Tag Archives: Vegan pancakes

by | October 17, 2012

WIAW – I’ll bring the Humous (fat free) & Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt (dairy free) with recipes :)

It’s Wednesday!

It’s WIAW party time!

Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great week so far!

Before I show you some yummy eats from yesterday, I’d like to begin by saying a huge THANK YOU to all my wonderful subscribers, readers, FB friends and Twitter followers. You guys are giving me so much support right now and I really appreciate it! I love reading all your comments too, so do keep them coming :)


Spooky Snacks and Healthy Halloween Treats

For anyone that’s unfamiliar with WIAW, let me briefly explain what it is. ‘What I Ate Wednesday’ is a virtual foodie party hosted by the lovely Jenn over at Peas and Crayons. Once a week, we record a day’s worth of eats, blog about it, then share our links on Jenn’s site. WIAW not only helps us to keep track of our own eating habits, but we also get oodles of inspiration from all the photos and recipes that are linked up each Wednesday. Literally hundreds of foodie bloggers now join in every week. It’s immense!

So here’s my entry for this week’s WIAW…

Breakfast
Apple Cinnamon pancakes left over from Sunday, which we warmed up in the microwave then topped with chopped pecans, walnuts, ground linseed and a drizzled of agave syrup. Totally delish! The recipe can be found here.

Lunch
For lunch, I devoured this plate of vine ripened tomatoes, red pepper, courgette (zucchini) and carrot, along with a large portion of home-made humous … hummus … houmous? I have no idea which way to spell it these days!

Houmous is one of Lil’ L’s all-time favourite foods. However, since the shop-bought stuff has such a short use-by date (and with our new year’s resolution of zero food waste) I now always make my own. It’s so easy and quick. It literally takes a couple of minutes. If I ever have any spare or left over, I freeze it. See, no waste ;)

Every individual has their own preference when it comes to the flavour and consistency of humous. For Lil’ L, it mustn’t be ‘too oily’, ‘too garlicky’ or ‘too lemony’. For him, the best hummus ever is served at the Adventure Cafe in Bath.  For months, I’ve been playing around with the quantities, trying to get it ‘just right’. In the summer holidays, after yet another attempt, he dipped his cucumber stick into the humous, then uttered the words that I’ve been longing to hear…. “this is as good as the Adventure Cafe humous”. Yay!!! Success at last!

And do you know what else I love about this humous? It doesn’t contain oil, which means it has far less calories in it. More importantly, this means that I can devour huge quantities and not feel guilty about it. Happy days! :)

Here’s the recipe…

Lil’ L’s ‘Best Ever’ Humous Hummus Houmous (Seriously, how should I spell it? Please help!)

Hands-on time: 5 minutes

Ingredients
1 400g / 14oz can chick peas, drained with the liquid reserved
1 small garlic clove, crushed
2 tbsp tahini
squeeze of lemon
3/4 tsp sea salt
coriander and/or paprika, for garnish

Method

  1. Place all the ingredients in a food processor along with 4 tbsp of the reserved liquid. Blend until smooth. Add a little more liquid if required and blend again. Check the flavour and adjust as required.
  2. Garnish with coriander and a sprinkling of paprika, if desired.

For Lil’ L’s and M’s packed lunch today, they took the Mexican black bean soup and corn bread left over from last night’s dinner. This was totally lush too! Recipe coming soon!

After School Snack
Lil’ L and I had a large chocolate banana energy smoothie. Recipe here!

I’m seriously addicted to these, as is Rachel!

Dinner
Since the weather’s still mild here, I’m not ready for stews yet. However, it is the perfect time of year for crumbles. I adore both savoury and sweet crumbles. For dinner, I made what I’m currently calling ‘Veggie Patch Crumble’ because it included veggies that I imagine I would be pulling up from the allotment right now… if I had one ;)   It included parsnip, carrot, cabbage, sweet potato, garlic and onions.

