Tomato, lentil and vegetable pasta - a syn free, dairy free, vegan recipe

These days my diet is best summarised as 'nearly vegan'. Health wise, I've not noticed any particular benefits, although I'm sure my weight loss is connected. The main focus of my diet is that it's sensitive to Harry's allergies and whilst there is plenty of processed food that is allergy friendly, I mainly focus on whole foods, cooking and eating a wide variety of beans, vegetables, lentils, fruit. That's not to say I'm perfect by a long shot - vegan cake is a food group as far as I'm concerned.

Making filling, healthy food that appeals to a toddler's burgeoning taste buds and my husband's carnivorous tendencies whilst being allergy friendly is not easy. I was over the moon at the reception this pasta dish got - Harry inhaled his, M did similarly(and he didn't even suggest it could have been improved with chorizo or bacon) This is based on a recipe I've used on Brownie holiday - so for the Guiders out there, it scales up to feed large quantities easily and, topped with grated cheese is a favourite with our girls. 

Tomato, lentil and vegetable pasta
Dairy free, vegan recipe. Syn free
Serves 8

Fry light/ olive oil
2 red onions
3 cloves of garlic
2 sticks of celery
4 small-medium carrots
3 peppers - I only use red & yellow as a personal preference
2-3 small to medium courgettes
150g mushrooms
1 cup of frozen peas
1 cup of frozen sweetcorn
1 cup of red lentils
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 400g carton of passata
large splodge of tomato puree
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper
Handful basil, shredded


I prep all the veggies for this in the food processor - but if you're not, then finely dice everything aside from the carrots, and grate those.
Liberally spray a pan with Fry light (or add a good glug of olive oil) and when warm add the onions and garlic and cook over a medium heat until softened
Add the celery and carrots and continue to cook for another 5 minutes of so
Add the rest of the veggies and cook down for another 5 minutes
Add the tinned tomatoes, passata and tomato puree and stir well.
Bring to a gentle simmer, and add the lentils, oregano, salt and pepper

The next two steps are purely optional - for me I do this for the Brownies, but don't bother at home - 
Cook down well for about 30 minutes or so
Take off the heat and allow to cool before blitzing with a stick blender

Add a good handful of fresh basil, before stirring into pasta

Chickpea curry recipe: vegan, dairy free, soya free, syn free

This quick, easy and incredibly tasty recipe is vegan, dairy free, egg free and soya free - when I Instagrammed it I used the #veganuary hashtag and it got lots of interest, similarly in both my Slimming World and CMPA groups people were after the recipe.

I wrote that first paragraph back in January. And then abandoned this post - and to be honest a lot of the blog. Without wishing to jinx things, I do have a few posts lined up at the moment.

This recipe was supposed to be the Chana Masala from the Oh She Glows cookbook, and it is still loosely based on that. However, I did that food blogger thing of adding a bit of this, a bit of that - until it became a bit different. Then when I made it the second and third times I did it from memory rather than a recipe and we seem to have set on my recipe so I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog it.



Chickpea curry - dairy free, soya free, vegan
Syn free on Slimming World

Fry light spray (or coconut oil if you're not on Slimming World)
2 red onions
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 red chilli
Thumb sized piece ginger
3-4 carrots
2-3 sweet potatoes
2 - 400g tins chickpeas (if you're egg free, keep the water and use it to make awesome egg free meringues)
2 - 400g tins chopped tomatoes
1 400g carton passata
1.5tsp cumin seeds
1.5 tsp garam masala
1.5tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
If not feeding a baby - Half tsp salt
Large bunch coriander

Either by hand or in the food processor, peel and finely chop the onions, garlic, chilli (I deseed it as I'm feeding Harry too) and ginger
Peel and grate the carrots and sweet potatoes
Liberally spray a large pan with the Fry light - or add about a tablespoon of coconut oil and warm it so that it's liquid
Add the cumin seeds and fry gently until they start to pop
Add the garlic, chilli, ginger and onions and cook over a low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly. The onion should be really soft and completely translucent
Add all the spices and stir well
Add the grated sweet potatoes and carrots, and both tins of chickpeas. Stir to make sure that everything is coated in the spice/ onion mix
Add the tomatoes and passata and stir well.
Bring to a gentle simmer, put a lid on the pan and leave for half an hour - 45 minutes
Top with lots of freshly chopped coriander and serve with rice or roti.

