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.

Sunday late lunch: Tabouleh burgers, salad, tzaziki

Today I tried something I've never made before. Saw a friend's post on Facebook about couscous burgers and although I didn't have plain couscous, I used tabouleh instead. This is actually couscous with dried parsley, garlic and a couple of other things so in a sense it's better than straight up couscous.
Although I would have loved to have some fries or yam fries, I was hesitant because I had to use more oil than I would have liked to to avoid burning the "patties". So I relied on my trusted friend, the salad to get us through the meal.

Ingredients:

Serves 6

- 3/4 cup tabouleh

- 1/2 cup water  

- 2 tbsp lemon juice

- 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

- 1 can of chick peas

- 2 tbsp flour

- bread crumbs (optional)

- multi grain sandwich buns 

- salad greens

- cherry tomatoes

- goat cheese

- radishes, sliced

- cucumbers, chopped

- 1 cup non-fat plain yoghurt

Tabouleh burger

In a bowl, combine water, lemon juice and tabouleh. Let sit until water has been soaked up.

Place chick peas and garlic in food processor and pulse until smooth. 

Mix together chick peas with tabouleh. Add flour. (I ended up adding more cause mixture was still too liquidy.) At this point you can choose to roll patties in bread crumbs if desired. 

Make pattie sized formations. Place oil in pan, let it get very hot and place patties in pan.

Toast the buns and pop pattie in the middle.

Extra: my husband added hot peppers and hot sauce to his, perhaps you like your food spicy too?

Salad

Mix together greens, radishes, cherry tomato. Squeeze lime juice on top.

Tzaziki

Mix together cucumbers, yoghurt, dill. Chill until meal is ready. Can be used either on burger or as salad dressing.

Plate, serve and enjoy!

Tonight's menu

 I went to Bulk Barn on the weekend and got a few things, among which was red quinoa and decided that today would be the day to showcase it at dinner.

On the menu for this evening was:

Turkey sausage

Red quinoa

Goat cheese salad

Ingredients:

- turkey sausage

- canola high

- 1 cup red quinoa

- 2 cups water (for soaking)

- 1 1/2 cup water (for cooking)

- 4 green onions, chopped

- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed

- mixed greens

- handful of cherry tomatoes

- 6 almonds, chopped

- 1 lime

- 2 tbsp goat cheese

- radishes, slices

- salt

Directions:

Quinoa

Soak quinoa in a bowl in water for 15 minutes. Rinse. Place quinoa small pot in water and bring to a boil. Cover with a lid, and turn the heat down to simmer. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove quinoa from heat and allow to sit five minutes with the lid on. Put quinoa in strainer to drain water. Place a few drops of oil in the pot, throw in garlic and onion. Add quinoa back and mix when onion and garlic have reached state you are happy with.

Turkey sausage

Make a few slits in turkey on a diagonal. Place a few drops of oil in pan. Fry sausages for approximately 10 minutes.

Salad

Wash all veggies. Mix together greens, cherry tomatoes, almonds and radishes. Sprinkle on goat cheese. Squeeze lime onto salad and mix everything up.

Serve and enjoy!

17 SNACKS THAT ARE EASY AND WHOLESOME

According to General Mills, the following are decent snacks to have:

• 1 Nature Valley bar
• 3 graham cracker squares with 1 tbsp/15mL peanut butter
• 3 cups/750mL popped popcorn with seasoned salt or curry powder
• 6 animal crackers
• 10 seasoned mini-rice or mini-popcorn cakes
• 10 mini-pretzel twists
• 10 to 15 tortilla chips with 1/4 cup/60mL salsa
• 4 or 5 whole-grain snack crackers plus 2 slices of cheese         
• 3/4 cup/ 175mL unsweetened cereal
• 1 small muffin or 3-inch/7.5cm cookie
• 1/2 cup/125mL sugar-free pudding
• 1 medium apple, orange or pear
• 12 to 15 cherries or grapes
• 1/4 cup/60mL raisins or other dried fruit
• 3 cups/750mL raw vegetables with 1 tbsp/15mL southwestern dip.
• 1 1/2 cups/375mL tomato or vegetable juice
• 1 single-serving container of lower-fat yogurt (2%MF or less)