Autumn Minestrone

Hearty indeed ❤️

Hello troop. Welcome back!

I’m so looking forward to introducing you to this week’s autumnal recipe. It’s the MacGyver of the gut.

But first, a huge wave to my new subscribers - it’s really lovely to have you here, partying with my pots and pans. Thanks for joining up, and playing a leading role in fueling this Substack space. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, it is my readers who pinball me around my kitchen and give wings to my saucepans.

And if you’re totally new to Taking the Hell out of Healthy, you’ll quickly find that cleaning up your diet needn’t involve bicycle shorts or cauliflower smoothies. This little corner of Substack is more about pleasure than denial. It’s about about the power of your plate, to impact every facet of your health.

Photographed for the Clever Batch cookbook

The food we eat is inescapably linked to our concentration levels and our mood. But you already know that. If we eat up to 5 times a day (that’s 3 meals and a few snacks), we have over 1800 opportunities each year to positively affect our body’s mainframe and software. Our choices can help to fight disease, or to fuel it.

Each month I’ll take you through some simple steps to improve your shopping list and supercharge your supper. We could all improve our diets, but we don’t have to sacrifice flavour. Let’s get started.

Photographed at home, by lovely Ruth Calder-potts

Continuing our theme on autumn family faves, today’s lentil minestrone is souper (sorry, I couldn’t resist) for this crazy weather. You can press play on the video below for all the extra ways to snazz it up.

A close contender for our autumnal family fave is this ricotta involtini, so when you have time to jump over to February’s post, please do. Involtini is a dreamy, creamy, cinchy recipe that will vivify your weekday evenings. In fact, just writing about it has me pining for another pot.

Courgette & Ricotta Involtini

But back to lentil minestrone, which reads like a paean to the heart; cholesterol-lowering olive oil, gut-loving lentils, magnesium-rich greens and a whole bandwagon of polyphenols. We are swapping out white pasta for fibre-rich lentils, not because I’m evil but because they taste great.

My lentil minestrone

Want to learn more about the glories of lentils, their legendary resistant starch? The magic that are SCFAS? This link will bring you to an entire post celebrating legumes, and this one focuses on SCFAs. I know you’ll love it - easy reading that may just change the way you eat forever.

And here's a brilliant podcast episode covering legumes, fibre, and gut health;

As promised last week, here is ONE DOZEN excellent SCFA-rich recipes for you to try. All have printable PDFs contained within;

• Aubergine black lentils

• Curried cauli leaves with banana and black beans

• Tuscan bread soup

• Chickpea Madras

• Sprouted lentils and mung beans

• Build your own bean bowl

• Aqua faba brownies

• Aqua faba meringues

• Sneaky Bean Bars

• Harissa chickpea stew

• Butternut & bean rogan josh

• Smashed chickpeas on baked sweet potatoes

See you in October, for my birthday cake bonanza?

Love, light and lentils,

Susan Jane

x

Fresh, local, organic produce at The Hopsack Rathmines

// Lentil Minestrone//

Serves 6