Quick, easy, and super healthy. What's not to like?

If that's piqued your interest in a dairy free or vegan curry - why not try one of these recipes from some other lovely bloggers too:

• Over at The Veg space there's a lovely Swiss chard and new potato dhal that's ideal for those of us who are dairy free as it's packed full of calcium containing greens.
• Recipes from a Pantry has a gorgeous looking Roasted pumpkin red thai curry  Do not that you'll want to omit the fish sauce if you're veggie or vegan. Bintu suggests simply and easily replacing it with extra lime juice
• There's another Thai curry - this time green from Tin and Thyme - packed full of loads of lovely veggies and with my favourite cashew nuts too
• Tinned tomatoes has a curry my hubs would love - Mushroom and potato 

I'm adding this post to Attachment Mummy's Friday fabulous linky...

And A mummy too's Recipe of the week one too

Giant couscous salad: dairy free, soya free, syn free, vegan

This salad is lovely - slightly warm, with the fresh crunch of all the veggies, and the spice of the chilli really make it a light, and tasty lunch.

It's really yummy with a hefty dollop of my staple humous - why not try my aubergine humous which is so, so tasty - if I do say so myself. It'd be awesome with some chopped avocado as well, but despite it being pretty much the only bit of Slimming World I disagree with. It's healthy fat! We need healthy fats! I'm desperately trying to shift the last bit of weight.

A dairy and soya free recipe, it's quick and easy to knock up, and perfectly portable for packed lunches. I'm an Ikea Lagom ambassador and use their Fortrolig containers as I can see what's in them and so am less likely to forget what I've got and leave my lunches languishing in the fridge. 

Anyway, enough chatter - on to the recipe: 

Giant couscous salad 

Dairy free, soya free, vegan, syn free

150g giant couscous

Enough cold water to cover

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup frozen sweetcorn

1/2 cucumber, diced

1 red pepper, diced

3 small-medium carrots, grated

1 red chilli, finely diced

Cherry tomatoes to taste, halved (I add these as I dish up, as they go a bit bleurgh otherwise and use 7 per serving)

1 tin mixed beans in water, drained

Olive oil Fry light/ or a tablespoon of olive oil (but obviously the recipe won't be syn free if you add this) 

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

In a small medium pan, put the couscous and cover with the cold water. Bring to the boil and add the peas, sweetcorn and drained beans. Turn the heat down low and allow to simmer for 6 minutes

While this is cooking, prep your veggies and pop in a medium bowl. Although I just put them straight into a food container that can go in the fridge because I'm lazy efficient like that. 

Once the couscous is cooked - it'll be slightly translucent - drain the pan of any leftover water and leave to cool for 10 minutes or so. 

Spray with some olive oil fry light, or add a tablespoon of Olive oil at this point

Once cooled slightly add the contents of the pan to your bowl and mix thoroughly

Add the juice and zest of the lemon

Serve, with your humous, or just as it comes. It's really delicious and so lovely just slightly warm.  

As a side note - Harry wasn't keen (but he's teething and only wants to eat weetabix at the moment) but did enjoy picking up the giant couscous, peas and sweetcorn before daintily discarding them over the side of his high chair. So even if it's not a winner for eating, apparently it's nice for his pincer grip! 

If you're in the mood to egg the sunshine on with some more dairy free salads - why not have a look at these from some other lovely bloggers:

Tin and Thyme has what I suspect would be a beautifully fresh Fennel salad (I love fennel - I wonder what Harry would make of it)

Spiced root vegetable soup: dairy free, vegan, syn free

Soup is one of my favourite things to eat for lunch, and this is no exception - warming, packed full of healthy veggies with a fantastic kick of spices. It really is the perfect autumn lunch, and Harry loved it too. The other wonderful thing about this soup is just how thrifty it is. If you're going to have some leftover pumpkin knocking around this weekend or next week, it'd be ideal in here.

I'm having a real on-plan week with Slimming World - I have a very stubborn 2.5lb that I'd like to shift so this is a fantastic syn free lunch with lots of lovely speedy veggies in too.

For other baby led weaners, soup isn't a natural go-to, certainly for me it feels a lot like a puree, but Harry loves it - spoons are a bit wayward, so it worked beautifully with some slices of our current favourite dairy and soya free bread (Waitrose Essentials)

If you're not dairy free this would be a perfect lunch with a cheese and ham toastie. Harry had his bowl with bread for dunking and I had mine as it came. This would be amazing with some warm soda bread. 

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Spiced Root Vegetable Soup

by Penelope Reader October-28-2015

Dairy free, egg free, soya free, vegan

Ingredients

• 2 cloves Garlic
• 2 Parsnips
• 3-4 medium Carrots
• ½ Swede
• 2 Sweet potatoes
• 1l Vegetable Stock
• 1l Water
• 1tblsp Ground Cumin
• 1 Red Chilli
• ½ tsp Ground Coriander
• Pepper

Instructions

1. Pop the peeled and rougly chopped veggies in a large pan and cover with the stock and water 2. Add the garlic, spices, salt(if this isn't going to be eaten by babies) and pepper 3. Bring to the boil and turn the heat down before simmering until the veggies are lovely and soft 4. Puree with a stick blender until as smooth or lumpy as you like

Details

Prep time: 10m Cook time: 30m Total time: 40mYield: 6 bowls (grown up portions)

This keeps beautifully in the fridge so I make a batch at the start of the week and then we have it until it runs out. I say we - I'm a lot more keen on leftovers than Harry who hasn't quite come around to eating the same thing for a couple of days. 

If you like this bowl of comforting vegetable goodness, why not try these other super soups

• Squash, sweet potato and coconut Autumn soup from Munchies and munchkins looks like a fantastic option if you have leftover (Teal) pumpkin next week
• I love the sound of this Parsnip, ginger and chickpea soup from Rough measures- although I swear M and Harry are going to despair of me if I add chickpeas to anything else! 
• I love lentils, and am intrigued by this Spiced Lentil, Carrot and roasted tomato soup that includes chocolate from Tin and Thyme
• The colour of this Beetroot and vegetable soup from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families is absolutely stunning, and makes me wish I hadn't finished ours from the veg patch all up - I shall have to pop up to Barnet market so I can give this one a try (although Harry's bib will never be the same again I suspect!) 
• This Thai Butternut squash soup from Celery and cupcakes sounds lovely - and so easy using a pre-prepared curry paste. Although I'll be double checking the ingredients in it just in case there's soy sauce.
• Harry loves peas so this Broccoli and pea soup from Eats amazing would be a great one to try (I suspect it won't be as much of a hit with M) 
• This Vegan leek and potato soup from Planet Veggie looks great - I've used cashews this week to make a 'cheese' sauce for pasta but hadn't thought of using them to make a soup creamy. 
• This gorgeous looking and sounding Porcini and sherry soup from The Veg space (I love sherry) is definitely going on the to make list for the grown ups! 

I'm entering this into this month's No Croutons required challenge from Tinned Tomatoes

I'm also adding this to A Mummy too's Recipe of the week

Slimming World lighter lunches - syn free beans

This post continues on my lighter lunches themes - so meals I can either pack up and take out, or eat at home that I know are dairy free, soya free and syn free.

Baked beans from a tin are syn free, but to be honest, unless they're heavily doused in cheese and on a baked potato or I'm using them to eke out a cottage pie they're not something I typically choose to eat. My beans, cooked in the slow cooker are low faff, make loads and taste amazing. Although the dried chillis I'm currently using are hotter than hell and not to be recommended unless that suits your tastebuds. 

Slow cooker baked beans

2 red onions, diced

2 large carrots, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 peppers - I used red and yellow, diced

Handful of mushrooms, diced

1 red chilli - fresh or dried (I leave dried chillis whole, and chop fresh ones)

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 jar passata

Big splodge tomato puree

2 tins mixed beans

Put the vegetables, garlic, chilli, tomatoes, passata, tomato puree and beans in the slow cooker

Cook on high for 4 hours

Remove the lid and allow to cook for another hour

If you don't have a slow cooker, you can do these on the hob or in the oven on low. Get a casserole dish with a lid (Or fashion one out of a double layer of tin foil).

Spray your casserole with fry light, and soften your onion, fresh chilli if using and garlic for 10 minutes over a low heat

Add the other veggies and cook for another 5-10 minutes until softened

Add the tomatoes, passata, beans, tomato puree and dried chilli

Put the lid on and cook on a very low heat on the hob for an hour, or in the oven on 120 degrees for 2 hours (if you're doing it in the oven why not put some baked potatoes in too)

Serve as they are, or as an accompaniment for Slimming World sausages or meatballs, or on wholemeal toast (Healthy Extra B). If I weren't dairy free, I'd top them with some grated cheese as my Healthy Extra A stirred in so it goes all melty.

Slimming World lighter lunches - Syn free tabbouleh

My healthy 2015 is going well, I'm losing weight slowly but steadily and am as active as my hips and back will allow. One of the bonuses of baby led weaning is that Harry and I seem to eat very healthily - lots of vegetables and next to no processed food. Despite a wet, cold and rainy morning the baby and I are eating an apple (he is very keen on eating what you eat) and I have a herbal tea.

Lunches however are my downfall - only of the things that happens if we're busy is that I skip lunch and end up trying to eat the entire kitchen before supper. I seem to be someone who needs to know that what I've got to eat is tasty and satisfying, the mugshots etc which can be so popular at Slimming World just don't tend to hit the mark for me, so I typically make a batch of something up for lunch that I can either eat from the fridge or as a pack up. This gets around the difficulty of finding things I can grab and go that are dairy and soya free as well.

This is more of a tabbouleh-esque recipe as it doesn't use bulghur wheat and is more of a guideline. I tend to have it with a piece of fish, or leftover chicken, or ham. The protein is important as I'm discovering that it's that that keeps the munchies away and stabilises my blood sugar (previous attempts at weightloss that have involved *ahem* skipping meals tend to fail when my blood sugar spirals into my ballet flats at about 3pm - see comment above about eating the entire kitchen).

Syn free tabbouleh

1 cup couscous
2 tsp vegetable bouillon powder
1 cup boiling water
1 cucumber
4 big vine tomatoes
Big bunch flat leaf parsley
Big bunch mint
1 lemon
1/2 clove garlic
salt & pepper

Put the couscous in a bowl with the 2 tsp of vegetable boillon and the grated garlic (you could use a stock cube, but I found 1 cube made it too salty) and the boiling water. Leave to absorb for about 15 minutes
Dice the cucumber and tomatoes
Finely chop the parsley, and the mint leaves - I don't worry about the parsley stalks, but pick the mint leaves first. 
Zest the lemon, then juice
Add all the extra ingredients to the couscous, taste then season.
Serve with salmon, ham, chicken - anything really.

 If you aren't being healthy, then add some extra virgin olive oil when you season this - 2 tablespoons should do nicely.

Of course you can use this as a base and add any and all veggies you like, chilli would be a nice addition too. 

Spicy pepper and tomato soup: A Slimming World syn free recipe

Lunches for me of late are soup. Lets face it, until it's warm enough for salad - soup is pretty much the standard. I tend to rotate between favourites, of late my minestrone soup has been my go to. This week I fancied a change. Lacking much in the way of inspiration I remembered something I'd seen on our Slimming World group and decided to work with that as a starting point. The poster said hers was quick and easy and my variation really was too. The best part of it is that it's all storecupboard ingredients, so it's an easy one to have the ingredients for on hand, just in case you're in need of something quick, easy and syn free.

Spicy Pepper and tomato soup - syn free, dairy free, soya free, egg free
Serves 4

1 jar Peppadew peppers or similar - I used the hot piquant ones as I like a bit of spice, but if you're not a fan of heat, why not have the sweet ones
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 litre chicken stock
1 tin cannelini beans

Drain the peppers, and pop the lot in a pan
Add the tin of tomatoes
Add the chicken stock
Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes
Take off the heat and cool, before blitzing to a consistency you're happy with
Add the drained cannelini beans, warm through before serving

If you're doing Slimming World then you could use your Healthy Extra B to have wholemeal bread with it. I tend to use my Healthy Extra B for oats so just have it by itself. M has it with my homemade 50:50 wholemeal.

Meal Planning Monday

I thought Spring had sprung last week - I divested myself of my winter coat, donned my sunnies and ballet flats, happily enjoying the sunshine. My thoughts turned to warmer days, lighter evenings and lots of time in the park with Harry. Then of course the weather caught up with me and it turned freezing again, and once again my attention was taken by baked potatoes, casserole and comfort food.

Harry and I are pretty much in our stride for our weeks, between Playgroup, Rhyme time, and Hartbeeps we have a busy time of it. Sometimes fitting in naps and meals mean things go slightly awry, but it's a learning curve. This week we have all of those things and Harry's weigh in at the Health Visitor clinic. It's a nervous time. Almost as nerve-wracking as mine, but for the opposite reason.

Breakfasts - porridge and fruit for me, Harry's having porridge or pancakes or toast at the moment as we're off eggs.

Lunches - I've got minestrone soup that I made at the weekend. Syn free and delicious. I really do like it.

Suppers -

Monday: Leftover ham and veggies with baked potatoes

Tuesday: Ham, egg and potato wedges

Wednesday: Ham, egg and mushroom omlettes

Thursday: Root veg dhaal (will blog this week) with rice

Friday: Leftover dhaal with roti

Saturday: Freezer surprise

Sunday: It's our first wedding anniversary and to celebrate, we're treating ourselves to a Dine in deal from M&S.

Baking wise I made Cherry and almond buns (post up next) at the weekend and those, plus some wonderful dairy free Welshcakes from Mark's mum will probably mean that I don't lose any weight this week!

Here's holding on for more sunshine next week - as always, don't forget to hop on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is up to.

Stuffed butternut squash - a Slimming World recipe

I'm not doing too badly at Slimming World - steadily losing a pound or so a week. I struggle with snacks, as there's only so much fruit that is appealing and in season at this time of year and as I can't have dairy products, lots of the suggested snacky bits are off the table for me.

I'm finding lots of inspiration for recipes on line, and either adapting things like paella, or using other people's slimming world recipes as a starting point for my own tastes. I've set up a Pinterest board for recipes that already are suitable, or I think could be adapted... it's here, and if you'd like to be added to submit either things you've tried or dishes you've found online then drop me a line in the comments, or via email.

This is one of those recipes - adapted from here. I ended up making a few changes, based mainly on the fact that I tend not to shop specifically for a recipe any longer - see this post for why. I actually really enjoyed it and would definitely make it again. I would also say that for us, this easily did 4 portions, plus loads of the topping for the freezer.

If you're doing SP (which I haven't yet) I think this would work as there's no carbs in there. If you know SP well, and could comment below, that'd be terrific. 

Stuffed Butternut squash

1 butternut squash, halved lengthways
300g chicken breast (it was one of that week's Special buys at Aldi, otherwise I'd have used thighs)
1 red onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 sticks of celery finely diced
1 large (or 2 small) carrots, finely diced
1 red & 1 yellow pepper, finely diced
250g (or so) mushrooms, quartered
Big splodge tomato puree
1/2 head cauliflower, whizzed up to rice in the food processor
3/4 pint veg stock (I use the low salt bouillon from Marigold)
2 tsp paprika - I think the sweet smoked paprika would taste fantastic, but I don't have any in
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp red chilli flakes
Salt & Pepper
Fry light
If you have it, then cheese from your HEA - we used a little pecorino as it's sheeps cheese and Harry seems to be able to tolerate this.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
Halve the butternut squash, scoop out and discard the seeds* and then scoop out some of the flesh to make a nice sized hollow for the filling. Dice this and put it to one side for the filling
Season the 2 halves of squash, spray with fry light and put, skin-side down on a baking sheet - bake for 20 minutes or so

Your veg and chicken all want to be diced about the same size. Spray a large pan with fry light, and soften the onion, garlic, celery and carrot for about 10 minutes. If it starts to stick add a splash of water
Add the chicken and cook until it's lightly browned
Add the rest of the veggies - peppers, mushrooms and butternut squash
Pop in the tomato puree, spices and chicken stock
Add the cauliflower, give everything a good stir, turn the heat down and let it simmer uncovered.

Now I should say this made bucketloads - enough to freeze at least half for another day. Which is great as we enjoyed it. It'd also be lovely with a baked potato, and if you had a HEA (and aren't dairy free) then some feta or halloumi would be amazing. 

Fill the butternut squash halves with the chicken mixture, top with the cheese if you're using it. Bake for 20 minutes or until the cheese is nice and melty/ browned.

Serve with steamed greens - I had kale and brocolli.