fromdelish knowledge

ingredients

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 large carrots, halved lengthwise and finely sliced
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ tsp. dried thyme
• 6 cups vegetable broth + 1 cup water
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 small sprig rosemary
• 1 cup orzo
• 1 bay leaf
• juice of 1 lemon or 1/8 cup bottled citrus juice (you can add more than this if you want extra citrus flavor!)

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic. 
2. Cook for 5 minutes until vegetables are soft. Add thyme and pinch of pepper; stir together.
3. Add vegetable broth and water and bring to a boil.
4. Add the chickpeas, rosemary, orzo and bay leaf. 
5. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook for 10 minutes until orzo is cooked through.
   
6. Turn off heat and squeeze in fresh lemon juice. 

This recipe is no chopping if you purchase the onion, carrot, and celery either pre-chopped from the produce section or from the frozen section (you can find frozen chopped onion, carrot, and celery soup starters). 

This recipe is about as easy as it gets and delicious!

Ingredients:

Chicken (I usually use a package of 4-6 breasts but it can be whatever you like)

Jar of salsa (can be smaller or larger can depending how saucy you like things)

Shredded cheese (optional)

Rice or any sides you want (It goes really with Uncle Ben’s Spanish style rice)

Put chicken in a baking dish (I use a glass rectangular one) dump the jar of salsa over the chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 mins or until chicken is cooked. Take chicken out of oven and (if you want) cover with shredded cheese and either put it back in the oven for a couple minutes or just cover the dish for a few minutes to melt the cheese. I usually make Uncle Ben’s Spanish style rice to go with it but you can make any rice or any other veggies or sides you want. (You could also make the chicken in a slow cooker if you prefer).

I’ve been cooking this recipe for a very long time. I learned it from a friend, who learned it from a friend, whose mom taught him. This is the sauce you bust out to impress someone, but it’s not hard at all. It’s full of veggies and it’s really chunky and looks as amazing as it tastes. This recipe calls for a lot of chopping of vegetables, so you should be able to handle a knife. It’s vegan, and if you water saute and buy the salt free versions of the canned tomatoes, it is SOS (salt, oil, sugar) free. And you can use a gluten free pasta, as well.

Ingredients:

• 1 tall pot for the sauce, 1 pot for the pasta, a strainer for the pasta, a sharp knife and cutting board
• 1 pound (0.5 kg) box pasta of your choice (you don’t have to cook all of it, depends on how many people are eating. About a quarter of the box per person)
• 1 29 ounce (822 grams) can of tomato sauce (you can get salt free versions of all of these)
• 1 15 ounce (425 grams) can of diced tomatoes
• 1 8 ounce (226 grams) can of tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons (10mL) oil for sauteing (or water saute)
• 1 medium to large yellow or white onion
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (I love garlic so feel free to add more)
• 1 green bell pepper (capsicum)
• 1 yellow or orange bell pepper
• 1 red bell pepper (some stores sell a package with all three colors together)
• 1 8 ounce (226 grams) box of mushrooms (sliced or whole)
• Seasoning: A jar of Italian herbs (or basil and oregano and rosemary and thyme)
• Salt to taste

Directions:

• Chop all your vegetables first! The French have this thing called “mise en place” which means get all your prepwork done first and things will go a million times faster. 
• The onion and garlic are going in first, so dice them and set those aside. Clean and chop the bell peppers into fairly large pieces (about an inch square). Clean and slice the mushrooms (if you bought them whole). Open up all your cans and set those aside.
• Turn the stove onto medium high (8) and heat the oil. When it’s hot, add the onion and garlic. Saute for a couple of minutes, then add the peppers and mushrooms (your pot is going to pretty full). Stir those around for a couple of minutes, getting them hot and softening them just a little. They’re going to cook in the sauce for a while and get soft anyway.
• Add the three cans of tomatoes. The paste is really thick and you’ll have to stir it to get it to mix in.
• Add the Italian seasonings, about 3 tablespoons of the blend or 1 tablespoon of each)
• Bring the sauce back up to a bubble and then lower the heat to about a (4) and simmer for a while. Twenty minutes is a good number. Keep an eye on it and stir it every few minutes so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
• Once it’s simmering, start the pasta according to the directions on the box. When it’s done, drain the pasta and you can eat!

Required:

* 1 can baked beans (any size or brand)

* water

Optional:

* 1 can meat (go for meat in water, not in any kind of gravy or sauce)

* dried onions (if you have the spoons, diced onion are great and caramelized onions are even better!)

* minced garlic

* salt and pepper

* brown sugar, bouillon, bbq sauce

Basic recipe is to dump beans into a cooking vessel and then add just enough water to thin it out without losing too much flavor. Heat it until hot. Enjoy.

If you want caramelized onions, do that first. Everything else can go in at the same time as the beans. 

