Healthy foods, Ottolenghi style

I haven't really been on much of a health kick recently, the exercise has really fallen by the wayside, mostly due to a case of bung legs. Turns out after a couple of expensive trips to the osteopath (including $120 parking fine - City of Perth better spend that well, wankers), it turns out my gluteal muscles aka arse muscles, are not firing {insert fart joke here}. This has caused all kinds of problems from achilles pain, tight and aching calves, and now my lower back is totally rooted. I went to school hopped up on codeine today, and let me tell you, my speech in front of the school about a sports carnival was just gushingly lovely, as was my health class afterwards. I talked. A lot. 

Anyway, without the exercise, I've turned into a bit of a apex predator - eating everything in sight with reckless abandon. This included bowling club priced booze and masses of cake at the Beaufort Bake and Bowls.

But all is not totally lost (the weight sure isn't anyway). I did cook SOME healthy things. I have more healthy things planned too. But not rabbit food, not look-how-alternative-I-can-be-with-my-weird-grains-that-taste-like-wet-cardboard kinda healthy.  

YUMMY healthy food.

Ottolenghi healthy. Plenty.

One night we had Mushroom Ragout with Yoghurt Flatbreads, which was fuggin amazing. Those flatbreads are soft, the dough is easy to make, even easier to work with and when cooked up, but the easiest thing is scooping up bits of tasty grilled mushroom and wine, with swirls of tangy yoghurt and fresh bursts of parsley. Leftover mushies were piled up on buttered toast in the morning and devoured - they kept me going all day (well, until about 10:30 when I went apex predator on some cake I forgot I had).

I also tried the herb stuffed tomatoes, which were Mediterranean in their flavours, salty olives, capers with a bite and surprisingly hearty from the breadcrumbs. I really enjoyed them, and would be great as a starter or as a side to something else - I used some local Gingin Beef mince and cooked it up very simply with basic seasoning and olives in the same pan I  made the stuffing in - it was gorgeous. The best mince I've ever had. 

The highlight though I think was the Quesadillas. These were awesome, and I am planning on making a bunch of these in advance when we go for a bbq, because once they're assembled, all you have to do is grill them. We added chicken to ours, but it's not really necessary. Next time I'm going to amp up the flavours in the beans, and maybe add a tangy, crunchy coleslaw for a bit of a tex mex vibe. Either way, we scoffed them. I made a toasty the next day with the leftovers, and they were still awesome.

You have to have a go at this book. If you're feeling like you're eating yourself outta house and home, the least you can do is eat healthier food. 

I will be eating more outta this book. 

Tomato and cumin soup - Movida Rustica

As a part of the Fitness for Foodies course, they gave us a meal planner that I've found really helpful. It's made me more organised and able to try some recipes from books I've been wanting to get stuck into, because I've been able to buy everything I need for each recipe in advance, on the weekend! There is now less trips to the shops when I realise I haven't got this or that, to make a recipe. It's made life much easier!

One of the books I've wanted to try was Movida Rustica by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish. I've bookmarked quite a few recipes, and last week I tried a couple. One of them was this tomato and cumin soup, which I chose because it looked like an easy midweek meal, and we had made something similar before and enjoyed it. A twist in its serving, is the inclusion of an egg, poached in the soup just before you dish it up. 

This was such an easy meal to prepare, with few ingredients. It lived up to my expectation of being an easy midweek meal, but exceeded my expectations in flavour. This was a lovely soup, so light and full of flavour, but when you cracked open the poached egg and let the yolk be swirled through the soup, it became silky and gorgeous. The egg made this soup, without it, it is a tasty tomato soup flavoured with cumin and sweet red peppers. But with the egg, it's something much more special. It's simple and healthy, and it's deliciousness is enhanced by quality ingredients - you have nothing to hide behind when you create something so simple. I blended mine, which added to the smoothness, but it would equally as good were it left chunky as rustic, like the book intended.

Ingredients

50ml olive oil

1 red onion roughly chopped

1 red pepper (capsicum) seeded and roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 kg ripe tomatoes

1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted and ground

2 tsp caster sugar

2 tsp sweet smoked paprika

2 tsp fine sea salt

6 eggs

Method

1. Score a cross in the base of each tomato, place in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 30 seconds then transfer to cold water and peel the skin away from the cross. Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds. (Alternatively you can cheat and use canned tomatoes).

2. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook for 5 mins or until soft and translucent. Add the capsicum and garlic and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally for 40 mins or until the mixture has a jam like consistency.

3. Stir in the tomatoes and 700ml of water and simmer for 25 mins or until the mixture has a soupy consistency. Add the sugar, 1 1/2 tsps paprika and the sea salt and mix well.

4. Crack the eggs, one at a time into a cup, then gently slide them into the soup around the edges. Cover and simmer gently for 6 mins.

5. Carefully divide the cooked eggs and soup among bowls and sprinkle with the remaining paprika.

This should serve six, but I made it for just 2 of us, and we took leftovers to work the next day!

Chicken, Tomato and Basil Pasta

Operation "use up everything in the house before moving" is in action. Were trying to only buy the basics and use up whatever we already have - sauces, fridge and freezer items!


So tonight I had a scour through the cupboards. I also had to take the effort factor into account. Could I be arsed really making anything complex? No not really. We've been going through our house throwing things out, packing up a few boxes and just organising the house for the move all day, so complex cooking was not on the cards.


I picked up half a bag of organic pasta, a bag of ripe organic tomatoes, and 2 massive free range chicken thighs and figured that these were the main things I needed to use today. The tomatoes weren't going to last much longer, and the chicken was a day off being dodgy, so I decided that it was chicken tomato pasta night!

Awesome organic box of veges!

For this sauce, it's important that you use GOOD tomatoes - don't bother making this if you have the floury, anaemic sorry excuses for tomatoes you see in the supermarket out of season. This is what you do with a glut of good quality, juicy, ripe, RED, delicious tomatoes, such as the heirloom varieties we found at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. These tomatoes, when you ate some from the little tasting bowl, stopped us both in our tracks. It was the best tomato I've ever had. I'm going to try and get some seeds next summer so I can try and grow some of my own - they were amazing, better than any tomatoes I've had here!

Also, make sure the handful of basil you use is a generous one, it makes a huge difference! If you can get it from someones garden then get that instead of the stuff from the supermarket, it's got SO much flavour! Its fragrance is so much stronger, it has the basil aroma that you recognise, but with a hit of aniseed. The supermarket bunches have nothing on home grown.

Chicken, tomato and basil pasta


Ingredients
1kg tomatoes, chopped
Small bunch of spring onions, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
2 chicken thighs
500g pasta
Handful of basil


NB - for this pasta sauce, you really don't need the chicken, but I wanted to use it up. It does add extra flavour, but the tomato sauce is special on its own as well! 


Method
1) In a hot pan with oil (I use Cobram Estate Garlic Oil), fry the chicken thighs (whole) in the pan. Once they're almost done (time depends on the size of the thighs) turn the heat off and let them sit in the pan until you need them.
2) While the chicken is cooking, add the onions and garlic to a saucepan with some oil and gently fry them for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes.
3) Keep the heat med-high and you'll see the tomatoes start to break down and become much saucier. Turn the heat down to a low simmer, and cook until it becomes thicker and less watery, stirring occasionally.
4) The chicken  has cooked and rested by now, and so chop it up into pieces and return to the pan.
5) Add the sauce to the pan the chicken is in and give it a stir, making sure all the chicken juices are incorporated into the sauce! Season to taste.
6) Wash up the tomato saucepan and cook your pasta in it! Add plenty of salt to your cooking water to make sure your pasta is seasoned - it makes a big difference! In the time it takes for your pasta to cook (mine took 10mins) your chicken tomato sauce will reduced, hot and ready for the pasta.
7) Add in a generous handful of chopped basil, then pour in your drained pasta. Don't drain it too heavily, some of the starchy pasta water can go into the sauce to bring it all together. 
8) Give it a good stir and serve it up!

I served mine with a buttery homemade garlic bread which was heart attack inducing but amaaaazing!

