cooking

Purple Mash…

Back in the potato-cravings-zone, but this time on a more healthy note than before… Never did I ever liked mashed potatoes of any kind until I tried this recipe. For some reason, in my opinion, mashed potatoes were always done by those that are too lazy to actually fry them or bake them in the oven – the way potatoes are meant to be eaten – I mean, all you have to do is boil them and mash them and you end up with one of the most boring options to cook potatoes. In my opinion, no matter how much milk or butter you added to them they always ended up tasting like paper.

Since being pregnant means that you literally go a bit insane, this weekend I was craving mashed potatoes. But not any type of mashed potatoes, blue mashed potatoes because I thought they must taste great solely based on their colour and the fact that I decided to add some of my favourite ingredients plus skipping the unhealthy butter. Obviously, blue potatoes are only called ‘blue’ to confuse the shit out of you, because in fact they are purple. Like really purple! And you do need to use gloves when you handle them raw otherwise you’ll end up with purple-stained palms for a few days – trust me, not the greatest look! While blue potatoes are a bit more expensive than plain white potatoes, they do not taste any different or make a big difference from a nutritional stand point, therefore unless you do not want to a)get your hands dirty and b)eat something a bit different in colour, you can easily swap them for plain potatoes for this recipe.

Moving on to the recipe. Here’s what I used:

1 kg blue potatoes
400 gr greek yoghurt (instead of all the milk and butter – for a very creamy result)
20 gr of fresh dill
5 cloves of garlic
150 gr shredded mozzarella (or any other shredded cheese you like – I picked mozzarella because it is lighter and has less salt)

While making this takes about an hour, there are only a few simple steps to follow:

Take pics of the lovely coloured ingredients and then start chopping everything. Peel the potatoes and cut them, chop the dill and mince the garlic.
Boil the potatoes for about 40 minutes, drain them and mash them with a hand blender.
Add the greek yoghurt and blend some more.
The garlic and the dill are next into the blending pot.
In comes the shredded mozzarella which must not be blended but mixed really well with a spoon.
That’s it! All you have to do now is serve the purple mash in cups!

Besides it looking very interesting, it is very tasty thanks to the dill and the garlic while still being very satisfying to cheese lovers like me thanks to the mozzarella. This can be a side to any dish or you could consume it the way I did, on its own as it is really filling. It is a grade A food which means it is a healthy dish and it does not pack a lot of calories (only 211 per serving) while giving you a good amount of protein. All the nutritional info is courtesy of MyNetDiary app and I’ve uploaded both the serving info as well as for the whole thing. I divided the whole quantity to 8 servings. I hope you’ll enjoy my purple mash!

November 22, 2016

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Healthy Berry-Banana Bread

Truth be told, I am craving all Christmas-y treats – mostly sweets – if I really want to be honest… But, since it is not even December yet I have to contain my cravings and go for healthier versions of sweets therefore I give you the healthiest berry banana bread! This actually tastes better than it looks and I must say that it tastes better than those healthy berry muffins I baked a while ago (see recipe here). The thing with the colder months is that we all tend to crave hot and filling dishes, but that does not mean that they have to be calorie packed and filled with all sorts of unhealthy sugars.

A while back we both decided to try and eliminate sugar from our diet, at least when it comes to our home-made meals (no, we are not avoiding sugar at all costs and actually we do indulge in traditional desserts once a week). That made us look for ingredients that will still give our treats that lovely sweet taste without compromising on the health factor. This is why we chose raw honey, fruits and spices. With honey, a little goes a long way, while with fruits and spices, it’s more of an ‘all-you-can-add’ thing. Yesterday I was seriously craving something sweet and Christmas-y, and what better substitute to the classic Panettone than a cinnamon infused banana bread. The thing with this banana-bread is that I have never ever done one before and had no idea how it will turn out. I confess that I went a bit overboard with the frozen berries and therefore the bread was a bit more moist that I expected but it is really filling and does satisfy the sweet-tooth in a very healthy way.After all that rambling I think it is time to move along to the actual recipe.

