Food & Recipes: Community Comfort

These recipes were collected by one of our Community Ambassadors; food publisher, writer and advocate Riaz Phillips. You can find out more about Riaz here. 

At the start of the first COVID-19 lockdown when news began to trickle out that the communities that were being negatively impacted the most were the ones closest to Riaz, he wanted to do something positive that helped and shine a positive light on underrepresented food cultures in the UK.


The result was Community Comfort, an incredible array of recipes inspired by a global palette of cuisines. The recipes shared here have been picked due to their ease to make, relatively cheap ingredients and for how long each cook can last especially given these winter days

Red Lentil Dahl and Mushroom rice by Isreal Mbabazi

This dish embraces the amazing Indian-Pakistani culture in East Africa. 

Isreal himself describes, “the smell of spices cooking, particularly in the ones featured in this dish remind me of my early years at home when I was growing up. It especially reminds me of the smells coming from mum’s kitchen wafting around the house.”  This dish requires just a basic shop and every time we have cooked it has been a pleasure for days.

 

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Sweet Potato and Chickpea Coconut Curry by Belinda Manfo

Veganism is at the heart of everything Belinda does. This includes her street food business Marli’s Kitchen or her vegan “meat” food service. This dish comes from her Ghanaian upbringing. This meal is something Belinda concocted as a way to transport herself to sunnier shores. The recipe requires three cans, which we’ll usually have in the cupboard, some veg and some spices and that’s it! If you don’t have all the spices or veg don’t worry and feel free to freestyle.

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Coco Granola by Kindima Bah

This dish is from Kindima’s travels to her grandmother’s home in Guinea, West Africa. Visiting here she had a daily routine of snacking on an array of local grown nuts and seeds. Whilst many are working from home, a great amount of people still have to get up and go, and for both this is perfect. It takes less than half an hour to prepare. You can increase the volume of the ingredients to make it last for weeks. Store in airtight jars or tupperware. Perfect for breakfast or a snack anytime of day.

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Cauliflower and Mushroom Pasta Bake by Nyasha Sakutakwa

Nyasha runs a super fun YouTube channel where he cooks and in general just shares huge amounts of joy. This dish was inspired by his time as a student, which meant living off a student budget and trying to work wonders cooking for his friends. The frequent empty plates suggested he was on to something and we agree. We usually keep some regular pasta in jars on the shelf in the kitchen, so this is perfect for making something quick and tasty.

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Mushroom Oat Lugaw by Zosima Sewell

Zosima developed this savoury  Mushroom oat Lugaw inspired by her Filipino heritage. We were blown away, not only by its simplicity but the variety of flavours packed in. Not only that but a 1kg bag of oats can be really cheap and stored for a long time so this dish is perfect for breakfast, lunch or a snack. 

 

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