Week 29 - Vegetable Crumble

WTF!?!?!?

Crumble, you know that stuff you have for dessert.  Yeah, that's the stuff, the stuff you use as a topping to stewed fruit!?

Well, some nutjob has made that a savoury dish, and here it is (to save you bothering)....Vegetable Crumble.

You think you've seen it all and then somebody invents the veg crumble

I should give a slightly more balanced review.   The dish was tasty, bit the soft crumbly texture just didn't feel right over a veg dish.  Plus, I feel bad putting that much butter on my main meal......dessert tends to be a treat in our house so I can live with it then!

Mind over matter

Rating
Taste - 14/20
Cost - 7/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 62%

Week 28 - Baby Carrot and Broad Bean Risotto

My wife is still trying to get in on the action again and making up some veggie recipes; I'm pleased to report that this attempt is better than the last one!

A nice simple Baby Carrot and Broad Bean Risotto.  It was tasty, but if I was to be critical it needed something to add a bit of texture.  Maybe a slice of crusty bread would have sent this dish on it's way nicely.

The recipe is another one of Hugh Fearney-Whittingstall's and it is a good one, certainly better than this one (which features in his veg cook book!).

Find the recipe here.

Hugh Strikes Again

Rating
Taste - 16/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 64%

Week 27 - Butternut squash, spinach and goat’s cheese pie with cheesy pastry

I like a pie as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is Homer Simpson.  But I think even Homer Simpson would struggle with this behemoth of a pie!  The pie was so big the leftover pie suffered a structural failure overnight in the fridge and I ended up eating this pie everyday for a week to use it up.

Man Pie

It is a ridiculously big pie when following the recipe given, made halve it?  .....don't say I didn't warn you!

This pie was pretty tasty, but the thing that made it tasty was the cheesy pastry.  Take away the cheesyness of the pastry and meh, not worth the effort.  

So to summarise, just make the cheesy pastry and maybe halve the quantity!

mmmmm, pastry

Rating
Taste - 13/20
Cost - 4/10
Difficulty - 3/10
Prep Time - 3/10 
Overall 46%

Week 26 - Mint and Almond Pesto

I love my wife, and it's great she wants to join in with my vegetarian journey.  She helped out by making this dish, but there's no nice way of dressing this up, this dish was a stinker.  This post will also be a great way of checking if she ever reads my blog!

The dish was bland and oily and sadly had no redeeming features.  It was 'bad' it was just there was nothing good about it.  Sorry dear.

OK, one redeeming feature; it looks OK

Rating
Taste - 10/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 4/10
Prep Time - 6/10 
Overall 54%

Week 25 - Chickpea, Spinach and Tomato Curry

It's a curry.  It has chickpeas in it.  It was delicious.  Nuff said.

Create your own using this recipe

If only I could eat a photograph.

Rating
Taste - 18/20
Cost - 7/10
Difficulty - 7/10
Prep Time - 7/10 
Overall 78%

Week 24 - Spinach Cannelloni

Spinach, two weeks in a row!?!? I hear you cry.  Well yes, deal with it.

I have to admit this dish is pretty similar to the last (i.e. spinach and pasta), but the taste was very different.  The downfall of this dish will be the effort involved in stuffing the tubes, it was a pain.

Still, you should make it and try it.  Spinach gives you big muscles (that you'll need for stuffing Cannelloni tubes!

You never saw Popeye eat this!

Rating
Taste - 16/20
Cost - 5/10
Difficulty - 3/10
Prep Time - 3/10 
Overall 54%

Week 23 - Spinach Lasagne

The inner kid in me reacted to the name of this dish with a big 'yuck'.

Despite the fact I have made this, eaten it and enjoyed it I still have a natural 'yuck' reaction to the word spinach! 

Yuck, yug, yug, yug, yug

Once I manage to suppress my inner kid, I quite enjoy spinach; be it in salad or in a cooked dish.  Throw in some ricotta and tomatoes and slam it between sheets of pasta, it's a winner.

Recipe Here.

Rating
Taste - 15/20
Cost - 5/10
Difficulty - 4/10
Prep Time - 4/10 
Overall 56%

Week 22 - Mac & Cheese

A vegetarian recipe blog without a Mac & Cheese would be like a house without a toilet.......you know, the obvious thing missing?  Anyway fear not, the blog house I'm building now has a toilet so I'm ready to start having parties.

Maybe not the best analogy of my life, but Mac & Cheese it is.

I don't really have a recipe I follow for Mac & Cheese, it's an old favourite that I just sort of make up as I go.  Luckily I have just made up a recipe as I go.  It's an awesome dish, but not something I like to eat regularly as it's not the healthiest.

