lentil moussaka

Sorry - forgot the picture!  Using up: aubergine, some grated cheese

This turned into a bit of an epic, and was lovely.  I looked up some recipes, both on the interweb and in my copious collection of cookery books, but nothing seemed quite right, so I made it up as I went along.

I put some olive oil in our small Le Creuset casserole, while I chopped a large onion and some garlic.  Then I realised it would be *too* small so decanted the oil into the next size up. Sautéed the onion and garlic  until the edges started to brown.  Then I added half a sachet of “Egyptian spices”, which has been on the shelf for ages.  It consisted of cumin, coriander, ground hazelnuts (!) and some other stuff - easy enough to replicate.  Stirred that around a bit, then in went a mugful of puy lentils, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and a mugful of water (with which I swilled out the tomato tin first), and a sloosh of red wine.   Put the lid on, moved to the back on a low light.  A little later, when I thought of it, we added some thyme and rosemary from the herb garden.

Regarded the oil sticking to the small casserole, and decided that I couldn’t waste it.  So I chopped three potatoes into dice, boiled them for five minutes then fried them in the small casserole, with more olive oil.  That’s reactive!  Set them aside.

Sliced an aubergine into, um, slices, and Pete fried them in olive oil (we must have used a lot last night).  Set them to drain on kitchen paper.  Made a bechamel-style sauce, and added half the grated cheese; it was red leicester and gruyere, I think, and had been grated on Sunday night for the pasta bake, but we decided to use a mozzarella instead.

The lentils were done by now - I think they had about 45 minutes in all.  I put the potatoes into the lentil mix, then took a pyrex dish, and layered lentils / aubergine / cheese sauce twice, and scattered the remaining cheese over the top.  It had about 20 minutes at gas 6/200°, and then we ate it and it was divine.

Half the lentil mix went in the freezer for another day, so this would serve 4 quite hungry people.

Tags: aubergine, lentils, moussaka, vegetarian

meat free stir fry

using up: bits and bobs of veg, some rather tired coriander leaves, small chestnut mushrooms and some beansprouts from the veg box

It’s nice - and cheaper - not to eat meat all the time.  And it’s good for you.  This served two of us quite happily.  As always, the secret of a stir fry is the prep .. get everything ready before you start to cook.

One red pepper, de-seeded and cut into strips.  Half a carton of bean sprouts.  A handful of chestnut mushrooms, sliced. One green onion, chopped - green bits set to one side with a chopped red chili and the coriander leaves.  Some cashews from the larder, and lime juice from the bottle in the fridge (I’ve given up with fresh limes, we just don’t use them often enough).  Garlic and ginger, minced.  Some tamari.

Cook some noodles in boiling water - I always put a teaspoon of sesame oil in with them.  While that’s going on, fling everything in the wok (apart from what we set aside - green bit of the onion, red chilli) with a little groundnut oil and stir.  This is going to take about four minutes tops.  Then add lime juice and tamari.

Drain and rinse the noodles and add them to the wok with the coriander, and stir until everything is combined.

Serve in bowls, sprinkling chilli and spring onions over the top for a bit of crunch.

Tags: stirfry, vegan, vegetarian

courgette and fennel “cottage pie”

Using up: fennel, courgette, potato

Chopped a courgette into chunks, and the other half of the fennel into thin slices, and chopped an onion.  All into a frying pan with some olive oil, and left to sauté down.  I left it for 20 minutes, but I think it would have been better to either put a lid on it, or left it another ten - the end result was quite crunchy.

While this is going on, I boiled some spuds for mash,

Added a tin of tomatoes to the vegetable mix, a dash of salt and a good grinding of black pepper, and cooked for another 6-7 minutes.

The spuds were mashed with a combination of Red Leicester and gruyere cheeses (that’s odd - why did I capitalise the red leicester and not the Gruyere?), with some reserved for the topping. With hindsight, I thought it was too much cheese - either in, or on - but Pete thought it was just right.  We also added some chopped chives to the mash.

Veg/tomato mix into an ovenproof dish, top with mash, sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cook at gas 6 for about 20 minutes.

