'Chicken' seitan and spinach in Indian creamy sauce - Malai palak

If I'm besotted with seitan, I'm also besotted with white curries and this is one of those insanely good Indian recipes that I find irresistible.  Malai means cream, Palak is spinach and this is a loosely adapted recipe from Vegan Richa. In her recipe, she uses soy curls to replace chicken, which are then cooked in a delectable creamy spicy sauce. I’m not even sure if you can buy soy curls in New Zealand and can’t imagine them being commonly available around the world, so it strikes me as a much better idea to use seitan.  Seitan also produces a nice 'meaty' result.

In the original, the soy curls are marinaded and then baked. I think marinades are unseamanlike underway, as well as being wasteful. Certainly, I don’t find it makes much difference to seitan and in fact you get infinitely better results from incorporating the flavours into the seitan in the first place. This is what I’ve done in this recipe. As for baking - I assume many small income voyagers still sail without ovens and even those who do, will probably avoid using them because of the cost - and the fact that they heat up the cabin.

 

I use ginger paste and garlic paste in my ‛Indian’ cooking. If you prefer to use finely minced ginger and garlic, go ahead.  I'm not sure that this is really a Curry For Cooks: in spite the use of ingredients being pretty authentic, most boats would probably have them on board.  The only exception is the methi and if you don't have it you can leave it out.

 

As with all Indian recipes, it's worth reading this one right through, before you start cooking.  You might want to put the batches of spices into little bowls, too.  It makes cooking the meal more organised.

 

I find this recipe easier to make than Palak Paneer, which needs a blender, and, to be perfectly honest, when you're using seitan, there's not a lot of difference between 'chicken' and 'paneer'.  That being said, I can see it working very well with paneer, for those who eat cheese and don't want to be bothered with blending the spinach. 

Serves 2

Ingredients 

For the ‟marinaded chicken”

1/2 cup  vital wheat gluten

        3 tbsp gram flour

        2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp mushroom stock powder

        1/4 tsp salt

 1/4 tsp onion powder

        1/4 tsp garlic granules

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 cup water

2 tsp vinegar 

1 tbsp soya sauce

 For the sauce:

1 tsp oil

1 (Indian) bay leaf

1 whole clove

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 tsp garlic paste

1/2 tsp ginger paste

1 small green chilli, diced

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/8 tsp cayenne OR 1/4 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

pinch ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp black pepper

*200 ml/7 oz ounce can of full fat coconut milk

2 tbsp vegan yoghurt

1/4 cup water or milk

125 g/4 oz spinach, washed and roughly chopped

1 tsp dried fenugreek leaves, kasuri methi

garam masala

chilli flakes

Method:

• Seitan: In a bowl, mix vital wheat gluten, gram flour, nutritional yeast, mushroom stock powder, salt, onion powder, garlic granules, ground coriander and ground cumin.
• Make a hollow in the centre of the mix and add the water and soya sauce.
• Mix into a soft dough, starting with a knife or spatula and ending with your hand. If the mix seems a little bit dry, add a little more water, a teaspoonful at a time. Use the dough to clean your bowl thoroughly, otherwise the dried seitan will need to be soaked off.
• Put the dough on a board and flatten down. You will be cutting it into bite-sized chunks, so it wants to be a suitable thickness.
• Put the trivet into your pressure cooker, along with 1/2 cup water. Place the seitan on the trivet, and bring up to pressure for 5 minutes. Let the pressure go down naturally.
• When you can take the lid off, take out the seitan and cut it up – or tear it for a more ‛authentic’ appearance.  Mind you, if you cut up chicken breasts, they are obviously cut with a knife.
• If you want to, you can now fry the chunks in some oil so that they are crisp on the outside. On odds, I think I prefer them soft.

For the sauce:

• Heat a pan over medium high heat and add some oil.
• Now add the bay leaf, clove, onion, garlic paste, ginger paste, green chilli salt. Cook stirring occasionally until onion is golden.
• Turn down the heat and add coriander, ground cumin, cayenne or Kashmiri chilli, cinnamon and black pepper
• Throw in the seitan pieces and turn for a few minutes so that they are well mixed in and covered in the spices.
• Then add in the milk, yoghurt, water and spinach and mix in. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook for 12-15 mins, checking that it’s not drying out. Add some more water, if necessary.
• Add the kasuri methi, check salt and flavour and carry on cooking until you get a rich creamy sauce.

