Tumbet

This is another Rose Elliott recipe, and is red pepper, aubergine, courgette, potato onion, potato, parsley and garlic with a tin of tomatoes tipped over it and cooked in the oven for 2 - 3 hours. A nice easy one.

Beetroot and Tomato Soup

This recipe is roughly based on this Abel & Cole recipe, but tweaked.

3 raw beetroot, grated
1 can tomatoes with garlic
1 onion, chopped
2 tsp lazy garlic
300ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
Grated goats cheese
pepper

Soften the onion in the oil for a couple of minutes. Add the grated beetroot and stock, simmer for 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes and garlic and heat through. Blend roughly (all the bits are pretty small and soft anyway, so may as well keep the soup a bit chunky). I thought it needed a bit more water, so added some. Season and serve with the grated cheese.

Fennel and Leek Risotto

This is another Abel & Cole recipe. The one thing that annoys me about that website is that they rarely say how many it serves. I made roughly half of this, and it made two big portions, and was pretty good.

It also gave me an excuse to finish the bottle of wine...

Walnut and broccoli pasta

75g wholewheat pasta
1 head broccoli, cut into florets
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp lazy garlic
12g wholemeal breadcrumbs
12g walnuts, chopped
1/2 tsp lazy chilli

Cook the pasta for 5 minutes, add the broccoli and cook for 5 more minutes.

Soften the onion and garlic in the oil, then add the breadcrumbs, walnuts and chilli, and cook until toasted.

Drain the pasta and broccoli, add to the walnut mixture, stir, season and serve.

Serves 1.

Puy Lentil Casserole

Rose strikes again, with puy lentils, carrots, leeks, onions, tomatoes and herbs all cooked together into a lovely warming casserole.

I've made another batch of this with assorted lentils using up some packets, and it's just as good!

Beetroot and Quinoa Tabbouleh

This is another Rose Elliott recipe, and basically consists of lovely soft onions with balsamic vinegar, raw grated beetroot, cooked quinoa and a bit of lemon juice all stirred together. Lovely, simple and quick.

Delia-esque Slow Cooked Root Vegetable Soup

I was meant to be making this soup today but at some point between reading the recipe and chopping the vegetables I managed to convince myself that I needed carrot, parsnip, celeriac and swede rather than carrot, leek, celeriac and swede. Hopefully it will still be nice (and I needed to do something with the parsnip, so it may as well go in there), and it's an excuse to make the soup again using the proper ingredients!

Chilli Broccoli Pasta

Yes, the broccoli's still coming. Amazingly I've actually started to almost like it. It's wearing me down, finally. I had a smaller portion of pasta than usual because I had the root veg salad as a starter.

60g wholewheat pasta
100g broccoli, cut into florets
2 tsp lazy garlic
1/2 tsp lazy chilli
1 tbsp olive oil
parmesan

Boil the broccoli for 4 - 5 minutes, drain and set aside.

Cook the pasta according to instructions.

Meanwhile, cook the garlic in the oil for a minute, add the chilli for 30 seconds, then add the broccoli and cook until nicely combined. Drain and add the pasta, season and serve sprinkled with parmesan.

Serves 1.

Root veg salad

1 small carrot, coarsely grated
1 small parsnip, coarsely grated
small chunk celeriac, coarsely grated
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp black mustard seeds
15g walnut chunks
15g raisins
40g hard goats cheese

Combine the root veg. Heat the olive oil and add the mustard seeds. When they start popping, tip over the veg, add the walnuts, raisins and cheese, mix and serve.

Serves 1.

Garlic and Broccoli Soup

1 head garlic, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can cannellini beans, drained
2 heads broccoli, chopped into florets
1.2l vegetable stock

Fry the garlic and onion in the oil until soft. Add the beans, broccoli and stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Blend, season and serve.

Serves 3.

Curries

I have to plug this, because it looks fab.

Rose Elliot's Low-GI Vegetarian Cookbook (Amazon link).

Today I decided on a big curry cooking session. I ended up making spinach curry (p60), cabbage thoran (p61) and lentil dal (p109), having a bit of each and freezing the rest. That means nothing if you don't have the book, but as I do, this works as a reference to me without infringing too much copyright...

