The Boards.ie Vegetarian Cookbook!

DonnieScribbles

Well, the name says it all really...

I was just thinking about what the photography forum is doing; compiling a selection of users photographs, publishing a book of them online and selling them for charity.

(More info here: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055690914 and here http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/909547
I'm not involved at all with this book by the way, I just lurk on that forum all the time!)

Why don't we compile a bunch or own recipes (that we've invented ourselves), post them up here so everyone can test and amend them, then bring them all together in a recipe book?

I have to look a bit more into this blurb website, but the photography forum people seem happy with it. As for a charity, my first pick would be the GSPCA here in Galway as they're fairly struggling but if anyone else has any suggestions, fire away....

I only had this idea last night so I just thought I'd throw it up here and see how ye react Good idea or not?

mrsdewinter

Hi Donnie - Omni lurker here.
It's a great idea - I'd LOVE a book of vegetarian recipes where the ingredients aren't measured in Cups.
And the Boards.ie Photography book certainly sets the bar high.
Are there any designers out there who'd be up for knocking recipes & pics from various sources into shape?
M

I like the idea....but I question my ability to knock out recipes of my own.
I'd do my best for you though.

DonnieScribbles

mrsdewinter wrote: »

Hi Donnie - Omni lurker here.
It's a great idea - I'd LOVE a book of vegetarian recipes where the ingredients aren't measured in Cups.
And the Boards.ie Photography book certainly sets the bar high.
Are there any designers out there who'd be up for knocking recipes & pics from various sources into shape?
M

Hello mrsdewinter, the nameless one or the mysterious Rebecca?:D
Yeah, I had to buy measuring cups as my most referenced cookbook is American.
I dabble in photography and am looking to expand my food photography skills so I'd love to take care of that aspect. I thought maybe people could just post up their recipes here and others can test them and suggest any improvements or changes.

Moonbaby wrote: »

I like the idea....but I question my ability to knock out recipes of my own.
I'd do my best for you though.

It doesn't have to be anything too crazy, meals made with fairly cheap and easily accesible ingredients would be a priority. Just post up whatever you love to make most, maybe!

I see people posting a lot of interesting recipes in various threads here, it would be good to have them consolidated in one place. Even if the book idea doesn't fly, it would still be good to compile them in a nice PDF that could be downloaded by visitors to this forum.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Great idea donnie! I'd lend a hand to this (though I'm not a great cook )

DonnieScribbles

Aden Silly Box wrote: »

Great idea donnie! I'd lend a hand to this (though I'm not a great cook )

Cool I beg to differ about your cooking skills, I think I robbed a recipe for butterbean hummus from one of your posts somewhere! Butterbeans are great...

That's one of the reasons why I want to compile these recipes though, it'd be nice to remember where you saw stuff for future reference...

Whispered

If anybody has a recipe for aloo chana I'd really appreciate it!

Other than that, most of my cooking involves using a mix of indian spices and hoping for the best.

Sapsorrow

There's a very good small book publishers based in Dingle, I can try find out their name. It would be expensive to get off the ground though where would the start up come from?
I'm in the process of compiling my own recipes at the moment with an eye to putting a book together in the future so would happily donate a few recipes esp if it's for animal welfare.
I think it would be a good idea to make apoint of using the most unique recipes as there are millions of veggie cookbooks out there with the same old recipes for hummous and nut roast etc, something more catchy would sell better (Dennis Cotters success is a good example of that)

Sapsorrow

Very cool website but still need the mula to get it printed no?

Sapsorrow

Thats deadly! Are the books very good quality? Has anyone seen one?

ztoical

Wow Blurb is expensive - there are much cheaper POD's on there.

There are some issues with publishing a cookbook you should look into before moving ahead. I know they can be very strict in the states but not sure what the law is here/EU. Alot has to do with product liability [esp relating to warnings] and people using recipes original from other cookbooks and using certain products [infringing on trademark etc]

Tar.Aldarion

Sounds like a great idea, and should be looked into. I'll have to make a unique potato au gratin

DonnieScribbles

Yeah, it was Blurb I was thinking of initially. I'll look more into the logistics of it when I'm a little less flu-ridden

Shall we go ahead with the recipe posting though? I was thinking of just starting a recipe thread before I had this book idea... People can just post up recipes and we can try them and give feedback, make suggestions for changes etc.

I was going to post up one of my vegan cupcake recipes as an example but I haven't the exact quantities to hand, damn...

Tar.Aldarion

Sounds good! Must ask a couple of veggie/vegan pals I know that don't use boards but may defeat the purpose.

maameeo

i cant cook but i can help with design

Shenshen

I love the idea.
I don't usually go for cook books much, as especially the vegetarian ones usually have one or two recipes I like, and the rest is odd stuff with strange ingredients.

