Vegetable Bean Burritos

Ingredients
300g blackeye beans
170g tub of salsa
100g tinned sweetcorn
1 green pepper
1/2 tsp chilli
4 tortillas

Method

• Mash up the beans with a fork
• Dice the pepper
• Mix the mashed beans, salsa, sweetcorn, pepper and chilli together in a pan
• Heat the mixture for 5-10mins, until it’s really hot
• In the meantime, warm the tortilla in the oven or in a big shallow pan
• Spoon a quarter of the beany stuff into the centre of each tortilla and wrap it up

These were surprisingly sweet and spicy! And very filling too, although that might have been just because the tortillas we used were pretty big. I’ll be trying this recipe again with smaller wholewheat tortillas and a spicier kind of salsa – but if this meal becomes a regular lunch in our house, I’ll need to learn how to make my own salsa otherwise it’ll bankrupt us!

Grilled Mushrooms & Cajun Fries

(The meal kind of ended up looking like a face, with mushrooms for eyes – thankfully we were able to cover those accusing fung-eyes with the other halves of the bread rolls before eating them!)

After reading about grilled portobello mushrooms in the Vegetables section of Veganomicon, I decided to give them a try. I love grilled mushrooms on pizza, but I’ve always shied away from cooking mushrooms myself because of the various warnings I’ve heard about not washing them before cooking. I’m still a little nervous about whether wiping them off gets the mushrooms really clean or not, but I guess they must have been okay since neither Alex nor I got food poisoning!

Anyway, the mushrooms tasted great, but I think I prefer them small and sliced rather than huge and whole. We served them with Cajun Fries from Vegan with a Vengeance, which were lovely – I bought paprika and cayenne especially for that recipe, so I’m really glad we liked the spices!

Patatas Bravas

This tangy potato dish is based on the Patatas Bravas on Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. I simplified the recipe a bit, since I didn’t have all the ingredients in stock – my version is basically just roasted red potato cubes with a spicy sauce made from tinned tomatoes and red onion, plus plenty of paprika and cayenne. We served it with some nut & blackeye bean burgers, and plenty of drinks to quench the peppery fire!

Carrot, Onion & Bean Burgers

These lovely chunky burgers are based on the Bean Burgers recipe from Parsley Soup, with the addition of a bit of my beloved wheatgerm in place of half the breadcrumbs.

We oven-baked them for 30mins rather than frying them, then served them with spicy parsnip fries and Hovis granary bread rolls – delicious!

Nut & Blackeye Bean Burgers

These chunky, hearty burgers are based on the Hazelnut and Bean Burgers from Veg-World.com.

Ingredients
600g blackeye beans
400g tinned chopped tomatoes
150g wheatgerm
150g mixed chopped nuts (peanuts, walnuts, almonds)
150g smooth peanut butter
About 25g wholemeal breadcrumbs for coating

Makes 8 big burgers

Method

• Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5/375°
• Whizz the beans and tomatoes in a food processor until the mixture is fairly smooth
• Scrape the bean-tomato mixture into a big bowl
• Mix in the chopped nuts and peanut butter
• Add the wheatgerm a little at a time, until the mixture looks around the right consistency to shape into burgers
• Put the breadcrumbs in a bowl big enough that you’ll be able to fit one of your burgers in it
• Grab a small handful of burger mixture and roll it into a ball, then squish it down into a burger shape
• Roll the burger around in the breadcrumbs until it’s coated in them
• Put the burger on a greased baking tray
• When all the burgers are rolled and coated, bake them for 30-40mins (slightly less or more depending on how thick you made them)

Gorgeous! For me, the wheatgerm is what really makes these burgers special; I’ve tried the recipe before with less wheatgerm and with kidney beans instead of blackeye beans, but this variation is the best. The burgers are thick and satisfying, like a big hunk of granary bread – which is what we served them in, making this probably the most filling vegan meal I’ve had so far!

Sweet Potato Fries

These scrummy sweet potato fries/chips are also in Vegan with a Vengeance, like the Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables I posted about last week, but I originally found the recipe on the Post Punk Kitchen website – and I’m really glad that this recipe is available for free online, since it’s so brilliantly simple and tasty.

I’m sure you’re supposed to serve these fries as a side dish with some green veggies or something nutritious like that, but I love them too much and tend to just have a big plate of fries along with some wholemeal bread and Pure soya spread. Not a very complex meal, but it’s lovely comfort food for cold winter days!

Favourite Quick Vegan Dinners: Chickpea Couscous

This is from a recipe I found on Cooking For Vegans, and I have to say it’s my favourite quick dinner these days. It’s really tasty considering how simple this meal is to make – it’s just oil, chilli, tinned tomatoes, chickpeas and couscous. And it’s fantastic! I have this at least once a week using big 400g tins of chickpeas and tomatoes, and also quite often for lunch, scaling it down with those little 200g tins.

I’d never used unflavoured couscous before trying this recipe, so now I’m on the lookout for other easy but tasty couscous-based meals…

Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables

This meal is based on the Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables from Vegan with a Vengeance, with a few substitutions.

Basically, it’s a couple of trays of chopped up potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes and red onion, coated in a mixture of 2 tsp of ground ginger, about 8 tsp of olive oil, and 3 tsp of golden syrup. It took about an hour and a half on Gas Mark 4, but it was definitely worth the wait, especially the parsnips!