Brilliant Baked Beans

Another one from How It All Vegan,

300g cooked beans - pinto, kidney haricot or soy
(I started with 250g dried haricot, soaked for 12 hours, boiled for 15 mins, simmered for 1.5 hours)
350ml vegetable stock
1 tsp molasses (I used 1tbsp brown sugar)
175g tomato puree
1 small onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika.

Simply put everything in a baking dish, bake uncovered at 180C / Gas mark 4 for 40 mins. Makes 2-4 servings.

My twist: sieved toms not puree but be careful not too much fluid - make the stock after you've added the toms & soy sauce. Also added 1 tbsp madras curry powder.

These freeze great which is good as it's 13 hours from dried beans to eating, so make the whole 500g bag of dried beans and find some room in the freezer - defrost and fry, yummy.

Tomato Bhath

stolen from : Cereals and Pulses p. 25

serves 8 (though it says 4!)

500g rice
1kg tomatoes
115g onions (otherwise known as 2) - chopped
4 flakes garlic (2 cloves)
5g ginger
4 peppercorns
3 cloves
1 litre water

(you could use a 500ml carton of passata & 500ml water instead of fresh toms)

1) add half water to toms, boil up, remove skins - puree
2) add ground ginger & garlic
3) fry onions till browned
4) add peppercorns & cloves - fry till they crack
5) add dry rice and fry
6) add tom juice & remaining water & cook the rice

dats it amigo

Tomato Curry

Stolen from : Harvey Day "The Best of Vegetarian Cooking: Indian Curries" [1984] p. 84

12 large tomatoes, fresh or canned
1 dessertspoonful garam masala
3 onions
1 dessertspoonful coriander leaves
1" stick cinnamon
1/2 coconut
1/2 in piece of green ginger
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp vegetable fat
seeds 3 cardamoms
salt to taste

1. chop the ginger, onions, coriander leaves, garlic and garam masala
2. heat the fat and stir in the coconut flesh with the tomatoes (whole if fresh)
3. add remaining ingredients and stir over a low heat until the mixture thickens

I'm not sure why Harvey took the trouble to chop his onions first, there's *plenty* of time to do it while you're waiting for the tomatoes to lose their skins.
What's a dessertspoonful, I used 1 tbsp but perhaps it's more like 2 tbsp.
I used 18 salad toms because Lidls had them half price.
Harvey also doesn't mention any prep for the coconut, I figured half a coconut in 3 pieces just wasn't going to be nice so I put it through the grinder. When I say half I mean 1 coconut. The last recipe I used coconut in said 1/2 coconut or 200g and I found that 1 puny coconut was about 200g. I hope Harvey didn't get his coconuts from Pak foods like I did.
The toms took *ages* to get going, I thought it was never going to go watery so I smushed a few of them with the spatula. It's bubbling away on the stove now, so it's going ok. It's been 45 mins since I started, the rice was ready 10 mins ago. I cracked at an hour and served myself a portion. The flavour is very good, though the tomatoes were a bit thin in flavour; probably GM ones bred for looks - they were Lidl own brand. The coconut bits were getting hard going at the end of the portion, just needs longer in the grinder, or less of it and add some reduced coconut milk.
What I didn't eat first serving I left on the low heat to see how it went. Looks much the same.

Could use onion paste instead of onions, they don't get cooked so well, you could do the ginger, cinnamon and garlic and onions in the grinder together to a paste.

(B) Rasam (dal type thing)

Stolen from : The Beginner's Cook Book : Cereals and Pulses p. 132


30g split red gram
115g (1) tomato
1 lime
few curry leaves
1/2 bunch coriander leaves
5 g (3) green chillies

Temper
1 tsp mustard seeds
2g black gram
1 pinch cumin
2 red chillies
pinch hing

1. Boil the gram till tender; remove the water
2. Cut tomatoes, slit green chillies & chop coriander
3. Add above to gram water. Boil
4. Heat oil & add tempering ingredients
5. When spices crackle add to boiling rasam, add salt & boil for 5 mins.
6. Remove from heat & add lime juice

This one's a bit confusing, it tells you to remove the water then boil in it. I softened the red gram in a bit of water and just left it in. I didn't even bother with the tempering and also forgot about the lime juice. Nevertheless it was really nice.