If you add too much water, you can just let it simmer off the extra water. I usually just add some bouillon and brown sugar or bbq sauce. No matter what you add, start slow. 

I like to keep the basic ingredients on hand because this is my go to on a slow spoon day. 

I got this recipe here on YouTube and it’s called five minute curry, because they timed it, lol. It’s definitely easy, but they made it look a little dangerous, too. Best to take your time. But it is simple and it’s really good. I gave you bare bones and I added some extras, too. This is vegan and you can make it SOS free (no salt, oil or sugar).

• 1 can chickpeas (drained and rinsed) (no/low salt if you prefer)
• 1 can diced tomatoes (no salt if you prefer)
• 1 can coconut milk (low fat if you prefer)
• 2 tablespoons oil to saute (or water saute if you’re oil free)
• 1 onion, diced
• 2-3 cloves of Garlic (or add 2 tsp powdered to the Cumin and Curry)
• 1 tablespoon Cumin powder
• 1 tablespoon Curry powder
• salt to taste (or omit and/or salt when serving)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Saute the diced onion and chopped garlic in the oil or water in a pan. Add the cumin and curry (and garlic powder) and black pepper to the pan and stir, to warm up the spices. Then add the three cans, and the salt and you’re done!

fBut! If you want to get fancy, add the following spices when you add the cumin and curry:

• 1 teaspoon ginger powder (or a thumb of chopped ginger when you saute the onion)
• 1 teaspoon Garam Masala
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon paprika

and then if you want:

• throw in a handful of greens (kale or spinach or parsley or cilantro)

This can be served with rice or couscous or quinoa, so get that going before you start this. If you measure out all your spices before you begin it’s super quick, but if you have time, let the whole thing simmer for about 20 minutes (or until your grain is done.)

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion
  
• 1 green chilly (finely chopped)
  
• 2-3 medium tomatoes
  
• Ginger garlic paste (or 5 large cloves of garlic and a thumb sized piece of ginger minced)
  
• ¼ kg (½ lb) chicken cut into chunks
  
• 2 medium (1 large) potato
  
• 2 Tbsp oil
  
• Chilly powder
  
• Salt
  
• Tumeric
  
• Garam masala (optional)
  
• Cilantro (optional)
  

METHOD:
1. Dice the onion and tomatoes as fine as you can
2. Heat the oil in a pot on a medium flame and add the onion, ginger-garlic and green chilly. Stir till onions become translucent and the ginger and garlic no longer smell raw.
3. Add the tomato and stir for 2-5 minutes.
4. Add 1 tsp tumeric,½ tsp of garam masala, and salt and chilly powder to taste.
5. Add the chicken and cook until the outside turns white. Meanwhile wash, peel, and dice the potato.
6. When chicken is partially cooked add the potato, mix well.
7. Add one cup cup of water and let the whole thing simmer for 10 minutes. Garnish with cilantro.

Best served with rice and a little bit of yoghurt. If you accidentally make it to spicy you can add a bit of sugar to even it out.

instagram breakfast (or lunch)

this recipe is cheap and pretty (just like me). 

ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 half avocado
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes
• 2 cups raw spinach
• vinegar (white or rice wine - not apple cider)
• soy sauce (or liquid aminos to make this recipe gluten free)

directions:

1. cut the cherry tomatoes in half and throw in a bowl. add in two tablespoons white vinegar and two tablespoons soy sauce.
2. heat up 1 tablespoon oil (vegetable, olive, or coconut) on medium. toss raw spinach in and sautee for 2-3 minutes until wilted. place spinach on plate.
3. crack egg into pan. cook for two minutes until whites are solid. turn pan off, flip egg, and wait 10 seconds. scoop up egg with spatula and place on plate on top of spinach.
4. cut avocado in half and scoop out half with a spoon. place on plate next to egg and spinach.

salt to taste and enjoy! i always grew up eating filipino breakfast and my favorite part was the tomatoes in vinegar and soy sauce. they add the perfect salt, acid, and brightness!

if you want to make this more filling, add some white rice on the side. 

My family loves this recipe in the summer, especially when we have bought strawberries for another meal and still have a lot of them left over. Also great if you have left over pasta.

Ingredients should be equal parts:

• Pasta (I like smaller ones like rigatoni or fusili)
• Strawberries (I take three big ones for one person)
• Field salat (or any other salad you have or like, e.g. arugula)

For the dressing:

• 2 parts vinegar
• 1 part balsamic vinegar (or, if you lack that, just another part normal vinegar)
• 2 parts oil
• spices (I like a bit pepper)
• 2 ts sugar

Instructions:

1. Heat up your left over pasta or follow directions on the box to cook them. I like the pasta a bit cooled down, but my brother likes it warm as normal pasta so let it sit to your prefrance.
2. Wash and cut your strawberries into smaller pieces.
3. Wash salad and tear it into smaller pieces.
4. Toss pasta, strawberries and salad together.
5. Now prepare the dressing: Mix your different vinegars and oil with the sugar and the spices. Taste to see if you should add more sugar or vinegar.
6. Put the dressing on the mixed pasta, strawberries and salad but don’t drown them in the dressing, it’s just to further bind the different tastes together.
7. Enjoy!

