Is shrove Tuesday one of the best days of the year (Yes, yes it is). We’ve been discussing in the office whether pancakes should be savoury or sweet. So, lay down your cards - what team are you on?

But what have pancakes got to do with Yoga? If you look deeper into the philosophical side of a Yoga practice you’ll discover the Yamas (moral discipline) and Niyamas (guidelines) - principles and guidelines which will aid you on your spiritual path.

Iyengar describes the Yamas and Niyamas as “golden keys to unlock the spiritual gates” as each action taken in accordance with these guidelines has the power to give your life a deeper meaning, and even if you’re not inherently spiritual taking these actions can make the world a better place.

The first Yama is Ahimsa, which can be translated as non-harming / non-violence. An easy way to incorporate this Yama into your wider life is by adopting a vegan diet (or by consciously eating less meat and animal products, if veganism is not for you).

So… back to pancakes! Good news, we’ve done the searching for you and found 2 completely different vegan recipes, one for savory lovers and one for those with a sweet tooth.

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Recipe & Image from: https://veganpunks.com/savoury-vegan-pancakes/

Best Vegan Savoury Pancakes

with Creamy Mushrooms

12 Servings

Ingredients

For the pancakes:

• 2 cup plain flour

• 1 tsp salt

• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 2 tbsp baking powder

• 1.5 cup oat milk unsweetened

For the creamy mushrooms:

• 450 g chestnut mushrooms – sliced

• 2 cloves garlic – crushed

• 2 tbsp fresh chives – roughly chopped

• 2 tbsp vegan crème fraîche or cream

• 2 tbsp vegan butter

• Salt and pepper – to taste

Method:

1. Sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl and then add the baking powder and salt.

2. Pour the milk and apple cider mixture into the large bowl and whisk by hand, or on a low setting with an electric mixer. The batter should be thick but not gloopy. Like a thick smoothie.

3. Heat a non-stick frying pan on a medium-high hob – if you're not using a non-stick pan, use a tiny bit of oil spray or vegan butter to stop the pancakes sticking.

4. Using a quarter cup measurer, pour in a quarter cup of the pancake mixture into the frying pan, and let it cook for a couple of minutes.

5. Small holes or bubbles should start to form on top of the pancake – this is usually a sign that it's ready to flip. Lift up a bit of the pancake using a spatula to see if it's ready - it should be a golden-brown colour.

6. Using a spatula, carefully flip the pancake and allow it to cook for a couple of minutes on the other side. Be careful it doesn't burn by keeping a close eye on it – the second side will brown a bit quicker! Repeat until all the mixture is used up. It should make 12 pancakes.

7. Time to make the creamy mushrooms. Add the vegan butter to a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat. It should start to melt gradually.

8. Pop the garlic in and give it a stir.

9. After a minute add the mushrooms and give it a good stir

10. Let it cook for around five minutes and then add in the chives, vegan crème fraîche, salt, and pepper.

11. Cook for another few minutes and stir well. Make sure the crème fraîche is well mixed in. Serve the mushrooms on top of the pancakes with more chives and crème fraîche.

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Recipe from: https://tasty.co/recipe/the-fluffiest-vegan-pancakes

Best Vegan Fluffy & Sweet Pancakes

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour (125 g)

• 2 tablespoons caster sugar

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 cup non-dairy milk (240 ml)

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract

• Maple syrup and icing sugar, to serve

Method

1. In a medium bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, and stir to combine.

2. In a medium bowl or liquid measuring cup, add almond milk, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla, and stir to combine

3. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until smooth.

4. Let batter rest for 5 minutes.

5. Pour about ½ cup (65 grams) of batter onto a nonstick pan or griddle over medium heat.

6. When the top begins to bubble, flip the pancake and cook until golden.

7. Serve warm with maple syrup and a dusting of icing sugar.

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Let us know how you get on… bonus points if you show your allegience to team savoury or team sweet.

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Latest blog posts

We all know that vegetables are great. And we all know we need to eat more of them, but there are only so many salads you can munch on in a day and so many carrot sticks you’re willing to chomp on – so how can you get more vegetable goodness into your daily diet enjoyably and easily? Even if you are a plant based powerhouse yourself, maybe you know someone who needs a little convincing before they join the veggie tribe, or maybe you have a child who will not eat anything green. Here are 5 ways to sneak more veggies into your diet without you even noticing!

                              

Don't fancy cooking yourself? Our Chef Alice makes fresh dishes every day, so you can simply pop in for something yummy and even take it with you if you're in a hurry!

