Basic cocktail mixing kit

Firstly you’re going to need some basic equipment. A cocktail shaker is a must, as is a strainer and jigger for measuring your spirits. You should also think about a good sharp knife for those fruit slices, a muddler for bashing up ingredients and a long mixing spoon. An ice crusher would be great, but don’t forget some decent glasses for long and short drinks. Finally, invest in a good cocktail guide to start you off and stock up your bar with good quality ingredients for all your favourites.

Mixing it with the mixologists

Now you’re all set up and practice will make perfect when mixing the classics, but what about mixing up your own creations? Good cocktail mixing is essentially about blending the different components of heat, sweetness, acidity and sometimes sourness too. The heat comes from the base spirit, sweetness from sugar or syrup, acid from citrus such as lemons, and sourness from something like bitters. There is no correct way to invent a new cocktail, but if you bear these elements in mind your cocktail mixing experiments are more likely to meet with success. Quiz your guests about their preferences and remember too that they will first drink in your creation with their eyes. Presentation is important, so make sure your drink looks the part too. Consider the colour, garnishes and glassware. Cheers!

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A Simple Process

If you want every aspect of your pizza to be completely homemade, you will need to make your own dough. Pizza dough takes between 15 and 30 minutes to make and the process is fairly simple. You will need a large, flat surface to work on and you must be prepared to get a little messy! Ingredients required are flour, yeast, olive oil, milk, water and salt. The exact measurements of each component will differ depending on the size of pizza you are planning to make but there are a number of recipes available online which will give you an idea of the quantities required. An easier solution when you make your own pizza is to buy ready-made pizza dough from your local supermarket. Just as tasty, the ready-made dough will save you time and allow you to concentrate on the most important aspect of a pizza – the delicious toppings!

Great Toppings

One of the great things about deciding to make your own pizza is that almost every foodstuff imaginable is suitable for a topping! You can really let your imagination run wild when it comes to creating your pizza masterpiece! No matter what you decide to include as a topping, the first thing that needs to be spread across the base is a sauce – tomato being the most common. Most pizzas include a cheese too but do not to be tempted to use cheddar as it burns easily. A good quality mozzarella is best. Place a cooking sheet on a baking tray to stop your pizza sticking and place in the oven at a high temperature for approximately ten to fifteen minutes. Then simply take out, slice and enjoy!

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Eat more legumes

There’s a lot more to legumes than regular old beans. This versatile and protein rich food group also includes chickpeas (found in that delicious dip hummus), lentils, and edamame (a fancy name for soy beans). To boost your legume intake, consider adding a handful of lentils to your favorite soup, curry, or salad. Edamame also makes a delicious addition to any stir fry, and there are hundreds of different ways to enjoy beans. Turn your favorite bean into a dip, or even make yourself some meatless burgers.

Don’t underestimate the grain

There are plenty of grains that also count as good sources of protein, and quinoa is top of the list. Use quinoa in place of rice or couscous in your usual dinner, sprinkle it on your salad, or eat it for breakfast like you would your oats and porridge. You will also find protein in wheat, rice, and corn.

Nuts and seeds

These fantastic foods can serve the role of delicious ingredient, or they can be enjoyed alone. Next time you buy a bag of walnuts, feel free to either open the bag and dig right in or bake yourself a walnut loaf – either way, you are helping your vegan diet to stay balanced. Peanut butter is also an amazing source, but make sure you are buying a sugar free version so that you’re not doing any damage while trying to help your body out!

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The Basics of Christmas Cake, For Those Who Are Unfamiliar

Christmas cake isn’t just any cake. You can’t just go baking a sponge, for example, and then stick a bit of decorative holly and a couple of red berries on the top with some white icing and call it a Christmas cake. Real Christmas cake is a kind of dark fruitcake, full of things like raisins, sultanas, currants and cherries. It should be moist and have a distinctive flavour. White icing decoration with red and green trim is fairly typical. This is all fairly standard stuff, however. The trick to this is going to be taking the basic recipe – which you can easily find online – and making it your own in a way that your family and guests will remember fondly.

