Casserole

This is a bit of a regular around here - in fact, it is a week or so since I took these pictures, and I have another one in the oven as I write.

The basics: veg over dried stuff!

The raw veg - potato, parsnip, swede, carrot and tomato (I forgot the onion until after taking pics!) - sprinkled with pepper and paprika. I vary the vegetable content and spices each time. I think this one also has pearl barley and lentils under the veg. Today's offering has dried soup mix in.


Gravy - this can just be Bisto powder with water, but sometimes I add tomato puree or yeast extract for extra flavour.

Veg soaked in gravy, ready to go in the oven. I normally put it in at about 180 centigrade/celsius, and it needs an hour to an hour and a half to cook everything through. Not fast, but fairly low maintenance in that it doesn't need anything doing to it during this time!

Veganicity on a shoestring #3 - bean and veg casserole

Any raw foodists reading this will probably be throwing their hands up in despair at the turn my blog has been taking lately, but I am trying to eat healthily in the winter - with a very active life and no central heating at home - on a very tight budget, so the meals I've been posting fit that need pretty well. A lot of it is pretty consistent with 70s wholefood diets, except for the fact that I sometimes use tins! (oh and also white rice/pasta...)

This made one-and-a-half me-size helpings! (clue: I'm not small or currently off my food)

Ingredients
1 standard tin chickpeas
2 large carrots
Half a large onion
Half a standard tin of tomatoes (tomatoes are one vegetable that actually benefits healthwise from the cooking/tinning process, apparently it promotes some kind of useful nutrient)
3 teaspoons Bisto
1 tablespoon tomato puree
About two coffee mugs of water

Put the bisto and tomato puree in a saucepan and slowly stir the water in. Turn the heat on/up under it and keep stirring until the gravy thickens.

Slice the carrots, chop the onion, and put them in an ovenproof pottery dish (my blue glazed one is older than me, my mum had it first...) with the chickpeas and tomatoes. Stir so the ingredients are evenly mixed. Add the gravy so it covers everything.

Turn the oven up to 180/200 C (flexible depending on what else you want to put in there - I had it on higher at the start because I was making bread, since the oven happened to be on). Leave the casserole in for about an hour, until the carrots are cooked through. If you don't have either a dish with a lid or a handy piece of tinfoil, keep it on the bottom shelf and give it a stir at some point so the stuff at the top doesn't get burned!

Veganicity on a shoestring #2 - vegetable stew

Sadly I don't have my mother's dumpling-making talents! Anyway, this is what I was eating on Saturday - I had a 'crash' day where my body tried to recover all the energy used and not topped up over the past week, so although this made three or four helpings I ended up eating the whole lot...

Ingredients
A pot of stock - see the previous recipe for how I make this
One large potato
One sweet potato (or another normal one - I had these because they were on special offer)
Three large carrots (good way to use up frost-damaged ones)
Half a tin of tomatoes (leftover from the other day)
Beans, probably the equivalent to a normal tin - I used chick peas and butter beans from the freezer though.
Three cloves of garlic.

Basically you 'make' this by putting the lid on the pot and leaving it to simmer for an hour! You can also add pearl barley, pretty much any root vegetable, or indeed onions except I didn't have one to hand...

Leek and potato soup

Ingredients:
1 leek and 2 decent sized potatoes per person
Water (duh)
Margarine
Seasoning
Soy milk/cream (optional)

Cut the potatoes up fairly small, boil in the water until they get to the slightly overcooked stage.
While the potatoes are boiling, fry the chopped leeks in the margarine. Add the seasoning - if you're being really basic just use pepper, garlic also works.
Mash the potatoes a bit - they don't have to be completely mashed, more a lumpy puree. (you will notice that I don't own a blender. They can be useful, but are not essential to life!)
Add the leaks and any residual margarine. Simmer everything until tastes merge.

And of course I came to work with no lunch so am feeling hungry after writing this!

Sweetcorn chowder!

Yes, in true vegan style I am apologising for a long absence by giving you the know-how to make one of my favourite meals! This is actually pretty quick to make, and also useful if you have a cupboard full of tins and no time to shop for fresh stuff. (Obviously only if at least one tin contains sweetcorn, haha)

Ingredients:
1 small tin sweetcorn per person (large tin if you're hungry!)
2 cloves garlic per person
Enough margarine to melt over the base of a saucepan
Enough cornflour to absorb all the margarine
Spices - last night I used nutmeg, cinnamon, paprika and cayenne pepper; another version involves mustard powder.
Enough soymilk to turn the paste into soup

Putting the ingredients together:
Melt the margarine in a saucepan. It should cover the bottom but doesn't need to be too deep. If using Marks and Spencer margarine, get the non-dairy one that *isn't* low-fat as the other is crap for cooking and smells a bit like wax when melted.
Add the sweetcorn and garlic to the margarine, stir frequently, get the corn warmed through
Add spices to taste
Remove the pan from the heat, add the cornflour and stir in well to avoid lumps.
SLOWLY add soymilk, stirring often. Note that the mixture will thicken when back on the heat, so make it a bit more liquidy than you will eventually want.
Put the pan back on the heat (this isn't one to eat cold!). Keep stirring until the mixture warms up and thickens.
Serve with bread, croutons, or if you're me this week crumbled tortilla chips. Don't ask.