Vegetable & Lentil Stew with Mash & Greens

'Tis the season for delicious stews and comfort food isn't it? I enjoy a good stew at any time of year if I'm honest, but there's nothing nicer than having a tasty moreish winter stew in the cold nights to warm you through.
This vegetable  stew is absolutely delicious, add in the green infused mash and you have comfort food at it's absolute finest.
And yes vegetables, lentils and chickpeas, super healthy but are also absolutely delicious, I promise you won't be disappointed with this super tasty dish. You're tummy will be full and very happy.
Another couple of excellent points with this meal:

• You will find most of the items are store cupboard or things you may already have to hand.
• The cost per mouth fed is super low. A big pot like this would feed 5 comfortably i'd say.
• Its a one pot stew.. no need for lots of washing up. Another pan for your potato mash, and you're done!
• It is Gluten/Wheat free, Dairy Free, Low fat, Vegan and full of great vegetables packed with vitamins and goodness. It would also be free on Slimming World ( I know this from doing S/W in the past.. your milk may have to come out of your daily allowance, or of course omit it)

Ingredients:

For the Root Veg Stew

2 medium Carrots
1 Medium to large Parsnip
Half a swede if you have it
1 Leek
1 White onion
3 Large Garlic Cloves
150grams of Frozen Peas
1 Tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 Tin of Green Lentils, drained and rinsed
1.2 Litre of Vegetable stock
12 Sprigs of Thyme (little leaves removed)
2 Bay Leaves
3 generous tablespoons of Tamari (Or regular Soy Sauce if you're not Gluten free)
Glug of Olive Oil

For The Mash

1Kg of white potatoes
150ml Soya milk
Table spoon of Dairy free margarine
100 grams (or two good handfuls) of Spinach
2 Spring Onions
2 Teaspoons of Cumin
Salt & Pepper

Method:

• Heat a glug of oil in your pan on a medium heat
• Whilst the oil warms chop your onion and crush your garlic
• Add your onion first and let this cook through for 5 minutes before adding your garlic, stiring and making sure they don't burn or stick.
• Chop your root veg: Carrots, Parsnip and swede in to small pieces and add to your pan, stirring it together, cook through for 5 minutes
• Chop your leek all the way to the top and add to the pan
• Add your bay leaves and thyme leaves. As well as the leaves you can leave a spring in the pan to infuse, but remember to take this out at the end to avoid a twiggy mouthful.
• Add your chickpeas and lentils
• Add your hot 1.1 ltre of stock and bring to the boil
• Add you frozen peas
• Then add your Tamari (or Soy sauce if you're not Gluten free)
• Leave to simmer for 30 minutes

Whilst this is now bubbling away you can get cracking on your mash

• Peel and chop your potatoes, place them in cold water with a pinch of salt and bring to the boil
• Turn down to a vigorous simmer and let them cook till soft
• Chop your Spring onions in to rounds, including  the green
• Once  the potatoes are done, drain and return to the pan. Add in your Milk ( I use soya, but feel free to use whatever milk you prefer) and margarine, mix thoroughly and mash till your potatoes are smooth
• Mix in your spring onions and spinach and cumin. The spinach will start to wilt with the heat of the mash.
• Season as you require

Once the vegetables in your stew are soft you're ready to assemble a lovely bed of mash topped with your delicious stew!

My husband loves a side of crunchy bread with this to soak the juices up. I'm happy with an extra serving of mash ;)

Dig in and Enjoy!

Foodie Tuesday: Lifestyle changes & Banana Breakfast Bars

I mentioned recently that i have been undergoing some lifestyle changes and transcending in to a happier healthier me. 

A big part of that is what i put in to my body. 

Food. I love food. But what i have been eating for the most of my adult life has not done me any favours.

Its not about weight or size, its about how you feel. And my insides were constantly pissed at me for what i was feeding it. 

I have lived off Diet coke (or Pepsi Max) and sweeteners (aspartame in particular) for years, riding the constant fake-sugar rush roller-coaster of ups and downs.

If I'm honest I didn't pay it much thought. It was only when I had yet another recurring flare up of IBS that i knew wasn't stress related (which can often be a contributing factor for me) that i had to take a serious, long hard look at what i was potentially poisoning my body with:

Pre-packed foods rammed with preservatives, false sugars and my arch nemesis... gluten. 

I've quit wheat many times, but often fallen off the wagon for the odd cake here of crusty slice of bread there. Because I've never formally been diagnosed with intolerances I would always fall back in to eating wheat, or bizarrely 'treat myself' to a cake now and again. Which is bizarre that my mindset was wheat filled cake= treat, as within an hour or so i would have tummy cramps and major bloating. 

So after quitting it for good about 2 months ago and making some drastic lifestyle changes, I have honestly never felt better. 

It's worth mentioning here that i follow a plant-based diet also through choice. I am a Vegetarian (Pescatarian turned Vegetarian) and it's my choice to not eat meat. Its a very personal subject and I know people have very strong opposing opinions on the matter; whenever I tell people I am a veggie people often like to offer their opinions on the matter, and that's cool. We all have our own thoughts and feelings and i will happily chat with anyone about this. But ultimately it's a choice I made and I've never been happier. Ethically and physically, I feel pretty damn good.

Anyway, back to today's post.

After I realised that when you quit Gluten and you're a vegetarian there's not a whole lot of options out there for you ( especially in restaurants.. why oh why do the veggie options have to be battered, breadcrumbed or pastry?!) I got to looking for recipe books. I wanted meals that i could cook from scratch and that were of course yummy. 

Late to the show as per usual, i discovered the Deliciously Ella recipe books. Fab fab fab.

Really great source of healthy plant based meals and snacks.

If you have any other vegan/veggie/gf recipe suggestions, I would looove to hear as  I am really on the look out for anything new to cook.

Within the first week I'd cooked up batches of delicious goodies and had the whole family enjoying healthy, scrumptious food.

So today I thought I'd share my slightly tweaked version of the Banana Breakfast Bars

Banana &Cranberry Breakfast Bars Adapted from Deliciouly Ella

Ingredients
2 Ripe Bananas
200g of Rolled Oats
A handful of dried cranberries
100ml Almond Milk
Juice of 1 orange
2 tbls cashew butter or almond butter
1 tbls ground cinnamon
1 tbls honey
1 tsp vanilla powder
coconut oil for greasing

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• Slice & then mash your bananas with a fork until all mush. 
• Place the smooth banana mush, oats, cranberries, orange juice,milk, butter, cinnamon, honey and vanilla in a bowl and stir together until everything is mixed together nicely.
• Grease a brownie tin with coconut oil. I use the coconut oil spray which works great for this.
• Scoop your ingredients in and smooth out to an even layer in your tin.
• Bake for 12-15minutes. I quite like a crunchy outter-layer so i leave mine in for the latter.
• Leave to cool and chop in to bars.
• Enjoy your breakfast bars.

The first time i made these just following the recipe directly (which is just bananas, no cranberries or orange) and they were yummy but verrry bananery...
The second time i decided they needed a little something to break up the bites from being just banana. I added the cranberries and a bit of the orange juice which cut through the strong banana flavour well. Plus each mouthful had a chewy cranberry to counteract the full mushyness of the banana.
Orange zest would also be great to add in if you're feeling it.


I hope you like this new segment I'm hoping to bring to the blog more regularly. I'm constantly in the kitchen so i really would love to share more with you.
And if you have any plant based/Gluten free recipes that you recommend, i need to know!! Seriously i need more recipes and I love working from recommendation, let me know in the comments.

Happy Cooking...