Weekend Carnivore

Often part of managing to stay on a diet is learning how to cope with those naughty cravings that strike everybody from time to time.  You can decide to let yourself have a blow out where you have the calorie laden treat you are desiring or deny yourself it. The denial path may feel as if it is the correct one but if I do that then I end up wanting the naughty treat even more and chances are I will eventually give in and in a bigger way that would have originally been the case.

There is, as Tony Blair so famously once said, a third way. That third way is to find a recipe that adapts the naughty recipe and makes it so that you can enjoy a healthier version of the treat. Okay, it might not be exactly the same but it is close and it stops you going for broke and blowing the diet.

This week, I was really craving some sort of fruit cobbler but I knew there was no way I could justify having all those eggs and butter that goes into a normal cobbler recipe. So, I took to the foodie internet and searched for a cobbler recipe that would satisfy my craving but be pretty low fat.

I was on Food.com (the new name for Recipezaar) when I saw Lady Pit’s recipe for her Any Fruit Fast Fat Free Cobbler recipe and thought it was worth a try.   The only sutible fruit I had for this fat free cobbler recipe was some frozen blueberries. A blueberry cobbler sounded really good and so I decided that was going to be the way to go.

fat free vegan blueberry cobbler recipe

The cobbler recipe was really easy to put together.  Essentially, all you do is mix together the dry ingredients with the wet, pour it into a pan and then throw the fruit in and let it bake.  I didn’t even bother to defrost my frozen blueberries and it still worked just fine.

The only change I made to the fat free cobbler recipe was to use light soy milk instead of the normal milk that was called for in the original recipe. Since the original cobbler recipe didn’t call for any eggs, this then turned this into a fat free vegan cobbler recipe.

No, it wasn’t exactly the same as a traditional blueberry cobbler that is full of eggs, real milk and butter but it was very tasty, easy and hit the craving spot without making me feel guilty. That has to be a win and I know I will be making this again with whatever frozen fruit I happen to have around. I am thinking it would be especially nice with some frozen cherries for when I get a cherry pie craving.

Perhaps the only change I would make to this vegan cobbler recipe is to bake it in a smaller dish. I think I used a slightly bigger one than was called for in the recipe and that meant it didn’t get very thick. However, it tasted great and the oozing and juicy warm blueberries mixed with the cobbler crust was just what my tastebuds were calling out to enjoy.  It was a bit like a giant flat blueberry muffin with extra juicy blueberries and that isn’t going to be a bad combination for me.

I love it when I discover a new favourite food.  When I was in Barcelona last month, I ate a lot of my meals from an up scale salad bar. It was full of a delightful array of olives and some of my favourite vegetables such as artichokes and sundried tomatoes.  One of the vegetables that was frequently part of the salad spread was hearts of palm.

I have had hearts of palm a few times in the past but only in small quantities and years apart from each serving. For some reason, it was on this trip that I discovered that I really like hearts of palm. I thought that perhaps it was just that quality of the ingredients that the hotel used which made the difference.  So, when I got back home to London I decided to buy a couple cans and see if  I still enjoyed the taste.  I ate the entire can of hearts of palm within a few moments of opening it. So, I guess that was a yes!

Hearts of palm is a vegetable that comes from the inner core of some varieties of palm tree. Which makes it sound very exotic indeed. The taste is similar to an artichoke heart with a slightly smoother texture.  They are also very low in fat and calories.  That has to be a winning combination in any food.

Part of why I enjoy vegetarian cooking so much is that there is always a new vegetable or fruit like this to discover and when you do chances are they are really healthy for you too. Which gives me plenty of excuses to play around and find new recipes for these ingredients.   Which is exactly when I have been doing with hearts of palm.  One of my favourite new heart of palm recipe is this hearts of palm and spinach dip recipe. It is reduced fat but certainly not reduced flavour.

