Vegan Kimchi Cheese Chips

Vegan Kimchi Cheese Chips

Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients

1 recipe of cheddar cheese sauce from Teri Gentes
750 g frozen chips
300 ml kimchi

Method 

1. Make the cheddar cheese sauce. Cook the chips according to packet directions.

2. Drain the kimchi. Chop into 1 cm pieces. Fry in an oiled pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

3. Top the chips with the cheddar sauce and kimchi.

Easy Vegan Recipes: Oat Cookies, Fried Capsicums with Tomato Sauce, and Stewed Leeks, Carrots and Kidney Beans

This week I'm focussing on easy vegan recipes. First we have something sweet, and then two recipes for quick lunches or dinners.

Looking for something to snack on? The recipe for these great oat cookies originally comes from Food Not Bombs and is available through the Vegan Cuisine Cookbook on Wikibooks. This is the simplest cookie recipe I've ever made, but the results are delicious. I don't like my cookies very sweet, so I halved the sugar.

This Turkish side of fried capsicums with tomato sauce from Twins in Kitchen is extremely easy. It's done in 15 minutes and goes well with any Mediterranean dinner. I also like to eat at as a quick snack with some bread.

Last but not least, we have this dish of stewed leeks, carrots and kidney beans in tahini sauce. It makes a good pairing for the capsicums, but can also stand alone. It's simple to prepare but complexly flavoured and delicious.

What are your favourite quick and easy vegan recipes? What do you make when you feel uninspired but want something good to eat?

BBQ Mushroom Burgers

These mushroom burgers are simple but delicious. The pearl barley gives them bite, while the soy sauce and pepper bring out the flavour of the mushrooms. They also satisfy fast-food cravings - the BBQ sauce and mushroom play together well, and you can add some vegan bacon if you want.

BBQ Mushroom Burgers

Makes 8 7cm wide patties

Ingredients

burger patties
70 ml pearl barley
250 g mushrooms (900 ml chopped)
1 potato
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
salt and pepper

to serve
BBQ sauce
burger buns
arugula/rocket
tomato
radishes

Method 

1. Bring barley to a boil with plenty of water and cook until tender. Peel, chop and boil the potato until soft, about 15 minutes. Mash it.

2. Finely chop the onion and mushrooms and mince the garlic. Heat an oiled pan over medium heat. Fry the onion until glassy. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add the mushrooms and fry until done.

3. Combine all patty ingredients and mix well. Form into patties. Fry in an oiled pan over medium heat for a few minutes until browned on both sides, flipping once.

4. Wash the arugula. Slice the tomatoes and radishes. Chop the burger buns in half and toast both halves in a pan until lightly browned. Top with patties, vegetables and BBQ sauce.

Buffalo Chickpea Pita Pizzas

I've been looking forwards to making this recipe for buffalo chickpea soft tacos for a long time, but I don't have easy access to tacos at the moment. And so, buffalo chickpea pita pizzas were born.

Buffalo Chickpea Pita Pizzas

Closely based on this recipe
Serves 6, as a snack

Ingredients

1 onion
1 green capsicum
2 cloves garlic
2 cans chickpeas (ca. 750 ml drained)
60 ml sriracha
250 ml vegetable broth
1 bunch spring onions
3 pita breads
1 avocado
a lemon (optional)
vegan sour cream (optional)

Method

1. Chop the onion and capsicum and mince the garlic. Fry the onion in oil until softened. Add garlic and capsicum and fry for a minute. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Add the chickpeas, sriracha and broth to the pan and bring to a boil. Boil until the sauce is reduced into a thick coating for the chickpeas. Chop the spring onions and stir them into the chickpeas. Add salt to taste.

2. Cut pita breads in half and top with chickpeas and avocado. Bake at 180 C for five minutes. Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice and a dollop of vegan sour cream, if you have any.

Lindsay's Bean Salad

It was always a treat for us kids to go on holiday to our grandparents'. One of the reasons was that my grandmother was a wonderful cook. She and my grandfather had a big garden in which they grew most of their vegetables, and she put them to great use. One of her dishes that I remember particularly well is this very simple but delicious bean salad. It goes perfectly with quiche.

Lindsay's Bean Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 400 g cans mixed beans or kidney beans (ca. 750 ml)

400 g green beans (ca. 1 litre)

1/2 onion

4 tbsp vinegar

4 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

Method

1. Top and tail the green beans. Steam them until tender, drain, and rinse with cold water. Drain and rinse the canned beans. Slice the onion finely.

2. Mix the beans and onion with all the remaining ingredients. Leave to marinate for at least half an hour.

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.

Delicious Kimchi Recipes: Part 1

So you made some vegan kimchi last week. Now what should you use it for? Well, you could eat it straight, or you could make one of these great recipes. Kimchi-based recipes taste complex, but are usually quick and easy. So if you find yourself wanting to get dinner on the table fast, it helps if you have some kimchi in the fridge.

Firstly, if you haven't had kimchi before, this kimchi fried rice (with the bacon and egg omitted) is a great introduction. It's tasty and comes together very fast if you have leftover rice.

Or, if you're in more of a mac and cheese mood, you could cook up a creamy pan of kimchi mac & shews, by replacing the sauerkraut with kimchi. Add some more chili flakes if you want this to have a kick - the kimchi doesn't make it very spicy. Warning: this recipe, although wonderful, does take some time to make.

If you're feeling the cold and want a bowl of spicy stew, this kimchi jjigae along with some rice might hit the spot. It's my favourite winter meal, and, best of all, it comes together in less than half an hour, since we don't have to cook the meat. You'll end up with more than you see in my picture - this is the pot minus one serving, and I was a bit short on kimchi.

Looking for more Korean recipes?

Jjajangmyun (Korean-Chinese Black Bean Noodles)

Easy Vegan Kimchi (Mak Kimchi)