evening of cheese and crackers was just right I think).

As always let us know any versions you come up with at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com!

Dark Chocolate and Orange Truffles

Tom today,

These truffles are the final instalment of the vegan cheese and wine evening. I think these were my favourite part, but then anything rich and chocolatey generally gets my vote! The dark chocolate truffle without the orange can be used as a basic recipe to make your own adaptation with other flavours, or can be used alone for a simple truffle. I used 70% dark chocolate from lidl (because it's cheap but still tasty), but this is personal preference as I don't like dark chocolate to be too dark (more sweet than bitter always!) but you can make with with your preferred dark chocolate. The flavoured chocolates (chocolate and chili would definitely be a winner - Lindt's excellence brand is the best variety in my opinion) would make for really nice truffles in themselves I would think, or you can add flavourings as you like.

Ingredients:

300g Dark Chocolate
3/4 cup Coconut Oil
4 tbsp Water
1 Blood Orange
1 tsp Agave Syrup
Pinch Sea Salt Flakes (might seem odd but I would really recommend it for a depth of flavour)
Cocoa powder to roll in

Method:

To make the orange flavouring, zest and juice the blood orange into a pan
Reduce as much as possible (although there probably won't be a huge amount)
This will make the juice quite bitter, as there's not much I didn't want to strain it as I thought I'd just end up loosing most of the juice but if you're making larger amounts this will be an option - there was no grittiness or texture in the truffles though so it's not a problem
Sweeten the flavouring with agave syrup (or sugar or whatever sweetener you like to use) and set to one side
Melt the chocolate, oil and water in a bowl (or pan) over hot water (making sure the bowl isn't touching the water so the chocolate doesn't burn)
Take off the heat just before it is fully melted and stir together gently
Fold in the orange flavouring and sea salt
Place in a wide flat dish and cover and leave in the fridge to set for a couple of hours (don't leave it too long or it will be difficult to roll)
Cover your hands in cocoa powder to stop the chocolate from sticking
Spoon out truffle-sized lumps and roll into balls in the palm of your hand (or if you have a melon-baller this will do this job for you in one go
Roll in the cocoa powder and refrigerate for an hour
Serve and enjoy!

These should keep for up to a week in the fridge. I haven't tried making these with other chocolates so I don't know how that will work, white I think might be a problem but you can probably have reasonable success with milk, although you may need to reduce the amount of oil and reduce or omit the water.

Let us know how yours go at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

This is the last of the vegan cheese and wine night recipes - however do let us know of any good vegan canapé or other party nibble recipes you have, we love to get mail and photos!

Vegan Pesto Boursin

Tom again,

This is part two of the vegan cheese and wine evening. Boursin is one thing I really miss, especially around christmas time. It was a tradition of mine to try and make it through an entire wheel in one sitting with a pack of Tuc biscuits at some point over the chrismas period. Always regretted it, always did it again the next year. This is an attempt to recreate that using tofu as a base

Ingredients:

50g Pine Nuts
50g Cashew Nuts
1 pack (/carton) Clearspring Firm Silken Tofu
4 medium cloves Garlic
1 tbsp Butter
1 1/2 tsp Sea Salt Flakes
1 tsp Black Pepper
25g Chives
A large handful of Basil Leaves (remove the stalks)
Juice of 1/2 a Lemon

Method:

This recipe is very simple -
Toast the pine nuts and cashews, then crush with a pestle and mortar
Blend everything together in a jug
Leave in the fridge for a few hours
Serve on crackers or baguette as you like

I didn't mean to make this so much like pesto originally, recipes I'd seen used varying amounts of cashews and tofu so I decided to add some, and though a few toasted pine nuts would go well, not realising that of course the basic flavours of pesto are basil, garlic and pine nuts. This combined with my rather heavy handed basil tendencies meant that this ended up being quite like a pesto dip, but still tasty nonetheless! As I blended in everything with a hand blender at the party this was referred too by the generic 'green stuff', but people still seemed to enjoy it! I certainly did, and with garlic and basil and toasted pine nuts it's pretty difficult to make anything taste bad (I could happily eat pesto forever!).

Walnut, Lentil and 3 Mushroom Pate

Tom here,

Sorry guys! It's been quite a hiatus over the exam period but Jess has managed to get a few recipes up, and now I have a bit more time I'm hoping to get a few more up. Got a few new recipes to upload over the next few weeks (including the dinner I made on actual christmas day at my parent's) This is a part of four different recipes I made for a wine and cheese evening we had to celebrate the new kitchen we've had installed in our university house! It's amazing, I would happily marry that oven and never look back. Sadly that's illegal. I think. Or at least frowned upon.

