There are three things I am always on the lookout for: a great bean burger, a great lentil dahl and restaurant-quality indian food recipes. And this week I cooked two out of the three. (I also made a simple lentil dahl, and while it tasted good, it isn't something I'll be stopping strangers on the street to talk about, unfortunately.)
Breakfast
1. Breakfast this week was just good old-fashioned porridge made with a mixture of water and Koko coconut milk drink. Sometimes I added cinnamon and apple chunks, sometimes I added a little peanut butter. (Does that sound weird? I think peanut butter goes well with everything!) Oats really are the easiest, fastest, low fat breakfast I can think of! And if you run out of flour, you can process it in a blender or food processor and it'll do in a pinch. Another good reason to always have a bag of porridge oats in the house.
Lunch
1. And here is the excellent bean burger recipe. It's actually a chickpea burger, but it tastes really good. I've tried cooking them in the oven and also frying them, and both methods work well. I think I prefer the oven version as they are less oily this way, but may be a bit too dry for some people. Served with salsa or hummus and salad they make a tasty and filling lunch. (I make them the night before and they last a couple of days. http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/
Dinner
1. I had some goat's cheese to use up, and a pasta craving so I searched the internet for a tasty sounding recipe to incorporate the two. I found two, one of which used apple and walnut, and one which used courgette. I had a courgette in the fridge so I went with the latter recipe. It tasted alright, but not very exciting (possibly my fault as I used half the amount of dried herbs instead of fresh), I think it would be lovely as a side dish with fish or chicken, but it wasn't enough on its own, especially with my herb substitutions. I'll try the other recipe soon and see if that one is more satisfying. Here's the link to the penne with herbed courgette and goat's cheese recipe anyway as it's so fast and easy to make:
2. I had a few different pieces of veg to use up and wanted to try something different to what I'm used to so I googled 'Vegan African food' and found a couple of really interesting options before picking this African Sweet Potato Curry. I just left out the ginger and peas, and used what vegetables I had in the house and it tasted really good. The next time I make it though I'll add some protein to it, either chickpeas or beans I think, as it thought it wasn't quite filling enough. The cardamom was really good in it though, worth all the hassle of opening all those pods ;-) http://theeverydayveggie.com/
3. I wanted to make sure that the vegan pesto I made recently was still edible from the freezer, so I made another simple mid-week meal of just salmon, pesto new potatoes and roasted cauliflower. The good news is it tasted fine. I better make a load of it before the plant inevitably dies on me. Here's the link again to the 'peasant pesto':
4. And I've saved the best till last: I found a fabulous website called ecurry which has lots of authentic Indian recipes (and non-indian food recipes too). I came across a recipe for Dum Aloo - an Indian Potato Recipe and it looked pretty straight-forward. It tasted AMAZING, it's probably one of the best things I've ever cooked. As I couldn't imagine not being able to eat it again until after my new diet regime ended I needed to find a recipe for Garam Masala as all the mixes I could find to buy all contained ginger. I found one here, and it tasted good. I also left the fresh ginger out of the recipe. I also replaced the flaked almonds with sunflower seeds just to give it some crunch. This recipe takes quite a while to make, and there's quite a bit of work to it, but it's SO worth it, especially if you get to save some for the next day, when it tastes even better. I shared the recipe with a friend from work who tried it and raved about it. She added a tin of chickpeas to it, I've tried doing that and it works really well - it makes the dish even more filling and adds more vitamins and minerals to the meal. The most important thing to do is to par-boil the potatoes (and don't use floury potatoes; new potatoes or waxy potatoes work best in this) otherwise they take forever to cook in the sauce.
http://www.ecurry.com/blog/indian/curries/gravies/dum-aloo-potatoes-simmered-in-spices-coconut-milk/
I served mine with brown rice and a simple red lentil dahl, but I've been told it also works great with chicken. I just made the dahl really quickly after I had the Dum Aloo simmering away.
This is the dahl I made: http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/soupschilistews/r/lentildahl.htm I just increased the amount of spices and decreased the amount of liquid to make sure it wasn't a soupy texture.
This is the dahl I made: http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/soupschilistews/r/lentildahl.htm I just increased the amount of spices and decreased the amount of liquid to make sure it wasn't a soupy texture.
Bon appetit!
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