Vegan Lasagna and home made cheese sauce

This is the first time I've made vegan nut cheese sauce and I can not explain to you how satisfying it is to make your own vegan cheese. I felt like a god. Creating cheese from scratch was just so fun, and no animal saturated fat just protein and healthy oils and omega 3's. Cheese that makes your hair and skin glow, helps muscle repair and growth and a healthy brain? Yes-a-fucking-please. Plus nutritional yeast (the stuff that makes it taste cheesy) has a shit load of B12 in it which is essential for us non meat eater.

Now don't expect this to taste exactly like a meaty carbohydrate filled lasagna

it wont

it will taste fucking good though.   

Ingredients

Cheese sauce
1 1/2 cups of cashews (soaked for 4-6 hours)
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp of salt
3tbsp of lemon juice
tsp each of powdered mustard, paprika and agave
1 tbsp of garlic Italian mixed herbs (or any combination of desired savory herbs, mixes with granulated onion and garlic add to the cheesy taste the best)
3/4 cup of water (may need more, depending on the desired consistency of the sauce)

This is what makes nuts cheesy

- After your nuts have soaked (eh eh eh) drain and place in a blender.
- Add the rest of your ingredients, and blitz. You may need to add more water for a smoother sauce.

Mmmmm creamy cheesy goodness

Tomato Sauce
1 can of chopped tomatoes
1 cup of grated carrot
1/2 cup of grated onion
2 bay leaves
hand full of fresh basil
tbsp of mixed garlic Italian herbs
1 tbsp of lemon juice

- In a pan add the chopped tomatoes, then fill up half the can the tomatoes came out of with water and add that to the pan.
- Add the lemon juice, carrot, onion, bay leaves and dried herb and place the pan over a medium heat. Bring to a gentle simmer and leave to reduce to a thick tomato sauce (20 mins)

3 of your 5 a day in this sauce..

- At the end remove from the heat tear up the basil and stir through the sauce.

Parmesan Topping
1/3 cup of nutritional yeast
1/3 cup of mixed raw seeds
1 tbsp of garlic Italian Herb mix
pinch of salt and pepper

- Clean up your blend and place in all ingredients
- Blitz into fine crumbly texture

Assembly
1 large eggplant
1 large courgette/zucchini
1 red onion
handful of fresh basil
handful of fresh parsley
2 large tomatoes

- Finely slice the eggplant and courgette into rounds, season and pat dry using a clean tea towel or kitchen roll.

-  Roughly chop your fresh herbs and slice your onion and tomato
- Place a layer of your courgette and eggplant on the bottom of a casserole dish. Sprinkle over some of the chopped herbs and onion slices.

-Then top with the tomato sauce

-Then spread on your 'cheese' sauce ( I forgot to take a picture of this layer sorry lads)
- Then repeat (vegetable, herbs and onion, tomato, cheese) till you have run out of courgette/eggplant
- Top of with slices of tomato, more cheese sauce and sprinkle with the seed Parmesan

Mighty fine lasagna

- Place in a 190 degree oven for 20 minutes or till cooked through and golden on top. VOILA

Greedy fuckers tucked in before I could take a picture!
 Hope you can still appreciate the beauty of it half eaten <3

Banana Roll Cake with cashew and walnut cream

Last two weeks I have been in rehearsals for Great Expectations (which is playing at The Nuffield Theatre Southampton 4th - 7th) so I haven't been able to get to my beloved kitchen to bake. And boy have I missed it. So on my day off, no one was going to stop me knocking up a cake. 

OH YEAH. Also we have a new blender that actually works! So now I can make all variety's of vegan creams and sauces to add to my cakes. So really, nothing was going to stop me.

My dad came home with these tiny over ripe bananas  that he got cheep for me to bake with, as we all know the riper, browner and uglier the banana the better the cake. However instead of a plain banana cake I wanted something more exiting. Inspired by my friend Adam from rehearsals (who ate about 6 mini rolls in 10 minuets and put all the wrappers in my bag) I made a banana roll cake filled with cashew and walnut cream flavored with maple syrup (cause I can do that now i have a decent fucking blender). The nut cream is great, so much better then a butter or margarine based icing, not only for the added nutty taste but the fact that its much more nutritionally good for you! packed with omega 3, protein and good fats that are need for your brain. Also the cake uses whole meal flour and maple syrup to reduce the refined sugar and white flour content, increasing the fiber, nutrition and lowering the GI index of the cake. Plus it taste bloody good. Here is the recipe my friends.. 

Tiny Banana's! The whole bunch fits in my hand

 Banana Roll Cake with cashew and walnut cream

Ingredients

Cake

125g wholemeal self raising flour

100g plain self raising flour

3 tbps maple syrup

3 tbsp vegtable oil (or any flavorless oil)

2 tbsp of brown sugar (you may need to change this according to the sweetness of your bananas)

1/4 cup coconut milk (or any vegan milk substitute)

2 cups of mashed very ripe banana

pinch of saltheaped tsp of cinnamon

-Sieve your flours, the salt and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl, set aside.

- In a separate bowl combine all the other ingredients and mash together. Taste and see if your banana's need more sugar or not.

The bad boy pre-oven

- Add your wet mixture to the flour and fold together. The less times you fold through the mixture the lighter your sponge will be.Line a tray with grease proof paper and spread mixture out evenly. Bake at 180 degrees till cooked (about 15 mins) 

- When cooked remove from oven, and lift out using the grease proof paper and trim the edges. You may need to cut the top of the cake to make a thinner sponge depending on how thinly you spread your mixture.  Whilst warm roll into a log shape and leave to cool in this position (this will help when re-rolling it up with the filling later)

Cashew and Walnut Cream

1/3 cup walnuts

1/3 cup cashews

4/5 small dates

1 tbsp of maple syrup

- Soak your nuts in water for 3-4 hours

- Drain the nuts and place in a blender along with the dates and enough water just to barely cover the other ingredients. Blitz till a smooth cream is formed.

