Pea and lentil nuggets

It's a wonderful autumnal weekend. It has gotten slightly chillier here, and it could also rain today, but I think it's gorgeous with all the autumn colours going on at the moment. I started the day with cleaning the flat and will go to a Oktoberfest party later. That should be fun. I heard that they might even have some German veggie food, but they will definitely have good German beer!

I made these crunchy pea and lentil nuggets and served them in different combinations on consecutive days. On the first day I served them in sandwiches with pickled red onions and cabbage slaw, and on the second day I served them with cheesy tomato pasta and cabbage and peanut salad. The nuggets themselves are vegan, and they turned out quite good. They were easy to bind together and got crispy on the surface after the frying.

Pea and lentil nuggets

Ingredients

1 cup dried pea crush

½ cup puy lentils

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp vegetable stock powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

½ tsp smoked paprika

2 tbsp wheat flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Cook the pea crush and puy lentils until they are done.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and cook them in oil until soft.

Mix the onions with the pea and lentils and season. Also add the flour as an extra binding agent.

Let the mix cool down. Shape nuggets from it and fry them in oil until they are crispy and golden brown.

Serve with your favourite sides and enjoy!

I'm sharing this recipe with this month's My Legume Love Affair #121 hosted by Jagruti's Cooking Odyssey. The challenge was started by Susan from The Well-Seasoned Cook and continued by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen.

Have a nice weekend!

Your VegHog

Courgette nuggets

These courgette nuggets are nice to be enjoyed as a snack, side or a starter. They are quick to make and consist of grated courgette, chilli, lemon and oak smoked tomatoes, so there's a hint of spice and smoke in them. These are quite similar to the courgette fritters that I normally make with a couple of more additions and also smaller. Have a look at my recipe.

Ingredients

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 red chilli

1 courgette

Few oak smoked tomatoes

Squeeze of lemon

50 g grated cheddar

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 egg

½ cup breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil for frying

Method

Chop the onion, chilli and garlic finely and grate the courgette.

Fry the onion, chilli and garlic for a few minutes in a pan and let cool. Then add them to the grated courgette.

Chop the oak smoked tomatoes and add them to the mix. Also add the grated cheese and season with lemon, salt and ground black pepper.

Add the egg and breadcrumbs, mix and shape nuggets from the mixture.

Fry the nuggets on both sides in hot oil until nicely browned.

Enjoy for example with a nice chipotle ketchup like I did.

Your VegHog

Broccoli nuggets

I made these broccoli and cheese nuggets last year and now I made very similar ones to have a nice Saturday night meal while watching some Nordic noir on TV. These nuggets were baked in the oven, so they don't have any cooking fat on them. Of course I added cheese to make them extra tasty. I have to say that they went down pretty well. They had a crispy surface and were fluffy and cheesy inside with a nice broccoli flavour. I served the nuggets with chunky oven chips, barbeque sauce and cheese dip. 

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1 broccoli

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

Olive oil

Salt

Chilli flakes

1 tbsp spelt flour

100 g Cheddar and Red Leicester cheese mix

2 eggs

Breadcrumbs

Method

Cut the broccoli into florets and steam them until they are soft.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft.

Let the components cool, combine them and add the salt, chilli flakes, spelt flour, grated cheese and the egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl and also put the breadcrumbs into another bowl.

Shape nuggets from the broccoli mix and roll them in the egg whites first and then in the breadcrumbs.

Place them onto a baking tray and bake in the oven at 200 C for about 15-20 minutes until the surface is crispy and golden brown.

And they are all done!

I'm entering this recipe for this month's Eat Your Greens, which is a vegetarian cooking challenge hosted by Shaheen from A2K- A Seasonal Veg Table. Although my photos look more like eat your beige, but as broccoli is in the nuggets, I think it'll be fine. I'm happy that I finally cooked something with a green vegetable to be able to participate this month, as my cooking has been quite a bit about squashes, potatoes and cauliflower recently.

Have a great week!

Your VegHog

Cauliflower nuggets

April is here and so is nugget time! I'm feeling pretty upbeat at the moment, because even though I get home fairly late from work, now it's actually still bright at that time. I'm also off to Copenhagen in a couple of days and going to spend Easter there, so prepare for a few Danish posts! Additionally to all of this goodness I bought some lovely tulips, my favourite flowers, to cheer me up.

A while ago I made broccoli nuggets and thought that I would try a similar recipe, but use cauliflower instead of broccoli. These were quite nice small bites and surprisingly easy to make in the oven as lower fat versions, yet still crispy. Here are my ingredients and method for making these cauliflower nuggets.

