All of these recipes have been used, adapted and endorsed by me, a real person. They are vegan but don't let that put you off.

Aubergine and tomato curry

Quite spicy. Especially the day after. I love the fennel taste and the chunks of raw garlic and ginger.

Ingredients

• 3cm Cube ginger, chopped pretty coarse
• 6 Cloves garlic, chopped pretty coarse
• 800g Aubergines (three medium/2 large)
• 2 tsp Fennel seeds
• 1 tsp Cumin seed
• 1 tbs Ground coriander seeds
• ½ tsp Turmeric
• 400g Chopped tomatoes
• [optional] 200 g cashew nuts

Instructions

1. Roast aubergine in chunks with veg oil and salt until browned
2. Fry cumin and fennel seeds with oil a for a minute
3. Add other spices and tomatoes, cook to a paste
4. Add aubergine and cashews (if using), cook for 10 minutes

Origin: Mum. Possibly from a Madhur Jaffrey book

Lentil Dahl

An all time favourite mil flavourful curry.I have prepared this more than any other dish, often tripling the quantity for a dozen people or more.

Ingredients

• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, finely diced
• thumb sized piece of ginger, finely diced
• 2 tbs curry paste (e.g. pataks, not sauce!) or 2 tsp curry powder
• ½ block creamed coconut or 1 tin coconut milk
• 1 cup of red lentils (200 g)
• [optional] 100 g spinach
• [optional] handful of fresh coriander leaves

Instructions

1. In a saucepan fry the onion, garlic and ginger
2. Add curry powder/paste and fry for a minute
3. Add red lentils and fry until lentils are coated in oil.
4. Add one tin of coconut milk and 2 cups of water
5. Cook until lentils are soft
6. When cooked, stir in fresh coriander leaves and/or spinach

Origin: Mum.

Tagine

A very pleasing sweet spicy dish. having a tagine pan that can go in the oven really helps with the caramelisation, but you can make do with a casserole dish

Ingredients

• 1 sweet potato (about 300g/10½oz), peeled and cut into roughly 2cm chunks
• 1 aubergine, cut into roughly 2.5cm chunks
• 2 courgettes, halved lengthways, sliced into 2cm half-moons
• 1 red pepper, stalk removed, seeds removed, cut into thick slices
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp harissa paste
• 2 tbsp clear honey or e.g. agave syrup
• 100gready-to-eat dried apricots, halved
• 400g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• handful chopped fresh coriander, to garnish
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 190 C
2. Mix the sweet potato, aubergine, courgette and red pepper in a large bowl. Drizzle over 2 tablespoons of the oil and mix to coat. Season generously with salt and pepper
3. Roast vegetables until browned
4. Heat the remaining oil in a lidded casserole over a medium heat. Add the onions and fry for 3–5 minutes, stirring regularly, until softened. Add the garlic, coriander and cumin and fry for 1–2 minutes, stirring frequently, while the vegetables roast
5. Stir in the chopped tomatoes, harissa paste, honey, apricots and chickpeas until well combined. Add the vegetables and cook for 2–3 minutes.
6. Cover and transfer to the oven. Cook for 30 minutes, then stir in 200ml/7fl oz cold water until well combined and return to the oven, covered, for a further 15 minutes, or until the tagine is thick and the vegetables are tender.
7. Sprinkle the tagine with the chopped coriander and serve with freshly cooked couscous or bread

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Background

For my 17th birthday a dear friend gifted me an A6 blank notebook with a couple of hand drawn illustrations of Gorillaz on the covers. This was intended for use as a journal, but I was several years away from discovering introspection, so I started writing recipes in it. This book has been everywhere with me and I still consult it on a weekly basis.

Many of these recipes were transcribed to a google drive in 2018 by my partner at the time. This has been very useful, but I would like to remove google from my life and self manage my digital presence myself wherever possible. So, I aim to add recipes from the original book and google drive to this website where they can be easily shared with others.

The idea for this page came from Elise when she visited Gothenburg in summer 2025. Thanks pal!

An aside on recipes from the web

Have you ever wondered why online recipes became so fucking unusable circa 2015? Basically it's because of SEO (search engine optimisation). The more cruft, long paragraphs and big photos you cram into a web page, the higher google will rank it. This higher google ranks it, the more people will find it. The more clicks you get, the more ad revenue you make. A minimal little text page like this will not be surfaced by google (and I don't monetise via ads lol), but will hopefully help you cook a tasty meal.

Here's a nice reddit comment with some recipe sites that don't suck .

I have recently started using paprika to extract recipes from webpages. This has done more to reduce my blood pressure than any amount of statins or low sodium cuisine. I found the app via Molly White who I respect greatly and has an awesome blog.