What have you cooked veggie today?

[KC2]

They look delicious, scully! I confess I have always avoided deep frying, have never ever done it,not even once!

[scullion]

i think you could just about get away with shallow-ish frying them if you kept turning them. they stay together very well.

[KC2]

[Herbidacious]

I made a red Thai curry with mushrooms, green beans and cashews last night. It was very very tasty

[Herbidacious]

Chilli, cumin methi and cumin flatbreads... and a constructed paneer tikka masala curry.

[Mamta]

[Herbidacious]

I used a kit, Mamta. Spice Tailors.

I am not sure the bread really worked. They were 'fried' in very little oil. As with pancakes, I think the later ones (after most of the oil had been absorbed by earlier ones) were better. They might improve with reheating.

I did find the recipe on line, but can't find now to post the link. Essentially they were made from wholemeal flour, water, olive oil and herbs and spices.

[Mamta]

[Herbidacious]

[Herbidacious]

This is the recipe:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PGh ... &q&f=false

[Mamta]

Sounds pretty good to me, except it doesn't describe how to pan fry them.

[Herbidacious]

[Mamta]

[KC2]

We had this tonight, it was delicious and will probably be even nicer tomorrow:
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/j ... en-in-rome

[scullion]

made tonight.
well, i didn't make it exactly. when i went to the cupboard i realised i'd used the tin of black beans in a chilli a while back so i used red kidney beans. i also used a shallot rather than dried onion and fried it with the pepper before adding to the amaranth. more herbs and spices than the recipe calls for and then some more fresh thyme when i tasted the mix, before cooking along with some more of the flavouring stuff. i fried them (they didn't stick to the pan as suggested they do) rather than baked them.
they were good especially with the coconut/pepper/chilli sauce (which was really tasty) - a good sauce for other occasions, too, i think.
they could also take adding more amaranth as it seemed to disappear in the mix. i was expecting it to be a more prominent texture.

[earthmaiden]

The pepper sauce looks nice. I am following a mostly plant based diet for a few weeks and am finding that smoked paprika and hot sauces seem to feature in vegan recipes rather more than I care for (I.e. don't want them in every meal!). I think there's a new trend.

[Herbidacious]

First batch of roast tomato passata made from tomatoes from the garden. Just tomatoes, salt and a dash of balsamic, adn run through the tomato mill several times. It's gone in the freezer - two 'tupperware' boxes of it.

I was watching the new Jamie Oliver programme last night. I had already bought the book on a whim (it's on offer in WHSmiths.) He wasn't too, too annoying, and the recipes were appealing. Comfortish food. We are entering autumn now, I guess. I'd be happy making and eating both the things he made. There was clearly a 'get as much veg into your food without it being too obvious' theme going on (for children I suppose.)

[Oat]

I watched J.O that I had recorded and he didn't annoy me at all. I had the volume off Find it works best for me

[scullion]

after watching, my partner asked me not to delete the programme from the humax - there's obviously a recipe that he thinks can be made in a solar cooker.
yesterdays sunshine offering was blackberry and apple crumble. very good.

[Herbidacious]

I didn't see all of it. I saw him making a macaroni cheese with lots of vegetables blended into the sauce, and also left whole in the dish. And also some potato and sweet potato fried balls, with indian spices made into a sandwich with fresh mint and yoghurt, and mango chutney (bought, with added pomengrante seeds.) and Bombay mix. He called it an Indian-style chip butty.

The book is even cheaper on Amazon if you have Prime.

Ah! Or...

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/cat ... ree-meals/

[icelesley]

Last night I made the allotment pie from Jamie Oliver's new series. Very tasty. But I think next time I will chop the veg into small chuncks, but it is very tasty.

[TeresaFoodie]

So far all I am reading are good reviews about the new JO book. I feel a treat to myself coming on tomorrow. Half price in WHSmith.

[Herbidacious]

Not made anything yet, Tezza, but bookmarking lots to try.

[Herbidacious]

Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce II. Has anyone made this? It's the one where you put a load of butter, half an onion (not chopped) in a pot of tomatoes, and cook for ages. It's supposed to be sublime. I couldn't get it to reduce enough. Having cooked it for ages on Saturday night, I gave up, and recommenced cooking yesterday. In the end, I rubbed it through a sieve (it was looking very seedy), and after further failure to reduced down, ate it as soup. I think I reinvented Heinz tomato soup... It was similar in flavour and texture, although with a deeper intensity and subtle acidity.

