Tag archives: vegan

Roasted butternut squash with spicy lentils

This recipe makes a lot of the lentils, you could add more squash or keep the leftovers and do something else with them, I had mine for lunch the next day! It could also be very easily made vegan by not using the butter!

Roasted butternut squash with spicy lentils

Ingredients

Olive oil

A little butter

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves of garlic, crushed through a press

1 large onion, diced

1 ½ tablespoons of curry powder (mild, hot, whatever you like) or garam masala

1 litre of vegetable stock

1 ½ cups of dried red split lentils, rinsed and drained

1 can of chopped tomatoes

1 large butternut squash

Method

Heat the oven to 180C (I’ve got a fan oven).

Peel and quarter the butternut squash.

Place in a baking dish and drizzle over a little olive oil.

Dot a little butter on the squash pieces and season with salt and pepper.

Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until the squash is tender and has turned brown in places.

Whilst the squash is in the oven add a little olive oil to a pan and add the onion.

Sauté the onion for a few minutes over a medium heat and add the garlic.

Cook for a few minutes more and add the curry powder, stir to combine and add half of the vegetable stock.

Add the lentils, stir and cover.

Keep checking to make sure the lentils haven’t taken on all of the stock, top up with some of the left over stock if needed.

When the lentils are almost cooked add the chopped tomatoes and stir to combine it all.

Your squash should be done by now! You did keep checking on it didn’t you?

Transfer the squash to some bowls and spoon over the lovely hot spicy lentil mix.

Enjoy!

Please Mars, just tell me!

“You can’t eat them.”

“What?”

“You can’t eat them.”

“Why the fuck not, they’re only M&M’s.”

“They’re not suitable for vegetarians.”

“Oh yeah, peanut M&M’s, chocolate, peanuts, horse lips, says it right there on the ingredients list.”

The conversation didn’t quite go like that but as it turns out peanut M&M’s aren’t suitable for vegetarians, possibly to do with animal rennet used in the production of the whey…

So I thought, what else can’t I eat, sometimes it’s confusing and annoying having to read through all of the ingredients and make a choice. What if there’s nothing obvious in the ingredients that would point to it not being suitable for vegetarians? So I’ve found myself more and more just avoiding anything that doesn’t say it’s suitable.

I had a look on the Mars Nutrition website, it helpfully lists nutritional information and the ingredients of products, but nothing about suitability for vegetarians.

“Contact Us“, yes please! So I did.

Hi, do you have an up to date list of your confectionery products that are NOT suitable for vegetarians?

It would be very helpful if you also labelled your products that weren’t suitable for vegetarians.

Cheers

Rich

A week or so went by and then today I got a reply from the very helpful Paula Ricketts who works on the Consumer Care Team at Mars…

Dear Richard

Thank you for contacting us about a list of products that are not suitable for vegetarians.

Unfortunately, we’re not currently able to confirm the suitability of individual products or provide you with a list.

Once again, thank you for contacting Mars.

Yours sincerely

Paula Ricketts
Consumer Care Team
0845 045 0042

So, I’m sat open mouthed, do they not know, is it a closely guarded secret? Tap, tap, tap I composed my reply…

Thank you Paula, for your in depth and expedient reply.

I am however a little confused with your reply, do you not know which products are suitable for vegetarians or do you just not want to tell me?

I look forward to your reply!

Kind regards,
Rich

So, only time will tell if Mars will admit to not knowing, not wanting to tell me or just not being bothered!

Incidentally, Cadbury have a very helpful website which lists everything you need to know about their products, if they’re vegetarian, vegan, kosher, etc. Have a look!

http://nutrition.cadbury.co.uk

UPDATE – 2/11/11

I got another reply from Mars…

At Mars, we’re always trying to provide our consumers with the biggest choice possible of chocolate products. We’re making great progress in making sure our products are suitable for vegetarians where possible.

Unfortunately, we’re not currently able to confirm the suitability of individual products or provide you with a list, but most of products are suitable and have ‘Suitable for vegetarians’ on the back of the pack. This labelling ensures that these products are in line with the FSA’s guidance on vegetarian labelling.

As always, our advice would be to make sure you check the packaging so you can guarantee the suitability for your diet. If the product does NOT say ‘Suitable for vegetarians’, we would suggest that you avoid it.

I can only guess that sometimes they have to make changes to the way they manufacture their products. Sometimes they can do it without using ingredients dirrived from animals, sometimes they can’t and they have to change the label based on this.

It’s a shame that the FSA doesn’t issue very useful guidelines on this, wouldn’t it be easier for everything to just state the suitability either way instead of the consumer having to guess or go without because there just isn’t a simple label. I noticed that on the label for some Divine chocolate I was looking at it didn’t say it was suitable for vegeterians but later when I checked on their website it said it was, but they missed the sale.

No meat, no meal?

