Fried bread

As well as being delicious with the 'cooked breakfast' and with eggs, this is also an acceptable substitute for toast, if you have no toaster and aren't counting calories.  Indeed, you can make passable toast in a good quality frying pan, without the oil.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 slice bread

• Heat the olive oil sizzling hot in a frying pan.

• Put in the bread, move it around to mop up the oil and then turn it over. There should still be some oil in the pan and you should mop this up, too.

• Keeping the heat high, cook the bread until it starts getting crisp and some of the oil that has been absorbed starts to run out again. Turn the bread. If it isn’t sufficiently brown, flip it back for a bit longer.

• Then cook the other side. When it’s properly cooked, it should be crisp on both sides.

Refried Potatoes

These are so delicious, that I often cook extra potatoes the night before so that I can have them for breakfast next day.

Ingredients

 

Cold boiled potatoes

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper or Annie's Seasoned Salt

 

Method:

• Cut the potatoes into chunky pieces, while heating the oil in a frying pan.
• Ensuring that the oil is hot, put the pieces of potato into the pan. Although it’s a bit fiddly to do them one at a time, it actually makes sense, because all the pieces are in contact with the oil and can be turned over to brown the next face.
• By the time you’ve put every piece in the pan, you can start turning the ones that were put in first. Ideally, they fry brown and crisp. Grind salt and pepper over them while they’re cooking.
• When they’re all heated through and crisp, serve with fried or boiled eggs, a fried tomato – or just one their own!
   
  
  
  You can find more vegetable side dishes here.
   

Breakfast pancakes

 

Serves 2

1½ cups milk OR water

2 tbsp olive oil OR melted butter

1 egg OR ¼ cup water

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp ground flax seeds

• Measure 1¼ cups of the milk into a jug or bowl. It should be at least ‘room temperature’, because if it’s too cold, even a hot frying pan will be insufficient to raise the batter. If in doubt, warm it until it’s ‘hand hot’.

• Add the oil or butter and then whisk in the egg or flax seeds/water. Dump in the flour and then whisk.

• Add the baking powder and whisk again. Check the consistency. Made with wholewheat flour, this can vary, depending on the absorbency of the flour. For thick pancakes, the batter should drip off the wires of the whisk, but only just. If it seems too thick, add some more milk or water. If you’re uncertain, test a teaspoon or so of batter and see what it looks like. Normally, you will need all the milk. Leave it to stand for about 10 minutes.

• Put your frying pan over a high heat. If you feel it might stick, put in a few drops of oil – the pan acts as a griddle: you don’t fry pancakes.

• Sprinkle a few drops of water onto your frying pan. If it’s the right temperature, they should dance across the surface before evaporating. Now drop a couple of tbsp of batter into the pan. It should immediately start to bubble and then cook dry around the edges.

• When about a third of the pancake looks dry, turn it over to cook the other side. You should be able to get a production line going and cook about three at a time. Keep them between two warm plates, or in a low oven until they’re all cooked. Regardless of what the pundits say, they seem to stay fine like this and don't need to be layered with greaseproof paper.

Serve with jam and yoghurt, preserved fruit and cream, or whatever takes your fancy.

Thrifty Smashed Potatoes

 

In my wanderings through food blogs, I keep coming across the serving suggestion of ‛smashed potatoes’ and for a long time, I assumed that this was a new and trendy way of saying ‛mashed potatoes’.  However, I saw a recipe for them, linked under something else I was looking for and All Was Revealed.  

 

I suspect that the better celebrity cooks are trying to improve people’s dietary habits; they also realise that many of their fans are as lazy as the rest of us (and probably much more so than their grandparents) when it comes to cooking, so they make a lot of use of an oven, on the principle that it does the work without being supervised. I thoroughly endorse their first goal – smashed potatoes retain their skins; I am much less enthusiastic about the latter – ovens require a lot of energy and we should all be using as little as possible.  (I should be so much happier if celebrity cooks and food bloggers enthusiastically endorsed counter-top ovens, which are, of course, a complete irrelevancy to Voyaging Vegetarians.  Apparently, according to Vegan Punks, smashed potatoes can also be finished in an Air Fryer, which is even more of an irrelevancy!)

