Lentil and vegetable cottage pie

The other night I cooked this fantastic cottage pie based on this recipe from taste.com. I forgot to get celery so there was no celery and I added capsicum and mushroom and of course no eggs in the mash, soy milk instead of dairy and nuttelex in place of butter. I have already bought the ingredients to make it again! You can use any vegies you like and it is really fast, simple and delicious!

Sorry about my terrible photos but they will get better I promise!

Recipes!

I am dying to share some great vego recipes but this one was passed on to me by my friend Gab who runs the Aprelo blog and has recently gone vego too. It looks so delicious - maybe I will cook it on the weekend! I promise there will be more recipes coming and photos to make this place look a bit nicer!

Gwinganna eggplant moussaka on spinach with roasted tomato sauce

Ingredients (ideally all organic):

1 large eggplant, sliced 1cm think

1.5 large sweet potatoes, cut 1cm thick

2 medium zucchini sliced

0.5 cup quinoa

0.5 cup green lentils

1 bunch English spinach

Sea salt & pepper.

Roasted tomato sauce ingredients (once again organic):

500g ripe tomatoes, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

Sea salt, pepper, oregano, basil

1-2 bay leaves, sprig rosemary

0.5 cup filtered water.

Instructions:

For the tomato sauce:

Roast tomatoes, onions and garlic in oven until they get some colour. Add spices, herbs and water. Simmer for 15-20 minutes and blend in food processor. Adjust seasoning to taste.

For the moussaka:

Sprinkle eggplant with sea salt and leave for 20-30 minutes. Rinse and dry. Pre-bake all sliced vegetables on a tray. Cook quinoa at a ratio of 1 cup seeds to 2 cups water on low heat and covered until all water is absorbed. Soak lentils for 2-3 hours, rinse and boil in fresh water. Mix quinoa and lentils with some of the tomato sauce. Stack in layers in a baking dish, starting with the sweet potato and finishing with a layer of eggplant. Bake at 160 degrees Celsius for approximately 30-40 minutes, covering half way through cooking time. If necessary, rest before cutting into squares. Serve on spinach leaves with extra tomato sauce and top with a dollop of cashew cheese or pesto. Serves 5.

Soy Banana and Date Smoothie

I am obsessed with these banana & date smoothies which I have been making for brekkie every day!

The recipe is:

2 bananas sliced into food processor

4-5 dates

2 tablespoons of psyllium husk

2 small scoops of So Good Vanilla bliss soy icecream

1 teaspoon of organic honey

then fill to the top (of the other ingredients) with soy milk and process away

yum yum yum!