I think you get that I’m ready for Autumn. Sorry, it’s my favourite season.

Anyway, that’s mostly why I made this. It’s part of operation ‘pretend it’s Autumn and maybe, eventually, it will be’. This is ridiculously hearty (but also healthy) rich and vegan. Cheap, too. Cheap as hell, which will be important if you make my ‘mazing mushroom soup in the same week. Quite a few tweaks for this one, which is one of Simon Rimmer’s, whose recipes I tend to find a little uselessly complicated. Also, where on earth do you buy Madeira? Not found it anywhere yet. Subbed with some medium dry sherry, because they didn’t have dry, or port. Rubbish alcohol section is rubbish.

Prep Time: 30 mins | Cook Time: 45 mins | Servings: 4 hearty servings (2 pictured)
Nutritional Info: per 1/4 396kcal, 5.8g fat (0.9g sat), 61.7g carbs, 9.6g fibre, 6.6g protein, 8.9g sugars

Ingredients:

I might also be tempted to add a box of white mushrooms to the sauce from the onion softening on in, if you’re wanting to bulk it out even further, and have them soak up some of the ace sauce. Anyway, yes, soften the onion and garlic in the veg oil.

Add the tomato puree and cook for a minute or so

Then add the first lot of stock (200ml if cooking for 4), the sherry/Madeira, splash of soy sauce, bring to the boil, and then add the barley. Bring to a simmer and cover to cook for about 20-25 minutes until the barley is tender & cooked (this is sped up if you soak it beforehand, for about a 10-15 minute reduction on cooking time). Keep an eye on this, you’ll probably need to top up the water in it if it begins to boil dry before the barley is done.

Meanwhile, chop the veg and slice the potatoes very thinly. Parboil the potatoes for 5-10 minutes in salted water. Drain and set aside.

Bring the second lot of stock to the boil, and add all the veg. Cover and cook until tender. About 10 minutes.

Hopefully that will be done about the same time as the sauce. Add the thyme to the sauce…

And then combine the sauce and the veg in one pan. I added a tsp of marmite here. And a little more tomato puree, and a drop more water. Season well (to taste, anyway).

Then transfer into a deep (very deep) casserole dish, take the potato slices, and lay across the top in layers, each layer I sprinkled with salt and brushed with a little olive oil. You might also like to crumble a last bit of thyme leaves over it. You could also sprinkle a bit of cheese if you wanted to un-vegan it.

Stick under the grill for 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are crisp and awesome looking. Stick some green veg on when you put it under the grill and serve with something like green beans…

Comme ci. Le om le nom.

Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook Time: 35 mins | Servings: 4
Nutritional info: 133 kcal, 20g carbs, 4g fat, 5g protein

 Ingredients

First thing, heat one of your hobs to around medium, chuck in the coriander and cumin seeds, and toast until smelling really ace, about 1-2 minutes. Then transfer to a pestle and mortar and grind until powdery (pictured) if you don’t have a pestle and mortar, try the end of a rolling pin and a bowl. If you don’t have a rolling pin (going to go ahead and assume you probably have bowls, if you don’t, maybe don’t make soup?), maybe try rolling a heavy wine bottle (or similar) over the seeds on a chopping board? Or buy a pestle and mortar.

Now, soften the onion, celery and carrots in a large pan over the medium heat, covered, for about 10 mins

When tender, add the crushed spice mix with a  good pinch of chilli flakes, the garlic, and if using, ginger. Stir and cook for a minute or two.

Add the lentils and 500ml of water, cook covered, again, for about 15 minutes more, until lentils and carrots are lovely and soft

season well, then blend, and add the shredded spinach. Season again if you like

And add a little more water (I added about 100ml more) to un-thicken a little if wanted.

Heat until spinach is wilted, then serve with a generous tbsp of yoghurt on top:

Prep Time: 5 mins | Cook Time: 10 mins | Servings: 2
Nutrition: 394 kcal, 15g protein, 40g carbs, 21g fat, 3g sat, 4g fibre, 1.27g salt

Here goes:

First up prep the veg, and chop the garlic and parsley. combine the garlic parsley and lemon zest now, you’ll struggle for time later!

next set two pans on to boil, one with stock (below is my homemade stock mix getting to work) and one of boiling water for either boiling or steaming the veg (I don’t have a steaming thing, so I boiled, think steaming is probably better, though)

Once the stock is boiling, pour in the polenta, turn down the heat, and whisk until stiff, then add the quark, whisking continuously

At the same time start the veg

After 5 minutes, whisk the pesto into the polenta and season well

Spoon it onto a plate, drain the veg, sprinkle them with the parsely/garlic/lemon mix and toss to combine, pop the veg/parsley mix on top of the polenta, grind a bit of black pepper over the top and drizzle a bit of olive oil. Serve!

