This is a quick and simple one – if you can find basil tofu, that is

Ingredients:

Rucola

Cherry tomatoes

Basil tofu

Olive oil

White balsamic vinegar

Pasta

Wash the rucola and tomatoes. Chop tomatoes in half and remove the stem.

Dice the basil tofu and fry on a medium heat.

Let it cool down and then add it to the salad bowl.

Boil your pasta in salt water and prepare your dressing. I use two parts olive oil to one part white balsamic vinegar with a touch of agave syrup and salt and pepper.

Drain your pasta and rinse with cold water. Let the pasta cool for a few minutes then add it to the salad bowl and pour on the dressing. Toss and serve

Ingredients:

The filling

3 tbs vegetable oil

2 tbs tomato purée

2 medium carrots

2 medium onions

400 g cherry tomatoes

500 g green lentils

100 g beluga lentils

2 tbs mustard seeds

about 2 litres of veg stock

dark soy sauce

3 tbs starch

The top

2 tsp salt

5 or 6 large potatoes

2 tbs margarine

100 ml soy milk

1 tbs mustard

Warning: This is enough for two pies. I usually freeze half so that I can make another pie later.

Dice your carrots, tomatoes and onions. Weigh and rinse your lentils. Put the oil in the biggest pan you have (and you will need a big pan, or you’ll have to halve the ingredients) and heat on full. Add the tomato purée, turn the heat down to medium and fry for a minute, then add the carrots and stir.

After about five to ten minutes, add the tomatoes, stir well and leave for five minutes.

Then add the onions. After a minute or two you can add the lentils, mustard seeds and half of the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Stir occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Add half of the remaining vegetable stock, the dark soy sauce and the starch, and stir well. Leave it for another 15 minutes and then check if your lentils and carrots are cooked through. If not, add more veg stock if you need it and simmer for another ten minutes. Repeat until your lentils are cooked through.

And that was it, the filling’s done

The top is easy, you can just make mashed potatoes as you normally would, or you can try my mustard mash:

Peel and chop your potatoes, add salt to the water and boil until they’re cooked. Then leave them for another five minutes to make sure they’re really, really cooked

Pour the potatoes into a sieve and add two generous tablespoons of margarine to the pan, and throw the potatoes back in there. Mash well. Add the milk and mash. Add the mustard and mash again. Since there’s nothing worse than lumpy mash: mash again. If you’re not sure it’s fluffy enough for you, you can add a touch more milk (and mash!). You want to make sure that the mash isn’t too stiff to spread over the filling, so I use a touch more milk than I would if I was making bangers and mash.

Now you can start putting spoonfuls of mash on top of your lentil filling. Be careful though, obviously the mash will push the lentils away, so don’t just bang a great big spoonful in the middle, or the lentil filling will pour out over the sides. Guess how I know that

Put small spoonfuls of mash around the edges and then work your way to the middle. Spread it flat over the filling using the back of the spoon.

Then get a fork and do this:

The V is optional of course, but I can’t guarantee your results if you don’t do it

Then put some salt and pepper on top and put it in the oven until the top is golden.

If you made your filling in the morning and your mash in the late afternoon like I just did, and they’re both cold before they go into the oven, I would put the pie in the oven for about an hour at 180. If you made it all at the same time and everything is still hot, you can either put it under the grill to get some colour on the top, or you can put it in the oven on high (210) for about 15-20 minutes.

Serve with some green veg (green beans, broccoli or peas).

The competition:

If you’ve got a clever name for this recipe please tell me in the comments. If you win, I’ll make you a “new name” pie! But you’ll have to come to ours to get it, and we’ll wanna eat some of it…

To start the blog off, I’ll share my favourite bolognese sauce recipe with you:

Ingredients:

The sauce

2 jars of sun-dried tomatoes

2 medium-sized onions

500 g of tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

2 tins of puréed tomatoes

1 tbs agave syrup

300-500 ml of water

The tofu mince

2 tbs vegetable oil

400 g firm natural tofu

1 tbs dark soy sauce

Liquid smoke spray

Instructions:

Pour most of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes away. Put the jars to one side. Chop the onions roughly and cut the tomatoes in half and remove the “columella” (apparently that’s what the bit from the stalk in the tomato is called), then peel the garlic.

Get a large pan with high sides and put it on a medium heat. Pour in the sun-dried tomatoes from both jars (with the oil that is left). Add the tomatoes and onions and cook until the fresh tomatoes start to lose their shape a little. Then add the garlic using a garlic press. Leave it all to cook for another 10-15 minutes. Turn off the hob and let it cool down for about 15 minutes. Now use a hand blender and purée until the sauce has no more large bits in it.

Now add the two tins of puréed tomatoes and stir, then the water. I usually add half, taste, and then add more if it’s still too strong.

Now for my favourite part:

While you’re letting the sauce cook and waiting to purée it, you can crumble up the tofu. I do it with my hands. If you’ve ever made scrambled tofu, you’re doing the same thing. If you haven’t, just crumble up the tofu to make it look like minced meat. Put a large frying pan on the stove on high heat with a little vegetable oil. Add your tofu. This takes a lot longer than you’d expect. You want the tofu to have a chewy texture, for that to happen all of the liquid needs to evaporate first and then it has to get a little colour. This should take around 10-15 minutes. Keep moving the tofu around the frying pan so it doesn’t stick and doesn’t get too dark.

Turn the hob off and add the soy sauce and stir until the tofu is fairly evenly covered.

Now add the liquid smoke. I spray around 5-6 times, you might want more or less…

Once the sauce and mince are done you can add the tofu mince to the pan with the sauce and heat it all up again on a low to medium heat and boil your pasta of choice

So, that was it. The sauce (without the tofu mince) is also a great base for sausage and bean casserole. Once the sauce is done, I fry and chop up some sausages and add them along with a tin of white beans as well as a bay leaf and heat it all up again for 10-15 mins.