1kg yielded a small bowl full...

[earthmaiden]

Perhaps your tomatoes gave off more liquid than the ones she used. Difficult to gauge before you start cooking and presumably the butter would add to the liquidity whilst it was warm.

[Herbidacious]

Perhaps so. Generally, while making my roast passata, the tomatoes have given off a lot of liquid. I tried varying the temperature while roasting, but until the last batch, very runny results.

The last batch, I had in the oven at about 120C fan. I thought they were nearly ready when OH came home and suggested we went out for pizza. Was halfway through the pizza when I remembered I had left the over on. We weren't far from home fortunately. They were done to perfection, and the resulting passata had an amazing, intense flavour. Pity I didn't discover that this is what I had to do several kilos' worth ago, especially now the freezer is full.

Back to Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce II, I suspect they over-egg how amazing it is. My tomatoes have excellent flavours, but the sauce tasted no better than my roast passata... which doesn’t have a shed load of butter in it. (A fair amount of oil though, I suppose, but olive and smoked rapeseed.)

I still have quite a lot of tomatoes to pick, but no more freezer room. Perhaps I should use up some frozen ones and replace with slow cooked tomato passata.

[TeresaFoodie]

I made my veggie chilli a couple of nights ago and have just finished the last portion on a jacket spud for dinner. The last few times of making it I have been massively underwhelmed. Then I had half a tin of baked beans sat in the fridge, threw those in along with red lentils and frozen veggie soya mince and it was back to it's amazingly delicious self. I also think that the addition of chopped red peppers worked a treat. I'll make another batch next weekend I think.

[Herbidacious]

[Herbidacious]

I roasted red, yellow and orange pepper (homegrown) halves with thyme and rosemary (also from garden) tomato slices (ditto), feta, garlic slithers, bread crumbs (dried - Waitrose with coriander and chilli - needed using up) pine nuts and a drizzle of honey as an experiment on some of them. I also used smoked rapeseed oil. Maybe a smidge over cooked, but tasted good. I think they could be made to taste even better. More cheese, fresh breadcrumbs maybe. Possibly s-d tom paste. A little smoked paprika perhaps?

[TeresaFoodie]

I stuffed peppers Herb. I'd happily munch through that little lot in one sitting as they are!

I made an absolute favourite of mine tonight. I picked up an ever-so-reduced pack of Tofoo from Co-op yesterday for about 50p with a use by date of that day. Thought one more day won't hurt, bargain! I had a small portion of onions and strips of red peppers which I had stir fried in a sweet and sour, soy and chilli sauce the night before, cut the Tofoo into cubes and marinated it in the leftovers overnight. Tonight I stir fried quartered mushrooms and a head of broccoli, added bean sprouts and straight to the wok noodles and some extra soy mixed to a slurry with cornflour and Scotch bonnet chilli sauce, stirred that around until thick then added chopped fresh coriander. One big wok made me three large portions. Absolutely delightful, and if I am not mistaken the Tofoo was much tastier than the Cauldron stuff that I usually buy. Nice one that Co-op!

[Herbidacious]

I like the Tofoo brand - it is a lot tastier than Cauldron, but also a lot pricier, so a very good buy!

Sounds delish!

I am increasingly becoming a tofu convert.

[Herbidacious]

I bet peppers stuffed with macaroni cheese might be nice...

[WWordsworth]

Today I wanted something easy, hearty and tasty so I made this, minus the pomegranate because I didn't have any.
Definitely a keeper, it was delicious.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pea ... mon-tagine

[Herbidacious]

Another vegetarian casserole - onion, mushroom, carrot, veggie sausage, lots of garlic and black pepper. Will add petit pois to my portion. This time the dumplings have Coleman's powder, sage and a little carraway in them.
I needed some hot comfort food.

[Herbidacious]

Naturally not done all the cooking I intended to over Christmas/New Year, but I made confit (smoked) garlic the other day, sausage rolls with sage and onion yesterday, and currently in the process of making (or trying to make - not very confident) halloumi.

Kavey, if you are looking in, your blog comes up high on a google search for halloumi-making recipes. (I am using the Wilde's one with Wilde's ingredients, but had an awkward amount of milk so was looking up rennet to milk ratios. Even if I had 11 litres of milk, I don't have a pan that big!)

I am planning to make a vegetarian kedgeree- maybe tomorrow. I have some possibly dubious vegan prawns in the freezer! Husband will probably like it... Other than that. it's time to leaf thrupgh some cookery books for inspiration.

