BANANA-LIME FRITTERS

A kitchen experiment gone right. These tangy, savoury fritters make great appetizers. Serve this at your next dinner party if you want to impress your friends and family (minus all the hard work...)

Ingredients
(serves 6)
- 2-3 ripe bananas
- 1 cup wholemeal flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 whole lime (for the juice and zest)
- Salt to taste
- Sunflower oil (enough to coat your frying pan)

Place the bananas in a large mixing bowl and mash with a fork or wooden spoon to form a smooth purée.

Add the baking powder, thyme, garlic and grated lime zest, mixing well to combine all the ingredients.

Start to incorporate the flour, adding one tablespoon at a time until you have a thick, sticky batter.

Heat the oil in a shallow frying pan and drop a tiny bit of the batter in. Once it starts to sizzle and turn brown you know your oil is hot enough.

Drop the batter into the oil, one teaspoon at a time. This is finger food so you don't really want them any bigger than a teaspoon size.

You can fry several at a time but make sure the pan doesn't get too crowded. Once they're brown on one side, flip them over and brown the other side.

Drain the fritters on kitchen paper and serve hot with some freshly squeezed lime juice !

GINGER & CHILLI SPICED HOT CHOCOLATE

Remember that scene from the movie Chocolat ? The one where Juliette Binoche melts the old lady's stone-cold heart with some spicy hot chocolate? No? Then take a couple of seconds to YouTube 'chocolat movie clip taming the shrew'.

Now, I can't promise that my recipe will cure any stony hearts any time soon, but it sure tastes good. A bit like drinking chocolate silk, with a wickedly hot kick to keep things interesting. And before you wrinkle your nose at the idea of chocolate and chilli even appearing in the same sentence, I urge you to give it a try.

Ingredients
- 1 glass almond milk
- 2 tbsp organic 100% cocoa powder
- fresh ginger (about the size of your thumb)
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp chilli powder
- Sugar to taste (optional)

Place the almond milk in a plastic container and grate the fresh ginger into it. Cover with the plastic lid and refrigerate for 30 min - 1 hr.

Heat the almond milk/ginger infusion in a small saucepan, bringing to a steady boil on medium heat or until the milk gets frothy around the edges.

Add 2 level tablespoons of cocoa powder, then add the nutmeg, cinnamon and chilli powder. Stir continuously for 2-3 minutes to dissolve completely.

Serve hot, using a small tea strainer to separate the bits of grated ginger.

VEGAN ICE CREAM

Traffic in Lagos city was the golden opportunity for street hawkers to sell their goods to tired, hungry and mostly frustrated travellers. It was also the golden opportunity for tired, hungry and (not so frustrated) kids to bag a snack or two. Now, I loved sweets and biscuits and unnatural-looking sausage rolls as much as the next kid, but my thing was fresh fruit. One look at the bananas on sale and you just knew that they'd been picked from a tree that same morning (give or take...). Imperfect and mottled as they were, nothing could beat the rich, sweet taste - much unlike the plastic, tasteless variety that exist in a few shops I could mention. There was an art to eating the fruit too. I'd eat around the edge and pretend that the soft, gooey centre was ice cream. What can I say, some conjured up imaginary friends, I conjured up imaginary food. Anyway, it turns out that I was on to something all those years ago.

Here is the one-ingredient, dairy-free, scarily accurate replica of creamy, indulgent ice cream. And once again, there is a little bit of an art to getting it just right!

Ingredients

(serves 4)

- 4 ripe bananas

- Topping of your choice (dark chocolate chips? chopped pecans? organic maple syrup? Go wild...)

Cut the bananas into small pieces and freeze in a plastic container for 2-3 hours. 

Place the frozen banana pieces in a food processor and blend. Watch in awe as the mixture turns creamy (the consistency of whipped, swirly ice cream).

Scoop into a bowl and serve with your favourite toppings.

WARM BULGUR SALAD

First time actually trying bulgur and I'm a big fan. It reminds me of brown rice but cooks in almost half the time, has a light, nutty taste and is extremely versatile. After digging around for a few nutritional facts, I also discovered that 1 cup of the whole-grain contains up to 8 g of fibre and 6 g of protein.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

- 1 cup bulgur 

- 1 large carrot (chopped)

- 1/2 red bell pepper

- 1/2 head of broccoli 

- 1 small red onion (chopped)

- 1 small bunch spinach leaves

- 1/4 cup fresh almonds

- 1/4 cup sultanas

- 1 tsp ground ginger

- 3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)

- 2 tbsp sunflower oil

- Salt and pepper to taste

Start by preparing the bulgur - boil in salted water for 10 minutes, take off the heat and leave to rise for a further 5 minutes.

Boil or steam the broccoli and carrots until soft and set aside.

In a frying pan, sauté the onions, garlic and pepper in sunflower oil for a couple of minutes, then add the spinach, sultanas, almonds and ground ginger. Cook for another 7-8 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the cooked broccoli and carrots towards the end. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve warm on a bed of cooked bulgur. 

