Chop the chilli. Pour the black beans (including the liquid) into a pan, add half the chopped chilli and a pinch of cinnamon, and simmer until the beans are thick and almost all the liquid is gone.
Meanwhile, place a pan on a high heat. Trim, wash and finely shred both leeks, add them to the pan with a little coconut oil, sweat for 10 minutes until soft, then tip into a bowl. Chop the mushrooms into bite-size pieces. Once the leeks are done, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon. Put the pan back on the heat and add a little more coconut oil and the mushrooms. Pan-fry until crisp, then add to the bowl of leeks.
Mash the avocados with the other half of the chopped chilli and the juice of one of the limes.
Put the pan back on the heat. Peel the plantains, cut into 1cm-thick slices and add to the pan, allowing each piece to caramelise before turning it over and doing the same on the other side.
Drain the quinoa and divide between four big bowls. Top with the leeks and mushrooms, a few spoonfuls of black beans, and the plantain and finish with a healthy spoonful of mashed chilli avocado and the other lime cut into wedges.
Sweet potato, lime and peanut soup
20–25 MINUTES
I started making this soup one January when Christmas had been and gone and I was a little jaded by wintry food. I wanted something warming, filling, refreshing and restoring all at once. It has become the soup that I just can’t stop making. It may not sound much, but the beauty of it is in the few ingredients and the simple, zippy but hearty flavour.
The soup is good on its own but, to really make it sing, I spend the time while it’s cooking making a crispy topping which I toss with lime zest and some peanuts to amp up the flavour.
The clever bit here is using peanut butter to make the soup delicious and creamy. It’s a good hit of protein and adds a deep earthiness. It’s important to buy a good one, with no added ingredients like palm oil. I make my own, and store it in pots which last me a month – it’s much fresher and I am sure more nourishing, an investment which I use for breakfast and in sauces and soups. (For my nut butter recipes, see here.)
SERVES 4
FOR THE SOUP
2 leeks
coconut oil
1kg sweet potatoes (about 4)
a thumb-size piece of fresh ginger
1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder, or ½ a stock cube
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon peanut butter
FOR THE TOPPING
1 shallot
a thumb-size piece of fresh ginger
coconut oil
a handful of roasted, unsalted peanuts
2 unwaxed limes
Fill and boil a kettle and get all your ingredients and equipment together. Put a large pan on a low heat.
Trim and wash the leeks and finely shred them. Add a knob of coconut oil to the pan and, once melted, throw in the leeks. Cook on a high heat for 3–4 minutes, stirring from time to time until soft.
While the leeks are cooking, peel the sweet potatoes and chop into rough 1cm dice. Peel and grate the ginger. Once the leeks are cooked, add the sweet potatoes and ginger with 1.5 litres of hot water from the kettle and the stock powder or cube, then bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked. Top up with more hot water if needed.
Meanwhile, for the topping, put a frying pan on a high heat. Peel and finely slice the shallot and grate the second piece of ginger. Put a knob of coconut oil into the hot pan, then add the shallot and ginger and fry until really crisp. Drain on kitchen paper. Roughly chop the peanuts and put them into a bowl. Grate over the zest of one of the limes.
Once you can mash the sweet potatoes against the side of the pan, the soup is ready. Blitz in the pan using a hand-held blender, until you get a nice smooth consistency. Add the soy sauce, maple syrup and peanut butter and the juice of the zested lime and blitz again to mix. Taste and adjust as needed, adding more lime, soy and maple until it tastes great, you can add a little sea salt here too, if you like. You are aiming for a deeply flavoured soup which balances the sweetness from the potatoes with the earthy peanut butter, and there should be a good back-note of ginger and lime too.
Ladle into bowls, top with the crispy shallots and peanuts and serve with the second lime, cut into wedges, for squeezing over.
Quick saffron polenta bake
20 MINUTES
Warming saffron-scented polenta is double-cooked here – once in the pan and then finished under the grill with a scattering of tomatoes and feta. The feta crisps and the tomatoes burst as the polenta finishes cooking.
This polenta will be wet, like mashed potato or thick rice pudding, not set, which makes it even more satisfying and comforting.
I love the warming sunny flavour of saffron but it can be pricey. If you don’t have any at home, you can make this without it, or use another herb like thyme or oregano. It won’t taste the same as the saffron but it will add another dimension to your polenta.
SERVES 4
150g quick-cook polenta
a good pinch of saffron strands
50ml olive oil
750ml hot vegetable stock
100g spinach
a small bunch of fresh basil
250g cherry tomatoes
100g feta cheese (optional)
1 unwaxed lemon
a handful of rocket, to serve
a handful of toasted pine nuts
Get all your ingredients together and preheat the grill to high.
Put the polenta, saffron and olive oil in the bottom of a deep ovenproof 25cm frying pan over a medium heat. Gradually pour over the stock, beating to prevent lumps. Keep beating until the mixture thickens and starts to bubble, which will take about 5–6 minutes. Season well with salt and pepper.
Shred the spinach and roughly chop the basil, then remove the pan from the heat and stir the spinach and basil into the polenta.
Scatter the tomatoes over the spinach polenta and season well with pepper (no salt if you’re using the feta, as it is salty), then crumble over the feta and grate over the zest of the lemon.
Put the pan under the hot grill for 10–12 minutes, until the tomato skins have burst and burnished and the feta has browned and crisped with the heat. Allow to cool for a few minutes before dressing with rocket and pine nuts and serving in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves.
Winter root soba noodles with pickled greens
20–25 MINUTES
Soba noodles have become a weekly dinner at my house; they are so quick to cook but don’t leave you feeling as if you need a lie-down, like a bowl of pasta or more traditional noodles would. I usually mix them with whatever vegetables I have in the fridge, making something fast, fresh, bright and pickled to counter the buckwheat’s natural sweetness.
Here I use beets and carrots and make a speedy pickle out of some winter greens, but any quick-cooking veg would do well.
SERVES 2
1 large carrot
1 large beetroot
olive