Week 38 - Moroccan Tagine

I love a good Moroccan....their food is lovely too.  Da dum cshhhh.

Cranberries and Raisins in the Cous Cous, if you were wondering

Rating
Taste - 18/20
Cost - 8/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 2/10 
Overall 68%

Week 37 - Pumpkin Biryani

The point of this blog was to find the best vegetarian meal, when rating it against Taste, Cost, Difficulty and Time to Prepare.  While looking for the best; I have, without doubt, found the worst! Pumpkin Biryani.

We basically had a few too many pumpkins for Halloween, so I found a recipe to use the leftovers up.

This picture brings the taste back, yuck!

All our pumpkins didn't turn out bad!

This meal had it all to make it terrible: it was a pain to make, it took forever, cost quite a bit and was disgusting!  I could taste it for days afterwards.  Maybe it was my shoddy cooking.  Whatever the cause, this is one meal I would like to forget.

Rating 
Taste - 3/20
Cost - 3/10
Difficulty - 2/10
Prep Time - 3/10 
Overall 22%

Week 36 - Paella Primavera

Vegetarian Paella?

It's about at this point in this blog that you may be thinking I'm running out of ideas.....and you'd be right.  Vegetarian Paella was good, but it got me thinking 'what is the difference between Paella and Risotto?'.  If you're wondering the same, here is a summary:

Rich, what can you tell us about the difference between Risotto and Paella?
Paella is a rice dish from Spain that originated in Valencia. The origins of Paella lie in the fields of Valencia where it was made for the peasants making use of whatever ingredients they could lay their hands upon. Paella can be all seafood in rice, or it can be all meat in rice. Even vegetarians have their own paella. Tomatoes and peas are common ingredients in all paella. Interestingly, the pan in which all the vegetables and meats are thrown along with rice to be cooked is also called paella. The meats and vegetables are not fried but sautéed in oil. Water and rice are added later, and all of them are heated, stirring the ingredients occasionally for some time.

Risotto is a creamy rice dish from Italy. Risotto originated in northern Italy that had an abundance of short grained rice varieties.  To make risotto, rice has to be fried along with herbs and spices and onions until the ingredients have all mixed up and covered with a coating. Wine is added and then broth is added every few minutes while continuing to stir the ingredients. Once rice has cooked, it is taken off the heat, and grated cheese is added to it. Sometimes, butter is added to make risotto even creamier.

In a nutshell:
• Paella is of Spanish origin, whereas Risotto is of Italian origin.
• Risotto is creamier than Paella.
• You need to stay close to the cooking pot when making Risotto to prevent sticking to the pot.
• Paella has a bottom coat called soccarat that is allowed to stick to the pot and treasured by people.
• Risotto has a uniform texture from top to bottom, whereas Paella is soft from inside but dry at the top.
• Paella is drier than Risotto that is sticky.

Rich, can you tell us more about the Rice?
A grain of rice consists of a starchy wrapping around a core of protein. Risotto rice releases most of the starch quite readily, which is what gives risotto its creaminess (along with all the butter and parmesan). Each rice grain in risotto is thus relatively soft.

Paella rice holds onto its starch more, so generally is a bit more al dente - the protein core remains firm and the grains themselves remain relatively separate when compared to risotto.

Nobody will read this far, so I'm not going to bother writing a caption!

Rating
Taste - 15/20
Cost - 7/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 64%

Week 34 -35 - Falafel

The amount of time it has taken me to feature falafel in this blog is not a reflection of how much I like it, I love it.  It was one of the veggie foods I had discovered long before doing my year meat free; I would almost live off falafel at the Glastonbury Festival every time I went!

But I've never had too much success making my own falafel.  It tasted fine, but I could never get a good firm falafel ball or patty.  So when I found this recipe, I was intrigued.  

Balls

I had previously always tried making falafel with chickpeas; by mashing, processing, blending them etc.  So when I saw a recipe using Chickpea flour (or Garbanzo Bean Flour in the US), I had to give it a go.

I continued reading the same website, when a couple of minutes later I discovered this, a falafel pie!!  Now, I love a pie and I live falafel......I had struck gold here.

I'm pleased to report the chickpea flour made the recipe simple to make and texture and taste were good, however I found the falafel a bit dry.

Falafel Pie.  If it was as good as it sounded there would be a global Chickpea shortage!  (it's still really good though)

The pie was a bit disappointing.  On a global scale it was good, really good; I had just hoped for so much more........

So my Rating (for the falafel pie):
Taste - 17/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 4/10 
Overall 66%

Week 33 - Nut Loaf 2

So, roast dinners as a vegetarian just aren't the same.  As I found in my previous attempt at a Nut Loaf.

But undeterred, I decided to have another crack at the Nut Loaf (geddit!?!?).

Cabbage as wrapping paper? Less mess at Christmas AND a healthy treat for the kids......I could be onto something here!

I found this recipe via the Guardian website.  It claims to be the perfect Nut Roast.  It was tasty, but if this was the perfect nut roast.  It seems a roast dinner is one of the few areas veggie food just just can't compete (I am happy to be proven wrong!).

Rating
Taste - 16/20
Cost - 4/10
Difficulty - 4/10
Prep Time - 4/10 
Overall 56%

Week 32 - Vegetarian Pizza

Pizza in our house is a fun night.  I make a (fresh) pizza base, put out a load of ingredients and let the diners build their own.   

So you can do the same, the ingredients are:
Tomato Sauce
Mozarella Cheese
Basil 

This is how your pizza may look!

I use this recipe for my pizza dough.

Rating
Taste - 15/20
Cost - 5/10
Difficulty - 3/10
Prep Time - 3/10 
Overall 52%

Week 31 - Roasted Asparagus and Tomato Penne Salad with Goat Cheese

The wife had another go ........but this one was actually pretty good!

More Pasta with Cheese than salad!

Recipe here

Rating
Taste - 17/20
Cost - 3/10
Difficulty - 6/10
Prep Time - 6/10 
Overall 64%

Week 30 - Vegetarian Moussaka

Moussaka is a dish from the Balkans.  It (typically) contains layered aubergine and potato with a meat layer thrown in.  Think Lasagne with potato and aubergine instead of pasta.  But then I'm sure you already knew that; but I didn't!  I knew I liked Moussaka, but it wasn't until I made this recipe I realized how it was made.

So a veggie Moussaka?  It's a winner, but be prepared for a shift in the kitchen to make this.  Well worth the effort though if you have the time.

Note: The use of this recipe in no way condones the work of Jamie Oliver.

Plan View

Rating
Taste - 18/20
Cost - 6/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Prep Time - 5/10 
Overall 68%

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%