Vegetarian lasagne

We needed to use up some stuff in the fridge, so I made this. It was nice.

150-200g lasagne sheets (I needed 6 large-ish fresh sheets)
2 400g tins whole tomatoes (you could also use diced)
2 onions
2 cloves garlic
2 courgettes
250g mushrooms
1/2 cup red wine (can also use red wine vinegar)
200-300g grated cheese (I guess you should use mozzarella or Parmesan, but we had some regular grated Edam which worked quite well too)
250ml bechamel sauce
Mixed herbs
Salt and pepper to taste

Start with the tomato sauce. Fry the onions and garlic for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes, wine, herbs and seasoning and cook for around 30-45 minutes. If you want more sauce in your lasagne, double the quantities here.

While the sauce is cooking, thinly slice the courgettes lengthwise if possible (you can use a mandolin for this!) or otherwise just use discs. Slice up the mushrooms into thin slices too. Also preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

When the tomato sauce is ready, start assembling your dish. Grease the bottom of your oven dish, then layer as so (not too important, this is how I did it): pasta sheets, courgettes, mushrooms, tomato sauce, bechamel sauce, cheese, pasta, courgettes, mushrooms, tomato sauce, bechamel, cheese, pasta, bechamel, cheese. Season as you go.

Pop it in the oven and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven. It'll come out lovely. 

Beetroot and cherry soup

Despite the odd combination, this is actually very good. Allegedly, it's meant to be an effective anti-inflammatory, but even if it doesn't work as the original recipe intended, it is very tasty.

500 g beetroot (raw, not pre-cooked)
4 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped into halves or thirds
2-3 cloves garlic (not in the original recipe, but I thought it worked well)
1-2 onions
2 thumb-sized pieces of ginger, roughly chopped
1 thumb-sized piece turmeric root (or 1 tbsp dried, powdered turmeric, which is what I used)
1 tbsp cinnamon
250 g tart/sour cherries (you can probably buy them frozen; they should be depitted in advance)
400ml tin coconut milk (or to taste)
750ml - 1l stock (vegetable or chicken)
salt, pepper, cayenne or chilli to taste
olive oil

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Wrap the beetroot in foil (if you like, you can peel it first, which is what I did, although I understand it cooks better in its skin and then you can peel it). Put the beetroot and carrots on a baking tray and cook for about 45-60 minutes (the carrots might be ready before the beetroots, depending on the size). When ready, take the beetroots and carrots out of the oven, and, if applicable, peel the beetroots. Chop the vegetables up into smaller pieces.

While the root vegetables are cooking, gently cook the onion, ginger, garlic, and turmeric in a large pot. When ready, add in the beetroot and carrots, cinnamon, cherries, coconut milk, and about a cup or 2 of stock, plus the seasoning and olive oil, and blend it all together using a hand-held blender. Add in more stock as desired to thin the soup.

Bring to the boil and simmer for about 5-10 minutes or so. Serve with some bread on the side.

It's very good. Really.

Sweet potato and chickpea burgers with homemade braai relish

This is a blend of this recipe for the patty and this one for the relish with some small changes. It worked quite nicely eventually.

Should make around 4 patties

1-2 sweet potatoes (should be around 500g or so)
400 ml tin chickpeas
1 lemon, zest and juice
cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper to taste
burger rolls, tomatoes, salad leaves, gherkins to serve

These quantities make quite a lot of relish. You could cut them in half if desired:
1 onion
6 tomatoes, or 2x 400 ml tins of diced tomatoes
garlic to taste
1-2 tbsp peri peri sauce (or to taste)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp tomato sauce/purée
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper to taste

Chop up the sweet potatoes into chunks and steam until soft. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then chop them up in a food processor. Once the sweet potatoes are ready, add them to the chickpeas, add the seasoning, and mix in (don't use the food processor). Form into four patties (or as many as you want) and put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes or so. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

After 30 minutes, put the patties on a baking tray and put in the oven. Cook for about 25 minutes or so. Once they are "cooked," fry them in a pan to firm them up well.

While the patties are in the freezer or the oven, dice the onion and garlic and gently cook in a pot until soft. Add the tomatoes, peri peri, soy sauce, tomato sauce, and seasonings and cook on a low temperature for around 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop it catching on the bottom of the pot.

Serve in a roll with your preferred toppings (the gherkins, tomatoes, salad leaves and braai relish really worked well with this). You could also make some chips if you are feeling energetic.

Vegetarian buckwheat, mushroom, ginger and lemongrass soup

After cooking, cooling down. Lovely stuff.

