Lemon chicken broccoli and cashews

This is DELICIOUS! Ben makes it better than I do but...recipe here!

Teriyaki Salmon and Veg

This was so easy to make and really tasty!

You need:

Salmon fillet
Healthy oil of your choice
one pepper
chilli
garlic
kale
chilli flakes (if you want)
teriyaki marinade (I use blue dragon)

Brush marinade on your salmon and shove it under the grill. Every few minutes, take it out and re-glaze with the teriyaki, once you've done 3/4 the salmon should be about cooked. Sprinkle chilli flakes on it afterwards if you fancy!

Fry all veg in your oil and when it's about cooked, add a dash (about a tablespoon) of the marinade and continue to fry for another minute or two.

Done.

Kale and Mushroom Quinoa

You need:

60g (dry weight) quinoa
100g kale
150g mushrooms
tablespoon of your healthy oil (I use about 3g of coconut oil)
half a (vegetable) stock cube
30/40g feta


Quinoa is easy enough to make. Plonk it in a saucepan and add boiling water about a half inch above the quinoa, and add your stock (you can just have water but I find the stock adds a good flavour), bring to boil, then simmer, covered.

Heat up your oil in a frying pan and cook the kale and sliced mushrooms. Once quinoa is cooked (the water is gone and the grains have turned into little sprials), add the fried vegetables, top with feta. Boom.

While this gives you a really good portion - you'd be good to maybe half the weights above and have some protein with this on the side. For my packed lunches I'd probably also eat a boiled egg.

Spinach Side Dish

For when I need to be able to whip up something quick but want to keep it as healthy as possible, I wanted a healthy side dish - this spinach recipe was amazing. I didn't have sesame seeds but I used toasted sesame oil and it was TASTY! I used a whole bag of about 230g but it made only about two portions worth. RECIPE HERE.

Pad Thai

I LOVED pad thai when I was in Thailand, and I've been dying to try and recreate it. This came surprisingly close! But it still needs improving...

OK, so, hit the thai section because everything is tastier and cheaper! You will need:

pad thai sauce
2 tbsp Fish sauce
1-3tsp Chilli sauce
3/4tbsp Tamarind paste
3tbsp brown sugar

the rest
thai rice noodles, linguini width
2 chicken breasts
4 cloves garlic
two handfuls bean sprouts
3 spring onions
some chopped peanuts topping
chicken stock
slices of lime
soy sauce

Then more or less follow THIS RECIPE. :)

Swedish Meatballs from the Londoner

If you've got a blog or read blogs, you know The Londoner. The other day she posted a recipe for Swedish meatballs, and I had to go for it!

Now...I used beef meatballs instead of pork, cos that's all they had in Tesco, I used grainy mustard and olive oil instead of butter but it turned out freaking awesome! But it is very rich so you don't need a big portion of it. I still haven't figured out what it goes best with...any suggestions?

Spicy Gnocchi

It's not too spicy, it is an original recipe, whaaaaat! Well, I say 'original'.... I knew we had gnocchi and chorizo so I googled 'gnocchi chorizo' and found this recipe.

But we substituted the basil for one red chilli and threw in some chorizo. Also, we used two peppers, cos you can never have too much veg!

I have to say as well, super easy recipe (I mean, Ben made this...enough said).

Spicy Chicken Stew

I'd bought some stuff to make a pasta sauce but had ended up improvising, leaving me with quite a lot of veg in my fridge. Some googling on bbcgoodfood for a healthy recipe I found Spicy Chicken Stew.



It was yum! Find the original recipe here. It is super easy, and just uses one (large) saucepan. I did tweak the amounts going into it though, since the original recipe was for six!

For two hearty portions:
a packet of chicken drumstricks (we used tesco which weighed in about 430g)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red chilli (I used two but it was too spicy)
1 red pepper
200g chopped tomatoes
1 tin kidney beans (the recipe says 'kidney beans in chilli sauce' but I just added a tsp chilli powder)
1 tin butter beans
220ml chicken stock
small bunch coriander

Follow the instructions on the website...though I would just leave the skin on, peeling it off raw chicken is a pain in the arse, it'd probably come off easier after the pre-frying anyway!

Broccoli and Carrot Soup

Soups are awesome for healthy eating. Puréed vegetables. And they're PERFECT in winter. I think people think soups are harder than they are. They're possibly the simplest thing ever!



You will need:
1 head of broccoli
4 large carrots
1 leek (don't use the end leafy bits though, white or light green stalk bit)
1 vegetable stock cube

Chop off the brocolli florets, chop up the carrots, chop up leek, keep it chunky, carrots/leek about 2cm wide. Throw them in a saucepan, cover veg in water, add your stock cube, bring to the boil. Once boiling, cover and let it simmer. After 15 mins check it, if you pierce a carrot with a knife, lift it out of the water and it falls off, then it's ready. Drain the stock, but keep it! Use a blender to blend up the vegetables, adding stock bit by bit until you get a consistency you're happy with.

Season to taste. I always add black pepper. :-)

I bought a big jar from Wilkinsons, making this the easiest work lunch ever! This recipe will make you a pretty big batch but I figure, since it's essentially only veg, I can have a huge bowl of it! So this made two servings for me.

Got a tip to make soups more entertaining? Share! Don't be selfish.