I made a couple of versions of Priya’s lasagne – one with buckwheat pasta and one with a barley and quinoa flour pasta. I preferred the latter one, though that may have been because I pre-cooked the pasta (my pasta comes out quite thick and can be a little too chewy, otherwise). But then it crossed my mind that it could be done as a pancake cake instead, which would give thinner layers and mean I wouldn’t have to do lots of patchwork fixing of pasta – plus, I’m a whizz at pancakes and not very good at pasta! It turned out even more delicious than the originals (my versions, at least). I also added aubergine to the tomato sauce because courgette and aubergine go really well together and because the aubergine gives the sauce a lovely thick texture.

It does take a while to make – probably a couple of hours in total – but it really, really is worth it.

Ingredients

For the pancakes

Note: this should make a few extra pancakes, to make up for potential mistakes or, if there are none, to fill with chopped strawberries and chocolate spread for dessert. In theory, you should be able to halve the quantities, but I find that doesn’t seem to work and this is the optimum amounts for everything.

250g buckwheat flour

50g quinoa flour

salt

2 eggs

1–2 pints milk

For the aubergine and tomato filling

1 large aubergine

table salt

1 onion

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tube tomato puree

2 tbsp water

400g tin chopped tomatoes

For the creamy courgette filling

2 onions

½ tbsp olive oil

2 large courgettes

250g mascarpone

50g Parmesan (or vegetarian alternative – Bookhams sell one online)

To top

50g grated cheddar

Method

Pancakes

Note: If you have your own method for making pancakes, do use it – this is my way, but it doesn’t necessary mean it will work for you!

In a large bowl, place the flours and salt.

Mix well.

Make a hole in the middle.

Crack the eggs into the hole.

Using a wooden spoon, mix (quite hard) the egg and flour mixture together, gradually (i.e. you’re taking bits of flour from around the hole and gradually mixing it into the egg).

As the mixture gets thicker, gradually add milk, while continuing to mix hard.

Keep adding milk until you’ve combined all the flour and you have a fairly thin batter – probably about twice as thick as milk, and a lot thinner than cake batter.

Using kitchen towel, wipe a small amount of rapeseed oil around a medium non-stick frying pan (I find they work better than large or small ones) and place on a medium to high heat for about 2 minutes.

Take about a ladle-full of batter and pour it into the centre of the pan, then tilt the frying pan round until the whole of the frying pan base (not the sides) is coated – if there’s still liquid batter, keep tilting round to make a consistent coating.

Cook until the edges look like they’re curling slightly.

Using a (non-stick) fish slice, gently lift the edges to check they come away easily.

Shake the pan gently to loosen the pancake from the pan and then toss. (You can also just flip the pancake using the fish slice, I you’re not confident at tossing pancakes.)

Cook briefly on the other side, then toss or flip again to check it’s browned.

When it’s browned on both sides, place it on a plate.

Re-oil the pan, and repeat, until you’ve made all your pancakes.

Aubergine and tomato filling

Finely dice the aubergine.

Place it in a colander over a bowl.

Cover in table salt and leave for half an hour (or while you make the rest of the sauce).

Peel and finely dice the onion, then soften in olive oil on a low heat.

Add the tomato puree and water and stir on a low heat for 5 minutes.

Add the tin of tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes.

Rinse and pat dry the aubergine.

Add to the tomato sauce and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Creamy courgette filling

Peel and finely dice the onions then soften them in the olive oil on a low heat.

Meanwhile, grate the courgette.

Add the courgette to the onion and cook on a low heat for 10–15 minutes.

Turn the heat off and stir in the mascarpone and the cheese.

Put them together

Choose a round casserole dish that has a lid – we have a Pyrex one, which means you can see the finished dish through it, but a cast iron one would work fine, too – and find a bowl with a rim of about the same size. Cut down your pancakes so they will fit nicely in the dish.

Place one layer of tomato, a pancake, a layer of courgette, a pancake… etc. until you run out of either mixture or space (probably the latter).

Top with grated cheese.

Cover with the lid and cook in the oven at about 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 for about 20 minutes.

Remove the lid and turn the oven up and cook for a further 10 minutes. (Or you could grill it instead for maybe 5 minutes.)

Serving

Serve with roasted new potatoes (cut new potatoes in half or quarters, depending on size; place in a roasting tin with 2 tbsp olive oil and liberal sprinklings of sea salt) and a plain fresh salad (leaves, cucumber and tomato). (And a glass of red wine will go down nicely.)

Adaptations

You can use ordinary wheat pancakes, though the buckwheat ones are particularly light.

You could use different fillings – whatever fillings you use for your normal lasagne, for example – though I think this combination works especially well. In autumn, perhaps you could try roasted butternut squash for one layer and spinach and feta for another.

This is seriously delicious stuff. Just writing the recipe and seeing the pictures has my mouth watering and I think I may just have to cook it again, tomorrow.

Again, I’ve combined some elements to make it easier to make a full meal for both vegans and vegetarians. Of course, you can also choose to do one or the other.

Ginger, rhubarb and lemon mini cheesecakes with strawberries

Ginger, rhubarb and lemon mini cheesecake with strawberries

Ingredients

Ginger biscuit base

Rhubarb purée

Zest of two lemons

250g mascarpone

100ml whipped cream

30g icing sugar

Strawberries to decorate

Method

Push the biscuit base into silicone muffin trays (probably about 5mm depth).

Add a layer or rhubarb purée on top.

Mix together the lemon zest, mascarpone, whipped cream and icing sugar, until smooth.

Add on top of the biscuit and rhubarb purée.

Chill for at least an hour, then gently press out from the muffin cases.

Top with slices of strawberries and put some on the side of the plate, too, to decorate.

Adaptations

You can use a plain digestive base, rather than ginger. You could use a strawberry purée instead of rhubarb, or no purée at all. You could also use small dices of rhubarb instead of a purée. And it would probably taste nice and look good with a chocolate sauce drizzled around the cheesecake. As an alternative to mini cheesecakes, you could make a single one and cut into slices, instead.

Ginger and chocolate tartlets with strawberries

Ginger and chocolate tartlet with strawberries

Ingredients

Ginger biscuit base

Rhubarb purée

2 avocados

30g cocoa

30g icing sugar

Strawberries for decorating

Method

Push the biscuit base into silicone muffin trays (probably about 5mm depth).

