Changing recipes to make them more healthy

I've been a culinary genius today

Maybe that's slightly over-egging my abilities, however I made a really nice BBQ chicken salad for lunch. When my Boyfriend and I went on the West Berkshire Brewery Tour, we picked up a couple of bottles of 'Sals' BBQ Sauce' to try as I absolutely adore the stuff and like trying different brands and recipes. I decided I'd marinade the chicken for an hour and then bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Whilst doing that, I got the lettuce and tomatoes that Riverford had delivered in my vegetable box yesterday and added a yellow pepper, cucumber, red onion and a small amount of feta cheese - All topped with the hot chicken and balsamic glaze. Absolutely deeee-licious.

I then decided I'd clean out my sock drawer, which I appreciate isn't exactly the highlight of ones day, however it's been something I've been meaning to do for a while as I have way too many socks and decided to start with socks and move up to clothes in the next few weeks. 3 carrier bags later, I had finally weeded down my 'collection' to about 30 pairs from... 100? I really need to stop buying socks as noone needs that many pairs. Feeling a sense of achievement, I decided to then start on my underwear and managed to throw out at least 15 pairs of knickers I just haven't worn for ages.

However, after 45 minutes of throwing stuff out, I decided I really needed to get out the house so phoned my boyfriend and found out he was going to be doing a BBQ later whilst polishing his car - He said I was welcome to pop along and say hello, so I headed over there for a couple of hours to say Hello to his friends and help him polish his car. The BBQ smelt amazing, so it did take quite a lot of will power not to eat much - I say much, as I did grab a couple of small pieces of chicken from a kebab and there was easily enough food for me as well, however I knew I'd be making meatballs later on, so didn't want to spoil my appetite or eat food if I wasn't hungry.

Getting back home, I started on the meatballs and decided to use this recipe but alter it. As I live on my own, I used a 500g pack of 5% lean beef I bought earlier in Sainsburys and rather than chopping the onion finely, I actually blended it quickly using my handheld blender - I've tried to make meatballs before and I always find that no matter how fine you cut the onion, it still sticks out of the meatballs and they're hard to roll - blitzing it made it finer and despite crying a bit, it worked really well. I also added 1/4 of a tub of fine breadcrumbs to help the mixture stick together and hey presto - they are the best looking meatballs I've ever made!

Onto the sauce - I followed the recipe a bit more thoroughly, however decided I'd only use 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes (as still halving the recipe) and add some red wine as well - maybe 150ml? I'm not really a red wine drinking (although I've drunk more red wine recently as I've got older), however I found a rather nice bottle I bought from Berry Brothers years ago, so thought I'd try using that. I have to say, I felt like a 'proper Chef' opening and pouring the wine into the sauce and smelling the most amazing aromas - Wow, it's almost as if I can cook :-) I didn't add any olive oil as didn't see the point - plus there's oil in the meatballs so I figured it would be fine

I didn't want to dry the meatballs, so decided to oven bake them as well. Unfortunately my grill has never worked since I moved into my house 4 years ago, otherwise I would have grilled them and allowed the fat to drip off, but I figured baking would certainly be better than frying as they''d turn out less greasy. I baked the meatballs for about 25 minutes until they looked golden and incredibly appetising.

Putting the wholewheat pasta on to the boil only took ten minutes - and then it was time to plate up....

I am dead chuffed with the result. The sauce is absolutely spot on - being totally honest, the meatballs are a little dry, so I guess I shouldn't have added the breadcrumbs, however I was trying to use them up! Also, I think they were a little under seasoned, so I'll make some notes for next time as I'll certainly be making it again. 

I'll be giving my boyfriend the spare meatballs tomorrow before we go to the BBC Good Food Show. He is rather a big fan of meat and I'd rather not have them in the fridge in case I snack on them. I've also got another portion for Monday night after the gym, so when I get back home I can have a shower and pop in the oven to heat up, Bonus :-)

Happy Saturday night!

Eating healthy without a fridge or cooker - HELP!

A total brain puzzler

So, I’m on this ‘work thing’ overnight and from lunch time today until about 7pm tomorrow (Friday) I’ll be in a very remote location, limited WIFI and only a ‘snack shop’ for food. I’m one of the few people staying in a local hotel as the rest of my colleagues (approx. 100 men and about 10 women) will be sleeping on the floor and wherever they can find a space (Yes, it really is an ‘interesting’ company….). I’m such a light sleeper, the prospect of sleeping on the floor with people I don’t necessarily know very well, drunkenly talking, laughing and crying until early hours of the morning.

It also poses the question of food – what am I going to eat?

Well, for breakfast this morning was the obligatory porridge and as I’m trying not to waste as much food, I actually made myself a chicken fajita for lunch from the leftover bits I had last night after my friend left. I also have a pot of porridge for tomorrow and called into Marks and Spencers this morning to grab some grapes and strawberries and some packs of low fat crisps.

The one thing I’ve realised is: Most of the low fat food needs to be refrigerated or cooked before eating – Think about it, low fat sandwiches, yogurts, ready meals, vegetables – you can’t just leave them in your car overnight and expect them to be edible. Even my beloved houmous needs to be kept in a fridge (and I know that to be true after ‘Houmousgate’ a few weeks ago when it had been in a hot car for 2 hours and tasted pretty awful).

