Cooking fest yesterday

Tuesday 18th June 2019
Do what you can ,with what you have, where you are!

Well now I've found my iPod in a drawer in the kitchen (yes I was having a sort out - decluttering again, anything I haven't used since having my new kitchen - which is coming up to 2 years I think!) Anyway, there's music on there I need to get on my Amazon playlist so Alexa can play it for me and I can have a dance party in the kitchen every day, I found my cooking mojo yesterday and remembered how much I love to spend time in the kitchen with my tunes, the food, a glass of wine if it's a weekend enjoying some down time.  

I went to Lorraine's at lunchtime to return the favour for her getting me active over the last few weeks, not to mention the sports massage (ouch) and we spent an hour in her kitchen cooking up a storm, well not quite but we did make breakfast bars and a delicious beetroot and lentil filo pastry thing with vegan cheese which was out of this world I have to say, very impressed with the Vegan cheese I bought, 

 These were the lentils I used were these, now they're 96% lentils, which means at most there's 4% olive oil in the packet, they work out at 4SP in half a packet if you use the nutritional information but personally if it's the only way I'm going to eat lentils (which are super good for me and a zero hero) I'm working out that 4% of 250g is 10g and 10g of olive oil is 3SP so I'm only counting 3SP for the packet because it's my belief that this isn't a processed food or a ready meal that would have other ingredients in.  I'm actually going to ask the question through WW because I think if these were only 3SP a packet, members would eat more lentils! 

Anyway, I really enjoyed cooking with Lorraine, the food at the end of it was delicious, it fed her family their lunch anyways and hopefully she'll now be more confident to just get stuck in and try some more of the recipes in the new WW cookbook. 

Here's the video if you want to watch https://www.facebook.com/WWBev/videos/345036242819161/
We even through in a few kitchen exercises towards the end. 

I'd bought the ingredients to make my curried lentil bake which I haven't had for such a long time and had forgotten how good it is, I'm actually going to start experimenting wth the lentil bake and other flavours after cooking yesterday, this is the video from that, it's about 16 minutes long as I've paused then bits in between where it's just waiting for stuff to simmer or bake. 
https://www.facebook.com/WWBev/videos/835869820119823/  I know some of you are probably thinking I don't need to watch someone cooking something so simple but trust me after spending that hour with Lorraine, there are people out there who don't know how to do basic kitchen stuff, we all learnt somewhere and if my video helps just one person feel a little confident in the kitchen, then I'm made up. 

Curried Lentil Bake – 12sp total

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

1 tbsp oil (4sp)
1 onion (finely chopped)
1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 celery stalk (finely chopped)
2 medium carrots (finely chopped)
1 tbsp curry powder
175g red split lentils
580ml (580ml) vegetable stock
240g sweet potato (cut into approx. 1 cm cubes) (8sp)
70g frozen peas
3 eggs (lightly beaten)

1. Pre heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas4
2. Heat oil in pan over a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, celery and carrots then reduce the heat to low and cook for approx. 10 mins (until softened.)
3. Add the curry powder and cook for a further minute
4. Add the lentils & stock, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer until cooked, soft and stock absorbed (approx. 20 mins)
5. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a pan and fry the sweet potato cubes, on a low heat, for approx. 10min. (add a little water if needed)
6. Once lentils are cooked, allow to cool slightly and then add the potato, egg and peas. Stir until combined.
7. Place the mixture in a greased, ovenproof dish (mine was 10" x 7.5")
8. Bake in the oven for 30-40 mins or until set and golden (mine took 35 mins) but timings will vary with ovens.
9. Slice and serve.

Notes. I’d be tempted to do this again and replace potato for roasted butternut squash, that would bring the points down to 4SP for the entire thing!  I might even use just spray light and omit the oil to make a completely zero bake, yeah I'll do it today and let you know tomorrow.  

I had a busy day yesterday, a 2 hour training thing on morning, today won't be any different and I love it, because today I get to spend time with my wonderful members, we're talking all or nothing thinking which is something we all do. 

I really added to my food list yesterday, 
Puy Lentils
Beetroot
Filo Pastry
Dried Apricots
Pistachio kernals
Vegan cheese 
stem ginger 

Ooo looking at that list and seeing a V is making me think can I have something from every letter of the alphabet, all I'm missing right now is J, Q, U, X, Y, Z.  I'm not doing too badly then.  

Anyway, if you have a delicious recipe that needs sharing with my members via this blog, send it me, let's share the love. 

Mwah, catch ya tomorrow BeYOUtiful xx