Showing posts with label lentils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lentils. Show all posts

Friday 17 July 2015

Spice Infused Sweet Potato & Green Lentil Stew

During the past two days I've read quite a few new things about website functionality.
My usual self-learning-by-doing enthusiasm has totally kicked in (jay!, I love just to forget time doing that - I really do!) and I have created a Pinterest account (--> see the button in the sidebar). Today I've pinned all my blog recipes onto a board and if you are a Pinterest enthusiast you can now follow me there and re-pin recipes.

Consequently I got tangled up in the jungle of articles on Rich Pins and rich snippets and have now decided to use this amazing website called RecipeSEO for marking up my future recipes so that all future content is indexed correctly.

Probably you are just here for the next recipe ... then you have to scroll down ;)
Otherwise you'll need to go on reading about my IT week =P

This sort of came up, as I was helping to design the website of the volunteer organisation I am involved in. I embedded a Google Map, trying to make it responsive and putting up a Facebook widget. All that on Wordpress, which I didn't have a clue about. Right now all of that is working, which is a great thing :)

I also made huge progress with the data problem my dissertation data had caused me, so now I am tackling the next riddle it is posing me.

But I haven't been doing this all week all day long ... ! Monday I had a friend over for dinner and made a Sweet-Potato-Lentil-Rhubarb Stew I had found on My New Roots. It was absolutely delicious and I can only recommend it!! Currently it is the only savoury rhubarb recipe that I know, but I would love to try some more. This was followed by some very chocolatey Chocolate Ice Cream, which is a regular at my Mum's table when guests are coming over.

Having dinner guests is something I really like, as I feel it makes it extra nice to make an effort and surprise someone with a lovely dinner... At least if we're talking of up to six people. I'd still need to practice cooking for more than that. My Mum and I only ever did that at a few rare Christmases and I remember it as being a sort of tricky thing. But that may have just been due to the fact that everyone seemed to have special food wishes ;)


I was having a hard time deciding which recipe to share first, but I am going for the sweet potato green lentil dish I made after a stunning and exhausting day on the Isle of Wight.

We had been cycling from Ryde to Shanklin, and passed some places with absolutely stunning waves, with a view of towering, high cliffs. I think at some point I was just looking at the waves for fifteen minutes, finding myself completely mesmerised. I could have stayed like that for hours and hours, just watching the force of the waves braking against the railings.
There are beaches with fine sand, lots of seashells and it was just, as I said, amazing. In favour of that my mind is completely blanking out the hills we cycled up and down ;)






Spice Infused Sweet Potato & Green Lentil Stew


Recipe by Ines Feucht



Total time: 45 minutes
Yield: 2

Ingredients

  • 1 medium sweet potato, in 1cm cubes
  • green pepper, in 1 cm squares
  • 3 large spring onions, sliced thinly
  • 1 onion, diced finely
  • 2 garlic cloves, diced finely
  • size of half a finger piece of ginger, diced finely
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp poppy seeds or mustard seeds
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • ground coriander
  • chili flakes
  • green lentils
  • hot water
  • 1 - 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp honey
  • salt
  • pepper
  • rice

Instructions

  1. Prepare vegetables and set the rice (or whatever side you like) to cook.
  2. Heat olive oil over low to medium heat in a large pan (something that has a lid in any case). Drop in a few poppy seeds so that you can see when the oil is hot, which is when they start to sizzle. Add remaining poppy seeds, star anise, cumin, coriander and chili to the pan. Stir to coat and let sizzle on low to medium heat for a few minutes until they have a fragrant smell.
  3. Add onion and sauté for a few minutes until softened.
  4. Add garlic and ginger. Sauté for another 2 minutes.
  5. Add sweet potato, spring onion and green pepper. Fry on medium heat for a few minutes until they have started to soften and do not look completely raw anymore.
  6. Add lentils, water (start with less, you can always add more) and soy sauce. Stir. Put on the lid, bring to a simmer and let simmer, covered on low to medium heat for 20-30 minutes until the lentils are soft. Check if water is needed from time to time.
  7. Season with honey, salt and pepper and, if necessary, soy sauce.
Serve on rice, drizzle with parsley and lemon oil.



Parsley & Lemon Oil


Recipe by Ines Feucht

Total time: 5 minutes
Yield: for 2 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp parsley, chopped
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • honey
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Mix all the ingredients and adjust seasoning as desired. I recommend blending this up in a blender (if it can do very small amounts).