Ingredients:

240 g whole grain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp coconut butter (melted) – this again will give you a bit of sweetness and flavour
2 egg-whites
2 medium over-ripe bananas (mashed)
1 cup of plain yoghurt
2 tbsp raw honey (we used a variety that has a bit of cinnamon in it and therefore gave it even more flavour)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon powder – for that Christmas feeling
60 ml coconut-almond milk (full of aroma)
200 g frozen berry mix

Steps to follow for this healthy goodness:

First of all preheat your oven at 175 degrees C and carefully arrange all the ingredients so that you can take loads of pictures.
Mix together the baking powder, the baking soda and the cinnamon powder in a small bowl and then put the mixture all over the flour and stir well.
Whip the egg-whites with the vanilla extract and the coconut oil and pour the mixture over the banana mash alongside the yoghurt and the honey, Make sure you mix everything really well.
Now for the tricky part… You will have to incorporate the flour and the milk into the mixture carefully, just like you did for the berry muffins (see here). I did it in three parts.
Carefully mix in the frozen berries and pour everything into a bread tray.
Off into the oven it all goes and 50 minutes later you will indulge in the best and healthiest berry banana bread! No guilt whatsoever!

While this takes a bit more time to bake than the muffins, it is more filling and it is healthier than the muffins. If you are hungry, you can always use smaller trays or even pour the mixture in a muffin tray which will probably cut your baking time in half. I have attached the nutritional info both for a serving (one 1,5 cm thick loaf) as well as for the whole thing (10 loaves) and as you can see this is a grade A food and therefore it is very healthy. All the nutritional data is courtesy of the MyNetDiary app. I hope you will enjoy this banana bread and soon we sill start baking heathy versions of all the Christmas sweet treats (apple pie, gingerbread etc)!

November 16, 2016

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Rollin, rollin, rollin…

Remember that old Limp Bizkit tune? Rollin’? Yeah, that was the soundtrack of my teenage years and it suddenly started playing in my head again the moment I started rolling this puff pastry perfection. This again is not an everyday food as this is nowhere near healthy. This is rather a weekend treat, or more say a monthly treat as the only healthy ingredient here is the parsley and, to be honest, there is not much of that either. But just as all teenage pleasures are, this is something amazing and not at all healthy. However, this is extremely easy to make and it can be really filling and satisfying during a cold rainy autumn day.

I can honestly say that this has all my favourite ingredients in it, including the puff pastry and, as with all the great food inventions, I have not had something similar in ages – like ever since my metabolism decided to give me a kick in the ass and make me adopt a more healthy lifestyle. Now that I am pregnant, I do try and keep it healthy and I am rather careful about the quantity of food I ingest, but from time to time (‘a weekly or more often’ time to time) I indulge in all of my favourite foods because hey, I am going to get fat anyways so I might as well enjoy life a bit. That being said, I try and indulge in mostly homemade fat-bombs as I have some sort of control where the ingredients are concerned. Which brings us to today’s recipe… as the temps lower, I tend to crave more fatty, not-necessarily-healthy foods that give me that much needed mental sanity during pregnancy.

Here’s the ingredients we used, but you can actually use whatever makes your tummy and brain feel happy:

1 layer puff pastry – you can buy this in virtually any supermarket and if you want to make a sweet roll try the slightly sweetened version though I prefer to use the unsweetened variety for sweet treats as well
1 cup of olive Philadelphia cream cheese – I use this variety for the earthy olive taste and because it is light and easy to spread
100 g diced bacon
1 red onion – medium sized
80 g graded emmentaler
80 g grated mozzarella
50 g parmesan flakes
20 g fresh parsley – the healthy ingredient (notice the ratio between the one healthy ingredient and all the rest)

The mechanics behind this amazing roll:

Mince the onion and the parsley and place all the ingredients in (preferably) clear bowls for the photos.
Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C.
The fun part begins… Gently unfold the puff pastry layer and spread the Philadelphia cream cheese first – this way all the ingredients will stick to the pastry.
This is where it becomes interesting. No matter which order you close to add the ingredients, the important thing is to always add a layer of cheese in between the other stuff thus making everything stick together because everyone knows that cheese is the glue to life!
This is my ingredients order: cream cheese, onion, grated emmentaler, parsley, grated mozzarella, bacon and parmesan flakes.
This is the step where that Limp Bizkit mega-hit kept playing in my brain – now you gotta roll that thing up making sure you do not a)spill the contents, b)rip the pastry.
Once you safely roll the ‘thing’ you gotta cut it – again a BE CAREFUL! moment – I cut in into 2 cm thick loaves.
Place the rolls on a tray and into the oven they go for about 20 minutes – make sure you check on them after 15 minutes as the buggers tend to burn quickly.
That’s about it!

Since this is a very unhealthy and amazing dish, packed full of fats (the unhealthy type) and calories, you should consume it with caution. It does not look extremely unhealthy if you decide to only have one serving, but let’s be honest, can you really stop after only one roll? I couldn’t and hence this is definitely a dish that I will make as rarely as possible.

It is however extremely tasty and filling and you will probably stop after two or three servings. The nutritional info is curtesy of MyNetDiary and since they rated it as a class D food it only goes to prove my theory – this is not a healthy food! But it is great for those long weekend chilly afternoons so give it a try!

November 6, 2016

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Finally craving meat!!!

As you know, I’ve been really struggling with meat these past months, meaning I could not even look at it without cringing. Therefore getting my much needed protein throughout my pregnancy has been a real struggle. I am not saying that being a vegetarian is wrong or anything, but I had a really good deal with meat before I got pregnant: I ate it once per week because I really do love a good steak, or burger. Since this has not been an option throughout the past six months, I ate lots of eggs, cottage cheese and other foods that provided the right amount of protein for me as well as for my baby.

Last week something weird happened and I found myself craving meat. Naturally D immediately got dressed and off to the supermarket he went to cure my craving – to be honest, he always does that for me, he immediately tries and satisfy whatever craving I might have. Since I can only have well done meat my only viable choices are turkey or chicken as I can’t stand the thought of a perfectly good veal or pork meat not being medium-done (it should be illegal otherwise). For some reason, chicken seemed to be the winner option as I always found it easier to digest than turkey and so a chicken dinner it was!

To make sure that I will not ruin my meat craving forever I tried to cook it with as many citrusy flavours I could while still taking advantage of the amazing indian seasoning we always seem to have in the house – we both love indian food so, so much! That being said, I also like my food spicy, but since heartburn has been a real bitch lately I only spiced things up at a moderate level. This dish is easy to make, but you have to take into account the time it takes the meat to marinate – in this case, I left it in the fridge for one hour, but you can leave it for as long as you’d like, even overnight.

Here’s what I used:

2 chicken breasts (no skin, boneless)
1 pink grapefruit (only the juice)
1 lemon (only the juice)
15 gr fresh oregano leaves
2 tablespoons tikka masala powder
1 tablespoon hot chilli powder
1 tablespoon yellow curry powder
2 tablespoons dijon mustard (since I can’t drink my wine, I might as well use it in my food – or at least some variety of it)

What you need to do:

Cut the chicken breasts into strips – I did that in order for the flavours to get into as much of the meat as possible, plus it’s fun to eat chicken strips.
In a small bowl mix all the powder seasoning together.
In a large bowl prepare your marinade: both of the citrusy juices, the powder spices, the oregano leaves and the mustard and mix everything well.
Put the chicken strips making sure they are well covered in the marinade, cover the bowl with plastic foil and into the fridge it goes for as long as you want.
Give the cast iron pan a light spray of avocado oil and put the chicken in for about 4-5 minutes on each side.
That’s it! Mix some salad greens next to it and voila!: the perfect healthy dinner!

