Lentil Pie or Loaf and Shepherd's Pie

Greetings,

Today's recipe is my recent creation, and one that my entire family enjoys every week - which is a rare thing as my children, mostly my daughter, are very picky eaters.

I will be giving two recipes, one for the lentil base which can be a pie on its own, and the other for the shepherd's pie, which is really just the addition of ground provision on top of the lentil base.

Now for a big dish you can use 1.5 cups of lentils, for a small dish 1 cup. My big dish is oval at 14x10 inches wide and the small is 10x8 inches wide. They are both 2 inches deep.

Lentil Pie or Loaf

1 or 1.5 cups lentils (the brown kind)
1 small onion
1 pimento pepper (optional)
4 chives
2 garlic cloves
1.5 tbsp flax meal (ground flax seeds)
1/4 cup quinoa or chickpea flour (any flour you desire)
1/8 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp ground seasonings: turmeric, cumin
salt
tomato paste
cooking oil of choice
1/4 eggplant (optional, you can also use another vegetable like carrot)
baking dish large or small
colander/strainer


Method:

Soak the lentils in a dish for at least an hour so that they will take very little time to cook.
Cook them until they are soft. Remove from heat and throw into the strainer/colander with a bowl underneath to capture the water. Give it a stir or two to get the water out.

Finely dice the onion, pimento and chives (or celery as in my pic below, seasons are to your taste). Grate the garlic. Slice the eggplant into circles then cube each layer.

Transfer the strained lentils to a large mixing bowl, and using a fork, mash the lentils until it become mushy - do NOT mash ALL of the lentils, just mash enough to make it mushy which will help blend and hold together the ingredients.

Add the fresh and dried ingredients, salt, the flour, flax meal and nutritional yeast. Add one spoonful of tomato paste. Drizzle a little oil in. Take the water that you strained off, which would have settled, and pour off the top layer until you get a lentil sludge at the bottom of the bowl. Add this to the other ingredients and stir everything.

Grease the pan with a little oil and spread a 1 inch layer of lentils. Flatten with a spoon. Add some more tomato paste for the top layer and spread it all over evenly, then sprinkle more nutritional yeast.

Bake at a medium heat on top shelf for about 20-30 minutes. I don't usually go by a time, to be honest, I take out the pie when all around the edges are dark brown and have pulled away from the dish, that means the bottom is brown as well.

Allow to cool away from heat so that the pie will firm up.

If you allow it to cool all the way it will be quite firm and easy to cut and serve.

As a bonus, you can also grease a muffin tin and pack the lentil mixture into it to make separate servings. When I do the muffins I smash them and then put it in a sandwich with lettuce, tomato and cucumber.

Shepherd's Pie

Follow the same method for the lentil pie.
You will need potatoes or breadfruit, dasheen or yam for the top.

Make a mash potato (or other ground provision) with a little coconut milk, turmeric and salt and butter if you use it. After you spread the lentil base and tomato paste then spread the mashed potato same way. Then sprinkle with nutritional yeast again which replaces cheese.

Base same way, take out when the edges have darkened and pulled away from the dish.

Cool and then use a knife to carve out serving sized pieces.

This is guaranteed to be a recipe you make every week for the family! Perfect for Sunday.

Vegetable Rice Noodles One-Pot

This recipe started out as a soup but once everything cooled – which is a must when eating soup because that’s when the flavors appear – the liquid disappears leaving a sauce. The rice noodles basically soak it all up. But never mind, it’s still pretty delicious and with slices of avocado, it’s pure heaven! The flavours of ginger and rosemary carry it to a whole other level and make it so enjoyable!

Ingredients

Pack of rice noodles – use half.
1 small red onion
1 big pimento or other pepper
3 cloves garlic
2 leaves of shadon beni/culantro
1 thumb ginger
Sprig of fresh rosemary
Sea or pink salt
Powdered cumin, turmeric, Italian seasoning, dried or fresh basil, paprika
Nutritional yeast
Powdered coconut mylk or liquid
Tomato paste
½ cup canned corn
Half 1 big carrot
Half 1 big chocho or christophene
1 cup of shredded cabbage
3 florets of broccoli
1 tomato



Method:

Because this is an Asian-inspired dish make sure to slice everything in long lines.

Cut the onion in half and slice making little half circle strips. Slice the pepper in thin circles. Also slice the shadon beni in lines across. Grate the ginger and garlic using the big holes. Cut the tomato into small cubes.

Put these seasonings in the pot and throw in some oil – sesame or regular cooking coconut oil would be fine.

Prepare the vegetables by peeling and washing them. Slice the chocho, carrot and cabbage in a way to make long lines of the vegetables. Cut the broccoli into small pieces as well.

Heat the seasonings and oil and sautee them for a minute before adding water. Then add the salt, powdered cumin, paprika, turmeric, Italian seasoning and dried basil – or any other seasonings you like. This forms the base.

When boiling add the rice noodles and allow stir in, then drop in the vegetables. Allow to cook for five minutes and add a few dashes of nutritional yeast, powdered coconut mylk (about 1/8th cup if using liquid) and a spoon of tomato paste. Also pick the needles off your fresh rosemary and drop them in.

Allow another few minutes of cooking, cover and allow to cool. I took the cover off of mine to allow it to cool as I usually do with my soups and this is probably why the water dried out, so maybe only put the cover on part ways to preserve your liquid if you wish to have it more as a soup.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did – one pot meals are a favourite in my kitchen so this was definitely a win!

Tag us in your photos on Instagram if you try this @italpeople
If you wish to share your recipe with the RasTafari community, please write it in a similar format as shown here and email it with your pictures to italpeople@gmail.com. Health is Wealth let I and I share that with one another!

Liz's Spinach Muffins

I am so so excited to share the first recipe sent in by another RasTafari Sistren!

Liz Johnson lives in Oregon with her Kingman and two princes, and she has been a supporter of RastaWifeLine and all my works for a while now. 

Liz grows a beautiful Ital Kitchen Garden when the summer comes around, she is always an inspiration to I with her green thumb. I love to see her photos of her harvests!

Here is a picture of one of her daily garden hauls!

I would love to make a salad with all this goodness!

Today Liz has shared her Spinach Muffins with InI. You can try it for breakfast or for a snack for the family! I have put some alternatives in brackets which I would use

Spinach Muffins:

You will need:

2 cups Whole wheat flour or flour of choice (Spelt)
1/3-1/2 cup raw sugar or sweetener of choice (try coconut sugar or 1/2 cup agave nectar)
2 tsp baking powder (1 tbsp flax meal/powder + 3 tbsp warm water,  mix and set aside)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 coconut oil
3/4 unsweetened almond or hemp milk
6-8 oz. fresh baby spinach
1/2 mashed banana
2 tsp vanilla

Method:

Whisk dry ingredients and set aside.
In a blender- blend oil, milk, & spinach. Then add mashed bananas and vanilla and blend until just mixed.
Pour spinach mixture over dry ingredients and fold in until completely combined.
Oil 2-3 muffin pans and fill cups 3/4 full.
Bake at 350°F for 18-20 minutes.
Makes ~16-18 muffins.


Happy Baking Ital People!
Ila and Liz