Roasted Vegetable Pie |Vegan Recipe|

Back on the Winter Warmers recipes again, these are simple little pies, no faffing about getting a full on pie crust, just get your hit of pastry from the top. The little ones in ramekins freeze really well to be defrosted and zapped in the microwave for a midweek lunch and we demolished the large one for dinner between three of us!

Ingredients and method in an easy to copy/paste recipe at the end as usual. Hope you enjoy this one, it's really too simple to even be bothering to share the recipe!

 

 

Chop all your veg into chunks and chuck in a roasting dish with a little oil. Top with mushrooms so when they cook, their flavour gets all over the rest of the food. Cover and roast for forty minutes at 190. If you want them to crisp up a bit, ten minutes before the end, take the cover off, mix the mushrooms in and give them ten minutes with the top off.

While the veg is roasting, boil your kettle for the gravy and get to making the pastry. If you want to be really quick, buy some. I'm reasonably certain that a lot of ready made stuff is in fact vegan, but do check your labels.

Crumble your flour and margarine together into breadcrumbs with your fingers. Add water a little at a time until the dough comes together. You don't want it to be too sticky. Knead gently into a ball and refrigerate until the veg is done.

Make up your gravy (I like Bisto's favourite) and add it into the roasting tin so you get all the good veggie flavour. Put your veg mix into ramekins or pie dishes.

Get your pastry out and roll it out to about the thickness of a pound coin. Top your pie dishes various and slice off the extra with a knife.

 

 

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 200 until the top is golden brown and crispy. I still haven't figured out a good glaze, but I quite like the unglazed look. I suspect oil might work to make it shiny if added five minutes before the end? Anyone got any tips?

 

Ta Dah! Pies. Yum.

Jo :)

Ingredients:

400g parsnips (peeled)

A large sweet potato (mine was 700g before I peeled it)

300g mushrooms

450g carrots

1 pint gravy

200g plain flour

100g vegan margarine (I've used Vitalite and Pure)

50 ml water

Method:

Chop veg to similar size, add to roasting dish with mushrooms on top

Roast for 40m at 190 degrees

Make breadcrumbs with flour and margarine, add water until a dough is achieved

Add gravy to veg in roasting dish and mix up

Add to pie dishes

Roll pastry out to 5mm thickness, top pies

Bake for 25-30m at 200 degrees until golden brown

Stew & Dumplings |Vegan Recipe|

I seem to be on a bit of a dumpling kick at the moment! It's turned colder, greyer and darker all of a sudden and I feel like winter has really kicked in. Which obviously calls for hearty, warming dishes in the kitchen. If I can cook it all in one pot and serve it with thick chunky bread, all the better. I love my slow cooker and it gets the most use at this time of the year. If you don't have one, you can do this without, it just means you'll be standing around at the hob a lot more, keeping an eye on things.

Easy to copy/print recipe at the end as usual! Excuse the photos, I ended up cooking round my friends and had left my camera at home again!

First off, put your lentils, yellow split peas and pearl barley into your slow cooker with it set on high. Add three litres of vegetable stock. Home made is best, but Oxo is so much quicker!

 

Leave this for two hours to cook up. You can prep your other veg while you're waiting.

 

 

I like to pre-cook my potatoes so halve and par boil them first. Chop up your carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, and turnip into equal sized pieces depending on how chunky you want your stew to be. The packs of stew veg are perfect for this.

When the pearl barley is cooked through, add the veg and potatoes to the pot along with the gravy granules. Let this all cook down for an hour.

Mix up your flour and butter to form breadcrumbs, and add enough water until it's a slightly sticky dough. If you don't mind soft dumplings, you can stir up your slow cooker and add them on top or in the mix here, shaping the dough into little balls in your hands first, and leaving to cook for another hour.

I prefer crispy topped dumplings so I decant my stew into a dish, put the dumplings on top and bake in a 200 degree oven for thirty to forty minutes until they're nice and golden and the stew is bubbling. Serve with green veg, crusty bread, and if you're feeling really fancy, vegan Yorkshire puddings!

What's your winter go to?