Hearts of palm and spinach dip

Hearts of palm and spinach dip recipe

Ingredients:

15 grams spring onions, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
55 grams frozen spinach, defrosted and squeezed of excess liquid
100 grams hearts of palm, from a can, drained
100 grams reduced fat mayonnaise
60 grams reduced fat sour cream
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions:

1. Using a mini chopper or a food processor, blitz together the spring onions and crushed garlic until the onions are finely chopped.
2. Add the defrosted spinach and pulse until that is broken up and about the same size as the onions. It won’t fully get to that size but try your best.
3. Add in the hearts of palm and pulse once again. This time you want these to be slightly bigger than the onions.
4. Add the mayonnaise, sour cream and lemon juice. Blitz until everything is well combined but not too thin.
5. Scrape everything into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

Serves: 6

Shall we start by getting out of the way what I consider to be a pancake? You would think that would be a pretty simple debate but when you are an American that lives in the UK it becomes slightly more confusing.  What they British consider to be pancakes are much thinner than what Americans would think of when they hear the word ‘pancake’. British pancakes have much more in common with crepes than American pancakes. They are thin and often filled with something. Hence, more like a crepe regardless of how unpleased they may be to be compared with the French. They are very tasty but they are not what I consider to be a pancake.

American pancakes are much thicker, raise a bit and are proper comfort food for me. Like so many comfort foods, the cravings for them often come at times when you simply are not prepared.  Such as the case this weekend when I woke up simply needing to have pancakes.  I had flour and baking powder but no eggs. The only milk I had was soy milk. I didn’t even have the normal vegetable oil I would use to make pancakes.  To make matters even worse, it was cinnamon pancakes that were the focus of my pancake cravings and I apparently had also run out of cinnamon! Crisis!

The pancake craving wasn’t going away though and so I decided to see what I could do with what I did have on hand.  I have made vegan pancake recipes before and enjoyed them. So, I knew that I could make a good pancake without egg. Soy milk works fine too in vegan pancakes. I actually prefer making vegan pancakes with a vanilla soy milk for that extra layer of flavour. I only had the normal sweetened soy milk though so that was going to have to do the job.

The bigger questions was what oil to use to make these vegan pancakes. I didn’t have any vegetable oil and  I wasn’t going to use olive oil or avocado oil.  I still have a bit of that macadamia nut oil that I bought at last year’s Masterchef Live.  So, I thought why not try that? It might even give a nice nutty background taste to the vegan pancake recipe.

Finding something to replace the cinnamon was the final challenge. I’ve have chocolate with cardamom flavouring in the past and also in a few cakes. It isn’t a huge leap in flavour from cinnamon and so I figured now was the time to find out if cardamom and macadamia nut oil would go together well as part of a vegan pancake recipe.

It sure did! The macadamia nut oil provides a lovely nutty background taste without overpowering the batter. If I had prepared to do this recipe and had slightly deeper pockets, I might have chopped up some actual macadamia nuts and stirred them into the batter. I am sure that would have added an extra special taste to the vegan pancakes.  As predicted, the cardamom worked in a very similar way to cinnamon and brought sweet and spicy feel to the pancakes.

To finish off the vegan pancake recipe, I griddled some banana slices and popped them on top before drizzling a bit of agave syrup over the top. If I hadn’t been so stuck on this being a vegan pancake recipe, I would have gone for honey.

Vegan cardamom macadamia nut pancakes

Cardamom vegan pancakes

Ingredients:

100 grams plain flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 cup soy milk

1 tablespoon macadamia nut oil

Directions:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and combine well.

2. Add the milk and the macadamia nut oil and stir until thoroughly mixed. If you are finding your batter is just a bit too thick at this stage then add a bit more soy milk.

3. Heat a griddle or frying pan until it is hot enough to make pancakes. I usually drop a tiny bit of water onto it and if it instantly sizzles I consider it ready to be used.

4. Either spray with non-fat cooking spray or use a tiny bit of the macadamia nut oil and then start to drop the batter on the hot surface.

5. Leave each vegan pancake until bubbles have started to form on the pancake. Then flip over and cook for a minute or so on the other side. Watch carefully because they can very easily go from perfectly golden brown to burned and ruined.

