Warm Roast Vegetable Salad with Feta

This was our dinner on Friday night – it perfectly fitted my Wimbledon food criteria... quick, easy and convenient to eat. I’d spent most of the day watching tennis (Andy Murray’s match was a real nail biter!) and could barely drag myself away from the TV so there was no way I was planning to do anything too tricky foodwise.

I had the laptop, with the BBC's live coverage, on the breakfast bar while I was in the kitchen so that I didn’t miss a ball; I will say that chopping veg is a somewhat hazardous operation, though, whilst watching Andy at set-point to level the match - I don't recommend it at all!

This made quite a decent amount of roast veg and there was some left over so I added the remainder to some garden grown salad leaves, beetroot and tomatoes for lunch yesterday - very nice indeed. It's also good stirred through some couscous along with a couple of spoonsful of dressing to moisten.

......and so we come to today’s match; at 2pm – the Wimbledon Men's Singles final. Ooo-er…missus! I have spent almost my entire life wanting this; will today be the day I’ve been waiting half a century for? I bloody hope so! C’mon Andy!!

Update:
Since I put this post on this morning Andy Murray has won the Men's Wimbledon Singles title!! Magnificent, astonishing, stupendous and every other superlative you can think of...! I never thought it would happen in my lifetime, so I am a very happy camper indeed. There wasn't a dry eye in the Simply Veggie household...it was a privilege and a pleasure to watch.

2 red onions
1 small aubergine
2 Romano red peppers
150g mushrooms
1 medium sweet potato
2 tbsp olive oil
black pepper
few sprigs of fresh rosemary
150g feta cheese

1tsp Dijon mustard
1tsp runny honey
1tbsp sherry vinegar
1tbsp olive oil
1tbsp walnut oil

a few snipped chives

Peel the onions and cut them through the root into eighths; chop the aubergine and peppers into chunks about 2 or 3cm square; peel and chop the sweet potato into chunky pieces; if the mushrooms are small leave them whole or halve them if larger. Put all the veg into a large plastic freezer bag (saves on washing up!) along with the olive oil, rosemary and a few grinds of black pepper; hold the top of the bag tightly shut and shake until all the veg are coated in oil.

Tip the vegetables into a large baking tin or two and roast at 200C for 30 minutes until cooked through and starting to char a bit at the edges.

Put the dressing ingredients into a small jam jar and shake like billy-o until the mixture emulsifies.

Once the roast veg are cooked, discard the rosemary and arrange a goodly amount of the veg on two plates; top with the crumbled feta and a sprinkling of snipped chives. Drizzle over a little dressing and serve with crusty bread.

Piedmont Roasted Peppers

 

Last night’s dinner was something that we usually eat in the summer but, having had my appetite whetted by seeing a thread about them on a food forum, I decided I really couldn’t wait several months for the weather to warm up a bit. Piedmont Peppers on February 1st – completely unseasonal but gorgeous at any time of the year...!

As usual I’ve had to vegetarianise this, but I think a few green olives add the required saltiness and I usually throw a few pine nuts on top just because I like them and they add a bit of texture.

We had them for a light dinner with a couple of chunks of fresh bread to mop up all the delicious juices, but just one pepper half with a rocket salad would be good as a starter too.

Word of warning – don’t try making this with green peppers, the flavour is all wrong; you really need the sweetness of the red variety.

2 red peppers
1 clove of garlic
16 green olives
3 tomatoes
4 dsp olive oil
black pepper
1 tbsp pine nuts

Turn the oven on to 180C. Halve the peppers through the stalk and remove the seeds but leave the stalk attached; put the peppers in a small roasting tin. Slice the peeled garlic and put three or four slices, followed by four green olives, in each pepper half. Put the tomatoes in a small bowl and cover with boiling water – leave for a minute or two then peel off the skins; cut into quarters, remove the cores and put three pieces of tomato on top of the garlic and olives.

Drizzle a dessertspoon of olive oil into each pepper half, grind over some black pepper and put into the oven for about 45 minutes. Take out of the oven, sprinkle over the pine nuts and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes until the edges of the peppers are starting to char at the edges.

