Ham and Vegetable Gratin with Celeriac Mash

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 celeriac head (450g)

half an onion (I use 50g frozen)

1 leek (100g)

Your choice of filling vegetables - I used

   1 courgette, chopped into bite sized pieces (200g)

   80g kalettes, roughly chopped

   200g broccoli spears

30g butter

90g ham, shredded

20g panko breadcrumbs

20g reduced fat grated cheddar

black pepper, nutmeg, paprika

250ml milk (I use unsweetened almond milk)

8g arrowroot powder or kudzu

oil

Nutrition Info (per serving)

Calories: 301

Protein : 15g

Carbohydrate: 31g

Fat: 14g

Dietary Fibre: 6.5g

Method

1. Wash and roughly peel the celeriac.  Chop into large pieces and microwave in a covered container with a little water for 7 minutes.
2. Mash the cooked celeriac with the butter.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
4. Heat 1tsp oil in a frying pan to medium hot and fry the onion and leeks for about 10 minutes.
5. Microwave the kalettes, and courgette for 3 minutes in a covered container without water.
6. Microwave the broccoli spears for 2 minutes in a covered container with a little water.
7. Drain all the vegetables and put in an oven proof container.
8. Add the ham.
9. From the 250ml milk, measure out approximately 50ml into a small bowl.  Stir in the arrowroot/kudzu and mix well.
10. Heat the rest of the milk in a saucepan with a good sprinkling of paprika and nutmeg.  When the milk is hot, pour in the arrowroot/kudzu mix, stirring thoroughly.  The mixture will thicken. Add more seasoning to taste.
11. Mix the sauce into the vegetables and ham, cover with the celeriac mash, and sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and cheese.  Finish with a good grating of black or rainbow pepper.
12. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until golden brown.

Balsamic Agar Jelly 'Caviar' Pearls

Agar pearls are very easy to make, and look effective and taste good on sweet and savoury dishes.  They keep for several weeks in an airtight container in the fridge.  They are quite time-consuming though, preparation is needed, and you do need some equipment.  A few years ago, one of my brothers gave me a molecular gastronomy kit which was a lot of fun, and how I first started making these.

You can use many different liquids for these, but balsamic vinegar is probably the easiest to start with.  Cold spherification makes solid pearls, it's a different method to make liquid pearls - I haven't mastered that yet!

What you will need

A tall glass, at least 15cm.  You are using a tall glass so that the pearls have enough time to set as they pass through the cold oil and form a spherical shape before they reach the bottom of the glass.

Disposable pipette

Small slotted spoon

High accuracy food/diet scales

Cooking oil to fill this glass, it can be cheap oil - I use rapeseed oil

80ml balsamic vinegar

1.2g agar agar powder

Method

1. Fill the glass with cooking oil, and put in the coldest part of the freezer for at least an hour and a half, until the oil is thick.
2. Put a small amount of the balsamic vinegar in a saucepan, dissolve the agar agar powder, add the rest of the vinegar and bring to the boil.  When it starts to bubble, continue to boil 1 minute stirring continuously.
3. Remove from the heat and leave for 5 minutes stirring occasionally.  You do not want the liquid to set, but it must be cool enough that it will set before it reaches the bottom of the cold oil.  If it thickens too much, you can heat it again to make it melt.
4. Fill a pipette with the balsamic agar liquid and release drops into the cold oil, holding the pipette just above the top of the oil, and moving all over the surface of the oil so that the drops individually form. 
5. Do half the liquid then, using the slotted spoon, drain the pearls into an airtight container.  Rinse out the pipette with hot water.
6. Put the oil in the freezer for 30 minutes, reheat the balsamic liquid (no need to boil this time as the agar is already well-distributed), cool and repeat.
7. Drain the remainder of the pearls into the container.  Being vinegar, they can kept in the fridge for several weeks.
8. Wash the oil off the pearls before use.  

Note:  You can see from the picture, that some of the pearls are oval-shaped.  This happens when the oil becomes less cold and thick, and the pearls drop too quickly.

