Hot Chickpea Salad

I have been thinking about chick peas for days. Now I admit, I am not so great with cooking pulses generally, but I do enjoy eating them. I am cooking them more and more often lately, so I am becoming more comfortable with them. This, however, is a winner and will go into regular rotation!

[  Serves: 3  |  Time: 30min  |  Cost: $4  ]

Ingredients

1 cup pumpkin, diced
1 cup sweet potato, diced
1 large onion, cut into chunks
2 carrots, cut into chunks
2 potatoes, diced
1 can chickpeas
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
Drizzle of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Methods

1. Cut all vegetables into large bite size chunks. See image below as a guide. Toss with oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Place in oven safe tray and bake for 40 minutes at 200°C or until cooked. Check once during the cooking process and turn all ingredients over to re coat in oil and herbs.
2. 
3. Remove from oven and mix through the rinsed chickpeas. The heat of the vegetables will warm the peas to a toasty deliciousness. Serve with quality crusty toast and devour immediately!

Observations

• Diabetics Note: There were no problems with this meal as far as my BGL’s went. I introduced the toast to ensure I had enough carbohydrates for the meal.
• So many variations of this could work. I really want to use leeks, whole garlic cloves and capsicum next time!

 

Sweet Potato and Lentil Curry

I’ve been craving lentils for a few days now but I must admit, my recipe collection for lentils is a bit… bare. I scoured the internet this morning for inspiration, and stumbled across this little gem from food.com. I did alter it quite a bit, but I must say – it was delicious!

Ingredients – serves four

500g sweet potato
1 large onion
1 cup dry red lentils
1 litre veggie stock
½ cup flat leaf parsley
2 tablespoons curry paste
1 tablespoon garlic
½ tablespoon ginger
4 bay leaves
Drizzle of oil

Methods

1. Dice the sweet potato into small bite size pieces (use the photo above as a guide). Chop the onion finely.
2. In a pan, add a little oil and allow to warm. Add the curry paste, and cook until fragrant. Add the ginger, garlic, lentils, sweet potato, onions and enough stock to cover all ingredients. Stir well before adding the bay leaves.
3. Cook with a lid on for 20 minutes. Check every 5 minutes and replenish the stock as needed.
4. Serve over rice and garnish generously with parsley.

Observations

• Awesome, delicious meal. I used a Thai Massaman Curry past for my base. The flavours were delicious, and in hindsight, I should have added a dash of coconut milk for a creamier texture. You could alter the taste dramatically by using a different curry paste. The original author recommended a Sharwoods Rogan Josh Curry paste which would have been equally as delicious.
• I served this dish with some basmarti rice which is more diabetic friendly. It would have been to die for with brown rice!
• This would work with potatoes and other such ingredients, however, I wont use potato because of their high carbohydrate content.
• Diabetics Note: I was a little nervous with this dish, and for good reason. It had carbs from the rice and sweet potato. I limited my rice to half a cup cooked, and my BGLs behaved accordingly – they were quite high for my usual post meal BGL’s. Id probably not have rice at all next time.
• Ethical Note: I opted to use vegetable stock tonight instead of chicken stock as a concious ethical decision. I don’t think it lost out on flavour, as it was quite more’ish!

 

Homemade Baked Beans

I recently watched the Masterchef master class series on a DVD and saw George make a wonderful homemade baked beans. It looked divine, and I have tried to copy it, with my own twists.

