A slower and more sustainable life
The first thing that comes to mind when you have overripe bananas is to make banana bread. It is easy and quick to make and this banana bread recipe is absolutely delicious and moist. But what to make with overripe bananas if you already made …
Disclaimer: This post contains affilitate links – I will earn a commission if you buy any item. I love making empanadas and have started recently to make them vegan. My partner is vegan and I just wanted to come up with a few new vegan …
Recently I had lots of overripe tomatoes from a neighbour and wanted to try something new with them. I settled on vegan roasted tomato soup and it was delicious!
The tomatoes I got from an app called Olio where I started collecting leftover food which is a great way to share food that you may not want or need. Maybe you bought something and find out it is not to your taste or you just bought too much of something and it will spoil soon.
I love Olio because it helps me cut down in waste and I can pass on food and non-food items to people who need them. It also provided me with many wonderful new experiences like avocado hummus and vegan sushi in the past. Not only your neighbours will be on it but also people who collect surplus food from shops and restaurants around you. If you haven’t heard about Olio yet check it out!
Soups are a great way of using up large quantities of vegetables and when you prepare big batches are easy to freeze in smaller quantities. Then when you need them you just defrost them and you have a great homemade meal.
I love making soups, especially in winter of course, but I’ve not made tomato soup before so I was keen to try something special. Roasting vegetables is stable in our household. We love roasted potatoes and other vegetables so we decided to roast our tomatoes before blending them into a soup.
As the tomatoes were past their best I cored and cut out any blemishes but roasted them with the skin on. Just add some onions and garlic and roast for about 30 minutes. I can promise you, the smells in your kitchen will be wonderful. Afterwards, you just need to put the roasted tomatoes in a pot with water and boil down the water to about a third of the original amount. You can absolutely use vegetable stock for this step but as I did not have any at-home water had to do for me. And it was fine. I just added some herbs and the soup was flavourful and delicious.
If you like me love to freeze your leftover food, ensure that the soup has cooled down completely before freezing it in batches. Try and freeze in in amounts you would use for a normal meal and then just take out of the freezer whenever you need.
To make this wonderful soup you will need a hand blender and the below ingredients:
In the beginning, you should preheat your oven to 230°C/450°F. While the oven preheats, wash, core and quarter the tomatoes. Then peel garlic and onion and quarter.
Add the tomatoes, garlic and onion to a bowl with the olive oil and ensure everything is coated in olive oil. Then put everything on a baking tray and roast on the middle shelve for about 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the baking tray from the oven and transfer the tomatoes, garlic and onions to a pot. Add the vegetable stock or water depending on what you are using and the bay leaves and herbs.
Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes. The liquid will have reduced by about a third. After 20 minutes you can take out and discard the bay leaves.
With your hand blender puré the soup until it reaches the desired smoothness. This took about 3-4 minutes for me.
Before serving, season the soup to taste with salt and pepper.
Roasted tomatoes with onions and garlic make a wonderfully delicious soup.
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Have you tried this vegan roasted tomato soup? Leave a comment below and share what you loved about it!
Looking for other soup recipes? Try this leek and potato soup!
If you enjoyed the recipe and want to find more head over to my recipe section and join my Facebook Group which focuses on homemade vegan recipes that are affordable and healthy.
Banana bread is one of my favourite sweet treats. It is not too sweet and can easily be mixed with other ingredients like chocolate or blueberries. This recipe shows you step by step how to make a wonderfully moist vegan banana bread. It is so …
Have you ever wondered if you could make your own pizza from scratch? The answer is yes and it is so easy! The ingredients are probably already in your pantry so why not give making your own vegan pizza dough at home a try? Pizza …
For a while, I wanted to make my own homemade pasta. I don’t have a pasta maker but I figured you don’t need and I can tell you, no, you don’t need one. You may need a bit more time but I found it was really relaxing to make vegan pasta dough at home.
You don’t need many ingredients either, most recipes use eggs but I wanted it to be vegan so no eggs in this recipe. Then another staple ingredient is semolina flour which I did not have at home and with London being in lockdown I did not want to go on a shopping trip. So no semolina flour in this recipe.
The day before I had made this incredible vegan spinach and pumpkin seed pesto which was perfect with the pasta!
