Lentil and apricot tagine

I may be taking liberties with the term 'tagine' here, as I do not have a tagine dish and this is not a traditional North African recipe. Tagine-stew is probably a more accurate term. Whatever you call it, the dish is enjoyable and combines vegetables, lentils and dried apricots to pleasing effect.

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Illness fighting barley and chickpea stew

I already have a few barley recipes on Bite-Sized Thoughts and pearl barley is one of my favourite grains for adding into soups. At the same time, I have a tendency to forget about it so it can be many months between barley appearances in my kitchen. With being ill this week, I craved it and set about making what was to be a barley containing soup. I packed so much into the saucepan that it turned into a stew as there wasn't room for any more water!

Barley itself doesn't have proven illness fighting benefits, but like all whole grains, it is full of fibre and a mix of vitamins. This stew is then boosted by curry powder, featuring both turmeric (which has proven anti-inflammatory properties) and cumin (with less proven but still reputed benefits), garlic (well documented benefits for immunity and colds), ginger (good for nausea and inflammation), paprika (which contains a mix of vitamins), and heaps of vegetables packed with vitamins and minerals. In addition to all these features the stew is delicious.

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Vegan-friendly Italian sausage stew

I wasn't going to post this recipe, because it is only lightly adapted from the sausage and mixed bean casserole that Dannii recently shared on Hungry Healthy Happy. However, I ended up making more adaptations than intended, and because I enjoyed the stew I wanted to document the ingredients for future reference. If I'm honest, I also managed to take photos in good daytime light conditions and thought it a shame to waste them!

This isn't the sort of dish I grew up eating, and indeed sausage stews or casseroles are fairly new to me. As a child, we had (meat) sausages fairly infrequently at barbecues. They were a novelty and eaten in a bun or with barbecue themed side salads. Perhaps as a result, vegan sausages now frequent either in buns or alongside potato and salad. However, Dannii's casserole caught my eye as a hearty cold weather dish and as something suited to my current preference for make ahead dinners. (The time immediately before our dinner is usually taken up with bathing and feeding Mini Bite.)

Dannii's casserole used turkey sausages so an obvious adaptation in my dish was to substitute veggie ones. I used the Linda McCartney brand, which is one of our most frequently purchased vegan sausage options. I also put one potato into the stew and paired it with pitta bread instead of a mashed potato side. I left out the beans as I eat so many of them in other formats, added some additional vegetables (carrot, pepper, spinach), and tweaked the seasonings.

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Leon-inspired chickpea, aubergine and mint stew

It's getting a bit embarrassing, the way you can track my recipe progression. In addition to my ongoing enjoyment of aubergine, this stew carries forward the mint theme from my last recipe and features the chickpeas that allowed me to create a vegan mousse with chickpea brine. What can I say, my kitchen activities are transparent. It may also be obvious that I don't have enough time to create surplus recipes to mask this transparency!

Whilst some of the flavours in this dish are familiar, it definitely deserves recognition in its own right. The recipe is adapted from one in the Leon cookbook, which is published by the creators of the popular UK Leon restaurants. Leon is all about real, healthy, fast food and many of the dishes draw on Mediterranean and African ingredients. This recipe epitomizes the Leon style.

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