Baked Sweet Potato with saucy bacon puy lentils and sour cream

Now I originally didn't think to blog this, because you know, I'm kind of out of practice.  I just make things.  I look at what I have in the pantry/fridge, what needs to get used and ask myself 'what do I feel like?'.  You might have noticed from my previous two posts that veges are something I'm really enjoying and if I'm honest I could handle eating vegetarian at least half of the week.  But I don't think my family can do that, well not for an extended period anyway...

I had some sweet potatoes in the pantry and below them on the shelf below were a packet of  puy lentils.   I remembered the amazing puy lentils I ate at Jamie Olivers' restaurant like almost seven years ago and thought I want to make them... but I didn't exactly find a recipe so I just started mucking around with flavours I liked.

This turned out way better than I could have even imagined and I'm a little pleased with myself to be honest.  We had it for lunch today and the whole family (well apart from Laura who doesn't like sweet potato) devoured and agreed I could make this again... (Laura loved the lentils!)

So please excuse there aren't as many photos as I would have liked but when I make this again I'll add them... promise!

Ingredients:
5 medium baked potatoes (you can get some large ones and cut in half, just as many as you would like)
2 tsp oil
salt
1 large onion diced
1 carrot diced
1 stick celery diced
1 clove garlic, sliced
5 pc short cut bacon sliced
200g puy lentils (use red, brown or yellow lentils if you can't find puy)
generous lashings of pepper
1 sprig rosemary
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup fresh parsley finely chopped
1 litre beef stock
tb plain flour


Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees c
Prick your sweet potato with a fork say 5/6 times
Place each sweet potato on a piece of alfoil big enough to completely roll it up an cover in
sprinkle some olive oil and salt on to potato, wrap and put on tray into the oven.

Soak lentils in bowl, ensure covered with water.

In a large open pan that has a lid,  place onions, carrot, celery, bacon, garlic and remaining olive oil over medium heat, and heat stirring occasionally until carrot becomes soft

Drain lentils and rinse, add to pan along with 500ml of the beef stock, add rosemary and bayleaves.   Turn heat down to a simmer and put the lid on for about 20-25 minutes, the stock will reduce.

After 25 minutes add the remaining stock and parsley with lots and lots of pepper.  Simmer away for another 10 minutes before sprinkling flour over the top and mixing through for the last five minutes to thicken up.

By now, your sweet potatoes should be cooked, unwrap onto your plate and poke with a fork to expose some of the flesh, you want your lentils mix to seep inside.

Finish with a dollop of light sour cream and serve! Filling and healthy!

Is this something you could see yourself eating?

Vege Crisper Curry

We are obviously not getting to the farm at the moment during COVID-19 Isolation, given it's about 50 minutes drive away... I have had farm produce delivered which is awesome but never the same as picking it yourself... 

I wanted to take advantage of the bounty I had and also start to cook more 'wintry' type meals - it's getting cooler now.

So I got to chopping!   You can use whatever veges you have - I like to put softer type veges like eggplant, beans, corn and peas in later so I keep those separate to root veges.  I don't mind if the sweet potato gets a bit softer, but I do like my beans to have a bit of crunch and my eggplant to have a bit of its' shape.  

All in all this takes about 30 mins to prepare with the shopping and about 1 hour 20 minutes all up til it's on the table.  So it's something you could make earlier in the day between Zoom meetings if you had to and then heat up when it's knock-off time!

Ingredients: (just what is mine, only compulsory vege items are the onions and garlic)

1 large onion or 2 medium onions

3 cloves garlic

2 carrots

2 medium sweet potatoes

250g pumpkin

1 parsnip

2 small eggplant

150g fresh beans

1 tsp garam masala

contents of 4 cardamom pods or 1/4 tsp cardomon powder

1 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp cayenne powder

1 packet of curry milk powder

1 litre chicken or veg stock

1 can of chickpeas, drained

4 stalks fresh coriander, chopped

Method:

Chop all your veges, finely chop your garlic

Mix together your spices

In a large pot which has a lid, sweat your onions and garlic in a tablespoon of oil over a medium head - then add spices.

Let it become fragrant, about 2 minutes, stirring here and there..

Then add your root vegetables and 1 cup of the stock, put a lid on 

While that is simmering away to the rest of the stock add the coconut milk powder.

After 25 minutes lift the lid and add the coconut stock.. and then your softer vegetables.

Also add your chickpeas

And lastly the coriander.  combine well, put the lid back on and keep simmering over medium heat for another 25 minutes.

It will smell amazing and you can choose to serve it with rice or on its' own.  Either way a winner, the sauce is worth soaking up with the rice or some fresh and warm sourdough.

Green Mac N Cheese !

I mean who doesn’t love Mac N Cheese without the guilt ?  There’s not one person in our house that complains this is green or has veges in it.  The only complaint is whose serve was bigger and why isn’t there anymore !?

I’ve made this probably five or six times and saw it on Jamie Oliver’s Veg series and decided to get the book:

I'm always on the case for having at least one vegetarian meal a week, and this has lots of good ideas for mains and sides.

Green Mac N Cheese takes about 30 minutes to prepare and about 1 hour 10 minutes from first chop to on your table.    It's also one of those meals that can be a meal for 5 or a side for 8-10 serves.  Depends on what you feel like.

I of course have tweaked some of this over the number of times I've made it so feel free to do that yourself,  I've added cherry tomatoes in before the bake, I've put lots of cheese on top before, I've used broccoli instead of broccolini...  Jamie uses flaked almonds instead of panko breadcrumbs, you can use that or regular breadcrumbs... up to you.  

Ingredients

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1 large leek, sliced

200g broccolini, stalks chopped, florets reserved

40 g butter

Thyme - a couple of stalks of fresh or 1/2 tsp dried

2 tb plain flour

1 litre light milk (or whatever you have)

400g pasta of your choice (I use orecchiette)

150g vintage cheddar

30g parmesan cheese

30g spinach (can be baby or silverbeet or even frozen)

1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs 

Method:

Preheat over to 180 degrees c

Chop up your veges, reserve your florets

Put a little oil in the pan, add all veges apart from the florets in the pan and add butter and thyme.  I also put a pot with water to boil for the pasta later.

Let it cook for a while, you want the leek to caramelise.

Then, sprinkle over your flour and mix it in...

Then, add milk approx 150-200ml a time and stir, let it thicken then add another... 

How good does that look!? Smells amazing too!

by the 600ml mark it won't thicken much so just add the rest and let it come to a broil.

Put your pasta into your boiling water


Grate your cheeses - I cheated and put mine in the theromix...



Then add the cheese to your mixture, add your spinach and combine.

Remove from your pan, put into a blender and whizz.  You may have to do a few batches depending on the size of your blender.   My thermomix did the whole thing.

Combine your mixture with pasta and broccolini florets into and ovenproof dish

Then sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top and a little more grated parmesan.

Bake for about 35 minutes until it starts to form golden patches on top.

Enjoy!

Do you reckon you could give this a try?