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.

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