Oh Look What We Found!

We were doing our usual searching of the internet for new recipes and ways of reducing our meat intake and we stumbled across this amazing blog article by Honest Cooking.

Our Favourite Meat Dishes Go Vegetarian

In this article they take your favourite meals and give you a way of making a vegetarian equivalent. They link to recipes which look great and I think you will agree look just as good as those meaty ones we love!

So why not check out this article and try one of the recipe?  Could they be a new favourite?

We will definitely be trying some of these recipes when we get back from our travels and will let you know how we get on. If you try any be sure to send us a picture on our Facebook page and let us know what it was like!

Pad Thai Spring Rolls

Time for another recipe review.  This time one of our lovely followers is reviewing a Minimalist Baker recipe...... their Pad Thai Spring Rolls.

This recipe is full of fresh flavours and lots of lovely colours.  Using only 10 ingredients this recipe is quick and easy to prepare for everything can be found in a large supermarket. Smaller supermarkets might not have a few of the items, but these could also be picked up in an Asian supermarket.

The Review:

The recipe was easy to follow.  The smells that filled the kitchen while cooking were great!  The assembly part of the recipe was a bit fiddly..... perhaps a bit of practice would help, but the end results was reached none the less and it tasted great!

This was a great recipe to try something a bit different.  It is also a quite impressive thing to do home made so perhaps one to bear in mind as a starter when hosting a dinner party!!

Meditaranian Sweet Potato

With the weather getting warmer we were looking for a nice fresh summers evening meal.  Initially a baked potato sprung to mind but then I thought.......is there some way to spice up this simple meal idea.  Off to google I went and one of my trusty favourite recipe websites came up trumps..... the good old Minimalist Bakery.

So we decided to make their Mediterranean Sweet Potatoes.  

This recipe is quick and easy to follow.  It uses only a select few ingredients and spices you will already have in your store cupboard.  It is cheap but tastes anything but!

Warm, gently spiced and the perfect balance of being filling yet light.  Exactly what you need on a hot summers day.  It is full of fresh flavours layered upon one another, each mouthful gives you something different!

Why not give this a go?  A great meat free meal that you will want to make again and again!

Let us know what you think!  Remember to post a picture of your meat free meals on our Facebook page!  If you have any good recipes please share them with us! :)

Chickpea and Chilli Burger

Time for another Minimalist Baker recipe.  This time its a Chickpea and Chilli burger.  So as you can tell we have been in the mood for burgers here at the Flexitarian Pledge.  We also recently blogged about a Kidney Bean and Cumin burger.  

Why not give them both a go and let us know which is your favourite.

So this burger recipe can be found here.

Using a masher to squash the chickpeas was taking too long so we went back to basics........and got stuck in with our hands.  This worked pretty well so we would say go straight in with this tactic to save time!

The burgers ready to be fried.  They cooked fairly quickly.  Getting nice and crisp on the outside.

The recipe said that after frying you can put in the oven for a varied duration of time depending on what texture you want.  We decided to put it in the oven for minimal time.  So we went for the frying time and an additional 10 minutes.  For us this left the center soft, this was a lovely texture.  The recipe says if you would prefer a dryer texture then to cook for longer in the oven.

To accompany our burgers we made sweet potato wedges as blogged about here.  We also made some salsa using the method outlined here, however we didnt have any cherry tomatoes, so instead we used a tin tomatoes which we put through a sieve to drain most of the liquid out.  This worked really well and produced a lovely fresh salsa!

And the finished product! Delicious!

Why not give it a try?  Remember to post any pictures to our Facebook page!

Kidney Bean, Carrot and Cumin Burgers

So as you may have seen in a recent blog, we recently tried a Jack Munroe recipe for Kidney Bean Carrot and Cumin Burgers.  Now here is the recipe review.  You can find how to make these burgers in the video below.

Instead of grating a carrot, I used a tin of carrots I boiled them with the beans to soften them up.

The mashing process was fairly easy, although only armed with a fork it took a while.  Perhaps more lumps were left than should have been, but a little texture adds something right?  I do this a potato masher would sort this problem right out though and make it a simple and speedy process.

Frying the burgers didn't take long, the went crispy and golden in no time.  The scent of the cumin was delicious.  I would guess they would work amazingly on a BBQ too to get the char-grill effect and flavouring.

Unfortunately my cupboards were bare so to accompany this tasty burger it was the humble baked beans, but use your imagination to what you could dress this burger up with....... a soft bun, crispy lettuce, some avocado, some spicy salsa, fries, pickles........ the list is endless.

Give this delicious recipe ago, hopefully we will get some more sun and then we can have them al fresco!

Remember to send us your pictures :)

Jack Monroe

I was perusing the internet for new burger recipes.  After we had that one week of sun I started to get BBQ vibes and meat-free burgers were what I craving.  So after a bit of searching a stumbled upon a Kidney Bean and Cumin burger recipe (blog to follow) and more to the point I stumbled across A Girl Called Jack.

A Girl Called Jack aka Jack Munroe is a blog writer.  Jack began her blog back in 2012, originally "in response to a local Councillor who claimed that 'druggies, drunks and single mums are ruining the High Street."  

