What I'm eating this week: Pumpkin, lentil & kale bake

Sadly it seems like my European summer has come to an end. I have landed back in London and been greeted by rain and hail, in the spirit of welcoming the cooling months I have looked at some warming recipes to ease the transition.

For years I have been visiting the blog My Darling Lemon Thyme written by Emma Galloway, she is a fantastic Kiwi chef sharing; gluten-free, high plant content, real-food recipes. Emma has two fantastic cookbooks and writes for several publications – make sure you check her out. 

This week I have made Emma’s Pumpkin, Lentil and Kale Bake – which is amazing! It’s warming, filling, packed with plants and it’s a whole meal in itself if you like. This week I served mine with a simple green salad and that’s it!

This recipe is vegan and uses nutritional yeast to give the white sauce a ‘cheesy’ flavour. Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast called Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, the yeast is grown on molasses and then heated to be deactivated. It is a fantastic source of B12 – a nutrient normally only found in animal foods, which is needed by the body to make red blood cells, manufacture hormones and DNA and is needed to prevent infection and illness. You can find nutritional yeast at most health food stores. However, if you want to use some grated cheese in the cauliflower sauce then the recipe allows for this. 

The cauliflower sauce is the best part of this recipe! I love that it is an easy way to sneak more vegetables into the dish. Keep this part of the recipe on hand to use as pasta sauce instead of traditional cheese sauce.