Infinitely Adaptable Salad with a Smashing Hemp Seed and Ginger Dressing

I am rather chuffed with meself today. Husband No:1 (not sure if I’m keeping him, 23 years of marriage and he is still annoying 🙂 )came in and announced that he wants to follow the 5:2 diet (he has no need to lose weight at all – he is a damn near physically perfect specimen – but he wants to be healthier) and he is really keep for those 2 days to be fully raw, vegan days. I know for sure now that he has been enjoying those foods along with all the other delights I proffer.

I did promise on my FB page that I would share this recipe. It is, as I say, infinitely adaptable, I would always suggest you use seasonal fruit and veg and if you can get locally grown then do so. You know if you can’t grow stuff yourself you can pop along to the local allotments or communal veg gardens and either buy the excess that they are probably selling or else go along and introduce yourself, tell them you are wanting to eat more locally grown foods and that theirs looks gorgeous (a little flattery will go a long way) and offer to buy what they have over each week. Not only will you be getting some fantastic produce, but you’ll be getting inspired by what these old boys and girls can produce and you’ll probably make a couple more friends 🙂

In all honesty, the food may well not look as perfect as the stuff in the supermarkets – I take that as an excellent indication that the food has been grown with due respect to the flora and fauna of the veg garden – and I kinda like bees …. and wasps … and even spiders 🙂

Mix this up … use what is good right now
1 cup fresh beans (broad, french, runner- in the winter you can go for sprouted mung, kidney or chick peas)
3 ears of corn (just slice the kernels off the cob with a sharp knife (in the winter you can use 2 cups of frozen – it can be our secret)
1 sweet red pepper
2 cups of chopped tomatoes (I currently am loving the very fleshy italian varieties)
2 large carrots (I am currently loving the globe variety I have in my garden – so…. carroty!)
1 corgette/zucchini
1/2 a sweet white onion/shallot

Give it all a good scrubbing wash and then chop it all into small pieces (so a few pieces could pile onto a teaspoon)
And mix in a bowl.

Hemp Seed and Ginger Dressing
4 medium carrots
a 2cm hunk of ginger (peeled and sliced)
3 tbsp coconut palm sugar (or whatever you like to use as a sweetener – this adds such a nice warm base to go with the hemp seeds)
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp himalayan salt (you can use sea salt – but I like the iron hit)
1/3 cup Hemp seed oil
1/2 cup shelled hemp seeds

Pop everything bar the hemp seeds into a good strong food processor/blender and let it go until everything is a nice soft sauce. If it needs a little more water to blend it then just add it in 1/4 cup at a time.

Now just taste it, adjust the seasoning (does it need a little more sugar, vinegar, salt? Or all of them?)

Tip into a bowl and stir in the hemp seeds (my absolute favourite seeds)

Now use it to dress the above salad or use it as a dip. I love it smeared onto raw veggie wraps with some naughty avocado and apple – yum

😀

Heaven Sent Hummus & Scarlet Rosita Fuls

What a weekend! Got robbed again – do I look loaded?

So just have to keep going hey, what else is there to do?

Also got the online shop ‘live’. And that has been well received.

In case you would like to join in on the chance to win a selection of goodies then go to the FB page
https://www.facebook.com/ScarletRosita
and ‘like’ it, then share the below status to your own page 🙂

The draw is on the 24th May 🙂

Then have a bowl of this, the most divinely creamy hummus and fuls you will have eaten

😀

Heaven Sent Hummus

1 medium white onion
450g / 15 oz chickpeas 
30 ml / 1 fl oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic crushed through a garlic press
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
125 ml water or reserved chickpea cooking water
125 ml Olive oil

I suggest you use a can of chick peas but you are very welcome to use dried chickpeas if you can get hold of good dried ones. There are lots of very nasty dried chick peas that never seem to cook properly, so I leave that decision to you. But please note what I say. Not all dried chickpeas are born the same, do not feel that you have in any way cheated by using a can 🙂

To cook from dried: put the chickpeas in a large bowl and cover them with at least twice their volume of cold water and leave them to soak overnight. The next day, drain the water and, pop them in a medium saucepan, cover with fresh water and bring to a boil. Skim any foam that floats to the surface – otherwise it will boil over. Cook for 30 to 50 minutes, sometimes even longer, depending on freshness, to become tender. When cooked they will break up easily between your thumb and forefinger.

Peel the onion and cut into quarters, slather in olive oil, wrap in foil and roast in a hot oven for 20 minutes until it is tender and sweetly fragrant.

Scoop a cup of the cooking water and set to one side. Now drain the chickpeas and refresh in cold water to cool completely.

Now if you have used the dried or canned chickpeas you will gently squeeze each pea to remove it’s skin. If you have chickens they will love these skins.