Garnish with garam masala and chilli pepper flakes if you like, and serve with rice, roti or even good quality bread.

Variations:

• Use leaves of silver beet/Swiss chard instead of spinach.
• Replace the seitan with half a cup of chickpeas or beans, cooked and drained, putting them in with the spinach
• Add some quartered mushrooms, with the onions, etc.
• If you don’t have yoghurt, just leave it out.  If you have a lot of coconut yoghurt, you can just thin that down to suit. You need around 300 ml liquid. You may need to simmer for more or less time to achieve the consistency you want.

Notes:

• * Coconut milk tends to come in an odd assortment of sizes. Just use a can closest to the size in the recipe. If you’re fortunate to find dried, genuine coconut milk, mix that according to the instructions on the container.  Most dried coconut milk contains some sort of  'ose' sweetener, for some unknowable reason.

You will find many more recipes like this, here, here and here 

 

 

Minestrone soup

 

 

 

The name ‘Minestrone’ has become something of a catch-all for a tomato, vegetable and pasta soup. I don’t pretend that the following version is any more authentic than most, but it certainly is attractive and full of flavour.  Even if I weren't a vegetarian, my Minestrone would always contain beans and recipes which don't, seem very odd to me, because white beans are so often used in Italian peasant food, which is surely what this is.  Cannelini beans would be first choice, but if you can't buy them, any white beans will do.  Even borlotti beans would do, if you have those, also being popular in Italy. 

 

Non-vegetarian recipes call for bacon, but I've seen more than a few which are strictly vegetarian. Ideally, one would chop in a stick or two of celery, but I don't find this a good voyaging vegetable, because you buy so much at a time.  Even in a fridge, I suspect it doesn't last forever, so I suggest celery seed as an alternative: it's a shame that you can't just buy three or four sticks of celery at a time! This soup makes for a great and filling meal with chunks of freshly-baked bread.   

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

 

Serves 4 to 6 as a starter, 2 for a main course

 

Ingredients

at least 2 tbsp olive oil
2medium onions or one large
2 garlic cloves
1 carrot

1 small potato 
1 stick celery OR 1 tsp celery seed

1/2 tsp fennel seeds 3 cups water

2 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs OR 1 tsp rosemary + 1 tsp thyme

1 tsp sweet paprika

2 cups water 

1/4 cup white beans, soaked in 1 cup boiling water for an hour 

about a packed cup full of shredded cabbage
a piece of Parmesan cheese rind

14 oz/400 g tin of crushed tomatoes

about 20 lengths of spaghetti

coarsely ground or cracked black pepper

optional Parmesan cheese or "Parmegan" cheese to serve

Method:

• Heat the olive oil in the pressure cooker.
• Chop the onions and garlic and cook over a fairly high heat until they’re starting to brown. If you are using it, add 1 tsp salt.
• While this is happening, dice the carrot, potato and the celery. Add to the other vegetables, together with the celery seed (if using) and the fennel seed, and cook until they are aromatic - about 5 minutes.
• Add the dried herbs and paprika and toss the vegetables to ensure that they're mixed well. 
• Pour in the water, the beans their water, and bring to the boil. Pressure cook for 10 minutes. Reduce pressure gradually. 
• When you can safely remove the lid, add the cabbage to the pan. Return it to the flame. If you’re using the Parmesan cheese rind, cut this into small dice and add. 
• Empty the tomatoes into the pan and mix them in. 
• When the soup is boiling once more, lower the heat to a simmer, break the spaghetti into 25 mm (1 in) lengths and add this. Stir to separate the pieces of pasta.
• Gind in a generous amoun of pepper. Minestrone also responds well to ½ tsp of cracked black pepper. Taste after a couple of minutes to see if it needs more salt.
• Cook until the spaghetti has softened – you can bring it back up to pressure for 3 minutes if you wish.

Serve with chunks of bread and, if you have it, plenty of Parmesan cheese.

