It is the last instalment of meat-free month and it is pretty late (I actually wrote it last week then kept struggling to find time to post it). But some of the best stuff we cooked this week came at the very end of the week. While I hadn’t exactly cut meat out of my diet during April – eagle eyed followers might have spied some beef short ribs on the ‘gram at the weekend – the idea of focusing a little more on cooking without meat or fish has been fun. Especially for this week’s instalment of Scraps, which has a greater sense of “things that look like they should have meat in, but empirically don’t” to it. All I’d say is, if you’re going meat free, buy twice as many mushrooms as you think you need. That’s all.
1. A (surprisingly-quick) veggie chilli
Thank Rob for this one, a really chilli that came together in under half an hour. I was actually reading (?) while he made this, because he’s good to me, is Rob, so I had to kind of look up what it was after the fact. I never cook chilli because in my mind, it takes hours of roasting or searing hunks of meat, and if you do freewheel with something like this you often end up with a very chunky tomato soup, instead.
That said, we did chuck in a red pepper that was in a drawer and we also added in dried chillies from our generously-stocked cupboard (because he likes heat so much, I actually bought Rob a ton of weird dried chillis for his birthday, which we hydrate and chuck in anything that we deem in need of a kick up the arse).
This recipe is from the New York Times Cooking, and they called a ‘vegetarian skillet chilli’ and despite buying a cast-iron skillet this month, I skipped it for this recipe in favour of my high-sided pot from Sainsburys (it’s a bright orange Le Creuset dupe, and while it won’t last me 120 years or whatever the warranty is on Le Creus’, it also didn’t cost me 200+ quid so there you go). It’s so simple; onion, garlic, beans (we did cannellini) and a tin of diced tomatoes – we added some fresh ones in, too. The rich, roasty flavour comes from chilli powder and oregano, but again, cumin and even a pinch of cinnamon would be good. This is the point in a recipe where I explain some secret ingredient and I really wish there was one but no, this is just a really delicious basic recipe and you’ll be amazed at how good it is without relying on some wild plot twist chucked in near the end.
That said, it does suggest adding quick-pickled onions at the end, which we did and can confirm were amazing.
Because we ate it with rice, I didn’t think of any tortillas or anything, but they would have been good for scooping up the chilli. The next day, I had enough chilli for lunch but we had no rice, so I decided to beef up the dish by making pita chips. Behold:
I always keep a few pita breads in the freezer for such an occasion; I fleck them with water and defrost them in the oven, before slicing them through the middle and cutting them into rough chunks. Heat a lightly oil-drizzled tray in the oven (this is so when you add the pita, it will crisp up as it’s exposed to the hot oil), sprinkle with salt and some Aleppo pepper flakes, and cook until they’re golden brown on the edges.
2. A salad that’s good enough for dinner
Not sure why this pic is so misty-looking?
Sometimes when you have a lot of leftovers in the house it plays havoc with your meal planning. I’ve spoken before about my refusal to ‘cook’ ‘at lunchtime’ – just feels like a huge waste of a golden hour to do as I please in the middle of the day. And even though this roasted chickpea salad is really hands off, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to spend my lunchtime making it. OK, the idea of drowning the chickpeas in so much spice-flecked oil that they practically confit in the oven was tempting – because the spicy oil then becomes part of the salad. I also accidentally bought two giant tubs of tahini despite not eating it very much – spiking it with lemon juice and salt and trickling it over some cool cucumber spears and crunchy greens was really appealing. In the end I microwaved leftovers for lunch (cooked and scarfed in no more than 8 minutes, ideal) and made this salad for dinner instead.
I also used this as an opportunity to chuck in as many leftover herbs as I could – mainly parsley and mint – and topped it with some more pickled onions from the veggie chilli.
Anyway that’s it from me. Next week’s issue is all about short ribs.
Just another pic of the chilli because it has such a pleasing hue.