Obviously a wine and cheese evening presents a slight problem for veganism (and an even bigger one for gluten intolerants) but I managed to whip up a vegetarian pate, an attempt at vegan boursin and a couple of different types of truffles for something sweet.

Ingredients:

150g Walnuts
120g Oyster Mushrooms
120g Chestnut (cremini) Mushrooms
120g Shitake Mushrooms
100g Red Lentils
100g Shallots
2 cloves Garlic
1 tbsp Butter (I used sunflower, but usually prefer soya)
1 tbsp Thyme
1 1/3 tsp Sea Salt Flakes
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce

This recipe is an adapted version of one I found online, I've used different mushrooms for more flavour, but each of these were purchased in sainsburys in fallowfield so they should be pretty easy to get hold of. The lentils added give a bit of a texture boost, but could be omitted easily.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius/ gas mark 4
Boil the red lentils until soft
Toast the walnuts for 5 minutes until browned and fragrant (they smell amazing!)
Leave the walnuts to cool
Dice the shallots and fry in the butter until soft
Chop the mushrooms and add to the pan
Crush the garlic and fry as well
Remove the stalks of the thyme and chop and add to the frying pan
Crush the walnuts in a pestle and mortar (may require a few batches)
Add all the ingredients to a jug and blend using a hand blender
Spoon into a bowl and refrigerate for a few hours
Stir in the soy sauce just before serving to give a nice flavour boost
Serve with crackers or use as a spread for sandwiches

This should keep in the refrigerator for about 3-4 days. This is quite a simple recipe, and can easily be adapted with more herbs, or even changed entirely if you wanted to make a different style. The mushroom types can be substituted for any really, I just happen to like these three (and they were all available) using a large amount of two or one type would be fine, but the pate would definitely loost some of it's flavour.

As always let us know any suggestions or tweaks you come up with at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com.

And hope you all had a nice christmas/January, will definitely not leave it so long for a new recipe this time!

As you may notice I got a bit carried away cooking and forgot to take photos. Sorry! Next time I will take some more I promise!

Quorn Chilli

Hi! Jess today!

I guess I should say Happy New Year since this is our first blog since 2012. We are bad bloggers I know, but Tom has had final year exams and I have been eating a lot of salad and ready made soup. Healthy, but it doesn't make good blogging to tell you how I chopped a carrot, a pepper and some tomatoes, threw in some rocket and some ham and then..ate it.

So anyway, on the healthy note, I decided I would try cooking with Quorn. I figured it's low in fat and calories and high in protein, therefore there must be something good to it. I know it isn't vegan, and technically it's not gluten free as it states it contains barley gluten, but I tried it anyway because I figured the gluten is probably negligible. And I really wanted to make chilli and Quorn mince was only £1 in Asda.

So, I will admit, this recipe failed a little in that after chopping all the veg up, I realised I'd forgotten to get kidney beans. A chilli without kidney beans isn't really a chilli i know. But i found baked beans, so I made do with them.

Ingredients
1 pack Quorn mince
1 red pepper
1 red onion
1-2 cloves garlic
2 chilli peppers (I used a red one and a birds eye one which was pretty spicy, but use what you're comfortable with)
1 cup mushrooms (I used chestnut)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
300ml vegetable stock
Paprika
Cumin
Chili powder
Cinnamon
Worcester sauce
1 tin drained Kidney Beans (or a tin of baked beans if you're forgetful like me)

This isn't a technical recipe; fry onion, chillis and garlic until onions are browning, add pepper and mushrooms, when brown add quorn. Fry for a few mins, add tomatoes, beans and stock, add as much paprika, chilli powder and cumin as you like. Add a dash of cinnamon and worcester sauce. Cook for another 8-10 mins on medium heat on the hob. And that's pretty much it.

Not an exciting recipe, but a single serving with a sweet potato jacket (which I made by microwaving a sweet potato for 8 minutes, no science in this one) is less than 400 calories so it's a perfect tasty option for those still sticking to their new year's diets. I wouldn't say Quorn is as good as beef, but it's so much lower in fat that it seems worth it. I'm not going vegetarian, but it's nice to know I don't mind veggie options :)

Planning on lots of low-cal dishes to come (and some more cake). Tom will be back soon too as his exams are now over (yay!), probably after our visit to Dough Pizza Kitchen in Manchester as his belated-birthday celebration (they do AMAZING gluten free and vegan pizza, need I say more?).

