Category: Food

Tonight I went a bit soup mad and cooked two kinds: a mushroom and walnut soup and a carrot and coriander soup. I had the former tonight, but I am keeping the carrot soup for tomorrow.

Mushroom and walnut soup

 Part of the reason I cooked two soups is because firstly I wanted to use up the veggies in my fridge and secondly I already had all of the equipment out so I made sense to use it before it all went back into the cupboard. I have one of those kitchens where it takes longer to get out all of the necessary equipment than to do the actual cooking. The lack of surfaces means everything gets into a huge mess before anything gets done! So, it’s official: cooking from scratch can be a real pain, but on the whole the food taste great and I do get a real sense of satisfaction knowing I cooked it all myself, and that I also know exactly what has gone into it.

Carrot and Coriander soup, topped with parsley

Strawberry, avocado and lettuce salad a la Jamie

Last night’s dinner was a strawberry, lettuce and avocado salad, served with button mushrooms and wild rice. I love all of those ingredients, but you, like me may be thinking: strawberry? In a salad? I would never had dreamed up this combination on my own, but I saw Jamie Oliver on ‘Jamie at Home’ create something similar. The dressing I made was my standard one – olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, but it really worked! Give it a try if you don’t believe me!

Yesterday I had a very unhealthy but also quite delicious plate of chips for my dinner – with a side order of mushy peas. I didn’t take a photograph, as I was too busy eating them!

Tonight, I cooked the following random selection of vegetarian delights: potatoes (par-bolied, then bashed around and fried in splash of oil and thyme), egg noodles in sweet chilli sauce and mixed vegetable stir-fry.

I would recommend the potatoes cooked in this fashion – really delicious, but then I am a huge potato fan, so I like them cooked any way. The stir-fried veggies consisted of onions, peppers, brocolli, mushrooms, cauliflower and quorn. Pretty good. The noodles were the fresh variety  and took about 3 minutes to cook. Bonus!

Yesterday evening I ate a three bean chilli with brown rice and garlic bread which was very tasty – cooked for me by friends who are pretty hard-core veggies. They know their stuff when it comes to cooking vegetarian food! Sadly I forgot to take a photo of the dish (which is a sort of weird thing to do anyway), so you will just have to imagine it. It was very filling, spicy and I should imagine very nutritious.

Tonight I was in for another treat as my brother-in-law cooked us a creamy pea risotto topped with goat’s cheese. I thought it was very sweet of him to adapt his cooking plans to accomodate my eating plans, but he said he quite enjoyed looking through his vegetarian recipe book and thinking about what to cook. The dish arrived at the table garnished with (non-edible) sweet peas 🙂

Creamy pea and slow roasted tomato risotto, topped with goat’s cheese

Apologies for not posting yesterday. I was very tired so I decided to snuggle up on the sofa and get my weekly fix of Desperate Housewives! As I was so hungry my husband kindly cooked for us and this is what he made:

A quorn escalope with potato and tomato mash. Most of the time I do the cooking so it was lovely to have my food cooked for me. It was delicious!

 For lunch I had an oven baked jacket potato with cottage cheese. I say ‘oven baked’ because I used to cheat and put them in the microwave, as it is so much quicker, but having mastered the oven technique, I will never go back! Just pre-heat your oven to 200 degees Celcius and prick your washed and dried potatoes with a fork. Drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle over some salt (preferably coarse or rock salt). Pop the potatoes on a baking tray for about an hour (or longer if you are baking more). The salt helps to create a crisp outer layer while the inside is perfectly soft and fluffy, just waiting for some butter. It was so good that I forgot to take a photo of it!

This evening’s meal was a vegetarian lasgna – something I haven’t tried before and … it was delicious! I did not miss the mince (I usually use lamb) at all. I can feel in my body that it was a much healthier option – I am not bloated and heavy inside.

To top it all off I am drinking my new Tyger Moon tea – have a look at the flower completely opened up in my glass 🙂

 My new Tyger Moon tea – Chrysanthemum, green and white tea leaves and Jasmine

Hello everyone. Thank you first of all to all of the people who have commented on my going veggie experiment, on this blog and on Facebook and Twitter. I am amazed at how many people are interested in trying out a vegetarian diet. I was just thinking about how easy it has been for me so far – I have hardly missed meat at all. I think I would miss fish and seafood before meat, although apart from my prawn sandwich faux pas last week, I haven’t indulged in either of those either. I imagine my mum’s fish curry and her lamb biriyani might be things I would miss the most, were I never to eat meat or fish again! As I am doing this experiment for health reasons rather than animal welfare ones, I do envisage a time when I will eat those delicious dishes again. However, I do think I have been thinking more about what has been going into my tummy and the rest of me, so that must be a good thing 🙂

I have also noticed a difference in my shopping habits as I have been buying a small basketful of items every few days. The benefit of this is that I am buying just what I need, I am buying fresher ingredients and I am cooking from scratch most days (- but to be fair I did that before anyway). So to illustrate this, I thought I would show you the ingredients I am using to cook dinner tonight, so you can see what is going into my vegetarian meal.

Farfalle pasta, asparagus tips, ripe avocados, fresh broccoli and light single cream

And here is the finished product:

This is not quite enough for my dinner so on the side I ate some of this Innocent Moroccan Veg Pot.

I bought these drinks the other day to try out too. I have had some of the beetroot juice, which was interesting. Not sure it’s my favourite thing, but I’m looking forward to trying out the strawbwerry bellini juice drink.

 Have you got any tips or questions for me? Drop me a line below or through my contact page 🙂

For my lunch today I had a Caesar Salad with roasted vegetable cous cous, tzatziki and an onion bhaji. I did get some help from Mr Sainsbury, as I don’t often spend this much time making my lunch every day. I am trying to get into the habit of cooking extra and putting some of my dinner aside for the next day’s lunch. This can be great, as long as I remember to take it with me!