Add a layer or rhubarb purée on top.

Peel and stone the avocado then whizz it up in a food processor until it’s as smooth as you can get it. Gradually add in the cocoa and icing sugar until you’ve got a reasonably thick paste (mine was a little too soggy, so I’ve increased the quantities here, but you might need to increase them more).

Fill the muffin cases up with the chocolate and avocado mixture.

Chill for at least an hour, then gently press out from the muffin cases.

Top with slices of strawberries and put some on the side of the plate, too, to decorate.

Adaptations

You can use a plain digestive base, rather than ginger. You could use a strawberry purée instead of rhubarb, or no purée at all. You could also use small dices of rhubarb instead of a purée. And it would probably taste nice and look good with a strawberry sauce drizzled around the tartlets. As an alternative to tartlets, you could make a single one and cut into slices, instead.

Components for the desserts:

Ginger biscuit base

I had quite a lot of pastry left over from my main courses, so I used that and made my own ginger biscuit base. You could also just use some crunched up ginger biscuits – make sure they’re vegan if you’re doing the vegan dessert, of course.

Ingredients

About 150g pastry

Large piece of ginger, peeled

4 tbsp sugar (I used normal white caster sugar, but Demerara would work well, too – a crunchy sugar works best, though)

50g vegan margarine (or butter, if you’re not making the vegan dessert)

Method

Roll the pastry out and place on a greased baking tray (or in a silicon baking dish) (it doesn’t matter if it’s all in one piece or lots of pieces, as you’re going to break it up into bits later)

Grate over the ginger

Sprinkle over 3 tablespoons of the sugar

Bake for about 10 minutes at about 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

Allow to cool.

Bash with a rolling pin to break it up into little pieces (roughly breadcrumb size). (Note, if you’re using shop-bought biscuits, this is where you start.)

Melt the margarine or butter in a saucepan.

Add the biscuit crumbs and the sugar.

Stir for a few minutes, until well combined.

Rhubarb purée

Ingredients

4 large sticks of rhubarb, washed and chopped into large chunks

Juice of 1 lemon (use one of the ones you’re zesting for the vegetarian dessert, if you’re making it)

1 tbsp sugar

Method

Cook on a low heat for about 15 minutes.

Push through a sieve, or whizz up with a hand processor.

Other vegetarian and vegan Easter dessert suggestions

Vegetarian

Pancakes filled with strawberries and chocolate and served with whipped cream

Strawberry sponge topped with rhubarb and drizzled with chocolate sauce

Strawberry and rhubarb custard tartlets

Vegan

Rhubarb crumble

Strawberry and rhubarb towers filled with chocolate ganache (thin slices of lightly steamed rhubarb and raw strawberry layered with the chocolate and avocado mixture like in the tartlets)

Blinis with strawberries and chocolate sauce

Don’t forget to look at the starters and main courses, too.

As with the starters (and desserts), I’ve used some of the same elements in the vegetarian and vegan dishes, so that those cooking both can save some time. I had big plans for something with courgette and aubergine, but they won’t be ready in the UK for a while and there were only Spanish ones available in the shops. But what I did find was some lovely leeks and asparagus (there was English asparagus for £3 per 250g and Israeli for £1.50 – what a shame, though I’m sure the English asparagus will get cheaper once more of it is available). I was hoping for Jersey Royals as well, but they’re not in yet. Instead I did manage to get some English new potatoes – which are delicious roasted in olive oil. (I can’t bare to do anything other steam Jersey Royals and slaver them with butter.)

Asparagus, leek and gruyere tartlets served with roasted new potatoes and salad

I probably should have picked a local cheese, but we had some gruyere in the fridge and I thought it would go well (feel free to substitute it with a local cheese that you like).

I’m not providing a pastry recipe as my attempt at wheat-free pastry (buckwheat and quinoa) didn’t work out terribly well. Not sure if this was the flour combination or the different fat I was using (Vitatlite so I could use the same pastry for both the vegan and vegetarian dishes, whereas I would normally use Flora Buttery). So, just use your favourite pastry recipe, or bought pastry if you prefer – shortcrust would work well, but a tougher one would also work. In fact, I think these tartlets would work well with no pastry at all, especially if you have a silicone muffin tray, as I used.

Asparagus, leek and gruyere tartlets, served with roasted new potatoes and salad

Ingredients

(Makes 8 tartlets – increase quantities as necessary)

8 pastry bases or cases in (silicone) muffin tray (optional – see above – just place ingredients into muffin tray compartments if not using pastry)

½ leek and asparagus mixture

50g gruyere (or other) cheese, grated

3 eggs, beaten and seasoned (e.g. salt, pepper, dried herbs)

Method

Place a thin layer of leek and asparagus mixture on top of base (or inside case).

Place a sprinkle of grated cheese on top.

Pour over some of the egg mixture, to almost fill up each muffin tray (or fill the case if using full cases).

Cook in the oven at about 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4 for around 15 minutes. You can serve them hot or cold.

Serving

Serve with roasted new potatoes – cut potatoes in half (or smaller if they’re quite large). Place in an oven dish and coat liberally with olive oil, then sprinkle with sea salt crystals. Roast in the oven for 45–50 minutes at about 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4, stirring twice. Accompany with a fresh salad – if you have rocket and watercress left over from your starter, you could use that, or just some nice baby leaves, with cucumber and tomato slices (or cherry tomatoes if you have them).

Adaptations

You can adapt the cheese and the vegetables used, according to what’s available. Asparagus and pecorino go very well together, or you could use watercress and rocket (that you might have left over from the starter) with goat’s cheese. If you’re not using the mixture in the vegan dish below, you could cook the vegetables in butter.

Asparagus, leek and haricot bean hummus tartlets served with roasted new potatoes and salad

I’m not providing a pastry recipe (see above), so please use your favourite pastry recipe or bought pastry, if you prefer.

Asparagus, leek and haricot bean hummus tartlets served with roasted new potatoes and salad

Ingredients

(Makes 8 tartlets – increase quantities as necessary)

8 pastry bases or cases in (silicone) muffin tray (optional – see above – just place ingredients into muffin tray compartments if not using pastry)

1 tin of haricot beans, pureed and seasoned (e.g. salt, pepper and dried herbs – I used mixed herbs) and with some olive oil to loosen it up a little (don’t make it too liquid, though)

½ leek and asparagus mixture

Method

Place a good dollop of the haricot bean hummus on to your bases (or into the cases).

