Spicy sausage and lentil casserole recipe
Could a sausage and lentil casserole be anything other than spicy with us? We heart the spice!
I first made this when we were on holiday in a wonderful cottage in Staithes a few years ago so it always has connotations of relaxed cosiness – we’ve been there a couple of times out of season and had the quietest, most relaxing holidays ever. Recommend ++.
Anyway, back to the casserole, it’s a fab winter warmer – and can be pretty darn cheap if made with sausages on offer, as ours were when I made this on Saturday.
Spicy sausage and lentil casserole recipe
Makes 4 dinner portions
Cost £3-4 in total depending on sausage offers – ie, 75p-£1 a portion.
Ingredients
1lb of sausages – pork or veggie
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed (or 2tsp of puree)
100g ish of mushrooms, diced
1 or 2 peppers, diced
1 hot chilli, diced very finely (I used a scotch bonnet one when I took the pics)
250g of green lentils or puy lentils
500ml of hot veg stock
1tbsp of tomato puree
1tbsp of mixed herbs
A couple of bay leaves
2 splashes of Worchestershire sauce
Black pepper to season
A little olive oil
Bargain dinners – lamb curry and lamb, chorizo & chickpea casserole
I intended to write more about wild garlic pods today but we cooked up such a bargainacious storm last night I can’t resist telling you about it.
I spotted a perfectly-fine looking 2kg shoulder of lamb in the reduced-to-clear section of the supermarket a few weeks ago. It was less than an hour before closing and the shop was pretty empty to they’d marked it down from £12 to £1.35 (it had originally been on offer at £12 too!). A 2kg joint for £1.35! The reduced meat gods were looking out for us that day – one of the staff had wrapped a couple of packs together with the sticker price of 75p – the top pack was ox tail, a less observant person might have thought the bottom pack was too. It wasn’t, it was £8-worth of sirloin steak! We ate the steak the following evening but the lamb went straight into the freezer until a time we fancied a nice roast.
I got it out to defrost yesterday and fully intended to slow roast it yesterday afternoon but work was a bit frantic and it just didn’t happen. By dinner time, we needed something quicker than a 5-hours-in-the-oven roast so I decided to hack it up instead and let John whip up a curry with it instead. There was so much meat though that I had enough to make a casserole with it too – a slow cooked one so I could use up the tougher meat.
John’s made a few excellent Achars recently but lacking yoghurt today, made a jalfrezi instead. Then forgot to add the egg, the numpty. We’ll add it when we have the leftovers though and add some more spices to freshen it up again.
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