Today I'm making a vegan black eyed bean soup which is crammed full of healthy vegetables, making a chunky soup that will fill the emptiest of bellies but also bursting with bold flavours to satisfy the most demanding of taste buds. It's easy double or triple up the quantities to make ahead and freeze for next week's lunches.

Chunky Ginger and Black Eyed Bean Soup

Gavin Wren Recipes, Soup, Vegan, Vegetarian

About 10 years ago I lost a lot of weight. Over 4 stone to be exact, it also proved to be a turning point in the food history of my life, it was a time when seismic change occurred to some of my most deeply ingrained, English eating habits. Soup became my new lunchtime God, eschewing the bread it replaced, leading me to hunt high and low to find or create the perfect, filling, tasty …

This mustard roasted fennel and carrot recipe is an easy vegetable side dish that goes perfectly with roasted fish or meat, a great autumnal dish to warm up the kitchen after the summer disappears. The cosy cinnamon and the mustard seeds make this an easy but tasty vegetarian or vegan side dish.

Mustard Roasted Fennel and Carrot

Gavin Wren Recipes, Side dishes, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Today’s recipe is a roasted fennel and carrot recipe tossed in mustard seeds, cinnamon and olive oil, to make a warm, slightly spiced vegetable side dish that has almost no preparation (no peeling – woo-hoo!) and looks like a show stopper when you put it on the table. Go fennel, go! Fennel? Funnel? Huh? Fennel is one of those peculiar ingredients which I didn’t eat for a very large swathe of my existence. Not through …

Charred roasted roots & spinach hot winter salad

Charred roasted roots & spinach hot winter salad

Gavin Wren Main Dishes, Recipes, Salads, Vegan, Vegetarian

You know when your marriage is going down the pan, because you get home from work and your partner shouts “Dinner’s in the oven!” You say “Great, what is it?” “Salad” (I think this is © The Mary Whitehouse Experience c.1990) It’s that time of year when making cold, summery salads really doesn’t cut the mustard, not to mention comprising highly unseasonal produce. Consuming light, frilly layers of crunchy, cold, raw vegetables just sounds like …

Spicy vegetable and preserved lemon quinoa

Spicy veg and preserved lemon quinoa

Gavin Wren Main Dishes, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian

Today’s hearty pot of wonder is a dish full of mouth filling flavour that has a slightly spiced, Indian slant. It’s a vegetarian, quinoa plate of joy, that through it’s development went from “mmmmm, this is nice” on it’s first outing, through “mmmmm, this is pretty good” on it’s second, to “wow, this is really tasty” on it’s final incarnation that you see here. I’ve always had a soft spot for Indian food, when growing …