It snowed here again last week (in April!) so we’re still cooking wintery food and dreaming of fresh tomatoes and summer berries. On the stove are hearty soups like this one made of tomato, fennel, beans, leeks and wholewheat noodles providing a complete meal in a bowl.

There are two types of soup in the world, the sort that needs a good chunk of bread and the sort that is a complete meal in itself.  This soup is the latter type with at least 3 servings of veg per portion, wholegrain carbohydrate and plant-based protein from the cannellini beans.  As well as covering everything I look for in a balanced meal the combination of fibre, fluid and protein mean that the soup is really filling.

The recipe is completely inspired by a much loved ‘Chickpea and spinach soup’ from the 1st edition of An honest kitchen, a genius recipe which is much brightened by shoyu sauce and a handful of fresh mint.

It’s a very well though out recipe:

• minimal pans are used, the noodles are just cooked by pouring hot water over and leaving them
• shoyu sauce provides a complex salty note but with less sodium overall than adding salt
• all of the ingredients are ones that we usually have in
• You can swap in different fresh veg (I always try to include one from the allium family)

My version here keeps all of the cleverness of the original recipe but with ingredients well suited to a UK winter pantry, including parsley, the only soft herb to grow in my garden right the way through the Winter. Recipe étiquette is a tricky thing, but having just read Kathryn’s post on the Honest Kitchen blog on how much she enjoys seeing her and Lucy’s recipes tweaked and adapted, I think she will be more than happy to see her ideas put to good use.

Broad beans are finally in season over here after bravely battling through an eternity of rainy days and plant-destroying gales.  I had what looked like a big paper bag full in my veg box a couple of weeks ago. Nik and I shelled them together the day before I cooked them, standing side by side in the kitchen.  Marvelling, as every year, at the thick protective cushioning in each pod.  So thick and tempting looking. But a little lavish perhaps on the bean to pod ratio – by the time we were done there were barely enough beans to fill a cup.

Starting out to make lunch for the two of us the the next day there were barely enough beans to feed one, never mind two.  I stuck to most of my original plan for the beans but padded them out with some leftover chickpeas.  This worked well so I thought I’d share the tip; chickpeas make a great substitution if you don’t have enough broad beans as the flavour and colour of the chickpeas don’t compete with the long-awaited broad beans and the texture is surprisingly similar.

There’s a very similar amount of protein in both broad beans and the chick peas (about 8g of protein per 100g) and just a little bit less fibre in the chickpeas (4g versus 6g per 100g) so they make a great nutritional substitution too.  The protein and fibre together make them a satisfying option for lunch.

I double podded my beans here. If they’re in a creamy sauce like this tagliatelle with broad beans, chicken, mustard and mint it doesn’t matter so much, but in a spread like this you want to see the splendid emerald of the inner bean, not the greyer outer casing.  Besides, by the time you’ve podded them once it’s not really so much of a stretch to do it again.

You can serve this on toast like I did (or anything else designed for spreading), or else eat it as a side dish or dip. I think it would be particularly lovely with fresh trout or salmon.

This wintery saute has been on regular rotation this autumn, in fact pretty much every week there’s been a good savoy cabbage available.  It’s ready in less than 15 minutes (including prep) and uses only one pan, a chopping board and knife. There’s plenty of plant based matter here and carbohydrate from the chestnuts and protein from the chickpeas.  And you don’t even need a pan of boiling water.

I’ve said before that you can make a stir-fry right from your store cupboard – pretty much all of the ingredients here in this saute are pantry friendly with the exception of the cabbage.  The end result isn’t at all fancy but it’s healthy and tasty and strikes the right balance of autumnal sweetness and spice without being overfilling.

Savoy cabbage, sweet chestnuts and the subtle lemony warmth of nutmeg are decidedly comfort food territory. The chickpeas (garbanzo) might not be the obvious pairing with chestnuts and cabbage but add substance, nutrients and texture to your meal without competing overpowering the other
flavours. We like this saute topped with a poached or fried egg to turn it into a more substantial meal.  I have mine with a drizzle of truffle oil and hubby likes his with a splash of soy sauce.  A dusting of grated parmesan might also work well.

