Hearty and Healthy Volume 1

Transcription

1 An Easy Green Recipe Collection Hearty and Healthy Volume 1 Vegetarian recipes for people who don t think they could ever be satisfied with meat-free meals Jennifer Richards - easygreenrecipes.com 1

2 Hearty and Healthy Volume 1 Jennifer Richards easygreenrecipes.com 2

3 Jennifer Richards 2017 Feel free to reproduce these recipes as many times as you like in your own kitchen. If you d like to reproduce the words or pictures in any way contact me at easygreenrecipes.com 3

4 Contents Page 5 - Introduction Page 6 - Twisted Cottage Pie Page 8 - Vegetable Curry Page 11 - Egyptian Tomatoes and Slow Cooked Onions Page 13 - Roast Tomato and Thyme Pasta Sauce Page 15 - Pepperonata 4

5 Introduction Eating less meat is a simple response to a big, complicated environmental problem. It can also be great for your health (if you are eating too much) and quite a handy way to get your household food budget under control. However, one of the biggest challenges that you can face when trying out Meat-free Mondays or weekday vegetarianism is that the thought of a meal without meat can terrify your family members. This is a collection of some of the meat free recipes that work well in my family. The Twisted Cottage Pie is my favourite - I didn t tell my husband and he didn t even know it wasn t mince; Pepperonata is my stand by meal and The Egyptian Tomatoes and Slow Cooked onions shows that hearty food doesn t have to be expensive. Eat well and enjoy! 5

6 Twisted Cottage Pie This meat free cottage pie recipe is the ultimate vegetarian-by-stealth meal. Looks just like the real thing. Just as yummy, as comforting and as filling as the real thing. However, without meat it is kinder to the earth, the wallet and the waistline. The trick is not to tell your family that it doesn t have meat - they will never know! Don t be daunted by the way this recipe has several steps. If you don t want to cook dried lentils use left over ones or a tin. If you have leftover mash potato you can use that instead of cooking up a new batch. Ingredients 1/2 cup of brown lentils (dried) 2 cups of water 1 bay leaf OR 400g tin of lentils instead of these three ingredients Pinch of Salt 3 large Potatoes 1 tablespoon butter Splash of milk OR equivalent leftover mash potatoes 6

7 Twisted Cottage Pie 2 large field mushrooms 2 medium sized carrots 1/2 red capsicum 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 leek OR 1 onion 1 400g tin diced tomatoes 1 tsp dried oregano 2 handfuls dried red lentils Grated Cheese 1. Combine brown lentils, water, bay leaf and salt in a saucepan and simmer around 30mins until lentils are tender. Drain and discard bay leaf. Set aside. Or skip this step by grabbing a 400g tin of lentils. 2. Dice potatoes (cut into cubes) and put them in a saucepan with enough cold water to cover and a pinch of salt. Bring the water to a boil and simmer until a butter knife can be poked through the potato without much resistance. 3. Drain and mash with butter and a few splashes of milk. Set aside. 4. In a food processor, blitz up mushrooms, carrots and capsicum until the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. (You can also chop them finely - but blitzing them is less work and tends to fool people into thinking the mixture has meat in it!) 7

8 Twisted Cottage Pie 1. Slice leek or dice onion and crush or chop garlic. In a little olive oil, over a medium heat, gently fry garlic clove and leek/onion. 2. Add vegetable mix from the food processor, then the lentils. Fry 5 min. 3. Add tomatoes, oregano and red lentils. Bring to boil then simmer 10 mins. 4. Transfer this mixture to an oven proof dish and top with mash potato by lightly flicking chunks over the surface to cover. Spread grated cheese on top. 5. Bake in a 180 degree oven until potato golden (45mins-1 hour). If you try this meat free cottage pie recipe for a carnivore in your house don't tell them first! It is much more effective to have them think that there is meat in it before revealing the truth! 8

9 Vegetable Curry This easy vegetable curry recipe was born one night when I was looking for hearty comfort food, but with very few fresh ingredients on hand. It is one of those recipes where you can substitute pretty much everything and still it turns out well. That makes it a great way to use up what's left over in the fridge at the end of the week. There's not a lot of curry paste so the flavour is mild enough for the kids. It is also a one pot wonder - so less washing up! Ingredients Splash of oil 1 onion 2 heaped Tablespoon commercial curry paste 1 carrot 1 small cauliflower 1 tin chickpeas 1 tin diced tomatoes 1 tin of coconut milk 1/2 cup frozen peas Currants, almonds or herbs to garnish Tip: Instead of cauliflower try potato, sweet potato, pumpkin or eggplant. If you don't have any of these, add a second diced carrot and add 1/2 cup of brown lentils 9

10 Vegetable Curry 1. Slice onion into slivers. Dice Carrot. Cut cauliflower into flowerettes. 2. Over a medium heat, gently fry the onion in the oil until soft and sweet. 3. Add curry paste, mix through onions, and gently fry til fragrant. 4. Add carrot, cauliflower and chickpeas and coat in curry paste mixture. Cook 1 minute. 5. Add tomatoes, and as much of the coconut milk as you like (the more you add the richer and creamier it will be). Depending on how much of the coconut milk you add, you might need a little water or stock to cover veg mixture. 6. Bring to boil and simmer for 15mins. 7. Add peas and cook for another 5 mins. 8. Serve with rice and a sprinkle of currants, herbs or slivered almonds for pizzazz. 10

