Lent Vegetarians - Recipes

[daeve]

I’m doing semi-vegetarian for Lent and having some meat at my mum and dad’s. I don’t like quorn and prefer vegetables you can see. I’m doing a polenta bake tomorrow with sliced polenta, tomato sauce with roasted garlic and topped with mozzarella cheese served with salad and garlic bread.

This is also tasty: tortilla wraps stuffed with refried beans and topped with spicy tomato salsa and cheese. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

What’s quorn? Do you make the polenta from scratch? I can remember my grandparents, mother and aunt taking turns stirring the stuff with a huge wooden spoon. My grandparent’s version was good, but my mother and aunt didn’t have the knack.

 

[budgie2]

What’s quorn? Do you make the polenta from scratch? I can remember my grandparents, mother and aunt taking turns stirring the stuff with a huge wooden spoon. My grandparent’s version was good, but my mother and aunt didn’t have the knack.

I bought the polenta ready made from the supermarket. I live in Britain and it’s a make called Italfresco. It was a bit liquidy so I’m going to fry it next time. I don’t know how to make polenta from scratch.

 

[Onegin]

What’s quorn? Do you make the polenta from scratch? I can remember my grandparents, mother and aunt taking turns stirring the stuff with a huge wooden spoon. My grandparent’s version was good, but my mother and aunt didn’t have the knack.

Quorn is great - it’s basically a meat-substitute fungus that has a ton of protein in it. I’m basically a vegetarian all the time (except for the odd fish dish) so I eat Quorn a lot. You can purchase a big bag of mince and it looks almost exactly like minced beef. Tastes delicious in chili, stir fry, spaghetti con “carne”, soups etc. Plus you get your protein too, so that’s good.

Okay, here’s one dish I enjoy and they tend to make a lot. It’s really easy and you can adapt it to be larger or smaller. You’ll have to purchase a lot of veggies but it’s worth it! And you can even add some Quorn to it if you want. I usually don’t because it tends to be a pretty heavy dish on its own.

Moroccan Stew (makes about 4-6 servings).

1 can chickpeas,
1 can black beans,
3 medium tomatoes diced,
1 can tomato sauce,
1 yellow zucchini sliced,
1 green zucchini sliced,
2 cups shredded cabbage,
2 cloves garlic pressed (or powdered equivalent),
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup sultanas
2tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch pepper
chili powder (optional)

Dry rice or polenta

Preparation:

Soak sultanas in a bowl of warm water for 10-15 minutes before cooking (you can do this whilst you get your other ingredients ready!)
Combine onion and olive oil in large pan on low heat until lightly browned. Slowly add in diced vegetables and cabbage, stirring frequently. Once vegetables have cooked slightly, begin to add canned beans and finally tomato sauce, sultanas, brown sugar and spices. Simmer over low heat for 15-20 and spice to taste (some people enjoy adding more chili powder for a hotter stew).

Serve over rice or polenta. I prefer polenta with this dish and you can buy a bag of it most anywhere. It cooks a bit faster than rice in a saucepan.

This is one of those dishes that tastes better the longer you let it cook or even the next day, once the flavours are all combined.

 

[daeve]

I bought the polenta ready made from the supermarket. I live in Britain and it’s a make called Italfresco. It was a bit liquidy so I’m going to fry it next time. I don’t know how to make polenta from scratch.

It takes forever…well, most of the day from what I recall. My mother, thinking I loved it, made it for my birthday a few years before she died. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I don’t really care for it. Besides the cornmeal and some liquid, I have no idea what goes into it, but you have to stir and stir and stir. Then my grandmother made some kind of stew-y stuff to pour over the top of it, and she’d make boiled potatoes too because the German spouses and my Swiss dad didn’t like it. I did like hers, but not Mom’s or my aunt’s.