I’ll write up the recipe and post it on Friday. Lil’ L absolutely loves it and devoured a whole plate full. Hopefully the yummy crumble topping and sweet flavoured veggies will entice other children to love it too :)

Dessert
Due to the crazy weather we’ve experienced this year, most of my attempts at veggie and fruit growing have been a disaster…

Last year we had a gazillion plums.

Plumdiddlyumptious 2011

This year, we didn’t have a single plum on the tree.

Last year we had box loads of huge cooking apples.

Apples galore in 2011

This year, we have apples but they are tiny and pretty sad looking. We had only 3 apples on the eating apple tree :(

Remember the cob nuts from last year?


We haven’t managed to collect any this year. There may have been a few on the trees but the squirrels have had them (and fair play to them!)

On the plus side though, our two little strawberry plants have been amazing! We’ve had more strawberries this year than ever before. The plants are still producing fruit, though I doubt whether they’ll ripen up now.

Strawberries 2012

Luckily, I had a batch of strawberries in the freezer, which I used yesterday to make some instant frozen strawberry yoghurt. This has been one of our favourite summer desserts and now that I’ve got the food processor, it’s been a breeze to make. You simply throw the frozen strawberries and yoghurt into the processor and press the button. A couple of minutes later, you have soft whip.

It was too dark last night to take a photo, so here’s one from last time we made it.

We drizzled on some home-made strawberry sauce and, last night, we also sprinkled some home-made granola on top. It was totally scrumptious!

I was wondering whether this was a summer only dessert, but two new frozen yoghurt eateries have just opened in Bath, so I’m guessing not. I must check out whether they do a dairy-free version. If not, I’m happy to carry on making my own. It’s so simple. Here’s the recipe:

Instant Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt (Fro-Yo)

Serves 4
Hand-on time: 5 minutes (plus overnight freezing)

 Ingredients
400g / 14oz / 1½ cups non dairy yoghurt (I use Alpro natural yoghurt)
360g / 12½ oz / 3 cups sliced strawberries, frozen overnight
drizzle of agave syrup or other natural sweetener, optional, to taste

Method
Place the yoghurt and strawberries in a food processor and blend until smooth. Serve immediately as soft whip, or return to the freezer for a firmer frozen yoghurt. If frozen overnight, remove from the freezer 40 mins – 1 hour before serving.

Natural strawberry syrup
It’s so easy to make your own strawberry syrup. Simply mix 4 tbsp of strawberry jam or natural fruit spread with a little water to make a syrup that’s runny enough to pour. I use St Dalfour Rhapsodie de Fruit Strawberry Jam, which is deliciously sweet but has no added sugars (it’s sweetened with grape extract). It’s available from all the major UK supermarkets and some health food shops.

So that’s me done for another WIAW! Time to head over to Jenn’s and get inspired!

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone xx

Have you had any success growing fruit & veg this year? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

What have been your greatest successes? Have you been left with any surplus? If so, you know where I am ;)

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by | April 25, 2012

Bluebells Galore! & Lil’ L’s Top Eats of the Week

Hi everyone!  I hope you’re having a great week so far :)

We’re doing okay, although the weather is a bit of a drag.  It’s just rain, rain, rain here :(   I mustn’t complain though as we’ve had beautiful weather for weeks and the country’s got a water shortage.   

Although I definitely don’t fancy going out on my bike in this weather, I am happy to walk about in the rain.  In fact, it can be pretty refreshing.  I love the smell of fresh rain and, providing you’ve got a big umbrella, it can be quite cosy and fun.

On Saturday, we decided to take a trip to West Woods in Wiltshire to check out the beautiful bluebells.  It rained on and off, but that didn’t matter. 

If anything, it made the trip even more magical as we were pretty much the only ones there.  It was so peaceful!

The bluebells were truly stunning! 

We noticed that there were quite a few bridleways through the forest so, as soon as the tracks dry out, we’ll take our bikes for a ride round.

