.. posted a recipe that needs no alteration or faffing about with in order to be able to be consumed by my mate Sue !!

HOORAY !    [grin]

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Spicy Lentil, Sweet Potato and Coconut Casserole (Serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1½ tbsps coconut oil
• an onion chopped small
• piece of ginger, chopped small
• seasoning
• 1 cup red lentils
• medium sweet potato, cut into 1” cubes
• medium carrot, chopped smaller than s.p.
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• 2 tsps curry powder
• 2 cups Massels stock
• 2 cups coconut milk

Directions:

• Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Sauté the onion and ginger until onion starts to soften.
• Add the turmeric, curry powder, lentils, sweet potato and carrot, with seasoning, and stir to combine.
• Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, or until the lentils and carrot are tender. It’s possible you may have to cook it a little longer for the lentils; but try hard not to over-cook the sweet potato !
• Stir in the coconut milk. Check seasoning and warm back to desired serving temperature.

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This recipe was claimed to be a curry. Words fail. It is, however, just about as simple as a recipe can be – right up my alley.

I have swapped ginger powder for fresh ginger.

I have increased the volume of coconut milk and decreased the stock amount to match up.

You are at liberty to re-change, should you so wish. But I can tell you that with my alterations this recipe is singularly yummy. In fact, I’m finding it fairly amazing how delicious all these vegetarian recipes are .. but that is not to say that I haven’t tried some and cast them into exterior darkness as soon as tasting ’em. You’re seeing only the successes: what else ?!

I went to a shop that sells bulk foods, a couple of weeks ago, and bought (inter plura alia) half a kilo of small sort of green lentils. Today I decided it was time to cook the little buggers – not the whole ½k ! – and found in my recipe files the following:

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Borlotti & Lentil Casserole

Prep: 10’ – Cook: 1 hr 30’ – Servings: 6 portions

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 1 leek, finely sliced
• 1 red capsicum,finely chopped
• parsley – stalks chopped fine, leaves rough
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1 long red chilli, finely chopped
• 2 tsps ground cumin
• ½ tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsps smoked paprika
• 2 tsps dried oregano
• tin chopped tomatoes
• tin borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
• 200g puy lentils, rinsed
• tsp Massel vegetable stock powder
• 3 squares dark chocolate

Instructions

• In a large casserole heat the oil and add the onion, leek, pepper, parsley stalks, garlic, chilli and spices. Fry gently for 4-5 minutes, adding a little water if the mixture gets too dry.
• Add the tomatoes, then refill the empty tin with water, tip this into the pan, re-fill it again to half-way and add this too.
• Tip in the borlottis, lentils, stock cube and chocolate, stir, then bring to the boil.
• Turn down to low, cover and cook for 1½—2 hours until the lentils are tender and sauce has thickened. Remove the lid for a while if there’s too much liquid. Taste and season with salt and black pepper.
• Stir through the parsley just before serving, and top with sour cream.

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OK. That’s the recipe and here is my dinner a little while ago:

See the sort of hazy part inside the right-hand top quadrant ? – that’s steam.   🙂

Because I’m strange, I had it with couscous rather than rice; and I can tell you from my own somewhat gluttonous experience that it tastes very nice indeed !

HOWEVER ! See what I put in red text ? – the cooking time ? Well, I dunno what lentils are like where this recipe comes from (and I have zero memory of where I found it), but my small more-or-less-green lentils were perfectly cooked in half an hour ! So please keep in mind – should you, like me, like the sound of lentils and borlottis together – to keep tabs on your cooking time, yes ?

And if you do, you’ll derive as much enjoyment from this yummy and healthy vegetarian meal as I did. And will ..

Phil, the gasp-making knitter I posted about some days back, has herself posted about re-growing vegies – one of her many “gardening” activities (inverted commas to divide this one from those where she is actually out in the garden). Definitely worth reading, as it’s couched within writing about knitting !

This is of great interest to me: buying seeds is fairly expensive; and the whole process fraught with the difficulty of dealing with flying or crawling or hatching pests.

So I draw your attention — in the event that you, too, should wish to have in your kitchen some vegies that are much easier to produce than are their seeds alone — to this YouTube video.

You’ll find that it actually IS helpful, once you can get your head around the mechanically- (I s’pose I should say ‘electronically-‘) produced voice-over .. I find these largely entertaining, as they’re generally appalling with phrasing: I’ve heard some that have so puzzled me as to prevent comprehension of some sentences; but this one isn’t as bad as that. Promise.

OK, that’s it – my contribution to the Covid-19 time-filling agenda.

🙂

Can it be true ?, they all cried: she’s posting ANOTHER recipe ? What is wrong with this woman ? – why can she not be stopped ?!