This is a simple soup that we made to use up some buckwheat. It was inspired by a fantastic soup we had in Pärnu at Mahedik, and then adapted using this recipe as a basis. The main thing is not to overdo it with the buckwheat, as it absorbs quite a bit of liquid:

1 leek, cut into 1-cm chunks
2 celery stalks, chopped up
2 tbsp lemongrass, or 2 stalks chopped up. If you're using fresh lemongrass, don't cut it up too thinly, as it doesn't really soften much
2-cm piece of ginger, minced or finely sliced
2 carrots, chopped up
500g mushrooms - use a number of varieties for a more flavoursome dish
1 cup (250ml) buckwheat, raw or toasted. Don't overdo this!
8 cups (i.e. 2 l) chicken or vegetable stock
Thyme, to taste (about 1 tbsp)
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, fry up the leek, celery, lemongrass, ginger, and carrots for a few minutes. Add in the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes more, then add in the buckwheat, stock, thyme, lemon juice and salt and pepper, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes or so. If you need more liquid, add it in during cooking, or you could feasibly add it afterwards too.

South African monkey gland sauce

Don't mind the name—this stuff rocks. It's one of South Africa's unknown masterpieces, and it's quite sad, as we've got plenty of monkeys that could donate their glands for this... It's dead easy too, and a good way to use up errant bits of veg and monkey parts in your fridge. Smother meat in it, either as a sauce or as a marinade. Remember to pick out the pituitary gland before you eat—the texture goes to pot when you boil it.

1 onion
3-4 garlic cloves
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 pepper (optional)
3-4 tomatoes, diced
1 small tin double concentrated tomato purée
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
1/2 cup chutney
big dollop of red wine (optional)
AND/OR
dash of balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
150 ml vegetable (or chicken) stock
tabasco, to taste
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to season

Fry the onion, garlic, and ginger (and pepper, if you're using it) until the onion is translucent. Add the other ingredients, bring to the boil and cook on a high flame for about 8 minutes, then simmer for another 30–40 minutes. Taste and season if necessary.

Use for marinade and sauce. It should keep for about 2 weeks.

Bacon, cheese, and monkey gland burger

Aubergine/melanzana parmagiana

A vegetarian sort-of-lasagne Italian dish which worked out quite nicely. Very happy with the results. It did not take as long as I thought it would, either, so there's that, although it does take a bit of time. Make sure you have plenty of crusty bread, like a baguette or something similar, with you, so that you can mop up the sauce.

I adapted this from the Guardian's version of this recipe, with some changes. NB: I used quite a large baking tray which explains the quantities. I also layered the aubergine quite thinly, so if you increase the density of the aubergine, you can cut down on the tomato sauce. Still, tomato is nice, so it's up to you.

1.5 kg aubergine/brinjal/"egg"plant, cut lengthwise into 1 cm-thick slices
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 red onions, thinly diced
4 x 400 g tins tomatoes
1-2 glasses of red wine, or 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oregano or Provencal spice
250 g grated parmesan cheese (or grana padano - meaning that the name is somewhat badly chosen. Oh well...)
250-500 g mozzarella (depending on your cheesy preferences)
50 g breadcrumbs
handful of basil leaves

Cut up the aubergine, salt it (I laid it in layers in a colander, sprinkled some salt over it, and then repeated until I'd done the whole batch), and leave for about half an hour. While you're waiting, fry the onions and garlic for a couple of minutes, add in the wine/wine vinegar, and then tip in the tomatoes and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring frequently. Crush any big bits that might cause trouble later on.

Rinse the aubergines very well and then fry at least half, but preferably all, of the aubergine slices on a griddle pan for a couple of minutes on either side. I cooked half the slices and left the other half raw when assembling the dish, which seemed to work quite well, but I'd recommend cooking all the aubergine before assembling the dish.

When you've cooked everything, heat your oven to 180 degrees, and then start putting together the dish. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce in your oven dish, then a layer of aubergine (packed tightly), then mozzarella, parmesan, and seasoning. Repeat in this order until you have used up all the aubergine. Top with a final layer of tomato sauce, then sprinkle breadcrumbs and a little bit of parmesan on the top.

Shove in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes or so, then take out when ready and leave for a couple of minutes before serving. Top with some of the basil, and serve bread on the side. 

Chakalaka a la francais

Here is a South African recipe that should be included in everyone's oeuvre. It's sometimes called a Soweto curry or chilli, but whatever you call it, it is very good and can be as spicy or warm as you wish. Also, it's cheap and easy to make. Ideally, it should be served with pap, but since this is not really feasible in France, it's going to have to work as a side. Still, rice could make this a decent vegetarian meal on its own.

