Planet Veggie

Today wasn’t casserole weather but last week I’d bought an aubergine to make this recipe with and as it was going a bit manky, it needed using up.

Like a few of my recent recipes, this is also from Rose Elliot’s New Complete Vegetarian.

The recipe in the book said it serves 4, so I halved it, but that still served 4, so that’s the quantities I’m going to use here. It also contained cinnamon and raisins, which I left out, but I’ll add them here in case you want to use them.

It may be a casserole, but it’s not one you need to save for a cold winter’s night; it’ll be fine at any time.

Moroccan chickpea and aubergine casserole (serves 4)

1 onion, chopped
1.5 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 aubergine, cut into chunky pieces
1 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
65g raisins
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
425ml water or vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Fry the chopped onions in the oil in a large saucepan, covered, for 10 minutes or until tender but not browned.

Stir in the cumin, coriander and cinnamon; cook for a few seconds, then stir in the aubergines, chickpeas, raisins, tomatoes and water or stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer, half covered, for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the mixture has thickened.

Season with salt and pepper, and serve with rice or couscous.

When I first became vegetarian – twenty years ago – I lived in a bedsit without an oven. All I had was a fridge (with a broken ice compartment) and a Baby Belling two-electric-ring thing. So, without an oven in which to heat things up, most of my meals were dishes that could be made in one or two pots. And most of those things came out of the first vegetarian cookbook I bought: No Meat For Me Please by Jan Arkless.

It’s a great book. All the recipes are for one or two people (brilliant if you live on your own) and Jan simplifies the measurements into centimetres and tablespoons (i.e. 25g of cheese is about 2 square cm; 25g of flour is 1 tablespoon [I’m going by memory, so please don’t shout at me if these measurements are way off]).

One recipe I often used to make from that cookbook was stew. It was so simple – just chop up some veg and boil it with some stock and tomatoes. So when I saw a stew recipe in 200 Veggie Feasts that I picked up recently at the garden centre, it reminded me of cooking stew in my bedsit and so I had to make it again. Especially as a few weeks ago I’d bought a packet of Aunt Bessies Dumplings as I’d seen them in the supermarket and hadn’t had dumplings since living at my parents’ house, over twenty-three years ago.

The Meat Eater had warned me that he only likes crispy dumplings, not soggy ones. But I’d forgotten his warning and don’t know how to make crispy dumplings anyway, but he ate them and gave a rating of ‘yum’.

200 Veggie Feasts calls it ‘goulash with chive dumplings’ but to me, stew will do.

Goulash with chive dumplings (serves 4)

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes

4 tablespoons olive oil
8 baby onions, peeled
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 carrot, chopped
1 large celery stick, sliced
500g potatoes, cubed
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
400g can chopped tomatoes
450ml vegetable stock
salt and black pepper

For the chive dumplings (if you’re not like me and buy a packet mix)
75g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
50g vegetarian suet
1 tablespoon chopped chives
4-5 tablespoons water

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onions, garlic, carrot, celery, potatoes and caraway seeds and cook over a medium heat, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Add the paprika and cook, stirring for 1 minute.

Stir in the tomatoes, stock and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Make the dumplings. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and stir in the suet, chives and pepper to taste. Working quickly and lightly gradually mix in enough of the measurement water to form a soft dough. Divide into 8 equal pieces and roll into balls.

Carefully arrange the dumplings in the stew, leaving gaps between them, cover and simmer for 15 minutes until doubled in size and light and fluffy.

The only enchiladas I’ve ever made before were the spicy bean enchiladas from Anita Bean’s Food for Fitness, which are made with beans. Going through another back issue of Vegetarian Living, I stumbled across this recipe which used veggie mince, so thought I’d give it a go. I’m glad I did, as I think I prefer it to the other one.

Spicy enchiladas (serves 2)
Taken from the November 2010 issue of Vegetarian Living

400g canned chopped tomatoes
150ml tomato juice [I didn’t have any tomato juice, so swirled some water about in the empty chopped tomato can and used that]
50g tomato puree
1 large red onion, finely chopped [I used a white onion]
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried or frozen oregano
2 mild green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tbsp lemon juice
pinch of unrefined sugar [I left this out]
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil
150g Linda McCartney Vegemince^TM [I used Sainsburys own brand meat-free mince]
150g vegetarian mature Cheddar, grated
4 soft corn tortillas

1. Place the chopped tomatoes, tomato juice and puree in a medium-sized saucepan. Add half the red onion, cumin, oregano, chillies, lemon juice, sugar and coriander. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Heat the oil in a small frying pan and sauté the mince for a few minutes until lightly browned. Keep to one side.
3. Spread 4-6 tbsp of the tomato sauce in the base of an oblong ovenproof dish. Spread one of the tortillas with 2 tbsp of sauce, sprinkle with cheese, top with a quarter of the mince and sprinkle with chopped red onion, reserving some cheese and onion for garnishing. Roll carefully into a tube.
4. Place in the dish on top of the sauce, seam-side down. Repeat with the other tortillas and spoon over the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with the reserved cheese and the chopped onion.
5. Bake the enchiladas at 180C/fan 160C/gas 4 for 15-20 minutes, when the cheese should be bubbling and starting to brown.

I got sent one of these

in this week’s Riverford box. After ignoring the old ‘Google is your friend’ thing, I posted a photo of it on Facebook and asked what it was. I got the following answers:

‘No idea – I’d probably draw it!’
‘Put batteries in it and sit on it…. ?’
‘Whatever it is I think u will be parping for a few days after u eat it!!’
‘Take acid, wait a bit, stare at it and if it gets scary … eat it.’
‘Put a pair of sunglasses on it first’

None of which, although amusing, were particularly helpful. But on investigating the Riverford website, it said I’d been sent a romanesco cauliflower and so I googled it and lo! lots of pretty pictures of bright green trippy alien optical illusion Christmas tree type vegetables appeared.

I also googled what the hell to do with it and found out – quite disappointingly really – that you treat it like a normal cauliflower.

So I made cauliflower cheese. Albeit a posh cauliflower cheese with spinach and pasta.

Here it is.

I used this cauliflower cheese and spinach pasta bake recipe from the BBC Good Food website and very nice it was too.

Next week in my Riverford box, I’m not getting an alien cauliflower, I’m getting brussel sprouts.

Bah.

I don’t recall ever having stuffed a pepper before. Mushrooms, yes, and I vaguely recall stuffing a tomato some time back in 1994 but peppers? No. This is probably because I’m not mega keen on cooked peppers.

Well, I wasn’t mega keen on cooked peppers, but I’ve changed my mind. These were delicious.

This recipe was adapted from one I found on BBC Good Food, after a search for sweetcorn (that I needed to use up from my Riverford delivery) led me to it. I used fresh sweetcorn (their recipe asks for frozen) and left out the avocado (due to me absolutely hating avocado). I left out the coriander, too.

Well nice.

Peppers filled with corn, chilli and cheese (serves 2)

2 green peppers, tops removed and deseeded
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 courgette
Fresh sweetcorn (I used a cob’s worth)
25g vegetarian cheddar, grated

1. Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Bring a large pan of water to the boil, then cook the peppers for 5 minutes. Remove and drain, cut side down, on some kitchen paper.
2. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan and cook the onion for 3 minutes until tender. Add the cumin and chilli and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add the courgette then cook for 4 minutes until tender.
3. Remove from the heat, then stir in the sweetcorn, cheese and seasoning. Spoon the filling into the peppers, then stand them in a baking dish. Drizzle with remaining oil, then bake for 30-35 minutes until the peppers are very soft.