Bursting with goodness

FOOD:THIS IS THE last week of health and goodness. I promise. Quite frankly, I don't think I can take it any more. I have no friends left and the child and hubbie are looking on myhome.ie for alternative accommodation.

When I harass people to tell me how well I look after a month of no wine and healthy eating, they just look at me and tell me that in fact, I just look insane. No booze in January is tolerable when you’re eating sensibly, but tasty food deserves a glass of wine or two. And speaking of good food, today I salute all the vegetarians out there. They often get left out of recipes until such a time as they voice their frustration. Squeaky wheels get oiled, so when a veggie tells me to stop being so focused on protein, I sit up and take notice.

I suppose I tend to be a little more slapdash when it comes to veggie cooking. At home, a lot of our dinners actually do tend to be vegetarian, but mainly because I’m so bad about shopping. There are always vegetables of varying degrees of health kicking around, along with supplies of tinned tomatoes, lentils, barley and various beans and packets of dried pasta. As long as there are garlic cloves, olive oil and a bit of Parmesan, you can always get fed in my house.

If you’re a reluctant or lazy shopper (like me), a good staple to consider stocking up on is frozen veg, such as peas, broad beans, soy beans and artichoke hearts. Marks Spencer often stocks the artichokes and broadbeans, while Bird’s Eye freezes the soy beans, and of course there are plenty of brands of frozen peas available.

Frozen artichokes are great to cook with because the tinned ones are too soggy and briny for my liking and the ones in oil are just too greasy when heated up. The frozen ones are very handy. I fry them on a high heat, straight from frozen, in some olive oil, with a tonne of garlic, until they just start to colour. Then I add a good squeeze of lemon juice, a few bits of thyme and toss them with some pasta, Parmesan and some more olive oil. It’s a really tasty and quick supper.

The barley and roast vegetable stew below is very simple and tasty. It’s a kind of chicken noodle soup for the soul, but without the chicken. I always associate barley with the oxtail soup my mum used to make 10 million years ago. When I did a little research about barley, I was surprised and delighted to find that it had a decent amount of vitamin B6 and iron in it. Also, in Islam, it was prescribed as a medicine to help people cope with the death of loved ones, and to help to control grief. When you taste barley cooked lovingly in a simple broth, it’s not hard to imagine the comfort it can provide.

Barley and root vegetable stew (serves four to six)

We use the pricey, but nice, Marigold stock in all the soups that we sell in our restaurants, itsa4 and itsabagel. The reason being it’s not full of rubbish such as MSG and is vegetarian. Check out the labels on stocks in your supermarket, versus products you find in a health food store. Look for ones that make better reading. Feel free to add a few cloves of garlic to this, as I am convinced it helps keep flu at bay.

A good splash olive oil

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

2 leeks, chopped into 2cm pieces

2 big carrots, peeled and chopped

1 turnip, peeled and chopped

2 parsnips, peeled and chopped

1 good tablespoon Marigold vegetable stock

800ml water

110g pearl barley

Salt and pepper

Heat up the olive oil in a big saucepan and saute the onion until golden-brown. Add the leeks, carrots, turnips and parsnips. Cover and cook for a few minutes until they are starting to soften, ever so slightly.

Mix the stock in a cup with a small amount of boiling water to get all the lumps out and then add to the saucepan. Chuck in 800mls of water.

Stir well, bring up to the boil then cover and simmer gently for about an hour. Check the seasoning and then serve in big bowls with lovely warm bread.

Squash and lentil salad with goats’ cheese (serves four to six)

275g Puy lentils

1 butternut squash

Olive oil

Few knobs butter

Salt and pepper

250g goats’ cheese, cut into pieces

1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped

Few sticks celery, finely chopped

Chopped parsley

1 tbsp white wine or balsamic vinegar

Spoonful of wholegrain mustard

1 tsp caster sugar

Preheat an oven to 180 degrees/gas six. Rinse the Puy lentils in a sieve and then soak them in water for 10 minutes, while you prep the squash. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and fibres and discard. Cut into thin wedges, then remove the flesh from the skin, the same way you would with a melon. Put the wedges on a baking tray and drizzle with some olive oil and a few dots of butter. Season, and bake for 20 minutes until they are soft. Check them half way through, shake them about and make sure they are evenly coated with olive oil or butter. When they are cooked, allow to cool slightly and then chop them into chunks. Keep them warm by covering loosely with tin foil.

Rinse the lentils once more and then put in a saucepan, cover generously with cold water and bring up to the boil. Cook for about 15 minutes and check to see how soft they are. If you have soaked them, even for 10 minutes, it will reduce the cooking time. Don’t add salt to the lentils while cooking them.

Heat a knob of butter and a splash more olive oil in a large saute pan and cook the onion and celery until soft, but not coloured. When the lentils are cooked, drain them, briefly rinse in some cold water, drain really well again and then add to the frying pan with the onion and celery.

Mix the vinegar with 100ml of olive oil, add the mustard and sugar, whisk well. Add three-quarters of this to the lentil mixture and warm through. Dish up on to plates, top with the squash and bits of goats’ cheese and parsley. Spoon a bit more dressing on to each one if you want to.