December 2011 Archives - yorkshirepantry.co.uk

December, 2011

A Veggie Boxing Day Special

December 20, 2011 by Chrissie

For some, Boxing Day is as big a feasting day as Christmas. It’s a great chance to incorporate leftovers, enjoy some more family and friend time and finish off those Quality Street!

Of course the traditional Christmas leftovers mean turkey casserole, turkey sandwiches and turkey turkey but for us veggies leftovers have a whole different meaning. Cold nut roast is of course delicious but might not be that appealing for you or your friends and family!

If you have Christmas dinner leftovers a great and easy meal idea is to make up a soup, adding all leftover potatoes and vegetables and adding lentils and a good vegetable stock. Served with homemade bread and scones, this is a nice light lunch or a late dinner that can be kept in the fridge until finished.

If you did cook up a nut roast for dinner and honestly, most vegetarians do (time to get creative!) then try something new for Boxing Day. Our favourite Boxing Day recipe and one which we’ve used for Christmas dinner too is a veggie pie. If you do have leftover vegetables from the ‘big day’, these can be incorporated, just roast up more peppers and garlic and add cheese (we use mozzarella) before baking in a homemade pastry shell (or store bought if you know a good brand and can’t make pastry!) If you are roasting up more veggies, use aubergine and courgettes, they roast to perfection!

If you know your way around a kitchen and have the time and energy, try something daring for Boxing Day. A cheese roulade, cheese tart, baked squash filled with couscous, bruschetta or mushroom wellington will get all your guests salivating, vegetarian or not.

If you are participating in a Boxing Day buffet or pot luck where everyone is required to bring a dish, we recommend simple drop scones with goats cheese and herbs (rosemary is lovely). Throw in some chopped olive and tomatoes and prepare to dazzle your fellow party goers. Drop scones require self raising flour, milk, eggs and sunflower oil (drop scones are fried not baked).

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Ideas for the Best Veggie Christmas Dinner Ever!

December 13, 2011 by Chrissie

Now we may have mentioned nut roast a tad too often over the last few Christmas dinner posts! We must all remember cooking our first vegetarian Christmas dinner and I bet for most of us, it was nut roast. It’s easily the most common turkey substitute on the big day and as delicious as it might be, now we’re older, wiser and sick of being ribbed of producing the same old ‘hippie stuff’, it might be time to step it up a notch.

So what is the best veggie Christmas dinner?

Let’s quickly talk trimmings. Brussels are a must if only to torture the kids and your picky brother. If you can get your hands on it, brussels with truffle oil are without a doubt the best veggie on the table. Brussels also go well with some gruyere cheese, walnuts, lemon, breadcrumbs, chestnuts or slivered almonds. Roast parsnips, roast potatoes, carrots and swede mash – all veggies you expect to see on the Christmas dinner table and for good reason! They are just so delicious and keep everyone happy and well fed.

Other great vegetable options for Christmas dinner include soft sweet potato biscuits – heavenly, spinach and cranberry salad. Some people think salad is weird at Christmas, we think it’s great and any leftovers work will go down a treat for your Boxing Day buffet. Throw in some feta cheese and walnuts and this salad makes a great small starter.

For mains, the best vegetarian Christmas dinner has to be…. a nut roast. Just kidding! Wow, it’s hard to choose just one. Okay, our top five dinners are in no particular order:

1. Vegetarian Wellington, we made this a few years ago after seeing the recipe in The Guardian. It’s actually a vegan recipe full of chickpea goodness, puff pastry, peanut butter (strange but true!) delicious herbs and oat bran.

2. Chestnut Pie, again a recipe found in a newspaper, this one has a half bottle of red in it… gotta love booze in food!

3. Risotto stuffed veggies. Use squash or courgettes and top with a carrot ‘gravy’ basically carrots roasted in butter and blended!

4. Pie or tart. Go veggie, go fruity, go both but always add blue cheese.

5. Nut roast, sorry, we just can’t help it! We love it for nostalgia as much as anything else, but get it just right (nice and moist) and a nut roast can be delicious.

Our favourite part of Christmas dinner? Well that will be the mushroom and walnut stuffing! Here’s a quick recipe:

Ingredients:
1 large onion, diced
1/4lb. unsalted butter
1 cup chopped chanterelle mushrooms
1/2 cup sliced shitake mushrooms
4 stalks of celery, diced
2 large carrots, shredded
1 cup toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
1/2 red pepper, diced
2 loaves multigrain bread (diced and dried for at least one hour)
2 tbsp.chopped fresh thyme, sage and parsley (each)
3 eggs
3 cups warm vegetable or mushroom stock

Directions:
Over medium heat, melt butter. Add onions, all mushrooms, celery and red pepper. Cook until vegetables are tender. In a large mixing bowl, combine diced dry bread, shredded carrots, walnuts and herbs. Whisk eggs and pour over top of bread mixture. Add half of the stock and vegetable mixture. By hand, turn and mix all ingredients.

