Easiest -Vegan Friendly- One Pot Pasta, Ever!

I’ve been making this dish for a LOOONG time. Way before I began this blog. And for some reason it only occurred to me yesterday, when I was about to make it again – like Hey! This would be a great one for that thing you’re doing, where you right about the food you make!

It’s ridiculously easy to make, and I love making lazy meals that require no attention during cooking times, cause I’m just a lazy b*tch to be honest with you. I get home from work, and the last thing I want to do is cook dinner, when I still have a mountain of things to do before bed – not that anything is ever even done. I always end up watching The Good Wife – my new all time favouritist show ever, like EVER. If you haven’t watched it, it’s a courtroom drama and you get so attached to the characters like never before, and it’s super fun watching lawyers have it out at each other in the court room, kickin’ ass.

Anywaaaay… This pasta meal requires very minimal ingredients, is super easy and is Vegan, as long as you use a vegan stock (some vegetable stocks actually have milk stuffs in it. So be careful if you’re vegan). I quite like Bouillon vegan stock powder – I actually just like powdered stock vs cubes if I’m making instant stock. It mixes better into the water, in my opinion – but hey, you do you boo. Whatever works.

Oh and one major MAJOR plus is the only dish you use is one big pot. That’s it. Oh and something to make your stock in, but that’s all you need… oh and a spoon. Okay three things to wash. This especially good for me who likes to accumulate a gazillion dishes when cooking, which Tom loves to have a good whinge about (whoever doesn’t cook washes the dishes in this household)

So you basically just wanna dump all your ingredients together in this one big pot, turn the heat on and cook for like 15 minutes – until the pasta is cooked and it’s all come together into a nice little goopy dish and gloopy goodness.

Ingredients:

• Spaghetti or Linguini
• Vegan/Vegetable stock (I used 800ml, but this was a bit too much – just use enough to cover all ingredients, no more)
• One large onion (finely chopped)
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 10-15 cherry tomatoes
• Drizzle of olive oil (or beano Italian oil mix if you happen to have any – cause it’s AMAZING)
• Fresh basil
• Dried oregano
• Salt and pepper
• Dried parsley
• Button mushrooms, courgette/zuchini and cooked prawns (all optional)

Method:

• Prep your ingredients. You know me, I like to prep everything before I begin cooking anything. So finely chop your onion, chop/mince the garlic cloves. Slice the cherry tomatoes into halves. Slice the mushrooms and boil the kettle to pour into a measuring jug with two tablespoons of stock powder (or one/two cubes if that’s what you’re using)
• Now everything is prepped, here is where you see just how easy this dish is. Usually you have to cook the onion and garlic first then add ingredients bit by bit. BUT NOT THIS TIME MY FRIEND. In this dish all you need to do is add EVERYTHING in one go. Everything but the courgette and prawns – if you went with them in your dish.
• So in the big pot, add your spaghetti – I snap mine in half to avoid having to slowely immerse it into water bit by bit, as at full length it’s too big for my pan………. *cough*. Add the spaghetti, chopped onion, garlic, dried herbs, salt pepper, Fresh basil (save some for later too) cherry tomatoes and mushroom (if you’re having mushrooms), drizzle oil over everything and finally pour in the stock and set the heat on to medium. Leave to cook for 12 minutes.
• After 12 minutes add the prawns and sliced courgette if you want those ingredients. Cook for a further 3-5 minutes. Hopefully your pasta dish should have come together and be gloopy like my pictures shown above. If not, keep cooking until some of the liquid has reduced more.
• When you’re happy with the gloopyness, serve and sprinkle on fresh chopped basil. Add parmesan as well if you want. Or a vegan alternative. I’ve heard yeaste flakes work for cheesy-ness.

 

Creamy, Red Pepper and Tomato Pasta

As a new food blogger, I am facing what probably 99% of all new (or old) bloggers do. I major major plateau in writing. I started a new job recently and I just haven’t felt like writing or cooking. It’s a longer process to do this whole blogging thing than most would think.

I’m not even sure if this will last. I’m hoping it will now I seem to have found inspiration to cook again. I mean, cooking is definitely a huge part of writing a food blog.

I also got a new phone recently with a really good camera, so can take pictures of food I eat out without lugging a huge camera with me like a plonker. Well, no – okay you aren’t a plonker for taking pictures with your big camera when you write a blog, but as a newbie, I’m not yet comfortable with the attention that would bring to myself. A phone is much more inconspicuous. It’s a shame because I’ve had plenty of really good food and drink out and about recently that’s gone undocumented. But hopefully – NO MOREEE MY GOOD FRIEND! NO MORE SHALL MY TASTY YUMS NOT BE PHOTOGRAPHED FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE!

I saw a similar recipe to this on http://www.pinchofyum.com but I added the tomatoes to make it more… well tomato-ey. Like a passata-ish thing…

Add some cheese to this and melt it down and it becomes a nice gooey pepper tomato-ey pasta dish.

First you want to pre-heat the oven to 200°c and when it’s nice and hot, stick the peppers covered in oil in the oven for ten minutes, turn them over, then add the tomatoes. Whilst these are cooking, begin boiling your pasta into a large pot of boiling water and boil the kettle to make some vegetable stock. Only about a cups worth of stock though – you wont need any more than that.

Slice an onion up and mince some garlic.

In a separate frying pan, heat up some oil and add the onions. Fry these until they begin turning brown. Make sure not to have the heat to high as they will burn. Keep stirring so they don’t burn too. When the onions begin to go soft, add the minced garlic and then sprinkle paprika over the onions and mix. Cook everything for another few minutes – don’t exceed this as the garlic can burn quite quickly.

