'Rescue Remedy' Lentil Pot

I'm giving my fitness routine a bit of a kick.

Every so often in life, you need a kick start or a change of direction, whether it be your diet, your hobbies or even something as simple as your journey to work or the chair you choose to sit in front of the TV. It's easy to get stuck in a routine that could benefit from a little freshening up from time to time.

I'm trying out a few new classes at the gym, and in addition I've started weekly training with a PT to give me a sense of structure to my workout week. We'll see how it progresses.... I'll report back.  After my first session my muscles were super sore...obviously in need of that little shake up!

So, this meal was a quick 'throw it together' protein packed rescue remedy for sore muscles. Pretty much all the ingredients are renown natural anti-inflammatories and so made for a super healthy antidote to pep me up! The fact it took little more than 5 minutes to cook up is always a bonus.

Also check out these Turmeric Spiced Burgers that were specifically created for post-workout situations... namely my Tough Mudder challenge!

Recipe: 'Rescue Remedy' Lentil Pot

Serves 1

Ingredients:

• 1 cup green lentils- precooked
• 1 cup packed spinacg
• 1 small onion- diced
• ½ tsp tumeric
• 2 cloves garlic
• ½ tsp fresh ginger
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Cook onion and spices in a little coconut oil for 3-4 minutes, add remaining ingredients and warm through until the lentils are hot and the spinach wilted. Add salt and pepper to serve.

Note: I use pre-cooked frozen (and defrosted) lentil portions, but you could use canned cooked lentils or cook dried lentils for approx 25 minutes prior to following method.

Summer shepherd's pie...lightened up!

Summer is not typically a time for comfort food of the warm, filling, stick-to-your ribs type... the soups and stews, pies and gravy...

But you know what, sometimes a little comfort food is exactly what you fancy. So what to do in this hot summer weather? Lighten it up of course!

I guess this dish is little bit of a contradiction. Shepherd's pie without meat or potato- the two key ingredients right? Wrong!!

Here I have gone for a tomatoey lentil mix to substitute the meaty filling and a lightened up mashed cauliflower topping. This dish tasted so good, even better than I had anticipated as the mashed topping was really amazing. Shame my photos don't really do it justice (I find these types of dishes hardest to photograph… any tips very welcome!)

This dish is pretty quick to put together though there are a few different stages, more than my usual 'throw' together meals. However this is also a great dish for cooking up a large batch, for example I cooked up a huge batch of lentils to freeze in portion sizes for later use, I also made a triple batch of the shepherd's pie base mix as this will be fantastic with new potatoes, served cold with salads, with spaghetti… Pretty versatile. I love leftovers!

For a little inspiration here are a few of my other lentil 'mince' based dishes:

Lentil sloppy Joe's

Lentil Spag Bol

Chilli lentil pitta pockets

P.s I hadn't originally planned to post this today, but it had a lot of love on Instagram...so I pushed it forward.

Fancy a sweet treat tomorrow? You got it! 

Recipe: Summer Shepherd's Pie

Serves 2 (could easily be double)

Ingredients: 

Base

• 1 small white onion- finely chopped
  

• 1 carrot- finely chopped

• 1/2 cup finely sliced red cabbage

• 1 carton of chopped tomatoes

• 1/2 cup frozen peas

• 2 cloves garlic- crushed

• 1 scant tsp dried italian herbs  

• 1 1/2 cups cooked green lentils

• 1-2 tsp fine flour mixed with 1 tbs water (for thickening- i used gram flour) 

Topping: 

• 1 1/2 cup grated cauliflower

• 1 tbs nutritional yeast

• 1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard

• 1 tbs almond butter (i used this blanched almond butter) 

• salt and pepper to taste

Method: 

Chop onion, carrot and cabbage finely by hand or pulse in food processor (I did that).

Saute the veggies for approx. 5 mins with the garlic, dried herbs and a splash of oil. 

Once softening, add the frozen peas, chopped tomatoes and lentils, allow to simmer for  another 5 mins. Add a little flour to thicken a little if needed.

Meanwhile grate (or process) the cauliflower until fine. Boil or steam until tender (approx. 5 minutes). Drain well and add the remaining topping ingredients and blend until thick and smooth. 