Cocoa Fudgy Protein Bars

This is a combination of half a dozen different recipes I found on the web, just mixing together the quantity of ingredients that felt right, and that gave the right kind of nutritional value.  It kind of took me back to my childhood, making mud pies in the garden :)

You really would not know that the recipe contains beans.  The finished result is quite soft and fudgy.  I used cannellini beans, but any bean would be ok.




Nutrition Info per bar (makes 10)
Calories: 169
Protein: 6g
Carbohydrate: 26g
Fat: 5g
Dietary Fibre: 6g


Ingredients
1 x 400g tin cannellini beans, drained
50g oats
20g hemp powder
20g cocoa powder
50g unsweetened desiccated coconut
200g light soya milk
200g dried soft figs
1 heaped teaspoon molasses (20g)
30g granulated xylitol


Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Put the beans in a large bowl and crush thoroughly with the back of a fork.  
• Stir in the oats, hemp powder. cocoa powder, coconut and xylitol.
• Put the figs and milk in a blender and blend until finely chopped.
• Stir into the dried mixture, along with the molasses.
• Pour into a greased 20cm non-stick square metal baking tin, and smooth.
• Bake for 25 mins.
• Remove from the oven and cut into 10 bars, leaving in the tin.  It will be firm on top, but of a squidgy consistency.  Cool in the tray on a wire rack, and then refrigerate for a couple of hours.
• Wrap individually in foil and store in the refrigerator.

Savoury Parmesan and Marmite Protein Bars

In the UK, you can't buy savoury protein bars, so I've been thinking about this for some time.  Sweet protein bars tend to use dried fruit as the 'glue', so I had to google for ideas as to what 'glue' to use for these savoury bars.  Quinoa seemed to be used quite a bit, which is of course also high in protein, so perfect here.

These do dry out quite well in the oven and become fairly crispy on the outside, which was the texture I was going for.

I think next time, I shall actually cut it into 10 bars instead of 12, which will give 146 calories, 8g protein and 4g dietary fibre.




Nutrition Information per bar (makes 12)
Calories: 122
Protein: 7g
Carbohydrate: 11g
Fat: 6g
Dietary Fibre: 3g

Ingredients
80g dried quinoa (cooked)
100g oats
40g hemp powder
20g salted almond kernels
20g salted pistachio kernels
30g milled flaxseed
50g grated parmesan
1 heaped teaspoon marmite (17g)
80g light soya milk

Method

• Cook the quinoa according to instructions.
• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• In a large bowl, weigh out the oats, hemp powder, flaxseed and parmesan.  Mix in the marmite with your fingers until it's distributed through the ingredients.
• Grind the nuts together in a blender and mix into the dry ingredients.
• Mix in the quinoa, and stir in the milk until the mixture forms a paste.
• Grease a 20cm non stick square metal baking tin, and press the mixture down well.  Score into 12 rectangles.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 mins until firm and browned (yes, you will actually be able to tell they've browned!).
• Remove from the oven, cut into bars, allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.
• Wrap individually in foil, and store in an airtight box for up to a week.

Healthy Egg McMuffin

I don't eat much bread at all, but I like it occasionally.  In the UK, unless you buy bread rolls, bread comes in huge 800g (sometimes 400g) loaves.  This says a lot about how much bread is eaten as a staple in the British diet.  This is in contrast to Japan where bread is bought in packets of 3 or 6 impossibly thick slices (and only usually of white bread).  When I was living in Japan, after visits to the UK I occasionally brought back an 800g loaf of sliced wholemeal bread, and put in my freezer.

These days, I have a tiny under the counter fridge, with only an ice box to freeze things in.  Consequently, if I buy a loaf of bread, I'd probably eat a maximum of 4 slices before it went mouldy.

