Planet Veggie

I’ve had courgettes in my veg box from Abel & Cole for the last four weeks but luckily, The Meat Eater says he’s not fed up with courgettes yet (unlike when he moaned about getting spinach twice in a week) and so I looked in my trusty Leiths Vegetarian Bible for another courgette recipe (they categorise everything by vegetable which is very handy) and found this one. I generally try to avoid pastry and especially pastry and cheese but this time I thought ‘sod it’.

The recipe here is adapted slightly as Leith’s recipe involved making your own pastry and rolling it out and placing it on a damp baking tray and pricking it with a fork and baking it on one side, then turning it over and baking it on the other and so I thought ‘sod that’ and bought some ready rolled.

I also used dried oregano, as I’ve never seen fresh oregano in my life.

While I was making it, I thought it might be a bit bland as it is just simply a layer of mozzarella and a layer of courgette and tomato, but it wasn’t bland at all. I froze the leftovers and heated them up a few days later and they were fine too.

Courgette and tomato tart

Ingredients:

225g ready rolled puff pastry
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
150g mozzarella cheese
6 ripe tomatoes
2 courgettes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
6 fresh basil leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220c/gas mark 7.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and cook over a low heat until soft and golden-brown. Add the garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes. Allow to cool, then scatter over the top of the pastry. Slice the cheese and arrange on top of the onion.
3. Cut the tomatoes and courgettes into slices 1cm thick. Arrange the tomatoes and courgettes in alternate overlapping rows over the tart. Scatter over the herbs, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the remaining oil. Bake for 20 minutes.

Today’s veg box arrived containing a cabbage and potatoes. Luckily enough, Leith’s Vegetarian Bible had a recipe containing both cabbage and potatoes and as it involved cooking it in garlic, double cream and cheese I thought that sounded like a winner.

And it was, as The Meat Eater declared it ‘very yum’ and gave me permission to cook it again. Maybe I’ll give him permission to cook it himself.

Potato and cabbage gratin (serves 4)

Ingredients
675g new potatoes
Butter, for greasing
1 clove of garlic, crushed
290ml double cream
225g Savoy cabbage, shredded
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
55g Gruyere cheese, grated
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Cayenne pepper
Dry English mustard

(I swapped Leerdammer cheese for the Gruyere as Tesco didn’t have any vegetarian Gruyere and I omitted the Parmesan as Tesco didn’t have any veggie Parmesan-style cheese either. I also swapped the fresh marjoram for dried as Tesco didn’t have any fresh marjoram.

Maybe I should start shopping at Waitrose.)

Method

1. Wash the potatoes and cook them in boiling water until just tender. Drain and cut into halves or quarters depending on size.
2. Preheat the oven to 200c/gas mark 6. Grease an ovenproof dish with butter.
3. Stir the garlic into the cream and mix together with the potatoes, cabbage and marjoram. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Spoon half the potato mixture into the base of the dish. Sprinkle the Gruyere cheese on top and cover with the remaining potato. Season the Parmesan cheese with a pinch each of cayenne and dry English mustard and sprinkle over the top.
5. Cover the dish with kitchen foil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until the top is golden brown.

I recently reinstated my veg box delivery but opting for Abel & Cole for a change, instead of Riverford. Not that I had any problems with Riverford; I thought they were great, but the fact that you can skip any fruit or veg you don’t want appealed to me, as I used to end up with hundreds of mud-covered carrots which, not owning a rabbit or a carrot-eating cat, usually ended up in the bin.

The problem with skipping something in your delivery is that you don’t know what it’ll be replaced with and when I skipped potatoes one week, I received beetroot instead. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? (Well, actually I grated it and had it in a salad and it was fine with the added bonus of turning the feta cheese a nice pink colour.)

But wanting to avoid any more ‘what the hell do I do with that?’ vegetables, although I’ve had a delivery of courgettes for two weeks running, I decide to keep the courgettes and find a nice recipe for them. Having eggs to use up in the fridge, a frittata seemed to be the obvious choice. Although, having an oven with a grill that doesn’t work, it had to be an oven-baked frittata and the last time I made a frittata and put it in the oven instead of under the grill, it turned out to be a soggy mess.

Still, Google came to my rescue and I found an oven-baked frittata recipe which I can’t link to, as I just scribbled down some notes into my notebook and can’t remember where I found it.

I also used the cherry tomatoes that came in the box and it turned out perfectly, which is more than can be said for the home-grown potatoes that I overcooked into near-disintegration.

Oven-baked frittata (serves 2)

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 courgette, diced
75ml milk
1 tbsp cornflour
3 eggs
70ml single cream
25g cheese
70g cherry tomatoes, quartered

Method

1. Fry the courgette for 5 minutes
2. Blend a little milk with the flour, add eggs, cream and rest of the milk
3. Season with salt and pepper
4. Add the cheese
5. Pour mixture into an oven-proof dish
6. Add the courgettes and tomatoes
7. Cook for 25-30 minutes on 200c

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

More Quorn for dinner tonight.  Blimey, anyone would think I got sent some free samples or something.

