Vegetarian Recipes For Omnivores

I am not a vegetarian. I love meat and fish and will never give them up entirely. However, for various reasons which I won't go into here (because, hey, nobody likes a preachy little twerp) people in the west should probably be eating less meat and fish. I love cooking, and my good deed for 2013 (yeah, my only good deed for 2013, so enjoy it, suckers) is simply to share my vegetarian and vegan recipes online. Happy eating!

[vegetastic-blog]

Green minestrone soup

Ingredients

Leek

Mushrooms

Garlic

Olive oil

Butter (optional)

Small pasta (macaroni, orzo, whatevs really)

1 can borlotti beans (or any type of beans will do)

Dried basil

White wine

Parmesan (optional)

Method

1. Finely chop the garlic, leek & mushrooms. When I made this yesterday, I used 3 cloves of garlic, one leek and about 200g mushrooms, but really it's up to you. Get them in the pan with lots of olive oil and a bit of butter (if using). Add salt and pepper and a truckload of dried basil. Cook over a low heat until soft and gooey.

2. Add the beans (including water) a glass of white wine and a bit of water. Bring to the boil, add the pasta and cook until done.

3. This is indecently delicious topped with a generous amount of parmesan. Obviously if you're strictly vegetarian this won't be to your taste, but according to google there are lots of decent vegetarian substitutes.

[vegetastic-blog]

Pimped-up Patatas Bravas

Spanish cuisine isn't exactly noted for being veggie-friendly, but this classic tapas dish can easily be transformed into a vegan meal.

Ingredients

1 large onion

3-4 cloves of garlic

2 tins of tomatoes

1 tin of butter beans

Paprika

Potatoes

Method

1. Finely chop the garlic and onions and put it in a large saucepan with lots of olive oil over a low heat. Add an obscene quantity of paprika and a bit of salt and pepper. Cook gently until soft.

2. Add the tomatoes and butter beans. Leave to stew with the lid on for as long as possible.

3. Meanwhile, either microwave the potatoes and then chop them into small chunks, or chop them into small chunks and boil them. Either way, they need to be cooked and in small chunks.

4. Sautee the potato chunks in olive oil, salt and pepper, or roast them in the oven

5. Serve with the stew

[vegetastic-blog]

Veggie burgers

Veggie burgers can be pretty grim. I'm fairly certain that the veggie burgers in my school canteen, for instance, were made of reconstituted pondweed, and that's before you've even got onto the ones that try to taste something like meat. Honestly, I'd rather eat my own toenail clippings. However, home made veggie burgers are a different animal altogether - and I don't mean horse. They are a little bit messy and fussy, but well worth it.

These do have to come with a big WARNING though.... Don't eat them before a hot date. Not unless your date is into farting as a competitive sport.

Ingredients

1 can of kidney beans

Half an onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 egg

2-3 carrots

Dried chilli flakes

Matzo meal

Method

1. Chop the carrots into small pieces and steam/boil until soft

2. While they're cooking, peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Drain the kidney beans. Beat the egg. Mix it all in a large bowl. 

3. Add the cooked carrots, plus as much salt and pepper and chilli flakes as you want. TOP TIP: don't add as much chilli as you can "take", add as much chilli as you enjoy. 

4. Give it all a good mix, and then mash until the carrots and beans are at least semi-pulverized - don't worry if there are a few lumps, that's good for texture. The mixture should be a bit sloppy now. Don't worry, that's what the matzo meal is for. As ever, if you don't have matzo meal, ground up cream crackers or water biscuits work a treat. Add enough matzo/crackers/whatever until the mixture resembles something you might be able to shape into burgers. Then shape into burgers, Einstein.

5. It's best to chill them in the fridge for a bit to give them a better chance of staying intact while you fry them, but it's not the end of the world if you don't. Really people, do you think I'm organised enough to make my veggie burgers in advance? Hahaha! Hahahahahaha! So I can tell you from personal experience that it really doesn't matter if you go ahead and fry them straight away - it's just that they're more likely to fall apart. But hey, they taste the same.

6. Fry over a medium-high heat, turning halfway. They should take about 10mins tops.

[vegetastic-blog]

Courgette latkes

Ok, so Hanukah was weeks ago, but when faced with a sad-looking courgette and a sad-looking beetroot that needed using up pronto, there was only one thing for it: courgette latkes with beetroot relish. 

Unless you're Jewish and love your traditional stodgy food, it's really unlikely you'll have matzo meal in your cupboard. Don't worry! Pretty much anything absorbent and starchy will be fine. Breadcrumbs, ground up cream crackers, even just plain flour, whatever.

Ingredients

3 normal-sized courgettes (or in my case last night, one enormous mutant courgette. It's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it.)

1 large onion

3 large potatoes

3 eggs

Matzo meal (or suitable equivalent)

1 small beetroot

Cream cheese

Lemon

Method

1. Ok, this is the hard part. Grate the onion, potatoes and courgettes into a sieve (you'll probably have to do it a bit at a time to avoid overflowing). If you have a food processor, you lucky sod, this will be much easier. Get the sieve over the sink and press the veg with a wooden spoon to get as much water out as possible.

2. Mix the grated/dehydrated veg in a large bowl with the eggs and some salt and pepper.

3. Add just enough matzo meal to absorb any excess liquid

4. Peel and grate the beetroot in a small bowl, add cream cheese to get it to the consistency you want, add lemon juice to taste and put it on the table for later. Or if, like me, you are fortunate enough to have a willing sous-chef, get them to do this while you progress to stage 5

5. Get your largest frying pan on a medium-high heat with lots of oil in it. When it's hot, take small spoons of the mixture and press them flat to make mini pancakes. Cook until brown on one side, then flip and cook on the other side - they should take about 5mins each, depending on how thick you like them.

