YUMMY MENUS CALENDAR | A YEAR FULL OF HOMEMADE VEG RECIPES

WIKI NOTE: A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods, typically days, weeks, months, and years.  

Ancient documents and inscriptions, such as those from Rome and China, include early forms of calendars. The modern calendar evolved alongside others such as almanacs, which collected religious, cultural, meteorological, astronomical, and astrological information in a table format; practica, which gave astrological predictions for the year ahead; and diaries for personal and professional use. 

The term calendar is taken from calendae, the term for the first day of the month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb calare "to call out", referring to the "calling" of the new moon when it was first seen. Latin calendarium meant "account book, register" (as accounts were settled and debts were collected on the calends of each month). 

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• HALLOWEEN MENU

• EASTER MENU

EASTER MENU | 4 RECIPES

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STARTER: CRUNCHY CARROT WITH HUMMUS FILLING

YOU WILL NEED: *vegan recipe
PUFF PASTRY (CONE SHAPE)
1 sheet of puff pastry /* vegan puff pastry
1 egg /*eggless
A handful of rocket leaves
*Baking cone-molds
NOTE: *Cone-molds - make small cardboard cones (A5 sizes) and cover each with the aluminum roll.
CARROT HUMMUS FILLING
3 grated tender carrots
1 or 2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons ground hazelnuts
2 handfuls (approx. 100g) of cooked chickpeas
A generous splash (approx. 50g) of extra virgin olive oil or olive oil, to taste
Salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

NOTE: The puff pastry is great for this recipe because you can make a sweet or a savory filling depending on the ingredients that there are at home.

LET´S COOK!
1. Preheat the oven to 180º C.  Cover the baking tray with baking parchment.
2. Roll out the sheet of puff pastry with a floured rolling pin.
NOTE: The puff pastry can be either store-bought or homemade.
3. Cut the sheet of pastry lengthwise into 3cm pieces.
4. Grease the cone molds with vegetable oil. Roll the strips of pastry around the cone molds.
NOTE: Leave 1cm on the top of the cone mold without puff pastry, it will be easy to remove later.
5. Beat an egg and brush cone-puff pastries.
6. Put the cone-puff pastries on the baking tray. Bake them for around 25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden.
7. Let it cool completely.  Remove carefully one by one the cone-puff pastry from the cone mold, trying not to break them.
8. Mix the ingredients for the carrot hummus in a blender until you have the desired texture.
NOTA: Another filling for the cone-pastry puff could be a sailor filling and/or a ham filling. You can find the recipes in the Sandwich House post of the August Menu.
9. Fill with carrot hummus and each cone-puff pastry.
10. Serve a crunchy carrot on a plate. It depends on the cone-mold size.
NOTE: Be careful not to break the puff pastry if you do small-size units.
11. Decorate the top with sesame seeds and baby spinach leaves. Voilà, the yummy crunchy carrots are ready to eat.

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MAIN COURSE: EASTER BUNNY (VEGGIE BURRITO)

YOU WILL NEED:*vegan recipe
8 soft flour tortillas
REFRIED BEANS FILLING (approx. 4 units)
2 cups of drained red beans (approx. 400g)
1 cup of Oaxaca grated cheese, to taste /*vegan grated cheese
NOTE: If you don´t find Mexican cheese, you can use any kind of grated cheese.
1/4 red onion, to taste

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

A pinch of salt

Chili chipotle sauce (optional)
NOTE:  The tortillas have to be soft because it will be easy to blend them and make the rabbit hear.

LET´S COOK! 

1. Chop the onion to cook the refried beans. Heat a saucepan with vegetable oil. Fry the chopped onion until transparent. Add the beans and a pinch of salt.

2. Smash everything with a masher/fork until it is pureed.

3. Put vegetable oil in a hot pan, and fry the bean puree for about 5 minutes until it gets thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

4. Put the filling of the refried beans in the middle of the tortilla leaving without filling the top of the tortilla. Put a layer of refried beans and another layer of grated cheese for the filling. Add chipotle chili sauce, to taste.

