Lentil and Vegetable Pasties

In my year seven food tech class, I was labelled the pasty queen. I burnt my cupcakes, I somehow managed to scramble my quiches and boil my brownies (I know, right? How does that even happen?) But trust me when I say, pasties were my jam.

These pasties were an experiment because I had some random veggies in the fridge and an ever-looming best before date on the puff pastry. I decided to have a little bit of fun and created these magical little things which are, by far, the most delicious things I've ever made.

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet of Jus-Rol Puff Pastry
• 1 tbsp of plant based milk
• 2 tbsp of vegan gravy graduals
• 1 tsp of vegetable stock powder
• 1 tsp of nutritional yeast (optional)
• 1 potato
• 1/2 carrot
• 100g lentils
• 1 leek
• 1 tsp of coconut oil
• 1 tsbp of flour

1. Chop the potato, leek and carrots into small cubes. Sweat in a pan with the coconut oil, then pour in some boiling water and boil for 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
2. Meanwhile in another pan, cook the lentils for roughly 10-15 minutes. Before you do this, make sure you rinse the lentils as they contain an indigestible starch.
3. Cut your pastry into 6 squares and set aside to soften.
4. Once the lentils and vegetables are cooked, drain the water and mix together in a bowl.
5. Cook your gravy, stock, nutritional yeast and flour together in a new pan, until it is thick and there is no lumps.
6. Pour the gravy over the vegetable and lentil mixture. Mix together and cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7. When the mixture is cool, add a spoonful to the middle of the pastry squares and fold down the top corner to reach the bottom corner to make a triangle shape.
8. With a fork, indent a pattern on the edge of the pasty where the pastry meets.
9. With a knife pierce two holes in the top of the pastry. I like to make a 'v' for vegan shape.
10. Brush the pastry with the plant based milk.
11. Cook in the oven on gas mark 7 for roughly 20 minutes or until they are browned. Enjoy!

Vegan Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

These were a result of accidentally adding orange essence to cookie dough mixture. Didn't I already tell everyone that I'm terrible at baking? Well, that's irrelevant here because these turned out SO GOOD! I made a gazillion of them and all my meat-eating friends and family said they tasted as delicious as real cookies, if not better.

The only weird ingredient here is egg replacement powder. If you think about it, it's a lot less gross than chicken periods, but if you're not comfortable with egg replacement, I would recommend making flax eggs out of flax seeds and water. Google it. But trust me, egg replacement powder makes these cookies really decadent and delicious.

(Makes 20 Cookies)

Ingredients:

• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g vegan chocolate chips (if you can get orange flavoured, even better!)
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 75g vegan butter (I use Vitalite)
• 2 1/2 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 75g caster sugar
• 90g brown sugar
• 1 tbsp orange essence
• 3 tsp egg replacement powder
• 3 tbsp lukewarm water

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4 and line two large baking trays with greaseproof paper
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
3. Stir in the chocolate chips and orange zest.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dairy free butter, rapeseed oil, caster sugar, brown sugar and orange essence. Set aside.
5. In a small bowl or jug, whisk together the egg replacement powder and lukewarm water until light and frothy. Combine with the flour mixture, then add the butter mixture. Stir together until well combined.
6. Form the dough into 20 small balls and place on the baking sheets. Allow a couple of inches in between each cookie to give them room if they want to spread out. Bake for 12-13 minutes. They should be golden and still soft. Flatten them out on a counter and leave them to cool and harden.

Fried Plantains

I recently discovered plantains and I fell in love. They look like bananas but they taste like potatoes! It's the weirdest experience for someone who eats a lot of bananas and isn't too cultured when it comes to exotic fruits and vegetables. They're starchy and in my opinion, these fried plantains taste just like chips in the shape of chopped bananas.

I served mine with homemade salsa and guac. Recipes for those might come some time in the future. They don't go too well with the plantains so perhaps they're not the perfect recipes to go side by side.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp of olive oil (for a healthier option, try coconut oil)
• 1 plantain

1. Chop the ends of the plantain, then cut a line down the middle, breaking the skin but not digging into the fruit. Then peel it off in one go.
2. Chop the plantain into smaller pieces.
3. In a frying pan, fry the oil then place the plantains in the oil and fry for 2 minutes or until brown on one side.
4. Flip the plantains then fry on the other side for a further 2 minutes.
5. When they're done, place on kitchen roll to drain away the access oil.
6. You're done!