The other evening, I found myself googling microwave bread and came across a recipe from this website http://www.thelaundrymoms.com/trim-healthy-mama-bread/.  I came across other ones too, that I'll probably try sometime soon.  As I already had the ingredients for this one, I decided to try it.  The first time, I used a whole egg in the bread, instead of the powdered egg white and water, and ate it with ham, mustard and dairylea cheese.  Today, as I wanted to eat it with egg, I just used egg white in the bread.  This bread is very high in fibre, vitamin D and omega 3, 6 and 9, and also provides calcium, zinc and iron.  Although high in fat, along with the fibre this keeps you feeling full until lunchtime, and most of the fat comes from the omega fatty acids.  Taking only about 5 minutes to make, this is a very quick and easy breakfast, as well as being very low in carbohydrate and calories!

Ingredients
For the bread
1 x 5g sachet powdered egg white, made up with 7 teaspoons warm water.
4 level tablespoons (24g) milled flaxseed
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 - 1 teaspoon (4g) softened butter (I use spreadable butter and don't keep it in my fridge)
Herbs to taste

For the egg and cheese filling
1/2 - 1 teaspoon (4g) softened butter
10g low fat grated cheddar cheese

Nutrition Info
For the bread
Calories:  149
Protein: 8.5g
Carbohydrate: 1.78g
Fat: 12g
Dietary Fibre: 6.8g

For the egg and cheese filling
Calories: 117
Protein: 8.4g
Carbohydrate: 0.2
Fat: 8.9g
Dietary Fibre: 0g

Method

• In a cereal bowl, mix the powdered egg white with 2 teaspoons warm water, then mix with an additional 5 teaspoons warm water.  
• Stir in the milled flaxseed, baking powder, herbs and butter.  Flatten in the bowl.
• Microwave in a 750w oven for 1 and a half minutes.
• Turn out onto a baking rack to let the steam escape.
• In another cereal bowl, beat the egg with the butter, don't worry about any large bits.
• Microwave in a 750w oven for about 1 minute until set.
• Slice the bread in half, put the set egg on one half and sprinkle with the grated cheese.
• Sandwich with the other half and enjoy!
  

Notes

• If you don't have powdered egg white, then use a whole egg without the water.
• I buy milled flaxseed from Lidl or Aldi - it is much cheaper there than from a health food shop.
• You could probably cut down on the fat and calories more by reducing the butter in the recipe.

Spicy Chicken and Lime Soup

I think it was in fact this recipe http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/10/chicken-lime-soup/ that particularly attracted me to this blog, and it hasn't disappointed!  I followed this recipe more than usual and, as recommended, I added some avocado to my bowl.  However, I used dashi fish stock rather than chicken stock, used less oil, and served with brown rice rather than tortillas.   It had a real flavour punch, very nice!  Will definitely make this recipe again!

The 'Budget Bytes' blog

More, perhaps, on this later... but very intrigued by this blog with so many new ideas for healthy and budget rice-based dishes.  Plus, of course, any blogger who posts a recipe for chocolate houmous http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/09/chocolate-hummus/ is a friend of mine!

Breakfast Egg Pots

Such a quick and simple breakfast!  The other weekend, I went to Spitalfields Market in London and found one of the Leon restaurants for the first time.  Although I'd already had breakfast, I felt like something light (and cheap!).  For under £3.50, I had a 'Poached Egg with Ham Hock and Truffle Gruyère Pot' (164 calories) http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/nutrition/dish_detail.php?=5 and a cup of coffee.  It was amazing!  And it got me thinking about making my own 'egg pots' in the microwave - not quite as authentic as Leon's, but incredibly easy to make.

For these egg pots, I used a couple of tablespoons of a ready-prepared cheese sauce, some creme fraiche, or a little, thick, parsley sauce (made up from granules), broke in a large egg, sprinkled over some grated cheese, and topped with either crumbled ham or smoked salmon and avocado.  I then microwaved for a minute, checked the consistency and then microwaved for sets of 10-20 seconds, checking each time.  My microwave is 800w and I used medium setting.  Timing will depend on the wattage and the quantity of other ingredients, as well as how you like your egg!  Having a sauce, as well as being tasty, prevents the egg from exploding in the  microwave...

I'll definitely go back to a Leon restaurant.  Healthy, tasty food and reasonably priced, great combination!  http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/menu/
(I bought one of the books, but actually haven't been inspired by it - as always, not too keen on having to follow a recipe that has lots of ingredients...) 

