Spice Infused Sweet Potato & Green Lentil Stew

During the past two days I've read quite a few new things about website functionality.

My usual self-learning-by-doing enthusiasm has totally kicked in (jay!, I love just to forget time doing that - I really do!) and I have created a Pinterest account (--> see the button in the sidebar). Today I've pinned all my blog recipes onto a board and if you are a Pinterest enthusiast you can now follow me there and re-pin recipes.

Consequently I got tangled up in the jungle of articles on Rich Pins and rich snippets and have now decided to use this amazing website called RecipeSEO for marking up my future recipes so that all future content is indexed correctly.

Probably you are just here for the next recipe ... then you have to scroll down ;)

Otherwise you'll need to go on reading about my IT week =P

This sort of came up, as I was helping to design the website of the volunteer organisation I am involved in. I embedded a Google Map, trying to make it responsive and putting up a Facebook widget. All that on Wordpress, which I didn't have a clue about. Right now all of that is working, which is a great thing :)

I also made huge progress with the data problem my dissertation data had caused me, so now I am tackling the next riddle it is posing me.

But I haven't been doing this all week all day long ... ! Monday I had a friend over for dinner and made a Sweet-Potato-Lentil-Rhubarb Stew I had found on My New Roots. It was absolutely delicious and I can only recommend it!! Currently it is the only savoury rhubarb recipe that I know, but I would love to try some more. This was followed by some very chocolatey Chocolate Ice Cream, which is a regular at my Mum's table when guests are coming over.

Having dinner guests is something I really like, as I feel it makes it extra nice to make an effort and surprise someone with a lovely dinner... At least if we're talking of up to six people. I'd still need to practice cooking for more than that. My Mum and I only ever did that at a few rare Christmases and I remember it as being a sort of tricky thing. But that may have just been due to the fact that everyone seemed to have special food wishes ;)

I was having a hard time deciding which recipe to share first, but I am going for the sweet potato green lentil dish I made after a stunning and exhausting day on the Isle of Wight.

We had been cycling from Ryde to Shanklin, and passed some places with absolutely stunning waves, with a view of towering, high cliffs. I think at some point I was just looking at the waves for fifteen minutes, finding myself completely mesmerised. I could have stayed like that for hours and hours, just watching the force of the waves braking against the railings.

There are beaches with fine sand, lots of seashells and it was just, as I said, amazing. In favour of that my mind is completely blanking out the hills we cycled up and down ;)

Spice Infused Sweet Potato & Green Lentil Stew

Recipe by Ines Feucht

Total time: 45 minutes
Yield: 2

Ingredients

• 1 medium sweet potato, in 1cm cubes
• green pepper, in 1 cm squares
• 3 large spring onions, sliced thinly
• 1 onion, diced finely
• 2 garlic cloves, diced finely
• size of half a finger piece of ginger, diced finely
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp poppy seeds or mustard seeds
• 1 star anise
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ground coriander
• chili flakes
• green lentils
• hot water
• 1 - 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp honey
• salt
• pepper
• rice

Instructions

1. Prepare vegetables and set the rice (or whatever side you like) to cook.
2. Heat olive oil over low to medium heat in a large pan (something that has a lid in any case). Drop in a few poppy seeds so that you can see when the oil is hot, which is when they start to sizzle. Add remaining poppy seeds, star anise, cumin, coriander and chili to the pan. Stir to coat and let sizzle on low to medium heat for a few minutes until they have a fragrant smell.
3. Add onion and sauté for a few minutes until softened.
4. Add garlic and ginger. Sauté for another 2 minutes.
5. Add sweet potato, spring onion and green pepper. Fry on medium heat for a few minutes until they have started to soften and do not look completely raw anymore.
6. Add lentils, water (start with less, you can always add more) and soy sauce. Stir. Put on the lid, bring to a simmer and let simmer, covered on low to medium heat for 20-30 minutes until the lentils are soft. Check if water is needed from time to time.
7. Season with honey, salt and pepper and, if necessary, soy sauce.

Serve on rice, drizzle with parsley and lemon oil.

Parsley & Lemon Oil

Recipe by Ines Feucht

Total time: 5 minutes
Yield: for 2 servings

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• honey
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

1. Mix all the ingredients and adjust seasoning as desired. I recommend blending this up in a blender (if it can do very small amounts).

Chili with Red Wine, Cocoa and Coffee

Hi there!

I had my last lectures before Easter and now only two exams are left and a dissertation to write over summer.
At the beginning it was weird, but now I am enjoying being able to work from home, since that way I can do things where I have to pop into the kitchen every few hours. Plus I can have for lunch whatever I want to have without it having to be portable or easy to prepare!

During this past week I've been having different red and green smoothies (not as creepy as it sounds!) followed by bread rolls made from my Crusty Potato Bread dough* with butter and Orange Jam.