Related recipes
Chestnut, parsnip and orange soup
Italian lentil and chestnut stew
Brussels sprout stir fry with egg, chilli, ginger and garlic
How to make a quick stir-fry from your store cupboard

In the snowy weeks at the start of the year there were a couple of days when I couldn’t get to work and I had the opportunity to really immerse myself in some reading. Springing off from Elaine’s excellent collection of links on How to build & maintain healthy bones on a plant-based diet I spent a happy couple of days reading up on bone health and found inspiration very close to home.

In Oxford (where I live and work) there is an ongoing research study called EPIC, the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. EPIC is an impressive undertaking; it has been running since 1993 and has followed the diets of 65,000 Oxford residents since then, watching and waiting to see which patterns emerge between the food we eat and our health.  Because Oxford has such a lot of vegetarian folk, the study has provided excellent opportunities to look at the pros and cons of being vegetarian and vegan.

Are vegan diets (by definition dairy-free) good or bad for your bones is one such conundrum the researchers hope to answer.  So far in the EPIC group, the meat eaters, fish eaters and vegetarians all seem to have about the same overall risk of having a fractured bone.  The vegans in the group however had about a third more fractures than those other groups.  It’s a deceptive result this one though, and the true picture only emerged after the statisticians had a closer look at the numbers.  Those vegans who had enough calcium in their diet were no more likely to have a fracture than those following other styles of diet. It seems it’s not a vegan diet that is bad for your bones at all, just a badly balanced vegan diet without enough calcium in it.

As I see a lot of vegans in our bone health clinic, I’m always looking out for good vegan calcium sources, and it’s even better if several of these can be combined into a tasty calcium-rich meal. A chance mention on this guide to vegan calcium sources of the very Italian pairing of figs and white beans led to this calcium-rich spread recipe. There’s about 140 mg of calcium in a half serving of this recipe, plus a good amount of iron and fibre.  A batch of this in the fridge can be used as part of a main meal, spread on toast bruschetta-style or used as a dip with oatcakes or Lucy’s olive oil crackers.

Isn’t this purple cauliflower amazing? I was prepared for disappointment with this cauliflower, having had my heart broken a couple of summers back by the amazing purple beans that turn dirty green as soon as they hit water.  Even the lady who grew said cauliflower warned that it would turn an unflattering mucky colour on cooking.  But no, happy days; the cauliflower turned a glorious, unnatural looking blue-tinged lilac.  Maybe it was the steaming that did it?

Cauliflower has been given a bad rap by those for whom its characteristic smell brings back memories of school dinner and also by those who believe no beige food could ever be nutritionally worthy. This is totally unjustified – all of the fruits and vegetables that you can squeeze into your diet count and it is definitely worth having variety as your mantra where veg are concerned as they all have their own hidden talents.  The humble, beige (and purple) cauliflower is packed with glucosinolates, a group of chemicals that seem to help cells repair their DNA and so reducing the risk of cancer-causing damage.  Glucosinolates (found in cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower) incidentally contain sulphur, hence the classic brassica smell.

I was after something a little more substantial than cauliflower mash and so added a can of drained butter beans (almost certainly an idea that had wormed deep into my sub-conscious after reading Kathryn’s excellent cauliflower mash recipe in An Honest Kitchen Winter recipe collection – there are as many new recipes in the world as there are songs).  Tahini brings out the nuttiness of both the cauli and the beans. Chives add that little something that all of the onion family bring to the table with non of the bother of cooking or harshness of the raw.  This puree is delicious as a side dish or slathered onto a piece of garlic-rubbed toast (if you’re adventurous I’m sure you could even turn it into some sort of soup). Unlike mashed potato, which doesn’t count at all, a portion of this puree counts as two servings of veg.

We’ve just returned from a few days in Provence where they have near constant sunshine in which to bask and also to grow sunflowers, lavender, olives by the field load. The Great British Summer in contrast is a fickle thing. Slightly disappointing, but not entirely surprising then, to come home to find the only species flourishing in the vegetable bed were a small posse of damp-loving funghi.

This one-pot bake is a perfectly suited to the trials and tribulations of a classic British summer.  The flavours are sunny and Mediterranean (lemon, oregano, tomato, olive oil) but the finished dish is also suitably warm and cozy for an evening inside watching the rain.  It is a “one-pot” supper in the nutritional sense too, combining summer vegetables (fennel, cherry tomatoes, onions), high protein, high fibre dried beans, monounsaturated olive oil and a wholegrain breadcrumb topping. One serving provides at least 3 of your five serves of fruit and vegetable per day with minimal effort.

