Apart from my two pregnancies, I’ve always been a meat eater, but after almost ten years of supermarket meat in the UK my husband and I decided that we would rather reduce the number of times a week that we eat meat, and buy organic meat to eat less often. This has worked exceptionally well and the meat we’ve been eating in the last two months has been amazing. In the balance, however, has been more vegetarian meals.
Once upon a time I assumed a veggie meal meant salad with a side of cucumber. Not my favourite. But while it’s taken a few years, I’ve finally grown to understand how good vegetarian food can be.
I was recently invited to be part of the Parragon Books book club, and one of the first books I’ve received to review was the Love Food Vegetarian Step-By-Step cookbook*.
I am loving this book.
It really is ideal for beginner cooks, whether they’re five or 35, as each recipe uses basic, relatively simple ingredients, and a really good step by step guide to the directions.
The book is beautifully illustrated, with all the ingredients laid out in the first picture, what it all looks like in the preparation, and finally, the end result.
Another thing that is absolutely fabulous about this book is the fact that bits and pieces of recipes can be used together or apart. For example I used only the Cheese Pastry sticks bit of the Celeriac Soup With Cheese Pastry Sticks recipe. It’s nicely set out that you can, even as a beginner, choose the bits you want.
I own many cook books, most of which I know I’ll only ever make four or five recipes out of, but in this book, there are no recipes that I can say no, I’ll definitely never make that. It’s set to become a favourite, for sure.
Below is the first recipe I made from the Love Food Vegetarian Step-By-Step cookbook*, and I’m sure there’ll be more!
- 2 peppers, deseeded and cut into chunky pieces
- 1 large courgette, cut into chunks
- 1 small fennel bulb, cut into slim wedges
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
- 100g/3.5 oz quinoa
- 350ml/12 fl oz vegetable stock
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 tbsp flat leaf parsley
- 40g 1.5 oz pine nuts, toasted
- salt and pepper
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.
- Lightly toast the pine nuts in a hot pan and set aside to cool.
- Chop vegetables and put in a bowl.
- Drizzle over olive oil and mix so that it covers all the vegetables.
- Arrange the chopped vegetables in a single layer in a roasting tin.
- Roast for 25 - 30 minutes.
- Place the quinoa, stock and garlic in a saucepan (or in the Thermomix®), bring to the boil and cover to simmer for 12 - 15 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender and most of the stock has been absorbed.
- Mix the quinoa in with the vegetables and top with the toasted pine nuts and flat leaf parsley, and serve immediately.
*affiliate link. It won’t cost you any extra to buy through this link, but Amazon will give me 5% of the sale price, which goes towards helping paying for this blog. Thanks for supporting us!
