- The one thing I can give this
is that it is still vegan.
(upbeat electric guitar music)
I think a lot of the kind of ideas
around vegan is must stem from kind of
like everything being perfect
and take a long time and being expensive
or whatever.
So, it'll be interesting to see
kind of the less polished side
of the vegan world, so to say.
- Yeah, like you can be a lazy coke
and be a vegan.
- Yeah, totally. - Or you can just
not have that much time on your hands.
So, I think that for students,
especially if you're someone who's
trying to eat like more of a plant-based diet,
having things that you can make in the microwave
is probably really handy for you.
- Yeah, absolutely.
I'm looking forward to give it a try.
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)
- A lot fewer ingredients than you think.
It's literally over-ripe banana,
a smooth nut butter, we have peanut butter,
and cocoa powder, and then optionally
a sweetener, so we've got some vegan maple syrup.
- So, it doesn't obviously have any dairy products
in it, but it also just doesn't have any flour.
- But then, if you think about it,
brownies of the cake world are the very much
the unleavened kind of like fudgy, gooey cake.
- So, yeah, let's give it a shout.
- Let's do it.
So, to grease it we're just thinking
just to put a little bit of olive oil.
I'm happy with that grease.
Next step, mash a banana.
Ooh, this cocoa is rich.
- It looks like a fancy cocoa powder.
- Smells amazing.
Two teaspoons? - Tablespoons.
- Tablespoons, okay, that seems like a lot,
but I guess it is a brownie.
And then, same of the smooth nut butter, so one.
Two.
- Ooh, that looks really good!
- Right?
- Yeah!
- Like, look at that.
- That looks great.
- [Tom] Look at that. - [Ayesha] Like really,
really good.
- I'm gonna say that much.
That was sort of like a, seemed like a tablespoon.
This actually might be a really good way
of having a chocolatey snack without it being
like, really bad for you. - Too unhealthy?
- So, I think now we just need to transfer it
to our greased bowls.
- Yeah.
- Confident pouring needs to happen.
It's like, firm-ish.
Standing up on its own, but then if you were
to make a peak in it, it kind of doesn't
settle for a while.
So, definitely behaves like a cake batter,
that's for sure.
Let's go microwave these.
I'm gonna go ahead and put this in
for one minute.
(thud) (beeping)
I'm gonna see what happens.
- I'm actually gonna change and do mine
for a minute and a half.
Okay.
- This is quite exciting.
So, upon returning from the microwave,
it actually looks like it's cooked.
Are you seeing that?
It looks like a brownie.
(clattering)
(gasps)
Let's be honest now, something has happened here.
The proof is in the pudding.
So, let's go, should we try it?
- Yeah.
- [Both] Cheers.
- Oh my god, oh my god. - Wow.
- That's unbelievable.
That's made out of bananas.
- That's crazy.
- Oh my god, I'm like so thrilled
that this has worked, like this is brilliant.
- This is amazing vegan snack.
- So, ease, I'm gonna give this a five out of five.
- Yeah.
- It was so easy.
- I think five out of five, as well.
If you're trying to think about hot desserts,
they take a long time.
This is like a really nice dessert,
especially on a cold day.
Simple as hell.
Taste?
- Five out of five again.
Like, honestly, it's so good, like.
- I'm a fan.
- So, we've just given it to Jade for a try
and I'd like to know your thoughts, jade.
What were you saying? - Oh my god.
Honestly, I can't even explain
how good this dessert is.
This taste like a lava cake,
thick, chocolate, creamy.
I actually cannot believe it's just bananas
and peanut butter.
- [Tom] There you go, you see?
- Are you lying? - [Tom] No. (laughs)
Can you imagine? - It's legit, it's really like
have I just eaten this?
(upbeat music)
- Vegan mac and cheese, which in itself
is kind of a challenging concept,
but now we're gonna take it the next step
and we're gonna do it in the microwave.
- I'm confused by how you can really
cook pasta in the microwave.
- I've noticed here we've got vegan margarine,
we got almond milk, pasta, and also--
- Vegan mozzarella.
- A mozzarella flavor block.
- Dairy-free, lactase-free, soya-free,
gluten-free, and nut-free.
So, all the frees.
(clattering)
- That seems about right.
- Yeah, that's okay.
- So, we have about that much happening.
- The rest, of course, were equal parts
pasta to water.
- Do a whole mug of water.
And get it literally everywhere.
I'm going to microwave it until
the pasta is al dente.
Let's do it.
As the recipe stated, we are gonna microwave these now
in two minute intervals.
I think for it to be actually cooked,
it might take like 46, so we'll just
pop them in and see.
We boiled our pasta.
It took about eight minutes in two minute intervals.
I didn't think you could cook pasta
in the microwave, and like, clearly you can.
Think about that much, I think.
Sounds good. - Cool.
