Cooking With Dia

I’ve been enjoying my purple sprouting broccoli arriving fresh every week from Abel&Cole. I encourage all of you to take advantage of this fine vegetable while it is still in season. Boiled, steamed or sauteed, purple sprouting broccoli makes a fine side dish, but here are two recipes where it takes center stage. Both are Gluten free and vegan.

Today is Shrove’s Tuesday AKA Pancake Day! Woot! Woot! Who doesn’t love pancakes? You? Then this post isn’t for you sweetie pie. In case you have no idea why the British gorge themselves on pancakes today of all days–Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday AKA the day you have to stop eating fun things, so in Sweden it is “Pastry Day”, in America it is “Fat Tuesday” (they couldn’t decide on just one food) and here it is “Pancake Day”. The idea is to eat as much of the one food you love the day before you have to give it up for Lent. That’s your Theology lesson for the day from Miss Dia.

Who loves bread and butter pudding? Who hasn’t been able to eat it since becoming vegan? Who hasn’t been able to eat it since starting the gluten free diet? Would you believe me if I told you this pudding could be good for you?
Did you know you could make banana marmalade? OK, I will stop asking questions.

Tomorrow night is Burns Night, and many a Scot will be sitting down for a Burns Night Supper to celebrate the birthday of poet, Robert Burns. Traditionally a Burns night supper consists of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis and tatties and then either clootie dumpling or tipsy laird to close the meal. But I’ve changed that all around and upside down to suit me and my vegan and gluten free friends.

I know many blogs as well as websites have been raising money to help the relief effort in Haiti. But for those of you who would really like to donate, but can’t afford to, there is another option–Oxfam. Oxfam is a wonderful confederation dedicated to relieving famine in all parts of the world. It has over 15,000 stores and shops worldwide, where people can go to donate just about anything–Books, clothing, old records, tableware, crockery, curtains, etc. If you are wanting to help those affected by the devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince, check to see if there is an Oxfam shop near you, and all of those books or clothes you don’t know what to do with, you can give away for a great cause. The money raised from the sale of these items goes straight to helping in their relief efforts.

Oxfam was one of the first charities there straight after this horrible disaster occurred. So far they have flown in over ten tonnes of water, sanitation, health and shelter equipment. They have also teamed up with the UN and other aid organizations to prevent more and more people from spending the night out in the open. Because of this multiple camps have now been set up around Port-au-Prince to give people somewhere to sleep.

The devastation is vast, there are no words really to paint a proper picture. If you are feeling helpless because you are not able to donate an enormous amount of money, sift through some of your things and pop down to your local Oxfam shop.

The volunteers working in these shops are some of the nicest individuals you may ever meet. If you want to know anything in greater detail, just ask, and they will explain everything.

A few days ago I made about 4 lbs of strawberry jam. It wasn’t meant to be that much originally, but as the kind grocer gave me 2 boxes of free strawberries, I thought, “Why not make a big ol bunch of jam?” I have been having crumpet after crumpet with this wonderful strawberry jam spread on top, but wanted another way to showcase it. What better way than to make a Victoria Sponge Cake, or as some call it, Victoria Sandwich.

For all of you stuck inside because of the snow outside, here is something to keep you busy.

If you are like me, you are constantly trying to veganize dishes you remember from your pre-vegan life. I for one have been obsessing on how to make the perfect vegan mozzarella. I’m pleased to say I’ve finally cracked the code, and managed to make a ball of vegan mozzarella, and I will be sharing that recipe with you soon. While obsessing on things like that, I forgot that the best part of being vegan is staring right in front of me-All the wonderful fruit and veg I get every week. So, today it’s back to basics with this very simple spicy risotto. If you’ve never made risotto before, this is a good starter recipe, and then as you get more confident, you can add whatever you like to it.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the Scots are still partying it up for Hogmanay today and probably well into tomorrow as it is a bank holiday in Scotland. What better way to continue the celebration than with my Clementine Chocolate Cake? The flavor of clementine goes so well with chocolate and topped with my brandy cream icing, this cake is to die for.