Since the chicken is grilled in virtually no oil, this is quite the healthy option that still has loads of flavour and does not feel like you are eating paper. The nutritional info is for 100 gr which is more than you can see on my plate in the photos and it has a decent amount of protein as well as virtually no fats or other nasty stuff. I love the fact that you can feel the citrusy taste so much and I think that complements chicken just perfectly especially when paired with indian spices!

October 15, 2016

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Weekend Breakfast Perfection…

After about 100 weekends when D surprised my very pregnant self with breakfast, I thought it was about time I returned the favour, so here we are… I baked him the best breakfast muffins I could come up with (being in the kitchen involves a lot of improvising for me). Just to get you in the mood, they contain prosciutto (because I forgot to buy bacon and prosciutto was the only thing I had in the fridge), red cheddar and a touch of garlic. Since it is the weekend, we tend to not count calories, fat or any other nasty stuff that could get our morale down, but I am telling you, these muffins are not for those that are on a diet, no, they are a cheat meal!

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Thankfully, if you have them for breakfast, they are not as bad as they seem on paper because you have an entire day to consume all that savoury goodness. That being said, I tried to keep them on the healthy side by not using white flour and by switching from sour cream to a much lighter yoghurt and low fat milk. I did not keep that in mind where the red full fat cheddar was involved, but you could easily switch to low fat mozzarella and skip the butter if you want them to actually be diet-friendly. I did not really want that because, hey, I am pregnant, and I need a day or two to indulge in my cravings fatty or not!

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So, getting down to the nitty gritty, here’s what you need for these dreamy breakfast muffins:

200 gr wholemeal flour
300 gr red cheddar
125 gr plain yoghurt
300 ml milk
80 gr butter
one garlic head
3 tsp baking powder
1 egg
A bit of oil for your tray (I used avocado spray oil)
12 slices of prosciutto

Processed with Snapseed.

Processed with Snapseed.

Following the steps is quite easy and it takes you about 7-10 minutes:

Grate 200 gr of cheddar, cut the remaining cheddar into small slices, lightly beat the egg and mince the garlic.
In the flour bowl mix together the baking powder,milk,yoghurt and egg.
Incorporate the grated cheddar into the mix.
Put the butter in a pot and slowly heat it up. When the butter is all melted add the garlic and stir well for about 1 minute. Take the pot away from the stove.
Spray the muffin tray with a bit of oil.
Now you are going to make muffin sandwiches with quite a few layers: first, put the prosciutto in each muffin shape, add about one tablespoon of batter, add a teaspoon of the garlic infused oil, the cheddar slices and finally another tablespoon of batter.
Put in the over (pre-heated at 180 degrees) for about 20 minutes, until they are brown on top. Yes they are not the best looking muffins once you get them out of the oven.
That’s it! After they have cooled a bit, carefully take them out of the tray and serve them.

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The combo of aromas is just too amazing and we both ended up finishing the entire tray of muffins in one sitting, but, to be honest, since it is the weekend I do not want to ruin my mood by thinking of how the scale is going to tip at my next doctor’s appointment. I can tell you that the little bundle of joy (which is very energetic these days) enjoyed them very much and I hope you will too!

October 9, 2016

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Tomato Madness!!!

The one thing that I have been madly craving during my pregnancy so far are tomatoes! I am telling you, our kid is going to hate tomatoes as I have had them twice daily (true, in different forms): soup and salad. I just love them! But not any type of tomatoes…No, those hard to find, sweet garden tomatoes! And they need to be a certain consistency for me to be happy… Therefore, one could argue that D had it quite difficult where my cravings are concerned so far, especially since tomato season is officially over, but I am still craving them like crazy!

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The bad thing about me craving tomatoes is the fact that you can’t actually order them online, no…In order for tomatoes to be perfect and satisfy my taste buds, they need to smell a certain way (yes, I am the weird person that smells tomatoes at the market), feel a certain way and look a certain way (I generally love the pink, non-perfect looking tomatoes). That being said, most of the time D found the precious, perfect tomatoes for me, except for two days ago, when he came home with these perfectly round and red tomatoes that obviously did not do much for my salad.