The market town of Marlborough is not far from the woods so, after our walk, we popped there for a coffee.  It was market day so before we headed home, we managed to bag ourselves some great value fruit and veggies, including 10 bananas for £1!

WIAW – Lil’ L’s Favourite Eats of the Week

Since our return from Lanzarote a week and a half ago, I’ve been enjoying cooking some of the family’s favourite meals.  Just for a change, for this week’s WIAW party, I thought I’d ask Lil’ L to list his favourite breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert that he’s eaten since we’ve been home. 

Here’s a rundown of his favourite eats:

Breakfast – Banana Pancakes
I made a batch of these on Saturday morning and Lil’ L had them for breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday. These are his number one favourite pancakes.  I’ve recently updated the recipe to bring it into line with my other pancake recipes. They are so simple to make; you just throw all the ingredients into the blender and pulse it a few times.

At the weekend, we topped the pancakes with chopped pecans, walnuts, sliced almonds, ground linseed and a drizzle of agave syrup. 

Lunch - Scrambled Tofu Pitta Pocket
Since returning from our holidays, we’ve been on a mission to liven up lunch boxes.  Lil’ L mentioned that he would love to try scrambled tofu in a pitta bread for his school lunch.  On Sunday, we made scrambled tofu on toast for our lunch and then saved some for packed lunches on Tuesday. 

This time round, in addition to the tofu and spices, we added a few veggies – finely chopped red onion, red pepper, sliced mushrooms and flat leaf parsley.

Lil’ L absolutely loved the scrambled tofu pitta pocket and said it was one of the best packed lunches he’s ever had.  We’ll definitely be making this one again!

Dinner - Home-made Pizza, Mexican Fajitas & Vegetable Korma
Lil’ L had difficulty choosing one favourite dinner as we’ve had three of his favourites this week, so he asked whether I could feature all three. 

On Sunday we had the home made ‘confetti’ pizza (which we ate whilst watching the very bizarre film ‘Coraline’)

On Monday, we had Mexican veggie fajitas.  This dinner only takes 8 minutes to make!  It’s perfect for Monday nights when Lil’ L has to eat an early dinner before cubs. 

To make them, I stir fried bell  peppers, courgette (zucchini), mushrooms, baby corn, avocado, julienned carrot sticks, roasted broccoli (a left over from the weekend) and pumpkin seeds in a little oil and a sprinkling of fajita spice mix. I also added half a packet of Fry’s Vegetarian Chunky Strips (bought from Holland and Barratt).  We served them in warmed tortillas, and M and I chose to spice ours up with a drizzle of Linghams Chilli Sauce.  Delicious!

Yesterday, my mum came to visit us for the night, so we decided to cook one of the family’s current favourite meals – Veggie Korma with home made chapattis.  This time round, we used 7 different vegetables in the curry - red onion, garlic, celery, carrot, parsnip, savoy cabbage, and mushrooms, along with cashew nuts and sliced almonds.  Lil’ L enjoyed it so much that he asked for seconds!

Dessert - Chocolate Banana Chia Pudding
This was our dessert from Monday night.  Another really simple recipe which takes about a minute to prepare, providing that you’ve remembered to pre-soak the chia seeds.

It’s been another week of great eats :)  We’ve had lots of old family favourites  and I’ve also been trialling some new recipes which I’m looking forward to sharing with you…. especially the home made veggie pasties, which are totally lush!  

Right, time to head over to the WIAW party to check out this week’s delicious eats.   Thanks as always to the lovely Jenn for hosting this great event.  I hope to see you there! :) xx

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by | March 21, 2012

Mothering Sunday, a Visit to Lacock and a delicious Veggie Korma!

Hi everyone!  Hope you’re having a great week so far!

