Category Archives: Snacks

Smashed Chickpea Sandwich Spread

Smashed Chickpea Sandwich Spread
 
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Recipe Type: Sandwich
 
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Tasty filling for a sandwich. Keeps for a week in the fridge.
Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 can chickpeas
  • ½ cup finely diced celery
  • ½ cup grated or diced carrot
  • ¼ cup finely sliced spring onion
  • ½ red capsicum, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
  • 1 heaped tablespoon creamy style hummus
  • pinch of kala namak or black salt (gives an egg flavour)
  • 1 tablespoon of commercial fat free mayo (there are a few egg-free varieties on market)
  • salt & pepper
  • squeeze of lemon - to taste
  • Optional: finely chopped parsley
Instructions
  1. Rinse and drain chickpeas, put in a shallow bowl and roughly mash with a fork or potato masher
  2. Prepare the vegetables and add to the bowl
  3. Mix the dressing ingredients together and stir into the chickpeas and vegetables. Season well with salt and pepper and add lemon juice to taste. Add parsley if desired. Some people might add a dash of chilli sauce too 🙂
Notes
Quick food processor method:
Pulse the chickpeas in the processor with S blade 2 or 3 times.
Add the capsicum and pulse again until chickpeas are broken and the capsicum is finely chopped.
Remove blade, insert the grating attachment and grate the carrot over the chickpeas.
Replace grating with slicing attachment, and add the celery and spring onions.
Mix the dressing in a large bowl
Tip the contents of the processor into the bowl and mix well.

 

Mexican Chickpea Quiches

These are real crowd pleasers, perfect as part of a party banquet, but equally at home as part of dinner with maybe some rice and salad.  These are flavoured a la Mexican, with cumin, coriander, red and green capsicum, onion and red kidney beans, but they can be themed any how – swap out the spices for fresh shredded basil, drop the beans but add sliced black olives and they become pizza quiches.  Try sweetcorn and Thai curry paste and make Thai inspired quiches, or try potato, pea and maybe cauliflower, with curry powder and they’re Indian!  The sky’s the limit! 🙂

Mexican Chickpea Fritters

Mexican Chickpea Quiches
 
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Recipe type: Snacks
Cuisine: Mexican
Serves: 15-18
Ingredients
  • 2.5 cups of chickpea flour (also known as besan flour / garbanzo flour)
  • 3 cups of water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • chilli powder - to taste (optional)
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional)
  • 1 medium red capsicum (bell pepper), diced small
  • 1 medium green capsicum (bell pepper) diced small
  • 1 medium red onion, diced small
  • 1 cup red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 cup sweetcorn, frozen or canned
  • Equipment: 12 hole muffin tray (I used silicon for easy removal) - stand on a large baking tray before filling if you are using a silicon one.
Instructions
  1. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C
  2. In a large bowl, combine the chickpea flour, herbs and spices, water and salt and whisk well. Set aside.
  3. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and fry off the capsicum and onion until tender. Tip the vegetables into another bowl and mix in the beans, corn, & olives
  4. Pour the batter into each muffin tray, filling ⅔ full.
  5. Using a small spoon, add a heaped teaspoon of the vegetable mixture to each muffin hole.
  6. Stir each muffin hole to distribute the vegetables.
  7. Place into the oven, bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and firm to the touch. Allow to cool until able to handle them. Place upside down on the baking tray (use baking paper to line) and pop back into the oven for another 10-15 minutes until bottoms are also golden.
  8. You should have enough batter left to make a few more.
  9. Lovely served hot, warm or cold.

 

 

Kale & Red Pepper Bites

These are fantastic little crispy bites, with whole grains, lentils, kale, onion, red pepper, and flavoured with Italian herbs. The grain and lentils all cook together into a fabulously textured kind of porridge which is an amazing base to make burgers, and sausages with.    Perfect for parties, lunchboxes or just snacks to keep in the fridge when hunger strikes!

Kale and Red Pepper Bites2

The other ingredients are then just stirred in and I used a mini muffin tray for easily shaped and uniform results.

mini muffin tray

Impossible to eat just one!  We love them topped with hummus and a red pepper relish.

