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SuperBiasedMan

Idle Cook Club - Veggie Feeds-me: My Body Is Ready

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I got a new cookbook this Christmas, and I know at least one other Thumb did. I'm hoping to cook more new things because of it, because the main thing that makes me recycle the same recipes again and again is my laziness, to not search for recipes and to not try new stuff that might go poorly. Another fun way that may be motivating is peer pressure!

A pun was said in slack and thus the Idle Cook Club is born.

Every two weeks we'll plan to make one new meal. One of us just suggests something like "lasagne", and with no other direction you pick what you want to make. It doesn't have to relate if you don't want. So if you don't want to make a lasagne then feel free to make anything else instead. Whatever you're planning you can post about what you've decided to make, tell everyone how it went, good or bad! As a club we can offer moral support, advice and maybe even recipes if you're having trouble finding a good one.

This is the list and order in which people suggest dishes. If you want to be removed from the list (or added), just let me know! It swaps over every two weeks on a Wednesday. The current suggester is in bold, along with the date that their suggestion is done and the next person will pick.

SuperBiasedMan - Lasagne - 13th January
dibs - Savoury Crepes - 27th January
Cm0nster - Beans - 10th February
jennegatron - Stuffed Peppers - 24th February
cordeos - Pizza - 9th March
BadFinger - Ramen - 25th March
griddelol - Shepard's Pie - 7th April
SuperBiasedMan - Burgers - 21st April
codicier - Packed Lunch - 5th May
sucks2Bme - Sausages - 23rd May
Phaedrus - FREE PERIOD - Make what you want - 8th June
aprettycooldude - Healthy Home Made Fast Food - 27th June
Woodfella - One Pot - 12th July
elvaq - Enchiladas - 26th July


SuperBiasedMan - Cake - 11th August
dibs - Fried Rice - 26th August
jennegatron - Curry - 13th September
cordeos - Boozey food - 28th September
Badfinger - Crock pot - 17th October

rilen - Root vegetables - 8th November

sucks2Bme - Eat your name - 30th November

aprettycooldude - Veggie friendly food - 24th January
Woodfella
elvaq

codicier

griddelol

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As a brief tester of how these things might go, I made a vegan lasagne today!

 

I made small adjustments to a recipe from my River Cottage Veg cookbook. I hadn't had lasagne in a long long time so I wanted to treat myself. It's a mushroom and kale lasagne (so it definitely sounds very veggie) but it's tastier than that makes it sound.

 

Here's all the ingredients, note the massive bag of kale, all of that went into it.

post-34425-0-11235900-1451527198_thumb.jpg

 

It was mostly pretty simple, just cooking the kale and mushroom. But I also made the béchamel sauce from scratch with... questionable results. I used soy milk, which is pretty thin compared to fatty milk and the sauce didn't really thicken enough. It's either the soy milk being thin or I flubbed mixing the flour and butter before pouring the thickened milk over it. Either way I know I botched that sauce.

 

Despite that, it cooked quite well for the most part. Except the pasta slices on top got over done, possibly due to the thin sauce? Either way, everything underneath the crispy topping was delicious, I barely noticed that I was eating 40% leaves!

 

It doesn't quite look like the photo, but close enough.

post-34425-0-66076900-1451527227_thumb.jpg

post-34425-0-56695700-1451527240_thumb.jpg

 

To make it again, I'd add way more mushroom and make sure the sauce was properly thickened, but the actual taste was spot on. :tup:

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As a brief tester of how these things might go, I made a vegan lasagne today!

 

I made small adjustments to a recipe from my River Cottage Veg cookbook. I hadn't had lasagne in a long long time so I wanted to treat myself. It's a mushroom and kale lasagne (so it definitely sounds very veggie) but it's tastier than that makes it sound.

 

Here's all the ingredients, note the massive bag of kale, all of that went into it.

 

It was mostly pretty simple, just cooking the kale and mushroom. But I also made the béchamel sauce from scratch with... questionable results. I used soy milk, which is pretty thin compared to fatty milk and the sauce didn't really thicken enough. It's either the soy milk being thin or I flubbed mixing the flour and butter before pouring the thickened milk over it. Either way I know I botched that sauce.

 

Despite that, it cooked quite well for the most part. Except the pasta slices on top got over done, possibly due to the thin sauce? Either way, everything underneath the crispy topping was delicious, I barely noticed that I was eating 40% leaves!

