Apricot Fool

Before we get on to the fool... I want to talk cookbooks. This recipe comes from Fast Fresh and Fabulous by Rose Elliot, a cookbook newly aquired from Age UK for a mere £1, and I am stunned by it.

Everything looks delicious and tasty. The recipes cover everything - from mayonaise, victora sandwhiches and mushroom pâté en croute, and only 1/5 of the maincourses rely on substitutes - which I don't tend to use. I'm really excited to have a cookbook full of recipes I've always loved, and never thought to veganise.

On with the show... Apricot fool:

250g Organic whole dried apricots

Juice of 4 oranges

250g Silken tofu

125ml Soya cream (I'm allergic to soya cream, so I used rice milk and it worked just fine)

8 Cardamons (seeds only)

25g Pistatio nuts

(Apriots: Organic is vital here, because they're completly different to your usual apricots, as they don't have sulphur in them. They're much sweeter, stickier and brown in colour - not orange.)

Soak the apricots in orange juice overnight. Then process them to a paste (with the juice they've soaked in).
Add to a blender with the tofu, cream or milk and cardamon.
Blend untill smooth and creamy. Spoon into glasses and sprinkle with pistatios. Store in the fridge.

Fools are really puddings, but since the recipe is both delicious and healthy, I ate mine in a bowl for breakfast. Fantastic! The recipe is VERY quick to make, literally less than five miniutes, but since it uses a food processor and a blender there was a lot of washing up. The recipe makes loads, and is very sweet and tasty. Highly HIGHLY reccomended!

Banana Bread

Banana bread:

200g flour

2tbsp gram flour

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 - 1 tsp salt

3/4 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp ground ginger

4tbsp oats

75g dairy free margerine

115g sugar

3tsp lemon rind

3 ripe bananas

Mix the first 6 ingrediants together

Beat the remaining four ingrediants together, and add to the original mixture quickly

Spoon into a loaf tin and cook at 170c for 50miniutes

I love this recipe, perfect for when you need to use up over-ripe bananas. The riper the better! You can use wholemeal or plain flour, plain rises better, but wholemeal is healthier and doesn't make a lot of difference - just a slightly denser texture.

The result is very moist, tasty but not too sweet.

You can let it cool, and ice it... or devour warm out of the oven! Best served with a steaming cup of coffee!

Rustic sundried tomato bread

 Okay... so she isn't a looker!  But trust me, it's more than made up for in scrumptiousness!

This was actually made by myself and my boyfriend, and although could do with some asthetic tweeking, is sooo delicious! I also added the tomato puree a bit late (I forgot about it!) so it's not completely mixed in, as you can see from the photos.

Sundried tomato bread:

- 500g white bread flour

- 10g salt

- 7g quick yeast

- 2-3 tbsp itallian seasoning

- 2 heaped tbsp tomato puree

- 250ml warm water

- packet of sun-blushed tomatos in olive oil

Mix the flour, salt, itallian seasoning and yeast together. Put into the food processor, using the dough hook, pur in the water and tomato puree and mix untill springy. (Or, of course, mix together in a bowl and knead by hand!)

Remove from the processor, place into a bowl with cling-film over the top. Leave in a warm place to rise for an hour, or untill doubled in size.
Knock back the dough, and add in the sundried tomatos and if desired the oil.

SIDE NOTE: I found the oil gave my bread an uneven texture due to it adding so much moisture, which isn't a bad thing, but it's less of a loaf and more of an itallian-style bread. (See left for what I mean).

Put into a greased and floured loaf-tin, cover with a plastic bag (to allow room to rise) and leave in a warm place to prove for a further 20miniutes.

Warm the oven to 240c.

Place bread in the oven for 8 miniutes, then open the oven door untill the oven cools to 190c. Close the oven door, and bake at 190c for 30 more miniutes.

Chocolate Digestive Biscuits

Recipe I used, which was adapted from one from vegetarian living:

Chocolate digestive biscuits:

65g white flour
195g wholemeal flour
50g sugar
1tsp salt
1tsp baking powder
50g cocoa powder
55g vitalite margarine (or other dairy-free margarine)
2tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp treacle
1 tsp vanilla extract
90ml water

- Mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder.
- Mix in the margarine.
- Mix syrups, water and vanilla extract together and add slowly to the mixture until it forms a dough.
- Chill dough in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Roll the dough out (as thin as possible!), cut into shapes, and bake for 12-15miniutes.
- Ice!

Although in reality I baked for about 25miniutes, as the recipe said "until crispy" and like a fool I listened. I should have known better! Biscuits that are crispy in the oven are BURNT, they harden as they cool.

I salvaged them before they tasted burnt, but they're definitely too hard. I also think they could do with at least twice the sugar, because icing or no icing, I like my biscuits sweeeet! Still, with a tea or coffee they'll do just fine for my bf and me :)

I did enjoy icing though. I used colour paste instead of food colouring and I much prefer it. I mix it with the water before adding it to the sugar and it gives a consistent colour that you can tweak easily. Colour pastes are a little more expensive, but well worth it as they'll last for ages.