NOTE: Mix the refried beans with grated cheese to make a spreadable paste for the filling.

5. Fold the tortilla into a cylindrical shape to completely enclose the filling. Cut in the middle the top of the tortilla. Cut the top of the burrito without filling it in half to make rabbit ears.

6. Fold the rabbit ears or keep them, to kids' taste.

7. Brown the burritos in a hot saucepan without vegetable oil.

8. Remove from the saucepan. Decorate them.

LET'S MAKE THE EASTER RABBIT!

1. Rabbit face: black olives (eyes), tomate cherry (nose), and grated carrot (whiskers and hair).

2. Serve the burrito with salad:: flowers (carrot) and grass (rocket salad).

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DESSERT: TORRIJAS (FRENCH TOAST)

YOU WILL NEED:*vegan recipe
A piece of stale bread (approx. 160g), to slice
1/4 l milk / *almond milk, to soak
1 lemon rind
1 cinnamon stick
2 eggs / *4 tablespoons of chickpea flour plus 4 tablespoons of water, to dip in batter
Plain flour, to dip in batter
Olive oil or vegetable oil, to taste
1 or 2 tablespoons of caster sugar /*brown sugar, to sprinkle
Ground cinnamon, to sprinkle

NOTE: Depending on the type of bread, there will be different sizes of Torrijas. The most important thing is that the bread has to have a lot of crumbs.

LET´S COOK!

1. Cut the bread into thick slices (around 2 or 3 centimeters wide) and place them in a tray/baking pan.

NOTE: It is important to use thick slices of stale bread, that way the slices rarely break at the step of soaking.

2. Clean the lemon and cut the rind without the white part. Cut in half the cinnamon stick, if it's too long.

3. Put the milk, lemon rind, and cinnamon stick in a saucepan over low heat for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let it warm.

4. Pour the milk mix over the slices and let them soak until there is no milk in the tray, at least 5 minutes per side (approx. 10 minutes). If there is not milk enough for all the slices, do a little more.

NOTE: The timing of the soak will depend on the type of bread, just be careful because too many soaked slices will break.

5.  Put flour on a plate. Beat eggs or mix chickpea flour and water in a bowl.

6. Drain the milk from bread slices, if it's necessary. First, batter the slices of bread into the flour. Second, dip it into the beaten egg.  It is a double action.

7. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Fry the slices of bread, one by one depending on the size, until golden brown on each side.

8. Remove them from the saucepan and drain with kitchen towels
9. Mix sugar and ground cinnamon in a bowl. Sprinkle each side with the mix and let them cool a little bit.

10. Serve the Torrijas on a tray or by unit placing the Torrija in the center of a plate.
NOTE: You can spread honey or agave nectar over the Torrija to make it sweeter.

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DRINK: EASTER SMOOTHIE

YOU WILL NEED:*vegan recipe

1 cup mango chunks or 3 peach halves in light syrup (medium size can - 420g)

2 medium carrots, grated
2 teaspoons of honey /*agave nectar, to taste
A splash of milk /*soy milk (optional)
1 cup cold water
Ground cinnamon (optional)

NOTE: The recipe is for one glass. If you want more than one glass, multiply the ingredients accordingly.

LET´S COOK!

1. Peel and grate the carrots. Peel and cut the mango. Put the grated carrot and the mango chunks into the measuring cup of the blender.

NOTE: You can put the mango chunks in the freezer. The mango need not be frozen, but it produces a thicker smoothie.

2. Add the water, honey, a splash of milk, and a pinch of ground cinnamon. Mix everything with the blender until foaming. Taste the smoothie and add more honey to sweeten if you wish.

3. Serve in a glass,  place carrot grated around the glass like a bird nest. Put random milk chocolate eggs in a crisp sugar shell in the carrot nest.

