Vegetarian Chilli con Carne

Since the success of the vegetable stew, made with a chicken casserole spice mix, I have been buying packet mixes far more often. They're useful because the recipe is printed on the back and very easy to follow with few, uncomplicated ingredients, and despite the fact that they usually include meat, the actual packet mix is normally vegetarian. During my weekly shop I discovered that the Schwartz mixes were 2 for £1, so I had a sift through to find the ones marked vegetarian and came home with a chilli con carne mix and a shepherd's pie mix.

A recipe AND an ingredient all in one!

Collecting New Recipes

I'm gaining a reputation for being a keen cook, which I think is awesome - I look back to when this blog started and I can see how much I've improved as a cook (my food is almost always edible!) but it's pretty nice to have other people acknowledge it too. I guess it is fairly easy to impress other students, who as far as I can tell mostly live on a diet of frozen pizza and filled pasta, but more valuable to me was hearing my mum telling my stepdad about the impressive array of meals in my brother's freezer. Of course as said brother kindly pointed out, she didn't know what they tasted like - they might be disgusting. Thanks for the vote of confidence, kiddo.

Let's not pull any punches: that's a lot of books.

Anyway, because my family know I like cooking I have become the repository for unwanted recipe books. I'm certainly not objecting; reading cookery books is one of my favourite activities these days and I already have quite a few of my own. Unfortunately, most of the recipe books were unwanted due to a lack of storage space. I don't have any storage space either.

Slow-cooker Spinach Quiche

The second recipe I decided to make this weekend was spinach quiche, again inspired by Fix it and Forget it. It took two days to make, although the actual preparation time was more like two hours at the most. I made the filling yesterday and left it to cool overnight, and then added the eggs while the pastry was baking blind before putting the whole lot together.

I love the different colours from the soup and the cheese

Quorn Fillet Alfredo

Quite spontaneously today I decided I wanted to cook two new recipes in my slow cooker. Although I frequently use the rice cooker function, I have only used the slow cooker once before.
Both of today's recipes were inspired by Fix it and Forget it recipes, with assistance from a variety of other websites for advice on how to make alfredo sauce (not available in jars here, as it apparently is in the USA).

Quorn fillet alfredo, slightly eaten

 Apologies for the fact that this photo is, once again, terrible and taken after I had started eating. Photography is not my strong point.

Slow-cooker Vegetable Stew

When my mum came to visit we decided to make something in the slow cooker, and she decided it should be stew. So we raided my cupboards, stocked up on a few things and flung a bunch of ingredients into the slow cooker.

A colourful selection of ingredients (not exhaustive)

Spaghetti with Creamy Spinach Sauce

My first new recipe this term has been a roaring success! I got it from The Vegetarian Student Cookbook, which is one of the best recipe books I own. The recipes are simple without being dull, and there's a really good range. I don't make particularly extensive use of the cocktails section or the breakfast section (I have never in my life woken up with the desire to spend half an hour in the kitchen before getting any food into my stomach) but the main meals and desserts are all great.

Spinach spaghetti - simple and delicious!

New Year's Recipe Resolution

My cooking has been quite sporadic since I got back to uni this year. At the start of term it was going well - my meal planner meant I was cooking something new most days and I managed to get ahead with my freezer stash. That's a good thing since I somehow stopped cooking about half way through the term. It was a combination of work piling up, choir taking over and time feeling more stretched that meant I mostly fell back on pasta and sauce, and whatever I had in the freezer - mostly pasta sauce, oddly.