Rose Elliot - Rose Elliot’s New Complete Vegetarian

This is the most wonderful fruit smoothie, sweet and delectable. The more powerful your blender, the smoother and better this will be. If you really love smoothies, you may find it worth investing in a good-quality, high-speed machine.

MAKES 1–2 LARGE GLASSES

1 sweet orange, peeled and cut into rough chunks

1 banana, peeled and roughly sliced

1 thick slice of fresh pineapple, peeled and cut into chunks

225g (8oz) strawberries, hulled (or leave unhulled if organic)

a small bunch of sweet red grapes

a cup of ice

Put all the ingredients into a high-speed blender and process until thick and smooth. If adding everything at once is a bit too much for your blender to handle, start with the oranges and use chilled water instead of ice, to get things moving. Drink as soon as possible.

VARIATION

The flavour of late summer! Use 225g (8oz) juicy ripe blackberries instead of the strawberries.

Deep purple, delicious and wonderful (so they say) for keeping those brain cells lively and youthful, blueberries make a great smoothie. Add 225g (8oz) of them instead of the strawberries.

Leave out the strawberries and instead pop the juicy red seeds out of 1 large pomegranate by cutting it in half then bending back each half to release the seeds, dislodging them with the aid of a small pointed knife. Add the pomegranate seeds to the blender along with the other fruit and whiz until completely smooth.

Try adding a good handful of baby spinach leaves to any of these smoothies. You won’t taste the spinach – it will be just like a fruit smoothie – but you’ll notice the extra, sustained energy that the green leaves give you. A green smoothie must be one of the most health-giving drinks on the planet. You can use other dark green leaves too; kale, for instance. Start with a few leaves and add more once you get used to the flavour.

This is calming, revitalising and quick to make.

MAKES ABOUT ONE 250ML (9FL OZ) GLASS

1 orange, peeled

150ml (5fl oz) natural yoghurt or vegan yoghurt

a little clear honey (optional)

Break the orange into segments and place in blender. Add the yoghurt, then whizz for 30–60 seconds or until fairly smooth, adding a little honey to taste, if you like. There will still be some chunky pieces of orange, but these give the drink ‘body’ and provide extra fibre.

A sauce can provide the perfect finishing touch to a dish; it can make the difference between ordinary and exceptional and transform some of your favourite dishes into something really special.

In this chapter you’ll find many easy sauces and relishes that can accompany a variety of dishes – try some tangy Béarnaisewith crispy aubergine frittersor creamy mushroom and Marsala saucewith tofu escalopes. You’ll also find many reliable classics – tomato saucefor pizza and delicious hollandaise. The good news is that they are all simple to make. Plus, if you’re in a hurry, my ultra-easy blender béchamel sauceswill turn a simple dish of steamed vegetables into a main course with just a topping of breadcrumbs, a scattering of grated cheese and a flash under a hot grill.

You can use cooking apples, which cook to a lovely, soft, fluffy purée, or sweet eating apples, which require less sugar. Either way, the result is a pleasant, fruity sauce that goes well with lentil loaf or pease pudding.

SERVES 4–6

450g (1lb) apples

4 tbsp water

4 tbsp sugar

15g (½oz) butter

salt

Peel and core the apples, then cut them into smallish pieces.

Put the apple pieces, water, sugar and butter into a medium-sized heavy-based saucepan and cook gently, with a lid on the pan, until the apples are soft.

Season with a little salt, then mash the mixture slightly with a wooden spoon to break up the apple. (Or you can blend it if you prefer a smoother consistency.)

VARIATION

For this version, cook 125g (4oz) fresh cranberries, washed and picked over, with the apples. You’ll need to add more sugar as cranberries are very sharp.

Use redcurrants instead of the cranberries or just soften the apples in 2 rounded tablespoons of redcurrant (or cranberry) jelly and leave out the sugar.

This is a quick version of the classic rich French sauce. First, you reduce the vinegar in a saucepan to concentrate the flavour, then add it to the egg yolks in a blender and pour in the melted butter. It only takes a few minutes to make and is superb with dishes such as lentil and mushroom burgersor cashew and dill fritters. A pleasant variation is to stir 125g (4oz) of fromage frais into the finished sauce – this lightens it and makes enough to serve eight people.

SERVES 6

125g (4oz) butter

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp very finely chopped onion 8 peppercorns, lightly crushed

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

Heat the vinegar, onion and peppercorns together in another small pan until the vinegar has reduced by half.

Put the egg yolks and lemon juice into a blender and purée until just creamy, then strain in the vinegar mixture and blend again.

With the blender still going, slowly pour the melted butter in. As you do so, the mixture will thicken to a beautiful creamy consistency.

Season with salt and pepper and serve while still warm. If you need to keep it warm, transfer it to a bowl and stand in a saucepan or roasting tin of boiling water.

This is a labour-saving way to make béchamel sauce and tastes just as good as the traditional version (see the cheese sauce). Parsley sauceis particularly easy when made by this method because you don’t have to chop the parsley; simply pop the sprigs into the blender with everything else.

SERVES 4

25g (1oz) butter

25g (1oz) plain flour

275–425ml (10–15fl oz) milk

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put the butter, flour and milk into the blender, then add about ½ teaspoon of salt and a good grinding of black pepper.

Blend at high speed for a few seconds to break up the butter and mix everything together. There will be some lumpy bits of butter, but that doesn’t matter.

Pour the mixture into a medium-sized saucepan and place over a moderate heat. Stir the sauce until it has thickened, then turn down the heat and leave to simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Lengthy simmering, to avoid a raw, floury taste, is particularly important with this method because there has been no initial cooking of the flour, as in traditional sauce-making.

VARIATION

3–4 tablespoons of very finely chopped celery and ½ teaspoon of celery salt can be added to the sauce after blending and simmered until tender.

Add 125g (4oz) grated cheese after the sauce has cooked.