SmarterFitter Daily

Stuffing: a mix of pesto, basmati rice, sauteed onion, red pepper, garlic, sweetcorn, kidney beans, fennel seeds.

Another raw kale salad inspired by Munch. Assembly as follows

Slice a piece of garlic in half and use the juicey sliced part to rub the inside of a big salad bowl. To this add:

• 2 cups raw curly kale, chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and grated
• 100g cooked adzuki beans (lentils would also be good)
• 1/2 orange cut into large pieces (any juice left behind on the cutting board should also be scraped into the salad bowl)
• 1 tsp of honey mustard dressing + squeeze of lemon juice (or just use lemon juice and olive oil)
• Salt and pepper

Toss it all together, pile on a plate, top with toasted sesame and sunflower seeds and a few slices of hot red chilli.

This was the first Ottolenghi recipe I've made that I've found merely average. But maybe that's my own fault: I didn't know what "escabeche" was all about going into it. I saw saffron and garlic and shallots in the recipe, and though "mm that sounds good", but I seemed to glaze over the wine and vinegar bit that makes the resulting dish almost like a pickle. Very very vinegarry. I thought it needed some sweetness and spice, so had a bit of mango chilli sauce with it (really yummy stuff from the Wiltshire Chilli Farm). 

In addition to mackerel, the salad also had carrot, kidney beans, olives and chillies (yes, I like chilli with my chilli sauce).

Adapted from this recipe: Mackerel escabeche salad

Gosh, this picture is really unappetising. The dish was... OK. Admittedly, the escabeche (an Ottolenghi recipe) was supposed to marinate overnight and I only gave it an hour. I also had never had escabeche before and didn't realise it would be so vinegarry. Not sure if that's what I was up for tonight. It will be interesting to see what I think of the dish after a night of marination. 

Also had a glass of red wine, despite promises to self that I wouldn't. Oh well.

A bit of an experiment that turned out to be very good: a peppery, nutmeggy amalgamation of beans, barley, pinhead oats and spices. Had some savoy cabbage on the side (not shown).

I'll be using the leftover haggis as a stuffing for red peppers, mushrooms, and who knows what else. This is not the last you've seen of the veggie haggis!

Recipe: Vegetarian Haggis [carllegge.com] 

Adapted from this simple dal recipe, using chana dal (split chickpeas) instead of lentils and a couple whole fresh tomatoes instead of tinned tomatoes. I also blended up some of the chickpeas after they cooked to make a sort of gravy.

Quite rich but very good: 

• Mussel, cavalo nero and bread stew
• Braised octopus with black beans and fino

Savoury breakfast. But where are the idliis?

Just about done with the leftovers from Saturday's Indian Feast.

Leftovers from Saturday's Indian Feast.