Pinterest Recipe Round-Up

I've been trying lots of new recipes lately, most of them from Pinterest. I'm aiming for healthy, and clean eating ~ cooking from scratch with healthy wholesome ingredients. Most of them have been blimmin' marvellous, and I thought I'd share some with you.

These crustless mini quiches tick all the boxes ~ quick, easy, healthy and delicious. Apparently they freeze well too, but they've always gone too quickly in my house to get close to the freezer! I added a slice of crisply cooked bacon, a spring onion (both finely chopped) and a li'l sprinkle of cheese to mine.

Find the recipe at Appetite For Life

This Chicken and Wild Rice soup was another winner. Cooked in the slow cooker, I found this creamy thick soup made 11 portions ~ more than enough to stash some in the freezer for work lunches, or for a light supper. I made mine with wholewheat flour, though I think next time I might try and lower the amount of roux (flour / butter mixture) at the end, to help keep calories down.

Find the recipe at Little Spice Jar

And these amazing two-ingredient 'Banana Pancakes' are divine. Super sweet and fluffy, they whip up in a matter of minutes. There were lots of suggestions for little add-ins to vary them up (ie vanilla, cinnamon etc) but I found them just perfect as it. Of course, mine looked nothing like their pictures lol!

Find the recipe at Babble

 I'd love to hear if you enjoy these recipes as much as I do!

Raspberry Season

Summer is one of the busiest times of the year for me, and it all starts with Raspberry season. There is a fabulous farm near me that grows a variety of fruit and veg, and does Pick Your Own Strawberries and Raspberries!  

 

My local farm is in Titchfield in Hampshire, but if you're not lucky enough to live nearby try Googling to find out where your closest is. If you've never been before, I can highly recommend it. It's a lovely peaceful way to spend an hour in the countryside and have a delicious and healthy treat to take home with your afterwards. I picked almost 6lbs of fruit in less than an hour!

Fresh Raspberries don't keep for long in the fridge, but they freeze beautifully. I made some into jam, some into a zingy fresh Eton Mess, and froze the rest for jamming later in the year.

 

I also popped a couple of frozen berries into a frothy Limoncello Cocktail to enjoy with homemade scones. People say Wimbledon is all about Strawberries ~ for me it's Raspberries!

 

To make your own Limoncello Cocktail, simply add a shot of Limoncello to any sparkling white wine and finish off with a couple of frozen raspberries. I used Crème Di Limoncello here, but regular works just as well ~ delicious!

Creamy Broccoli Soup

Every time I go into a shop I make a beeline for the sales rack / reduced cabinet ~ as a single parent I like to make every penny count! So when I found my local shop selling off Broccoli heads for 7p I snapped them up and hurried home to whip up a nice healthy soup.

Creamy Broccoli Soup

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 potato
1 head of broccoli (approx. 350g)
900ml stock (2 x chicken + 1 x vegetable oxo)
approx. 100ml milk

Heat the oil in a pan. Dice the onion and sweat gently until soft, adding the garlic for the last minute or so. Chop the broccoli into small florets and chop the broccoli stalks into small dice. Peel and chop the potato into small chunks. Add the broccoli and potato to the pan with the stock and simmer for about 15 mins. Blend until smooth and add milk to reach the consistency you like.

This recipe makes 5 portions at 103 calories each, meaning you can easily afford to crumble a few salty Ritz crackers into it.

Divine!

Fabulous Fat-Free Fruit Loaf

I've not been doing very well on my diet. Admittedly I've not been trying particularly hard, but I have SUCH a sweet tooth I really struggle. I've been trying to up my exercise levels ~ mainly by walking more, but I also bought a mini-exercise bike for under my desk at work! I get some funny looks when I'm peddling away but hey, I'm used to that ;)

I still need my treats though. And although this cake isn't as low-cal as I would have liked it's packed with fruit and fibre, and absolutely fat-free!

