aubergine – Food That We Make

Pappardelle with pine nuts, artichokes and aubergine.

hannahnicklin — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:06:34 +0000

First new recipe in the new house! I’ve been busy doing things like finishing the PhD and moving house and starting a new career as a ‘freelance’ whatever I am, so haven’t posted for a bit. WORRY NOT. I return. With a very very simple recipe that you can cook within the time the Archer’s happens. Or any 15 minute period, whatever. Simple and tasty, though I think next time I’ll add in some mushrooms with the aubergine, and drizzle with a little flavoured oil – chilli oil would go really well, but you could do worse than a bit of the oil from your sundried tomatoes. Just a bit, mind. This was my first experience of cooking with artichokes and capers. Tasty, it turns out. NO FURTHER ADO. Go:

Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 15 mins | Serves: 2
Nutritional Info: 467kcal, 44g carbs, 27g fat, 12g protein

Ingredients:

Prep everything. Then pop the pappardelle on the boil in salted water

While that cooks, soften the onion and aubergine in the olive oil. This is when I’d chuck in some mushrooms if you feel like bulking it out a bit.

Meanwhile, gently toast the pine nuts (keep an eye on them and keep moving them around to keep from burning the damn expensive things, remove from the heat when almost-tanned)

After 8 minutes in, add garlic to the aubergine/onion and fry for 2 minutes more

Then add the artichoke hearts, capers and sundried tomatoes, and heat gently

When the pasta is al dente, drain, and add the aubergine mix to the still-warm pan. Combine.

Season, and serve sprinkled with torn basil and toasted pine nuts. Drizzle with a little oil, flavoured ideally. et voila!

Aubergine and goats cheese bake

hannahnicklin — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 20:52:38 +0000

OK, you need this recipe in your life. Unless you’re a) vegan, or b) averse to goats’ cheese. Everyone else, you need this recipe in your life. Very simple. Very tasty. A carb-free version of lasagne. From the ‘200 Veggie Feasts’ book, I think. If you have a preffered tomato sauce method, feel free to experiment, a bit of onion, or a splash of red wine. You could also chuck in mushrooms to bulk it out if you want – I’d fry garlic & onions, add mushrooms (chestnut probably) until browning, then chuck in some red wine, reduce, then add tomatoes etc. and get back on track. Anyway, this is the simpler version. Try this before complicating it. Promise you’ll like it. If you’re not vegan and you like goats’ cheese. Oh and aubergine.

Prep Time: 5 | Cook Time: 25-35 mins | Serves: 4
Nutritional info: 429 kcal, 9g carbs, 36g fat, 18g protein

Ingredients pic:

Using half the oil, soften the garlic, then add the tomato, basil, seasoning, and a pinch of sugar, simmer.

Meanwhile… season and brush the aubergine slices on both sides with the rest of the oil. I salt and pepper first, then brush with oil. You don’t need much oil, and that mean the season rubs in and sticks. Grill for 2-3 mins on a high heat on both sides

And now, layer up! Preheat the oven to 200’c, and layer 3 times with aubergine, tomato, parmesan and goats’ cheese, finishing with cheese, and sprinkling with a touch of oregano if you like. Bake for 2o-35 minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly.

Serve with a good lot of peppery salad. Rocket is recommended, and a strong good tomato. One of the expensive kind. Enjoy!

Moroccan aubergine and chickpea stew with raisins. RAISINS ARE ACE.

hannahnicklin — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:59:19 +0000

So, like pretty much everything in Rose Elliot’s New Complete Vegetarian, this recipe is cheap, easy as anything, and stupidly hearty/filling. So much so (and so healthy, too, loads of protein in the chickpeas and the rest is just vegetables) that I might only do 3/4 of a portion next time! I added in some chopped parsley at the end (a good handful) and popped some green beans in with about 8-10 minutes to go, these bits aren’t pictured as they were an afterthought (and me being lazy about washing up, as cooking the beans in the same pot works perfectly well). This is similar to another recipe on here, but with added raisins. I bloody love raisins. I’m also often liberal with the spices. I like spices. Cinnamon especially. This’uns totally vegan, too.

