Lorraine Pascale's Blog, page 4

Butternut squash and miso mushroom vegetable lasagne with curly kale and rosemary

At the moment I struggle to go past a grocery store without buying some vegetables. Winter salads are much harder to make than the light and easy throw-it-together summer versions, but I love the challenge winter salads provide; to come up with something new.

I recently made a lasagne for a friend’s family. It was the full whistles-and-bells version laden with ricotta, cheddar cheese, meat and pork mince and bacon lardons... and it tasted incredibly good. I have experimented with a butternut squash lasagne and sweet potato lasagne in Fast, Fresh and Easy Food using a ricotta, egg and parmesan mix as an easy white sauce. I have been looking for ways to make a really light version for another variation.

I have decided to make the bulk of the lasagne from some organic chestnut mushrooms and some Portobellos. Some butternut squash in the very back of my ridiculously tiny fridge provided the ‘layers’ to which I will built this lovely lasagne experiment.

For some protein, consider mixing some beans or some tofu in with the mushrooms to bulk this meal up a bit. This could be a novel side dish for something else also. This only serves one, but it can easily be doubled or quadrupled for however many people you need to feed. I would say that one bulb (the rounded end only) of butternut squash will do for two people - you can get about 6 slices out of that.

I used regular butter, but oil or dairy-free soy spread would make this dish suitable for vegans. I tried to eat this dish in a way which would retain its Pisa like stature, but after one mouthful Pisa turned to Pompei and it collapsed in a heap on the plate.

A deconstructed version can be made by putting the mushrooms and squash in a Tupperware container to take to work to munch on at your desk.

Do let me know how you get on with this and I am always open to new ideas of how to make improvements and/or different variations.

Enjoy. LP xxx

INGREDIENTS

About 3 rings from the bottom of a butternut squash, seeds and stem removed

300g of chestnut mushrooms

2 portobello mushrooms

2 tsp of fresh rosemary, finely chopped

1 tsp of fresh thyme, finely chopped

pinch of salt

pinch of chilli flakes

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 handful of curly kale, woody stems removed

1 handful of pumpkin seeds

oil, (I used avocado oil)

butter or a vegan alternative if you prefer

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Start with the butternut squash rings. I had already used up the oversized-phallicy-end-thing for my slow cooked lamb with soy and honey. It is a little fiddly to cut the squash in to rings which are the same thickness all the way around, but I found a steady hand and a sharpish knife did the trick. Then lay them out on a foil-lined tray, drizzled with some oil and a little salt. Then bake them for about 15 minutes or so, until just going tender.

Meanwhile, chop up the mushrooms. In the pictures I went a bit AWOL and chopped up far too many. So don't worry, yours will not look as much as this.

Then chop up your Portobellos.

Throw the mushrooms into a medium sized pot with a little butter (regular) or butter (vegan).

Add some garlic...

... Along with the rosemary and the thyme.

Cook this for about 10 minutes until the mushrooms are wilting and reducing down. I found I had a fair amount of liquid left in the mushrooms after 10 minutes and did not want to cook them down any further, so I poured out the excess liquid into a ramekin.

This mushroom liquid tastes delicious and you could use it at a later date to flavour stocks and sauces, or just pour it back over your mushroom lasagne when you are ready to serve. After removing your excess 'shroom liquid, add 2-3 tbsp of white miso paste and mix it all together.

Then add a couple of handfuls of curly kale and gently stir through.

Let this sit off the heat for a moment or two and the residual heat will very lightly allow the kale to tenderise a little (but I do love the bite that kale has to it). Remove the squash from the oven and set it aside. Take one of the squash rings. I picked this one as it looked a bit dodgy and the bottom was the best place to hide it.

Then pile the mixture within the hole and around the squash, which serves to hide the less than pretty bit very well.

Then carry on with another layer...

And then one more layer and sprinkle some pumpkin seeds on top.

Enjoy. LP xxx

Join Lorraine at the BBC Good Food Eat Well Show

Lorraine joins the latest venture from the BBC Good Food Show portfolio - the brand new BBC Good Food Eat Well Show, launching from 27th Feb – 1st March at Olympia London.

As fan, believer and practitioner of clean-living, Lorraine will be on hand to inspire at the ultimate healthy living food event on Sunday 1st March, showing off some delicious healthy recipes in the Healthy Kitchen, live.

