Potato Chop and Bake

I love a meal that is easy to prepare. 

This requires a bit of chopping but no 'cooking' other than putting it in the oven.

This can be prepared in advance and kept in the fridge til its time to bake.

So tasty for something so easy :-)

 

POTATO CHOP AND BAKE

Serves 4

5 medium potatoes

1 can chickpeas

1 leek

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup mushrooms

1/3 cup nutritional yeast 

2 garlic cloves

2 cups plant milk

pepper

Chop the potatoes into 2cm cubes. Spread over the base of a large baking dish.

Drain the chickpeas and pour them over the potato cubes, followed by the chopped leek, chopped mushrooms and frozen peas.

 

Sprinkle the nutritional yeast evenly over the vegetables.

Combine the cloves (crushed) in a jar with the milk and pepper (as much as desired). Mix together.

Pour the milk mixture over the vegetables and nutritional yeast.

Cover with foil and place in a preheated 200C oven and bake for 50-60 minutes until potatoes are soft and milk is absorbed.

Serve

Question of the day:
Do you prefer meals that require lots of chopping, or lots of hands-on type cooking?

Adzuki Bean Soup

I love aduzki beans.
I wonder why they aren't as popular in cans as many other types of beans???

Thankfully they aren't hard to cook.
My favourite way to have them is in my adzuki bean burgers.
They are also really yummy in soup.  

For this soup you'll need:
1 x 800g tin whole peeled tomatoes
1 cup uncooked adzuki beans
1 leek
1 large brown onion

I use my slow cooker for this soup. You could do it on a stove top if you wanted to also.
I put the adzuki beans in the slow cooker and pour boiling water over them & leave it to soak overnight.
In the morning, I drain & rinse the beans & then place them back into the slow cooker along with the tomatoes, & the chopped leek & onion. I add about a cup of water.
Lid on & let the slow cooker do its thing for the next 8 hours on low.
I find this amount of time also works well for actually cooking the beans so its handy not to have to cook them separately first.
If you can stir the soup every 2 hours it will help the tomatoes to break apart - or else just do it at the end :-) They will be so soft that the side of a soup spoon will gently break the tomatoes into pieces that you can then stir through the rest of the soup.

I love my slow cooker - it makes Tuesday evenings wonderful! :-)

Serve in bowls with a sprinkling of dried oregano - or fresh basil if you have some on hand.

Tempting Tuesday

Ever feel like cooking first thing in the morning??
I often do - I love having the smell of fresh baking fill the house first thing in the morning.
This morning it was zucchini bread.

Today's lunchbox:
I made mini zucchini bread muffins at the same time as I was making breakfast - they are for lunch with a lentil dip (mashed leftovers from last night's meal!). Snacks are grapes, dried mango * sesame snaps.

For dinner I used the slow cooker.
I made a leek & soygrit pie.
It was sooooo tasty! Simple put chopped onion, chopped leek, a zucchini, tin tomatoes & 1 cup soya grits in the slow cooker. Add enough water to just cover the ingredients & let the appliance do all the hard work for you!!!!! I took the lid off one hour before serving just to let some moisture evaporate and give the top a "crust".
It looked like a mess when it came out of the slow cooker, I'm yet to master how to serve from the slow cooker!

A super yummy mess!

DESSERT!!!!!! Yay my favourite time of the day!!!

Curried Cabbage

I'm a big fan of red cabbage.
Here's another delicious way to use up any leftovers that you might have!

Saute in a pan 1/2 red cabbage chopped into fine pieces and 2 sliced leeks.
Add a tablespoon dried basil.
Cook until wilted. Add a drop of water here and there as needed so it doesn't burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.
Add one tin drained lentils & 1/4 cup peanuts. Stir well to combine.

 Once all the ingredients are warm through, add to the fry-pan 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons soy sauce & 1 teaspoon curry powder. Stir until well combined.

Place mixture into bowls & top with fresh or dried parsley.

This can be eaten as is, but is also really nice the next day once cooled on a bed of lettuce leaves.
It has such deep and delicious flavours!
Enjoy :-)