More vegetable stew

Meat Free Monday is a campaign to raise awareness of the environmental impact of meat production and consumption. It encourages everyone to go meat free for one day a week and is a JOLLY GOOD IDEA.

This week I actually remembered about it. I bought lunch in the work canteen; an egg mayo sandwich, Quavers, a banana and a slice of sponge cake.

And it was all yellow.

In the evening I volunteered to tackle the new surfeit of vegetables, and settled on a veg stew, because you can just bung everything in it, innit. That's the magic! The magic of stew! I used this as a foundation, but I didn't have some of those vegetables, or those beans, and ended up changing it a fair bit. Makes round about enough for four. I served it with brown rice.

 
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 (big) clove garlic, peeled and chopped
2 medium carrots
1 kohlrabi
2 medium potatoes
1 beetroot
1 small courgette
A small pile of broad beans, removed from their pods, if pods is the right word
2 big tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 normal sized tin baked beans in tomato sauce
½ tsp thyme
1 tsp Marmite
2 tsp Bouillon powder or 1 vegetable stock cube
A big squeeze of tomato puree
salt and pepper to taste

• Pre-heat oven to 160°C
• Heat oil in a large casserole dish.
• Fry the onion and garlic together for 5-10 min on a low heat.
• Scrub and sandblast/peel all vegetables.
• Chop kohlrabi, potatoes and beetroot into 1cm cubes. In they go.
• Slice carrots and courgette. In they go.
• Add tomatoes, puree, thyme, marmite, broad beans and baked beans.
• Add stock/bouillon and enough water to cover, stir it about, lid on, oven, 45 min. I added too much water so finished off with 10 minutes' intense hob action and a little cornflour to thicken.

Lemon chicken with egg-fried rice

This took under an hour, which considering I've not made it before (well, the lemon chicken bit, anyway) is nothing short of phenomenal. A normal person who doesn't keep returning to peer at the (very simple) recipe and moving stuff around the kitchen for no reason could probably do it much quicker. The hour also included a fair bit of boiling/marinading time, during which you could accomplish something useful, like dusting the mantelpiece.

I adapted the lemon chicken recipe from Fresh Chinese by Wynnie Chan (Hamlyn), without necessarily having all the right ingredients (I've no cornflour in, for example), so if you want to do it properly, best read that.

Serves one, but there were easily enough chicken pieces to set aside for a roll for tomorrow's lunch.

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 clove of garlic, chopped, crushed and generally mangled
2 small pieces of unwaxed lemon rind
Juice of ½ lemon
1 chicken breast fillet, cut into strips as thin as you can manage
1¼ tbsp plain white flour
A fair bit of olive and sunflower oils
3-4oz jasmine rice
½ small onion, chopped
Soy sauce

• Cook the rice. Jasmine rice takes half an hour. Other rices take less, which is desirable, and maybe some take more, which isn't. Rinse with cold water and set aside.
• Meanwhile, combine the garlic, lemon rind, a little lemon juice and just over ¼ of the egg mixture in a bowl, and marinade the chicken strips in it for 15 minutes, then add the flour and mix thoroughly.
• Now you want some kind of big, heavy non-stick pan, and some kind of wok. Put about 1 tbsp oil in the pan, and more than that in the wok, and whack 'em both on a high heat.
• Add the onion to the wok and stir frenetically for a minute or two, then add the egg until fairly scrambled, and then the cooked rice, keeping on stirring the while, and a few dashes of soy sauce.
• Meanwhile, tip the chicken strips into the pan and spread them out. Give them two minutes on either side until nicely browned, then stir fry for about another minute. Add the rest of the lemon juice, stir it about, and that's that. Serve the chicken strips atop the rice, in a bowl, maybe. I've got a bowl with a picture of a pig on it but I don't generally eat out of that one.