Homeless Vegetables and Popular Oaty Bars – Vegan Day 17

Day….ermm let me think……oh yes, day 17 of my vegan pledge and I fancy so many things that have egg or milk in them, probably because I am subconsciously trying to annoy myself! 😛

I even had a dream where I said “Oh no I can’t eat that at the moment, not during my vegan pledge..” haha!!!

I sometimes have vegetables in the fridge that look like they’re being neglected because they’ve been in there for a few days, but rather than making beautiful things like cauliflower sheep, I usually think of some sort of recipe to use them all up into some sort of vegetable delight.

Vegan sheep! Picture from Google

I absolutely hate-hate-hate waste, so what better way of using homeless looking veggies than making a vegetable curry?

I used my stray vegetables of the day to make about 4 portions of curry:

Anti-Waste Vegetable Curry

• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 tbsp Garam Masala spice mix
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 carrot, in big chunks
• 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes or fresh ones if they need using up
• 1 400g tin of green lentils
• 2 stalks of celery
• chilli flakes (optional)
• broccoli, about half a head

-Fry the onion and garlic in the oil for about 3 minutes;

-Add the spice mix and chilli (if using), celery and the carrot and let cook for a couple of minutes;

-Add the chopped tomatoes and lentils and the broccoli and simmer for about 15 minutes (or until the carrots are cooked enough for your taste)

-Serve with poppadoms, lime pickle, white rice, pitta bread and a dash of Tabasco if you love a spicy kick like I do!

Homeless Vegetables-using Curry

This lovely satisfying meal was quick and easy to do, and all of it was vegan!

The website Love Food Hate Waste has tons of useful recipes for using other stray ingredients.

 

~

 

On Sunday I tried a new recipe from my library vegan cookbook: Quick and Easy Breakfast Bars (makes 12)

Ingredients:

• 75g quick-cooking rolled oats
• 125g wholemeal or plain flour
• 125g brown sugar (I used soft brown sugar) / 3 tbsp sweetener such as Canderel
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ tsp of salt
• ¼ ground cinnamon
• pinch of ground mixed spice
• 8 tbsp mixed seeds (sesame, pumpkin, sunflower…)
• 6 tbsp raisins or sultanas
• 125ml sunflower or rapeseed oil

All you need

-Heat the oven to 170C;

-Lightly oil a 6×8 inches baking tin;

-Mix all the dry ingredients together then stir in the oil and mix well;

-Press the mixture into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes (do check it every now and then though, I think mine came out a little over done, so leave it in as long as required with your oven);

-Let it cool and cut into slices. Enjoy!

Mix Well

Bake and Enjoy

If you keep the bars in an airtight container they last up to a week (if you don’t eat them all before like I did!)

I took some to work and they proved to be very popular bars indeed! My colleagues liked them, my boyfriend likes them very much and I love them!

They actually taste buttery even though there is now butter in them, and the great thing is you can interchange the ingredients and use whatever else you like: you could use apples or dried mango instead of raisins, walnuts instead of the seeds…

I also tried adding 99% Cocoa Lindt vegan chocolate to one batch:

Vegan Chocolate Bars: Addictive!

…it was so delicious!

 

Do you like cereal bars? Which ones are your favourite?