Place a thin layer of leek and asparagus mixture on top of hummus.

Cook in the oven at about 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4 for around 15 minutes. You can serve them hot or cold.

Serving

Serve with roasted new potatoes – see above – and a fresh salad – again, see above.

Adaptations

You can adapt the beans – use chickpeas for a more traditional hummus, or try a bean and lentil combination instead. You could also alter the vegetable garnish – maybe use some carrot and beetroot from the starter, if you have some left over.

Components for the main dishes:

Pastry bases (or cases)

I made pastry bases, rather than pastry cases, mostly because my pastry didn’t come out very well. The effect worked well for the vegan tartlets, but not as well for the vegetarian eggy ones.

If you’re just making bases, then find a cup or cookie cutter that will cut out circles of the right size (I used one of the girls’ mini cups). If you want to make full cases, you’ll need a bigger circle to fit into your muffin tray, preferably with a little lip overlapping the side.

I made 300g of pastry, and had far too much (ended up using lots of it for the desserts, actually, which worked out well), but it might be close to the right amount if you’re doing full cases.

Once you’ve placed the bases or cases for all your tartlets, bake them blind for around 10 minutes. If you’re using a white wheat flour pastry, you’ll probably need to add greaseproof paper and baking beans, so that you don’t get huge air bubbles. Most other pastry should be fine to bake on its own.

Allow the bases or cases to cool before adding fillings.

Leek and asparagus mixture

Finely chop a 250g bunch of asparagus and 1 large leek and sauté gently for around 10 minutes in olive oil.

Allow to cool before adding to the bases/cases.

Other ideas for vegetarian and vegan Easter main courses

Vegetarian

Pancake cake with different layers – creamed asparagus and pecorino; carrot and orange; tomato and coriander (or whatever else you come up with or find in the grocer’s)

Lasagne made with seasonal vegetables – leeks, asparagus, spinach

Seasonal vegetable pie – puff pastry case with seasonal vegetables (e.g. leeks, carrots, asparagus) in creamy cheesy sauce

Vegan

Sweetcorn fritter (flour and water works very well as a vegan batter – add some seasoning and some baking powder for an extra oomph) tower with carrot and hummus filling

Seasonal vegetable pie – as above, but with a bean and lentil purée instead of creamy sauce

Filo pastry seasonal vegetable parcels – fill with small, diced seasonal vegetables and deep fry

All the above will go well with roasted new potatoes and salad, or with steamed new potatoes and vegetables

Don’t forget to look at the starters and desserts (coming soon).

We don’t really have any traditional Easter meals, as some families do. Quite often, it’s just an ordinary day, with the addition of extra chocolate. This year we’ll be going to my mum’s for Easter Sunday and celebrating her birthday (which is actually the day after) at the same time. The Easter bunny will probably leave some eggs there. Who knows whether or not he’ll (she’ll?) leave some here, too, so I won’t actually be making this Easter feast on the day. Instead, I’m creating the components over the next few days, photographing them and then posting the recipes and other suggestions here for you, in case you have vegetarians or vegans to cater for at Easter, or just want to try something different.

I thought, rather than make some big heavy pie like at Christmas, it would be great to make use of lots of the vegetables that are in season in the UK at the moment. I have come up with two menus (one vegetarian and one vegan, though of course the vegetarians can eat the vegan dishes too), though I will be adapting them according to what is actually in the greengrocers or on the market stalls at the moment (we have two greengrocers in town, as well as an organic and non-organic market stall on Fridays and Saturdays and a farmers’ market on Saturday, so there’s lots of choice, including plenty of local produce). For example, I did have broad beans in my menu, but couldn’t find any, so swapped them (in that instance) for spring greens. Fortunately, the asparagus has come in, though it’s still pretty expensive, as I have plans for that for the main course.

Over the next few days I’ll be publishing three posts – one for starters, one for main courses and one for desserts. Each post will contain two dishes – one vegetarian and one vegan, often using some of the same ingredients or components, so you could do a combined meal for vegetarians and vegans – along with some suggestions for adapting the dishes and some other suggestions for seasonable vegetarian and vegan dishes.

Vegetarian Seasonal Easter Starter: Beetroot and courgette cream roulade

Beetroot roulade with a creamy courgette filling, served with a rocket and watercress garnish and spring green and mint pesto balls

Ingredients

Beetroot puree

1 egg yolk

2 egg whites

Creamy courgette filling

Watercress and rocket for garnishing

Spring green and mint pesto balls

Method

Whip up the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Mix the egg yolk in with the beetroot puree and then gradually fold in the egg whites.

Line a swiss roll tin with baking parchment and oil the parchment.

Place the beetroot and egg mixture in the tin and bake for about 15 minutes at 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

Leave to cool for a few minutes, but not too long, otherwise the parchment may be too stuck.

Place the courgette filling on top of the beetroot base, leaving about 2 inches around the edges.

Roll up (lengthwise – i.e. to make a thinner longer roll, rather than fatter shorter one).

Place on a plate (don’t make the mistake I did and place on a wooden chopping board, as you’ll then have a very stained chopping board!) and cool until you want to plate up your starters.

When ready to plate up, place some of the watercress and rocket on plates, cut slices of the roulade – I cut two slices and placed them together to make a circle – and place them on the plate along with one or two of the spring green and mint pesto balls. You may well manage a much more attractive plating up than me!

Adaptations

Instead of the spring green and mint balls, you could use a runnier pesto and drizzle it round. Or you could use a fruity sauce instead – strawberry or rhubarb puree, for example.

Vegan Seasonal Easter Starter: Carrot, beetroot and spring green tower

Carrot tower with beetroot puree and spring green and mint pesto layers, served with watercress and rocket garnish and spring green and mint pesto balls

Ingredients

2 large carrots

Beetroot puree

Spring green and mint pesto

Watercress and rocket for garnishing

Spring green and mint pesto balls

Method

Boil or steam your carrots (or you could roast them).

Cut the peel off, so the carrot is roughly square (yes, mine weren’t quite square, but I’m sure you can do better).

Slice into really quite thin slices (maybe 1.5mm).

