All posts filed under: kitchen & garden

Easy vegan pancakes

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Super easy vegan pancakes, with easy to come by ingredients. Ingredients easy vegan pancakes Makes 8 pancakes 2 cups all purpose flour 3 to 4 tbs sugar 4 tbs baking powder 1/4 ts salt 2 cups soy milk 4 tbs canola oil Making easy vegan pancakes Heat pan. Mingle the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt). Mix in the soy milk and canola oil. Put a big drop of batter in heated pan. Bake for about 2-3 minutes till bubbles form, then flip to bake other side. Serve with maple syrup, coconutblossum syrup, fruit, whip, jam, … Yummie!

Vegan Liegeois waffles!

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Unhealthy. Yes, I know. Too much sugar. Yes, I realize. Not really ‘baking’ since I’m using a premade mixture. Yes, I confess. But I just couldn’t resist this premade mixture to make vegan waffes de Liège (a type of Belgian waffles). It had been several years since I had last eaten Liegeois waffles. These waffles (non vegan unfortunately) are sold at food stalls in nearly every Belgian city. I have even spent a whole summer selling these waffles (and ice-creams) at such a food stall at the Belgian coast as a teenager, earning some pocket money. Since going vegan around 2010, I hadn’t eaten any Liegeois waffles anymore, and although I’m planning to try different recipes myself, I just couldn’t resist trying out this premade mixture for vegan Liegeois waffles. It doesn’t require much effort. Even the pearl sugar is included in the mixture. Just add 125ml lukewarm soy milk and 120g plant butter to the 500gmixture, mingle for about 5 minutes, and the dough is ready for baking. I have a waffle iron with changeable irons, and …

Tea in a box

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I had been looking out for a tea box for some time. Wanted to have the different sorts of tea neatly sorted. I found it pretty unhandy, when wanting to choose a kind of tea or offering it to visitors, to take out all the seperate tea boxes. I found this one at Horeca Totaal, a large shop aimed at food professionals, just outside the city center of Bruges (review of the shop will follow). Pretty happy with this tea box! Tea box Horeca Totaal, 25,41€

Walnuts from our tree in the garden

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Each year, we have plenty of walnuts from the walnut tree in our garden. Although it is still a rather young tree (about 25 to 30 years old), it produces buckets and buckets full of walnuts. We don’t know what variety of walnut it is, as the tree was already in the garden when we moved here. Upon collecting the walnuts from the garden in the Fall (end of September and October), I usually place the nuts inside (heated room) for a week or two, so they can dry properly and turn them every day. Afterwards, I move them to the cellar, where it’s cool and dry. Every once in a while, I shell some walnuts and store the shelled nuts in a jar, ready for use in baking or other recipes. They need to be properly dried to store them like this, you can’t do this when you’ve freshly harvested them from the outside. I like to have some walnuts shelled and readily available, so I can just eat a handfull of them whenever I feel like it! See recipes with walnuts …

Fall and Winter harvest from our garden

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In the Fall of 2014 we had plenty of raspberries and bramberries. It’s the first year our (still rather small) fig tree produced a dozen or 2 figs! And we had buckets and buckets of walnuts from our walnut tree. I keep them in a dry place, and about 2-3 months after harvesting, I start peeling them and keep them in glass jars. Easy to have some walnuts at hand for baking, or just whenever you feel like eating some. One of our poplar trees is producing oyster mushrooms. It’s very nice to have free oyster mushrooms from the garden, but unfortunately this also means the tree is slowly dying. We had several cauliflowers. It’s already January, but we are still harvesting some vegetables from our garden. There are still some Brussels sprouts, leeks, and also kale and als some root vegetables: parsnip, root persley and red beets. And still also corn salad!

Southern chiabatta

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Quick and easy chiabatta sandwich for lunch. It doesn’t always have to be fancy! Ciabatta bread is normally vegan, but better check to be sure. We added Wilmersburger cheese (vegan) on top. Wouldn’t it be nice if sandwich bars would make something like this for lunch? Ingredients half chiabatta bread, sliced 1 tbs olive oil 2 small bell peppers 2 spring onion 2 sjalots 200 g mushrooms 1 clove garlic, minced 4 tbs passata (tomatosauce) pinches of pepper, salt, oregano wilmersburger cheese pizzatoping handful of black olives, sliced Preparation Preheat oven to 180° (350F). Chop the vegetables brunoise (diced) and fry them – together with the garlic – in olive oil Add pepper, salt and oregano to your own liking. Put covered chiabatta in oventray and brush the bread with passata. Put the vegetables on the bread, add the sliced olives on top and cover with Wilmersburger cheese. Sprinkle some olive oil on top. Put in oven till the chees form a crust and starts getting golden (about 15 minutes).

