Meal Catch Up

For those that follow the blog (if any haha!) you'll have figured by now that I absolutely suck at keeping it regular.

I work part time as well as run my Younique and Kaszazz businesses, studying at university and have my brood of children to care for, so whilst I have every intention of blogging every single thing I eat (I aspire to be some Julie and Julia food blogger without so much butter!)

Enough about my Julie Powell admiration, what have we been eating? Lots of Healthy Mummy goodies lately since I'm getting back into eating healthy and feeling good about myself. 

I'll share with you some of last weeks delicious meals, the great thing is they're all easy to prepare too since I don't have the time for elaborate meals with hours of prep anymore!

I have to admit I was a tad nervous about the beef and barley stew, the kids love stews but I wasn't sure on the barley aspect of it, I knew I'd love it! I'm pleased to say they ALL came back for seconds. It was the perfect winter warmer, brilliant for the slow cooker. We had it on its own as it had been a llooonnngggg day at work but it would be perfect with some mashed veggies or crunchy bread.

When I was pregnant with my 12 year old I craved beef and black bean with fried rice (along with Big Macs) I haven't had it much since so this was a nice little blast from the past. For this one I roughly followed the Healthy mummy recipe as it calls for a jarred black bean sauce and it's heavy on the soy, having soy allergies here requires a little tweaking on the traditional recipe.

My black bean sauce recipe is thanks to the daring gourmet 

As a soy sauce alternative I always have this soy free "soy sauce" on hand

The rest of the recipe follows the healthy mummy recipe.

  

This was another absolute hit with myself and the kids. They've never had chorizo before so like the barley I wasn't sure, especially since Mr 6 (2.0) is going through a "I don't like sausage phase" unless of course they come from Bunnings on a Saturday morning!

These 3 will be repeats on our menu for sure, healthy, can be adapted for our allergies, suits our busy lifestyle and no waste due them all loving it. 

I'd love to share the recipes with you but since they are challenge recipes I can't. But you can join the 28 day challenge for yourself and gain hundreds of healthy recipes and exercises plus a really supportive atmosphere. 

Chicken Tikka Masala with Cauliflower Mash

This recipe was delicious, the kids and the fussy husband even liked it! They even asked for seconds!
It worked out really well as I was having one of those days where you really can't be bothered, you know the kind; drop the kids at school in your PJs and go back to bed when you get home, maybe venture out for a toilet break and a quick snack.

All I had to do was quickly mix up the marinade which only took a minute, throw in the chicken, cover the bowl and pop it in the fridge. I did this while making school lunches.

After I had picked the kids up I was still missing my mojo, I had originally planned on cooking this on the stove, browning the chicken on the grill, making the sauce in the pan but I figured I would wing it and see how it went throwing it in the oven and walking away - well it worked!

Ingredients
1kg Chicken Drumsticks (or thigh if you prefer)
2 Tablespoons Tikka masala paste
1 Tin Coconut Cream
2 Cups Chicken Stock
1 Handful Baby Spinach
6 Tablespoons Greek Yoghurt (we used coconut milk yoghurt to avoid dairy, cashew yoghurt would also work well for this)

Mash
Cauliflower
Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper
Coconut Cream

Method:
Begin by marinating the chicken. Mix greek yoghurt with the tikka masala paste and add your chicken. Marinate for at least 2 hours (overnight is better)
Place chicken in an ovenproof dish and cook on 200c for 10 minutes until browned a little, add the stock and cook until chicken is cooked through (roughly 40 minutes)
Remove from the oven and add coconut cream (except for 3 tbsp which will be used in the mash) and spinach leaves, the heat from the sauce will slightly wilt the leaves.

In the meantime steam a head of cauliflower and place into a blender with garlic powder, salt and pepper and 3 tbsp coconut cream reserved from the chicken. Blend until smooth.

Serve with steamed veggies.

Lunchboxes

Who thinks of lunch boxes right at the end of the year? Me! That's who, normally I don't, usually I'll be in holiday mode and not wanting to know until a week before school term and I start panicking.
This year I will be overseas most of the holidays so I need to get prepared. A whole month childfree, I'm not sure how I'll handle that!

