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

Riverford veg box: Week four

I do like the veg box arriving, if it weren't for the email each week announcing my debit card being charged I'd persist with the view that it feels like a present arriving.

This week was a bit odd, truth be told. I felt so let down by last week's fruit bag that I really wasn't sure what to expect and was worrying about the content quite considerably. However, I needn't have worried as the produce that arrived was of a lovely quality. There's two things this week that I'm not sure what to do with. I wonder if you can guess what they are?

Blackcurrants
Melon
Salad bag
Cherry tomatoes
Courgettes
Head of broccoli
Bunched beetroot
Broad beans
Apples

I just had to go and check I hadn't forgotten some fruit, but nop that's everything. An easy to use week - Mark loves brocolli, as do I. And courgetti spaghetti is a firm favourite on our menu plan. Melon is lovely to use as a simple, fresh breakfast, and cherry tomatoes when not used up in lunches tend to be my 'hovering around the fridge' snack of choice.

A nice week, nothing explosively surprising, but all good quality and not overripe which is a key thing for me.

Next week a break - but week five will be back soon.

So much better: Spicy tomato lentils with sausages

It's rare that I completely screw things up in the kitchen, but it does happen. December 2000 I rushed making my first ever creme brulee and my sister got food poisoning as the eggs weren't cooked through. No one else did though I hasten to add. It took until last year sometime, for me to try anything similar with eggs. Fortunately my lime curd was a raging success, and the courgette cake it went into poisoned nobody.

Cue Friday night. I got home early and decided to start making Fuss Free Flavours Spicy tomato lentils for our dinner. I was accompanying it with sausages so that our resident carnivore didn't feel too hard done by. That, it turned out was the least of my problems. Since getting meningitis and starting to get migraines I have become really sensitive to smell just before they set in, and whilst Mark assured me that the lentils smelled lovely, something about the scent of them cooking sent me off into a chaotic tailspin, convinced I had spoiled the dish. In the face of blind panic Mark did what any sane man would do when his partner is nearing hysterics about a pan of lentils - he suggested takeaway. I left the lentils in the pan to cool, convinced I would throw them away in the morning, took a sumatriptan and went to bed.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, and the headache from the night before had passed. I studiously ignored said lentils whilst having my breakfast and at lunchtime braved opening the pan. They smelled lovely, earthy, spicy with a hint of something deeper behind them (I love how cumin can add such depth to a dish) That night, I baked the sausages (as always Sainsbury's Taste the Difference - because I really can) and had two with the spicy lentils. I thouroughly enjoyed them, I like lentils at the best of time. Their low GI and general healthiness appeals to me and they go so well lentil ragu is one of my favourite batch cooks.

I would definitely cook these again (without the migraine induced freakout) I have frozen the leftovers and will be insisting Mark tastes them for Thursday night tea as per the mealplan.

You can find the recipe here at Fuss Free Flavours, the only thing I did differently was to add broccoli as that was what I had in the fridge and needed to be used up. Obviously the original recipe doesn't suggest pairing it with sausages (neither does it suggest flipping out and getting a migraine), but I'm guessing Helen doesn't have a hardened carnivore to contend with.

It's not easy being green: Salmon and greens

First of all, apologies for the shoddy pictures - I can't find the camera charger anywhere so am resorting to iPhone apps to try and make my pictures slightly less dreadful.

I've been promising to make this for, oh I don't know - weeks now? Faithfully putting it in each Meal Planning Monday post, then something cropping up - be it a migraine, hospital, Guides - well, you get the picture. Anyway, since discoverint that I'm allergic to one of the meds I was being given for the migraines, life has been considerably quieter *touch wood* and I've been afforded the opportunity to finally make salmon and greens.

It's not the most exciting of recipe titles, it does what is says on the tine I suppose, without there being any tins involved. It's one of those meals I have as a refular midweek feature as it's quick and easy. Contrary to the jams and the breads of this world it asks and requires little of me - yet pays back much in flavour. When I'm feeling like I've overdone the chocolate or the ice cream, I have it by itself. When more sustenance is required I add brown basmati rice. I've successfully substituted the salmon for white fish (when I'm being particularly frugal, whatever is being sold off at the end of the day) and also chicken. Similarly when the kales, and spring greens aren't in season, I've successfully supplemented or replaced greens with brocolli, shredded savoy cabbage, or a bag of spinach briefly wilted. This is one of those dishes you can cook when the day has asked that bit too much of you. When your head is throbbing, when work is stressful, when it's still only Wednesday these are the times that you need something that can be eaten from a bowl, something that feels healthy but still has flavour. I think there's nothing so sad as trying to be healthy and finding what you're eating tastes of cardboard.

So Salmon and greens - again it's one of those recipes that's evolved and I'm not sure where it came from - it's definitely not a recipe book, so it's entirely possible it was in a magazine, or even my own head.

2 gloves garlic chopped finely
Thumb sized piece of root ginger grated (I don't peel ginger, just grate it with a microplane *lazy*)
1 red chilli (or to taste) finely chopped
2 salmon fillets, skinned (Pantry tip: the easiest way to do this is to put the salmon, skin side down on a chopping board, at one end of the fillet the skin will seem slightly thicker and with a sharp knife you'll be able to prize it away. Wiggle your knife in a gentle sawing motion - keeping the blade flat - and the skin will come away from the fish easily. If I ever find out how to upload a video I'll show this, as people always seem to struggle with fish and I've been eating and cooking it since weaning so tend to forget that other people weren't peeling prawns before they could walk)
1 head of spring greens, or a similar quantity (about 6 handfuls or so?) of green vegetables, rinsed and shredded.
60ml/ 4 tablespoons dark soy sauce
The same of water
125ml sherry

Mix up the sherry, water and soy sauce with the garlic, chilli & ginger

Pour half of this over the fish - I chop the fish into finger sized bits - and cover with clingfilm. I tend to leave this for a while if I'm working from home, or if I've just come back from a hellish commute and need to eat I don't bother with leaving it to stand.

Either heat up a non stick pan so that when you hold your hand about 6 inches away from the base you can feel warmth, or oil a wok or similar and heat up.

Put the fish in it's marinade and cook quickly stirring until it's just about done - I cook it through until the finger sized pieces start to flake. The marinade/ sauce will bubble away - this is fine.

Add your veg and pour over the rest of the sauce whilst stirring until it's all wilted down (when I've used broccoli I steamed it lightly first). I recently got a fantastic tip for cooking greens from Helen at Fuss Free Flavours, to cook greens, put them in a colander and put the colander in a bowl, pour over a kettle of hot water - this starts the wilting process so they cook faster, and I find - stay greener.

Serve with rice, or not, as you like. In a bowl. Eat. Not like this...