GRAEME'S VEGGIE ROAST

Happy Easter, everyone! For some reason, I’ve been more excited about Easter this year than I normally am. I’ve been looking forward to having a few days off from work and painting Easter eggs, eating lots of chocolate, going for hikes and hopefully jamming in a session in the slopes too. We're having the best weather, and Graeme even got a bit of pinkish tint on his face yesterday, when we took his friend who's visiting from Florida on a hike to Preikestolen (tee hee, Graeme and his pale Scottish skin). 

A big roast dinner is also an Easter must. As Graeme is the only vegetarian, this is often his meat-free option when the rest of us are having a roast. And even though I happily eat meat and love a good roast chicken as much as the next meat eater, I usually try to sneak a bit from Graeme's veggie roast as well. Call me greedy, but really, it's so good.

The recipe might sound like a bit of a cumbersome process, but it is well worth the effort, as the roast you end up with is both moist and full of flavour. You can also easily make it a day in advance and leave it in the fridge overnight. It’ll set and keep its shape much better if you do, and it actually tastes amazing cold, too. However, leaving it overnight also means you have to wait a day, which we definitely struggle with.

Ingredients:
175 g green lentils
450 ml vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
75 g cashews, roughly chopped
75 g walnuts, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large leek, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
100 g mushrooms, chopped
2 cloves garlic
juice of half a lemon
100 g cheddar cheese, grated
1 egg
a handful fresh parsley
100 g bread crumbs (if making your own breadcrumbs: 100 g bread, 2 cloves garlic, splash of olive oil and salt and pepper)

Directions:
If you're making your own breadcrumbs: break up the bread into chunks on a piece of tinfoil, pour over a good glug of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Put in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 5 to 10 minutes, until golden. Once the bread is browned, take it out and let a cool for a minute, before putting it in a food processor and blitzing it with two cloves of garlic. 

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Rinse the lentils in cold water, and put them in a saucepan with the stock and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and stir every now and again to make sure it's not sticking to the bottom. Leave it to simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes until thick and pulpy. While the lentils are cooking, toast the walnuts and cashews in a dry pan on medium heat. Once browned, set aside. Add oil to the frying pan and throw in the chopped onion and garlic. Cook til soft, and then add the leek, red pepper and mushrooms. Add the lemon juice and let it cook until tender. In a mixing bowl, combine lentils, vegetables, breadcrumbs and nuts, and mix in the chopped parsley. Add the egg and 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper and mix. Transfer the mixture to a loaf tin, and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Cover the loaf in tin foil, and place it in the oven. After 30 minutes, take off the tin foil, and bake it for a further 30 minutes. Take it out and let it cool for a bit before you cut into it.

Serve with whatever sides you like with your roast. We usually mix it up a little, and today we went for hasselback potatoes, carrots, homemade yorkies (that looked funny but tasted delicious!), gravy and lingonberry sauce. Because I am Scandinavian and need my lingonberry sauce.