*For making rolls, instead of shaping bread loaves, divide the dough into 6 pieces per loaf, form into rolls (like small bread loaves). Proceed as with bread. Bake at only 220°C for 21 minutes. 

My smoothie week mainly originated from me having bought a bunch of beetroots last Friday and having the stems leftover from that. They looked far to nice to throw them out so I made smoothies with them, including banana, orange and some other things, which turned out surprisingly nice!
I hadn't been looking up recipes and just threw in random leftovers. And ... well, since I am not the most experienced smoothie person sometimes these creations turn out pretty weird I have to admit.
But I think I might stay hooked onto my smoothie-part of lunch for a little while longer. Usually I just have carrot and apple with my baked goodies or carrot and apple salad.
...A difference between carrot and apple and carrot-apple-salad? Uh, yes...there is a small difference even if it might not be apparent at first sight. Believe it or not ;-)



Here in England, we still have days where it's drizzling - or pouring - outside. Then it feels chilly inside to me if there hasn't been any sun all day to warm up the house.

On days like that I tend to make the dish, which this post is about:
A chili with red wine, cocoa powder and a dash of coffee.

Sounds unhealthy? Three vices combined in one dish? Red wine, chocolate and coffee?
Well, it is not as bad as it sounds - in fact I would still think it is quite healthy ;-)
... After all the alcohol evaporates, the cocoa powder only has the good parts of the chocolate without all the sugary stuff in it and there's only a spice-sized amount of coffee.
Sooooo... I hope I have convinced you!!!

My housemate claims that this is one of her favourite dishes out of those I've made for her so far, so I hope that you might like it as well :-)

Chili with Red Wine, Cocoa and Coffee

Time:
approx. 40 minutes without considering the beans
+ 20 - 50 minutes for cooking the beans if using dried ones
+ 6 hours for soaking of the beans (if using dried beans)

This recipe is an adapted version of this Bean Chili with Walnuts & Chocolate by Green Kitchen Stories.

for	2	4	6	people (without rice)
	2/3 cup	1 1/3 cups	2 cups	uncooked, dried beans (any dark colour)
	½ cup	1 cup	1 ½ cups	cooking water from the beans
	1 tbsp	2 tbsp	2 tbsp	olive oil
	½	1	1 ½	onion(s)
	1	2	3	garlic clove(s)
	½ tsp	1 tsp	1 ½ tsp	cumin, whole seeds
	¼ tsp	½ tsp	¾ tsp	chili flakes, to taste
	½ tsp	1 tsp	1 ½ tsp	paprika powder
	½ tsp	1 tsp	1 ½ tsp	oregano, dried
	1	2	3	carrots/parsnips/medium sized potatoes
	1	2	3	celery stalks
	1*400g tin	2*400g tin	3*400g tin	cubed tomatoes
	¼ - ½ tsp	½ - 1 tsp	¾ - 1 ½ tsp	salt
	¼ cup (+)	½ cup (+)	¾ cup (+)	red wine
	¼ - ½ tsp	½ - 1 tsp	¾ - 1 ½ tsp	coffee powder, ground (instant granules or normal)
	1 tbsp	2 tbsp	3 tbsp	cocoa powder

• If you are using dried beans, like I did:
• Soak the beans in plenty of water for about 6 hours. Then drain, rinse, cover with a lot of fresh water and cook. Do this either in a pressure cooker (for 16-18 minutes on the highest setting) or in a normal pot (for about 40 minutes). Do not add salt, as otherwise the beans will not soften. When straining after cooking keep some of the water.
• You can do this while you prepare the remaining ingredients and start cooking.
• You can also use canned beans. Then you should have about three times the volume of beans, since they triple in volume when being cooked. Strain and rinse and use fresh water instead of bean cooking water.

• Finely chop onion and garlic.
• Cut carrot/parsnip/potato into 1cm cubes. Cut the celery into pieces of about ½ cm in size.

• Heat olive oil in a large pot. Sauté onion and garlic, as well as the spices, on low heat for about 5 minutes or until the onion has softened. Stir often.
• Add the remaining cut-up vegetables and cook for another 10 minutes until these have softened slightly. Stir often.
• Add cooked beans, tomatoes, (bean cooking) water and salt. Bring to a simmer and let cook on low heat for 25-30 minutes with the lid on. Stir from time to time.
• Add red wine, coffee and cocoa powder. Let simmer for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Serve. For decoration you can use parsley or coriander leaves if you wish.

You could combine this dish with rice or bread, but having it on its own is delicious as well!

** In my photograph I used light-coloured beans, but I'd recommend dark-coloured beans, since they look much nicer in here!
*** Feel free to use other vegetables, such as butternut squash or sweet potato as well.

As always, I would love to hear if anyone has tried this :-)