Recipes for Veganuary

Are you doing Veganuary this year? There are so many great places on Euan’s Guide offering vegan food!

There are quite a few accessible vegan places reviewed on Euan’s Guide.  DJARMBE visited Seeds for the Soul in Edinburgh with its “guaranteed 100% vegan” menu. TinaHodgkinson recently visited London vegan café WAVE for a light bite and a coffee. HappyChappy rated the award-winning “quirky” Mono Café Bar in Glasgow, offering good wholesome comfort food, beer and even gigs! The Cosy Club in Cardiff is a popular spot for Euan’s Guide reviewers with its vegan specific menu and relaxed atmosphere.

Veganuary has also been a hot topic in the Euan’s Guide (virtual) office this month and the team and some of our volunteers wanted to share some of the vegan recipes we all love to get your tastebuds tingling!

Kieran’s Lentil Dhal topped with Crispy Sweet Potato

A Winter warmer could be soup or a stew, but for me it’s a hearty curry. A lentil dhal no less, with a generous serving of baked sweet potato on top. It’s an alternative to the usual curry and rice with naan bread on the side – this is a different type of carb loading. Grab some chapatti and lightly dunk the sweet potato on top of the curry for a mouthful of different flavours.

Here’s what you need for the curry. A handful of different spices: cumin seeds, coriander seeds, ground turmeric and ground cinnamon. Top tip! Never measure your spices – authentic Indian cooking means being spontaneous and roughly estimating what you’re putting in.

The necessities: two garlic cloves, a thumb-size piece of fresh ginger, a green chilli and a single red onion.

Bulk it out: use 200g of red lentils and give the dish two large handfuls of spinach.

The sauce: all you’ll need is 400ml each of vegetable stock and light coconut milk.

To top it off: a bunch of fresh coriander and the juice of one lemon.

And for the sweet potatoes, it’s very simple. Dice two medium sized sweet potatoes and season them with salt and pepper, cumin and fennel seeds and a drizzle of olive oil to get them nice and crispy. I use an air fryer for 20 minutes, but alternatively you can use a conventional oven for double the time.

Read more about the recipe here (the coconut chutney is optional).

Antonia’s Vegan Baby / Toddler Biscuits

My son has various allergies including milk and egg so we’re always on the lookout for vegan recipes that he will enjoy. Vegan ‘sausage’ rolls are currently a favourite as are pizza rolls where you can ‘hide’ vegetables in the tomato sauce!

We got recommended the following recipe for homemade biscuit snacks – high protein and high calories which is just what he needs right now. Depending what ingredients we have in the cupboard we tend to freestyle a bit with ground nuts, chia seeds, cinnamon, dried apricots and dates making regular appearances. They’re great for little hands to hold and he really enjoys eating them himself. 

We always use a medium sized sweet potato, a ripe banana, handful of oats and any freestyling ingredients you want to include!

Peel, chop and boil your sweet potato and then mash it in your mixing bowl.

Peel your banana and add it to the sweet potato and continue mashing.

Add some oats to bulk up the mixture.

Add your ‘pick n mix’ aka anything else interesting you might have lurking in the cupboard.

Give everything a really good mix and then split it into ‘sausage’ shaped cookies on a baking tray so they are easy for little hands to hold.

Bake for about 20 mins on a 180 heat. You’ll know when they’re done as they keep their shape but are still chewy and soft for little gums.

I don’t think we’ve ever made two batches exactly the same so experiment with flavours and have fun!

Euan’s Sweet Potato Chilli 

Euan recently made this, so it’s definitely worth a try!

Bake two sweet potatoes in the oven 40 minutes, seasoned with paprika, cumin and cinnamon along with a good drizzle of olive oil.

Dice 1 onion, a couple of garlic cloves, a red or green chilli and two roughly chopped colourful peppers and season all the vegetables with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and cumin. Frequently stir the pan to almost caramelise the veggies. At this point, add in some coriander stalks.

Add a couple of tins of red kidney beans and plum tomatoes, topping up the tins of tomatoes with water.

Simmer it all for 25-30 minutes.

Once the sweet potatoes are nice and crispy, remove them from the oven and stir the potatoes into the chilli.

Finish off the chilli with some coriander leaves and serve it on top of some brown rice. Feel free to add a dollop of homemade guacamole too!

You can also watch how it’s made!

Zoe’s Spanish Omelette

This very simple yet satisfying dish was suggested by Zoe, our Volunteer Coordinator.

Take two potatoes and one onion, slice them and then stick them in a pan with seasoning. Meanwhile, mix 4 tablespoons of chickpea flour with a pint of water and stir until it’s a thick liquid. Once the onions and potatoes are cooked a little, add the mixture and cook the omelette until brown. Flip it over and you have a perfect vegan Spanish omelette.

Read more about the recipe here.

Sarah and Karine’s vegan chocolate banana bread

And what about dessert? Our Ambassadors Sarah and Karine know all about vegan recipes! For this scrumptious banana bread, make sure you have your cup measurements ready.

You’ll need 1 and a quarter cup of plain flour, half a cup of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda, vanilla extract and apple cider vinegar, half a teaspoon of baking powder and some salt, a cup of caster sugar, a third of a cup of coconut oil, two very ripe bananas and 3/8 cup of water.

Make sure your oven is pre-heated to 180 and line a loaf tin with parchment paper so it overhangs on both sides. 

Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Meanwhile, place the banana in another bowl and mash before added melted coconut oil, vanilla extract, apple cider vinegar and water – stir well. Pour all the wet ingredients over the dry mixture and stir well until it turns into a batter. Pour this into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before slicing it and tucking in. 

Have you got any Veganuary recipes to share with us? Or are there any accessible eateries you might want to tell us about? Leave a review on Euan’s Guide.

Tags: food, vegan, Veganuary