 

Notes:

• Don't be mean with the olive oil and use a nice, peppery one if you can get it.
• The rind from the Parmesan cheese adds a wonderful depth of flavour, which vegans will have to do without.  However, probably most small-income voyagers will have to do without it, too and indeed, even if you have lots of money, Parmesan cheese, complete with rind, is often difficult to source.  In the days when I ate Parmesan, I used to enjoy eating the piece of rind in the soup, but most people apparently take it out before serving.
• If you don't have crushed tomatoes, use whole ones and crush them yourself. 

Variations:

• Ideally, this recipe would include green beans. I tend to eat soup in cold weather, when green beans are expensive and/or hard to come by.  But they certainly enhance the soup.
• Some recipes call for red kidney beans, but I find that they make the soup too dark,  By all means use them if that's what you fancy!
• Use black-eyed peas or chickpeas, if you have no white beans. The black-eyed peas won't need soaking first. Or you could use a can.
• Most recipes call for a bay leaf.  I can never taste them, myself, but feel free to add one, with the rest of the herbs, if you like them.   
• Replace the cabbage with kale or Swiss chard/silver beet.
• You could also use the leaves from a cauliflower, instead of cabbage.
• Broccoli florets, added at the end would go well, but not if you're intending to reheat the soup for another meal.
• Use another type of pasta, such as elbow pasta, or alphabet, but keep to small shapes so that you don't overwhelm the soup with it. 
• Add tomato purée for a richer flavour, especially if your canned tomatoes are a bit watery. 
• If you miss the bacon flavour from traditional Minestrone, use smoked paprika instead of the sweet.  
• A couple of mushrooms, sliced are also a pleasant addition.
• Add a tsp of mushroom stock powder for more flavour.
• Add chopped pepper to taste
• Use chopped tomatoes in purée for a thicker soup.
• Add 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
• Fresh tomatoes are also great, if they're available and have plenty of flavour, but in cold weather, canned will probably be a better choice.   

You will find many other recipes for soup here 

 

Edited 19/08/26

 

Chick pea and Aubergine Casserole

I have lots of wonderful recipes to share and so far have been trying to marry them to photographs. However sometimes I forget to take the photo, or it’s a recipe I haven’t cooked for a while, so never took one in the first place. Lots of older recipe books don’t have photos and even if they’re considered essential online, I’m sure most people can work out what the dish will look like, once it’s cooked. So please forgive the odd recipe that I’m including without the accompanying image.

This is one of my favourite recipes. It’s easy to cook, absolutely yummy to eat and fit to offer guests. Aubergines, alas, are not always easy to come by, so if you like them anywhere near as much as I do, you want to make the most of them while you can. I’ve never bothered faffing around with salting and squeezing aubergines. I am told that if you do so, it makes them less like blotting paper around the olive oil, so I tried it once. It didn’t seem to make a lot of difference and although I did manage to get some of the pieces to fry brown and crisp, it didn’t seem to make the slightest difference to the end result. From all accounts it is simply unnecessary with modern varietals. So I decided that I was right. 

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup chick peas

1 large onion

3 garlic cloves

3 tbsp olive oil

1 aubergine

400 g/14 oz can tomatoes

salt

cracked black pepper

1 tsp oregano OR Annie's mixed herbs

Method:

• Soak and cook the chick peas in the usual manner.
• Chop the onion, dice the garlic. Fry them in the olive oil in a large saucepan until they’re soft.
• Cut the aubergine into chunky pieces, add to the pan and cook for a further 5 mins, turning the pieces frequently so that they all make some contact with both the pan and the oil.
• Now add the drained chick peas and the tomatoes. Season generously with the salt, pepper and oregano. When everything is heated through, turn the flame down low and cook for a further 20 minutes. Alternatively, use the pressure cooker (which is probably your largest pan, anyway) and bring to pressure for 5 minutes.

Serve with rice, wild rice or pasta. In the unlikely event that there’s any left over, it’s also delicious cold.

Variations:

• Use a can of cherry tomatoes, for special occasions
• Fresh tomatoes can also be substituted if cheap and readily available.
• Use white beans instead of the chick peas.

