Planet Veggie » Lunch

Spiced carrot and lentil soup

Cathy — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:32:14 +0000

I must have gone off salad as, although there’s been loads of salady type stuff in the fridge, all last week I’ve ignored this and made myself cheese and coleslaw sandwiches instead. That’s not quite in keeping with the eat healthy lunches regime I usually have. So I decided to go back to the make a load of soup on Monday to last through the week thing. And today’s lunch was spiced carrot and lentil soup from the BBC Good Food website. I love that site.

I also loved the soup. Easy to make and whilst probably a bit hearty for a summer’s day (well, it would be if we had a flipping summer’s day), it was very filling.

Along with the soup, I decided to excel in today’s flurry of domestic goddessing and made some home made bread. Well, home made as in out of a packet mix and made in the bread maker. I used half the packet and 2 hours and 53 minutes later, out came the smallest loaf of bread in the world. Is it just me or does it look a bit like a curly dog poo?

Still, curly dog poo notwithstanding, the bread was quite dense and very filling but very nice, especially as I had it while it was still warm, fresh out of the bread maker.

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Righteous All Natural Salad Dressings

Cathy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:14:22 +0000

I love salad dressing but as I love to drown my food in sauces and dressings, I usually choose a low calorie one. The problem with this is that they don’t usually taste of much, so when I got sent some Righteous All Natural Salad Dressing to try, I was a bit perturbed on reading the label that it contains 66 calories per 15ml.

Still, as I don’t like to eat too much crap, I was pleased to see that they’re made of 100% natural ingredients, with no additives, preservatives, thickeners, flavourings and also they’re vegan (it says 100% vegan on the label, but surely you can’t be 99% vegan?)

Today with my lunch of salad leaves, red pepper, feta cheese, sweet corn, kalamata olives, cucumber and tomato (I would have had some cannellini beans too, but after opening the tin and draining them, I forgot to add them), I tried out the Ginger & Toasted Sesame Dressing and keeping in mind the 66 calories per 15ml thing, I didn’t pour half the bottle over my salad.

I didn’t need any more than 15ml as it was delicious and I’m looking forward to lunch tomorrow!

Righteous All Natural Salad Dressings are available in three varieties:

Ginger & Toasted Sesame
Lemon & Mustard Seeds
Raspberry & Sweet Basil

and each 225ml bottle retails at £2.69 and available from Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, Whole Foods and Partridges.

For more information, visit www.loverighteous.com

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Quorn Roast Style Sliced Fillets

Cathy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:34:32 +0000

Quorn have added a new addition to their deli range; Quorn Roast Style Sliced Fillets which can be eaten straight from the pack or added to salads, wraps and sandwiches.

Low in fat and high in protein, you’ll find them in the chilled cabinet but I froze them and then left them in the fridge overnight to defrost before using them in my sandwich today.

Here they are in the pack:

And here’s the construction of my sandwich. And yes, I know it’s white sliced (Kingsmill to be precise) but it’s what The Meat Eater fills the freezer with. (Four drawers in the freezer and he fills three of them with bread. Bah.)

Squeeze some squeezy mustard mayonnaise onto the bread and add the Quorn fillets.

Add some salad on top.

Two minutes later you have a nice sandwich.

And very nice it was too. And because I’m such a classy chick, I accompanied it with a mug of Cup a Soup.

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Miso soup with tofu and spinach

Cathy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:57:30 +0000

Vegan Planet is a cookbook I’ve had for years but only made one recipe from; a recipe I didn’t really like but after recently reading good reviews about it on amazon, I thought I’d give it another go. Rather than risk giving The Meat Eater something that would downgrade me from domestic goddess to domestic idiot, I thought I’d better experiment on myself first.

So, this week’s lunch for me is miso soup with tofu and spinach which sounds disgustingly healthy and as I was making it, I was a little worried that it would taste disgustingly healthy, with ‘disgustingly’ being the operative word and it certainly was one of those soups where you could feel healthiness coursing through your veins but it tasted very nice.

There is tofu in there somewhere, honest.

Miso soup with tofu and baby spinach (serves 4)

6 cups water
1 ½ cups baby spinach leaves, cut into thin strips
½ cup thinly sliced white mushrooms (I didn’t have any mushrooms, so poured in some mushroom ketchup instead)
3 tablespoons minced scallions (that’s spring onions to us English people)
1 tablespoon tamari or other soy sauce
¹⁄₃ cup mellow white miso paste (I only had brown miso, so used that)
4oz extra-firm silken tofu, drained and cut into 1/4-inch dice (I used normal tofu; the stuff that comes in a box; isn’t silken tofu that runny stuff that comes in a carton?)

Place the water in a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the spinach, mushrooms, scallions, and tamari. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the vegetables soften, 3 to 6 minutes. Reduce the heat to low.
Place about 1/4 cup of the hot soup mixture in a small bowl and add the miso, blending well. Stir the mixture back into the soup, add the tofu, and simmer for 2 minutes, being careful not to boil. Taste, adjust the seasonings, and serve hot.

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Spinach and potato soup

Cathy — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:46:59 +0000

A cookbook I haven’t used for a while is Vegetarian Express by Rose Elliot so I had a flick through it yesterday looking for inspiration for this week’s soup and came across a recipe for spinach and potato soup.

It was very nice.

And very green.

