Pesto / Feta / Chicken Pasta

 

Here's a really quick and easy pasta dish for when you want to eat healthy but can't really be bothered! (that's how I feel tonight)

It took longer than necessary, only because I decided to oven cook the chicken so I didn't have to stand over it. Instead, I played with the kids for 15 minutes.

I threw 2 plain chicken breasts in the oven, no dressing, and cooked for about 35 - 40 minutes.

While the chicken was baking (and after play time) I put some wholewheat pasta on to boil (I'm cooking for 2 btw, so all portions are relative).

When cooked, I drained the pasta and here's the secret ingredient: supermarkets sell pots of feta cheese in herb oil. I love these pots. They make brilliantly easy delicious salads. Some have olives, some have garlic, some have both. This one as it happens had neither of these extra ingredients, just Feta, oil and herbs. I mixed this with the pasta, added a spoon of green pesto and some halves of cherry tomatoes.

I sliced the chicken and placed on top and served with garlic bread and a pot of Parmesan.

If the chicken had've been ready to eat, the whole dish would take 10 mins tops.

 

Fish Pie

 

This is a favourite of mine from Jamie Oliver. I had to make it from memory because I've lost my copy of The Return of The Naked Chef from whence it came, so it's not exactly as Jamie intended, but turned out really well considering it was a last minute made with whatever I could find in the cupboards.

Ingredients:

Fish Pie Mix

Eggs

Onions

Carrots

Cheese

Garlic

Milk

Cheese

Mustard

Lemon Juice 

Basil

Parsley

Mixed Herbs

Potato

Fish Pie Mix

Spinach

 

First, put the oven on!

- Boil the eggs (1 per person)

- Cut the potato into small pieces and put to boil in a large pan. Rule of thumb, I allocate 1 large potato per person. Boil for 10 mins then drain, mash and put to one side

While potatoes are boiling:

- Chop the onion and carrot and fry in some hot oil

- Pour over milk (Jamie uses cream but I'm all out)

- Sprinkle grated cheese to thicken (on this occasion it was pre-grated cheddar)

- Add a teaspoon of mustard

- Splash a little lemon juice (I had no fresh lemon in stock, so used the bottled stuff left over from pancake day!)

- Crush in a couple cloves of garlic

- Stir in finely chopped basil and parsley (I added extra dried mixed herbs for the fun of it)

- Pinch of salt and pepper if you like

I like to reduce this down so it's not runny

- In a large oven dish lay out a bed of spinach

- Peel and half the eggs and place on top of spinach, equally spaced

- Lay the fish in the dish with the eggs

- Pour the sauce over the fish & eggs

- Lay on mashed potato gently

- Sprinkle extra cheese over top

Put this in the oven for about 30 mins until potato goes lovely and crunchy

What I love about this dish is it's so versatile. There's some stuff in here not in Jamie's original recipe and some stuff that's supposed to be in here (like prawns and chilli) but it doesn't matter, it still tasted great. Kate had a second helping! All you have to remember is it's fish and potato with a creamy sauce, that's the basics, I fill in the blanks as I go.

Chick Pea Curry

I was searching around online for a vegetable curry and I found this great recipe using chick peas and quinoa at Julia's Album.

It's really really easy to make; start with a tin of coconut milk and add the ingredients as you go.

   

The finished dish was tasty and filling. I've never made quinoa before, so I learned something today. I think I cooked it in too much water because it ended up a bit watery and not all the water was absorbed, so I'll try a little less next time and see if I can get it a fluffier.

  

What I like best about this recipe is it will be easy to improvise and diversify from the original; replace coconut milk with yoghurt, basil with coriander, chick peas with butternut squash, etc, etc... I'm looking forward to seeing what variations I come up with in the future.

Tuna in Soy Sauce with Ginger Sweet Potato & Purple Top Brocoli

I let Kate cook again tonight.

Staying healthy with this awesome Tuna dish. I love tuna fish!

I don't have a recipe for this, it was as good as ready when I got home from work, I just sat down and ate.

The ginger in the sweet potato complimented the soy sauce on the tuna perfectly. And the tuna was perfectly cooked. I really enjoyed this. Another triumph.

Chicken with Avocado Salsa

Before I continue, I must confess, this is not our own recipe, it's something Kate found on Pinterest and the original source is Say Mmm

Nevertheless, after a hard days work (my first day back following detox last week) this was delicious.

Hearing the chicken sizzling in the pan and smelling all the sweet smells wafting through the kitchen really got my taste buds tingling. And it did not disappoint.

The chicken was pan fried in a lime and coriander marinade, served with avocado salsa, spinach and brown rice.

The chicken was cooked perfectly; almost crispy on the outside, tender and juicy in the middle.

The avocado salsa is easy to make (Kate informs me), simply chop avocado, tomato and onion and mix with olive oil and lime juice.

You know you're eating healthy when you're eating brown rice. I'm still adjusting to the taste and prefer white basmati, but I'm not complaining. The dish as a whole with the spinach (which I think Kate improvised) worked brilliantly and I loved every bit.

The Last Supper

That's it. Our 1 week detox is over. We did it! A big pat on the back for Kate & me. Last Sunday, at dinner Kate joked it was our last supper. I went into this open eyed but not knowing what to expect. Now we've reached the end without giving in to temptation it's tonight that feels more like the last supper. Tomorrow is when the true safrice begins; I just hope we can keep it up.