Cranberry bread with nuts and papaya

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I’ve made this bread a couple of times. It’s a rather large portion, and because the bread is rather moist (because of the berries) it does not preserve that long. But you can easily put some of it in the freezer, and save it for a later date. I’ve added both walnuts and hazelnuts last time, as I still had a handfull of hazelnuts from our garden. The walnuts are also from our own tree in the garden 🙂 I wish I could say the cranberries are also from our garden, but alas, the birds have eaten most of those 😉 I also added some dried papaya, but you can easily replace this with some other dried berries or fruits, or leave this out altogether. Ingredients cranberry bread with nuts and papaya (vegan) 1 tbs ground flaxseed 3 tbs water 1/4 cup vegan butter – melted and cooled 1 ts vanille extract 1 cup orange juice 1 cup soy milk or almond milk 4 cups all purpose flour 1 cup sugar 4 ts baking powder 1/2 ts …

Vegan chocolate cream

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This is a very simple and straightforward recipe for chocolate cream. You can use it as topping for cupcakes, on top of pies, or in smaller portions as a dessert on its own. And it’s without refined sugar, you can choose between maple syrup or agave syrup, whichever you like best! Important though is that it requires advance preparation. That is, it needs some time in the fridge to set. At least half an hour, but better still an hour is best to make it stiff, espcially if you want to use it for cupcake topping. Silken tofu is very smooth tofu. It is much softer and ‘creamy’ than regular tofu. You can easily cut regular tofu into cubes, this doesn’t work with silken tofu. In Belgium, I’ve only seen it available in organic shops. Ingredients vegan chocolate cream 1 package silken tofu (400g), drained of excess liquid 1/4 cup soy milk 2 tbs agave or maple syrup 1 ts vanille extract 12 ounce (370g) vegan black chocolate chips Preparation Crumble the silken tofu in a blender. …

Frangipane muffins (almond) with apricot jam

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These are definitely one of my favourite muffins, and I have yet to encounter the first person who doesn’t like them (except for the odd person here and there who doesn’t like jam filling)! Frangipane cakes are available in practically every bakery in Belgium, so the almond cake is very well known around here. Most often, they are also filled with apricot jam. These vegan frangipane muffins have a lighter texture than the traditional (non-vegan) frangipane cakes sold in Belgian bakeries. A perfect muffin to convince those that remain skeptic of vegan baking and insist that you need eggs or dairy for traditional baking recipes. Not! You can easily replace the traditional sugar with the same amount of coconut sugar, giving you a dark brown coloured muffin. Ingredients frangipane muffins with apricot jam (vegan) 1 cup + 2 tbs all-purpose flower 1 + 1/2 ts baking powder 1/2 ts salt 1/3 cup almond meal 1/3 cup canola oil 3/4 cup (coconut) sugar 1/4 cup yofu (soy yoghurt) 2/3 cup almond (or soy) milk 1 ts vanille extract 2 ts almond extract 12 ts …

Coconut lime muffins

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These are my new favourites! I’ve only made these coconut lime muffins once so far, but I’m sure I will be making them many more times again! A pretty straightforward classic muffin recipe, with a tropical twist. Close your eyes and think lime cocktails, beaches with coconut trees, and enjoy your muffin 🙂 Ingredients coconut lime muffins (vegan) 1 cup all-purpose flower 1/2 ts baking powder 1/2 ts baking soda 1/4 ts salt 1/3 cup coconut oil 3/4 cup sugar 1 cup coconut milk 1/4 cup soy milk 1 ts vanille extract 1 ts coconut extract 1 tbs or more grated lime zest 1 cup dried shredded coconut Preparation Preheat the oven to 180° (350°). Put paper liners in a muffin tin (12 muffins). In a small bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan. In a large bowl, mix the sugar with the melted coconut oil. Add the wet ingredients: coconut milk, soy milk, vanilla extract, coconut extract and lime zest. Add the dry ingredients …