Serves: 2 | Prep Time: 5 mins | Cook Time: 30-35 mins
Nutritional info: 445 kcal, 61g carbs, 16g fat, 14g protein

Ingredients sans parsley and beans (sneaking in at the corner)

Soften those onions!

Add the spices and stir for 10 seconds or so

Then add the tomatoes, raisins, chickpeas, aubergine and stock. Simmer for 20-25 minutes until the veg is soft and juice has reduced. If adding beans, halve them and pop in about 8-10 mins before serving and put a lid on the pan.

Season well, stir through parsley. JUST LIKE THAT.

Hannah’s heavily reworked mushroom moussaka.

hannahnicklin — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:10:08 +0000

I’ve spent 3 days reworking this to satisfaction. Based on the Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook which included potato and no herbs or spices, and some weird and not-quite-enough quantities (at least, when you scale it down to cook for 1, anyway). Tastes much more like moussaka now. Unfortunately the images are of my first attempt so you’re missing some of the ingredients (namely nutmeg, oregano, cinnamon, soya cream, wine) and you’ll see an egg and potato that I took out. Anyway, I’ll explain as I go. And promise you it’s worth it.

Prep Time: 20 mins | Cook Time: 30-35 mins | Servings: 2
Nutritional Info: 235 kcal 19g carbs 11g fat 9g protein

Preheat the oven to 220’c, brush oil very thinly on the sliced aubergine, season well with salt and pepper, and spreading out on the baking dish, bake for 20 min (ignore the potato).

Melt the butter in a large pan and soften the onion and garlic,

increase the heat, add the mushrooms and a pinch of oregano, and stir continuously for 2-3 mins until soft.

Splash in the wine, reduce, then add the tomato and a pinch of cinnamon, reduce the heat and simmer for 8 mins until reduced, set aside.

Then melt the sauce butter in a large pan over a low heat, add the flour and whisk for 1 min,

slowly add the milk and stir continuously, simmer unit thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream and parmesan, and a pinch of nutmeg.

When the aubergine is done, reduce the oven to 180’c, pop half the mushroom mix in the baking dish, cover with half the aubergine, then the rest of the mushroom, a layer of the rest of the aubergine, and pour the cheese sauce over the top.

Sprinkle the sauce with the remaining parmesan, bake for 30-35 mins. Stand for 10 mins before serving with an ace side salad.

Red lentil, aubergine and cherry tomato curry

hannahnicklin — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:16:05 +0000

Back on the old vegan recipes, this one is an adapted version of a recipe from Easy Vegetarian One-Pot – it is both of those things, but I’ve made it EVEN EASIER, because I couldn’t find anywhere in Loughborough to buy Curry Leaves (I didn’t try VERY hard, but I did try) so did some modifications to allow that (spice tweaks, using ready made curry paste, etc.). I’ll probably just get them off the internet, but I can’t believe they’ll make this any tastier, the adapted version is pretty damn tasty; I proper love aubergine, and the lentils make it very filling. ALL THE GOOD. Here comes the how-to:

Prep Time: 10 | Cook Time: 30 | Servings: 2
Nutritional Info: (changes were spices and curry paste so I think this will be the same) 169 kcal, 14g carbs, 11g fat, 5g protein. When served with 50g of rice (dry weight) and some mango chutney (20g) and soya yoghurt (75g), you’re looking at 431 kcal, 67g carbs, 14g fat and 12g protein.

Ingredients:

pop 1 tbsp of the oil in a pan and get it very hot, add the aubergine and fry until golden brown, about 5 mins

Remove the aubergine from the pan, and pop the rest of the oil in and soften the onion, garlic, and ginger (another 5 mins)

Add the cherry tomatoes and cook for 1-2 minutes, then remove those and put with the aubergine

Stir in the curry paste and tomato puree to the onion/garlic/ginger, and fry for 2 minutes until fragrant. FRAGRANT, I TELL THEE.

