This is my island in the sun

I was inspired by a recipe on my new favourite blog Including Cake to mash up 2 recipes I already had to create this--Tropical Dhal. Her recipe was red lentils cooked in coconut milk with some fried red onions and sliced mango on top. It made way more than we can eat, plus I had a dahl recipe where it makes the perfect amount for 2 if you add lots of roasted veg to it (which I usually do) but this time I just subbed in the veg from another recipe where you roast sweet potato, red onion, a pepper and chopped mango in a hot oven. Whoa it was lovely! It was beautiful to look at to boot with all those bright yellows and oranges. I had been waiting and watching with my eagle eyes to find mangos at the market. Finally, I found 3 for £1 and we have eaten them 3 different ways this week, but this has been my most favourite.

Tropical Dhal

Preheat you oven to 220C/425F and put your roasting tin in the oven to be heating. This is the secret to making these veg roast in 20 minutes.

You need:

1 sweet potato, chopped (I don’t bother to peel)

1 red onion, chopped

1 red or orange pepper, chopped (red would look better, but all I had was orange)

I ripe mango, peeled and chopped in large chunks

1-2 TB olive oil

Coat all the veg in the oil in a mixing bowl. When the oven has preheated, carefully take out the hot pan and tip the oily veg into it and it will make a satisfying sizzle sound! Put it back in the oven to roast for 20 minutes. In the meantime do this:

Heat in a large saucepan the following ingredients:

1 tin light coconut milk (or cheat like I did and puree 2 cups “milk” and 1/3 cup desiccated coconut in your blender)

Half a tin chopped tomatoes (roughly 200g)

¾ cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed

1 tsp garam masala (I used ras el hanout which is basically garam masala but with dried rose petals in it)

Bring to the boil then cover and simmer, stirring occasionally until liquid has absorbed which is about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes of roasting, check the veg to see if the sweet potatoes are cooked through (mine were) --if not back into the oven they go for a few more minutes.

Top the dahl with some tropical roasted veg,  then eat and feel like you are on some kind of island paradise.