Vegan Hazelnut Hot Chocolate with Butterscotch Whipped Cream

I have been going on and on for ages now about how I want to get my hands on some hazelnut extract. Well finally I came across it by pure luck while I was looking for other ingredients. There is a great shop called Weigh 'N' Pay on Whitfords Ave in Woodvale. It is a bulk food store which has all of your baking needs as well as many ingredients that you normally find in health food stores, but in bulk. I really love this store and it has made my life a lot easier because they sell a lot of the products that I can't find in the grocery stores like Woolworths and Coles. 

Weigh 'N' Pay have so many different flavour extracts and on this trip I picked up hazelnut and butterscotch. I will be back for some of the others at a later date :)

I used the extracts to make hazelnut hot chocolate with butterscotch whipped cream. Vegan of course. It is a very rich and creamy drink, so it's probably better in small servings or else you might feel sick. It is perfect for all you people with a sweet tooth, and it was a great way to warm up my night and help me to unwind and relax. 

Vegan Hazelnut Hot Chocolate with Butterscotch Whipped Cream

Serves 1

Butterscotch whipped cream:

• 1 can coconut milk (or a can of coconut cream)
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon butterscotch extract

Directions

1. Place the can of coconut milk/cream into the fridge and leave overnight. 
2. Open the can of coconut milk. There will be a firm, waxy layer on top.
3. Scoop out this firm layer coconut cream that has solidified at the top of the can.
4. Stop as soon as you reach the water at the bottom of the can; don't include anything but the solid cream. (You can use the water in smoothies, or just drink it straight.)
5. Place this cream in the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl.
6. Turn your mixer or hand beaters to high speed, and whip the coconut cream for 3 to 5 minutes.
7. Whip until it becomes fluffy and light, with soft peaks. Mix in sugar and butterscotch extract. 

Hot chocolate:

• 1 cup soy milk (or other non-dairy milk. If you use vanilla soy milk then omit the sugar and vanilla essence)
• 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder (depending on how strong you like your hot chocolate)
• 1-2 teaspoons sweetener (depending on your taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon hazelnut extract/essence
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

Directions

1. Heat all of the ingredients in a pot until hot (not boiling).
2. Pour into your favourite mug or glass and top with the butterscotch whipped cream. 

 

Vegan Orange Hot Chocolate

It's raining outside!

Oh we are truly getting to the heart of winter over here in Perth, Australia. I've got my fluffy socks on and the heater going.

As you may know, I've been doing lots of experimenting with hot chocolate recipes over the last week or so. I've decided to continue this after finding a recipe for Vegan Orange Chocolate Latte in a cookbook that I borrowed out from the library today. I actually borrowed out 4 vegan cookbooks today. Sorry to all you vegans out there in the Perth region who can't borrow out a book because it's already on loan.

I'm not a big coffee drinker, so instead of making that particular recipe, I decided to Google some other orange hot chocolate recipes. I came across a nice and easy recipe on the blog site Knitted Bliss. I was so pleased to find this recipe was actually one of a series of hot chocolate recipes titled "The Seven Days of Hot Chocolate". Seven totally scrumptious hot chocolate recipes just waiting to be made and guzzled down. 

There is a delicious White Chocolate and Strawberry hot chocolate recipe that I really want to make. Stay tuned. My vegan version will be up soon enough :)

I was surprised at how much I liked this orange hot chocolate. I didn't think that citrus and milk combination would work, but the addition of the orange zest was so lovely. The citrus flavour was subtle and it really complimented the cocoa. I really enjoy dark chocolate so I added extra 99% Lindt dark chocolate. Perfect. There was the strong earthy bitterness from the chocolate, the sweetness from the vanilla soy milk and that hint of fruitiness from the orange.

I am officially addicted to hot chocolate. 

