Moroccany Thing

So part of this is based on something I saw a guy cook in Chefchaouen a couple of years ago. I seem to remember he served it with a fried egg. I could have tried to mock-up a fried egg but eggs suck so screw that. Instead of rice you could maybe serve this with fruity cous cous, but I didn't have any cous cous. Some raisins and maybe some toasted almonds sound pretty good.

Looks okay? Right?

Ingredients
200g firm tofu (frozen & defrosted)
200g green beans
1 medium onion
2 dozen or more cherry tomatoes
1 Tbl spoon (more if you like) of ketchup
Some soya sauce
Some oregano
More cumin seeds than you might think
Oil (pref olive, obviously)
Seasoning

This serves two. Or if you are a pathetic loner like myself you can have some for lunch the next day.

So one you've defrosted yr tofu and got as much liquid out as possible, you will want to cut it into a suitable shape. The stuff I buy comes in 200g blocks so I just sliced it in half. The shape isn't really important. though if you do it steak/cutlet style like I did, you will want to score the tofu to get the marinade right in there.
For the marinade I used the arse-end of some ketchup, poured in some soya sauce, oregano & black pepper. Then I shook it up to mix all the ingredients. The longer you leave it the more flavour you will get in to the tofu, if you can do this the night before all the better. I gave it maybe 20-30 mins and it was alright.

Then you can just bung it in the oven somewhere around 200-220C. You could grill if you prefer, you can probably dry fry too. The sugar in the marinade with crisp up a little without having to use oil.

You can probably put the rice on now too. I'm not telling you how to cook fucking rice. Read the packet if you must.

Okay. So heat yr frying pan and put in more cumin seeds than you would thin necessary. Then add a little cumin. Then put in some oil, when that's heated up put in yours sliced onion (dice if you must, but I think sliced works best). When the onions start to be come translucent turn the heat down a bit and put in all the halved cherry tomatoes.

Let all that cook down so the tomatoes barely have any shape, then put your beans in there. I used the same ones that were left over from the other day which I had to freeze. If you  have frozen ones you can just put them in some warm water for a few minutes to defrost them. If not, then just top & tail 'em and throw 'em in.

Add a bunch of black pepper, some salt, chilli if you're feeling frisky (or, you could forgo the chilli here and maybe put some in the marinade instead? Yeah, go one, try that you bleedin' mental).

Then way to tell if everything is done is that it looks done. The rice looks like cooked rice, the tofu looks tasty, and the beans/tomatoes concoction looks pretty awesome too.

Serve, eat, and forget about the typically fucking awful day you just had at work. Maybe read a comic.

Sweet Potato Cottage Pie thingy

Okay, so it doesn't look great, but you need to get over that. I have a crappy phone, the pie looked better in person, but not super-great.

This is dead simple to make, the ingredients aren't too crazy. No one's reinventing the wheel, but yesterday was Monday, then after work I had college, so if you want something that's pretty tasty but you can be arsed to make at 9pm then this might just be for you.

Two things: this has no added fat. I'm a big fat fuck and I'd like to change that. I really don't think this would have benefited from any added fat, so that's nice. Secondly, my flatmate's fella was round last night, I offered him some, he ate it and afterwards said "You know, I reckon I could be veggie."

I'm just sayin'.

Ingredients.
3x small sweet potatoes - peeled, chopped
Some (couple o' big handfulls?)  TVP/soya mince (the dried shit cos I'm cheap)
1x big handful frozen peas
1x red pepper
1x medium onion
2x big cloves garlic
1x tsp yeast extract/stock ( I used Vecon which you can get in hippie stores inc. H&B)
1x tsp cumin powder
black pepper

These quantities are based on whatever the hell size dish that is up there. You should be able to figure out if you need more/less. I mean, you have some kinda spatial awareness, right?

Boil salted water & chuck the sweet potatoes in.
In a another saucepan put yeast extract in water & simmer, add chopped onion, crushed garlic & cumin.
Add your TVP & simmer til it stops looking like sawdust and starts looking a bit like tasty fake meat.
Chuck in yr peas at the end.
Add the mix to the oven dish.
Take sweet potatoes of the boil, removes excess water, mash & add black pepper.
Put the mash on top of the fake mix & stick the lot in the oven.

You don't have to put it in the oven, I think I do that more out of habit (at about 200.c). As there's not extra fat in the topping it won't get the crisp golden layer. If yr mad for it you could brush some oil or melted marge over the top and that should do the trick.

After that you might wanna let it sit for a while cos this shit'll burn your face off.

You may have noticed we didn't do anything with the red pepper. this is because I meant to dice it and throw it in just before putting the pie in the oven, but I forgot. So in the end I sat around eating diced red pepper while waiting for the pie to finish. It was actually pretty okay as a starter and counts as two portions of fruit/veg. So go me!

I also meant to serve some green beans with this but I forgot. I have plans for those babies anyway, so it's not all bad.

A note on stock:  I used Vecon cos I think it's pretty good. You could use Marmite or any supermarket knock-off, or even gravy granules (loads are vegan, including a couple of the Bisto ones - check the label).