Create towers with three filling layers (or you could make them taller if you like), with alternating fillings – beetroot puree, and spring green and mint pesto.

Place in fridge (and cover, if you can without knocking the towers over) to cool until you’re ready to plate up.

When you’re ready to plate up, place the towers on plates with rocket and watercress garnish and spring green and mint pesto balls.

Adaptations

You could add some other layers in, too, such as butter bean and garlic hummus, tomato and nut puree.

Instead of very small and tall towers, you could use more carrots and create layered bricks, just with one of each layer. Why not experiment with different shapes and sizes and see what you like best.

Instead of the spring green and mint pesto balls, you could use a more liquid pesto and drizzle it artistically round the towers.

Components for the starters:

Beetroot puree (vegan)

Ingredients

3 large beetroots

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp sea salt

Method

Peel the beetroot and chop into large chunks.

Place in oven dish and pour over olive oil.

Stir well to coat thoroughly with olive oil.

Sprinkle on salt.

Roast in oven for 45 minutes at 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4, stirring every 15 minutes. (Don’t worry if it burns a bit at the edges, as this adds to the flavour, though if you’d rather not, then cook for longer at a lower temperature.)

Allow to cool.

Puree – I just used my handheld liquidiser, but you could do it in a food processor, liquidiser or even just push through a sieve.

Adaptations

You could leave the salt out. You could add sugar (or honey or agave syrup) to make is sweeter. You could add spices – cumin goes quite well with beetroot.

Spring green and mint pesto (balls) (vegan)

Ingredients

2 bunches spring greens

5 sprigs fresh mint

1 handful sunflower seeds

Olive oil as required (probably about 2 tbsp)

Method

Strip the leaves from the stalk and cut out the central tougher stalk (not essential, but it’s more bitter than the rest).

Chop the leaves up roughly and rinse under the tap.

Place in a saucepan with a lid and heat for a couple of minutes until the leaves are wilted.

Run under cold water and squeeze out.

Allow to cool.

Strip the leaves off the sprigs of mint and add these to spring greens.

Add the sunflower seeds.

Puree – I just used my handheld liquidiser, but you could do it in a food processor, liquidiser or even just push through a sieve.

Gradually add the olive oil until you have the consistency you want – for the purposes of the recipes on this page, you want a thickish pesto that you can roll into balls, but if you want to use it as a sauce for pasta or a dipping sauce, then add more olive oil.

If you’re making the pesto balls, roll into small balls, place on a plate, cover and refrigerate until you need them.

Adaptations

You could use pine nuts instead of sunflower seeds – or other seeds or nuts. For a non-vegan version,  you could add Parmesan (or a vegetarian alternative– Bookhams sell one online) or Pecorino. Or spice it up with some chilli!

Creamy courgette filling (vegetarian)

Ingredients

2 onions

½ tbsp olive oil

2 large courgettes

250g mascarpone

50g Parmesan (or vegetarian alternative – Bookhams sell one online)

Method

Peel and finely dice the onions then soften them in the olive oil on a low heat.

Meanwhile, grate the courgette.

Add the courgette to the onion and cook on a low heat for 10–15 minutes.

Turn the heat off and stir in the mascarpone and the cheese.

Leave to cool until ready to use.

Adaptations

You can use lots of different types of cream cheese – ricotta, soft goats cheese, even Philadelphia. You could also try different cheeses instead of Parmesan – Pecorino, hard goats cheese, etc.

This filling can be used in many other ways – for example, as a layer in a lasagne, as a filling for pancakes and as a sauce for pasta.

Other suggestions for starters

Vegetarian seasonal starters

Broad bean and mint blinis with creamy asparagus sauce

Asparagus and pecorino ravioli with olive oil and parsley dressing

Leek tartlets with pea pesto

Vegan seasonal starters

Watercress soup

Carrot and parsley soup

Butter bean and mint hummus with oat crisps

Come back over the next few days for the main course and dessert posts and if you have any other suggestions for vegetarian and vegan seasonal Easter starters, please feel free to leave a comment.

So I started experimenting with reducing the sugar content in my recipes and then I got some wonderful stuff, called Agave Syrup. Agave syrup is a natural sweetener that has a much lower GI than sugar – in fact, it has a lower GI than apple. I’ve been using agave syrup in lots of recipes where I’d have used honey or sugar. And I’m tending to use a cold-pressed oil, such as rapeseed oil, rather than butter (or Flora Buttery).

Anyway, I’m still experimenting – tomorrow, I’m hoping to try some carrot muffins – but in the meantime, here are two recipes that have gone down very well.

Wheat-free apple and banana muffins

Makes 18-24 muffins

Ingredients

2 bananas, mushed
1 tsp vanilla essence
150 ml rapeseed oil***
120g Agave syrup (½ light and ½ dark)
3 eggs
150g barley flour*
100g quinoa flour*
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp cinnamon powder
2 apples, peeled and grated (or chopped) (wait until you need it before grating, otherwise it will oxidise and look too appealing – though it will still taste fine)
150g sultanas

Method

Using an electric whisk, mix the bananas, vanilla, oil and syrup together (start on a low setting and then up to a high setting for a minute) until well combined.

Add three eggs (yolks and whites – not the shells!) and whisk again (on high) for a few minutes.

Sift the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon powder into the liquid and then mix gently at first and then on high, once the ingredients are well mixed.

Add the apple and sultanas and mix together with a spoon.

Spoon into 18 to 24 silicone muffin cases (or greased muffin tins) and bake at 150°C (300°F/gas mark 2) for 15 to 20 minutes.** If you stick a knife in the middle of one of the muffins, it should come out clean.

Leave in the cases (or tins) for a couple of minutes to cool, then slide a silicone slice round the edges to loosen them all from the tin, then remove them all from the tin and place on a wire cooling tray.

Wheat-free chocolate muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 banana, mushed
1 tsp vanilla essence
80g Agave syrup (½ light and ½ dark)
100 ml rapeseed oil***
2 eggs
50g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g barley flour*
75g quinoa flour*
1 apple, peeled and grated

For optional chocolate cream cheese icing

100g cream cheese (we tend to use Philadelphia)
2 tbsp Agave syrup (light, dark or mixture)
cocoa powder

Method

Whisk together the banana, vanilla essence and Agave syrup.

Add the oil and whisk again.