Heh heh .. because I’m on a roll re cooking at this time. But I will have to stop as of tomorrow, for there is zero space in my freezer. (And to be brutally honest, I don’t even know if what’s already in there will all re-heat entirely edibly ! But I’m pretty confident ..)

Today I present for your delectation the recipe I didn’t make when I said I would, but only the night before last ..

Oh, before I forget:

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SLIGHTLY SPICY PEANUT STEW

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium-size eggplant, peeled and cut into ½” dice
• 1 tsp salt, more to taste
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• ¼ tsp turmeric
• ¼ tsp chilli
• ¼ cup vegetable oil (use peanut if you have it)
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 5cm ginger, peeled and chopped fine
• 1 long red chilli, sliced small
• 1 onion, chopped
• smallest can tomato paste
• can diced tomatoes
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• ½ cup unsweetened peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
• 1 large-ish zucchini, cut in quarters lengthwise, then sliced ¾”
• 2 tbsps freshly squeezed lemon juice (1 to 2 lemons)
• ½ cup coarsely-chopped parsley, plus some for garnish

PREPARATION

• In a large pot, heat 3 tbsps oil, medium-high heat. Add shallots and fry, stirring often, until soft and caramelized, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer shallots to a bowl, leaving oil in pot.
• Raise heat to high and add eggplant (probably some more oil as well). Cook, stirring often, until lightly browned and just tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer to bowl with shallots.
• Add oil to pot and heat over medium-high: add ginger and chilli and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds.
• Add all spices and cook, stirring, 30 seconds more.
• Add onion and cook, stirring to scrape up any browned bits, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.
• Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, 1 minute.
• Add diced tomatoes, stock, eggplant and shallots and a sprinkling of salt. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes.
• Place peanut butter in a medium bowl, add one or two ladles of the hot liquid, and stir until emulsified, then pour mixture back in.
• Reduce heat to a simmer, add zucchini, cover and cook 10—15’, until it’s tender.
• Turn off heat and stir in lemon juice and chopped parsley. Let cool slightly and taste; add salt if necessary.
• Serve in bowls with rice, garnished with parsley (and chopped peanuts, if you like).

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I must be honest about this recipe: it is not the easiest or least finicky I’ve made. I did promise only to post simple recipes, amongst which this one isn’t entitled to be listed.

HOWEVER ! Whilst I did not even eat it on the night it was cooked, but left it sitting there overnight and then divided it into containers and glommed the contents of one down last night, I am here to tell you that it is REALLY, REALLY DELICIOUS !!

So I s’pose that boils down to saying that the end justified the means; or, basically, that it was very much worth it !    🙂

I can’t seem to get enough chilli recipes to keep me happy !

Friday night ago I had 2 friends to dinner and fed ’em a chilli based on Quorn mince – which recipe is, I promise you, DELICIOUS ! The Quorn simply provides .. well, bulk, really; it doesn’t make you think you’re eating meat (even if the manufacturers would like that). But on the other hand, were it real mince in that chilli, you wouldn’t be aware of the taste of meat – if you see what I mean.

I forgot to take a shot of it.

Anyway. Last night, having made my friend S (yes, the one who monsters me about my crochet) take me to the 7am to 8am elderlies’ shopping hour at Coles and then, having discovered the largely empty shelves, go shopping for me elsewhere, I was in the happy position of having the ingredients of no less than FOUR major meals – so I made the first on my list.

Apart from the somewhat mucky state of the sides of the dutch oven, does that not look good ?? – so I provide herewith ..

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MULTI-BEAN CHILLI

Ingredients (6 servings)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped small-ish
• 1 red capsicum, chopped
• 1 green capsicum, chopped
• 1 medium onion (or 2 small), chopped
• 2 garlic cloves chopped fine
• 1 long red chilli, sliced
• 1 tsp chilli powder (mine is, like, hot)
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• can diced tomatoes including juice
• can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 125g tomato juice / passata
• salt

Instructions

• Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
• Add the carrots, capsicums, onion, and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the onions are golden, 12 to 15 minutes.
• Add the chilli, chilli powder and cumin. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
• Add canned tomatoes and all three beans, tomato juice, and salt to taste. Bring to a boil ..
• .. then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally until the flavours are blended, about 40’. If it begins to look too dry add some water (see below) as needed.
• Taste and adjust the seasonings.
  

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To be noted: be aware of the strength of whatever chilli powder you have !!! The recipe actually requires a tablespoon of chilli powder (ACK !), but I was wise ..

As you can see, there’s no bulk liquid in the ingredients. I found I needed to add more passata; and I also filled the emptied tomatoes can with water and added some of that.

Having stuffed my face last night with this yummy chilli, I found that this-morning it tastes even better (no, not chilli for breakfast: just tasting while putting into containers for the fridge) ! But I shall ignore it for a bit; because tonight I’m making Slightly Spicy Peanut Stew !