Add the water and lentils. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, adding more water if necessary, and stirring now and then to make sure the lentils aren’t sticking to the bottom. Start the rice after 10-12 minutes of simmering.

Another afterthought, after tasting the lentilly mix, not quite spicy enough, so added a pinch of chilli powder, so do this to taste

When the rice is off the heat and steaming through (directions for best rice over here, y’know), add the aubergine and tomatoes, stir until heated through, then add and stir in the coriander, and serve!

Totally vegan, reasonably seasonal (June-September, seasonal, really), very filling, quick, one-pot, and BLOODY TASTY. Everyone’s happy.

Roast Veg Pasta

hannahnicklin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:54:45 +0000

This is ace, really really simple, a great one to do for mates, or when you’ve got a lot on, you just prep it, set the veg going (drink lots of wine if you’re with friends) and then after 30 minutes chuck the pasta on and mix it all together and serve. The lime and coriander/mint may sound like an odd mix but it balances out the sweetness of the roast veg perfectly. With friends make some good homemade garlic bread (you could use Alex’s recipe from here). And use vegan pasta if you’re doing a vegan version, although I used a fancy ‘Seeds of Change’ spinach pasta here and it was IMMENSE. Recommended. Here we go.

Prep Time: 10 | Cook Time: 40 | Servings: 2

Nutritional info (per serving): 409 kcal, 57g carbs, 16g fat, 12g protein

Ingredients:

Preheat the oven to 200’c. Cube your aubergine and quarter or eighth your tomatoes, halve your garlic, pop them in a roasting tin with half of the olive oil, season well, and roast for 30-40 mins. Set the timer for 30 and start the pasta then.

prep everything else, occasionally turning the veg in the oven

when the veg has been in for 30 minutes check it, if done, turn off an leave in to stay hot while you do the pasta, or leave it in for 10 minutes more while that cooks. Here is a picture of pasta cooking:

When cooked, drain, return to the warm pan and add the roasted veg, herbs, seasoning, squeeze in the lime, and the rest of the olive oil, stir through.

serve! Add parmesan gratings if you’re not vegan, and serve with garlic bread if you fancy CARBTASIA. Which is a level of being, man.

tasty easy pasta.

Leek and Broccoli Bake, almost vegan (leave off the cheese if you want that).

hannahnicklin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:37:23 +0000

The Bumper Vegetarian Cookbook strikes again! Proper hearty but also super healthy and easy bake, here. In terms of changes to this recipe, I’ve reduced the amount of water because I was using tinned cherry tomatoes (they keep longer… in that I don’t snack them into oblivion before I actually get to the recipe cooking), chucked in some nice bits of garlic at the beginning, and increased the amount of cheese. Just a bit, otherwise when it’s serving 1 it looks a little paltry.

Prep Time: 20 | Cook Time: 45-55 | Servings: 2

Nutrition per serving: 245 kcal, 13g fat (4g sats), 18g carbs, 0.4g salt

Ingredients:

Last minute addition of garlic not pictured below, sure you know what garlic looks like, though.

PUTTING WHAT WHERE: Preheat the oven to 200’c (mark 6). Heat the oil in a large flameproof dish, add the onion, aubergine, garlic and leeks, and cook for 10-12 mins until golden and softened.

Add the broccoli, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, half the rosemary and water, season, stir well, then cover and cook in the oven for 30 mins. (I covered with tin foil, because I don’t have any posh casserole dishes, worked perfectly well)

Meanwhile put the parmesan in a bowl, add the remaining rosemary and season with pepper.