I suppose I’m a bit of a pretentious fucker when it comes to food, I’ve always found comfort in food, from reading about it, to preparing it, to eating it. I’ve been lucky enough to try all sorts of different things, I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world and eat in some amazing places, even if sometimes things got lost in translation and “Pork” turned out to be “Dog”, but that’s another story for another blog post…

In the last few years I’ve taken more of an interest in food provenance, trying to buy meat that is locally reared and well looked after or using seasonal ingredients instead of whatever we can import for convenience. I’ve Tweeted about my problem with Marks & Spencer (and I’m sure others) selling potatoes imported from Israel, the last time I checked we could grow potatoes just fine in the UK.

I digress, so, anyway we have a few friends who are vegetarian, we’ve shared food and we’ve been introduced to new things by them. After embarking on my mammoth 1000 mile cycling journey this year and changing what I eat completely we began talking about trying out a vegetarian diet for a month and the idea of “Veggie August” was born.

I’d already cut out a lot of meat from my diet and my wife and I mainly eat chicken when we do have meat, but I adore game and seafood and I head straight to that part of the menu whenever I can. I’ve always felt like I’m full of energy even after riding my 60 miles a week but our vegetarian friends rave about how good they feel just from having moved to a more natural and let’s be honest, ethical way of eating.

So, yesterday was the start of Veggie August, we’re foregoing meat for a month and seeing how we feel. I generally do the cooking at home and for a while have done a mix of meat and veggie food anyway so moving over to vegetarian shouldn’t be too much trouble. I’ve stolen recipes from The Waiting Room, an amazing local vegetarian restaurant and I’ve been pointed in the direction of Becka Eats, a great blog about veggie and vegan food.

So for day 1, we went with Lentil Shepherd’s Pie with Sweet Potato Mash, a recipe from Becka’s blog but changed slightly from vegan to veggie purely for convenience! I’m going to add the recipes for what I cook in August to the blog and share how the month is going…

 

Lentil Shepherd’s Pie with Sweet Potato Mash recipe

Blatantly stolen from Becka Eats this is the first meal we had in Veggie August. The lentils give it a great texture and the sweet potato mash with nutmeg tastes amazing!

Ingredients – Makes enough 4 with leftovers for lunch.

Olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Half a cup of Puy lentils (I could only find Lentille Verte)

Half a cup of green lentils

2 bay leaves

2 onions, peeled and chopped

3 cloves of garlic, crushed (Just like your hopes and dreams)

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

3 tablespoons of tomato purée

1 tablespoon of dried oregano

3 large carrots, peeled and diced

1 vegetarian stock cube (I used a Knorr Stock Pot)

250ml of red wine (Why not drink the rest of the bottle?)

3-4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into equal sized chunks

A splash of milk

A wedge of butter

Freshly grated nutmeg

Method

Wash the lentils, add them to a pan with the bay leaves. Cover with water and and bring to the boil. All in all they probably want around half an hour, you don’t want them to turn to mush so keep an eye on them.

Meanwhile put your sweet potatoes in a pan, cover with water and get them onto boil, they probably want 20-30 minutes.

After you’ve got that sorted, add a little olive oil to a big pan and add the onion, carrots and garlic. Over a medium heat sauté them for about 10 minutes but don’t let them brown. Add the tomatoes, tomato purée, wine, pepper, oregano and stock pot. Give it all a good stir and cook for another 10-15 minutes until it’s thickened.

Now would be a good point to pre-heat your oven on to finish off the dish, 200C should be enough.

Around now the lentils should be done, drain them and add them to your tomato sauce. Give it all another good stir and keep warm on a low heat.

Once the sweet potato is cooked drain the water from it, add a good wedge of butter, a splash of milk and half a grated nutmeg. Give it a good mash and check the seasoning.

Spoon the tomato lentil sauce into a baking dish and top with the sweet potato mash, rough it up with the tines of a fork and put it in the oven for 10 or 15 minutes until the mash starts to brown.

Shovel a generous helping into a bowl and enjoy!

Vegetable and lentil stew recipe

Probably better on a cold, winter night, but it was delicious in July anyway!

Ingredients – Makes enough for 4-5

Olive oil

750ml of vegetable stock

2 onions, peeled and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 parsnips, peeled and diced

2 beetroot, peeled and diced

1 sweet potato, as big as your fist, peeled and diced

1 leek, sliced

2 sticks of celery, sliced

180g of red split lentils

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

227g tin of chopped tomatoes

Freshly ground black pepper

1 heaped teaspoon of ground coriander

1 heaped teaspoon of ground cumin

Juice of half a lemon

Method

Add a little oil to a big pan over a medium heat

Add half of the onion, all of the carrot, parsnip, beetroot, sweet potato, leek and celery.

Keep stirring and fry for about 5 minutes.

Add the garlic and the lentils, stir and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes and stock, give it a stir and put a lid on the pan.

Let it simmer for about half an hour, until the veg is just about cooked.

In another pan, over a medium heat add a little more oil and add the remaining onion.

Add the ground coriander and cumin and fry for 10 minutes, don’t let the onion brown you just want to flavour it with the spices.

When soft, add the fried onion to the stew with the lemon juice, season with ground black pepper and give it a final stir.

Serve and nom!