Vegan Recipe of the Week - Stuffed Romero Peppers

This week's recipe is a lovely warming, filling meal with tastes inspired from the Mediterranean.

Stuffed Romero Peppers

Serves 2-3 

Ingredients:

2-3 Romero Peppers

1 small onion

1 clove garlic (or 1 tsp Lazy Garlic)

Half a red chilli (or half tsp Lazy Chilli)

1 small tin sweetcorn - drained

2-3 green beans

2 Tbsp salsa

2 Tbsp tomato puree

50g steamed rice

40g vegan mozzarella grated

dash Henderson's Relish (or vegan Worcestershire sauce)

Salt 

Pepper

Olive oil

2 tsp Italian herbs

1 tsp onion powder

Salad (to garnish)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 210C (190C Fan).

Cut the peppers in half lengthways and discard and seeds.

Drizzle the peppers with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and place in the pre heated oven for around 15 minutes whilst you prepare the filling.

Chop the onion, chilli and garlic roughly and add to a pan with a little olive oil. Stir fry for a minute or so and add the chopped green beans.

Stir fry for another 2 minutes and then add the sweetcorn.

Next add the salsa, tomato puree, onion powder and Henderson's and stir through.

Add the steamed rice to the pan and combine.

Take the peppers out of the oven and fill the peppers with the filling, pile it on generously.

Next sprinkle with grated vegan mozzarella and Italian herbs, drizzle with a little more olive oil and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes until the cheese is melted.

Remove from the oven and serve 1-2 pepper halves per person with a side salad garnish.

Eat and Enjoy!

If you enjoyed this recipe, please click here to see all of my recipes and come back next week for a brand new Vegan Recipe of the Week!

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Inside a vegan kitchen

Many new vegans or those contemplating becoming vegan wonder if you need to buy lots of new products or fancy equipment in order to live a vegan lifestyle. So this week's The Ordinary Vegan is a bit different. I am going to show you around my kitchen!

Let me start by saying that the only thing you need in a vegan kitchen is a good chopping board, a set of good knives, a cooker and lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, grains, seeds, pulses, herbs and spices. Everything else is a choice. I love kitchen gadgets and so have more than most, but I spend most of my time in the kitchen making food, photographing food or writing about it!

These are my store cupboard essentials:

A range of oils, spices, vinegars, seasonings, nutritional yeast and stock cubes.

A range of tinned produce, vegetables, beans, lentils, chopped tomatoes and a quick veggie chilli if I'm feeling too tired to cook.

I have a savoury and sweet snack cupboard with naughty vegan treats in like nuts, crisps, crackers and biscuits.

A huge pile of cookbooks for meal ideas and inspiration. These don't need to be vegan cookbooks, many recipes can be easily adapted for a vegan diet.

In my fridge, I always have some non-dairy milk and butter, usually some vegan cheese, salad and lots of sauces. There is usually a tub of leftovers in the fridge for a quick lunch and some Jus-Rol pastry for quick and easy pies. Ooh, there's always a bar of dark chocolate in my fridge for when only dark chocolate will do!

In my freezer, I always have my own vegan ready meals. I always cook in large batches and freeze portions for after a hard day at work. You will often find some dairy-free ice-cream, homemade bread rolls and a few vegan burgers or sausages in my freezer too along with some frozen vegetables.

Moving onto my kitchen gadgets. I have a blender for soups, smoothies and sauces. A radio to listen to whilst I'm cooking and washing up! :-)

A food processor for breadcrumbs, pesto, salsas, chopping nuts, seeds, onions, and to use in baking. 

A bread machine. I love my bread machine and I make all of my own pizza bases, bread rolls and loaves. Often I use the dough setting to do all of the kneading and mixing and proving and then bake in the oven for a lovely finish.

 A pestle and mortar - I use this to grind herbs and spices, make dips and grind seeds and nuts.

 The slow cooker is great for casseroles, soups, curries, stews and marinades.

Finally, a mixer. I do a lot of vegan baking in my kitchen and a good mixer makes light work of it!

I hope you have enjoyed the tour around my kitchen. If you love cooking and trying new recipes come back tomorrow for a brand new recipe of the week.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Vox Reviews...Tall Poppy Foods, Birmingham

*****UPDATE****** Tall Poppy's kiosk is temporary closed but you can still order cakes and food via their website for collection or delivery. They are also found at local farmers' markets and events - details of which can be found on their facebook and twitter pages above.************************

Back in October, I was lucky enough to be invited to visit Tall Poppy Foods in Birmingham, grab a drink and a chat with one of the co-owners and sample some of their amazing home-cooked vegan food!

Tall Poppy Foods is based in Selly Oak, Birmingham and is a take-away vegan food kiosk. Tall Poppy is owned by husband and wife team Erin and Joe, and they run the kiosk with the help of local student staff who are all vegetarian or vegan.

Joe and Erin have been vegan for around eight years and have worked and lived all over the world before settling in Birmingham where they are raising their family. As well as the kiosk, they supply food to events, weddings, birthdays and take mail order and cake orders through their website.

The unique aspect to Tall Poppy Foods, is that they do not have any processed food, all of their products are home-made from the bread and cakes, to the coleslaw, mayo, butters and sauces. They take great pride in their products and are very passionate about where their food comes from and the health benefits of freshly-made organic produce.

Tall Poppy don't just cater for vegans either, they have Paleo options, gluten free options, soy free options, healthy choices and treats.

Some of the products they had for sale when I visited were:

Organic fairtrade coffee

Almond and soy milk options for espresso based drinks

A range of teas

Lemoncurd, Boston Creme and Earl Grey Cupcakes

Muffins

Brownies

Ginger Cake

Sausage rolls with an almond sausage filling

Fajitas

Wraps

Falafel

Paninis

BBQ Jackfruit Burger

Quite a range as you can see! I got to sample the BBQ Jackfruit Burger, which was amazing!! The jackfruit from Thailand is slow cooked all day in a home-made barbecue sauce and served in a home-made bread roll with coleslaw. It was the first time I had tried jackfruit and it was so good, it is worth the journey to Tall Poppy for this alone! Then Joe gave me some of his cakes to taste. They were moist, full of flavour, tasted freshly baked and so moreish.

A couple of weeks after my visit to Tall Poppy Foods, I caught up with them again at the West Midlands Vegan Festival in Wolverhampton, where I purchased a New York Panini, with Fentimans Cherry Tree Cola and Tyrrells Crisps as a meal deal. The panini was so good, me and Mr Vox went back and bought another!

Tally Poppy can be found at 492 Bristol Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham, B29 6BD and if you pop over and say hello, let them know you found out about them from Vegan Vox! They are also found at many of the vegan and veggie festivals around the country.

You can follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by clicking these links.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

*****UPDATE****** Tall Poppy's kiosk is temporary closed but you can still order cakes and food via their website for collection or delivery. They are also found at local farmers' markets and events - details of which can be found on their facebook and twitter pages above.************************