Jamie Oliver - A Modern Way to Eat - Over 200 satisfying, everyday vegetarian recipes

Tear the kale off its stalks into crisp-sized pieces (remember they will shrink a bit). Little stalks are fine, you just don’t want any of the big ones. Lay them well spaced out on the baking trays.

Make whichever dressing you choose, mixing the ingredients in a jug. Drizzle the dressings evenly over the trays of kale. Now get your hands in and toss and turn the kale in the dressing until everything feels coated.

Put your kale into the oven for 30 minutes. Then take both trays out and loosen the kale from the baking paper with a spatula. Pop the trays back in, turn the oven off, and leave them until they have crisped right up, which will take about another 30 minutes.

Lift the kale chips from the tray and store them in a jar or airtight container. They will keep for up to a week, but they will be gone long before that.

Smoky walnut and cumin muhammara

If there is someone in your life who thinks vegetarian food is bland, hand them a bowl of this and some charred flatbreads and give them 5 minutes. It’s a riot of flavours: musky sweetness from the peppers, earthy spice from the cumin and buttery depth from the walnuts. And it’s so versatile. I keep a jar of it in the fridge for spicing up pretty much any meal.

Pomegranate molasses is traditionally used here to add a sweet piquant roundness. Most larger supermarkets and Middle Eastern shops stock it, but if you can’t get your hands on it you can substitute a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of date syrup, dark honey or agave syrup.

MAKES A GOOD JARFUL, ENOUGH FOR A CROWD TO DIP INTO

75g shelled walnuts

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 × 200g jar of roasted red peppers, or 3 freshly roasted red peppers, peeled, deseeded and chopped

2 slices of good brown bread, whizzed to breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons good-quality tomato purée

2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

1 teaspoon Turkish chilli flakes (see here) or a pinch of normal chilli flakes

juice of ½ a lemon

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Preheat your oven to 220°C/fan 200°C/gas 7.

Put the nuts and cumin seeds on to a baking tray and roast for 6 minutes, until the nuts are just starting to turn golden and the cumin smells wonderful and has released its oils. Tip into a food processor and add the red peppers. Blitz to a paste, then add the breadcrumbs, tomato purée, pomegranate molasses, chilli flakes, lemon juice and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Blitz again until smooth.

With the mixer on, slowly pour in the oil and blitz until really smooth. Taste, season if needed, and blitz again. Keep tasting and balancing the flavours – you may need a bit more lemon juice, or more molasses and seasoning. Get it how you like it. This will keep well in the fridge for at least a week.

Ways to use your muhammara:

· For breakfast, spread on toast and topped with a poached egg.

· As a marinade for tofu or vegetables for barbecuing.

· Let down with a little oil as a dressing for roasted root veg, beetroots and squash.

· Piled on the side of a plate of lentils or beans, with a little yoghurt and some herbs.

Maple peanut California wraps

This wrap sustained me through a week in the desert, listening to music, a few years ago. Just the right combination of refreshing greens and vitamin-loaded carrot and good protein energy from tempeh and seeds.

But the crowning glory here is the sauce – it’s one of those sauces that hits every flavour level and leaves you wanting more. It’s good on a salad too. I have to say it has been known for me to eat two of these on the trot. They are that good. Super-quick to put together, these are a weekday lunch for me at least once a week and often make an appearance in summer for supper, with some roasted sweet potato wedges.

Tempeh is a cake of pressed soya beans. It is a great source of protein and works well in most recipes where you might use tofu. I buy my tempeh from my local health food shop. Tempeh is a fermented food, which actually makes it much easier to digest than other types of soya. Tempeh does need a bit of special treatment, such as this marinade, as its flavour is quite neutral. Firm tofu would work here too.

MAKES 4 WRAPS

4 wholemeal tortillas

2 carrots, grated

4 tablespoons mixed toasted seeds

4 handfuls of salad greens

FOR THE TEMPEH

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

200g tempeh, cut into 1cm slices

FOR THE PEANUT DRESSING

2 tablespoons all-natural peanut butter

2 teaspoons miso paste

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons tahini

juice of 1 lemon

Mix the maple syrup, soy sauce, olive oil and vinegar in a bowl. Add the tempeh and turn to coat in the marinade. Leave to one side.

Next, make the dressing. Whisk all the ingredients together, with a tablespoon of water if it’s too thick, taste and check for balance, then set aside.

Heat a dry pan and fry the tempeh for a couple of minutes on each side until browned and starting to caramelise.

Warm the tortillas – I do this by holding them with tongs over a gas flame for a few seconds, but the oven or a dry non-stick pan will do too. To assemble each wrap, place some tempeh on each tortilla, top with a quarter of the grated carrot, seeds and greens, then add a quarter of the dressing. Repeat with the rest of the wraps.

HUMMUS

If your house is anything like mine, or those of most of my friends for that matter, then a lot of pots of hummus find their way into fridges and on to tables. I usually make my own, as I like being able to adapt the flavours to what’s going on at the time, seasons, moods and what else is in the fridge. The chickpea/tahini format can get a bit samey, so here are some offbeat versions you won’t find in the shops. The principle can be followed with pretty much anything, as long as you keep to roughly the same quantities of beans/citrus/seasonings below.

These recipes are a great way to use up leftover beans.

All these keep in the fridge for 5 days. Each recipe makes a good jarful.

DATE AND BLACK SESAME

•

1 × 400g tin of cannellini beans, drained

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 medjool dates, roughly chopped

juice of ½ a lemon

½ tablespoon miso paste

sea salt

2 tablespoons date syrup

2 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds

If you don’t have date syrup handy, a drizzle of dark honey or dark agave syrup would work really well. Well-toasted white sesame seeds will work here if you can’t get black ones.

Put your beans into a food processor with the olive oil, dates, lemon juice, miso and a pinch of salt and whiz to your preferred consistency. Taste, add more salt if necessary, and loosen with a bit of water or more olive oil if it looks too thick. I go for a good bit of whizzing, as I like a light and fluffy result, but some like more texture – you decide.

Once the texture is how you like it, scoop it into a bowl, drizzle over the date syrup and sprinkle with the black sesame seeds.

BLACK BEAN AND PUMPKIN SEED

•

1 × 400g tin of black beans

1 green chilli, destalked and roughly chopped, plus more chopped chilli to finish

a small bunch of fresh coriander, roughly chopped, plus more chopped coriander to finish

grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lime

1 tablespoon maple syrup

a good handful of pumpkin seeds

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper