With bold flavour combinations and clever use of everyday ingredients, Camilla Stephens shows how to create exciting vegetarian dishes that will have even the most dedicated of meat-eaters calling for seconds.

The focus is on food for every day—whether that’s a comforting pie to plonk on the kitchen table after work and school or a lunchbox-friendly frittata. Alongside Higgidy classics such as Garden Pea and Potato Quiche and Squash Mac and Cheese Pie, you will find ingenious ideas such as a 10-minute Fridge to Frittata.

Going beyond the pie and tart, recipes for everything from a One-pan Roast Carrot and Chickpea Traybake to an Artichoke and Butter Bean Salad make this a cookbook you will turn to again and again.

 

The Higgidy Vegetarian Cookbook: 100 delicious recipes for pies, tarts & more,
is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

 

 

 

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Cherry Tomato Focaccia

With its salty, faintly crisp crust and addictively chewy inside punctuated with incredible little cherry tomato flavour bombs, this rather pretty focaccia will pep up any picnic. It’s delicious dunked into one of my dips or, if you’re feeling a bit ‘wahey!ʼ, why not use it to make a superior sarnie?

SERVES 6

EQUIPMENT: 1 rectangular shallow roasting tin, 20 × 30cm

500g strong white flour, plus a little extra for dusting

7g fast-action dried yeast

10g fine sea salt

325ml warm water

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for oiling and drizzling

200g cherry tomatoes, halved

A few sprigs of rosemary, leaves picked

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

 

1. Preheat the oven to 250°C/230°C fan or its highest setting.
2. Mix the flour, yeast, salt, measured warm water and olive oil together in a large mixing bowl to form a sticky dough. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead for about 10–15 minutes until it’s smooth and silky, and bounces back when you poke it. Alternately, you can use a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook if you have one, but knead the dough for 5 minutes only.
3. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a plastic bag or cling film and leave to rise in a warm place until it doubles in size – this should take about an hour.
4. Once the dough has risen, oil the roasting tin, then transfer the dough to the tin and shape it to fit the tin with an even thickness.
5. Cover again with a plastic bag or cling film and leave the dough to rise for a further hour or until it has doubled in size again and is airy.
6. Push straight down with your fingers all over the dough to form holes almost reaching to the base of the tin. Push a tomato half and some rosemary leaves into each hole, then drizzle over some olive oil and sprinkle with the flaky sea salt.
7. Bake the focaccia on the middle shelf of the oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas Mark 6 and bake for a further 10 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and drizzle more olive oil over the focaccia. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before slicing into squares in the tin.

 

Recipe reprinted with permission from Mitchell Beazley.