This week’s recipe is a collaboration with Buy Whole Foods Online, a Kent-based, family-run, international health food supplier. They provided us with some ingredients to create a healthy meal; organic tapioca flour, organic hemp seeds, cashews, and raw organic honey. Deciding what to make was like being on an episode of Ready, Steady, Cook!
We decided on grilled tofu & vegetable skewers served with a cashew satay sauce and hemp seed, tapioca flour flatbread.
We started by making cashew nut butter; simply cashews, coconut oil and pinch of salt puréed in a food processor for 20 minutes.
We then used this to make a wonderful satay sauce – a very straightforward process that combines the cashew butter with coconut milk, soya sauce, chilli flakes, honey and lime juice.
Next up we made the flatbreads. The gluten-free tapioca flour is derived from the cassava root. It’s almost 100% carbohydrate – with little or no protein, fat, fibre or minerals. For best results, it should be blended with other flour (such as coconut or almond). We studded our flatbread with toasted hemp seeds which – unlike the tapioca flour – are brimful of nutrients including protein, manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, iron and essential fatty acids.
It’s another simple recipe that, due to being yeast-free, needed no lengthy proving time.
It’s a batter rather than a dough and is cooked on a griddle or frying pan.
And, last but not least, the kebabs. Simply marinate sautéed tofu and vegetables of choice in a garlic and ginger paste – and then skewer.
To serve, grill the kebabs and reheat the breads and sauce – done! Garnish with fresh coriander or salad leaves. It’s a healthy, nutritious and delicious meal!
Click here to save our recipe to Pinterest
- 175g/6oz tapioca flour
- 50g/1¾oz coconut flour
- 1tsp salt
- 2tbsp coconut oil
- 255ml/10fl oz lukewarm water
- 1tbsp hemp seeds, toasted
- 250g cashews (not roasted or salted/sweetened)
- 1tbsp coconut oil
- ½tsp salt
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 tin coconut milk
- 1tsp chilli flakes (or to taste)
- 150g/5oz cashew nut butter
- 2tbsps soy sauce (a gluten-free version is available)
- juice of a lime
- generous pinch of salt
- 2tbsps raw organic honey (use date sugar or jaggery if you want a vegan version)
- Preheat your skillet on a medium flame
- Sift the flours and salt together into a large bowl; make a well in the centre
- Add the oil and water to the centre of the flour and gradually whisk together to form a batter
- Mix in the toasted hemp seeds
- When the skillet has heated, ladle a quarter of the batter in and spread the contents into a round or oval
- When the top of the flatbread is beginning to dry, flip and cook the other side until it begins to brown
- Repeat until all the batter is used up
- Put the cashews into a food processor and purée for about 10 minutes. You'll need to stop processing every few minutes and scrape the contents down from the sides to purée completely
- Add the coconut oil and salt and process for another 10 minutes - again scraping the contents down from the sides if necessary
- Over a low heat, fry the finely chopped onion in a little oil until softened but not browned
- Add the coconut milk, soy sauce, cashew nut butter, chilli flakes and salt
- Continue to cook over a low heat, stirring regularly, for approximately ½ hour
- Stir in the lime juice at the end of cooking process
- To toast, sauté the hemp seeds for just a couple of minutes in a hot wok or saucepan. Be careful, they tend to jump out of the pan like popcorn!
- Brush the griddle with a little vegetable oil to prevent the flatbread from sticking.
Price Points: Veganuary swaps
Have you made any new year’s resolutions? We’re doing Dry January for the 2nd year running. I’ve considered doing Veganuary as well; I’m already a strict vegetarian and was vegan for a number of years. It would be a small change that I don’t think would make a huge difference, in my case.
If you, however, are looking for a month-long shake up of your diet – here are a few Veganuary swaps to your usual staples that you could try to make it easier.
- Provamel organic macadamia nut drink: 49p, Star Bargains (rrp £1.75)
Bake with it, add it to your morning coffee or drink it cold on its own straight from the fridge. Macadamia nuts are a rich source of mono-unsaturated fats, vitamins B1 & B6, manganese, iron and magnesium. - Follow Your Heart vegan egg: £3.99, Holland & Barrett
Plant-based egg replacer. Gluten-free, nut free, cereal-free. It’s great for cake baking or make it into scrambled egg or omelette dishes. - Chocolate hazelnut spread: £6.00, Hotel Chocolat
Following a vegan diet doesn’t mean you have to remain sin-free. This is a vegan alternative to Nutella (which contains milk solids). Spread it on bread, pancakes and croissants.
shop Veganuary swaps
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Cakes & Bakes: Vegan lemon meringue pie
We’re more than halfway through January – did you make (or break) any new year’s resolutions? We’ve been having a ‘Dry January’ and other people may be having a ‘Veganuary’. I’ve been vegetarian for 30 years (and vegan at one point) so I thought that the former would be much more of a goal. Nevertheless, I thought I should try a vegan Cakes & Bakes dish to say that I got into the whole January swing!
