Easy, cheap Vegetarian recipes?

ceridwen

Hmmmm....think I now feel like summat from the Ark;) - only joking!

Another improvement I think these days is that "back when" a lot of people seemed to think it was okay to serve the solo vegetarian guest exactly the same main meal as everyone else - but just without the meat!!!! One even found the odd veggie encouraging meat-eating hosts to think that was acceptable by saying that it was okay to do that......errr....then where would the taste and protein come from then?

Whereas vegetarian cooking is basically a different approach to food I feel. Two cookbooks of the period you might be interested to look out copies of are:

"Vegetarian Cook Book" by Doreen Keighley (1st edition 1963)

and "500 recipes - Vegetarian Cookery" by Patty Fisher (1969)

I still keep them on my shelves - though basically out of historical interest these days. They are a source of ultra-cheap vegetarian recipes though - before our more expensive modern flavourings and things came along.

For interest - I give a recipe from the first one (says its for 4 - but by modern-day standards I tend to think its for 2)

RICE, MUSHROOM AND CHEESE SAVOURY
2 ozs rice
4 oz mushrooms
2 ozs margarine
4 tomatoes (if desired)
1 egg
1 small teaspoonful curry powder
seasoning (NH: she would have meant standard salt and pepper)
4 ozs grated cheese (NB; she would have meant Cheddar cheese)

Cook the rice in sufficient water until it is just done. Wash the mushrooms and cut up, fry them in the margarine (butter can be used if desired) for a few minutes. Add the skinned chopped tomatoes and cook for a few minutes. Add the cooked rice to the mushrooms and tomato. Then add the grated cheese and seasoning and last of all the beaten egg. Bake in a hot oven (NB: that means 220C) for 30 minutes till a golden brown colour.

Serve with cabbage, spinach or other vegetables, roast or baked potatoes and gravy (NB; she would have meant vegetarian gravy).



(So - revamped for the 21st century - that recipe would replace margarine with olive oil and specify what cheese and seasonings were required - as we cook as standard with a much wider range of cheeses these days. If someone said cheese to me these days in a recipe - then I would be asking "which one? - cheddar, mozzarella, feta, parmesan, etc?". We would now specify brown rice - well, thats the one I use in the recipe. These days we need to know whether its brown rice, white rice, basmati rice, etc...). We would serve it with different vegetables and probably use a sauce (homemade tomato perhaps?) rather than using gravy of any description. People are more likely to use curry paste these days than curry powder (and one would be wondering which type at that) or make up their own curry flavouring from the various different constituent spices. Back then - it was just "curry powder" and that was that.

(I see that Amazon are selling copies of a Doreen Keighley "Vegetarian Cook Book" for 1p and the £2.75 postage currently - I think it must be the same book.)

want2bmortgage3

Wow thanks Ceridwen, that recipe does sound nice, however basic. I think I need to concentrate on the basics such as using potatoes, rice and pasta, with cheese, cream, eggs etc. I'm going to get that book along with the student one by Silvan Franco? That was recommended by about 3 people on here! both 1p each can't go wrong! I think things have got a bit complicated nowadays, like you mentioned, cheese used to mean cheddar now it could be one of a dozen types!

ceridwen

Hmmmm....yes..the Silvana Franco book "The Really Useful Vegetarian Student Cook Book". I might have been one of the people recommending this - I know I have done so before now on M.S.E. Its probably the most useful cookbook I have.

I also like Cas Clarke books. She also doesnt just do vegetarian books. Possibly the best one I have by her is "Mean Beans - Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Cooking". Its also worth looking at any Rose Elliott books you come across as well. But I would say you have yourself covered if you get that one from Amazon, the Silvana Franco one I mention and the Cas Clarke one I mention.

ceridwen

By the 1990's garlic had become commonplace in recipes - as had aubergines and peppers. The Mediterranean influence was well established on British cooking and these sort of ingredients had become easy to get. A typical 1990s recipe is:

VEGETARIAN MOUSSAKA
1 aubergine (sliced)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 onion (chopped)
1 clove garlic (crushed)
8 oz (200 grams) minced Quorn
sprinkling of oregano
14 oz (400 gram) can chopped tomatoes
1 egg (beaten)
5 fl oz (125ml) Greek yogurt
3 oz cheese (grated) (she means Cheddar or similar)

Preheat oven to 200C. Fry the aubergine in half the oil and put aside. Fry onion and garlic in remaining oil till soft. Add minced quorn and brown. Add oregano, tomatoes and tomato puree. Put a layer of this sauce into a greased ovenproof dish, add a layer of aubergine and then continue with the layers, finishing with a layer of aubergine. Mix together egg, yogurt and cheese. Spoon over the aubergine. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Serve with garlic bread and a tomato or green salad.

