Weekend Carnivore

December has arrived and for most of us the calendar change signals that a month of hardcore cooking and baking is on the horizon.

I have a huge stack of cooking magazines and recipes I have printed out from the internet sitting on my desk as I try to widdle them down to decide what exactly I will be cooking and baking for the Christmas period. You would think after all that foodie focused research I would be settled on a menu by now. The problem is that the more I see the more I want to make but I want to be careful of not biting off more than I can (literally) chew.

One thing I do know is that Christmas cooking period is going to be one of those times where I won’t be sticking strictly to a vegetarian diet. However, I do really want to try as much as possible to be cooking and serving mostly vegetarian Christmas recipes.

The good thing though is that it really isn’t very hard to do that. When you think about it, most of the Christmas cookies and cakes we will munch over the holiday period are vegetarian by their very nature. Then, the normal Christmas dinner trimmings are also largely vegetarian. At least that is the case if you skip doing your roast potatoes in goose fat. Frankly, even when I wasn’t so focused on vegetarian cooking that never appealed to me anyway.

As I make my way through a largely vegetarian Christmas, I will check in and share my vegetarian cooking adventures. Hopefully, it will give some of you also trying to eat mostly vegetarian over the Christmas cooking period of bit of inspiration.

For now though, it is on to finally forming a solid Christmas cooking schedule. So, time to settle down with that stack of Christmas cooking magazines and make my mind up. At least until I change it again.

Of course, I can’t do that research without having a good hot beverage by my side. This month for the vegetarian swap I participate in over at Recipezaar, I picked out this Mayan Hot Chocolate recipe posted by Recipezaar member the80srule.

spiced hot chocolate recipe

It turns out this hot chocolate recipe is the perfect partner to planning my vegetarian Christmas cooking. Firstly, the big sell for me, is that it is actually made with soy chocolate milk. I am lactose intolerant so whenever I make a creamy drink like hot chocolate I have to weigh up the consequences. I could make a normal hot chocolate recipe with water, I suppose, but any lover of hot chocolate knows that is simply never the same. Amazingly though, I had never thought of using soy chocolate milk as the base of a hot chocolate recipe but it really did work.

What really makes this hot chocolate recipe special though are the spices that go into the mixture. First in the pot, is a bit of cinnamon which gives a real Christmas feel to the hot chocolate recipe. Then comes the real surprise, a pinch of cayenne pepper. You would think that would make it hot and spicy but really it just adds a back ground warmth to the hot chocolate.

So, make yourself your own mug of this spiced hot chocolate and pull up your own pile of Christmas recipes and join the foodie December ritual of planning your holiday baking and Christmas cooking. Let the games begin!

This is going to be one of those recipes where it is clear that I am not an actual vegetarian. Sure, there is no meat in this recipe. Actually, if I posted a fudge recipe that did include meat, I would hope somebody would try to get me some help. No, what makes this recipe not totally vegetarian is the use of marshmallows. As you probably know, commercially sold marshmallows are  usually made with gelatine which is in turn made with the use of animals. So, marshmallows are for sure a no no for real vegetarians. There are vegetarian and vegan marshmallows available to buy but I would be lying if I said that I knew for sure that they would work in this sort of recipe. Perhaps, somebody could contact me and let me know and then in the future I can try doing this fudge recipe with vegan marshmallows.

Still, I have decided to post it anyway because I think that a lot of people such as myself, which are trying to eat less meat and perhaps progress into being real vegetarians will still be interested in such recipes. It is easier for those of us taking those baby steps away from meat to give up the big items first and then move into worrying about things like the gelatine in marshmallows. It will happen for me but just not straight away.

Apart from that, this is a super easy fudge recipe which I developed the other night. I am a dark chocolate type of a gal. I very rarely ever crave milk chocolate but now and then I just have to have a bit of the dark variety. I had learned this basic method of making fudge a few days prior but with the normal milk chocolate. So,I wanted to see if I could come up with something for the dark chocolate freaks such as myself. I thought that just a block of dark chocolate fudge would be far too rich. So, I roamed the aisles of the supermarket looking for a few ingredients that would jump out and scream ‘add me’. When I spotted the dried cranberries and raw cashews I thought they might be worth a shot.

Now, just to prove you don’t have to spend a ton of money to experiment with cooking, I am happy to say that everything for this easy fudge recipe was bought at Lidls. I bought their 70% dark chocolate which cost something like £1.85 for the whole bar. They also sell fair trade milk chocolate bars for the same price. Which is great to know and for a milk chocolate fudge recipe I would have for sure bought that instead. Then, for the marshmallows I went for their multi-coloured kiddie bag which was about a pound. Sure, they were funky colours but once it melted down it really wasn’t going to matter. Lidls now has a range of natural nuts and dried fruit too. So, I grabbed a really big bag of dried cranberries for just under £2 and a the cashews cost a bit over £1. The bag of cranberries had many more than needed for the recipe but they are great thrown into salads or just eaten as a snack. So, I had no problem spending the money on them and a small bag in Tescos or other supermarkets cost much more than that.

So, loaded up with my cheapo ingredients, I went into the kitchen and came out with this scrummy dark chocolate cranberry and cashew fudge recipe. We had guests over for the weekend and judging by how quickly we all ate the fudge, I would say it worked!

Dark chocolate cranberry and cashew fudge

Dark chocolate cranberry and cashew fudge recipe

Ingredients:

2/3 cup reduced-fat evaporated milk
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup dark chocolate, broken up in bits
1 1/2 cups marshmallows
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup raw cashews, freshly toasted and roughly chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

1. Put the evaporated milk, sugar and salt into a pan and bring to the boil.
2. Allow to boil for 5 minutes, stirring all the time and then remove from the heat.
3. Stir in the broken up dark chocolate,and marshmallows and keep stirring until it is all melted.
4. Stir in the vanilla followed by the nuts and cranberries.
5. Pour the mixture into a lightly greased 8 inch square pan. Try to resist licking the spoon too much!
6. Smooth out the mixture so that it is as flat as possible on the top and put into the fridge to cool.
7. The longer it is in the fridge the more firm the fudge gets and the more the richness mellows out. Overnight would be fantastic but you can eat it just fine after a couple hours.
8. Cut up into squares and enjoy.

Serves: 10 to 12 depending on the size you cut the bard

I want to show off this vegetarian dessert recipe because I am so proud of myself for making it and not totally messing it up! I have always been a bit afraid of any recipes that involve whipping up egg whites to the point of the infamous stiff peaks. So, making a pavlova was totally out of the question. That is what I thought anyway until I was tempted into trying out the Australian Pavlova recipe posted by Sharon123 over on Recipezaar.

I was tempted by the pavlova recipe because it is a vegetarian recipe but also because of the use of egg whites, it is also a low fat dessert recipe. Who can turn that down? So, I gave I decided to have a try at making the recipe but I truly expected to fail. Much to my surprise my attempt at making this dessert recipe worked!

Pavlova Dessert Recipe

Not only did this vegetarian recipe for dessert look fantastic but it also tasted great. I filled the pavlova with low fat Greek yoghurt and then piled it high with chopped up kiwi and mango. As if that wasn’t tasty enough, I then sprinkled the top with macadamia nuts. It turned out to be an indulgent tasting dessert recipe. Best of all, even though it tasted so good, it was actually fairly healthy and of course it was a vegetarian recipe.