Over time, this blog started to focus on a time where Jack found herself trying to feed herself and her young son on a budget of £10 a week due to delays in benefits after finding herself out of employment.

Jack has become the queen of thrifty cooking.  Working through a difficult time in her life she became an inventive, creative cook who used supermarket own brand products to create tasty meals.

Jack has gone on to release a couple of cook books:

• A Girl Called Jack: 100 Budget Recipes
• Jack Munroe: A Year in 120 Recipes

Jack's website is full of great recipes and it would be definitely checking it out!  We will be working our way through some more and of course will let you know how we get on.

Another little think that is food for thought....... Jack talks about promoting this challenge........one day instead of buying your usual fancy coffee (approx £3) why not take that £3 into the nearest supermarket, see how many own brand tinned items you can buy and donate them to the nearest food bank!  WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!!  We will definitely be doing this, always good to give back to the community and help out others who are going through a difficult time.

Namaste: Review of the Minimal Baker Buddha Bowl

I have discussed in previous blog posts a website which I stumbled across and immediately got hooked.  The Minimalist Baker is a website run by a husband and wife duo who are passionate about bringing to you recipes which are quick, easy and use less than 10 ingredients.  The lovely thing is many of the recipes are vegan, vegetarian or even gluten free and they look amazing!

So the recipe I tried first was the Sweet Potato and Chickpea Buddha Bowl...... I was of course drawn to this through my love of sweet potatoes and of Buddha so it sounded perfect.

 Recipe Review:

Well this recipe did not disappoint.  It was quick, simple, easy to follow and best of all it tasted great. Annoyingly my photos don't do it justice.  You cant see any of the lovely greens underneath.  The spices on the chickpeas are warming and punchy, but the best element for me is that sauce - the tahini, lemon juice and maple give it so many different dimensions.  You almost get a different taste with each mouthful.

I will definitely be making this one again.  Any recipe that can make kale moreish is a winner!!!

Top marks Minimalist Baker, I am impressed!

Go check them out guys!

Crispy Peanut Tofu

So tofu is one of those ingredients that seems a bit alien..... what is it and why does it wobble like that? My own personal experiences of tofu to date has been a shaky one, mainly due to the somewhat interesting texture! However I have found a recipe that bakes then sautes the tofu meaning that my texture fears are no more. 

I found this recipe on the Minimalist Bakery website.  The Minimalist Bakery is a website established in 2012 by a husband and wife duo from Oregon.  They aim to provide recipes which are simple (maximum 10 ingredients)  which take 30 minutes or less preparation.  The best thing about it is there are so many meatfree recipes which look simply delicious!

So the Crispy Peanut Tofu recipe is quick and easy to follow.  I however made a few adaptations mainly for convenience due to what I had in my cupboards:

• I did not make the cauliflower rice...... although I definitely plan to in the future.  Instead I just went heavy on the stir fry veg.  You can never have too much veg I say!!
• In the name of "clean eating" and doing everything from scratch, instead of using chilli garlic sauce I used chilli seeds and fresh garlic.

Why not take the plunge and give tofu a go.  I would certainly say this would be an excellent dish to try as your first tofu venture.  The sauce is so rich and flavoursome, it also goes all nice and sticky around the tofu.

Let us know here at the Flexitarian Pledge what you make of this recipe or if you try any others from the Minimalist Bakery!

Delicious By Name Delicious By Nature

As a new flexitarian I went out looking for some recipe inspiration to make sure that my meat free days were still full of flavour and not just a plate of rabbit food! My search took me to Ella Woodward's blog Deliciouslly Ella. After looking through the blog I immediately bought her debut cookbook and haven't looked back since.

Ella became unwell with a condition called Postural Tachycardia Syndrome. She was told she would need to be on medication for the rest of her life. After doing some research she decided to see if a diet overhaul could help. She has become a gluten-free vegan and as a result has healed her body and is now off all medication! A truly inspiring story and it certainly shows the power of a good diet full of natural ingredients!

I have slowly been working my way through the book and the blog and I can't say enough how impressed I am. Her recipes are simple to follow and pack so much flavour into each dish! I challenge anyone to make these dishes and tell me you miss the meat!

Go check out her blog, buy the book and give the recipes a go! Don't forget to tell us here at the Flexitarian Pledge how you have got on :)

Below are some snaps of my attempts at her dishes!

This cannellini bean stew is so warming and hearty. The tahini is the magic ingredient which makes the sauce so creamy!

If you find yourself flagging mid afternoon at work these energy bites will sort you out. They are packed with so many super foods full of more nutrients you can shake a stick at! They also hit the spot if you have a sweet craving! I had to make a few ingredient swops (e.g I didn't have hemp powder but just used my normal protein powder)

You read right....... cauliflower crust pizza. What a clever way of eating more veggies! I have seen so many recipes recently using cauliflower in weird and wonderful ways. Can't wait to try more.

And to stay on the unusual pizza crust theme..... meet the quinoa crust pizza. Quinoa is a great source of protein, which is good news if you are worried about how you will get your protein if you are not having meat.

This dish has become my new favourite Sunday night dish. It is called the "rejuvenating bowl". It does what it says on the tin. You can almost feel the goodness fixing you as you eat it. I think that is why I have it on the Sunday, to try and repair me after burning the candle at both ends at the weekend.