As a child, mum often made vegetable roasts. Her recipes were written in cursive on scraps of paper, stored in boxes and hidden in her office. I’m still mystified how my mum knew the location of a particular recipe with little searching through the pieces of paper.

I prefer roasts made with grains, a mix of earthy vegetables, fresh herbs and crumbly nuts. I’ve used millet in this recipe, but brown rice would be okay too. The nuts are toasted to intensify their flavour and add crunch. If you don’t like roughly chopped nuts in a roast, blend until crumbly in texture. It can take a rather long time to chop the vegetables for this recipe, so if you have an attachment in your food processor that chops or dices vegetables, this could be the time to use it.

Health benefits:

·       Millet has a sweet nutty flavor, is considered to be one of the most digestible and non-allergenic grains and is one of the few grains that are alkalising to the body.

·       Millet will hydrate your colon, act as a prebiotic, is high in fibre and will calm your mood because of the serotonin it contains.

VEGETABLE MILLET ROAST

Makes 24cm x 13cm (9 x 5 inches) loaf

PB, V, GF

 

½ cup (85 g) millet grain

½ cup (70 g) cashew nuts

½ cup (80 g) almonds

1 onion, finely diced

1 garlic clove, finely diced

1 celery stick, finely diced

1 carrot, finely diced

¼ butternut pumpkin, peeled and finely diced

5 mushrooms, finely chpd

2 tbsp (21 g) nutritional yeast

1 tbsp (15 g) coconut aminos/ tamari

2 tbsp fresh parsley, roughly chpd

2 tbsp fresh sage, roughly chpd

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

2 tbsp (20 g) flaxseed meal

400 g tin black beans

½ cup (125 g) runny nut butter

pinch of sea salt

Wash the millet grains and rinse. Bring the millet and 310mls of water to the boil and reduce to simmer for 20-30 minutes until the water is absorbed. Take the saucepan off the heat and let sit with the lid on for 5 minutes. Fluff the grains with a fork and allow cool.

Preheat the oven to 200’C. Place the cashew nuts and almonds on a baking tray lined with baking paper for 10 minutes until they look golden and give off a toasty aroma. Take out of the oven and set aside. Reduce the oven to 180’C.

On a medium heat in a large pan, sauté the finely chopped onions until translucent. Add celery, carrot and pumpkin, and continue to cook until the celery is translucent. Add the garlic and continue cooking for a minute, then add the mushrooms, nutritional yeast and coconut aminos /tamari, and cook for a further 5 minutes. Take off the heat, and mix in the chopped herbs. Blend the nuts until they resemble coarse crumbs. Add the nuts and millet, and stir to combine. Mash the black beans. Stir in the mashed black beans, flaxseed meal and runny nut butter to the mixture, season with sea salt and stir to combine. Spoon the mixture into a loaf tin greased with coconut oil, and press the mixture down very firmly into the tin. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake a further 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cool for 15 minutes. The roast can be reheated the next day, if stored in the fridge overnight. Take care when turning the roast onto a platter, I often serve it from the loaf tin with a large spoon. Serve with onion and thyme gravy.

 

ONION & THYME GRAVY

1 medium onion, diced

1 garlic clove, finely diced

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp tamari

1 sprig thyme

1 cup vegetable stock

Saute onions and garlic until translucent. Reduce to low heat, add the flour and stir to combine, cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat and slowly add the tamari, thyme and vegetable stock. Turn the heat to medium and gently simmer until thickened. Remove from heat, strain through a sieve, mashing the vegetables and herbs down with a spoon. Serve immediately or store in a sealed container.