!NEW SERIES ALERT!
Who the hell have I become?
Cooking? On a Bank Holiday? Or at all for that matter!It's safe to say I never thought the day would come when I would post about my own cooking. I ain't a cook. Or a baker. I can make a mean sweet potato, but that's about it. BUT since becoming vegan I've tried to do more. That's were the late, great Jackie Collins comes in.I'm not sure if you knew, but she wrote a cookbook before she died. Obviously I got myself a copy. The Lucky Santangelo Cookbook. GENIUS! It's basically Jackie's favourite dishes put into context of Lucky - her novels' protagonist - and her day to day life. There are, I'm sure you can imagine, LOTS of cocktail recipes in it too, for every meal! And what better way to honour Jackie - someone I could actually call a friend after meeting and interviewing her numerous times - than working my way through the recipes?Problem is, Jackie liked butter, and meat, and fish and all those things that, well, are definitely NOT vegan. But with a little swapping around you can make everything in this book for diets that are strictly animal product free. And that's how Vegan Versions came about!So, at random, I'm going to make some of Jackie's best recipes, starting with 'Zucchini Boats'. I've listed the original ingredients and the things I substituted them, and the instructions are all in the picture below, so save it to your phone, and zoom in!
- 3 fairly large uncurved zucchini (courgettes)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (I used Tomor margarine but other non-dairy butters available)
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 cup long-grain white rice (I used brown rice)
- 2 teaspoons ground corriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 cups chicken stock (I used Kallo veg stock pots)
- 2 to 3 cooked chorizo sausages (I used Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages)
- 1 cup homemade or favourite bottles chunky tomatoe sauce
- 3/4 to 1 cup freshly grated cheese (I used Tesco Free From grated mozzarella)
- 1 cup grated cheese (I used Violife grated)
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley (I actually left this out, don't like parsley!)
- 3/4 quartered cherry tomatoes
So, although this isn't a super quick dish to make, it's not particularly stressful. One thing though, if you use brown rice too, make sure you give it a little longer on the boil. It takes longer than white rice.
All in all they took about an hour to make, just long enough to listen to our new podcast episode, here.
AND VOILA! (Please remember these pics aren't edited, and I did use brown rice!)
BUY THE LUCKY SANTANGELO COOKBOOK HERE