Add the eggs and whisk again for a few minutes.

Sift the cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in and whisk on low.

Sift the barley flour in and whisk on low.

Sift the quinoa flour in and whisk on low.

Whisk on high for a few minutes.

Add the grated apple and mix with a spoon.

Spoon the mixture into 12 muffin cases (I always use silicone cases, though presumably a greased muffin tin should work, too).

Bake at 150°C (300°F/gas mark 2) for 15 to 20 minutes.** If you stick a knife in the middle of one of the muffins, it should come out clean.

Leave in the cases (or tins) for a couple of minutes to cool, then slide a silicone slice round the edges to loosen them all from the tin, then remove them all from the tin and place on a wire cooling tray.

If you want to ice them, mix together the cream cheese and syrup and then sift in cocoa powder bit by bit, until you have the consistency you require (you could use icing sugar, but that will serious up the GI and lower the healthiness). These ones are topped with grapes because that’s what I had, but cherries would probably work better. The muffins are delicious without any kind of icing, though.

* A note on the flours I’ve used. I am only trying to reduce my wheat consumption (and lower the GI of my baking). Some of the flours do contain gluten, so would not be suitable for anyone on a gluten-free diet. Barley flour contains gluten and a lot of oats do, too – though you can get gluten-free oats. Buckwheat flour is gluten-free, as are rice flour, potato flour and maize flour, however only buckwheat is really low-GI. Quinoa flour is a good one, too, as it’s gluten-free, low-GI and high in protein. I use a lot of buckwheat flour, but it does have a very strong flavour and RoRo is not very keen on it, particularly in sweet foods like biscuits and cakes. I’ve settled on a combination of barley and quinoa flour for the most part, in particular when making something sweet, or that cannot cope with the distinctive buckwheat taste.

** A note on our oven. Our oven has a broken thermostat. It just keeps getting hot, until it gets so hot it turns itself off and won’t turn on again until it’s cooled down. So, it’s probably a good idea to check your muffins at regular intervals, just in case they’re burning or need a lot more time. 15-20 minutes is usually OK for our oven to behave almost like a normal oven, so these timings should be about right, but do check, just in case.

*** A note about the oils I use. I tend to use cold-pressed rapeseed oil, if I can, but I’ll substitute that with sunflower or vegetable oil and it works fine (not as healthy, though!).

I would love to hear about any wheat-free and/or low-GI baking you’ve done. And I welcome suggestions for new flours (I may be developing a little bit of an addiction – I seem to always have at least six different flours on my shelves) or alternative low-GI sweetening methods. And, of course, if you do try any of my recipes, I would love to hear how they went – good and bad feedback welcome!

Feel free to pin, but please make sure you link back to this page or, at least to the blog.

However, we also like to try a variety of salads and not just stick to the leaves, cucumber and tomato staple. Salads with cheeses, bean salads, warm salads…

Here are some of our favourites and a few occasional experiments. They’re all vegetarian and some of them are vegan, or easily made vegan by leaving out the cheese.

Greek salad • Red cabbage, blue cheese and walnut salad • Sweet potato, red onion
and feta cheese salad

Greek salad

This is a really refreshing salad (more so if you leave out the feta). I really like to have it alongside risotto to lighten the dish (and lower the GI!) Soaking the onion in water takes away the bite and makes it much less overwhelming. As someone who has always hated raw onion, this trick has made a huge difference to me.

Ingredients

1 red onion
cold water for soaking
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp sea salt crystals
½ cucumber
3 medium tomatoes
1 Romaine lettuce
100g feta cheese
1 lemon
2 handfuls pitted black olives (optional)

Method

Halve, peel and then finely slice the red onion. Place it in a bowl of cold water, thoroughly separating all the bits. Leave to sit for at least half an hour – an hour if possible.

Peel and finely dice or crush the garlic and place in a salad bowl along with the sea salt. Grind the two together.

Slice the cucumber and place in the salad bowl, mixing thoroughly with the garlic and salt (use your – clean – hands).

Slice the tomato and place in the salad bowl, mixing thoroughly.

Shred or chop the romaine lettuce and mix with the rest of the salad.

Chop the feta cheese into 1.5-cm (roughly) cubes and mix with the rest of the salad.

When ready to serve, juice the lemon and mix in thoroughly with the rest of the salad.

Add the olives now, if desired.

Adaptations

You can leave out the feta to make it vegan. You could also throw in a handful of capers to add an extra zing.

Red cabbage, walnuts and blue cheese salad

This is delicious, but very rich – I wouldn’t serve it as a main salad, but it’s nice as an accompaniment to other salads.

½ red cabbage
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
75g blue cheese (Danish blue works very well, Stilton not so much)
2 handfuls walnuts

Method

Cut the cabbage into thin strips and cut them down to around 3cm lengths.

Place the cabbage, red wine and sugar in a saucepan and cover.

Heat on a low heat for around half an hour, until well reduced and even a bit caramelised.

Chop the cheese into small cubes (around 1 cm).

Roughly chop the walnuts.

Mix together and serve still warm (though it is nice cold, as well).

Sweet potato, red onion and feta cheese salad

This isn’t as rich as it sounds, but definitely needs cutting with a fresher, lighter salad – a plain green one would do fine.

Ingredients

3 medium sweet potatoes
2 red onions
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
100g feta cheese

Method

Peel and chop the sweet potatoes into roughly 2-cm cubes.

Peel and chop the red onions into roughly 2-cm cubes.

Place sweet potatoes and red onions in deep baking tray.

Pour on the olive oil and vinegar.

Mix well and bake for 20-30 minutes at quite a high temperature (220C/Gas mark 7/425F). It’s best if some of it has caramelised.

Chop the feta cheese into roughly 2-cm cubes and mix in with the baked potatoes and onions.

Best served warm, though it’s still tasty cold.

Mediterranean vegetable salad • (Plain green salad – recipe not given) • Apple, pear and strawberry salad

Mediterranean vegetable salad

This is one of my all-time favourite salads. I could eat it all day, warm or cold. It’s also quite nice served with some pasta (again, warm or cold).