Ingredients
(serves 5)
1 small onion, chopped
400g spinach
400g potatoes, diced
1400ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
Ground nutmeg
salt and pepper

Fry the onion in the olive oil for about 5 minutes
Add the potato and cook for about 5 minutes
Add the spinach and press down, stirring occasionally until it softens and wilts, about 5 minutes
Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until the potato is tender
Remove from heat, add nutmeg, salt & pepper and blend

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Butternut squash soup

Cathy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:51:27 +0000

Two friends said on Facebook how nice pumpkin soup was and I said if it was anything like butternut squash, then I couldn’t be bothered with trying to peel it and one of them said no, you just cut it in half and scoop the flesh out, so I thought oh, ok then, pumpkin soup this week it is.

Unfortunately, is turned into was, as Tesco had no pumpkins (why didn’t I think of this a week earlier?) and so butternut squash it was. My original recipe called for buttermilk but I couldn’t find it in Tesco (where would it be? I looked on the fresh milk aisle, the long life milk aisle and near the cooking ingredients but couldn’t find it) and so as my original recipe called for a pumpkin and buttermilk and I came home with butternut squash and no buttermilk, I thought I’d better find a new recipe.

I found this recipe which is a Gary Rhodes’ recipe and I’ve decided that Gary Rhodes is either a) a spiky-haired tight git; or b) anorexic or c) neither of the above and I’m just a fat pig, as his recipe says that it serves 4 but I had a third extra amount of butternut squash and stock and it only serves three.

Still, even though it didn’t make a huge amount and it was a pain in the you know what peeling that butternut squash, the soup was thick, creamy, velvety smooth, delicious and a gorgeous orange colour.

Hurry up tomorrow lunchtime.

Butternut squash soup
Prep time: 10 mins [I took flipping ages peeling the butternut squash]
Cook time: 40 mins
Serves 4: [more like 3 and that's with my extra butternut squash and stock]

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
675g butternut squash seeds removed and cubed [I used just over 800g I think]
1/2 tsp ground ginger [I used about 3/4 tsp to go with the extra squash and stock]
600ml vegetable stock [I used 900ml, as I didn't use orange juice [see below] and had extra butternut squash]
100ml orange juice [I didn't use this as I'm not a fan of sweet stuff in my food]
salt and black pepper

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and garlic to the pan and fry until softened, but not coloured.
Tip in the butternut squash and add the ginger. Cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Add the stock and orange juice and simmer for about 30 minutes until the squash is tender.
Leave the soup to cool slightly, before pureeing with a hand blender until smooth. Season to taste, reheat if necessary and serve.

Ingredients

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Cheap, quick and easy mushroom soup

Cathy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:21:10 +0000

I love mushrooms. They taste nice, they go well on things, in things, they’re inexpensive and contain only 13 calories per 100g. And today’s soup must be one of the easiest soups in the world ever.

Ingredients (serves 5)

Big bag of mushrooms
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2,500ml vegetable stock
Mushroom ketchup
Dried thyme
Salt and pepper

Chop up the onion.
Cook the onion in some stock while you’re chopping up the mushrooms.
Add the mushrooms and the rest of the stock to the onion.
Add the garlic, mushroom ketchup and dried thyme.
Simmer for about 15 minutes.
Add the salt and pepper and blend it a bit.

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Spinach and ricotta pasta

Cathy — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:32:07 +0000

Woo hoo, don’t get too excited, but here’s a meal I made up myself, and not copied out of a book. OK, so it’s only spinach and ricotta pasta, which is hardly new and original but I had leftover spinach and leftover ricotta from the spinach and ricotta soufflés I made the other day so I thought spinach and ricotta pasta would do me just fine for lunch. And very nice it was too.

Because it’s my own made up recipe, I haven’t got strict measurements. So, what I did was to get about 100g of penne on the boil, then melt some butter (about 50g) in a frying pan, add spinach (it was about 100g I think) and garlic (1 clove) and fry until the spinach does that wilt down to nothing thing that it does so well. When the spinach is all wilty, add some ricotta – I used about 3 really big tablespoons’ worth – and mix it up with the spinach. Grate some Emmenthal or cheese of your choice and add some of it to the spinach and ricotta mix, along with some fresh basil (about 1 tablespoon) and freshly ground black pepper and salt. When the pasta’s ready, add it to the frying pan containing the spinach, ricotta and Emmenthal. Pour it into a bowl.

Spinach and ricotta pasta pre-cheese and basil on top

Sprinkle the rest of the Emmenthal on top, along with a few leaves of fresh basil to make it look pretty.

Spinach and ricotta pasta with cheese and basil on top

Nice.

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Vegan cheese on toast

Cathy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:11:35 +0000

Today I decided to be brave and venture once again into the strange and mysterious realm of vegan cheese and make myself some vegan cheese on toast with some of the melting mozzarella Cheezly I have left after testing some on the pizza I made the other day. Because it has a slightly clay-like texture, it sticks to the knife and I have to peel it off and it falls apart and I scatter it haphazardly over the toast.

I decide it will probably be nicer with some tomatoes and vegan Worcestershire sauce. I also decide it would probably be nicer with Anchor butter under the cheese but that wouldn’t really be in keeping with the spirit of my vegan lunch.

I put it under the grill and it starts to bubble. After a few minutes I take it out and hurrah, I have melted vegan cheese on toast!

I nervously take it over to the table to eat it and take a bite. It’s not bad. A bit grainy and with a very subtle flavour, but dairy mozzarella doesn’t have a strong flavour anyway so maybe I’ll try some melting Cheddar style next time. Although maybe next time I’ll just have toast.

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