Note:
In fact, writing this note in December, I've started to make this egg pot in a similar way to Leon's - poaching the egg in a saucepan instead of the microwave has the benefit of ensuring a runny yolk, and gives more consistent results.  In this case, microwave the sauce and ham for about 20 seconds.  Put a cooking ring in a saucepan of water, bring to the boil, remove from the heat and pour a broken egg from a jug into the centre of the ring, then leave with the saucepan lid on until the egg white is cooked.  Put the egg on top of the hot soft cheese and ham, top with the grated cheese, and zap in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. 

Baked Coconut Lentils

This recipe pretty much came from the Whole Foods recipe site and is given here http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipe/baked-coconut-lentils.  In its own right, it looked so delicious I generally followed the method, but substituted soft dried figs for the dates.  In pre-cooking the lentils in the saucepan before baking, I used enough boiling water to cover, and then added more water as necessary to ensure a cooking time of 30 minutes.The following are the ingredients I used for one person, and the corresponding nutritional information.  As usual, I used my LeKue steam case for the baking part, as it's so easy to wash afterwards!  The cooking smells were wonderful too, I'll definitely be making this again...

Ingredients (serves 1)
1 teaspoon coconut oil
50g chopped onion (I use frozen)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ginger paste
3 soft dried figs, chopped
1 teaspoon soy sauce
50g brown lentils, uncooked
15g unsweetened dessicated coconut

Nutrition Info
Calories: 402
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrate: 53g
Fat: 15g
Dietary Fibre: 21g

Pan-Fried Salmon with a Rhubarb and Blackcurrant Sauce

Back in July when blackcurrants were in season, I froze a punnet.  Now the first forced rhubarb is coming into the shops, I thought a sauce of the two would give a nice tangy acidity against an oily fillet of salmon.






Ingredients (serves 1)
180g fillet salmon
150g red chard
1 tsp olive oil for frying
a few leaves of mint for garnish
For the sauce (makes 4 portions)
340g rhubarb
10g butter
160g blackcurrants
40g honey
handful of fresh mint

Nutrition Info (serves one, with one portion of sauce)
Calories: 539
Protein: 40g
Carbohydrate: 25g
Fat: 30g
Dietary Fibre: 5g

Method

• Chop the rhubarb into 5cm lengths.  Put the rhubarb, blackcurrants, butter and honey into a saucepan and cook down for about 10 minutes over a medium heat.  Add the mint, roughly torn and stir in.  Set aside with the lid on to keep warm.
• Pan-fry the salmon over a medium heat in the olive oil. Remove onto a plate.
• In the same oil, quickly pan-fry the chard for about two minutes.
• Serve the salmon on a bed of chard, topped with the rhubarb and blackcurrant sauce.  Garnish with mint.

Baked Pumpkin Gratin with Rosemary and Goats Cheese

Recipe from Waitrose here http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/b/baked_pumpkin_gratin_with_rosemary_and_goat_s_cheese.html.  I substituted a teaspoon of paprika rather than cumin seeds and garnished with dried chilli strands.  I used a soft goats cheese and crumbled that in rather than a hard cheese I could grate.  The last cooking time was nearer 20 minutes for me.  And wow, the sudden wafts of melted goats cheese in that last 10 minutes ;-d

Verdict?  A beautiful, very very tasty, creamy dish - I liked the squash and goats cheese and am a big fan of rosemary.  I'll no doubt cook a variation of this again.  But, for me, for the calorie count of this recipe, it just wasn't filling enough with a crisp green salad.  As butternut squash is already a starchy carbohydrate, then I wouldn't want to add crusty bread to bulk it out as suggested.  If you're having a starter or dessert as well, then with a crisp green salad it's fine (but key point even with a starter or dessert - the recipe serves 2, not 4, unless you eat it with baguette). 

Chard and Chickpea Stir-fry

Quick, healthy, flavoursome and colourful stir-fry!  Whilst it is very low in protein and fat, it's also very high in fibre and so is actually quite filling to balance a higher calorie meal in the day!