 

 

 

You will find many more recipeslike this here

Broccoli, chickpeas and tomatoes

 

This is a quick light dinner, ideal for when you come home late, have had sundowners with lots of snacks or simply aren’t feeling very hungry. In spite of its simplicity, it’s really quite delicious: somehow chickpeas and tomatoes are an unbeatable combination

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked and cooked

1 small head of broccoli broken into florets, stalk trimmed and diced

olive oil

1 medium onion diced

2 cloves garlic, dice

1/2 tsp salt

4 medium tomatoes, quartered

pepper

Method:

• Briefly cook the broccoli until barely softened. Drain and set aside.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan and then add the broccoli stalk, the onion and the garlic and sprinkle over the salt.
• Cook over a moderate heat until softened, but not browned. Cover with a lid to speed things up a little; add a tablespoonful or two of water if it looks like burning.
• Once everything is softened and the onion translucent, tip in the tomatoes and cover once more. Cook for about five minutes on a medium flame until the tomatoes are heated through and starting to soften.
• Gently fold in the broccoli and chickpeas and cook until the broccoli has reached the right consistency. Grind over a generous amount of black pepper and serve hot on warmed plates.

Accompany the meal with thick slices of good bread, to mop up the juices.

Variation:

• You could also serve this over short pasta such as penne, or polenta.

 

 

You will find many more recipes like this here

 

Chickpea and mushroom quiche

 

This is one of my favourite quiches and is especially luxurious when made with cream. It is ideal for for entertaining, especially if you have baby new potatoes to go with it. In hot weather, when you don’t want your guests eating in a sweltering boat, it can be made in advance and eaten lukewarm.

 

I’m afraid that I don’t accept that a white sauce made with gram flour is an acceptable substitute for a sauce made with eggs. However, if you are well along the vegan spectrum, I suggest alternatives to cows’ milk, which is what I invariably use. You might want to use coconut milk - but I think that it might not complement the tarragon and green peppercorns.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked and cooked

1 recipe pastry

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, diced

8 to 10 button mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter or extra olive oil

1 egg

1/3 cup (vegan) yoghurt OR cream

1/4 cup milk OR water

1/2 tsp tarragon

1 tsp crushed green peppercorns

salt

 

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas and set aside.
• Make the pastry and roll it out to fit a 230 mm (9 in) frying pan. Press to fit, cutting and pasting as necessary, to line the entire pan.
• Put the frying pan on a low heat over a flame tamer, and cook uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes, until the pastry is crisp.
• Meanwhile, prepare the onion and garlic and fry in the oil and butter. If you don’t have any butter, use an extra tbsp of olive oil, but the butter makes this quiche richer.
• Slice the mushrooms and add to the pan. Cook without browning until the onion is thoroughly softened and the mushrooms have wilted.
• When the pastry is cooked, put the vegetables in the case, spreading them evenly over the base.
• Put the drained chickpeas on top, again spreading them out evenly.
• Gently beat the egg, yoghurt or cream and milk or water together. Mix in the tarragon, green peppercorns and salt. Pour this carefully into the frying pan, tilting it so that the custard is evenly distributed.
• Cover and cook over a low heat, until the custard has risen and is set – approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve, if you can with new potatoes and a salad of mixed leaves. On a hot day, and in the unlikely event that youcan provide it, chilled white wine is delicious with this quiche.

Alternative cooking:

• If you prefer to cook the quiche in the oven, line a 200 mm (8 in) flan case with pastry and bake it in a pre-heated, Fairly Hot oven for 15 minutes. If possible, put a heavy baking sheet on the top shelf to heat up with the oven. This gives you a better chance of ending up with a crisp base.
• Follow stages 3 – 7. Reduce the oven setting to Moderate, and then put the quiche back in the oven for a further 30 minutes, until the filling is set. It should have risen to the top of the case and be a delicate golden colour.

Note:

• I have made this quiche with green peppercorns in brine, when I couldn’t find dried green peppercorns, but the result it disappointing compared with the dried ones.
• If you have access to fresh herbs, you might well prefer to use these. However, tarragon has its own quite distinct flavour, which I think goes well in this recipe.

