Where have I been? And please enjoy some warm lentil salad topped with poached egg.

Hello!  Sincere apologies for my absence.  I needed to take a break from blogging.  The reason?  Because I had started heaping pressure on myself, setting expectations about perfect photos, on-trend and original recipes, and copious tweets and followers.  This diminished my enjoyment of Lick Your Plate significantly.  I had lost sight of why I started my blog, which was to provide time and space for thinking, cooking and sharing my love of food.

I thought a lot over 2017 as to whether I wanted to blog again.  I knew I didn’t want to spend any more time fretting it wasn’t good enough or interesting enough or perfect enough or Instagram-worthy enough. My garden is a barely controlled jungle and surely nobody wants to see photos of anything that comes out of that?  Often what I’m cooking in the kitchen is something I’m trying to whip up quickly because I’m hungry and in need of something satisfying, so therefore boring? Of course there are times when I’m delicately icing a cake for a special occasion or experimenting with something new and enticing, but not all the time, so why would anyone care?

These are all of the wrong questions.  Ultimately, the only question I had to answer was did I miss blogging because I miss writing and sharing how much I love food?  The answer to this was a resounding yes.  So here I am.

I’ll be blogging from the front line of my house and garden and whatever happens to be going on in there that week.  This will include simple nourishing bites I whip up to quieten a demanding stomach, weird recipes from my growing collection of old-school cookbooks, special treats and of course the Edmond’s Cook Book.

I’ve missed you all!

To start the year as I mean to go on, here is a tasty little something I enjoy when I need for something soothing and nutritious that uses up the pesky left over cabbages and carrots my fridge seems to abound with. I hope you enjoy it.

Warm lentil salad with poached eggs

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 T olive oil

1 clove of garlic, crushed and diced

1 t each of smoked paprika, ground cumin and coriander

1 carrot, peeled and grated

1/4 red cabbage, thinly sliced

1 tin of lentils, rinsed and drained

2 eggs and a pan of water for poaching them  (optional) **

**equally tasty without the eggs, and also quite nice topped with feta instead of eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a small frying pan over moderate heat.  When heated add the garlic and spices and stir.
2. Once the garlic and spices are fragrant, add the carrot and cabbage.  Stir and cook until starting to soften, 3-5 minutes.
3. During this time, boil the water for poaching your eggs (if using).
4. Add the lentils and stir thoroughly to combine all ingredients in the pan and lower the heat.  Put your eggs in the boiling water to poach.
5. After 4-5 minutes remove all the frying pan from the heat, stir and serve into your bowl or plate.  Season to taste and top with the poached eggs if using.