Spiced Apple and Lentil Soup with Tamari-Glazed Chickpeas

 In today’s post, I’m sharing a delicious soup recipe that’s just perfect for the cold weather season. It’s creamy, filling and flavoured with spices that will warm you from the inside out. Topped with tamari-glazed chickpeas and seeds, and accompanied with a slice or two of wholegrain bread, this soup makes a wonderful evening supper or weekend lunch option. It is also budget-friendly. It cost me just £3.00 to make, which equates to 75p per portion. Bargain!

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Vegan All Day English Breakfast

The English are famous for their all-day breakfast fry-ups, which typically feature a whole bunch of animal products – sausages, bacon, eggs and black pudding – served alongside mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns, baked beans and fried bread. However, just because you’re passing on eating animals, this doesn’t mean you have to miss out on this traditional English culinary experience. There are so many amazing all-day veggie breakfast options available now, and they’re often far more creative and colourful (and healthy!) than the meat version.

Today I’m sharing a recipe for a delicious vegan cooked breakfast that, as the title suggests, is suitable for serving any time of day. We’ve been enjoying it as an evening meal, but it’s equally perfect as a weekend breakfast, brunch or lunch.

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Curried Chickpea Smash Sandwich Filling

Hey lovely people! Today, I have a new, tasty sandwich filling for you. It’s creamy, crunchy, tangy and gently spiced with the flavours of India. It also happens to be packed full of nutrients. This is a sandwich filling that will leave you feeling full and energised. Just what you need to see you through a busy afternoon at work or school.

For most of his school life, Lucien has chosen to take a packed lunch. In the primary years especially, this encouraged me to get creative and ‘think outside the box’ as I couldn’t rely on traditional sandwich fillings like cheese or peanut butter. In fact, during his entire seven years of primary school, he didn’t take a single traditional sandwich in his lunchbox. Instead, we tended to fill his box with leftovers from the previous night’s dinner – fajita wraps, pizza slices, tofu frittata, roasted vegetable pasta, Moroccan couscous, chunky soups, and even leftover Moroccan tagine and sweet potato curry!

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Indian-Spiced Sweet Potato Fritters

In today’s post, I’m sharing a new plant-based recipe that my family has been loving lately… it’s the Indian-spiced Sweet Potato Fritter. These fritters are filled with simple ingredients – sweet potato, onion, chickpea flour and spinach – which also happen to be nutritional powerhouses, providing an array of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants ✨ The Indian spices used to flavour the fritters – cumin and garam masala – notch up their antioxidant potency even further.

Not only are they quick and easy to make, but they’re super cheap too! According to my calculations, it cost just £1.07 to make six fritters. That’s 18p per burger. Bargain!

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Mediterranean Tofu Scramble

Tofu scrambles are one of my family’s favourite easy weeknight meals. They take 20 minutes or less to make, use just one pan and can be flavoured myriad ways, which means they never get boring. The scramble recipe I’m sharing in today’s post is filled with beautiful colours and flavours inspired by the Mediterranean ☀️

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Easy Home-Made Tortilla Wraps

In today’s post, I’m sharing my recipe for easy home-made tortilla wraps. They contain just five ingredients and cost as little as 27p for six. Bargain!

Not only budget-friendly, they also taste far nicer and fresher than the shop-bought variety. One bite of a home-made tortilla and you’ll never want to go back to shop-bought again!

Home-made tortillas are easy and delicious!

Have you checked the ingredients lists on shop-bought tortillas? I was shocked when I saw how many ingredients they contain. I counted 12 ingredients in the basic Waitrose and Tesco tortillas, including emulsifiers, preservatives, stabilisers, humectants… and palm oil.

I never dreamed that they would be easy to make from scratch, however one day we were in the midst of making fajitas for dinner and realised that we didn’t have any tortillas on hand. Instead of abandoning the fajitas, we decided to have a go at making our own.

And you know what? Not only were they easy to make, but they were absolutely delicious! They tasted so fresh and ‘real’ compared to the shop-bought variety. In fact, Mark and Lucien loved them so much that they said they could never go back to shop-bought again. I was okay with this, on the proviso that they make the tortillas while I prepare the fillings. And they happily agreed to do so!

 Make it fun!

The kitchen is now filled with fun and lots of chat on kebab and fajita nights, as we all get stuck into preparing the meal. I prepare the filling, while Mark rolls the tortillas and Lucien cooks them. A helping hand means the tortillas are ready in half the time, which is a bonus!

The tortillas are best served fresh, however they can be stored in the fridge for up to a week. Sometimes, I’ll spend an hour preparing a triple or quadruple batch, which we then use through the week. I always make sure the music’s playing loud and I’m singing and dancing along, which makes the tortilla making much more fun.