Ingredients

1 aubergine
1 courgette
table salt
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
2 red onions
3 tbsp  olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp dark agave syrup (or 1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar)
1 tsp sea salt crystals (optional)
100g feta cheese (optional)
2 handfuls black olives (optional)

Method

Peel and chop the aubergine and chop the courgette (no need to peel). Place in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Leave to sit for half an hour and then rinse thoroughly and pat dry. (You don’t have to salt them, but it changes the texture somewhat if you do.)

Peel and chop the rest of the vegetables – into cubes or strips as you prefer.

Place all the vegetables in a large, deep baking tray.

Pour on the oil, vinegar, syrup (or sugar) and salt (don’t add extra salt if you salted the aubergine and courgette, though) and mix together thoroughly.

Bake at quite a high temperature (220C/Gas mark 7/425F) for around 20-30 minutes. It’s quite nice if some of it has caramelised, but not necessary.

Chop (into cubes or strips, as preferred) or crumble the feta and add if using.

Add the olives if using.

Serve warm or cold. This is also lovely in a tortilla wrap.

Apple, pear, strawberry and cheese salad

I made this tonight for Carol’s In Season Challenge. I then realised that the inclusion of strawberries (which came from Morocco) probably disqualified it as ‘in season’. Never mind, there’s another apple salad below!

Ingredients

4 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp light agave syrup (might well work with golden syrup too, but I don’t know)
1 tbsp oil (olive oil may be too flavoured, so rapeseed oil or groundnut oil could work well)
2 apples (I used Pink Ladies)
1 pear (I used Conference)
10 strawberries
75g cheese (I used Wensleydale with cranberries, but think a blue cheese would almost certainly have worked better)

Method

Make the dressing first by whisking together the red wine vinegar, syrup and oil.

Peel, core and finely slice the apples and pear, placing in the dressing and mixing round immediately to avoid oxidisation.

Wash, cut the tops off and finely slice the strawberries and mix in with the rest of the fruit.

Chop or crumble the cheese in and mix.

Adaptation

I think this would go really well with some baked breaded camembert or brie, though would cut out the cheese from the recipe then.

Egg salad (recipe not provided – just hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise) • Greek butterbean salad • Apple, carrot and celery salad • (and two oatcakes with hummus on – recipe not provided)

Greek butterbean salad

This is another of our staples. It goes especially well with Spanish tortilla (including with the potato-free tortilla that I came up with for our low-GI diet).

Ingredients

1 onion
3 tbsp olive oil
200g tomato purée
1 lemon
2 tsp paprika
2 400g cans of butter beans

Method

Peel and finely dice the onion.

Heat the oil in a pan then add the onion. Sauté until soft and almost translucent.

Juice the lemon.

Add the tomato purée, lemon juice and paprika and mix well.

Heat on a very low heat for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and mix in the (drained) butter beans.

Serve warm or cold.

Apple, carrot and celery salad

This is another one of our staples. The girls don’t like it at all, but we love it. Chris and I make it in slightly different ways, both of which are lovely. The recipe shows my way. The adaptation shows Chris’s way.

Ingredients

1 lime
2 small apples
3 celery sticks
1 medium carrot
handful sunflower seeds

Method

Juice the lime and place the juice in a salad bowl.

Peel and grate the apples (leaving the core). Add to the bowl and mix with the lime juice.

Peel and grate the carrot. Add to the bowl and mix.

Top and tail the celery. If the sticks are quite wide then cut lengthwise first and then slice finely. (If the sticks are quite narrow, you can just thinly slice.) Add to the bowl and mix.

Scatter on some sunflower seeds.

We usually keep this for a couple of days and have some with lunch and dinner.

Adaptation

Chris usually chops the apple, rather than grating it and chops the celery in larger chunks. He also usually uses pumpkin seeds, rather than sunflower seeds.

I would love to hear about other salads now the salad season is returning. Feel free to leave a link to any recipes you’ve blogged or just recipes you’ve found somewhere.

I’m happy for people to pin, but please link back to this post.

Carol at Make It, Bake It has set up a new monthly In Season Challenge to make something from an in-season ingredient.

And I have to say, what a brilliant idea! We started trying to cook more with in-season ingredients a few years ago. This was brought on by a need to cut down on our outgoings, however, we soon discovered that fresh, local, in-season produce tastes a lot better than the stuff that’s travelled hundreds of miles on a boat or a plane, artificially chilled and so on.

We don’t manage to cook entirely with local, in-season produce, but we definitely try to use it as much as possible. And it tends to fit with the weather, too. Root vegetables feel better in the autumn and the winter; salads feel better in the spring and summer.

The ingredient for this month is Savoy Cabbage, which is a great vegetable. It has a lovely colour, texture and of course taste. It’s great in soups and stews, but can also be used to wrap other food, as a side dish in itself, as vegetable lasagne and probably a whole bunch of other things, too. Head over to Make It, Bake It on 6 February to read others’ Savoy Cabbage posts.

Three Cabbage and Chick Pea Soup

Warming, tasty soup, which can be served puréed or ‘au naturel’. You can vary the cabbage types as you like, but keep the Savoy as the dominant one.

Ingredients

• 2 onions
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ½ Savoy cabbage
• ¼ Sweetheart cabbage
• ¼ red cabbage
• 1½ litres vegetable stock (I use 4 Kallo stock cubes, rather than recommended 3)
• 1 (400g) tin chick peas
• 2 tsp ground coriander (or handful fresh coriander for a different flavour)
• 2 tsp paprika

Method

1. Peel and chop the onions into rough 1-cm cubes.
2. Heat the onion in the olive oil until translucent.
3. Meanwhile, chop all the cabbage into 1–2-cm chunks.
4. Add the cabbage and stir.
5. Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes.
6. Add the stock and simmer for half an hour.
7. Add the chick peas, coriander and paprika and simmer for a further 30 minutes.
8. (Optional) Purée the soup.

Serving

Serve with buttery chunks of crusty granary bread. Small bowls as a starter, big bowls as a substantial and nutritious main course.

Vegetarian Christmas Pie

Serves 6–8

This makes an attractive centrepiece, especially when cut into. You can adapt it quite easily for different tastes and diets, too.

