Aaaaaah, it’s been bloody AGES since my last recipe. Apologies. First I was finishing a PhD, then I was doing a residency where I was travelling to Yorkshire most weeks and cooking on the go, then I was POOR, and I couldn’t afford to experiment with food. And now I live in London. And am even poorer really, except the difference is I have less time because 2 hours of my day is commuting. But determined to get back on the food blog wagon. (WAGON). So expect a series of CHEAP EATS, for making in bulk and reheating for lunch or dinner. This week I have lentil chilli and this fine recipe; butternut squash and chickpea curry based pretty faithfully on a Good Food recipe. Served with rice in the evenings, or with a pitta for lunch.

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 35 mins | Serves: 4

Nutritional Info: 393 kcalories, protein 14g, carbohydrate 71g, fat 8 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 9g, sugar 16g, salt 0.94 g

NB I got this info off the recipe and I’m too tired to work out if it includes the rice or not, so when I record it, I just add on 50g of basmati rice, which brings the meal to: 571g kcalories, 110g carbs, 9g fat, 18g protein, 376mg sodium, 16g sugar.

Chop up the butternut squash. This is the worst bit of the recipe. From here on in it’s plain sailing. I chop squash the lazy way: slice off sections horizontally, so you have a load of cross section disks, then chop the skin off the sides with it laying flat, you end up with octagon-ish bits of just flesh, which then I section into chunks. Top Squash Tip.

Add the oil to the pan, heat, then add the squash and sautee until browning, about 10 mins

Then add the onion and the garlic, stir, and soften for 5-10 mins more

Add the curry paste, pop it on a high heat, and get it all lovely and covered and fragrant

Then add the stock, stir well, and simmer until squash is almost perfectly soft. Pop your rice on just as it’s getting soft-ish. About 5 minutes for basmati, and 10-15 for brown, before you think the squash is at almost.

Add the chickpeas and tomatoes (I used tinned), stir well, and simmer for a last 5 mins.

Just before serving, stir through chopped coriander. Serve with rice and soya yoghurt. Or pitta. Or naan. Or chapati. You get it.

Serves: 4 | Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 35-40 mins

Nutrition:  (I can’t imagine my tweaks have changed this too much) 241 kcalories, protein 9.7g, carbohydrate 39.6g, fat 6 g, saturated fat 1.6g, fibre 7.4g, salt 1.86 g

Ingredients pic: (I have been known to add a half a leek per person, too, works nicely)

add the oil to a pan and soften the onion and garlic

Then add the carrots, celery and parsnips, and continue to soften

when beginning to get tender, add the lentils, bay leaf, tomato puree, 3/4 of the stock, and a healthy dollop of marmite.

around about the same time, chunk your potatoes, put them into some salted water and start them off

the pie mix should be gently bubbling away, simmer for 25 minutes, or until lentils are tender. You can speed this recipe up by about 15 mins if you leave out the lentils, but they are worth it. Add more stock if it needs it. You want gloopy. Gloopy pie mix.

Just as the lentils are nearly cooked, hopefully your potatoes should be ready. Mash them.

To make the mash, once the potatoes are well cooked, drain, put about 1/2 a tsp of butter per person, a little seasoning, and a generous splash per person of alpro soya cream in (trust me on this, dairy consumers, its slightly vegetabley taste comes into its own in savoury dishes) and if you’re feeling posh a tiny bit of rosemary. Mash.

Then clean out that pan (or if you’re the kind of fancy person with more than 2 medium pans, just get a new one) and set some water on to boil ready for the green veg.

Hopefully your pie mix should be nice and thick now. Spoon it into a casserole dish.

And using a spoon and fork, very thinly spread the mashed potato on top, it never goes as far as you think, so be sparing to begin with. The technique I use is teaspoon of mash, and sort of spread it from the spoon onto the pie using the reverse of the fork. Leaves a nice texture, too.

Your water should be boiling now, chuck in the broccoli (and about 3 minutes later the green beans). Pop the gardener’s pie under the grill when you start the greens. Dunno what heat, mine just seems to have an ‘on’ or ‘off’ mode. Put it on ‘on’.

I totes have a gas oven now. I sort of haven’t gotten used to it yet. Much more unpredictable.

Anyway, all being well, veg and pie should be done at the same time. Drain the veg, serve with the pie which should be lovely and crispy on top. That’s it. Tasty, easy, cheap, vegan. Yes.

Here’s what you need:

Chop the onion and the chilli (I left most of the seeds in, if you want less heat, take the seeds out), finely chop the ginger (I used about a quarter of the piece in the photo), crush the garlic.

Chop the paneer into chunks, and then fry in the oil until golden. Be careful to separate the paneer chunks as it goes into the pan.

Once they’re done, scoop out and set aside on kitchen roll:

Turn heat right down under the oil. Add the onion and chilli to the pan, and soften for 5 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic and the spices (or curry paste if you’d prefer). Fry for a further minute.

Add the tomatoes and stock, bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer. Mash the tomatoes down a bit if they’re too chunky (I use a potato masher):

Simmer for at least ten minutes, until quite thick – but not quite as thick as it needs to end up:

Add the peas and the paneer, cover and simmer for at least 5 minutes. If you can turn the heat right down and simmer for longer, then that’s better:

Uncover, and simmer for another 5 minutes – if needed – to thicken it up a bit more. Roughly chop the coriander and sprinkle over.