 

Anyway, below is my way of producing smashed – or far more accurately, squashed – potatoes without an oven.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

8 smallish potatoes (about 50mm diameter), scrubbed

½ tsp garlic granules

1 tsp Annie’s mixed herbs

salt and pepper

olive oil

Method:

• Put the trivet in the pressure cooker, add (sea)water just up to the level of the trivet, put in the potatoes and cook at full pressure for 5 minutes
• Reduce the pressure at room temperature
• Put a large frying pan over a low heat and add some olive oil – just enough that you can swirl it round the pan.
• Take a potato, put it on a chopping board and just split the skin with a sharp knife, in a cross – if the skin is a bit tough, it may not split on the top of the potato unless you do this.
• Now take a broad spatula, or – if you don’t mind making washing up – the base of a cup and gently squash the potato so that it splits into several lumps, still joined by the skin at the bottom. Carefully lift it into the frying pan, followed by the others, dealt with in the same way.
• Sprinkle them all with garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes until the base of the potatoes is crisp. If you cook the potatoes first, they can be crisping up while you make the rest of the meal. They will stay hot long enough for you to cook a separate vegetable, too, if you only have two burners.

These potatoes are, in fact, a great substitute for mashed potatoes: not everyone likes peel in their mash, but most people love crispy potato skins! 

 

Variations:

• You can use whatever herbs or spices take your fancy, of course and fresh ones would be lovely.
• I suppose you could always serve these smashed potatoes ‛loaded’ as USAnian food bloggers would say, which I gather means covered in whatever takes your fancy. I’m not a fan of heaps of different ingredients piled haphazardly on top of something else, but I can see the toppings that you might put on baked potatoes, to turn them into a full meal, would work well on smashed potatoes.
   
   
  You will find many more vegetable side dishes here
  
   
  

Janette's "slow cooker"

I am not as organised as I would like to be, when it comes to cooking.  Often I can't decide what to eat until the last minute and the only thing I can pat myself on the back for, is that sometimes I at least decide I'm going to eat, for example chickpeas, and an hour before I usually start cooking, I pour boiling water over them in preparation.  Then I have plenty of time to look through recipes and decide what to do with them!

My friend, Janette, who drew all the sketches on the Topics for Voyaging Vegetarians, is a much more organised person than I am.  While I, of necessity, use my pressure cooker most nights, she thinks ahead and uses what is effectively a (nearly) energy-free, slow cooker.  It uses the same principal as a Hay Box, but is a much more sensible size for a small boat: in fact, you can fold it up.  Best of all, you can make it yourself for very little outlay.

She writes: "you might be interested in one of my latest makes. I made a thermal cosy for my biggest saucepan.  I have been interested in thermal cookers for a while, but most of them take up too much room, like the Wonderbag, which you might have seen in South Africa, or some that look like huge cooler boxes.

"I made mine from a windscreen sun shield. The folds were the right height for the pan, I sewed them together cutting a hole for the handle, then cut a couple of covers for the lid, using the black tape, and elastic from the original to finish it off.  The best part is that it folds away.  

"It really works as a sort of slow cooker.  Once the soup or stew has been brought to boiling, you can leave it for an hour or two, and it is still hot.  If you leave it longer,  you can always bring it to the boil again before serving.  Being vegetarian, and using tinned beans, it can save on fuel, another advantage we have over the meat eaters."

When you take the cost of fuel into account, tinned beans can often make sense, especially if you have to buy them from a supermarket, rather than some sort of co-op or similar.  I have to walk a long way to dispose of my recycling, so prefer to use dried beans for that reason alone.  I tend to buy in bulk (well, bulk for a single person!), when I get the opportunity either to do a big order on line that reaches the 'free postage' threshold, or when I get the chance to go into a town that has a Bin Inn, which is a shop where you take your own containers and fill from a bin of beans, nuts, grains, etc.

I think this is a brilliant idea and it could be adapted to make a cosy for keeping yogurt warm while it sets, or wrapping around a bowl while bread rises.  

Let me know in the comments what you think about it!