Take the onions and garlic off the heat when the onions have begin to go brown and are soft. Check on the peppers, when they begin to get burn spots, like I’ve shown below, take them out and load them up into the blender. Then take out the tomatoes and load them into the blender too. Add the onions and garlic, and about a cup of vegetable stock and half a cup of milk of your choice.

I added some more paprika when it was liquefied, salt, pepper and Italian herbs.

Your pasta should finish cooking after 12-15 minutes but just check the cooking instructions on your pasta packet. Drain your pasta and put it back into your now empty pan. Pour your sauce in and turn the heat up to medium. Keep stirring and heating up and it will begin to thicken. I like to add a bit of grated cheddar for taste and to make it oooey goooey, but that step is completely optional. There are some vegan options that add a cheese flavour that I am yet to get my hands on – like adding nutritional yeast.

When the pasta sauce is to your consistency liking, take it off the heat, portion it up, add grated Parmesan (again, optional) and add top it off with some fresh herbs (basil, parsley, coriander – whatever you like)

Pepper and Tomato Pastas – Click this link for a free printable of my recipe!

Ingredients

• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 3 large tomatoes
• Elbow pasta (or any other kind of your choosing)
• Half a cup of milk (of your choice)
• A cup of vegetable stock
• 1 white onion
• 1 minced garlic bulb
• Handful of cheddar cheese (optional)
• Parmesan cheese (optional)
• Salt, pepper, paprika and Italian herbs

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200°c and boil your kettle. Fill up a large pan with water and begin to boil that. Prep your ingredients by slicing your onion, mincing your garlic and slicing your peppers and tomatoes in half.
2. On an oven tray, place the sliced peppers and onions (I had to use two oven trays to fit them on), drizzle them both with a bit of oil. Put the peppers in the oven and pour your freshly boiled water from the kettle into a heat proof jug with a spoonful of veg stock in. You only need a cups worth of stock for later.
3. Pour your pasta into your pan of (what should be now) boiling water. After 10 minutes, turn the peppers over and put your tomatoes in. Leave these in until your pepper begin to gets spots of burnt patches on.
4. Whilst waiting for the peppers to fully cook, put a little bit of oil in a frying pan, heat up and put your sliced onions in. After about 5 minutes your onions should begin to go soft and begin browning. You want to add your minced garlic in at this point, and I like to sprinkle paprika over it all for added flavor. Keep mixing so nothing burns for a further 3 minutes.
5. Take it off the heat and check on your peppers. If they are beginning to burn, take them out and load into your blender. – Your pasta should be done around now. Taste one for texture. You want a little bit of a bite, but still soft. If the pasta is done, turn off the heat. If not, continue cooking for another few minutes.
6. Load the onions into the blender. The stock and a half cup of the milk. Turn the blender on until smooth. Drain your pasta whilst the blender is working its sexy little butt off and put the pasta back in the pan and on the hob.
7. When the sauce is done, pour it into your pan with the pasta and turn on the heat on to medium-high and keep mixing it until it begins to thicken up. When the sauce is bubbling a bit and has begun to thicken up, turn the heat down and grate some cheese (optional). Pour the cheese in and cook for another 5 minutes.
8. Serve your pasta, sprinkle some parmesan on and garnish with some fresh herbs. Enjoy 😀

 

VEGAN ooey-gooey garlic pasta!

Trying to find a vegan recipe for creamy pasta, that makes you forget that cheese was ever a necessity to your creamy pasta dishes? Look no further. I have mastered the perfect carbonara style creamy pasta recipe. And it couldn’t be easier. Cheaper. And healthier.

All you need is one pan big enough to hold your pasta and stock. Like… mine was small. But use one appropriate to the portions your using. Like the size you would normally use for cooking spaghetti.
You need you pasta of choice, fresh garlic, white onion, vegan instant stock and dairy free milk (i.e almond milk, soy milk etc), salt, pepper, italian seasoning (or basil, oregano, thyme, parsley and sage – or as many of them as you can) and a touch of dried chilli flakes. And about 5 minutes prep time, 20 minutes cooking. That’s it! That’s all you need! Even a 10 year old could make this dish – I don’t recommend a ten year old making this, there’s sharp knifes and extremely hot surfaces involved, but they could if they wanted to.

So, I want to try implementing vegan recipes in my life to cut out dairy and meat bit by bit. This recipe has now provided me with an incredibly creamy, gloopy, super tasty pasta dish that is so healthy. For absolute pennies per portion, so healthy so easy. IT’S A ONE POT WONDER!

I already want to make another portion. I think this might be my re-heatable work lunch staple.

Something I’ve been taking notice of, as I’m on a journey to be healthier, improve my cooking and lose weight, is the vegan lifestyle is on top for “diets” for losing weight. It’s not a diet though for vegans, obviously. It is their way of life. And that’s how it should be when you want to lose weight – it should be through wanting to be healthier, and that should become your lifestyle, not a 4 week fix. You all know that will never work. I’m not ready to be vegan yet, I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll ever 100% convert too. However, I see no harm in learning as many vegan recipes as you can and bring them in bit by bit, and if it works just as easily for you as standard meals, is just as cheap, or cheaper and easy to do, then hey why not!
Personally, I could probably cut out meat. I haven’t bought meat in a good several weeks and I’m not too fussed. I eat seafood more. And I would struggle with not eating cheese or eggs.

I genuinely thought I would want to add cheese to this – obviously making it NOT vegan. I tried it, and it honestly does not need any cheese, in the slightest. It is perfect as it is. So that’s nice!

 

Above is a slideshow of the pictures of the process. Just for some visual representation of what I’ll write below.