I remember when I was a kid, we would have those powdered ‘instant’ puddings in a packet. They were never instant, of course. You mixed the powder with water and put it in the fridge for half an hour or so and THEN you had a sort of cross between mousse and jelly.

I have no idea if those were vegan friendly or not, but they weren’t exactly a culinary delight, they had sugar, so as kids, we liked them. I haven’t had one of those puddings in a long time. We’re talking maybe more than two decades (damn… now I feel old).

Anyway, this is a base that I usually use to make chocolate pudding, but it could be flavoured in a bunch of other ways too. The texture depends a lot on what you use out of the options. A blender is very helpful for this recipe but it isn’t critical. 

Automatically dairy, gelatine, and egg free. Can be nut free, soy free, sugar free, low fodmap, or just about anything else depending on your choices. The recipe is raw too, for those interested in that.

It stores fine overnight in the fridge. It’s never made it past that point without being devoured so I don’t know about storing it any longer than that.

This much should be two decent sized bowlfuls. If you serve it with fruit or nuts, or whatever it would make desssert for four easily.

Ingredients

• 2 bananas or 2 ripe avocadoes - You can do without these if you want, but you’ll need to use a lot more of something else to thicken it and the texture will be a lot less smooth and silky.
• Chia seeds, Ground linseed (flaxseed) - I find chia seeds work really well (and fast) for this, but they create quite a lumpy texture. They’re also expensive. I typically add four tablespoons of chia seeds and four of ground linseed. Alternatively, you could use agar (a quarter teaspoon). Other thickeners might work too but I haven’t tried them uncooked, so you’d need to experiment.
• Non dairy milk - I usually use almond milk, but any non dairy milk will do, you could even use water, just add a little more of whatever flavourings you choose. I usually use about half a cup of almond milk and add another half cup of water.
• Sugar - Not essential. I usually add two tablespoons.
• Flavourings - What you add here really depends on your tastes. My usual preference is two tablespoons of cocoa, and a splash of vanilla essence. You could skip the cocoa and have vanilla, or skip the vanilla and have a strong banana flavour, or have mint chocolate, or blueberry. Whatever you want.
  

Method

Put everything except half the liquid in the blender (or bowl if you’re mixing and mashing by hand). Blend it all up.

Leave it for a few minutes to thicken (if you’re using agar it’ll take a bit longer), add more liquid to get to your desired consistency.

Eat.

Well… not exactly. Free in the sense of “gluten free” or “nut free”

One thing that royally sucks is not being able to eat nommy food because of an allergy, intolerance, or cost issue.

This isn’t a recipe so much as a sort of framework that will let you make a recipe according to your needs. It’s also a great vehicle for adding stuff that you might need - I used it for rice protein powder when I was dr-ordered to try not eating a whole bunch of food (think gluten free times ten). Those were dark days. But brownies got me through.

I’m going to start out gluten free - there’s already a recipe that uses wheat flour on the blog, and you may find it suits your needs better.

Flour

You’re gonna need some kind of flour. Most will do, but you’re gonna want a base of something quite fine and light - rice or corn flour is ideal. Any standard gluten free flour mix will do too. You’re going to end up with a total of two cups of flour, and you want at least one of those cups to be your base flour, like rice or corn.

From there you can add in almost anything you want, the only thing you really want to avoid is stuff like sorghum, millet or other really grainy flours.

Personally, I really like almond flour or coconut flour in brownies, they’re probably the most grainy flour you’ll get away with in this mix (especially if you’re adding in other stuff like protein powder). For these sorts of flours I wouldn’t add more than half a cup as part of your two cups.

Binder

Depending on your mixture, you may not need a binder, some flour combos just bind well on their own. With gluten free recipes I tend to like having a second binder though.

We have a fair few options here:

• Gums and Starches - Tapioca starch, potato starch, arrowroot powder, xantham gum, agar powder, etc. They’re all fine. The amount you would use will vary - for example a half teaspoon of agar will be plenty, but tapioca and potato starch you’d use a few table spoons, so go with what you’re familiar with and know you can eat.
• Ground linseed (flaxseed) - This is my favourite binder for baking. It binds well, it’s cheap, and it has loads of protein and fibre, its taste is neutral (or slightly nutty if you add a lot) and it’s super easy to use and store. I’d add a quarter cup to this recipe personally, but you can use less (or more) if you want without too much trouble.
• Oats- These are only a mild binder, and if you have any issues with gluten it’s probably easier to just avoid them, since certified gluten free oats are expensive. They add a chewy, softer grainy texture. I wouldn’t add more than a quarter cup to this mix.
• Chia seeds - These are effectively the same as linseed, but about three times the price, they have a more obvious texture, and they’re higher in protein. You do tend to need a little less though. Maybe three tablespoons in this mix.
• Egg replacer - These are available in most supermarkets. I don’t often use them personally, they’re usually a combination of starches, but they’re quick and easy, so if it works for you, awesome ^_^. I would only add one ‘egg’ worth to this mix.
  

