Tag: gluten-free vegan

No-bake lemon tart | gluten-free vegan lemon slice

The humble lemon tart is something I never thought I would eat again with the eggs involved (not to mention the dairy and sugar) but then I discovered agar agar and wondered if it could just happen for me. 

Turns out it could. I started experimenting and here we are with a delicious lemon tart. The lemon component was the easy part. What I really struggled with was a complimentary base that wouldn’t overpower the delicate lemon. It didn’t need a raw cake base, it needed more of a shortbread-type base. 

This no-bake lemon tart is incredibly easy to make. It takes about 10 minutes to get done and needs 1-2 hours in the fridge to set. I don’t know why I don’t make it more frequently.

Vegan dal | Hidden veg red lentil dal

I’ve been on the hunt for the best dal recipe for years. I wanted one that had more depth to its flavour. The simple ones I had tried were too one dimensional in taste, while the complicated recipes were not worth my time. I was reading a recipe by J. Kenji López-Alt  recently where he recommended roasting eggplant, removing the skin and blitzing it up to add to ramen. I wondered if it would work for dal so I gave it a shot. I wanted this dal to be really flavoursome so I decided to pierce the skin of the eggplant before roasting and stuffed it with garlic cloves. 

Did it work? You bet it did. 

Gluten-free vegan banana bread

I have been due to make a dish on the sweeter side for a while but lately, I’ve lost a bit of the sweet tooth that has carried me through life for 20-something years. I settled on banana bread because it’s the perfect treat that a sweet tooth or non-sweet tooth can enjoy. I’m not huge on bananas but I’m challenging myself to diversify and find ways to enjoy foods I don’t like. Plus, when have I ever turned up my nose at a slice of Alannah-friendly banana bread? Never. 

The best vegan san choy bau {gluten-free}

You’ll love this san choy bau. It’s actually mushroom-free. I toyed with the idea of adding mushrooms for some meatiness but I’m not the biggest fan, and I really want to show you that there’s so much more to vegan meals than mushrooms.

The best vegan tacos

I have been dreaming about getting a good ‘meatiness’ for my tacos before now. Mexican-spiced scrambled tofu wasn’t going to cut it and nor was nut meat, especially after recently discovering I have a mild walnut allergy (just another food allergy/intolerance for the already long list). The secret? A little bit of tofu, a little bit of tempeh, and some baked kidney beans.

Gluten-free vegan zucchini noodle japchae

A few years ago I came across sweet potato noodles in an Asian grocer and I bought them because they were surprisingly gluten-free. The noodles sat on a shelf in my cupboard for a good six months before I finally settled on what I would do with them: make japchae, also known as Korean glass noodles.

Finding sweet potato noodles can sometimes be like finding a needle in a haystack. Without them I could have gone for regular rice noodles, or even pasta but I decided to push myself towards something even healthier and landed on zucchini noodles.

Quick curry | Gluten-free vegan yellow curry

I thought I’d share this recipe for the fastest curry I’ve ever whipped up. It’s delicate, flavoursome, light and best of all, you could have it from farm (or fridge!) to plate in 10 minutes.

Store-bought curry paste isn’t my preference but I’m all for shortcuts in the kitchen and when you’re counting down the minutes until you can unwind after a long day, it’s a shortcut I’m willing to take. Still, it’s not a shortcut I like to take often. Enter my gluten-free, curry paste-free, vegan Thai yellow curry made in just 10 minutes. How? The trick, my friends, is …

Vegan quiche

I’ve been using chickpea flour ever since I discovered socca – a crispy flatbread. It gets crispy on the edges and retains moisture inside – with it sometimes having a scrambled egg-like consistency. I knew it would soon become the base of my quiche recipe.

Growing up, my mum’s quiche was the only one I would eat. It had flaky pastry but the vegetables were the real hero. Oh, and those little bits of bacon. Bacon has always been my achilles’ heel.

I toyed with the idea of adding coconut bacon but things were starting to get complicated. I had to let the vegetables shine, just like mum’s.