Tags: courgette, fennel, potato, tomato, vegetarian

thai vegetable curry

Using up: butternut squash, green beans, courgette

This is vaguely based on a recipe I saw on Come Dine With Me, a television programme here in the UK.  I was very struck by the potato element, which is:

One potato, boiled then cut into dice and deep fried.  Set aside for now.

Made a paste by blitzing a chopped onion, 3 cloves of garlic, about a square inch of ginger, a stalk of lemongrass, a dried chilli,  half a teaspoon of salt, and a tablespooon each of lime juice and  olive oil in a blender, and pureéd until it was transformed into a smooth paste.

Peeled the butternut squash that had been lurking in the fridge for a couple of weeks, removed and discarded the seeds, looked at it and realised it was *way* too much for this curry and returned half to the fridge.  Watch this space to see what I decide to do with the rest! Chopped the flesh of the remaining half into 1/2 inch cubes.  The green beans had been topped and tailed on Friday, and I chopped the courgette into smallish chunks too.

Put the paste into a large pan or wok and fried it gently for a couple of minutes, stirring all the while.

Added the veg, and stirred them about a bit, to coat them with the paste, then hurled in a tin of coconut milk. Put a lid on it, and simmered it for about 20 minutes, then uncovered it and cooked for about another 10. I added the fried spud a few minutes before the end (crystal ball job).

Ate accompanied by noodles cooked with a few drops of sesame oil.  I cannot begin to tell you how nice it was - it was ambrosial, utterly lovely.  The squash had started to break down, and had a texture that I can hardly describe.

This made enough to feed the two of us, with another meal’s worth gone into the freezer.

Tags: "green beans", butternut, coconut, courgette, curry, squash, squashh, thai, vegetarian

a simple veg stir fry

Stir fries are indeed quick to cook, but they are not necessarily quick to prepare. The secret is to do all the prep first, as the cooking is very swift. For this one:

Take one red pepper, some rather tired mushrooms, two courgettes, and chop up as you will.

Finely chop ginger and garlic - we usually use an old Braun Multipractic for this; I’ll be heartbroken when it dies, because the new ones are horrible in comparison.

Finely chop spring onions and a red chilli (we only had green, but red is better, in my view), and leave them to one side for the end. Ditto some basil leaves ready to be shredded.

Boil some noodles for however long they say, then drain in a colander, and pour cold water over them to stop them sticking.

Then let battle commence! Heat some oil in a wok until is Very Hot. Hurl in the garlic and ginger, stir about for a minute or so. Add the pepper, courgettes and mushrooms, and stir fry for a few minutes. Then add a splash of lime juice, and some tamari. Bung in the noodles and stir around until they’re warmed, then add the chopped chilli, spring onions and torn basil, and stir until they’re just combined - you don’t want to cook them.

Decant into bowls and scoff; a really nice, light summer supper.

Tags: stir fry, vegetarian

broccoli stirfry

Another of those deceptively simple meals, which take less time than required to phone for a pizza.

Take some (lots?) of broccoli, remove the florets from the stems, and boil/simmer/steam for about seven minutes.  Drain.

Peel and chop some garlic - we like Lots, so we did about four fat cloves; you might not want so much (how odd).

This is important when you’re stir-frying - fetch out everything you might need before you start; it’s a swift process ad things can go pear-shaped before you blink.  So, for this one: tamari, sesame oil, oyster sauce, sesame seeds, the aforementioned broccoli.

And spring onions and red chilli, chopped up.

At some point in these proceedings, you’ll need a pan of boiling water and some noodles too.

Groundnut oil in a wok, heat, add garlic and sesame seeds; stir about a bit.  Add broccoli, pre-steamed.  Stir about some more.  Add a sloosh of oyster sauce, a sloosh of tamari.  Sort noodles - two minutes, how hard can it be?

Serve in bowls, scatter with chilli and spring onions.  If we’re being conservative, this took 25 minutes from starting to denude the broccoli.  Do you really want to buy convenience food?!

Tags: fast food, stirfry, vegetarian

mushrooms with cumin, coriander and spinach

This recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian Cookery, an excellent tome.

It’s quick and simple to cook - served with basmati rice, it takes about 30 minutes from start to plate. And it’s delicious!

Tags: indian, vegetarian