Easy Vegetarian Recipes

[preppingsu]

Junmist is looking for some easy to prepare/cook vegetarian recipes so that she'll eat more meat.

I'm sure we can all come up with some recipes and post them here.
Thanks


I often just chuck a load of meat and veg in the slow cooker. You could just to that with veg - a selection of root veg etc. Serve with a big chunk of crusty bread.

[preppingsu]

Have a look here.

http://1940sexperiment.wordpress.com/10 ... e-recipes/

Some cheap, easy recipes (both meat and veggie style).

[junmist]

So for my 1st try has any one got any easy chickpea recipes please
I will be trying out a couple and feed the results back to the forum then move on

[Vespa]

Humus. Some people don't like it but I love it.

It's not hearty food for the winter but it's fantastic in the summer on toasted pitta bread, or home made flat breads.

Put a tin of drained chick peas into a blender, add a table spoon of olive oil, half a tea spoon of cumin and turmeric powder, two table spoons of lemon juice salt pepper and two cloves of crushed garlic (I always crush as blending sometimes leaves chunks of garlic). Blend well.
If it's too thick add a bit of water until you get the right consistency.

If you like spicy hot food add some chilli powder or half a red chilli before blending.

If you like Indian food try a chick pea dahl with rice or a home made flat bread, that's real winter food and cheap with it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tarkadal_90055

[Quercus-robur]

I'm a vegetarian with not much money so have had to find some cheap vegetarian meals. Below are a couple involving fresh veg and a couple not. I always cook for one so all the meals you will have to adjust to suite how many you are cooking for.

- for between £1 to £1.50 the big supermarkets sell bags of frozen carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and sometimes peas. One bag will last one person half a dozen meals. I steam the veg and serve with one of my sachets of value golden vegetable rice that are around 25p in the supermarkets. It provides a cheap alkaline meal with plenty of roughage. Sometimes instead of the rice I will steam some potatoes from the 15p value tins. When I have the money I buy the veg fresh.

- for breakfast i often fry up two medium tomatoes, one medium white onion and one medium free range egg in a table spoon of olive oil (although you could use vegetable oil because it's cheaper). I add them all to the pan together and scramble the eggs and fry them for about 5 minutes but it depends how well done you like your onions. I like a little crunch left in them. I then serve this with two slices of value wholemeal bread. I have to say tomatoes, eggs and onions do go well together.

- tomatoes, onions and free range eggs are relatively cheap at the moment so feature in quite a few of my meals. One of my favourite meals is pasta with homemade sauce. White pasta is cheaper but i prefer to use wholemeal pasta. Whichever one floats your boat. I add enough pasta to a pan for one person and put it on to boil with a pinch of salt and a couple of pinches of pepper added. While the pasta is boiling I cut up one large onion, two large tomatoes, and about four medium sized mushrooms but you want about an equal weight to the tomatoes. I also use two medium sized eggs, some herbs and tomato puree. First I fry the onions for about 5 minutes in a tablespoon of olive oil. Just before they're done I add a tea spoons worth of tomato puree, some garlic granules, some mixed herbs and some turmeric. I use about two pinches of each. I then add the two eggs and scramble them into the onions until the eggs are done. I then add the mushrooms and tomatoes and simmer everything until the pasta is done. All the supermarkets do own brand tomato and basil pasta sauce for 30p a jar or 70p for the nicer stuff. You don't have to but I usually add a third of a jar when I add the tomatoes and mushrooms just to thicken it up.

- Morrisons sell sachets of Bachelors Beanfeast in a couple of different flavours at 80p ish a sachet. Pour the contents into a pan with a pint of cold water. It says 3/4 of a pint on the sachet but I personally find this makes the sauce too thick. I add a couple of pinches of pepper, mixed herbs, turmeric and garlic granules to the pan as well as a tablespoons worth of tomato puree and a teaspoons worth of olive oil. Bring to the boil then gentle simmer for 20 minutes. One of the flavours is Mexican Chilli (my favourite and not hot) which requires simmering for a few extra minutes to properly cook the kidney beans. This makes a great sauce (with a good source of protein) for TWO people which can then be added to pasta.

I hope I have explained this well enough and I recommend trying them. Not expensive and good meals.

Qr

[teatowls]

I'm vegetarian, I don't eat dairy,eggs or honey either.


