German Pea, Carrot and Sausage Stew

This is an easy vegan Eintopf (one-pot, the German word for stew). It's simple but tasty and satisfying. Highly recommended for chilly days with some toast on the side to soak up the juices.

German Pea, Carrot and Sausage Stew

Serves 2
Adapted lightly from this recipe, in German

Ingredients

120 ml whole dried peas
1 onion
2 carrots
2 potatoes
500 ml vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
salt, pepper and cider vinegar
a few vegan sausages (optional)

Method

1. Soak the peas overnight. Cook until done (how long this takes will vary with the dryness of your peas). Drain and set aside.

2. Dice the onion, carrots and potato. Heat oil in a pan and fry the onion and carrots over medium heat until the onion is soft.

3. Add the potatoes, stock and bay leaf. Bring to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are done, about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and season with salt, pepper and a glug of vinegar.

4. Chop up the sausages, add them to the pot, and cook for a few minutes to warm.

The Best Panzanella

This panzanella recipe came about a few summers ago, when I tried five or six different versions. None of them were quite right. So I combined the best parts of all of them... Ripe tomatoes, slices of crunchy cucumber, smoky roasted capsicum, salty capers, and chunks of good bread with a dressing of vinegar, olive oil and tomato juice. It's a great way to get your veggies - fresh, flavourful and delicious. We don't really eat anything special for Easter, apart from chocolate, but this would make a good addition to an Easter meal.

The Best Panzanella

Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side

Ingredients

6 large ripe tomatoes
2 large capsicums (or some roasted capsicum in a jar)
1 cucumber
200 ml olives
3 tbsp capers
a bunch of basil
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1 loaf stale good-quality white bread (ca. 250 g)

Method

1. Put the tomatoes in a bowl. Cover with boiling water. Let sit for a few minutes, until the skins have loosened. Drain, peel, and core the tomatoes. Cut each tomato into quarters and squeeze the seeds and juice into a bowl. Put the seeds aside.

2. Roast the capsicums at high heat in the oven until blackened. Put in a bowl with a lid. Peel the cucumber. Quarter it and remove the seeds. Cut into slices. Peel the capsicums, remove the seeds, and tear into long strips.

3. Rinse the olives and capers. Slice the basil and mince the garlic. Mix the tomato seeds with the garlic, capers, olive oil, vinegar and salt. Cut the bread into chunks and combine with the rest of the ingredients. Let rest for at least half an hour.

Do you eat anything special for Easter?

Churro French Toast

This churro french toast is an easy way to get the taste of churros without making them by scratch. So if you want something greasy and sugary for breakfast, make this! If you have cinnamon sugar left over afterwards, you can pop it in a jar and then sprinkle it on buttered toast later. If you don't want to use as much oil, you can definitely use less, they just won't have quite the same deep fried flavour.

Churro French Toast

Inspired by this recipe
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 small loaf white bread
3 tbsp cinnamon
6 tbsp sugar
vegetable oil
350 ml soy milk
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Remove the crusts from the bread and cut into thick fingers. Mix the 3 tbsp cinnamon and 6 tbsp sugar together on a plate.

2. Heat 120 ml of oil in a pan over medium heat. Combine the soy milk, flour, nutritional yeast, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl.

3. Dip a few of the fingers in the soy milk mixture using tongs or chopsticks. Add them to the pan and fry until browned on all sides, then drain on paper towels and roll in cinnamon sugar. Repeat for the remaining fingers in batches. Enjoy with fruit, chocolate or caramel sauce, cream, or whatever else takes your fancy.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

These crunchy onion rings make a great accompaniment to burgers, for example my New Zealand Beer Battered 'Fish' Burgers. The batter for the tofu and onions is the same, so you can fry your tofu and then use up the rest of the batter on the onions. If you don't want to make burgers, you can probably get away with half a recipe of batter. I find it handy to dip the onions in the batter using chopsticks.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

Ingredients

120 ml vegetable oil
250 ml flour
250 ml beer
1 tsp salt
a dash of pepper
several onions - as many as you want rings

Method

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a pan. Mix flour, beer, salt and pepper until smooth.

2. Peel the onions. Chop width-wise into rings, and separate the rings. I like to leave the middles whole and use those too - like doughnut holes.

3. Check if the oil is hot. Heat it for a few minutes more if it's not. Dip several rings in the batter, shake to remove excess batter, and add to the hot oil. Cook until brown on both sides, then drain on paper towels and salt. Fry remaining rings. Nom.