Buckwheat, hemp and bean bake/ stuffing- vegan, nut free, gluten free and soya free

Buckwheat, hemp and bean bake also makes a great stuffing for vegetables such as peppers.

Buckwheat is such an amazing food; see here for some nutritional information. Sadly, it just got harder to get buckwheat flour here in the UK, as Dove's Farm seem to have discontinued their buckwheat flour, but you can still get the whole "grains" easily. (For now I've been grinding the grains into flour using my Magimix!) Hemp is also a wonder-food, so this dish is super- nutritious. I tried making croquettes/ falafels out of this, but sadly, whether grilled. shallow-fried or deep-fried, they kept falling to pieces :( So this nonetheless delicious mix is best pressed into a loaf tin/ mould and baked, or used to stuff veggies with. I'll be working on adapting it for the falafels; maybe a binder such as gram flour and water would do the trick- what do you think? The quantities of mix given here fed 6 people as a bake, served with potatoes and vegetables as the protein component of the meal. It's hard to say exactly how many portions, however, as I took out some for frying; so potentially it could feed maybe 8...? Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients; it's actually really simple to make.


2x 250ml cups (dry weight) buckwheat "grains"
50g cooked and drained red kidney beans
2x 250 ml cups shelled hemp seeds
1 tsp powdered ginger
a pinch of chilli powder
1 level tab ground cumin
2 level tabs ground coriander
2 tsps seasalt (or to your own taste)
3 level tabs nutritional yeast (Such as Engevita)

• Cook the buckwheat in water until it is very soft- almost to the point of mushiness-  and all the water is absorbed. (I use a similar ratio of buckwheat to water as rice, and top it up if necessary.) 
• Mash the beans in a large bowl, add the buckwheat and hemp and mix well.
• Mix in all the other ingredients.
• Use to stuff baked vegetables like aubergine (eggplant) or bell peppers (capsicums) or press into an oiled loaf tin/ dampened silicone mould and bake at around 200C for 20-30 minutes, or until the top has begun to brown.