The new event is dedicated to gathering together healthy food brands, products and producers, and will show visitors how to balance a healthy lifestyle with their love of good food.

Features at the show include the Healthy Kitchen which will host an impressive line-up of well-known faces, chefs and professionals demonstrating how easy it is to prepare healthy and good food.

The timetable includes Lorraine, Davina McCall, Hemsley + Hemsley, Marcus Bean and Jenni Falconer. Another feature, the Eat Well Forum is dedicated to key diet and lifestyle challenges, and will play host to a range of vibrant discussions and informative talks on the relationship between food, health and wellbeing. Visitors can also enjoy the Eat Well Interview Stage, where they can have their questions answered from specialists including Natasha Corrett, Renee Maguire, Dale Pinnock and Rachel De Thample.

The three day event will showcase 100 exhibitors selling their products, including Superfoods, Coconut Water, Chia Snacks, and Gluten Free Granola.

Book through LorrainePascale.com and save 25% on tickets. Click here to book tickets.

Vote for Lorraine in the Fortnum & Mason Awards

Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards 2015

The annual Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards celebrate the best writing, publishing and broadcasting on the subjects of food and drink. There are 12 categories and an independent panel of judges selects the winner from work published or broadcast during 2014.

Lorraine is in the running, pitted against the likes of Jamie Oliver, The Hairy Bikers, James Martin, Heston Blumenthal and Rick Stein.

Cast your vote for Lorraine today, and if you do, you'll be entered into a draw to win this Fortnum's classic, luxury hamper worth £500.

Vote here!

Voting closes January 31st 2015.

Baked lentil and bean cottage pie with a potato and parsnip mash top

As far as writing a healthier or lighter cookbook is concerned, I always think it is a good idea to include stuff in there that people actually want to bake. I mean, nuts and seeds are great, but if I was given a book of recipes full of stuff that I would never normally cook, then I am not sure I would buy it. Sooo, I was very tempted not to put this recipe in the book and instead place a meaty version in there, but I have it on solemn word from the family that this beany cottage pie really does taste pretty good.

Serves 6

EQUIPMENT & INGREDIENTS

2.5 litre baking dish, measuring

25.5cm square and 6cm deep

Filling

Spray oil

2 leeks, finely chopped

2 big garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 carrots, finely chopped

300g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped

400g tin of green or Puy lentils, drained

400g tin of kidney beans, drained

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

150ml vegetable stock

1 glass of Marsala, dry sherry or red wine

5 large sage leaves, roughly chopped

Leaves from 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped

1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp caster sugar (optional)

1 tbsp finely grated Parmesan (optional)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mash top

2 medium sweet potatoes (about 500g), peeled and cut into 2cm chunks

2 medium potatoes (about 500g), peeled and cut into 1cm chunks (save the peelings to make my Baked Potato Crispies on page 87)

1 parsnip, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks

2 tbsp unsalted butter

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve

Crisp green salad

METHOD

1. Spray a little oil in a large pan and set over a medium heat. Add the leek and cook gently for 5 minutes until it begins to soften. Then add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Next, add the carrot, mushroom, lentils, kidney beans, tomatoes, stock, Marsala (dry sherry or red wine), sage, rosemary and chilli flakes (if using). Whack up the heat and let it bubble away for 20 minutes while you make the mash.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C, (Fan 180°C), 400°F, Gas Mark 6.

3. Bring a large pan of water to the boil (no need to add salt). Add the sweet potato, potato and parsnip and cook for about 15 minutes or until everything is nice and soft. Then, drain well and return to the pan. Add the butter, season well with salt and pepper, and then mash until smooth and keep warm.

4. Once the pie filling mixture has had its time, add the Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and sugar, if using. Let it bubble away for a further minute or two. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water, but if you think the sauce is too thin, then let it bubble away for a little longer. Taste it and adjust the seasoning to your liking.

5. Once the pie filling is ready, tip it into a 2.5 litre baking dish, measuring 25.5cm square and 6cm deep, and then spoon the mash over the top, spreading it out evenly, fluffing it up in places with a fork so that bits of it crisp up during baking. Sprinkle the Parmesan over, if using, and then bake for 20 minutes or until the mash starts to go a little crispy.