Still, I don’t really need an excuse to eat noodles.  Especially chilli ones.  And these Quorn Chilli Stir Fry Strips are already marinated so you don’t need to add any spices of your own.  I usually end up pouring more chilli sauce onto my dinner but these were tasty enough but not too spicy for The Meat Eater who’s a bit of a wuss when it comes to chilli.

Here they are, along with the rest of the ingredients I added to the stir fry.  (They’re the bright orange things in the black tray.  The other things are vegetables, which can be found in all good supermarkets.)

Oh yeah, there’s a jar of Lazy Garlic there that I got sent to try.  It’s chopped up garlic preserved in white wine vinegar and when you sniff the jar, all you can smell is vinegar and not garlic.  Tasted fine in the stir fry but wouldn’t fancy trying to make garlic bread with it.  Personally, I think white wine should be drunk out of a glass, not used to preserve garlic. 

Anyway, back to the Quorn.  The finished result, served with egg noodles.

Quorn Sweet Chilli Stir Fry
(serves 2)

250g (1 pack) Quorn Sweet Chilli Stir Fry Strips
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 red pepper de-seeded and sliced
1 red onion finely sliced
1 garlic clove crushed

stir-fry vegetables sufficient for two portions:
baby sweetcorn
mange tout sliced
pak choi

Rice or noodles to accompany the dish

Method

1. Pre-heat the oil in a wok and fry the onion, garlic and pepper for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add the Quorn Sweet Chilli Stir Fry Strips, mange tout and baby sweetcorn.  Stir fry for 5 minutes.
3. Add the pak choi, stir through and allow to wilt slightly. 
4. Serve with rice or noodles.

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.

As I was making this dish, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out as I thought it might be a bit bland.  At the first mouthful, I did think it was a bit bland and needed ‘something’ but the more I ate of it, the more I liked it.  Very nice indeed.

It’s another dish from the BBC Good Food website, but ignore what it says about being on the table in ten minutes, they are lying.

The ingredients call for 400g penne or macaroni but in the cupboard I had about 80g of macaroni and 140g of conchiglie, so I made up the difference with spaghetti that I snapped into pieces.  Also it said to boil the onion but I didn’t like the sound of boiled onion, so I fried it.  Another instruction I took no notice of was to grill it; I put it in the oven on about 200C for about ten minutes.

I won’t be blogging next week as I’m off to Naples on Monday to eat pizza for my birthday on Tuesday when apparently my life will be beginning.

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?)

1. 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.
2. 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.

There’s quite a lot of ingredients in this, although most of which should be in your store cupboard.  In fact, I only had to buy a carrot, so it’s kind of like a free meal.  Result.

What is even more of a result is that it’s delicious.  The Meat Eater ate a mouthful, declared it ‘yum’, finished before me for the first time ever and asked me to make it again.  Fine praise indeed.

It’s not the most lowest of calorie dinners, with it containing cheese, flour, milk, lentils and pasta, but I’m going for a run tomorrow and can therefore eat what I like.

I wish.

Macaroni bake (serves 4 – I halved the ingredients to serve 2)
Taken from Leith’s Vegetarian Bible

For the lentil layer
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 carrots, finely diced
110g/4oz red lentils
1 x 400g/14oz can of chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
a pinch of sugar
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
a few drops of Tabasco sauce
2-3 tablespoons mango chutney

For the topping
110g/4oz macaroni
20g/¾oz butter
20g/¾oz plain flour
a pinch of cayenne pepper
425ml/¾ pint milk
salt and freshly ground black pepper
wholegrain mustard
85g/3oz Cheddar cheese, grated
85g/3oz Parmesan-style cheese, freshly grated
1 teaspoon dried breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (optional)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6.
2. First make the lentil layer: heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, garlic and carrots.  Cover and cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes or until the onion is softened and transparent.
3. Add the lentils, tomatoes, tomato puree, sugar, salt, pepper, bay leaf, Tabasco and chutney to the pan.  Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are cooked and the excess liquid has evaporated, leaving a thick but not dry mixture.  Discard the bay leaf and transfer the lentil mixture to a deep ovenproof dish.
4. Make the macaroni topping:  bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil, add the macaroni and cook, uncovered, until al dente.  The water must boil steadily to keep the macaroni moving freely and prevent it from sticking to the pan.  Drain thoroughly and rinse under boiling water.
5. Melt the butter in another saucepan and add the flour and cayenne.  Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.  Remove from the heat, pour in the milk and mix well.  Return to the heat and stir until boiling, then lower the heat and simmer, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.
6. Add the cooked macaroni to the sauce and season to taste with salt, pepper and mustard.  Stir in all but 1 tablespoon of the grated cheeses and spoon the macaroni mixture on top of the lentil layer.  Mix the reserved cheese with the breadcrumbs and the mustard and sesame seeds, if used, and sprinkle evenly over the surface.  Place on a baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the topping is golden-brown.

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

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