6. Divide the vegan pancakes onto two plates, top with your choice of toppings and enjoy!

Serves: 2

If you have been paying attention at all to my food blog posts then you have figured out that I love hummus.  I honestly would sooner give up chocolate than hummus. It may sound a tiny bit crazy but it is also true!

A few years back, I was walking through Soho in London and noticed a new restaurant called Hummus Bros.  Loving hummus, I was immediately interested in going and trying this place out but I just didn’t have anybody that I thought would be willing to go with me.  Years past and I still hadn’t tried it.

hummus bros

Then, a few weeks ago my friend Kelly – another hummus lover – had some time to spare in central London. We decided that now was the time to lose our Hummus Bros virginity.  Boy, we were not disappointed!  It may just be the case that this is the perfect ‘fast food’ restaurant for me.

Firstly, any restaurant chain that uses a pun as their tag line is off to a good start with me.  Really, Hummus Bros, you had me at ‘give chickpeas a chance’. Still the truth is always in the tasting and as much as I love hummus (did I mention that?), there are few things as disappointing as being served a bad hummus. Perhaps this is the case simply because of the high expectations you carry with you from whatever your most recent mind blowing hummus had been.  You are chasing that hummus high and anything that undermines that hits hard.

Good thing then that the hummus on offer from Hummus Bros is so amazingly good! Firstly, it isn’t just about the hummus that you can get there but what you get on top of your hummus. The hummus is a base and then you can order any number of combinations piled on top. Then, you are given a wonderfully warm brown pita to scoop it all up.

The toppings range from the very vegetarian offerings such as chickpeas or fava beans to the decidedly carnivore such as slow cooked stewed beef.  Kelly and I ordered a few small dishes between us to try. The servings were generous and without a doubt if I was going on my own it would be enough to order one small hummus. However, this was more like the hummus sisters throwing a party. So,we went nuts and tried a number of them. Each one was super good.

If there is one food item that rivals my love for hummus it would be mushrooms. So, when I saw the mushroom topped hummus I knew that had to be one I tried. It was vegetarian delight of stewed mushrooms and caramelized onions nestled on top of their creamy hummus. They give you the option of adding sun dried tomatoes to that mixture and I didn’t have to think twice about saying yes. It was truly an amazing combination.

Hummus Bros Mushroom Hummus

What I found particularly interesting about the hummus sold at Hummus Bros was that the tahini was served in a dollop on top of the hummus.  Which meant you could swirl it in yourself in the amount you desired. I love tahini so it was all in with that sesame goodness!

Another plus for Hummus Bros is the attention they pay to making their food fit into your nutritional requirements. Not only does their website have a full break down of the calorie and fat content of each of their dishes but they also have reduced fat hummus available. If you have gluten issues, you can also ask for the pita bread to be substituted with rice cakes, gluten free bread or carrot sticks.

When we went, we did have to ask them for the reduced fat hummus because we didn’t see it mentioned on the menu. However, when we did ask there was no problem at all in getting it. All this praise for their hummus and we had the reduced fat version. I bet the full fat must be even better.

If you have a soft spot for hummus and are in London then make sure you find your local branch of Hummus Bros and give them a try. Oh, and don’t forget to wash all that chickpea goodness down with a glass of their fresh mint and ginger lemonade!

With a note of sorrow,  I wave goodbye to the summer of 2010.  It feels as if I have barely stood still since the end of spring.    In the summer months alone, I have been to Brighton, Munich, Salzburg,  Paris, York, Wales and Barcelona.  Travelling and tasting food from so many different regions of Europe has been fantastic but it has meant that I haven’t spend all that much time in my own kitchen.

So, while I am going to miss the warm weather adventures, I am also welcoming the opportunity to stay in a bit more and reacquaint myself with my normal cooking routine.  Which, at this time of year is switching from light summer meals to more hearty food. Right about now, my eye turns to root vegetables and finding different ways of bringing them into my cooking.

