Saturday, May 31, 2008

Winter Soul Food

Getting some really amazing fruit and veggies delivered has been a real inspiration in the kitchen. Even though I will never get to cook the vegetarian feasts I dream of while married to my Hubby (although this post gives me hope!) I base our meals around vegetables, and then ‘add meat’ as a side dish.

I allow at most 200g of meat per meal for the 3 of us – so 1 kilo of meat does five meals here. I use lentils, beans and lots of veggies to bulk up what we have, so that no one goes hungry.

I thought you might like the recipes for a couple of favourites that I have cooked this weekend in my slow cooker. I wish I could take decent photos of my meals - I have tried but trust me, I'd put you off ever cooking them. You'll just have to imagine what they look like!

Hairy Chest Pea Soup

OK – that’s not the most appealing title I could think of. But my mama used to make pea soup in winter all the time, and always used to say ‘this will put hairs on your chest my girl’. I think she meant it would warm me up and give me strength.

My version doesn’t have the bacon bones she used but its just as good I promise. This makes a huge batch – easily ten servings. I always make a soup on a Friday night to serve whoever is helping with renovations on Saturday (our working bee day) and any other hangers on. I just freeze any leftovers.

2 onions, finely chopped
4-6 fat cloves of garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1 tsp mustard powder
1 cube organic vegetable bouillon (I use Rapunzel)
3 large carrots, sliced
2 medium potatoes, sliced
2-3 celery stalks, finely diced
500grams split dried green peas
1 ½ litres of boiling water

Pop it all in the crock pot overnight on low. Puree it if you are that way inclined (I’m not but I like lumpy soup). Season with salt, pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg, and serve with crusty bread.

One Curry – Two Ways

Hubby insists on meat, but really I’m just not enjoying it at the moment, so this curry works great for us. Again, I throw it all in the crockpot – and we get about 5 servings (I freeze it) from this so its seriously economical.

500gms lamb, diced
1 cup kidney beans, soaked overnight
3 tins chopped tomatoes
1 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 large carrots, sliced
1 large onion, diced
1 large kumara (or sweet potato), sliced
1 Tbsp each of tumeric, ground coriander seeds, ground cumin (if you can grind them from whole seeds so much the better)
1-2 tsp chilli powder, more if you like it hot (fresh chillis would be better of course)
1 – 2 tsp ground ginger
500 ml veggie stock

Its great with rice, yoghurt and naan bread. I can pick out the lamb for hubby’s plate, and Munchkin and I love the beans.

6 comments:

Anne said...

Thanks for the recipes.
Can't wait to try out the toddler muesli bars....

Nik said...

Oh, might have to try your pea soup out, I have masses in my cupboard.

Hmmm, might need to reassess our meat portion sizes. Mind you we only eat meat a couple of times a week now, so may as make it enjoyable lol since we do like meat. I use 600gms for the 4 of us but could probably get away with 500gms although I've noticed my boy is definitely eating bigger portions these days and dd loves meat so always eats more on those days.

Anonymous said...

Yum! We just got a smaller crock pot (our other one is monstrously huge) and I'm eager to try it out, even though we're coming to hot weather now. That lamb curry sounds right up our alley.

RunninL8 said...

Thanks for sharing those! I've been needing some new crock pot recipies!! I'm sick of the same old same old. I love pea soup... And now I'm craving Naan! The Moosewood is such a great cookbook! I ate there once years ago and had the BEST bowl of yogurt ever! It was all I could afford at the time!
Can't wait to start getting our box of local produce!

GrowingBump said...

Will definitely be trying the curry recipe - sounds like something even my fussy ol' DH would eat!

GrowingBump said...

...oh and we made the toddler muesli bars this afternoon - yum yum... just have to figure out how to stop myself from eating them all now!!