Smoked Tomato Loaf with Rosemary Potatoes

Field Roast, whose sausages were used in a previous recipe, also do a selection of Quarter Loaves. For this dish we used their Smoked Tomato Loaf.

Ingredients
1 Field Roast Smoked Tomato Quarter Loaf
7 Red Potatoes (Small)
Rosemary
~20 Asparagus Stalks
Rocket (i.e. Arugula)
Balsamic Vinegar and Oil for Vinaigrette

Rosemary Potatoes

Serves two. The Field Roast Loaf is in fact three servings (and a lot of protein!), but I had been to the gym, biking, and running, so I needed all the protein I could get!

Cooking
Time required: ~50min
-Heat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.
-Slice the potatoes into thick slices (no need to peel), and place on an oiled baking tray; make sure to oil the surface of the potatoes too!
-Sprinkle the potatoes with chopped rosemary (we used dried, but fresh is even better).
-On a separate, covered dish, bake the Field Roast Loaf whole.
-Once the potatoes have baked for 20-30min (or when the potatoes are nice and brown on one side), flip them over and bake until done.
-Boil or steam the asparagus until nice and tender; this should take 5-10min.
-Make a vinaigrette by whisking the balsamic vinegar and the oil together (you can use any kind of balsamic vinegar and oil really, we used a 50/50 mix).
-Serve the asparagus and rocket as a side, with some vinaigrette sprinkled on top.

Smoked Tomato Loaf

This is a good, hearty, “meat and potatoes” -type meal. Very easy to make when using the excellent Field Roast brand of vegan grain meats (I’m curious to try the other loaves — wild mushroom, and lentil & sage, if we can find them somewhere). The potatoes got nice and crispy, but to achieve that you have to use just the right amount of oil. I’m planning to make some cajun potatoes with a similar method soon. The vinaigrette we used here has been tried and tested with asparagus before, and it’s still tasty.

Another stuffed thingy, and the first time I’ve ever cooked acorn squash. Turns out that it’s rather good when baked in the oven…

Acorn Squash Stuffed with Tofu Scramble

Ingredients
Squash and Stuffing:
1 Acorn Squash
1 Pack of Silken Tofu (Firm)
1 Yellow Onion
Handful of Hazelnuts
2 Tablespoons of Tamari
2 Slices of Ryvita Crispbread (Dark Rye)
Spices to Taste (although this doesn’t necessarily need anything else)

Brown Sauce:
1 Cup of Miso, Tamari & Mirin (in total, you can experiment with the ratios…)
1 Tablespoon of Flour
1 Tablespoon of Vegan Margarine (e.g. Earth Balance)

Tofu Scramble

Serves two. This is the same brown sauce we used for the stuffed peppers. We had some left and it worked quite well, so decided to use it for this as well. You can fit in a little bit more stuffing into an acorn squash than a pepper, but it’s likely that you’ll have some left over anyway — just eat it on the side. Could cook some rice with this as well, but there’s quite a lot to eat in the squash, so it may not be necessary.

Cooking
Time required: ~50min
-Heat oven to 375-400 Fahrenheit.
-Cut the acorn squash in half, scrape out the seeds.
-Bake the squash halves on an oven tray with a little bit of water, covered by tin foil until almost done (20-30min).
-Chop the onion into small cubes sauteé on a pan.
-Chop the hazelnuts (fairly small) and add to pan.
-Scramble the Silken Tofu with a fork and add to pan with some tamari, frying for some 5min.
-Prepare the brown sauce. (This was all Elizabeth, so I’ll leave it at that!)
-Take the squash out from the oven, fill with stuffing and top off with some of the sauce, then bake for another 5-10min.
-Crush a slice of Ryvita and sprinkle on top once everything is ready.
-Serve any extra stuffing on the side, perhaps on some Ryvita cripsbread, or save for later!

Stuffed Acorn Squash

The tofu scramble turned out really nice, with the hazelnuts and the sweet onion working together, whereas the tamari added a little bit of an edge, and much needed saltiness to the tofu. The brown sauce was good with the stuffing as well. I like the mild sweetness of the oven baked squash, and it has a nice consistency as well. We ate these just with a fork.

What to do with two peppers that were left over? Stuff them! Oh, and there’s a sweet potato — sweet potato fries!

Stuffed Peppers & Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients
Stuffed Peppers:
2 (large) Peppers (of desired colour)
200g of Faux Ground Beef
1 Yellow Onion
Block of Ginger (to taste)
3-6 Garlic Cloves
Spices to Taste (although this doesn’t necessarily need anything else)

Brown Sauce:
1 Cup of Miso, Tamari & Mirin (in total, you can experiment with the ratios…)
1 Tablespoon of Flour
1 Tablespoon of Vegan Margarine (e.g. Earth Balance)

Stuffing

Sides:
1 Sweet Potato
1 Cup of Brown Rice

Serves two. Our peppers were a bit on the small side, so we had some extra stuffing (and extra sauce), which ended up on the rice, it’s a rice volcano!

Sweet Potato Fries

Cooking
Time required: ~50min
-Heat oven to 375-400 Fahrenheit.
-Chop the sweet potato into thick fries, coat lightly with oil, bake in the oven with the peppers.
-Cut the tops off the peppers and bake them in the oven (with tops on) without the stuffing until almost done (~20min).
-Cook the brown rice.
-Chop the onion and the garlic and sauteé on a pan.
-Add the faux ground beef to pan, fry for some 5-10min.
-In the meanwhile, chop the ginger finely, add to pan at the very end.
-Prepare the brown sauce. (This was all Elizabeth, so I’ll leave it at that!)
-Take the peppers out from the oven, fill with stuffing and top off with some of the sauce, then bake for another 5-10min.
-When the stuffed peppers are done, so should the sweet potato fries be, as well as your rice.
-If you have stuffing and/or sauce left over, you can make a rice volcano as pictured!

