Dr Power's Vegetarian Caldo Gallego
This is Dr Power's variant of the traditional Galician soup - Caldo Gallego. He and Lynch eat the vegetarian version of this in Schrodinger's God.
Materials - (for four) 2 medium onions finely chopped2 chopped cloves of garlic
Stick of celery, chopped
40 ml olive oil
4 large Cyprus potatoes
1.5 litres good vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves and sprinkle of chopped fresh coriander
A Sweetheart cabbage, chopped into ribbons approx 1 inch wide
1 tin Cannelini beans
Method
Warm the olive oil in a large soup pan and add onions, celery, garlic, and potatoes. Bring up the heat enough to sweat these ingredients for twelve minutes with the pan lid on. Add cabbage, bay leaves, coriander and stock. Season to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes. Add drained beans. Simmer on low heat for another 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy with crusty fresh bread.
Dr Power's Pasta
Materials
300 g of dried pasta - Tripoline
Large aluminium tray of Mediterranean Roasting Vegetables
Small jar of artichoke hearts in olive oil
Vegetable stock cube
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Method
This recipe is full of cheating. Purists look away! (Alternatively purists can prepare the roasting vegetables from scratch by slicing up red onions, courgettes, red and yellow peppers and tomatoes and roasting these with herbs in olive oil).
For cheats - open the jar of artichoke hearts. Drain off excess oil and add to the ready prepared tray of roasting vegetables. The oil on the artichoke hearts is sufficient to cover the vegetables for roasting. Mix the artichoke hearts and roasting vegetables gently. Put in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes. Mix occasionally through the roasting so that all vegetables are equally browned.
Prepare a big pan of water and add a stock cube and some olive oil and set it so that it will be boiling about ten minutes before the vegetables are ready. When it is at a rolling boil add the pasta. And bring back to a simmer. Cover with lid.
When the pasta's firmness or softness is to your taste, drain the pan completely into a colander and then return the drained pasta to the empty hot pan.
Remove the cooked vegetables and add these to the freshly cooked, hot pasta and mix.
Serve with black pepper and salt to taste, and enjoy.
Power's Paella
Feeds Four
Materials
Red pepper - sliced
Green pepper -sliced
Red chilli - deseeded and chopped
Mushrooms - chopped
Two medium onions - chopped
Celery stick - chopped fine
Garlic cloves (3) - chopped
Two medium carrots - sliced and chopped
A handful of asparagus
One tin chopped tomatoes
One courgette - sliced
8 small fresh tomatoes
One packet of cashew nuts
270 g Paella rice
2 vegetable stock cubes
Possible addition of defrosted Chicken substitute
Olive Oil
Salt, Pepper and mixed herbs e.g. 'Italian Blend'
Two Bay leaves
Two teaspoons of turmeric
Method
Use a large paella pan, non-stick casserole dish or wok. Add enough oil to fry carrots, then add onion, garlic and celery, until semi-soft.
Add herbs including bay leaves and turmeric.
Add and fry peppers, chilli, courgette and mushrooms.
Add chopped tomatoes, tomatoes and stock made with two stock cubes.
Once boiling add paella rice.
It will take between 30-40 minutes for rice to get soft and it wil absornb water as it cooks so -
please gently move the mixture round in th pan so that none sticks and has chance to burn. Add boiling water judiciouslyform time to time to offset the rice absorbing all the liquid.
You can add chicken substitute and asparagus around now.
When the rice is suitably soft turn the pan off and wait ten minutes or so to cool before serving (too hot and the flavours can't be properly appreciated)
5 minutes before serving time add the cashew nuts and fold into the mix.
Serve and enjoy.
Dr Powers Avocado Muffins
This incredibly simple recipe can be eaten alone as a simple snack or combined with fried mushrooms and fried tomatoes for a healthy breakfast that will power you through till after noon. Materials (for one)One medium-large avocado (ripe)
One English Muffin
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Method Cut avocado in half and remove the stone. Enucleate the avocado with a dessert spoon; separating the flesh from the skin. Put the two skinned avocado halves in a small bowl and mush to a medium-coarse paste. Don’t make it too smooth! Slice muffin into two halves and toast. Take the two toasted slices and dollop the mashed avocado on each half. Sprinkle salt and freshly ground black pepper on to taste. Serve and enjoy.Healthy Mince Pies
Thanks to Judith Eddles for this recipe
Ingredients
One large eating apple (Pink Lady / Brayburn)
A handful of dried apricots
A handful of plump raisins
A tablespoon of golden syrup
A tablespoon of honey
Two tablespoons of sherry (fino)
Shortcrust Pastry
Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg
Flaked almonds
Method Peel, core and chop the apple finely. Add chopped apricots and raisins. Mix fruit with a table sppon of syrup. Microwave on full power for 4 minutes in a microwavable dish. Stir and add sherry and spices to taste Microwave for a further 4 minutes and rest Take a baking tray with shallow pie moulds in Form pastry into correctly sized circles to just fit into the baking tray indentations Fill the pies with the fruit mixture Sprikle the tops with flaked almonds Spoon honey on top to coat the almonds Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10-14 minutes, umtil cookedDr Power's Fig Dessert
Materials (Expand as necessary)Greek yoghurt (with honey if you prefer the sweetness)
Clear, runny honey
Pomegranate seeds
Fresh, ripe figs
Sumac powder
Method
Put 2-3 dessert spoons of yoghurt on a side plate. Rinse and quarter figs and scatter on the yoghurt. Scatter a tablespoon full of pomegranate seeds over the figs. Sprinkle sumac powder sparingly over this and then lightly drizzle honey over the assembled ingredients.
Serve and enjoy!