It’s been a busy week for cooking. In an attempt to not have to cook all the time Andy and I have been… erm… cooking all the time. We’ve spent a couple of nights making loads and loads of food, all in all I think we’ve made about 30 portions of various things, so now the freezer is full of nice food to take to work or have on nights when want quick meals. Hurrah! It’s kind of like having a freezer full of ready meals, but without the freaky ingredients, and costing probably a quarter of the price.

This weeks cooking frenzy consisted of Laska, Dhal, Swede Turnip and Parsnip Soup, Leek and Potato Soup, Pumpkin Risotto and an Olive Pasta. Yum. Couple of them are new things I’ve not tried before, and probably the best was the Dhal.

Dhal

I’d doubled the original recipe, which said it served 4 thinking we’d then have loads left over, but found this made enough for 4 main meals (erm maybe we eat too much? Oops). It probably would do more if you have things like Naan with it, but we just had it with a bit of rice. Also made a couple of other adjustments to the original recipe which only used red lentils, I think the mixture of red and yellow gives it better texture, also I’ve pretty much quadrupled the amount of corriander it said to use as it’s one of my favourite things. Andy said it was “pretty tasty, yeah, 8 out of 10″.

• 1tsp tumeric
• 8oz red lentils
• 8oz yellow lentils
• 1large onion thinly sliced
• 1.5 tsp chilli powder
• 4 small pieces of cinnamon bark
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 tsp garam marsala
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 2.5 pints veg stock
• 2tbsp veg oil
• 4 tbsp fresh corriander roughly chopped

1. Heat the oil in a large flat pan, put the mustard and cumin seeds in the hot oil and toast until they start to pop.
2. Add the onion and garlic and fry on medium heat until they begin to brown.
3. Add the lentils, stock, cinnamon sticks and chilli powder. Bring to boil then turn to simmer. Stir occasionally.
4. After 15 mins add the garam marsala and tumeric.
5. Continue to simmer until lentils are mostly broken down, but still have some texture (approx another 20 mins).
6. Stir in the corriander, and serve with rice.