Vegan Dinner Recipe: Pasta Alfredo with Mushroom and Sundried Tomato

This recipe is the bomb. It's easy. It's quick. It uses one pasta pot and an blender. It's delicious. Sure, it's probably not going to win any healthy eating prizes, but it's worth it for the taste. We eat this like once a week, because, well, we're vegan, so we're super healthy naturally, right? :)

Vegan Lunch Recipe: Trio Of Dips

As a vegan, my idea of a naughty dinner isn't fast food. That's my idea of being really grossed out. My idea of a naughty dinner is carb loading on home-made turkish bread smothered in delicious dips. Also, if you can bear to share, these also are really easy to whip up when people are coming over, and can be made extra healthy by serving with chopped veggies and crackers.

Vegan Lunch Recipe: Brown Rice and Pineapple Salad

I love pineapple. I love it with ice-cream, I love it on pizza. And I love it in salad. It's one of my favorite savoury salad fruits, along with mango. Anyway, even people who aren't cracked about pineapple should give this salad a go. It makes a lovely colourful accompaniment to any picnic table.

Vegan How-to Recipe: Burger Buns

These are everything in the processed white-fluffy-bun range your little heart could POSSIBLY desire. I now, even though it's considerably more work, make burger-buns EVERY TIME I want to have burgers because they taste SO MUCH BETTER than supermarket ones. I promise. TO THE KITCHEN!

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Burger Beet Patties

Just say yes, guys. Just say yes. I found this recipe on the post punk kitchen, and I make them ALL THE TIME. With my own home made burger buns. Hells yes, these burgers are the business. And friends, are they FILLING. Let us begin:

Vegan Lunch Recipe: Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas and Cauliflower

This is a great salad. It's great with other salads, it's great with gluten shnitzels (which I'll be serving them with), and it's great on its own for lunch. AND it's protein packed because of the quinoa/chickpea combo. Boom.

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Nut Burger Patties

This recipe is adapted from one of the Hare Krishna recipe books. I'm pretty sure it was originally vegan anyway, bless them, but I added some stuff for extra deliciousness.

These babies can certainly be eaten on buns, with a bit of ketchup and mayo and mustard, some fried onions, some sliced tomato, lettuce, beetroot, avocado... god I'm hungry. Or, if one can't deal with the idea of eating bread (that was me) One could serve it with bean salad and a roast veggie stack. DEEE-LICIOUS.

Vegan Lunch Recipe: Easiest Mixed Bean Salad

Ever had that uh-oh, I-have-to-take-a-plate-to-a-picnic-I'm-already-late-to feeling? Or even that dinner-is-in-half-an-hour-and-it's-all-beige-thus-far feeling? Who hasn't. Let's make it colourful and massively tasty, and take half an hour. This is a go-to summer salad which is great for lunch, or a side for dinner. And it's like ONE STEP SALAD. Boom.

Vegan Breakfast Recipe: Miracle green smoothie

 

I am not one to get over-excited about smoothies. In fact, I have harboured a deep suspicion about smoothies for some time now, assuming drinking your breakfast is a rookie move. Even as I get older and lazier, I still like chewing. Furthermore, I used to not think of a smoothie as REAL FOOD. 

Until I met THIS smoothie. This guy is so packed with nutritious goodness it keeps me full for hours, and makes me feel AMAZING. I am not kidding.

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Orecchiette with white wine, garlic and greens

This is a delicious, visually appealing dinner. A grown-up dinner. A dinner that I got from a cookbook and altered slightly... and that cookbook was by my fave vegan author, Isa Chandra Moskowitz. LOVE HER. It's not an all-the-time dinner... there's no protein source included... but it's really, really tasty. And therefore excellent to serve to non-vegans, to set a good example about how TRULY QUALITY a good vegan pasta can taste. Let us begin:

Vegan Dessert Recipe: Ginger and apple steamed puddings

I had a lot of apples. A LOT. I also had the desire to slather something in caramel sauce and coconut ice-cream... and I realised the best way to do that was through together a whole load of delicious stuff and steam it in the oven.