Serve at room temp with lots of crusty bread.

Serves 2

Thai Green Curry

It seems ages since I last posted; I wouldn’t like you to think we've been fading away and not eating at all for the last three weeks or so, it's just that I haven't been cooking anything new and have just stuck to easy-peasy stuff that I can do with my eyes closed and which doesn’t require much thought.

I did manage to make some more chutney, though, using all the remaining fruit from the garden, I’ve also made loads of plum compote and I have six jars of Christmas mincemeat maturing quietly in the pantry, so I haven’t been entirely idle.

 

Before my recent cooking slump I had finally tracked down some Thai green curry paste. I’d been after some for ages, but trying to find one that's veggie was a bit like searching for the holy grail. Waitrose, god bless ‘em, came up trumps so a few weeks ago I added tofu, assorted veg, coconut milk and palm sugar to some of the paste and made what can only be described as a very mediocre meal…I was so disappointed; best thing I can say is, it was OK...ish.

Undaunted, I ventured into the kitchen on Friday to have another go; instead of tofu I used paneer (I seem to be off tofu at the moment for some reason) I also upped the ration of curry paste to give it a bit more zing, I changed the mix of veg and added loads of chopped coriander and a good squeeze of lime juice. This time it wasn’t mediocre, it was bloody brilliant! You will see at the end of the recipe that I’ve said it serves four…well, it would have done if the two of us hadn’t eaten it all!

 

1 pack of paneer
1 tbsp vegetable oil
125g sugar-snap peas, halved
125g baby corn, halved
150g small broccoli florets
1 red pepper, chopped into largish pieces
3 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
2 tbsp Thai green curry paste
1 tsp palm sugar
1 400g tin of coconut milk
handful of coriander, chopped
juice of half a lime

 

Chop the paneer into little batons (about half the size of your little finger) and fry in the vegetable oil in a large pan until golden on all sides; drain well and set aside on kitchen paper whilst you cook the curry.

In the same pan, in the residual oil, cook the baby corn, red pepper and broccoli for a few minutes, add the lime leaves, curry paste, palm sugar and coconut milk. Stir well and bring to a gentle simmer then immediately add the sugar snap peas and the cooked paneer; simmer for a few minutes (you want the veg to still have some ‘bite’). Stir in the coriander and lime juice and serve with rice.

 

Serves 4 (or two very greedy people!)

Roast Vegetable Quesadillas

It’s not been a great couple of weeks for cooking for two reasons: firstly, we’ve had a guy in doing some decorating in the sitting room and the kitchen (the entire contents of the pantry were spread across the worktops at one point; it was as much as I could do to make a sandwich for lunch!) and, secondly, I’ve been busy watching the Olympics…..well, there won’t be another Olympics in the UK in my lifetime so I thought I’d better make the most of it!

The kitchen is now back up and running again so yesterday I made some rather tasty Chilli Plum Chutney (recipe to follow) and today for lunch we had these quesadillas; nice and easy finger food to eat whilst we watched Jess Ennis and others giving their all in the quest for a gold medal.

I’ve made quesadillas before using up leftover chilli sans carne but, in the absence of any chilli, I roasted some peppers and a couple of courgettes and red onions from the garden. I find roast veg are absolutely addictive; it’s surprising any of them made it into our lunch because I was picking at them immediately they came out of the oven…! This will make more veg than you need for the quesadillas but the leftovers are brilliant with some herby couscous.

3 mixed peppers

1 large red onion

2 small courgettes

2 tbsp olive oil

¼ tsp cayenne

100g grated mature cheddar

4 soft flour tortillas

4 tbsp soured cream

2 tbsp chopped chives

few grinds black pepper

sprinkle of cayenne

Turn the oven on at 200C

Deseed the peppers and chop them into chunky pieces, cut the courgettes into thick slices on the diagonal, peel the onion and cut it into eighths through the root. Toss the veg together with the olive oil and the cayenne then put them in a shallow baking tray and roast for 20-25 minutes.

Mix the sour cream with the chives and plenty of black pepper, put into a small ramekin and sprinkle with cayenne.

