Back now, October 16th 2015 ~ Dinner

I’m finally back , mainly because I remembered I meant to post more frequently and I realised I hadn’t been. This time I’m going to be posting a dinner I’ve made myself completely at my new student flat. It isn’t the first one I’ve made of course (I was cooking all last year) but it’s the first one I’ve actually bothered to photo so it’s the first “student” meal I’m posting. As you may have gathered this post was origonally meant to be posted 3 days ago but I’ve only just got round to finishing it.

The day I cooked this from scratch was one of those days where I got back and really really didn’t want to cook, but didn’t really have a choice in the matter (not if wanted to eat) I actually cooked this a few days ago, but I made enough to last 4 days.

So this is what I had, pasta (very typical student), vegetable & bean sauce/stew, broccoli and fried aubergine. On Wednesday and Tuesday (when I cooked this) I had it slightly different. (I was at home on Thursday night so didn’t have this)

This is how I had it on Tuesday and Wednesday: pasta, vegetable & bean sauce/stew and green beans.

basically on Tuesday I cooked it then stored the pasta  and sauce in tubs in the fridge to reheat then cooked fresh greens each day.

So onto the cooking. I knew I was going to do a sauce/stew with all the veg I had in the fridge in it. I know from past experience that carrots take a lot longer to cook than other veg so it’s best to steam them so till they’re nearly cooked first then add them to the sauce or everything else gets over cooked. So to start off I sliced up the carrots, I had fairly thin carrots so i just cut them into circles but if you’ve got larger ones you could cut them smaller, once these were cut I putt them in the steamer to steam through while I got on with the rest of the sauce.

I began with a base of a carton of cut tomatoes with chilli, I then added a tin of borlotti beans (for protein) I used these cos I had 4 tins of them but you could use whatever beans you wanted. I then sliced two medium onions and half a pepper into cubes and added these to the mix. I would have added more veggies but these were all I had. I then thought I’d better put in some Flax Seed Oil, this stuff is disgusting, but in a vegan diet, if you don’t want to take supplements, this is one of very few sources of Omega 3’s and 6’s which are very important to stay healthy. As I said it’s disgusting but if you put it in a sauce you usually can’t taste it, I however did put too much in, which lead to a mad dash to try to mask the taste with other stuff, all I had was salt, ground pepper and mixed herbs, I added a very tiny amount of salt (I usually wouldn’t add any to a sauce) and more ground pepper and mixed herbs than I’d usually add, as I could still taste the flax oil I then decided the best thing to add was tomato ketchup as it was all I had that I could use (I would NEVER normally put this in) but I squirted some in and mercifully it did mask the taste of the flax oil. By then the carrots were steamed through to nearly cooked so I added them as well. It was at this stage I put the greens on to steam, as I mentioned earlier I had green beans on Tuesday and Wednesday, then I had broccoli Friday. Now green beans take a lot less time to cook then broccoli, but broccoli is more of a “typical” green (and it’s very healthy) but I didn’t have any broccoli till today and I had green beans which were open, so they needed using up. for the beans I took of the ends then sliced the longer ones in half then dumped them in the steamer, for the broccoli I cut of a few florets I sliced the largest in half (so it takes less time to cook then placed them in the steamer. You could have whatever greens you wanted I like these so it’s what I have.

Once the greens were cooking (and heading towards finished) I put in the pasta (as it hardly takes any time to cook) I put it in the boiling water I’m using to steam the greens (to save on washing up) while it’s going I’m continually stirring the sauce so it doesn’t burn to the bottom of the pan, once it’s bubbled up I usually take it as cooked and remove the pan with the sauce in from the heat, or turn it down to a very low simmering heat just to keep it warm. The greens are usually done before the past so I put these on the plate and then once the pastas done I use the steamer to drain the pasta. Once the pasta been drained I tip it back in the pan and put in a drizzle of olive oil and mix it round. Then put out however much pasta I want and add sauce and it’s done.