- Remove from blender and stir in maple syrup

Assembly

Chopped walnuts

Cinnamon

-Roll your sponge out flat again and spread a layer of your cashew and walnut cream. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

-Carefully roll back up your sponge

- Decorate with remaining cashew and walnut cream, chopped walnuts and a sprinkling of cinnamon. 

Voilaaaaaaa

Date Caramel Cashew Thumbprint Cookies with Cacao Nibs

 Hello world, so I have finally taken the jump and told the parents I've gone VEGAN so I am now officially vegan, I guess. I know it's not much but it's a start! So to celebrate I wanted to make something I have wanted to make for a while.. Date caramel. I have never been a chocolate fanatic, I mean it's nice but I can live with out it. No, what I adore it caramel and fudgey things, so to hear you could have a healthy caramel was mind blowing. I have been afraid to make it cause my blender is awful and extremely noise but it succeeded so it i can make it with 90's blender so can you! These are full of protein so get em' down your gullet and get some guns to rival Popeye's! Or just for good skin and hair, what ever, big cartoon muscle arms are cool but ya know, your life. Anyway here are my...

Date Caramel Cashew Thumbprint Cookies

I am genuinely so so so so so proud of these.. like so proud.

Date Caramel 

Ingredients 

7 dates

3 prunes

1 tbsp of raisins

1 tsp vanilla bean seeds / 2 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

-Soak you dates, prunes and raisin in 5 tbsp of water for about half an hour

- Reserve a tbsp of the soaking liquor (for the cookies) then add the rest to the blender along with the salt and vanilla and blitz till smooth

Cashew Cookie

Ingredients 

1/2 cup of raw cashews

1/4 cup oats

tbsp of plain (or vanilla) protein powder (mine's vegan but its not certificated raw, you can however get raw certificated protein powder online to make this 'fully raw')

1 tsp vanilla bean seeds / 2 tsp vanilla extract

4 dates

2 tsp of granulated sweetener of choice (stevia, coconut palm sugar etc)

1 tbsp of agave

1 tbsp of date caramel soaking liquid

 Pinch of salt

1 tbsp of cacao nibs (optional)

- If you have a stubborn blender, like mine, roughly chop up your dates and nuts. Then throw into your blender with the rest of your ingredients (apart from your agave and soaking liquid).

Ingredients going into the noisiest blender ever

- Blitz in till the nuts and oats have been fully ground down and are starting to clump together into a dough, then add your agave and soaking liquid to help it along and blitz till a dough does form.

- Remove from blender and stir in your cacao nibs (you could use vegan chocolate chips also which would be sweeter but not as healthy and full of antioxidants as cacao nibs, plus I like the crunch you get from the nibs)

- Roll in to balls the size of a large marble the flatten and make a dimple in the center of the cookie (for the caramel)

Ready for the caramel!

- Fill the dimple with the caramel and serve!

KEEP CALM AND MAKE THESE

Sweet Potato Pie bites with A Nut crust and Maple Glaze, from Sneak Peak post

Here is my improved recipe from my 'sneak peak' post.

First make your own nut cream! This replaces the butter, cream or cream cheese that is often used in Sweet Potato Pie. If you don't have the time or patients to do this use a pre-bought vegan yogurt/cream, however it is much more satisfying to make your own.

Almond Vegan Cream

Ingredients
1/2 cup of raw almonds (cashews work aswell)
1  pitted date
1 tsp of vanilla
Water

-Soak your almonds for 3-4 hours or over night.
-Drain and add to a food processor along with the date and just enough water to cover the almonds. BLITZ!
- Once the mixture has created a smooth consistency pass through a sieve removing most the pulp. Because your not using a cheese cloth or a finer strainer as you would if you were making almond milk you get the consistency of double cream. Add vanilla and store in a air tight tub in the fridge till needed.

Sweet Potato Pie bites with A Nut crust and Maple Glaze

Ingrediants

Crust
1 cup of pecans
1/2 cup of cashews
5 soaked dates
1 tbsp of maple syrup
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of cinamon
1 tsp of ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 oats
1/4 oat bran

- In a food processor blitz together pecans, cashews, and dates. Once the mixture looks like sticky dread crumbs place in a bowl and mix in other ingredients.
-In a square pan firmly spread mixture pressing it into the sides and corners to it resembles a crust.
-Bake at 180 Degrees Celsius till lightly golden and crisped. Set aside...

Filling
1 1/2 large sweet potato
1/2 cup of Almond vegan cream (or vegan yogurt/cream)
5-6 tbsp of maple syrup
 1 tsp of cinamon
1 tsp of ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp of grated lemon zest
1 tsp of vanilla extract
pinch of salt

- Cook sweet potatoes (microwave of oven roast them) until flesh is tender. Leave to cool and peal away skin and add flesh to a medium mixing bowl.
-Mash the sweet potato of blitz with a hand blender till it is a smooth puree.
- Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Fill your nut crust with the mixture and smooth out the top.
- Bake at 180 Degrees Celsius till the top is slightly golden, about 10 mins tops.

Glaze
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp of vanila

- Heat your ingredients in a small pan, when your pie is our the ovens spoon the heated glaze over the top and tilt the pan around to the glaze has full coverage.
- Switch your oven to grill and broil your pie for 5 mins maximum s not to burn your pie.

- Leave your pie to cool then remove and cut into squares. Voila!

Crumbly crust beware

Hozaaa!!!!!!

Served with soya yogurt and sprinkle of Cinnamon, fancy.

Enjoy Amigos