In a food processor, blend the chickpeas with the cooled , roasted onion and add in through the funnel the lemon juice, garlic, salt and olive oil and blend until pureed. Check the consistency (you’ll want it like a nice thick custard as over the next few hours, if left in the fridge, it will firm up nicely). If its too thick drizzle in some water or the reserved chickpea cooking water until you get the texture you want.

Pour it into a bowl and pop it in the fridge for at least an hour to allow the garlic to develop and the texture to firm a bit, but if you can’t hold off, then just grab a cracker.

Scarlet Rosita Fuls
1 Romano Red pepper
450g / 15 oz kidney beans 
30 ml / 1 fl oz balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic crushed through a garlic press
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
125 ml water or reserved cooking water
125 ml Olive oil
1 handful of fresh flat leafed parsley

Again I suggest you use a can of kidney beans but you are very welcome to use dried if you prefer.

To cook from dried: put the kidney beans in a large bowl and cover them with at least twice their volume of cold water and leave them to soak overnight. The next day, drain the water and, pop them in a medium saucepan, cover with fresh water and bring to a boil. Boil very ferociously for 2 -3 minutes, then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 40 to 60 minutes, until they are nice and tender.

Wash the pepper and remove the green top and inner white seeds, slather in olive oil, wrap in foil and roast in a hot oven for 20 minutes until it is tender and sweetly fragrant. Allow to cool.

Drain the kidney beans and refresh in cold water to cool completely.

In a food processor, blend the kidney beans with pepper and add in through the funnel the vinegar, garlic, salt and olive oil and blend until pureed. If its too thick drizzle in some water until you get the texture you want.

You can add in a teaspoonful of Engervita B12 as it is essential for anyone following a Vegan diet to make sure they have a certain source to supplement this vitamin as it is not for sure that it will be eaten from natural yeasts etc.

Coconut Potato Curry For Frugal Feeding on Meatless Monday with a promise of Daisy Chain Dinners

This is an absolute favourite in our house. It is very savoury, nice and zippy on the taste buds, filling without being stodgy and good> And for all you meat eater, you will not even think about the fact it is meatless.

This recipe was born at a point in my life when I was seriously skint. I lived in a little terraced house and I made the tiny back garden really work for me. I grew my own herbs, carrots, tomatoes (I have wonderful memories of Daughter No1 getting up in the morning to climb over the grow bags of tomatoes strung up towards some overhead timber beams, as she feasted on a breakfast of freshly plucked tomatoes straight off the vines). I grew strawberries, apples, pears and I had an amazingly over enthusiastic Victoria plum tree -Daughter No1 would use a butterfly net to poke and prod and pull at the fruit to make them fall – she is made of plundered fruit and vegetables. How secretly delighted I was this October when she admitted to scrummping apples from some near by land to then spend the next month making apple crumbles, pies, cakes, cookies – I did try to sound cross 🙂

Actually, she Skyped me as I was photographing this and got very excited and made it for her house mates 🙂

At the time Creamed Coconut was super cheap, 19p a box, it now costs £1.39 a box, but it is still a really frugal meal. And …. AND it is really good for eating a day or two after you have made it – so Daisy Chain Dinners – ahoy!

The Engervita B12 is a great idea for real Vegans (and a cheap way to get B12), but if you eat across the diets then it is by no means essential. But I love the taste too.

I really hope you make this and enjoy it as much as we all do.
Coconut Potato Curry
serves 6 people

10 small – medium sized potatoes (waxy are best)
2 medium onions
4-5 small carrots
3 sticks of celery
2 eating apples
120g / 4oz creamed coconut
4-5 tbsp sunflower oil

440g/ 14 oz kidney beans
500g/ 1lb passata
2 tbsp curry powder (I like a Biryani for this)
1 tbsp brown sugar (optional)
1 bunch coriander
1.5 lt / 3 pt hot vegetable stock or water

2 dssp Engervita with B12 if you can find it. This is an excellent addition to your Vegan pantry.

Peel the vegetables but not the apples and cut them all into a 2 cm chunk.

Heat the oil in a large heavy based saucepan.
Add the vege, keep the heat as high as possible and allow the vegetables to start to brown.
Turn the heat to low and add the curry powder and stir, allow that 30 – 50 seconds to open the flavour.

Add the hot stock (be careful it will bubble up). The liquid needs to come up to the top most layer but not actually covering it. The vegetables will collapse somewhat as this cooks and you want a moist dish at the end – not a soup.

Then add the coconut, passata, kidney beans, sugar (if you are using it) and turn the heat right up as you want to bring this to the boil now.

Once it is boiling turn the heat down to medium low, put a lid on and allow to cook for 10 -15 minutes (depending on your potatoes).

