Recipes | Vegetarian Food Directory

Because of my South Asian features and heritage, a lot of people who don't know me stereotypically assume I just specialise in food from the Indian Sub-Continent.  And yes, although I can make a mean killer Chickpea Curry and Creamy Lentil Dal ,  I have always branched out and made other worldly vegetarian cuisines.    I don't and have never wanted to be put into an 'ethnic' box. I have always avoided tokenism at work where people have used their ethnicity to progress; or permitted employers to use their photograph in promotional materials, when in reality the organisation was doing very little in relation to workplace diversity and addressing inequality, and I am sad to say such tokenism occurs somewhat in cooking too. I refuse to play that game and be a stereotype. I have and will always continue to remain true to myself.  I am diverse person and love cooking ethnically diverse world wide cuisine.   Saying all this, I am very aware and proud of my root...

I've had a proper lazy weekend and most of all I have had a long sleep in, no dreading the alarm going off and waking up to go into work in the dark and come back home in the dark. The weekend has also allowed me to d some slow cooking and make the most of the little light there was outside for photographs, but the reality is its been a dark weekend with lingering dark clouds, drippy rain and blustery winds.  Today's hearty  lunch was Lemon-Coriander Maftoul with Roasted Harissa Rainbow Carrots.   I  picked up two bunches of rainbow carrots from a local greengrocers.  I wanted to make more of a feast of them, than just chop, grate or spiralize them for a coleslaw, so I roasted them whole in a harissa sauce and served it with  Zaytoun Palestenian Maftoul .  Maftoul is made from sun-dried bulgar wheat and hand rolled into tiny chewy balls.  The magic of maftoul is that it absorbs flavours wonderfully so I coated it in lemony coriander goodne...

This was not what I had planned to make with the aubergines that have been  nestling at the bottom of the fridge for the past week or so, but I couldn't remember the recipe I had actually planned to make with them.  Do you have days like that?!  Pick up some avocados for something specific then can't remember why and end up just making guacamole with it! It didn't matter in the end as this Harissa Aubergine, Kale and Chickpeas dish was lovely.  We had it  early this afternoon after a lovely day in Cardiff where I spent quite a bit of hard earned cash today.  I picked up a gorgeous retro dress from a stall at St Mary's Market in the High Street, (the same place I got my Angry  Persian Aunties );  and a couple of pair of shoes from one of Cardiff's many Arcades, yes you read right, a couple of shoes and I am not even a shoe person.  Honestly they are both for work.  The past three months, and I am not kidding I have been going into work...

Some of you will have noticed that in the past week or so, I have been gravitating towards Welsh recipes and Welsh things.  This is for the simple reason that next week many of us in Wales will be celebrating St David's Day , even the daffodils are coming out to celebrate, though to be honest they have been out posing by the side of the roads a month earlier. As we enjoyed the  Curried Root Vegetable Stew  a couple of weeks back, I thought I would make it again, but enhance it further with the addition of spices and leeks and make it somewhat Fusion Welsh - yes we do like our leeks here in Wales, well I do.   Even though the daffodils are confused and finding the British weather warm, some of us are still finding it, so stew-like meals have been on the menu quite a bit.     Cwtch means hug in Welsh and it a word you will hear and see a lot in Wales. And these light cloud like dumplings definitely give you a big warm welcome hug, who doesn't lov...

I don't know if he was just very hungry or being honest, but D complimented on how delicious this Harissa Butternut Squash Stew was, not once but twice with a Thank you Lady.   I thought it was going to one of those stews that would benefit from overnight rest in the fridge, but we had it within an hour of making it and it was most enjoyable.  The harissa and the smoked paprika offset against each other wonderfully. Be careful with the cooking of the vegetables, especially the broccoli towards the end, you do not want it really soft, but still with bite, otherwise it would be more bordering on soup than stew, which is not a bad thing, but sometimes you want texture not bambino  food. I served this Harissa Butternut Squash Stew with some Cook Once Eat Twice hosted by Searching for Spice as this was good a couple of days later too; and  with CookBlogShare hosted by Easy Peasy Foodie. Harissa  Butternut Squash Stew with Broccoli and Chickpeas Ser...