Let me know how you get on!

Vegan, Gluten Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Jess again today!

So, it was Tom's birthday earlier in January. Any UoM students will know this makes him incredibly unlucky as his birthday falls approximately a week before the start of the January exam period. Booooo. Therefore, we postponed his birthday celebration to this weekend, and we are going to Dough for pizza (the most amazing place in the world for the gluten free and vegan people of Manchester). And I have made him a birthday cake. A vegan, gluten free, chocolate cake, with peanut butter frosting. Everything Tom loves, in a cake.

I spent a very long time looking for a good recipe for this. So many GFV recipes contain a ridiculous number of ingredients that would cost me a month's wages to buy, I was starting to get disheartened. I came across a really easy recipe but decided it looked too easy. Basically, I was really picky. And then I found this http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2013/01/peanut-butter-chocolate-vegan-cupcakes.html and knew it was the one. I just tweaked it a little to make it gluten free (and I made a big cake, not cupcakes).

Ingredients
1 cup gluten free flour
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup vegan butter, melted (I used sunflower spread)
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used praline rice milk because it sounded nice and I lose all sense of cost in the Eighth Day veggie shop on Oxford Road, but soy milk or almond milk would work just as well)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1/3 cup hot water with 1 tsp Chia seeds (flaxseed would work the same)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4tsp apple cider vinegar (I don't know how to measure this exactly, I probably used more like 3/4 tsp but whatever, I don't think it made a difference!)
1/2 tsp salt
1tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup blended fruit
Optional - handful dark chocolate chips, cacao nibs

Now where I say blended fruit, I used a whole mashed banana with a handful of mashed blueberries. The original recipe used blackberries, and suggests that any mashable fruit would work - strawberries, other berries, banana, apple...but I decided banana would go best (and I trusted it best) and just threw a few blueberries in for fun. I'd like to try this with blackberries or raspberries, I'll let you know if I do! Also, the original recipe used 1+1/2 cups all purpose white flour, but I substituted 1/2 cup ground almonds in because I think they give a nicer texture in gluten free baking. And the original recipe used just a cup of sugar, but in my experience a bit of golden syrup makes gluten free baking a bit more moist so I tried this.

Heat oven to 190C. First, blend the fruit and add the milk. You could use a food processor but I just did it in a cup by hand. Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl, sifted. Add the blended fruit, melted butter, seed slurry and other ingredients and mix together. Again, I just folded it all in together. At this point I added a handful of dark chocolate chips and a sprinkling of cacao nibs. This isn't needed but I wanted to make it a bit more decadent since it's Tom's birthday. Fold together, pour in your chosen baking tin and bake. Mine took about 30 minutes, but keep checking and go by your oven (if a fork comes out clean, it's done...). Cake done.

Cake mix is luckily not that great licked from the bowl...

 Yes, all my chocolate cakes do look the same...

Peanut Butter Frosting
1/3 cup peanut butter (use whatever type you prefer, other nut butters would work too if you wish!)
1/3 cup vegan butter
2 tsp vanilla
A few splashes of non-dairy milk
1 cup icing sugar
Optional - 2 tsp maple syrup

Basically, blend it all together. Use a whisk or a fork or a spoon or a food processor, whatever you like. Add more milk if its too thick, more sugar if its too runny. Just go with whatever looks best.

What dreams are made of

To decorate the cake, i literally slathered this beautiful frosting all over it, and then added some flaked almonds around the side. Then I spelled H.B. TOM on it with these cute little vegan chocolate chips 

So, this was the final product....

And in all honesty, it was wonderful. Perfect. Glorious. Incredible. I cannot stress how important it is that you make this. Make it into cupcakes, make it into a victoria sandwich with more frosting and some jam in the middle (had i had sandwich tins, this is what I would have done), just make sure you make this. It is vegan, gluten free baking at it's finest, if I do say so myself.


Then, to celebrate Tom's birthday, we ate cake (after our Dough pizzas), dipped fruit and dark chocolate in frosting, drank prosecco and watched Coyote Ugly. He is a man, I do know this, but he embraced his inner woman this day. And I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it.

 You must do this, it is amazing.

 Please make this and please tell me how amazing it goes :)