A tin full of cookies with chocolate chip and candied orange peel showing through
Because I haven’t seen my family in a while, I was feeling rather generous towards them. Because I was feeling rather generous towards them, I made marmalade. Because I made marmalade, I had leftover marmalade. Because I had leftover marmalade, I’ve revitalised this recipe from the old blog.
Home-made marmalade is best, with nice big chunks of candied orange peel.
Ingredients
110g vegan butter (we use Naturli) 65g caster sugar 95g marmalade 250g plain flour 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 50g of chocolate chips
Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC and prepare a baking tray
Cream together the butter, sugar and marmalade.
Mix in the flour, bicarb, and salt, and form a dough.
With your hands, gently knead the chocolate chips into the dough.
Break off a tablespoon’s worth of dough and roll into a ball. It may be easier to wet your hands to do this. Flatten the ball slightly against the baking tray.
Repeat until you have about 12 cookies on the tray. Or until you run out of dough.
Cook in the oven for 10 minutes.
Allow to cool on the tray for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
When we in the UK think of food in the US it often looks like food from Epic Vegan: burgers, hotdogs, pizza, doughnuts. Deep fried overindulgence. I’m not knocking it; there’s just a bit of an unfortunate knowledge gap. Which is why I’ll buy pretty much any book with ‘vegan’ and ‘soul food’ in the title. This is my favourite so far. Nadira Jenkins-El’s Vegan Soul Food Cookbook. There’s a great selection of recipes in here and you can tell it’s been written by a professional cook. The recipes are straightforward and unfussy, yet still satisfying. Here are six reasons why I think you should get a copy:
Spiced rice with kidney beans and chard
If you want a quick, simple and so, so filling combo this is the one for you. Caribbean Coconut Greens have become a staple around here. Mostly because ordinarily Kate hates chard (on the other hand when I was a veg grower my boss said to me ‘I’ve never seen someone so into chard’ like I was some chard loving weirdo… not the point). The greens here are cooked in with some herbs, a bit of liquid smoke, and coconut cream to make a rich, flavourful side dish. Here it’s served with Island-Style Rice and Beans. And this is the rice and beans dreams are made of. It serves six and we are two so when I make it I have some leftover for the freezer. Not as much as I should though because I keep going back for a little sneaky spoonful.
Fusilli served in a ‘cheese’ sauce, Popcorn chicken and Broccoli
Looking back at this picture in the future I’ll know it was taken in the autumn of 2020. Why? Well, two reasons. One is the overcooked broccoli. There were a couple of months last year where I could not cook broccoli if my life depended on it (luckily it didn’t). I steam it for four minutes, it’s still raw. I steam it for five and it’s mush. I just couldn’t get it right. Then in December suddenly it’s all okay again and I do not understand. The other thing is the fusilli. I’m not known for using the correct pasta shape to match the sauce but usually I’ll at least be able to get one with a hole through it for Mac and Cheese. But you know what getting pasta has been like recently. This is Butternut Squash Mac ‘n’ “Cheese”. Butternut squash mac ‘n’ cheese has become a bit of a vegan staple recently but to be honest most of them are trash. Actually all of them are trash except this one. This one is really, really good. It’s not hiding the fact that it comes from a vegetable and has a nice cheesy note to it. It’s one of the first recipes I’ll turn to if a butternut squash turns up on the doorstep. Which they tend to because we get a veg box.
‘Ribs’ straight from the grill, still sat on tinfoil
These Barbecue Riblets are incredible. They’re a seitan/jackfruit combo which makes them moist and tender, and gives it the perfect pull-apart but not fall-apart texture. It’s smothered in the delicious Jerk Barbecue Sauce which is really quick to whip up. The cook time for these is fairly long but not very difficult and you won’t regret the effort.
Cubes of fried tofu smothered in Buffalo sauce in a bright red bowl
The hardest part of this one is remembering to freeze and thaw the tofu. These are the Buffalo Popcorn Chickenless Bites. Fried in about five minutes and tossed in Buffalo sauce. I may have eaten the whole bowl myself. Don’t worry. I went foraging for vegetables after. Also I only made half the recipe so that’s only supposed to serve 3, not 6.
