Red Lentil Dahl
Recipe:
Prep the veg: peel and dice the onion, peel and finely dice the garlic, peel and finely dice the ginger.
In a pan, gently heat the oil. Add the garlic and onion; sauté until soft and translucent.
Add the ground spices, ginger and chilli and cook for a further 2 minutes, being careful not to burn them. If you notice it’s drying out too much/burning, turn the heat down and add a splash of water.
Add all the liquids to the pan with the red lentils (chopped tomatoes, coconut milk and a tin of water). Stir well and bring to a boil. If you’re using cardamom pods, add them here.
Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes with a lid on, until the sauce is thick and the lentils are cooked through. Stir occasionally to ensure the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
Once cooked, turn the heat off and wilt in the spinach. Squeeze the lime juice in right at the end (or cut quarters of lime and squeeze directly onto the plate).
Serve the daal over a bed of rice, garnished with chopped coriander and naan on the side!
Naan
We use this recipe to make gluten-free naans for our GF flatmate - pick your favourite one wherever you buy yours, or make your own. The one I’ve shared here is a great recipe, but hugely underestimates the amount of flour it takes (somehow). You’ll need about 500g, at least. Other than that, our GF flatmate adores them and so do we! Highly recommend.
Ingredients:
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp oil of choice (olive/coconut, etc.)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 small thumb of fresh ginger (1/2 tsp ground ginger if you don’t have fresh)
Pinch of chilli flakes
4 cardamom pods (optional)
175g red lentils, dried
1 tin coconut milk, 400g
1 tin chopped tomatoes, 400g
1 tin cold water
1 small bag spinach leaves (260g ish)
Pinch of salt
Juice of 1/2 lime
Rice to serve
Coriander to garnish
Naan bread
Song Suggestions:
Dirt - Keane
Postcards - James Blunt
A Bite Out of Life
The summer between my graduating and my going straight into a full-time job as a Student Officer, I was due to move in with some people I had never met before, and my landlord had ‘warned’ they were harmless, but a little odd… I didn’t feel overly comfortable with it but it was so late in the year my options were almost nil. When talking with one of the girls I was due to be working with, she immediately stopped me and said “you are not to move in with them“. By that evening, baring in mind we knew we would become friends that year but at this point we really barely knew each other, she had spoken to her landlord, freed up a room in her house of girls and arranged for me to move in. There were 2 other girls living there that I had never met and from the moment I pulled up with all my stuff at the door, Ana had commanded all hands on deck and everyone was helping me hoist all my stuff up the stairs and into my new room. I was so shocked - I wasn’t expecting to be helped or cared for by people that didn’t know me in the slightest and it really set the tone for the rest of the year. It was in this house I learnt to enjoy food, I learnt to lead with love, I learnt to help out with each other’s messes, I learnt to cherish moments at the table and how fun cooking with others could be; this all started with Ana. The earliest memory I have of food in this house was their housemate Camille’s birthday - she hated people making a fuss about her, but the girls believed in celebrating everything in life, including the things that are seemingly not that big a deal. There was a little cheesecake, candles, a card - a minimal fuss was made, a fuss within reason, a fuss the person could enjoy and we could all get involved in celebrating.