Classic

Recipe 

• ·         Cook 150g (ish) of Macaroni in salted water.
• ·         Melt two dessert spoons of butter on a high heat, mix in two dessert spoons of flour to make thick paste.
• ·         Remove from heat and gradually stir / whisk in ½ pint of so of 1% milk
• ·         Once smooth sauce is formed, bring to the boil and throw in a handful of grated *cheddar and about 1/3 handful of parmesan.  Stir until all cheese melted and you have a thick cheesy sauce.  Add salt and black pepper…….Maybe add a bit of chopped parsley or onion and fried garlic for a new taste?
• ·         Drain pasta and mix with sauce in a 2L Oven Proof Bowl, top with a pinch more cheese, salt and pepper.
• ·         Bake on 400F for 20mins.
• ·         Finish off under grill to brown top.
• ·         Leave dish to stand 10mins before serving.
• ·         Serve with a dash or two of Malt Vinegar (Trust me)
• ·         Eat

*I often throw in any other left over cheese and reduce cheddar accordingly.

RatingTaste - 15/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 4/10
Prep Time - 6/10 
Overall 62%

Week 21 - Veggie Enchiladas

Close up view of enchiladas

It was a feast!!  The leftovers kept us going for days.  A bit on the sweet side, but I still looked forward to lunch every day this week.

Maybe make half if you try it.

Recipe here

Man + Food = Man Food

Rating
Taste - 14/20
Cost - 5/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 58%

Week 20 - Caponata

So one of my numerous blog fans sent me a recipe to try.  Well infact he sent me two recipes to try and this is the first of them.  A Caponata.

The Caponata would not score well for aesthetics!

"What is a Caponata?" I hear you ask.  Well to be honest I didn't know either, well no more than the 'sweet and sour aubergine dish' description on the recipe!  

So to save you the trouble of asking google, I have done it for you:

Caponata is a Sicilian aubergine (eggplant) dish consisting of a cooked vegetable salad made from chopped fried eggplant and celery seasoned with sweetened vinegar, with capers in a sweet and sour sauce.

Numerous local variations of the ingredients exist with some versions adding olives, carrots and green bell peppers, and others adding potatoes, or pine nuts and raisins.

Caponata is typically used as a side dish for fish dishes and sometimes as an appetizer, it has also been used as a main course.

Luckily for the Caponata I have no rating for aesthetics as it wouldn't do too well, but on the other scores the Caponata held it's own, the only negative I have is that it doesn't work too well as a main dish; keep it to the side as google suggests!

Rating

Taste - 13/20

Cost - 7/10

Difficulty - 6/10

Prep Time - 6/10 

Overall 64%

Week 19 - Rich's Pasta Sauce

To date in this blog, I have made recipes I've either been given or found in recipe book or on the internet.  This week, I decided to try something new......creating my own recipe!

I'm no Jamie Oliver (I only weigh 75kg!) or Gordon Ramsay, but I do enjoy cooking and I only ever losely stick to a recipe.  Every once in a while I'll wing it and create something based on no recipe.......this is one of thos concoctions.

So what inspired this meal?  I hear you ask.  Well, erm, my inspiration was the ingredients in the cupboard and fridge that I thought would work.

My own TV Show may be a little way off

I'm sure demand for Rich's Pasta Sauce will be high, so I have taken the liberty of typing out the recipe (below), but I thought I should put the rating here at the top of the page as it's inevitably something anyone would check before making the meal!

Rating

Taste - 14/20

Cost - 6/10

Difficulty - 6/10

Prep Time - 5/10 

Overall 62%

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Onion

1 Clove Garlic

1 Carrot

2 Celery Stalks

1 Tin Tomatoes

1 Tin Chickpeas

Lump of Cheese

1 tsp Thyme

½ tsp Rosemary

100ml strong Vegetable Stock

Pasta – I used supermarket stuffed squash pasta but fresh pasta is always a winner

Method

• Chop the onion, and soften on low / medium heat.  Add the chopped carrots, celery and herbs and cook for further 5-10 mins.
• Add tomatoes, stock, chickpeas and leave to simmer for 20mins.  Meanwhile cook pasta.
• Combine pasta and sauce and top with some  grated cheese.

Week 18 - Lentil Cottage Pie

I can hear the questions already 'Is a Cottage Pie still a Cottage Pie when it has no meat?'.....   Yes.

According to the internet:
The term cottage pie is known to have been in use in 1791,when the potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor (cf. "cottage" meaning a modest dwelling for rural workers).

