Wow what a crazy busy weekend! Lots to share with you and my very first meal plan for you to gaze over and salivate đ Read More »
Tag: health
Another 10 minute wonder
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 apĂ©ritif of rose, soda and ice and got to work…
As you’ve probably seen from my recent posts, I’m a bit of a fan of my new spiraliser (Zoodle Chef, ÂŁ15 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.
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
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.
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.
Serve in warmed bowls with a drizzle of olive oil and a topping of lemon juice, rocket and mixed seeds.
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New Granola recipe
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.
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.
Dry ingredientsÂ
2.5 cups oats
ÂŒ cup flax seeds – I used Linwoods
Πcup mixed seeds
Πcup dried apricots chopped up small
Πcup seedless raisins
Πcup ground almonds
œ cup shredded coconut
Wet ingredients
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp nut butter
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp agave
3 tbsp maple syrup
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.
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.
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Family Salad – a quick meal to get in the mood for Summer
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.
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.
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
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
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
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Lazy Sundays and feeling VirtuousÂ
We went to the Syon Food Festival yesterday and although delicious, the majority of the food was not clean so today I want to have a bit of a kick restart. We got up late and had a simple smoothie with some added natural nutritional additions:
- Natural yoghurt
- Frozen berries
- Ripe pear
- Milled hemp seeds
- Milled bee pollen
- Flax seeds with goji berries and sunflower seeds
Bee pollen is a great addition to smoothies and salads, I got mine from a local health food shop but you can order it online too. Its a complete food and contains proteins, vitamins, minerals, lipids and carbohydrates.
Hemp seeds are a really good source of essential fatty acids including Omega 3, 6 and GLA, it’s a more digestible protein than meat and is rich in Vitamin E.
For the rest of the day I’m going to snack on fruit and nuts and lunch today will be oven roasted salmon fillets with Mediterranean vegetables and some fresh zingy lemon and basil new potatoes.
I love Sunday’s, they’re my favourite day. We try not to plan much and just spend the day pottering, shopping or walking the dog.
One thing I’ve started to enjoy doing is prepping a few food bits to make my life easier during the week.
Depending on my food menu for the week, I will make my own breakfast cereal, blitz up some fresh nut butter or make some sauces for dinners, such as fresh, Parmesan-free pesto. I’ll blog recipes for all of these today/tomorrow for you.
Happy Sunday!
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A statement on snackingÂ
I’m a habitual picker, grazer, snacker. If it’s lying around and in my vicinity it won’t be there for long! So I’ve had to make sure I’m much more prepared now with my own ‘clean’ snacks to take my attention away from any potential unclean options.
This week I tried making sweet potato crisps. I’m not a big crisp eater but every Sunday we have a routine of eating brunch, then a big late lunch and only fancying something light come dinner time, cue the opportunity to eat crisps and catch up on Scandal on Sky Atlantic đ
There are only 4 ingredients needed but a little bit of patience is required
First switch your oven on to 140 degrees (fan assisted). Then take one sweet potato and slice it in to rounds as thin as you dare.
Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in the oven on a foil lined baking sheet. Once the oil had melted, sprinkle over some paprika and sea salt and add the sweet potato slices, toss around in the oil/salt/paprika mix then put it in the oven for one hour.
You should turn them over half way through. Leave them to cool and crisp up on the baking tray and serve – voilĂ - an easy Sunday night snack that is clean eating and will satisfy your ‘hold-on-to-the-weekend’ needs.
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A slight change of direction
Evening all, If you’re reading this then you are very loyal supporters considering I haven’t posted for months, thank you for sticking with me!Read More »
Laura of London 