6. Once baked, remove from the oven and serve straight away with a crisp green salad.

Energy 367 Kcal | Fat 6g | Sat Fat 2.9g | Sugar 16.2g Protein 15.3g | Salt 1.69g

From Lorraine's A Lighter Way To Bake.

Raw vegan moist carrot cake with cashew, walnut and orange frosting

I want to say a big hello to all of you bakers out there. To the ones who have stood by me from the beginning. Since the early days of Baking Made Easy when I first started to do television and share my love of baking with you.

I have to be honest, I started to fall out of love with baking. The first show I did was purely baking of course and then the subsequent shows have been about 80% savoury and 20% sweet. I began to fall out of love with baking as I no longer felt challenged by it.

Is there lots more I could learn? Yes.

Could I improve my current baking and cooking ability? For sure, yes.

But, was I looking for something along the lines of cooking and baking, but a bit healthier..? Hell yes.

So, today I want to bring you a different kind of baking; they are sweet and they are yummy but they do not require the oven to be turned on at all.

There is definitely a band wagon of raw and vegan desserts thundering through social media and in magazines at the moment, with many people running by its side and then jumping on. I would be lying if I said I had not been mesmerised by these raw and vegan desserts’ complex simplicity. But most of all I love them for the challenge they bring; from taking the patisserie desserts that I have been trained to make in a classical French style with all the usual ingredients, to having to bend the rules and think outside the egg box to bring something which is tasty, healthy but still looks beautiful and is above all achievable for you to make at home.

I know I have to eat a little more healthily than I have been, but it would be disingenuous for me to say that this is why I am starting with all this healthier food blogging. The reality is that beneath my love of flour, sugar and butter I have always been in to healthy food. This did not stem from my fashion model beginnings - as my diet at that time was far from healthy - but more from my school growing up.

We were fed on a massive selection of salads, meat and meat-free, both hot and cold. There was always lots of fruit and vegetables on offer. I was studying food and nutrition for my GCSEs and it was those days which cultivated my interest in healthy food. I have always naturally - and weirdly - been the one who likes brown rice, brown pasta and biscuits and desserts of an oaty healthy nature. When I was at cookery school I would bring in gluten-free cookies and sweet treats for my classmates to try.

This all sounds like a massive justification, and perhaps it is, but it's something that I need to get out of my head and into words to give you a bit more of a picture of what I am doing, and why I'm doing it, so that it may make a bit more sense.

On to the recipe now. I am very proud of my carrot cake. I had experimented first with carrot cake pancakes and then messed about with a carrot cake protein ball, but this raw carrot cake with walnut and orange frosting is my absolute favourite.

It's moist, it's quick to make, (admittedly the cashews in it are not the cheapest), but for a now-and-again treat, it really is worth experimenting with. My boyfriend has made me blush saying that it was the best carrot cake he has ever tasted. #happydays

INGREDIENTS

Cashew and walnut frosting

200g of cashews

140g of unsweetened almond milk

4 medjool dates (pitted)

seeds of ½ a vanilla pod

Carrot cake

300g oats

320g of carrots

180g of medjool dates (pitted)

50g of almonds

2-3 tsp of cinnamon

1tsp of ground ginger

1/3 tsp of nutmeg

1 handful of walnuts, bashed up a bit

zest of ½ an orange

METHOD

First start with the cashews. Pop them in a jug and then pour boiling water over them and let them sit for about one hour minimum and overnight maximum. As I suffer from extreme impatience, I soaked them for 45 minutes precisely and they were good, but the longer the better is better.

Some of them will bob to the top but that's okay.

Whilst your cashews are bobbing and soaking, make the cake base. Put the oats, carrots, dates, almonds, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger into a magimix and blitz it all together until it is totally combined.

My mixture was a big ball of mush, and that is the right consistency. As this is blitzing, line an eight inch square tin with baking parchment so that it overlaps the sides of the tin. Then plonk your mixture in to it.

Then flatten it down using either the back of a large spoon or an offset spatula to make it level, flat and even.

I did not take a picture for the process of this, but drain the cashews off well and put them in to a blender/nutribullet. Add your almond milk, dates and vanilla and continue to blitz it until it is smooth and creamy. It will have flecks of brown in it (dates) and black (vanilla) and may even have a greyish tinge, but that’s all good and it's all very tasty.