This lemon meringue pie is surprisingly completely vegan. No butter in the pastry, no eggs or gelatine in the filling and no eggs in the meringue. Brilliant!
Despite being veggie for most of my life, I’ve only recently heard about aquafaba. It’s a versatile egg substitute that was ‘discovered’ by a French chef in 2014. It’s the cooking liquor from (usually) white beans such as butter beans, chickpeas or cannellini beans. If you’re using tinned, buy ones that are unsalted. If you’re making your own, it’s not the water that you soak dried beans in – that contains toxins and gets discarded – you use the water in which the beans have been boiled. I made my own and used the ‘discarded’ chickpeas to make a batch of hummus.
Many of the vegan lemon meringue pie recipes I found on the ‘net included a pinch of turmeric; I obliged but found the resulting filling to be on the orange side and resembled pumpkin pie. It didn’t affect the flavour, however. If preferred, you could use a tiny amount of yellow food colouring.
Making the meringue was a bit tricky. I think I under-whipped my first batch as the lovely peaks softened and sank in the oven. Some people prefer to pipe the mixture on to a lined baking sheet and cooking it separately. I did this with some of the leftover mixture and I couldn’t tell the difference from egg white meringue! It was soft and gooey and cracked when I broke into it.
I quickly & carefully blow-torched the top before it went into the oven on the lowest setting for at least 2 hours. This seemed to help it keep its shape. If you go with latter cooking method, The meringue doesn’t get as cooked thoroughly and will sink and begin to liquefy. It will be best eaten on the day you make it.
Click here to save the recipe to Pinterest for later!
- 200g/7oz plain flour
- 70g/2½oz 'tant pour tant' (35g/1¼oz icing sugar + 35g/1¼oz ground almonds)
- pinch of salt
- 100g/3½oz very cold vegetable spread (e.g. soya, olive) or coconut oil
- 550ml/19fl oz milk substitute (e.g. soya, almond, hazelnut, cashew, coconut, oat, rice)
- 80g/2¾oz custard powder (Bird's is vegan)
- zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
- 125ml lemon juice
- 100g/3½oz caster sugar
- small pinch of turmeric
- 125ml/4⅓fl oz aquafaba
- 1 tsp cream of tartar
- 110g/3¾oz caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Put the flour, icing sugar, ground almonds and salt in a food processor. Pulse a couple of times to combine
- Add the butter and pulse again until the mixture begins to get lumpy - like dry scrambled eggs
- Empty the pastry on to 2 lengths of cling film layered one over the other at right angles
- Bring the dough together into a ball by lifting & bringing together the 4 ends of the cling film. Flatten and chill in the fridge for an hour
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6
- Once chilled, generously flour a work surface and roll out the dough to ½cm thick
- Line the pie dish with the pastry so that it has some overlap all the way around.
- Put a length of parchment paper on top of the pastry and fill the pie dish with baking beans
- Blind bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges begin to turn golden brown
- Remove from the oven, remove the beans and parchment paper and allow the pie case to cool
- Combine ⅓ of the milk with the custard powder, sugar and turmeric
- Whisk to remove any lumps
- Pour into a saucepan with the remaining milk and lemon zest
- Heat, stirring constantly, until the custard begins to thicken
- Add the lemon juice, and continue to stir until it thickens further
- Pour the lemon mixture into the pastry case and allow to cool and solidify while you make the meringue
- Preheat the oven to 90ºC/200ºF/gas mark ¼
- Using a stand mixer with the balloon whisk attachment or an electric hand whisk (on a high setting), beat the aquafaba for 5 minutes
- Add the cream of tartar and beat again until soft peaks begin to form
- Add the vanilla extract and continue beating for a few seconds
- Add the sugar, in stages, one tablespoon at a time, continuing to whisk on the high setting
- Continue whisking until you reach the stiff peak stage - this could take 10-20 minutes
- Spoon or pipe the meringue evenly over the top of the pie filling
- At this stage, you can (if you have one) carefully blowtorch the top of the meringue to get attractive brown bits
- Bake in the oven for 2 hours
- Allow to cool completely before slicing & serving
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