Ingredients (serves 2):

• Noodles (linguini, spaghetti, soba noodles)
• One white onion
• 1 or 2 garlic cloves (depends how much of a garlic fiend you are)
• Half a cup of vegan stock per portion
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• One cup of unsweetened dairy free milk (almond is my favourite for this as it’s quite creamy) per portion
• Quarter a courgette per portion
• Salt, pepper and fried chili flakes

Method:

1. Prep your food. Chop your onion into little pieces, slice the courgette, like shown above (into strips), finely chop your garlic (or mince it, or use already chopped garlic) and get the stock ready. About one teaspoon per person of vegetable stock and a cup of boiling water is enough.
2. Turn your pan onto medium heat and pour a dash of oil into it. When the pan is hot, turn the heat down slightly and add the onion. Cook the onion for 5 minutes (or until slightly translucent/browning)
3. Add the garlic, salt and dried chilli flakes. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Do not let the garlic brown.
4. Now add your stock, milk and pasta.
5. Stir for 5 minutes or until pasta is softened. Turn the heat up to medium-high. Cook for roughly ten minutes. Test your pasta, if its still not soft enough, continue cooking. Add more milk if it’s reduced in the pan too much to cook the pasta.
6. Depending on the pasta you used  and what texture you want(whole wheat takes a little long than normal pasta and noodles take to be a lot quicker) you’re cooking times will vary from 10 – 15 minutes. IF the pasta is close to being cooked and you have too much liquid, turn the heat right up and keep stirring.
7. Add the courgette strips in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
8. When the liquid has mostly reduced and you have this lovely gooey pasta dish, it’s time to serve. Top with pepper and chopped basil, and you are ready to go!

You have to try this! It’s like carbonara, but healthy and vegan!

Eat. Drink. Laugh. Love
C xx

Banana-Protein Pancakes!

Another beaaautiful variation of banana pancakes. I made a similar recipe a week or so ago, but felt like protein pancakes again. This version has more protein in and tastes less like banana though, so is probably a better version. Unless you reaaaaally like the taste of banana, in which case, reduce the amount of protein powder you use.

The recipe is identical to the previous one, I just changed two things. I used more protein powder, so the mixture was thicker and less runny. And I swapped out for my smaller non-stick pan and used no oil.
Using no oil and using a non-stick pan makes a huge difference to how the pancakes look. When you use oil, I have found that the surface of the pancake is more spotty and a mixture of golden brown and pancake colour. This is likely due to how oils react to heat. When you use a non-stick pan and take out the oil, on a low heat, the pancake cooks evenly, and the whole surface becomes one solid golden brown colour.

This recipe will give you fluffy, thick, soft HEALTHY pancakes that honestly feel so moreish and decedent. In my previous pancake recipe, I topped it with raspberries, banana, walnuts and cinnamon powder. This time I used blueberries and almond flakes. I prefer almond flakes to the walnuts. But I like blueberries and raspberries equally.

I remember when I first made american style pancakes, they burned because the heat was too high and they weren’t so fluffy (I didn’t understand how baking powders/baking sodas worked back then) Note: You want to use baking POWDER in this dish, not soda. Only ever use soda if you’re adding an acidic element to the dish such as vinegar, lemon, yoghurt or buttermilk, or you’ll get a strong metallic taste.

 

This recipe is really easy and I love making it because the low heat means I’m not panicked when preparing other things in the morning, because the window between being just right and over cooked is quite large. Because I used the small non-stick pan this time, I did them one at a time and then heat them up in the microwave altogether for 30 seconds at the end to make sure they were all hot.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 scoop, flavourless protein powder (if you didn’t get a scoop with your protein powder, then roughly 4 tablespoons will do)
• half teaspoon baking powder
• tablespoon vanilla extract
• blueberries
• honey/agave/maple syrup
• almond flakes
• cinnamon powder

Method:

1. Chop one banana up, put in a bowl and begin squishing that bad boy with a fork.
2. Crack one egg into the bowl and mix again. At this point I like to blend it a bit with a hand blender to get rid of any banana lumps. I mean, If that’s your thing, then that’s cool, you do you boo. I just like my pancakes smooth.
3. Now you want to mix in your protein powder, baking powder and vanilla extract. Carry on mixing until smoooooth as a baby’s bum (- that’s not a good way of describing pancake mix, but whatev)
4. Turn your pan to medium heat for like 30 seconds, then turn it right down to very low.
5. Pour in your pancake mix. The size of your pancake is really to do with taste. How big do you want it? I leave the power in your hands here. I usually pour in about 2 heaped tablespoons or something.
6. My mix was very thick, so I used he back of my spoon to spread the mix out a little bit more.
7. I’m sorry, I didn’t time it again. I promise, I’ll make more effort to do so when my timer arrives this week! BUT, it takes roughly 5 minutes each side. I kind of just wait a little while, several minutes, flip it over, if it’s not golden enough I just flip it again at the end.
8. When you flip the pancake, I suggest using your spatula to flatten it out a bit. I do this just to make sure it’s cooked all the way through.
9. After another 3-5 minutes plate up or if it needs flipping again, do so.
10. Repeat until all the pancake mix is used up.
11. Here, I had already microwaved my frozen blueberries for 45 seconds. I microwaved my pancakes for another 20 seconds to heat them all, as the first ones I made where now a little cooler.
12. I topped the pancakes with almond flakes for a nice crunch, the blueberries, sprinkled a bit of cinnamon over them and drizzled some honey over them.

Tips:

• Agave, maple syrup and honey are all interchangeable. There are very little differences between the three in terms of nutrition, as they are all natural sources of sugar. Personally, I prefer maple syrup for pancakes (I didn’t have any in for this recipe) but it’s just about taste.
• KEEP THAT HEAT LOW! I put it up to medium to begin, just to get the pan hot, then lower it to the lowest it will go. To be honest, even this way cooks the first side of my pancake a little too quick, but after that, they all cook perfectly.
• If you have a non-stick pan, use that, with NO oil. This is the only way you will get a lovely golden smooth surface. If you see my first pancake recipe, that was with oil on my larger pan, that isn’t non-stick. You can clearly see the difference.
• I’ve read that to replace eggs in baking, you substitute in with flour, oil, baking powder and dairy free milk (to make fully vegan) – I’ll be trying this next time and let you know how it compares. If any of you have already tried this recipe with the method for replacing eggs, that I will post below, let me know how it turned out for you.