Then smooth it out again with the palette knife or spoon so that it's nice and flat, about 1cm thick.

Sprinkle over the walnuts and the orange and pop it in the freezer for about one hour.

Have a good clean down. I like to make as much mess as humanely possible on the work surfaces, getting things out all at once and not putting things away. So there is always lots of cleaning to be done.

Take the carrot cake out of the freezer after an hour. The frosting and base should not be frozen, but it will make it easier to cut after an hour long sabbatical in the freezer.

I am learning this is quite normal for raw desserts of this nature. Cut the carrot cake into 16 equal squares. Then take lots of pictures of them for your social media posts before tucking into them with bountiful glee.

Are they low in fat? No, not so much. Are they high in good fats? Yes absolutely. They are also refined sugar free, refined flour free... and vegan!

Enjoy x

Baked chilli haddock with a red pepper and red onion relish with capers and parsley.

I do love to cook, a lot. But don’t you sometimes get the feeling that you cannot be bothered? Often, right?

I have been found lurking in the ready meal aisles of my favourite local supermarket, buying things for my dinner, but to justify to you and myself, I always make sure they are healthy, balanced and additive free.

The ultimate dinner dream is to find dishes that are simple, quick, reasonably priced and of course tasty; the other part of the dream is to have a variety of dishes, and the last part of the dream, which is as yet unrealised, is to have someone to cook them for you when you do not fancy it! Well, I can’t help you with the last part of the dream, but I can help you with the other two.

On a side note, I am the ultimate bargain hunter, (not at the cost of quality of food), but I am always looking for ways to stretch my pound. I have discovered the times of the day when my local supermarkets and shops reduce their food prices if the food is soon to be out of date. So, the food is not actually out of date and is completely fine to eat, but the shops need to shred their stock to make room for the new stuff. Well, that is when I go in...

Steaks, fish, veggies (not usually wines but you can’t have everything), all at discount prices. But I have learnt that you have to be fast - there is an army of the discounted food brigade who are ready to pounce on that food too and so it only stays on the shelves for a very short time. There is one of my trade secrets, which I am sure lots of you know about already, but in case you do not, I hope it is useful.

Eat the rainbow is what the say. All colours of the spectrum, from the pink of your radishes to the yellow of the peppers, to the green of curly kale. The well known five-a-day veg has now been expanded to seven, so what are we supposed to do? Chop up all of the vegetables and then just sit there with a fork, munching throughout it all? Noisily chomping down to boost our health? I love a salad but, honestly, where is the fun in that?

For me it has to come from varied and tasty dishes, using both raw and cooked veg full of interesting flavours to keep things exciting for everyone. My dish below is, I believe, an example of that. You are getting the peppers, capers, watercress, the onions and the parsley that are all packed with things like anti-oxidants and their health protecting qualities. The haddock is a nice lean way to get some protein in your diet and it's also anti-oxidant rich. Extra virgin olive oil is rammed with omega six, nine and stacked with Vitamin E and K. Not bad for a dish that tastes this good. Perhaps this healthy eating lark isn’t so tough after all.

Admittedly I am struggling to get my teenage daughter to eat more than just pasta at the moment. Vegetables are looked upon as the enemy, protein is just about tolerated and carbohydrates are the knight in shining penne armour which she devours instantly, clean plate and no questions asked.

Baked chilli haddock with a red pepper and red onion relish with capers and parsley.

INGREDIENTS

1 haddock fillet

½ tsp of chilli flakes

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut in to strips

1 yellow pepper, deseeded and cut in to strips

1 small red onion cut in to thin slices

1.5 tbsp of capers, drained and lightly rinsed

oil

salt

METHOD

Turn the oven on to 200 degrees celsius.

Put a little bit of oil into the pan (I use avocado oil) and then add the peppers and the onions. Cook them for about 20 minutes over a low heat, shaking the pan from time to time so that the vegetables do not burn.

As the pepper mix cooks, place the haddock onto a square of tin foil, big enough to wrap the fish in. Season the fillets with a tiny bit of salt and chilli flakes, then wrap up the fish making a parcel.

Place the fish onto a small baking tray and back in the oven for around 10-12 minutes, or until the fish is completely cooked.

Once cooked, remove it from the oven and set it aside for a moment. Tip the peppers in to a small bowl and then add the capers, plus ½ tsp of extra virgin olive oil, and mix together. Season to taste (it will probably not need any salt added as the capers are quite salty) and then set aside.

