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BBQ Quorn Nachos

/ Libby Millier / Leave a comment

Another veggie post! Where’s all the meat at!? Don’t worry my carnivourous friends, there will be some meaty posts coming up soon (with one in particular involving a chinese buffet and a frighteningly excessive amount of duck breast) but I’ve been cooking lots with Benj lately and that always means vegetarianism rules!

One Friday night last month, I wanted something trashy and American. To be honest, this is what happens every Friday night. And most Saturdays. And if I’m honest, pretty often during the week. Anyway, we had some Quorn mince hangin’ around, Ben hadn’t had Mexican food in about 2 weeks and was getting withdrawal symptons and I had a craving for avocado. The dish that met all of these requirements? Nachos! But not just any nachos. I often find the chilli sauces/seasonings too spicy, even with lashings of sour cream, so I prefer my mexican food with a heavy BBQ twist. If you’ve never tried BBQ mince or chicken with the usual tex-mex condiments like sour cream and guac, you seriously need to! It is so good.

This recipe, for me, SCREAMS Friday night! It’s super quick to make, generates minimal mess and washing up and it goes perfectly with alcoholic beverages. Perfect. We enjoyed ours catching up with our current TV show obsessions – Homeland, Dexter, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story. Seriously HOW amazing are all these shows right now!? We just need Breaking Bad back and I honestly don’t see us leaving the comfort of our (brand new, to be delivered in December :D) sofas anytime soon!

BBQ Quorn Nachos

The portion sizes got slightly out of hand here and we ended up having loads left over, so I’d probably say these serve 3 people, or possibly even 4 people with low hunger levels.

1 350g Quorn mince (or any supermarket own brand veggie mince – the Tesco one is amazing!)

tortilla chips – we used 2 packets of Sainsburys basics because they are a. cheap and b. cheap.

1 sachet of Old El Paso original fajita seasoning mix

1 tin chopped tomatoes

a big old hunk of cheddar – I feel cheese is a very personal thing so however much cheese you feel is adequate is the correct amount. I use a lot, because I like each and every mouthful to be fully encased by the stringy wonder-product.

1 avocado – this makes a lovely addition to the top of the nachos. Ben doesn’t like avocado (bit weird) so I had 1/2 on my portion and I really enjoyed it.

barbecue sauce – I used a few generous squirts of Heinz BBQ sauce to amp up the BBQ flavour but this is not essential.

optional – kidney beans, chilli powder, peppers, mushrooms, onions etc –  basically anything you could add to a chilli will work well in this recipe. I hate kidney beans and prefer my chilli to be a pure, virginal meeting of (veggie) meat and sauce so don’t add anything extra. I realise this is odd though so add as you see fit.

1. Defrost the Quorn mince slightly either in the microwave or by leaving it out on the side for an hour or so. This just means you don’t have to add any oil to the saucepan to ensure it won’t stick, which saves on deadly calories.

2. Add the Quorn mince to the saucepan and saute it for a few minutes with a couple of tablespoons of the fajita seasoning. Add the chopped tomatoes and the rest of the seasoning and simmer gently. If you are opting to add in some more ingredients, do this now!

3. Grate your cheddar. Don’t be shy.

4. Taste the mince – add seasoning and extra BBQ sauce if needed. Arrange the tortilla chips on plates and add the cheese and mince  – I opted for one layer of chips, one layer of cheese, one layer of mince and then repeated. Like a beautiful nacho lasagne. Top the lot with sliced jalapenos, avocado, sour cream or all of the above, and enjoy!

This is such an easy ‘recipe’ and it tastes like a lot of work went into it…but we know the truth!

Linda McCartney Fish Free King Prawns

/ Libby Millier / 2 Comments

Wow. These little beauties have forever changed the game for me and Ben. They’ve opened up a whoooole new world of prawn dishes for us and I’ve already got loads of bookmarked recipes to try out!

I was innocently strolling through the frozen vegetarian section to pick up our usual bags of mince and chicken chunks when a little red bag caught my eye in the ever-expanding Linda McCartney section. I gasped in shock when I read the title on the bag – “FISH FREE KING PRAWNS.” I’m a sucker for new veggie products and these were pretty much the most exciting I’d ever seen, so they went straight in the basket.

Although there were a million recipes running through my head with these sat in the freezer, I decided to cook them really simply for my first taste. Ben had already tried them so he was possibly disappointed with this decision. I panfried them straight from frozen, as recommended on the bag, with garlic, sesame oil, salt and pepper. I panfried them for about 7/8 minutes, until the sides went slightly crispy, and I served them with a little dish of soy sauce. They were seriously amazing!

For me, the texture is very similar to scallops – slightly overcooked scallops, but scallops all the same. They have the same just-on-the-cusp of rubbery feeling, buttery but with that satisfying bite. Honestly, I really think if you gave me these and told me they were prawns, I would be none the wiser. I would be slightly sceptical of your cooking skills but I would definitely think they were prawns. They smell fishy too! How do they do that!? If you are a veggie who misses shellfish, these may just change your life. After finishing the bag in a matter of hours, I’m now on the quest for what to do with the next bag. At £2.50 a pop they aren’t cheap, but they are definately worthy of being the centrepiece of a special meal. I’m thinking paella first, then maybe a creamy carbonara pasta dish. And obviously I want to make Ben a classic prawn mayo sandwich. Not sure how these would taste thawed, cold though – I think I’d probably cook them in salt and pepper and then refrigerate before using, just to be on the safe side.

