From Spade to Plate - Vegan Week 23rd January

Due to illness we had a couple of members who did not manage to make it today.
With a small group on hand, I decided to re'wax the bees wax wrappers that I use to cover food in the fridge.
Melendra and Julie brought some nice pieces of cloth and shared them with the rest of the group.

All you need, wax, warmth and cloth

Liz ironing the top wax paper layer

The end result

Melendra fitting her cloth on a saucepan

Before we knew it, there was a hive of activities

Bailey making flat breads

We spend half our time making these covers and decided on a quick but tasty  meal for our lunch.
The Easy Coconut Chickpea Curry went down well with  rice and some flat bread.

Coconut chickpea curry with rice and bread

Another lovely morning!

Leek and Potato Soup, flat bread with Vegan dips

Today after harvesting leeks before the frost set in, we turned them and the last of the potatoes into a lovely leek and potato soup.

We made flat bread to go with the Cashew Nut dip,

Cortney in action

Sundried tomato and Butter bean paté and the 'cheese' sauce and the last of the carrots in the garden. They were difficult to harvest, but eventually they were turned into some sweet, crunchy goodies.

Rachel making Cashew nut dip

  

Mushrooms and bread

Today we made a variety of bread.
First a very quick and easy beer bread  using the yeast in the beer instead of the dried yeast we used in the Brioche recipe.

Bailey deomonstrating kneading dough in a bag

 This recipe is vegan by using chickpea water (Aquafaba)  and extremely fluffy and tasty. To make sure our hands were not covered in sticky dough we used the bread in a bag technique.

The Seeded crackers went down very well too, we had them with a slice of Extra mature cheddar cheese and a topping of sweet chilli jam.

all the seeds in the crackers

Mushroom patê with parsley

The Mushroom patê went down a treat, it went well with both the brioch and the beer bread.
So much so that all recipes were voted for to be included in the next cookbook!

As a soup today we made a cream of mushroom soup.

Sweet Chili jam and Cheese and Coriander Pie

Rummaging around the fridge brought up breadcrumbs, various cheeses, eggs and some coriander and came up with this recipe. Coriander and Cheese Pie.
It is simple and very tasty.

The end result: a delicious coriander cheese pie

A happy crew, thank you Yumi for taking the picture

Liz picking the lettuce leaves for the salad

Coriander cheese pie, with Chilli Jam and salad

Yumi using grandma's cheese grater!

Simone grinding the fresh coriander seeds

Peppers, garlic, chillies and tomatoes bubbling away 

A sweet chilli jam, lovely with spring rolls, quiches and cheeses

If you would like to try your own version, here is the recipe we used.

Ingredients 4 persons

125g dry breadcrumbs

50g ground almonds

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 teaspoon ground coriander

50g melted butter

For Filling

300g cottage cheese

2 tablespoons of single cream

50g grated Cheddar cheese

25g grated Parmesan Cheese

2 tablespoons finely chopped coriander

3 eggs

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients for the flan base together with the melted butter and press into a well greased 25cm flan tin.

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Purée the cottage cheese with the cream in a blender.
3. Stir in the cheeses and the fresh coriander.
4. Beat the eggs through the mixture and pile on top of the breadcrumb base. Bake for 15-30 minutes or until firm and golden.

Baking lemon poppy cake without an oven

Today's From Spade to Plate group saw how to use my 'Sand pan' as an oven.
This large pan has a layer of clean sand on the bottom (about 1cm thick) on top of that I placed a metal disc (from one of my loose bottomed baking tins) to make sure that anything in the 'oven' won't get covered in sand.



So we made some Lemon Poppy Cake, as we only had 2 eggs, we used Chia seeds as egg replacer for the other 2 eggs.

 This recipe did not call for baking powder but think it would be good to add 1 teaspoon to the selfraising flour. We made sure that after greasing and flouring the jars (Ball kilner jars as they have straight necks) we filled them half full with the batter. We then placed them (without lids) into the 'oven'. When the oven was hot, we turned down the gas to low and cooked it until risen and firm.   Once done, we removed the jars and added the lids so that when they cooled down, they would close in a vacuum and can be kept in the larder for weeks to use when unexpected guests arrive.  The one that was rather full, I let cool down and took out of the jar to cut into round slices with a cup of tea.


For Lunch we made Quorn Chicken pieces chasseur,

    

with leeks and mushrooms and red wine. For those who prefer chicken just replace the Quorn but follow the recipe. We also had the last of the brussels sprouts with the dish.  We halved the sprouts, chopped some onions and sautêed them sprinkled some zucchini 'bacon' over it and let it steam in a little water until done.

Together with some rice and some salad from the garden (various leaves, including, lambslettuce, rocket, chickweed, beetroot leaves, carrots, and  peppers) we turned these goodies into a delicious lunch.

First From Spade to Plate session of 2019

Today Asako, Sayaka, Simone, Lucy, Julie showed up for the first day in the new year for our from Spade to Plate session.

We started with a Gluten Free  meal.
The Carrot, Ginger and Butterbean soup was delicious with the Brasilian Cheese balls.

We prepared the butternut squash, red onions for a short roasting session finished off with roasted kale and quinoa and halloumi. A warm and tasty salad. Insead of Frekeeh we used Quinoa.

What a great and colourful start.

REFUSE, REDUCE, REUSE AND RECYCLE.

We did a little for the reduce, reuse and recycle  campaign.
I reused my cashmere holely jumper, using one part of the arm as a can cover.
The Lemon shell after juicing has gone into the freezer so we can use it the future for lemon zest and after that it will be composted.
We saved the seeds of the Butternut Squash, dried them out to be sown in May