Pita pizza

Pita pizza

Easy, fast and relatively healthy pizza! Serve with a green salad and cucumber on the side 🙂

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 1 brown Warburton round pita bread
• 1/3-ish of a jar of pasta sauce (one you would usually use for 2 servings)
• 1/2 ball of light mozzarella
• 1/2 pepper (preferably multiple colours)
• 2 mushrooms
• 1/3 courgette
• Pepper and other spices to taste

How to cook 

1. Preheat the oven to about 180-200 degrees.
2. If you have it; use a pizza tray and spray it with a bit of oil.
3. Put your pita bread on top of it and evenly spread out the pasta sauce on it.
4. Cut up your veggies and put them on your pizza.
5. Cut the mozzarella ball as thinly as you can and spread it out over the the pizza.
6. Add extra spices if required (if it is a lot, you might want to move this step forward and do it after step 2)
7. Put the pizza into your oven for about 10-15 minutes. It is done when the mozzarella is nice and gold 😉
8. Serve and tuck in!

Additional notes

• Add some meat: one or two slices of cut up salami, spiced chicken,
• Be creative with the veggies! Spinach is also a pretty good addition.

Burger and salad

Burger and salad

Not much to it really. Just a salad and a burger with a white bun. But good to remember as a dinner idea.Adding some sweet potato chips would be quite nice as well!

Burger is based on the meatball recipe. Would recommend maybe making 2 out of this. It was pretty damn big 😛

(Un)traditional courgette pasta

(Un)traditional courgette pasta

Soo… this recipe is actually already up on the blog as it combines a bit of the ‘Easy pasta’ with the ‘Raw pasta with flavoursome meatballs‘ recipe. I’m not super convinced this is something I would eat regularly but it is definitely a lower calorie option for the ‘Easy pasta’ recipe.

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 100-125 grams of extra lean minced meat
• Half or a quarter of a jar of tomato sauce of your choice. I used Lloyd Grossman Basil & Tomato.
• 1 pepper (if you have different colours – use them! 1/3rd of each)
• 1 courgette
• Mushrooms
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• Black pepper
• Italian spices
• Spices for minced meat
• Olives (optional)
• Onions (if you like that sort’a thing ;))

How to cook 

1. Peel your courgette with a potato peeler or a julienne peeler (I recently got one and it’s pretty awesome, you get something that looks more like spaghetti!). Cut up the last bits you cant peel very thinly or in small chunks to go into your sauce.
   Make sure you put the courgette in the bowl/plate you want to eat from before you continue.
2. Cut up your other veggies (for the sauce) so you’ll have them ready to go.
3. Fry your minced meat until browned. Add spices as you go along.
4. Add in the garlic and onions half way through. I didn’t add them in at the beginning as I don’t use oil when I fry minced meat.
5. When the meat has just browned, add in your veggies and extra spices and mix it up!
6. When veggies are cooked (don’t make it mushy!) add in your tomato sauce and heat through.
7. In the mean time heat up your courgette in the microwave a little bit. This step is optional and you are going to have to do it based on how hot/cooked you want them. I only heated them up for a minute or so to make sure they were a bit warm but not necessarily piping hot (didn’t want them to go all mushy!).
8. Once microwaved put your sauce on top of your courgette pasta and.. serve!
9. Enjoy!

Additional notes

• Add some parmesan cheese on top! 🙂

Asian style soup

Asian style soup

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 40-ish grams of basmati rice
• 1/2 cube of vegetable stock
• 200-ish ml of water
• 100-125 grams of chicken
• Broccoli
• Green leafed veg (you could use a bit of the greens from the “Heavenly halloumi veggie wrap” ;))
• 2-3 medium sized mushrooms
• 1/2 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• 1/3 onion (if you wish)
• Spices for chicken
• Black pepper

How to cook 

1. Cook your rice according to instruction.
2. Cut up your chicken in small bite-sized pieces.
3. Boil at least 200ml of water.
4. Put a pan big enough to prep your soup in on your stove and add a bit of oil.
5. Fry your garlic and onion until lightly browned / glazed.
6. Add in your diced chicken and chicken spices and fry until fully white from the inside (as you do when it comes to chicken ;))
7. Pour 200ml of water into a mug or bowl and add in your 1/2 cube of vegetable stock. Stir until fully dissolved (this can also be done in the pan with the chicken but I prefer to dissolve the stock before pouring it into my pan, just to be sure!)
8. Pour the vegetable stock in with your chicken, add in black pepper and let it simmer for a bit.
9. Add in your veggies. Mushrooms first. Try to time the green veggies quite well, you want them to be just done (my broccoli got soggy, sad times!).
10. When your veggies are almost done add in 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter. Stir well to make sure you do not leave massive lumps behind!
    It might be easier to add in the peanut butter earlier actually. But I haven’t tried it yet so not sure if it would give a different outcome flavour wise..
11. Grab a nice bowl and dish out the rice. Pour your soup right over it and top it off with a small handfull of peanuts.
12. Voila!

