Many years ago, Delia Smith’s cookery books became our bible and a particular family favourite was and remains her vegetarian Cheesy Herb Sausages. My husband makes them every week. Our daughter-in-law was introduced to them when she joined our family and now makes a personal request for them when she comes to visit.
Since becoming vegan and gluten-free, however, I’ve had to forego this pleasure and usually have a bought alternative (I like Dee’s Wholefoods) when family come to stay and choose something else when it’s just us.
When I was still vegetarian, but had to become gluten-free, my husband offered several times to make an alternative with gluten-free bread, but commercial g/f bread has an aftertaste that dominates whatever you use it in and I never wanted to use up the homemade bread for this as it is time-consuming for him to make (I can’t do it because of my back injury) and I also didn’t want him to have to make two lots of different sausages.
Now that I am vegan and he has also given up eggs (but not cheese yet, we are getting there slowly), and we are more used to vegan cooking, we decided to try making some Delia-lite sausages using a chia egg and nutritional yeast. It was surprisingly easy and came together quickly. Chia egg is quite a miracle worker when it comes to needing a binding agent to replace real eggs in burgers and sausages.
I chose leek rather than onion for several reasons: I find onion difficult to digest; onion, unless you grate it, often doesn’t cook properly in homemade sausages while leek doesn’t dominate and also blends with the mixture better, it holds together well.
These are our first attempt and we were very pleased with them. They are firm, tasty and satisfying.
Watch out for our second version: Vegan Leek, Carrot and Ginger Sausages, even better!
Makes about 8 depending on size.
Vegan, Gluten-free and Organic where possible.
Ingredients
2.5 oz / A third of a Cup Almonds, soaked, rinsed and patted dry, then roughly grind with:
2 Heaped Tbsps Nutritional Yeast
1 Tsp Dry Mustard
1 Tsp Thyme
1 Tsp Sage
Add together in a processor with:
5 oz/ Gluten-free Breadcrumbs*
Pink Himalayan Salt & Black Pepper to taste
1 Small Leek, finely chopped
1 Tbsp Sesame Seeds
A Splash of Tamari
1 Chia Egg (1 Tbsp Chia Seeds soaked in 3 Tbsps Water to form a gel)
Process all the ingredients for a few seconds until the mixture will stick together but still has some texture, squeeze into sausage shapes.
Refrigerate for a while until needed.
Lightly cook in coconut oil, turning frequently (the sausages, that is, but you can do a twirl now and then if you like while you’re waiting!).
We put some uncooked ones in the freezer for another day.
*Vegan Gluten-Free Tiger Nut Loaf/Bread Mk III
Copyright: Chris McGowan
In my opinion, one can never have too many recipes for raw chocolate, so here is another easy version of the do-it-yourself kind. It is quite rich, you only need a small amount, so bear this in mind when giving it to young children. It contains minerals, protein, antioxidants and is dairy-free.
The inspiration for this was a video on Instagram of Hanna Sillitoe (@mygoodnessrecipes) making a vegetable protein bolognese sauce to have with gluten-free spaghetti and a parmesan substitute made from almonds and nutritional yeast. (The recipe is in her new book ‘Radiant’, available on 
She uses ingredients from 
A bit late in the day, but better late than never, I hope! These were made with ingredients I won in a recent 
Spoon into silicone moulds or into a baking tray and refrigerate for a couple of hours until set. Cut into slices if set in a tray.
We had 2 butternut squash, several oranges and a lot of dried lemonbalm from our garden queuing up, begging to be used, so I decided to try some of them together. I’ve had squash with nutmeg, squash with cumin and squash with ginger, I wondered what squash with orange would be like.
Add a handful at a time, starting with the squash and carrots, then celery, stir-frying as you go until all are added.
This is a favourite in our house, it is so simple and quick to make and makes a very welcome lunch or dinner on a cold winter’s day. It takes less than an hour to make and you can make it as thick or thin as you like and spicy or not according to your tastes. We prefer to blend it with a stick blender to thicken it up, but leave it a little coarse. We steamed a little broccoli for garnish and extra nutrients.
This raw vegan Christmas pudding was inspired by a recipe on 
freeze small treats rather than make a whole pudding.
pearsnotparsnipsdotcom 
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