Liquid

I typically use non dairy milk and there’s a few options there - almond milk, oat milk, rice milk, soy milk, the list goes on. You can use water as well. I find it reduces the flavour a bit so if you do, add more cocoa or whatever you’re using in replacement, and more oil or whatever you’re using instead of that.

You’ll want about a third of a cup, and you might add a little more depending on how your batter turns out.

Fat

You could potentially make these without some kind of fat, but I haven’t tried it, so some experimenting might be in order. Applesauce might work in the place of oil. Mashed banana works too but it has a fairly strong impact on the flavour.

• Vegetable oil - Any is fine, I find soy bean oil is a little bitter. Olive oil is too expensive to waste in baking. Plain old canola or blended vegetable oil works for me. I would add about a third of a cup for this recipe.
  
• Vegan butter or margaraine - Use the same amount as the oil.
  
• Peanut butter - I usually add this as well as oil or marg. It’s not essential to the recipe but I’ve found it improves the texture and flavour a lot. I prefer smooth but crunchy is fine too if you want that texture. Add anywhere from a couple of tablespoons to half a cup, depending entirely on your tastes. If you’re adding less than a quarter of a cup, increase your other fats a little (don’t go higher than an extra three tablespoons). If you’re adding more than a quarter of a cup, lower the other fat sources by the same amount. If you’re using peanut butter as your sole source of fat, also decrease the liquid content a little and expect the batter to be a lot thicker.
  

Sweetener

I typically use soft brown sugar, but any will do. You can also use stevia, maple syrup (decrease liquid content accordingly), dates (soaked overnight in water and blended), or even apple sauce.

I typically add a quarter of a cup of sugar, but I tend to like brownies not too sweet, so adjust according to your tastes.

Flavourings

• Cocoa is the main one here, but carob would also do the trick. I typically add a half a cup of cocoa powder, but I like a strong chocolate flavour, so adjust to suit your preferences.
  
• Vanilla essence adds to the flavour as well but it isn’t strictly necessary. A teaspoon is about right. If you’re going for low chocolate, up the vanilla to a tablespoon.
  

Other stuff

• Baking powder - This isn’t strictly necessary, but I find it improves the binding and texture a little. A teaspoon of baking powder is plenty.
  
• Salt - Not strictly necessary, but useful. I tend to just add a half tablespoon. If you need something low salt or salt free, just leave it out. The flavours won’t be quite so smooth, but it should be fine.
  
• Adding nuts and seeds can be nommy, if you can have them. I’ve tried walnuts, hazelnut meal, almond slivers, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds. They were all nice, either as toppings or in the batter itself.
  
• Icing is always nommy. There’s a recipe for peanut butter and chocolate icing in an earlier post that goes great with these brownies, and another recipe for frosting that you could adapt if you can’t have nuts.
  

The madness - I mean method

• Mix all the dry ingredients, try to get rid of any lumps.
  
• Add the liquid ingredients and mix well.
  
• Add the semi solid ingredients, like peanut butter, margaraine, etc.
  
• Unless you’re using lots of peanut butter, the batter should be reasonably thin and easy to pour. Think pancake batter but a little thicker.
  
• Grease a shallow (no deeper than two inches/five cm) nonstick baking tin (or line with biodegradable parchment paper), pour the batter in. 
  
• Stick the tin in the oven at 180 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit).
  
• Amuse yourself by licking every last scrap of batter out of the bowl. Fight all challengers for the bowl. It’s your bowl damnit, they can’t have it.
  
• Come back and check in 15 minutes. Given how variable this recipe is, you’ll probably need to experiment to find the ideal cooking time. Stab a clean sharp knife, skewer or toothpick into several place in the chocolatey goodness, if it comes out clean in each place, the brownies are ready. If not, come back in five minutes. If the top is starting to get a little crusty but the centre isn’t cooked yet, make it a tinfoil hat to go over the tray for the rest of the cooking time. This will help keep the moisture in.
  
• When it’s done, take the tray out of the oven, let it cool for a bit, lift the brownie slab out using the parchment paper, or some highly coordinated gymnastics with flipping and plates and stuff (and post the video on line). Slice, add any toppings you want. 
  
• Nom all the brownies.
  

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