Contemplating Meat Free Mondays

When I was a teenager, I went through a vegetarian phase. I think most people do at some point in their lives. I told myself it was a moral thing, but really I thought it would help me lose weight, and most of my friends were doing it. I'm dead principled, me. The weight thing might have worked, had I any idea what a vegetarian diet actually entailed. Instead, I ate frozen vegetable lasagne all the time. It was by far my favourite food (after chips, obviously). I still hold quite a flame for vegetable lasagne, and to me it's up there with all the great comfort foods. And, because it's made of vegetables, it's very healthy (yes yes I know it's made of cheese and pasta). I've been toying with the idea of meat free Mondays for a while, partially to assuage the terrible guilt I inevitably feel after a weekend of booze, chicken cottage and pizza (every weekend), and partially because I think it's a Good Thing, health wise. Also, it's nice and forces me to be creative. Some may not agree, but I do the cooking, so boo urns to you.

So recently I made a vegetable lasagne, the recipe for which I got from BBC Good Food, obviously. The best thing about this lasagne is that it was incredibly simple, and there was no faffing about making white sauce, I just used more cheese. There are no pictures, because my phone was charging when I made it, but come on, everyone knows what a lasagne looks like. It's a lovely, easy, and most of all comforting, Monday night meal.

The recipe called for 700g grated courgettes, but I got tired of grating halfway through, and so grated one and sliced one. This made the texture nicer though, in my opinion.

Also, my local Co-op, being the worst supermarket in the world, didn't have the recommended ricotta, so I used marscapone. I'm sure this is a terrible sin, but whatevs, it's hardly the most authentic recipe I've ever seen anyway. AND courgettes in a packet were over twice the price of the loose courgettes sitting right beside them. Plastic must be very expensive. Buy loose courgettes everyone.

Creamy courgette lasagne  

(Serves 4, but I recommend only serving to  two and eating the leftovers because I love leftovers)

9 lasagne sheets (I used egg and didn't boil them first, it was fine)

Oil

A large onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 big huge courgettes (or maybe 5 small ones) Grated and chopped

A red pepper

A handful of spinach

A tub of marscapone

100g grated cheddar (recipe said 50g but I love cheese)

Tub of fresh tomato sauce from the supermarket (or make your own, if you're so inclined)

Pop the oven on to 220 degrees. Heat the oil and fry the onion for a couple of minutes. Add the courgettes and cook until the courgettes are soften and a slightly worrying bright green colour.

Heat the sauce in the microwave for about 2 minutes.

Stir in 2/3rds of the two cheeses and season. This cheesey mush is delicious (to me, it's probably actually disgusting) so resist the urge to eat it.

Spread a layer of the mush (so appetising) at the bottom of a baking dish, then a layer of pasta, then a layer of tomato sauce, then repeat. 

Blob the rest of the marscapone on top, and then all the grated cheddar you have left. 

Heat in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Serve with a salad, if you feel like it.

So that's what I had for dinner last Monday. Hardly inspired, but I enjoyed it plenty. I'm off home this weekend (for a wedding and a 90th birthday party and exhaustion) and then on holidays (SALZBURG) the following week, so I probably won't be cooking. But if I see anything exciting, I'll be sure to take a picture, mean to blog about it, and forget.

A poor workman blames his tools, this one blames her greed

I'm no food photographer, as you'll soon be able to tell. In preparing to write this, I scoured the Internet for advice about how to have the most exciting, interesting and inspiring food blog possible. This is none of those things, and for that I am profoundly sorry. One thing that is completely out of the realm of my ability, however, is to take pretty pictures of food, or, indeed, have any success in food styling whatsoever. I could try to pass on the blame here, and claim it's because I don't have a decent camera (at the moment I'm using my iPhone) or that the light in my kitchen is rubbish, or that I don't have any attractive props. The reality is, though, that after cooking a delicious (if I do say so myself) meal, and having tasted and smelt it all through that time, all I really want to do is get down and eat it as quickly as possible. I don't have the presence of mind to arrange a sprinkling of herbs, or angle the meat precisely. I've been cooking, I'm hungry!

This recipe is one I had my eye on for a while. It's adapted from BBC Good Food, which is my go to place for easy weekday recipes, as well as instructions on how to make more basic things, such as steak and chips (I'm a nervous cook). It's really quick, and rather tasty, perfect for a weekday night. However, I used Blue Dragon Thai Red Curry paste, which was a mistake. They seem to have changed their pastes recently, and they are much wetter, and less... paste-y. When I opened this one it smelt worryingly like a cheap jar of red pesto, and the flavour was similar, with barely a a kick of heat at the end. More of a tap, really. I had to add a lot of spices to make this interesting. I'm sure what I used wasn't particularly authentic, but it did the job. If I were to make it again, I'd definitely try to source a decent Thai paste, or, perhaps in the future when I'm more confident, attempt to make it myself. Also, I'd use full fat coconut milk next time. ANYWAY enough self defence and complaining, here's what I did.

The recipe calls for 500g salmon, but salmon is expensive, and I was only cooking for two, so I used 220g and bulked it up with veg. There was plenty, with enough leftovers for a small post-pub snack and lunch the next day. I think broccoli would work with this as well, and would add even more iron, which can only be a good thing.

Red Thai Salmon Curry

Ingredients:

Thai red curry paste(I had to use about 4 desert spoons, because it was so bland, but I also have a high tolerance for heat)
1 sliced onion (I also threw in 1/4 red onion that was sitting forlornly in my fridge)
1 red pepper
1 tin of (reduced fat, if you like) coconut milk
The juice of 1 lime
A splash of fish sauce
Cumin powder
Garam masala
Coriander powder (as much spices as you feel like, keep tasting. I used just under a teaspoon of each, I'd say, though I wasn't particularly precise)
A 300g packet of green beans
2 salmon fillets
2 large handfuls of spinach
A few cherry tomatoes

Cooking away

Heat a little bit of oil in the pan (I'm not sure how necessary the oil was, but I used it anyway) and then add the paste and fry for a couple of minutes. 

Add the onion and the pepper and cook over a low heat until they're softened. 

Pour in the coconut milk, lime juice, spices, mix and bring to the boil for a minute.

At this point in the recipe, I was still waiting for my companion to arrive, so I left it on a low heat until he did, so as not to over cook the fish. I don't think this did any harm, and it allowed the flavours to develop nicely.

Add the salmon, the green beans and the tomatoes, and cook for five minutes, until the salmon is nice and flake-y.

Throw in the spinach leaves, mixing until they wilt.

Sprinkle some decorative coriander (or basil, like me) on top

Serve with rice that is far less overcooked than mine.

And that's it! My first (albeit simple) recipe done. I hope I haven't bored you to tears/made you retch/outraged you somehow.