Additional notes

• You can use different veggies of course. However it might influence the flavour (for the best or for the worst, only experimenting will tell!)
• Using cashews instead of peanut butter and peanuts could be nice!

Italian breadroll

Italian bread roll

Ingredients (serves 1)

• Italian bread roll. These were the parmesan and sun-dried tomato bread rolls. But any nice bread roll will do really. Plain white, with olives, italian spices, focaccia etc.
• 3 mushrooms – or even better; portobello mushroom
• Green pesto
• Spinach
• Green olives
• Antipasti peppers – as oil free as possible.
• Salad / rocket.

How to cook 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180-200 degrees.
2. Slice open your bread roll and start layering the ingredients.
3. Heat your bread roll up in the oven for about 5-10 minutes or until it is fully warm, your mushrooms are cooked and your spinach has slightly wilted.
4. DONE! Serve with salad.

Additional notes

• Adding some parmesan cheese won’t do it any harm! Adding in halloumi or mozzarella would be super yum as well!
• Sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, red pesto – it could all work. Experiment and have fun with it.

Parmesan chicken broccoli pasta

Parmesan chicken broccoli pasta

Can’t actually remember if I thought this was an ‘alright’ recipe or a ‘not too interesting’ one…

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 100-125 grams of chicken.
• 50-60 grams of whole wheat penne (or however much you feel is a good sized portion for you)
• 150(?) grams of broccoli. (I always just eye it)
• 3-4 chestnut mushrooms
• 10-15 grams of pine nuts
• Parmesan cheese
• Chicken spice mix
• Black pepper

How to cook 

1. Soo.. you are going to have to time this well and need about 4 pans at the same time.
2. Cut up your chicken and broccoli.
3. Cook the pasta as explained on the package.
4. Cook the broccoli in a little bit of water for about 6 minutes.
5. Fry and season your chicken. Towards the end, add your mushrooms and fry until done.
6. Fry your pine nuts (don’t use any oil and as soon as they get that ‘golden’ look they are done)
7. Either combine everything on your plate (if you are a master when it comes to timing) or get a clean pan/rinse one of the ones you have used and put everything in it but the parmesan cheese. Add in some extra pepper/seasoning to taste and make sure everything is nice and warm. You only need to do is for a minute or two but it makes sure everything is at about the same temperature and the flavours can mix a little bit.
8. Serve and sprinkle with as much parmesan cheese as you wish.
9. Bon appetite!

Additional notes

• Could also work with spinach and/or different types of mushrooms.
• Adding sun-dried tomatoes or a bit of pesto could potentially be quite a nice touch!

 

Enchiladas

Enchiladas

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 2 tortilla wraps
• 125 grams Extra lean minced beef
• 1/4 Courgette
• 3/4 Peppers (multi-color if possible)
• 3 mushrooms
• 3x Babycorn (optional – I just had them laying around really..)
• Grated cheddar cheese
• Enchilada spices
• Minced meat spices (optional)
• Black pepper
• Cocktail sticks

How to cook 

1. Pre-heat the oven to about 180-200 degrees.
2. Cut up all your veggies in size of your preference 😉
3. Fry the minced beef until almost brown. Add in enchilada + other spices as you go along.
4. Throw in the veggies and cook until they are of the right consistency. You don’t want to overdo them, the whole thing still has to go into the oven!
5. Take out your wraps and put them on/in an oven dish. Load up your wraps with the meat and veg. Try and divide the fillings equally 😉
6. Use cocktail sticks to keep the wrap into place and closed and sprinkle with as much cheddar cheese as you like!
7. Oven bake until the cheddar cheese is getting nice and crispy.
8. Serve and eat!

Additional notes

• The veggies you can put in here are quite versatile really.

