Chocolate Self Saucing pudding

(It's a mess, I know. But it makes up for looks when you taste it!)

Pudding:
1 cup self raising flour
3/4 cup of raw sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons of cocoa
1/2 cup of soy milk (I used soy milky)
2 tablespoons of melted vegan butter (nuttelex)


Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Mix dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl ( flour, salt, cocoa and sugar)
Stir in wet ingredients (melted butter and soy milk)
Spread the thick mixture into a greased baking dish - leave to side until covered in sauce.

Chocolate Sauce:
1 cup raw sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 3/4 cups boiling water


Mix raw sugar, cocoa and sprinkle over cake mixture
Pour the boiling water over the pudding before going in the oven (GENTLY!!!!)
Bake in oven for approximately 30-40 minutes or until the top resembles a cake.

Serve with fruit, vegan custard, or in my case some coconut cream :)

Stack of pancakes with blueberry sauce

These are a great breakfast idea for any occasion, including mine which was just to satisfy pancake cravings. I'm only human!

Pancake batter:
1 cup of plain flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
6 heaped tablespoons of raw sugar
1 cup of soy milk
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional)

Method:
mix together dry ingredients well in a bowl and make a well in the center
add wet ingredients and blend until combined with few to no bumps


Heat up a frying pan and add some vegan butter to minimize sticking to the pan

Add small amounts and cook no more than 3 at a time in the pan - set aside





Blueberry sauce:
1/2 cup of frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
4 heaped tablespoons of raw sugar
3/4 cup of water (a little more if you'd prefer more sauce)
2 tablespoons of cornflour dissolved in 3 tablespoons of water.



Add water, sugar and frozen blueberries to a pot and bring to the boil, the water will discolour and match the berries, this is normal
Let boil for 5 minutes (blueberries must soften) and then add the cornflour and lemon juice, take off the heat and mix in, the sauce will thicken (add more water or cornflour depending on what consistency you would like the sauce)




Stack up your pancakes (or don't) and add your blueberry sauce. Enjoy :)

Hot Chocolate

Everyone enjoys a good hot chocolate in the colder months, but may find it hard to get one whilst out and about, and lets face it, real chocolate tastes that much better than the powdered stuff.

For 3 small mugs (150ml ish each - good luck trying to eat more!) - you will need:

3/4 - 1 cup of grated dark cooking chocolate, grated
4 tablespoons of raw sugar or sweetner quivalent (stevia for example) add more or less depending on your sweet tooth.
2+ cups of soy milk or vegan alternative (rice would go nicely, but I used Soy Milky Lite)

Place about half a cup of the milk in a pot over a high heat, once it starts warming up add half the chocolate and all of the sugar, mix until melted.
Add the rest of the chocolate, mix until melted and combine with the remaining milk.
At this point it's up to you, if you would prefer more milk and less of a chocolatey flavour, add more milk.

Done! Easy!

Place in mugs (make sure you serve it very hot!) and add toppings of your choice. In the picture I've just added some extra grated chocolate, but some whipped soy or coconut cream or vegan marshmallows would also go extremely well.

Mushroom stroganoff

so, this was surprisingly tasty, it's a mixture of mushrooms in a creamy sauce om nom nom


You will need:
1 cup of button mushrooms, cut into halves
1 cup of shitake mushrooms, cut into halves
1 cup of oyster mushrooms
2 large field mushrooms cut into large chunks
1/2 cup of soy creamy cooking milk (I used carnation for this, but coconut cream would also work well)
1/2 cup of vegetable stock
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
3 tablespoons of red wine
1 brown onion, cut into a medium dice
3 tablespoons of flour (more if you want it thicker)
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley, more for garnish
4 generous tablespoons (heaped) of vegan butter - I used nuttelex
2 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of pepper

Melt butter in a pan and add onion and garlic, fry until translucent but do not burn.
Add half of the mushrooms and all soy sauce, red wine and vegetable stock, salt,  pepper and cook for a further 5 minutes.
add 3/4 of the cooking milk and the parsley to the pan and simmer for another 5 minutes until you start seeing some colour in the sauce, I would add the remaining mushrooms at this point, you want a little variation in the texture of mushroom, but they will all cook.
whisk flour into remaining milk until there are no clumps and add this to the pan, the sauce should thicken, cook for a few more minutes. Taste and add more salt or pepper accordingly (at this point I usually add heaps more pepper!)

You are done, it's that easy! serve on pasta or rice, which ever you prefer