Give me your best recipes

[valancystirling]

I'm trying to get myself back in a routine of cooking and eating at home. We've gotten way too lax with eating out, and it needs to stop.

I'm going through a stack of cookbooks, including macrobiotic, vegetarian, asian, and uncooked. I just spent some time finding vegetarian and vegan lj communities, though I haven't had time to look up recipes yet. I'm making a list out of my cookbooks first, and then I'll put together weekly meal plans and shopping lists.

Do you have any recipes I should try? I'm looking for healthy and quick, doesn't have to be vegetarian, but it does have to be dairy-free. Or, any really good recipe websites I need to look at?

Comments

[fi.livejournal.com]

Ooh, my mum just yesterday sent me her recipe for Irish stew - made with beef, not lamb. No dairy, and very low fat. Takes ages to cook though. Interested?

[valancystirling.livejournal.com]

Definitely! That sounds wonderful :)

[fi.livejournal.com]

IRISH BEEF STEW

Round (stewing) Steak, whole pieces, NOT cubed
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes
Salt & Pepper

Method

The amount of meat will determine the size of the dish. Slice the steak as thinly as you can and leave the pieces large, as they will disintegrate otherwise.
Peel potatoes and slice the bigger ones. Leave some of them whole. Carrots are optional. If using them, slice them into rings. Plenty of onions is the secret to this stew – so use as many as you can. They should be sliced, not diced.

Starting with the potatoes, layer all the ingredients in a large casserole dish – finishing with sliced potatoes.
Halfway through layering, season with plenty of salt and ground black pepper.

Cover all the ingredients with boiling water containing 2 Knorr beef stock cubes. It might seem like too much water, but don’t worry, the potatoes will absorb a lot of it. You may even have to add extra during cooking.
Place in a hot oven until you see it bubbling, then lower the heat and let it cook as slowly as you can – at least two hours. Half way through cooking, stir the ingredients to encourage the sliced potatoes to break up – hence thickening the juice.

This dish is fat free, providing you trim off all the fat from the meat! Freezes well.

The slower you cook this stew – the better!

Enjoy!

[valancystirling.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[nickittynic.livejournal.com]

I don't have any good recipes for you (I only cook desserts, haha!) but I've always had good luck with www.allrecipes.com. It's a general recipe site but they have little subdevisions. Here's the link for vegetarian: http://vegetarian.allrecipes.com/

[valancystirling.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And I've always thought it was a lot more fun to make dessert than dinner :)