 

Chickpeas and wild rice with tomatoes

 

This is one of those really great recipes.  It tastes wonderful, but it’s simple, inexpensive, easy to cook and uses food that you - or at any rate I - always have to hand.  To me, it’s so delicious that it’s fit for a celebration or to give to guests. I love it, and every time I make it, I only wish that I’d made twice as much!  

 

If you don't have wild rice on board, or it's beyond your budget, substitute your normal brown.  It will still make a lovely meal.

 

serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1 onion, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil (preferably from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil)

1/2 cup rice

1/4 cup wild rice

2½ cups water

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked

1 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs or a handful of chopped parsley

 1/2 tsp (heaped) Annie's Seasoned Salt

400 g/14 oz can tomatoes*

1 garlic clove

 cracked black pepper

 

Method:

• Heat the oil in the pressure cooker and add the chopped onion. Cook for a few minutes until softened and transparent.
• Add the rice and wild rice and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring frequently until the grains of rice become opaque.
• Pour in the water and bring to the boil. Add the chickpeas and the dried mixed herbs (if you're using fresh parsley, keep this until the end). Stir well and put the lid on the pressure cooker. Bring up to pressure and cook for 15 minutes.
• Reduce pressure at room temperature. Add the salt. Dice the garlic and add to the pan.
• Drain the tomatoes and put the juice aside for another recipe. Add the tomatoes to the pressure cooker and chop them very roughly with your spoon – they should stay in big chunks.
• Season generously with pepper, check the salt and reheat, with the lid on, over a low flame. 
• If you are using fresh parsley, chop this finely and mix it through before serving.

Note:

• *If you're somewhere that tomatoes are affordable, this is a good meal to use them, so that you don't have to store the juice.  Peel them first, if you want to and cut them in quarters or eighths, depending on how big they are.  I can't suggest how many to use, but cut up, they would measure a generous cup and a half.
• Fresh parsley truly enhances this dish.

You will find many more rice recipes here

Chickpea and wild rice pilaf

Depending on the type, it is not always as easy to get dry rice, with the separate grains that is best for a pilaf with brown rice, but I much prefer it to white. However, if you use brown basmati rice, you will get perfect results.

 

In this recipe, I use 30% wild rice. I’m sure you could use 100%, but suspect that it would be a little overpowering, to say nothing of being wildly extravagant. This pilaf usually seems popular and to me, has an "authentic" taste (although I doubt it has!). Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients: it’s actually very straightforward to make and even good enough for entertaining!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

8 dried apricots

6 dates

2 tbsp raisins

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup brown (basmati) rice

1/4 cup wild rice

6 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cinnamon/1 ½ cups water

3 tbsp pine nuts

1/4 cup boiling water

1 red pepper, chopped

1/2 tsp dried mint

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked and cooked

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Slice the apricots and chop the dates. Put them in a bowl with the raisins and pour over 1/4 cup boiling water. This will make them plump up.
• Slice the onion and then cut the slices in half; chop the garlic.
• Put them into a saucepan, together with the rice, seeds from the cardamom pods, cumin, coriander and cinnamon.
• Pour in the water. (If your lid doesn’t fit very well, add an extra 1/2 cup.)/Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat; leave it simmering for 40 minutes. Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan, under a grill, or on a tray in the oven. Keep an eye on them : they burn very easily.
• When the rice is almost cooked, add the dried fruit and any liquid, along with the red pepper, mint and drained chickpeas. If it all looks too dry, add a little more water.
• Cook until everything is heated through and the flavours have combined.
• Serve sprinkled with the pine nuts.

Variations:

• Instead of pine nuts, you could use either chopped cashews or almonds. If you can’t afford any of them, the pilaf will still taste fine.
• If you can lay hands on a bunch of flat-leaved parsley, add a generous amount of this, roughly chopped, right at the end of the cooking time. Don’t be tempted to substitute fresh coriander – it will tend to overpower the rather delicate flavour of this pilaf.
• Use the chickpeas to make falafel (either the 'real way', with ground soaked chickpeas, or the phoney way, with cooked ones) and serve these on top of the pilaf, perhaps with some yoghurt or tahini sauce.