100g dried apricots
100g dried dates / prunes
150g sultanas
60g all-bran cereal
1 cup cold tea (I used earl grey)
3 tbsp. carob syrup (or maple)
1 egg, lightly beaten
150g sr flour
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp mixed spice
110g dark brown soft sugar
1 apple, peeled and grated

 Chop apricots and dates to roughly the same size as the sultanas. Combine fruit, All-Bran, tea and syrup in a large bowl and set aside for about an hour. Preheat oven to 170C / 340F / Gas 4. Line a 21 X 11 cm loaf tin with greased baking paper. Mix the flour, spices & sugar together. Beat the egg lightly and stir into the fruit, then add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine. Add the apple and mix together. You should have a gloopy dropping consistency ~ if the mixture is too thick, add a splash of milk. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Cool in tin for 20 mins or so before removing to a wire rack to cool.

 

 

This is lush as it is, but it's pretty darn good spread with butter too ~ although that kind of defeats the object of a fat-free cake! You can use different kinds of dried fruit if dates and apricots don't float your boat. You can also freeze slices which means there's always some handy for your lunch bag.

 

I've added this to My Fitness Pal for those of you who use it ~ if you cut the loaf into 12 slices there are 196 calories and less than a gram of fat per slice.  

 

Perfect Porridge

Can you believe I've made it to the ripe old age of (almost) 43 and I'm only just discovering the simple pleasures of homemade porridge?!
I've always loved Ready Brek, and in the last couple of years I was won over by the Oats So Simple flavoured sachets, but it's literally only this week that I've realised how quick, easy and deliciously filling simple porridge oats can be.

This is the image that got me started:

Earl Grey Porridge, from A Spoonful of Photography (click on the image to go to her beautiful blog)

Porridge appeals to my "bung it" method of cooking ~ you really don't need to measure anything at all! I'm still trying lots of different variants, but here are some of the yummiest so far:


Earl Grey Porridge

Make a small cup of Earl Grey tea. Put about 1/3 cup of oats in a bowl. Pour the cup of tea onto the oats and microwave for approx. 2 mins. Stir through as much milk as it takes to achieve the consistency you like, then sprinkle with Demerara sugar or honey.


Creamy Yoghurty Porridge

Put 1/3 cup of oats in a bowl and add about the same amount of water. Microwave for approx. 2 mins. Stir through a 120g pot of yoghurt and top with a few fresh berries.


Cham Porridge

Cham is a cosy bedtime drink we often make in our house ~ you basically add a dash of cinnamon and a teaspoon of honey to a mug of milk and warm it in the microwave. It's a lot healthier than hot chocolate while still being a tasty treat.
To make Cham porridge, put 1/3 cup of oats in a bowl, add a dash of cinnamon then the water. Microwave for approx. 2 mins. Stir through as much milk as it takes to achieve the consistency you like then drizzle with honey and sprinkle on a few juicy sultanas.


So there you have three delicious low-cal variants on a classic breakfast. What are your favourite toppings? I'd love some more suggestions!

Roast Root Soup

As a working single parent, I make a lot of freezer dinners ~ Stews, Shepherd's Pie, Spag Bol, Maccy Cheese, anything that takes one lot of preparation and yields a few meals is always a popular choice. When I get in from work I don't want to be faffing around with lots of prep, I just want something I can pop in the oven or microwave. But at the weekends I like to make something that takes a little more time and effort. Well, this weekend I managed to do both! A big Toad in the Hole that was both fluffy and crunchy, served with roast veg and onion gravy.

Drooooool!

I made an enormous pan of roast veg to go with the Toad, way too much for two people, and thank goodness, because boy does it make great soup! Thick, hearty, and positively bursting with flavour - and made from leftovers too!

Roast Root Soup

3 parsnips
3 carrots
2 small sweet potatoes
2 potatoes
1 large onion
1 / 2 cloves garlic
Olive oil
approx. 1litre Vegetable stock

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4

Peel and chop all the veg into roughly equal chunks, about 1-2 inches should do it. Put them all into a large roasting pan and drizzle generously with olive oil. Sprinkle with freshly ground salt and pepper and roast for about an hour , stirring halfway through, until all the veg are softly cooked through.
Put all the veg in a blender with approx. 1 litre / 2 pints of vegetable stock and blend until the soup is as smooth as you like it.

