Eating out for lunch

Was out in town today and needed to get lunch. As usual the choices were limited to a bag of salad leaves and some homous, or a  veggie pasty from Holland and Barrett.  However, we went into Marks and Spencers first and found some really nice prepacked salads that were vegan. There is a whole range of delicious flavours and just enough for 1. We sampled one with rice and aubergine and one with green soya beans, sugar snap peas and corriander.  Very nice indeed.  The names of them are rice, lentil and aubergine side salad and oriental style edamame soya bean salad with chilli and corriander dressing.  These are well worth a try.

Cheaper Seed Mix

It can be expensive to buy a good cheap mix of seeds to sprinkle on breakfasts, salads and desserts, so I make my own.  I buy large good value bags of pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and linseed and put them in a jar:

You can vary the quantities according to how many of each seed you prefer. Then I simply shake them up before use to get an even amount of each to use.

The smaller seeds tend to work their way to the bottom of the jar so I shake before every use.

Banana Porridge

I fancied something warm for breakfast this morning and had a banana that needed using up. So I layered my bowl with porridge, banana, porridge and then sultanas and then warmed up in the microwave and poured over soya cream. Yummy!

The picture was before it was warmed up and cream added.  You will need to make the porridge quite runny so it stays a nice consistency when you reheat.

Sunshine Breakfast

Today we have a thin layer of snow and it feels very cold outside due to the strong wind, so I wanted a nice filling breakfast.

 I toasted some oats in vegetable oil and added pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, linseeds and sunflower seeds.  Mixed in well then poured into a bowl which had been layered with sliced banana.  I then poured a small amount of soya cream on the top.

Simple Stew

Tonight I didn't have time to spend ages preparing a complex meal so decided to put together a simple stew.  Here is the recipe I used which served 2 adults and 2 children:

2 medium onions
2 medium mushrooms
1/4 large savoy cabbage
4 small carrots
1 medium red pepper
4tbs dried orange lentils
1 tin cannelloni beans
1/2 medium sweet potato

2 vegetable stock cubes
1tbs marmite
1tsp garlic powder
1tsp mixed herbs

Chop all the veg finely and put all the ingredients in a large saucepan and cover with boiling water.  Bring back to the boil and simmer for about 30 mins.

Obviously you can add a whole range of other fruit and vegetables to this stew, and to add more flavour you could fry the onion and mushrooms in vegetable before you start.  I also add lots of freshly ground pepper afterwards. 

If you want a thicker gravy you can add potatoes to the ingredients, or just have some bread on the side to mop it up.

Sorry about the lack of photo but my 9 month old baby got his fingers trapped in a chair just as I was about to dish up and take the pictures, so was rather busy dealing with him (but he was fine soon after!).

Chocolate and peanut dessert

This is such a quick and easy dessert and very healthy too.

You just take 1 ripe banana and mash it with a large tablespoonful of peanut butter, a flat tablespoon of cocoa powder and mix together. You can add a teaspoon of agave syrup if it isn't sweet enough.

Once you have mixed it, put in the fridge and it will thicken up and is delicious served cold. You can put it on a base of toasted oats and serve with soya cream.

Salad Doesn't Need to be Boring

Even those who claim to hate salad surely would enjoy a colourful plate like this:

 

Eaten with some soya mayo or some houmous, delicious!