Egg replacement:
To replace 1 egg: 2 tablespoon flour + 1/2 teaspoon oil + 1/2 teaspoon baking powder + 2 tablespoons liquid (milk, cream, buttermilk, diluted yogurt, or dairy free alternatives like coconut milk, soy milk, etc) beaten together until smooth.

Eat. Drink. Laugh. Love
C xx

Broccoli and Potato Soup – with a sprinkle of cheese!

If you want a recipe that required minimal prep and cooking, this is the one. Well, not just this one. All soups really. Especially if you have a slow cooker. I also make soups when I feel like I’ve not had a great day food wise, like I’ve eaten too much cause I’m feeling like a greedy b*tch. Which is quite often. Especially during certain times of the month – AM I RIGHT LADIES?!
Anyway, this is a prep and leave it kind of meal. It’s great! Especially if you have a slow cooker like me. You don’t need to do any observing or checking up. Great for if you have other things going on for a couple of hours. This can be done in half the time if you cook on a hob with a pan, however. It’s a really good way to get some added veggies to your diet and a good meal to store away and freeze for other even lazier/busier times.

I first made this soup about 2 years ago, when I first started to cook healthily – properly cooking and properly healthily. I was privileged in that most of my food (if not all) was cooked for me when I lived at home with my parents. Half the time I demanded to eat what my younger siblings where getting to eat, unaware that my younger brothers run around all day, so when their food is a little more child friendly, they could burn it off later – I could not.

Anyway, soups are very easy. They don’t require much planning or prep, you can leave them be for the majority of the cooking time, and they really don’t require a strict recipe. When I do a new soup meal, I would read the recipe for ingredients and a general cooking trend, for example if the recipe suggests roasting something before hand or whatever, I would check for that. But most soup recipes consist of prepping ingredients and putting them all in one giant pot to cook in one go, then a bit of blending at the end if you want it smooth.

First, you wanna chop up your broccoli, remember to chop all the way to the end. I heard through the grapevine that the stalks and that big stalk they all sit on holds the majority of the nutrients and flavour. Plus, your gonna blend it all up so you wont even know.

The potatoes you use are up to you, but for added ease I just used tinned baby potatoes. Aint nobody got time for peeling and cooking them for 40 minutes extra. Well, I dunno, you might do. It’s all up to you!

I grated some cheese for at the end as well. This is optional.

I really enjoy prepping all my food in one go for a recipe and laying ti all out together in different dishes. Tom isn’t keen on the amount of dishes I accumulate, but who cares about him!
T: Oi!
C: Love you 🙂

So in a slow cooker, I add two veg stock cubes (or two heaped teaspoons of veg stock) to my slow cooker and fill it with boiling hot water, letting that mix for a few minutes for the stock to dissolve. Then you want to add the broccoli, onions… oh! I actually forgot the onions when I was prepping my food, but fear not, just do a quick choppy choppy and add them in with your broccoli. They’ll just cook with everything else. Add salt, pepper and other herbs of your choice. I chose italian spice and parsley. You then want to leave the broccoli to cook and soften for 2 hours on high heat.
If you’re doing all of this on the hop, then you want to leave the broccoli to cook on medium-high heat for 30-45 minutes.
Then you want to add the potatoes and cook for another 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, I then whizzed it all together with my hand blender. You can also pour it into a full size blender as well, just be careful, if you have a glass blender, heat it up slowly with hot water from the tap. If you pour boiling hot water into a cold glass object, they can sometimes crack. This actually took me a while, like 5-10 minutes, I like to make sure it’s as smooth as possible – even though I did miss one or two small pieces DANGIT – WE CAN’T ALL BE PERFECT OKAY?!

I then topped it with a bit of mature cheddar cheese and pepper! Voila! 🙂

Ingredients:

• Broccoli
• Potatoes (tinned or raw)
• Handful of grated cheddar cheese
• one white onion
• Chicken stock
• Salt, pepper, italian seasoning, parsley and fresh basil (optional)

Method:

1. Chop up your broccoli, including the stems.
2. Slice the white onion, doesn’t need to be neat and tidy as it will all be blended later on.
3. Prepare your potatoes (either drain and rinse the tinned stuff, or chop the fresh raw stuff)
4. Grate your cheese and set aside.
5. In a slow cooker (or large pan), place in two veggie stock cubes/two tablespoons of veg stock and pour in boiling hot water 3/4 of the way.
6. After dissolving the stock for 5 minutes on medium heat, add your herbs and spices, broccoli and sliced white onion and turn the slower cooker onto high (keep the pan at medium heat)
7. Leave to cook for 2 hours (or half an hour is cooking on the hob)
8. After the allotted time, add the potatoes and cook for a further 10 minutes
9. Then you want to hand blend the soup (or pour into a standing blender) and blend until smooth.
10. Once smooth, portion up and add a sprinkle of cheddar cheese and black pepper.

Tips:

• If using a glass stand up blender, heat it up slowely by running hot water into it under the tap. Glass items can crack if they are go from cold (or room temp) to hot too quickly.
• Cooking times are flexible with slow cookers. You can leave the broccoli for 3 hours if you want, maybe lower the heat if you want to leave it for much longer – the main thing you want to achieve is for the veg to be soft, so they blend easily.

