Beef, Vegetable and Feta Medley

This week we were aiming for low carb healthy dinners to help us fight the rising waistline situation we have going on around here. I was planning to make my old favourite side salad which I haven't had in yonks with various meats for the week. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy all the ingredients. Then I couldn't face a cold side salad on a Winter's night.  This meal eventuated out of slowly changing my mind about what I wanted to make (multiple times along the way), and oh my gosh it ended up so yum.  I've made it twice now, and found it is equally tasty making it a simpler way in the second attempt. First go I had two nights worth of cheap steaks and had decided to cook up a veggie side stew. Then I chopped the meat, sealed and stirred it through toward the end. Second time around I just bought a 500g pack of diced beef and added it just after the onions and garlic. Of course the steak meat was a little tastier (and medium rare) but it was much simpler to just throw everything  in early on and leave it go.  Plus the meat is tender and slow cooked this way.  As much as this sounds like a hodge-podge meal from how I am describing it, let me assure you that this meal made on instinct is absolutely fabulous. It is totally healthy - just meat and veg and seasonings. Plus it is low cal, high protein, low fat and low carb. What else could you hope for? Of course you can serve it on rice which will add carbs and make it last six rather than four serves, but we were more than happy with this as a stand alone dish. This is a new regular!

Balsamic Glazed Pork on Warm Lentil Salad

This meal was a Friday at home date night meal I made for the Dragon. I found a good special on pork fillet and wanted to do something special with ingredients we had on hand in our pantry and fridge.  The result was a pretty easy meal to make over a glass of wine before retiring together to the balcony to overlook the city lights with our chimenea burning to set the mood. Toasted marshmallows made for a perfect desert.

I literally licked my plate clean. This meal is A.May.Zing. The pork is moist and soft, the glaze is beautiful and the lentil base is a perfect compliment. This is a great special dinner at home/date night meal.

The Blood of my Enemies (Beetroot, Ginger, Celery, Pineapple and Rockmelon Juice)

Last week I spent a few nights away at a training workshop down south.  Unfortunately the workshop itself did not live up to its reputation, but there were a few other good things I took away instead.  For one, I made some lovely friends and had a ball outside of the workshop.  Secondly, I fell in love with juices.  One in particular included beetroot and carrot and a few other ingredients, and was red and frothy. This may sound a little gross but it looked a bit like blood with coagulate on the surface. We laughed about drinking the blood of our enemies, and I felt great afterwards. I was inspired to create my own version at home. Its a power drink!

The Dragon and I usually just do smoothies in our nutrininja. Usually we take a banana and almond milk base, then add various fruits/veggies/other add ins.  We don't really do much juicing. Juicers themselves seem a waste because they take out all of the good fibre, so the nutrinja seemed like the perfect way to start making yum juices at home.  We have been having this particular one with breakfast every day this week and we have been feeling really healthy as a result. I've been pre-chopping all the fruit and veg on the weekend so they are ready to assemble in the nutrininja cup each night before bed, put into the fridge, then in the morning we can just grab, blitz, laugh maniacally and go!

From my very un-educated trawl of the internet, pseudoscience tells me that this may benefit blood pressure, the liver, kidneys and pancreas, but just eating healthily generally will do that for you.  Don't be fooled into thinking drinking one juice is going to make you healthy, but in combination with a balanced and healthy diet generally, this juice is a great addition.

I present to you the Blood of My Enemies.

Enlivening Orange, Ginger and Mint Juice

Welcome back! After a long hiatus I am ready to return to blogging again. Life had gotten really hectic with home renovations and my being unwell for some time, so I haven't been able to dedicate the time to this.  I've made a bunch of changes to my life to simplify things now (which includes dedicated rest days with no plans and no projects/jobs) and I am feeling healthier and more relaxed. In addition to that, I have time again!  So without further ado.....

This juice is perfect for a Saturday afternoon.  It is so simple - just three ingredients - and it tastes zingy and delicious.  Interestingly it also tastes quite creamy, despite not having any ingredients in it which would usually be used to make a "creamy" finish.  One of the many things I love about my nutrininja is how it can use the whole fruit and make it into something great.  For this, I don't even need to take the seeds out of the oranges - simply chop it up, take off the skin and you are good to go! It has heaps of fibre and goodness, including vitamin C, folate and calcium.

Also I figured out how to put text on my photos using Gimp, which makes me happy.

Chicken, Bacon and Leek Casserole

This meal is not pretty. At all. It is, however, delicious. Sometimes I want pure comfort food but I don't want to feel bloated and guilty afterwards.  This meal hits that spot.  And  more.  Plus it has stupidly high amounts of protein. I can't emphasise enough how much you need to cook this meal. It tastes so so naughty but is so so nice.

Berry Beautiful Smoothie

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get sick of smoothies. They are too darn good. We would have them every weekday morning if we could drag ourselves out of bed early enough to actually EAT breakfast.  We were so good for so long, and lately with all of the renovation we have been doing in all of our spare time, we are over-tired so rarely manage to get up early enough to eat at home. This means hitting the egg bacon and cheese muffin for breakfast from the work cafeteria way more often than I should admit.  My waistline cannot lie though. Sigh.