Ingredients

• 8 eggs·        
• 2 large carrots·        
• 1 tbsp honey·        
• 2 tsp mustard·        
• 2 tbsp water·        
• 500g spinach·        
• 75g ricotta·        
• Salt·        
• Pepper·        
• Nutmeg (optional)·        
• 8 red peppers·        
• 50g butter·        
• 250g mushrooms·        
• 5 gloves garlic·        
• 50g butter·        
• sweetcorn·        
• puff pastry (thawed)·        
• 1 egg yolk for brushing (or milk)

Method

1. Hard boil the eggs and allow to cool.
2. Peel the carrots, then slice them lengthwise into about 0.5cm thick slices.
3. Heat them in a pan with the honey mustard and water on a low heat for 10–15 minutes. Set aside.
4. Wash the spinach then wilt it in a covered pan.
5. Mix the spinach in and season with some salt and pepper and ground nutmeg (if desired).
6. Deseed the peppers and cut into thirds (roughly).
7. Place skin up on a baking tray and put under a high grill for about 10 minutes.
8. Allow to cool slightly, then peel the skin off.
9. Melt the butter in a saucepan or frying pan and then heat the peppers for about 5 minutes.
10. Chop the mushrooms into slices (about 1cm wide).
11. Melt the butter in a frying pan.
12. Finely chop (or mince) the garlic and add it to the pan.
13. Add the mushrooms and cook on a low to medium heat until they are softened. Set aside.
14. Make sure all the vegetables elements and eggs have cooled.
15. Roll out the puff pastry – I normally roll out two pieces to make two large sheets that are a bit bigger than my baking sheet.
16. Grease the baking sheet and place one puff pastry piece on the baking sheet.
17. Layer on the vegetables, leaving 2–3 inches of pastry around the edge. You can layer them in any order you want, really, though its best to put the egg layers in the middle not at the edges.
18. Place the other puff pastry sheet on top then join the edges together, fold them over and crimp them (kind of folding at an angle).
19. When you’re ready to put it in the oven, brush with egg yolk (or milk).
20. Bake in the oven (on a medium to high heat) for around 40 minutes or until the pastry is brown (not burnt!). You can cook the vegetables at the same time.

Adaptations

To make it vegan, leave out the ricotta and egg and brush with soya milk instead of egg or milk. You can change the vegetable layers considerably – go for bright colours for the best effect, but you can also go for strongly contrasting flavours or complementary ones. You could make it into a particularly Christmassy pie, by putting Brussels sprouts and parsnips layers in. You can pretty much change it entirely to your liking – or have a layer to suit all your different tastes – a cheesy pasta layer for the children, a nutty mushroom layer for Granny… and so on…

Accompaniments

Well, it’s Christmas dinner so you’ll be wanting all the trimmings, won’t you? Roast potatoes, roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts, carrots and some lovely gravy (I use 2 tbsp marmite, 1 tbsp tomato puree and one Kallo stock cube with 1 litre boiling water, then thicken up a bit with 2 tsp cornflour and 2 tbsp cold water mixed into the stock). And don’t forget the Christmas crackers! It’s also delicious cold on Boxing Day with a light salad.

Drinking suggestions

Red wine or dark ale. Orange juice and sparkling water. Or the Co-op’s sparkling raspberry juice is also very nice with it.

One of the first questions people ask me when they find out I’m vegetarian is ‘But what do you eat for Christmas dinner?’ And the answer to that is along the lines of ‘Anything I want to’. To be honest, I think being vegetarian actually opens you up to more adventurous meals – the everyday ones as well as the special ones. It’s quite easy to come up with seven varieties of meat (or maybe fish) and two veg to get you through a week, whereas it’s less so to do the same without the meat (and fish – let’s get something straight right away: if you eat fish, you are not vegetarian). These days, you can probably manage it with a variety of Quorn products or vegetable burgers, but for the most part, if you’re vegetarian you’re still more likely to be preparing and cooking your own food (yes, I know there are plenty of exceptions).

It’s easy, too, to fall into a tradition of what to eat for Christmas dinner – and, actually, that’s not exclusive to meat eaters. So many people seem to have roast turkey (and all the trimmings) or roast chicken (and all the trimmings), with the odd leg of pork thrown in. We always used to have a mushroom and nut wellington. My aunt’s family usually have a sweetcorn, potato and cheese pie. And we all still have these with all the trimmings. Christmas dinner really isn’t the same without roast potatoes, is it?

I try to do something different each year – both for the big meal at our house every other year (where I’m cooking for my folks who are vegetarian) and when I’m up in Scotland with Chris’s family, where I’m the only vegetarian (though it’s always important to make extra, because everyone wants a taste of whatever I do) – oh, and we usually have a second Christmas on New Year for my folks on the years we’re in Scotland. But I do really only ring the changes with the centrepiece. I still do (or share) roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, carrots and parsnips. Sometimes I have a traditional (but veggie) gravy and sometimes a different sauce, such as cream of red pepper sauce, or cream of asparagus.

Here are some of the centrepieces I’ve made over the years. The majority of them are wellingtons of some kind (that is, something rolled up in puff pastry), though there is an occasional meander of this path.

Mediterranean Wellington

Halloumi surrounded by couscous and wrapped in roasted Mediterranean vegetables (courgette, aubergine, pepper), all wrapped in puff pastry – looks beautiful when sliced (which is one of the main things to look for in a vegetarian centrepiece, in my opinion). (Make it vegan by leaving the haloumi out – you could replace it with some vegan cheese, but I don’t think that would be necessary. Or some tofu might work nicely.)

Nutty mushroom and sausage wellington (vegan)

This one is closer to the one we had when I was little. Large Sosmix (vegetarian sausage mix that you can get from most healthfood shops and a lot of supermarkets) sausage in the middle, either with stuffing inside or wrapping it, wrapped in fried garlic mushrooms and then coated in crushed nuts. Again, the whole thing is wrapped in puff pastry.

Egg and vegetable wellington

This is what I did last year for Christmas Number Two. Different vegetables cooked in different ways and spread on puff pastry in separate layers, include a couple of layers of egg. Vegetable layers can include honey-roasted carrots, spinach and ricotta (or goats cheese), garlic mushroom, olive oil and olives with courgette, sweet peppers and butter… or anything you or your family particularly likes. Bright coloured vegetables make this one look particularly spectacular. (Leave out the egg and swap the butter for marge or olive oil, and you have a vegan version.)

Here’s a recipe for a version of this.