Jo:)

Ingredients:

150g lentils

200g yellow split peas

200g pearl barley

3 litres veggie stock

5 large carrots

4 large parsnips

250g baby potatoes

1 large sweet potato

1 medium turnip

4tbsp gravy granules

150g SR Flour

2tbsp vegan butter (I've used Vitalite and Pure)

Method:

Lentils, yellow split peas and pearl barley into slow cooker on high with 3l of stock

Halve baby potatoes and par boil

Chop veg equally and add to pot after two hours along with potatoes and gravy granules

Mix flour and butter to make breadcrumbs, add water until you get a sticky dough

After 1 hour more either decant to dish to add dumplings or cook for another hour in stock pot with dumplings

If baking, put dish in 200 degree oven for 30/40 mins until golden brown.

Simple Gathered Skirt |Sewing Tutorial|

I wrote a simple tutorial for this on my old blog, but this will be better, plus it has photos! 

I made this skirt for a friends birthday (lacking her measurements) hence the shorter length. If I was making myself this double layer style, I'd be at knee length at least.

 

Anyway, take your measurements as shown in my wonderful (!) hand drawn diagram so you can work out how much fabric you need to buy.

 

Make sure you pre wash your fabric! Ironing it after gives you extra brownie points but I really hate ironing.....

 

Cut your two rectangles out. Hem along one long side of each one. This will be the lower hem. Fold over half a cm and then again so the raw edge is nearly enclosed.
 

If you have lace or anything to add to the hems, do so now. I stitched my lace on just straight along (didn't even pin, I'm so slap dash!) the bottom hem of each rectangle so that it hung underneath the fabric. 

 

I like to French seam, so fold your rectangle in half, wrong sides together with the two short sides meeting. Sew straight down that edge as close to the edge as possible. Turn the tube inside out so your right sides are together and press the seam flat. Then sew the hem up 5mm from the edge to enclose the raw edge. My favourite seam for skirts! Repeat on the second rectangle. 

 

 

Cut your waistband. Fold it in half, and then turn the long raw edges in by 1cm so they will end up in the waistband. Iron it and iron it again. Make sure it lines up well and your life will be easier than mine!
 

The two tubes should now fit nicely one inside the other. Make sure you put the shorter one on top!! Line the raw top edges up neatly and pin your waistband over both pieces. Fold the end you are starting to stitch at under itself so the frayed ends aren't showing. Do not stitch it closed.
 

Sew around your waistband until you're a few centimetres from the end and back stitch to stop the thread unravelling. 

 

Use a large safety pin in the end of your elastic to feed it through the waistband until you have both ends showing. I favour a criss cross square stitch to make sure it doesn't spring apart! Manoeuvre it into the waistband so you can tuck the leftover raw ends over. Finish stitching the waistband on and run up over the elastic to join the waistband into a circle.

 

Hey presto. One pretty, comfy, layered skirt. 

 

Notes:

Always backstitch at the beginning and end of any sewing, bonus points for tying off too. 

If you've got wavy lace, follow the top edge so it doesn't flop over a straight line of stitching. 

Match your top thread to your lace, but if it's fairly thick, leave your bobbin thread as the main fabric colour and the inside will look neater. 

Make sure your elastic doesn't twist. 

Ironing is more awesome than I think it is. 

So is pinning. 

Don't be lazy :) 

I like it because there's no zips or buttons. Win. 

Think you'll give this style of simple skirt a try? 

Jo :)

Nutty Dumpling Roast |Vegan Recipe|

Well, this is long overdue and somewhat of a practice run. I've been meaning to make nut roast for ages. And in true Jo fashion, browsed a few recipes and then made it up from there. So it kind of turned out more dumpling like, than traditional nut roast texture! So feel free to add more nuts to it if you so wish, if you doubled (or maybe trebled) the amount of seeds/nuts in the recipe, you'd get about double the yield. Which for me was a large rectangular baking dish. My friends and I enjoyed the dumpling though. So here's the method for that! Recipe and simplified method for cutting/pasting/printing at the end as usual. 

Chop your sweet potatoes into chunks. I went for around about 1 to 2cm cubed. They kind of mushed into the dumpling a bit so bigger could be better! 

 

 

Set them to cook (steam or boil is fine) and keep an eye so they don't get over done. They want to be just about to be edible and still pretty firm. Parboiled really I suppose. 

I'm not a professional chef. Can you tell?! 

Slice and fry the mushrooms. You don't want to add oil as the suet is oily enough later on! 