It's been a while but I've finally got the spiralizer back out of the cupboard! We have had an abundance of herbs delivered by one of our very generous clients today, and I decided to use them in my favourite way: pesto. Using courgette instead of pasta is great if you're cutting out gluten from your diet, or even if you just fancy a lighter alternative to the Italian staple. If you don't have a spiralizer, you can create flat courgette noodles by using a vegetable peeler and just peeling off strips off the courgette. The mint, almond and sun-dried tomato pesto might seem quite thick, but as you start to combine it with the courgette, moisture is released from the vegetable so you don't want the mint, almond and sun-dried tomato pesto any runnier or it'll become too wet. In this vein, it's important to dress the courgettes noodles just before serving as it doesn't keep well at all and if it sits for too long, you will end up with a pile of water at the bottom of your bowl!

For a more substantial dish, the pesto works wonderfully served hot with real spaghetti. I would use 300g spaghetti for this amount of pesto, and combine it with around 400ml of the cooking water from the pasta to loosen up the sauce a bit. For some greens, 300g peas instead of the tomatoes is always a winner with pesto and pasta.

Finally, feel free to play around with the ingredients. Pesto is a great way to use up any herbs you have lying around, and you could use any nut or seed (instead of almonds) and any citrus fruit (instead of lemon). For an Asian twist, you could use peanuts, coriander and lime, like in this quinoa recipe.

Serves 4 hungry people

Ingredients:

For the pesto:

60g almonds

60g sun-dried tomatoes (or 40g dried, re-hydrated with hot water and then drained after 20 minutes)

25g mint

Zest (2 tsp) and juice (75 ml) of 1 lemon

3 cloves of garlic

60g raisins

90g extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes

For the rest:

1200g courgette

300g cherry tomatoes

10g mint

Instructions:

• Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C. When hot, toast the almonds on a baking tray for 10 minutes and then remove.
• Whilst the almonds are toasting in the oven, it's time to spiralize! 1200g courgette makes around 900g of courgette noodles (or 'courgetti'), but hang on to the discarded bits- you can thrown them in a soup or grate them in to a salad.
• To make the pesto, simply blend all the ingredients in the food processor, wiping down the sides regularly. It takes a while to grind the almonds to a smooth paste so be patient.
• Chop the tomatoes in to quarters, and roughly chop the extra mint. Combine it all (with your hands!) in a big bowl until everything is incorporated. Enjoy!

It's National Cookie Day today, guys. As far as we're concerned, whoever came up with that concept deserves a medal. We felt we just had to share this yummy peanut-ginger-sesame cookies recipe with you. We admit this is not our own recipe, it's from one of our favourite vegan cookbook "Veganomicon", which you should totally check out if you're looking for delicious vegan recipes. Don't be put off by what looks like a long list, it's really straight-forward and these bad boys are totally worth it!

Here's what you need:

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup nonhydrogenated vegan shortening, softened

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter

1/4 cup brown rice syrup

1 1/4 cups sugar (plus additional sugar for rolling)

1/2 cup soy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 ounces candied ginger, diced finely

1/3 cup each white and black sesame seeds (or just use 2/3 of one kind)

Here's how to do it:

- Preheat the oven to 175C, grease 2 cookie sheets

- Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon -> set aside

- Cream shortening (light and fluffy) with whisk, approx. 3 mins

- Add peanut butter, rice syrup, sugar, soy milk, and extracts -> continue beating until creamy (4-5 mins)

- Stir in flour mixture (with spatula or wooden spoon)

- Add chopped candied ginger -> stir until forms very firm dough (can use hands)

- Roll tablespoon of the dough into small balls

- Roll each ball in sesame seeds and a little sugar, place on cookie sheet (leave 1 1/2 inches between each cookie)

- Flatten balls slightly and bake for 10/11 mins (if you prefer them less chewy and firmer, bake for 14 mins)

- Remove from oven, cool and finally: hide from the cookie monster!!!

Enjoy!!! Love to here your feedback on these. Give them a go :-)

Serves 4

This quinoa salad is a great one-pot meal, which transports really well and could be a great dish to take to work for lunch. The inclusion of tofu, peanuts, cashew nuts and quinoa makes it a real high-protein meal which will certainly keep you going all afternoon. Try and get British-grown quinoa if you can, and use whatever vegetables are in season. I've used pak choi and carrots, but asparagus, spring greens or kale would all work really nicely here too. If you're short of time, you could just throw in some raw vegetables instead of cooked and if you have leftover rice or noodles, the dressing also works well with those instead of quinoa. I've also used the coconut milk from a carton rather than a can, which is just a less concentrated form of coconut. If you only have the canned variety, you could use half canned coconut milk, and half water.