This inspiration for this recipe that I have dubbed as Chickpeas Three Ways comes from Kari who blogs  Bite Sized Thoughts .   I recently made her  Sweet Potato Fudge  and was delighted with it, so knew this would also hit the right spots in my belly.   Its dainty presentation, something that my husband doesn't always appreciate.  He feels robbed, as if there i not enough on his plate.  He likes his plate piled high up, I like it neat. But there was no grumbling today, this plate of Chickpeas Three Ways is definitely a belly filler  This made for a delicious light lunch, to sit outside in the garden and enjoy.  It would also be a fantastic starter to a posh meal.  Or treat it like a blini topped with the spiced chickpea ratatouille. And even though its quite fancy, its a very economical dish too.  Perhaps one to make for large crowds too. I made chickpea pancakes from my recipe that you can find here .  The chickp...

I made a  Plum and Chickpea Curry last year but did not get round to sharing it at the time, so with it being the Plum season in the UK I thought I would make it again and share my vegetarian vegan version of 'Lamb' and Plum Curry.   This 'Lamb' and Plum Curry is a real recipe adapted from Camellia Panjabi 50 Great Curries of India.    I used vegan soy pieces* that I picked up from a Polish shop, they were not that great, but for the vegetarians the Quorn fillets will also work.  If you don't want to use the mock meat substitute, then just double up on the chickpeas.   If you can't quite get you head round it, think of the plums as zingy purple tomatoes - the plums in a way replace the tomatoes in this dish; and for those of you who have had either Red or Green Tomato curry, then this will not sound that strange. It was actually quite nice, sharp and sweet. Here are    13 Vegetarian and/ or Vegan Meat Free Fruit Curry Recipes . Plu...

It certainly is getting colder, especially in the evenings and definitely time for soups and stews. Many years ago, actually it was in 2004 when I lived in Scotland, I made Denis Cotters of Cafe Paradiso fame Squash, Butter bean and Leek Stew.   I ended up making this again, only after  having paged through the cookbook Paradiso Seasons and was reminded of all those recipes I made before I began this blog.  Over the years I have adapted the  Squash, Butter Bean and Leek Stew  recipe as I did not always have butter beans or enough squash.  My version is made with Butternut Squash, Carrots, Chickpeas and Leeks. Sadly this time round I overcooked the vegetables, so this Butternut Squash, Chickpeas and Leek Stew was  bordering more on chunky soup than stew, still very very tasty. The cooking process is also very different in that Denis Cotter makes stock with the butternut squash which is blended to which the slightly softened lee...

The snow flakes had been drifting past our window on and off yesterday, so it was no surprise to wake up to a blanket of snow outside.  I guess its another day to stay indoors and be lazy, thank goodness for weekends; and even more thankful for having my own shelter to call  'home' and stay warm. Yesterday, I had a proper lazy Saturday.  I mean really lazy, I watched an American film and a  National Geographic documentary called LA9 2 about the  1992 Los Angeles protests and riots .  Today, will probably be the same with some cooking in between and a little ironing in readiness for the coming working week tomorrow. Now onto food.  We finished of eating the last of this  Iranian Pearl Barley Soup known as Ash-e Jo or Ash-e-Jow  .  It looks deceptively plain, but it has so much depth and flavour mostly from the fresh herbs.  As well as barley and chickpeas which are visible, there are lots of greens in it such as spinach, dill a...

Everybody seems to be going crazy for black chickpeas which surprises me.  Black chickpeas are a staple in many South Asian homes.  Black chickpeas are known as kala channa  or  kala cholay.     I've never featured black chickpeas on my blog for two reasons.  My family, either my mother or sister in laws make it for me when I go over and its not that often, so its hearty humble vegetarian food for my belly and secondly,  I find its time consuming to soak the black chickpeas overnight and then cook it slowly - when its mostly me eating them, as D is not that keen on them.  It is worth cooking from scratch  though as the flavour is completely different to the traditional chickpea.  Black chickpeas are more nutty.  So it was interesting to try some black chickpeas that come ready cooked in a tin. I've a few original black chickpea recipe ideas up my head, but this time I wanted to keep it simple and true to my heritage and...