I've just returned from a fab vegan cooking retreat in the beautiful Welsh countryside, run by my awesome cool dude pal Lee Watson of The Beach House Kitchen and author of my favourite vegan cookbook Peace & Parsnips!
The theme was recipes from around the world, focusing on Lees favourite places, and believe me he has been everywhere, cooking with locals and picking up tips, spices and recipes on his travels. I am planning to share my favourites from the retreat but I'm heading off to The Lake District with Jenna today, sadly she is going to work in a beautiful vegetarian B & B, so I'll have to do all my own cooking!! So since I came home I have made this delicious soup from Indonesia since I had all the ingredients to hand so I'm sharing this first! This soup is packed with flavour from coconut, turmeric, ginger and basil and full of the most health giving ingredients quinoa, kale, squash and lentils! Its literally a meal in a bowl, packed with fibre, protein, antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and good fats! Everything a body needs to stay healthy and it tastes amazing!! This is definitely comfort food at its best, warming, nourishing and delicious! Just what we need more of as the weather changes and we head into autumn. Although to be honest our weather is so bad that I make soups all year round!! Soup is also very easy to digest and simple to make so another two reasons to make it! This one is also gluten free! Anyway without further ado, here is the recipe.... SULAWESI QUINOA & SQUASH SOUP Ingredients
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.......your health in your hands.....
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I hope everyone had a lovely break over the holidays and are now back to normality!
Our normal is rather odd, I am pretty much under the radar when it comes to work, I suit myself and weeks go past when I just chill and enjoy life and I have to admit I rather enjoy this way of being! Alastair, my husband has been self employed for 20 years so doesn't have a set work routine either, he works overseas and does a lot of voluntary work so we have lots of time to spend together enjoying ourselves! Jenna my daughter is also at home at the moment and is an awesome vegan cook so we just generally try out lots of lovely recipes, spend time outdoors, go for walks and read lots of books! Looking back over the last year I can't say I achieved a lot but I did start an Instagram account and have almost 500 followers so thats an achievement for me! I have kept up with my blog and still really enjoy sharing recipes and I'm thinking of sharing more factual and health posts so I have a bit of thinking to do as to how to move forwards and do what I feel is my life purpose, which is to help people to live a healthier life! I have joined the commitee of Slow Food Glasgow and I'll be involved with a new government initiative called Peas Please, which you may have guessed is to promote the eating of more vegetables, which is right up my street! I ran various workshops for community groups and schools, which were very well received and will continue to spread the word this year on how important and how simple it is to eat real food, and give veggies the starring role! So on that note, there are no sermons on New Year New You, from me, I will simply say that the most important advice I can give anyone is to eat more veggies and that is very much the focus of this blog! I'll say that again, your No 1 resolution should simply be to ............EAT MORE VEGGIES.....! Nothing will impact your health more than eating lots of seasonal veggies, add wholegrains, lentils, beans and pulses and you have the basis for the healthiest way to eat. Not to mention the massive and positive impact on the environment of reducing your consumption of meat and dairy and not contributing to animal suffering. So there are many reasons to make veggies the starring role on your plate! Its veganuary and 50,000 people have signed up to go vegan for the whole month of January! The vegan movement is steadily growing and Glasgow is a great hub of vegan restaurants and businesses, which I am delighted about! So back to eating more veggies! Soup is one of the easiest ways of sneaking more veggies into your diet and the possibilities are endless so I've decided to share a new soup recipe as my first post of 2017. This one is based on a recipe by Dana Shcultz over at the minimalist baker. She writes an awesome blog with the most delicious vegan recipes. So this soup has some of my favourite and most healthy ingredients, sweet potatoes, lentils, kale, garlic, ginger, turmeric and leeks. The thing I love about soup is how versatile it is, its a great way of using up whatever veggies you have hanging out in the fridge. The addition of either lentils or beans adds loads of fibre and protein and will take your soup to another level of nourishment and filling power. Using nature's superfoods garlic and turmeric will add flavour and loads of health benefits so you really end up with a pot of amazing nutrition and flavour. Oh I forgot to mention that soup is great for detoxing and its really easy to digest too so its a great food to include in your diet, especially after all the festive excesses! We always have at least one pot of soup on the go athough it doesn't last long in our house! There are loads of delicious and healthy soup recipes on my blog. Just click on the soup category for lots of ideas and please consider subscribing to the blog so you don't miss any posts. All the recipes I share are nutritious, plant based, seasonal and mostly really simple and suitable for everyone. It doesn't cost anything to subscribe and it could just be the best decision you make, to start the year with access to loads of delicious, healthy, plant based recipes, for yourself and your family! So a very happy and healthy New Year and remember to eat more veggies! So here is the recipe for this amazing soup....enjoy! CURRIED LENTIL, POTATO & KALE SOUP Ingredients 1 tablespoon rapeseed oil 1 leek or medium onion, washed and sliced 2 medium carrots, diced 2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped 1 teaspoon finely chopped or grated ginger 500g of potato and sweet potato (I used 2 of each), washed and diced 1 cup of green or puy lentils (200g) washed and rinsed 2 good handfuls of chopped kale, cavolo nero or dark green cabbage, finely shredded 1 tablespoon curry powder 1 heaped teaspoon turmeric sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1.5 litres veggie stock (I use Marigold Bouillon or Kallo Organic Stock cubes) Method
.....your health in your hands.... I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! I'm so glad the weather has improved, we were all going stir crazy!
We're now on a mad cleaning and tidying spree before the new year but as always, food still takes centre stage at our house! There are so many parsnips and brussel sprouts in the shops just now for next to nothing! I bought two bags of parsnips yesterday for 5p each! I can't resist a bargain, especially a foodie bargain and I detest food waste so I had to buy some! I thought I'd share this lovely recipe for parsnip soup, which is a great way to use them up! We've been eating a lot of roast parsnips recently which we love but I have to admit I'm generally not a fan of parsnip soup. The classic parsnip and potato has a texture like wallpaper paste which I find most unappealing! I came across this lovely recipe in The River Cottage Veg Everyday book by the lovely Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, which I adapted to make it vegan and I have to say it was rather delicious and not like wallpaper paste at all! I am a big fan of adding lots of flavour to my dishes and am especially fond of ginger, garlic and turmeric, all great immune boosters at this time of year! All of these superfoods are in this lovely soup, along with cayenne & cardamom, imparting a lovely warming, subtle flavour. I topped it off with some toasted flaked almonds and a swirl of soya cream and I have to say it looked lovely and could happily grace a dinner table! So if you have a few parsnips leftover from Christmas, please give this lovely soup a go, I'm sure you will enjoy it! On a last note, I detest food waste and making soup is a fantastic way to use up leftover veggies, even ones which you think are past their best, they still have benefits for your health so please don't throw them away! So here is the recipe.... Ingredients 1 tablespoon rapeseed oil 1 large onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 4-5 cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground turmeric 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 500g parsnips, peeled and sliced 750 ml of vegetable stock 250 ml plant based milk, I used soya sea salt and freshly ground black pepper To garnish 2 or 3 tablespoons flaked almonds, lightly toasted 1 or 2 tablespoons of soya cream Method
.....your health in your hands.... |
Janice
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