One way that I have used them in recent years is to create root vegetable mash instead of a normal mashed potato.  Mashing a bit of whatever other root vegetables you have in your vegetable drawer into your normal mashed potato not only adds a bit of colour but extra nutrients as well.   Even if you aren’t cooking a vegetarian meal, swapping a root vegetable mash on top of a traditional shepherd’s pie instead of the normal mashed potato will be a nice change and healthier too.

With a bit of a chill in the air the today, I wanted to make us a meal tonight that was going to warm our insides while filling us up. This can sometimes be a challenge when we are following a vegetarian diet. Of course, I could just make another soup or a vegetarian stew but there will be plenty of those through the course of the winter.  So, I rummaged through my cupboard to help me brainstorm up ideas for a hearty winter vegetarian meal.

We had a can of kidney beans in chilli sauce which kept calling out to me and I decided that I wanted to do something with it for the meal. Not really in the mood for tacos or beans and rice, I decided to play with an idea of a bean pie that has been kicking around in my head for a few weeks.

All I did was sauté some basic vegetables such as onion, carrots and celery.  Then I tipped in the can of chilli kidney beans and added some spices.  I piled it all into two mini casserole dishes and then topped it with a root vegetable mash that I made from potatoes and butternut squash.

What was great was that I was able to cook everything up in the morning and put the casserole dishes into the the fridge. Then, when it was time to cook the evening meal all I had to do was put them into the oven for 15 minutes and the meal was ready.

You have to love it when a meal is simple, healthy and filling.  Perhaps the only change I would make is to add a bit of hot sauce to the mix. I am a total spice wimp so I tend to lay off the spicy heat but anybody who likes things hotter should consider adding a few drops.

Chilli bean pies topped with root vegetable mash

Chilli bean pie recipe

Ingredients:

500 grams potatoes, peeled and quartered

200 grams butternut squash, peeled and chopped into big cubes

1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

1/2 a large onion, diced

100 grams carrots, diced

100 grams celery, diced

1 (420 gram) can kidney beans in chilli sauce

1 teaspoon barbecue sauce

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 f, 190 c, gas mark 5.

2. Put a large pot of water on to boil and put the potato and squash into cook until ready for mashing.

3. Meanwhile, heat  the olive oil in a pan before adding the onion, carrots and celery.  Cook over a medium heat, stirring often until the onion and celery have begun to soften.

4. Add the beans, including all the chilli sauce juices, to the vegetables.  Cook for about three minutes until warmed through.

5. Stir in the barbecue sauce and garlic powder until well blended.

6. Spoon the bean and vegetable mixture into two oven proof mini casserole dishes.

7. Drain the potatoes and butternut squash and mash with a bit of salt and pepper to taste.  If you want a creamier mash certainly feel free to add a bit of butter or margarine to the mash.

8. Pile the root vegetable mash on top of the bean mixture.

9. Put the dishes on a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Serves: 2

British folk are often heard to moan that the UK doesn’t get much of a summer. This summer they really have nothing to complain about because for most of the time since May it has been not just summery but down right hot and especially so in London. Air conditioning not being common at all, especially in private homes, in the UK has made it uncomfortable at times but the solution to counteract that is to get out and explore.

I had a day off work and decided to do just that and head down the coast from London to the seaside town of Brighton.  The train journey from my home in London to Brighton is very easy and with only one simple change takes just over 90 minutes door to door. So, you would think I would have travelled there more often but before this visit I had only been there on a flying visit about a decade prior to this trip. I had been wanting to go back and properly explore Brighton and with the weather so good if felt like there would be no better time to do it.

Brighton is known as a hip and trendy area of the modern UK with a bit of an artsy flare that attracts a youthful and diverse  crowd. The popularity of the seaside town goes back centuries though and since the turn of the 19th century one of the main tourist attractions in Brighton has been the Palace Pier which is now known simply as Brighton Pier.