When it comes to fried aubergine, it’s totally up to you if you do this, but I love aubergine which is why I did it. It can be a bit finicky to get right, first slice the aubergine, I say about 5-7mm thick is best but if they’re ticker or thinner that’s fine just alter cooking time. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, then place the aubergine slices in (be careful as it will spit), sprinkle with a very small amount of sea salt then turn over and sprinkle again, then leave these sizzling. They do need to be watched very carefully or they will burn and you will have carbonated aubergine. When they’re done they should be browned all over and still slightly mushy, make sure you cook both sides too. Then serve immediately.

So that’s it that was tea for most off last week!

Saturday 6th December ~ Dinner

Yes, today I am actually posting the dinner on the actual day I ate it. Today for dinner I had risotto and broccoli. As I was still at home this was cooked by my mum.

To make the risotto first cook the rice, in this risotto there is carrot, peas, (green) pepper, onions, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. But this is a thing where you can put in anything really, mushrooms (if you like them) and raisins,work well in risotto. The only reason why we had green pepper in this was because when my parents went shopping my dad bought a bag of peppers which consisted of 5 green peppers and 1 yellow pepper, rather than looking for a bag with red and yellow peppers (which are much nicer). Cut the vegetables up in to small pieces (cubed or diced).

Once the rice is cooked place in a frying pan or wok on a low heat. The vegetables, seeds, e.c.t. can be added straight in with the rice. When it comes to the cheese we use Cheezly Mozzarella Style, my mum has used a variety of ways to add the cheese. The quickest is to just add a lump and stir it round till it’s mixed in or you could grate it all on top then stir it in again. Today my mum went with grate some cheese over mix that in, then grate a little more and stir in, and keep going till there is enough cheese in the risotto, which really comes down to personal taste.

As for the broccoli this is easy, put a pan of water on to boil, place steamer over the top, cut the broccoli into manageable pieces and place in steamer. The broccoli will be cooked when you can easily put a knife into the fleshy part of the stalk (well that’s the method I use when I cook broccoli and it is the ‘greens’ I cook most) and that’s basically it.

So concluding today’s dinner!

Thursday October 2nd ~ Dinner

I know it’s ages since I last put a post up on here but I re-sparked my other blog (Life is Truly Random) at the end of November and have been posting on there regularly and today I “re-found” some photo’s of dinners. So I decided I might as well put them up, since I carried on taking photo’s of my dinners even though I wasn’t posting them, there are probably quite a few on the family computer (where I do final downloads of photo’s) but they will come up as and when I find them. They probably won’t really be in any order either, it’s just when I find them.

On a side note I have started at University now and moved out so I’m cooking for myself, I haven’t taken any food photo’s since I started at University though (I might start though – to show vegan ‘student’ food) but today’s post is a dinner I found from back in October, but it was when I was home for that day so it’s my Mum’s cooking, not mine.

Dinner October 2nd: homemade burger, with tomato sauce, broccoli pasta and ‘experiment’.

Since it was so long ago I have completely forgotten what was in the burgers, I know it wasn’t one of the vegan burger mixes though, but I really can’t remember what was in them. Upon asking my Mum (I’m home for weekend) she said they were probably black eye bean burgers, with carrot and fried onion and breadcrumbs. My mum said she usually just put’s in what she has around, but ‘mushy’ stuff which can be mashed together. She usually uses no-egg to help them stick together then fries them with a little olive oil.

The tomato sauce was (most likely) made with pasata, a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, 1 clove of garlic and some chopped basil or dried oregano. these measurement’s are for enough sauce for a family of 5 so you can adjust them to suit your needs.

The broccoli breadcrumbs pasta is a great (and pretty easy) recipe. First put the broccoli on to steam, you can use the stem for this as well. Cut the pieces up as this will cut down the time and make your life easier later on.

While the broccoli is steaming it’s time to prepare the breadcrumbs. My mum buy’s breadcrumbs from Sainsbury’s but you could also make you’re own by toasting bread then crumbling it up (before we brought bread crumbs, we did this with a hand machine which crushed the bread) then you could put the toast in a bag then bash it with a rolling-pin to make the bread crumbs. The breadcrumbs are then lightly fried, this needs constant supervision as they will burn really easily then the whole lot might be ruined, so don’t put them on then leave them.