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Pad-Thai, sort of

You know that bit in Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, where Arthur keeps trying to get a cup of tea from the machine on that improbability space craft and it keeps on giving him 'something that is almost entirely, but not quite, exactly unlike tea'? This is my 'something that is almost entirely, but not quite, exactly unlike Pad-Thai'.

I love a good stir-fry, but I generally get the hankering for one right before I make dinner, so there isn't time to pre-plan it shopping-wise. So tonight I got together all the bits and pieces I had that seemed appropriate and made the closest approximation to Pad-Thai that I could. And it tasted AMAZING. So I'm passing on the recipe to you guys. Don't say I don't do anything for you!

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Rainbow risotto for a rainy day

Risotto. Is there anything more satisfying on a rainy day? This risotto is a flavourful medley of reds and greens, and, once you have the hang of it, is pretty easy, just with a lot of stirring.

Vegan Breakfast Recipe: Chia pudding

When you go to work very, very early in the morning (or you're just very, very lazy) sometimes putting any effort into breakfast at all is really hard. And maybe you would be tempted to skip breakfast, but we all know that is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

With this handy prepare-the-night-before, keeps-for-a-couple-of-days recipe, you will ALWAYS eat breakfast, and LOVE it. And you can feel good about the fact that you're eating all those awesome power foods, so you can feel full all morning, AND you've basically eaten dessert for breakfast. This is a win win!

Vegan Lunch Recipe: Fresh rice-paper rolls

You know how sometimes you're all like, "wow, I really feel like a sandwich, but I don't actually feel like bread, and I definitely don't feel like a salad." You know how to solve those problems? Instead of bread, rice-paper. YEAH. And it is actually as easy as making a sandwich.

Vegan Breakfast Recipe: Staying-in-bed-all-day pancakes

These pancakes are SO GUARANTEED AMAZING that firstly, you will dream about them, and secondly, you will be in such a carb-sugar coma afterwards that it's the perfect excuse to have breakfast in bed. So you don't have far to fall into your carb-sugar coma. And in that coma you will dream about these pancakes. AND THE VICIOUS CYCLE WILL CONTINUE.

Here, friends, is the recipe:

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Colourful corn pudding with beans

This recipe is basically my tortillas recipe but with corn pudding instead of tortillas. Make the pudding first, then serve with bean and corn mix, an avocado salsa, some sour-cream, and a sneaky jalepeno if you're feeling dangerous. The balance of flavours between the sweet corn pudding and spicy toppings and smooth avocado makes this baby a winner in either summer or winter.

Vegan Dessert Recipe: Oh-My-God Caramel slice

I saw a post on instagram where somebody had made vegan caramel slices, and I got all nostalgic for the little buggers. I remember they used to get the most glorious caramel slices in at Ginos, the caramel was to die for. I guess the amount of butter they packed in those babies would lead to me dying for them as well, eventually. Anyway, I decided to look on the net for approximate recipes.

There were so many, and I would love to have a go at some of the raw recipes at some stage soon, but this first go I went for extreme processed sugar decadence. And it went pretty well, I must say, although these slices are certainly not for all-the-time.

But if you want to hear someone say "I can't believe that is ACTUALLY vegan" then these are probably what you want to produce.

Vegan Dinner Recipe: Gallo Pinto (Rice and Beans)

Oh. My. God. It might not look like much, but this guy is the highest level of comfort food known to humans. We discovered gallo pinto (direct translation "speckled/spotted hen") in Nicaragua, where they sold it everywhere for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's greasy, it's fantastic with hash browns or faux meat sides or veggies or... well, anything. It's a great side, and it's also great in a giant bowl on its own.

And it's cheap. And pretty easy. There is NO DOWNSIDE. Aside from the fact that it's pretty bloody unhealthy, but you know, you can't win em all!

Vegan Dinner Recipe: A whole lotta lasagne

Veggie lasagne has NEVER BEEN EASIER. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. But it's VERY EASY. Obviously there's the whole cooking-time to factor in, but on the whole, this is a no-fuss, well rounded meal packed with veggies and lentils and whatnot. I even add some cashew ricotta for laughs, and the bechamel effect. This is PERFECT in texture (I've spent so long making them accidentally to moist or too dry!) and serves a reluctant four (or an enthusiastic three. Four with salad.)

Here we go!