People tend to think it's really hard but start by listing your 5 favourite meals regardless of the content, then replace the meat and fish with other things until you find something you really like.
One of my favourite things is jerked tofu in a wrap...don't even bother frying the tofu or anything and if you aren't sure on the taste/texture of tofu then the jerk cover's it really well I found. The second one is a lentil dahl that an indian family friend makes (everytime we come over she makes me some to take away...) so give a lentil curry a try as well since you can have it however you like, I'll have mine in a sandwich or on toast some days as well.



Literally it is just thinking about what you like and then how you can still have that same food just without the meat, google is great with this... I have recipes for vegetarian gummy sweets & marshmallow's, vegan ribs, vegetarian risotto and vegetarian paella to have a try at.

[junmist]

I think my main problem is that I do not know what veg can replace the protein in my diet. Also It needs to be stuff that we can grow in this country as I do not want to be come dependent on imported food and yes that does include rice although I will happily eat rice dishes but if I can replace the rice with something else I will.
But thanks for the reply's I will try some of them

[ForgeCorvus]

I think my main problem is that I do not know what veg can replace the protein in my diet.

I don't think veg can really, however both pulses and cereals have a partial protein (the most important part is that they're different parts).
So eating Rice& Beans (very common in latin-american cooking) or good old British Beans on Toast is a great way of getting your whole protein

Heres a recipe that I've used a lot during larp weekends.
We tended to treat it as a pot au fur, so there was always something hot and filling to eat even though fixed mealtimes just didn't happen. Its safe to keep warm because theres no meat in it (it also means that most of my friends could eat it...... Except for the weirdo with an onion allergy )

Potmess
Feeds: Shedloads

Take a large pot with a lid and sweat off some onions (allow one onion between two or three people...four peeps if they're big onions) in a little fat or oil (bacon fat is nice, but I used oil because I was feeding Veggies)
Half fill the pot with boiling water and add a stock cube (Veggie normally or meat stock if you're not Devout) per couple of pints
Chop and chuck in any root veg you like (I used to ask my mates to bring along whatever they could), try and keep the quantities even (one fist sized spud has about the same volume as three hand length carrots or half a swede for example)
Cook (simmer) with the lid on until they're all soft then add any other veg (leek, mushrooms, cauliflower, cabbage WHY) and several handsful of pearl barley ( one per onion or less depending on how thick you want it).
Cook again until the barley squashes between finger and thumb

Serve as is or with bread if its on the thinner side.
Dedicated carnivores used to add cooked sausage, bacon or (my personal favorate) biltong to their bowls.

You can add precooked (or canned) beans while the barley is cooking or dried (and soaked) beans to the stock as long as you cook the beans before you add the root veg.

As long as you don't let it get cold you can still be eating it four days later (the longest game I've been to was four days), just add hot water when it gets too thick. If it does get cold be very careful when reheating that the bottom doesn't burn

[dizzydays]

I'd really recommend you continue to eat liver (if you like it). It is cheap and provides the correct source of vitamin B12, a sadly underestimated vitamin which some people think is very deficient and possibly incorrectly measured. You can add it to bacon/sausages to make it more filling, or if that is making it too expensive then increase the mash, gravy, and any other veggies you have.

Chickpeas - I do a curry with chickpeas and potatoes (white or sweet potato works). Throw in some tomatoes/onions and a curry powder/paste and you're off.

[teatowls]

From what I know you can grow a decent number of beans in the UK they seem to know what they're talking about here at least : http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapev ... 22304.html

Chickpeas can be grown in the UK also but you only get one or two of them per pod and you'll need to eat them green as it doesn't get hot enough for them here to go the commercially seen colour, they aren't grown commercially in the UK (yet) so we don't have any region specific strains yet.

I've read a bit as well that you can grow lentils in the UK but I'm not sure what varieties that may be.


Vegetables won't give you all of the protein types you need so eat a variety of veg, pulses, cerals and nuts to get everything or if you're still worried you can try and get some chickens/couple of goats to keep for eggs and milk (cheese even if you learn how to make it).


I know it's not quite food but I do totally recommend keeping a herb garden! or at least several herbs you do like as you'll be able to have fresh supply close to hand constantly and have a good way of adding some new flavours to food if SHTF so you don't have to eat some bland boiled/fried food, instead you could have herb infused vegetables, stew, curry,etc and give you the options of so many more flavours long term.