Another treat the non-Italians didn’t care for was risotto. My grandmother’s was a plate of heaven. Rice, porcini mushrooms, home made beef broth and parmesan cheese. My sister tried to make it with canned chicken broth in the crock pot. Nope, yuck, don’t want it. I’ve made it a few times, and it was ok but not the same. My mother was a darling woman, but not a good cook. She, her mother and her sister did things to meat that should be criminalize. It you could cut it with a steak knife, it was raw to them. There were many things I didn’t know I liked until I graduated from high school and got my first job at IHOP. Toast is good! It’s not supposed to be black. A company named Alessi makes an ok risotto Milanese, but Rice A Roni had a really good one they quit making a long time ago. I emailed them about it once and they said it didn’t sell very well. Risotto is another thing that takes all day, and you have to find the right kind of saffron and dried porcini mushrooms. When it’s right, it’s wonderful, but when it’s not it’s just mushy yellow rice.

But how about that quorm? What’s that?

 

[daeve]

Quorn is great - it’s basically a meat-substitute fungus that has a ton of protein in it. I’m basically a vegetarian all the time (except for the odd fish dish) so I eat Quorn a lot. You can purchase a big bag of mince and it looks almost exactly like minced beef. Tastes delicious in chili, stir fry, spaghetti con “carne”, soups etc. Plus you get your protein too, so that’s good.

Okay, here’s one dish I enjoy and they tend to make a lot. It’s really easy and you can adapt it to be larger or smaller. You’ll have to purchase a lot of veggies but it’s worth it! And you can even add some Quorn to it if you want. I usually don’t because it tends to be a pretty heavy dish on its own.

Moroccan Stew (makes about 4-6 servings).

1 can chickpeas,
1 can black beans,
3 medium tomatoes diced,
1 can tomato sauce,
1 yellow zucchini sliced,
1 green zucchini sliced,
2 cups shredded cabbage,
2 cloves garlic pressed (or powdered equivalent),
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup sultanas
2tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch pepper
chili powder (optional)

Dry rice or polenta

Preparation:

Soak sultanas in a bowl of warm water for 10-15 minutes before cooking (you can do this whilst you get your other ingredients ready!)
Combine onion and olive oil in large pan on low heat until lightly browned. Slowly add in diced vegetables and cabbage, stirring frequently. Once vegetables have cooked slightly, begin to add canned beans and finally tomato sauce, sultanas, brown sugar and spices. Simmer over low heat for 15-20 and spice to taste (some people enjoy adding more chili powder for a hotter stew).

Serve over rice or polenta. I prefer polenta with this dish and you can buy a bag of it most anywhere. It cooks a bit faster than rice in a saucepan.

This is one of those dishes that tastes better the longer you let it cook or even the next day, once the flavours are all combined.

I responded too soon. Quorn…fungus? Well, so is a mushroom.

The Moroccan Stew sounds great. I love any kind of squash there is, except maybe spaghetti squash because it’s stringy. Just like alfalfa sprouts, I’m afraid of choking on it (I do have some kind of weird throat problem and I choke easily). I think sultanas are some kind of raisin.

We have ready made polenta at the grocery store too. Sometimes I pick one up for my son. He’s crazy about it, but it’s a little expensive – although he’s back at work for about 6 months now and could probably afford it for himself now. Both my sons are really good cooks, one is actually a professional chef, but they don’t like the kind of things I do, and I don’t like the spicy stuff they prefer. The non-chef makes fried risotto balls that are really terrific, but can’t be good for a diabetic. Most of the stuff I like isn’t good for me. I think I’ll go have some ice cream. I have spumoni tonight!

 

[Onegin]

I looked it up and apparently:

The principal ingredient in all Quorn products is mycoprotein (“myco” is Greek for “fungi”). The mycoprotein comes from Fusarium venenatum, which was originally discovered growing in a field in Buckinghamshire, England. In the late 1960s, initial product development began, soon recognizing mycoprotein’s potential as an efficient and nutritious protein source.

I think it is available in the US and several other countries, but I’m not sure in what forms or the price. There might be some local brands that are less expensive and provide the same options. I just know that I enjoy it because sometimes eating a vegetarian diet can prove challenging in the protein department, so it’s nice to have a ready made alternative that I can toss into any dish.

Another handy tip to remember if you’re trying to go meatless for Lent and want to fix a filling meal is that beans and rice are incomplete proteins, which means that if you eat them alone, you’ll be somewhat full but not as full as eating meat. However, combining incomplete protein makes a full protein and a more substantial meal. I used to have a friend that would carry a can of beans with him to friends’ houses during Lent, so that he could combine it with the rice side dishes to make a full meal.