Veggie sausages are typically lower in fat and more environmentally sustainable to produce than the meaty sort.  For a dish like this where the sausages are a bit player rather than the true star of the show, I tend to use veggie sausages (for the aforementioned reasons).  The recipe as it stands produces a dry style of dish with a crispy top; if you fancy something a little more cassoulet in style then just add a slosh of stock or white wine to the pan before topping with the breadcrumb.

Related musings and recipes on Mostly Eating
Heart Healthy Macaroni Cheese (with a very similar breadcrumb topping)
The perfect convenience food? Why a humble tin of beans is good for you and the planet
Fennel and Tomato Lasagne
Aubergine, courgette and tomato stew with quinoa and feta
What to eat now – a Mediterranean or Nordic style diet?

This lentil and chestnut stew is a traditional dish in Italy and the epitome of the Mediterranean diet in Winter.  The main ingredients here are lentils and many different vegetables, with porcini mushrooms for a depth and chestnuts for a hint caramel sweetness.   I use pretty lenticche umbre (you can see their gorgeous colours in the photograph) but any lentil that holds its shape will do such as green or puy lentils.

The finished dish keeps well in the fridge or freezer and is wonderfully versatile; I cook up a really big batch of this ready to serve in a variety of ways.

Serving suggestions

• Serve with a simple bruschetta; sliced bread rubbed with garlic, lightly toasted and topped with a drizzle of olive oil.
• For additional luxury, top your bruschetta with cheese and grill until melting (the strong flavour of stilton works well).
• Mix a helping of the stew with additional hot water, vegetable stock and / or canned tomatoes to make a rustic soup. Stir in a swirl of balsamic vinegar before eating.
• Cook a batch of pasta in boiling water (chestnut flour pasta is lovely if you can find it).  While the pasta cooks, scoop out a little of the cooking water with a mug. Drain the pasta and return it to the hot pan, tossing it with a little olive oil, a small handful of grated parmesan and a slosh of the retained cooking water.  Top a serving of the glossy, coated pasta with a ladle of the stew and a sprinkling of parsley.
• Scoop a ladleful of stew over a fluffy baked potato.
• Eat it on its own with a grating of cheese on top.

I must admit that I’ve struggled a bit to get to grips with slow cooking, mainly adjusting to the much lower amount of liquid needed in the slow cooker.  This stew has been by far the most successful slow cooker recipe I have cooked so far, working perfectly first time.  There’s no reason why you shouldn’t make this on the hob in a lidded pan. If you want to try this I suggest using the rule of thumb that slow cooking only requires half the liquid of conventional cooking. Start off by adding an additional 400ml of fluid (low sodium vegetable stock) and add more if required. Simmer gently for an hour to an hour and a half.  

Making a quick lunch from your larder needn’t be a big deal.  As a food fanatic it’s easy to fall into the trap of over-thinking your next meal, deliberating what to make for so long that eventually you are so hungry you’ll eat anything.  Sometimes it’s good to remember that you are just getting yourself something to eat, grab a few nutritious ingredients and get on with it.

Everybody has (or can plan to have) some combination of these ingredients in stock and use them to knock up a quick lunch. Unlike most stir-fries, this is a true one-pan meal because it doesn’t require you to cook a separate grain (thanks goes to Nigella Lawson for the nifty idea of using a can of drained beans instead of cooking rice or noodles). With the step of boiling water neatly side-stepped, your lunch really can be ready in ten minutes.

This recipe is just a template, a broad list of foods into which you can substitute whatever you have available.  The recipe given is a template from which you can experiment and find your own favourite combination:

Frozen meat substitute

Quorn, seitain, tofu, vegetarian “stir fry strips”, “chicken style pieces”

All of these ingredients are a good source of protein, lower in saturated fat than most meats and can be cooked straight from the freezer.

Canned legumes

Chickpeas (garbanzo), butter beans, red kidney beans, cannellini beans, flageolet beans, borlotti beans, mixed pulses.

Legumes provide fibre, carbohydrate and protein as well as providing a useful vegetarian source of iron. Contributes towards your five a day.

A flavoursome paste

Thai curry pastes, indian curry pastes, sun dried tomato paste, pesto, tapenade

These ingredients can be high in fat but a small amount can provide heaps of flavour.

Fresh green leaves

Baby spinach, kale, rocket, green cabbages, watercress, chard, spring greens
Rich in vitamins, minerals and fibre, counts towards your five a day.