For this week’s WIAW party, I’d like to share our eats from last Sunday, which was Mother’s Day here in the UK.  According to the results of a nationwide survey, what most mothers really want on Mothering Sunday is a lie-in and a home-made card.  Well, I can happily report that I got both, so I was one very happy mum indeed! :)

Check out what Lil’ L wrote inside the card.  It’s really sweet (and amusing)!  People that know me will laugh at pretty much all the qualities he listed, especially the last one!  The only one I can relate to myself is no 3.  Isn’t it wonderful though that, at the age of 8, our kids still think of us as superstars!  I wonder how long that will last!

Last weekend, M’s parents came to stay, so Mother’s Day was doubly special.  After our lovely lie-ins with cups of tea and coffee, we all opted to have different breakfasts.  Cereals and home-made pecan & maple nut granola for M’s mum and dad, porridge for M, and pancakes for me & Lil’ L.  However, when M saw how nice the the pancakes looked, he decided that he’d like some as well.  Luckily, I’d made a huge batch so we had a couple spare ;)

This Sunday, we had blueberry pancakes (recipe here) made with the new Alpro Almond Milk (delicious!),  topped with organic strawberries, pecan nuts, ground linseed and a drizzle of agave syrup.  Both Waitrose & Tesco are selling organic strawberries half price at the moment and they are super sweet and totally scrummy!

Lil’ L was put out at first when he saw the strawberries on top, but he was willing to give them a try, with the response ”I’ll give anything a try if it’s on top of a pancake”.  I must remember this ;)

He ended up eating the whole lot, which is fantastic for this former fruit dodger.  That’s another fruit to cross off the ‘won’t try/don’t like’ list :)

After breakfast, we went to visit Lacock, a village in Wiltshire just a few miles from where we live.  This ancient village is a pretty special place, and has the most incredible old houses.

Lacock Village High Street (c) Ian Petticrew

It’s been used as the backdrop for a number of films and TV series, including Cranford and Pride & Prejudice.  Lacock Abbey is also the setting for a number of the interior shots in the Harry Potter films.

Lacock Village (c) Pam Brophy

On Sunday, there were lots of little craft shops open for us to browse, as well as a craft fayre in the village hall.  For lunch, we stopped at the village bakery for a delicious veggie pastie.

Lacock Bakery (c) Jonathan Billinger

We had a lovely afternoon at the village and are planning to return in early summer with M’s parents to visit the Abbey and its grounds.  From the photos I’ve seen on the web, it looks absolutely stunning!

Lacock Abbey (c) Gary Brothwell

For dinner, we had leftovers from Saturday night’s meal, which had been so delicious that we didn’t mind eating it on two consecutive nights.  We had veggie korma, coconut dhal with butternut squash, brown rice, chapattis (made by M!), and mini poppadoms.

The veggie curry was really well received by M’s parents, which was a relief as I often wonder whether M, L and I have different taste buds to people that eat ‘typical’ Western diets.  I think veggie curry is a great dish to serve when you have guests (whether they’re veggie or meat eaters) for these reasons…

  • With the simple addition of chapattis, poppadoms, naan breads, the curry can turn into a delicious feast.
  • Pretty much everyone I know loves curry, and as long as you don’t make it too hot, then it’s fine for the children too.  When Lil’ L was younger, I simply used to roughly blend the veggies so that they were less chunky and blended into the korma sauce.
  • The dishes can be prepared in advance (big advantage in my book as I don’t want to be slaving in the kitchen when we have guests!)  The dishes can even be prepared the day before and simply heated through on the stove.

