By Lyn Funnell
My family are vegans, But that doesn’t bother me. I love producing vegan meals when they visit us.
Here is my latest selection and it was a very successful meal!
I wanted to produce a vegan version of Coronation chicken – without the chicken of course.
Changing the mayonnaise and the cream to vegan versions was no bother.
But what could I use instead of chicken?
You can make most of these recipes ahead of time.
Ingredients
1 small onion, chopped
Olive oil
2tsps curry powder
1tsp tomato puree
A bay leaf
A glug of red wine
2 tablesps apricot jam
A squeeze of lemon juice
½ pint vegan mayo
2 tablesps vegan cream
Seasoning
A tin of jackfruit
½ tin chickpeas
Gently saute onion in olive oil.
Add the curry powder and stir.
Take the saucepan off the heat and slowly add the other ingredients except the tinned ingredients. Stir them in slowly so that the mayo and cream don’t curdle.
Add the jackfruit and chickpeas and tip the sauce into an attractive glass bowl.
Refrigerate until needed.
Rice and Vegetable Mould
I like to cook in colour.
If your food looks bland, add some veg, herbs or fruit in a different colour.
If it looks good, they usually go together well!
Ingredients of your choice, all finely chopped.
Long-grain rice
Oil
1 carrot
The green of a leek
A piece of a red pepper
A piece of a yellow pepper
A few small slices of runner beans out of the freezer
A few peas
A few sweetcorn
2 small cherry tomatoes
Parsley or other herbs
Seasoning
Measure some rice into a bowl or ring mould.
Just over half fill it as the rice will swell.
Tip the rice into a saucepan and cover with water.
Add the vegetables of your choice.
Boil them until most of the water has evaporated.
Top the water up if the rice isn’t cooked.
Turn off the heat. Leave it to absorb the rest of the water.
Oil a bowl and tip the rice in when it’s dry enough.
Press it down as you fill it.
Give it a final press down and leave it to cool.
Holding a plate over the bowl, tip the bowl up quickly, bang it down and leave it for a while in the fridge.
When you’re ready to serve it, carefully lift the bowl off and the rice should have neatly dropped out.
Kidney Bean Falafel.
½ tin of kidney beans
A small onion
1tsp coriander
1tsp cumin
2 tblesps flour
Seasoning
Flour to handle the falafel
Oil to cook them.
Blitz all the ingredients in a food processor.
Scrape them out into a bowl and leave in the fridge until needed.
This makes the mixture easier to handle.
When ready, heat a pan of oil.
Flour your hands and roll a small ball in flour tipped onto the board.
You should get around 12 small falafel.
Fry them until crispy on both sides.
This takes just a couple of minutes per side.
Drain them on kitchen towel and serve while warm.
Greek Lemon Potatoes.
Peel the potatoes.
Cook them with plenty of lemon juice and parsley.
Add salt.
Cook them until soft.
Drain and serve.
You can add a chopped onion and olive oil.
This can be heated in the oven until needed.
I also served Garlic Mushrooms.
For Dessert I served Treacle Tart with custard with soya milk and/or vegan cream.
I made it in the morning and baked it in the oven when needed.
Ingredients
Ready-rolled pastry.
Most of the supermarket’s ready-rolled pastry is vegan now, including their puff pastry.
I used this.
Marge
A tin of Lyle’s Golden Syrup
Juice of ½ a lemon
4 tblsps or more of breadcrumbs.
Grease a flan tin with marge.
In a saucepan, tip in the golden syrup and lemon juice to melt the syrup.
Take off the heat and stir in the breadcrumbs.
Tip it onto the pastry and bake at 190C for 20 minutes.
Take out of the oven and let it stand to cool down a bit and set.