Roulades of courgette and goats cheese and sweet potato and red pepper

Make roulades with pureed vegetables and egg white spread out in a Swiss roll tin and baked for about 20 minutes on a low heat. When they’ve cooled roll them up with a filling – goats cheese and rocket, red pepper and cream cheese, avocado and chilli… whatever you fancy and will go well with the matching roulade. Once prepared I then sprinkle with some parmesan and sesame seeds and reheat for maybe 15-20 minutes. You then serve a thick slice of each to everyone. They look pretty stunning.

Puff pastry pasta cake

Make a cheese pasta – with macaroni or smaller pasta. Roast some vegetables – could be seasonal ones, such as carrot, swede, butternut squash, etc. or Mediterranean, such as courgettes, peppers and aubergine. Put a large circle of puff pastry on a baking tray. Put a layer of the pasta at the bottom in a circle (leave a really good amount around the edges – maybe 10 centimetres), then add the vegetables in layers. Top with the pasta, and then try to spread the pasta around the edges too, so that the vegetables are completely surrounded. Put a smaller circle of puff pastry on the top and then fold up the edges and seal round the edges. Bake for around 35-40 minutes on a medium heat. Serve like slices of cake. (You can do the same but wrap it in roasted aubergine slices, too, rather than puff pastry.)

I’d serve all these with the usual Christmas Day trimmings – roast potatoes and parsnips, with carrots and Brussels sprouts. I’d serve the sausage and egg wellingtons with a traditional gravy (I make mine with a stock of marmite, Kallo veg cubes and a bit of tomato puree and then thicken it with cornflour and water mix). I’d serve the Mediterranean wellington and the roulades with a cream and red pepper (pureed) sauce, and the pasta cake with a tomato and courgette (pureed) sauce.

I should really try to ring the changes a bit with dessert too, though. I’ve served up Delia’s chocolate roulade for the past few years (with a Chantilly and preserve filling, rather than her chocolate mousse). I did make a very nice one many years back, which was individual panetone bread and butter cheesecakes – panetone and butter base, topped with mascarpone and sugar cream and finished off with a berry puree of raspberries and strawberries.

I hope this is of some use to anyone trying to come up with something to cook for a visiting vegetarian, for any vegetarians looking for something new to cook – or maybe even to some meat-eaters who would like an extra centrepiece to accompany the goose or fatted calf.

If you are cooking for vegetarians, take note that a lot of us will not eat roast potatoes and vegetables cooked in the same oven as the turkey (or whatever you’re having). Chris’s parents have a double oven, so when I’m coming to stay the veg gets cooked in the little oven, but before they had their new kitchen I got sauteed potatoes instead (par-boiled then deep fried). You could also roast some in advance and then just give them a quick zap in the microwave.

Whatever you do, do not serve a vegetarian roast potatoes cooked in goose fat – they might be the most delicious thing ever (so I’ve heard, anyway), but they are most certainly not vegetarian. (And while we’re on the tips for cooking for vegetarians, don’t ever use chicken or other meat or fish stock – there are plenty of vegetable stock cubes available, these days (Oxo vegetable stock cubes aren’t very nice, but Kallo are fantastic – just my opinion). A lot of vegetarians also want to have vegetarian cheese (made with vegetable or synthetic rennet, rather than the cow-derived stuff), watch out for jelly which often contains gelatine (try agar agar flakes or there are quite a lot of veggie jelly mixes available these days) and check the ingredients on sauces, sweets and even cakes and any ready meals. If you see the words ‘suitable for vegetarians’ you should be OK, especially on pre-packaged food.

If you’re feeding a vegan, please be extra careful. Honey is not vegan. Eggs and dairy are not vegan. You should also be very careful about cooking utensils and serving dishes (though you should be if you’re feeding vegetarians, too!).

If you’re vegetarian or regularly feed vegetarians for Christmas, I’d love to hear what you have made or are making this year.

And I hope you have a lovely Christmas Meal, whether it’s vegetarian or not.

EDITED TO ADD: This post is getting a lot of visits from people searching for something to cook for vegetarians and vegans for Christmas. I’ve added some notes on a couple of the ideas for how to make them vegan. If you want me to do a separate post of any of the recipes in full, leave a comment, and I’ll try to do so before Monday 19 December, so you have time to plan your shopping.

Ideally, you’ll need a (non-stick) sauté pan (deep frying pan with a lid), but I’ve also used two frying pans of the same size, with one used as a lid with no problems.

Ingredients

2 red onions
1 large courgette
2 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil
2 handfuls of black (pitted) olives
3 handfuls frozen peas
1 block feta cheese (250–300g)
8 eggs
Salt and pepper

Method

Chop the onions into chunks (about 2 cm).

Slice the courgette lengthwise into quarters and then cut into chunks about 1 cm wide.

Put the oil in the sauté pan and heat it up to medium.

Fry the onions and courgettes for 5 minutes.

Chop the feta into cubes (about 2.5 cm).

Chop the olives in half.

Add the frozen peas and continue frying for another 5 minutes (or until you’ve finished mixing the eggs).

Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl.

Add the salt and pepper.

Use a fork to break the yolks up and mix the yolks and whites together, but do so very slowly and gently. Do not whisk like you would an ordinary omelette. The idea is to mix it together without getting any air bubbles into the mixture.

Put the fried vegetables and feta cubes into the egg mixture and mix thoroughly.

Put the whole mixture back in the pan, put the lid on and place on a very, very low heat (if you have a gas cooker with different-sized rings, put it on the smallest ring at the smallest setting). Cook for 30 minutes.

Get a large plate, remove the sauté pan lid, place the plate over the top, take the pan over to the sink and flip it over while over the sink (sometimes some liquid will escape, so it’s safest to do it over the sink). Once the omelette is on the plate, slide it gently back into the pan to cook the other side.

Put back on the very low heat and cook for 15 minutes.

Flip out onto a large plate again, as you did in Step 13.

Adaptations

You could try different vegetable and cheese combinations – asparagus and pecorino go very nicely (I would use a white onion, rather than red onion); sundried tomato, rocket and goats cheese would also work well; you could also try a winter root-vegetable omelette with sweet potatoes, swedes and carrots, with strong cheddar.

Accompaniments

Perfect with a Greek salad or just a nice simple green salad. It’s also lovely with a tomato and bean salad (which would give a great low GI boost, too).

Drinking suggestions

Red or white wine, or grape juice with fizzy water.

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