The veggie korma we made on Saturday included my all-time favourite combination of veggies for curries.  It’s quick and incredibly simple to make.  Here’s the recipe:

Veggie Korma with Cashew Nuts

Serves: 4-6
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
thumb-size piece of fresh or frozen ginger, grated
1 tbsp mild curry paste (I use Patak’s korma paste)
2 medium carrots, sliced
2 medium parsnips, sliced
1 medium courgette (zucchini), sliced
4 white cabbage leaves, shredded
2 handfuls of curly kale (thick storks removed), shredded
250 ml / 8¾ fl oz / 1 cup vegetable stock
1 x 400 ml / 13½ fl oz  can coconut milk
80g / 2¾ oz / ½ cup cashew nuts (alternatively, you can use flaked almonds)

Method

  1. Brush the bottom of a large frying pan (skillet) with oil and heat on a low-medium heat. Cook the onion until it starts to soften (3 minutes). Mix in the garlic, ginger and curry paste and cook on for a further 2 minutes.
  2. Add the vegetables, stock, coconut milk and nuts. Bring to the boil, then gently simmer for 15 minutes or so until the vegetables are tender.
  3. Serve with brown rice and/or chapattis/naan bread.  For a special meal, you could include a side dish of coconut dhal,

For dessert, we had mango hedgehogs.  I’ve got Hugh FW from River Cottage to thank for this technique for cutting mangos.  Not only is it a far easier and less messy way of cutting up mangos, but it actually looks pretty effective too.  Lil’ L loves the hedgehog :)

So that’s what we ate on Mothering Sunday.  We didn’t go out to a restaurant and pay the inflated Mother’s Day prices, but instead we stayed in and ate one of the tastiest Indian meals I’ve ever had :)

It’s now time for me to pop over to Jenn’s site and check out all the delicious WIAW entries.  A big thank you to Jenn for hosting this great foodie party and for all the inspiration for new eats.

I’d love some more ideas for dishes to serve for a mix of veggie and non-veggie guests.  I often end up serving veggie lasagna, Mexican burritos/ fajitas/ enchiladas, or veggie curry.  What dishes would you recommend?  I’d love to hear your ideas and please do send links to recipes if you have them.

Happy Wednesday everyone! xx

 

 

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by | March 7, 2012

WIAW – I’ll Bring the Spinach & Cashew Pesto Pasta & Sun-Dried Tomato Humous (with recipe!)

Hi Everyone! I hope you’re having a great week so far!

I’ve just got back from another wonderful afternoon with my meditating kids :)   Some of these children have only been meditating for 3 weeks, but they’re already so good at it!  I’m sure some of them will be meditation masters by the time they’re 10 ;)   

The object of today’s meditation was to teach them a method to calm themselves down whenever they feel negative emotions, like anger, starting to arise within their minds.  We visualised our minds as a blue sky and negative emotions as dark, black clouds.  On the out-breaths, we blew the clouds away until we were left with a crystal clear blue sky, symbolising the return to a calm peaceful, happy state of mind. 

[Source]

The children were certainly chilled out after the meditation … perhaps some were a little too relaxed.  One girl asked me whether she could lie down on the floor after the meditation and have a little sleep!!  All in all though, it was a great, relaxing, fun afternoon :)

I hope you don’t mind me mentioning these meditations in my posts, but they’re helping me to recall what I do with the children in these Wednesday Workshops.  Just like my recipes, most of the meditations are saved in my head, which isn’t a great place for them to stay.  When I get a spare moment, I will start to write them out properly. Until then, the blog post record will have to do!   

In half an hour, Lil’ L and I will be heading to the swimming pool but, before we go, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of today’s eats for the lovely Jenn’s What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW) party.  Today’s eats were all leftovers from Sunday, Monday & Tuesday!

Breakfast
Hot lemon water
2 Apple & cinnamon pancakes with a sprinkling of ground flaxseed, chopped pecans and a drizzle of agave syrup. 

Sorry for the old pic, but I had to dash out this morning and didn’t have time to photograph the breakfast! It pretty much looked like this… except I had 2 pancakes rather than 3 (it’s Lil’ L that’s the pancake monster round here!)

 I often make a big batch of pancakes on a Sunday morning and, if any are leftover, we eat them in the week for breakfast or after school snacks. 

