Vegetarian Recipes

General Notes on Recipes

All of these recipes should be classified as "easy-peasy". Timings and measures are non-critical. You don't need any special skills or equipment to cook them (you could make most of them in a billy-can on a camp-fire).

There are not many measures in these recipes, and no exact ones. Instead I use quantities such as "a handful". As a consequence it's imperative to taste what you're cooking, check that the texture is what you wanted, and so on; and make adjustments as you're going along. That's how I like to cook. Things don't always work out quite right the first time, and they never come out exactly the same; but one major benefit of cooking this way is that you can't get bored of your own cooking (if it seems boring, then just change something).

Most of this food is sloppy stuff - sauces and soups, mainly. It's mostly vegetarian, and all the recipes can be made vegan without any damage at all, if they aren't vegan already. Usually this amounts to nothing more than omitting the butter, or replacing it with some kind of oil. Milk is an exception; I don't know of a decent milk substitute (I've never tried to cook with soya milk - it might work OK). None of this is 'diet food', although most of it could probably be adapted to fit in with various different kinds of dietary regime. But it's all healthy stuff, mostly made from whole ingredients, and avoiding heavily-processed products.

Equipment

Most of the recipes can be cooked in a single pot, usually something about 8 inches across by 6 inches deep. You also need a wooden stirring spoon, and a knife and a chopping-board.

Small pan

A milk pan - about 6" across by 6" deep.

Medium pan

A saucepan - 8"-10" across by 6"-8" deep.

Ovenproof dish

A ceramic, heatproof serving dish about 1" deep, and holding about a pint.

Standard Ingredients

This is a list of some of the stuff that goes into lots of my recipes, and is always in stock (or else I'm in trouble).

Olive Oil

Extra Virgin. I've tried fancy (and expensive) oils, and they taste very nice on a piece of good bread, or in salads; but they don't make any difference in cooking. So I use a supermarket own-brand Extra-Virgin for cooking.

Rice

I stock two kinds of rice: brown basmati, and white basmati. 'Basmati' means 'The perfumed one', and it does have a distinctive aroma. This makes more of a difference with white rice than with brown.

Spices

I have ground cumin, coriander-seed, chili-powder, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger root, and usually some saffron. Actually I have a lot of other spices on my shelf, but those are the ones that run out.

Herbs

Fresh basil or fresh coriander (cilantro) occur in most of my recipes. Herbs in pots seem to die when I try to grow them; so I have to buy them in. I also use parsley. None of those herbs work at all well in dried form; although you can buy them dried, it seems they lose their flavour. I do use Oregano and Dill in dried form - they seem to work fine.

Beans

I use just a few different kinds of beans.

Kidney beans are the big, red ones that often turn up in chillis and the like.

Pinto beans are the colour of milky coffee, with dark brown squiggles on, and about the size of kidney beans. They are also called rose-coco beans (West Indies), or (I think) Borlotti beans (Italy). "Pinto" is the Mexican name (apparently it means "painted", I suppose in reference to the squiggles).

Haricot beans are the ones that Baked Beans are made from. They're smaller than the other beans, and don't really need soaking.

No doubt you can use other beans; these are just the ones I know how to use.