A crunchy, quick cooking vegetable

Bell pepper, courgette (zucchini)
Rich in vitamins, minerals and fibre, counts towards your five a day.

A cooking oil

Olive oil, rapeseed (vegetable) oil

These oils are high in monounsaturated fats, thought to be beneficial for heart health.

Between the beans, green leafy veg and peppers a portion of this stir-fry provides at least two of your five a day.

Instead of the thai flavours in the recipe below, how about making an indian version with chickpeas, garam masala curry paste and spinach, or a more Italian affair with borlotti beans, tapenade and kale?

Other storecupboard customisations on Mostly Eating
A ‘mix and match’ recipe for a wholegrain lunchtime salad
How to make a healthier muffin
Easy ingredients to make your smoothies nutritious and delicious

This week has seen something of a glut parsnips in our house, having bought a few in the shops and then been sent a few more by Abel and Cole who kindly sent me one of their fruit and veg boxes to try.  Parsnips have been popping up in the expected places such as soups and a few less expected like the tiny cubes dotted through a winter frittata along with leeks and smoked cheddar.  And then finally there was this lunchtime salad using raw parsnip, chickpeas and goats cheese coated in a honey mustard dressing.

Raw parsnip seems like a different vegetable from a soft, caramelised roasted parsnip.  A far feistier entity indeed; crunchy and unexpectedly peppery. I had some doubts about sharing this recipe; I’m not big on wacky ingredients, even when they are nutritious, and I’m definitely not a raw food diet advocate.  But then I saw Sally Schneider had used raw parsnip in her book The Improvisational Cook, in a Celery Root, Parnsip and Beet Slaw recipe.  Sally is a former chef, regular contributor to The Splendid Table foodie podcast and all round culinary genius, ergo it must be OK. 

A couple of recipe notes:

• This tastes better the day after the parsnip has mellowed a little and the flavours have had time to mix. Perfect for making in the evening and taking for lunch the next day.
• If you use a julienne peeler you will easily be able to “feel” if the parsnip has a woody heart to it. It’s fine to include this woody core when you are cooking parsnips but for a raw dish such as this I’d leave it out.
• This salad is my first foray into raw parsnips and I’m sure there are many as yet undiscovered combinations that would work just as well.  Raw parsnip has quite a kick to it which led me to pairing it with mellow ingredients like the pulses and goats cheese.

Other good things to do with a parsnip:

• Make Jamie Oliver’s spicy parsnip soup using half reduced fat coconut milk, half regular milk
• Chop into cubes and use in a frittata, following Kathryn’s excellent clear instructions on how to make a frittata (there’s no need to parboil first, just chop it into small cubes and cook for a few minutes before you add the other vegetables)
• Got a taste for raw parsnip? Try adding some to a winter coleslaw
• Use half parsnip, half potato to top a lighter cottage pie
• Dip Spiced Roast Parsnip Chunks into Coriander Chutney
• Use leftover roast parsnips to make Chestnut, parsnip and orange soup

Last week while I was busy not blogging I got predictably excited about an idea on Culinate for a breakfast salad.  The said salad can be prepared the evening before, kicking the day off to a great start with two portions of veg taken care of before even leaving the house

But the real world doesn’t always pan out like that and this weekend has been one of those weekends.  Suddenly it’s four o’clock on Sunday afternoon and my total fruit and veg consumption for the day has been a handful of dried fruit at breakfast (one portion down, at least four to go).

Big salads are the perfect cure to a day of vegetable dodging and have an endearing way of combining the best of all culinary worlds: raw and cooked, spicy and sweet, hot and cold.  This roast squash and chickpea salad is delicious and the perfect catch-up job; four portions of veg in one dish.  Definitely make the full quantities of the roast squash and marinated chickpeas even if you aren’t feeding four people and you will magically find yourself the owner of a ready made lunch to take to work the next day.

The recipe does have a few stages to it but there’s no rush; this is one of those good-natured recipes that will fit in happily around whatever else you might be up to.  I made the dressing and put the chickpeas in to marinade at about 3pm and then went off to sort out some paperwork.  I peeled and diced the squash and sliced the onion late afternoon before settling down to a bit of light blogging, finally roasting the squash and slow cooking the onions just before we wanted to eat.  With all of the prep done the actual cooking part seemed pretty trivial.