I guess it takes me a while to catch on but eventually I work things out. With our moving towards vegetarianism, roast dinners tend to be few and far between, lamb, pork, chicken or beef, we love them all but they are limited to being a birthday treat, if then. We also like roast veg, but without the roast, what was the point? Well, it turns out, there is considerable point but I just hadn’t thought of it!
I was reading through one of Sharyn Astyks books (‘Independence Days’ maybe?) and she suggested that you could just do roast veg by itself. What an excellent idea I thought, so a couple of days later I decided to give it a go. With Just Linda and I there was no need to make a huge amount, just for the two of us.
The idea is to use primarily root veg, so for us that meant some combination of –
- Potato, carrot, sweet potato, onion and Jerusalem artichoke
It all depended on what we had on hand. Also, while they are not root veg, pumpkin also seems to work well with this method of cooking.
Preparation
This is comparatively easy –
- Carrots peel (or not) and slice in two, lengthways.
- Onion, peel and cut in half
- Pumpkin, peel (or not) and cut into chunks or slices
- Sweet potato, peel and cut into chunks or slices
- Potatoes, peel (or not depending on the variety), cut into chunks and boil or steam for 20 minutes or so.
Then it is just a case of brushing all surfaces of the veg with oil and place on a tray and bake at 200⁰C for a half hour or so until nicely cooked. It is best to check with a toothpick to ensure all veg is cooked through before serving, putting it back in the oven for a further 5 or 10 minutes if required. We use our electric table top oven for this small amount of veg rather than heating up the big gas one. Plus if the sun is out the power is free!
Gravy
I wanted gravy to have over the veg but without any meat juices this was a bit problematical. I didn’t want to go rushing out so I cruised the web for a recipe I could make with stuff I had on hand. What I found was a recipe for what is (allegedly) the gravy that KFC make for their potato and gravy. The original is accessible here.
I made it as suggested the first time but it did not work well for us so after some goes at it, I have found a recipe that works for us. It uses flour, butter, water, and a chicken and beef stock cube (or part thereof), so it was all stuff we had on hand in the fridge or pantry.
Recipe
30g/2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. plain flour
1 low salt chicken stock cube
½ beef stock cube
2 cups/500ml boiling water
Instructions
1. Boil up the water and add in the stock cubes, stir to dissolve
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan then whisk in the flour and cook for a minute or two
3. Pour in the stock slowly and whisk to combine, boil to thicken
That is it! It is perfect for Linda but I find adding a bit more salt works for me, so try before you apply!
There you have it, an easy to prepare, cheap and tasty vegetarian feed, which can use what veg you have on hand, we may or may not boil up some peas and/or corn to go with it, depending on what we have available on hand or in the garden. It is definitely worth giving a go!