BREAKFAST #2 - VEGAN PANCAKES

These pancakes are absolutely heavenly! You can eat a whole batch and still feel good about yourself afterwards. While most people prefer to make pancakes a weekend breakfast indulgence, you can go ahead and have these any day of the week. It's quick, delicious and entirely good for you!
























Ingredients
(serves 2)
- 1 cup whole grain flour
- 1/2 ripe banana (chopped)
- 1/4 cup dried raisins
- 1/4 cup oats
- 2 cups almond milk
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp sunflower oil
- Pancake topping of your choice (organic maple syrup; freshly squeezed lemon juice and unrefined brown  sugar; agave nectar; more sliced bananas etc.)

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and add the raisins, oats and chopped bananas.

Pour in the almond milk and mix to form a pourable batter. Add a little water if the mixture seems too thick.

Add 1 teaspoon of the sunflower oil to the batter and heat the other teaspoon of oil in a non-stick frying pan.

For each pancake, spoon about 2-3 tablespoons of the batter into the pan and spread with the back of the spoon to form an even round shape.

Cook until bubbles start to form on the surface of the pancake, then flip it over to brown the other side for about a minute.

Serve hot with your favourite pancake topping. I'm a big fan of organic maple syrup...yum!

HEARTY SALAD

Great lunch idea if you want something light but don't want to feel deprived.

















Ingredients
- 1/2 head romain lettuce (roughly chopped)
- 1 diced carrot
- 1/2 green bell pepper (chopped)
- 2 tbsp sweetcorn
- 1 tbsp almonds
- 1 tbsp raisins
- 1 tbsp chopped olives
- 3 tbsp cooked lentils
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- pinch of salt

Vegan Nigerian Okra Soup with Eba | How to Make Okra Stew

I haven't eaten okra in a looonngg time, so I was pretty excited to cook this meal. However, when I realised that the other times I'd eaten okra was when my mum had cooked it for us, I stopped short and genuinely scratched my head for a few seconds as I stared down at the bright green batons.

Isn't technology a wonderful thing? The answer to my problem was just a phone call away! With a pen in hand and a piece of paper in front of me, I jotted down my mum's fool-proof step-by-step instructions. At the end of the call, I was left chuckling at myself and thinking: 'Oh? Well, that's not so difficult.'

So if you've never cooked with this "mind-boggling" vegetable before, I can assure you that this recipe is wonderfully easy to make and incredibly tasty. My version is fully vegan, with roasted tofu replacing the meat.

Eba is a dough made from garri (dried cassava flakes) and is a staple food eaten in the Southern parts of Nigeria. You can find it at any African food shop or online. Although it can be a little heavy (because of the stodgy consistency), paying attention to portion size goes a long way. Not only is it very high in dietary fibre, it also contains zero cholesterol and no saturated fat - win!

Ingredients
(serves 2)

For the okra stew
- 200g firm tofu, diced

- 4 cups okra 

- 1 scotch bonnet pepper

- 1/2 cup vegetable stock

- 2 tbsp palm oil (optional)
- 1 large red bell pepper, finely chopped
- 2 medium sized tomatoes, finely chopped
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp crushed garlic

- Salt to taste

- dried parsley, to garnish

For the eba
- 1 1/2 cups garri
- 1 cup boiling hot water

Spread the diced tofu on a lined baking tray and bake at 200C for 20 minutes until golden brown and crispy. Set aside.

To make the okra stew, trim the tops and tails of the okra. Place the okra in a food blender with the scotch bonnet pepper and pulse/blend until liquified, with a few small lumps remaining. 

Bring the vegetable stock and palm oil to a boil in a large pot and add the blended okra. The consistency should turn gooey and bubbly.

Add the chopped red pepper, tomatoes and onions, along with the crushed garlic and season with salt to taste. Cook for 5 minutes on high heat. Add the roasted tofu towards the end of the cooking time.

To make the eba, place the garri in a large mixing bowl and add the boiling hot water slowly, mixing as you go along, until it forms a soft but firm dough - firm enough to hold its shape.

Use a damp wooden spoon to shape the eba into a mound and serve with the okra stew, garnished with some dried parsley.

Now, if you want to go all out and eat this the traditional way, you can use your hand to scoop the eba into little ball shapes and dip into the stew. Entirely up to you! :)

GROCERY HAUL #2

I discovered a new organic fruit & veg shop this morning. I was a bit like a kid in a candy store - wide-eyed and wanting to pick this, that and everything. Thanks largely to the reasonable prices, I ended up buying a wide variety of food items, including a couple of vegetables I've never tried before. It should be fun figuring out what to do with them. Looks like it's going to be a salad-packed week. I even feel inspired to invent the ultimate Nigerian salad dressing, so keep an eye out for that.
All in all, quite pleased with today's purchase :)

- Bok choy a.k.a. chinese cabbage
- Broccoli
- Romaine lettuce
- Vine tomatoes
- Onions
- Carrots
- Green pepper
- Avocados
- Mandarines
- Napa cabbage
- Bananas
- Raw almonds
- Dried raisins