Lorraine Pascale's Soothing Sag Aloo Soup, Peanut Butter and Banana Muffins, and Easy Spelt Pizza with Harissa, Mozzarella and Basil

Throughout January Scala Radio is offering tips and advice on how to stay healthy and happy in 2021.

And a good place to start with a healthy regime is surely the food we eat.

Lorraine Pascale's Soothing Sag Aloo Soup

I had this when I was out and about attending meetings the other day and absolutely loved it. This is not a traditional recipe and it is unusual to have this dish in the form of a soup, but I feel it really does work. If you want to make this in its regular form as a vegetable side dish and not as a soup, then just put enough stock into the dish for the potatoes to cook in and soak up all of the liquid.

Serves 4-6

1 tbsp olive oil ½ tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 large onion, very finely chopped

2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and very finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped

1 red chilli, deseeded for less heat if preferred, very finely chopped

1 litre of a good liquid vegetable stock

1 large waxy potato (about 450g), peeled and cut into

1cm dice 2 tomatoes, roughly diced

125g spinach leaves

½ tin of chickpeas, drained (optional)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put the oil in a large pan over a low-medium heat. Add the mustard seeds, cumin, coriander and turmeric and cook for a couple of minutes or until you start to smell the aromas of the spices. Add the onion and ginger and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly until softened. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for 1 minute more.

Gradually pour in the stock, scraping any sticky bits from the bottom of the pan as you go. Stir in the potato and tomato. Bring to the boil and then reduce to simmer for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the spinach, fistfuls at a time, until wilted. Add the chickpeas to heat them through, if using, then season the soup to taste and remove from the heat.

Ladle into bowls and serve.

Lorraine Pascale's Peanut Butter and Banana Muffins

These freeze beautifully. Simply pop the cooled muffins on a tray and into the freezer, then once they are frozen, bag them up. I do it this way so that the muffins do not all stick together during freezing.

Makes 12

300g crunchy peanut butter (use one that only adds salt to the ingredients, never sugar)

200ml unsweetened almond milk

100g oats, plus 2 tbsp extra for the topping

75g spelt flour (wholemeal will work, too)

2 large ripe bananas, peeled and roughly broken into pieces

6 Medjool dates, pitted

1 free-range egg

1 tsp baking powder ½

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C), 350°F, Gas Mark 4. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases.

Put all of the ingredients (except the topping oats) in a food processor and blitz for about 30 seconds until well combined, to give a fairly smooth paste.

Divide the mixture evenly among the 12 muffin cases and sprinkle over the extra oats.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of one of the muffins comes out clean.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool a little before enjoying.

Lorraine Pascale's Easy Spelt Pizza with Harissa, Mozzarella and Basil

Serves 2-4

Pizza base

300g wholemeal spelt flour, plus extra for dusting

7g sachet of fast-action dried yeast

1tsp fine sea salt

Leaves from 1 handful of fresh thyme (about 2 tbsp) or 2 tsp dried oregano

Topping

150 ml passata

1-2 tsp harissa paste (depending on how hot you like things)

1 large tomato, cut into bite-sized chunks

2 x 125g balls of low-fat or regular mozzarella

drained Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve Leaves from ½ bunch of fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 240°C (fan 220°C), 475°F, Gas Mark 9.

Toss the flour, yeast and salt together in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add 175ml of warm tap water and stir everything together with a wooden spoon until it starts to form a ball. Then get your (clean) hands in and squidge it all together.

Lightly dust a clean surface with flour, tip the dough out and then knead for about 8 minutes until smooth. Flatten the dough out a bit, sprinkle over the thyme leaves and work them into the dough. You may need to do it in two or three batches as there is quite a lot of thyme to get into the dough. Alternatively, knead the dough for 5 minutes in an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, adding the thyme for the last minute.

Once the thyme is evenly distributed, roll the dough out to a 30cm round that is about 5mm thick. I like to do this on a lightly floured sheet of baking parchment, which I can then simply slide over onto a large baking sheet. If not using parchment, then sprinkle some flour on the baking sheet before sliding the base on. Cover with a clean tea towel for a moment while you get the topping ready.

Mix the passata and harissa together in a small bowl. Remove the tea towel from the pizza and spread this mixture evenly all over the pizza. Scatter over the chopped tomatoes and season with salt and pepper.

Pop the pizza in the oven to cook for about 10 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven and tear the mozzarella over the top. Return to the oven to cook for a further 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling nicely and the pizza base is going crisp.

Once cooked, remove from the oven, scatter over the basil leaves and serve.

When is Composed in the Kitchen on Scala Radio?

Listen to Lorraine Pascale in Composed in the Kitchen from 6pm on Sundays in January.

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