Food – Page 3

2 Delicious Lotus Spread Recipes

November 17, 2014Jade Green Vegan8 Comments

I have always loved lotus biscuits (you know, those little biscuits you get given with coffee) so when I found out that Lotus had brought out a spread I was beyond excited! If, unlike me, you have more self respect than to sit at the back of your lecture theatre dipping lotus biscuits into lotus spread, then I’ve created 2 mouth watering recipes for you to enjoy this delicious spread:

1. LOTUS SPREAD SMOOTHIE

Ingredients: 3 bananas, 1 tablespoon lotus spread, 1 cup almond milk & one handful ice.

Instructions: chop bananas into chunks, place all ingredients into blender, then blend for one minute or until smooth & enjoy!

2. LOTUS SPREAD CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

3 cups self-raising flour
2 cups almond milk (/other non-dairy milk)
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon egg replacer
Lotus spread

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Mix flour, almond milk, brown sugar, baking powder and egg replacer together
Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until brown on top
Leave cakes to stand for 10 minutes
Decorate cakes with lotus spread
ENJOY!

Have any of you tried lotus spread, if so what do you think?

Halloween Pumpkin Smoothie Recipe

October 29, 2014Jade Green Vegan3 Comments

For my second Halloween recipe of the week, I am so excited to share with you all a recipe that I created for the University of Exeter Veggie Society website: The Halloween Pumpkin Smoothie.

I absolutely loved creating this recipe as it involved one of my all time favourite Halloween activities – pumpkin carving! Despite creating this recipe a week before Halloween, I got waaaay into the halloween spirit and put my cat ears on which I absolutely love by the way (you can purchase these from New Look here).

So once you’ve finished carving your pumpkin, this yummy 2 layered smoothie is a great way to make use of the stringy innards of the pumpkin that normally get thrown away. I hope you enjoy this autumnal recipe as much as I do. Let me know in the comments below if you have any creative ways that you like to make use of your leftover pumpkin goo!

Ingredients

3 bananas
1 cup pumpkin
2 table spoons maple syrup
1 cup water
1 /2 an apple
1 tea spoon cinnamon

Instructions

For the first layer of the smoothie: place 2 bananas, the stringy innards of the pumpkin, 1 table spoon of maple syrup, 1/2 cup of water and 1 tea spoon of cinnamon into the blender and blend until smooth (this usually takes around 30 seconds in mine).
Pour into your smoothie jar and leave to stand.
For the second layer of the smoothie: place 1 banana, 1/2 an apple, 1 table spoon of maple syrup and 1/2 cup of water into the blender and blend until smooth.
Pour the second layer of smoothie on top of the first in your smoothie jar.
Enjoy your Halloween Pumpkin Smoothie!

Vegan Halloween Cupcakes

October 27, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

Ever since I was little, my mum and I have celebrated Halloween in a big, and I mean big way. We threw a Halloween party every year and always had the spookiest house on the street, covered in cobwebs, glow in the dark stickers, zombie figures; you name it, we had it. As I’ve grown up and moved away to university, my insane excitement for halloween definitely isn’t something I’ve grown out of, if anything it has intensified! So this Halloween, I decided to combine my newfound love of creating yummy vegan recipes with my insane long-time loving of all things Halloween to create these Vegan Halloween Cupcakes.

Ingredients

3 cups self-raising flour

2 cups rice milk (or other dairy alternative)

1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 apple

1 cup pumpkin innards

1 large bar vegan chocolate

1 large bar vegan white chocolate

1 packet vegan marshmallows

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Mix flour, rice milk, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon together until smooth
Chop the apple into small squares
Place a few chunks of apple and a few strings of pumpkin in the bottom of each of the cupcake holders in the cupcake baking tray
Place the cake mixture on top of the apple and pumpkin
Cook in the over for 15-20 minutes or until brown on top
Leave the cupcakes to stand for 20 minutes
Melt the chocolate and then use this and the marshmallows to go crazy decorating your spooky cupcakes
- To create the spiderweb pattern, I covered the cake in white chocolate & then used a knife dipped in brown chocolate to draw on a spiderweb shape
- To create the cats, I covered the cake in brown chocolate & then cut the marshmallows into rectangles for the eyes and triangles for the nose and ears. I then drew on the mouth using a knife dipped in white chocolate.
Enjoy your spooky cupcakes!