To assemble, spoon the base mix into a 15-20cm deep pie dish and top with the cauliflower mix using a fork to roughen the surface.

Bake at 200ºC for approx. 30 minutes or until the top begins to go golden. 

Serve immediately.

Quinoa ‘meat’ balls

Remember these ‘meat’balls’?

And these burgers?

Well, it was really just a matter of time before I combined the two to get a gluten free, high protein hit with a nice spicy smoky kick!  I typically eat a lot of nuts, seeds and beans to maintain a good protein intake, but what I love about these balls is that they focus more on pulses and grains, plus the fact they are perfect for a snack on the go, to toss on top of a salad, to wrap up in a tortilla or to slather in sauce….

I’ve now made these countless times and I pretty much keep to the same proportions and flavours each time, although I nearly always double or triple the batch so I have plenty to freeze.  The ones  in the photos were rolled in polenta prior to baking to give a little crispy coating for my wrap but I often just leave them plain and then they look more like the original

‘meat’ balls.  The only significant difference between these balls and the originals that used rice,  are that these balls tend to be slightly dryer, I think it was the rice that gave them more of a chew so feel free the substitute rice for the quinoa to get a GF version closer to the original if you prefer.

Right, I’m off…I’m on a huge baking mission today since yesterday was sabotaged by my broken down car which had to get to the garage at short notice, therefore my plans for the day had to be totally re-written. Oh well, I guess that’s life… you just have to roll with it sometimes.

On my list to do:  this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge, soup, dips and these meat balls to stock up my freezer. Some more smoosh bars, and also some chia pudding experiments planned…watch this space!

 P.S The tortilla sauce in the photo is a lentil and peanut dip (soon to come)....so good!

Recipe: Quinoa ‘meat’ balls

Ingredients

• ½ cooked lentils
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1 cup mixed wholegrain high protein flours  (gram, buckwheat, oatmeal)
• 2 tbs ground flax
• 2 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs oilve oil
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ black pepper
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• Pinch nutmeg
• ½ chilli powder
• ½ parika/cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp molasses
• 2 tsp mustard

Method

Mix everything together in a large bowl. Mixture should be sticky but manageable. From apricot sized balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.(

optional- rolls in polenta for a cripy coating prior to baking).

Bake at 180C for 25- 30 minutes turning over half way through. These freeze well.

(Adapted from my regular 'meat' ball recipe)

Spicy Lentil & Chickpea Soup

Time for more soup… and more flatbread! I think this flatbread recipe will become my go-to soup accompaniment- made fresh it’s just so good! This time I made it using spelt flour plus baking powder (use 3 tsp baking powder per 200g spelt flour) and it was so soft and fluffy with an amazingly crisp crust.

This spiced lentil soup was lovely and warming helped along by a chilli kick! The lentils and chickpeas also made for a great protein packed meal. If you wanted to bulk it up a little more or didn’t have any bread to hand you could top it with some cous-cous instead.

Soups are so easy to make and I always make sure I cook up a big portion and freeze leftovers for work day lunches. I make all my soups in my Thermomix, as it’s perfect for the job as an all-in-one gadget, but I have given the more typical blender method below.

So, after such a virtuous first course….what is for dessert?  May be sticky toffee pudding or chocolate brownie torte?

Or if like me this will become lunch at the office, then keep your eyes peeled for my forthcoming granola bar experiments, the perfect fill-you-up, feel good snack to round things of just nicely!

Recipe: Spicy lentil and chickpea soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• ½ tsp chilli flakes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion (diced)
• 150g red lentils
• 900ml vegetable stock
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 200g cooked/canned chickpeas
• Small handful of coriander
• Dollop of or soy yoghurt or swirl of soy cream to serve

Method

Dry fry cumin and chilli flakes for 1-2 minutes. Add the oil and onion and fry for a further 5 minutes. Stir in lentils, vegetable stock and tomatoes then simmer for 15 minutes. Blend the soup with a hand blender to get a rough puree. Add the chickpeas and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Stir through the roughly chopped coriander and serve with a blob of yoghurt or a swirl or cream.

Left over portions can be frozen.

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