Meatless Monday - Ratatouille with Corn Cakes

Today marks what will hopefully become a regular thing - a week's worth of meals already planned and shopped for! In the interest of our waistlines and budget we have decided to make 2 or 3 of those meals vegetarian. Tonight's dinner was this Ratatouille with Corn Cakes. So fresh and packed with flavour, I thought it was delicious! Hubby thought it needed beef. Oh well!

Ratatouille with Corn Cakes
p102 'Almost Vegetarian' by The Australian Woman's Weekly Cookbooks, 1993

2 tbs olive oil
1 medium brown onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed (I used 3 cloves - can't have too much garlic!)
3 baby eggplants (180g) sliced thinly
2 medium zucchini, sliced thinly
1 red capsicum, chopped finely
1 green capsicum, chopped finely
150g button mushrooms, halved
2 x 410g tins chopped tomatoes
2 medium tomatoes, chopped finely
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup parmasan cheese flakes

Heat oil in a large saucepan; cook onions and garlic, stirring, until onion is soft.
Add all other vegetables and cook until tender.
Add both tins of tomatoes and the fresh tomato. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, incovered, for about 20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft and the sauce is thickened slightly. Season to taste with salt and pepper (and sugar, 1-2 ts depending on the acidity of your tomatoes).
Serve ratatouille with corncakes, topped with basil and cheese.

Corncakes:
2/3 cup wholemeal plain flour
1/2 cup white plain flour
130g tin corn kernels, drained
2 x 130g tins creamed corn
2 eggs
3/4 cup (180ml) milk

Sift flours into medium bowl; add combined corn, creamed corn, eggs and milk. Whisk until comined; stand 30 minutes.
Pour 1/4 cup mixture into heated, greased frying pan. Cook until bubbles appear on surface and underneath is browned. Turn; brown other side. Repeat with remaining mixture.

Do you have a favourite vegetarian meal? I'm looking for inspiration so would love to hear your ideas!

Daring Cooks September - Indian Dosas

Our host this month is Debyi from the Healthy Vegan Kitchen. She has chosen Indian Dosas from the reFresh cookbook by Ruth Tal.

I love Indian food but have never made or even eaten dosas before so this was a great challenge. It was made more challenging by also being a vegan recipe. While I think I could go vegetarian quite easily, I do love my eggs and cheese a bit too much to go vegan for any length of time!

A dosa is essentially an indian pancake, and very similar to a French crepe in many respects. I used atta (chickpea) flour for the dosas and also subbed garam masala for the curry powder. For the filling I went with curried potatoes from our fave Indian cookbook, A Taste of India. This was a heady mixture of potatoes with onions, garlic, chili and mustard seeds. I think the mustard seeds must pack a lot of heat because even my chilli loving husband thought it was a bit too spicy!

Dosa Pancakes
1 cup (120gm) spelt flour (or all-purpose, gluten free flour)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp curry powder
½ cup (125ml) almond milk (or soy, or rice, etc.)
¾ cup (175ml) water
cooking spray, if needed

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, slowly adding the almond milk and water, whisking until smooth. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spray your pan with a thin layer of cooking spray, if needed (I found the spray prevented the dosa mix from spreading around the pan). Ladle 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of your pan in a circular motion until it is a thin, round pancake. When bubbles appear on the surface and it no longer looks wet, flip it over and cook for a few seconds. Remove from heat and repeat with remaining batter. Makes 8 pancakes.

The taste test ...

The dosas themselves were fantastic. If you like pancakes you'll love these! I probably wouldn't make the potato filling again without major changes to the recipe. It was just too spicy and I felt it needed a fuller flavour. I would have added in some coconut milk to cut through the heat but unfortunately we'd run out. I would love to experiment with different vegan fillings and I also think the dosas would be the perfect accompaniment to a curry just on their own.

Thanks for a great challenge Debyi! Looking forward to next month!