Kale and Red Pepper Bites

Kale & Red Pepper Bites
 
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Crispy and delicious, this little bites are perfect party or lunchbox items
Author:
Serves: 30-34
Ingredients
  • ½ cup medium grain brown rice
  • ¼ cup millet
  • ¼ cup split red lentils
  • ¼ cup quinoa
  • 1 box of frozen kale
  • 1 red capsicum, finely diced
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • 1 tsp Italian dried herb mix
  • ½ tsp garlic granules
  • ½ tsp onion powder
  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
  • 1 tablespoon low sodium tamari / soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon of tahini - optional
  • juice of half a lemon
  • zest of a whole lemon
  • ¼ cup ground almonds - optional (makes them more crispy but you can leave out for school lunchboxes).
  • Equipment: mini 24-cup muffin pan
  • Sesame seeds - optional
Instructions
  1. Rinse the grains and lentils in a fine sieve under running water for a couple of minutes.
  2. Place them in a rice cooker (or saucepan - but you may need to add an extra half a cup of water before the grains are fully cooked, depending on how tight fitting the lid is) with 3 cups of water, and put it on to cook.
  3. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade. / 375 Fahrenheit.
  4. Meanwhile, put the kale into a sieve over (in which the sieve will be enclosed) and cover in boiling water.
  5. Place a large frying pan over a medium heat, and "fry" the capsicum and onion, adding a splash of water or stock to stop them sticking. Do not allow to get too moist. Once softened after a few minutes, add the herbs and garlic. Cook until the moisture has evaporated out and the vegetables are fairly dry but not sticking to the pan.
  6. Drain the kale, and squeeze all the water out of it with your hands - I find it easiest to do this in 3 or 4 small handfuls, and set aside.
  7. Once the grains are cooked, (they should be fairly dry also) tip them into a large bowl, and tip in the contents of the frying pan. Sprinkle in the kale, breaking up any lumps, then add the nutritional yeast, tamari, tahini, lemon, zest & almonds and thoroughly mix (clean hands are best for this!).
  8. Sprinkle some sesame seeds if using into the bottom of each muffin hole, then pack the mixture firmly on top, pushing down to ensure no air pockets which will stop them coming out cleanly. Sprinkle some more sesame seeds on top.
  9. Pop into the top of the oven for 20 minutes. Take out, allow to sit for 5 minutes then invert the tray onto a cooling rack, making sure they all come out (you might need to loosen stubborn ones around the side with a plastic knife), place that on top of a baking tray and then pop back in the oven for 10 minutes to crisp up the bottoms.
  10. My mixture made 34, so you can use the tray again to use up the mixture for another 6-10 bites.

 

Broccoli & Corn Calzones

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This was adapted from a recipe on EatingWell.  I substituted homemade wholemeal pizza dough for their shop bought one, silken tofu for the ricotta and homemade mozzarella style cheese for the dairy version.  The “moxarella” is this one, and you will need about 1/2 to 2/3 of the amount that recipe makes (1 cup).

Broccoli & Corn Calzones
 
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Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 ½ cups chopped broccoli florets
  • 1 ½ cups frozen sweetcorn
  • 1 cup "moxarella cheese" (see link above in introduction)
  • ⅔ cup silken tofu
  • 4 spring onions, finely sliced
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • handful of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
  • Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. Heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.
  2. Place baking paper on two (or one large) baking trays.
  3. Prepare the pizza dough - as linked introduction. Roll out to about the size of side plate.
  4. Mix all the filling ingredients together, and scoop about ¾ cup onto one half of a round of dough and arrange into a crescent shape.
  5. Using a pastry brush - or your finger! - wet the dough around the edge next to the filling.
  6. Fold the other half over the top, stretching down onto the moistened edge.
  7. Crimp the edges together, making small overlapping folds working from right to left.
  8. Place on the baking trays and make 3 or 4 cuts in the top of each to allow the steam to escape.
  9. Bake for 12 minutes, re-pierce the holes in the tops, then swap the trays over and bake for a further 12 minutes or until golden and the filling is bubbling up out of the holes a little.
  10. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving (or be prepared to take the skin off the roof of your mouth..!)

 

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Fruit Salad Friands

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As you might have noticed I’m not a big dessert kind of person.  Occasionally though you do need something for the kids for after dinner or when friends come round.  I like to spend my time making the “main event”  so desserts / cakes etc for  me have to be quick and very easy.  This is about as easy as it gets.  The moistness comes from the ground almonds so these aren’t exactly fat free but way better than using oil / margarine etc.

