lentils and beets with salsa verde from A Modern Way to Eat by Anna Jones.

Over January this year I'd been essentially living alone and cooking for one so my dinners consisted of a lot of pasta and curries. Now don't get me wrong, I love pasta (you'll notice pasta recipes are strong with this blog) and curries but there is only so many pasta dishes and curries a girl can eat before she turns into them. They were my staples...pasta with what ever sauce I found stashed in the back of the freezer from a few months ago or a mystery curry made up of all the vegetables that were going off in the fridge. Both these meals would feed me for at least two dinners and two lunches and by that point I never wanted to see either of them ever again.

After ingesting enough pasta for an entire family one night I decided that tomorrow would be different. I went to the grocery store when I finished work and went shopping for fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs, lentils and cat food. The cat food was initially what prompted me to go to the grocery shops... pasta and curry isn't so great for cats I've heard.

The result of this shopping expedition for cat food was one of the most delicious meals I had eaten alone on the couch in a long time. Roasted beets with lentils and salsa verde. The recipe came from 'A Modern Way To Eat' by Anna Jones which is a fantastic book. I'm a little late on the band wagon again but it's never too late to jump on and I'm glad I made this online purchase when I did. It's a vegetarian cookbook but it's one of those vegetarian cookbooks you can flick through and not even realise its meat-free until someone points it out to you.

The roasted beets with lentils and salsa verde was so fresh and such a lovely welcomed change from what I had been eating. The lentils were cooked with herbs, tomato and garlic which were so comforting and warming but not heavy and the roast beets had their lovely earthiness which worked so well with the red wine vinegar they are roasted in and finally the salsa verde which gave it such a fresh bright zing to the whole dish. It would be a perfect dinner for both winter and summer months, you could even chuck in some other roast veggies like carrots or parsnip with the beets for a more veggie-full dinner. Also, on a side note... the salsa verde is amazing on fish taco's the next day!

There are so many more recipes I want to make from this book, my copy is full of tabbed pages. Recently, I've made her granola which is so delicious I've made 2 batches of it already. It's so good mixed through thick greek yoghurt and also makes a lovely gift.

lentils and beets with salsa verde

serves 4
recipe adapted (very slightly) from A Modern Way to Eat by Anna Jones

for the beetroots.
8 medium firm beetroots, peeled and quartered
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

for the lentils.
400g puy lentils (called french lentils here), washed
4 cloves of garlic
1 small tomato
1 bay leaf
a few sprigs of thyme (or a pinch of dried)
1 litre of vegetable stock

for the salsa verde.
2 tablespoons capers (35g)
2 tablespoons cornichons (50g)
a bunch of fresh mint
a bunch of fresh parsley
a bunch of fresh basil
extra virgin olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lemon

- Preheat your oven to 180C/400F (or 160C fan-forced)

- Put the quartered beetroots on a tray with the red wine vinegar and a good glug of olive oil and a splash of water, season with salt and pepper then toss everything together to coat. Cover with foil and roast for 1 hour or until the beetroot are tender.

- While the beets are roasting, get on with your lentils. Put them in a pan with the unpeeled garlic cloves, tomato, bay leaf and thyme. Cover with vegetable stock and on a medium heat bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about 20-25 minutes, until they are cooked and the liquid has evaporated. You can always top up with a little water throughout the cooking if it starts to look a little dry.

- When your lentil are blipping away, make your salsa verde. In a food processor add your capers and cornichons and whizz until finely chopped but not mush. Add your herbs, olive oil and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Have a taste. Does it need more lemon juice? oil? salt? now is the chance for you to make it to your liking. I love tart things so I added a squeeze more lemon juice.

- Once the lentils are cooked and all the liquid has evaporated, scoop out the tomato and garlic cloves and place them in a bowl to cool slightly. Once cool enough to handle, pop the garlic out of the skins and place back in the bowl with the tomato. Mash the garlic and tomato up with a fork and stir into the lentil. Season lentils with salt, pepper, a glug of olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar.

- Finally when the beets are cooked, pile the lentils onto plates, top with the roasted beets and drizzle with any roasting juices still in the pan. Spoon over the salsa verde to finish.

