Recipe time!

Apologies for not thinking of taking a photo before it got eaten.

Vegan month began with our traditional New Year's dinner, a McSween's veggie haggis (they're fabulous, do try one if you can, even if you don't like/can't face real haggis) with mashed potatoes (with olive oil) and, in the absence of any swede in the Co-op, carrots.

Tonight I had to turn to my imagination to fashion something out of what we need to use up, so I proudly present ...

Slow cooked roasted vegetable pasta sauce

One tin of tomatoes, chopped (or one tin chopped tomatoes)
One tin tomato puree (those little ones)
Half a teaspoon salt
One teaspoon sugar
Six fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped

Two red onions
Half a bulb of garlic
Olive oil

Fresh basil

Put all of the first group of ingredients in a slow cooker and set to medium.
Peel the onions and slice vertically into segments. Peel the garlic cloves and cut into 10mm chunks (very approx). Toss with olive oil on a baking tray and roast for 30 - 45 minutes at 200c/mark 7. When they're just starting to look a bit charred around the extremities, take them out of the oven. Crush some of the lumps of garlic, then add the lot, with its oil, to the pot. Stir, but leave some onion sticking out of the liquid. Leave to cook for about four hours or until you're ready. Just before serving, tear up the basil and stir it in.

Tonight, in the spirit of using up the stuff that's still left, it's lentils with onion (red and white!), garlic and ginger. Bland (No. 2 son has rclaimed his chilli flakes) but comforting enough for the weather.