This pasta only needs three ingredients. Yes, you read right! This homemade vegan pasta dough you can make with just flour, water and olive oil! It takes some time to prepare but cooks in just 2 minutes as it is fresh pasta.
Learn how to make vegan pasta below:
Tasty pasta recipe which only required 3 ingredients.
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Sure if you do happen to have any leftovers – how unlikely that may sound – you can absolutely freeze it. Ideally, you want to freeze it in little individual pasta nests. Place the homemade pasta on a baking sheet and then put the baking sheet in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Once they are semi-frozen you can then transfer the vegan pasta in a container or airtight bag. Label your container or bag with the data and you can keep your pasta for up to three months.
If you enjoyed the recipe on how to make vegan pasta and want to find more head over to my recipe section and join my Facebook Group which focuses on homemade vegan recipes that are affordable and healthy.
Last week, I found I still had some potatoes that needed to be used up. I used to make soups all the time but recently not so much so I pulled out my immersion stick blender for this oldie but goldie of recipes. This easy …
Currently, I’m trying to find simple recipes that I can use for a variety of dishes. I used to love pesto for pasta or as a mixture with cheese in my pre-vegan days. So I have been on the lookout for some nice option to …
This vegan empanada dough recipe is so easy to make I am sure it will become one of your go-to recipes in no time. I love how versatile empanadas are and they make a great side or if you are like us also a great option as a main meal. I usually just prepare them with different fillings so everyone can eat their favourites.
I used to love making empanadas and freezing before starting my journey on a vegan diet. It was so relaxing to prepare the dough at the weekend and experiment with different fillings. I loved freezing them and then taking them out of the freezer whenever I didn’t feel like cooking.
However, it is actually really easy to tweak the regular empanada recipe and make vegan. I was so happy and make them now regularly. My freezer again has empanada dough ready to be defrosted whenever I want to make empanadas fresh. There are also a few frozen for a light and delicious snack. Have you tried making vegan empanada dough before?
Today, I just decided to give this a go as a special treat and made vegan empanadas with vegan spinach pesto. It went down a treat with my other half and we will be making these more often now. The vegan spinach pesto was easy to make and was used the next day on some freshly made pasta.
We are going to experiment with the fillings and I already made vegan cheese which was so easy to make and a great filling option.
The empanada dough is actually really easy to prepare and you don’t need any fancy ingredients. Of course, if you find you would rather spend your time on the filling you can always get some ready-made puff pastry.
However, I find making the vegan empanada dough is very relaxing and fulfilling. And making it from scratch is easier than you might think!
Below I described the steps in detail how you can make your own empanada dough. It takes a bit of time so calculate this in. My recommendation is to prepare the dough ahead and freeze it until you need it if you know on the day you won’t have the time to prepare the dough from scratch.
For this vegan empanada dough recipe, you will need a large bowl. Put the flour and salt in the bowl and mix it. Then make a well in the centre. Gradually mix in enough water to make a smooth, workable dough. Knead the dough for 8-10 min, then cover and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Once the dough was chilled for 30 min you can start rolling it out on a large, lightly floured, flat surface, or floured board, into a rectangle about 45 x 30 cm (17 1/2 x 12 inches) and about 5 mm (1/4 inch) thick. Spread the vegan butter evenly over the dough and fold each short edge into the centre, then the whole thing in half again, so that it is four layers thick. Cover and refrigerate for a further 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, roll the dough out again to 45 x 30 cm and again fold into four, then return it to the fridge for a final 30 minutes. The dough is now ready to use.
Roll the dough out so that it is about 2.5 mm thick and cut it into about 10 cm circles for individual empanadas, or 2 large rounds of Galician-style empanadas. Return them to the fridge and work with only a few at a time. Fill and cook as directed in the recipe.
Make your own empanadas. The dough can be frozen and prepared in advance. Great vegan option.
If you are looking for empanada filling ideas have a look here where I collected a few of the fillings I have tried by now. I love experimenting with new vegan fillings and these are some of my favourites.
What are your favourite fillings for these? Please share your favourites in the comments below.
If you enjoyed the recipe and want to find more head over to my recipe section and join my Facebook Group which focuses on homemade vegan recipes that are affordable and healthy.
For breakfast, I like varying what I eat. Sometimes when I have enough time I will make my vegan pancakes, if it has quick I just grab a few oat breakfast bars before work. However, my go-to breakfast is this easy homemade granola recipe with …