(This is a Cas Clarke recipe and it serves 2).

(By the 1990s olive oil had long since gone from something that was only sold in small bottles in chemists to a commonplace item in supermarkets and I believe it was in the 1990s that quorn became commonplace - as it quickly got adopted by dieters due to its suitability for lowfat diets. The first yogurts to be sold in Britain became available in the 1960s and a wide range of flavours came onto the market quite quickly. The plain yogurts were slower to take off - so, if my memory serves me right, one could only start being pretty confident Greek yogurt would be available to buy even in smaller places in the 1990s.)

"The Bean Book" by Rose Elliott is currently available at Amazon - starting at £2.75 plus postage. Also a very basic veggie cookbook.

maytaurus

have a look here
Vegetarian Recipes with mushrooms
http://www.mushroom-uk.com/recipes/vegetarian.html

want2bmortgage3

ceri , hopefully trying the savoury recipe later, just a couple of things. surprised it doesnt use onion at all? and when it says bake i assume they expect you to take the mixture out of the frying pan and into and oven dish?!

my prob with the 2nd recipe i dont have a freezer yet and dont like the quorn mince very much, prefer the frozen realeat.will note it down and try asap tho, thanx.

ceridwen

want2bmortgage3 wrote: »

ceri , hopefully trying the savoury recipe later, just a couple of things. surprised it doesnt use onion at all? and when it says bake i assume they expect you to take the mixture out of the frying pan and into and oven dish?!

my prob with the 2nd recipe i dont have a freezer yet and dont like the quorn mince very much, prefer the frozen realeat.will note it down and try asap tho, thanx.

I have duly checked the recipe - and, nope, there aint any onion. Its not a misprint.

Yep - you do take it all out of a saucepan and transfer to a casserole dish before putting it in the oven:rotfl: ....errr....one of those assumptions of cookbook writers that if one is cooking something in a saucepan and the next thing they are talking about the oven temperature....then there is an intervening stage - "Transfer contents of saucepan to casserole dish"......:D

(edit: och well...you are talking to the person who finally got round to taking her wind-up radio she sent off for out of its packaging today and wound away virtuously and wondered why it wont work - DUH! The instructions should have said "first put in your 3 AA batteries - as these are what is storing the power you are providing by the winding" !!!!). Leastways - I presume thats why it works when I plug it into the mains - but not otherwise! Now - I just gotta figure out how to have the radio on without the flashlight also coming on automatically - well I hope its possible. Anyone got a Powerplus Rhino wind-up radio?)

want2bmortgage3

Not got one of those! After my last post I wondered whether the dried soya mince is any good i remember its pretty cheap, 60p a pack? It just didnt look that appealing on the shelf to me. I assume its probably just the same as realeat vegemince without the added water??

ceridwen

'fraid I dont really have owt much in the way of experience on vegetarian "mince" substitutes. The only one I really know is the quorn one - as I've had a couple of goes at the others and havent liked them.

want2bmortgage3

hey, currently making the rice, cheese and mushroom savoury. this is just what i was looking for as it uses basic ingredients to a yummy effect. i've used margerine (seems a lot, just to fry the mushrooms), and didnt bother with tomatoes this time. didnt quite have enough cheese (80g instead of 113g). looked up what 2 and 4 oz was (56g and 113g respectively). got a broccoli to go with it, was tempted to put it in the oven with the rest of it but would have meant adding more water and didnt want to divert too much.

its just gone in the oven (decided to use 200 as i have a fan oven). the curry powder has turned the rice yellow and the whole thing smells really good. i'm really looking forward to that book coming this week (ordered it on amazon). has anyone else tried this or the moussaka recipes?