The Sky Is Starless

Tofu is so hard to get right. Often it'll just taste so bland, rubbery, and disappointing. These tofu steaks, however, taste wonderfully crispy and soft and are packed full of flavour. Served with creamy coconut quinoa and stir-fried veg they make a delicious, healthy and filling meal. It comes with the highest recommendations from my family: there were empty plates in minutes and I was begged to make it again. 

 Drain all the water from your packet of tofu. Place a couple of sheets of kitchen roll onto a plate and place your block of tofu on top. Cover with more kitchen roll and set another plate or heavy object on top. Every 15 minutes, change your kitchen roll. Continue for about an hour. Cut your tofu into pieces, I sliced widthways along the top and then cut each separate block into three pieces along the side. I ended up with 6 pieces, which I placed in a baking dish.

To make the marinade mix together:

Coat your tofu pieces in the marinade and cover your dish with cling film. Leave to marinate while you make your quinoa and veggies, turning your tofu pieces over once to make sure that both sides are covered in marinade.

Start by rinsing your quinoa using a sieve. Heat the coconut oil in a saucepan. Add the quinoa and stir on a medium heat until golden.

Add the coconut milk, salt and 1 1/2 cups water. Stir to combine before bringing to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and leave to simmer for 20-25 minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed. Whilst your quinoa is simmering, prepare your vegetables (see below)  Add some more water if you think your quinoa needs more cooking. Leave your quinoa to sit for 10 minutes before fluffing with a fork and serving.

To make the stir-fried veggies you will need:

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp ginger
• 2 tbsps brown sugar
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• A selection of vegetables. (I used: 1 courgette, a large red pepper, half a head of broccoli, two carrots, and 2 large portobello mushrooms).

Mix all the ingredients apart from the vegetables in a small bowl to make your sauce. Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan and add your vegetables. Heat until the vegetables are soft and browning. Add the sauce and stir well to cover the vegetables.

Plate up your delicious dinner. Serve and enjoy! This is perfect for dinner parties, dress up your steaks with fresh herbs. It will definitely make all those tofu-haters think again!

Love Rhiannon x

Minestrone soup is the perfect thing to keep you going all day. My version contains beans, pasta, kale and many assorted vegetables to create a well balanced soup. This is such an adaptable recipe, I basically used whatever I found in the fridge, so use whatever is in season- anything goes in this soup! 

The number of people that this soup feeds depends on the number of ingredients you add. The soup I made served around 8 hungry people. 

 In a large pan, heat your oil. Add the onion and the garlic and cook gently for around 5 minutes, stirring until soft.

 Chop your peppers and carrot, dice your potatoes, and chop your green beans into thirds. Add these to the pan and gently cook until soft. Season with salt and pepper.

 Increase the heat and add your pasta. Boil for around 5 minutes.

 Add the drained beans. Simmer until the pasta is cooked and all the vegetables are soft. 

 Wash the kale and slice it into strips. Add this to the soup and simmer until wilted. Taste and adjust your seasoning. 

To make this macaroni cheese you will need:

Sautee for about 20 minutes until caramelised.

Remove the skin and seeds from your butternut squash and cut into small cubes. Heat the vegetable stock in a large pan. Add the cubes of butternut squash and cook for around 5 minutes until soft. Pour out 200 ml of the stock and set aside.

Puree the squash. Add the onions, milk and left-over stock. Blend until smooth and add salt and pepper to taste. I also added a pinch of paprika to give it a bit of a kick but you could add whichever spices you prefer.

Blitz the bread until you get breadcrumbs. These breadcrumbs are completely optional but I love the texture they bring to the dish. Also, we always seem to get odd crusts of stale bread in the bottom of our breadbin which would otherwise be thrown away.

Mix the sauce with the pasta and add the cheese, reserve some of the cheese for the topping. Preheat the oven to around 180 C. Add the parsley and mix well.

Top the macaroni cheese with the breadcrumbs and the rest of the cheese. Place in the oven until the cheese has melted and is turning golden. This should only take a few minutes.

Plate up your macaroni cheese. We had ours with a selection of fresh vegetables.

This is such a quick, easy and healthy alternative to the super cheesy macaroni cheese we are all used to. It would be perfect for a midweek family meal or as a student dinner if you kept the sauce in the fridge and simply made fresh macaroni whenever you wanted a nice filling meal. I hope you enjoyed making this. I would love to see your pictures in the comments or on instagram.

Love Rhiannon x

To accompany the stew I found a recipe for cardamom spiced cauliflower rice on Madeleine Shaw's blog. When you're a vegetarian most meals consist of some carbohydrate such as rice or pasta with curry or chilli or some kind of sauce. It was therefore refreshing to have an entire main course consisting of just vegetables and pulses. 

It is so much quicker to make than normal rice and tasted great. A brilliant way to get more vegetables into my diet.

My favourite part of any meal: dessert. I wanted to make a refined sugar-free and vegan dessert but was slightly worried that it would end up tasting like cardboard. Most vegan desserts I've found use really expensive ingredients but I found this recipe for Banoffee Pie from New Roots which mostly included ingredients which we already had. The base is made by blitzing all the ingredients in a food processor, pressing the mixture into a tin and baking for around 10 minutes.

For the toffee I started off by making my own almond butter by roasting almonds for 10 minutes and then blitzing them in a food processor with a pinch of salt until it reaches a smooth 'gloopy' consistency.

The toffee was then made by softening the dates by pouring hot water over them and then blitzing until smooth. When I usually make toffee using sugar I normally end up burning it but this was so straightforward. It also tasted amazing, I couldn't stop myself from having a little taste.