Old Fashioned Vegetarian Food

[Glitterbiscuits]

I ate at Good Earth in Leicester last week. It's a totally vegetarian restaurant. It's been open nearly 50 years.

The menu is great, so unpretentious. I'd love to recreate some of their style of dishes. They had things like parsnip loaf, bean bake. Much more of an emphasis on grains and pulses.

I used to make a great nut loaf and a veggie shepherd's pie.
We eat too much pasta, chilli, curry etc.

I want to move back to basics. Can anyone suggest some old ( I want to say hippy style) dishes they love or used to love?

You can buy the original copies second hand from WOB

Or any good 2nd hand book platform

I love another of Delia’s in her Complete cookery course. It’s veg and rice in a cheese sauce but not the same as the one above. Essentially, you make a sofritto, add rinsed brown lentils and double quantities of stock. Fry or roast cauli/cabbage or other veg of choice until browned but still with some bite. Standard cheese sauce. Mix all together, more grated cheese on top. Bake or grill until cheese melted and bubbling. Perfect comfort food!

Kings Pantry, I remember it well. I also know quite a few goat keeping friends through university libraries.

Myself and my partner are vegetarian, both 40plus years so forever. We’ve given up trying to eat out as never anything vegetarian that we would want to eat or like. It’s just vegan burgers etc. used to love going to vegetarian cafes together, no such thing near us anymore, and standard pub/cafe veggie meals so lovely quiche, new potatoes and salad etc.

I don’t remember many vegetarian recipes as my mums not a cook and once I stopped eating meat just got given the potato and veg instead with no main. I used to have some roses Elliot books and I’ve got an old Linda McCartney one too, a few nice soups in that book.

We live on a lot of vegetable stews etc this time of year as I tend to eat as much veg as possible and less processed ingredients. Then big salads with hard boiled eggs, cheese or new potatoes etc in the summer. We had homemade aubergine and vegetable lasagne tonight as a treat, so yummy.

I love old school ‘hippy’ vegetarian food. We had it a lot as kids, even though we weren’t a veggie family, as my Mum bought the Cranks and Rose Elliott cookbooks. Yum!

@Aydel do you have a recipe for the veggie shepherds pie with marmite gravy? That sounds so good 🤤

Get yourself a second hand copy of Rose Elliot's Complete Vegetarian.

All you'll need for ever!

This isn't a BHF recipe but it sounds good. https://wellnourished.com.au/mushroom-lentil-lasagne/

My mother cooked very ‘old fashioned’ veggie food during my childhood. Cranks, rose Elliott, later delia

There were a lot of beans (kidney, flagolet, butter mainly), lentils, cheese sauces, leeks, mushrooms, nut loaf/cutlet/burger/roast, whole meal everything

this is a more updated version of a book I still have
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rose-Elliots-New-Complete-Vegetarian/dp/0007325614

Oh, and I am SO OVER fake meat, vegan everything and worst of all, one dish on a menu that ticks all the vegan/veggie/ low carb/gluten free/no nuts boxes so is basically a salad with a few seeds.

We're not vegetarian but we like vegetarian food so I have a few cookbooks. Happy to try and photo any recipes that anyone would like.

Delia Smith Complete Cookery Course (my edition comes from the early 80s)
Rose Elliot's Supreme Vegetarian Cookbook, also her Bean Book
Anna Thomas, The Vegetarian Epicure - US writer of Polish descent, published in the 1970s
Bill Sewell, Food from the Place Below - that was the vegetarian restaurant in St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London. No longer there, sadly. Lovely food.

Also, Claudia Roden's wonderful book Middle Eastern Food contains lots and lots of recipes that just happen to be vegetarian. Not the sort of thing that this thread is celebrating, but a wonderful read and inspiration!

I think I can help there ...

Here we go.

sounds great too! Will try that!

Love this book. I got my own copy in a charity shop after I’d left home, to save me calling up my parents for the recipes. And I considered it a very good sign that a boyfriend also had a well used copy on his shelves (I married him).

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g ..that looks delicious

I used to love Food for Thought restaurant in covent garden. You'd have to squeeze in with other people, food was all in hand thrown bowls, everything just seemed saturated with love and common sense. So wholesome. Their cookbook is ace, I had to buy a second copy as I'd used the first so much.

Mushroom crumble is evocative of old school veg stuff for me. Or a cheesy crust, it was all eggs and cheese based. Mmmmn

Oh yes, I miss proper filling veggie food with lots of cheese!
Loved Mildreds in Soho and @Baldieheid also loved Henderson's and was reminiscing with my elderly neighbour about the quiche in Helios Fountain.
So many places only have vegan choices now,c which is fine but I miss tasty cheesy stodge, especially in the winter!

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I used to have a copy of the Vegetarian Epicure. It was much used and eventually fell apart.

Sosmix! My mum turned the whole family veggie when she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis back in the 80s. She worked FT so we had Sosmix made into different shapes every night 😂

Aw this thread is reminding me of Food for Thought in covent garden. Yum! That place was delicious!

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/mar/30/food-for-thought-vegetarian-restaurant-covent-garden-closure

Oh remember this book too from Sainsbury's!!

Meals (Sainsbury Cookbook Series) amzn.eu/d/8kHmiMw

I think my old copies of The Bean Book and Not Just A Load of Old Lentils are in the loft in a tea chest ( for the last 25 years!) It's a horrid grimy dark place I'm scared to go into so I might just order a new copy
Sadly DH has to avoid cheese due to his cholesterol levels so we do eat more vegan meals these days, perfectly nice, just miss the variety.

The Scottish Vegan Cookbook has some traditional recipes like veggie haggis and veggie Scotch broth.

Also- stuffed mushrooms. I use cream cheese, herbs, seeds and breadcrumbs, and put cheddar cheese on top.