Eat. Drink. Laugh. Love
C xx

Healthy, Salmon Fried Rice

Oh my lordy, this is now my favourite quick meal. Well, quick once the prep is over. The sweetcorn being used was an accident. Because we didn’t have peas/ Who doesn’t have peas in? Well.. I keep forgetting to buy some okay. But if I ever don’t have sweetcorn in, I’d suggest taking me to a doctor, cause there will be something seriously wrong with me.
Who doesn’t love sweetcorn?!

I was inspired to make this because we recently stocked up on free range eggs form iceland, which were on offer (50p for 6, instead of 89p). That doesn’t sound like much, but recent circumstances have seen us struggling to buy even those) – And it adds up. The offer runs out end of today (Tuesday 21st June) if anyone is near an iceland and wants to take advantage.
So yeah, eggs. The eggs made me think of doing egg fried rice for dinner. And I knew we had frozen salmon in the freezer, so Salmon and egg friend rice was on the menu. But guess who forgot the damned egg…. This girl.
Literally, half way through eating and I realised I didn’t use any eggs. The whole reason I thought of making the dinner.

Well this is a very cheap dinner. We only made enough for two – two GIANT portions mind, but one bag of boil in the bag brown rice, with all the added extras makes two very large portions.

So, the prep takes a little bit of time on this. Like not a huge amount, but it’s not instant.

The first thing you want to do, is cook the rice. I had the boil in the bag version as this is the most convenient/cost saving version for me. The 2 minute microwave version just costs too much when you add up the portions. The massive bag of loose rice is too fiddly. A box of about 5 bags (two portions per bag) costs roughly £1, depending on where you buy from. This takes about 30 minutes. Once the rice is finished cooking, drain the water from the pan and set aside for later.
Next is to cook the salmon.
Tom cooked it for me as he does salmon really nicely. He pan fried it to make the skin really crispy and then took the layer of skin off and pan fried it some more – the crispy skin isn’t exactly healthy, but a little bit of crunch mixed in really adds a nice texture to the dish.

T: I can’t really remember the exact method. But when the pan is really hot, I cook the salmon fillet skin down for around 5 minutes – this varies though, I just keep checking the salmon by lifting it with our tongs to see if the skin is crispy enough.
C: Not that that matters, cause you ended up taking the skin off and cooking it separately anyway to make it crispier.
T: Yeah so, like 5 minutes. When it’s done, I turned off the heat and turned the fillet over, so the skin is facing up. Cook for another 3-5 minutes. That’s it really.

OH! Don’t forget, if your salmon is frozen like our, you need to defrost it first. Well, I think you can cook salmon from frozen in the oven, but I much prefer pan frying it from – not – frozen. It doesn’t take too long to defrost, especially in this heat. Roughly 4/5 hours.

Whilst Tom was cooking the salmon, I got the rest of the ingredients ready. I pour my frozen sweetcorn into a dish and filled it with boiling water to let it sit and defrost until it was ready to use. I chopped up spring onions and diced half a white onion. Either finely dice a clove on garlic or buy this jar of lazy chopped garlic, that I absolutely LOVE for convenience.

 

Not as cheap as buying garlic and chopping it yourself, but it lasts long enough and really does save a huge amount of time.

Finally, it’s time to cook it all together in one big pan – frying pan or wok. Just make sure it’s a big one.

First, turn the hob onto medium-high heat. Add some oil. Olive oil/rapeseed oil or coconut oil are my favourites to cook with – for health values. Add the diced white onion, cook for five minutes (until golden/pale), add the chopped garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. You wanna be really careful with this as garlic can burn quite quickly, so keep an eye on it. If the pan is hotter then like 30 seconds to a minute cooking will do.
Then you want to add the rice, then sweetcorn. Cook for 3-5 minutes. Then and salmon – I pulled the salmon into chunks prior to this. Finally, add the spring onions and cook for another 2 minutes.

I mean, I add all these time measurements, but they aren’t to the second – or even minute. Each hob varies and the good thing about this dish, as everything is cooked separately first, so the end part is just about heating through. Most of the time, I go off site. I am trying to change that for the blog, I’m reminding myself to time more – I even bought a kitchen timer especially for you guys. But, if I’m honest, personally, I never pay attention to timing of recipes. Well, not totally. I use them as guides. Sticking to an exact timing tends to make me mess up more because something else takes a bit longer and might mess up the timing for everything else or I forget or whatever.

 

Oh, I almost forgot, I added my herbs and spices after all the ingredients – oh and broke up the crispy skin into pieces for the crunch throughout. I ground salt, pepper and dried parsley into the pan and poured a spoonful of soy sauce for depth of flavour 🙂

Tadaaa!

Honestly, no lie – I didn’t expect it to taste so nice. The sweetcorn adds such a nice sweetness to it that went so well. I know I’m biased because I’m obsessed with sweetcorn (and garlic, yes) but I was actually a bit reserved about adding it when I realised I had no peas. But, it was damn good. It almost felt like I was eating something unhealthy, and I couldn’t stop eating it.
Health wise, you have salmon which is a source of omega-3 fatty acids, which is good for your heart, it’s a high quality source of protein and contains numerous vitamins. Brown rice is a whole grain, meaning your body digests it slower, being a good constant source of energy. It’s better for you than white rice. Finally, you have your “vegetables” – sweetcorn. Not the best veggie, but hey, it’s better than a slap in the face (or no veggie), spring onion and white onion are also technically vegetables. And garlic. Garlic is actually reaaaaaally good for you, it has numerous health benefits. Which is my excuse for eating it in everything.