Ingredients – serves four

2 cups dried beans
4 bacon rashers
4 chicken sausages
1 – 2 tins tomatoes (to taste)
1 litre stock
1 litre water
3 sticks celery
2 carrots
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon thyme
4 bay leaves
splash of olive oil

Methods

1. Soak the beans overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Cut all the vegetables into bite size pieces.
3. In a hot oven proof saute pan, add the oil, garlic and onions. Sauté until transparent before adding all other vegetables and drained beans. Warm through for 2 – 3 minutes before adding the thyme, bay leaves and enough stock to cover the ingredients. Turn heat down to medium and simmer on the stove for 20 minutes.
4. Check for water content and add stock / water as needed. At this point, I added the second tin of tomatoes.
5. With the lid on, place the pan into the oven. You will need to check on it every 20 minutes religiously, stir through and add water / stock as needed. It will take 4 – 6 hours in the oven.
6. Dice the bacon into small pieces and fry in a small frying pan. While cooking, twist each sausage to form three bite size pieces from each sausage. Use scissors to cut and cook gently in the frying pan.
7. About half way through the cooking time, place the bacon and sausages into the bean mixture and stir through well. Ensure the bean mixture stays moist at all times, using any left over stock or water as needed.
8. Before serving, add a little salt to taste and a splash of vinegar to refresh the dish. Enjoy with toast or as is for a hearty delicious meal!

Observations

• I used canellini beans but other recipes I have seen used navy beans. I think you can use any beans you fancy, as long as you soak them well and don’t let them dry out during the cooking process
• This recipe could (and will!!) be adapted to cook in a slow cooker. The trick would be to ensure that it doesn’t get too dry during the cooking process.
• After letting it dry out once (I forgot to set the timer to tell me 20 minutes was up!) and almost ruining 4 hours of work, I ensured it never happened again by setting the alarm each time. I can not stress how important it is to check it every 20 minutes and ensure it stays moist. Its better to be a little too moist than too dry.
• George said it was really important to give it a splash of vinegar before serving, but I must admit that I actually forgot. I can see why it would be good, but make sure you limit it to a splash.
• The chicken sausages could be left out if desired, but I opted to include them instead of the pork sausages suggested in the original recipe.
• Just a FYI, everyone in the family loved this mean, including the fussy teenager. Joe really enjoyed it and wants it to be on regular slow cooker menu cycle through winter.
• Ethical note: I am still having a lot of trouble sourcing free ranged pork. I am using up old freezer stock of bacon, but am very hopeful of finding an ethical alternative in the near future.
• Diabetics Note: My BGLs were fantastic after this meal. I decided to avoid having toast with my dinner to keep my carbohydrates down. I should also point out that although I didn’t add much oil to this dish, there was a fair amount of fat in the sausages. Cooking them in a pan allowed me to drain off any oil that leaked out.

 

Veggie Patties with Bean Salad

Thursday night is pulses and lentils night in our house. I was going to do up a quick dahl, but ended up with this creation. The veggie patties were purchased from one of our all time favourite local veggie shops - Beanz Salad Bar. They were absolutely delicious, so locals should definitely check them out!  The low fat salad was inspired by the That’s Life recipe book that is on the cover of the current edition. I am not one for buying magazines generally, but there was a recipe or two that caught my eye so I decided to buy the magazine to get the free recipe booklet. Well worth it, cause this recipe is a gem!

Ingredients

1 can of cannellini beans – rinse and drain well

1 continental cuecumber – seeded and cut into bite size peices

1 container of baby roma tomatoes – cut in half

¼ - ½ cup basil leaves

½ cup flat leaf parsley

2 cloves of garlic (or more!)

juice of one lime

splash of olive oil

toasted pine nuts to garnish

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Toss all ingredients in a bowl, ensuring an even coating over all the vegetables. Serve.

Observations

This was an absolute treat, flavour wise. Joe and I adored it, but Brittany rejected the beans. For me, nothing beats loads of garlic with slatherings of flat leaf parsley. It just reminds me of my childhood, and I thought of my grandma a lot while cooking this. (She made a very similar dish with potatoes when I was a kid which I will recreate in the very near future!)

I suspect that other pulses such as red kidney beans or butter beans may be substituted with similar results.

Diabetic Note: My BGLs were a tad low after this one. I suspected there would be enough cabs in the beans, but I was wrong. A slice of bread probably would have worked.