Here’s a recipe inspired by a four day cookery and meditation retreat at Sharpham House I went on recently. This was the recipe I made as soon as I got home from the trip. It was for supper that same evening – I couldn’t wait to start trying out what I had learnt, even after…
Category: Vegetarian
Chilled watercress soup
The heatwave continues. It was around 30C yesterday so I took the day off and went to Brockwell Lido, a massive open air pool in Brockwell Park, Herne Hill (aka ‘Brixton Beach’). I love the lido – in this kind of heat I just want access to an outdoor pool and to feel like I’m…
Asparagus frittata
I made this frittata for brunch last Sunday during the April heatwave. That week we had enjoyed several days of heavy heat and bright sunshine and the supermarkets were full of people in shorts and T shirts buying up barbecue food. This frittata seemed to me the perfect al fresco, late breakfast option for a…
Spicy pea dip with smoked paprika vegetables
This is a quick supper dish which is great for using up veg from the fridge before it goes off. I cooked it yesterday because I was getting low on food and too lazy to go shopping (and I’m trying to save money so resisted the temptation to order a takeaway). I love the flavour…
Pasta bake
With the temperature plummeting it’s time to roll out some comfort, carb heavy recipes. As pasta bakes are cheap, tasty and very easy to make they can be top of your list. I say easy but I have just remembered an occasion years ago when I was cooking with my then teenage niece and we…
Pea and mint soup with Parmesan crisp
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This soup ticks all the ‘cheap, fresh and easy’ boxes. It’s also incredibly quick and can be made in less than 10 minutes. I always have a bag of frozen peas in the freezer and a mass of mint growing in a pot in the garden –…
Griddled chicory with Gorgonzola dressing
This was a recipe I planned to use as a first course but with sourdough bread it was really substantial and I was too full to eat anything else. It’s based on a Jamie Oliver recipe which uses radicchio (which I couldn’t find so I used chicory instead) and raisins (which I didn’t have in…
Twice baked cheese soufflés on mushroom steaks
There is so much mystique around soufflés and how hard they are to make that it is only last year that I made my first soufflé. It was so easy I couldn’t believe I hadn’t made them before. The key thing is to be very careful about folding the whisked egg whites into the mixture…
Roasted beetroot, orange and feta salad
Beetroot is one of those vegetables people either love or hate. Roasting beetroot in olive oil and sea salt is completely different to eating tiny balls of vacuum packed beetroot soaked in vinegar. So if you have negative experiences of beetroot please give this roasted recipe a go. Beetroot provides a big flash of colour…
Minestrone
I’ve been working away for a few weeks recently, just coming home for long weekends. Before I started working away I tried to use up as much food as possible from the fridge, to avoid waste and save money on shopping. Like most people I know I often find myself throwing fresh food away and,…
Roasted whole celeriac
This is my version of a Jamie Oliver’s ‘Zombie’ brain recipe – a whole roasted celeriac. I served it with courgettes and Cavolo Nero, instead of pearl barely. It’s a perfect vegetarian alternative to a traditional roast dinner and is very quick and easy to prepare. I have kept the garlic whole because I wanted…
Cheap and cheesy vegetable bake
I popped into Sainsbury’s on my way back from a trip to Somerset on Sunday and found a packet of Brussels sprouts in the bargain section – 300g reduced from 80p to 19p – so I decided to use them in a vegetable bake. Added to a few florets of cauliflower (taken from a cauliflower…
Broccoli and Stilton soup
I was sitting up in bed on Saturday morning planning my week’s food shopping – reading through recipes online, as well as my cook books, while drinking cups of tea in the warm. I came across this article (How to make the perfect broccoli and Stilton soup by Felicity Cloake) so decided to add this soup…
Melanzane alla Parmigiana (baked aubergine with Parmesan)
This is my version of baked aubergines cooked in tomato sauce and Parmesan. I never get sick of aubergines. They are hearty and versatile and a good staple for a vegetarian diet. Aubergines are brilliant for dips, tagines, stews like ratatouille and of course cooked simply on their own. I often just brush them with…
Puy lentils with anchovies and toasted pine nuts
I always keep Puy lentils in the cupboard and much prefer them for salads than green or brown lentils which I use for cooked lentil recipes like vegetarian shepherd’s pie. Puy lentils go very well with anchovies and toasted pine nuts and I’ve just added some hard boiled eggs in this recipe for a more…
Super green lasagne
I had a similar lasagne last week at The Magic Garden pub in Battersea – it was delicious – and as usual when I find something particularly good I want to see if I can make my own. The Magic Garden used asparagus and I did too because I found a packet at a reduced…
Roasted cauliflower steaks with vierge sauce
This is a surprisingly substantial and filling dish and at about £1.50 a portion is incredible value. The cauliflower retains a firm texture and the vierge sauce is fresh, crunchy and colourful. Adding capers to the sauce gives the dish a sharp and piquant flavour. This is a very easy meal to make and only takes about…
Happy halloumi burger
I had a brilliant day last Saturday. I met up with some of my best friends to watch the fireworks at the end of the Lord Mayor’s show from a boat on the Thames (followed by a little cruise up and down river). Before that I wandered around the food stalls on the South Bank…
Antonio Carluccio’s beetroot lasagne
I was very sad to hear of the death yesterday of Antonio Carluccio. I loved watching him in cooking programmes over the years and listening to him talk about growing up in Italy during the war and foraging for food – to make meals from mushrooms and nettles. His cooking reflects so much of the…
Quick and easy mushroom stroganoff
This is one of my regular recipes. I prefer it to beef stroganoff as it’s incredibly cheap (the mushrooms only cost around £2 or £3) and so fast you can rustle it up in about 10 minutes. I like to use a mixture of mushrooms, in this case chestnut mushrooms and some large Portobello mushrooms…
Spicy pumpkin soup
This tasty seasonal soup uses small eating pumpkins/butternut squash, not the giant Jack o’Lanterns people use for Halloween. I used a pumpkin the size of a large grapefruit and half a butternut squash I had left over from another meal. I also bought a couple of adorable munchkin pumpkins but I struggled to chop them…
Spaghetti with minty aubergine and sun-dried tomato sauce
Aubergines are cheap and nutritious and make a great base for a spaghetti sauce. I watched Rick Stein make something similar to this recipe based on a Sicilian dish but he used tinned tomatoes which I didn’t have (very unusual for me) so I made it with a few sun-dried tomatoes and tomato puree instead….
Big batch vegetarian chilli
Batch cooking is one of the best ways to keep costs down and you don’t have to lose out on flavour just because you’re on a budget. I regularly make up a big pot of vegetarian chilli which I freeze and then cook with other ingredients to bulk out the meals. Using this recipe as…
Stuffed aubergine rolls
I made this regularly when my children were growing up because my son used to be a vegetarian. Aubergines are cheap (45p each at Aldi), versatile and nutritious. They absorb different flavours very well and provide enough bulk and fibre on their own so you don’t really need to serve an additional carbohydrate. Having said that…
Cheap, fresh and easy 