Cost for the meal: 

• Rice (20p for one bag)
• Salmon (£1.40 for two fillets)
• Onion (7p for half an onion)
• Sweetcorn (5p for cup full of frozen corn)
• Spring onion (15p for 4 pieces)
• Garlic (5-10p for a spoonful/1 bulb)
• Oil (1p for spoonful)
• Salt, Pepper and Parsley (1p for sprinkle)

Overall cost: 98p per portion/ £1.99 for two portions

Ingredients: (Serves 2) 

• 1 bag of boil in the bag brown rice (white rice will also work)
• Two Salmon fillets (Tuna steak, poultry or extra firm tofu will also work)
• 1 cup of sweetcorn
• 4 spring spring onions
• half a white onion
• 1 garlic bulb or 1 table spoon already chopped garlic
• Salt, pepper and parsley to taste
• 1 teaspoon oil of choice (olive, rapeseed or coconut)

Method:

1. Cook the bag of rice in hot water on the stove for 30 minutes.
2. Whilst the rice is cooking, prep your ingredients.
3. Dice half a white onion.
4. Chop 4 spring onions.
5. Pour boiling water into a bowl of frozen sweetcorn (if using frozen)
6. Finely chop your garlic if using fresh.
7. When the rice is done, empty the water from the pan and set aside for later.
8. Pour the tablespoon of oil into a pan, and turn onto medium-high heat.
9. After 60 seconds of heating the pan (or until quite hot), place the two fillets in the pan, skin side down – carefully, it spits a lot.
10. Cook for about 5 minutes (check the skin, see if its crispy (crispy skin is optional, if you want even healthier, take the skin off completely)
11. After 5 minutes, turn the heat off and flip the fillet over, cook for a further 3 minutes.
12. In the same pan you cooked the salmon in, add another drop of oil and add the white diced onion. Cook for 5 minutes – until golden
13. Add the chopped garlic and cook for 1-2 minute (careful, garlic can burn quickly)
14. Add the rice, sweetcorn and salmon. Cook for another 5 minutes on high heat.
15. Add the spring onion, cook for another 2 minutes.
16. Grind or sprinkle the salt, pepper and parsley into the pan. Pour in the spoon of soy sauce.
17. Serve!

Tips:

• If you don’t want stinky garlic breath, or if you get heartburn from eating it like Tom does, take out the middle green bit from the bulb. You do this by chopping it in half and then pulling it our (or chop around it)
• Be careful not to add too much soy sauce. I’ve done this in the past and it just takes away all the other flavours and overpowers the dish.
• IMPORTANT: If you have any leftovers, put this into a container and put straight in the fridge/freezer. Because this dish contains rice, you must not, at all costs, let it cool down to room temperature gradually. If you have ever heard how you can’t reheat rice because you can get really bad food poisoning, this is wrong. The reason rice can cause you food poisoning, is from the cooling process. When rice cools down gradually, this is when the bacteria grows. Reheating food almost never is the problem, because when you nuke something or heat it up properly, almost all bacteria is killed. Apart from the ones formed from gradual cooling, such as that in rice. In fact, they now suggest you put any food straight into the fridge to rapidly cool it if you are going to reheat it – Also, you can only reheat rice once. Never reheat it more than once.
• Tip to getting salmon for cheap in the UK. Go to Iceland and go to the frozen fish section. They do an offer on bags of various fish. Three bags for £10. Sounds like a lot, but I got two bags of tuna steaks (4 pieces each) and 1 bag of salmon (5 pieces) – when I worked it out per piece, it came out at 76p, which is an amazing price to pay for a salmon fillet/tuna steak. They’re really good sizes too and don’t shrink too much. So it’s well worth the initial splurge. You just need the freezer room of course

 

Eat. Drink. Laugh. Love
C xx

Healthy mac ‘n’ cheese

WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH! Vegetables! Oooey, gooey, healthy goodness!

First let me apologise for the fact that the pasta I used clearly isn’t macaroni pasta or the usual spiral stuff. THIS IS ALL I HAD OKAY?! *whispers* I’m sorry…

I took inspiration from http://www.pinchofyum.com and her version of this (I used caramelised onions), but winged most of it. It’s not that difficult to do as pretty much everything can be cooked at completely separate times, meaning timing everything is not essential. Which i’m always thankful for, cause I suck at timing things when cooking.
Half my dish is always cold when I come to plate it because I’m notoriously bad at it.

Let me tell you, mac an’ cheese has got to be one of my most favourite meals ever. Like EVER. When I was younger, my mum used to make it for me all the time. It was my reward meal whenever I did well in school, my birthday meal if I wasn’t eating out for my birthday, my cheer up meal if I was ill. Even now, whenever I go to visit my mum, mac an cheese is one of the top dinner meal contenders on her list.
When I started cooking for myself I tried to recreate this. We weren’t living together, we actually lived a fair distance from each other, so getting her to come round and teach me wasn’t an option.
My struggles began with the fact that I couldn’t make a cheese sauce from scratch. I had to buy the granulated ready made stuff – you know, like the way you make gravy? Then add cheese to it later. I mean, this worked. But it wasn’t the same. Then, I didn’t understand how ovens work with cheese. Like how after 20 minutes of cooking it would start to get crispy and AMAZZINNNG. No, I was impatient, and it would go in the oven for like… 5 minutes until the top layer of cheese was JUST melted. But it was cheese, so whatever, I ate it. And I liked it. Who doesn’t like cheese?!?! (sorry if you’re one of those people… or if you’re vegan – but hey! Vegan cheese right?)
Then finally, I didn’t understand how herbs and spices added a wholleeee other level to dishes.

After many years of make and remaking and eating and crying over failed mac an cheese dishes, I think I got it down. Awesome. I think I’ll do a four cheese mac an cheese recipe one time. But for tonight, I wanted to attempt making a cheese sauce out of mostly butternut squash, cause VEGGIES.

Well, I actually wanted pizza tonight. We’ve been drinking some beers watching the England vs Russia game, and I haven’t had pizza in ages. And beer and pizza… Mmm pizza.
Instead, I made healthy mac an cheese. It was the best I could do. I wanted to feel I was eating bad, but not be. It worked! Kind of, I could still tell I was eating butternut squash, but I kind of liked it. It was creamy, slightly sweet and felt indulgent.

