Sophie Quinn - Vegan Comfort simple and tasty food for the newly challenged eater

Table of Contents

Vegan Comfort

simple and tasty food for newly challenged eaters

Sophie Quinn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, recording or photocopying except for brief quotations for the purpose of critical review, without written permission of the author.

Copyright 2018 Sophie Quinn

* All artwork by Sophie Quinn

SIT TIGHT, HERES THE INTRO

Hold your horses. Im going to need to explain a few things before you get stuck into this cookbook. Firstly, I am not a professional chef, however I have exceeded the 10,000 hour rule that apparently makes a person an expert in something. So, according to Malcolm Gladwell, you can trust me. Please ignore the recent studies that have debunked this theory because Im on a roll here.

I have been a vegan for about 10 years now. I began the journey when I was already an egg-free vegetarian and discovered I was lactose intolerant. I have also been diagnosed with diabetes which introduced me to carb-counting, making a huge difference to the way I eat. During my vegetarian years a large amount of my income was going on over-processed substitute meats. So I began looking into making healthier and cheaper meals that would still be low-carb and satisfying. But between you and me, I wanted to make these things quickly, because I am very lazy.

Food should make you feel good, or at least, better. Its fuel, its nutrients, its enjoyment. When something that was always comforting to you is taken away youre going to feel a bit lost, right? I am a strong believer in having go-to comfort foods that are very quick and easy to make but nourish our bodies and minds.

Dont expect this cookbook to be filled with fancy show-off recipes covered in sprigs of mountain quest herbs and infused with kale tears. These are comfort food recipes when your usual go-to is no longer on the menu due to newly diagnosed food intolerances, a journey into veganism or now being required to watch what you eat because of a health condition. You dont have to lose your comfort food!

This cookbook will show you a few meat substitute recipes that you can integrate into your usual meals that used to contain meat. Or delicious cakes that are low in sugar that Ive carb-counted for you. Throughout this cook book I have given some carb-counted numbers for the sweet recipes in this book and advice about carb-counting for the meals and savoury recipes. So hopefully that will make things a little easier for us who eat food by numbers.

So these are my personal comfort food recipes that I have heavily adapted from random recipes I have collected through my vegan years (Isa Chandra, BBC, Delia Smith, The Happy Pear, to name a few) to suit my levels of comfort and weight of wallet.

There is a very basic shopping list for all these recipes, and I have discovered how greatly I depend on magic flavour dusts (all will be revealed in time). These are my healthy and vegetable rich recipes that will reconnect you with some of your comfort foods and I just know will blow your socks off. And maybe your pants too because vegetables are known to create some Southern Music.

So grab your flavour dusts and lets make you feel good.

THE REAL MEAL DEALS

Layered Lentil Nonsense

This is essentially a Moussaka but I dont even slightly remember the rules of how to build a Moussaka so I think this is mostly made up from here on out. It does take a while to compile it all but the best part is once it is combined in the dish you can just sit down and relax before eating.

For the roasted vegetables

2 medium white potatoes
1 large courgette
1 aubergine
Optional: 1 red pepper
Optional: 1 tomato, sliced

For the mince

Can of green lentils
Stock cube
Onion, diced
Salt and pepper
3 cloves garlic
teaspoon chilli
teaspoon cinnamon

For the white sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white flour
1 cup of stock
cup of soya milk

Leaving on the skins, slice your potatoes thinly (about 1cm) and lay flat on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil. Slice your courgettes and aubergines thicker than the potatoes, if using a red pepper, he can just remain as chunky as you like. Place in a roasting dish with some salt, pepper, olive oil and some chopped garlic if you like. Roast both pans in the oven at 180C for about 40 minutes or until they are browning slightly.

Whilst your veg is in the oven, prepare your mince by sauting onions with garlic and then adding lentils and spices. Simmer for a few minutes or longer, it doesnt really matter as long as it doesnt start sticking.

Now to work on your white sauce. Nothing special here really, its a classic white sauce method. Heat your oil briefly and then add your flour, mix until it smells toasty, then warn your family to get out the kitchen because youre about to make a mess and start screaming, because the minute you add that boiling hot stock water its going to make a lot of noise and youre gonna wanna whisk like hell. You can turn the heat down and add the soya milk quickly afterwards, all while stirring. Never stop stirring. Stir like your Nonsense depends on it.

Eventually your white sauce mixture will thicken up and you can add some pepper to it if you wish.

Once your vegetables have browned in the oven its time to compile your Nonsense. I am not going to give you directions on how to layer it up because my method changes every single time. I just try and make sure its spread fairly and evenly throughout so no one runs out before the other.

You can add some cheese to the top now if you like before baking for about 40 minutes at 180C, or until the top has browned.

Tips and Advice:

• Make sure you save enough white sauce for the top layer or everything is going to be very, very crispy (and charred).
• Slice up a tomato and manipulate it into one of the layers, perhaps the top layer beneath the white sauce would make it look glorious. And everyone knows glorious Nonsense is good Nonsense.

Thingy Things With Things AKA Buddha Bowl

Serves 2

2 medium potatoes
1 medium sweet potato
1 avocado
1 carrot (grated)
1 can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
3 big handfuls of kale
2 cloves garlic
200g block of tofu (cubed) (follow recipe)
Garlic granules
Onion granules
Smoked paprika
Salt and pepper

Optional: Roast peppers and onion.

Substitutes: Salad for kale - cous cous or quinoa for potatoes - Seitan for tofu.

If youve ever cooked in a kitchen before then this meal is relatively self explanatory. You cant really mess this up however hard you try. Unless you burn your potatoes or frazzle your kale, but those things can be substituted for a number of other things that are very fast and easy to cook instead.

The best way to make sure this recipe comes together fast with minimal disasters is to know which order to do everything in.

Firstly cut your sweet potatoes and potatoes into wedges or chunks, they both take a similar amount of time in the oven. Toss whatever shape you have chosen in garlic granules, salt, pepper and oil. Chuck in oven at 180C. Next cut your tofu into bite size cubes, depending on what size your mouth is this may differ, but I tend to go for cubes fit for a larger mouth. Now follow one of my coated tofu recipes (). These can then be placed under the potatoes. You might need to swap them around towards the end if the potatoes are getting browned faster than the tofu, it depends how in sync you are with your oven as to how this will work out for you. The potatoes should take 45 minutes to cook, and the tofu about half an hour.