The Best Veggie Recipes from the Blog
So many people on the blog have been asking for vegetarian recipes and while there are many, I wanted to make sure you see the best that the blog has to offer! Scroll down to see some of my favourite meals— from snacks to mains, to just the lightest pasta you can ever make! Use these recipes are templates to make your our versions of these recipes!
I loved using quinoa in this form! There were a lot of people who have been asking for vegetarian meals on the blog and I instantly thought of this. Additionally, since the whole family is on this mindful eating program, my 82 year old grandma feels left out and this was a fun way to introduce her to quinoa since she had been wanting get into it as well. While you can add a variety of ingredients, I chose to keep it simple. I mashed 2 medium boiled sweet potatoes with coriander, scallions, half a carrot, and some of my pickled onions. I knew grandma likes her food spicy, so I chose to increase the heat but not with things that embalm the whole tongue with heat, but rather things that would hit the back of the throat. For this, I used some finely grated ginger and lots of black pepper. Additionally, a hit of roasted cumin and garam masala drove home some earthiness as well. What came out of this was a patty that had a distinct crunch from the breading, an introductory sweetness from the starchy spuds, and a final kick from the spices. I also whipped up some sour cream with onions, garlic, and tabasco to make a simple dip (recipe for some other time). While grandma felt that “it could use some more heat,” I proudly disagree because the aim of the dish is to bring out the sweetness of the potato. If you don’t care for that, go for a regular spud. I hope you like vegetarian, vegan recipe and do try this at home!
Pro tip: The patties might begin to darken from the top and look burnt. Reduce the heat and keep on cooking. Sweet potatoes just have so much sugar that they tend to caramelize very quickly.
What I love about quesadillas are their accessibility. Each element of the meal is customisable. You can make fresh tortilla, buy them in the store, or event just make them between two large rotis. The veggies can be modified to your choice and so can the amount of cheese. This is great in fact for many reasons, the best being that there is no templatised expectation of what a quesadilla should taste like which reduces the pressure on the cook but also allows you to create memories associating the flavours you enjoyed with the conversation rather than the food group that you tried to emanate. Meals like these are hard to come by now but as I am thinking about this, I really do want to explore this more. Might just be my next project!
Beet Burger
Ingredients (makes 2 patties)
1 beetroot, washed, peeled, and roughly chopped
½ cup boiled chickpeas
1/3 cup oat flour
1 medium onion
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon of water
2 teaspoons red chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
½ cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup from Canada
Method
In a food processor, add veggies and blitz for a couple of pulses. Add spices, blitz, and slowly pour in water and about a teaspoon of oil until the mix is a course paste
Take out and make in round patties, and place in the freezer for about 30 minutes
In a sauce pan on medium high heat, add balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. Let the mix come to a simmer and then put the heat on low.
Stir well for about 15 minutes until the vinegar has the consistency of chocolate syrup
In a skillet, add oil and heat on medium low heat. Place patties and press lightly to you desired shape. Cook on both sides for about 5 minutes
To plate, take toasted bun, place the patty, a drizzle your balsamic reduction, and top with other preferred burger accoutrements
Hummus Toasts Two Ways
I have made a whole series of hummus toast (6 to be exact) and two of my faves are the roasted beets and Elote salsa which is basically a charred corn salsa with hummus. Both are literally the best! So please do try!
Why does it have to be an Italian mirepoix of tomatoes, herbs, cream, meat, butter, and garlic? These are the basic things that Italian recipes always have but this is what I wanted to change. I wanted my pasta to be a little dry, with a succulency provided by mushrooms and a thin, even coating of flavour all around my pasta. This (and the lack of tomatoes or cream in my fridge) resulted in me creating a lemon yoghurt sauce, which is basically yoghurt whose tart flavour is accentuated by adding some fresh lemon zest. The sauce is tossed in last with the pasta, sautéed mushrooms, and pasta water. My penchant for complexity prevented me from stopping just there - upping the flavour factor by adding more carbs. I created a quick crumble by frying down breadcrumbs in rosemary oil and parmesan which was then added on top of my pasta (how much ever was left after I had “tasted” the delicious fried bread).
I never follow a recipe because I believe I am better than the recipe. This is also why for my first year of cooking I never made good food. Things were always off and I didn’t seem to understand what. It took a whole summer of meticulous recipe following to then notice the spaces where I could challenge the status quo. These cinnamon rolls have been a product of this process. A yeasted dough has rules. You need to begin by waking up the yeast by suspending it in warm water. Then you have to feed the yeast on some sugar to make it active enough that it then devours its main meal— the dough. Once you learn that, you can begin to experiment based on the conditions you’re in. Delhi is a warm and mostly humid climate. Which means that you don’t have to give yeast very warm water and if you add sugar to your dough you can cut down on the time you have to leave the dough to rise. Most cinnamon rolls add a lot of fat to the dough to get that rich and sometime flaky texture. I wanted a deep bite in mine. Almost like the crust of a Papa John’s pizza. So I cut the fat by half and added raisins that both add sweet and provide that extra cushion of warmth with every bite. It may not seem like much, but unlearning is the way to learn— otherwise all you’re doing is regurgitating and that gets boring real quick.