Ingredients:

250g quinoa

450g tofu

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp tamari soya sauce

250g carrots

100g pak choi (or any greens)

60g fresh coriander

60g peanut butter

60ml coconut milk (I use Alpro coconut milk from the carton)

2 cloves of garlic

Zest and juice of 1 lime (I just peel the zest off with a grater)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 tbsp agave (or any liquid sweetener)

Instructions:

• Cook the quinoa according to packet instructions. I use 250g quinoa to 375ml water and a pinch of salt. I steam the quinoa on a low heat for about 15 minutes until the quinoa has soaked up all the water. Then, in a colander,  run the quinoa under cold water until it is cool.
• For the tofu, pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Slice the block of tofu in to slabs around 1cm thick and place on a baking tray. Smother with the vegetable oil and tamari, and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper. Place in the oven and bake for around 30-45 minutes, until it is beginning to develop a crispy exterior. Remove from the oven, allow to cool and cut in to bite size chunks.
• For the vegetables, cut the carrots in to chunks and roughly chop the pak choi. I tend to cook these together, with the carrots boiling in some hot water in a pan for around 10 minutes and the pak choi steaming in a sieve above the carrots, with the saucepan lid tightly on. This way, both vegetables are cooked together, and are just tender at the same time. Like you did with the quinoa, drain the vegetables and run under cold water until they are cool; this will halt the cooking process.
• For the dressing,  I use a food processor to whiz up the coriander, peanut butter, coconut milk, garlic, lime zest and juice, salt, chilli flakes, pepper and agave until a smooth consistency if formed.
• Finally, combine all the ingredients. I use my hands to incorporate the quinoa, tofu, vegetables and dressing to make sure everything is mixed in.
• Garnish with roasted cashew nuts, lots of chopped coriander, extra chilli flakes (if you want) and a wedge of lime.

This recipe is a more interesting take on the standard 'vegan option'; the risotto. I've tweaked it to make it a little bit healthier by using brown rice instead of arborio, and the addition of coconut milk and peanut butter make it taste luxurious and rich, despite the distinct lack of butter and cheese! Going even more off-piste, this brown rice risotto contains loads of great flavourings from various tropical regions: lemon grass, ginger, chilli and fresh coriander give it a great burst of freshness and spice which means that this is far from boring vegan fare. I've used sweet potato, parsnip and kale here, but feel free to use whatever vegetables you fancy, or whatever is in season. It may look like a long list of ingredients and a lot of steps but trust me, it's worth it. This is the perfect meal to impress friends or family when they come round for dinner!

Ingredients:

1 small sweet potato (around 400g)

1 parsnip

100g kale

400g block of tofu

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 red onion

3 garlic cloves

1 red jalapeno chilli (seeds removed)

25g fresh ginger

2 stalks of lemongrass

1/2 tbsp cumin seeds

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

250g brown rice

800ml vegetable stock (I use bouillon powder)

50g peanut butter

1 can of full-fat coconut milk

3 tbsp dark soy sauce (or tamari for a gluten-free version)

Zest and juice of 1 lime

20g fresh coriander, chopped

Instructions:

• Chop the sweet potato and parsnip in to small chunks and place in a roasting tin. Cover with a little coconut oil and roast for about 30-40 minutes in a 200 degree C oven, until tender and crisp.
• Slice the tofu in half length-ways and lay each rectangle in a roasting tin. Again, rub coconut oil and a bit of salt on to the tofu and roast in the same oven as the vegetables. The tofu will take about 45-60 minutes to get a nice crispy exterior. When it is done, cut in to bitesize chunks.
• Meanwhile, cook the kale. I choose to steam mine over a pan of boiling water until it is tender but still crisp; around 5 minutes of cooking time.
• In a large pan over a medium heat, warm the coconut oil. Chop the onion and fry in the coconut oil for about 5-10 minutes, until soft.
• Finely chop the garlic, chilli, ginger and lemongrass. I used a small food processor for speed and ease, but by hand is also fine.
• Add this mixture to the pan, along with the cumin seeds, salt and pepper and fry for a minute more.
• Then add the rice to the pan and begin to add the stock. Turn the heat to low but make sure the mixture is still at a simmer throughout. Like with a standard risotto, the aim here is to add the stock in small installments- adding a bit more each time it is absorbed by the rice- and stirring frequently.
• After you have used all the stock (this should take around 30-45 minutes), stir in the peanut butter, coconut milk, soy sauce, lime zest and juice, fresh coriander, roasted vegetables, kale and baked tofu pieces. Cook for around 5 more minutes.
• If the mixture is left to stand it will thicken up but don't worry, add a little more stock to loosen the mixture again.
• Serve with a handful of roasted peanuts on top and a crisp green side salad.