As you can see from the above picture, my friends and I had a major pumpkin carving session today which was so much fun and also meant that we had a lot of pumpkin innards to spare. I of course took this opportunity to create more pumpkin recipes, so later this week I’ll be sharing the recipe for the JGV Halloween Pumpkin Smoothie which very excitingly is going to be shared on the Exeter University Veggie Society Blog!

Superfood salad recipe

October 23, 2014Jade Green VeganLeave a comment

I am all about super foods recently so following on from my favourite superfood pizza recipe, I decided to create a superfood salad recipe to share with you all. I’ve combined some of my favourite super foods (spinach, red peppers, avocado, garlic & kale) to create the ultimate delicious and nutritious salad.

What’s so great about this recipe is that you can make as much or as little of it as you like, depending on whether you’re making it for lunch or dinner, so I haven’t included any measurements in the recipe. I hope you love it!

Ingredients

Mushrooms
Broccoli
Red pepper
Onion
Garlic
Garlic olive oil
Kale
Spinach
Avacado
Sea salt
Ground black pepper
Paprika
Lettuce
Beetroot
Mixed seeds

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Chop the mushrooms, broccoli, red pepper, onion, and garlic into slices
Place chopped veg in a baking tray, season with salt and pepper, drizzle in garlic olive oil, and then roast in the oven for 20 minutes stirring at 5 minute intervals
Whilst the veg is roasting in the oven, prepare the salad:
- Chop lettuce and beetroot into slices
- Mash avacado and sprinkle with pepper and paprika
Remove roasted veg tray from the oven and mix in the spinach and kale
Roast in the oven for a further 2 minutes
Serve the roasted veg on the bed of salad and sprinkle mixed seeds on top
Enjoy!

Superfood Pizza Recipe

October 21, 2014Jade Green Vegan9 Comments

Last week, some of my healthy instagrammer uni friends who are trying out veganism invited me to a vegan pizza making party – sounds like my kinda thing! We had so much fun creating our own healthy pizzas and they tasted insanely good. We used wholewheat tortilla wraps as the pizza bases which is an ingenious idea as it puts such a healthy-twist on a traditionally unhealthy meal!

Since the party, I have done nothing but dream about my next tortilla base pizza. Seriously. So yesterday, I went out and bought lots of tortilla bases and played around with ingredients to create the ultimate Superfood Pizza recipe which I am so excited to be able to share with you all. Not only is this pizza incredibly yummy, it is also jam-packed with a ton of superfoods making it the perfect healthy dinner. If that’s not enough for you, it only takes 5 minutes to cook! How great is that?! I hope you all love it as much as I do; I’d love to hear from you if you made it so definitely comment on this post or drop me an email!

superfood pizza

INGREDIENTS

1 wholewheat seeded tortilla wrap
2 table spoons garlic olive oil
3 table spoons pasata
1 table spoon sundried tomato paste
1/4 red onion
1/4 red pepper
2 mushrooms
1 handful spinach leaves
1 handful kale
1 table spoon mixed seeds
Handful Daiya/ Vegusto/ other vegan cheese alternative (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Chop red onion and red pepper into thin slices and then place on a baking tray and drizzle 1 table spoon of garlic oil on top
Roast in a preheated oven at 250 degreed for 25 minutes
Place tortilla wrap on a baking tray covered in baking paper
Spread 1 table spoon of garlic oil evenly over base
Mix pasata and sundried tomato paste together and then cover evenly over base
Place roasted vegetables and mushrooms on top
Grate vegan cheese and sprinkle on top (optional)
Place in a preheated to 180 degrees oven for 4 minutes
Remove and add kale
Place back in the oven for 1 minute
Remove and add spinach and sprinkle mixed seeds over the top
ENJOY!!