Still operating today, it harks back to a bygone era of domestic British seaside holidays. Filled with penny arcades and fair ground rides, it is a lot like what Americans would call a boardwalk but instead of going along the beach it stretches out into the sea.  Sure, it resides just on the wrong side tacky for most modern tastes but if you go with the right mindset you can enjoy the cheese and the step back in time.

Brighton Pier

The main purpose of my Brighton day trip was to practice my photography. With so much of the old and new in Brighton and the seaside and all its creatures to boot it felt like a good place to take my camera and see if I could get a bit better at what has become a favourite hobby of mine.

I arrived in Brighton at 8am so that I could hope to capture the beach area of the town as it was coming alive. There is something I really enjoy about observing places are they are waking up for the day. I did a mixture of colour and black and white photography just to see what I liked the most.  I  found myself enthralled by the remains of the burned down pier that still resides in the water at the other end of Brighton Beach to the Brighton Pier. I  spent a lot of time trying to get decent shots of that before moving onto photos of Brighton life – both human and animal.

Here is just a small selection of the Brighton photos I took that day. If you are interested in seeing the whole day’s shoot then feel free to check out my Brighton Flickr Album.

Remains of Brighton West Pier

Brighton Sea Bird

Brighton Pier Game

Of course, as somebody that runs a food blog, enjoying the food that Brighton had to offer was also high on my agenda. Not least because along with the slightly new age reputation Brighton has developed, the town has also grown a reputation for having a good vegetarian food scene.

It was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to find this promised vegetarian food treasure on Brighton Pier.  Sure, it had tons of food and much of it would technically qualify as vegetarian but it was mostly candy and junk food. It was fun to look at but my teeth hurt just thinking about eating any of it.

Brighton Candy

So, I moved away from the Brighton waterfront and moved into the modern Lanes shopping area of the town.  Sure enough, tucked amongst the quirky and fashionable shops were a number of vegetarian restaurants.  My main dilemma was to decide which one of these Brighton vegetarian restaurants to try.

The first vegetarian restaurant that I stumbled on was the Infinity Foods Cafe which looked really lovely and inviting. What I liked the most about the look of it was that it looked like it was fitting so well into the cafe culture of the street and wasn’t sticking out as “the vegetarian restaurant”. Just a few minutes down the street the same people also run Infinity Foods which is a giant (by the standards I have seen) vegetarian food co-op store. If I had a bigger bag and budget I would have filled myself up with goods. Instead, I just bought a few little things to try (green tea soba noodles was one..trying those out shortly) and packed them away as I continued the search for the place to grab my vegetarian lunch.

Infinity Foods Cafe, Brighton

In the end, I settled for a vegetarian burger joint that was on the other side of the street from Infinity Foods Cafe. I would love it if there were so many vegetarian options so close together in London.

I had heard of the Red Veg vegetarian burger place before. They used to have a branch in the Soho area of London but I had always been a bit shy to go. Not the least because I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to convince any of my meaty friends to join me when I hadn’t even tried it out on my own before. Face it, you can get really good veggie burgers but you can get really horrible ones too.  I was punished for putting off trying out the London branch of Red Veg because it closed down and I never did get a chance to try it out.

When I walked past Red Veg Brighton I new that it had to be the time to give them a try.

Red Veg Brighton

The menu board outside of Red Veg made it easy to see the selection of vegetarian food on offer. Not only do they offer a good variety of different kinds of veggie burgers but their vegetarian menu was expanded to cover various falafel and salad dishes. Plus, they had all the chips and onion ring sides you would expect to find at a burger joint. The prices were also pretty attractive with the most expensive of the veggie burgers costing £3.50.

Red Veg Menu

With feet aching and the beginnings of a sunburn, I ventured inside Red Veg. The interior was fun and a bit funky without the feeling of trying too hard.  Still being a Weekend Carnivore and not a full time vegetarian, I felt that it wasn’t the kind of place that I would feel out of place. It was clear that even those of us still trying to give up meat would be comfortable chowing down on a burger here. The bright red inside and the giant windows helped to make the place feel bigger than its truthfully tiny nature.

