Coconut and Berries

Healthy, Vegan Recipes by Emma Potts

In my Kitchen Lately

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I’m back from a few days in London where I did absolutely no cooking whatsoever. There are too many good restaurants and cafés (and Wholefoods…!) and as I’m not visiting very often at the moment I feel like I have to make the most of the options when I am there.

Back in Bath I pretty much never eat out and I think we’ve established by now that I love spending time in the kitchen! When I’m not coming up with recipes for the blog I’m trying recipes from my favourite cookbooks, lately I’ve been enjoying some new ones (more on that to come though), and also trying out recipes from other bloggers.

After Vegan MoFo in September, I said that I wanted to squeeze in some time to do this and I figured, as I photographed what I made anyway,  it might be nice to share the successes and point you to the recipes from some of my favourite blogs.

So, without further ado, here’s a little more of what’s been happening in my kitchen lately:

Pumpkin Pancakes with Maple-Cream Cheese Sauce

I have pancakes at least once a week so think of myself as a pancake connoisseur of sorts. I’m actually not going to tell you where I found this recipe as I didn’t love it. They were just a tad tough. The “Maple Cream Cheese Sauce” from the Vegan Cookbook Aficionado, however, was fantastic. It had a pleasant tanginess to it but was still plenty sweet and most definitely redeemed the lacklustre pancakes.

Kale Salad with Apricot-Ginger Dressing, Apples & Walnuts

Kale Salads are one of my favourite ways to eat kale. This “Kale Salad with Creamy Apricot Ginger Dressing, Walnuts and Apples” from Gena of Choosing Raw was delicious and nice and autumnal. You’ll want to clean out the blender really well to get every drop of the dressing out!

Kale Salad with Apricot-Ginger Dressing, Apples & Walnuts

Back when the Canadians were celebrating Thanksgiving I kept seeing lots of beautiful holiday dishes appearing all over the blogosphere and decided to make something a bit more festive myself. This lovely tart from Dreena Burton’s “Let Them Eat Vegan” is aptly named, “Festive Chickpea Tart”, and is packed with savoury herbs and cranberries for lots of flavour, along with chickpeas, walnuts and oats to make a really hearty meal. Luckily for those of you who don’t have the book, Dreena’s kindly posted the recipe on her site, Plant-Powered Kitchen too.

Festive Chickpea Tart

A fresh, zingy salad was the perfect pairing. I chose a recipe I’d seen ages ago on Oh She Glows- “Holiday Salad with Apple, Pear, Cranberries & Walnuts”. I’ll definitely be making the Cranberry-Orange Vinaigrette again.

Holiday Salad with Apple, Pear, Walnuts & Cranberries

My final pick to share today is the “Kale & Sweet Potato Quesadillas” from Oh My Veggies. Lots of my favourite ingredients here- kale, sweet potatoes, caramelized onions, black beans and smoked paprika,  so it was a given that I would like this one really. As Kiersten points out, these aren’t really “quesadillas” since there’s no “queso”, but they’re no less tasty for it.

Kale & Sweet Potato Quesadillas

I served them with a quick homemade salsa, a squeeze of lime and sprinkle of fresh coriander.

Kale & Sweet Potato Quesadillas

Hope you check some of these recipes out.

Now it’s your turn! Are there any recipes you’ve made from other blogs recently that I simply have to try?

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Comments

  1. Everything looks wonderful especially the chickpea tart! Hope you’re settling in Bath, it’s a much quieter and slower way of life. We were there this time a couple of years ago and I remember buying a few Christmas gifts there, it was extremely cold!

    • Thanks Vicky. I really love Bath. It’s such a gorgeous city and feels very “civilized” if that makes sense?!
      I’m very much looking forward to the Christmas markets which I hear are particularly special. It has certainly got very chilly all of a sudden though!

  2. I have saved the kale salad recipe - it sounds wonderful. I’ve tried several things from other blogs that are must make, except not for you because they are not vegan. If you ever want really good non-vegan recipes, though, check out Not Enough Cinnamon. :-)

    • Hope you get to try that kale salad. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for pointing me to “Not Enough Cinnamon”. I don’t read exclusively vegan blogs and find inspiration from all over the place.

  4. I might maybe possibly have been known to lick my blended having made that kale salad 😉
    just don’t tell anyone

    • Yay. Glad I could help! I really liked the dressing- sweet and tangy. If you haven’t made Gena’s apricot & ginger dressing either than I definitely recommend you try that one too. It uses dried apricots so you can make it all year round.

  15. There are so many great recipes here! Thank you :) I will have to try that chickpea tart, and the kale salad with apricot ginger dressing. I can completely understand wanting to eat out in London (I get crazily over-excited just in London supermarkets, although granted that is partly due to coming to them from Australia) but with things like this at home, it can’t be a hardship going back :)

  16. So happy you liked the cream cheese sauce! I really need to get back to cooking from my cookbooks, I’ve been taking pictures of everything I’ve made lately but can’t share them since it’s all tester recipes. I made that chickpea tart one year for Christmas, I really liked the combo of flavours. I find it funny you made a cranberry salad dressing since I made one too this weekend :)

  17. This is a fantastic post. I bookmark the recipes and sometime it takes me ages to get to them. I need to make that chickpea tart since it has been sitting in my bookmarks for too long

  18. All those savoury dishes look so good! I’m going to bookmark all of them for future reference :) Your photos are absolutely stunning too ♥ I’ve been on the look out for a dressing for the beetroot, walnut, pomegranate & orange salad that I make for our Christmas Day buffet tea and Angela’s vinaigrette could be just the job. The colour & flavour sound perfect for it!

    • Super! Glad I could be of some assistance :)
      I want to hear more about your Christmas buffet tea- the salad alone sounds delicious but I’m sure you’ll be serving up lots of other delights.
      I’m feeling especially festive after being at the Bath Christmas lights event this evening

  20. I totally agree - there are some cities that you don’t feel like cooking in since there are many good restaurants & cafes to try! For example Valencia and Buenos Aires are the cities I would spend time in the kitchen since there aren’t many vegan restaurants. Hope you’re settling in great, I just settled in this week and it is nice to be back in my own kitchen - with all the pantry ingredients I have. I want to try that Maple Cream Cheese Sauce and the Kale & Sweet Potato Quesadillas, all of the dishes look very delicious, Emma!

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