Dr Power's Vegetarian Recipes 

Dr Power became vegetarian in The Good Shepherd

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 chopped
2 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 cooked

Dr 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!