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• MARCH MENU

    

• APRIL MENU

   

ST. PATRICK´S DAY | 4 GREEN RECIPES

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WIKI NOTE: The colour green has been associated with Ireland since at least the 1640s when the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation. Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on St Patrick’s Day since at least the 1680s. 

The Friendly Brothers of St Patrick, an Irish fraternity founded in about 1750, adopted green as its colour. However, when the Order of St. Patrick (an Anglo-Irish chivalric order) was founded in 1783 it adopted blue as its colour, which led to blue being associated with St Patrick. During the 1790s, green would become associated with Irish nationalism, due to its use by the United Irishmen. This was a republican organisation (led mostly by Protestants but with many Catholic members) that launched a rebellion in 1798 against British rule.

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• Grapes apple juice / vegan 

• Zucchini cake / vegan

• Kiwi melon slushie / vegan

• Irish cake / +vegan version

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• Zucchini soup / +vegan version

• Fruit hedgehog: green grapes / vegan

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• MARCH MENU

 

• EASTER MENU

XMAS SWEETS | 4 RECIPES

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• Roscos de vino (Sweet wine doughnuts) / vegan

• Chocolate Cake Pops /+vegan version

• Polvorones (Spanish crumble cakes) /+vegan version

• Chocolate Turrón /+vegan version

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• DECEMBER MENU

APPLE CAKE | VEGAN RECIPE

WIKI NOTE: Apple Cake VS Apple Pie - The apple cake differs from the apple pie in that it is a sponge cake baked with fresh apple pieces in it. An apple pie is a fruit pie (or tart) in which the principal filling ingredient is apple. The pastry is generally used top-and-bottom, making it a double-crust pie, the upper crust of which may be a circular-shaped crust or a pastry lattice woven of strips.

APPLE CAKE

YOU WILL NEED:
DRY INGREDIENTS:
1 and 1/4 cups wheat flour (plain or all-purpose)
1 cup panela sugar or unrefined cane sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup roughly chopped apple
1 cup walnuts, chopped  (optional)
WET INGREDIENTS:
1/3 cup sunflower oil (or veggie oil, any neutral flavored)
3/4 cup vegetable drink (oatmeal, soy or hazelnut to taste)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
NOTE: Put raisins in a glass with a dash of water and the raisins plump up.
TOPPING
Thin apple slices, to decorate
Sprinkle brown sugar on the top

NOTE: Homemade measurement units



LET´S COOK!

1. Preheat the oven to 180 º C. Grease a bread pan with margarine or sunflower oil.
NOTE: Standard dimensions for bread and loaf pans start at 8 ½ by 4 ½ inches. It's the perfect size for that amount of ingredients. If you multiply the amount by the number of times that you want,  you will get a bigger cake. You have tons of different sizes of baking pans depending on the final amount.

2. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl: brown sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom), and a pinch of salt until well-mixed. Optional: add chopped walnuts.
NOTE: Sift the flour for cakes. Sifting helps to remove any lumps and/or unwanted debris from the flour and also helps to combine the flour with any dry ingredients. If you don't have a strainer handy, you can also mix flour with a wire whisk or a fork.
3. Add roughly chopped apple to the bowl of dry ingredients. Mix it well with a wooden spoon.

4. Combine wet ingredients in a bowl:  veggie oil, and vegetable drink (oatmeal, soy, or hazelnut) until well mixed. Optional:  add raisins.

5. Pour the wet mix into the dry bowl. Mix everything slowly with a wooden spoon.

6. Pour the mix into the bread pan.
7. Arrange the thin apple slices around the cake decoratively. Sprinkle brown sugar on the top. 

8. Bake for around 40 minutes, until browned.

NOTE: Don't open the oven, you can always leave the cake in the oven for a few more minutes.

9.  Remove from the oven. Leave to cool.
NOTE: Serve as is or with vegan custard.

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• DECEMBER MENU