Basic White Sauce - and Variations

 

Basic white sauce is needed for Welsh rarebit, custard or lasagne. Proper Sauce Béchamel is made by lovingly stirring 2 tablespoons of white flour into 2 tablespoons of butter over a low heat for three or four minutes. It’s then cooled and a cup of scalded milk is added. Into the pan goes a small onion studded with 2 or 3 cloves and half a bay leaf. This is then cooked until thick and smooth, after which it’s put in a moderate oven for 20 minutes, before straining and seasoning. If you’re in a hurry, you can simply stand and stir it until the sauce has thickened and all the floury flavour has gone. I believe sailors usually have other things to do and go for a lowbrow, non-gastronomic alternative, using cornflour. It’s incredibly easy to make well in one pan and yet cookery writers insist on making a big issue of it, with suggestions for double boilers, pre-heating the milk, etc, etc, which is a lot of trouble and results in extra washing up.

The simplest of white sauces consists of milk, cornflour and either salt and pepper or sweetening. After that, all sorts of goodies can be added, but let’s start from zero. The following recipe makes enough sauce to coat a lasagne, provide four servings of custard, and make a generous amount of Welsh rarebit for two.  Half of the amount would probably be enough for a coating sauce such as cheese sauce for cauliflower.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

2 tbsp cornflour

1 cup (plant)milk

salt and pepper

 

 Method:

• Put the cornflour into a small saucepan and add about a quarter of the milk.
• Blend until all the flour is mixed and a smooth thin paste results.
• Add the seasoning and then the rest of the milk. Mix again.
• Put the pan over a medium-high flame and stir the sauce constantly and fairly briskly until it starts to thicken. (You can tell that this is going to happen when it starts coating the side of the pan and the back of the spoon.)
• Still stirring, lower the heat and let the sauce boil.
• Once it’s boiling, continue cooking and stirring for one full minute and then remove the pan from the heat. This ensures that the starch is properly cooked. If it isn’t, it spoils the flavour of the sauce.

Notes

For best results, you need a first-rate saucepan. Too many stainless steel ones cook unevenly with the result that the sauce goes into lumps. If you have any doubts about your pan, use a flame-tamer and as low a heat as your patience will permit. Even with a whisk, once lumps have formed they’re almost impossible to remove. If using dried milk, add it as you mix in the cornflour, so that it dissolves when you heat the water.

This method guarantees you a smooth, cooked, white sauce.  Food reformists object to using cornflour, because it’s super refined and has no nutrition apart from carbohydrate.  Proper cooks use white flour instead of cornflour, in many instances, saying that it gives a better appearance – a sauce made with cornflour has a sheen on it that you may not want.  If either of these are your view, you can use white wheat flour instead of cornflour, but it will need about ten minutes cooking and really should be blended with a knob of butter, over a low heat before you start, to reduce the floury taste. Once it’s been brought to the boil, you do not need to stir continually,  but keep an eye on it in case it catches and burns. You need 2 tbsp plain flour for 1 tbsp of cornflour and you might want to have white flour on board, just for this purpose, so that you don’t have brown bits in your white sauce, but white flour is not as nutritious as whole wheat.

Best alternative: However, in my opinion by far the best way of making a quick Béchamel sauce, which has more flavour than that made with conrflour, cooks more quickly than that made with wheat flour and looks more attractive than either, is to use gram (chickpea) flour.  This gives the sauce a delicate hint of yellow, which looks very appetising.  

 

Ingredients

 

  4 tbsp of gram flour 

knob of butter or 1 tbsp oilive oil

1 cup (plant) milk

1/2 tsp onion powder

 salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Melt the butter or warm the oil in a small saucepan, over a medium heat.  Mix in the gram flour and cook gently for a few minutes.
• Add about 1/4 cup of milk and blend carefully, ensuring that there are no lumps. Then add the rest of the milk and the onion powder and raise the heat slightly and bring to a slow boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Gram flour can sometimes go through a lumpy stage as it thickens: just keep on stirring untl it's smooth.  It needs longer cooking longer than cornflour, but 5 minutes after it's become smooth should be plenty.  Taste it and see.  Raw gram flour tastes unpleasant - you will easily taste if it needs more cooking.  Adjust seasoning.

Note:

• In fact 'white' sauce made with gram flour doesn't really need milk, because there is more flavour in the sauce, anyway.  This is an advantage for vegan cooks, who may not have plant milk on board.

