MoFo Day 8 - Split Pea Bessara

Another cold bright day here in Edinburgh and I'm making more soup. Bessara is a spicy Moroccan soup often made with dried broad beans (fava beans) which can also be made with chickpeas or split peas instead. I don't have access to dried broad beans, so I opted for yellow split peas instead.          

Bessara    

250 g yellow split peas
1 medium onion, finely chopped  
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped  
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
large pinch of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste 
700 mls (3 cups) vegetable stock  

Saute onion and garlic in a small amount of vegetable stock for 4-5 minutes. Add spices, split peas, parsley and remaining vegetable stock, bring to the boil, turn down heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until split peas are soft and adding additional vegetable stock if necessary. Blend until smooth and serve with a garnish of chopped fresh parsley.
Serves 3

I enjoyed this soup, although I had to increase the spices from the original recipe. I served mine with a couple of mini wholemeal pitta breads and a topping of salad leaves as well as the parsley garnish. It would also be good with a garnish of defrosted frozen petits pois as in Robin Roberston's Yellow Split Pea Soup with Green Pea Garnish from Vegan Planet which is one of my favourite split pea soups

               

Mo Fo Day 7: Harira

Soup is one of my favourite meals and it's so easy to make it Eat To Live friendly. North Africa offers lots of inspiration for soups so I plan to try several this week. 

Two of my favourite cookbooks covering this region are A Vegan Taste of North Africa by Linda Majzlik and Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookery by David Scott which is no longer in print but available from Amazon.uk for only £0.01. I used these 2 books as a starting point for this recipe and then added my own variations.


Harira

1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 can (1 and 1/2 cups) of mixed beans
50 g red lentils
1 can (1 and 1/2 cups) of diced tomatoes 
500 ml vegetable stock
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground coriander
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon

I also added around 200 g sliced mushrooms and 3 handfuls of chopped kale 

Saute the onion and garlic in a small amount of vegetable stock for around 5 minutes, add red pepper and grated ginger and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add beans, lentils tomatoes and remaining vegetable stock. Stir in the tomato paste, herbs and spices, plus kale and mushrooms (if adding). Cover and simmer for around 20 minutes. Add lemon juice and serve.

I topped mine with some additional green salad leaves to bump up the micronutrients
 

                              

MoFo Day 6 - Ful Gnaoua

I ended up working for 10 hours yesterday and ran out of time to cook. Today my virtual journey has moved across to North Africa and I'm starting off in Morocco. Some of my favourite recipes come from this part of the world and I'm going to do my best this week to try out one new recipe a day to add to my repertoire, moving across from Morocco in the west to Egypt in the east.  

My first Moroccan recipe is Ful Gnaoua, a spicy stew with black eyed peas. I love the spices of North Africa and this stew is delicious. Using canned or pre-cooked  black-eyed peas it's really quick and easy to make.

Ful Gnaoua  
3 cups of cooked black-eyed beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin 
1 1/2 tsp paprika
2 tomatoes, finely chopped 
Large pinch of cayenne pepper
1 cup of vegetable stock
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Saute the onion, garlic and grated fresh ginger in a little vegetable stock for 4-5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook for a further 10 minutes. Serve with steamed green vegetables

             

MoFo Day 4: More tapas

It's day 4 of my virtual trip to Spain and I've cooked up another couple of tapas recipes. 

I love both mushrooms and garlic so when I found a recipe that combined them both I had to try it out. Some of the recipes for Champiñones al ajillo called for dry sherry. I couldn't find any definitely vegan sherry locally so I used dry white wine instead. In this recipe I replaced the olive oil with some mushroom stock. I used half a Kallo organic mushroom stock cube. They're not fat-free but I figure they have to contain less fat than a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. 