I have discovered the wonderful thing that is Afterpay, this could be either really good or seriously bad! At the moment it is working in my favour as I have managed to get my daughter an amazing graduation dress with accessories and next week I will be doing the lunchbox order.

My twins are repeating kindergarten next year due to their development delays and kinder have amazing rules when it comes to food, nothing but water to drink, no chocolate, chips, not even fruit roll ups which have so much sugar and preservatives. The rules work really well for our lifestyle. I was scrolling the internet while my daughter was in an appointment and came across the Little Bento World website, these lunchboxes are PERFECT! They also sell cool little egg moulds, sandwich cutters, everything right up our alley! So I have made a list and it works out really affordable with Afterpay $60 a fortnight, 4 payments and a tonne of stuff!

Seriously how cool do they look? They also come in a range of colours so the kids all get their own colour to save arguing over who's lunchbox is who's.

My amazing find then got my brain ticking about all the fantastic things I can fill these babies with!

So I pulled up my trusty Lunchbox ideas eBook

Given the weather will still be nice at the beginning of the school year these Passionfruit Bliss Balls sound perfect!

Watch this space as I plan on posting everyday for the first month of the school year with all the awesome things the kids will be taking in their lunchboxes.

 

Tikka Masala From Scratch

Over the last few weeks I have gone on another revamp of our lifestyle as I have been watching the scales climb. I signed up for a popular weight loss program and I had to have a giggle. I'll admit many people have seen results, they're cooking at home instead of eating out most of the week, being encouraged in a community and starting to work out regularly BUT my perspective of being healthy is by reducing, if not eliminating all preservatives. I know the behaviour changes I see in the kids, particularly the twins if they eat certain things. Anyway I am a huge lover of Indian food, it's one of my top rated cuisines out there and I stumbled across Chicken Tikka Masala on the recipe section BRILLIANT until I read that the paste was derived from a jar :(

Making your own paste from scratch really isn't that hard and it also isn't as time consuming as you'd think. While your curry pastes aren't the evil of all evils when it comes to preservatives it is really satisfying to make your own and when you have dietary restrictions like we do you can tweak the ingredients a little.

Let me just say I'm not totally anti quick fixes, if jarred food is your thing then that's ok but for us it isn't, without knowing exactly what is in food and generally if it comes from somewhere it has been processed you can bet your soul that the twins will form into evil gremlins that you've watered and fed after midnight. For us from scratch is the way to go. At first it was a daunting though but trust me it isn't as bad as you think!

Here is the Tikka Masala paste I made for tonights Chicken Tikka Masala (find the complete recipe here) 

Ingredients:

1 red onion, diced
10 cloves of garlic, crush them with the flat side of a knife and roughly chop
1 knob of ginger (roughly an inch), peeled and diced
3 tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste (see recipe)
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves
2 bay leaves
4 cardamom podsd
7 cloves 

Stick of cinnamon (roughly 1 inch) broken up into pieces

1 teaspoon coconut oil

1/4 cup cashews that have been soaked

Method

Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and add the cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and the bay leaves. Stir this for a few minutes until the cardamom has turned golden.

Add the coriander seeds and the cumin and fry for another few minutes.
Now add the onions, ginger and the garlic and continue frying until the onions are lightly golden.

Add the fenugreek, tomato paste and tomatoes and mix well, now add 1/4 cup of water. Cover the pan and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Let the mixture cool and put into a blender along with your cashews. Blend into a smooth paste.

This can keep in the fridge for a week or in the freezer if you'd like to use it later on.

Storage is best in an airtight jar.

This recipe makes enough for our family of 6 to use 2-3 times.

Chicken Korma

Wow, what can I say about this korma? I regret buying the jarred simmer sauce for so many years! We missed out on a huge flavour hit. I am so, so glad that I stumbled upon http://eatdrinkpaleo.com.au/banana-paleo-chicken-korma-curry-recipe/ this recipe and added my own little twist to it. The family absolutely loved it and although I doubled the recipe with the intent of having it as a freezer meal through the week, my hungry critters polished it all off!