Spicy Potato and Cauliflour Stew

375g lentils
1.8 vegetable stock
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 large onions, cut into wedges
1kg potatoes, cut into chunks
1 cauliflower, cut into florets
3 - 4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp mustard seeds
1 - 2 tbsp fennel seeds
2 green chillies, deseeded and chopped
1 tsp saffron threads, soaked in 2 tbsp warm water
125g coconut cream
1 tbsp chopped coriander

Soak the lentils for 15 minutes, then rinse, drain and cook with half the stock for 30 minutes until the water has been absorbed.

Meanwhile... fry the onion in the oil for about 8 minutes, add the potatoes, cauliflower and garlic and cook for a further minute. Stir in the turmeric, mustard seeds, fennel seeds and chillies.

Add the rest of the stock and the saffron and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes until the vegetables are almost cooked.

Coarsely mash the cooked lentils, stir in the coconut cream and coriander and mix well. Add to the vegetables and cook gently until the vegetables are tender and the flavours combined.

Serves 6

This was very nice, and quite filling. Not actually too spicy, and quite runny, but one to try again.

Curried Lentil Soup

2 tbsps vegetable oil
2 small onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 potatoes, cubed
2 carrots, cubed
4 celery sticks, copped
2 tbsp curry paste
100g red lentils
400g can chopped tomatoes
1.2l vegetable stock

Heat the oil and cook the onion until soft. Add the garlic, potato, carrot, celery and curry paste and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the lentils, tomatoes and stock. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the lentils are soft.

Serves 4.

Leek, broccoli and quinoa

1 small leek (100g)
80g broccoli florets
150 - 200ml water, with a pinch of bouillon powder
25ml olive oil
50g quinoa
20g sundried tomatoes, sliced
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp lemon juice

Slice the leeks into rings and rinse. Put the water, oil, leeks and broccoli in a pan and simmer for five minutes.

Add the quinoa, tomatoes and coriander. Cook for 15 minutes, adding extra water if necessary. Stir in the lemon juice, season with black pepper.

Serves 1.

Pepper Pasta Bake

100g wholegrain pasta
2 - 3 roast red peppers (from jar), chopped
easy chilli and garlic to taste
small tin chopped tomatoes
cottage cheese
parmesan
olive oil/olive oil spray
red wine vinegar

Cook the pasta according to instructions. Fry the chilli and garlic in the oil/spray for a minute or so and add the tomatoes and a splash of vinegar, together with the red peppers. Stir together over the heat, and stir in the pasta. Put the pasta in an ovenproof dish and top with some cottage cheese, and a sprinkling of parmesan. Cook in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes.

Serves 1

Not bad for something I made up out of what was in the cupboard!

Leek, Potato and Stilton Soup

I still had some stilton left, so I modified my soup recipe a bit.

2 large leeks, chopped
3 largish potatoes, diced
3 small onions, chopped
1.5 litres vegetable stock
stilton (I didn't weigh it)
1 tbsp olive oil

Fry the leek and onions until softened, add the potatoes and stock and boil for 20 minutes. Blend, add the stilton, heat through until melted, season and serve.

Cabbage and Onion Rice

25g pine nuts
15g butter
15ml olive oil
500g onions, sliced
500g cabbage/spring greens/kale etc, shredded
250g brown basmati rice
25g parmesan (plus extra to serve)
1 - 2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Toast the pine nuts and set aside.

Heat the oil and butter in a large pan. Stir in the onions, cover and cook gently for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook the rice according to the packet instructions.

Uncover the pan and continue to cook gently until the onions have turned golden. Add the balsamic vinegar and season well, then cook for a further 1 - 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Blanch the cabbage in a pan of lightly salted boiling water for about 3 minutes. Drain well, add to the onions and cook over a low heat for 3 - 4 minutes.

Drain the rice and add it to the onions and cabbage. Toss thoroughly to mix.

Season and stir in the parmesan. Serve, scatter the pine nuts over the top and parmesan if you like.

Serves 4.

Blue Cheese Vegetable Gratin

I made some more broccoli and stilton soup today, so thought I'd use the rest of the stilton in this.

450g each of potatoes, carrots and parsnips, thickly sliced
bunch of spring onions
knob of butter
140g stilton

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Cook the potatoes, carrots and parsnips in salted boiling water for 8 - 10 minutes, until just tender. Drain well.

Roughly chop the spring onions. Melt the butter, add the spring onions and fry gently for a minute or two until softened slightly. Tip in the vegetables and stir until coated with butter. Tip into an ovenproof dish.

Slice the cheese and put on top of the vegetables. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve.