Vegetarian Birthday Barbecue

As I'm sure I've already said it is Mr VST's birthday a week on Monday and we were down in Cornwall this weekend for an early celebration as we are off to a wedding next weekend. We met up with our friends on the beach on Saturday for a barbecue.

We usually do the same old things on a barbecue but I decided as it was a birthday barbecue and I fancied something different I would have a go at some of the recipes I had found. I did the usual quorn burgers and some of the new Linda McCartney Italian style sausages.

I got together the ingredients for these portobello mushroom burgers too. I used my home made ciabatta as the bun, Mr VST cooked the mushrooms on the barbecue with some chunks of yellow pepper and some haloumi cheese rather than provolone. We put them all together with some pesto mayo and they were delicious if a bit messy to eat on the beach. The mushrooms cook really well on the barbecue and the combination of ingredients was mouthwatering. I will definitely be making them again. Unfortunately I don't have a photo, although I had every intention of getting the camera I didn't actually manage to. I think hunger, busyness and alcohol might have something to do with it!

Pesto Mayo

Inspired by another recipe from Ezra Pound Cake I made a huge batch of salad. I used the same dressing but a can of mixed beans instead of black beans and added some diced cucumber to the mix as well. I didn't have any left over cornbread but I did have some left over spelt bread in the freezer so decided to toast that to use for crutons instead of cornbread. It's a really easy, tasty salad. 

Mixed bean salad with spelt croutons

For dessert we had birthday cake which was carrot cake as Mr VST had requested. I will post separately about that.