Overall, these are a winner and you’ll definitely be seeing a lot more of these fish-free treats on the blog in the coming weeks!

OH, I almost forgot, I have some very exciting news! Me and Ben signed the contracts on our very own little flat last week and will be  moving in together next month! We are both so excited and I can’t wait to stock my fridge and cupboards with all the kinds of foods we like, experiment with all the recipes I’ve been wanting to try and just be able to cook aaallll the time 🙂 We’ll also be on a budget for a little while as we adjust to the cost of rent/bills/life etc so I’ll be researching some cheap, tasty meals to keep us going. And then we have Christmas coming up so OBVIOUSLY there’ll be some festive cooking and baking – we’re also trying to save money by not going out so much so I think my weekends will be mainly kitchen based from now on! I can’t wait 🙂

Look at my new kitchen! Isn’t it beautiful!? Not polka dot unfortunately but I already have a selection of polka dot kitchenware and utensils, to keep me going until we buy our own house and I can have an entirely polka dot kitchen!

A PROPER (vegetarian) PIE

/ Libby Millier / Leave a comment

For many moons now I have wanted to make my lovely boy a proper, fat, meaty, winter-warmer PIE. Pies are to boys, what salads are (unfortunately) to girls. The stereotypical British man spends his evenings tucking into massive plates of beef and ale pie, mashed potatoes and token greens, washed down with a pint of beer and darts on the TV. At least, in my head. But as we all know, this is not all men! And especially not lovely vegetarian men 🙂

When Ben was a meat-eater, I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing that one of his favourite meals was that most repulsive of convenience foods – Fray Bentos pie-in-a-tin. With mash and veg. And probably a pint of squash, seeing as he wouldn’t have been old enough to drink. While there are few things he misses about being a carnivore (fish, funnily enough, being one of the only things) he does sometimes reminisce about FB pies with a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. So I decided to challenge myself to make the meatiest non-meat pie I could, and this was the result!

First things first – fillings. I wanted something hearty, steaky and gravy-y. No chicken and white sauce over here thanks! Unfortunately, steak is one of the hardest flavours to replicate in vegetarian form and we had sadly run out of seitan – the closest taste/texture we’ve found so far. So, I settled for Sainsburys own ‘meatballs’ with some veggie sausages thrown in for good measure. The sausages were very herby and flavourful and added a hefty meatiness to the mixture without much effort, always a good thing.

I started, as always, with chopped onions and garlic. I also made myself a little pan of very finely chopped onions and garlic for my own dinner – mushroom-less, pastry-less pie. So basically just pie filling – I’m a bit weird and don’t really like pastry or the shedload of calories it brings to every meal. I also despise mushrooms unless they are super finely chopped. A kids version for me!

I chopped up the meatballs and sausages and added them into the pan, along with some big chunks of chestnut mushrooms. Then, a selection of seasonings including rosemary, sage, salt and pepper followed by a generous slug of ale. We were slightly overwhelmed by the selection of ales in the supermarket and so plumped for a bottle of bog standard Newcastle Brown Ale. I simmered the mixture for about ten minutes, adding more herbs as I went until it tasted lovely and hearty.

Once I was sufficiently happy with the taste of the filling, it was pastry time! For convenience I used a 500g pack of ready-to-roll shortcrust pastry. I divided the mixture into two balls of approximately 2/3rds and 1/3rd – the 2/3rds for the base and 1/3rd for the lid. It was then just a case of rolling the dough out with a bit of flour into a shape that would fit into the bottom of my pie dish with enough to line the sides.  (Apologies for the jaundice photos, I am hoping Santa is going to bring me a shiny new DSLR for Christmas this year which will pretty much change my life, and this blog, for the better!)

I then spooned the mixture into the dish and it filled up nicely, about 3/4’s of the way up the sides. Next came the bit I was nervous about – adding the lid! But, it was really simple and with a bit of deft flipping and quick fingers, my pie was lidded. I ‘forked’ the sides to achieve that authentic pie effect and added some hearts to the top with some of the leftover pastry I had. Cute!

I brushed the top with milk and it went into the oven. I kept checking to make sure the pastry wasn’t burning but a medium heat seemed to do the trick. It emerged, shiny and golden, 45 minutes later and I cut into it with Ben watching eagerly over my shoulder.

Check it out! A proper pie!!

I served Ben a verrrryyy generous slice onto a plate already bulging with mashed potato, green beans and peas. I whipped up a quick gravy and his dinner was served. My dinner? Don’t worry about me, I had my tasty child-like pie filling and mash and was a very happy girl. A glass of wine helped immensely with this.

 

The filling was thoroughly ‘meaty’ – both in taste and texture. The medley of herbs combined with the reduced-down ale was really tasty and the Quorn meatballs broke apart slightly during cooking, which thickened the sauce. I really feel this is about as meaty as you can get with vegetarian pies – obviously vegetable and non-meat pies are delicious but sometimes it’s nice to just use fake meat as it was intended – a substitute for meat! In this instance, Quorn works extremely well and I really recommend this recipe if you or someone you love fancies a proper meat pie!