Here we go again ladies! Let's try and stay on track this time!

*Bad picture warning*

Ingredients

- chicken breast, whole

- teriyaki sauce

Earlier in the day I placed the chicken breast in a ziploc bag and poured in the teriyaki sauce so that it would soak it in.

- 1 red pepper, sliced

- 1 zuchinni, cut lengthwise

- 3 green onions, chopped

- 1 handful of cherry tomatoes

- Macedonian feta cheese, pieces

- yellow wax beans

- 2 garlic cloves, sliced

- canola oil

Chicken

Pour very little oil in skillet and turn on. Once oil is hot, place chicken breast in skillet. Cover with lid and turn heat to low-medium so that sauce doesn't cook too fast and caramelize. After 10 minutes add the red pepper, zucchini and green onions. Cook for approximately 15 more minutes. Ensure chicken is cooked through by cutting open a little section in the thickest part of one of the breasts.

As the teriyaki sauce cooks, it gets darker and thicker.

Side dishes

Chop both ends off the beans. Wash well in strainer. Cook in boiling water for 10-15 minutes, until beans have reached your desired tenderness. Some people prefer them crunchier rather than soft, so it's up to you to make that decision. Heat up oil in a pan, add garlic. When oil ready, add beans. Toss every couple minutes to coat all the beans in garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes at high heat. 

I also added a mini salad on the side of cherry tomatoes and feta cheese.

I love feta cheese, but the best is Macedonian. It's creamy and smooth and so yummy.

It's been a while, eh?

It's almost the middle of March! How did that happen?
Well, I got sidetracked and fell off the healthy train for a couple of weeks. It wasn't fun, but I'm back on it now.
Therefore, for last night's dinner, I made a simple, yet surprisingly delicious meal.


Chicken and cabbage stir fry


Ingredients


- 1 small cabbage, sliced
- 3 chicken breasts, irregularly chopped pieces
- 1 onion, chopped
- oil, for frying
- sesame seeds
- soya sauce


Heat oil in pan, toss in onion. When onion begins to fry, toss in chicken. Once chicken is cooked through, add cabbage to pan. Drizzle soya sauce on mixture, use as much or as little as you want. Right at the end, add your sesame seeds and mix it up a bit.


Plate, serve and enjoy!

Sorry for the bad quality of the photos, but I used my iphone and didn't have good lighting.

Although my husband would love for me to throw these out when they come with the Chinese take-out, I use them to cook.

Pre-sesame seed and soya sauce.

Post sesame seeds and soya sauce.

What to eat?

Looking for inspiration...until then, here is tonight's menu.

Steak with fried onion and bok choy with pasta in roasted red pepper sauce.

Quick snack idea

In an effort not to reach for a handful of chocolate chips and to claim that as my lunch, I've decided to try and put together a few snacks.

The first is hard boiled eggs. The plan is to boil 5 eggs at a time to have them ready to go.

I can:
- eat one with a bit of salt and a tomato
- make an egg salad sandwich
- make a salad with egg slices on top
- eat alongside some cubes of cheddar cheese

How would you eat a hard boiled egg?

Almost back on the healthy train

I couldn't resist. I love these sausages. I've included the label so you can see how bad they are, but they are soooo good.

Tonight's menu: 

Sweet Longaniza Sausages with Mushroom and Onion garnish, Brown Spanish Rice & Salad

Something I always do with my rice when transferring it into its storage container, is to dump it out on the table and growing through it because there are pieces of yucky things (I don't actually know what they are), bad grains, I guess.

Place 1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water in a pot. (Or whatever amount of rice you have, you always double the amount of water.) Once water has begun to be absorbed by the grains, put in 2 tablespoons of crushed tomatoes and mix in. Keep stirring occasionally and reduce to a simmer once boiling so as not to burn.

These are the tops of the peppers I stuffed the other day.

Hmm, doesn't look very appetizing here.

Fry up sausages, onions and mushrooms in pan. Sausages go in first as they take the longest.