Ingredients
50g red chard
100g pak choi
25g carrot (about a 1/4)
10g ginger root
120g chickpeas (about 1/2 can)
1 tsp olive oil
juice of 1 lime
1 tsp runny honey
1 tsp soy sauce
tiny bit of garlic puree

Nutrition Info
Calories: 247
Protein: 8g
Carbohydrate: 40g
Fat: 6g
Fibre: 7.5g

Method

• Wash the chard and pak choi and use scissors to cut into smaller pieces.
• Peel the carrot into thin ribbons with a vegetable peeler.  Cut into bite size pieces with a knife.
• Peel and cut the ginger into small ribbons with a knife.
• Drain the chickpeas.
• Mix together the lime juice, honey, soy sauce and garlic puree.
• In a wok or frying pan, heat the olive oil over a medium-high heat.  Add all the ingredients and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes until piping hot, but the carrot should still be al dente.
• Serve immediately.

Fragrant Lime, Pea and Feta Rice Bowl

The tangy creaminess of the feta is balanced by the sweetness of the citrus herby peas, with crunch added by the pumpkin seeds.  The peas are just warmed through in the hot rice, so that they don't lose their vivid green colour.  A high fibre nutritionally balanced dish with around half the RDA for zinc and vitamin C, and around 1/3 the RDA for calcium, magnesium, iron and dietary fibre.  With a rice cooker, this was so quick and easy to make, and really tasty.  May well become a new favourite!

Ingredients (serves 1)
180g cooked Italian brown rice (1/2 cup dried)
50g frozen peas, thawed
15g pumpkin seeds
1/2 lime (zest and juice)
15g mix of herbs (lemongrass, coriander, ginger, garlic, chilli)
50g feta, roughly crumbled

Nutrition Info
Calories:500
Protein: 22g
Carbohydrate: 64g
Fat: 20g
Dietary Fibre: 10g

Method

• Cook the rice according to instructions.  Thaw the peas in a sieve under cold running water, and drain.  Meanwhile, prepare the mixture, so that it can be stirred in the hot rice just as it has finished cooking.
• Dry fry the pumpkin seeds for a couple of minutes until they smell nutty and start to pop.  Set aside.
• Put the zest and juice of half a lime and mixed herbs into a saucepan and quicklywarm for a couple of minutes, until the herbs absorb the juice.  Mix in the peas and feta cheese.  
• Stir into the rice with the pumpkin seeds.  
• Serve immediately.

Notes

• I use Sainsbury's Easy-Cook Italian Brown Rice as this is the closest I can find to brown sushi rice or sticky rice (at a reasonable price).
• Waitrose do a Thai frozen herb mix, which is what I use in this recipe.
• This is best eaten hot and immediately, as the peas continue cooking in the hot rice and quickly lose their colour.  However, although it doesn't look as visually appealing, it's also delicious cold.

Creamed Spinach

On cold, wet and windy days like this weekend, I love to go to the supermarket and then cook for the freezer.  Today, being just after Christmas, I bought 800g of sliced smoked salmon for about £9, a real bargain:-)  This I have packaged up in greaseproof paper slices and frozen.  Luckily I love smoked salmon...

Anyway, I was also in the mood for freezing some vegetable dishes, and so one of the things I made was this creamed spinach which freezes well.

Ingredients
500g spinach
75g shallot, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
150g half fat creme fraiche
1 rounded tsp ground nutmeg
good grinding of black pepper

Nutrition Info (for whole 500g spinach)  
Calories:495
Protein: 21g
Carbohydrate: 45g
Fat: 30g
Dietary Fibre: 11g

Method

• Wash the spinach.  Pour boiling water over to blanch, then strain in a sieve.  Press out as much water as possible.
• In a saucepan, saute the chopped onion in the oil over a medium heat for 5-10 minutes until golden.  Add the freshly ground pepper, ground nutmeg, and stir in the creme fraiche.
• Mix well with the spinach.
• To serve, heat through in a saucepan.
• Freeze in small portions, or flat freeze in cooking rings or silicone cupcases then store in freezer bags in the freezer.

