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Favourite animal free recipes

It is a complete myth that a diet without meat and dairy produce is boring. It has never been more simple to source a vast array of delicious ingredients to create fresh, vibrant cooking without animal products.

It is so simple to make a delicious soup. Use fresh flavourful vegetables, heighten flavours with warm spices and ginger, cumin and coriander, purée soups to make them creamy, add a little potato to give a silky texture, add wine to intensify flavour or roasted garlic for mellow richness. Why mask flavours with cream or use butter when olive oil is better? Garnish with fresh herbs, slices of roasted red pepper, thin slices of avocado, garlic croutons, caramelised onions or coconut cream.

Warming winter suet puddings can be made with vegetable suet. Pancakes can be made with flour, olive oil and soya milk and I have made delicious breakfast pancakes using almond milk. Ice-creams can be made using soya yoghurt or soya milk and custard powder. Sorbets can be made without the use of egg whites. Serve crudites with All-i-oli, rather than an aioli made with an egg mayonnaise. All-i-oli is made by pounding garlic to a paste with a little salt and beating in oil until you have a thick cream.

A stock of good olive oil, dried mushrooms, seaweed, chillies, sun dried tomatoes, olives, capers and pine nuts will ensure you can always turn fresh seasonal vegetables, pasta, beans and grains into bright flavoursome dishes.

Fresh herbs are essential, bright refreshing dill marries well with spinach, beetroot and potato. Aromatic rosemary goes wonderfully with pulses or thread vegetables on rosemary sticks to give wonderful flavour to vegetable brochettes. The robust flavour of sage goes well with caramelised onion. Thyme adds an earthy flavour to mushrooms and soups and I can't imagine my kitchen without an abundance of basil for making delicious pungent pesto, which simply does not need to be made with cheese, just pound together basil, pine kernels, garlic and olive oil for a quick sauce to enliven salad and pasta.

Butternut squash soup with coconut cream
Serves 4
1½ lb (700g) butternut squash, peeled and diced
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 fl oz (55ml) olive oil
2 pints (1.2 litres) vegetable stock
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
salt and pepper
1½ oz coconut cream

Gently cook the onion in the olive oil, add the butternut squash and cook until just turning brown, add the spices, cook for a further minute stirring all the time, pour on the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Cool slightly, then blend until smooth, return to pan, season if required. Dissolve coconut in a little water. Divide soup between 4 bowls and decorate with a swirl of coconut.

Baba Ghanoush with sun dried tomato polenta
Serves 6
3 large aubergines
2 tablespoons tahini
2 cloves garlic
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin
1 dessertspoon fresh coriander, chopped

Pierce the aubergine in a couple of places then grill, turning twice, until the skins are black and blistered and the flesh is soft. Don't be tempted to cook in the oven, grilling gives a much better smoky flavour.
Cool, split in half and scoop out the flesh. Leave to drain in a colander. Purée the flesh in a blender with the remaining ingredients.

Sun dried polenta
2 onions, finely chopped
1 clove garlic finely chopped
1½ pints vegetable stock
6 sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced
6 oz (175g) polenta
2 tablespoons olive oil and extra for oiling the tin

Make the polenta first. Gently cook the onion and garlic in the olive oil until soft add the stock and sun-dried tomatoes and bring to the boil. Slowly, in a continuous stream, pour in the polenta beating all the time. Cook gently for 1 minute, cool slightly then pour into a well oiled tin and allow to cool. At this stage you can cover the polenta and keep it in the fridge for up to 2 days. Turn out and cut into triangles. Place the triangles on an oiled baking sheet and roast in a hot oven 200 deg C for about 10 minutes.
Put a spoonful of Baba Ganoush on each plate with a couple of hot polenta triangles and serve.

Millet and tofu cakes with citrus salad
4 oz (110g) millet
1½ pints vegetables stock
6 oz (175g) firm tofu
1 teaspoon grated ginger
2 tablespoons tamari
2 oz (50g) chopped toasted hazelnuts
2 oz (50g) breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
4 oz (110g) millet flakes
olive oil

Cook the millet in the stock for 20 minutes or until the millet is soft. Leave until cool. Blend all the ingredients together except the millet flakes. Shape into eight flat cakes. Dip each one into millet flakes. Heat a little olive oil in a pan and cook the cakes gently on each side.

Citrus salad
1 cos lettuce
1 small head radicchio
1 handful rocket
1 handful watercress
2 oranges (blood, if in season)
1 lime
1 large ruby grapefruit

Dressing
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 chilli pepper, seeded and chopped
6 fl oz (180ml) olive oil
salt and pepper

Wash and pick over salad ingredients, pop in a container in 'fridge until needed. Peel the citrus fruit and cut out the segments.
Whiz all the dressing ingredients together. Place the salad in a bowl and toss with half the dressing. Divide the salad between four bowls, pile on the citrus segments, drizzle over remaining dressing. Place 2 hot millet cakes to the side of each salad.

Pears in white wine with chocolate sauce
Serves 6
6 large pears, peeled and left whole
1 bottle of white wine - Chardonnay would be good
4 oz (110g) sugar
4 cloves
1 cardamom, seeds removed
Pared lemon peel
1 vanilla pod

Put the pears in a pan with the remaining ingredients. Add water if necessary, to cover, bring to boil and simmer uncovered for an hour or until tender but still hold their shape. Lift out and put in a bowl. Reduce the syrup, then pour over the pears.

Chocolate sauce
4 oz (110g) Green & Blacks dark chocolate
2 tablespoons golden syrup
4 fl oz (110ml) water

Melt all ingredients gently together. Place a pear in individual bowls, drizzle over chocolate sauce and serve.

Other articles include:

Nutrition for a healthy future - pre conception, pregnancy and childcare
Look After the Wildlife in your Garden
Sprouting
Aloe Vera
Garlic
Moonlight Gardening
The joys of MSG...
Barley
Spring Food

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