 

It doesn't quite look like the photo, but close enough.

 

To make it again, I'd add way more mushroom and make sure the sauce was properly thickened, but the actual taste was spot on. :tup:

Did you put much sauce and cheese on the top? I usually drown my lasagna to keep the noodles soft.

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I always par boil the lasagne sheets to make, even when it says not too. Looks good!

Maybe solicit people and make up a rota. Every 2 weeks a new person puts forward a recipe, that we all then cook? Also, you want to keep this veggie? I'm fine with that, but I don't think I could handle vegan!

I solicit me!

Edit: how did you make your roux without butter? Maybe some cornflour or arrowroot would be been the way to go to thicken it.

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That's a good point cordeos. I did pour on all the sauce I had but it didn't fully submerge it so a lot sank (especially cause it was thin).

 

I was confused about whether or not you even could (should) boil the sheets the way you do other pasta, cause there were no instructions on the box and I hadn't made a lasagne myself before. I made my roux with a sunflower based oil spread thing that's butter like. This one. I didn't actually know what a roux was (and didn't look it up in advance), I don't always substitute smartly.

 

I did wonder about having a recipe we all do, or even a themed one like we all make shepherd's pie together. But would the constraint be off putting? I wasn't sure how many people would be up for it, but I guess it could always be a suggested dish, leaving it up to individuals whether they conform to it or not.

 

Likewise if we do that, I don't wanna push people into cooking what they don't want, so I wouldn't even really pressure for veggie unless everyone else was up for that. I obviously wouldn't try to make people cook vegan. :P (though if anyone specifically wanted to know or ask I'd be happy to explain it).

 

EDIT: If anyone is interested in the lasagne, I can share the recipe for it.

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Hi, this sounds fun, but I have to say that I'm not excited about a joint recipe. I'll try something new this week.

Did you notice if your bechamel sauce tasted like white gravy? That's the problem I always have.

I'm chrissy (Clyde's wife)

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Although I am down for trying Shepards pie, like you mentioned. We eat vegetarian at home so I've never tried it, since it's like meat pie. I'd love a vegetarian recipe for it.

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Thankfully I did not get a new cookbook this holiday season! I've already got at least a couple on the shelf that I still haven't even cracked open. Good time to start making amends for that! I tried doing a recipe blog in the last couple years but ran out of steam a bit (koff koff) Trying new stuff might be the key to getting back into that as well, now that I'm finally in a place to get adventurous again after the last couple years of moving about

 

I would be down for a shared recipe thing but for me it'd at least have to be vegan-friendly, heh. That's not too hard with most recipes actually, though things that are fairly dependent (like your beautiful lasagne!) are often best when they're very different from the 'traditional' ingredients list. Could be tough to pull off unless carefully selected

 

Was going to make the Veganomicon's amazing Shepherd's Pie for the dozenth time this weekend but I really like this idea of trying something new. Will report back, hopefully with photos!

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My bf does the bulk of the cooking but we're always looking to outsource our idea generation elsewhere so we don't have to think about it. I would definitely be interested in participating. I like the idea of having a food idea that we start with, and all make variations on it, or even a specific ingredient a la iron chef.

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I like everyone's ideas. Sounds cool to have a suggested dish and then allow us to make our own interpretations of it! Ima gonna make a lasagna This weekend now!

And hi chrissy. Did you join just for the foods?:D

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Alright! Since a few people like the idea, we can each suggest a new food as our turn comes eg I'm suggesting lasagne for this week (you may have noticed the title update). You have no obligation whatsoever to follow the week's dish, instead of lasagne feel free to make chili, or guacamole, or cake. It's just a suggestion that we wont be policing.

 

I edited the first post to have a list of participants, let me know if you think you should/shouldn't be on there. Cm0nster I'm not sure if you want to take part in the suggesting and would like to just cook along. If you do, that's fine and I can remove you from the list, I just took a guess. And Cordeos I don't know if you wanted to join up or just respond to my lasagne so I didn't add you, but I can if you want.

 

I'll stick my usual shepherd's pie recipe in here. It's mostly adapted from a regular meat one using the veggie mince you get that's dry in bags. Veggie mince is really good, it has the right texture though it's bland if not properly flavoured as you cook it. That's generally not a problem with shepherd's pie since you're cooking it in the sauce anyway, but I extra flavour the mince with stock. You're supposed to soak the dry mince in boiling water to turn it into food, but I always use vegetable stock instead of hot water so that the mince starts off with a nice taste even before adding other spices. Here's the recipe.

