Just Humans Being...

Day 13 World Vegan Month. Tonight's dinner has a spicy and nutritious kick. All organic, our chilli contains: onions, garlic, fresh ginger, butternut squash, red pepper, mushrooms, finely chopped tofu, brown lentils, red kidney beans and haricot beans.  Fried up in red wine, turmeric, cumin, chilli flakes and smoked paprika. We also added yesterday's leftover potato wedges, which we chopped into bite size pieces, some French passata and the juice of one lemon. Served with brown rice cooked in turmeric, as well as crispy kale and sesame seeds fried in soy sauce and black pepper. This meal contains lots of plant protein, calcium, iron and various B vitamins, as well as numerous other minerals and vitamins. It's also oil free, easy to make and absolutely delicious! Here's another version of  Our Chilli Recipe if you are interested - this previous post also features our cornbread recipe. Enjoy!!! Love Kay and Sime xx

Day 12 World Vegan Month. We like to make nut roasts, bhajis and burger-like patties and we pretty much follow the same process. Today we made these Walnut and Mushroom Burgers and potato wedges and we were so hungry by the time it was all ready - that we basically shoved it on the plate and ate it! The bread rolls and salad leaves were just cheap out-of-date supermarket ones that Sime picked up yesterday for a few pence (he can't resist a bargain). The recipe we use is similar to the one on this previous post: Our Simple Burger Recipe We used our food processor to whizz up around 200g of breadcrumbs, added 100g of walnuts and 100g of  mushrooms fried in soy sauce with 1 onion and 6 cloves of garlic.  Easy, stodgy...perfect for a cold day like today! Love Kay and Sime xx

Day 11 of World Vegan Month. For lunch today, we stir-fried onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms and kale with soy sauce, fresh ginger, ground cumin and a good handful of peanuts. We cooked it up for around 15 minutes and added a heaped teaspoon of miso paste, juice of half an orange and a sprinkle of ground black pepper. Easy to make and a delicious combination of flavours! We served it with whole wheat spaghetti (which works well as noodles) and a green salad underneath. Sometimes we add peanut butter to the pasta/noodles, which is lovely too - if you like peanuts! Let us know if you try it and if so, what do you think? Night, night Love Kay and Sime xx

We have travelled from the Auvergne, through the Loire and are now on the south east edge of Brittany in a lovely space. Finding places with kitchens is always important, as we like to cook! Tonight's dinner was fresh organic broccoli from the Biocoop, which we steamed for 5 minutes, then fried with 5 cloves of garlic and 1 red onion in soy sauce with dried basil and black pepper. We also added a tin of mixed beans and sweetcorn and finished with the juice of half a lemon. We served it with last night's leftover tabbouleh and a mixed salad. It's always good to have an opportunity to cook when travelling and it doesn't have to be difficult or long-winded. This place is perfect and it's obvious that the owners are enthusiastic cooks themselves, as the kitchen is well-equipped!  Another nice space to be!  This is Day 5 of World Vegan Month. Love Kay and Sime xx

Tonight's dinner has been leftover Haricot Bean Bolognese which Sime added tofu and borlotti beans to make it go further, he fried the tofu in soy sauce and we served with rice, which we always cook with turmeric (yes we do eat a lot of rice!) and green salad. The Bolognese also has lots of garlic, onions, mushrooms, red pepper and courgette. Tomorrow we are off on the road again, so it we will show you what foods we pick up and eat on our travels! Love Kay and Sime xx

After many years of bread making, I have finally learned (thanks to Sara at Cotna Eco Retreat ) how to make sourdough this year - using a wonderful old starter made from organic rye flour and pure spring water. As usual, I've tweaked the original bread recipe just because I like to make things simple and we both prefer denser breads.  ♥ Scroll down for the recipe ♥ Feeding the starter. I keep the starter in the fridge until ready to use, then add organic rye flour and warm water. This is how it looks when mixed in... And this is after around 8 hours. The starter gets added to the other bread ingredients and forms the dough.  I use Shipton Mill organic flours and mix it up for variety. Our favourites are stoneground wholemeal, extra coarse wholemeal, wholemeal spelt, light malthouse and dark rye. This is how it looks after being left usually overnight. I line the banneton (proofing basket) I like to use polenta and sesame seeds, inst

It's been over 8 months since we moved to this fabulous place and we are continually amazed by the wonderful people who come along and share our space. We absolutely love the sense of community and being around such thoughtful, creative people. We've spent lots of time outside...  And helping to make shared meals... We have made many new friends...   Had the kidlets visit... And enjoyed time with all the furry friends... Flea and Lupe have settled in and got used to the other animals being around, though we doubt they'll ever make friends with any of them... Ziggy  Team Cotna Outdoor farm kitties. Life is good and we are so happy and grateful to be here. Kay and Sime xx

We always make large amounts of food and enjoy using the leftovers. We like colourful meals, as we've mentioned before on the blog. Cooking healthy vegan food really doesn't need to be complicated and each of these dishes were on the table within an hour... Which is quick for those of us who love to cook!  The sauce from this brown lentil cottage pie started out as a spicy miso gravy and before that it was a bean chilli. The lentil mixture was topped with potatoes mashed with leeks, which were slow fried in soy sauce. Served with steamed carrots and kale and red cabbage, braised with seasame seeds, soy sauce and freshly squeezed orange. The previous day's brown lentil mix and red cabbage reheated and served up with dry roasted cauliflower and potato wedges, steamed kale and pureed carrots, swede and turmeric. The next day, we put all the leftover vegetables into the food processor, along with some scrambled tofu, mushrooms and garlic left over from