This weekend’s book was the Australian Women’s Weekly vegie food: low-fat & delicious. Quite frankly I’d rather see a “vegie food – all the tastiness we can cram in, bugger the fat”, but apparently that isn’t done. I’m not going to get into the argument that vegetarianism is better for your health than any other dietary choice, that’s a whole blog post on it’s own.
As usual, the Women’s Weekly had done a great job of testing these recipes to make sure that all the instructions were clear and that they hadn’t missed any steps or ingredients. I cooked two dishes from this book, as I wasn’t cooking for many (initially), and I thought the recipes I had selected would suffice. The pakoras ended up cooking in more than the recommended amount of oil, because the tiny amount recommended wouldn’t cook all of them, the pies were great if you enjoy peas and mushrooms (which I don’t – which is not the fault of the cookbook). Overall I give this 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Creamy leek, mushroom and baby pea pies
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 2 small leeks, sliced thinly
- 300g mushrooms
- 2 tablespoons plain flour
- 1/2 cup low-fat milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable stock
- 1 cup frozen baby peas
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
- 1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
- 4 slices white mountain bread, quartered
- cooking-oil spray
Method:
- Preheat oven to moderately hot (200C/180C fan forced)
- Heat oil in large saucepan; cook garlic and leek, stirring until leek soften. Add mushrooms; cook, stirring, about 5 minutes or until mushrooms are tender.
- Add flour; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Gradually stir in milk and stock; cook, stirring, until mixture boils and thickens slightly. Stir in peas, chives and mustard; cook about 2 minutes or until peas are tender.
- Divide mixture among for 1 1/4 cup ovenproof dishes; place dishes on oven tray. Top each with four scrunched up pieces of bread; spray break lightly with oil. Cook, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until bread is browned lightly.
Notes on this recipe:
- Those that like mushrooms and/or peas enjoyed this dish thoroughly.
- Using mountain bread as a pie topper is a really great idea.
- This dish could have used some salt or mixed herbs to make it a bit more flavoursome.
onion and spinach pakoras with cucumber raita
Ingredients:
- 2 cups chickpea flour
- 2 large uncooked potatoes (600g), grated coarsely
- 2 large brown onions (400g), sliced thinly
- 100g baby spinach leaves, chopped coarsely
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 teaspoons chilli powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh mint
- 1/4 water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Cucumber raita
- 1 Lebanese cucumber (130g), grated coarsely
- 200g low-fat yoghurt
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh mint
Method:
- Using hands, combine all ingredients except the oil, in a medium bowl.
- Shape 1/4 cups of the potato mixture into patties. Heat oil in large frying pan; cook pakoras, in batches, about 10 minutes or until browned lightly both sides.
- Meanwhile, combine ingredients for cucumber raita in small bowl.
- Serve pakoras with raita.
Notes on this recipe:
- To make making this dish easier, I mixed all the dry ingredients together, the vegetables and herbs together, before combining them and adding water. I didn’t want to find random lumps of chilli in my pakoras.
- These were tasty but could have benefitted from more spices – that or I’m spoilt with spices.
- The raita was very runny. I’d suggest squeezing the water out of it first so that when combined with the lemon juice and yogurt, it has a thicker consistency.
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