Chicken and Brown Rice Meatloaf

Nutrition Data (for whole meatloaf, serves 6-8 with a salad or vegetables)
Calories 1094
Protein 101g
Carbohydrate 112g
Fat 25g
Dietary Fibre 11g



Ingredients
400g minced chicken thigh
380g cooked (1 cup dried) brown rice
1 medium onion
1 stick celery
1 egg, beaten
100g non fat yoghurt
1 tsp nutmeg
good grating black pepper

Method

•  Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
•  Dice the onion and celery.
• In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients thoroughly.
• Pack well into a loaf tin; I use a silicone loaf tin, so don't need to grease it.
• Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes until golden brown on top.  Drain off the fat and cooking juices.
• Let it stand for 10 minutes, then slice. Serve hot or cold.

Tips
This can be frozen.  Once the meatloaf is cold, finish slicing it and wrap the individual slices in greaseproof paper and put in a freezer bag.  Freeze on the same day.

Kimchi butter stir-fried cabbage with orange

 Ingredients
White cabbage
Broken-up orange, pith removed
kimchi butter for stir-frying (blend 1 quantity unsalted butter with 2 quantities kimchi)

Method

• Slice enough cabbage and put in a wok with some kimchi butter.  Stir fry for a few minutes, adding the broken orange pieces at the end to warm through.
• Serve immediately.

Kimchi buttter and blue brie croissant

Aaaggghhhh, I hear you cry!  That is just not going to work!  My initial reaction was the same when I read  in the Flavour Thesaurus about Momofuku Restaurant in New York selling a kimchi butter and sweet gorgonzola croissant.  Still, I was intrigued, and the more I thought about it the more I could imagine that the flavours could probably temper each other quite well.  So I attempted it and it was delicious!

Of course, there was the snag of obtaining sweet gorgonzola, otherwise known as dolcelatte.  You can relatively easily buy danish blue, gorgonzola and other strong blue cheese in Japan, I couldn't get dolcelatte.

I processed kimchi with some butter in my blender, and was astonished at the change in taste.  I love kimchi and will quite happily eat it from the jar, but blending it with butter amazingly transformed the tart spiciness into sweet tangy creaminess.  Hmmm, this could work, I thought!

With misgivings, I tried using regular gorgonzola, unsurprisingly it didn't work.  What I settled on in the end was Gerard Fromage Bleu which is like a blue brie, and available from Yamaya.  Delicious! If anyone tries this with dolcelatte, please let me know!


Ingredients
1 quantity butter
2 quantities kimchi
slices of blue brie
croissants

Method

•  Blend the kimchi and butter in a blender, putting it into the microwave for intervals of 10-20 seconds if the butter is too hard.
• Split the croissant with a sharp knife.  Spread both sides with the kimchi butter.
• Top with thin slices of blue brie and sandwich the two halves together.
• Enjoy! 

Gooey Scrambled Egg and Spam on Brown Rice

Hmmm.  This is my semi-healthy answer to McDonald's absolutely delicious Sausage and Egg McMuffin breakfast set!  On Saturdays I have an early start, and got into a habit of treating myself to a sausage & egg muffin and hash brown from McDonald's.  Delicious, but 600 calories, 36g fat, 45g carbohydrate, 22g protein and 4g dietary fibre for the lot (was surprised it was so high in fibre actually!)

I needed a healthier alternative.  But most importantly, it had to be quick to make.  With this recipe, the rice is set to be ready in the rice cooker just before I go out.  Boil the kettle to heat up the thermos.  Make the egg mixture, spoon in the rice and top with the egg mixture.  Ready to go!

Nutrition Data
Calories 318
Carbohydrate 23g
Protein 17g
Fat 17g
Dietary Fibre 3g 

Still very high in fat, but a better treat! I make double the quantities for my thermos, and eat the rest at lunchtime with a green salad.


Ingredients (serves 1)
85g cooked brown rice (1/4 cup dried rice) 
1 medium egg
14g grated cheese
3g butter
35g spam lite
56g kimchi

Method

• Chop the spam into 1cm cubes.
• If cooking to take to work, pour boiling water into the thermos, and put the lid on.
• About 10 minutes before the rice is cooked, melt the butter in a saucepan, beat in the egg, and stir in the spam, cheese and kimchi.  Keep stirring until thickened but still very glossy and of a pourable consistency.  Take off the heat.
• Pour the water out of the thermos, pile in the rice and top with the egg mixture.  Close the thermos immediately!
• I find that, even after taking half out for breakfast, it is still pretty warm 5 hours later.  Absolutely delicious!