My Vegetable Love – Part Two

As promised, I’ve made a post (with recipes) showing you how you can make a feast in certainly less than an hour or in fifteen to thirty minutes per dish. Putting vegetables at the centre of your diet need not be boring. The sheer variety on offer ensures that you will never be lost for something new and flavourful. What I’ve given here are dishes that are both easy to prepare and, I hope, appealing to even the most picky eater. They can all go together or be combined with your favourite foods. You are the chef- you decide!

A rainbow of flavour

When starting on a plant-based diet, it is important to ensure that you get all the nutrients you need. If you are uncertain if this is for you, ask a health professional. Some folks like to take a multi-vitamin and or iron supplements. Personally, I don’t take either. Through taking in a broad spectrum of foods, you should get everything you need.

Introducing a large volume of vegetables into your diet all at once can unsettle the tummy a little bit. (I once tried the Wahls’ diet that recommends six cups of vegetables per day and it had serious consequences for my digestion!) If your body is complaining, cut back, and take it slow.

Once you start to enjoy more vegetables in your diet and explore the fairly endless way to prepare them, you will not look back.

Soup for starters

Soups are the perfect place to begin for introducing more vegetables into your diet. They are quick and easy to prepare and are often even better the second day. (You can also freeze them.) All my soups start in the same fashion: saute an onion in water or oil; add the vegetables you like and saute for a few minutes; add 750ml or so of vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and allow to cook through. Season to taste. Frozen vegetables work great too – think peas and corn. For a creamier texture, add dairy-free milk or cream. Blend if you like. Grains like oats, barley and lentils can be added to make an even heartier dish.

Since dark leafy greens are perhaps the hardest to get into your diet, the recipe I’ve given here is for spinach soup. My children, like most kids, were not impressed with the idea, so I renamed it alien blood soup and it was a hit!

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped

250 g of spinach, washed and woody stems removed

800ml of boiling water and two teaspoons/cubes of vegetable stock

Juice of 1/4 lemon

1 tablespoon of corn (maize) flour

Salt and pepper

Dairy free yogurt and nutmeg to garnish

Method

Saute the onion in a little water/oil until soft. Add the spinach and cook gently until wilted. Add the stock, bring to the boil and then turn off the heat to cook for about 10 minutes. Blend with a hand blender or liquidiser till smooth. Return to the pan, if liquidising, and add the lemon juice.

In a small tumbler, add the cornflour and a dribble of water, stirring in more water until you have the consistency of thin cream. Add this to the pot of spinach and heat until bubbles appear at the side. Stir throughout until you feel the soup thicken. Lower the heat and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with a swirl of natural yogurt and a sprinkling of nutmeg.

Serves 4

Mushroom for mains

Almost everyone enjoys burgers and you can make fabulous vegetable ones, but they take a little time to prepare. Since my mission here was to make everything as easy as possible, I thought I would show you how to make a real mushroom burger. These take barely ten minutes and accompanied with good bread and lettuce are a great alternative to a McDs.

Ingredients

1 large portobello mushroom per person – sliced horizontally

Olive oil

Sesame seeds

Salt and pepper to taste

Bread or rolls

Method

Wash and slice your mushrooms horizontally, to make two ‘patties’. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake at 180 C or gas mark 4 for about 8 minutes until cooked through. Remove from the oven, brush with a little olive oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Salt and pepper to taste and serve between bread with lettuce and vegan mayonnaise.

Would you like fries with that?

If a burger on its own is looking a little bit frugal, make some spicy oven chips to go with it. Prepare these first and they can be cooking away in the oven while you make your mushroom burgers. These fries are made with sweet potatoes and carrots, both highly nutritious and low fat.

Ingredients

1 sweet potato and 1 carrot per person

About 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil per person

Seasonings – Cajun spice, salt and pepper and chilli flakes. Adjust according to personal taste.

Method

Wash and scrub the potatoes and carrots but do not remove the skins (where many of the nutrients reside.) Cut into wedges and place in a mixing bowl. Add the oil and seasonings and coat well. Tip onto a large baking sheet and bake in the oven at 180 C or gas mark 4 for twenty + minutes. When they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, they are done. Serve piping hot!

And a side salad?

Nothing completes a meal like a delicious side salad. A green salad would be perfect here, but since I’m in Midsummer mode, I thought I would share my absolute favourite – beetroot salad. Added to the above, it supplements our five a day and adds a little extra colour to the meal.

Ingredients

1 small jar or 1/2 large jar of sweet pickled beetroot, drained and cut into chunks

2 dessert apples – cored and cut into chunks

2 stalks of celery – cut into bite-sized pieces

1 heaped tablespoon of vegan mayonnaise and 1 heaped tablespoon of vegan creme fraiche or natural yogurt. (You may like more!)

Method

In a large mixing bowl, add the beetroot, apple and celery and stir to mix. Add the mayonnaise and creme fraiche and mix so that all is coated in the creamy dressing. It will become a wonderful bubble gum pink. Chill until ready to serve.

Makes 4 generous servings

Over to you…

This post is only a taster of all the possibilities of a plant based diet. I hope that it has given you some ideas that you can take and make your own. Recipes are wonderful things, but we should only really use them as the springboard from which our own interpretations can soar. My greatest resource for ideas is almost always other people sharing what they have enjoyed and what worked for them. I love reading cookery books, but I love receiving tips from friends even more. So please, if they appeal, take and adapt these recipes, pass them on and let your vegetable love grow.