This is very much a bung-in-what-you-have kind of recipe ~ I had about 1/4 pint of onion gravy leftover from tea so I bunged that in too. I like my soup very thick and very smooth, but if you prefer more chunks then don't blend it for too long, if you prefer it runnier add a little more stock.

This should make about 4 or 5 servings, plenty for now and for the freezer too. Bonus!

Tasting the Rainbow

My son has never been a fussy eater (thank goodness!) but one thing I've always struggled to get him to eat is salad. Most of the year it's not a problem as he gets a good variety of vegetables, but now the days are getting warmer and summer is sashaying ever closer we don't always want a big cooked dinner. But if I put a salad on his plate it results in sulks, arguments, and eventually retching as he tries to choke down a leaf or two. Luckily I have discovered that I can get him to eat a great big pile of salad by putting a little extra prep into it, and it's such a simple trick . . .

 

. . . just chop it all up small and toss it in a couple of tablespoons of salad cream!

 

You can use whatever you like in your salad, but to give you an idea, here's what I put in mine:

 

1 carrot

1/2 a baby gem lettuce

1/2 a red pepper

1/2 a stick of celery

4 inches of cucumber

2 spring onions

2 or 3 tablespoons sweetcorn

2 or 3 tablespoons peas

3 sprigs of fresh mint

Couple of tablespoons of pine nuts

Salad cream

 

Take a large bowl and grate the carrot into it. Chop the lettuce up small (I aim for approx. 1-2cm pieces). Dice the pepper and celery into 5mm chunks. Finely slice the spring onions. Add the peas and sweetcorn (I just defrosted some from the freezeer) and sprinkle the finely chopped mint over it all. Lastly, add salad cream a little at a time, just enough to coat everything, and toss it all together.

 

You can of course use whatever ingredients you like, I used what I had to hand. Nutritionists always recommend we try to eat the rainbow, so go for as many different colours as you can. Out of all the ingredients I used, my son would normally only eat peas, sweetcorn, carrot and cucumber, but because he didn't know any of the other stuff was in there he ate the lot and enjoyed every mouthful. We had ours with salmon and buttery new potatoes ~ lush!

 

It's an age-old trick, but 'hidden veg' is a great way to get a great variety of food into your kids. Try grating carrot into spaghetti Bolognese, or pureeing some in with your mashed potatoes. Celery and onions can be diced so finely they all but dissolve in stews, but the goodness is still there.

 

What other ways do you know for getting your kids to eat things they think they don't like?



Healthy Muffins

I've not been doing very well on my diet. To be honest, I fell off it ages ago. I lost about half a stone, then put it all back on again.

Sigh.

But I really must shed some weight. I'm not comfortable being this size, and I've gone and put my name down to do the Great South Run again, so I

really

MUST

diet!

But I can't do without cake, I simply can't! Luckily I have a recipe that will help, a healthy muffin packed full of goodness that will satisfy my cake cravings without doing too much damage.

 

 

Ingredients

 

100g Plain Flour

100g Wholemeal Flour

170g Demerara Sugar

100g chopped Walnuts

100g Sultanas

250g Carrots (approx. 3 medium)

1 Apple

2 large Eggs

125ml Low-fat Yoghurt (I just use whatever flavour I have in the fridge ~ today was apricot!)

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Salt

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

 

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4

 

Line a tin with fairy cake cases.

 

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. Grate the carrot and mix it well into the dry ingredients, then add the walnuts and sultanas.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, yoghurt, and vanilla extract. Peel and core the apple then grate it into the egg mixture and give it a good stir.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until combined, it doesn't look like it will ever mix properly but don't worry, it will!

Fill each cake case with approx. 1 heaped tablespoonful of mixture and bake for approx. 25 mins.

 

This recipe makes 24 small muffins that are packed full of healthy ingredients and give a really satisfying bite, and they're only 119 calories each. If you want to make larger muffin-sized muffins then by all means do so, you'll need to increase the cooking time by about 5 minutes and obviously the calorie count will be doubled.

 

These muffins freeze well, and defrost in the microwave in about a minute on full power. Due to the incredibly low fat content (most of the fat is contained within the walnuts!) they do tend to stick to the paper cases but careful peeling deals with that nicely.