You will find many more rice recipes here

Chickpeas with mushrooms and rice

Sharp-eyed observers may notice a family resemblance to one or two other recipes on this blog.  I make no apologies. Mushrooms and chickpeas were made for each other and are complemented superbly by tarragon and green peppercorns. 

 

Mushrooms, a sublime gift from a benign Providence, are becoming more and more easily available to cruising people. Because of this, I include them rather more often than I would have done had I written this blog 15 years ago - if there were blogs, 15 years ago. While canned mushrooms are a sad travesty of the real thing, ‘freeze-dried’ ones are a very acceptable substitute and, where available, are not outrageously expensive. While they don’t need pre-soaking, it does them no harm. If you're cooking the chickpeas from scratch, rather than using a tin, put the dried mushrooms in at the same time. Half a cup of mushrooms would need about the same water. You can of course buy such exotics as porcini or Chinese dried mushrooms, although I find the latter rather too chewy and, particularly the dark ones, slightly overpowering unless diced quite small. On the other hand, those packets of Chinese, dried 'white' mushrooms are wonderfully versatile and have a lovely flavour profile.

Serves 2

 

Ingredients 

1/2 cup chick peas, soaked

3/4 cup rice

2½ cups water

2 tbsp olive oil

6 or 8 fresh mushrooms OR 1/3 cup freeze dried mushrooms

1 onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 tsp tarragon

2 tsp green peppercorns, crushed

salt

 

Method:

• Put the rice and chick peas in the pressure cooker and cook for 15 minutes. If you are using dried mushrooms, put these in at the same time and add an extra 1/2 cup of water.
• While these are cooking, heat the oil in another saucepan, slice the mushrooms and chop up the onion and garlic. Put them all into the pan and cook over a medium heat, turning frequently to prevent them from burning. Be gentle – you don’t want to break up the mushroom slices.
• Using a pestle and mortar, crush the peppercorns and grind the tarragon in with them. (If you don’t have a pestle, crush the peppercorns in a shallow bowl with the back of a spoon. Be careful, they tend to fly about a bit.) Add these to the vegetables and stir to mix everything together. Lower the heat to a minimum.
• When the chickpeas, etc have finished cooking, reduce pressure gradually and then empty the contents of the pressure cooker into the saucepan. Mix carefully, and leave for a few minutes so that the flavours mingle before serving the food.

Variations: 

• If you’re not fond of ‘spicy’ food, you may find 2 tsp of green peppercorns a bit much. In that case, reduce the amount to 1 tsp.
• If you substitute 1/4 cup wild rice for brown rice, you get a luxurious version, which you can happily serve to any guests.
• If you don't happen to have green peppercorns aboard, use black
• Thyme can be substituted for tarragon: it goes well with mushrooms, but will, of course, impart a completely different flavour to the dish.

 

You will find many more rice recipes here 

A Christmas Table

To date, I've pretty much followed my plan of making this blog a version of my draft book,  The Voyaging Vegetarian.  However, I wonder how many of the two or three readers who have looked at this blog, have even opened the pages under "Topics for Voyaging Vegetarians" and so I've decided to do something totally different: write what is really a blog post.

 

Christmas!  Some people love it, some people loathe it, some are quite indifferent.  I have very mixed feelings about it: I love the memories of Christmas past spent with my family, before most of them died.  I like that it's a special day and it's a fine excuse to buy myself something a little bit special and call it a Christmas present.  However, partly because I adored our own family rituals, I don't particularly like joining other people for Christmas. Obviously they do things their own way and to be honest, it's one day of the year when I really don't want to accommodate others.  Add to this the fact that I am a vegetarian, who finds the sight and smell of meat  offputting; that I'm used to dining quite late; that I can think of few things worse on a hot day, than a roast dinner or any heavy meal; that I dislike sweet puddings and prefer to avoid the giving of unwanted presents, and you can see that I am anyway, a far from ideal guest.  

Fortunately, I live on a boat, so a day or so before Christmas, I can sail away to an unpopular anchorage which I am likely to have more or less to myself and be fairly sure that no-one will miss me.  The anchorages are often very pretty, but have a very poor mobile phone signal which for many people makes them a bad choice at this time of the year, when they want to talk to family and friends.