Which brings us to today’s post! I decided to venture in the kitchen to cook a cream tomato soup for the first time. While I do love to cook all sorts of other things, soups are simply not my cup of tea. Until this one. Besides the fact that I documented the whole thing on Instagram’s Stories, without having the slightest clue of how things will turn out (the pot could’ve exploded for all I know) – I now realise that could’ve meant social cooking suicidal – the damn thing turned out to be even better than either me or D expected, especially since I was too lazy to go out and buy anything and was left with using whatever I already had in the fridge/house – hence no fresh basil, but I did have a bit of fresh oregano leftover form the potatoes we cooked a few days ago (recipe here). I do admit that until now, I have been getting my tomato soup in a plastic container from the supermarket (fru-fru) which was great, but from now on, I will start experimenting with home made cream soups (make way for mushrooms, bell peppers etc).

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Let’s move along to the actual recipe for today… First of all, it will only take you about 30-40 minutes to get from ingredients to final product which means that there is absolutely no excuse to not try this recipe. Here’s what I had in the fridge for this one:

1300 gr tomatoes
180 gr red onion (two medium onions are fine)
1 small pot of plain yoghurt (you can use sour cream, but yoghurt is lighter)
10 gr of fresh oregano leaves
15 gr of garlic (a small garlic head)
3 tsp of vegetable cooking base
1 tsp (not fresh) basil – fresh is better, but I was lazy and hungry yesterday
1 tsp of pomace olive oil (you do not need more than that!)

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Steps to follow:

Roughly cut the tomatoes and the onions – do not stress about this step too much as it’s all going to go in the blender anyway.
Slice the garlic, and pick the oregano leaves, arrange everything and take a few photos.
Put the pomace olive oil in a pot and let it heat up for 30 seconds than add the onions.
After the onion gets semi-translucent, add the sliced garlic and half of the vegetable cooking base and let them fry stirring continuously for another minute or two.
Add half of the tomatoes and the basil and mix them all together until the tomatoes start peeling by themselves and then add the remaining tomatoes and let everything come to a boil (about 4-5 minutes).
Add the oregano leaves and what is left of the vegetable cooking base and let everything boil for another 5 minutes stirring from time to time.
Take the pot off the stove, let everything chill for 3-4 minutes and then blend everything really well – since we do not have an actual blender, I used the smoothie maker for this step, but everything turned out lovely.
Put the pot back on the stove and bring to boil.
Add the yoghurt, stir well and let it boil for another few minutes. You’re done!

This is one of those soups that you can make all year round using canned tomatoes or home-made tomato juice. It is nutritious, satisfying while also being low in calories and fats. This for me is the perfect lunch and I will start experimenting with soups as well because it was fun-fun-fun making this one. I added a bit of fresh ground pepper in the end, but if you do not like a spicy dish just skip that step. The nutritional info I’ve uploaded is for the entire quantity which provided four servings, so make sure you divide everything by four.

D was truly impressed by this soup and by the fact that I managed to cook, take pictures and live-stream everything on Instagram all by myself without actually blowing up the kitchen, so I’d say this is a recipe everyone can make without stressing too much.

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October 5, 2016

evenlymatched2 Comments

Quick dinner

Last Friday D came home with a bag full of groceries because he wanted to cook dinner (hence all the ingredients for our egg feast on Sunday). We usually are too tired to go out on Friday so we either order food or we cook something. This time he came home very hungry, therefore, before I even started unpacking all the groceries, I knew we had enough for at least eight people. Since most of our go-to quick meals consist of some sort of steak (for him) and a mixture of vegetables (for me), I knew what this dinner was going to be about. What I didn’t get was the fact that D knew that we were in the middle of our rose wine competition and he should’ve bought some sort of white meat (turkey mostly), but no, he bought two rib-eye steaks…

This recipe is not actually a recipe, but more like a quick hunger-fix that everybody does from time to time. Mainly I’m talking about steak and vegetables. I wanted to share it with you because D uses some tricks to make a steak appealing even to myself. One of his secret weapons is the cast iron pan he always uses for meat. I’ve talked about his precious pan in an earlier post. Another thing that he does for beef steak is the fact that he fries it with a bit of butter which makes it extremely tender and tasty. He rarely ever seasons the meat as in his opinion, you should do that after it is cooked.

