vegetarian – The Queen of Small Things

June 19, 2015June 19, 2015

My Veggie Kitchen Heroes – Luscious Veggie Tart

It’s Friday, you’ve guests arriving in a couple of hours and you get a text saying one of your number is a vegetarian. With the rose/cider/lager sorted and chilling in the fridge and the dips, chips and nibbles all ready to go, a small niggle of doubt rises from somewhere deep. What on earth can you make at this short notice?

Summer food at it's best - we love eating out at this time of year and it's so easy to go meat free — Vegetarian summer food at it’s best – we love eating out at this time of year and it’s so easy to go meat free

Puff pastry is your friend even if it’s not exactly the most classy of ingredients. It’s not sophisticated and if, like me, you attended one Tupperware party too many growing up in the 70s and 80s, you’ll shudder at the idea of chicken vol au vents. Let’s call it an ingredient reborn shall we?

Firstly, some make their own puff pastry. Life is too short and wine is too plentiful – so I buy mine, very often frozen because it’s cheaper that way. You can also buy it fresh in blocks or ready rolled. Do make sure that it’s vegetarian – check the ingredients (most are but a few more deli-style pastries might have animal fat in them, just for fun).

If you’ve bought frozen, defrost in a fridge for at least 12 hours. If you choose to take it out of the fridge, to help it along, please remember to put it back in again and chill thoroughly before use (trying to roll out warm pastry is like trying to roll out mud).

Get it to about 3mm thick for a good, crispy texture when cooked. You’ll get four decent 4-slice tarts out of a block and two 4-slices from a ready rolled sheet (and two slices is ample per person).

Then score the pastry 5mm from the edge all the way around – that way, the pastry will rise around the filling.

One I made earlier - you can trim the edges if you like but a bit of wonkiness won't affect the finished article. — One I made earlier – you can trim the edges if you like but a bit of wonkiness won’t affect the finished article.

This is the fun bit – getting creative with a few nourishing, flavoursome ingredients. These are my ideas for toppings to make a tart with a little wow factor (and very little effort):

Tomato, feta and basil – this one is dead simple. Place thinly sliced tomato over the base (leaving the edges so that they can rise) and then scatter feta over the top. When the tart has finished cooking, rip a handful of basil leaves over the top and leave for a few minutes for them to wilt gently over the hot topping. Delicious.

Gently caramelised tomatoes meet creamy, salty feta in this vegetarian tart - all finished with a little fragrant basil. Perfect. — Gently caramelised tomatoes meet creamy, salty feta – finished with a little fragrant basil. A vegetarian classic.

This one is a leek (softened in a pan with a little butter first), goats cheese and walnut version – really earthy and satisfying. Great with a few grinds of black pepper and a lovely fresh white wine.

Goats cheese, leek and walnut tart. I love goats cheese and walnuts

And this one is a simple favourite – tomato puree spread sparingly but evenly on the base with mixed chopped vegetables (in this case, courgette and red onion) and then lashings of cheddar. Add a few Italian herbs too if you like, it makes it more like a pizza – my kids can’t get enough of it.

Pizza tart, always a winner and so simple to make (add pepperoni or chorizo for the meat eaters)

To cook: place on baking parchment on an oven tray and bake for around 20 minutes at 200c, gas mark 6. Check after about 15 minutes to make sure nothing is burning.

To serve: green salad is great. I also love this fragrant potato salad – boiled and cooled new potatoes (about 200g per person) tossed with a handful of finely sliced radishes, a finely chopped red onion, a handful of chopped fresh coriander, a glug of olive oil and the juice of a lime. Season with a little salt and black pepper and let everyone dig in!

So simple to make but always a crowd pleaser (and fantastic from the fridge at night Nigella-style - if there's any left!) — So simple to make but always a crowd pleaser (and fantastic from the fridge at night Nigella-style – if there’s any left!)

So many toppings, so little time. What’s your favourite? I’d like to add more ideas to my recipe book, so drop me a line and let me know.

Enjoyed this? Then read my other posts in the series: Kitchen Heroes and Halloumi

And, of course, don’t forget to share (it’s nice to share – the buttons are at the top right) and sign up (also to the right in the menu) so you never miss a post.

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May 6, 2015May 6, 2015

My veggie kitchen heroes no 1 – halloumi

Nando's mango and lime peri peri sauce — Mild enough for my tastes, Nando’s mango and lime peri peri is the perfect partner for halloumi

I started this blog series several weeks ago (if you didn’t catch the first one, please read up here). As the weather improves and barbeque season gets underway, I thought I’d post something about a personal favourite that’s also really great for cooking over the coals.

My first veggie kitchen hero is halloumi. This Cypriot cheese really is a handy ingredient to have around. Unopened in the fridge, it will keep for weeks and when you cook with it, absorbs flavours really well. It’s naturally quite salty, delightfully squidgy and for a cheese, handles heat really well, meaning that it can be toasted, griddled or roasted – and it’s great on a barbeque (a meat juice free one, naturally).

Nando’s have a superb grilled mushroom and halloumi burger on their menu at the moment and inspired by this I recently acquired a bottle of their mango and lime peri peri sauce. This was a fine acquisition and I can’t wait to slather it over a few skewers loaded with vegetables, lime wedges and halloumi chunks before slinging them on the barbeque or my stove top griddle pan.