Check the broccoli, it needs to be really well cooked to mush well. When it’s done you can put the pasta shells into the water, which you were steaming the broccoli over. Tip the broccoli into a bowl (you will need quite a big bowl) and mash into tiny pieces with a potato masher, when it is all mashed up add the fried breadcrumbs and mix well. When it is all mixed up together, drain the pasta and add it to the broccoli and breadcrumbs and mix it together, try to cover the pasta equally. If the bowl is full before the pasta goes in (or you have way more broccoli and breadcrumbs than pasta) tip some into a separate bowl before putting the pasta in, you can always add some back in if there isn’t enough. When it is all mixed together that’s done, finished!

Finally the ‘experiment’, this was invented by my Mum a few years back and since we all liked it so much she has made it many times since and slightly refined the recipe. First you need to put the oven on to pre-heat (on about gas mark 6). Then you need ‘Jus Rol’ puff pastry sheets (though it would probably work with any puff pastry sheets). Lay the pastry sheets out on a baking tray. Then cut a large tomato (you’ll probably need 2 for one sheet of pastry) into slices and lay them on the sheet so the whole sheet is mostly covered. Then sprinkle some dried oregano over the top and drizzle a small amount of olive oil on as well. Finally grate a little vegan cheese (we use Cheezly Mozzarella Style) over the top. Then put in to oven following the cooking guidelines for your pastry, I’m not entirely sure how long it will take as we have a useless oven which takes twice as long to cook as only one half of the top shelf cooks so you have to turn it round halfway through. Just make sure it doesn’t burn, it is done when the pastry is lightly browned and the cheese has all melted. Then cut up and serve!

That concludes October the 2nd’s dinner recipe!

Thursday March 20th ~ dinner

Tonight’s dinner was roast potato with left over caponata and salad. The caponata stuff was put in the fridge so it was still okay today (see Monday March 17th ~ dinner post for instruction on making caponata). First it was reheated on the stove then as there wasn’t loads left mum bulked it up with some kidney beans in water. And left it to boil then simmer so it stayed hot while the potatoes cooked, it did need stirring occasionally though so it didn’t burn to the bottom of the pan. For the potatoes mum washed then rubbed in olive oil then a little sea salt before baking at gas mark 9 for a few hours, on most ovens you would not need to bake them for this long at this temperature, but our oven is useless and only cooks the front half of the top shelf really slowly so that was why they were cooked for so long. When they were put on the plates mum cut across the top so the potatoes were in four pieces, then added vegan margarine (Pure) on top, before putting on a few scoops of caponata. The salad was ready washed stuff, I didn’t really want any salad (I’m not a big fan of salad) but I had a bit so I was having some greens. Below are the kidney beans we use, as they were mentioned in yesterday’s post too, so I thought I’d just post which ones they were up on here.

Monday March 17th ~ dinner

Yes, another dinner post. I was going to do lunch or breakfast but I didn’t have time to do photos for either (I was running way late for college, then I didn’t eat lunch time 3.00pm)

So any way, dinner tonight was caponata (Sicilian spicy aubergine stew), pasta, chickpeas and a bit of left over stir-fry. because my mum had to go the pharmacy and collect my little brother from our cousins house I actually cooked dinner today.

Caponata is basically cubed aubergine, pepper and onion. then you fry them up with a little olive oil, and stir on chopped tomatoes (or tomato sauce), then add a little chilli powder and crush a few cloves of garlic on and stir. (I had to do this in the wok as I had 2 medium aubergines, 1 large red pepper and 2 medium onions – well it is to feed 5 of us – but with less you could just use a frying pan)

Then pasta is easy, boil water pour in pasta stir regularly, then when cooked, drain and drizzle a little olive oil over (so it doesn’t get stuck together). The chickpeas were kind of pre-cooked ones (from a packet of chickpeas in water) these packets of beans in water – are very useful for when you are in a rush! They were then heated up in the microwave (when mum got home and realised there wasn’t much protein otherwise)

I mention chilli powder so here is the one we use ‘Sainsburys hot chilli powder’.