White bean & mint dip

The other day I decided to give Lily some cannellini beans for lunch and so I had to figure out what to do with the rest of the can (I know, I should use the dried beans, but I am simply not that organised at the moment). So, I grabbed a bunch of mint from the garden, added the juice of half a fresh lemon, a little salt and some olive oil and blended them all together to make a white bean & mint dip. And, it was really yummy.

It tasted really fresh and minty and just perfect for a sandwich of tempeh, tomatoes and lettuce (from the garden). It also made a good dipping sauce the next day when I was feeling snacky.

Weekend cooking fest and baba ghanoush

In keeping with our new mission to get organised about food, P. and I had our first cook up this weekend in order to prepare for the week.


It took a few hours, but by the end we had made orange cupcakes, potato scones, baba ghanoush, spinach and chickpea curry, and lentil-rice balls with pasta & tomato sauce (the last of which we also decided to have for dinner). They all worked out pretty well, but I was particularly happy with the baba ghanoush (recipe below) and the lentil-rice balls (from Vegan Lunch Box).

Baba Ghanoush

Ingredients
One large eggplant (washed)
3 tablespoons of tahini
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180c.
Poke a few holes in the eggplant with a fork and place in preheated oven for about 45 minutes (or until it sort of collapses).
Remove eggplant from oven and let it cool.
Cut the eggplant in half, remove the seeds and discard them. With a spoon, remove the remaining flesh from inside the skin (it should be soft and gooey) and place in a blender or food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge.



This was our dinner after the cook up - lentil-rice balls with wholemeal pasta and tomato sauce (tomatoes, onions and garlic). It was delicious!



These are the orange cupcakes and potato scones (which are just mashed potato, flour and a bit of salt kneaded together and baked at 240c for 10 minutes). We haven't actually tried either of these yet - I put them straight in the freezer once they were cool - but the orange cake looked (and smelt) particularly yummy.



Finally, here is the curry - which is supposed to last us for three meals (one lunch, one dinner and one for the freezer for later). The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance, but it was a pretty standard curry recipe really.