Champiñones al ajillo

200 g chestnut mushrooms, sliced or cut into quarters
6 cloves of garlic, crushed
50 ml mushroom stock
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp dry sherry or white wine
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Saute the garlic in a small amount of the mushroom stock for 3-5 minutes until softened. Add mushrooms, remaining stock, lemon juice, sherry or white wine and cook for another 5 minutes. Season to taste and top with a garnish of chopped parsley.

The other dish I cooked was a cauliflower and paprika dish - I love cauliflower but for some reason this was my least favourite dish so far this week.

Ajoarriero

1 large cauliflower, washed and broken into florets
6 cloves of garlic
1 handful of fresh parsley, chopped
3 Tbsp vegetable stock, plus extra for frying

2 tsp sweet or hot smoked paprika 
1 splash of white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp sea salt

Cook the cauliflower for about 7 or 8 minutes until just tender. Drain and set aside in a serving dish to keep warm. Meanwhile crush 3 cloves of garlic and slice the other 3. in a mortar and pestle mix together the crushed garlic, parsley and salt and stir in 3 Tbsp of vegetable stock. Saute the sliced garlic in a little vegetable stock until it begins to turn golden. Turn down the heat and add the crushed garlic parsley mix, paprika, white wine vinegar and a  little water. Bring to the boil and cook for 2-3 minutes. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower and serve immediately.

MoFo Day3: Tapas

 Still on my virtual tour to Spain and today I'm making tapas. I have 2 recipes today.

 I found fresh broad beans at the supermarket and decided to use them in a Minted Broad Bean (Fava Bean) salad. I found the recipe on the Vegetarian Times website. It brings together garlic, lemon and mint - a fabulous combination of flavours. I halved the recipe and made just one change to make it Eat To Live-friendly by replacing the olive oil in the dressing with vegetable stock. This worked surprisingly well as an adaptation. I really liked this recipe and will definitely  make it again. It would be great with edamame in place of the broad beans. I've never cooked or eaten broad beans before. I decided to remove the skins after cooking, because they seemed a bit tough and I've seen them being removed on Masterchef. It was a bit fiddly and another good reason to use edamame in the future!

Minted Fava Bean Salad

Juice of half a lemon
1/8 cup vegetable stock
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 cup of fresh or frozen shelled broad beans (fava beans) 
2 cups lettuce, torn into small pieces
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, cut into thin strips

Mix together lemon juice, olive oil and garlic, season with freshly ground black pepper and set aside. Cook the shelled broad beans for 3 minutes in boiling water. Drain, rinse under cold water and remove the skins (optional). Mix the broad beans and mint together and put onto a bed of lettuce. Toss with the lemon dressing.



My second recipe is Alubias con Salsa Vinagreta or white beans with a vinaigrette dressing. I found this recipe on a website for Spanish recipes after Googling for tapas recipes. Once again I replaced the olive oil in the dressing with some vegetable stock. This is a great recipe and will transform my salads from now on. One of the things I have really struggled with on Eat to Live is all of the raw vegetables I am supposed to eat. Adding some of these beans with their tangy dressing would liven up any salad.

Alubias con Salsa Vinagreta

1 can of cannellini or other white beans (1 cup of cooked beans)
1 small red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1/4 cup vegetable stock
6 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Combine the drained and rinsed beans together with the pepper, onion and garlic. Mix together the vegetable stock and wine vinegar and pour over the bean mix. Season to taste if necessary.


  

MoFo Day 2: Albondigas

It's my second virtual day in Spain and after a scan through my recipe books I decided to tackle Albondigas - usually meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce. I found a great recipe for Tempeh Albondigas at Vegan Dad's blog but I didn't have any tempeh in the fridge so I decided to use his recipe for inspiration and to adapt the wheatballs from Robin Robertson's Vegan on the Cheap. You can find the recipe online here, but I highly recommend Vegan on the Cheap, which is one of my favourite cookbooks. I haven't made these wheatballs since I started Eating To Live so I was interested to see how they would turn out without any added oil. I replaced the olive oil in the recipe with a tablespoon and a half of vegetable stock, used smoked paprika in place of sweet paprika and added half a teaspoon of ground cumin to the mix. I baked them in the oven on baking parchment and the wheatballs kept their shape much better than the last time, when I fried them. 

