I’ve been steadily getting more ‘into’ cooking lately – rather than it be a end-of-day chore I try to find some interesting and fun things to cook, especially on lazy Sundays. I have a chunky folder full of recipe clippings from magazines, and most of the things on my Christmas list are kitchen accessories! Being a vegetarian you often have to be a bit more creative with cooking so I’ve been using lots of pulses and seasonal vegetables lately, and I’m a big fan of herbs and spices to add flavour.

I’ve been photographing some of my creations for a while, mostly to remind myself what I made, and thought I’d start writing up some recipes in case anyone else wanted to try them out, too. Here’s the first, a spicy lentil and sausage casserole, perfect for winter nights.

Sausage and lentil casserole

Ingredients
Serves 2 with leftovers

• 4 veggie sausages – I used 2 sundried tomato ones and 2 leek and cheese ones (you could use meat ones too, I suppose)
• Tin of puy lentils (I used Merchant Gourmet)
• Tin of plum tomatoes
• 2 sweet pointed red peppers
• 1 red onion
• 1 garlic clove
• Oregano, thyme, paprika, dried chilli flakes
• Spoonful of pesto (I used a delice from Brussels but sundried tomato pesto would be good)
• Teaspoon of wholegrain mustard

Method
Chop the onion and slice the peppers into rings. Fry in olive oil until starting to go soft, add half a teaspoon of each of the herbs and spices and a crushed garlic clove. Chop the sausages into inch chunks and add to the pan, frying until browned. Add the tomatoes, lentils and pesto and bubble away, covered, on a low heat for half an hour or so (or you could pop it into the oven, if you have a casserole dish). Stir in the mustard and serve with salad and bread.

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