You can also ring the changes with these by using any type of canned fruit, e.g. pineapple, peaches,  pears etc.  Must try cherry… 🙂

To turn these in to Pina Colada cakes, substitute a can of crushed pineapple for the fruit salad and desiccated coconut for the almond meal. 🙂

Fruit Salad Friands
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Cake
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 1 heaped cup wholemeal flour
  • 1 cup panella (unrefined brown sugar)
  • 2 heaped tsp flax meal
  • 1 heaped tsp baking powder
  • ½ cup almond meal
  • 1 14 oz can fruit salad - juice and all!
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients together, spoon into friend or muffin trays, bake for 20-25 mins or until golden brown and risen.
  2. These are very moist and if you use silicone bakeware you may need to flip them over and bake again on a baking sheet for 5 more minutes.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 Calories: 154 Fat: 2.5 Carbohydrates: 29.6 Sodium: 3 Protein: 2.4

Quick and Easy Gozleme

This is a really quick snack which we all love.  You can also have them for dinner, as we did last night with potato wedges and fennel coleslaw.

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Quick and Easy Gozleme
 
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Recipe type: Snack
Cuisine: Turkish
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 packet Mountain Bread, any variety
  • 300g classic tofu - silken firm
  • 16 cubes of frozen spinach
  • 2 T nutritional yeast
  • salt and pepper
  • ½ medium onion, finely chopped
Instructions
  1. Cook spinach quickly in boiling water or in a microwave, rinse and squeeze out all the water.
  2. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl.
  3. Take a mountain bread sheet, and evenly spread a heaped dessertspoon of the mixture over half and spread it to the corners.
  4. Fold the empty half over the top.
  5. Place in a grill /Italian toaster and put the lid down.
  6. Cook for around 3 minutes or until crispy and slightly browned.
  7. Keep them warm in the oven if you're making the whole lot at once, or just keep the mixture in the fridge for use later.
  8. Cut into strips, squeeze lemon juice liberally over the top, salt and pepper as required and devour!

 

Gozleme

gozleme
My daughter is a HUGE gozleme fan.  Whenever we go to the markets she will make a beeline for the stall and we love standing to watching those expert Turkish ladies rolling, folding and rolling again and again that fine dough and scattering the ingredients over, etc.  It’s a joy.  However, since cutting cheese out of our diet there’s been a bit of a hole in our culinary repertoire… So I googled and googled and found some gozleme dough recipes and decided to fill it with baby spinach, red onion, and  this “cheese” from vedgeout.com as it’s stretchy and mild and melts similarly to dairy cheese.  Next time I will try to make these using 100% wholemeal flour, I was a bit hesitant to do that first time round so these are 50/50 with self raising white flour.

5.0 from 1 reviews
Gozleme
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Snack
Cuisine: Turkish
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 cup wholemeal flour
  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • 300ml natural soy yogurt (I used homemade)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ quantity of "moxarella cheese"
  • baby spinach - about 4 large handfuls
  • 1 red onion, finely diced
Instructions
  1. Make the dough: mix the flours and salt together in a large bowl and mix in the yogurt thoroughly. Tip it out onto your work surface and knead for around 10 minutes until it is soft and supple, adding more flour as necessary to stop it sticking. Once it's done, wrap in clingfilm and set aside whilst you prepare the other ingredients.
  2. Make the cheese as linked in the introduction.
  3. Get your baby spinach and red onion prepared and ready to go.
  4. Divide the dough into 4 equal portions, use a scale if you want them really even (like me!).
  5. Flour your work surface and roll out the dough to a rectangle/oval shape around the size of a dinner plate.
  6. Spread a tablespoon or 2 of the "cheese" on half of the dough, top with the onion and a big handful of baby spinach. Flatten it down and fold the other half of the dough over to meet at the edges, fold the edges together to seal.
  7. Heat an Italian Grill Sandwich press (or a large non stick pan if you don't have one) and spray lightly with oil if you're not sure of it's non-stick qualities.
  8. One it's hot, carefully transfer the gozleme to the pan and if you're using the toaster, close the lid. Turn it over after around 2-4 minutes, checking the underside to check it's a golden brown. Flip it over 2-3 times until you're happy with it and the cheese is starting to ooze from the sides. 🙂
  9. When one is cooking you can roll and fill the next. Continue 3 more times until you've used all your dough.
  10. Essential: serve with lots of fresh lemon slices for squeezing over the top!!