Tag: food

Meal Plan 3 Laura of London

Breakfast, a couple of dinners and a new meal plan – you lucky sods!

Laura NanaLeave a comment

Morning all,

I’ve recently started a new job hence the radio silence for a week or two but I’ve got some beauties for you this morning and more to come soon, including (hopefully) a wonderful guest blog from my lovely friend Nicola French!

Cashew cream on toast
Cashew cream on toast

Breakfast this morning is gluten free toast with cashew cream, which you’ll know having read my ‘Game Changer‘ post, this is my new and most favourite sweet treat!

Its been a pretty busy week as I’ve also started going back to the gym. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop with all the class options and had my first PT consult with one of the trainers, I’m really looking forward to getting fitter and leaner over the coming months, make sure you follow my Laura_of_London Instagram to track my progress!

Vietnamese Prawn Rolls Laura of London
Vietnamese Prawn Rolls

We’ve had a couple of nice new recipes this week as well as some good classics – my Vietnamese prawn rolls went down a storm last night with the family, they always taste so clean, healthy and fresh and adding a bit of spice to the dipping sauce makes all the difference!

I also tried to make a couple of new salads, first was a Goats Cheese and Grain salad with a honey lemon dressing and then we had a Steak and roasted veg salad with a lovely peppery mustard dressing.

I’ve made another meal plan for you to try, I really would urge you to try these for a week or to – most of the recipes are available on my site, they’re all clean eating and I’m always available to help chat through any questions you have. I’d love to have any feedback from people who have tried them as I want to make sure they work!

Have a super fantabulous weekend everyone, if you’re in London, it looks to be a nice hot BBQ-tastic one!

Meal Plan 3 Laura of London
Meal Plan 3

Meal Plan 3

Prosciutto Rolls & Salad

Laura NanaLeave a comment

I came up with this lunch idea at the weekend, I love prosciutto and combining it with good quality mozzarella and peppery rocket makes this a really delicious option for lunch. Please try and go for the best possible quality mozzarella you can realistically afford, I promise it makes a difference. I’ve added a cheeky little video for you, hope you like it!

  
Serves: 1

  • 2 slices of prosciutto
  • 2 tsp mascarpone
  • Couple of torn-off pieces of mozzarella
  • 3-4 sundried tomatoes
  • Rocket
  • Handful of spinach
  • Cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
  • Squeeze of lemon juice

Lay out the prosciutto and spread the mascarpone over them and season well, you could add a little bit of oregano at this point too. Lay on the rocket and sundried tomatoes and add the mozzarella. Squeeze over a spritz of lemon juice and roll these up into little parcels of joy, you can secure them with a little cocktail stick if you need to.

Put the spinach and tomatoes in a Tupperware container and pop the parcels on top.

Try and wait until lunchtime.

Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket Laura of London

Another 10 minute wonder

Laura Nana2 Comments

Yesterday we had a fab day celebrating the lovely Hishal’s 4th Birthday in East London, it was lovely to see D’s cousins and eat lots of lovely BBQ food by the lovely Yogesh and Veerusha and her cake baking skills are second to none!

I wanted to make something really light and meat-free for dinner, and after such a long drive it had to be quick! So I made myself a little apéritif of rose, soda and ice and got to work…

A little Apéritif Laura of London
A little Apéritif – rose wine, soda and ice

As you’ve probably seen from my recent posts, I’m a bit of a fan of my new spiraliser (Zoodle Chef, £15 on Amazon) and so I decided to make some ‘pasta’ otherwise known as courgetti. This is where you spiralise courgette and use it as a replacement for spaghetti. If you don’t have a sprialiser, you can just shave the courgette using a peeler and either have it as ‘papardelle’ or use a knife to slice it into thin, ‘pasta’ strips.

Spiralise 5 courgettes
Spiralise 5 courgettes

Once you’ve got the courgette ready this is a pretty fast recipe so get everything laid out and ready to go.

Ingredients

5 Courgettes
2 tins of crab meat
Handful parsley and basil
3-4 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 tbsp cold water
Juice of 1 lemon
400g tin of Cheery tomatoes (or normal tinned tomatoes + handful of fresh cherry tomatoes)
50g pine nuts
Rocket and mixed seeds to decorate

Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket Laura of London
Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket

Method

Spiralise your courgetti and put it in a bowl.

Make the pesto by adding the basil, pine nuts, parsley, water, oil and lemon juice to a blender and let it go for a minute or two

Add the pesto to a saucepan with the tinned cherry tomatoes – this will look a weird colour but don’t worry! Warm it through on quite a low to medium heat. You can add a small teaspoon of honey at this point to offset the acidity of the tomatoes but this isn’t vital.

Add the tinned cherry tomatoes Laura of London
Add the tinned cherry tomatoes

In a separate pan with a lid, put as much of the courgette in as will fit and 2 tbsp of water. Put the lid on and warm it through for a couple of minutes, remove the lid – if it is soft enough, drain it and do the same again with the next batch of courgette – depending on the size of the pan, repeat as necessary until all of the courgette is cooked.

Add the crab to the pesto/tomato sauce mix and season and stir well. Then add the courgetti to the sauce mix and stir/toss and allow it to warm through for a minute or two.

Mix the courgetti with the crab sauce Laura of London
Mix the courgetti with the crab sauce

Serve in warmed bowls with a drizzle of olive oil and a topping of lemon juice, rocket and mixed seeds.

Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket Laura of London
Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket
Apricot Granola out of the oven Laura of London Laura Nana

New Granola recipe

Laura NanaLeave a comment

Here’s another granola recipe that I made this morning, similar flavours but a couple of new additions, I wanted it to be more fruity and nutty et voila – dried apricots go amazingly chewy when they’re cooked and replacing flaked almonds with chopped mixed nuts gives a really nice crunch.

Apricot Granola out of the oven Laura of London Laura Nana
Hot out of the oven

To make the compote I regularly have with it, I use half a tub of frozen mixed berries and 1-2 tablespoons of Agave with 1-2 tablespoons of water – all in a saucepan simmered for 5 minutes or so. Taste for tartness and pop in a tupperware container to go in the fridge once its cooled, it’ll keep for a week or so. If it is a little too sharp, add more agave.

Apricot Granola with natural yoghurt and frozen berry compote Laura of London
Apricot Granola with natural yoghurt and frozen berry compote

Dry ingredients 
2.5 cups oats
¼ cup flax seeds – I used Linwoods
¼ cup mixed seeds
¼ cup dried apricots chopped up small
¼ cup seedless raisins
¼ cup ground almonds
½ cup shredded coconut

Apricot Granola Laura of London Laura Nana
Granola with Apricot, coconut, nuts and seeds

Wet ingredients
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp nut butter
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp agave
3 tbsp maple syrup

Granola 'Wet' Ingredients Laura of London
Granola ‘Wet’ Ingredients

Put all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix. Put the wet ingredients in a saucepan and heat until they all melt and mix together.

Melted down wet ingredients Laura of London Laura Nana
Melted down wet ingredients

Pour the wet onto the dry ingredients and mix really well. Put it all on a lined baking sheet and into the oven at 180 for 10 minutes. Remove and turn it all over with a fork so other parts get a chance to get brown. Put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes then remove, stir and leave to cool. Pop your amazing cereal in an airtight container ready to use in the morning.

IMG_0081

Oriental Chicken Salad with Nutty Dressing Laura of London Laura Nana

Family Salad – a quick meal to get in the mood for Summer

Laura Nana4 Comments

Summer is just around the corner, I can almost touch it! So I’m testing out lots of new salad ideas, packing as much nutritional punch as I possibly can. I try and add lots of additional beneficial extras  – things like mixed seeds, nuts, bee pollen, flax seeds – you barely notice they’re there but they do heaps of good for your insides! You can easily omit the chicken in this recipe or replace it with rare cooked tune or steak or seafood – its really versatile.

Oriental Chicken Salad with Nutty Dressing Laura of London Laura Nana
Oriental Chicken Salad with Nutty Dressing

I’ve used a spiraliser on my salad vegetables to get nice long thin curly pieces but you can easily just use a peeler to shave them into your salad bowl.

The vegetables in my salad, using a spiraliser Laura Nana
The vegetables in my salad, using a spiraliser

Ingredients

1/2 pack of bean sprouts
Buckwheat/Soba Noodles
500g Chicken mini-fillets
Mixed seeds or nuts
2 spring onions, finely chopped
Finely chopped coriander, basil and mint – it doesn’t matter if you don’t have all of these

Herbs needed for Oriental Chicken Salad Laura of London
Herbivores unite! Basil, Coriander and Mint

any or all of the following
Carrots
Cucumber
Mooli
Peppers, sliced

for the dressing

2 tbsp Tahini
Juice of 1/2 a lime
1 tbsp Fish sauce
1-2 tbsp dark soy sauce or tamari
1 tsp chilli flakes or fresh chilli
1 tbsp honey or agave
You can also add a bit of fresh chopped ginger and garlic to the dressing, if you want/have it in

Nutty Dressing - Laura of London
Nutty Dressing

Method

Ok a lot of this is going to be prep work for the vegetables and then pulling it all together at the end.

Put some coconut oil in a pan and add your chicken mini fillets – I cook just a couple at a time on a high heat – this means that they will get super crispy on the outside which is lovely for some added texture to your salad – you can’t have a crowded pan to do this. Once it is all cooked, chop it up into bitesize pieces. Set the chicken aside to cool.

Prep all your vegetables, using a peeler or a spiraliser and set aside. This may take a while – play some music, dance around, get family to help.

Boil your noodles for 5 minutes, drain and run under a cold tap to cool quickly. Mix with your salad vegetables and bean sprouts.

Pop all the dressing ingredients into a saucepan and warm through gently until the sesame paste (tahini) has melted down. I add my spring onions to the dressing because I think warming them through takes away that sharp bite they can have when they’re completely raw.

Now just put it all together, its nice to put this on a big serving platter or a chopping board and everyone can get stuck in at the table. Lay out the veg, bean sprout and noodle mix first, then put the chicken over the top, drizzle over your dressing and then add seeds/nuts and your mixed herbs.

I really enjoy this salad, we’re having it once a week at the moment because everyone likes it so much. I think this would be lovely as a side salad for a BBQ – one for me to test further down the road.

Let me know what you think xxx Have a great weekend all xxx

Laura of London

Oriental Chicken Salad with Nutty Dressing Laura of London Laura Nana
Oriental Chicken Salad with Nutty Dressing