Thug Kitchen Party Grub - Curry Hand Pies with Cilantro-Mint Sauce

This was another dish that sprang out at me when first reading this cookbook - I love Indian flavours and I love pies....so what's not to love, right?

I'm not really sure what I had expected in my mind, but only after I had made them did I realise they're basically baked samosas!  Obvious really but I just hadn't twigged.  D'oh!

Well, I cocked up on a couple of things - firstly, I ran out of carrots, but that's not really a big deal (but they would have been nice in there).  Secondly, I accidentally cooked my yellow split peas until they were a complete mush - although that ended up working well in this recipe, I think they were not supposed to be like that based on the picture in the book.

I enjoyed the flavour, but did find them to be a little bland....next time I'd probably double all the spices, as they are only in the recipe in small amounts (e.g. 1/4 teaspoon for the whole recipe!).

What I really liked was the dough - easy to make and very easy to work with.  But again, I found probably not enough curry powder as they didn't really taste curry-ish.

I ended up making a few larger pies than the 16 small pies the recipe calls for, as we were just having them for dinner.  I made a half recipe and made 4 larger pies, so I can easily see how the whole recipe would make 16 small hand pies.

As mentioned in the book, I did find it a bit difficult to tell when they were done because of the yellow colour of the dough (due to the curry powder), and just waited until the edges were obvioulsy browned - and I probably had over cooked them slightly.

Soi what did we make of the pies - I enjoyed them and would probably make them again.  They didn't wow me, but they were good.  Niall seemed to enjoy them too.

The sauce however, not a fan!  It tasted really bitter and raw (which I guess it is) but not in a nice way.  I definitely wouldn't make the sauce again.

Final verdict: a good pie with great dough, but terrible sauce.
Final score: 2 out of 5 (pies were generally ok, but bland and definitely losing points for the sauce)

Thug Kitchen Party Grub - Bake Ziti

I just bought Thug Kitchen Party Grub this weekend when a friend told me it was only $1.99 on Kindle!! Yus!  Straight away this recipe popped out at me as something I wanted to try - not sure why, it just did!

For me it was reasonably spendy, with artichoke hearts, a whole tub of silken tofu and fresh basil but I realllly wanted to try it.  To counteract the spendyness it does make a lot - for us we got 6 BIG portions out of it (I think the recipe says 8, but we didn't serve it with any sides).

The recipe does use a lot of pans and takes quite a bit of time, but a lot of that time is passive whilst it bakes and it was actually pretty easy to make.  This was including the Blender Marinara (another recipe in this book).

I had a portion the first night and was really underwhelmed by it and found it bland. It maybe needed more salt, which is something I didn't expect as I usually find recipes in American cookbooks to be overly salty.  I think some of this was the fact that the marinara sauce was pretty basic and just tomatoes and a few herbs.  I added way less nooch as it hurts Niall's stomach, so that could have been an issue too.  I was also disappointed that I couldn't tell that there was expensive artichoke hearts in there! 

After being underwhelmed we had some leftovers tonight for dinner and it was much better!  I did add a bit of homemade aquafaba mozzarella to the top of my portion but that's a little bland too so I'm not sure if that was entirely responsible for it being much better.  I think maybe the day sitting meant the flavours melded together more.  However, for the time and cost I don't think the improvement the day after making justified it all.

Final verdict: an ok dish but one I won't bother making again

Final score: 2 out of 5 (a pretty average dish losing half a point for not showing off the artichoke hearts)

Vegan With A Vengeance - Falafel

This is my go to falafel recipe, it is soooo good.  The only change to the recipe for me is that I spray with cooking oil and then bake them for ~30 minutes rather than pan frying.
I sometimes use dried parsley but fresh is way better.  I also sometimes use coriander (cilantro) instead of the parsley to change things up (and also depending on what I have in stock)

Final verdict: a fantastic, easy to make falafel, one I make all the time
Rating: 5 out of 5

1000 Vegan Recipes - Quick Herb Bread

I wanted a bread to go with my lunchtime soup this week and decided to try one from one of my favourite recipe books - 1000 Vegan Recipes.

What the hell was I thinking!?  I know I can't make bread!! And even worse, I decided to sub some of the plain white flour with wholemeal.

Admittedly this bread was quick to throw together but the dough was so so dry and dense so I knew it wouldn't work out - I stupidly didn't allow more liquid for the wholemeal flour so I guess this was why.

The end result?  I dense, dry bread with a lovely flavour.  Really the flavour of the herbs was really nice, but the bread just sucked.  I don't know if this entirely my fault because after I made it (why didn't I look before) I Googled it and found others had also experienced a dry dough.
I may try this again written as is.....but I may not.

Final verdict: a dry, dense bread but easy to put together
Score: 2 out of 5 (but the low score may be my fault)

1000 Vegan Recipes - Curried Pumpkin Soup

So we have an abundance of butternut squash in the garden and so wanted to make some sort of pumkin soup for our lunch this week - in winter I make a big batch every week for Niall and I to take to work.

Now any soup that isn't my usual leek, lentil and barley soup has a lot to live up to - Niall and I are happy to eat that soup every day for lunch for the entire winter!!  But I needed to use up that pumpkin so.....

First of all the recipe calls for 2 cups cooked pumpkin and after chopping and deseeding one of ours, I probably had over that amount but I didn't measure (it was a med-large butternut).  I then cooked / roasted it in the oven with a bit of water (instead of oil) for about half an hour until most of it was tender.

The recipe uses chopped garlic and grated ginger - both of which I doubled because of the extra pumpkin.  It also calls for some curry powder and after getting halfway though the recipe I realised I had run out - *gasp*!  So after a quick google for homemade curry powder I used a blend of cumin, coriander, ground ginger, cayenne, mustard powder and turmeric.  But overall used double what the recipe called for to up the spice/flavours.

The rest of the recipe I followed, except adding a bit more water to get to the consistency I knew Niall would be happy with.

The end result?  We LOVED this soup!  So much so that Niall said I can make this again during the winter instead of the usual leek lentil & barley soup!

Final verdict: easy to make, really tasty.  A keeper
Score: 4.5 out of 5 (losing a half a star because as written the recipe may not have had enough spice)

So what's this about then?!

So the purpose of this blog.....
I used to use a fantastic website called VeganSprout to review recipes from cookbooks and unfortunately that was taken down some months ago.  This might not sound like a big deal but I LOVE being able to go back and see what I thought of recipes (and what my partner Niall thinks too).

Since the website was taken down, I've been writing my thoughts / variations down on scraps of paper which is very frustrating (for Niall) as they tend to accumulate in the most random places.....hence this blog.

I'm not sure how often I'll post, but as this is really just a reminder to myself I don't think that matters.  I'll mostly use this place to review recipes I've made from cookbooks....but I guess I'm not ruling out reviewing products either.