Category: Healthy food/drink

Lentil and Potato Soup

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Hello everyone, thanks for stopping by my blog. I hope you’ve had a great Sunday. The weather in the UK is nice and warm today, maybe a little too warm for soup but you can always makes it another day. The soup tasted much better than it looks in the photo and goes well with a bread roll.

Lentil and Potato Soup (serves 1-2)

Ingredients

1 garlic clove – crushed

1/4 onion – finely diced

Pinch of salt

1/2 carrot – grated

1 tbsp tomato puree

50g lentils – cooked first

1 large potato – cut into cubes

1 vegetable stock

Pinch of sugar

Method

  • Heat a little oil in a pan and add the garlic and onion with a pinch of salt, cover with a lid for a few mins until soft.
  • Then add the puree, carrot and lentils mixing well. Peel, cut and wash the potatoes.
  • Take the stock cube, mix in a litre of hot water and pour into the pot. Add the potatoes to the pot and leave to simmer for 20-30 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.
  • Serve straightaway with a bread roll.

Have you tried a lentil and potato soup before?

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An Easy Salad

itsangie1 Comment

Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog. Today’s recipe is a nice and easy salad, perfect for a light lunch or as a side with your dinner. In the photo you can see that I ate the salad with Potato and Kale Fritters (another recipe I will be posting soon). I like this salad because it is random and uses a basic range of ingredients that aren’t too expensive. I think the taste would suit most people but feel free to play around with the ingredients and use orange juice and zest, walnuts, pistachios, pumpkin seeds or shallots.

A’s Salad – you can decide how much of each ingredient you want to use depending on how many people are eating it. I made this as one portion.

Ingredients

Small handful of raisins – soaked in orange juice

50g brown rice

1 tbsp pine nuts – toasted

Handful of lettuce – shredded

Few slices of red onion

Zest of 1/2 an orange

1 tbsp orange juice

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method

  • Put the raisins to soak in orange juice overnight.
  • Rinse and cook the rice, I like to use salt, thyme and butter but you can make it plain if preferred.
  • Toast the pine nuts and set aside. Wash the lettuce, shred it finely and leave to fully dry. Finely slice the onion and set aside.
  • Zest the orange and put in a bowl with the pine nuts, lettuce and onion.
  • Make a super basic vinaigrette using 1 tbsp of orange juice, 2 tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.
  • Once the rice is cooked, mix in the with salad, add the raisins and drizzle the vinaigrette over the top.

Let me know if you make this salad or what your favourite salad recipes are!

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Healthy Pasta Salad

itsangieLeave a comment

Hi guys, I’ve recently been working on healthy, nutritious meals which are also fillings and the first one is a pasta salad, I know the ingredients are quite random but I promise it tastes delicious 😋 
Serves 1

Ingredients 
75g wholemeal pasta
1 small sweet potato peeled and cut into cubes
5 Brussels sprouts cut in half
1 small carrot grated
1 spring onion sliced
1/2 yellow pepper sliced
3 tbsp oil
20g ricotta cheese

Method

1. Prepare the vegetables first then put on a pan of water for the pasta. In a bowl mix the sprouts, potato and yellow peppers with 3 tbsp of oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Next, place on a tray and bake in the oven for 20 minutes until soft.

2. Once the pan starts to boil, cook the pasta then drain off the liquid and place in a bowl, mix in the carrot and spring onion.

3. Take the tray from the oven and add to the pasta mixture, gently stirring.

4. Lastly sprinkle on the ricotta cheese and enjoy!!

I know there isn’t any sauce with this but it honestly tastes great alone, the sweet potato and brussel sprouts really complement each other and overall the dish is a WINNER!! I love how basic but tasty this meal is and the ingredients are minimal. It’s easy to prepare and you can just double the ingredients if you are cooking for more people.

Let me know if you try this recipe ☺ 

A’s Salad

itsangieLeave a comment

This recipe is definitely a working progress as when I made it, it looked so delicious but didn’t quite capture the right flavours. I’m not sure if it was the sour lemon from the salad dressing or the grated zest from the orange but either way I’m going to try it again with some improvements 🙂 it’s so much fun cooking new things and putting together ingredients that I don’t usually eat. I’m really keen to start eating new things especially salads because they can be very nutritious and beneficial to the body.

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Ingredients

6 leaves of lettuce
50g brown rice
¼ red onion thinly sliced
Zest of 1 orange
5 dried apricots cut into chunks
1 tbsp pine nuts
Salt and pepper (optional)

Lemon dressing
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice

Method
1. Rinse and cook the brown rice in a small pot with the orange zest, I like to add a little salt, butter and thyme. Leave to cool slightly once cooked.

2. In the meantime fry the pine nuts for 2 minutes (they burn very easily) in a dry pan.

3. Wash and roughly chop the lettuce (any lettuce will do, I used round head) placing it into a small bowl with the brown rice on top.

4. Next add the onion, apricots and pine nuts. To make the dressing simply whisk the 2 ingredients together and drizzle over the top.

Broccoli Burgers with Rice and Salad

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I was even happier with my final super tasty vegetarian main meal! There were only a few adjustments I had to make based on the portion size but other than that it’s similar to the original. These would actually taste pretty good in a burger bun or if make into sausages so they are quite versatile to suit anyone. There has been a limited amount of oils, fats and salt therefore it is very nutritious and also delicious.

IMG_20160510_143725
INGREDIENTSQUANTITY
Wholegrain rice125g
Wild rice25g
Vegetable oil4 tbsp
Thyme2 sprigs
Broccoli1/300g
Chickpeas150g
Onion (diced)½
Egg1
Breadcrumbs50g
Dijon mustard1 tsp
Tomato passata150g
Vegetable stock100g
Cucumber1/3 60g
Watercress30g
Radishes8
Plum tomatoes6

Method

  • Wash off all of the vegetables and set aside. Make 100ml veg stock in a container and set aside.
  • Cut the broccoli into florets and place on a tray in the oven for 15 minutes, until softened.
  • Whilst the broccoli is in the oven finely dice the onion and prepare the salad; get a chopping board and chop the radish and cucumber into quarters and toss together with the plum tomatoes and watercress in a small bowl, set aside in the fridge.
  • Once the broccoli is done place into a blender with the chickpeas, onion, egg, breadcrumbs and Dijon mustard (season now) blend until well combined then put in a bowl.
  • Make the broccoli mixture into 6 burger shapes and place on a tray (brush with oil) and put in the oven for 40 minutes, until golden and crispy. Turn over after 20 mins.
  • Next put the rice into a wide pan adding the water, oil and thyme (season now). Bring to the boil then turn down to a gentle heat stirring occasionally.
  • Once the rice and veggie burgers are almost cooked use a small pan to heat the tomato passata and vegetable stock to reduce the consistency, do not boil.

 

  • Toss the salad again with a little oil.
  • Put the rice onto 2 plates with 3 burgers and drizzle with the tomato sauce.
  • Evenly distribute the salad between both plates and serve 🙂
Broccoli Burgers- final

Hope you all enjoy this recipe, it is perfect for dinners, lunches or BBQ parties.