So by my reckoning anything covered in mashed potato is a Cottage Pie.........unless it's a fat guy with a fetish.

Anyway, veggie cottage pie is awesome, a few parsnips in the mix for an added tang to the topping.  The only drawback is it's a bit of work to produce.  Recipe is here.

Covered in mash = Cottage

To summarize; veggie cottage pie is awesome, a few parsnips in the mix for an added tang to the mash.

Rating

Taste - 15/20

Cost - 5/10

Difficulty - 4/10

Prep Time - 4/10 

Overall 56%

Week 17 - Refried Bean Fajitas

A while back a friend sent me a photo of a couple of bits of paper with recipes on them, so I thought it only fair to give them a whirl!  First up were Refried Bean Fajitas.  The photo in it's full glory can be found here.

Refried Beans or Dog Food.....you decide!

Back in my old days as a meat eater, it is fair to say I was a fan of Chicken Fajitas, one of my favourite sunday night meals; beautiful with a nice cool glass of beer.  Nearly half way through my challenge, I am over the 'it's not the same without meat' phase..... but to be honest, on this occasion it wasn't.  There was something missing, meat (sorry veggies!).  That isn't to say this isn't a wonderful easy and tasty meal, but it is always going to have to stand up against the chicken equivalent and sadly, it failed there. 

Don't be put off though, the meal was tasty and really simple to make so it has a lot going for it (as reflected in the scores).

Fajitas!!!

Rating

Taste - 15/20

Cost - 5/10

Difficulty - 7/10

Prep Time - 4/10 

Overall 62%

Week 16 - Squash Lasagne

This Squash Lasagne was tasty.  The crunchy bits on top were a treat, although a dish full of squash was a bit sweet for my taste!

If you want to try it, you can find the recipe here.

mmmmm, crunchy bits

Rating

Taste - 14/20

Cost - 5/10

Difficulty - 6/10

Prep Time - 4/10 

Overall 58%

Week 15 - Nut Loaf

When you think of a vegetarian alternative to the tradition British Roast Dinner, must people would think of Nut Loaf. I was craving a roast dinner, so I figured I should give Nut Loaf a shot. 

Many Nut Loaves are heavy on mushrooms, I am a bit picky about mushrooms (I like them in certain dishes but not others), so I didn't fancy a mushroom based version. I went in search of a Nut Loaf recipe that did not contain mushrooms and I ended up with the little beauty below. 

Nuts

I say this little beauty, it was nice, but it just tasted like nice stuffing so it definitely was not a great substitution for the old Roast Dinner. Live and Learn.  Still it was tasty, but certainly not one of my amazing discoveries of 2014!

Recipe

Ingredients
1 carrot
1 onion
1 stalk of celery
1/2 cup each almonds, walnuts and pecans
2 eggs, preferably free-range
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp rosemary
Dried breadcrumbs (as needed, for coating the tin)

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.

Place the carrot, onion, celery and nuts in a food processor and process until the vegetables and nuts are well chopped.

Transfer to a large bowl. Mix with the herbs.

In a separate bowl, beat the two eggs together. Add to the other ingredients and mix until well combined.

Line a 450g/1lb loaf tin with parchment paper. Grease it well, then sprinkle with dry breadcrumbs.

Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the top.

Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until set.

Rating
Taste - 13/20
Cost - 4/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 4/10 
Overall 54%

Week 14 - Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese

Worst (tasting) meal of 2014 to date, thanks Nigella.

I was a bit suspicious when I read the recipe, it all seemed a bit too simple.  It tastes fine and all the ingredients go well together, but this dish should not be served as a main meal......you can have too much of an OK thing.

Ironically as this meal is really simple, it doesn't score too badly!  Don't be fooled....recipe is here.

The meal was crap, but an awesome photo....at last!

Rating
Taste - 6/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 8/10
Prep Time - 8/10 
Overall 56%

Week 13 - North African Squash and Chickpea Stew

What a beauty this weeks meal was, it is  a stew so you just chop stuff up and throw it in a pan and it was delicious!

You'll find the recipe here.  There are quite a few ingredients in this one, so might cost a bit if you don't have the ingredients, but most of them should be in typical household cupboards.

Delicious

Rating
Taste - 17/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 6/10 
Overall 70%

Week 12 - Black Bean and Quinoa Burger

Everyone loves a veggie burger, some may dispute they aren't as good as meat burger........ but they still love veggie burgers.

These burgers were pretty easy to make and tasted great, although I did rely on buying a bread roll and yam fries in the supermarket so I only really made a small proportion of this meal!

