What a great idea it is to review a cook book. Two blog posts ago I mentioned that I am reviewing recipes in My New Roots by Sarah Britton and changing the recipes  to vegan recipes. It is great fun and I completely recommend grabbing a vegetarian cook book and doing the same.

I am not reviewing every recipe just those that make me salivate from the sheer glimpse of ingredients listed. I have learned so much from the way I follow or don't follow recipes. I realise I am always changing recipes to suit my tastes adding many more green veggies ensuring the recipe contains complete protein. As well as adding further nutritional value to each recipe.

It is soooooo easy to make recipes vegan or dairy free and in my not so humble opinion make them even more tasty. I have found since giving up dairy, food tastes much better, dairy seems to dull the flavour of food and hides all the subtle flavours of plant based ingredients. In this blog post I have reviewed and changed three delicious recipes. I think you will love these.

Please let me know if you try them out and also let me know if you ended up changing the ingredients.

Quinoa Risotto

1 tbsp olive oil 1 fresh onion diced finely 1 clove garlic minced (optional) 2 cups of soaked Tasmanian quinoa * a big handful of rocket 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley 1 head broccoli cut into florets 1 litre vegetable stock 1 cup macadamias crushed into a sprinkle 1 tbsp of cashew sour cream

Cashew Sour Cream

1 cup cashews

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp of apple cider vinegar

juice of 1 lemon

For the cashew sour cream place everything in a blender and blend until smooth. Place the veggie stock in a sacuepan and heat it up. Keep it simmering. Fry the onion and garlic in the oil for a few minutes. Rinse the quinoa well and add to the onion and garlic and fry for a few minutes. Add a cup of the vegetable stock and the broccoli and stir gently. Keep adding stock in small quantities as the quinoa soaks up the liquid. Once the quinoa and broccoli are cooked to your liking stir through the rocket and serve with the chopped parsley and cashew sour cream.

Variations: Loved this recipe of Sarah Britton's. I needed to add more greens though and that was very easy. I also added the cashew sour cream so the meal comprised of a complete protein.

Puy Lentil Salad

1 cup puy lentils cooked

1/2 cup cooked lentils

12  kalamata olives

1/2 red onion sliced (optional)

2 tbsp olive oil

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch of wilted silverbeet sliced finely

1/4 cup of parsley roughly chopped ripe avocado sliced big spoon of coconut or soy tzatziki

Coconut or Soy Tzatziki

1 cup coconut or soy yoghurt

1 Lebanese cucumber grated

1 boiled garlic clove (optional)

freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon

35 g of finely chopped dill salt and pepper to taste

 

To make the tzatziki mix all the ingredients together.  Then mix all the salad ingredients together.  serve with the pea shoots and sliced avocado

Adaptions from the original recipe: I added greens to this recipe and also the millet as the original recipe was just lentils. I can never eat that many lentils all on their own and by adding the millet the salad turned into a complete protein meal. The original recipe also had dairy tzatziki but the non dairy version is all the more delicious.

Seasonal Fruit Clafoutis

1 cup almond meal

1 bunch of rhubarb (if rhubarb is not in season you can use other fruit that is, berries, apricots peaches etc - something that has a tart element)

2 cups of apple sauce (recipe below)

2 tbsp brown rice flour

1 vanilla bean split and seeds scraped out

pinch of sea salt

1/2 cup coconut or rapadura sugar

1/4 cup of flaked almonds

To make the apple sauce peel 3 large green apples and cut into small pieces place in a saucepan with a small amount of water. Put the lid on and simmer until soft. Cut the rhubarb up into 2 cm pieces and place in a separate sauce pan and let simmer until soft. In a food processor place the rest of the ingredients and whizz around for a minute or so. Place 3/4 cup of the apple sauce in the food processor and combine with the rest of the ingredients. In a flan dish spread out the rhubarb and the remaining apple sauce mixture. Spread the rhubarb mixture in the flan dish and add the rest of the apple mix on top of the rhubarb. Spread on the almond mixture and scatter on the flaked almonds.  Bake in 165 C oven for up to 45 minutes or until skewer comes out of the topping mixture clean.

Variations- the recipe had a lot of eggs and would come up all fluffy but I didn't add eggs and it was not fluffy but totally delicious.

*Soak Tasmanian quinoa overnight in filtered water. This helps reduce the bitterness of this variety of quinoa.   A special note to any one who reads this far- i do have photos for all of the recipes but my computer has gone kaput and needs to go to the doctor- i so wanted to post this blog      

Categories:Salads Sweets Sauce/Dips

Tags:cashew sour cream clafouitis lentils risotto

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