vegan Archives - Page 2 of 13 - The Smallest Smallholding

Easy Apple Tart Recipe (Vegan)

November 16, 2016 by Lucy

Vegan apple tart

For me, one of the triumphs of the autumnal season in the UK is the humble apple. I will take any opportunity to eat a cooked apple, and as the recipient of a bagful of fat, bulbous Bramley apples – and finding a spare 20 minutes one evening whilst E took a quick nap – I decided to make a simple but super tasty (vegan) apple tart.

Bramley apples

Here’s how I did it with minimum prep and maximum flavour. Just let those yummy apples do all the work:

INGREDIENTS

2 – 3 large Bramley apples, peeled & cored

Ready-made rolled (vegan) puff pastry (I used Tesco)

Demerera sugar for sprinkling

Apricot jam for glazing

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5/190C/375F, and grease or line a tart tin or flan dish with baking parchment.

2. Using the tin upside down as a guide, cut a large disc of the puff pastry to size, leaving an extra 2cm or so for the crust. Place inside baking tin and mould to the sides. Don’t worry too much about being neat!

3. Slice the apple and place on the tin in a spiral pattern, starting at the outside edge and working inwards, overlapping each slice.

4. Sprinkle Demerera sugar over the sliced apple and put the tin in the oven on the middle shelf. Bake until the pastry is a light golden brown and ensure it has baked thoroughly in the middle (should take around 20 minutes).

5. Once baked, leave to cool and glaze with apricot jam. Serve with vegan ice cream or Alpro custard!

I also tried making tartlets with the above recipe by using a shallow muffin tray – perfection!

Filed Under: foodie, recipes, vegan Tagged With: apple, recipe, tart, vegan

Autumn comfort eating – Instant Pot Butternut squash soup

October 1, 2016 by Lucy

Today was a good day. E is almost 5 weeks old and it’s still very much a round-the-clock job looking after her. So days like today, when I’ve grabbed 15 minutes here and there to tick a few jobs off the list, feel like a triumph.

In the days straight after E was born, hot meals were hard to come by. My mum came to the rescue with stew and soup, and kept us going until we found our feet.

I’m still finding my feet, but making a concerted effort to start a routine, and part of that is home cooked food and a decent meal each night.

A timesaver and somewhat of a God-send has been the Instant Pot. If your food has finished cooking, then it automatically goes onto a keep warm mode – no cold food, and no burned saucepans!

Today E decided to have a quick 15-min nap after we’d been out for a walk, so I took advantage and threw together some ingredients to make an earthy, autumnal soup. Perfect for these cooler days, and something I can store for a couple more lunches this week:

INGREDIENTS

1 butternut squash, chopped & cubed roughly
1 large floury potato (eg Maris Piper), chopped & cubed
2 large onions ( I also added a few small homegrown banana shallots), diced roughly
2 medium carrots, chopped & cubed
2 – 2.5 cups of water
About two heaped dessert spoons of Marigold vegan bouillon
Liberal dash of cayenne pepper

METHOD

1. Dice onions and add cooking oil (I use a mild olive oil mix). Press Sauté on the Instant Pot. Cook until soft, stirring occasionally.

2. Add the rest of the chopped veg and continue to sauté for a few mins, sweating down veggies.

3. Add water and bouillon, then cayenne pepper to taste.

4. Place lid of Instant Pot on, set to Manual for 15 mins.

5. Once the manual programme has finished, allow steam to vent. Open Instant Pot and blend down ingredients to a smooth consistency.

6. Serve with crusty bread!

Filed Under: foodie, recipes, veg, vegan Tagged With: butternut squash, Instant Pot, soup, soup recipe, vegan

Autumn Treats

September 30, 2016 by Lucy

We have three apple trees at the Smallest Smallholding – a pretty useless crab apple that only really serves as a good bird feeding spot, a Blenheim Orange that I presume is on some kind of dwarf rootstock, and a Charles Ross.

The two trees that provide edible apples are both relatively slow growing, and let’s just say our yields from both trees are very modest indeed. But right now I’ll take quality over quantity and the Charles Ross has grown some stonkers (as in, good stonkers) this season. I’m guessing the mix of downpours and late summer heatwaves gave us some ideal apple growing conditions. I also knocked off quite a few small fruits off each bough earlier in the season, so the remaining fruits have gleaned all the energy and grown to a good size.

Though the Charles Ross could be classed as a dessert apple, I’m going to use both the tarter Blenheim Orange and Charles Ross as cookers. Simply because baked apples are one of my favourite comfort foods. I’m thinking given I have a baby in my arms for a good proportion of the day, I’m going to keep the baking simple.

Apple tart or apple crumble is the plan… Whether I have the time or inclination to pull off baking a simple apple dish this weekend is another matter altogether 😉