Cooking with seitan: vegetable stew

Both Bella and I have wanted to try seitan for a long time (so many yummy sounding recipes for vegan fried chicken, hello!), and I surprisingly stumbled across it in a health food shop in Falmouth.

Today I decided to take the satanic plunge and made a veggie stew with it! As always, chuck any veggies you have into it. This evening's wildcard was a lone aubergine found in the cupboard.

Seitan vegetable stew - an Alice recipe

Dark chocolate fridge cake

Ok so, this is another of those recipes that doesn't look great in photos... but I promise it tastes amazing! It's also customizable to what you like/what you have in the cupboards. AND you don't even have to bake it! It's not even baking, its basically just assembly!

The only part of this recipe that actually looks nice in photos

 Dark chocolate fridge cake

Makes one small tray

Ingredients:
200g dark chocolate
Around 10 digestive biscuits
1 tbsp sweetener (I used agave, you can use maple syrup, honey, golden syrup etc.)
75g butter
Dried fruit of choice (I used a sour cherry baking mix)
Nuts of choice (I used pecans)

Method:

1. Line a tray with baking paper or cling film. Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, or in the microwave. Add the butter and sweetener.

2. Once just melted and smooth, take straight off the heat and crumble in the biscuits. I like to leave bigger and smaller pieces for texture.

3. Add your fruit/nuts/any other bits and pieces.

4. Spoon into the lined dish and smooth flat. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

And you're done! Next time I think I'd make double as this didn't last long...

Bella

All-the-veg mac and cheese

This was my staple dish at uni, I like to think it's healthy because there are lots of vegetables in it but it's also covered in cheese, so win-win!

With regards to the vegetables, it's really up to you. The challenge is to get as much veg as possible in it. If you add enough frozen spinach to the cheese sauce it turns green which looks pretty funky.

Unlike my previous recipe, this one requires 3 pans and results in a lot of washing up, but it's worth it.

All-the-veg mac and cheese (adapted from a well-loved student cookbook I had at uni)

Spicy cauliflower tacos

I never used to like cauliflower, however I've recently been finding myself eating more of it, and I feel like it doesn't deserve its bad reputation.

This is a healthy and vegetarian (can be vegan if you don't add cheese) alternative to chicken or beef wraps. I don't know if these count as tacos or fajitas (please can someone explain the difference!) but they're pretty great!

Coffee and walnut cake

With the days feeling blissfully longer, I suddenly felt like I needed a hit of coffee and sugar so I baked this cake one evening after work. I apologise in advance for the poor selection of pictures, this was a quick bake, but I trust your baking prowess now. Once again, it's super easy and produces great results, hats off to the BBC.

Potentially not its best angle.

Quinoa pesto salad

Continuing with this weeks salad theme, here is my go-to packed lunch salad. This is really customisable with whatever veggies or ingredients you have in the fridge. If I have feta, olives, sun dried tomatoes or artichokes, they take it to the next level. Peppers and courgettes are the vegetables I usually use, as they're what we usually have. Spinach works particularly well also, and you can make other additions after its cooked such as tomatoes, avocado or sweetcorn. Basically, just chuck in whatever you have.

I was making this at around 9pm on a Sunday night, so please excuse the awful photographs. It tastes way nicer than my photos would lead you to believe.

It looks much better in real life, I swear!

Double chocolate coffee cookies

This is a recipe I adapted from a basic cookie recipe. I wanted these to be the type of cookies that are super soft and melty. The coffee flavour is subtle and enhances the richness of the chocolate but not overpowering, so I think people who aren't coffee fans would still enjoy these.

Healthy orange drizzle bars

I came across this super simple recipe when browsing blogs to find something relatively healthy to bake. Usually when trying new recipes with ingredients I don't usually use they never come out as good as I was hoping, so I was really surprised at how well this recipe turned out. The ground almonds give the cake a great texture, and the chia seeds provide a bit more added nutrition (though if they're not something you usually have in the house I'm sure you could leave them out).