With the wintry weather we’ve been having lately I often feel like a warm lunch. Here’s what I’ve been putting together for a quick plant powered lunch, this also makes a great light dinner. You can either serve this as a soup with some soba noodles or as a “buddha bowl” with brown rice. If you’ve got any left over roasted sweet potato, brocollini, edamame or boiled eggs that would make a delicious addition.

Fabulous for you because:

• fermented soy products like miso contain probiotics and it’s thought that these living microorganisms have health benefits like immunity and digestion

• Incorporating soy-based foods like tofu is an excellent way to get protein, iron, calcium and healthy fats into your diet with relatively little saturated fat, so beneficial for cardiovascular health. Soy products like tofu and miso are also rich in isoflavones which may reduce your risk of prostate cancer and has a protective (or at worst neutral) effect on breast cancer risk

• mushrooms and leafy greens are full of essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants such as Vitamin D, riboflavin and selenium.

• brown rice and quinoa for terrific fibre for your gut microbiome and to fill you up

SERVES 2

GF, VG

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon miso - preferably a live refrigerated one.

• 1 cup vegetable/chicken stock or dashi (2 cups for soup), hot

• 200g pre-marinated firm tofu. I like this one

• 1-2 pots of precooked rice and quinoa, cooked soba noodles, or zoodles

• 200g mushrooms, chopped (I like swiss brown)

• 2 tsp tamari (or salt reduced soy-sauce)

• 2 tsp grated ginger

• 2-4 big handfuls of baby spinach/kale

• sliced spring onions, toasted sesame seeds, nori sheet for topping, optional

METHOD

1. Saute mushrooms and greens in a little extra virgin olive oil in a fry pan, with the ginger. Sprinkle the tamari over. Push to the side of frypan.

2. In the same pan gently fry tofu for 2 minutes on each side.

3. Prepare miso by adding about 1/4 cup of the hot broth to miso paste in a bowl.

   Use a fork or whisk to liquefy the paste

4. Build your bowl with a little miso stock at the bottom, rice, greens, mushrooms and tofu. Sprinkle with sliced spring onions, sesame seeds and crumbled nori to serve

5. Or make a soup by removing the pan from heat and stir in the miso and hot stock