I wanted to do something for Hogmanay because the Scottish over here are the most like Philadelphians as far as I can see. In Philadelphia New Year’s Day is a huge celebration, in fact even more so than Christmas. Philadelphia has the Mummers Parade, which I grew up with. It is a day long celebration that goes late into the night. It starts out in South Philly with the Comics and String Bands and ends in Center City with the Fancy Brigade competition. People don’t realize that this Mummers Parade is serious business! The different bands and brigades work on their routines and costumes for an entire year–everything has to be perfect

This morning I woke up earlier than usual to make sure I made it down to the Christmas market in town. You see I was on the hunt for some fresh raspberries, a proper trifle dish and some Drambuie. I didn’t find any of that, until I went to Tesco. Even there, I only found 1 out of 3-fresh raspberries, but it was enough to make me happy. I had to settle for the Famous Grouse and have located an old glass bowl in my attack to use for the dish…it all worked out in the end…or did it? On the twelfth day of Christmas I give to you Tipsy Laird, or as some spell it Typsy Laird, or as the Englishmen and Americans call it Sherry Trifle.

I’m putting two recipes together here because I’m afraid I’m going to need a day off tomorrow from cooking and photographing food. I don’t usually talk about my health problems on here, and I’d hate to start, but I’m feeling really dizzy again, and I’m sure it is just exhaustion. So, a day off is needed. This post is jammed pack full of pictures and recipes for vegan banana bread and vegan apple and raisin bread. Yum!

Wow, already day nine of this mad experiment. Didn’t think I’d get this far, eh? Well, I did. Now, finally for you I made something savory. For my American friends, a sausage roll is something the British snack on. At parties here in jolly ol’ England, there is usually a mountain of mini sausage rolls. I was thinking how funny it would be to veganize them and not tell anyone, to see if they could taste the difference. For the ninth day of Christmas Dia makes for you…something savory-vegan sausage rolls!!!!!!

OK so I guess technically these aren’t mini danish, but the flavor is so similar, I didn’t want to name them tartlets. Again, this is another very simple recipe, that is unless you are making your own vegan puff pastry. Had a weird day: I slipped on the icy footpath near my house, right onto my bad knee and my cane broke. Then I came home to find Brittany Murphy died of a heart attack at 32 years old. She was one of those actresses I liked, part of my generation and all that. I loved her in Girl Interrupted and always felt her acting skills went overlooked by her peers. I’m also still a bit sad that Terry Wogan retired…so yeah, easy recipe for today. On the eighth day of Christmas Dia gives to you Vegan Mini Danish, well, sort of.

If you are a new visitor to my blog, you may think this is a candy blog! I’ve been doing a lot of candy making this past week because I think it’s important to get all of the gift ideas out of the way before it gets too close to Christmas. I promise I will start posting proper dishes soon. This recipe is probably the easiest so far. They are getting easier and easier, but that’s because at this point all of you are cooking your arses off. On the seventh day of Christmas Dia brings to you her Giant Figgy Pudding Truffles!

Ever wonder what to do with left over cookie dough? Maybe you ran out of room on a baking tray while making chocolate chip cookies, or perhaps you thought about saving a bit of gingerbread for later in the week. Whatever the case I have an idea-why not make cookie dough lollies? On the sixth day of Christmas Dia gives to you her recipe for Cookie Dough Lollies.

I had so much fun making this today, and it is something that is extremely simple to put together in a few minutes. In England we have something called Christmas Pudding, Christmas Cake and so on. What these Christmas desserts consist of are a variety of dried fruits and nuts. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to make a candy that used the same idea?” On the Fifth Day of Christmas Dia brings to you her Vegan Christmas Fudge.

*Totally Vegan and Gluten Free
If anyone is looking for a last minute gift idea, this is most definitely it. Not only is it delicious, but it only takes minutes to make–In the microwave and all! Are you gasping? Isn’t it brilliant? It takes about 10 minutes to prepare and make and another 15-30 minutes for it to cool. If you want to impress friends and family with boxes of homemade candy, be sure to give this recipe a go. On the fourth day of Christmas Dia gives to you her Cinnamon and Peanut Brittle.

*totally vegan
No Christmas is complete without some kind of gingerbread, whether it be in the form of a house, little men or ginger snap cookies (my personal favorite). So on the third day of Christmas Dia gives to you Vegan Gingerbread men and women.

*Totally vegan
On the second day of Christmas came Dia’s Shoo Fly Apple Pie. Last night I was in bed sort of pondering why I decided to make 12 different dishes for my blog…in 12 days. The only conclusion that I could come up with is, I’m a little crazy.