Serves 2-4:

Vegetable oil

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, grated

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cm ginger, minced

1-2 chillies (to taste), diced

2 tbsp garam masala

3 tomatoes, diced

1 tin baked beans

1 tin red kidney beans

Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the onion, carrot, garlic, ginger, chilli and garam masala with the oil in a medium-sized pot until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and bring to the boil, then cook for about 5 minutes. Add the baked beans, kidney beans and seasoning and cook for a few more minutes. Can be served warm, with pap or rice, or cold, or as a side.

Spinach and ricotta cannelloni

This one was introduced to us by a friend of mine who has given me several fantastic recipes over the years (including this one). He used lasagne instead of cannelloni originally, but we were told, in no uncertain terms, that this should be made using tubes.

Cannelloni, for those who are as ignorant as I was, is a long tubular type of pasta that you can stuff. Whatever you put into it gives it a lovely taste. This one was particularly good, and surprisingly easy once you've got the stuffing sorted. It also keeps very well in the freezer, although I've never left it for long enough to need to freeze it. Very recommend.

Ingredients:

olive oil
salt and pepper for seasoning
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 red onion, diced
chilli, to taste (optional)
1.5 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tins (400g) chopped/diced tomatoes
1 or 2 red peppers, diced (optional)
handful of basil leaves
500 g mascarpone
3 tbsp milk
500 g spinach, hard stalks removed (baby spinach is better, but regular spinach works well too)
500 g ricotta
about 200 g parmesan cheese or equivalent
pinch of ground nutmeg
200-250 g cannelloni tubes (uncooked)
250 g (2 balls) mozzarella

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and cook the garlic and onion (and chilli) for a minute or 2. Add the sugar, wine vinegar, tomatoes and peppers, season, and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened. When ready, add the basil leaves, mix in, and pour the mixture into a shallow, medium-sized oven dish, which should be big enough to fit your cannelloni in one layer, maybe two if you have to.

Take the mascarpone, season with salt and pepper, and beat it together with the milk until smooth. This will be your sauce.

Place the spinach in a large colander and pour boiling water over to wilt (you may have to do this in batches). When it is cool enough to handle, squeeze the excess water out of the spinach, and roughly chop it quite small. Mix together with the ricotta and about half of the parmesan, and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Now comes the stuffing part. In order to do this, take a fairly strong plastic sandwich bag or a piping bag and put a couple of tablespoons' worth of the spinach mixture in. If you're using a sandwich bag, cut a corner off the bag, leaving a hole about 1-1.5 cm wide. Don't make it too big, otherwise you won't be able to do the next stage. With your bag and spinach mixture, take an uncooked cannellono (one cannelloni? Grammatically incorrect, I know, but so be it), fit the bag in one end and cover the other with a finger or two. I have found this (kind of) stops the mixture spurting out either end. Gently squeeze the bag to force the mixture into the cannelloni. If your spinach is too big, it'll get caught in the whole and it'll make the whole exercise quite difficult, so be careful with this. Lay the stuffed pasta side by side on the tomato sauce in the oven dish, trying to keep it all in one layer.

Once you have stuffed your pasta and laid them in the dish, spoon over the mascarpone layer and then sprinkle over the remaining parmesan and layer the mozzarella over the top. Put in the oven and cook at 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes. When ready, take out of the oven and leave for about 5 minutes. Serve with crusty bread and wine.

Very nice. Very recommend.

Puy lentil, rocket, beetroot and feta salad

For some reason, salads aren't something that I do very well. My wife does, though, so I borrowed this from her. It was very nice.

This should feed 3 or 4, depending on whether you are serving it as a meal or as a side.

Ingredients:
Salad:
1 cup Puy lentils, cooked according to package instructions
2 boiled beetroots, diced in 1cm cubes
1-2 (red) onions, sliced
200g feta, crumbled
Handful of rocket per serving
Dressing:
Juice of 1 lemon
4-5 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp raspberry (or red wine) vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
Small bunch of parsley, finely chopped

Place all the salad ingredients except the rocket in a bowl and mix together. Mix the dressing and pour over the salad. Place a handful of rocket on each plate (according to appetite) and serve the salad on top. 

Mumbai vegan curry

This was a recipe we picked up after a mass cycle through Tallinn a few years ago. It is very tasty and quite simple to make. And, of course, offers a bunch of your five a day.