This is the most consistent chickpea curry recipe i have ever encountered - perfect every time!

Adapted from an original recipe from Sarah Brown

2 Onions 1-2 Chillies 1 Tbsp cumin powder 1 Tbsp coriander powder 4 Tbsp oil (olive or sunflower) 400g can tomatoes 1 Can chickpeas (or 250g cooked chickpeas) 1/2 cauliflower broken into small florets. 250 ml vegan veg stock 2 Tbsp chopped fresh coriander Lemon juice to taste (1/2 - 1 lemon) Salt and pepper

1. Place onions chillies, 1/2 - 1 tsp salt, pepper, cumin and coriander into food processor and blend with a little water to make a paste.

2. Fry the paste in the oil for about 10 mins on med heat, allow it to brown a little.

3. Add the tomatoes, chickpeas and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins. Add the cauliflower and cook for a further 10-15 mins until cooked.

4. Adjust seasoning if necessary. Add the lemon to taste and coriander just before serving.

Serve this delicious chickpea curry with rice and pickles as a main dish, or as a side dish with any other curries.

I quite often double up the quantities as it keeps really well.

Delicious vegan pumpkin soup recipe from Alice at the Camyoga kitchen - spiced with Carribean flavour

A delicious way to use your pumpkin this Halloween, with just a little kick of chilli and a hint of creamy coconut. Enjoy with crusty bread- perfect as a chilly autumnal lunch or light supper!

Ingredients:

• 700g pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and chopped in to 1 inch chunks
• 2 cloves of garlic, smashed
• Handful of fresh thyme sprigs, tied with string
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp coarse ground black pepper
• ½ tsp allspice
• ½ tsp chilli flakes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, diced
• Around 500ml vegetable stock
• Half a can of coconut milk (around 200ml)

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 200°C. Place the pumpkin in a large baking tray along with the whole cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, allspice, chilli flakes and 1 tbsp of the olive oil. Roast until tender (around 45 minutes), removing the cloves of garlic halfway through so they don’t overcook and burn.

2. Meanwhile, heat the other tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan. Fry the onion and carrot over a medium heat for about 10 minutes.
3. Add the roasted pumpkin, garlic cloves and thyme to the pan, along with about 500ml of vegetable stock.
4. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes
5. Before serving, remove the sprigs of thyme and blend until smooth. You may wish to add more vegetable stock to reach the desired consistency.
6. Finally, add the coconut milk and season to taste.

[show-icon icon="Vegan Pumpkin soup"]Mmm mmmm mmmm Enjoy!

Vegan Black-eyed Bean + Ginger Stew

This satisfying and nutritious stew makes the perfect family dinner dish. It's also incredibly easy to make! Black-eyed beans are a great source of protein. Serves 6.

2 x tins black-eyed beans | 2 tbsp oil | 2 white onions | 6 cloves garlic | 5cm fresh ginger | 3 sticks celery | 3 spring onions | bag of spinach | 1 red pepper | 250g mushrooms | 300ml veg stock | 3 tbsp dark soy sauce | 1 tsp yeast extract | salt + pepper

1) Drain the beans and set them aside. Peel and chop the garlic, onions and ginger. Slice the celery, spring onion and pepper. Quarter the mushrooms.

2) Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat, add the onions and celery, cook for 5 mins, stirring occasionally.

3) Add the garlic, ginger, mushrooms, spring onion and peppers, lower the heat, cover with a lid and cook for another 5 min, stirring occasionally.

4) Add the beans, stock, soy sauce and yeast extract. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer over a low heat for 20min.

5) Add the spinach and allow to wilt before seasoning well. Mash a few of the beans if you prefer a thicker sauce. Delicious served with rice or potatoes.

This recipe is taken from Sam's favourite cookery book, 'Another Dinner is Possible', published by AK press. It's packed full of fantastic, no-frills vegan recipes which the whole family will love. We definitely recommend investing in your own copy.