I try as best I can to eat seasonal veg it’s seasonal for a reason and aside from tasting wonderful it just mirrors the feeling of whatever time of year it may be. Autumn for me always conjures up the image of hearty soups, yummy stews and excessive potato eating. Mmm… Tonight’s dish is a simple bean bake and a deliciously sloppy colcannon inspired mash. Yes I prettied it up for the photo but be under no elusion! I will be dishing the leftovers up into a cereal bowl and making a big old mess tomorrow.
For the mash:
Pop the following into a pot and cover with water.
Peeled and chopped potatoes
A few smashed cloves of garlic
A finely sliced leek
Half a roughly chopped head of cabbage
Bring to boil and let it do it’s thing for 20 min or so.
Drain
Then add the following
Generous pour of olive oil
Splash of any plant based milk
Lots of salt and pep (flavour to your liking)
A handful of parsley
Mashy mash mash….
You can simply eat as is but I revert back to my childhood every time I eat creamy potatoes so I popped it into a blender until it was .. Well.. Like baby food ha ha.
For the bean bake:
I always have a mix of dried beans in my pantry and by pantry I mean my million and one glass jars piled up on the worktop waiting for shelves.
You can easily pick up ready made mixed blends in health food shops.
My mix has aduki, mung, butter, black turtle, haricot and pinto beans and a few chick peas.
I boiled them off in water and veg stock and then removed, drained and added a scoop of the spinach pesto I posted earlier.
Into an oven dish and layer with cheese of choice. I opted for Art of Zen Foods Violife slices.
I topped it with breadcrumbs (stale bread, remove crusts and blitz) mixed with engevita which is a nutritional yeast that gives a wonderful nutty/cheese flavour. You can pick it up in most if not all health
food shops.
Into the oven at 200c for 20
min or until golden brown.
Plating:
You can simply serve up as is in two big happy sharing dishes with a jar of spinach pesto and seeds on the side but as it was just me eating that would look a little excessive ha ha so I piped out the mash and sprinkled with sprouts and chilli flakes and then used a metal ring (cookie cutter works too) to cut myself out a portion which I topped with spinach pesto, pickled red cabbage, pumpkin seeds and fried onion bits.
My! that was a long write up tonight but it really is just a handful of ingredients and doesn’t take long at all.
Hope everyone is having a nice cosy evening! It’s a real pj’s by 6pm sort of day.
Louise
Im a little vegan 