It involved making a creamy butter nut squash sauce. So before you do anything, turn the oven on to 200°c or 180°c for fan ovens. Next fill two pans (one large, one medium/large, dpeending how much pasta you’re cooking) with water and turn the heat up medium to begin it’s boiling.
Now, you want to peel, de-seed and chop up into squares a butternut squash. The size of the squared aren’t too important, about the size shown below is ideal – just take care to maker them roughly the same size so they all cook evenly. Pop the chopped squash into the pan with the boiling water.

At the same time, pour your uncooked pasta into the other medium/large pan of boiling water. The pasta really doesn’t matter. In England, corkscrew pasta isn’t as easily accessible as it is in US, we have actual macaroni pasta – which is teeny tiny tube shaped pasta. BUT I DIDN’T HAVE EITHER DAMN PASTA IN MY CUPBOARD! I almost didn’t want to have mac and cheese for dinner after I discovered this. But I changed my mind – duh! Who can turn down the ooey gooey goodness of mac an cheese?! Well you might be able to, but I bloody can’t. I found some wholewheat shell pasta. (Or conchiglie if you wanna be really fancy and use it’s proper name). That’ll do.

Right, so whilst these are both cooking, slice up an onion and you want to lightly fry this to caramelise it. Do not, have the heat on high. Or even medium. This is a mistake I have made so many time. So so many. It was actually Lindsay at pinchofyum that pointed out to me that keeping it on low heat will stop it from burning. See this is the impatient side of me again. My impatience is the main reason I never used to be able to cook at all. And why Tom is a much better cook than me. So, I used coconut oil to fry the onion. On low heat. A tip I have found works if you find that the onion seems to be caramelising very slowly but turning up the heat even a tiny bit will cause it to burn, is add a couple of tablespoons of water to the pan. This just allows me to turn the heat up a little bit to cook them faster without burning. Meanwhile, mix  half a cup of boiling water with a table spoon of chicken/vegetable stock and save for in a few minutes.

So, after cooking the onion for about 5 minutes, the squash should be done. Drain this.

Add the squash and onion to a blender. Add about a quarter cup of milk of your choice to the blender. Add the stock you made earlier. And herbs and spices of your choice. I added salt, pepper, chilli flakes and one raw garlic bulb. Whizz it all up, shouldn’t take long.

Turn your pasta pan off and drain. Grate some cheese. Pour the squash mix into a measuring jug. Well pour it into whatever you want, but I think the measuring jug is the most practical as when it comes to pouring it out later, the point will make it a lot easier.

I had about half left over because I’m only making enough for two. Just pop any left overs left at the end in a jar in the fridge. So, everything is done now right?
So, grab yo’self a casserole dish and start layering that mother up! I went with layer of pasta, layer of squash, layer of cheese, layer of pasta, layer of squash, layer of cheese. Then finally, I added breadcrumbs for some crunch! Especially as we now don’t have a cheese sauce, just a thin layer of cheese, that crisby-ness I was talking about earlier isn’t going to happen. Hence, breadcrumbs. But mac an cheese is always better with breadcrumbs anyway IMO. Aaannnnddd into the oven we go!

Cook for 25 minutes and voila! Healthy mac ‘n’ cheese! No butter, no flour and a quarter of the cheese use. AND VEGETABLES!!!! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• Pasta of choice (best with macaroni pasta/eblow pasta/corkscrew pasta)
• Butternut Squash
• Quarter cup of milk of choice
• Tablespoon of chicken/vegetable stock
• One white onion
• Some mature/extra mature cheddar cheese (sorry I didn’t measure, but you can see its not a huge amount from the pictures above)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Chili Flakes
• One Garlic clove

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 200°c (180°c if fan assisted)
• Fill two large pans with water and put on medium heat
• Peel, de-seed and chop the butternut squash into cubes
• Put all the squash and pasta (amount appropriate for servings) into the two pans to boil
• Slice a white onion up and lightly fry (on low heat) in coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil (or rapeseed oil as that’s also good for you) for five minutes
• Whilst frying the onion, boil the kettle and pour half a cup of boiling water into a jug with a tablespoon of stock in
• When the onion is caramelised (looks soft and slightly golden), the squash should also be done, drain the squash and add both ingredients to a blender
• Drain the pasta and set aside
• Add your spices of choice to the blender, the stock and quarter cup of milk of choice
• Whizz up until smooth, shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes
• Grate some cheese (not too much, this is meant to be healthy, but enough to add to cover two layers of your pasta dish.
• Layer up into a casserole dish. First with a layer of pasta, then squash, then cheese, pasta, squash, then cheese.
• Cook in the oven for 25 minutes.
• Sprinkle some pepper on top and garnish (I forgot this stage – oops) serve and enjoy the healthy goodness!

I’m so happy I finally tried this. Butter squash eh. Never really been too bothered by them before, but now they bring me healthy mac an cheese…

Enjoy what life has to offer.
C xx

Wrap it up.

Wraps are my new obsession. And you know what? Not even these kinds of wraps I’m showing you in this post. Like, just the tortilla wrap. Have you ever toasted a tortilla wrap and just had it how it is? Probably not, it’s a bit boring. But oh my lord, considering how simple it is, it’s such a nice snack.
You probably still don’t believe me. I wouldn’t if I were you. It is pretty boring. But so good. So so good….. Okay I’ll calm down now.
Maybe I’m just super lazy (that’s definitely true) and it’s the easiest thing I’ve found that feels filling. I’m also a bread fiend. In my fridge, I currently have: Tortilla wraps, Bagels, Baguette, Tiger bread and pitta bread. Well, that IS to share with Tom. Maybe.