So what could I bring that's:

1. Healthy

2. Doesn't require a fridge to be kept in

3. Doesn't require cooking.

4. Fills me up

Honestly, I've been racking my brains for the last 2 days and haven't come up with a lot of things.

Unfortunately, I'm still rather stumped and I'm writing this at 23:30, having been on my feet for the last 6 hours, solid! After I got to the venue, I helped lift chairs into a van, drive the van, stick duct tape over errant cables for health and safety reasons and really got 'stuck in' to the event.... my usual dinner time came and went and by 8:00pm, I was feeling ravenous, not to mention, really thirsty as I'd got dehydrated doing all the lifting, moving and taping in the 25 degree heat.

All my colleagues were eating the food provided to them - nachos with chili and

cheese and I went to my car and ate a small handful of grapes, a bag of M&S 'Moroccan Spiced chick pea shells' and drank a whole litre of water. I think the whole lot came to about 130 calories which is dangerously low and not something I want to repeat. I managed to leave the venue at 22:50 and am now back in my hotel, utterly knackered.

If this was a regular event, I'd really need to plan better - On the one hand, I'm proud of myself as I didn't eat the unhealthy option, on the other hand, I'm kicking myself for not eating enough healthy stuff and worrying my body will go into starvation. I think I'm going to visit the local supermarket tomorrow (I found one quite close!) and buy a healthy and filling lunch tomorrow - maybe pasta salad? something that releases energy quite slowly but should fill me up. I'll also find something I can nibble on a few hours later as I don't think I'll be getting back home until after 21:00 and I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Knackered... Bed... Urgh.

But seriously, what can you eat that's healthy and doesn't need putting in the fridge or cooking?

Singapore Noodles made healthier

Saturday night is 'Try a new recipe night'

I got a spice subscription from 'The Spicery' for Christmas from one of my sisters. It was a really thoughtful gift as I'm really hard to buy presents for apparently (I can believe it.. as if I want something, I tend to buy it). However I've not really tried any of the recipes or the spice kits they send me every month as they're not really that healthy!

However - that got me thinking, why don't I just modify the recipe? Cut out the oil, change how things are done and hey presto, I'm using my sisters thoughtful gift but still eating healthy :-)

If you have things in the cupboard that you haven't used for ages as they're 'bad for you', have a think, can you change things around? Maybe not follow the recipe or change how to prepare things?

Tonight, I tried the Singapore Noodle spice kit.

I made sure I had prepared everything beforehand as I had to chuck things in the Wok quickly. One of the good things about this recipe is that I only needed a Wok really - I used it to make the omelette, washed it out quickly and then used it for the main dish.

Ingredients - SERVES 4 (easily)
250g of diced pork loin
100g of cooked prawns
1 red pepper - seeded and thinly sliced
200g of beansprouts
1 bunch of spring onions thinly sliced (even the green bit that sometimes people don't like!)
2 cloves of thinly chopped garlic
1 small piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 onion, thinly sliced
450g ready cooked vermicelli noodles
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp vinegar
2 eggs - beaten
1 tsp five spice
2 tbsp medium curry powder (if you're not a total coward, you can make it hotter.. I just can't handle spice!)
2 thinly chopped red chillies


Method
1. Mix 2 tbsp of soy sauce, the honey, vinegar and 1 tsp of five spice together.
2. Marinade the pork in 1/2 of the sauce (keep the other half, don't throw it away!)
3. Finely chop 2 fresh red chillies and set aside.
4. Beat eggs into a cup with pinch of salt
5. Heat wok and spray with spray oil (I used 8 sprays - 8 calories) add the eggs, stirring a little to make thick, lumpy omelette, remove from pan and set aside.
6. Fry the pork with its marinade on a high heat until caramelised. Remove from heat and set aside.
7. Fry the onion in 12 sprays of oil (12 calories) until they soften and then add the red pepper, ginger, garlic, 1/2 tsp of salt and 2 tsbp of medium curry powder (Keep the heat high!)
8. Add the chopped red chilli, bean sprouts, prawns and spring onions and fry for a minute.
9. Add the fried pork, shredded egg noodles and 1 tbsp of soy sauce and stir fry for a few more minutes until all the ingredients are heated through.
10. Serve the noodles with the reserve sauce on the side.
11. Stuff in face :-)

It was really nice, however a little too spicy for me! Also, Sainsburys had run out of ready cooked Vermicelli noodles so I had to get dried ones instead and cook them - which was fine, however I cooked them at the beginning and by the time I went to put them into the wok and re-heat them, they'd stuck together in 2-3 big 'clumps' which were quite hard to break up and stir in. So, lesson to be learnt, if you have to cook the noodles, make sure you do it right at the end and add them STRAIGHT to the wok, don't let them dry! 

I'd certainly make it again, however make a few subtle alterations - Either way, I'm really glad I tried something new and feel really full. 

It was also nice that it was a 'proper meal', not a lettuce leaf, nor some weird 'slimming soup'. Definitely the way forward.