I was in the mood for cooking when I got up today and before even having breakfast I baked a banana bread to have during the week.  I was going to blog the recipe but I made such a delicious lunch I am going to share that recipe instead.  I will share the banana bread recipe later in the week as it is already late and I don’t want to spend too much time blogging.

Breakfast was a lovely smoothie made with just 3 ingredients: bananas, frozen blackberries and coconut water.  This quantity made enough for me and Harvey.

This is definitely one of my favourites smoothies.  Bananas and blackberries seem to go so well together and I always feel good after consuming it.

This book is fantastic. Definitely one of my favourite recipe books.  I like the style of it, the photos, the matt paper and the most important thing is that the recipes all really work.  It is well worth getting.  It’s not vegan but it is plant based and many of the recipes are vegan or can easily be adapted to make them vegan.  The My New Roots instagram site is really good to.So thanks to My new Roots for today’s delicious lunch.  I made it exactly as the recipe said but instead of ghee I used coconut oil and instead of kaniwa I used quinoa.  Don’t be put off by the length of the recipe, it was very simple to make, as long as you have plenty of saucepans!

Roasted Cauliflower with Lebanese Lentils and Kaniwa

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 head cauliflower
knob of ghee/coconut oil, melted
Flaky sea salt
1/2 cup kaniwa or quinoa
Fine sea salt
1 cup green lentils (or brown seemed to work fine as I had to use a combination)
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
3 small onions (about 350 g) sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
Grated zest of 1 orange
2 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp raw honey

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 C.  Line a baking sheet with baking parchment
2. Cut the cauliflower head in to slices.  Toss in the oil and salt and lay on the baking sheet.  Roast for 20-30 minutes until the edges become brown.
3. Rinse and drain the kaniwa/quinoa.  Put it in a small saucepan, add just under 1 cup of water and fine sea salt and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until tender – about 15 minutes.
4. Rinse and drain the lentils.  Put them in another small saucepan, add water to cover, bring to a boil and then simmer until tender – about 20 minutes.  About 5 minutes before they finish cooking, add a few pinches of flaky sea salt.
5. Heat some oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the cumin seeds, cinnamon, stick, fennel seeds and black pepper.  Cook until fragrant – 3 to 5 minutes.  Add the sliced onions and cook, stirring often until lightly caramelised, about 15 minutes.  Add the cooked kaniwa/quinoa and lentils, stir to combine and reheat if necessary.  Remove the cinnamon stick.
6. Whisk the olive oil, orange zest and juice, lemon juice, mint, parsley, fine sea salt and honey together in a small jug.  Pour over the lentils and kaniwa/quinoa.

Give it a go as it really was completely delicious and both Harvey and I had to have seconds.

I used a mixture of lentils because I didn’t have enough of just green and it worked very well. It is hard to believe that lentils and cauliflower can taste so good but they do!

We had a reasonable length dog walk over the road in the woods this afternoon and when we came back we had some banana bread and these delicious bliss balls.  I will have these again.

Supper was a make it up as you go along affair, with brown rice udon noodles and any veggies that needed using up.  Seasoned simply with garlic, za’tar and soy sauce. Served with spinach wilted in lime juice.

So not a bad days eating.  Lots of plant foods but too much oil due to the frying and lentil dressing so I need to cut down the fat.  But I enjoyed everything we ate today and since it was essentially all good stuff, I am not beating myself up about a bit of oil.