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To boil lasagna noodles just use a wide pot an do a few at a time, i stopped doing it and just making extra sauce, pretty much the same effect. I'm in for the weekly recipe thing, when will people be declaring their dish? Because I usually grocery shop on Saturday/Sunday so I would want to know what I'm making before then :).

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Good point! I was thinking Wednesday/Thursday. I'd guess that middle of the week is easiest so that people can shop or cook either on the weekend or start of the following week. Also do people want to do it every 2 weeks to get more time?

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A week seems fine, but im sure there would be times I miss it then! Maybe every 2 weeks would be better. If someone wants they can just make a 2nd different lasagna in the 2nd week:P

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Although I am down for trying Shepards pie, like you mentioned. We eat vegetarian at home so I've never tried it, since it's like meat pie. I'd love a vegetarian recipe for it.

I've made this a number of times and been super happy with it (though I use dairy in the potatoes because I'm omnivorous): http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/glorified-ratatouille-shepherd-s-pie/

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Oooh cook club! I would like to cook things!

 

It looks like the idea has become refined in the few posts it took me to go from top to bottom, but I like the idea of a concept/dish rather than a recipe? I am very much interested in trying vegetarian dishes and branching out, but your idea of lasagna jolted something in my brain to try a really traditional bolognese-ish lasagna, because I never ever make lasagna.

 

To expand on what I'm suggesting, if it was my turn and I was craving beef stew I wouldn't suggest "beef stew". I would suggest "Irish stew" and then you could start from this base for a veggie Irish stew (literally just the first google result to explain my idea), or I could add beef, or fish, etc and see what variations we get? It looks like that's your idea already SBM, because you posted the shepherd's pie recipe and augmented it?

 

Anyway yes Cook Club.

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I think a concept rather than a specific recipe is way more fun. More fun results to look at, and more new recipes to learn. Even vague prompts like "stew" or "casserole" would be pretty fun.

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Yeah, we're rolling with concepts like that. I just say "lasagne" and you can make of that what you want. I think it'll be especially fun when people talk about what they'll be doing and that might spark ideas for others.

 

People can share recipes if they want, or people can request recipes (which is why I posted the shepherds pie one above, it was requested) but that's all optional. I'll clarify this and update the original post with the time frame too. (I also opted to assume people posting want to be involved unless they say otherwise)

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Guys, the recipe that SBM used has calvo nero or kale in it. Is calvo nero less punchy than kale? i can barely handle kale, so i'd like something a bit easier on me!

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I edited the first post to have a list of participants, let me know if you think you should/shouldn't be on there. Cm0nster I'm not sure if you want to take part in the suggesting and would like to just cook along. If you do, that's fine and I can remove you from the list, I just took a guess. 

 

Hey, This is fine, I just didn't want to be stuck to a specific recipe. It will be fun to do lasagna, because I make it a lot and have tried a lot of recipes for it, so I will enjoy the challenge of finding a new way to make it. 

Also thanks both people for the Shepard's pie recipes. Is mince the same as TVP?

 

 

I like everyone's ideas. Sounds cool to have a suggested dish and then allow us to make our own interpretations of it! Ima gonna make a lasagna This weekend now!

And hi chrissy. Did you join just for the foods? :D

Hey. Yes, I'm here for the food. 

Mostly because I want to see what other people are cooking and eating, and how they do it. 

Good luck us!

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Yes mince = TVP. I was going to say TVP but I'm not sure how familar the term is to others. (TVP = Textured Vegetable Protein for anyone confused)

 

Also I can't help you dibs cause I dunno what calvo nero is.

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Do you tend to use stuff like TVP in your cooking? I was just reading the intro to my book and he was saying he wasn't a fan. Is it kind of a shortcut to texture, or a way to sub into non-bege dishes easily?

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I use it on occasion. Mostly for tacos, shepherd's pies and the occasional bolognaise or chilli. But half the time for the latter two I'll just use kidney beans and leave out the TVP. I've never had a problem with it, it is very tasty when spiced right.

 

I suspect that the main objection to it would come from people who basically try to eat veggie by always replacing meat with TVP or another meat substitute instead of trying all vegetable dishes. Or trying dishes expressly designed to have no meat in the first place. I know some vegetarians get stuck into just buying frozen foods labelled vegetarian but it's quite limiting to your diet.

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