Here’s a delicious comforting plant-based recipe: cauliflower lentil bolognese. The recipe for this colorful meal is from Venner recipe book. Venner is a Finnish non profit company and food service founded by my amazing friend Tuulia – a very entrepreneurial and hardworking lady, who has been working in food business for over 10 years developing nourishing recipes and coming up with ways to help others. That’s also what Venner is all about.
To read this post in Finnish, click here.
Venner
Venner is a new way of helping and empowering Finnish low income families. With only a few clicks you can send help in the form of a well planned plant-based meal service, which contains recipes and ingredients for a week for a family. The idea is to guide families to cook plant-based meals and show them how easy it is to replace meat with a healthy plant-based protein. Vitamin D is also included in the package as it’s a vitamin recommended for all of us living in the North for stronger immunity.
Venner might not be able to remove the poverty issue, but it will have a positive effect on families and fight against the polarization of wellbeing in society.
The positive impact can already be seen: each week Venner receives multiple positive reviews from families. Some families have cooked plant-based meals for the first time in their life with the help of Venner and they are loving it.
How can you help through Venner?
Here is a link to the Venner store:
I really enjoyed cooking this nourishing meal, and it was also very satisfying to see my kids eat this with great appetite. I haven’t tried cauliflower in bolognese sauce before and I was so happy how amazingly it works in bolognese with red lentils. The color of the sauce is incredibly beautiful too: bright orange thanks to warming turmeric powder.
With creamy potato mash this bolognese is a lovely weekday meal and even suitable for a bigger family celebration like Thanksgiving. You can easily make this meal festive with berries, parsley and other greens and veggies.
Happy cooking ♥
- Cauliflower lentil bolognese
- ¼ medium sized cauliflower (about 8 oz)
- a generous ½ cup of lentils
- 1 onion or 2 small ones
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1½ cups of water
- 1 vegetable stock cube (or 1½ cups of vegetable stock)
- 2,5 oz tomato puree (about ¼ cup)
- 14 oz canned tomatoes
- 1,5 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 cup of coconut milk
- 3 tbsp small capers
- bunch of fresh parsley
- 1 tbsp olive oil or water for cooking
- Potato-parsnip mash
- 35 oz / 1 kg potatoes
- 5 oz / 150 g parsnip
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt & pepper to taste
- + save the cooking water for the mash
- To serve: sauerkraut, green salad, lingonberries (or cranberries) and parsley.
- Wash, peel and cut potatoes and parsnip into small pieces.
- Put the pieces in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let bubble in medium heat until potato and parsnip pieces are soft. Save some of the cooking water for later when you make the mash.
- Blend cauliflower in a food processor into tiny cauliflower "rice". You can also chop it with a knife until it's crumbly.
- Rinse lentils.
- Chop onions and garlic and cook them in olive oil in medium heat until soft, about 2 minutes.
- Add cauliflower "rice" and cook for about a minute stirring.
- Add rinsed lentils, water and vegetable stock cube (or veggie stock), tomato puree, canned tomatoes and turmeric and let simmer in medium heat for about 20 minutes until all ingredients are soft.
- Add capers and coconut milk and let simmer another 5 minutes. Add parsley on top.
- Mash soft potatoes and parsnip, add oil and cooking water and mash until it's very soft and creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Enjoy this comforting meal with greens, sauerkraut and berries.
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