Use the grated cheese, some of the roast veg and the tortillas to make two 'sandwiches'. Place each tortilla sandwich in a dry non-stick frying pan and cook over a medium heat for two or three minutes until the cheese starts to melt then flip over to cook the other side.

Cut into quarters and serve with the sour cream dip.

**You’ve probably already noticed that I’m a massive tennis fan; Andy Murray is in the singles final tomorrow against some Swiss bloke called Federer (!) Well, whilst I've been typing this Andy and Laura Robson have just booked a place in the mixed doubles - also tomorrow!! I’m so excited I can barely think straight…!**

Mixed Bean Salad with Tomato Dressing

Well, I’m amazed to be able to say that the weather forecasters were right for once in their lives; the weather has been glorious for the last couple of days so, following on from what I said a couple of weeks back, I had a go at recreating another one of my ‘This is Not from Waitrose’ salads yesterday. I decided to go for the mixed bean variety.

The bean part was easy but the dressing required some thought. I wanted a dressing that was tangy without being citrusy and something that would be thick enough to cling to the beans; I definitely didn’t want to end up with something resembling soup with the beans swimming in a sea of dressing! I decided to go for a tomato and balsamic combo; it took a while to get just the taste I was after but I got there eventually.

Now, I have to tell you that we had this for dinner last night with quiche and new potatoes…and we had to stop ourselves from eating it all – we loved it! There was about two spoonfuls left (!) which we ate alongside our lunchtime salad sandwich today; I’m happy to report that it was just as good after 24 hours in the fridge.

1 tin mixed beans, well-rinsed and drained
100g fine green beans
50g frozen soya beans
½ a Romano red pepper, diced
¼ of a medium red onion, finely chopped
small handful of roughly chopped curly parsley

2 sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 small clove garlic, chopped
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 heaped tsp sun-dried tomato paste
4 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp sugar
1 tbsp water
black pepper

Top and tail the green beans and cut into thirds; bring ½ inch of water to the boil in a small saucepan, add the green beans and the soya beans, bring back to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Drain and plunge into cold water then drain well again.

Put the mixed beans and the cooled green and soya beans into a bowl, add the diced red pepper, the finely chopped onion and the parsley and mix well.

Put all the dressing ingredients into a blender and blitz until almost smooth.
Stir the dressing into the salad, cover with cling film and refrigerate for a couple of hours to let the flavours amalgamate.

Serves 4 or maybe even 6 as part of a barbecue or buffet (or 2 extremely greedy simple veggies!)

Fruity Tagine with Lemon and Almond Couscous

The weather here has been awful for the last few days, constantly grey and cold, nothing like May should be at all. In a spirit of optimism we planted a whole lot of vegetable seeds last week but it’s been so chilly I’m not entirely convinced they’ll survive. However, there are reports of things warming up a bit later in the week; hmm…I’ll believe it when I see it!

So…what to eat? It’s too cold for light summery meals but I feel heavier winter meals should be over by now. I just didn’t know what to do for dinner last night; it was a case of opening the fridge to see what inspired me.

I finished up making this tagine; I’ve followed tagine recipes in the past that I’ve not been too impressed with, they just didn’t seem to do it for me, so this time I made it up as I went along, adding more of this and less of that to suit our taste. I make no claims as to its authenticity (I know you don’t usually find paneer in a tagine!) but we enjoyed it and I’ll definitely make it again.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large red onion, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp each of cumin, paprika and cinnamon
½ tsp chilli flakes
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into batons
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
1 tin chopped tomatoes
400ml stock
1 tbsp honey
250g paneer, cubed
1 tin chickpeas, drained
100g dried apricots, halved
handful of chopped coriander

200g couscous
275ml boiling stock
zest and juice of 1 lemon
50g toasted flaked almonds
handful of chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onion over a medium heat for five minutes; add the garlic and the spices and cook for a further minute or two.

Add everything else, except the chopped coriander, stir well and bring to the boil; pop a lid on and turn the heat down. Leave to simmer gently for 45 minutes.