Red Veg Interior

The member of staff that took my order couldn’t have been more pleasant either. She was bouncy and polite and was engaging the customers in genuine conversation while they waited for their takeaway orders. I listened on the sidelines as she explained to a customer that any burger could be made vegan.  She apologized for not offering vegan cheese but explained it was too expensive for them to offer. Her explanation was truthful and believable and showed she knew the product she was selling.

As a rock music fan myself, it was fun to listen to her talk to her friend about the songs that were coming on the radio too. It made me feel as if all the local concert posters on the wall of Red Veg weren’t just there by accident but because it is the sort of thing both the staff and the customers would be interested in attending.

Red Veg posters

After pondering the veggie burger menu for a short period I was sucked in by the mushroom Swiss burger. I find it nearly impossible to turn down the promise of anything involving mushrooms. Plus, one of my all time favourite fast food items was a mushroom Swiss burger that used to be available at the Hardees chain in the States.   I was mighty tempted by the spinach and pesto burger too but  the shrooms won out in the end. With a view to conserving calories I didn’t order a side order. I did attempt to have a diet cola but they didn’t have anything diet. So, I resorted to an organic lemonade.

I took a seat and waited for my veggie burger to arrive. The first thing I liked about it was how it was served just like the more famous burger chains. If you had ordered it as take out nobody would have thought it was anything but a ‘real’ burger. When I unwrapped my veggie burger I was also happy that it looked like a traditional burger. There was nothing ‘tofu burger’ about the way that it looked. The veggie burger looked meaty, the veggies were piled high and the sauces were just as drippy as the big international chains.

Red Veg Burger

More important than looking good, the Red Veg burger tasted great. Meat substitutes are getting to so good now that if they are handled properly in the cooking process they more than “pass” for meat and end up tasting good on their own. The veggie burger pattie in the veggie burger tasted as if it had been flamed grilled even if that might not have been the actual case and it gave the whole veggie burger a great slightly smoky background taste. The mushroom and Swiss combo was as good as ever and the cheese was melt perfectly.   Now I wish that I had gone to Red Veg when they had a Soho branch and I didn’t have to wait to go back to Brighton to have another great veggie burger from them.

Red Veg Veggie Burger

After my burger I went back onto the Brighton streets and continued my photo safari for a few more hours. When my feet were just too sore to continue I made my way back to Brighton station and jumped on a train back to London.  I decided to have a bit of a sweet treat on the journey home and opened up a raw chocolate bar I had bought at the Infinity Foods store.   It was the Fresh As! bar from The Chocolate Heart company. The packaging was very attractive and gave hope for the promised lime and Acai Berry flavour.

Raw Chocolate Bar

Sadly, I have to report that I wasn’t really won over by the actual taste of the raw chocolate bar. I don’t have a lot of experience with raw chocolate so perhaps it is simply how it tastes but it lacked the creamy texture that I am used to with chocolate. Each bite left me with a bit of a chalky after taste that by the end of the bar had reached the level of being downright unpleasant.

The bar looked good so maybe it isn’t the raw chocolate but more a case that the flavour combination of the lime and Acai was leaving that after taste. Either way, I will certainly try a raw chocolate bar again just to make sure but I am not going to rush out and replace my normal chocolate with them. Not the least because you pay a fairly high premium for raw chocolate.

Raw chocoalte bar

All and all I had a fantastic day trip to Brighton. The town is vibrant, there is loads to photograph and there is a ton of vegetarian food on offer.  I shall be making sure it doesn’t take me another decade to visit Brighton again and next time I will be trying that spinach and pesto burger!