The Fun Part Is Making It Your Christmas Cake

A quick and easy way to make any cake unique without changing the recipe much at all is to add colour. Now a few years ago you might have had to use liquid colours, which can spoil a cake’s consistency and flavour if you use too much, and for a large cake with a dark colour, you’d have to use a lot. These days, though, one can find an excellent alternative in gel colours. Gel colours give the most vibrant colours from only a tiny amount, and can be used both in the cake mix itself as well as in the icing. Imagine your guests’ surprise when you cut the first slice from a seemingly ordinary cake to find that it’s a bright, Christmas red under all that plain white icing!
Try to be creative with your decorations if you like, too. It’s always worth putting in a little extra effort to see the smiles on the faces of your loved ones.

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Wild Rice, Sweet Potato and Beetroot Salad

To make this delicious salad, first cook the wild rice according to package directions. You could also use a wild rice blend. Next roast the sweet potatoes and beetroot. Chop the sweet potatoes into cubes of roughly 1cm, toss in a little olive oil. Next peel the beetroot and chop into chunks no bigger than the size of a golf ball, wrap all the chunks together in one big sheet of tinfoil and seal the edges. Bake both the sweet potato and the beetroot at 200 centigrade for around one hour. Once everything’s cooked, mix in a large bowl and add one 400g can of green lentils, drained and rinsed. Place in the fridge until chilled, then serve with your favourite salad dressing or some tahini sauce.

Falafel Nachos

Amongst the simplest and most tasty recipes for vegans, falafel nachos are an interesting twist on the Tex-Mex favourite. In place of tortilla chips, use pita chips, which you can make by cutting pita bread into triangles and baking them at 200 centigrade for 12 minutes. Put the chips on a plate and crumble on your favourite vegan falafel, either shop-bought or homemade, then top with hummus and tahini sauce. Garnish the dish with shredded lettuce, diced red onion and sliced kalamata olives.

Chocolate Mousse Pie

Use a food processor or a pestle and mortar to crush 250g grams of digestive biscuits, bourbon biscuits or speculoos biscuits into fine crumbs. Ensure the type you buy is suitable for vegans. Mix the crumbs with 4 tablespoons of melted dairy-free margarine and press into a 9″ pie pan. Bake at 180 centigrade for 10 minutes and leave to cool. Now blend one pack of silken tofu — around 400 grams — with 60ml of soy milk. Melt 350 grams of vegan chocolate. Once melted, add to the tofu mixture and blend again to combine. Add to the biscuit crumb base, and serve once the pie has chilled in the fridge for at least one hour.
There you have some delicious new recipes for vegans for you to try out.

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Special drinks

A very festive-looking drink suggestion is a cranberry fizz made from cranberry and grapefruit juice with white rum and a touch of soda water.
A Bloody Mary drink mixed with tomato juice, celery salt, horseradish sauce, vodka, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice is a great Christmas drink.

Christmas starter recipes for vegetarians

For a starter with a kick, the Bloody Mary would go well, for example, with an avocado dish, served with toast. Dice the avocado and mix with red onion and tomato for a green and red Christmas starter.
A vegetarian pâté with your favourite toast makes a delicious starter. Why not try a pâté made from butter beans, herbs and lemon, or a mushroom and tarragon paté? These are easily processed to a smooth or chunky texture for a mouthwatering first course.
Cream cheese and cranberry parcels made with filo pastry make a delicious and light starter.

Christmas dinner vegetarian main course

One dish that not only tastes good, but makes a wonderful table centrepiece is a chestnut pâté-en-crôute. The pâté with chestnut purée, onions, mushrooms and garlic is really tasty inside its pastry crust and served with rich gravy. Roast potatoes and Mediterranean vegetables make great colourful accompaniments or a Christmas couscous salad with red and green peppers.
Another good-looking and delicious centrepiece is a baked squash with spicy couscous stuffing. You decide how hot you want your spices!
What about a festive roast as a Christmas recipe to try out? This is such a mouthwatering nutty dish which can be accompanied by your usual roast vegetables. It’s so yummy with mixed nuts, mushrooms, carrots, red lentils, onion, courgettes and more baked in a bread tin. Serve with a thick gravy sauce.

Another tasty roast is a cashew nut roast with mushrooms and garlic stuffing, served with red wine gravy.

Christmas dessert recipes for vegetarians

A traditional fruity Christmas pudding will finish your Christmas dinner off nicely. You might like to try a spicy version with cinnamon, mixed spices and nuts. Why not top it with butterscotch sauce?
For something completely different and rather romantic you could serve heart-shaped dark chocolate brandy truffles. Topped with cream and a chocolate button they look delightful!

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