About 10 minutes before the tagine is ready put the couscous, zest and juice of the lemon in a large bowl; add the boiling stock, stir once, cover the bowl with a plate and leave for 8-10 minutes. When all the stock has been absorbed, fluff up the couscous with a fork and stir in the toasted almonds and the chopped parsley.

Stir ¾ of the coriander into the tagine before serving and sprinkle the rest of it on top.

Serves 4

Italian Vegetable Soup

They've started already; the courgettes are on the march! I wasn't expecting the onslaught quite so soon, but they seem to like the weather we've been having this year.

Every year about this time I start cooking recipes to help me use up the courgette mountain that has arrived in the garden; allotment holders and hobby gardeners across the land will all be very familiar with this same annual scenario.

I use them regularly in two different soups, fritters and a couple of salads; I also add them to roast veg as well as stir-fries and a vegetable tart. Admittedly, after a few weeks we get a bit courgetted-out but I still get a ridiculous sense of pleasure from just wandering outside and picking something that will be on our plates within half an hour. I’m easily pleased.

This soup may just look like a rather speckled tomato soup but the courgettes add a subtle sub-taste whilst the pesto gives it an Italian twist.

1 onion, chopped
1 courgette, sliced
1 400g tin of tomatoes (you can use fresh tomatoes if you prefer)
1 red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
750 ml veg stock
a heaped tbsp of tomato pesto (I use Sacla Organic)
3 or 4 sprigs of basil

Fry the onion, courgette and pepper in the oil for 5 mins, add the garlic and continue to fry for another 5 mins; add the stock and tomatoes and simmer gently for 15 mins.

Take off the heat, add the basil and the tomato pesto then blend with a stick blender until smooth. Thin with a bit more stock if necessary.

Serve in mugs with plenty of good bread.

Serves 4

Aubergine, Pepper and Feta Quiche

It’s a hot one here today – 30C – and I’m bad tempered, tired, fed-up and thoroughly brassed-off! I absolutely hate hot weather, but I'm very grateful I live in a country where we only get a few days like this a year.

Nothing too strenuous today, it's too hot for fiddling about; quiche for lunch with a rather nice potato salad, made with the first ones we’ve dug from the garden this year, and a green salad.

a 20cm blind-baked pastry case (I used ready-made pastry)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small aubergine, chopped into 2cm chunks

1 red and 1 yellow pepper, chopped into largish chunks

1 red onion, peeled and cut into eighths through the root

4 cloves garlic, unpeeled

200g feta

3 eggs

250ml milk

½ tsp dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 200C. Put the prepared vegetables, garlic  and olive oil in a large bowl, mix well with your hands and turn the whole lot into a large roasting tin; roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the edges are beginning to char.

Once the veg are cooked, allow to cool then squeeze the garlic out of its papery skin and add it, along with the rest of the veg, to the pastry case; crumble over the feta then strain over the whisked eggs and milk and sprinkle with the dried oregano.

Bake at 200C for about 25 minutes until the top is puffed and golden.

Cool for 15 minutes before eating.

One-Pot Vegetable Pilaf

It’s probably the cold weather that’s doing it, but just lately I seem to want quick, easy meals that don’t entail a lot of faffing about and don’t need a lot of clearing up afterwards. This recipe hits the spot on both counts; it takes less than 30 minutes from chopping board to plate and the whole thing cooks in one pan. Result!

25g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large carrot, diced
1 red pepper, chopped
150g chestnut mushrooms, quartered
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 tbsp madras curry paste
150g basmati rice
300ml vegetable stock
150g broccoli florets
50g green beans
50ml coconut milk
1 tbsp chopped coriander
25g toasted flaked almonds

In a large deep frying pan sauté the onion, carrot, red pepper and mushrooms in the butter and olive oil for 5 minutes; add the garlic and curry paste and continue cooking for another minute.

Rinse the rice in plenty of cold water then add the rice and stock to the veg, stir well, bring to the boil then put the lid on and simmer for 8 minutes; add the green beans and broccoli and cook for another 4 minutes until the vegetables are just tender and the stock has been absorbed by the rice.


