I discovered cashew cheese this week so I had it two nights in a row on different meals, it’s SO good! I’ve soaked cashews and used them in sauces before but I saw this on Facebook and loved quick it looked to make as the cashews don’t need pre-soaking. I used this recipe but ended up adapting it a bit, I think the good thing with it is you can use any herbs or spices you like. I also added some pumpkin seeds. You can just play around until you get it how you like but it’s amazing for adding to so many different things.
Also, although I call this family meal ideas, sometimes I adapt the meal for everyone or even give the kids and Matt something else because we don’t all like the same things which can be a bit of a pain. I love spicy food but Matt doesn’t so the night I had spicy noodles, he had pasta with pesto with the kids. I usually try to cook things that can be adapted though as it’s less work for me that way.
Monday: Brown rice pasta with Bolognese sauce, broccoli and cashew cheese. I make the Bolognese with dried soya, you can rehydrate it in water and there is nothing added like some of the frozen minces. It also works out much cheaper. I usually make a massive pot of this that will last all week for people who would prefer it over what I’m cooking. Or you can make a lasagne with it the next day.
Tuesday: Spicy noodle soup. This was just red curry paste with grated ginger, fresh coriander and coconut milk with brown rice noodles, broccoli and tofu added.
Wednesday: Spicy sweet potato wedges with broccoli and cashew cheese. This was a meal that I adapted, so everyone else had sausages with normal potatoes which could just be shoved in the oven and roasted. I can’t eat normal potatoes so I just roasted some for me in a separate tray. I put some smoked paprika and chilli powder on them as well as a drizzle of oil.
Thursday: Tofu Fried Rice. I can’t believe I haven’t made this before as it was so yummy and super easy. I basically mashed up the tofu with a fork then cooked it in the same way I used to make egg fried rice. I fried some spring onions and garlic in toasted sesame oil then added the tofu and cooked for a couple of minutes before adding some cooked brown rice. Everyone really liked it. You could also had some vegetables but we also made raw spring rolls with a peanut dipping sauce so left them out of the rice.
For the spring rolls I used some of this rice paper and softened it for a few seconds in warm water before adding lots of raw vegetables and some fresh basil and rolling them up.
Then for the sauce I blended up some peanut butter with coconut milk, coriander and lime juice. It was quite sweet so I think it needed something extra but I liked it! I had these ages ago in a raw vegan café and had been wanting to recreate them ever since as I was so impressed with how good they were. I wasn’t expecting it but they are delicious, obviously nothing like fried spring rolls but so sweet and crunchy. The kids loved making them too, although Tiger didn’t actually eat his, Cherry loved them though.
Friday: ‘Cheesy’ pasta. We didn’t have any butter to use so I started with some oil and spelt flour instead, then added warmed up soya milk (so it doesn’t curdle), whisking until thick. Then I added seasoning, herbs, nutmeg and nutritional yeast. Yum!
Saturday: Pizza, again! We also had pizza last week but we had more time on this occasion so I made a ‘proper’ dough with yeast. It takes a lot longer as you have to leave it to rise but it’s definitely worth it sometimes. Our delivery of MozzaRisella had turned up too so we were able to have that on our pizza, it’s the cheese they use in Zizzi’s and it’s really good. I use this recipe by Nourish Atelier for the dough.
Sunday: Burger and crispy sweet potato bites. This was so good, I did cheat with the burgers as we’d been out all day so I couldn’t be bothered to make them so when I spotted these in Waitrose I thought I’d give them a go and I really liked them. I used the slices of cheese from the photo above and added some BBQ sauce and salad. Oh and if you put flour (I used spelt) on the sweet potato after oil and spices then it stops them going all soggy.
Don’t forget you can find me on Instagram: @livingonleavesfoodpics or @livingonleaves.
You can find more vegan meal inspiration here..