We miss our morning routine and are working on it.  One of the strategies involves making things easier. Our nutrininja is great and makes the smoothest smoothies we have ever smoothed.  We also recently bought a vertical deep freeze (lifelong dream of mine, yes I am that boring).  A couple of weekends ago I  filled two drawers with smoothie supplies.....I got some funny looks at the checkout I can tell you that!

I found out that bananas keep for 6 months in the freezer. Given the large variability in banana prices over the course of the year where I live, as well as the fact that frozen bananas require no peeling and make for a creamier smoothie, I bought all of the ready-to-eat ones in the store. ALL of them.  We took them home, peeled them, chopped them, put the pieces flat into freezer bags (with 5 bananas per bag to provide one week of smoothies per bag) and filled a drawer. Another drawer is now filled with various other frozen fruit when it was on special - pinapple chunks, rasberries, strawberries, blueberries, mixed berries, mangoes, cherries...you name it. Now each week we simply have to grab a bag of bananas and a bag of fruit from the deep freeze on Sundays, move it to the normal freezer for the week and its a breeze! Smoothies don't even require ice if the other ingredients are already frozen!  We even have frozen spinach in cube form!  Now to actually get up in time.....

All of that aside, here is the delicious smoothie that I made for us both this morning. Simple and yummy. Pictured with one of the gorgeous flowers the Dragon got me - the colour is out of this world.

Rice and Quinoa Mix

There is this cute little cafe near my work which serves healthy and yummy meals put together by a nutritionist.  Their healthy curries are always served on a bed of quinoa and rice, with some veggies stirred in.  I've taken a liking to it.  Adding quinoa to your rice adds fibre and protein, both of which I am always keen to increase in my diet.  I'll be making this regularly, and thought it would be convenient to have a post demonstrating how to easily cook them in one pot using the absorption method.  Happy cooking!

Flu Fighter Smoothie

The dragon and I are both sniffly and gross, so I did some research on the best ingredients to put into our breakfast smoothie.  Now because I work professionally in an area in which we apply a high level of scientific scrutiny into our research, I need to add the disclaimer that only a small proportion of my research for this blog comes from peer reviewed journals, and I am not a nutritionist or dietician by trade.  OK disclaimer aside. Now I can get back to this with a clear conscience.

This smoothie/juice is packed with Vitamin C from the pineapple, orange and OJ (please do NOT substitute 100% orange juice for orange drink or the like), and has iron in the spinach (which is more readily absorbed by its combination with citrus fruit). Ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and honey are all classic go-tos for natural cold and flu remedies, and turmeric is most readily absorbed by the body when combined with a healthy fat, hence the coconut oil. The banana is there just to give it a bit of creaminess.  Health benefits aside, it was zingy and tangy and helped.  Taking an eccinacea tablet with this can be a boost as well.   The Dragon swears by his own cold busting recipe - he calls it "medicinal rum".  This version is strictly non-alcoholic.  Especially since consumed at breakfast!

Apple, Almond and Banana Smoothie

Who doesn't like a good green smoothie?  Here's another tasty option to add to your repetoire.  It is sweet yet tangy with the almonds and banana lending a comforting layer of flavour and soft texture.  I find it quite an invigorating, Summery recipe.  Apparently lots of people eat sliced apples with almond butter as a snack, so I must try this because I loved it in smoothie form.  I leave the skin on the apples for extra fibre, and because my Nutrininja can handle it, but peel yours if your blender doesn't like skin. If you are wondering about combining the flavour of spinach in there, don't - you can't even taste it.

As well as the general nom-factor, this combination is pretty healthy.  Bananas and spinach are both high in potatssium and bananas pack a B2 punch.  All the ingredients in this recipe are high in fibre (aside from the protein powder of course), almonds are rich in good fats, and the Vitamin E in almonds helps the body to absorb the Vitamin C in the apples. We all know that spinach is a good vegetarian source of iron, and Vitamin C has been shown to improve the body's ability to absorb it.  So overall this combo is a winner! Of course there is a fair bit of sugar and therefore carbs in here, but just factor that into the rest of your day and its all good! Just have a lower carb lunch or a lower carb dinner.  Plus, let's not get all crazy about this stuff - balance is the key and this is delicious :)

It is a great morning pick me up. Plus apples wake you up as well as a coffee. That doesn't stop my coffee addiction once I arrive at work, though.  Still - an apple a day and all!

Blueberry Orange Smoothie

This delectible breakfast originated from researching things which I did not think would go together.  I was so wrong.  We had some oranges and bananas in the fridge, as well as some frozen blueberries.  I wanted to make smoothie breakfast, but was 100% sure that would be a terrible combination.  So I googled orange and blueberry and was so surprised to find out that this is actually a reasonably common flavour combination.  Not just in smoothies, but in a variety of contexts.  Colour me confused on a Saturday morning.  So I decided to change confused into curious and give it a go.  Now its your turn.