Vegetarian Foods Archive

' Tomatoes are the Elixir of Summer '  Anna Thomas of The Epicurean I have come to enjoy  home grown tomatoes, not pureed to a pulp in a soup or mushed for a pasta sauce, not roasted or de-hydrated either, but completely natural in their own right.  It wasn't always this way though, I used to find them rather bland and tasteless.   Let me tell you something,  in the early 2000 when I graduated and got a job with this big organisation, I used to have to attend formal dinner party events, award ceremonies and that kind of thing.  Well the most innovative Western inspired starter this vegetarian would often get served (and I write this with some sarcasm) would be a 1970s style large beef tomato hollowed out and then stuffed with some herby grain like barley.  I would not mind that much at all had the star of the plate, this fruit (and yes tomato is a fruit) been deliriously tasty, instead it was often insipid, tough and tasteless and the filling was...

Yes its all about the tomatoes and this week I have mostly been eating tomatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here is a Orzo Pasta Salad with tomatoes and runner beans.  I made a big batch that was good for three working day lunches. My work lunches are often home-made as buying from eateries adds up over the week.  So here are some other lunches from the past.  Barley Salad Pot with grated carrots, pumpkin, sunflower seeds and raisins.  Portion of spicy nuts,  I don't do breakfast during the working week, so a banana or apple in the morning is what stops my tummy from rumbling.  And this time some Nakd cocoa delights, I actually like these very much, but would be happy to give the Nakd bars a miss.  A wholemeal bread sandwich right at the back and a muffins and flapjacks now and again, but as I said sometimes its nice to have a sneaky treat.    A different Pasta Salad, yes with tomatoes again, but also black  ol...

I do struggle to  know what to do with runner beans in the culinary sense, but I do like growing them in my garden. So with the prompt being 'use all seasonal produce',  I was excited as it gave me the opportunity to use  some of the runner beans  as well as some of the cherry tomatoes tumbling from the greenhouse.  Oh I must not forget the last of the purple french beans too, that turn green on cooking.    I made a recipe called Harissa Runner Beans that I saw in the cookbook  Veggiestan . The only thing that I did differently was use Blodyn Aur  Lemon Infused Rapeseed Oil, hence the Lemon Harissa Runner Beans.   The recipe reminded me of a lot of Sri Lankan  Ceylonese Runner Beans  that I made many years ago, as well as some  cooked in paprika. We had these simply with Jacket Potatoes.  I have also made some Green Chilli or Verdi Chilli to sound more interesting with runner beans and green beans, but I will s...

As well as bookmarking recipes from cookbooks , I mentioned that I have bookmarked some recipes from websites also.    I've had my eye on a couple of Ethiopian recipes from Azeb Woldemichael of   Mazi Mas as featured in The Guardian .  It is thanks to The Guardian that I have discovered Mazi Mas and have become a fan from afar.   Mazi Mas which translates in Greek 'with us' is a roaming eatery that serves global home cuisine to the public.  The chefs are migrant and refugee women who have struggled to find work in the U.K.  Mazi Mas   reminds me a little of The League of Kitchens in  NYC, America. For those of you who read my blog, will know that  I've been cooking up some global cuisine since the start of this blog; and most recently Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine has been on the menu , thanks to some new people frequenting my workplace and inspiring me.   I was more tempted by the Berbere spices which I have com...

We tend to enjoy soup at the weekend.  There was once a time when I would make it on a Sunday for us to enjoy during the working week, but the reality was when we come home from a long day at work, we really want to tuck into something more substantial than slurp from a bowl. D has a tendency to pick up tomatoes from the grocers even out of season.  He knows they cannot ever be compared to homegrown, but he likes to have them as an option for his home-made sandwiches or cherry tomatoes for salads.   These tomatoes had not been used for either and to the touch were beginning to soften here and there.  After enjoying the Seven Spice Butter Bean Stew I was inspired to make a soup of them with the addition of butter beans.  As you can imagine, the tomatoes were not the tastiest, so I decided to a little balsamic vinegar for sharp flavour, this was a good move as it made for a good soup. I am sharing this with Farmers Girl  Kitchen and Baking Queen 74 ...

I do love the superman red vibrating from this dish naturally.   Red from the tomatoes (and yes, tomatoes are a fruit) and red from the peppers.  I actually made this dish around the same time as the Portuguese Potatoes, but got distracted by the pointy red peppers  and fabulous fat tomatoes caressing each other in my bowl, that i had to throw them in the pot together - not to have done so would have just been plain wrong.   These days I always seem to have some Ramiro pepper and Black Bean Chilli  last month,  I had originally planned to make these Portuguese Potatoes, but got distracted by the pointy red peppers  and fabulous fat tomatoes caressing each other in my bowl, that i had to throw them in the pot together - not to have done so would have just been plain wrong.   These days I always seem to have some vegan VPud Black Pudding in my fridge too.  Every time I go into the city of Cardiff I pick some up.  I decided just...