Serve with yoghurt and naan bread, and a medium – full bodied Portuguese red wine (preferably an Alentejo).

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 15 mins | Serves: 4-6
Nutritional Info: (per 1/4 with 1 tbsp yoghurt): 211 kcal 27g carbs 8g fat 8g protein

Ingredients:

First off, gently soften the onion for 5 minutes or so

Then add the garlic, chillis, and cumin, stir for a minute or two

Then add the chopped tomatoes, oregano, beans (I used black eyed ones), passata, sugar, and season well. Simmer for 10 minutes

Just before serving, chuck in most of the chopped coriander, squeeze in the juice of 1 lime. Check seasoning.

And then serve with a dollop of yoghurt, and the last bits of coriander:

Close up!

Prep time: 5 mins | Cook time: 15 mins | Serves: 4
Nutritional Info per serving: 188kcal 18g carbs 9g fat 9g protein

Ingredients pic: (vegan if you substitute the butter, obvs)

Melt the oil and butter together, and then soften the onions with the chopped thyme.

When softened, add the peas, stock, and parsley I doubled the parsley amount because, well, I like it.

Cook for 10 minutes or so until the peas are cooked. Blend to a fine puree.

Season to taste, and serve!

Nomnom.

As for alterations, I parboiled the squash really briefly before roasting because I was lazy and wanted this to be a quick dinner. I also added a splash of white wine before adding stock, and as a mid-cooking thought picked some sage and chucked that in (chopped). Seemed to work. Will try it without tomorrow and if it’s better (because competing strong flavours isn’t always the best thing) I’ll edit with that info. For now:

Prep time: 5 mins | Cook time: 30-35 mins | Serves: 2
Nutritional info: (without added wine, and gorging inappropriately on additional gorgonzola while cooking): 470 kcal, 81g carbs, 12g fat, 11g protein

Ingredients pic: 

Chop/peel/cube the squash, pop in a roasting tin with the oil, season and shake to coat well. Roast on a high heat (I dunno, about 200’c, I didn’t really look) for 30 minutes.

meanwhile… melt the butter in a pan, add the leeks and garlic, and cook for 5 minutes or so, until the leek has softened. Get the stock on the boil.

Add the risotto rice, stir until coated in the butter and cook for about a minute before chucking in (if using) the wine, then once that’s been absorbed/evaporated, start doing that with batches of the stock.

This is where I actually added the sage, but if I were you, I’d add it when you’re softening the leek, FYI.

Once the risotto is al dente (soft, with a tiny bit of bite) add the roasted squash and gorgonzola, stir well until the cheese has melted, and serve immediately.

Drizzle oil if you’re feeling posh/happy to consume an additional 50-100 kcal.

Serves: 2 | Prep Time: 5 mins | Cook Time: 30-35 mins
Nutritional info: 445 kcal, 61g carbs, 16g fat, 14g protein

Ingredients sans parsley and beans (sneaking in at the corner)

Soften those onions!

Add the spices and stir for 10 seconds or so

Then add the tomatoes, raisins, chickpeas, aubergine and stock. Simmer for 20-25 minutes until the veg is soft and juice has reduced. If adding beans, halve them and pop in about 8-10 mins before serving and put a lid on the pan.

Season well, stir through parsley. JUST LIKE THAT.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Makes: 2
Nutritional Info: 462 kcal, 83g carbs, 5g fat, 10g protein

Ingredients: GREEN THINGS

soften the celery and onion in the olive oil

meanwhile, make up you stock, bring it to simmer, and boil the broad bean/s for 4-5 mins until just tender, remove and set aside

When the onion and celery is softened add the risotto rice and garlic, stir around for a minute, then add the wine and reduce until absorbed

Add the stock a bit at a time, stirring throughout until you’ve used all the stock or until the rice is tender, this should take 25-30 mins

Add the spinach, petit pois, chopped herbs, and broad beans, stir through until spinach is wilted, season and tip in a little soya cream if you fancy it.

Serve!

Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook Time: 15 mins | Makes: Serves 4
Nutritional Info: 200 kcals, protein 12g, carbohydrate 21g, fat 8 g, saturated fat 2g, fibre 8g, sugar 7g, salt 1,05 g

Ingredients:

Heat the tbsp of olive oil in a large pan, then add and fry the garlic for a minute.

Add the quartered and sliced courgettes, cook for about 5 mins until just softening

Add the stock, peas and drained cannellini beans, and simmer for 5 mins until the peas are cooked

Add the pesto (to taste, make sure you don’t make it too salty) and then season if needed

Serve with some lovely crusty bread, and be aware that these are LARGE portions, this is my bowl about a third of the way through:

Prep Time: 30-40 min (mainly because I had to blend in batches because I don’t have a Grown Up Blender| Servings: makes 3 x 340g jars

Ingredients: you can add other good stock-y vegetables, most things, really, this is just the book recipe + a bit of celery.

Basically, chop everything into blendable sizes.

Blend it.

No really, it’s as simple as that. If you’re doing it in batches just add in a bit of everything, blend, decant into a big bowl, and repeat, then stir the final amount together before decanting. Et voila!