Notes
You could also make this with cream, mascarpone or coconut milk instead of the creme fraiche.   If you don't want to freeze it, then yoghurt would also work well.  To freeze, you need a good proportion of fat (...in the recipe...).

Smoked Trout with Beetroot and Creamy Rocket

And so, I think, starts an obsession with cooking rings...!  This was so quick and simple, yet had a delicious clean flavour and looked effective.







Nutrition Info (excluding puree)
Calories: 304
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrate: 15g
Fat: 21g
Dietary Fibre: 2.5g

Ingredients (serves 1)
Beetroot puree for decoration (www.creamsupplies.co.uk)
Sprig of dill
1 cooked (85g) beetroot
handful (30g) of wild rocket (rucola/arugula)
1 heaped tsp (30g) horseradish sauce
2 heaped tsp (28g) sour cream
50g smoked trout flakes

Method

• Pipe the beetroot puree onto a plate.
• Position an oiled cooking ring onto the plate.  Make a first layer of sliced beetroot.
• Mix the rocket, horseradish sauce and sour cream and press down onto the beetroot layer.
• Top with the flaked smoked trout, garnish with dill, and serve.

Mini Chocolate 'Christmas Puddings'

Made from a chocolate biscuit cake recipe, these little cakes are decorated to look like Christmas puddings.  Certainly not healthy, but easy to make and look very effective at this time of year!  There are many versions of this across the internet, I used to roll white icing on top, but prefer the white chocolate I did this year.  Chocolate biscuit cake mix is not an exact science.  Start off with smaller quantities and add more butter if too dry, and more biscuits if too oily.  While these are easy to make, you need to be very methodical so that it doesn't take too long.  In a moment of madness, I was making 3 batches of these in total to take to my two offices!

Ingredients (makes about 30)
80-100g butter
100g plain dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 large tablespoon golden syrup
250-300g digestive (plain sweetmeal) biscuits
50g dried fruit
80g white chocolate
paper truffle cases
red and green writing icing

Method

• Melt the butter, dark chocolate and syrup over a medium heat until smooth.  Remove from heat.
• Meanwhile, put the biscuits into a plastic bag and crush.
• Stir in the crushed biscuits and dried fruit and mix well.
• Form into balls and chill in the fridge on two plates for about 30 minutes.
• Break up the white chocolate into pieces and put in a cup.  Melt in the microwave until smooth for about one minute, checking and stirring every 20-30 seconds.
• Take one plate of chocolate balls out of the fridge.  Put each one in a paper case and spoon a little white chocolate over each to look like custard.  Put in the fridge to set, and repeat with the other plate.
• When the white chocolate on the first plate has set, remove from the fridge and pipe two lines of green icing on each ball to look like a sprig of holly leaves.  Put back in the fridge to set, and repeat with the second plate.
• Remove the first plate from the fridge again and pipe 3 dots of red icing under the holly to look like berries.  Put back in the fridge and repeat with the second plate.
• These can be eaten immediately, or stored in an airtight container for 1-2 weeks.

Note
You won't use all the white chocolate, but making more saves worry at the end!

Rosemary, Butternut Squash and Ham Stew

This is one of those 'what have I got in the kitchen?' stews, made on a day when you notice the first autumn tinges of red and gold in the trees, and you need to keep turning the heating on and off!





Nutrition Info (per serving)
Calories: 508
Protein: 21g
Carbohydrate: 68g
Fat: 17g
Dietary Fibre: 13g

Ingredients (makes 3 servings)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon chopped dried rosemary
1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp garlic puree
1 butternut squash
1x 400g tin red kidney beans
1 x 400g tin chick peas
180g chopped cooked ham hock
2 dsp mirin
2 dsp reduced salt soy sauce

Method

• Peel the butternut squash and place whole in a microwavable dish.  Microwave for 5 minutes, cut in half, and microwave each half for a further 5 minutes.  Scoop out the seeds, and chop the squash into bite-sized pieces.
• In a large saucepan, add the oils and onion, fry over a medium-high heat until golden brown, add the garlic puree and rosemary, stir and take off the heat. Turn the heat down to medium.
• Quickly add water to about a cm depth and stir to stop the onion mixture sticking.  Add the kidney beans, chick peas, squash and ham hock and spoon over the mirin and soy sauce. Stir well.
• Put the lid on the saucepan, and continue to cook over a medium heat for another 20 minutes without stirring.  Take the lid off, stir well, and continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated, and the whole flat smells of rosemary.
• Serve immediately whilst your mouth is still watering.

