Well the festivities are over for another year and many people will no doubt be counting the cost of the celebrations particularly as the month of January seems to stretch ahead endlessly before your bank account is topped up with salary.
This is also the time of the year when I have nearly always written about eating healthier – not so this year!
After all the terrible weather of late I think we all need get back to basics and concentrate on warming and nutritious comfort foods.
To make you feel a little better with the comfort food I am suggesting, why don't you set a date for a healthier eating programme, say March 21 – the first day of spring – and in the meantime keep your tummies topped up, so no matter what the weather throws at us, keep yourself and your family, warm and cosy this winter.
Vegetable pie
Ingredients for six
1tblspn vegetable oil; one onion, finely chopped; two sticks celery, finely chopped; three medium carrots, chopped; two fat cloves garlic, crushed; 2tblspns sun dried tomato pesto; 250g tomato passata; one heaped tspn dried thyme; 250ml hot vegetable stock; 400g tin lentils, drained and rinsed; 800g potatoes, cut into chunks; 100g butter; 125ml milk; two egg yolks; 100g grated Mature Cheddar
Method
Preheat your oven to 200C (400F, gas mark 6). Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onion and sauté off, stirring, until softened, add the celery, carrot and garlic and cook for just a minute or so.
Stir in the pesto, passata, thyme and stock and allow to simmer away gently until the vegetables are cooked, about 15 minutes. Stir in the lentils and season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and transfer to a 2litre deep baking dish.
Meanwhile bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add the potato chunks and cook until tender. Drain well and mash before adding the butter, cut into small pieces, milk, egg yolks and grated cheese.
Spread the potato mixture over the vegetables and use a fork to roughen up the surface. Bake for half an hour or until the potato topping is bubbling and golden.
Sausages in apple gravy
Ingredients for four to six
1tblspn olive oil; 12 pork sausages; two leeks; three rashers bacon; 300ml apple juice; one Bramley apple; 2tblspns wholegrain mustard
Method
Heat the oil in a large frying pan, and brown the sausages, turning them from time to time, to evenly brown. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Meanwhile trim and wash the leeks, then thinly slice and sauté off in the pan in which you had browned the sausages. Cut the bacon into thin strips and add to the frying pan and cook with the leeks for about five minutes. Return the sausages to the pan, pour in the apple juice, cover the pan, lower the heat to simmer and cook for around half an hour or until the apple juice has reduced down.
Peel core and dice the apple and add to the pan and cover. Cook for a further 15 minutes.
Remove the sausages from the pan and keep warm.
Stir the mustard into the gravy in the pan together with the parsley. Place the sausages in a serving dish and pour over the apple gravy.
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