Banana Cinnamon milkshake recipe

October 15, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

The lovely Valentina from myveganvalentine.wordpress.com has nominated me to take part in the Hydrate & Donate challenge where you drink a vegan beverage and then donate to an animal charity of your choice. As I haven’t posted a recipe for a while, I thought why not take part and also create a yummy new recipe for the blog!?

I initially tried to video myself doing this challenge but turns out my video making skills leave a lot to be desired, so instead here’s a picture of me aptly wearing my The Tree Kisser ‘Adopt’ top with my Banana Cinnamon milkshake pre-challege and a print screen of my text donation to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. I chose to donate to Battersea because as you all know I absolutely love dogs and Battersea are an amazing charity who care for around 9,000 dogs and cats each year. If you’d like to donate to Battersea too, simply text DOGS to 70800. By the way, don’t be alarmed by the bare brick walls in the picture below, I’m not writing to you from prison, just from my extremely glamorous uni halls ▷►▹▸

Hydrate and donate challenge battersea

Now, onto the recipe… I have been having major milkshake cravings recently, so I decided to create a healthier (and yummier) twist on the traditional banana milkshake. Cravings Satisfied. This milkshake has become my new favourite and it is so quick and easy to make so I am really excited to share the recipe with you all ▷►▹▸

JGV BANANA CINNAMON MILKSHAKE

Ingredients

2 cups rice milk (/ any other non-dairy alternative)

1/2 tea spoon cinnamon

2 table spoons maple syrup

4 cubes ice

3 bananas

Mixology

Slice bananas

Add all ingredients into a blender

Blend until consistency is smooth

ENJOY!

Let me know if you make this yummy smoothie, I hope you love it as much as I do ♥

Skinny chips and salad

October 2, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

Now that I’m back at university, I’m enjoying having a lot more time to cook and experiment with recipes. One of my favourite dinners that has become a staple over the past couple of weeks is Skinny chips and salad as it is so quick and easy to cook, as well as being super yummy!

I love the homemade chips from this meal as not only are they skinny in appearance but also in that they have way less fat that regular chips. As I’ve been eating this meal a lot recently, I decided to mix things up and add some carrot ‘chips’ into the mix… they were a little unusual but definitely a great addition to the meal.

I wanted to share this recipe with you all and hope you love it as much as I do!

Ingredients (serves 2)

4 potatoes

1 carrot

1 squeeze of lemon

Sea salt

Ground black pepper

Paprika

1 avocado

Choice of salad (my favourites are onions, mushrooms, lettuce & beetroot)

Olive oil cooking spray (I use Fry light)

Instructions

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Preheat the oven to 250 degrees
Peel the potatoes and carrot and then cut them into long thin slices
Cover a baking tray in grease proof paper and place the sliced potatoes and carrots on it ensuring they don’t overlap so that they are all able to cook properly
Cover with approximately 6 sprays of olive oil cooking spray, then sprinkle paprika, salt and pepper on top
Cook in the oven for 15 minutes
Remove from the oven and turn each chip over (this is the most tedious part of cooking this meal – sorry guys; the yumminess is so worth it though!)
Put back into the oven and cook for a further 15 minutes
Whilst the chips are cooking, mash 1 avocado & squeeze a little lemon on top along with some group black pepper and paprika
Remove the chips from the oven and serve with the mashed avocado and salad of your choice
ENJOY! (Or if you’re anything like me, take a couple of pictures first ;))

If you do make this meal I’d love to hear from you/ see a picture so please do get in touch.

Have a lovely day,

Jade xo

Vegan in Vegas Baby!

