Vegan Lentil & Vegetable Pie

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] With the temperature dropping so radically here in the last few days (farewell Summer! We will miss you!) I thought today would be a good day for a nice Wintery Vegetable Pie. I cheated a little by using puff pastry from the freezer instead of making it from scratch but I wanted to take photos of the pie before I lost the light. You could make your own pastry if you wanted though! As for the pie mixture, I personally like my veggies nice and firm but if you want them more mushy and pie-ish you might want to cook the pie for an hour or so, instead of my 45 minutes.

Vegan Lentil & Vegetable Pie

Ingredients:

2 1/2 sheets puff pastry
2 tbs non dairy butter
2 tbs plain flour
2.5 cups water
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 leek, finely chopped
3 potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1.5 cubes
2 cups button mushrooms, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 head of brocolli, chopped into small florets
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 can lentils
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
1/2 tbs dried marjoram
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Bring a medium saucepan filled with water to the boil. Add the potatoes and boil them for 1o minutes, drain the water from the saucepan and put the potatoes aside. NOTE: They do not need to be totally cooked through at this point.

2. Melt the butter in a large frypan on medium heat. Add the leek and cook for 2 minutes, or until leek is softened and partly translucent, add the flour and stir well so that the flour and butter form a thick sauce. Cook for 2 minutes and then add the water and stock cubes. At this stage the mixture will start to look like a gravy.

3. Add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Add the brocolli, carrots, zucchini and frozen peas, cook for a further 2 minutes. Make sure the vegetables are coated and remove from the heat.

4. In a large mixing bowl mix the vegetable mixture and the potatoes together. Add the lentils, basil and marjoram and mix thoroughly, add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Line your pie tin with puff pastry (I needed 1 1/2 sheets to do this but you may only need one depending on the depth of your tin, fill with your mixture, top with the other puff pastry sheet. Poke some holes in the top, decorate with any left over pieces of pastry and put in the oven for 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

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Raw Vegan Apple Pie

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]Today is day two of our Sepia inspired raw food week here at Vegan Chickie. Today’s recipe is a raw vegan apple pie. This recipe is one of Ani Phyo‘s creations and looks amazing. For those of you who are interested in the specifics behind a raw food, or raw vegan diet, I have included some links at the end of this post to give you some more information about all things raw.

Raw Vegan Apple Pie

Ingredients:

Almond Pie Crust:
2 cups almonds, dry
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups pitted dates

Syrup:
1/2 cup pitted dates
1 orange, peeled and seeded
water, as needed

Filling:
5 cups apples, peeled, seeded, thinly sliced, about 5-6 apples
1 cup raisins
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Method:

1. To make crust, pulse almonds and salt in food processor until nuts are in small pieces. You want your crust to have chunks of almonds in it, so don’t over process. Use some of the finer powder to “flour” the bottom of your pie dish.

2. Slowly add dates into processor in small batches to mix with almond bits. The dates will bind the almonds to form a dough. Press dough into the bottom of “floured” pie pan. Set aside (and try not to eat all your crust while you’re preparing everything else!).

3. To make syrup, place orange into your blender first. Then add dates and blend. If needed, add small amounts of water to help everything mix well (I haven’t “needed” this, but like to add the water to make more volume of the syrup). Set aside.

4. To make filling, place sliced apples in a large bowl with raisins. Toss with cinnamon and syrup. Spoon filling into pie crust, and it’s ready to serve!

This dish will keep for two days in the fridge (Sepia says: I’ve kept it longer, but I have low standards).

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For more information on a Raw Food diet, visit the following links:

HOW TO: Raw Food Diet – Eat Yourself Healthy

Nov55: Raw Food Diet

About.com: Raw Food Overview

Raw Food Recipe Database

Gone Raw – A great collection of recipes

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Moroccan Vegetable Pie

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”] Looking for something delicious to do with your leftover Moroccan Vegetable Stew? Puff pastry is my favourite way to dress up boring leftovers. I always have vegan puff pastry in the freezer ready to go and I’ll give anything a whirl. As far as I’m concerned, EVERYTHING tastes better in puff pastry! In this case I took 1 1/2 cups of leftover Moroccan Vegetable Stew, topped it with a handful of roughly chopped walnuts, a handful of raisins, wrapped it up, brushed it with some non dairy milk and put it in the oven at 180 degrees for 40 minutes. The sweet fruit with the spicy stew and the crunchy nuts was a perfect match!

Vegan Chocolate Tart

[tweetmeme source="VeganChickie"]This tart was so easy to make that I kind of feel like it was cheating to call it home made. We served it with chocolate soy ice cream, but if that is too much chocolate for you (no such thing!) then it would be great with a vanilla ice cream or coconut cream whipped cream instead.

NOTE: Your chocolate mixture may differ than the pictures below, don’t panic! I used firm tofu for this recipe but you can use silken with no issues, I prefer the firm but silken is also delicious and has a much more smooth moussey type consistency).

Vegan Chocolate Pie

Ingredients:
3 packets of oreos
1/2 cup non dairy butter (melted)
500 g firm tofu
500 g non dairy choc chips
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or 2 teaspoons extract)

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Blend the Oreos until they are just crumbs (you can do this with or without the Oreo filling, I did it with, if you are removing the filling you might want to add more butter). Combine crumbs with melted butter and line a pie tin with the crumbs to form a pie crust. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes and then remove and allow to cool completely.

2. Blend your tofu and vanilla until creamy.

3. In a medium pan, on low heat, melt your chocolate chips. Add the melted chocolate to the tofu mixture and blend until smooth. Pour the mixture into the (cool) pie crust, spread evenly and put it in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours before serving.

It’s so good, but very rich! I sprinkled the top with crushed fruit tingles, but that was just to make it pretty, and didn’t actually have a function!

Enjoy!

Vegan Shepherd’s Pie

[tweetmeme source=”VeganChickie”]This recipe was such a pleasant surprise.. I always feel a mix of anxiousness and excitement when we try a new recipe, never quite sure how it will turn out and hoping so much that it turns into another favourite dish. Tonight we tried something new from the Vegan Planet cookbook and it was so good that it has shot to the top of my favourites list. We modified the recipe a little because we didn’t have all the ingredients but I will explain that as I go along.

Ultimate Shepherd’s Pie
(Vegan Planet)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped (we – as always – used leek instead)
1 carrot, chopped
2 cups button mushrooms, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons tamari or other soy sauce
1 cup basic vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
3 frozen veggie burgers, thawed chopped or crumbled (here, we used 1 can chick peas, 1 can kidney beans, 1/4 cup urid dahl lentils)
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1/3 cup ground walnuts
1/4 teaspoon sweet hungarian paprika
3 cups mashed potatoes (mashed with Nuttelex)

Method:

Prehead the oven to 180°C. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan, add the onion leek and carrot, cover, and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.

Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, tamari, stock, thyme, marjoram, salt and pepper. If you are using beans instead of vegie burgers, add them now. Stir in the cornstartch mixture to thicken slightly.

Spoon the mixture into a lightly oiled baking dish. Stir in the peas and walnuts (and vegie burgers if you are using them instead of the beans).

Spread the mashed potatoes over the top.

Sprinkle with the paprika and drizzle with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Bake until the potatoes are hot and bubbly and the top is golden brown – about 30 minutes. Serve Hot.

This is such a great comfort dish, it is so warming and hearty. Perfect for winter time and so delicious, I am really happy with this one!