Squirrel tendencies

When I grow up, I'm going to be a squirrel I think...

I eat a lot of vegetables...  But even for me, when I buy vegetables, it tends to have to be two or three different kinds that I then have to eat for the rest of the week so that I eat them whilst they're fresh.  Or else they have to be thrown out.  The vegetables I eat most of are spinach and kale, I make a mean spinach smoothie with various added ingredients, and love using kale as a stir fry base.  The other day, packs of asparagus were on a 3 for 2 offer, so I automatically bought 3 packets, chopped them up and froze them. 

But I'm not so good at variety.  Since I've been in the UK, I kept looking at huge savoy cabbages and thinking that I didn't want to eat it every meal for a week.  (Food was sold in smaller portions in Japan).  I love cooking, but when I'm ravenously hungry, I'm inherently lazy and impatient.  So it dawned on me this morning that I should chop and freeze a lot of vegetables, so that they're just ready to throw in.

Today, shopping and two hours later, any squirrel would be proud of me.  I now have an entire freezer full of chopped vegetables - red onions, shallots, savoy cabbage, leeks, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, spring onions, mixed mushrooms.  On the fruit side - blueberries, blackcurrants and blackberries.  I really enjoyed preparing all that, and knowing it's going to make cooking even more fun, and probably cheaper in the long run!

Turkey, Ham, Mushrooms and Asparagus in a Creamy Sauce

This has become my favourite recipe of the week.  It's not my own, it's been adapted and simplified from this recipe http://www.lekue.es/en/Chicken-Roll.  This LeKue steamer is one of my top kitchen gadgets - it's right up there with the kettle, the rice cooker and the microwave.  Of course, you don't have to use the steamer, you could use a covered microwaveable bowl instead.

Ingredients (serves 1)
100g mixed frozen mushrooms
100g chopped asparagus
1 shallot (small sweet onion), chopped (about 40g)
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp soy sauce
85g turkey escalope, cut into bite-sized pieces
50g cooked ham, cut into bite-sized pieces
25g dairylea or other processed soft cheese

Nutrition Info (assuming you use a spoon to eat up the sauce...)
Calories: 330
Protein: 38g
Carbohydrate: 13g
Fat: 14g
Dietary Fibre: 4g

Method

• Put the mushrooms, shallot, and asparagus in the case and sprinkle olive oil and soy sauce on top.
• Add the raw turkey and the cooked ham and finally the dairylea cheese.
• Close the case, and microwave for 6 and a half minutes until the turkey is cooked.
• Serve immediately.

Warm Brown Rice Salad with Pomegranate Seeds and Grilled Halloumi Cheese

This is a lovely colourful salad.  Halloumi and pomegranate seeds are a classic summer combination.  The honey balances the saltiness of the halloumi and the sharpness of the red onion. 





Ingredients (serves 1)
70g brown rice (dried)
1/4 red onion (about 50g)
50g pomegranate seeds
1/2 red apple (about 50g)
60g reduced fat halloumi cheese, sliced
30g rocket/rucola leaves
1 tsp honey

Method

• Change into an old T-shirt and prepare the pomegranate!  Quarter the pomegranate and break away the seeds from the skin into a bowl.
• Cook the brown rice according to instructions.  Leave to cool slightly.
• Dice the red onion and rinse under cold water to get rid of some of the juice.
• Dice the apple.
• Grill the halloumi slices one side only until they turn golden in colour.
• Put the rocket, onion, apple, pomegranate seeds, honey and rice into a large bowl and mix together.  (If the honey is the set kind, then melt it first for a few seconds in the microwave.
• Serve on a plate and top with the grilled halloumi cheese.  Eat whilst still warm.