This vegan tart has a real Mediterranean flavour and uses fennel and aubergine as its main vegetables, with the addition of tomatoes and a delicious pea pesto to finish it off. The recipe is not gluten-free, but it can easily be made so by switching to a gluten-free flour and adding a teaspoon of xanthan…
Category: Lunch
Stuffed Peppers with Aubergine and Rice
I’ve avoided stuffed peppers since turning vegan, thinking they were a bit of a cliché. Since trying these, however, I’ve realised that I’ve been missing out. The intense flavour and colour in these little gems is fantastic, and they’ve made me a convert. You’ve probably all already got your own stuffed pepper recipes, but please…
Shiitake Mushroom and Miso Soup with Pak Choi and Udon Noodles
This is a beautiful South East Asian-style soup, made with dried shiitake mushrooms and miso paste. It has a thin, lightly-flavoured stock, making it a perfect light evening meal, or even a starter to something more robust. You can get the dried mushrooms in any Chinese supermarket (you should be able to get the lemongrass…
Vegan Grilled Cheese and Sausage Sandwich
This rates pretty damned high on my list of grilled cheese sandwiches, and is, in my opinion, essential junk food to learn to make. You can use any vegan sausages you like, though I currently have a preference for the Quorn vegan Cumberland variety. This is a greatly satisfying lunch or supper that the kids…
Roast Portobello Mushrooms with Cannellini Beans
Roasting large, flat mushrooms in the oven captures their natural flavour in its entirety. A rub of olive oil, a little salt and pepper and twenty minutes on a medium-high heat is all it takes to achieve simplistic perfection. I created this dish around that desire for simplicity, with the addition of beans and leaks,…
Easy Chestnut Mushroom, New Potato and Leek Pie
I’ve created this pie with ready-to-roll pastry to make it as easy and non-time-consuming as possible. You can, of course, make your own pastry if you prefer, but the idea behind this is to keep it simple. Chestnut mushrooms are easily accessible and a perfect size for a chunky pie, when cut either in half…
Three Ways with Pizza
I was thirteen years old when I first learned to make pizza. I was visiting family in Leicester when, on a visit to a book store, I came across Antonio Carluccio’s An Invitation to Italian Cooking. I bought the book, published the year before, after a brief flick-through of its glossy pages, and set to…
Vegan Cheese, Ham and Sundried Tomato Slices
These are basically vegan pasties, which is kind of like the Holy Grail of vegan junk food. At the time of writing this I haven’t been able to find any that you can buy (although the recent arrival of the Greggs sausage roll is a welcome step in the right direction). So, until the day…
Fried Tofu with Rice Noodles and Black Bean Sauce
Noodles and black bean sauce has always been one of my favourite Chinese dishes. I used to eat it on Shaftsbury Avenue when I was in my early twenties, in those Chinese restaurants that were permanently busy and where they would cram you in at tables next to complete strangers to eat your food (It…
Kale and Dill Wraps with Aubergine, Pineapple and Black Beans
These are the standard chickpea flour wraps, but with the addition of kale and dill to the batter to give it a green colour, and to get a little extra veggies in us. This is done by adding the kale, dill and some lime juice to water and blending together until completely smooth. That then…