Perfecting my tortilla recipe

My first attempt at home-made tortillas was based on my chapatti recipe (also published on p119 of the Bit of the Good Stuff cookbook) and it was pretty good. Since then, however, I’ve been on a mission to ‘perfect’ my flour tortilla recipe. I’ve tried different ratios of dry ingredients and liquids; different amounts of oil (I wanted to keep the oil to a minimum, yet use sufficient oil to ensure the tortillas can be stored and reheated without drying out and cracking); and I’ve compared using water and plant milk as the main liquid. Tortillas are traditionally made with water, but I find plant milk can really enhance the flavour.

The recipe I’m sharing today is based on my fifth trial and they’ve got a huge thumbs up from the family. I hope you enjoy them too!

✧ My top tips for home-made tortillas

Making tortillas is far easier than you might imagine, but here are some tips that I’ve learnt along the way to help perfect the process:

✦  For tortillas, you want a light, slightly sticky dough. It’s easier to start with a dough that’s too sticky and add a little flour at a time until you reach the right consistency, rather than adding more liquid to a dough that’s too dry.

✦  It’s best to use warm liquid rather than cold. It makes it much easier to roll the tortillas.

✦  To roll a perfect circle, press the floured dough ball into a flat disk using your fingers, then use a rolling pin to roll the tortilla into a large circle, rolling anti-clockwise from the centre of the circle to the outer edge. With practice, the easier and quicker it becomes. I was rubbish at rolling to begin with, but can now roll a circular tortilla in 45 seconds.

✦  If you’re not using the tortillas immediately, store them flat in an airtight container in the fridge. They will stiffen up over time, but heating them through in a frying pan (skillet) returns them to their pliable state. Don’t try and fold the tortilla straight from the fridge otherwise it will break in half.

Recipe Card

Easy Home-Made Tortilla Wraps

These soft flour tortillas contain just five ingredients and are much tastier than the shop-bought variety. They’re easy to make and don’t take too long. See if you can recruit someone to cook them as you roll and this will halve the cooking time. The tortillas are best served the day they are made, but they can be stored in the fridge for up to a week. We love to use these tortillas for fajitas, burritos and vegan doner kebabs.
Hands on time 20 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Course Dinner, Lunch
Cuisine Mexican
Servings 6 tortillas

Ingredients
  

  • 120 g / ½ cup soya milk (can substitute with water, but I find the milk enhances the flavour of the wraps)
  • 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil or oil of choice
  • 210 g / 1½ cups plain (all purpose flour) (or you can use 140g / 1 cup plain (all purpose) flour and 70g / ½ cup fine wholemeal (whole wheat) or chapatti flour)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking powder

Instructions
 

  • Gently heat the milk and oil in a small pan. Whisk with a fork to combine.
  • Place the flour, salt and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Pour in the warm liquid and stir with a spoon until it starts to come together. Continue to bring the dough together with your hands. You want the dough to be soft and slightly sticky. The consistency will vary depending on the type of flour and liquid you have used. If it’s too sticky, add a touch more flour. If it’s too dry, add a touch more liquid.
  • Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 1-2 minutes, until smooth.
  • Divide into 6 equal pieces (I weigh mine to divide it equally). Use your hands to roll them into balls and place on a chopping board. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
  • Pre-heat a dry frying pan (skillet) on medium-high heat.
  • Take one dough ball and coat in flour. Place on a lightly floured surface and using your fingers, press it into a thin disk. Use a rolling pin to roll it into a circle with a 23cm / 9” diameter. (To achieve a circular shape, I roll from the centre of the circle to the outer edge, in an anti-clockwise motion).
  • Lay the rolled dough over the rolling pin and transfer to the hot pan. After a short while, the dough should start to bubble a little. When this happens, flip the tortilla over and continue cooking until brown spots appear on the underside. If the tortilla is browning too quickly, turn down the heat a touch. (I have an electric hob and I cook mine for 40 seconds on the first side, and 20 seconds on the second).
  • Transfer the cooked tortilla to a plate lined with a piece of kitchen paper or a clean tea cloth. Cover with a lid slightly larger than the plate (I don’t have a lid large enough so I use an upturned frying pan!) This will help to keep the steam in and prevent the tortillas from drying out.
  • Repeat the process with the remaining dough balls, adding them to the plate once cooked and covering with the lid.
  • If not using immediately, allow the tortillas to cool completely then store flat in an airtight container in the fridge, where they will keep for up to a week. They will stiffen up over time but heating them through will return them to their pliable state.
Keyword Dairy-Free, Flour Tortillas, Home-Made Tortillas, Tortilla Wraps, Vegan
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With love,