If you’d prefer to make something from scratch, try roasting halloumi in a Mediterranean bake:

Throw chunks of halloumi, two pieces of a quartered lemon, a few par-boiled potatoes cut into cubes, courgettes and a chunky cut red onion into a roasting tin with a couple of glugs of olive oil a little garlic and rosemary. Season to taste (go ease on the salt) – then toss it all together to make sure it’s well covered.
To keep the carnivores happy, make the same thing in another tin with chicken thighs instead of halloumi (allow two, maybe three per person) and then multiply the ingredients in the vegetarian version above, depending on how many you are cooking for.
Roast the chicken version for a good 45 minutes at 200°c (180°c fan) or gas mark 6 for around 45 minutes, turning the ingredients over now and again to make sure the chicken is cooked through properly.
Roast the halloumi version for about 30 minutes, again turning it to make sure the halloumi doesn’t stick.
The chicken version of the halloumi dish above for those who can’t quite drop the meat – it’s easy to cook both at the same time
To slip a little extra nutrition in with some wow factor, try crisscrossing your tray with some stalks of purple sprouting broccoli for the last 15 minutes. Looks good, tastes good.

I cooked this for dinner only last night, chucking in a few plum cherry tomatoes off the vine five minutes before the broccoli. The sweet, sticky sauce it created with the lemon was delightful.

And, I was informed by both my kids that next time they’d both like the halloumi version rather than the chicken. Looks like my husband will be the odd one out for a change.

Most chicken drumstick/thigh recipes work well with halloumi. It can stick to a pan if you’re not careful but oil it well and you shouldn’t have a problem. Sticky, sweet flavours work really well but don’t go crazy with the salt – it’s already pretty salty and it’s easy for it to get overpowering. It’s great with plenty of veg and because it’s already pretty substantial, you can go easy with the carbs, which is fantastic news for a carb-sensitive vegetarian like me.

I’d love to hear about your favourite halloumi recipes or if I’ve inspired you to try something new.

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April 17, 2015April 17, 2015

My Veggie Kitchen Heroes

Everyone has their own signature dish they make for guests. Whipping out a roasting tray or a griddle pan and grabbing some garlic from the fridge or Rosemary from the garden, it seems we all have go-to dishes that never fail to delight.

But what do you do if you are normally a meat eater and now have a vegetarian in your midst? You’ve been Master at Arms in your kitchen for years and suddenly your teenager comes home one afternoon to announce that they are now veggie. Perhaps you’ve found out your son’s new girlfriend doesn’t eat meat just after you’ve planned a huge Sunday feast or maybe a colleague is coming round for the first time for a Friday night barbeque and they need a vegetarian option.

Vegetarian scotch eggs — You can even make vegetarian scotch eggs – perfect for a picnic, a summer barbeque or a Christmas buffet.

I’ve known competent cooks to go to pieces and raid the freezer at Waitrose rather than come up with something homemade (and by the way, I’d eat anything veggie from the freezer at Waitrose any day) but if you’re looking to stir up something fabulous of your own creation, it’s not that arduous to remove meat from a meal without removing the flavour. I’ve not eaten meat for nearly twenty years now and if there’s anything that sets off an attack of guilty ungratefulness at someone else’s dinner table, it’s the sight of a Quorn sausage next to my dauphinoise potatoes and butter sautéed baby veg, no matter how pretty they look.

But you don’t really want to be cooking two meals when you’re already under pressure, so welcome to my new blog series: Vegetarian Kitchen Heroes.

I thought I would start with some basics

If you’re cooking for a vegetarian there are a few really important things to remember:

Sounds obvious but please keep meaty utensils, plates and all other equipment separate. Finding out that someone has put the chicken gravy spoon in with the mashed carrot and swede just causes sadness.
Not all veggies are cheese freaks. Have a chat with your herbivore friend beforehand to find out what they like to eat and then head off to have a look at anything by Rose Elliot (she’s published about a million different cookery books and her website is really informative too) or the Vegetarian Society website. I use the BBC GoodFood site a lot as well.
Easy on the carbs, even easier on the eye. A simple feta and walnut salad with shredded beetroot and lambs lettuce is great dressed with just a splash of olive oil and a little freshly ground pepper. Light, nutritious, perfect.
Vegan and vegetarian are two very different cuisines. Cooking without any animal products at all can be a scary proposition but the vegan society have a vibrant and really rather helpful website. Or rustle up a chickpea and coconut curry – rich, sumptuous and utterly comforting – I’ve made this BBC GoodFood version before and it’s delightful.
Check sauces, bottled ingredients and accompaniments. Did you know that Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce contains fish, Muller Light yogurt contains gelatine (derived from animal collagen) and most authentic pestos contain cheese made from rennet (from animal stomachs)? Five gold stars if you already knew all of this but it just goes to show that you need to check what you’re cooking with before you serve it up to a non-meat eater.
Easy on the carbs. It’s very easy to cut the goodness, protein and beneficial fats from a meal when you cut the meat. The last thing you want to be left with is a dull, stodgy mess so using nuts, wholegrains, cheeses, eggs and so many other great foodstuffs can round out a meal, making it wholesome and balanced. Do your research and have some fun.
Go on, try a bit. In fact, have a go at trying it once a week, or even for a whole week. You’ll bump into new flavour combinations, textures you may not have come across before and who knows, maybe even a few extra vitamins and minerals. My brother is a chef and he was impressed by just how much you can enjoy cooking and eating when meat is no longer the main attraction.

The basics over and done with, I’ll share the ingredients I really love to cook with over the coming weeks.

Are you already a vegetarian and can add to my list, have you had any veggie cooking disasters or have you found the above helpful and fancy giving it a go? Please share, I’d love to hear your comments.