h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... we're being vegetarian today. I was going to cook some spaghetti bolognase with Quorn mince to be eaten with carrot salad, while the Gruesomes were swimming.

But I decided that was too much like hard work and went for something much more complicated instead (!): Spinich/ricotta flan, carrot/orange salad (totally yummy, with ginger and garlic), green salad and potato salad (featuring home-mayonnaise)

Had to make the mayo too as we'd run out.

Really looking forward to dinnertime now!

I had some vegetarians round for dinner a few weeks ago.

They were tasty!

RF

What we really had was:

Traffic light soup
Ratatouille towers
Poached pears

RF

Ratatouille towers. Yum.

I was going to make pasta with roasted asparagus for dinner tonight, but we had orzo pasta salad at the museum. I don't know if we should have pasta twice in one day.

All that stuff you're making sounds wonderful, Sho!

I didn't do the pastry though. It was all totally delicious but made me save plenty so we can have it all again today.

Traffic light what, RF?

Traffic light soup: make three different kinds of roasted pepper soup (red, yellow, green) and pour them into the bowl so that the colours don't mix (I pour in red first, then add some yellow in the middle, and finish off with a dollop of green in the centre).

RF

Pasta - see my 'Spoiled by choice' journal entry. I intend serving it with broccoli and red chilli.

Mmm, sounds good!

Ah soup - we do soup like that but half/half in the plate.

I'm hungry again... we had the leftovers for dinner yesterday and it was still scrummy.

I really annoyed my stepfather yesterday, he slept through dinner and when he woke up, he found I'd made no meat and a lot of evil vegetables! He ate some toast quite aggressively.

The rest of us liked it, though. He doesn't like ribbon noodles, but they're our favourite. I made a sauce of aubergines (eggplant) and onions fried in a little olive oil, then added a little vegetable broth and tomato paste, some cherry tomatoes cut into quarters, and, most importantly, a walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, chopped up small. It didn't need any other spices besides salt and a bit of white pepper.

We put some cheese on top, but it was without it, too, so it should be suitable for you, PC.

I made a nice souffle omelette (where you whisk the whites first, then fold in the yolks after) to which I added chives, parsley and a little mint, a very finely chopped tomato and some feta.

I love tomato sauce with ginger. I occasionally make a fancy brunch type thing with potato pancakes and baked marinated tofu, then add the tofu marinade to tomatoes and make a sauce to cover it all. I sprinkle toasted sunflower seeds on top.

Now I'm getting hungry reading all this.

We buy huge pieces of ginger, grate and freeze it. It's brilliant in carrot salad.

And since I introduced to Korean food, he's even decided that under certain circumstances Tofu can be tasty.

I freeze big pieces of ginger and galangal. I also freeze lemongrass, which I buy in bulk because it's so much cheaper. Chili peppers and kaffir lime leaves, too.

Ginger is easier for me to grate when it's frozen anyway. Is it just me?

Does the lemongrass go floppy when you thaw it?

And the verdict on the ChickenLemongrassThaiThingy that we had today (with green salad, carrot salad and rice salad)
was a resounding



from me and the Gruesome Twosome

Off to freeze some lemongrass now

I had quite a nice dinner yesterday. Dead simple - some asparagus, rocket, feta, and various edible weeds that I just foraged out of the ground. It was delicious though - all the vegetables seemed to be full of fresh springtime sweetness.

I could quite easily be a vegetarian if it wasn't for the sausage habit I developed in Germany...

oh that sounds yummy!

Today we're having lentil & tomato flan, carrot salad, green salad, potato salad & rice... salad.

Hmmmmmm.

Just in case anyone's not seen my recommended way with asparagus:

Whack the oven up to 11.
Toss the asparagus in olive oil
Sprinkle with a little sea salt
Top shelf of the oven - five minutes.
Squeeze of lemon.
Some shreds of pecorino (preferably) or parmesan.

I'm having that tonight!