Vegan Lentil & Eggplant Stack Recipe
This healthy, tasty and easy-to-make lentil and eggplant stack recipe was whipped up by Quest for Life head chef Leanne ahead of World Pulses Day on February 10.
This dish can be garnished according to your individual taste or dietary requirements. The Quest team were treated to a taste in February, when it was served alongside with a fresh side salad.
Pulses are also known as legumes and include chickpeas, dry beans, lentils, dry peas and lupin. Pulses make for both a healthy diet and planet as a sustainable food source.
Why Pulses?
Pulse crops have a lower carbon footprint than most foods because they require a small amount of fertilizer to grow. They also have a low water footprint as they are adapted to semi-arid conditions and can tolerate drought stress. But it’s not just the sustainability factor: Pulses are inexpensive, easy to store, highly-nutritious, and their ability to enhance the soil microbiome has been key in improving farming techniques in low-income rural areas.
Ingredients
- 1 x 140g can of lentils completely drained
- 1 medium eggplant (or substitute with zucchini)
- ½ cup of cooked and mashed sweet potato (you can substitute with white potato or pumpkin)
- 1 shallot thinly sliced
- ½ stalk of celery finely diced
- 2 tablespoons of basil pesto (see our basil pesto recipe)
- ¼ red capsicum finely diced
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Peel and slice the eggplant into rounds approximately ½ thick and then grill for approximately 5 minutes, then set aside.
- Mix all other ingredients together and season mixture with salt and pepper.
- Layer mixture in-between eggplant slices to make a stack.
- Bake in oven on 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 20 minutes.
Quest head chef Leanne and chef Carol create the smorgasbord of delicious recipes that participants are treated to on our five-day residential programs at the Quest for Life Centre in beautiful Bundanoon, New South Wales.
Leanne says the kitchen team at Quest are always more than happy to accommodate individual dietary requirements or preferences for all of our program participants.
World Pulses Day is a designated United Nations global event to recognise the importance of pulses as a global food. It has been proclaimed on February 10 of each year since 2019 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The event is a day of celebration and recognition of the decisive role that pulses can play in achieving the comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative goals and targets of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a plan of action that seeks to strengthen universal peace.
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