Play around with your salads, throw in whatever you've got.

 Salad


- lettuce
- 2 tomatoes
- 4 strips marble cheddar cheese
- tops of peppers
- lime juice


Mix all together.


Plate, serve, enjoy!

Super Bowl meal, tasty but not necessarily the healthiest

Who cares though?!


First of all, I cannot take any credit for the meal, it was the husband! The husband said that he'd make the meal for the Super Bowl. 


Hamburgers (minus the bun, cause that would just be fattening!), homemade fries. Oh no, wait, I did make a tomato and onion salad.

Hamburger patties


- ground meat, amount varies depending on how many you want and how thick/big you want them
- parsley, handful 
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves garlic. minced
- salt & pepper 
- flour, enough to coat the patties 


Mix all ingredients, minus flour in a bowl. Using hands, shape patties however you want. Prior to frying them, coat them in flour. Fry up!

Homemade fries

Cut your potatoes however you want and place in a big bowl. Add salt & pepper and toss in bowl to mix well. Make sure to use enough oil in the pan for your fry up.

Salad

Chop tomatoes and onion, throw into a bowl with a pinch of salt. Mix and drizzle with lime juice.

Yummy yummy in my tummy

Tonight's menu:
Hummus (albeit store bought) with flax seed bread
Cabbage & veggie soup (fresh new massive pot)
Stuffed peppers with ground beef


Hummus & flax seed bread

Excuse the candy cane spreader, I couldn't find any non-seasonal ones in the spur of the moment.

Cabbage & veggie soup

See February 2nd post

Stuffed peppers with ground beef

Ingredients

- 5 stuffed peppers, de seeded

- 1/2 can of crushed tomatoes

- ground beef, amount depends on size of peppers and if you want to make some extra meat balls on the side

- 3 cloves garlic, chopped/minced

- 3 tbsp brown rice

In a big pot, mix water with crushed tomatoes. In a bowl, mix together ground beef with garlic and rice. Mush together with hands. With a spoon, fill the peppers with the ground beef mixture. Once filled, place peppers in big pot with tomato sauce. Ensure that there is enough water to reach the tops of the peppers or at least most of the way and with a ladle take some of the sauce and pour on top of the peppers so they fill up with liquid, otherwise rice won't cook. Turn on burner and cover pot with lid. Cook for approximately 30 minutes. Once it starts to boil you can turn down the heat to a simmer. We put sour cream on top and always use bread to mop up the sauce.

Plate, serve and enjoy!

Don't throw the tops of the peppers away, save them for a dish the next day!

Half-a*% job tonight

I admit, I started out with good intentions, X-man was cooperating for the soup making, but then we went upstairs for a nap and it all went south.

Cabbage & vegetable soup

Ingredients:

- 1/2 a large cabbage, chopped
- 3 celery stalks, chopped
- 2 large carrots, sliced
- 2 small onions, chopped
- 3 tbsp crushed tomatoes
- salt, to taste

Fill a large pot with water. Put cabbage. Bring to a boil. Add carrots, celery, onion, salt and crushed tomatoes. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Beets, turnip and chicken


This meal didn't turn out fantastic, it was definitely lacking something, not only in taste, but on my plate, as you'll see in the picture.


I'm wondering what else I could have added to the dish...Looking for ideas for next time.

Ingredients:

- 2 beets, sliced
- 1 turnip, sliced 
- 8 green onions, chopped
- 3 chicken breast, pieces
- 1 clove garlic, sliced
- 2 tbsp crushed tomatoes
- 2 cups water

Heat up canola oil in pan. Add onions. After a minute, add beets and turnip.
In small pot, place chicken in water. Bring to a boil. Add garlic and mix in crushed tomatoes. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Plate, serve and enjoy!

My poor plate  :(  And what is with the lighting in this shot?!