Prep Time: 10 Minutes | Cook Time: 35 Minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients: per 1/4: 140 cals, 9.9g fat, of which 2.8g saturated fat, 9.4g added sugar, 1.1g salt

 
ingredients above, the green stuff is my super easy stock mix, highly recommended. Anyway, prep all the veg. Don’t bother peeling the carrots unless it’s the kind of tedious job you enjoy, like some people enjoy ironing. Just wash well.

Over a medium heat and in a large pan soften the onion in the oil for 5-10 minutes or so.

Then add the carrots and ginger, stir well, and cook for another 5-10mins until the carrots are soft.

Add the stock and honey, stir, bring to the boil, cover, and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the carrots are really soft.

Take off the heat, and stir through the butter until melted.

Blend the soup carefully with a hand blender, season to taste, and return to the heat for a couple of minutes more.

Serve! Look at it shine…

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45-60 minutes | Servings: 10-12

Nutritional Info: (based on it serving 12 – which is plenty!) 406kcals, 23g fat (6.5g saturated), 5.3g protein, 43.4g carbs, 27.8g sugar, 0.7g salt

Ingredients! (lots)

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan160°C/gas 4. Grease a 22cm round take-apart cake tin with a little butter or oil. It’s best for taking it apart if you put a nice bit of greaseproof paper on the bottom, too. Also, don’t chop into your finger whilst simultaneously also making sweet potato and butternut squash soup for your lunch. That makes the whole process a lot easier. And less bloody.

soak the raisins in a simmering pan of 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice and 3 tablespoons of sherry (medium or sweet, ideally, but I used dry and it was fine) until the liquid has pretty much totally been absorbed.

meanwhile put the eggs, sugar and oil in a bowl and whisk until creamy, at least 3 minutes with an electric whisk, or 5 with an ANALOGUE one.

amass all your dry ingredients; baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon, self raising flour, shredded coconut, bashed walnuts,

then when the raisins have drunk all the sherry/orange mix, combine all of the dry ingredients, plus the carrot and raisins, with the egg/sugar/oil mix, and fold together. Put into the cake tin and level the surface. I forgot to take a picture of that bit, so here’s a picture of me hastily pulling the cake out at 3 minutes into the cooking stage. IT RISES FAST:

cook for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out the center clean, this took much more like 65 minutes, for me, but keep checking after 45 minutes. When it’s done, take it out and cool it in the tin, then turn out and cool for the last bit on a wire rack. Should be something like this when done:

Now if you like you can try the instructions for the cream cheese icing from the original recipe, here, which is: put 50g of icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence, and 300g of cream cheese in a bowl and beat together. When that fails, and you just have a really runny gloopy mess, this is how you fix it. Put about a tbsp of butter (maybe 2) into a new bowl, beat it, and then add icing sugar and beat until you have a very stiff butter icing, then add the gloopy cheese mess bit by bit with icing sugar in turn, beating, to keep a stiff consistency, and until all the cheese mess is used up. It’ll be glossier and a bit looser than regular butter icing, but still cheesy and strong enough to form well and set. Here’s what it should look like:

apply it to the cool cake with a palette knife, sprinkle with walnuts. Et voila! I promise you, this is ridiculously tasty. Make for friends to save devouring the whole thing in one sitting.

Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook Time: 45 mins | Servings: 6 x 300g

Nutritional info: 111 kcal’s, 10g carbs, 8g fat, 1g protein Per 1/6 (approx 300g)

WHAT DO I DO WITH THESE FINE THINGS?

Melt the butter in a large heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the carrots, leeks, onion and garlic, stirring to coat with the butter.

Add a good pinch of salt, cover and allow to cook for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are softened, stirring occasionally. Then add the chilli flakes, oregano, tomatoes lentils and stock. Cover and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes or so, until the lentils are cooked. If you’ve never cooked with lentils before, basically they should feel all nice and squishy, but still with a bit of ‘bite’ – think risotto rice.

Taste and adjust seasoning if required. Serve with crusty bread, and grated veggie parmesan, if you like (though not if you’re vegan, obvs) on top.