September 22, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

Part two of our trip around North American was in LAS VEGAS!!!! We had so much fun & crammed a crazy amount into our 4 days there; from pool parties, to burlesque shows, to a helicopter ride, to gambling (and losing) a ton of money, to of course, eating lots of yummy vegan food! It was an amazing 4 days and now I can’t wait to go back. Here are some of the food and other highlights of our trip ♥

Helicopter Ride over the Grand Canyon (coolest thing ever!)

We had some big wins on the slots 😉

Veggie noodles whilst chilling by the pool

Night at Hakkassan

Slice of Vegas

The food highlight of our time in Vegas was checking out an awesome vegan-friendly restaurant: Slice of Vegas. They have an extensive vegan menu, with too much to try in one sitting, so of course we went their twice in our 4 day visit!

For appetisers, we had the ‘Not Your Mama’s Garlic Bread’ as well as the ‘House Shoestring Fries’. Both were great choices & so filling!

For main course they have a varied vegan menu, including but not limited to, lots of Daiya Mozzarella pizzas. We seriously need to find a way to get Daiya cheese to the UK as it’s just insanely good. There must be a petition or something? If not, I’m starting one. Anyway…

Enough of my rambling, back to the Pizza. We decided share a half and half; Matt had the meatless meatballs (that’s a whole lot of alliteration there!) and I had mushroom and onion. Both were a-m-a-zing.

Finally, for desert we had the best, and i mean BEST dessert I’ve eaten in my entire life: these yummy zeppolis! I am so excited to try to recreate these now I’m home, as I have been majorly craving them since we left Vegas.

In summary, Slice of Vegas rocked my world. If you’re in Vegas, you have to go check it out, you won’t regret it!

Cruelty-free in NYC

September 11, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

In the past month, Matt & I have both turned 21 and to celebrate we decided to go on a 2 week trip around North America! First stop was New York City, and to say I was excited to try out the vegan food scene in one of the vegan food capitals of the world would be an understatement!

The trip got off to a great start with this yummy vegan plane food courtesy of Virgin Atlantic. I get way too excited about plane food, and this vegan curry and potato salad did not disappoint!

Moving on from my weird plane food fetish, let’s get down to all of the amazing food we ate in NYC. On our first morning we found an awesome bagel shop right around the corner from our hotel. They had a varierty of delicious tofu cream cheeses that were so good that we found ourselves there every morning of our entire trip!!

Turns out tofu cream cheese bagels also make the perfect picnic snack in Central Park alongside a fresh fruit smoothie from a street vendor.

As well as eating a lot of bagels, we also visited some cool vegan/ vegan-friendly restaurants. Candle 79 – an entirely vegan restaurant – was my absolute favourite, so much so that we went their twice in our short visit. The servers were so friendly and helpful, the atmosphere was chilled and elegant, and the food was insanely good! We ordered way too many dishes both times we visited, but somehow managed to eat it all! Below are pictures of our favourite dishes…

Angel’s Nachos

Grilled Portobello Steak

Seitan Piccata

Black bean-pumpkin seed burger (my favourite meal of the trip!)

Another great restaurant that we visited with a varied vegan menu was Pala Pizza.

We both ordered the Funghi E Salsiccia Pizza and it was definitely a great choice (sorry for the poor quality photo – it was really dark in there!!) The veggie sausage had such a great flavour, and Matt & I fell in love with daiya cheese. I really wish we could get it in the UK as it is the best cheese alternative I’ve tried.

Despite being full, when we saw the table next to us eating this delicious chocolate cake we decided we could make a little more room for it. And boy am I glad we did, as it was one of the nicest vegan deserts I’ve ever had.

On the last night we found an awesome juice place, Juice Generation, on the way to Times Square. Their mango juice made a perfectly refreshing snack on a warm NYC evening.

They also had a great selection of vegan muffins; my personal fave was the pineapple + coco one. I wish we’d found this place sooner as I’m sure we would have been back to sample the rest of the gluten free, vegan bakery.