Should serve 2

Ingredients:
Half a medium aubergine/brinjal/eggplant
Mustard seeds
Lime leaves
1 Onion
Curry leaves (if available, not essential though)
Dried coriander
Chillies, to taste
100ml coconut milk
1 medium tomato
Vegetable stock, as needed (probably good to make half a litre and then play it by ear, but you probably won't need more than about 200ml)
100g chickpeas

Slice the aubergine up, season it, and roast in the oven. In a medium-sized pot, roast the mustard seeds and lime leaves for a minute or so, and then fry with the onion. Add the chilli and remaining spices. Add in the coconut milk, tomato, and stock, then bring to the boil and simmer. Once the sauce has thickened somewhat, add in the chickpeas and aubergine. Cook until ready and then serve with rice and fresh coriander on top.

Cream of celery soup

What to do with extra celery. This was an emergency recipe that's turned out quite nicely:

Ingredients:

Around 500-600 g celery (the better part of a head of celery), sliced
A large potato, diced
A large onion, diced
A red pepper, diced
A chilli or 2, diced
50-100 g butter
750 ml chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
100ml cream or creme fraiche

Melt the butter in a large-ish pot. Add the celery, potato, onion, pepper, and chilli, season with salt, and cook for around 10-15 min over a low heat. When soft, add chicken stock and pepper, bring to a simmer, and cook for another 10-15 min on a low heat. When ready, take off the heat, add cream/creme fraiche, and blend. Serve with extra cream if so desired.

Vegetarianish stew

"Vegetarianish" because I added some chorizo at the last minute. It's quick and lovely.

Ingredients:

2 onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
5-cm piece ginger, minced
1 chilli
1 carrot, finely diced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 400g tin chickpeas
1 400g tin kidney beans
250 g mushrooms, whole or diced
2 400g tins diced tomatoes
100 g chorizo
Spice of sorts (I used Cajun spice, but you could use anything)

Rinse lentils. Fry onions, garlic, ginger and chilli for a few minutes until soft. Add carrots and red pepper, mix in, add spice, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add chickpeas and kidney beans, stir in, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add mushrooms, stir in, and then add tomatoes and chorizo. Leave to cook for about 20 minutes or so. Enjoy.

Vegan(ish) lentil curry

A slight adaptation of something I found at the Hungry Hutch. Definitely worth a look:

Ingredients:

2 cups lentils, washed
2 red peppers, cut up into chunks
1 medium-sized sweet potato, peeled and diced
Onion, peeled and diced
Garlic to taste, minced
Chilli to taste, chopped finely
About a tablespoon of chilli powder/garam masala
About a tablespoon of turmeric
900 ml chicken or vegetable stock
2 tomatoes
400 ml coconut milk
Salt and pepper to season
Basmati rice, coriander, and plain yoghurt to serve

Fry the sweet potato for about 3-5 min in a fair-sized pot (3-5 litres minimum), then add spices, onions, peppers, garlic, and chillies and cook for another 5 min or so. Add the tomatoes, mix well and cook for another 2 min, then add stock and coconut milk. Add lentils, bring to the boil, season with salt and pepper, and then let simmer for 40-45 minutes. Serve over rice, with coriander and yoghurt if desired.

Ratatouille

On a bit of a French kick at the moment. Ah well.

Yes, this is the ratatouille from the film. Again, easy, fun to make, and you get to say the word ratatouille. I mean, how cool is that?

This should serve 3-4 people, depending on quantities.

Ratatouille

2 large aubergines, cubed
3-4 large courgettes, cubed
2 peppers, bite-sized chunks
3 or 4 tomatoes (you can put more in, but it's quite good with less of a tomato-ey taste). Pierce the skin, submerge in boiling water for about 20 seconds, then take them out and skin and de-seed them. Or don't. Either way, cut them into quarters.
Thyme (or Provencal spice)
1 or 2 onions, sliced (but not diced)
Garlic to taste (3 or 4 should generally do the trick)
About 2 tablespoons of red wine (or wine vinegar)
1 teaspoon sugar

For those of you with a bit of adventure in your souls, add some olives, a chilli or two, and some anchovies (but don't overdo the anchovies). A big cast-iron pot is also quite useful.

Cook the aubergines for about 5 minutes until soft, then remove from the heat. Don't overcook just yet. Repeat with the courgettes (until brown) and peppers (browning and then taking them out). Then cook the onions until soft and stuff. Add the garlic, fry for a bit, then add the wine/vinegar and sugar. Stir in, add the tomatoes and the thyme or Provencal spice, stir in again, and add the courgettes, aubergines, and peppers (and olives and anchovies if you're using them). Add salt and pepper to taste, then cook for about 5-10 more minutes.

I'd recommend serving this with couscous. And wine. It'll make you think of your childhood. And then overlook gross violations of public health and sanitation.