Help! There's a Vegetarian at my BBQ!

As a vegetarian, who is the only vegetarian in my close circle of friends, I have been to soooooo many dinners and barbecues where the only food to eat was the salad. And telling you now, seriously, vegetarians like hot food too! Like the amazing skewered vegetable recipe at the end of this post.

The thing is, often someone will bring a +1 to a dinner party or BBQ, and even the partner won't know they are vegetarian. (My husband of 12 years still forgets....) so being prepared for the event that a vegetarian could show up unannounced, and having hot food ready to go.... Guaranteed BBQ success.

The tricks to feeding a vegetarian at a BBQ:

- always have 2 types of salad. I always have a boring lettuce or spinach salad made f garden vege, dressed with salt, pepper, and a little lemon juice. This caters for those allergy types as well, as clearly every ingredient can be seen, saving a lot of, 'are there any nuts in this?'. And then I pair it with either a potato, rice or pasta based salad with a boiled egg in it. This won't help with your vegans, but they have the green salad, and the egg helps to cater to the protein of your vegetarians.

- Corn on the Cob. In summer we always have this growing wildly. I usually just go and pick one cob per guest as the BBQ is cranking up. Throw the cob, husk and all, on the barbie and forget. Peel the husk back creating a handle, and a glorious corn experience awaits.

- Falafel. I keep a ready supply, but if you don't, don't stress. But an instant falafel patty thrown on the hot plate (I use a non-stick aluminium foil underneath) makes an easy burger patty.

- Asparagus. Throw it on the grill, rotating as it gets those grill lines, and serve hot.

- Large, flat mushrooms. Giant flat mushrooms drizzled with oil, pepper and a little chili powder make a meaty meal.

- Potato Slices. Sounds strange, but I learned this one in China at a Korean BBQ... Take a sheet of non-stick baking paper and put it on the hot plate. Using a mandolin, thinly slice a potato. Wash well. Place on the BBQ... When the edges are slightly browned, turn the slices over. These will take the longest to cook, but they are delicious with a dipping sauce.

- Vegetable Skewers. See below

- Dipping Sauce. Everyone loves a choice. I like to have tomato sauce (duh), a Thai Chilli Sauce (sweet with ginger), and a spicy Satay sauce. This gives your guests flavour options which will blow their mind.

Also, those carnivores need to eat vegetables too.... When dished out to the boys, these skewers never disappoint.



Vegetable Skewers

1. Soak long wooden skewers in water for about an hour.

2. Wash button mushrooms in water, slice a yellow courgette, slice a purple onion, slice thickly a green pepper, and rinse cherry tomatoes.

3. Thread into a colourful arrangement on a skewer

4. Optional: marinate in a mix of olive oil, dark soy sauce, pepper and chilli powder.

5. Throw on the BBQ- can be cooked on the grill or hot plate.

6. Serve on the stick, optionally with a drizzle of sauce.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Bacon and Mushroom Fettuccine

Those of you who have been following for a while will know that feeding the man here is.... Challenging! But since recovering from chemo and colon cancer, he is at least trying new foods, and even will eat pasta. Usually I make this without the bacon, but he skipped breakfast and begged for meat. It does however make enough for 2 large portions, so he ended up with leftovers for work. And as we all know, the mushrooms make everything taste "meatier" so there went another trick to lower his meat intake. I am a sneaky vegetarian after all! Ridiculously easy to make, tasty, and the ingredients are never far from the fridge.

Ingredients
1/2 onion, diced
4 mushrooms, sliced thinly
2 slices of bacon, diced
1 handful fettuccini
2 cloves of garlic
2 springs of rosemary
1 vegetable stock cube (optional)
Teaspoon olive oil
Water
Salt and pepper

Method

1. Boil water with salt. Snap fettuccine in half, and cook until nearly done... Still with a slight hardness in the middle. I like snapping it in half so it fits in a standard saucepan, and so that the man doesn't complain that it's too hard to get the pasta on the fork!

2. While pasta is boiling, heat a deep fry pan, add butter and diced onions. When onions are clear, add bacon to the pan.

3. Using a pestle and mortar, crush the garlic and rosemary, then add to the pan. Add the mushrooms and stir. Add a vegetable stock cube if you wish at this point.

4. Drain pasta, adding a few tablespoons of the boiling water to the fry pan, and add the fettuccine to the fry pan.

5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir until all the ingredients are mixed and the mushrooms are soft.

6. Serve and eat.

 Great for those in a rush meals. It takes less that 10 minutes from "I'm starving, what's for lunch?" to being on the plate. To change it up, sometimes I will use penne instead, and a little diced chicken instead of bacon, and a tiny tin of coconut milk. Throwing in a couple of diced green chillies then gives the whole dish a somewhat Thai flavour and the man thinks I have more exceptional cooking skills than I really do. ;) Sorry, there are no photos as the man ate it all before I could take a decent one (he was dying of starvation remember), and a plastic container for lunch just seemed less classy.