Stir the coconut milk and coriander into the pilaf and scatter with the toasted flaked almonds to serve.

Serves 2

Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

I had been planning to make a mushroom pate for our starter on Christmas Day but, because the weather had been so awful, there were no decent mushrooms to be found anywhere; this festive-coloured soup was a very good second choice – I served it in teacups and saucers with some toasted ciabatta.

It was light, tasty and warming; just right before a heavy main course and pudding.





400g tomatoes, quartered
2 red onions, peeled and cut into eighths
2 red peppers, cored and cut into large chunks
4 cloves garlic, peeled
few grinds of black pepper
½ tsp dried thyme
2tbsp olive oil
1l vegetable stock

Small jar of horseradish cream to serve

Put the tomatoes, onions, red peppers and garlic in a large roasting tin; drizzle over the olive oil, sprinkle with the black pepper and thyme then mix well with your hands so the veg are coated in oil. Roast at 200C for about 30 minutes until the veg are cooked and starting to char at the edges.

Transfer the cooked veg and all the tomatoey, peppery juices to a large saucepan, add the stock then bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes. If you like, you can scoop out and discard any loose tomato skins that rise to the surface, but I don’t worry too much about leaving the skins in. Take the pan off the heat and blitz the soup with a hand blender.

Serve in warmed bowls with a spoonful of horseradish cream.

Sausage Casserole

Sausage casserole....just the name makes you feel instantly more cheerful!

I was speaking on the phone to someone the other night when he mentioned he was having sausage casserole for dinner; it made me realise I haven't made this since I went veggie nearly 15 years ago! How could I have forgotten it? It used to be one of those weekday standby meals that I could prepare almost with my eyes shut; I decided it was high time it made a re-appearance.

OK, so I've dressed it up a little bit with a splash of red wine and some fresh thyme leaves, but it's still basically the one I used to make all those years ago, only now…..it's veggie!

6 Cauldron Lincolnshire Veggie Sausages
1 onion, thinly sliced
150gm chestnut mushrooms, quartered
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
50ml red wine
100ml vegetable stock
1 tin mixed beans, drained and rinsed
1 yellow pepper, chopped into chunks
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

Fry the onions and mushrooms in the olive oil until golden, add the sausages and fry until nicely brown on all sides then add all the other ingredients. Stir well, bring to the boil then simmer gently for 20 mins.

Serve with rice, potatoes, veg, crusty bread or whatever takes your fancy.

Roast Stuffed Butternut

In the winter when the weather's cold and miserable I find I always seem to cook the same old, same old, but I'm trying to break out of that rut.

It was blowing a gale out there last night; perfect conditions for having a rummage in the fridge and seeing what I could find to cook up something warming and different.

I love butternut squash, but I usually only use them for soup or chopped into chunks and cooked alongside roast potatoes. I've never used one as the basis of a main meal before, but I certainly will in future!

This recipe is infinitely adaptable; for the stuffing you can use whatever veg you have to hand and, although I used Feta, I suspect it would work equally well with Brie, Camembert or Mozzarella and if you don't have pine nuts, throw in a few chopped cashews or even olives instead.

See, I said it was adaptable.


1 butternut squash
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
6 button mushrooms, halved
1 small courgette
½ small red pepper
2 large shallots, peeled and cut into quarters
2 tomatoes quartered
2 tbsp pine nuts
100g feta, chopped into small chunks
1 tbsp grated parmesan-style cheese

Cut the squash in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits. Drizzle the squash with half the olive oil and put the chopped garlic in the cavities. Roast for 40 minutes at 200C until tender.

Meanwhile, chop the courgette and pepper into smallish chunks, mix with the shallot wedges, mushrooms and remaining olive oil, then roast for 20 minutes. Put the cooked veg in a large bowl, add the tomato quarters, pine nuts and feta chunks; mix well then pile onto the cooked squash halves. Sprinkle with the 'parmesan' and put back in the oven for a further 15 mins.

If you're absolutely ravenous you could serve some garlic bread with this, but to be honest it was very filling on its own.

Serves 2