Become Pro Vegetarian Chef

A few weeks ago I went on a fungi forage, except it wasn't a fungi forage - 'why would you want to eat them?' exclaimed the fungi expert when he heard one of the participants (not me) ask her friend 'are these edible?'.   The reason I am talking about mushrooms is because my  Bourguignon here looks a bit like an autumnal forest ground - mushrooms, green grassy colours from the long needle shaped leaves from rosemary herb, leaves in the form of bay leaf and lots of autumnal colours, but here everything is edible - I wonder what Alice in Wonderland would think?! I think this dish is best made on a day like today wh en it's awfully dreadful, damp and dreich outside in Cymru aka Wales.  I am so glad its the weekend and I don't have to be in work or anywhere else today and can stay in the comfort of my home.  I am glad of it actually as its been a rather busy week at work too.   As well as a medley of mushrooms, I had also picked up some rainbow carrots...

I have more autumnal coloured food coming your way, but here is one that you may want to consider making for your grown up Halloween Party.  I made this Carrot Rice Pilau with some rainbow carrots.  I was quite surprised how the purple carrots bled into the white basmati rice and tainted it with a purple hue.  It actually looked quite pretty and quite nice to eat.   As I had some left over, I decided to take some into work for lunch as a savoury rice salad dish.  You could reheat it in the microwave or eat it at room temperature. So I have decided to share it with Kahakai Kitchen .  By the way this is not the traditional way of making pilau rice that comes from the Indian Sub Continent, but it was still very flavourful.  I adapted a recipe that was also adapted by the cookboo k authors.   Other Rainbow Coloured Vegan Recipes  Savoury Chestnut, Rainbow Carrot and Lentil Cake Rainbow Carrots, Puy Lentil and Barley Salad...

This is not the most attractive looking of dishes that I have shared on my blog, but I think its the perfect time for to pretend and say that I made it for a Halloween party and what you are seeing here are some damn ugly zombie or monster fingers coming out of the earthy ground.   Truth is, this is spicy beluga lentils chili or sorts enhanced with chilli chocolate and the so called fingers are actually rainbow carrots. I guess to make this dish look even more horrific, I should have only used the purple carrots, that appear to be more effective in resembling fingers with the wrinkles.   Despite the way it looks, it actually tasted okay.   I don't cook that much with Beluga lentils as Puy lentils tend to be my go to in terms of sturdy lentils that keep their shape and do not disintegrate upon long cooking, but don't let that stop you from making this dish (if you dare),  you can use brown lentils, I find them just as tasty, if not more so.  I served t...

Yes, this is a play on 'Satan' - Seitan's cake and with Halloween not that far away, I do like to make freaky food around this time of year to amuse myself, if no one else.  I admit its strange as I don't participate by dressing up and attending Halloween fancy dress parties.  The closest I get to it is when t he children in the street dress up and knock on the door to 'trick and treat' - yes, its become a big thing in this part of the Welsh valleys.  Let me tell you a story from my childhood.  At primary school one of the teachers told us a story about this Welsh lady in traditional Welsh costume wearing a paisley shawl.  I don't remember very much about the story, but what stuck with me was that if you looked closely at her Paisley patterned shawl, you could see the devil's face.  I've always been fascinated in that kind of stuff, which may explain my liking of supernatural and psychological films and dramas like Hinterland.  The first series ...

So apparently its World Pasta Day and it is truly by coincidence that today I blog this pasta dish.  Black food or dark coloured food continues to dominate my blog in the run up to Halloween and today I have a whopper. I thought surely someone must have made a Black Garlic Macaroni Cheese recipe .  I googled and there was no recipe for black garlic pasta, yeah a little grated like parmesan - but not drowned in black garlic dyed cheese - no doubt, now there will be some more now.  Here is my Black Garlic Pasta Macaroni Cheese before going into the oven for the final bake.  I promise you it gets much darker on baking; and you will have to take my work for it as I didn't take a picture of it, blame it on the dark evenings. I adore my husband for allowing me to experiment in the kitchen and eating whatever I present to him.  We have rarely ever thrown a dish in the bin, not always delicious, but always edible.  This was a really rich and quite tasty actu...