 

 

Blitz up one pack of chestnuts, the cranberries, maple syrup and balsamic vinegar with enough water to make a thick paste. 

 

 

Add all the seeds and nuts (chopping up the other bag of chestnuts). Season to taste. I added a good tablespoon of smoked paprika here. 

 

 

Mix the suet into the paste along with the packet of silken tofu and add this to the frying pan, and don't forget to add the sweet potato which should've been done a while ago!

 

 

Once hot through, pour the whole lot into your baking dish. 

 

 

Bake for 30 minutes at 200 degrees, take it out. Top it with the jar of cranberry sauce and roast for another 10 minutes at 220 degrees. 

Voila. Nut dumpling roast. Serve with potatoes and lots of veggies. 

Excuse the last photo. I was very excited to eat it and popped over to my friends, forgetting my camera. So it's only phone quality I'm afraid!! To be honest excuse all the photos, it gets dark early now!

Do you make up recipes?

Jo :)

Ingredients: 

500g cubed sweet potatoes

300g sliced mushrooms 

2 packets ready cooked chestnuts (I pack chopped)

150g cranberries

3tbsp maple syrup

2tbsp balsamic vinegar

50g golden linseed

50g blanched peanuts

50g sunflower seed

Salt and Pepper

Smoked paprika

300g veggie suet

Pack of silken tofu (349g)

Method:

Parboil/steam sweet potato till slightly undercooked

Fry mushrooms

Blitz 1 pack chestnuts, cranberries, maple syrup and balsamic vinegar with water, until it turns into a paste

Add the seeds and nuts to the frying pan

Season

Add the suet and tofu to the paste and then into pan

Heat through and pour into dish

Bake for 30m at 200degrees

Top with cranberry sauce

Bake for 10m at 220degrees

Am I....? |Feminism|

There's an explanation for these photos at the end….

Am I a secretary?

Am I a rebel?

Am I innocent?

Am I a pin-up?

Am I a slob?

Am I an engineer?

Am I a slut?

Am I weak?

Am I strong?

I am me. A human. A person. My sex does not define me. My clothes do not define me.

All of these photos are gathered from my Instagram and are things I wear on a fairly regular basis. They are not posed specifically for the post. They are chosen as nods towards the stereotype of each description chosen.

The other week someone said something in an off-hand manner that left me fuming for the rest of the day. Many a rant has been had and many a discussion started with people close to me.

I find when talking about feminism it's very easy to come across as someone who is incredibly uptight and can't laugh at themselves or just plain old perceived “man hating”. So I don't tend to discuss it too often in a more public forum. However this incident won't let me let it go.

I maintain and repair gliders and motor gliders, as well as the odd bit of light aircraft work. It is predominantly thought of as a man's job, one which I am more than capable of doing and have done so for eight years now.

Whilst standing on the edge of a casual discussion at work, which turned to some paperwork that had a small mistake on that had been rectified, the gentleman speaking turned away from the man I work with (doing exactly the same job, exactly the same engineering role, and the majority of the same qualifications), laughed and looked away from him and directly at me and said:

“Well we'll have to blame the secretarial staff won't we?!”

He was swiftly and politely corrected. What's made me stew is that I have spent hours now thinking about it. Okay, it's an outdated view point from an older generation of which this gentleman is part, but that doesn't excuse it.

It was hopefully mostly meant as a joke, but does accepting sexist jokes like this and letting them slip past without repercussion mean we are accepting casual sexism as part of society? Does it make me an arse to confront people who truly meant no harm but just haven't thought?

I spent quite a while at work thinking about how I dress and how I present myself. I used to do work in old jeans and vests and far too many jumpers once it got colder. I felt rubbish about myself, I didn't enjoy what I wore and quite often I was colder than I get now. Now I wear leggings and skirts and vests to work. Mostly pencil skirts. Along with scruffy plimsolls and on this occasion quite a lot of silver paint and yellow etch prime!!! …..maybe I should wear overalls again!! There was still the odd bit of sexism when I dressed to blend in with the men and there still is now I'm obviously dressed “like a girl”. Which is another phrase I don't feel I should be using here as I am as girly as usual if I'm wearing a pink dress or overalls!!