 

Egg mushroom stirfry

Egg mushroom stirfry

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 4 or so medium sized normal mushrooms or – even better – mix it up and use chestnut and shiitake mushrooms.
• 2 eggs
• Green leaf vegetables. I think I used spinach here but kale, spring greens and/or a combination could also work!
• 1/4 – 1/2 clove of garlic
• Soy sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper + seasoning to taste
• 1 portion of whole wheat noodles
• Stir-fry/sesame oil (optional)

How to cook 

1. Start boiling some water in a pan for your noodles.
2. Cut up your mushrooms and (in the case of spring greens for instance) your veggies.
3. Crack two eggs into a frying pan, poke the yolk and fry. You can mix them up in a bowl before hand if you want.
4. Add seasoning (such as salt, pepper etc) and fry on both sides. Leave your fried egg on a plate (you might as well reuse this pan for your veggies!)
5. Cut up your egg in small pieces.
6. Cook your noodles according to instructions.
7. Add some stir fry oil into the frying pan and add your garlic and mushrooms. When they are halfway there, start adding in your greens and cook until they slink down a bit.
8. Splash with a dash (or a river..) of soy sauce and add in the egg.
9. Drain your noodles and serve everything together on a plate.
10. Enjoy!

Additional notes

• Add cashew nuts or sesame seeds for some extra flavour!
• Leave out the soy sauce and serve it on a nice and warm brown baguette. Yummie!

Easy pasta

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 50-60 grams of whole wheat pasta
• 100-125 grams of extra lean minced meat
• Half or a quarter of a jar of tomato sauce of your choice. I used Lloyd Grossman Basil & Tomato.
• 1 pepper (if you have different colours – use them! 1/3rd of each)
• 1/3 courgette
• Mushrooms
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• Black pepper
• Italian spices
• Spices for minced meat
• Olives (optional)
• Onions (if you like that sort’a thing ;))

How to cook 

1. Cut up your veggies so you’ll have them ready before it get’s hectic! 😉
2. Cook your pasta according to instructions.
3. Fry your minced meat until browned. Add spices as you go along.
4. Add in the garlic and onions half way through. I didn’t add them in at the beginning as I don’t use oil if I fry minced meat.
5. When the meat has just browned, add in your veggies and extra spices and mix it up!
6. When veggies are cooked (don’t make it mushy!) add in your tomato sauce and heat through.
7. When your pasta and meat+veg are both done (hopefully at the same time!) mix together and serve!

Additional notes

• Can also add: spinach, green/black olives etc.
• Can be microwaved, but as we all know, microwaving pasta is never super nice. If you do, I’d recommend putting the sauce+meat+veggie bit in the bottom and the pasta on top. Then mix it when microwaving.

Mutated chicken biryani

Use your imagination and add the quinoa to the picture.

I adapted the Schwartz Chicken Biryani and later on started using Tikka Masala spices instead of Biryani spices.
Seems they unfortunately don’t sell those packets anymore.. so am going to have to find out if their new Biryani and Tikka Masala spices are different or not… (they do look like it..)

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 35-45 grams of quinoa (can also be replaced by rice, couscous and bulgar wheat)
• 125 grams of chicken
• 1 tomato (or more if you really like tomato!)
• Mushrooms
• 150-ish grams of green beans
• Biryani or Tikka Masala spices (soo… not quite sure the Schwartz ones will do.. to be continued..!)
• Garlic (half a clove)
• Chicken spices
• Black pepper + other seasoning to taste
• Sesame seeds (optional)

How to cook 

1. Wash and cut up your green beans. Cook them for about 5 minutes. Until they are tender but definitely not soft!
2. Cook your quinoa according to instructions
3. Cut up the chicken into small pieces and fry them with a bit of oil in a pan. Best to marinate chicken beforehand – but let’s be honest – we don’t have time for that. I usually just add them just before or at the start of frying the chicken.
4. Don’t forget to add in a bit of garlic if you want!
5. Cut up your mushrooms and add the mushrooms to the pan when the chicken is cooked.
6. Cut up the tomato in small pieces and add when the mushrooms are cooked.
7. Drain your green beans and add to the pan. Now also add in some of the biryani or tikka masala spices and other seasoning to taste. Let it sit for a while so the flavours can be soaked up into the food. Stir occasionally!
8. Drain your quinoa and put it on your plate.
9. Serve the ‘mutated chicken biryani’ with your quinoa and… Enjoy!

Additional notes

• Easy to microwave!
• Can be eaten cold! Not my favourite.. but you know.. just in case the microwave at work starts to look and sound like it is about to explode the safer option is to just eat it..
• Will hopefully have an update on the spices soon…