Once happily anchored, forecast checked once more, I spend several pleasant hours preparing my own Christmas feast.  For the past couple of years, this has been what we used to call a 'buffet', and which now appears to be called a 'grazing table', ideal for idling away a hot summer's afternoon and evening.  For anyone interested in doing likewise, I am offering this year's spread for inspiration.

So what did I have? I  made seeded-bread rolls, and to go with them prepared two pâtés:

The first one is the variation on the lentil and mushroom pâté, where walnuts are used instead of the mushrooms.  I love this variation: indeed, I'm not sure that I don't prefer it to the mushroom version.  I had some fresh sage leaves, which I fried until they were crisp, and used to decorate it. It goes well with bread or crackers, but I also found it delicious wrapped in a lettuce leaf.

I made a lot of this pâté and finished the last of it off, by watering it down and serving it with pasta.  It was very good!

The second pâté I made is the really rich and luxurious mushroom and sunflower seed one, which I feel is on a par with any made from meat. 

It being Christmas, I had a generous hand with the brandy and added what I like to think was an authentic touch, by melting vegan ghee over the top of it.  Again, it was good with bread, crackers or wrapped in a lettuce leaf.  Incidentally, both of these pâtés keep for several days without refrigeration, even with the hot weather we had over Christmas.  There is no difficulty on my part, eating them for breakfast, either.

Any grazing table worth its name has to include hummus, of course.  I like to make mine by squashing the peas with a pestle, rather than blending them really smooth.  

I much prefer a bit of texture, personally and I also like to include plenty of cumin in the mix.  This year I added a drizzle of chilli oil, from the chilli peppers I preserved earlier in the year.  It added a delightful bit of zing.  Olive oil over the top stops it from drying out and adds richness to the flavour and texture.  Again, the hummus is great with bread, crackers or wrapped in lettuce.  This also keeps for several days without refrigeration - if it gets the chance.

My final creation was to make samosas.  I have just realised that, thus far, I haven't included a recipe for these.  As I have a very poor signal here (still in a deserte anchorage) and am pushing my luck writing this, I shall have to leave it for another day.  The recipe I used is made from smashed potatoes and freeze-dried peas.  A lot of people mash the potaoes, but again, I prefer to have some texture.

Additional food to browse on included: some fancy, truffle-flavoured crisps (although, I have to confess, I think I prefer simple, plain salted!), baby plum tomatoes, broccoli florets, baby carrots, the aforementioned lettuce and crackers, along with a bowl of vegan yoghurt, cherries and fresh dates.  Although I am largely vegan, for once I bought some locally-made cheese: a Gouda type.  Generally speaking, I avoid cheese because of the horrible lives that dairy cattle have, and the appalling way in which the unwanted calves are treated.  However, the Mahoe cheese comes from a farm that looks like something out of a children's book, with cows and a big bull grazing peacefully in the fields, the driveway lined with small paddocks full of pigs and piglets, pottering around in the sunshine.  If only all cheese were produced in such an animal-friendly setting ...

As you will see, all this lovely food was washed down with good wine and I very much enjoyed browsing and sipping - and reading the odd chapter of the new Richard Osman book I had bought for myself!  Perhaps, unsurprisingly, there was quite a lot left over, but it's all gone now, except for some of the cheese.  I can quite understand that most people don't want to spend Christmas on their own, but this grazing table also works will wit a cabin full of guests: we had a similar spread a couple of Christmases ago, with good friends on board.  To my mind, it's a far better choice in hot weather, than a sit-down, cooked meal.

