This recipe is from Miguel Barclay’s latest book ‘Vegan One Pound Meals’. I love his ‘One Pound Meals’ series – a cooking philosophy very much like mine – easy, freshly cooked food at a reasonable price (and you can’t get more reasonable than a pound per person).

One of the cheap, fresh and easy mantras of this blog is that food doesn’t have to cost the earth to be delicious but it is nearly always better when it is freshly cooked. There’s a double meaning here which really resonates with me – that food should be kind to the planet as well as being affordable. We are all becoming more aware that we need to live our lives in a more sustainable way, and eating less meat is one of the most important (and easy) things we can do.

I’m not a vegan, or a vegetarian, but I do want to make eating meat the exception.  I’m not that keen on vegetarian versions of meat, like veggie sausages, simply because I’m put off by how processed they are (and the very long list of ingredients). But I do like the taste of them – the Greggs vegan sausage roll wasn’t just a stroke of marketing genius, it also tasted fantastic.  What I like about Miguel Barclay’s vegan rolls (we’re going to have to start dropping the ‘sausage’ at some point) is that they don’t try to mimic pork.

I have more or less followed Miguel’s recipe here except I substituted fresh sage and thyme from my garden for dried oregano. I have used borlotti beans instead of black beans (unless that’s the same thing)? So this is my version of his recipe.

Ingredients

Makes 10.

• 1 red onion, diced
• Pack of mushrooms, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 teaspoon of fresh sage and thyme (or dried oregano)
•  Tin of borlotti beans, drained
• 1 tablespoon plain flour
• 1 sheet ready rolled puff pastry
• Poppy seeds
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Pan fry the onions in olive oil on a medium heat, add the garlic, mushrooms, herbs, borlotti beans, salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes until everything is cooked and softened.
2. Remove from heat and blend (I used a hand blender) until you have a coarse paste. Tip into a bowl and add the flour and mix, allow to cool. Pre-heat oven to 190C.
3. Cut the puff pastry into strips approx 4 x 10cm. Spoon a dollop of the mixture on each strip, fold and crimp the ends with a fork.
4. Place on a lined baking sheet. Sprinkle each roll with poppy seeds and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Do you have a cheap, fresh and easy recipe I can try? Let me know and I’ll feature it on the site and link back to you.

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