 

As with all my recipes, I've added the info to My Fitness Pal for those of you who like to count their calories.

 

Don't forget to comment on my blogiversary giveaway post to be in with a chance of winning a surprise goodie pack!

Slow and Low Lamb Stew

I have another recipe for you!
Already? I know, I'm not pacing myself very well, am I! But this was something I just threw together as an experiment and not only was I quite pleased with how it turned out, I was amazed to find out how low the calories were too! I made this in my slow cooker (crock pot) but you could do it in the oven if you don't have a slow cooker, just keep it slow and low as the Beastie Boys said.

Lamb and Tomato Stew

300g diced lamb
2 large carrots (approx 200g)
1 medium onion (100g)
1 tin chopped tomatoes in juice (400g)
1 tin new potatoes, drained (345g)
1 chicken oxo cube
1 beef oxo cube
approx 1/2 tsp dried herbs (I used Herbs de Provence)

Brown the lamb quickly in a dry pan then add to the slow cooker along with the chopped onion, sliced carrots, tomatoes and herbs. Crumble the stock cubes into the empty tomato tin and make a stock with boiling water, this will give you about the right amount of liquid for your stew.
Leave the slow cooker on high for an hour or so then turn down to low for the rest of the day. Add the drained potatoes for the last half hour of cooking.

This made four good sized portions and was deliciously filling, but when I plugged all the ingredients into My Fitness Pal (my new best friend!) I found it only came to 177 calories per portion! I would have added parsnip too if I'd had any, which would add perhaps 20 calories per portion, totally worth it. The sauce is not very thick, if you prefer a thicker sauce you could mix in a blend of butter and flour (melt a tablespoon of butter, add a tablespoon of flour, mix well, then blend into stew) but obviously that would affect the calorie count a little. Please also note that you may need to keep an eye on the liquid levels if you cook in a regular oven as you will lose more fluid using that method.

I think this week I have saved enough calories for a cakey treat tomorrow, don't you?

Creamy Courgette and Dill soup

I need to start this post with an apology. Regular readers may remember that I promised a Christmas Craftalong tutorial every month, and you may also have noticed that this hasn't happened recently. Life, I'm afraid, has kind of got in the way. I'm sorry :( I have some bits and bobs ready to make the next couple of crafts and if I can get some spare time I will get on and do them, but if I'm unable to do so then I will make sure I share some links to some awesome crafty websites where you will find lots of wonderful tutorials.

In the meantime I thought I would share a recipe. I've been dieting recently (sob!). I need to lose approx 2 stone (that's 28lbs to any US readers) partly because I am at least 2 stone overweight, and partly because I'm running the Great South Run (10 miles!) at the end of October and need to shed some weight so I don't destroy my knees! I'm using the awesome My Fitness Pal website to help and can really recommend it, apparently they also do an awesome phone app, but my phone isn't that smart. Any healthy recipes I post I will make sure are in their database too so you can easily count your calories. So let's start with this healthy adaptation of Courgette and Dill soup:
 
 

 
 
 Courgette and Dill Soup

2 big or 3 medium courgettes ( I used yellow here)

Small knob of butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
300ml vegetable stock (I used oxo cubes)
500ml semi-skimmed milk

2 large spoons chopped dill

2 teaspoons lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and slice the courgettes then fry in the butter and olive oil until soft. Add stock and milk. Bring to the boil then simmer for 15 - 20 minutes.

Pour into a blender, add the dill and blitz. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

This made approx 1 litre of soup which I divided into 4 portions. It's a lovely light yet creamy soup, only 133 calories, and makes a delicious hot snack or perfect warming accompaniment to a low cal ham sandwich for lunch. To find it on My Fitness Pal simply search for Cheery Chicken Courgette and Dill soup.


I'd love to hear what you think of the soup, and I'll share more recipes here as and when time allows, each will be on My Fitness Pal for any of you who calorie count.

If you would like to sponsor me for the Great South Run (I'm raising money for the RNLI, our brave Lifeboat men who are entirely funded by charity) then please go to my Fundraising page. Every penny helps and will be greatly appreciated.