The above recipes will give you an exceedingly boring and bland white sauce. Personally, I think white sauce is pretty boring at the best of times and have never been able to see the logic of dumping a cup of it on an innocent cauliflower. The following suggestions and variations will help turn it into something that complements the rest of the food.

 

Variations:

• The first thing you can do to improve it is to add a large knob of butter with the seasoning. Once you have your confidence, you can actually melt this first and then stir the cornflour into it. A dollop of olive oil also enriches it.   
• If you have the patience, it’s well worth infusing the milk with flavourings. A tea infuser is useful for this: put a broken bay leaf, and a pinch of whatever herbs you fancy into the infuser and leave it for ten minutes or so in very hot milk. If you want something even better, a piece of onion, a garlic clove, a chunk of carrot, a couple of pieces of parsley, some mushroom stems, some broken cinnamon, a blade of mace – any or all of these can add a bit of character to a basic sauce. Put them in the cold milk and bring gradually to simmering point. Don’t boil or you’ll end up with a skin to deal with. Cover the milk while the flavours infuse, so that it stays warm longer. Be careful with mushrooms if you want a white white sauce, because they can colour it. Strain through a sieve before using. If you have any light-coloured vegetable stock, this is a good addition: mix it with dried milk.
• Cheese. Oh, lovely, wonderful cheese!  I dare say you can buy really good vegan cheese in large, cosmpolitan cities.  I have yet to find any, but as mentioned below, there is an acceptable alternative vegan sauce.  A generous addition will turn this boring gloop into a delightful adjunct to your vegetables and make an instant meal with pasta. Choose a cheese with a pretty strong flavour and grate away. A quarter of a cup will add interest; half a cup is about the minimum to give it a definite flavour. 
• Vegan cheese sauce can be made by substituting a couple of tbsp of nutritional yeast for the real thing.  I’ll be honest, it won’t be as good, but it will still be a vast improvement on white sauce. However, if you go to the trouble of infusing the milk and then add 1/2 tsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, it will be much improved.  Add olive oil or vegan ghee to substitute for the fat in the cheese.
• Lemon juice. A tablespoon of this will add savour to your very basic sauce and complement carrots, for example. If you’re using a fresh lemon, add some of the rind, grated. This has much more oomph than the juice and adds a little colour. With the addition of honey, you will end up with a sweet sauce to go with puddings.
• Dried or mixed mustard, Worcestershire sauce, chilli: all these can be added to a standard white sauce to enhance the flavour, without substantially altering the texture. They will alter the colour, however.
• Green peppercorns, celery salt, dried minced garlic, and fresh or dried herbs will introduce a lot more character into the sauce, but will spoil the pure, unsullied whiteness, if this matters.
• If you add two, chopped, hard-boiled eggs, some chopped parsley and the rind and juice of half a lemon, pour it over cauliflower and sprinkle with a cup of breadcrumbs, fried in olive oil or butter, you end up with Cauliflower à la Polonaise. This turns the cauliflower into a main course and is great with deep-fried chunks of potato or Oven chips. Broccoli, courgettes, etc can be given the same treatment.
• A tablespoon or two of Dijon mustard makes for a very pleasant sauce with burgers.
• Fresh mushrooms fried in butter or olive oil, can be added to make a quick pasta sauce. Season with 1 tsp crushed green peppercorns, ½ tsp tarragon and/or dill (weed) and a clove of garlic. You could add a chopped onion and fry it with the mushroom, if you like. If you feel confident about making white sauce, the mushrooms can be fried in the saucepan and the cornflour added to that, to ensure that none of the delicious flavour is wasted. Use cream and you have a meal fit for a king!
• For a sweet sauce, omit salt and pepper and after the sauce is thickened, stir in a tbsp of honey and return to the heat. It can be further flavoured with vanilla essence, lemon juice or rind, orange juice or rind, rum, whisky, cocoa, coffee, etc. Brown sugar or treacle can be used instead of honey, for a different flavour – and colour.
• For extra richness, incorporate some cream. After the sauce has boiled, allow it to cool a little and then gently stir in the cream. If you need to reheat it, do so very gently so that it doesn’t boil, otherwise the cream may curdle.
• For custard, or lasagne, an egg, beaten in, adds extra richness. The easiest way to ensure that this doesn’t curdle, is to do the same as with cream. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk and heat it very carefully. 

 

Edit: 26/4/25