I can happily offer a few recipes, they'd be mostly Austrian/Hungarian/German inspired, hearty and fairly simple to prepare.

Tar.Aldarion

Sounds good, something different

Shenshen

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Sounds good, something different

Well, it'll be a bit of a challenge, cause I usually never measure anything when cooking.
I was in an Italian place the other day, and they had a poster on the wall which read "If god wanted us to follow recipes, he wouldn't have given us grandmothers".

i-digress

It would be nice to have a veggie cookbook that doesn't measure in cups! :rolleyes:

-lala-

I think this is a fabulous idea, and will be happy to contribute when I have a little bit more time on my hands!

DonnieScribbles

Glad to see all the interest in this! What might be good to do is to begin with the recipes and then see what we have to work with...
To start us off, I'm going to post my recipe for sweet chilli hummus. Not the most adventurous of recipes, but like Shenshen said above, I never measure anything so it'll take a while for me to refine the details of my other recipes!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp dried chilli flakes
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp warm water

2 tins chickpeas
2 tbsp tahini
60ml lemon juice
3 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp water

In a bowl, combine the chilli flakes, syrup, vinegar and water. I left mine overnight to infuse, I'm not sure if the flavour is as intense if you do it just before making the hummus.

Combine the sweet chilli mixture with the rest of the ingredients using a blender or a hand blender. I find the hand blender works surprisingly well.

Refrigerate then serve.

It's a pretty simple one. If anyone wants to try it out and let me know if there's any radical improvements that can be made to it, please do

And anyone else who wants to post something, go ahead, it'll give me something to do in the evenings!

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

I don't want to study, so I'll post the recipe for the chilli I made last night

Ingredients
1 tin kidney beans
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Lentils (I very rarely measure things, I just covered the bottom of a medium sized pan)
1 generous teaspoon of cumin
dried/crushed/powdered chilli to taste (I used three dried chillis)
Vegemite
Veggie stock (I rinsed out one of the tomato cans with it, so...half a can's worth of it!)
Assorted veg-I was making this primarily to use up the veg. I had mushrooms, a red bell pepper, two sweet potatoes, some salad tomatoes, and red onions. They all worked well, as would most root vegetables (I'd say)

Instructions
Chop veg

Put the lentils on to cook (rinse, boil fast for ten minutes, simmer for 15-20)

Empty tomatoes into a large pot on medium heat, add in kidney beans, stir in seasoning (chilli and cumin) and add in veg and vegetable stock.

Get a spoon of vegemite. Carefully stir in the spoonful, waiting for it to dissolve off the spoon rather than leaving a big clump of it floating around in the pot to suprise somebody (ick).

When the lentils are cooked drain them and add them in. Then it's more or less a matter of leaving it to simmer until the veg is cooked through and it's reduced a bit. You can leave it to simmer for two or three hours if you want it extra nice, and it's lovely the next day as well.

Served with a staple I'd say that's enough for two to four people, depending on how hungry they are :pac:

Shenshen

Ok, here are two of my current favourites:

Lentil-stuffed peppers with spicy potatoes

3 good size bell peppers, cut in half and with the seeds taken out
2 cup of red lentils
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 chopped onion
0.5 l of vegetable stock
grated cheese

For the potatoes:

3 medium sized potatoes, diced
3 tsp of paprika
1/2 tsp of chili
1 tsp of dried oregano
salt to taste

Mix the seasoning together in a bowl, then sprinkle over the diced potatoes. Mix to make sure the potatoes are covered well. Place the potatoes in a baking dish and sprinkly with olive oil. Place in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30 mins, stirring the potatoes occasionally so they brown from all sides.

Fry the chopped onion in some oil until soft. add the lentils and tomatoes. Keep simmering until the lentils are soft, adding the vegetable stock when it gets too dry. It should end up in a consistency a bit like porrige.
Fill the mixture into the peppers, place them on a tray and cover with kitchen foil. Oven-bake for about 15 mins, then remove the kitchen foil and sprinkle with the cheese. Place back into the oven until the cheese has melted and slightly browned.

Should be enough for 3 - 4 servings.


Hungarian Vegetable Stew

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, cut into small chunks
1/2 turnip, cut into small chunks
1 punnet of mushrooms, halved or quartered
100 g of frozen peas
1 l of vegetable stock
2 TSP of tomatoe puree
3 tsp of paprika
2 bay leaves
1 tsp of ground carraways (optional)
1-2 TSP of vegetable gravy granules (alternatively, some corn starch for thickening)

Fry up the onion until slightly browned, then add the carrots, turnip and mushrooms and stock. Stir in the tomatoe puree and the paprika, add the bay leaves and carraway. Cover and leave simmering for 10 - 15 mins, until the root vegetables are soft. Remove the bay leaves, add the peas, let simmer for another 2 - 3 mins. Stir in the gravy granules. If you're using corn starch instead, place 2 tsp of starch in a cup, add cold water (enough to fill the cup about 1/3) and stir until smooth. Pour mixture into the simmering stew while stirring. Remove from the heat when it starts thickening.