Pasta with chickpeas and vegetables in tahini sauce

I have just suggested 'Pasta' for his recipe, because it will really go with just about any short pasta.  Indeed, if you make more sauce, it would also successfully coat a longer type of pasta.  While I've suggested specific vegetables, this is essentially a meal that can be made using ingredients you’d have in your lockers, with whatever vegetables you have to hand. There is, however, one proviso to this: I suggest sprinkling black sesame seeds over the meal when it’s served: white sesame seeds can be used as a substitute, but the black ones look and taste great!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

about 4 button mushrooms, sliced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli flakes, or to taste

about 6 florets from a head of broccoli

4 handfuls of pasta, such as fusilli

2 tbsp tahini

reserved water from the pasta

salt and pepper

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

 

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas in the usual way and set aside.
• Add olive oil to a large saucepan over a moderately high heat.
• Add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until the onions are softening, stirring frequently to ensure nothing burns.
• Add the mushroom and red pepper and sprinkle with salt, stir into the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until there is some colour on both the onions and red peppers, then lower the heat. Add in the chilli flakes, stir well and cover. Leave over a low heat while you cook the pasta.
• Bring salted water to boil in a saucepan and throw in the pasta. Stir well to ensure that it doesn’t stick together. Bring back to the boil, cover and lower the heat so that it doesn’t boil over. Set the timer for 5 minutes
• When the timer rings, add the broccoli florets and cook until both pasta and broccoli are just not soft. If you like crunchy broccoli, wait a bit longer before adding it.
• While this is cooking, put the tahini into a small bowl, together with generous amounts of salt and pepper. When the pasta and broccoli are done, remove them from the water, using a slotted spoon, or drain the water into a jug, and add them to the vegetables.
• Add a tablespoonful or so of pasta water to the tahini and mix to a smooth consistency. Tahini varies tremendously in how thick it is, but you want to end up with a sauce that pours easily and will coat the pasta and vegetables. Mix with a butter knife or mini whisk until it becomes a creamy colour, then add to the pan.
• Stir gently until everything is mixed and serve.

Garnish with a generous amount of black sesame seeds.

 

Note:

• If you have no black sesame seeds, substitute with white.
• I'm not sure the pasta water has the same effect when used with gluten-free pasta, but it can't do any harm!
  

Variations: 

• Use white beans instead of chickpeas.
• Replace the broccoli with cauliflower florets.
• For a voyaging variation, use chopped cabbage.
• Add green beans or asparagus with or instead of some of the other vegetables.
• Replace the red pepper with carrot.
• Add a couple of tbsp of freeze-dried peas with or instead of some of the vegetables.
• Use bulgur wheatinstead of pasta. In this case you will have to cook the broccoli separately.
• Add chopped fresh herbs, if you have some.

Chickpeas and fusilli in tomato sauce

 

 

This is an old favourite of mine. Incredibly simple to make, but astonishingly good to eat. Moreover, this is perfect voyaging food, because it is made from ingredients that you will have in your lockers. I prefer it with fusilli – spirals – but of course it will go with whatever pasta you have on board.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

a good glug of olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or diced

425 g/14 oz can of tomatoes (See Notes)

a little wine

about a dozen black olives

1 tsp capers

1 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs

up to 1/4 tsp chilli flakes

salt and pepper

4 handfuls of fusilli

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas as usual.
• Pour the olive oil into a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened and translucent. Add a little salt to speed things up, if you want.
• When the onion is almost cooked, add the garlic and cook until it’s soft.
• Now add the tomatoes and rinse out the can with wine, if you’re using it. If you’re using whole tomatoes, break them up with your spoon.
• If you’re using them, stone and halve the olives. Add the drained capers.
• Season with herbs andchilli flakes - which give a nice lift - and a generous amount of black pepper. Taste and add salt if it can take it.
• Bring to the boil and add the chickpeas.
• Lower the heat and cook until the sauce has become quite thick.
• When the sauce is almost ready, cook the fusilli until it reaches the consistency you like.
• Remove it from the cooking water with a slotted spoon, or drain it into a jug (you may need some of the water to thin down the sauce) and add it to the other pan. Cook for a few minutes longer. Check the seasoning and serve.

Add Parmesan (vegan, if you prefer) at the table, if you like it.

Notes:

• Ideally, use chopped tomatoes in purée, but if you don’t have those, any others will do. It’s worth using better quality tomatoes in this recipe (most recipes for that matter!) for the extra flavour. They seem to be less watery, too.
• Substitute dried, cooked chickpeas with a can

Variation

• Use cannellini or butter beans.
• Add finely diced celery if you have some.
• Try this with pasta shells, or similar. You want a pasta that will hold the sauce.