My only complaint, and this is the same with all home-made burgers, is they were difficult to keep together, both in the pan and the bread roll.  The recipe is here if you want to rock out with some veggie burgers.

The plate looks sparse, but this was a feast!

Rating
Taste - 15/20
Cost - 4/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 60%

Week 11 - Tofu Thai Curry

I am sad to report that I don't really have a recipe for this weeks meal!  I just bought a jar of Thai Green Curry paste and followed the instructions on the jar (substituting Tofu for chicken).  

What I have found is a recipe for Thai Green Curry paste which sounds immense, I think I'll be giving that a go at some point this year.

The point of this blog; I thought worth mentioning was how to cook Tofu.  As a Tofu novice, I assumed you just throw Tofu in your dish and eat it.  I've tried that, and it was not good.  Infact, it was bad.  So bad that it almost put me off Tofu completely.  What the Tofu packaging doesn't tell you is how to get it tasting good; so here are my top tips for any fellow novice veggies:

How to Cook with Tofu

Tofu out of the packet does not taste good.  Fact.  It is curd made from mashed soybeans so that makes sense.  There are two simple steps to making Tofu taste delicious.

1 Press the Tofu
Tofu is saturated with water, it is packed in water when you buy it.... to keep it fresh I assume.  Anyway, to make room for flavours in the Tofu you need to remove that water and this is why you press it.   I have found cutting it into slices, placing it in kitchen towel and placing a heavy object on it for an hour does the trick, but I am by no means an expert.

2 Marinate the Tofu

Now you have pressed your Tofu, you need to get some flavour in their.  The best way to do this is to marinate it, give the Tofu time to absorb the flavours you are feeding it.  Just avoid oil in your marinate as that doesn't work so well with water based Tofu!

Cook it properly and it's OK!

Rating

Taste - 12/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 4/10 
Overall 56%

Week 10 - Porotos Granados

Porotos Granados is a Chilean Squash and Bean Stew.  Recipe here

If I'm honest I'm struggling to think of much to say about this dish.  That's not to say it's bad, I just didn't think it had anything to it that another stew wouldn't have had.  It was served with mashed potatos, but I think rice would have been a better suited accompanyment.

So in short; a simple anonymous stew.  Unlikely to make you any new friends, but certainly not going to lose you any (unless they were expecting meat).

A Table Cloth Did Not Improve the Look of This Dish

Rating

Taste - 9/20
Cost - 7/10
Difficulty - 7/10
Prep Time - 7/10 
Overall 60%

Week 9: Ratattouille

My photography will improve, I promise!  So far pics have been taken with my phone, but I will be making the transition to a proper camera shortly (in truth, I have made the switch but I have a backlog of recipes with rubbish pictures to use up!)

So Ratattouille, not just a great film, it's also a recipe!  Whilst the Ratattouille (I have to check how to spell it everytime I write it) was lovely, I did struggle to think of a nice way to serve it.  I went with cous cous as you can see in the picture which seemed to work, but somehow just Ratattouille on it's own didn't seem like a meal.

It was also a lot of work, so if I was to do it again I might be tempted to double up the recipe and put the other half in the freezer for another day.

Recipe here.

It tasted better than the photo looks, which would not be difficult.

Rating

Taste - 14/20
Cost - 5/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 58%

Week 8: Spinach Tomato and Feta Pies

You may not think to look at me, but I love a good pie.  Bristol, my hometown is kind of famous for Pieminister Pies, so it only seemed right to have a bash at a Pieminister recipe.  

The Pieminister cookbook is a fantastic source of pie recipes........but not so much for the vegetarian!  The recipe I made was Mr & Mrs Hunt's Wedding Pies.  I have searched the internet high and low and been unable to find this recipe published anywhere, but this one is pretty close to the mark.

The best thing about these pies was taking them into work the next day, they smelt delicious and filled my office with their wonderful aroma in seconds!

Sadly they are a labour of love to make, so will no doubt slip down the meal chart because of that.

No meat for the guests at Mr and Mrs Hunt's wedding!

Rating
Taste - 16/20
Cost - 4/10
Difficulty - 3/10
Prep Time - 3/10 
Overall 52%

Week 7: Root Vegetable Frittata

I have to be honest, the Root Vegetable Frittata was not a hit with my taste buds.  I like Root Vegetables and I like eggs, but something about the combination of the two didn't work for me.  That's not to say it wasn't nice, just not to my taste.  It's a shame as this dish was easy and it looked fantastic, which was mainly due to the beets.

You can find the recipe here if you aren't convinced by my review!

The most colourful meal of 2014!

Rating
Taste - 8/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 8/10
Prep Time - 4/10 
Overall 52%