Goes great with some mashed potatoes.

DonnieScribbles

Tried electro~bitch's chilli just there, twas nice! The veg I used were broccoli, onion, carrots and potatoes. I used a lot of puy lentils and about 350ml of stock I think.
I also sautéed some garlic at the start because sometimes cooking without garlic just doesn't feel right :pac:
For seasoning I used 1 tsp of dried chilli flakes and half a teaspoon of ground cayenne aswell as the cumin. Quite hot.
Oh, I also added some dried rosemary and thyme and this worked out very nice for me so it did.
I'd never cooked with vegemite before, so that was exciting. Also from the perspective of cooking with something you first heard of whilst watching Home and Away It looks way too much like chocolate though... Could really confuse you if you were sleepy or something...

Really nice recipe, thanks electro

Will try Shenshen's recipes when I finally make my way through this huge pot of chilli... This is exciting, new things to cook...

Shenshen

We're not letting this idea die already, are we?

Here's one of my favourite breakfast recipes :

The Cheater's Cheese Omlette

1 onion, cut into half-rings
1 pepper, cut into strips
50g sweetcorn (frozen or from a tin)
4 eggs
70g of grated cheddar or gouda
Salt, pepper and tabasco to taste

Fry up the onion in a pan with some oil, until they just start to brown. Add the peppers and fry until they are soft, stiring contstantly. Add the sweetcorn.
Mix the eggs up in a small bowl, and season. Pour over the vegetables in the pan, and keep it on medium heat until the eggs are nearly set (the top will remain liquid). Sprinkle on the cheese, and place the pan under the grill for a few minutes, until the cheese has melted and browned.

No need to fiddle about with trying to turn the omlette over this way )
Serves two.

DonnieScribbles

We're not letting this idea die already, are we?

No, it's not dead, just temporarily put to one side! It'll probably be January before I can devote more time to it...

I'll probably try one of your recipes this weekend There's always time for dinner! Not the omelette though, I've had a lifelong aversion to omelettes!

I'm wondering about the posting of recipes though, if a book of them is eventually going to be for sale. Why buy a book if you could just read this thread? I do think the recipes have to be properly tested by a good few different people in a good few different kitchens though...

Hmmm....Something for me to think about in the new year I think.

Shenshen

DonnieScribbles wrote: »

No, it's not dead, just temporarily put to one side! It'll probably be January before I can devote more time to it...

I'll probably try one of your recipes this weekend There's always time for dinner! Not the omelette though, I've had a lifelong aversion to omelettes!

I'm wondering about the posting of recipes though, if a book of them is eventually going to be for sale. Why buy a book if you could just read this thread? I do think the recipes have to be properly tested by a good few different people in a good few different kitchens though...

Hmmm....Something for me to think about in the new year I think.

Good point indeed.
I would suggest of swapping emails, and getting a number of people dedicated to trying the recipes, around 5 would be enough I think. We could rank the recipes by how easy they are to prepare, how available the ingredients are, and of course how tasy the testers found them.

We'll also need some camera-wizard of sorts to make yummy-looking photos of the dishes.

DonnieScribbles

Yes, I like this idea
So we need volunteers for recipe testers! I'm guessing myself and Shenshen are two of the five, so three more anyway, at least.
I can take the pictures! Something like this, though it's not a fantastic example :



Cupcakes, yay...

cocoa

I'll volunteer as a tester. Any recipe that I successfully follow can be given a seal of foolproof approval. I'll also be the one who never knows where to find the ingredients...

DonnieScribbles

cocoa wrote: »

I'll volunteer as a tester. Any recipe that I successfully follow can be given a seal of foolproof approval. I'll also be the one who never knows where to find the ingredients...

The cocoa difficulty rating

I must come up with a proper way of organising this though... Considering people would be busy and such. Maybe a week to test a recipe?
And then there's the selection process...
It's way too early in the morning!

Shenshen

DonnieScribbles wrote: »

The cocoa difficulty rating

I must come up with a proper way of organising this though... Considering people would be busy and such. Maybe a week to test a recipe?
And then there's the selection process...
It's way too early in the morning!

I thought it might be a good idea to set up an email account (gmail or somesuch) that recipes can be submitted to, and that we can send our ratings to as well.