While the wheatballs were baking, I made my sauce. I made it in the Vitamix and then heated it up on the stove so it was really quick and easy. The recipe calls for heating the wheatballs in the sauce - I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't fall apart when cooking. This made plenty of really tasty, sweet and spicy smoky sauce and I'm confident that it will freeze well, as do the wheatballs. I served mine with some steamed cauliflower, broccoli, petits pois and edamame. It would be really good as part of an assortment of tapas, so I hope to try out some more tapas recipes as the week goes on.

.

Sauce:

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

half an onion chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped 
1 small red bell pepper, chopped

400 g creamed tomatoes or passata

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp fresh parsley

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1 date

juice of half a lemon 

freshly ground black pepper

Put garlic, onion, tomatoes and red bell pepper in the blender together with half the passata and blend briefly. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. If the sauce is too thick, add  some water or vegetable stock until you get the correct consistency.

Pour the sauce into a frying pan and heat over medium flame for 5 minutes. Add the wheatballs, coat with sauce and cook for a further 5 - 7 minutes.

Serves 3

MoFo Day 1: Fideua

       
                        

 First day of my round the Med MoFo virtual culinary tour and we're in Spain. I have to admit that I've only been to Spain once, a few years ago when I visited a friend living in a beautiful old house by the beach near Santander on the northern coast of Spain. Carmen had lived in England and Kenya for much of her life, so very little of the food that we ate was Spanish in origin. So for this part of my MoFo journey, I've scoured websites and all of my cookbooks, looking for authentic recipes that I could adapt. 

Shimeji, pink and yellow oyster mushrooms

Fideua is a dish usually made with a vermicelli-like pasta and seafood. I found a recipe on the Vegetarian Times website  and then scoured the net for more authentic recipes so that I could  devise my own version using as many of the authentic ingredients as possible. One thing most of the recipes seemed to agree on was the use of saffron and paprika (either sweet paprika or smoked). I decided to replace the seafood with a combination of  smoked tofu, asparagus spears and an assortment of button, chestnut and wild mushrooms which I found at the supermarket. 

Most of the recipes I found called for the pasta to be fried in tablespoonfuls of olive oil before cooking the vegetables. I used a spray of light olive oil in my frying pan which made the final dish taste too greasy for my taste. Next time I would try dry-frying the pasta instead, which would certainly make it more Eat To Live-friendly. I used both sweet and smoked paprika which gave a yummy smoky fragrance combined with the sweetness of the saffron. I served it with a handful of salad greens and stringless green beans with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. This made 2 generous portions, so there's plenty left for tomorrow's lunch.

Vegan Fideua

50 g angel-hair pasta

1 small onion, finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 small red bell pepper, diced

75 g mushrooms - button, chestnut, wild, or a combination of all 3, sliced

75 g asparagus tips, chopped

75 g smoked tofu, diced

2 tomatoes, diced

2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

pinch of saffron

pinch of sweet paprika

pinch of smoked paprika

1 cup of mushroom stock

Break the angel hair pasta in 5 cm (2 inch) pieces. Fry with a pinch of saffron strands in a couple of sprays of light olive oil until golden brown, taking care not to burn. Set aside on a plate lined with kitchen paper to remove oil. Add onion to the frying pan and saute in a small amount of the mushroom stock for around 3 minutes. Add garlic, mushrooms, tofu and bell pepper to the pan together with a pinch each of paprika and smoked paprika. Cook for 5 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the diced tomatoes, remaining mushroom stock and pasta, cover and lower the heat. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, adding water as required. Add asparagus and half of the parsley, cover and simmer for a further 3 minutes. Put under the grill for a few minutes and grill for a further 3 minutes or so until the pasta is crisp on top. Sprinkle with remaining parsley and serve with lemon quarters.

Serves 2