food blog

creamy bean hummus

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Beans make a smoother paler paste than chick peas, and I sometimes like that. I know versions of humus are everywhere. And bean humus can be served as an alternative to hummus and is a great healthy store cupboard standby. It’s also perfect if you are dairy free and want an alternative to butter that is healthy. They are now saying that margarines and damaged fats are really bad for you, so things like hummus are a much better and tasty alternative. I like to serve it with bread drizzled in a little olive oil, see my scorched bread recipe in the index, and dry fried in a frying pan till it’s got a slightly overdone crunchy chargrilled flavour with a nice thick layer of the bean humus and with salad and pine nuts on top. Its great with roast veg on it too or its fab with crudités or tortilla chips as a dip.

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italian beans on toast with poached eggs

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Beans on toast with a fried or poached egg is up there as a great tasting breakfast or light meal. I have taken a traditional Italian recipe that ramps up the taste and textures and added my own tweaks, but mainly a poached egg, which you can leave out if you want the vegan version it’s still delicious.

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caramelised roasted red onions

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These onions are roasted until they are caramelised and sitting in an unctuous balsamic syrupy sauce. This recipe pays tribute to the humble onion as a vegetable in its own right. They are fab with a roast dinner or as a side dish and they are also great at room temperature along side salads and bread. But apart from being delicious, studies  have shown that rosemary has amazing anti ageing properties, ten percent of the population in the town of Acciaroli in Italy are over 100 years and scientists are putting it down to the rosemary in their diet and scientific studies have also shows that rosemary helps maintain and improve brain function and memory. So I’m adding Rosemary to my diet whenever I can, which is easy as I love the taste and smell.

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guacamole

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Guac is the perfect tasty health food and this recipe is bursting with vitamins. Everyone  has their version of it and this is my version , it is silky smooth, except for the chopped red onion and tomatoes on top. It’s got all the authentic Mexican flavours of lime, chilli, oregano and cumin and it has a bit of a kick. You can put in half the chilli if you prefer it milder. I have eaten this ever since I went on the Fit for Life diet years ago. I’d have it on toasted rye bread with butter, but now I’d just make it with bread brushed with olive oil, roasted and sprinkled with a pinch of salt. It’s a lovely combo of crunchy, creamy and spicy and it’s super delicious. Perfect for lunch as it takes minutes to make.

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scorched or roasted sourdough toast

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Toast is one of the best things ever. And this is one of the tastiest way of cooking bread and is so fantastic and crammed with flavour that when I gave it to Ralph to try he was as bowled over as I was. I like it even more than normal toast, which is, of course, a brilliant invention, but if you are going down the non-dairy route and you want your bread to be just as scrumptious as toast with butter, slices of bread roasted or scorched in a dry pan with a light spray of oil and a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt are ruddy marvellous.  If you roast it, it becomes like a giant crunchy crouton, which can be the basis for a tartine or any breakfast where you have toast. (I have also put fried mushrooms on it as a starter) This is also a great way to make bread tasty without adding butter or margarine. So it’s perfect for dairy free and vegan diets. Go on try it, you will still like toast, but not as much.

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chewy vegan florentines

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I took a Mary Berry recipe for Florentines and converted it to a vegan recipe, so they are dairy free. What is missing in some vegan baking is the luxurious taste of fine ingredients and interesting textures. These Florentines are chewy, tasty and very lux, perfect for a special occasion or just with coffee as a treat.
I’m testing them out later on friends, and I won’t tell them they are vegan then I’ll get back to you…..yay! They loved them and couldn’t tell they were vegan.

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rhubarb and fennel salad

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Raw rhubarb can be used as a colourful and tasty salad ingredient and is fantastic very thinly shaved and ‘cooked’ in the dressing you are going to serve with the salad. The dressing goes a bit pink from the rhubarb which I think is delightful and the rhubarb looks divine. You can leave out the Pecorino if you are dairy free or vegan and the salad would still be delicious. I would happily serve this as a starter with some crusty bread.

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Michelle Obama’s pea salad

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It looks like Michelle is a pea fan like me. She is a great advocate for healthy living and really looks amazing so she’s doing something right. This recipe is from her cookbook called American Grown which is geared around cooking fresh and healthy food and most of which was grown in the White House gardens. I have tweaked the recipe slightly to suit my tastes but you don’t have to, I have put an optional beside the ingredients I have added. I also used frozen petit pois as they are readily available and are sweeter and much more tender than standard peas. This is the perfect Spring salad and perfect for eating at Easter time with other salads, roast meat or fish or with my nut loaf.

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vegan laksa bowl

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I love this bowl of coconutty deliciousness. Laksa is a comforting Thai coconut broth with vegetables and noodles. It’s spicy, creamy and noodley. I find a lot of vegan recipes are trying to emulate meat dishes, which is not great because vegan ingredients can be fantastic and with imagination don’t need to pretend they are something they are not. There are a lot of sumptuous vegan dishes that don’t shout deprivation of any kind. Hopefully you will try my vegan recipes and agree that they are just as good as any recipe using animal products, I try to make them look delicious too, and full of colour and not just a load of beige-ness.
This recipe is my take on a Laksa I hope you like it. It’s healthy and delicious.

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shrimp laksa bowl

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Laksa is a creamy coconutty broth which is spicy, delicious and is  a very traditional Thai dish. It’s always served in a big bowl with noodles and with lots of garnishes, so it looks scrumptious. You can also make this recipe with whatever takes your fancy, so you can add different seafood to it like squid and scallops or shell fish. It’s up to you and if you omit the noodles you have a very tasty, creamy low carb meal. It’s perfect for date night dinner with your darling, when you fancy something hot and spicy.

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