Lentil and Celeriac stew

Hello......

Here's another one from the drafts folder while I'm away.  I try to eat a healthy organic whole food diet, with my illness,  The ME/Lyme disease has caused me to have lots of allergies and intolerances. So that means cooking most things from scratch.

This is recipe that gets made quite a lot, it great for cooking up a big batch and freezing. 'P' does most of the cooking, while I work out the Clare friendly recipes.  This one involves quite a lot of chopping, so if like me you have no energy, it's best to get someone to help you with this task.

Ingredients:

• Brown Rice ( we'd run out here so had to use white)
• Onion
• Celery
• 1/2 Red or Green Pepper
• garlic 
•  1/2 tsp Turmeric (a great natural anti inflammatory)

Soften the above in a little olive oil, then add

• 200g of seasonal chopped root vegetable, I used
• Carrot
• Swede
• Celeriac
• Butternut Squash
• Parsnips 

Add these to the pan and cook for a while to soften. Then add

• 50g red lentils that have been rinsed
• 1 skinned chopped Tomato
• Vegetable stock to cover
• bay leaf
• Basil

Simmer for about 20 minutes or longer until the lentils and vegetable are cooked. Mean while cook the rice, just before serving add a squeeze of lemon juice for a final little lift.  

and Ta-Dah it's ready, dinner time.

As I mentioned earlier this freezes really well and if you forget to get it out the night before to defrost (like I often do ) you can cook it from frozen on the hob on a low heat. While you're cooking the rice.

If you like Spicy food, (which my gastritis can't cope with these days) you could easily spice this up a bit with curry powder, cumin and corriander seeds. But I like it just as it is.

Clare xx