I’ve been meaning to do a healthy wrap for a while. So I thought  “Hey! Today is as good as any! I just bought some Turkey and Chicken slices, I got avacado in the fridge and I can’t be bothered cooking anything else”.

Ingredients:

• TORTILLA WRAP (you definitely need these)
• Hummus (I used red pepper hummus)
• Ice berg lettuce
• Spinach
• Turkey slices
• Chicken slices
• Avocado
• Sweetcorn
• Beano submarine dressing
• Levi Roots Caribbean salsa
• Pepper

Notes:

• Make sure to wash your lettuce (and spinach if you bought the unwashed stuff)
• Any meat slices will do, or replace with firm tofu or meatless imitation meat or fish (salmon, prawns and tuna are really good)
• You can kind of just go wild with whatever you want to put in it (or not put in it). That’s the beauty of wraps.
• Have plenty of kitchen roll on hand – this stuff gets messy!

 

Perfect lunch. You can wrap them in cling film/foil and store away for packed lunch. Super versatile and filling. But messy. Really messy. Maybe that was the oil I put in it, but lots fell out whilst I was eating… all over my white, freshly washed dress. I need to learn to put kitchen roll or something on my lap when I eat. I bought one of those cushioned mats for that very issue. Never use it. Not until it’s too late. Then I go “oh hey! I have a thingy to stop this from happening!”

So. Make sure you have something to cover yourself with and something to wipe your hands with.

Enjoy what life has to offer you.
C xx

Homemade healthy granola “parfait”

Parfait traditionally uses ice cream. And is very unhealthy.  And usually looks more like this:

Source: http://www.vegkitchen.com/recipes/fruit-and-yogurt-partfaits

It’s traditionally a granola layer, yogurt/ice-cream layer, granola layer, then fruit (i.e berries).

I decided to make my own that involved no refined sugars. This is a really good make-ahead breakfast that is easy to have on the go, or if you can’t handle a big breakfast in the morning. Or like something sweet.

I like a cooked breakfast – you know something that involves eggs, bacon… sausages…toast… mushrooms… beans… all that greasy good stuff. HOWEVER. I’m unfortunately trying to be healthier than my usual lazy, greedy self. Summer is looming – Summer is here actually, but I’m actually starting a new job in a month – my first office job, with office clothes. And I WANT TO WEAR TIGHT PENCIL SKIRTS AND CUTE OFFICE DRESSES GODDAMMIT! So I’m trying to tone up and lose a bit of weight for then.
Honestly, as much as I like to disagree with my logic, my logic tells me I don’t actually have a great deal to lose, I’m generally in the size 12 region, give or take depending on the shop and type of clothing article. But I’m not happy with my body (Who is?!) and I like cooking, so, as I did a few years ago, I take my will to lose weight, my likeness for cooking and combine them to learn new ways of cooking and new exciting meals to taste.

And as they say, “losing weight is 80% the food you eat and 20% the exercise you do” – and I suck at working out. Like really suck. My stamina is dreadful and I have asthma so have that glorious extra challenge to work through. And I tend to make excuses for myself, like “I have asthma… so I can’t do cardio”. I do prefer weights though, I feel like you see results faster in terms of progress with weights, and I find them more fun.

So the first core ingredient of this recipe is DATES. -pause- I hate dates. And raisins and currants (but we only need dates for this recipe so that doesn’t matter). So dates blended!  Well they become this fabulous natural sugar syrup thing that is perfect for baking.

The very appetizing date syrup. Dates are a horrible colour anyway.

The next core ingredient is oats. Bleh! Boring oats. Oats are used for everything these days aren’t they? Pancakes, porridge, cookies, brownies… granolaaaaa. Oats though, really are an amazing ingredient. They do all sorts of great stuff for the body, such as: Lowering cholesterol (don’t buy the expensive Holland and Barrett rubbish, any oats will do (there are two different types of oats, steel cut and standard? or something? I don’t know, I just get whatever is available). They lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, enhance immune responses to diseases, stabilize blood sugars and more. They also contain a lot of fibre, meaning you’ll be fuller for longer (pst – I don’t find porridge keeps me full for longer though, which is weird, but meh. Maybe I just miss my greasy fry up whenever I only have porridge for breakfast)

So the rest of the ingredients are all really up to you. Here’s my recipe below.

 

Ingredients:

• Oats
• Dates
• Neils wholefood yards dried cranberries
• Kiwi
• Banana
• Onken 0% fat probio yoghurt
• Ground chia seeds
• Agave nectar

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°
2. Blend up the dates in a blender. Blend with water. The amount of water used depends on the amount fo dates you’re blending and the consistency you want. Add half a cup of water to begin and keep adding half a cup till you get the consistency you want.
3. When it’s all blended to your liking, pour the oats in a bowl and pour in half the amount of date syrup in with them. Mix with a spoon until fully coated.
4. Layer the oats evenly onto a baking sheet covered oven proof dish. Cook for 25 minutes. Mix half way through.
5. In the mean time, if you want to eat this straight after you’ve cooked the oats, cut up and prepare your fruit. This bit is entirely up to you what fruit you want.
6.When the oats are cooked and crunchy, I layered some pro-bio yogurt at the bottom of my dish, layered some oats on top, added my cut up fruits, a sprinkle of ground chia seeds and a drizzle of agave nectar for taste.

Notes:

• I added grounds chia for added antioxidants, added fiber, protein, omega-3 fatty acids and other health benefits.
• I added the agave for a bit of natural sweetness. That’s everything really. I always have left over oats granola and date syrup. So I stored these both in jars and popped them in the fridge for another time.
• For the yogurt, look on the pack and make sure it says “live/active cultures” somewhere, this means that it has live healthy bacteria in it that is very good for digestion.

 

Enjoy what the world has to offer.
C xx