Note: salsa verde will last 2-3 days in an airtight container in the fridge and is amazing on fish taco's the next day!

Karen Martini 's Roast Chicken with green olives, almonds and oregano.

This week has been a bit of a busy shamozzle.

Monday night I had planned to cook... grocery shopping didn't finish until after 7pm and the thought of cooking and having to wash up was so daunting that when Tristan offered to buy us pizza I jumped at it.

Tuesday night I cooked Karen Martini's Roast Chicken with green olives, almonds and oregano but instead of it taking about 30 minutes in the oven like the recipe said it took about an hour which meant we didn't eat dinner till about 8:30pm and then still had the washing up to do so blogging didn't happen.

Wednesday night I had team meeting at work and we are spoilt and get fed dinner during the meeting. We had a delicious vegetarian Nepalese Feast which also made up my lunch on Thursday.

Thursday night I finished work later than normal and Tristan had cooked chicken taco's for dinner and cleaned up too (spoilt rotten!).

Friday night went pear shape after I popped my car tyre trying to turn around in our street to park and hit the gutter and ended up in a flood of tears sitting in my car after a stressful day. That then meant we were going out for a strong drink and pub dinner.

Saturday was kind of productive... feeling a little sorry for myself after too many $5 vodkas the night before I made a red velvet cake for my sister's birthday BBQ that night, a mexican layer dip and burnt toasted sandwiches. I barely had time to recover before I was handed a glass of champagne and Saturday night shenanigans started - which were very chilled out after the Friday night we had.

Lets get back on track with Tuesday's dinner. Karen Martini's Roast Chicken with green olives, almonds and oregano from Where the Heart is. It was soooooo tasty but it also could have been the fact that my stomach was eating itself because we were so hungry by the time it was ready and so over hearing my iphone timer going off every 15min while I checked if the potatoes were done or not. I think my down fall was that I put it all into a dish that was deep so it took longer for the potatoes to cook rather than if I had spread it out in a shallow baking dish or it could have been our oven... it isn't fan forced and things do take a little longer in there and 90% of the time I get the conversion of celsius to fahrenheit wrong.

Tristan didn't seem too keen that there was almonds in the dinner when I started cooking it but I added them in there anyway and I got no complaints when I served it. My photo's of the final result aren't crash hot so I haven't uploaded them considering I had the hunger grumps when it was finally ready. I would defiantly make it again but allow more time to cook it and put in a different tray. It would be a great recipe to double and make for a dinner party because you can have everything ready before and just bung it in the oven. Not your average one pot roast chicken thats for sure!

Roast Chicken with green olives, almonds and oregano by Karen Martini (from Where the Heart is).

serves 4

1 cup of blanched almonds, roughly chopped
80g pitted green olives, chopped
1 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 bunch oregano leaves, finely chopped
2 green chilli's, sliced
100mL extra virgin olive oil
cracked black pepper
2 red chilli's, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 lemon, juice and zest
salt flakes
1.5 tbsp dijon mustard
4 free range chicken marylands (I used 'lovely-legs' instead)
3 desiree potatoes, peeled and finely sliced
2 red onions, sliced into rings
1/2 cup water (125mL)
1/2 cup white wine (125mL)

- Turn oven on to 200 degrees celsius.

- Put your almonds, olives, parsley, oregano, and green chilli's and some of the olive oil in a bowl and season with black cracked pepper.

- In a separate bowl, mix together the red chilli, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice and mustard then season with salt flakes and cracked pepper. Coat the chicken pieces in this mixture and let sit for 10min to absorb the flavours of the marinade.

- Add the remainder of the olive oil to a frying pan on high heat and brown chicken pieces until golden on all sides. Once all the chicken is browned add it to the almond mixture and mix together.

- Add potato and onion to a greased oven proof dish then top with the chicken pieces and all the marinade misture. Pour over the wine and water. Cover with foil.

- The recipe says to bake it for 15min covered then 10-15 min uncovered but it depends on when your potatoes are cooked. Check how they are doing after the first 15min and you may need longer if you stuffed everything in a dish too small (I baked this fro about 1 hour total). Enjoy.