Gratin Dauphinois
Red Onion Tarts
Spinach Tagliatelle with Walnuts
Wild Mushrooms in Cream with Potato and Celeriac Mash
Pappardelle with Wild Mushrooms
Wild Mushroom Risotto
Griddled Courgette and Red Pepper Rice Bowls
Almond and Pecan Roast with Sherry Gravy
Orange-scented Bulgur Pilaf
Wonderful Rice Pilaf
Mediterranean Strudel
Fast Falafel
Middle Eastern Salad Platter with Baba Ganoosh
Salads & Sides
Summer Salad of Beans and Herbs
Baby Spinach, Apple, Celery and Hazelnut Salad
Salad of Chicory, Fresh Dill, Wild Rocket and Avocado
Red Cabbage Casserole
Easy Crunchy Coleslaw
Shaved Kohlrabi Salad with Watercress
Braised Carrots with Cumin
Carrot Salad with Coriander and Orange
Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Gomasio
Red Chard with Olive Oil and Lemon
Brussels Sprouts with Mustard-maple Glaze and Sichuan Pepper
Asian Flavours Salad
Asian Pressed Salad with Gomasio
Roasted Cauliflower Platter
Mixed Heirloom Tomato Salad
French-style Petit Pois
Chopped Multicoloured Salad
Radicchio with Raspberry Vinegar
Pan-fried Cabbage with Tomato Sauce
Baby Broad Beans in the Pod with Creamy Parsley Sauce
Crunchy Roast Parsnips with Horseradish Dip
Bircher Potatoes
Millet, Cauliflower and Parsley Mash
Roast Potato Wedges with Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar
Sweet Things
Blueberry Crumble
Blackberry and Apple Compote with Mascarpone and Toasted Hazelnuts
Rhubarb and Ginger Compote
Apricot Compote
Hot Plum Compote with Cinnamon
Gooseberry and Elderflower Fool
Jewelled Fruit Flan
Mango and Cardamom Fool
Warm Figs Braised in Honey with Toasted Almonds
Turkish Fruit Salad
Instant Strawberry and Honey Ice Cream
Satsuma Syllabub
Cinnamon Pancakes with Rose-scented Raspberry Jam
Glazed Pears with Crunchy Almond Filling
Fruit Salad with Lime and Mint in a Mango Coulis
Chocolate Amaretti Pudding
Grilled Pineapple with Brown Sugar, Rum and Crème Fraîche
Fast White Chocolate and Lime Cheesecake
Speedy Chocolate and Hazelnut Brownies
Chocolate ‘Truffles’ and ‘Power Balls’
Chocolate Chestnut Cake
Quick Almond and Raspberry Biscuits
Banana with Macadamia ‘Salted Caramel’ Sauce
Welcome to 30-minute Vegetarian. Whether you’re a fully signed-up vegetarian or vegan, a ‘flexitarian’, ‘meat-reducer’, ‘pescatarian’, demi-veg, or just want to enjoy a meat-free meal now and then, come on in. If you want fast, easy, tasty vegetable-based meals; if you’re looking for quick meals made from clean, natural, healthy ingredients; if you love exciting flavours, bold colours, vibrant ingredients, eating well and having fun in the kitchen, this is the book for you.
With study after study showing the health benefits of vegetarian food, the World Health Organisation recommending we eat ‘five a day’, the wealth of amazing vegetables, fruits, grains, pulses, herbs and spices now available from all over the world, and restaurants becoming increasingly creative with their veggie choices, there’s never been a better time to try more vegetable-based meals: vegetarian cookery has come of age!
It hasn’t always been like this. When, at the tender age of 17, I started cooking vegetarian meals for visitors to the retreat centre run by my family, things were very different. The great majority of visitors had never eaten vegetarian food before. I had to struggle to convince people that they wouldn’t fade away or make themselves ill if they gave up meat; I was also up against a much more rigid approach to meals than we have now. ‘What on earth do you eat instead of a roast for Sunday dinner?’ people used to ask, and the vegetables and ingredients available were very limited: it’s hard to believe now that a green pepper was about as exotic as it got, and olive oil was something you bought from the chemist!
In spite of all that, I loved the challenge of creating colourful, tasty food that would please and excite the visitors. I must have done something right, because they raved about the dishes and wanted to know how to make them. So I wrote a recipe book, Simply Delicious, published by my family in the autumn of 1967. I thought that it would be a small charity publication that might raise funds for the retreat centre, but it took off immediately, sold out, and was reprinted many times. Simply Delicious was, in fact, one of only two vegetarian cookery books on sale nationwide at that time. I must admit to feeling proud that, as far as I am aware, it was the first cookbook ever to stipulate the use of free-range eggs.
I continued to cook at the retreat centre and in 1972 wrote another recipe book, Not Just a Load of Lentils, which my family also published, with the practical, spiral binding I wanted. Then things took an unexpected turn: the paperback publisher Fontana (a division of HarperCollins, then called Collins) spotted the book, bought the paperback rights and became my publishers, as indeed they still are today. Over sixty books followed throughout the seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond, and as the book sales added up to the 4-million mark, so the numbers of vegetarians in the UK grew and grew.
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