11 Egyptian Tomatoes and Slow Cooked Onions Once upon a time, I held a vegetarian cooking night at my place. My friend Lynne came and taught a group of other friends a version of the Egyptian dish Kusherie or (less exotic sounding) Rice and Lentils with tomato and slow cooked onions. This dish is a really yum way of turning ingredients that you could always have in the cupboard into a satisfying meal. This meal served 6 with some left over, but must have cost about less than $5 all up. Amazing value really. This is her recipe (as I remember it). Ingredients 1 cup of dried lentils 1 cup brown rice 3-4 cups of water (or stock) 1 bay leaf 3-4 onions - cut into rings Another small onion 1 small chilli 1 teaspoon baharat (middle eastern spice mix) 2 x 400g tins of crushed or diced tomatoes 11

12 Egyptian Tomatoes and Slow Cooked Onions 1. Heat a little oil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. 2. Combine one cup of dried brown lentils and one cup of brown rice in the saucepan and toast in the oil for 5 mins, stirring constantly. 3. Then add 3-4 cups of water (or stock) and one bay leaf. Simmer until lentils are tender and water absorbed. 4. Cut 3-4 onions into rings. 5. Heat a little more oil in a frypan over a med-low heat. 6. Toss onions in the oil, then cook slowly til browned and sweet (like they are when BBQ d) 7. Dice a small onion. 8. Fry in a little oil with half a chilli (Lynne used a hot, home-grown habanero) and 1 tsp Baharat spice mixture until fragrant. 9. Add 2 tins of tomatoes, bring to the boil and simmer til slightly thickened. 10. Serve in bowl with rice and lentils on bottom, sauce spooned over them and topped with onions. 12

13 Roast Tomato and Thyme Pasta Sauce When I made this up I was free-styling, with a memory of having followed a recipe by Stephanie Alexander from The Cook s Companion once before. This recipe can be frozen easily. It is delicious with pasta or as a base for pizza. Posher people than I probably peel the tomatoes or use a food mill to get rid of the skin. But seriously, life s too short I just stick the hand blender in. This recipe is great to make in Autumn when you can often find 1kg bags of tomatoes at a great price. Because it is largely a set-and-forget recipe it is easy to prepare while you are putting together another dish. Ingredients 1kg of tomatoes 1 brown onion 6 cloves of garlic (or more if that s the way you like it!) 8 sprigs of Thyme 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar Black Pepper Sea Salt Olive Oil 13

14 Roast Tomato and Thyme Pasta Sauce 1. Cut all tomatoes in half and lay in baking dish cut side up. 2. Cut onion in half, then slice into slivers. Sprinkle them over the tomatoes 3. Peel garlic cloves and remove leaves from thyme sprigs by pinching stem between fingers and running them down stem. Add these to baking dish. 4. Sprinkle or slug the remaining ingredients over the top of everything. 5. Bake in a moderate oven (180 degree Celsius) for about an hour or until tomatoes are collapsing. 6. Allow to cool slightly, then transfer to blender or container with which you can use a hand blender and blend until smooth. 7. Serve on pizza or pasta straight away or freeze in individual portions. This can also be added to soups or casseroles instead of passata or tomato paste. 14

15 Pepperonata - Theme and Variations This basic recipe has served me well over the past decade. When capsicums are in season, the ingredients barely cost a thing. It isn t essential to have red and yellow capsicums, however I do think that two different colours looks nice. I often use red and green or two reds. But this recipe has about a dozen variations that keep it interesting and give it the flavour of a particular part of the world. I ve listed them below. Ingredients 1 onion - brown or red, depending on your preference 1 garlic clove 1 red capsicum 1 yellow capsicum 1 400g tin of crushed tomatoes 15

16 Pepperonata - Theme and Variations 1. Slice onion in half then into thin slivers. 2. Slice both capsicums into long thin strips. 3. Gently fry the onions in a little oil over a medium heat until soft and sweet. 4. Crush or finely chop garlic and mix it through. 5. Add capsicums and fry gently until soft (about 8 minutes). 6. Add tomatoes and stew gently over a low heat for approx minutes Variations Spice it up by adding a sliced chilli at the same time as the capsicums Different spice mixes can be added with the garlic to give the dish a unique flavour. Add half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and half a teaspoon of cumin to make it Mexicany and serve it instead of taco mince. Add ras el hanout for a Moroccan flavour. Bharat works well for a middle eastern flavour (then serve this with Lamb, Tabbouli and flatbreads). Add a tin of beans of any kind (like black beans, cannellini beans, red kidney beans) to give this dish an extra boost of protein that makes it feel more meaty. 16

17 If you don t think that you can be properly filled on vegetarian dishes, think again. These meals are healthy and filling family favourites. 17