I, Rebel Mik, am relatively new to cooking. And since apparently running skills don’t transfer to the kitchen, I’m particularly slow, so I’m always looking for ‘quick’ recipes to offset my natural sloth-ness. The requirements are: vegetarian, mostly whole foods, includes protein (in this case lentils), and tasty. This combo fits the bill!
I took this BBC Good Food recipe and since nothing in ‘my kitchen’ (ha! proper chef here) can really be replicated I add whatever veg I have around that I feel like we ‘need.’ Usually I’ll add in a bit of cauliflower and carrots, probably broccoli. Usually I make a lot more than is intended and freeze it for a future dinner or lunch.
INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp sesame oil (I don’t have any so I used veg oil)
1 red onion, finely chopped (I used whatever onion-y thing we had)
1 garlic clove, crushed
thumb-sized piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped (my thumbs are small and I love ginger so I doubled it)
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 ½ tsp ground turmeric
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
2 sweet potatoes (I usually do 1+ whatever other veg I feel like), cut into even chunks
250g red split lentils
600ml vegetable stock (you can also use coconut milk if you’d like a creamy texture, my last go at this was pretty tasty)
80g bag of spinach
4 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal, to serve
½ small pack of Thai basil, leaves torn, to serve
DIRECTIONS
- Heat the oil in a big pan with lid (I use my le creuset dutch oven because I just do for everything)
- Add the onion and cook on low for about 10 min, stirring
- Add garlic, ginger, chilli and cook for about a minute then you can add in the spices: 1 ½ tsp turmeric, 1 ½ tsp cumin, and cook for another minute
- Increase to medium heat, add the veg and mix it all up in the spices (yum!)
- Add the lentils and liquid- either vegetable stock or coconut milk
- Bring everything to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and cook for 20 min. Until the lentils and veg are soft
- Taste! Then probably add more spices 🙂
- Stir in the spinach then add spring onions and basil if you’d like
NAAN RECIPE
Curry deserves naan no? Here’s a quick recipe from Food.com but note it does take yeast (there are plenty without though if you do a quick look) and it asks for 30 minutes to rise. I’ve probably never waited that long and never regretted it but it’s up to you. I also substitute at least half wheat flour and get tasty results!
INGREDIENTS
1 1⁄2 cups warm water
1T sugar
2t active dry yeast
1t salt
3 cups flour, and a bit more for workin’ it
DIRECTIONS
- Combine the water, sugar, and yeast. Give it 5 min to become foamy
- Add the salt and flour and mix well. Knead the dough on a floured space a couple dozen times then form into a ball and place it in an oiled bowl covered with a damp towel. (Don’t clean up your floured space, you’ll need it in step 4)
- Place the bowl in a warm space to rise 30-45 min (even with the full time, the dough doesn’t rise too much, don’t worry about it)
- When the timer tells you to get going, dump the dough out on the floured space and divide into however big pieces you want- you’re going to roll them 1/8″ so choose your size
- Grill it up! In your pan, grill, whatever you got. About a minute an a half on each side will do it but see how it goes for you.
Hope you like! Let us know how it goes if you cook it up!