When the veg is cooked, remove the lid and sprinkle the parmesan mix on top.

cook uncovered in the oven for 5-10 mins more, until golden

Very filling on its own, but a bit of fresh bread to mop up the juices might be nice

Moroccon Chickpea Stew (vegan)

hannahnicklin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:01:00 +0000

I got a new veggie cookbook a couple of weeks ago, and have just started making some of the ones I’ve picked out. This one is really filling, vegan, super tasty, and a great one-pot meal for a load of mates. Looks alright, too, eh? It’s a really good, easy-to-cook-from book, proper recommend it.

Prep Time: 10 | Cook Time: 40 | Servings: 2
Nutritional Info: 232 kcal, 9g fat (1g sat), 29 carbs, 0.6g salt (without bread included)
What’s in it:

Makings:heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion and cook for 5 mins until soft

Add the garlic, chilli, tomato puree and cumin and cook for 2 mins.

Add the aubergine, mushrooms and courgette, stir to coat evenly and cook for 2 mins.

Add the chickpeas and stock, season well and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 mins. Just before serving stir through the parsley and serve with crusty bread.

final photo again!

If I were Alex I’d recommend a wine that would suit it. But I’m no good at that. So I shall recommend what I’d drink with it; something FIERY and Spanish, like a Rioja. That.

One pot mushroom, aubergine and butternut squash curry (vegan)

hannahnicklin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:59:33 +0000

So for this recipe based on this I made a couple of large-ish changes, mainly replacing the potatoes with butternut squash, and specifying tikka curry paste (but if you make your own, one with lots of garlic and tomato puree) – the one from Marks and Spencer is the tastiest this recipe has been. I also rarely add stock, because making 75ml with a cube is HARD. Use posh proper stock from a bag thing if you can, but otherwise just slosh water around your coconut milk container/jug and that should be enough, don’t add too much, it really doesn’t need it. It was tastiest when I had some spinach to hand, too, so chuck in some of that.

Also, you all know how to make perfect rice, right? I hit it recently. Just in case: 50g rice per person, 110ml water per person, rinse the rice to fuck, then put water/rice in a LIDDED pan. Never take the lid off once boiling, wait until the water has just nearly boiled away, take off heat and leave with lid on for 8-10 mins. Start it at the same time you start on the onions for this recipe and it’ll be just right.

ONE POT MUSHROOM AUBERGINE AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH CURRY.

Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook Time: 20 mins | Servings: 2
Nutritional Info: 212kcalories, protein 5g, carbohydrate 15g, fat 15 g, saturated fat 9g, fibre 3g, sugar 5g, salt 0.71 g. With 50g of rice (before cooking) and a spoonful of soya yogurt and mango chutney you’re looking at 451 kcal.

Ingredients:

WHATWHENHOW:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and squash.Fry over a low heat for 5 mins until the squash starts to soften.

Add the aubergine and mushrooms, then cook for a few more mins.

Stir in the curry paste

then pour over the stock and coconut milk. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 mins or until the squash is tender.

Add the spinach if you have it (I didn’t this time :( ), wilt. Then serve with Perfect Rice, either stir through or sprinkle with the coriander and add a dollop of soya yogurt and mango chutney on the side. Mmm.

aubergine – Food That We Make

Pappardelle with pine nuts, artichokes and aubergine.

Aubergine and goats cheese bake

Moroccan aubergine and chickpea stew with raisins. RAISINS ARE ACE.

Hannah’s heavily reworked mushroom moussaka.

Red lentil, aubergine and cherry tomato curry

Roast Veg Pasta

Leek and Broccoli Bake, *almost* vegan (leave off the cheese if you want that).

Ingredients:

PUTTING WHAT WHERE: Preheat the oven to 200’c (mark 6). Heat the oil in a large flameproof dish, add the onion, aubergine, garlic and leeks, and cook for 10-12 mins until golden and softened.

Moroccon Chickpea Stew (vegan)

One pot mushroom, aubergine and butternut squash curry (vegan)

Ingredients:

Leek and Broccoli Bake, almost vegan (leave off the cheese if you want that).