The past few weeks or so, I have made a few Persian inspired dishes inspired mostly by Iranian   food bloggers, rather than from the spate of mainstream Middle Eastern cookbooks published recently in the UK.  It started as a means  to find inspirational ways of using my spices such as Advieh , Baharat , Sumac, Za'ata r and ingredients such as Maftoul and Freekeh, but like any curious cook I have been lured and enticed by other recipes.   When I saw an Iranian style Koresh tweeted by The Persian Fusion,   I just knew I had to make a vegetarian variation of it.  Something about it had me salivating.   Koresht/Khoresht/Ghalyeh  are stews or curries in Persian cooking.  They should not be compared to South Asian curries popular in the Western world.  Persian stews and curries are  quite mild.   I substituted the chicken breasts with Quorn 'chicken' fillets and adjusted the spices to taste and the tomato sauce acc...

Apparently it is British Tomato Week. I am a little surprised as my greenhouse seedling specimens are not even the length of my hands and those that I picked up from a garden nursery have only just begun to flower.   I guess other parts of the country, tomatoes are thriving under poly tunnels.  Not in this part of Wales, where on days I am still wearing layers. I had originally bookmarked to make Bloody Mary Jelly around the Christmas or New Year festivities, but  then thought, what is wrong with now?!  Oh and before you read any further, I must highlight that this Bloody Mary Jelly is made with a carton of tomato juice picked up for a different recipe, but never did and noted over the weekend that it was reaching its best before date. The recipe for Bloody Mary Jelly comes from the British Empress of Vegetarian Cooking - Rose Elliot.   Many of the modern vegetarian and vegan cookbooks appearing on our shelves in the UK will have been influenced by R...

I had a sudden yearning for savoury scones and I blame Johanna who blogs over at Green Gourmet Giraffe for this as she has been  making and baking savoury muffins in her Melbourne home.   Also, we picked up a big block of mozzarella for panini and I have been wondering what to do with the rest, so this is the first of mozzarella recipes to come....or perhaps not, that is if we use it up for more homemade panini's. When I bit into the muffin, the scent of the spices, mostly the smoked paprika hit my face.  The flavour is almost pizza like.  I also loved the colours, the lipstick red from the cherry tomatoes was eye popping and the greens from the spring onions a little frazzled from the bake and if you look closely you can see the creamy melt from the mozzarella cheese. We did not finish these Savoury Cherry Tomato, Paprika and Mozzarella Muffins on the day as the recipe makes a dozen.   Look I am greedy, but even I cannot eat half a dozen.  Ho...

This Miso Tomato with Roasted Garlic and Shichimi Tograshi is inspired by a  Miso Tomato Soup  recipe I saw a couple of years ago. I still intend to make the Miso Tomato Soup with homegrown tomatoes, or even tinned cherry tomatoes, but at the weekend I was inspired to mess with it a little and make a thick sauce for pasta salad.   I still have a jar of brown rice miso in my fridge, as for the Shichimi Tograshi - well I picked that up last year when we went to G lastonbury.  Shichimi Tograshi is a Japanese condiment made up of red chili peppers and other spices like black and white sesame seeds, tangerine peel and nori flakes.   I want to do more with the Shichimi Tograshi, so if any of you have any suggestions they will be most welcome. I am sharing the Miso Cherry Tomato and Schichimi Tograshi Orzo Pasta  Salad with   Kahakai Kitchen .   Miso Cherry Tomato with Roasted Garlic and Shichimi Tograshi Orzo   Ingre...

I made this Guacamole Spaghetti Pasta not that long ago, when we came in from work wanting something relatively quick and easy to eat.  I have made pasta with avocado in the past and enjoyed it such a Jalapenos, Coriander and Avocado Pasta Salad  and  Avocado Coriander Chilli Spaghetti , so thought why not try this combination. Even though we cleaned the plate mostly out of hunger, I have to confess that I found eating the  Guacamole Spaghetti pasta a bit weird.  I think I will in future reserve guacamole for my tortilla chips rather than for coating pasta. The recipe for this Guacamole Pasta sauce also is not the way I make guacamole.  This was a lot more sloppy because of the tomato juices flowing from the quantity of fresh tomatoes. Something I had not thought about before is my preference for avocado.   Oh my goodness can someone have a preference for avocado type .?  I hear you shout.    Yes I do and so does the Zimba...

I mentioned in a previous blog post that  I don't quite get the fuss around popped beans,  and now having made some at home, I am still bemused.   Also I was a little unsure how to use them having now made them, as they are not like traditional popcorn made with corn, but   waste not want not - I decided to scatter them over some Savoury Courgette Muffins and this R oasted Zucchini and Cherry Tomato Salad.   The Popped Black Beans were elevated further by the generous dusting of  some  Outback Spirit Tasmanian Pepper Salt   that Johanna sent to me last month.  I love it, so flavourful and zesty.  I can happily dip my finger in the bag and suck, but I am a grown up woman and won't do that, well that is what I am telling you.     I am looking forward to using the  Outback Spirit Tasmanian Pepper Salt  much more, even scattered over some traditional popcorn.    Thank you so much Johanna. We enjoy...