Lunch
On my return from Bristol, I had a quick lunch of wholegrain rice cakes, topped with sun-dried tomato humous, black olives and roasted red peppers. 

Along with Nairn’s Oatcakes, Kallo wholegrain rice cakes are one of our favourite shop-bought snacks.  While I use them for quick lunches, Lil’ L loves to take them to school for his play time snacks.  His current favourite flavour is yeast extract, while I prefer the sesame seed (no salt) version (not pictured as I’ve eaten them all!)

When I read the nutritional blurb on the back of the packet, I was amazed to find that each rice cake only contains 30 calories!

I find them really filling too!  Especially when they’re covered in delicious home made humous ;)   I’ve finally jotted down how I make the sun-dried tomato humous.  It’s so easy and quick!  It only takes me a couple of minutes to whip up enough humous to last us the week.  Sometimes I make a double batch and freeze half for the following week. 

Here’s how I make it:

Sun-dried Tomato Humous

Ingredients
1 x 425g / 15 oz can chick peas, drained
5 pieces of sun-dried tomato, chopped
1/2 garlic clove, crushed
squeeze of fresh lemon
1/2 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp olive oil (I use the oil from the jar of sun-dried tomatoes)
1/4 tsp salt

Method

  1. Add all the ingredients to a jug blender or food processor and blend to desired consistency.  Alternatively, place all the ingredients in a bowl and use a stick blender.  (This is my preferred method as I find it gives me greater control over the consistency of the humous.  In our house, we like our humous thick and slightly chunky, as opposed to smooth and creamy).
  2. If the humous is a little thick for your liking, add a little more oil. Check the salt and add a little more if needed.
  3. The humous will keep for 2-3 days in the fridge, and a few months in the freezer.

Drinks
1 soy cappuccino in Bristol, 1 peppermint & nettle tea, 1 pure apple juice, water

Snacks
1 sugar free jam tart (left over from yesterday’s study class).  I use St Dalfour fruit spreads as the filling for these tarts.  This spread is deliciously sweet without any added sugar or sweetener. 


I’ve recently started using Chapatti Atta as my wholemeal (wholewheat) flour for pastry making (I found this in the Indian product aisle at Tesco).  It’s got a beautiful texture, with the wheat flakes very finely ground into the flour, making it perfect for pastries.  As an added bonus, it’s way cheaper than the regular wholemeal flour I’ve been buying.  My next mission is to seek out organic chapatti atta but, for now, I’m happy to use this one:

Dinner
For dinner tonight, we’ve got leftover black bean burgers from Sunday, with a side dish of wholewheat pasta leftover from yesterday, into which I’ve mixed some spinach, basil and cashew nut pesto with a selection of lightly stir-fried vegetables (red pepper, mushroom, red onion, mange tout, courgette (zucchini)) and black olives. I’ve also sprinkled in some pumpkin seeds and Marigold Yeast Flakes with B12 for added goodness.

If I’ve only got a few minutes to make a dinner, pesto pasta is often the one I choose to make.  The pesto only takes a minute to prepare and I find it tastes so much nicer than the shop bought stuff!  Plus, if you make it yourself, you can sneak in lots of extra goodness (like a whole cup of spinach) and reduce the oil content.  I’ll make sure I write down this pesto recipe soon and post it!

Dessert
For dessert, we’re having the ‘goji yogi surprise’ – apple compote (using our home-grown, over-wintered apples) layered with Alpro natural soy yoghurt and a sprinkling of chopped gojis and nuts.  I haven’t put it together yet, but this is what it looks like:

This month, Jenn’s WIAW parties are going green.   To find out more and get inspired for this month’s eats, click on the image below. 