Six tarts with a pecan pie filling on a white plate
I decided that this review wouldn’t be complete without something from the sweet section so I spent yesterday morning making up 12 of these adorable little Pecan Pie Mini Tarts. I love each and every one of them. They have a perfect crisp crust and sweet nutty filling. Everything you want from a tiny pie.
Usually we’d spend Veganuary eating and then writing about all the new Veganuary food. This year however we can’t go anywhere. As much as I want to try the new Starbucks breakfast sandwich, it’s probably a better plan to stay inside. There are a couple of things we’ve been able to order in though. Literally a couple. Just two. On nights we just could not be bothered to feed ourselves we’ve ordered in: Subway and Papa John’s.
Sub with ‘chicken’ chunks, garlic aioli and spinach.
Subway has the new Tastes.Like.Chicken. This makes 3 vegan sandwich options at Subway: the Plant Patty, the Meatless Meatball Marinara and the Tastes.Like.Chicken. Also there’s rumours that some people just have salad on their sub, but they remain unsubstantiated. Now I ate Subway back when I did eat chicken and I never really thought their chicken tasted all that much like chicken. And I don’t think Tastes.Like.Chicken tastes all that much like chicken either. But it can be a good base for all the sauces and toppings. Just don’t expect a huge amount of flavour. We still prefer the Meatless Meatballs.
Two double chocolate chip cookies
We will be sneaking more of these double chocolate chip cookies in with our order though. When I make my own cookies I like them too be big and fat and crisp but there’s something about the almost molten nature of these that’s irresistible.
On to chickenish substance number 2: the not-chicken vegan bites from Papa John’s. Let’s start with the positives. The chicken nuggets have a really good texture. The coating tastes okay. The chicken tastes a bit meh. Thank god for dip.
A stuffed crust pizza topped with olives, green peppers and vegan meats.
Papa John’s have really upped their vegan cheese game. I don’t know what they’ve done but it tastes so much better. And they’ve even managed to stuff that crust full. I was actually really impressed with the pizza. In the past we’ve often ordered it just because it’s the only vegan pizza we can get to our front door in a reasonable time. Great for days when I’ve screwed up whatever I’m cooking. However now… I could happily eat another right now.
There you have it, two vegan chickens that we weren’t impressed with and the new vegan options we were. Hopefully next Veganuary we’ll be able to get out more.
Vegan Fakeaway intrigued me even though I don’t think home cooking can truly replace a takeaway. When I want a take away I don’t just want a specific dish I want someone else to do all of the thinking, planning, cooking, and cleaning. To give credit where it’s due the book gives some great practical tips on how to minimise the work but sometimes I don’t want to do anything. Anything. So what won me over? Well this book is written by someone in the UK so I was hoping that some of the dishes would hit the nostalgia spot. I love all my American cookbooks with their takes on Beef and Broccoli but I grew up with Chicken Chow Mein and Chinese Curry. Do other countries even have Chinese Curry? I’d hoped to find some authentic British Takeaway food within. The results were mixed.
Two slices of Tofish and a portion of chips.
The book starts with the American section where, inexplicably, we find the recipe for Beer-Battered Tofish and Chips. I do feel a lack of chip shop recipes in here. There’s no deep-fried option for the chips, no pies, no gravy, no battered sausage, or battered Mars bar. I know I’m being extremely Northern but I would kill for a chippy focused section. I thought I’d give the tofish a go though. The chips are oven baked, I’d call them wedges but they’re okay. The Tofish looks the part and is really tasty with a nice thick batter but I had issues with the recipe. This one is deep fried but there’s no indication of either the temperature to heat the oil to (why vegans need thermometers even if we’re not eating meat!) or an alternative way to test the temperature. I got called out on Instagram by someone who has never used a thermometer to deep fry but I taught myself deep frying last year, mostly from books, and if you’re new to it you need some way of knowing if the oil is hot enough. Unless you like burnt and greasy batter.
