As you may recall, I mentioned in my very first blog that I am a woman who wears many hats. As such from time to time I am going to write about something that is not related to Children’s Ministry at all. This is one of those times…
I love cooking. I will never claim to be at master chef level. (Although my 7 year old thinks I am the world’s greatest cook, except when I serve up something that she doesn’t like of course.) I have never been one for throwing in just the right ingredients together and voila. But I love experimenting with new recipes from time to time. Sometimes those experiments are amazing, but unfortunately there are other times when they are a complete fail.
A few years ago my husband, Kyle and I decided that we would try to eat a vegetarian meal once a week. We did this because we believe that it is better for the environment and because we wanted to try to save a bit of money too. In this blog I am going to give three vegetarian recipes that my family loves. I hope that you will love them too.
Broccoli Soup
Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp butter
- 1 ½ broccoli heads, chopped
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 Carrot, chopped
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour (Use Gluten-free flour for Gluten-free option)
- 4 cups boiling water
- 4 tsp vegetable stock powder
- ½ cup coconut cream/milk (or cream/plain yogurt/milk)
- A pinch of salt and pepper
Method:
- Melt the butter in a large pot.
- Add onion, carrot, broccoli, salt and pepper to the pot.
- Saute until the onion is translucent.
- Add flour and cook for 1 min, until flour reaches a blonde colour.
- Add vegetable stock water and bring to a boil.
- Simmer uncovered until broccoli is tender, about 15 mins.
- Pour in coconut cream
- Blend into soup.
- To make it extra creamy you can add a dollop of cottage cheese to finish it off.
- Serve with some freshly baked bread or rolls and enjoy!
Chickpea and Oat Crackers
Ingredients:
- 1 tin of 400g Chickpeas
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 cup Rolled Oats (Use Gluten-free Oats for Gluten-free option)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 pinch salt
- ¼ cup Olive oil
Method:
- Rinse and drain the tin of chickpeas
- Place all the ingredients into a bowl.
- Use a hand-held blender to blend all the ingredients together.
- Blend until smooth
- Place mixture onto a baking sheet
- Roll flat using a rolling pin. (It can be sticky, so be gentle)
- Cut into cracker size shaped pieces (I use a pizza cutter.)
- Use a fork and prick small holes into the crackers.
- Place in the oven at 180° for 40-45 mins
- Allow to cook and enjoy!
Rainbow Vegan Burgers
Ingredients:
- 1 Beetroot, peeled and grated
- 1 Courgette, grated
- 1 sweet potato, peeled and grated
- 2-3 carrots, peeled and grated
- 1 onion, peeled and grated (Squeeze out excess liquid)
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- 3 tbsp Rolled Oats (Use Gluten-free Oats for Gluten-free option)
- 1 tin of 400g chickpeas
- Juice of 1 lemon
Method:
- Place grated beetroot, courgette, sweet potato, carrots and onion into a large bowl.
- Add crushed garlic to the bowl and mix together.
- Place Oats and pumpkin Seeds into a food processor and blend until it forms a fine flour-like texture.
- Add oat and pumpkin seed flour mixture to the bowl of grated vegetables.
- Next rinse and drain the tin of chickpeas.
- Place the chickpeas, lemon juice and melted coconut oil into a food processor and blend until it makes a thick paste.
- Add this to the bowl of grated vegetables and mix together.
- Then shape the mixture into about 9 burger patties, depending on the size you like them.
- Place the burger patties into the oven and bake at 180° for about 20 mins on each side, depending on how moist the burger patties were to begin with.
- Serve on a roll with some chips and a side salad and enjoy!
Thanks for reading my post. I hope you will enjoy trying out some of these recipes. Please send me any feedback, comments or questions that you may have. I would also like to hear if there are any topics that you would like me to deal with in the future. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Bye for now.
