Spiced Carrot and Feta Gnocchi

Spiced Carrot and Feta Gnocchi

from Gourmet Vegetarian, Jane Price, Murdoch, 2007

I’ve never been able to understand why vegetarian food has a bad rap. Lately I tuned in to Master Chef and was stunned to hear one of the presenters say that if the contestants didn’t catch a fish they’d have to cook a vegetarian meal. It was all expressed as though this was a punishment.  At another time when watching My Kitchen Rules the presenter expressed amazement that a contestant was able to present a vegetarian meal which was tasty. These presenters are supposedly tops chefs. I can’t understand why they choose to present a whole vibrant cuisine in such a negative way.

Gourmet Vegetarian expresses the opposite view from these particular chefs and includes a range of recipes from cuisines all over the world.

The Spiced Carrot and Feta Gnocchi was easy enough to make: cook the carrots, puree them with feta and form them into gnocchi shapes. It was all a little fiddly though with the mixture softer than the usual gnocchi and tending to stick to the hands that had to be constantly floured. Consequently my efforts tended to be larger than I would normally expect gnocchi to be. 

And was it worth the effort? The gnocchi itself was pleasant to eat. The sauce was a failure for me. I just couldn’t get it to thicken. In fact, the longer I cooked it, the thinner it seemed to become. Should I make it again, I would make a different sauce.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Individual Pot Pies and an Avocado, Quinoa & Broad Bean Salad

Individual Pot Pies

from Gourmet Vegetarian. Jane Price, Murdoch, 2007.

This cookbook looked to have a large range of inviting recipes. I chose to make these pot pies.

There are basically three separate parts: steam the vegetables, make the sauce, fix the puff pastry. Each section was quite easy. The result was a quite acceptable pie.

It was a bit on the difficult side to eat. Cutting through the puff pastry was not that easily accomplished. It would, I think, have been much better with a short pastry.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Avocado, Quinoa and Broad Bean Salad

from Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ebury Press, 2010.

This is a handsome book with a title that doesn't give much away but the inside looks extremely promising. While I was not terribly taken with this recipe there's lots more to try and I look forward to getting into them soon.

The author, incidentally, is not a vegetarian but does enjoy meals with good strong flavours. He runs his own successful restaurants.

I do like broad beans but I totally dislike having to skin the beans even though the result looks a wonderful green.

I’m a little undecided about quinoa. It may be extraordinarily good for you but I’ve yet to find it an eating experience I would seek out.

Avocado is always great

.

To find a recipe with all of these ingredients in it persuaded me to give it a go. After the drudge of broad bean peeling, and the pre-cooking of the quinoa, putting it all together was a breeze.

The salad also included radishes and rocket and a flavoursome dressing.

The final result was different and edible but not that exciting. It didn’t even give that feeling that you were a fraction healthier from the experience.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