Hazy pub garden dinners and crisp sandwich car boot picnics may feel like a world away, but there’s no need to batten down the hatches for winter just yet. Forget boiling all your vegetables to smithereens or dousing everything in sight with goose fat. This Sunday lunch uses the best of all the autumn harvest while only taking an hour to make. And it's vegan.
The produce in season right now – think tart apples, shredded red cabbage and rainbow beetroot – are perfect for a sassy coleslaw to add some crunch to a Sunday dinner. Head to your local greengrocer to find some multi-coloured beetroot or chard to slice into it, or use purple cauliflower, kohlrabi or different coloured turnips and radishes. As long as you’ve got the shredded cabbage and carrots, you can pretty much play around with the recipe as much as you like!
What’s even better about getting in some Sunday lunch practice now, is that there’s still a good month to go until the coldest winter in 50 years hits, and you’ll have this toad in the hole batter down by then. A muffin tin makes it easy to portion out dinner for everyone, and yeah, you can even pop these gals in the microwave for Monday’s lunch. If you can’t find egg replacer in your supermarket, try a health food shop or Holland and Barrett.
Vegan toad in the hole
Makes 9 mini toad in the holes
Ingredients
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 pack Linda McCartney sausages or similar vegan sausages
Vegan margarine
115g self raising flour, sieved
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
55g whole egg replacer like Ogran
80ml water
280ml soya or alternative milk
What to do
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Preheat the oven to 220°C.
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Get your sausages underway first so they can be sizzling in the background while you do the batter. Pour 1 tbsp of sunflower oil into a frying pan and allow to heat up, before adding in the sausages. Fry on a medium heat for about 10 minutes.
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Grab a 9-hole muffin tray and dollop in 1 tsp vegan margarine into each hole.
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In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg replacer into a smooth paste with the water then slowly add in the soya milk.
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Place the bun tray in the oven for 10 minutes so it gets very hot.
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By now your sausages should be ready. Remove the pan from the heat, and chop the sausages in half so they’ll fit in each muffin tin. Set aside.
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Now add half the egg replacer liquid to the dry flour mix. Whisk to a smooth paste then incorporate the rest of the liquid until you have a smooth batter. The mixture will be thicker than a normal Yorkshire Pudding batter, but if your whisk can stand up in it, it’s too thick, so add a little more water to thin it down.
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Working quickly but carefully, remove the muffin tin from the oven and spoon the batter into each hole – it should sizzle. Add one sausage to each batter portion, so it’s half-submerged in the mixture. Return the tin to the oven immediately and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Apple, pecan and maple syrup slaw
Makes one huge bowl of slaw
Ingredients
2 orange carrots, peeled and sliced
2 purple carrots, peeled and sliced
½ red cabbage, washed and shredded
½ savoy cabbage, washed and shredded
1 beetroot, peeled and grated
1 red apple (like a Royal Gala, something firm that’s not going to go mushy), thinly sliced
1 large bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Other components: Peeled and thinly sliced turnips, or sliced radishes, or chopped purple cauliflower or rainbow chard.
For the dressing
50g pecans, roughly chopped
20ml sunflower oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp maple syrup
What to do
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Combine all the raw vegetables, apple and parsley in a large bowl (or a wok works really well).
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Dry roast the pecans in a frying pan until they start to become fragrant, then add these to the slaw bowl.
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Mix up the slaw dressing in a jug and then pour in with the vegetables. Combine thoroughly – sometimes using your hands is best – and keep in the fridge until it’s ready to serve.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
The Lunch You Can Make To Eat All Week When All Your Pots And Pans Are Dirty
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.