Time to head to the pool!  Happy Wednesday everyone!  xx

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by | February 22, 2012

WIAW – Coconut & Mango Pancakes, Butternut & Nut Butter Soup, Spinach, Mushroom & Tofu Ricotta Strudel

Hello everyone!  I hope you are having a great week :)  

Mine’s been pretty good so far.  My Wednesday Workshops started back again today.  As it’s a new term, I’ve got two new groups of children.  Some of the children have attended my workshops before while others are new.  This time round I’ve got four reception children (aged 4) and they are so cute!  I’d forgotten just how little they are!  

I was shocked when I recently came across a picture of Lil’ L on his first day of school in 2008.  I can’t even remember him being that small!  It really is incredible how quickly they grow up!

 For this week’s WIAW party, hosted by the lovely Jenn @ Peas and Crayons, I’m going to show what Lil’ L and I made and ate on Saturday.  M was away in London for the day, watching bike racing at the new Velodrome at the Olympic Park, so unfortunately he missed out on some great eats.  We did, however, leave him a few tiny morsels which he took to work on Monday in his lunch box. Aren’t we kind ;)

Here’s our rundown:

Breakfast
Inspired by a guest post by Rachael (Passing Daisies) on Rachel’s ‘My Naturally Frugal Family’ blog, we decided to have a try at making some mango and coconut pancakes.  That combination just sounds so delicious to me! 

I used my usual vegan pancake mixture, but added 3T of dessicated coconut into the mix.  The pancakes were topped with mango pieces (which I caramelized in 1T coconut palm sugar), some lightly toasted dessicated coconut, chopped pecans, sprinkling of ground linseed and a drizzle of agave syrup.

The pancakes were delicious! The only thing I’ll change next time I make them is to omit putting coconut within the pancake mixture as I couldn’t really taste it.  Instead, I’ll just sprinkle more toasted coconut on top. :)

Lunch
On Friday night, Lil’ L and I snuggled on the sofa to watch a re-run of River Cottage Everyday (no this wasn’t a bedtime delay tactic, he really does enjoy this programme… it’s up there with Jo Frost on his list of favourite programmes… strange I know!).  

In this episode, two dishes in particular caught our eye… broad bean humous and butternut & nut butter soup.  We decided to make both for lunch on Saturday :)

Unfortunately I haven’t got any photos of the broad bean humous, but Lil’ L absolutely loved it!  I often serve humous as a starter before lunch or dinner with crudites as a way of getting even more veggies into him.  We’ve tried lots of different flavours… roasted tomato, roasted red pepper, caramelised onion… and now we have broad bean to add to the list :)  

The second item on the lunch menu was butternut & nut butter soup.  When we saw this being made on River Cottage, we both said “yum!” at the same time.  Since I had some butternut squash that needed using up, this was the perfect soup to make for the weekend.  

The soup was made with onion, garlic, a medium butternut squash, 2 tsp ground cumin, vegetable stock and… the secret ingredient…. 2 Tbsp crunchy peanut butter.  The soup was garnished with a drizzle of natural soya yoghurt and some coriander. 

We had the remainder of this soup for supper on Monday night.  It really is scrummy and I can’t wait to make it again :)

For our lunch ‘dessert’ on Saturday, we had a couple of raw chocolate hearts (I won’t add a photo of these as you’ve seen them plenty of times before!)

Dinner
For our evening meal, I made a spinach, mushroom and tofu ‘ricotta’ strudel.  I used some pre-made filo pastry and simply rolled up the mixture lengthwise along the layered sheets.  It was very quick and easy to make, and tasted delicious!

I served mine with a salad of romaine lettuce, roasted red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes and olives.  Lil’ L wanted his portion served with the broad bean humous (again!) and some red pepper slices.

The strudel was big enough to provide dinner for us on Monday night as well, plus a slice for M’s lunch box.

Dessert
Pineapple and coconut milk smoothie
Alpro Soya Chocolate Dessert

Another day of yummy eats and veggie loving <3. 

I’m off to Jenn’s now to check out all the beautiful foodie photos and gather inspiration.  Happy WIAW everyone! :)

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