Curried lentil soup

This is a new 'make, freeze and take to work' lunch option I'm trying. Got a good bit of heat going on!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp cumin seed
2 bay leaves
1 tsp salt
4 dried chillies, chopped
1/2 head of green cabbage, spring greens or similar, shredded
1/2 carrot or courgette, finely diced
1.5 litres vegetable stock or bouillon
2 cups green or puy lentils

Method:

Fry the onions in the oil until translucent and then add the garlic and other spices, mixed in together and fry for another couple of minutes, then add the greens and the carrot/courgette and continue to fry in the oil, stirring quickly until the greens reduce down. Now add the stock, then the lentils, bring back to a boil and then simmer for around 20 minutes or until the lentils are nicely soft.

Vegan chinese-style dumplings

Apologies for the slight absence on the food blog - I've not stopped cooking or eating, just struggled to find the time to take snaps of things as they were made. Will attempt to improve my behaviour from here on in.

Anyway today's recipe is born out of necessity. We couldn't find any dim sum/vegetable dumplings in our local chinese supermarket that didn't have MSG in them, so I decided to have a bash myself. Turns out it's pretty easy. You can prepare a load of dumplings and set them aside for later or even freeze them for a day or so. All pretty easy.

Ingredients:

Tbsp veg oil
Half an onion, finely chopped
Two medium carrots, finely chopped
150g shredded green cabbage
100g mushrooms, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1/2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
1/2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
150g dry weight fine noodles (rice or wheat)
Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
1tsp mirin (or sugar)
2 tsp sesame oil

350g dumpling flour
200 ml cold water

Method:

Gently fry the onion, carrot,cabbage, mushrooms and garlic in the vegetable oil until softened a little. Just five minutes or so should do it. Then added the coriander and chives and cook for a further five minutes. Cook the noodles as per instructions (mine took just two minutes) and then add these to the pan, too. Stir through gently. Next add the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and mirin and stir through. That's the filling sorted, which you can set to one side,

Mix the dumpling flour and water into a bread-style dough and leave to rest for 20 minutes. Separate into quarters and, a quarter at at time, roll out into a thin sheet. Now use a large round cutter to cut out 15cm diameter circles (don't worry if they're a bit bigger or smaller, get as close as you can). Now you're ready to make the dumplings. Add a tablespoon of your dumpling mixture to the middle of the round, then wet one edge with cold water, fold over and seal to create a semi-circular dumpling. Repeat to prepare all your dumplings.

Now you have two choices - you can either steam or fry the dumplings. I was naughty and fried these today, but steaming works just as well. Serve up with a little soy sauce in bowl, or another dipping sauce such as sweet chilli or plum if you have it to hand.

Variations: you could pretty much introduce any finely minced veg into the dumpling filling, or small cubes of tofu or fried TVP, and you don't have to use the noodles. Have a play and make some  dumplings!