Vegan Orange Hot Chocolate

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 1 cup vanilla soy milk (I ended up using a bit more than 1 cup because I used a super big mug)
• 2 teaspoons dutch-processed cocoa powder (or any cocoa powder will do. But using a few blocks of dark chocolate will probably make your drink more velvety)
• 1/4 cloves (or any other spices like cinnamon)
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest (or if you don't like bits of zest floating around, you can put a few big peels in so that you can scoop it out later)

Directions

1. Heat the soy milk together with the cocoa and cloves. 
2. Add the orange zest.
3. Pour into mug and stir in extra blocks of chocolate if you like.

Polenta with vegetable ragout and roasted radish, carrot and cauliflower

As I'm sure you all know, I love cooking. I love experimenting with new vegan recipes and ingredients I haven't tried before. It's even better when my friends get in on it too.

I caught up with Ruth and Nhi today for a blogilates session (I feel like I can refer to my friends by their names now because I've already mentioned them a lot in previous posts and I can assure you they will be along side me doing new things in posts to come). We also decided to cook up dinner using whatever was in Ruth's kitchen, plus some mushrooms Nhi brought along. 

We jumped on a great recipe search engine called Yummly. What I really like about this website is that it searches pretty much every recipe there is on the web. What I like to do is find an ingredient in my kitchen which I will make the star of the dish and then search this along side other search words like "vegan". 

We found some radishes in Ruth's fridge, and because none of us have ever cooked with radish before, we decided to do a search for "vegan radish" in Google which lead us to a search for "vegan carrot radish" recipes on Yummly.

We scrolled through the recipes and found a recipe for polenta with spring vegetable ragout and roasted radishes and carrot. We had to make some changes to the recipes because we didn't have all of the ingredients...and we really wanted to eat the mushrooms so we added those to the ragout. 

It was so much fun cooking with the girls, and before we ate the food we did some blogilates workouts. Abs, thighs and asses were on fire afterwards!

The reward for all exercise was a delicious meal. We really enjoyed the recipes and we were so proud that we were able to cook this recipe from what food was available to us. What also really surprised us was how good the radishes tasted! I've always thought they were a bitter tasting vegetable, but when it's cooked, it actually has a lovely earthy taste with texture similar to that of any other root vegetable such as cooked parsnip. So go on and give radish a try today :)

Polenta with Vegetable Ragout

Serves 4
 
Polenta:
4 cups light vegetable broth or water
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup polenta or yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Ragout:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic clove, minced
8 baby carrots (4 large carrots cut to desired size), trimmed and cut in half lengthwise
6 radishes, trimmed and cut into quarters
1/2 cup light vegetable broth or water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup slices mushrooms
1 1/2 frozen peas and corn
Any herbs (we used rosemary and a all purpose seasoning)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Additional olive oil and herbs for garnish

To make the polenta, bring the vegetable broth or water to a boil in a 2- to 3-quart pot over moderate heat. Add the salt and then slowly add the polenta while whisking. Reduce heat to low and continue whisking until the polenta is thickened. Cover the pot and continue cooking. Every 10 minutes, stir the polenta vigorously, scraping the sides of the pan. Continue cooking for 30-40 minutes until polenta reaches desired thickness and creaminess. Stir in the olive oil. Serve within 15 minutes.

Make the ragout while the polenta is cooking. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over moderate heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for about a minute until fragrant. Add the carrots, radishes, vegetable broth or water, and salt. Cover the pan and cook for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until they are soft. Add the frozen peas and corn, cover, and cook for another 5 minutes. 

Remove from heat, stir in the herbs and lemon zest, and season to taste.

To serve, spoon the polenta into a shallow serving bowl or individual bowls. Make a well in the center of the polenta and spoon the ragout on top. Drizzle a little olive oil on top and garnish with herbs.

 

Roasted carrot, cauliflower and radish

Serves 4

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 bunch small to medium radishes, about 12
12 baby carrots

half head of cauliflower cut into florets
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon paprika 

1/2 teaspoon cumin
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Place the radishes, carrots and cauliflower on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil, rosemary, paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper. Roast until tender yet firm in the center, about 20 minutes.