Add the coriander and stir.

It is ready to serve. If you want you can finish it with a teaspoon of the Engervita.

Come and see me on Saturdays’ at Bermondsey Square Farmers Market in Southwark. It’s just off Tower Bridge Road, a short walk from The White Cube, Southbank and Borough Market.
All new customers will get a lovely washable cotton shopper as a ‘Thank you and please come again next week’ (Whie stocks last!)

Every Friday at about 6 pm GMT I publish photos of the items I have cooked for market. Have a look at the Facebook page.

email me scarletrositafood@btinternet.com
phone or text 0792 310 9170
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ScarletRosita
or follow me on Twitter

Tweets by ScarletRosita

‘Meaty’ Spicy Rice – A Vegan Treat We All Love To Eat!

Here we are on a Monday again and I love the idea of trying to go one day a week without any meat. I’m not a Vegan (as I have said many times, I just love good food) and I know I can get so many more exciting flavours and dishes going with all the fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and legumes there are out there.

But I do know that sometimes best intentions are scuppered by a lack of experience or options.

This dish is for people that want to try a ‘Meatless Monday’ (or any day really) but like the texture of meat and would miss the ‘meat’ on the plate

It is full of flavour, super simple and uses ingredients you will have in your food cupboards. (Really, nothing too out there at all)

If you are living in a lovely part of the world where things are growing (it is snowing AGAIN here) then please feel free to top with a big handful of chopped parsley, or better still, fresh coriander leaves, mint and rocket … oh yeah!

And .. wait… AND it is outrageously cheap to make

For more ideas, have a look at this fantastic blog that is just starting 🙂

Jour 1!

‘Meaty’ Spicy Rice – A Vegan Treat We All Love To Eat!
serves 6

1 large white onions
3 medium sized carrots
2 stalks of celery
4 cloves of garlic
1 Butternut Squash/sweet potato/swede/parsnip (what you have preferably in season 🙂 )
2 tbsps of olive/sunflower oil
2 tbsp Tomato puree
1 Bay leaf
1 tsp Dried Oregano
1 tsp Dried Parsley
1 tsp Coriander spice
2 tsp Cumin spice
1 litre / 2 pt water or vegetable stock (from a cube is ok but if you have any of the superb but totally underrated cabbage water – then use that)
2 cups/240g/8oz Rice (I prefer brown for this dish as it adds to the ‘meat’)
1 cup/ 120g/4oz Couscous
400g / 14 oz Can Kidney Beans (or whichever is your favourite) drained
2 cups frozen peas
60ml/2 fl oz Good quality Olive oil

Peel the onions, carrots, squash (remove the seeds) and garlic. Wash and trim the celery. And chop everything up but not too small, through the halved onion cut though it 4 times in one direction and four times in the other, that’s enough, you want to have something to chew on.

Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a large, heavy frying pan and over a medium heat.

Saute the onions, carrots, celery and squash (or whatever you have chosen) until they start to soften and turn translucent.

Add in the garlic and give it a good stir

Now add the tomato puree and the stock, Bay leaf and Oregano, Parsley, Coriander and Cumin.

Let them cook for a minute.

Now add stock/water/amazing cabbage water and bring up to the boil.

Add in the beans and then add in the rice. Give it a good stir and bring it up to the boil.

Now turn down the heat to a simmer, pop on the lid and allow it to cook for 5 – 35 minutes (check what the rice packet says – Basmati will take 10 minutes but my brown rice needed 40 minutes)

Just check the pan every 10 minutes as depending on the heat you’ve used, the type of rice, the moistness of the vegetables, you will probably have to add some water now or take the lid off to allow it to dry a little The fluid level should be just visible under the top layer of food.

Add the peas. Bring up to the boil again.

Now add in the olive oil and the cous cous. A nice big stir, lid on – now go wash the pans, go look out the window, pour a cuppa tea or a glass of beer.

You are ignoring the pan completely for 10 minutes.

Now it is ready, run a fork though it to loosen the grains. Dish up.

This will surely be the dish that will convert the ‘Vegan Curious Meat Eater’.

😀

My photos show me cooking a much larger quantity than the above recipe 🙂

Come and see me on Saturdays’ at Bermondsey Square Farmers Market in Southwark. It’s just off Tower Bridge Road, a short walk from The White Cube, Southbank and Borough Market.
All new customers will get a lovely washable cotton shopper as a ‘Thank you and please come again next week’ (Whie stocks last!)

Every Friday at about 6 pm GMT I publish photos of the items I have cooked for market. Have a look at the Facebook page.

email me scarletrositafood@btinternet.com
phone or text 0792 310 9170
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ScarletRosita
or follow me on Twitter

Tweets by ScarletRosita