Fine bean & beluga lentil salad

Ingredients 400g spinach, 100g garden peas, 1 tbsp almond butter, 200g fine beans, 200g beluga or puy lentils (I loveMerchant Gourmet's ready to eat pouches), 1 tbsp butter.

Serves: 4 Preparation: 30 minutes

After the excesses of Christmas, I always veer towards clean, green food. Lentils need not be boring however - this steamy hot salad has an irresistible gloss of silky almond butter, meltingly soft spinach and a crisp crunch of fine beans.

1) Roughly chop the spinach and fine beans and add to a pan with 1 tsp butter and 1 tbsp almond butter. Stir until the spinach has just begun to wilt.

2) Simmer the peas in boiling water for 2 minutes, drain and add to the pan along with the lentils. Add a little extra almond butter if you wish, season with black pepper and serve hot or cold.

Gnocchi with kale & artichoke pesto

Ingredients 200g kale, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 artichoke, olive oil, gruyere, 1 potato, 3oz pasta flour.

Serves: 2 Preparation: 1 hour

This serving suggestion for my kale and artichoke pesto is one of the lightest gnocchis that I have ever made, as I usually associate gnocchi with heavy cream sauces. I concocted this recently for a vegan friend (minus the gruyere for her of course!) and it turned out beautifully. Give it a try!

1) To make kale & artichoke pesto.

2) To make gnocchi: Bake a small potato and allow it to cool. Remove the skin and add to the blender along with the pasta flour. Blitz through and roll the mixture into balls.

3) Roll the balls in flour, score with a fork, then drop in boiling, salted water. Once the dumplings float to the surface (about 2 minutes) they're ready.

4) Drain the pan of gnocchi and stir in the pesto and grated gruyere. Serve hot

Kale & artichoke pesto

Ingredients 200g kale, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 artichoke, olive oil.

Preparation: 40 minutes

Pesto is a regular favourite with me, and so versatile. From the Italian classic basil/pine nut/garlic/lemon/parmigiano combination to the French classic pistou (using almonds) there are few variations of nuts and herbs that I have yet to grind up in my mortar and pestle and share on this blog. The combination of scrummy kale and fabulous artichoke makes this pesto one of my best yet.

1) Break the stem of the artichoke as close to the base as you can, then put the artichoke head first into a pan of hot, salted water and keep it submerged with an upturned pan lid (or plate). It will take 20-30 minutes to cook until tender - test the base with a knife - if it goes in smoothly it's ready!.

2) Blanche the kale then drain and dry thoroughly. 

3) Slice the artichoke leaves and add to the blender along with a generous glug of olive oil, a tablespoon of almond butter and the kale. Blitz until a soft puree has formed. Stir into pasta, spread onto sandwiches or why not try my gnocchi recipe?

Almond buttered bean salad

Ingredients 2 tbs almond butter, 1 tsp truffle oil, 1/4 cup peas, 1/2 courgette, 1 avocado, 1 can cannellini beans.

Serves: 4 (or two as a side dish) Preparation: 10 minutes

Winter to me (like every other season as a vegetarian I suppose!) is somewhat bean-centric. Soups and stews galore are packed with the wonderful range of colours and textures that these little nuggets of protein provide. This salad combines the delicate flavour of courgette and cannellini beans with gutsy almond, earthy truffle and sweet, fresh peas. The dressing is slick and silky with avocado.

1) Rinse the beans and bring to the boil in a pan of salted water for 5 minutes.

2) In a separate pan, warm the almond butter and truffle oil, stirring until a runny dressing has formed, then take off the heat.

3) Slice the avocado in half and use a tablespoon to scoop it from the shell. If the avocado is ripe enough the stone will pop out with a spoon but another good method is to prick it with a knife and pull it out. For the purpose of this dish, roughly dice it into centimetre thick pieces and stir gently into the almond and truffle dressing along with the peas. Some of the avocado will melt to form a thicker sauce and the remains will add texture.

4) I like thin slices of raw courgette in this dish, but you can roast chunks of it if you prefer. Add to the pan of dressing then drain the beans and stir through before serving warm or cold.

Almond, spinach & poached egg yolk pasta

Ingredients 200g spinach, 1 cup pasta, 1 egg, 1 tbsp almond butter, nutmeg.

Serves: 1 Preparation: 15 minutes

Spinach and nutmeg go together like ramalamalamagadingagadingadong but I bet you've never considered adding almond butter into the mix...
Well friend, you've got a whole world of woody scrumptiousness coming to you! This is an unusual pasta in that there's no real sauce to speak of, it's pure flavour and texture with a lick of egg yolk to lubricate the way, and it's absolutely lovely. I like to use spinach pasta to double up the spinach goodness, but I do realise that I am a spinach junkie...

1) Add the pasta to a pan of hot salted water and simmer for 8-10 minutes.

2) Stir the spinach into the almond butter and continue stirring on a low heat until the spinach has begun to wilt. Grate a little nutmeg into the pan, then stir in the pasta.

3) Drop an egg yolk into a pan of boiling water for 45 seconds, then spoon carefully onto the pasta. Serve immediately, breaking the yolk onto the pasta to coat it in the silky, creamy sauce.

Almond buttered green beans

Ingredients Green beans, almond butter

Serves: 2 Preparation 10 minutes

I use green beans quite a lot in pasta or curry because I love the crunchy, sweet contrast to the other ingredients but they are also a great side dish in their own right. This is a great way of sexing them up

1) Steam the green beans for 5 minutes

2) Stir in a teaspoon of almond butter and serve

Pea & mint rice salad

Ingredients   Almond butter, garden peas, mint,  wild rice, long grain rice, goats cheese.

1) Mix the rice together and boil for 20 minutes. During the last 5 minutes, add in the peas.


2) Strain the rice and stir through with almond butter. Slice the goats cheese into chunks and sprinkle with chopped mint. Serve hot or cold.

Potato & camembert salad with poached pears & walnuts

Ingredients    Camembert, pears, red wine, walnuts, desiree potatoes, almond butter, honey, walnuts.

1) Prick the potatoes and boil them in hot salted water for 20 minutes. Strain and set aside.


2) Slice the flesh from 4 sides of a pear, leaving the core. Cut the pear slices into thirds and set aside.


3) Melt a generous knob of butter in a frying pan and add a glug of red wine. Set the pears skin side up in the pan and drizzle over with 2 tablespoons of honey.


4) Slice the potatoes into chunks and stir in the pears with enough of the sauce to glaze the potatoes. Cut the camembert into chunks and stir through along with some finely diced walnuts.

Poicamole

Ingredients 400g garden peas, parmigiano, mint leaves, basil oil, almond butter Serving suggestion spread on sliced bread, crackers or dunk tortilla chips.

1) Shell your peas (frozen peas are absolutely fine for this) and either boil or steam for 6-8 minutes.

2) Strain in a colander and pour the peas into a blender. Add a good handfull of chopped mint, a dribble of basil oil and start to blend.

3) As the peas are blending add 2-3 teaspoons of almond butter, a good pinch of salt, 6 teaspoons of grated parmeggian and pulse thoroughly.

4) I served this spread on La Brea honey and wheat baguette but, like guacamole this would be great with tortilla chips dunked in it.