Gnocchi baked in tomato sauce, dollops of cream cheese and a dusting of pepper.
Moving on to the Italian Section then. I decided to try the Baked Gnocchi Caprese. You bake the gnocchi in a tomato and basil sauce and finish with dollops of cream cheese. It’s a one pot dish and it’s truly easy to make. You just throw everything in the pot and bake in the oven. The gnocchi end up cooked a little unevenly. It’s an okay dish, especially for the lack of effort it takes.
Onion Bahjis in top left hand corner, shown here with dal and naan bread
In the Indian section has these Candy-Stripe Onion Bhajis. The candy striping coming from a mix of red and white onions. Not that you can really tell after batter and deep frying. This time we’re told how to check the oil is hot enough by dropping a bit of the batter in. Generally I like a thicker batter but it’s a solid bhaji.
Butterbean Korma, served on rice and topped with coriander
Korma was, as a pre-gan, Kate’s favourite curry. The book offers us a recipe for a butter bean version. It does make use of curry paste to get the flavour right though. I don’t think it’s cheating. Or if it is cheating I don’t really care as long as it gets the flavour right. But I now have the rest a jar of curry paste in my fridge, and planning around using it up takes away the convenience factor for me. The Tikka Cauliflower Skewers also use curry paste but I’ve never been convinced by cauliflower as a substitute for chicken so I’m not even going to go there. Back to the Korma though. It’s delicately flavoured and butter beans are fabulous in a curry.
A dark, Chinese-style curry served alongside plain white rice.
Given my love for Chinese-style curry, Carrot and Cashew Chinese Curry, from the Chinese section, had to be tried. I was, however, not impressed. I didn’t think extra heat from the chilli flakes added anything. In fact it distracted from the curry, and the Chinese five spice. The flavours were just a little off-balance. It also seemed like there wasn’t much thought put into the contents of the curry. With sugar snaps and carrots and cashews and frozen peas and water chestnuts… it’s like a dish made up on the spot when a cook just puts everything vegan they have into a sauce. There’s no focus. I really wanted to like this one so I was a bit more disappointed with it than perhaps I should have been, but I just didn’t think it worked.
A casserole of chickpeas, dates, carrots, sweet potato, and parsley served alongside couscous
We head towards the Middle Eastern section for what was my favourite recipe. The one recipe in this book that I liked enough to put a smiley face sticker next to. Smiley face stickers, in case your household doesn’t have a smiley face sticker system, mark a recipe that we both love so that I can remember it when I want to make it again. It’s another one-pot dish, started on the hob and finished in the oven, but this time it’s flavourful and all the vegetables are cooked perfectly.
One-Pot Harissa Baked Falafel also earned a thumbs-up from me, but not Kate who doesn’t like olives. I used some truly awful sweet potato falafel from Asda in this as the recipe promised to transform even the worst supermarket falafel into something edible. It delivered.
Pita bread stuffed with jackfruit ‘doner’ meat and shredded lettuce
But now we return to the disappointing. Jackfruit Doner Kebabs. Again it just didn’t work. Perhaps it was the lack of spices. A pinch each of cumin and cinnamon is nothing on 400g of jackfruit. And jackfruit at the best of times tends towards soggy and a little sweet. Nothing was done to mitigate that. It was just lightly flavoured jackfruit in a pita. And as jackfruit has significantly less flavour of its own than lamb it’s not at all appetising. I tipped the filling out and ate the pitta plain.
We come to the part of the review where I tell you if I think this book is worth buying. I think you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had more misses than hits. Other dishes just sounded a little off like the Dirty Nachos with mayo. I’m no purist but I can’t get my head around mayo on nachos. Not in the year of our lord 2021 when every supermarket in the UK is fighting over who has the best vegan cheese. I couldn’t suggest buying this book just because it has one good tagine recipe. If you want UK-style fast food dishes take a look at Leon’s Fast Vegan instead. Well, have a look at it when you’re allowed to look at books in person again.
Coastal Vegans 