Serves 6 Ingredients (To coat chicken) 1 double chicken breast or 5 chicken thighs if you prefer thigh 1 tbsp turmeric 2 tbsp curry power Salt Pepper (For the sauce) 1 brown onion, roughly chopped 1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced 2 tins diced tomatoes 2 tins coconut cream 1/2 tbsp turmeric 3/4 tbsp curry powder 1 tbsp cumin 1 tsp ground fennel seeds 1 tsp cinnamon 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 banana mashed 2 cups peas 1 cup green beans (or any other veg like carrots or broccoli or throw them all in!) Handful chopped fresh coriander 1/2 cup almond flakes Salt Pepper Coat the chicken and place in the slow cooker. Next place all the other ingredients except the coconut cream, banana, coriander and almonds into the slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 hours. In the last half an hour add the remaining ingredients. We served with cauliflower rice. The prep doesn't take very long at all and given that it's in the slow cooker the cooking does itself, walk away and enjoy later!

Pumpkin & Apple Soup

Pumpkin and Apple Soup

Serves 6 

This soup was delicious, the kids went back for thirds (good job I had doubled the recipe with plans on freezing a batch!) everybody truly enjoyed it.

The garnishes provided texture as well as being healthy.

These are optional and you can play around with them, maybe add some chopped nuts, shredded coconut etc. 

I did have a little bit of a kitchen disaster with this, my pepper mill broke and peppercorns went everywhere including in the soup! I fished as many as I could out and given the kids had so much it didn't kill the food! 

Today's weather was perfect for soup, rainy, a drop in temperature, just one of those curl up on the couch watching trashy Netflix movies types of days. Soup just seemed to fit so well. 

Here is how I made ours, as previously said this can be adapted easily. To be vegan friendly switch the beef broth for a good quality vegetable stock. 

Ingredients

Soup:

1 large onion, thinly sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 large apple, peeled and diced

1.5 litres beef broth (or a good quality beef or vegetable stock)

1/2 a good sized Jap pumpkin

Star anise 

Fennel seeds 

Salt and pepper to season

Coconut spray oil

Garnishes:

Baby spinach leaves

Goji berries

Pumpkin seeds 

Dehydrated apple

Cut up pumpkin and place in a roasting tray, spray with oil and season, roast at 200 degrees Celsius until soft

In a large thick based pot caramelise your onion, then add garlic and apple and sauté until soft.
With a mortar and pestle grind up 1 star anise and 2 tbsp fennel seeds, add to your onion mixture.
Add stock and roasted pumpkin, blend and garnish as you wish.  

Jamie Oliver is moving in!

Not literally - I wish though! How awesome would that be??!!
I LOVE the man, absolutely love him, his philosophy with food is amazing, his passion and energy is contagious. To be in one industry for his entire life and still at 40 years old be so passionate, so excited to share his knowledge and love of food and healthy eating is something to be admired.
I am the proud owner of the majority of his books, my husband buys me a new one for Christmas every year, I own many of the DVDs and the latest Sugar Rush documentary really opened my eyes. Since we have most of his materials and I am quite obviously a huge fan and have already incorporated "Food Revolution Friday" in our meal plans, I'm also a huge Julia Child fan although her food really goes against my healthy eating plans as everything has ssoooo much butter but I love the Julie and Julia movie and books and am sort of stealing the idea.

Sunday the 4th of August sees a new challenge. 365 days of Jamie. 365 days of eating from his books/shows. Now not every meal will be the amazing Mr O's but each day will feature something made by or inspired by him. One day it maybe breakfast, another dessert or something as simple as a snack.
Everything he has done with changing the way schools serve lunches in the UK is amazing, having grown up in the UK I used to love the lunches served out by the dinner ladies but it was something my parents only ever let me have as a treat, my favourites used to be the spam fritters with veggies followed by chocolate pudding and pink custard.
I haven't got as far as meal planning yet, I really wish I had a good camera to really boost this challenge but for now you will have to put up with photos taken on my phone because that's all I have! I have been dropping hints like crazy about a good camera for my birthday or Christmas, lets see by January if the husband actually listens ;)