6. Turn out onto kitchen roll to absorb excess oil. When they're all cooked, serve immediately with the beetroot/cream cheese relish on the side. 

[vegetastic-blog]

Pumpkin & butter bean soup

A sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say: My organic veg box has changed my life. Well, it's changed the way I eat, and since food is damn important to me, it has sort of changed my life. When my boyfriend first made the suggestion of getting one, my arch reply was, "But are we really middle class enough for an organic veg box?" I sort of felt as if I'd be betraying my roots. But the thing is, we eat a lot of veg, and if you eat a lot of veg, an organic veg box is a way of getting excellent quality seasonal veg for about the same amount of money as you'd spend on poor quality air-freighted stuff at the supermarket. You can't argue with logic like that. And besides, I work in the classical music industry, drink real coffee and don't own a TV. Who am I kidding? I'm totally middle class these days.

One of the things I particularly like about the veg box is that it's forced me to be a little more creative with what I cook, given that many of our weekly ingredients are fixed. When a large pumpkin arrived a few weeks ago I made this straight off the top of my head, and it turned out to be one of the best things I've ever made.

Ingredients

Any type of large squash

1 can of butter beans

Garlic

Fresh rosemary (which is dead easy to grow, even in a little pot in your kitchen that never sees sunlight, so no need to buy overpriced packets from the supermarket)

Olive oil

Method

1. Smash and chop the garlic, chop the rosemary, add to the pan with the olive oil, heat until it smells like heaven

2. Add the squash, peeled and chopped into chunks. Stir for about 5mins until coated in oil/garlic/rosemary and softened slightly

3. Open the can of beans and throw the whole lot in, including the water. Add some more water, bring to the boil, and simmer until the squash is mushy

While you're waiting for it to cook

Sooooooo cute! It's ok, he gets it in the end.

4. Blend with a hand blender or mash with a potato masher. Serve with bread. Bask in the glory of your own awesome culinary skillz. False modesty is for losers.

[vegetastic-blog]

Leek & potato soup

You can't go wrong with leek & potato soup. Well, maybe you could. Like, if you put feet in it. Nobody wants leek and potato soup that tastes of feet.

Ingredients

Leeks (well, duh)

Potatoes (DUH)

Garlic

Olive oil

Butter (optional)

Cream (optional)

Method

1. Put some olive oil and butter in a big saucepan. If you're vegan or watching your cholesterol just add some more olive oil instead of the butter (but it really tastes better with butter). 

2. Smash and chop the garlic (as many cloves as you dare) and add to the pan. Turn it on to a low heat. If you add garlic to a cold pan and heat it up like this, it's much less likely to burn than if you add it to a hot pan - and burnt garlic is NASTY. If you burn the garlic, throw it away and start again. Seriously.

3. When the butter has melted, add the leeks. Again, I'm leaving the leek:potato ratio up to you. Oh yeah, and chop them finely at some point before they go in. Keep on a low heat, stirring frequently.

4. While that's happening, chop the potatoes into small chunks. I like to leave the skin on because then you get nice bits of skin in your soup, and also there are lots of vitamins in the skin, but it's your call, peel them if you like.

5. The leeks are done when they're all gooey and mushy. At that point, add the potatoes and some water and lots of salt and pepper, bring to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are mushy too. 

6. Blend with a hand blender, if you are posh enough to own such a thing. I'm not - I mash mine with a potato masher. Don't worry if it's a bit lumpy, that just proves that it was home made.

7. Take off the heat and add a very small amount of cream, if you're using it. IMPORTANT: a tiny bit of cream goes a loooooong way, so add a tiny bit, stir it in, and repeat the process until you're happy with the taste/consistency. Don't just go pouring it in willy nilly, or else you'll end up with a leek and potato milkshake. Actually the way I like to do this is to serve the soup with the cream on the side, so that everybody can decide if they want any, and if so, how much.

[vegetastic-blog]

Thai chickpea & aubergine curry

Oh man, I love aubergines. I'll never forget the first time I tasted aubergine. I think I was about six and I was all like, "Wait, this is a vegetable? It's good for you?" My passion for the delicately swollen purple beasts has never waned since then. Stop sniggering at the back! This is one of my favourite aubergine recipes, and it's incredibly easy to make, as well as actually being vegan.

A word about curry paste: don't buy supermarket own brands - they are rubbish and overpriced. Go for something from an Asian supermarket, or from the speciality section of a regular supermarket. The best curry paste 1 - comes in a tub, not a jar, 2 - has Thai writing somewhere on it, and 3 - has a list of ingredients that sound like real food, not weird chemicals. And if you are strictly vegetarian, do read the label carefully - many have shrimp in them.

Ingredients

1 can Coconut milk

Thai red curry paste

2 Onions

1 large Aubergine

1 Can of chickpeas

Method

1.  Pour a little of the coconut milk into a large saucepan. Heat gently, then add some curry paste. I don't know how much you want, just trust your instincts depending on how hot you like it. I usually use about 3tbsp I guess, but I dunno, measuring stuff isn't really my style. Wow, I'm being super helpful here. Anyway, never mind, give it a stir while you heat it for a couple of minutes.

2. Cut the onions and aubergines into smallish chunks. Add to the pan with the rest of the coconut milk.

3. Open the tin of chickpeas and pour the whole lot in, including the water.

4. Put a lid on it and leave it for at least an hour. As with most stews and curries, the longer this cooks for the better.

While you're waiting for it to cook

Check out my friend Bogdan's bar-per-day video project - guaranteed laughs all round.

5. Serve with boiled rice. That's it!