Welcome to my new blog, have some paella

Hello,

I've recently moved back to London, the most cosmopolitan and delicious of cities, from a place where most spices are impossible to find and chillies had to be smuggled past airport security on the lookout for potentially disease-carrying illicit vegetables. The tiny South American nation of Uruguay has much to recommend it, but if like me you are a life-long vegetarian (or simply not the biggest fan of dripping slabs of beef), food isn't one of them. Anyway, I promised myself that once I got back to a land of culinary diversity I would appreciate it properly, forage in markets, sample everything, and cook elaborately. I've also been inspired by a recent rash of newspaper articles advocating going veggie as a means of saving the planet, but generally accompanied with uninspiring recipes, and by friends who think I must eat loads of Quorn and Linda McCartney sausages (I don't eat these things EVER, because vegetables are AMAZING). Thus was born the idea of starting a food blog, because lots of people have one, but not many are meat-free, and because I want to pay tribute to the glorious joy of being in London and being able to find everything you could ever want to eat (if you ever feel ambivalent about multiculturalism, go and live somewhere where all the restaurant menus are pretty much the same, you'll be begging visitors to bring houmous and coriander too).
So without further ado, here's a recipe - for paella, as I asked some people selling it off a truck by City Hall today if they had a vegetarian version and they told me there was no such thing, and I beg to differ. This does not claim to be very authentic, but does feature piquillo peppers and Calasparra rice from Brindisa in Borough Market, and has been eaten and approved by Spanish people. It's a brilliant recipe for house parties - just make a huge dish and let everyone help themselves, and in my experience half of them won't realize there's no meat or seafood in it.

You need:-
an onion
6 cloves of garlic
a green and a red pepper
2 artichokes, prepared and chopped
a teaspoon of rosemary
a litre of vegetable stock
a tablespoon of tomato puree
a pinch of saffron
a generous teaspoon of paprika
250g rice
a jar of piquillo peppers in oil
olives
a squeeze of lemon juice
fresh parsley

Fry the onion, the garlic, the peppers and the artichokes in oil (in a BIG pan) until they start to soften, then add the rosemary. While that's cooking, make a litre of stock and add the tomato puree and the saffron, and stir until they dissolve. Add the rice to the cooking vegetables, stir and cook for a few minutes before pouring the liquid in. You are not supposed to stir paella at all, just leave it on a low heat and let the rice absorb the water until it's cooked (add more stock if it needs it), but I would move it around a little if you ever want to wash the pan up again. It's supposed to have a burnt crust on the bottom though. When the rice is done, turn off the heat and mix in olives, piquillo peppers, lemon juice and fresh parsley. And eat!