- Almost like it's cereal.
I've never had vegan cheese.
I don't really know what to expect.
Hmm, oh.
It's surprisingly all right.
I've got a decent amount of cheese in there.
I think the margarine I'm gonna put
in like that much, like quite a bit.
- Gonna add in some salt and pepper.
- I think that's a good idea.
- I think we should mix it?
- Yeah, I guess.
Should we go give it a try?
- Yeah, let's do it.
- I'm genuinely quite surprised
that it looks all right.
Look at that.
It's quite like soft, it's quite melty,
it's very cheesy.
Or at least cheese-like.
But we may have put too much cheese in.
A small mug of pasta to a half block of cheese
maybe is not the right amount.
Should we try it?
- Yeah, let's go for it.
- Okay, cheers.
- Cheers.
- You know, that isn't bad.
- It does taste a little bit cheesy,
but it's also--
- It's oilier.
- Yeah.
- It's not bad, though.
- No, and it does actually have quite a string to it.
- The salt and pepper that you thought to add
definitely helped.
- Oh yeah.
- Ease, I would give this like a 3.5.
Well, maybe no, four, just say a straight four.
I think that's fair.
Everything happened in one bowl,
so it's minimum cleanup.
Taste, I'll give it a four, as well.
It's slightly bland.
- Yes.
It does taste good, it does taste like a white sauce.
- But overall, honestly, I'm really impressed.
I was skeptical about vegan mac and cheese
and they have proved me wrong, this is good.
- It is good.
Do I prefer it?
No.
(upbeat electric guitar music)
So, we have our chickpea tin.
- Boom.
- Chickpea water is a really popular vegan ingredient.
- Oh really? - It's called aquafaba.
And people use it to make like vegan meringues.
- [Tom] It's something much more than that
but less than go over where you that get the idea.
- So, we need to add in two to four
cloves of garlic, as well.
- I might go a maximum garlic.
- We need to microwave this for four to five minutes.
Four to five minutes, and hopefully
afterwards, this will become all smooth and mashable.
So, fingers crossed.
- We'll see. (laughs)
(upbeat music)
Okay, so here is our microwave bowl
of chickpeas and garlic.
Okay, so first things first,
we just gotta mash it with a fork.
A potato masher and a bigger bowl
would be good. - Yeah, yeah.
(upbeat electric guitar music)
I'm gonna go out on a limb and I think
we should microwave this a bit more.
- Yeah?
So, we've decided to put the chickpeas
back in the microwave for a minute and a half.
Hopefully, this will just make it
all magically come together/ soften up
the garlic a little bit more.
So, here we go.
It looks more like soup then it did before.
If that's the goal, which it's not.
- So, I'm gonna in the lemon now.
It says 30 mils, which is about two tablespoons, I believe.
How much salt?
- Two to five teaspoons. - 3 1/2 to 3/4 to...
- So, like that much.
Sure, let's make that one.
Tahini, I didn't know what it was until just now.
It smells amazing.
So, basically I need about half
a jar in here. - Yeah.
Should I just pour it? - Yeah.
- Ohh. - Oh, ohh.
- Can you see this, though?
She's coagulating.
- One to two tablespoons.
- Okay, so it's a stream in it whilst mixing.
And streaming.
- [Ayesha] Ooh.
- [Tom] Like that much?
- [Ayesha] That's good, yeah.
- So, I'm gonna add some pepper, I think,
just because like, seasoning is god.
So, here we have our microwave homemade hummus.
Which, actually, doesn't look too bad.
- No, it's very homemade looking.
- Yeah, we have quinoa chips and also hummus chips,
which I believe are actually made of hummus,
so we're going double hummus.
Should we try it?
- It looks all right, yeah.
- That's not bad.
That really isn't bad.
I don't know if I tried it at a party,
I would even know that it was supposed to be hummus, though.
- Kind of tastes like peanut butter.
- So, for ease.
- Two out of five.
- Yeah, I'd give this a two.
I wasn't stressed, it wasn't particularly strenuous.
Two is a fair score, two out of five
for ease, yeah.
- Taste is a three.
- I would give it a two.
I really like hummus and it just doesn't
taste like hummus, so that's why (mumbles).
- All in all, that was fun.
I really, really enjoyed this.
I can't believe how well some of the things turned out.
- The idea that if you're a student
and you're vegan, that you can still
also enjoy that accessibility of making things quickly,
I think, is a really big plus.
Like, two out of three of these things
were like, sorted.
Like one of these is a really good dessert
or like a filling snack, and one of them
is like a full meal that you can make
in the microwave, it doesn't take that long,
is quite affordable, as well.
That actually opens up a lot of possibilities.
In terms of maybe I can just make
vegan bakes more often.
- Speaking of which, I think I might
go eat the rest of my brownie right now.
Bye!
(upbeat electric guitar music)