We had an amazing 4 and a half days in NYC, and the vegan food scene definitely lived up to my expectations. Until next time NYC xo

P.S. A BIG thanks to Matt for all of the arty photos for this post ♥, the rest of the sub par phone photos are courtesy of me – sorry guys!

Vegan Afternoon Tea Recipe

August 26, 2014Jade Green Vegan6 Comments

For as long as I can remember I have been in love with afternoon tea. I have been having major cravings for it lately, so this bank holiday weekend I decided to make the most of my time off and made my first vegan afternoon tea – it did not disappoint! Aside from looking forward to all of the yummy food, I was also super excited to use the beautiful afternoon tea set that my boyfriend bought me for my 20th Birthday!

How cute is that ?! ▽▼▽▼▽

For me, afternoon tea is all about the sandwiches, which is strange as under other circumstances I’m not usually a sandwich fan. There’s just something about the tiny, bite size, variety of flavours in afternoon tea that makes the sandwiches so much better than usual! …Or maybe I’m just weird. Either way, these sandwiches were amazing so I’m beyond excited to share the recipe with you! The rest of it was pretty awesome too, so here it is…

Sandwiches

I made 3 different types of sandwiches on a mixture of white and whole grain bread and used Pure dairy free spread!

1. Guacamole and pine nut

I love guacamole so I was super excited to make this sandwich. Peel & mash one avocado, then mix in one clove of crushed garlic and squeeze a little lemon in the mix. Stir together and season with sea salt and ground black pepper before serving with a sprinkle of pine nuts.

2. Roasted veg and hummus

For my roasted veg sandwich I used: mushrooms, red onions, garlic & carrot, but what’s great about this is that you can just use whatever spare veg you have lying around in your fridge. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees, then drizzle the veg in garlic oil, season with sea salt and ground black pepper and cook in the oven for 30 minutes. The veg is then ready to be served with hummus. Side note: this was my first attempt at recreating an awesome sandwich that I had on my trip to Amsterdam and it was just as delicious as I remembered.

3. Pepper and sea salt seasoned salad

The final sandwich is super simple but so yummy; even my salad fearing boyfriend loved it! It includes: a slice of cucumber, a slice of tomato, a few pieces of sliced red onion (lots of slicing going on here guys!), a piece of iceberg lettuce and a thin slither of beetroot, all seasoned with sea salt and ground black pepper.

I am feeling majorly hungry after writing that up! On to the sweet bits before I run downstairs and whack out the afternoon tea set!

Scones

In lieu of scones, I made my delicious oatmeal raisin cookies but shaped them into balls before cooking, giving them a softer, more gooey centre – yum! You can check out the recipe for these bad boys here. Alternatively, I’m sure there are some great vegan scone recipes out there, I was just too lazy to look; and plus these cookies are so good, I grab any opportunity to make them!

Cakes

For the cakes, I made the awesome Chocolate Covered Katie’s chocolate brownies. They didn’t turn out quite as I’d hoped… maybe because I cooked them in a yorkshire pudding tray (I’m a goddess in the kitchen, in case you haven’t already picked up on that) but I rolled with it, quite literally… I rolled the gooey brownies into little cake balls! Despite their questionable appearance, they were delicious and the perfect end to my favourite meal!

Tea

Last but not least, for the tea we had hot lemon water. I’ve spoken before in my summer favourites post about how amazing this is for you; it’s also really easy to make! Just put a couple of slices of lemon in the bottom of the tea pot, fill with boiling water, and then squeeze the remainder of the lemon into the tea pot.

hot lemon afternoon tea

I hope you enjoyed reading about my afternoon tea almost as much as I enjoyed eating it, which would be a lot! I would definitely recommend making this whenever you have a spare afternoon as it rocks! Aside from stuffing my face with sandwiches this weekend, I also went on a lovely long walk with my dogs in our local fields. Here they all are soaking up the sun!

I hope everyone else had a beautiful bank holiday weekend ♥♡