Now that you’re in university, you most probably are embarking upon a journey of cuisine expertise. Cooking for yourself can be a tiring ordeal, especially at first, when you have no idea what you’re doing, and your only hope is to not burn the kitchen down. However, once you get into the swing of things, it can be a fun activity, especially if you have a few great recipes to try out. Here are a couple of deliciously sweet and savoury vegan recipes that you can try out next time you’re looking for culinary inspiration. Thank you to Hazel and Gloria from the LUU Veg Society who suggested these recipes!

Choco Chip Vegan Cookies (yields around 12, depending on size)

– 2/3 cup of oil of choice

– 1  1/3 cups of sugar of choice (brown sugar is more caramel-y)

– Plenty of vegan chocolate chips

– 2  1/2 cups of plain flour

– 1 tsp baking powder

– 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

– 1/2 cup non-dairy milk

– dash of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees celsius
2. Mix everything until it’s fully mixed and the dough is fairly solid. If it’s very squidgy add a smidge more flour.
3. Blob onto a baking sheet and squash into the right kind of shape you want and make them fairly flat too. Make sure you have plenty of space between the cookies or you’ll have square cookies lol.
4. Pop them in your oven for like 10-15 minutes – make sure you check them. They should be set on top and a bit brown around the edges. These are chewy cookies and normally end up pretty big. If you double the recipe you don’t really need to add extra baking powder or bicarbonate of soda.

Oil-free Raw Avocado Pesto

Ingredients:

– 1 avocado

– 2 peeled garlic cloves

– a few tbsps of nutritional yeast

– a large handful of basil leaves

– a handful of peas

– salt and pepper

– little bit of soy cream/water

Method:

1. You need some kind of food processing item for this, or just very vigorous mashing skills
2. Pop everything into the food processor and let it chop for a while until a not too lumpy mixture is formed
3. Taste and adjust as you want (I normally up the nutritional yeast and maybe add more liquid)
4. Mix through freshly cooked pasta, or in a salad, on toast, whatever. Go wild!

 

Mousse au Chocolate

Ingredients:

– 250g silken tofu

– 150g dark chocolate

– 1 tablespoon rum

– 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar/extract (optional)

Method:

1. Blend the tofu and heat up the chocolate. Careful that it doesn’t burn.
2. Add the chocolate with the tofu and keep blending.
3. If you want, add some rum or vanilla.
4. Put in a bowl and leave overnight in the fridge (essential to the taste!).

Tip: You can use any tofu and add water in the first step until you reach a smooth consistency.

Happy cooking!

Elsa Amri

(Images: courtesy of Reader’s Digest, King Arthur Flour, laurencariscooks.com, yumfoodz.com)