Recipe Round-Up: The Great Vegan Grains Book

The Great Vegan Grains Book is a fun adventure through all sorts of grains. From the common, to the more unusual. However, you are also able to sub in easier to find and cheaper alternatives for most of the recipes. Fancy grains can be expensive, and sometimes impossible to get! You can see my other round up from this book here.

Teff and Amaranth Porridge: When the shops give you both teff and amaranth on super sale, this recipe is a great way to use them! This recipe says it gives two large serves, but it was really one serve. Rather than using coconut milk, I used oat milk with a smidge of coconut essence. Filled with raisins and spices (I used cinnamon), and topped with strawberries, coconut flakes, and slivered almonds, it was a tasty breakfast and there is something fun about eating tiny grains.
Rating: :)



Apricot Oats: This recipe uses steel cut oats, and comes together pretty quickly on the stove. It has chopped dried apricots and apricot jam mixed in to give a good apricot flavour. I made a 1/2 recipe, which is meant to be one serve. It was a smallish serve, fairly filling initially, but I was hungry again soon after. So consider the whole recipe for one serve.
Rating: :)



Creamy Amaranth Polenta with Marinara: I made a half recipe of the grain, but a full recipe of the sauce with this. I added some broth powder to the water when I cooked the amaranth, which then has a creamy cashew carrot sauce cooked through. Rather than chopping and steaming carrots to blend into the sauce, I just grated a raw carrot and added a little bit of extra cashew cream to blend up a lovely smooth sauce. For the marinara sauce, I left out the capsicum and added some kidney beans. I took the option of adding Italian seasoning (the other suggestion was Herbes de Provence, and I topped it with some baby capers rather than mincing capers. A nice contrast with the creamy amaranth and the savoury sauce. With spinach, I got two serves.
Rating: :)



Chickpea Millet Curry: This recipe says it makes 2-3 servings, and I got 2.5 serves. I did decrease the amount of millet by half though, so if you made the full amount you'd be closer to 3-4 serves. I left out the jalapeno and capsicum, of course, and I added some peas. The recipe calls for 1 cup of chickpeas, but I used the whole tin (about 1 1/2 cups) to bulk it out. I also used light coconut milk. Because I am sensitive to spice, I did decrease the amount of curry powder in it, so it ended up being a bit bland. If you need to make it like me, probably add some extra spices and seasoning in as well.
Rating: :|



Creamy Pesto Asparagus Barley: This recipe is meant to be made with einkorn, but I have never found that grain so I took the more common alternative suggested. I had some pre-cooked barley in the fridge, so this came together very easily. The recipe calls for red onion to be added to the grain in the last few minutes of cooking, but as I had precooked grain I sauteed my onion in the pan. The asparagus can either be roasted or steamed before adding it, so of course I roasted it. The sauce is a mix of pesto and cashew cream, for a nice coating. I was using up some jarred pesto, so it was a bit oilier than I would have liked. I also added some cannellini beans to make a more complete meal.
Rating: :)



Saucy Peanut Eggplant and Brown Rice: This was another grain substitution, the original recipe calling for freekeh. At the time, freekeh was proving a bit hard to find (and also was super expensive), so brown basmati rice provided a great stand in. Of course tasted lovely, anything with peanut sauce would! As well as crunchy peanut butter, the sauce also has tomato paste, lime, and seasonings. I got three serves of this, rather than four.
Rating: :)



Quinoa and Veggies Stir-Fry: Straight up, this has fairly simple flavours (tamari, garlic, sesame oil), but the garnishes help bring it out a bit. I left out capsicum from the veggie mix, but I also added 250g of smoked tofu for extra bulk to the meal. I used ume plum vinegar, sesame seeds, scallions, and pickled ginger as my toppings. This recipe uses pre-cooked quinoa, so comes together very fast.
Rating: :)



Easy Cheesy Baked Grits: These are so good. I used regular polenta (I know that is different from grits, but I can't get grits here, and the recipe says you can use polenta). The polenta is cooked in a creamy cashew based sauce that also has sauerkraut, miso, and nutritional yeast in it. I subbed garlic and onion powder into the sauce instead of using fresh. Then you bake it, and it comes out amazing! I served it with some steamed broccoli, and these vegan chicken strips that were new in the supermarkets but were kind of terrible. Thank goodness I had these amazing grits to make up for it!
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim's results are back and looks like we have the all clear!