Vegetarian Haggis recipe

Can you call vegetarian haggis, haggis? Either way, I had some in Edinburgh when I was there last week and it was so tasty I decided to make it myself. Sorry for listing some of the measurements in cups, that’s how I got the recipe and I didn’t think to weigh out the ingredients once I’d measured them.

Ingredients

Olive oil

1 carrot, peeled and finely diced

1/4 of a peeled swede, finely diced

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

6 mushrooms, finely diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup of whole mixed nuts, hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts

1/3 of a cup of red lentils

600ml of vegetable stock

1/2 cup of cooked kidney beans

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary

1/4 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground cinammon

Freshly ground black papper

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 and 1/2 cups of pinhead oatmeal

The juice of half a lemon

Method

Heat the oven to 170C.

Spread the mixed nuts out on a baking tray and roast in the oven for 10 minutes, don’t over-roast.

Let the nuts cool and finely chop them, I put them in the chopper I got with a stick blender.

Add a little olive oil to a large pan and add the onion, sauté for 5 minutes.

Season with some black pepper, don’t add too much right now, we’re going to add more later.

Add the carrot, swede, mushrooms and garlic and sauté for another 5 minutes.

Add the lentils, 450ml of the stock and stir.

Add the kidney beans to the remaining 150ml of stock and give them a little mash, don’t break them up too much.

Add the nuts, soy sauce, herbs and spices to the stock, stir it all together and add it to the vegetables. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add some more black pepper, keep tasting so you don’t over do it but you want to be fairly heavy handed with the amount of pepper you put in for a more authentic taste.

Add the pinhead oatmeal and cook for another 5 minutes. Add a little water of it gets too dry, the mixture should end up moist but not runny.

Add the lemon juice and stir it in.

Spoon the mixture into two lightly greased loaf tins.

Bake for 30 minutes at 190C.

Serve with mashed neeps and tatties!

Spinach, Sweet Red Pepper and Ricotta Lasagne recipe

Another recipe shamelessly stolen from The Waiting Room but changed slightly, serve it with sesame potatoes and some garlic bread to wipe the plate.

Ingredients – Makes enough for 6

Olive oil

4 sweet pointed red peppers, deseeded and cut into large chunks

3 red onions, sliced

1 large onion, sliced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

250ml of vegetable stock

500g organic spinach

250g ricotta cheese

Dried egg pasta sheets, I used 15

300ml of good bechamel sauce, make your own if you want!

300g of vegetarian mature cheddar cheese, grated

Freshly grated nutmeg, don’t use ready ground

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C, slightly lower for a fan assisted oven.

Add a little olive oil to a large roasting tray and place in the oven for a few minutes.

Place the chunks of red pepper and all the red onion in the roasting tray, turn the veg to cover in the hot oil and place in the oven for around an hour, turning every 15 minutes or so. Keep an eye on it in case it starts to burn.

Remove the roasted red pepper and onions from the oven and set to one side.

In a large pan, gently fry the onion in a little olive oil for about 10 minutes then add the minced garlic.

Stir and fry for a few minutes until the onion is soft but not brown.

Add the vegetable stock and the spinach, stir until the spinach has wilted.

Add the red pepper and onions to the spinach mix along with the ricotta and give it all a good stir.

Add half the cheese to the bechamel sauce and stir to combine.

Layer the mix in a deep oven dish alternating between that and the pasta sheets, I did three layers ending on a layer of pasta.

Pour the bechamel and cheese mixture on top of the pasta and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the sauce.

Grate as much nutmeg over the cheese as you like!

Bake in the oven for about an hour, make sure the pasta doesn’t burn but the cheese goes brown and gooey!