My latest food obsession is testing out different waffle recipes. Last month I added a waffle maker to my ever growing arsenal of kitchen gadgets. I have to admit that I was a bit worried that I would use it once or twice and then it would make its way to the dust collection shelf with the rest of my “must have” gadgets. Suprisingly though, it is a month on and I am still churning out a new waffle recipe every few days.

lemon waffle recipe with strawberries and cream

Some of those waffle recipes are mine but others are the culinary brain child of other great cooks. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been taking part in a cooking event that has be teamed up with other members of Recipezaar as we try out recipes from around the world. When my team captian, the wonderful Andi of Longmeadow Farm posted these lemon waffles as one of her offerings for our team’s Scandinavian cookbook I just knew I had to try them.

What I especially liked about this lemon waffle recipe is that the waffles didn’t have so much of a lemon flavour to them that I was sent into an involuntary pucker. Instead it was as if the lovely crisp but fluffy waffles were lemon scented. A perfect treat for a naughty breakfast recipe but I couldn’t help but think the lemon waffle recipe would also make a fantastic base for a vegetarian dessert recipe.

Being June in England, the idea of strawberries and cream is never far from a foodie’s brain. So, I threw the two together and boy was it good! As soon as the lemon waffles were off the waffle iron I got out the spray cream (hey, it was spur of the moment..no time to whip!) and piled those tasty waffles high with cream. A few sliced strawberries on top and it was perfect!

Isn’t it funny how as soon as the sun comes out and it starts to feel like summer everybody suddenly becomes extra focused on eating healthy? You would think that one day we would all figure out that if we ate better all year round we wouldn’t have to go scrambling for diet recipes when summer finally arrives. We all do it though and with it feeling hot and steamy in London this week (not something that happens all that often!) my shopping trolley was even more filled with fruit and vegetables than normal. 

Ever since we have decided to go full force into the weekend carnivore lifestyle of eating mostly vegetarian recipes, our vegetable drawer is bursting at the seams anyway but I do tend to get more adventurous when the summer recipe season hits. I will buy any vegetable that looks good and challenge myself to come up with a new healthy vegetarian recipe that I can work into my diet.  This week, I picked up an aubergine with no real plan as to which vegetarian recipe I would be making. 

An aubergine, by the way, is what my fellow Americans call an eggplant. So, if you are scratching your head wondering what I might be talking about with this recipe just rest assured that this is simply an eggplant recipe by another name. I knew I had been living in the UK for a long time (14 years this month) when I caught myself thinking aubergine rather than eggplant. When your mind thinks the word of the country you moved to instead of the one you grew up with you know you have finally gone native!

My husband has come a long way with his vegetable eating habits and will try just about anything.  However, I knew from the past that unless it is very well hidden he isn’t going to be a big fan of any aubergine recipe. So, that meant that my newly purchased aubergine was destine for a vegetarian lunch recipe.

For the past month, I have been participating in a cooking event over at Recipezaar (yes, I do spend a LOT of time there..such great people and recipes!) where we cook food from different regions of the world.  One of the regions we have just finished “visiting” is Greece. So, I had a whole bunch of Mediterranean bits and bobs hanging around in the fridge. Aubergine fits so well into Greek cooking that I knew it wouldn’t be hard to come up with a Greek vegetarian recipe.

Not having a clue how the eggplant recipe would end up, I started by slicing my eggplant lengthwise and griddling them.  If you do it well there isn’t much that is better tasting than grilled aubergine because it really works so well as a base for any other flavours you want to add to it. Which, is exactly what I did because amongst the remains of my Greek cooking ingredients was a little bit of feta.  I took a little bit of a gamble and cut up some fresh basil I had laying around and mashed it into the feta. You know what!? That was a stunning combination and I will be using it again in other recipes. The fresh basil really took that salty feta to a different level.

I spread that mixture over the griddled aubergine and then raided my fridge for any jarred Mediterranean vegetables and added them to the aubergine and feta stacks.   Then I plated up and tucked in to my newly developed low fat vegetarian recipe.  That was followed shortly by giving myself a nice firm pat on the back because they were SO good. The artichoke might have been chunky enough to make them slightly unwieldy when transferring to the plate but it was worth it for me since I can’t get enough of artichokes lately. Really though, this aubergine and feta recipe is so versatile and you could add any vegetables you desire to the top.