I put down some watercress as a base for my fish, placing the fish on top of that, finished by piling the red pepper relish on top. Sprinkle with parsley to garnish, if you like, and then serve.

Lorraine's Blog: Liberian Girl

I urge you to go and see this play. If you don’t usually like theatre, then this one is for you. If you do usually like theatre, then this one is for you.

Good morning people, I trust you are having an okay day so far? It is Saturday morning and I am sitting in my kitchen waiting for my poached eggs to poach. The mornings are my favourite time to write before the chaos of the day starts to build in my head.

I want to talk to you about last night; because last night blew my mind. My daughter invited me to watch a play at the Royal Court Theatre in London’s Sloane square. She sent me a Google-invite-thingy, to which I accepted, thinking nothing of it and not looking into what the play was about. My daughter kept mentioning the phrase ‘immersive theatre’ to me; that just meant some type of artsy something which I nodded at intelligently, pretending to know the meaning of.

Once at the Royal Court, we ate popcorn and drank wine (me) and Sprite (her) and then an announcement told us that the play was about to start. At the door of the production they took our tickets and then a softly spoken gentleman read out to us from a piece of A4 that the performance would have scenes of a sexual nature, violence and things like flashing lights and loud bangs - and were we okay with that. The group of us that had accumulated on the stairs nodded. We walked up a flight of stairs and a young lady asked us whether we would like to be ‘a part of the play’ or ‘a part of the audience’. I consider myself a bit of a Brit when it comes to group participation activities. I like to shirk to the back of the pack and render myself invisible. But my sprightly young daughter threaded her arm through mine, glanced at me briefly and said ‘we would like to be a part of the play.' So, we were lead to the ‘stage’ and stood around the edge with 50 or so other willing participants - whilst those not wanting to be part of the action were seated above our heads in the audience.

We learnt that if we wanted to leave the theatre in the middle of the performance that we would not be allowed back in, that the performance would be 90 minutes and that if you were part of the play, it was standing room only.

I am not a professional critic and I lack the artful prose of a writer, but I can spill out on paper what is going on in my head and heart. I gulped at the thought of being kept in a room for 90 minutes standing up to watch a play. I have been to the theatre many times and have had varied experiences from; sitting bolt upright engaged and hanging on the every word that the actors speak and then, at other times, I have repeatedly nodded myself awake as I try to get through a performance where time seems to have stood still.

Liberian Girl however was a very different experience. Liberian Girl had me captivated from beginning to end and is still haunting my thoughts. Not only was I engaged and hanging on to every word, my heart was right there, in Liberia, on the dirt floor.

Immersive theatre makes you part of the play. There is no holding hands and joining-in Butlins style, but it gives you an unusual kind of experiential perspective of the performance because you are there, having guns pointed in your direction. You are there during an aggressive sexual attack and you are there when blood seeps from the wound of the fallen, and you are there when hearts are broken and hope starts to end. You are not JUST watching it… you are truly feeling it.

This is because the performances from the cast were outstanding. I always read words, such as 'profound', 'powerful', 'thought provoking' and 'moving' when it comes to theatre reviews. Those words cannot apply more to any play I have seen before than this one.

I experienced as many emotions that one can experience in 90 minutes and my daughter and I walked out of the theatre almost speechless, catching each others eye to utter only one thing. ‘Sh*t, that was good.’

I urge you to go and see this play. If you don’t usually like theatre, then this one is for you. If you do usually like theatre, then this one is for you. If you want to do something different with your evening and experience the unusual, then go see it. Be brave and stand in the action, it adds 100% to the play. It is at times graphic, disturbing and shocking, but it is also educating, enlightening and empowering too. Liberian Girl and the Royal Court Theatre. Brilliant.

Moroccan chicken pot pies with cumin and coriander, and a crispy filo top

Traditionally pot pies are not from North Africa, nor are they made with the lighter-than-light filo pastry, but as we are baking a lighter way I hope you can forgive me for all that.

The usual way I make them is with chicken, peas and carrots but without the benefit of buttery flaky pastry, these little pies were missing some oompfh. So I turned to the tastes of the Casbah for a flamboyant flavour boost. Spiced chicken on the inside, sweetened with apricots (hence the slightly higher natural sugar content), and a crispy crunchy filo topping scattered with rich nutty almonds. Delish.