If the mixture is very dry add more stock. Put in a casserole dish, cover and put in a 375 oven for 40 minutes. Serve with a mushroom or veggie stock gravy.

You can’t go wrong with this recipe, your meat lover friends will be begging you for your secrets we promise you!

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Christmas Cake Flavoured Vodka – Oh My!

December 11, 2011 by Chrissie

Christmas demands just two things to keep me sane, booze and cake. Actually that’s year round isn’t it? Okay, so howsabout for Christmas we merge our two favourite things and create….. Christmas cake vodka! Sounds good!

A lot of effort may go into making a Christmas cake, but Christmas cake vodka is really easy and really tasty. Basically what you are making is a vodka infused with all the flavours and aromas of Christmas, you can alter the recipe as you see fit. For instance, we’re using real almonds and vanilla essence, you can if you prefer use vanilla beans and almond essence – you get the picture.

Here’s what you need:

Ingredients:
1 bottle vodka (one litre/700 ml)
1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar (refined sugar cane also called Barbados sugar if you can’t find it use brown sugar to taste)
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cinnamon sticks
1tbsp mixed spice
50g raisins
50g almonds, roughly chopped
peel from one large orange
peel from one lemon
8 cloves

Instructions:

1. (If you have the time, do this step two months before drinking.) Throw all ingredients in a large container and seal or cover with plastic.
2. If you have two months prep, turn or stir mixture once a week, if you only have a week or so before beverage is required, stir everyday or every other day.
3. On day of consumption, strain mixture through very fine sieve or coffee filter paper, squeezing to remove all liquid.
4. Pour into bottle, screw on lid and place in fridge.
5. Save all removed fruits and fold into ice cream for a very alcoholic Christmas dessert!

There you have it, a really easy way to bring the festive season into your usual vodka tipple, enjoy and remember to always drink wisely!

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Making Salt Dough Christmas Decorations

December 8, 2011 by Chrissie

It’s very nearly time to buy the Christmas Tree – and that means it’s nearly time to make some new Christmas decorations too! We always make a batch of new salt dough ones each year because they are so easy to create.

For a start – you only need 4 ingredients: 2 cups plain flour, 1 cup salt, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 cup water.

Start by mixing the salt and flour together. Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture and add the lemon juice, then slowly add the water to make a dough, folding the mixture inwards all the time. The exact amount of water depends on the flour’s absorbency, so keep checking until it is pliable but not too wet. To make self-coloured salt-dough, just add a little food colouring with the water.

Once mixed, knead the dough for 10 minutes and then roll out into a sheet until 0.5cm thick. You can use biscuit cutters, or the rim of a tumbler for circles, or for trees and holly leaves mark out the shape with the tip of a knife if you don’t have cutters.

Pierce each shape to make a hanging hole, then lay them onto greaseproof paper to air-dry for up to 48 hours, carefully turning them over after 24 hours. Once dry, paint each side with glitter glue to give a sparkly finish, allow to dry over-night between sides, then add a coloured ribbon and hang on the Christmas tree.

Easy!

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Great Christmas Gifts for Vegetarian Cooks

December 3, 2011 by Chrissie

Christmas means great food and cracking gifts, but what about the person who cooks all those wonderful dishes that everyone enjoys. What makes an interesting or useful Christmas gift for someone who loves cooking? Here are some of the best suggestions around.

1. Rachel Demuth is a top vegetarian chef, and her recipe books are a delight. Choose from the Green Seasons, with 120 seasonally inspired recipes from all over the world; or The Green World Cookbook, which has 100 of the best-loved recipes as used in Demuths Restaurant in Bath.

Rachel’s books are available from The Vegetarian Cookery School.

2. Vegetarian Living magazine offers both 6-month and 12-month subscription packages. The magazine is crammed full of articles and tips, along with tasty recipes, and the latest in animal-free clothing and beauty products.

3. Grinding grains and pulses can be tiring and time-consuming, but the WonderMill makes the task quick and simple. This home grain mill can grind 1kg of wheat into flour in just 74 seconds, and works equally well with many other grains, beans and legumes. It makes creating rice and other types of flour as simple as child’s play.

http://www.wondermill.co.uk

4. The Cordon Vert cookery school – a part of the Vegetarian Society – offers Gift Vouchers, in multiples of £10, which can be used to pay for any of their vegetarian cooking courses. Although based in Cheshire, the Cordon Vert school also runs classes in London. Courses range from single leisure sessions and evening classes to professional level diplomas.

5. And finally, a couple of handy stocking fillers for cooks:

Veggie Skrub’a Gloves take the effort out of scrubbing the dirt off vegetables and fruit – team them with an eye-catching I Love Vegan Food Apron to keep those party clothes clean whilst spreading the word!

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