For me, two of these slices made for a perfect light vegetarian lunch recipe but I  could see this aubergine and fetish recipe being served as an appetizer recipe before a special meal. Equally, I could also see a side salad being added for a lovely summertime meal on the patio.  If you have a barbecue you could even do the grilling of the aubergine on that and make it an easy outdoor meal. Why not try them and let me know how that basil and feta combination worked out for you?

Mediterranean aubergine and basil feta stack recipe

Mediterranean aubergine and basil feta stack recipe

Ingredients:

2 lengthwise slices of aubergine (eggplant), about as thick as your small finger
60 grams reduced fat feta cheese
3 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
20 grams sundried tomatoes from a jar, drained well
30 grams marinated artichokes, drained well
30 grams green unstuffed olives

Directions:

1. Heat a griddle ban until very hot and then grill your aubergine slices until done. You can lightly oil the pan if you wish, I just used the tiniest amount of light cooking spray.
2. Mash the feta up in a bowl and stir in the chopped fresh basil until well combined.
3. Put the aubergine slices on a plate and spread an equal amount of the feta mixture over the top.
4. Chop up the sundried tomatoes, artichokes and olives and pile them on top of the feta mixture.

Serves: 1

If you run a food blog or are thinking about starting one then you need to go check out a brand new site for food bloggers – Food Blogger Network.

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If you do run a food blog, then chances are you have discovered just how hard it is to learn the ins and our of running a food blog. I know that when I decided to start Weekend Carnivore, I spent many hours scouring the internet looking for any resources for food bloggers. Most of the time I came up empty and what I did find tended to be years out of date.

When my friend Aileen began her own food blog at 400 Calories Or Less she had a very similar experience at that point we decided something needed to be done. On top of both being food bloggers, we have between us, many years of working in webmaster support and online marketing. So, it only made sense to us to put the two together and create FoodBloggerNetwork.com .

At Food Blogger Network,you can find advice and help on all sorts of topics – food photography, food events, technical help, wordpress plugin recommendations, setting up Facebook fan pages, setting up a Twitter account – – and a more things that we think you will find useful as a food blogger.! We have a discussion forum for asking questions and getting help not only from us, but from the food blogger community at large.

We hope you stop by and find some useful information.

Avocados are a gift from the gods to those of us on a diet who are missing creamy foods. Sure, they pack a fair amount of fat but the good news that it is all super healthy unsaturated fat. So, not only do they do your tastebuds good your brainpower too.

As I have mentioned before, I love dips and spreads. Sadly though,If I am ever going to shift the rest of this weight then I either have to pretend they don’t exist or come up with healthier versions. That is what I have done with this creamy avocado and lime spread.

I came up with it some months ago when I was looking for something to quickly fill me up and tickle my tastebuds. I know that a lot of people use lemon juice with avocado but I have found that lime really works very well to lift the creamy texture of the avocado and give a real zip to the spread.

With a little bit of salt in the mix that lime and avocado combination becomes a real culinary match made in heaven. To me, this is one of those cases where it really is important to use coarse sea salt rather than the normal table salt. The slight crunch really works to bring the flavours of the creamy avocado and lime spread bursting forth.

Since its creation, I have used this avocado and lime spread in any number of ways. I have been known to spread it simply on some toast in the morning instead of butter or jam. Scooping it up with some tortilla chips has a certain charm too.

However, as of late, my favourite use for the creamy avocado and lime spread has been to make a quick and healthy lunch. I have been spreading it high on some crisp breads and then topped it with slices of cucumber and cherry tomato.

As summer approaches I can see myself adding a piece of fruit on the side and calling that a perfect hot weather lunch.

Avocado and Lime Spread

avocado and lime spread

Ingredients:

1 small avocado
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon Greek yoghurt

Directions:

1. Scoop out the flesh of the avocado
2. Put all the ingredients in a blender or mini chopper.
3. Pulse for between 15 and 30 seconds until the mixture is smooth.

Serves: 1