Of course, the last supper is not the way to describe it at all. After all, it's not like we're suffering like Christ on the cross! It's not punishment being good to yourself, is it? Jesus would've been grateful for a detox! :-)

So, our 'last supper' (for want of a better phrase) was this lovely piece of cod -

The photo does it no justice, I assure you it was deliciously refreshing and simple enough to cook. All done in the steamer as follows:

• Place cod in steamer and start on 20 minutes
• chop spring onion, chilli, garlic and mix with lemon juice in a bowl
• At 10 mins add spinach to steamer and drizzle dressing over fish
• At 5 mins remove fish and spinach, and put samphire on to steam
• Serve with sliced lemon

Unwittingly, I didn't season this with salt or pepper, as there was a bit of general chaos going on around me in the kitchen. So much so that during dinner Lily, our 3 year old, came careering backwards into the kitchen with her toy pushchair and crashed into the dining table, knocking over my glass of water which spilled all over my plate (hence it looking a bit 'untidy' in the pic). Perhaps a fitting way to bring the week to a close.

And looking forward, the intention is not to now gorge on chocolate and crisps and stop at the next McDs for a Quarter Pounder Meal (large) with full fat coke, but to uphold a healthy diet and lifestyle as best we can and know it's ok to treat ourselves once in a while.

Free From Tomato and Black Olive Pasta

Kate saw a recipe on Pinterest she wanted to try for dinner tonight. I've used the image from the original post.

This isn't a detox dish and includes some ingredients on our 'not allowed' list, so I improvised.

The main ingredient of the dish is feta cheese, which is not allowed, so I simply did without. I was toying with the idea of using the soya cheese in the fridge. This was Kate's suggestion when she first mentioned it, but when I saw all the lovely ingredients in front of me ready to prep I decided against it, I just couldn't seeing t fitting in.

The original has capers, but Kate doesn't like them, so these were left out also.

And it's supposed to have flat leaf parsley, but we didn't have any in stock, so I used basil.

Finally, we used Free From pasta twists, instead of regular spaghetti.

You can refer to the original recipe how to make it properly, this is how I made it, it's really easy:

• de-seed tomatoes, chop into eighths and add to wok
• halve olives and add to wok
• finely chop basil and add to wok
• give it all a squeeze of lemon (lemon in everything!), grind of salt & black pepper
• separately, crush garlic and heat in olive oil
• cook pasta
• When pasta is ready, drain, add to wok and pour over garlic oil

What could be simpler!

It tasted good. Yes, just good. On this occasion I would've liked the feta cheese. I think I over did the garlic as well, 3 cloves was 1 too many.

Still, a very healthy meal which filled us up after a long day.

Friday Salmon Supreme!

Last night we had a lovely Salmon dinner.

The reason we're eating so much salmon this week is that we bought a bulk pack of 8 fillets in our big shop on Sunday :-)

The salmon was cooked in the oven with a garlic, ginger, chilli & lemon juice dressing. It was accompanied by carrots, green beans and peas, all simply steamed. The leaves are pea shoots.

Such as easy plate of food to prepare and very satisfying to eat.

Vegetable Curry

It's day 4 of our 1 week detox and I made a vegetable curry for dinner. I didn't get a photo (will next time). It didn't look all that pretty anyway, but it tasted pretty good. Here's the recipe, nice and simple:

Here's what I used

1 Large Onion (I actually used 1 and a half as I had a spare half in the fridge, ha)
1 Green Pepper
2 Cloves Garlic (crushed in our new garlic crusher)
1 Butternut Squash (I only used the top, so I've got the seedy bit left over for another day)
1 Red Chilli Pepper
1 Lime (I only used half in the end)
1 Tin Coconut Milk
1 Tablespoon (approx) Fresh Ginger (Finely Chopped)
15g (approx) Fresh Coriander (Finely Chopped)
100g (approx) Organic Cashew Nuts
Olive Oil (just a little for frying)
1 Cup (approx) Brown Basmati Rice
100g (approx) Spinach Leaves

Here's what I did

I heated a little oil in the wok.
Chopped up the onion and threw it in.
Cut the butternut squash into bite-size pieces added this shortly afterwards, once the onions began to go translucent.
Cut the pepper into wedges, then this went in.
Waited a bit for this to cook a little.
Then I added chilli pepper and ginger, both finely chopped, and crushed in the garlic using the new garlic crusher :-)
I kept this moving so as not to burn the garlic and as soon as the sweet garlic smell came up out of the pan I poured over the coconut milk and gave the whole thing a squeeze of lime.

*At this point I started the rice. Brown rice because we're on detox! I just followed the instructions on the packet, which goes something like this: put rice in pan, add water, bring to boil and simmer for 25 minutes.*

Back to the curry, I left it on a fairly high heat to reduce it down, it was quite watery and I wanted it thicker. I stirred quite frequently so the bottom didn't burn. I added the cashew nuts about now. Yum!
As the curry began to thicken I put the spinach on to steam for 15 minutes. We bought a new steamer this week so I'm steaming everything!
10 minutes later (with just 5 minutes of cooking left) I added the finely chopped coriander.

To plate up I put the rice in a little pile and gave it a light squeeze of lime, spooned the curry beside the rice and the spinach in a little parcel (this is where a photo would've helped!)

Kate seemed to enjoy it and her sister came round for dinner tonight and cleared her plate, so I guess I did a pretty good job!