Ingredients for about 15 cauliflower nuggets

1 cauliflower

1 shallot

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp smoked paprika

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground black pepper

150 g mature cheddar

2 eggs

50 g spelt flour

50 + 50 g breadcrumbs

Method

Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam them until they are done.

Chop the shallot and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft.

Mix the shallots with the cauliflower and when mixing crush the soft cauliflower into smaller pieces.

Season the mix with smoked paprika, salt and ground black pepper.

Grate the cheese and add it, half of the breadcrumbs and the egg yolks to the mix.

Place the spelt flour, egg whites and breadcrumbs on separate plates.

Shape nuggets from the cauliflower mix and dip them into each plate of spelt flour, egg whites and breadcrumbs.

Place them on baking paper on a baking tray and bake in the oven at 200C for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown with a crispy surfaces.

Enjoy with a nice dip, salad, bread or veggie burgers, anything really that you desire.

Your VegHog

Pepper nuggets

This week I have been determined not to go food shopping yet, and just cook with the stuff I have in the fridge and my cupboards. My dry cupboard is quite well equipped, but I thought it's better to use these things more rather than to have the cupboards full. I also have some fresh veg and of those I wanted to use the romano peppers first.

I sometimes use this brainstorming approach to cooking and just dig a bit around in my kitchen to check what I have and what I could use. I'm still indecisive about today's dish, but yesterday I created rather successfully some pepper nuggets.

Most ingredients in this recipe are interchangeable, so this is a perfect dish to get creative with. The aim is only to get a dough firm enough in order to be able to create the nugget shapes. I chose baking instead of frying as the shapes can be maintained more easily and they are less fatty.

If you got curious, read the simple instructions to make no-nonsense vegetarian nuggets.

Recipe for about 10 nuggets.

Ingredients

2 pointy yellow romano peppers

3 tbsp soy flakes

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 shallot

2 garlic cloves

1 cup grated Cheddar

1 egg

1 cup semolina

1 tsp Herbes de Provence

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

Method

Grate the pepper and Cheddar with a cheese grater and chop the shallot and garlic finely.

Let the soy flakes moisten for a few minutes. The pepper should be moist enough to moisten the soy flakes, but also add some soy sauce on the flakes.

Simply mix all ingredients in a bowl. Add the semolina little by little to get the right texture.

Shape nuggets from the dough. I chose the triangle shape for mine.

Bake the nuggets on baking paper at 200C for about 30 minutes until the surface is crispy and browned.

Enjoy with a nice dip. I had again spicy tomato chutney powered by Jack Ratt cider.

That was all, so easy!

Your VegHog

Broccoli and cheese nuggets

Today my three part burger meal series comes to an end, and I shall end it with my recipe for broccoli and cheese nuggets (have a look at the previous posts: basic burger buns and pea and leek burgers). Don't you also think that vegetarians are still discriminated by the poor choice on vegetarian nuggets? If you're lucky you can get either plain cheese or cheese and chilli nuggets, but I think that a nugget is a great way of combining different vegetables and cheese, and I promise you to make other ones as well in the future.

These broccoli and cheese nuggets are oven baked, so there's neither playing around with hot oils, nor is there any need for a deep fryer. That's why I claim that these are more healthy in comparison to the deep fried ones, as no fat (or additives!) is used. Vegetarian nuggets make quite a nice change to the normal fries and burger combination. You might even be able to convert some broccoli haters with these. I have already managed to do so! So, here's how.

Ingredients to make about 12 chunky nuggets

1 broccoli

1 shallot

3 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp oregano

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

180 g mild Cheddar

2 eggs

100 g breadcrumbs

Method

Steam the broccoli florets until they are cooked soft, and then let them cool. Chop them into fine pieces.

Also chop the shallot and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft. Season them with oregano, salt and pepper and let cool.

Grate the cheese and combine the broccoli, shallots and cheese.

Separate the eggs; add the yolks to the nugget mix and set the whites to side.

Use half of the breadcrumbs (50 g) to the mix and the other half for rolling the nuggets in. Prepare a production line with two plates with the beaten egg whites on one and the breadcrumbs on the other.

Shape small nuggets of the mix. I made mine triangle shaped, but you can shape them as you like. Roll the nuggets in the egg whites first and then in the breadcrumbs. Then set them to a baking dish.

Bake them at 200C for about 20 minutes until the surfaces are crispy.

Serve with a dip as a part of a burger meal. I had the Lyme Bay Winery's gorgeous Spicy Tomato Chutney with Jack Ratt Cider on the side. This is a really good chutney!

So, this was my vegetarian burger meal suggestion posted in three parts, how did you find it?

Your VegHog