[KC2]

[Herbidacious]

Sounds good. I might have a go at that.
I was right to not be confident. My curds are custardy!!! Desperately googling for a solution that doesn't start with "Next time make sure..."
The really annoying thing about this is that I found another bottle of milk that would have made the amount up to exactly half the recipe and meant that I was less hit and miss (miss, it would seem) with the rennet. I did think I'd bought enough...

[scullion]

not something home-made.
we had the 'without meat' burgers from lidl last night. they are a denser, deeper (sort of) version of the 'moving mountains' burger, made with pea protein and gluten as the main ingredients. not as fibrous as the mm burger - which i found a little disconcerting when i first tried them.
it's really quite good. i read that there's a similar thing in aldi now, possibly made by the same people, although a bit more expensive.
there is a redness when cut or bitten into that is supposed to look like blood, i think, but which is beetroot colouring - maybe it's to try to fool meat eaters or the newly converted into thinking that they aren't really eating non-meat - but not really necessary if you ask me.
vegetarian/vegan convenience food has suddenly come on in leaps and bounds - gone (hopefully) are the days of the pathetic offering of a diced veg and potato burger in a bun with a squirt of ketchup.

[Herbidacious]

The pretend blood thing seems weird to me but then most of the people know who I know who are currently flirting or converting are twenty something environmental vegans etc. rather than animal welfare/rights ones, so I suppose that fits. The age group also explains why so much of this stuff is junk food too, perhaps? Burgers are king in many pubs, even the slightly more 'gastro' ones, these days.
Indeed, eating out in not very high end pubs seems to involve a vegan burger, a vegan salad or a whole load of meaty and fried fish offerings. (It's clearly not possible to offer more than one type of 'alternative' diet meal, so tough if you want cheese or eggs, or even a vegetarian meal with protein in it, in many cases, and the gluten free people are in trouble... or not, depending on their reasons for eshewing gluten.)

[earthmaiden]

It's a nightmare for those with nut allergies too. So much food containing animal products has been replaced with nut based.

[Herbidacious]

People have never really catered for allergies though, have they. They just use disclaimers.

A lot of the bugers seem to be soya or pea based, and there is, of courese, the jackfruit (minus the protein-rich parts) but I imagine they won't rule out nut contamination.

[WWordsworth]

I made lentil soup for my lunches for the next few days.
Inadvertently vegan.

[Herbidacious]

Last night, I made a potato bake with Emmental, Fry's sausage, sweetcorn, smoked paprika and creme fraiche. I have now decided that I have gone off this sort of (rather studenty) thing but it was a using stuff up sort of meal. I suppose it wasn't helped by th potatoes being the wrong sort. (Too floury.) It helped to think of it as a skinless baked potato!

[Herbidacious]

Not a proper meal, although it was, technically, dinner, I just warmed and crisped up a few of the slow cooker olive oil confit potatoes I made yesterday. They were delicious. They had a slightly smoky flavour. A slightly pommes de terre à la cheminée thing going on. (And why on earth haven't I done those in our wood burners in France?!)
I used some of the oil as the base for a roast tomato, garlic thyme and cannelini bean sauce which I think I will use to make a small melanzane parmigiana type thing tomorrow.

[WWordsworth]

Leek and potato soup for work lunches this week.

[Herbidacious]

Mildred's recipe for bubble and squeak cake filled with Welsh rarebit. Nice but an awful lot of work. Peeling kilos of veg, roasting some of them, frying others, others still, boiled, mashing them all, then making the rarebit, putting it in the freezer for a bit, taking it out, shaping into balls, then freezing again, then assembling. It took hours, spread over two evenings!

If you happened to have a load of left over Sunday veg, it would seem quicker/easier...

[KC2]

We had this tonight: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/102 ... ans-au-vin
Hope you can get into the link. If you like the look of it, do print it out or copy and paste as I couldn't get into it second time I tried.

I have scanned it so will be happy to pass it on.

It was absolutely delicious. The liquid didn't reduce as much as we felt it should but nice sourdough bread mopped it up nicely

[earthmaiden]

That's worth knowing, sometimes recipes like that need the meat they would originally have had to get depth of flavour. It looks lovely!

[scullion]

it came up with the sign in bit, stopping me seeing what it was. maybe you could reduce the size of your scan jpeg in your photo manager (or whatever program you use) and upload it as a photo.

[Rainbow]