Mixed vegetable dal

I made this kinda like I make paella - I made a basic lentil dal with 200g lentils, onion, garlic, butternut squash, stock and turmeric. While that was cooking I fried up some veg (courgettes, peppers, chard) in a pan and then stirred them in to the dal with plenty of parsley. Drizzled with soy sauce, it looks quite fetching!

Oatmeal raisin cookies

These are from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar so again I won't post the recipe - it's a great wee book, although some of the ingredients are a bit hard to source here. This is the first thing I've actually made from it and probably one of the easiest recipes in the book. Now I have all the ingredients, I'll definitely make them again - might try them with dried crans as I prefer them to raisins :-)

Mushroom ragout with polenta

This is from River Cottage Veg. The picture in the book is all dainty with a few mushrooms delicately placed atop a pretty mound of polenta. Mine is not!

To be fair, I did use too many mushrooms, but I promise there is lovely soft polenta under there. It was really rich and tasty - you cook the mushrooms with onions and garlic in a little oil then add red wine and stock. I made my polenta with stock and nooch instead of milk. Very yum!

Lentil and squash dal with red pepper and chickpea curry

This lovely two-part dish warmed me up on a cold October evening.

To make the dal:
Cook 80g lentils in 300ml stock with a tsp of turmeric. After ten minutes, add half a diced butternut squash and cook for another ten minutes. That's it done!

To make the curry:
I based my curry on this recipe from last month but with the addition of some red chard. Basically you fry a chopped onion and a chopped red pepper then add the chard, a tin of chickpeas, a heaped tsp of curry paste of your choice and a splash of stock. Simmer until the chard is wilted.

The two go really well together, either nicely presented as above or all mixed up as I had for lunch the next day!