Greek Produce

 Coming from a country where - certainly in my area- so much fresh produce seems to be less than fresh and pretty much always wrapped to the enth degree in plastic, I'm always amazed by fresh produce markets on my travels. 

Travelling through Greece for the last few years it does my heart good to come across the fruit and veg markets where the smell is divine. I took this photo for Sam whilst on holiday last year to Kefalonia. As a committed vegan, so much of his diet relies on good fruit and veg and while he lives in an area with much more to offer than me, it's still a roll of the dice how fresh it really is. 

You can almost smell the tomatoes :) 

This lovely market was just along the waterfront at Argostoli by the Kefalonia sign, I could barely walk past it without buying something.

Vegan Bread Pudding

 I made a lovely traditional ( kind of ) bread pudding a couple of weeks ago and wanted to treat Sam - vegan for the last five years - to as best a vegan bread pudding that I could possibly knock up for him. This shouldn't have been difficult as bread pudding has always been one of those dishes that relies on pretty much whatever you happen to have in the kitchen at that time. 

I don't think that I've ever made it the same way twice honestly and its variously luxurious or wartime ration like depending on the ingredients available. 

It was quite interesting to judge this recipe as I made a fully non vegan recipe for bread pudding on the same day, it would be handy to trial them side by side.

Ingredients

• 500 g  / 17½ oz wholemeal (whole wheat) bread
• 600 ml  plant based milk
• 1 Tbspn mixed spice
• ½ Tbspn ground cinnamon (or more mixed spice)
• 500 g   mixed dried fruit e.g. sultanas, raisins, candied citrus peel
• zest of 1 unwaxed/organic lemon
• zest of 1 unwaxed/organic orange
• 50 ml / ¼ cup neutral-flavoured oil ( I used light olive oil ) 
• 100 g / ½ cup unrefined ('golden') caster sugar or coconut sugar
• 2 Tbspn Demerara sugar
• 
  

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) / 350F / Gas Mark 4

In a large bowl break up the bread and pour in the milk, add spices and fruit and leave until the bread has broken down - about 30 minutes.

Add lemon and orange zest, oil and sugar to the mix ( I added the juice of the lemon and orange at this stage too ), give it all a good stir and add to a 20cm / 8 inch square lined tin. Sprinkle with the demerara sugar - this gives the pudding a lovely crunch.

Bake for approx 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the pudding. Leave to cool - if you can , the temptation to try this too soon is overwhelming.

This was absolutely delicious and very well received by Sam - yum !! It didn't last long I think.

It didn't taste as luxurious as the non vegan pudding but it was still a fabulous recipe and I'll deffo make it again.