Stuffed Pepper

Bit of a random mixture of things, but it was pretty good. I like oven roasted peppers, and stuffing them like this is a bonus. The stuffing was pretty heavy on the ginger, making this a fresh tasting dish. We used Trader Joe’s brand of meat-less ground beef. I love sweet potato fries too, even if it’s difficult to get them crispy by just baking them in the oven.

Black Beans are lush: tasty and nutritious, with excellent protein content. They are of course the traditional ingredient for burritos as well, so what better way to eat them! These were made with some faux ground beef as well to up the protein content even further, but you could just make these with the beans and have some excellent burritos!

Black Bean Burritos

Ingredients
400g (one tin, with broth!) of Black Beans
200g of Faux Ground Beef
50g of Spinach
2-4 Tortillas
1 Yellow Onion
Garlic (to taste, we used 6 cloves I think)
Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds
250g of Button Mushrooms
1-2 Tablespoons of Tamari
Ground Allspice
Ground Cumin
Ground Nutmeg
Chipotle

Black Bean Burritos all wrapped up, with Tamari Mushrooms

Serves two. Note that tortillas tend to have more calories than you’d think, often 200+. We in fact used some low calorie flat bread wraps (100 calories each), so having two each still made sense. You can only fit so much fillings into each though, so it’s likely that you’ll end up with some extra anyway! The mushrooms were an additional extra, since there happened to be some in the fridge that needed using. They did make for a nice side though.

Cooking
Time required: ~30min
-Chop the onion and garlic into fine cubes, sauteé on a pan with some oil.
-Add the black beans from the tin, including(!) the broth.
-Cook until you have a nice saucy consistency, adding spices to your taste (Allspice, Cumin, Chipotle).
-On a separate pan, brown the faux beef (we used half a pack of Trader Joe’s Beef-less Ground Beef), adding spices to your taste (Nutmeg).
-In the meanwhile, chop your mushrooms, and fry on a pan with just a little bit of oil and the Tamari (you can do this afterwards).
-Heat the tortillas in a microwave or oven for just a moment.
-Fill with a heap of the beans and the faux beef on top of some spinach leaves, topping it all with the Daiya cheese.

It may not look like the most impressive dish ever, but this is tasty stuff!

I’m a huge fan of lasagne, it has always been one of my favourite foods, even though I eat it very rarely. I recall that mum used to make good lasagne when I was a kid, not often though! It is a dish that requires a bit of work, but the end result is definitely worth the trouble. Now, this is my first attempt at a vegan lasagne, and I wasn’t sure about the white sauce in particular. In fact, Elizabeth made the white sauce, and it turned out to be excellent! So, even if this isn’t quite the ultimate vegan lasagne advertised, it’s certainly a pretty decent first attempt, and next time it will hopefully be just about perfect.

Ingredients
2 Small Courgettes
1 Orange Pepper
1 Yellow Onion
1 Pack of Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds
~18 Lasagne Sheets

Marinara:
~400g Jar of Tomato Sauce of Choice
~200g Faux Ground Beef
Applewood Smoked Salt
Ground Nutmeg
Chipotle

White Sauce:
3 Cups of Soy/Almond/Oat Milk (we used soy)
2-3 Tablespoons of Flour
2-3 Tablespoons of Vegan Margarine (e.g. Earth Balance)
Thyme
Applewood Smoked Salt

Serves four to six, depending on how hungry (or greedy!) you are. We went through half of the lasagne in one go…

Mmm.. Vegan Lasagne

Cooking
Time required: ~1h30min
-Heat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.
-Chop the veggies into desired shape (flat).
-Start with the white sauce: melt the margarine in a pan, mix in the flour, and then add soy milk and spices, whisking regularly.
-The Marinara is easy: put the tomato sauce in a sauce pan, mix in your faux ground beef, add spices.
-Now the lasagne layers: start by covering the bottom of your dish, then add half of your chopped veggies and some Daiya shreds.
-Cover the first layer with the marinara sauce; you can use all of it.
-Next lasagne layer: cover the previous layer with lasagne sheets and layer the rest of the veggies on top, adding some more Daiya shreds.
-Cover the second layer with the white sauce, use half of it.
-Now the top layer: cover the previous layer with lasagne sheets and then cover the sheets with the rest of the white sauce, sprinkling the rest of the Daiya shreds on top.
-Cover the whole dish with tin foil and bake in the oven for 30-50min, or until the pasta is cooked.
-Uncover the dish, and bake for another 10-15min, or until the Daiya shreds on top have melted and most of the liquid boiled away.
-Cut into large squares with a knife and lift to your plate carefully!

That was lush! We ended up baking the lasagne under tin foil for quite a while, maybe 50min, but this depends on your oven, the amount of liquid used, and so on, so you have to keep an eye on it. There are all sorts of variations of lasagne, and you see it being made with just one sauce sometimes, either white or the marinara, but I think that a proper lasagne should have both sauces, that’s the whole point of the layers! We had the veggies layered in separately, but you could chop them a little finer and just add to the marinara sauce. This depends partly on what kind of veggies you’re using as well (spinach and aubergine are good ones at least). With hindsight I would’ve at least sauteéd the onion and put it in the marinara sauce, but I can’t complain really, this was absolutely delicious, and the consistency was good. The white sauce was indeed terrific, I think the applewood smoked salt and thyme was a great mix. I would perhaps like more layers if possible, but our dish was huge and there’s more than enough lasagne as it is!