Here’s what he bought:

8 spears of asparagus (he bought more – frittata – but that’s all he used for the side)
6 mushrooms
2 red onions
1 bell pepper (he bought three different coloured ones, chopped them all up and we got both a colourful frittata and a colourful side for the beef steak)
2 rib-eye beef steaks

What he did:

He chopped all the vegetables, put a bit of butter into a teflon pan and poured the onion first.
When the onion was a bit fried he added the asparagus and the bell pepper.
The mushrooms joined the party last as they do tend to leave a lot of water and he didn’t really want to make a vegetable stew.
On to the meat. He heated a bit of butter into his (by now) infamous cast iron pan and then he put in both steaks.
The secret with beef steak is to also put a bit of butter on top of it and when that butter is half melted you should start the dance of turning them from side to side every minute, that way you’ll get the perfect medium-rare colour that you usually only get at the restaurant (where a thermometer is used).
That’s about it! Arrange everything nicely on the plate a snap some pics in order to have proof of the whole cooking experience. These plate photos aren’t the nicest simply because D was starving and he couldn’t wait to eat.

Yes, as you can see from the pics, since we were in an ongoing rose wine contest, we had beef steak with rose instead of red, but as you know we don’t really value those kind of rigidities.

This was a light (for me) and healthy dinner. The nutritional info is for two servings considering that there are two meat-lovers eating. I only had some vegetables that evening, and D was left with a nice lunch the next day.

April 30, 2016

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Egg Feast!

It’s funny how, whenever we have to leave for a vacation somewhere, everybody seems to throw food at us. This is what happened last Sunday…my mother gave us 12 eggs! I mean, I know egg-season is here with Easter right around the corner, but what are we supposed to do with 12 eggs when we are one foot into our vacation. Good thing D is smart and full of cooking ideas! He decided we should make a frittata on Sunday morning. As all is fun and jolly in our kitchen, we, yet again, decided to use whatever we already had in our fridge for the magical Sunday frittata. Yes, I know Saturday is our day for the food post, but I had to share this with you before our departure. This was so easy to make and so delicious that it would be a pity to not share it prior to next Saturday, plus we have another mouth-watering recipe for next weekend.

Here’s what we used:

1 red onion
1 garlic clove
6 asparagus spears
1 bell pepper
100 gr bacon
150 gr cheddar cheese
4 green onions
2 large mushrooms
6 eggs
butter

Yes, for some random reason, we had all that in our fridge. Told you we were chaotic chefs!

How to get from random ingredients to a tasty frittata?

Chop all the vegetables and beat the eggs. Arrange them for a lovely photo! Do not forget to pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees C.
Heat a cast iron pan. You’ll need a pan that goes into the oven as well. Melt a small piece of butter so all the stuff you are going to put in won’t get stuck on the pan.
Fry the onion and the garlic first, then add the bacon and mix them really good until the bacon is half-crispy.
Add the mushrooms and the asparagus and fry them until they are a little cooked. Don’t cook them for too long as the mushrooms will leave a lot of water.
Mix the eggs with the bell peppers,the green onions and the cheddar and pour everything over the vegetable and bacon mix in the pan.
Mix them all up really good and then off in the oven they go!
After about 15 minutes, grate the frittata with a bit of cheddar and put it back into the oven for 5 more minutes.
That’s it! Take some pictures, share them on Instagram and enjoy!

This turned out really really delicious and D was right to use the eggs for the frittata, he also ate two boiled eggs each morning and we managed to finish them by the time we had to leave! This is a truly successful story and unlike all the other times we cooked, there weren’t enough dishes to even fill the dishwasher!