Ooh this turned out nice: Veggie potato, leek, lentil and chestnut bake

mlinci

Hi all, posting a recipe here for the first time. I improvised it today using stuff I had in the fridge and in the cupboard, and it turned out amazing, totally exceeding my expectations. Perfect for a cold late autumn evening - I'm in London, UK, and it's been very windy today with a bit of rain.

I put everything in the recipe builder here on MFP, and it turned out at about 520 calories per portion, the amounts in the recipe are for 4 portions. MFP tells me each portion is 15.4g fat, 75.1g carbs and 19.7g protein. A portion is quite substantial, so half a portion would work well as a side dish.

Ingredients were:
Two large baking potatoes sliced into thin flat slices - you'll need enough slices to cover the top of the pan. Potatoes weighed just under 600g when peeled
100g chopped onion
120g chopped carrots (that was two medium carrots)
550g chopped leeks (I weighed them after trimming them)
100g chopped raw broccoli
230g raw celeriac (that was one smallish celeriac root, weighed after peeling it)
90g puy lentils - they are the small dark green ones. I'd have used a bit more, but I run out.
200g chestnut puree (I used the Merchant Gourmet brand)
100g grated chedar (I used half regular mature chedar, and half mature cheddar with 30% less fat, as that's what I had in the fridge)
couple of sprays of oil spray
smoked salt to season - that was my magic ingredient (you could use a stock cube in its place if you don't have any)
30g butter
Black pepper to season
Dry garlic - about 3/4 of a teaspoon, maybe (didn't measure this, sorry)

I melted the butter in a large pan, added the onions first for a couple of minutes, adding also the garlic and the smoked salt at this stage. When the onions softened, I added the carrots, broccoli and carrots and sauteed it for a few more minutes, then adding the lentils, and after a few minutes the leeks. I then added a splash of water (you could use wine if you want),covered the pan and left this to gently cook for about 15 minutes. I sliced the potatos into this slices as this was cooking.

Then I put all the cooked veggies into a large roasting tray, spooned in the chestnut puree and about 2/3 of the cheese, gave it a gentle stir, then covered it with the potato slices, and sprinkled them with the remaining 1/3 of the cheese and a touch more smoked salt.

I covered the tray with aluminium foil, and cooked it at gas mark 5 for about an hour, then I removed the foil and put it in the oven for an extra ten minutes or so, till the potatos got a bit of colour.

Enjoy!