I'm as guilty of the casual sexist thoughts as the rest of us. If I see another woman in the clubhouse at the gliding site who I don't know, my head assumes she's either a trial lesson or someone's wife. I have to consciously remind myself that she could be a pilot or an engineer too, and I'm always happy if they are!

I read somewhere once that your first thought in a situation is social conditioning, and the thoughts you have after are the real you. I don't want the real me to be sexist, or perpetuating sexism through in-action. I try to be conscious of what I'm thinking and why my head has wandered off in that direction. It just takes a bit of stepping back and assessing that isn't always easy to accomplish in the heat of the moment.

Basically I'm here to have another little rant. To remind myself and anyone else who's listening to not judge a book by it's cover; or a person by their clothes. To try and continue being mindful of my thoughts and actions. To try and make a teeny tiny bit of a difference to a world that is still fighting for equality, because for some reason, we've not got the hang of it yet!!

Anyone got any tips for how to respond to people like this in the most non-confrontational way possible? I'd like to spend a little less time stressing about it next time it happens!!

Jo :)

Bitsa Blog |Catch Up|

Well. It's been hectic round here!! 

Things I have learnt in the past two weeks:

Colds still suck. 

Check dates on your tickets. 

If I'm not at home, I run out of time to do things. Including washing. 

Ruffles require way more stitching than you'd think. 

Helium is hilarious. 

Alliteration is awesome. 

Veggie curry in a can is surprisingly good. 

Organza is a bitch to sew with. 

But it's really pretty.... 

Don't drink vodka on an empty stomach. A shot will make you crazy. 

Organisation is key. 

I am not organised. 

Best friends trump pretty much everything ❤️ Including blog posts. 

Never trust a Brian. 

Halloween rocks.

Caravans (even when they have gas) are not conducive to cooking or laundry. 

Barry M gel eyeliner is AMAZING and u must do a full vegan make-up review soon. 

Poundland has some brilliant (tat) Halloween bits! 

Ghost friends  

So yeah. Since getting back from Slovenia,  I had one mega organised day at home and then it all went to pot. What with working down in Essex and helping some friends when one of them had a shoulder operation (two year olds require entertainment and many hands make light work, especially when one of those hands is strapped in a sling) I've just been completely swept away. The over ambitious carnival skirt completely took over this weekend so I'm playing catch up this week. Id like to think it'll settle down soon but I'm going to Scotland at the beginning of November and it's probably going to go back to crazy then!! 

Normal service will hopefully resume next weekend! 

Jo :) 

2400 Miles in a Mondeo |To Slovenia and Back Again|

Well, I'm home and slowly getting sorted back to normal. Washing spinning and drying on the line, clothes put away, snakes fed and happy! I thought I'd just share a few of my holiday snaps (all Slovenia, bar one from Oktoberfest!) and a few tips on eating Vegan abroad. You can see my other snaps on my Instagram!

 

 

We stayed near Lake Bled when we were in Slovenia for two nights and it is the most beautiful place. Very alpine and chocolate box looking. The Lake has a church on an island in the middle of it with a wishing bell (no you can't know what I wished for, I'm working on the same principle of birthday wishes here!!) and a Castle on a cliff overlooking it, with stunning views of the valley.

 

 

We climbed up to the castle (knackering, but worth it, although there is a car park too!) and rowed out to the island in a swan rowing boat and generally had a wonderful day of touristing! The lake is so incredibly clear, I wish I'd taken my bikini and swum now!

If you're travelling to one country, it's a bit easier, but make sure you know the basic food stuffs you can't eat in the local language. Dairy, Eggs, Milk etc as well as Vegan and Vegetarian. Most people seemed happy to help, but it was still a real struggle a couple of times in more traditional places.

If you can take some of your own food with you, or periodically stock up a little on fresh produce, salad and fruit etc for lunches and snacks. I took soy milk and cereal for breakfasts but did just fine with bread and jam most days.

Research before you go and find a couple of places along your way that you can be sure to find something to eat. We tried a Vegan Restaurant in Cologne called Past and Future and the food was delicious, everyone was incredibly friendly and I'd love to go back!

If in doubt, order salads with no dressing and chips! I feel like these balance each other out nicely!!

We had an amazing time and I'd love to go back and visit Slovenia again, and can't wait to go back to Germany. Already planning the next trip!

 

Jo :)