Serves 6

EQUIPMENT & INGREDIENTS

6 ramekins or hot pot dishes about 10cm wide, 6cm high and 450ml in volume

Filling

Spray oil

2 large onions, finely sliced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

3cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp paprika

4 large chicken breasts, cut into

3cm chunks

3 tbsp cornflour

600ml good chicken stock

2 carrots, peeled and sliced into

1⁄2cm slices

100g frozen peas

50g dried apricots, roughly chopped

Leaves from a small bunch of fresh coriander or flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Topping

3 sheets of filo pastry

25g flaked almonds

To serve

Crisp green salad

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, (Fan 160°C), 350°F, Gas Mark 4.

2. Spray a little oil into a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently for about 5 minutes, stirring from time to time, until softened. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for a further minute before adding the cinnamon, cumin and paprika. Then, allow them to toast for a minute.

3. In the meantime, toss the chicken pieces in the cornflour and a little salt and pepper until evenly coated. Stir these into the onion mixture and cook for 1 minute. Gradually add the stock, stirring all the time to blend in the cornflour without any lumps. Turn up the heat and add the carrots, peas, apricots and seasoning. Allow to come to the boil, then pop a lid on and reduce to simmer gently for 5 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce thickened.

4. Meanwhile, prepare the topping. Lay the filo sheets out in one pile and cut them into 1cm wide strips across the width (rather than down the length). I use a pastry cutter for this, but a sharp knife or even scissors or a pizza wheel will do the trick. Keep covered with a lightly dampened tea towel until ready to use to stop it from drying out.

5. Once ready, divide the pie filling among six ramekins or hot pot dishes about 10cm wide, 6cm high and 450ml in volume. Scatter the coriander or parsley over each one, then divide the filo strips into six even-sized bunches (they may have stuck together a bit, so just separate the layers). Pick up the bunches and lay one messily on top of each pie. The more bits that are sticking up and messy, the more likely the filo is to crisp up. Scatter the almonds evenly over, then spray each pie with two squirts of the spray oil. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and piping hot, the fllo is crisp and golden brown and the sauce bubbling.

6. Once cooked, remove from the oven and serve at once with a crisp green salad.

Energy 320 Kcal | Fat 5.4g | Sat Fat 0.9g | Sugar | 12.9g Protein 27g | Salt 1.08g

From Lorraine's A Lighter Way To Bake.

Lorraine's Blog: The Mighty Tomato

Nice to see a bit of blue sky today over London today. Such a rarity of late. Yesterday it had been dark until about 9am and it was raining - that really persistent and drizzly rain, the kind that gets you really wet. When I woke up this morning, I started scrolling through my Instagram feed. Holed up under my big duvet, I became incandescent with envy (I know it is usually rage which gets that phrase but for me today, it is envy) as I looked at the many accounts displaying honeymoon like pictures of turquoise sea, unimaginably blue sky and sand with the fineness of self-raising flour.

I did a big online order yesterday for food which will be coming in the next few days and so wanted to use up the remainder of the vegetables in the bottom of the fridge, and some of the tins of beans and pulses in the cupboard along with bags of nuts and seeds in packets (which I seem to have accumulated) and in doing so make some food for breakfast and lunch.

I had bought bags and bags of tomatoes earlier on in the week. My vision was to pop them into the oven in the morning and slow roast them for the whole day, giving me some oven roast tomatoes to play with in salads for the rest of the week. Of course, that never happened and the tomatoes were starting to look like they were about to ‘turn’. So I chopped up the tomatoes in to slices, mixed it up with some puy lentils and one whole avocado, toasted some pumpkin seeds, tossed it all together and sprinkled the whole lot with some cayenne. Mmmmmmmm, a pimped up guacamole if you will.

A note on tomatoes: As I mentioned in my veggie vegan salad post I have recently had an extensive blood test which showed up that I am hugely lacking in anti-oxidants in my body and that I need to get more in me fast.

I thought I had been eating lots of them but not in the right way. For instance, tomatoes I will happily munch through - a whole ‘punnet’ of tomatoes, it's an easy snack. But I did not realise that in doing this I was missing out on lots of nutrients in the tomatoes.

Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten, authors of the inspiring book: The Health delusion, explained to me that one of the important nutrients in tomatoes is lycopene. It is available in smaller amounts when the tomato is raw but the absorption is far superior when the tomatoes are;

1) Mechanically processed

2) Cooked

3) Consumed with fat

What a revelation to me. I learnt that the amount of Vitamin C is diminished somewhat when the tomatoes are cooked/processed, but I had no idea that cooking something would actually increase a large component of its nutritional value.

This leads me to think about raw food, which is a world I am going to learn and explore, but in the mean time it is certainly something to think about the next time I think of having an oil free tomato salad.

I made the following salad for my breakfast. Those of you who follow my recipes on social media may know that I sometimes have breakfasts that stretch beyond eggs and cereal; I do like to keep things different. This salad serves one person. It is a hefty portion; I am sitting at the kitchen table right now, just totally stuffed still, over two hours after eating it. I would make a large bowl of this in the summer for an outdoorsy do and it would be amazing served on some toasted rye bread, which I am also going to try. Do let me know how you get on. Would love to hear your suggestions and views.

Here is the recipe for my quick and easy ramshackle salad...

Tomato, avocado, and pumpkin seed salsa with salad ginger and cayenne.

Ingredients

100g of tomatoes, halved and each half cut in to 6 slices

1 perfectly ripe avocado, de-stoned and mashed

70g of puy lentils (I used tinned)

5cm piece of ginger, minced or very finely chopped

1 pinch of cayenne

1 pinch of chill flakes

1 tbsp. of pumpkin seeds, gently pan-fried in a pan with no oil until they start to pop

The smallest drizzle of extra virgin olive oil (I used 1/3 tsp.)

Maldon salt

1 squeeze of lime juice

Serves 1

Mix the together all of the ingredients gently in a bowl. Season to taste adding more ginger, cayenne, lime juice and salt/oil if you think it needs it and serve.

Vegan veggie breakfast salad with avocado and pan fried portobello mushrooms

I recently had an extensive blood test beyond the realms of that which a doctor usually gives. In that blood test, I was found to be deficient in many things predominantly anti-oxidants, so things like Vitamin E and K, Selenium and other minerals such as magnesium, iron and zinc. So I am having to change my diet to include more red meat, green leafy veg, extra virgin olive oil, and of course colourful fruit and veg especially of the cruciferous kind along with things like dark chocolate (yay!) and green tea.

I will be writing lots of different recipes to help me rebalance the imbalance of oxidants in my body. The interesting thing with this is it is a very healthy way of eating anyway. Some might argue that we need to eat a lot less red meat, and some say we need to eat more. Between Paleo, the Zone diet, Atkins, the 5:2 and various other diets, I find it hard to know which is the best way of eating to follow. My plan is to eat in small portions, often with lots and lots of vegetables, a little meat and loads of fresh fish.

I came up with this dish this morning going through the bits and pieces left in the fridge. Cavolo nero to me has a better taste than the kale we get in the UK which is often very woody and tough to eat. Although more expensive, cavolo nero which means black cabbage in Italian has a richer taste, is easier to prepare, is less bitter and after massaging the leaves with a little oil, is much more tender and easier to eat. I will put up a post about how to prepare cavolo nero in the next few days. You can of course use Kale in its place in the recipes, or Spinach works well too. I hope you enjoy the recipe and do let me know how you get on with it.

Ingredients

4 cavolo nero leaves, woody stem removed and leaves finely shredded

3 tomatoes, halved and cut in to bite sized pieces

1/2 an avocado, cut in to cubes

1 handful of almonds, halved

1 tbsp of chopped coriander or basil leaves

1 portobello mushroom, finely sliced and sauted in a little oil

Dressing

3 tsp of extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp of balsamic vinegar

1 pinch of chilli flakes

Oil

Salt and pepper

Method

Put the cavolo nero leave in a bowl and add 1/2 tsp of extra virgin olive oil. Get your hands in to the bowl and massage the leaves, for about 3 minutes making sure that they are all covered and well massaged in with the oil. This will tenderise the leaves and make them softer to eat.

Add the tomatoes, avocados, almonds, coriander or basil and mushrooms and set this aside.

Then whisk up the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad and gently toss. Season to taste with salt and (I used flaked chilli pepper) and then serve.