Feeling inspired

The morning started off really well with a workout. I'm part of a Biggest Loser Challenge with a group of lovely other new mums and one who has a home trainer business offered us a complimentary workout. I jumped on it, so this morning at 9:30am we were ready to go. It was painful at times, and I know I will feel it tomorrow, especially when I pick up X-man in the morning, but it felt/feels good. On top of it all, he got to spend quality 1 on 1 time with his papa which to be honest has only happened a couple of times in his 5 1/2 months.
As a result, and not to ruin the work I put in I decided to veggie it up at dinner. I had bought 2 cauliflowers last week because of a sale and decided to cook 'em up today before they started to go bad.
Therefore, tonight's dinner was steak with cauliflower and zucchini (+ a small baked potato for my husband).

Ingredients


- 5 small onions, sliced
- 5 cloves garlic, sliced
- 2 small-ish cauliflower
- 2 zucchini, sliced
-  4 steaks
- 1 pack white mushrooms, sliced
- parmesan cheese
- bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Drizzle oil in ceramic baking pan. Distribute 3 onions and all the garlic all over the pan. I know, lots of garlic and onion, but they're so good for you and taste so good! Layer zucchini first, then cauliflower chunks. Sprinkle some cheese and bread crumbs. Cover with aluminum foil.  In it goes to the oven for 25-ish minutes. But, about 10 minutes in, pour in a cup of water. Timing depends how cooked you want your veggies.


Mushrooms and 2 onions go into pan with a bit of oil once hot. Season steaks with your choice of spices and throw into pan. Fry to desired degree.
Plate, serve and enjoy!

Chicken stir fry

With all the vegetables we have I decided to make a chicken stir fry.

Ingredients

- 2 chicken breast, cut into pieces

- 2 huge carrots, sliced

- 2 zuchinnis, sliced

- 1 large onion, chopped

- 5 cloves of garlic, chopped

- 1 bok choy, chopped

- 2 packets of udon noodles

- teriyaki sauce, as much as you want

Place noodles in boiling water. Boil for 3 minutes. Drain. Set aside.

Heat up oil in wok (or whatever you will be using). Once ready, throw in garlic and onion. Add chicken. When chicken is ready, throw in vegetables. Pour teriyaki sauce on top and mix well. Add noodles when vegetables are how you like them, be it more al dente or more well done.

Plate, serve with chopsticks and enjoy! 

Baby in the way

After a difficult afternoon/evening with X-man, dinner was finally ready, however eating it was another story. I eventually managed while holding the baby in my lap, his fingers smacking at my quinoa...it was wonderful.

Alrighty, this evening's menu was pork chops with dates and apples, quinoa with tangerine and raisin and spinach salad with cherry tomatoes, green onion and goat cheese.

Ingredients:

- pork chops, salted
- 1 apple, chopped
- dates, chopped in half (as many as you want)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 1 can of mandarin pieces, or if you can't locate it like me, just use a couple of tangerines
- raisins, as many as you want
- baby spinach leaves, boxed, bagged
- cherry tomatoes, as many as you want
- goat cheese, as much as you want

Pork chops

Boil dates and apples a couple of minutes. Drain. Fry chops in a bit of oil. Once almost cooked, add fruit mixture and mix in with pork chops.

   

Quinoa


Boil quinoa in water until water is sucked up by the grains. Mix tangerine/mandarin pieces in a bowl. Combine and serve.

Salad

Mix spinach, cherry tomatoes, green onion and goat cheese in a bowl. Drizzle lemon juice all over.

Voilà, your dinner.

Yummy snack

Quick and easy dinner

Whipped up a quick and easy dinner. I didn't actually do much. My mum had brought over some wax beans yesterday and decided to cook them in tomato sauce and chopped onion right away for fear that I would forget about them in the fridge and they'd go bad. I hadn't defrosted any meat by 5pm so as I scoured the freezer I located a bag of ravioli I had just bought. Boiled that up, threw it in the pot with the beans and voilà! Of course, had a salad on the side as well, this time spinach with some other veggies.

I know, it looks like worms.