Griddled lamb with chunky tomato salsa - Jamie Oliver

I rode 12km on my bike today. To those who bike all the time, I know thats not actually very much, especially on flat bike paths around a lake. But still, in 2011 I have massively overindulged and not exercised nearly enough so now is the time that I've decided to get in shape (even though round IS a shape...).


So, 12km later I get home, knackered with sore legs. Have a choice between dishes and cooking dinner - the choice is obvious. Cook! I had thumbed through Jamie Olivers Ministry of Food earlier in the day and found a super easy recipe for lamb with salsa, it looked great, we had everything the recipe required and it was fast. Its also low carb, low fat (depending on the cut of lamb you use - we used lean steaks) and you'll definitely get a chunk of your 5 a day! An everyday meal that will take you less than 30 minutes from chopping board to plate!

Griddled Lamb Chops with Chunky Salsa


Ingredients
1/2 - 1 whole chilli (to taste)
2 large ripe tomatoes
1 red pepper
a bunch of fresh basil (DONT skip this, it gives SO much flavour)
4-6 lamb chops (depending on size, we had 6 small steaks)
olive oil
sea salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil
splash of red wine vinegar (I used white, ran out of red!)


Method
1) Heat your griddle pan on high and let it get screaming hot. Meanwhile halve your chilli (deseed it if you like), chop tomatoes in half, deseed and chop the peppers, tear/chop the basil, and season your meat.


2) If you have fat on the edges of your cuts of lamb then put that side on the pan first to crisp it up (you'll have to hold it there) for about a minute, then lay the chops down, and press them down for a minute till brown and crispy. Cook the chops for 4-5 minutes in total, turning them every minute or so and pressing them each time. 


3) Take the chops out and rest them on a plate. Turn the heat down a bit, and add the veges to the pan, and stir them for a minute, making sure you get all the brown caramelised goodness from the pan. Cook the veges until they soften and release some of their juices, and add in a splash of red wine vinegar (I used white wine vinegar because thats all I had in the house) and cook the salsa down until it's to a consistency that you like, and add the basil.


4) Pour the juices from the rested meat into the pan with the salsa, and stir to combine. Pour the salsa onto a plate and top with the lamb.

I crumbled some fetta onto my lamb and it was amazing - this is definitely going to be a regular meal at our place from now on. Its SO fast, really healthy, low fat, low carb, the lot! Proper everyday food! We had it with some leftover salad from last night and a couple of boiled potatoes, to soak up the rest of the sauce.


To make this even faster, I used garlic oil, and chilli oil. Super fast. Its not much to look at really, but the flavour is fantastic!


MAKE THIS! It's so tasty, fast, simple, healthy!

Salsa Romesco

Sometimes you need to get rid of veges that are clogging up your fridge. Other times you need something healthy to jazz up a piece of chicken, or youd like to make your own dip to take to a party. The answer is salsa romesco. Of Spanish origin, the basics youll need are almonds, pine nuts and/or hazelnuts, roasted peppers, garlic and olive oil. Added bonus ingredients are red wine vinegar, roasted tomatoes, and onion. This post cant be called a recipe, its more a guide to making a romesco sauce that suits you. I didnt really use any measurements at all.

I decided to give some roasted chicken drumsticks a bit of life last night, and made my own version of this spanish sauce. I used Stephanie Alexanders recipe as a loose guide, but it got changed plenty, and I didnt measure anything. There are ways to make this the easy shortcut way, or a more drawn out, pottering in the kitchen way. I choose a fairly easy method, using jarred piquillo peppers I bought from Spanish Flavours in Mt Hawthorn. If you wanted to use peppers you have at home, blacken them either under the grill or over a flame/coals, put them in a plastic container or bag for 10 minutes. Once they're cooler, peel the skins off and discard them, and keep the flesh for when you need it.

I decided to use tomatoes in my sauce, so tumbled a punnet of cherry tomatoes (in my opinion the only safe bet when buying toms from the supermarkets) into a oven tray, with a whole chilli. A healthy glug of garlic olive oil (the healthy oil!) and a smattering of seasoning later and they were ready for the oven.

I put them under the grill, and kept checking back until they had blackened a bit. I pierced them all with a knife before grilling, as sometimes tomatoes pop and explode a bit, and I didnt really feel like dealing with that! Once theyre grilled, its up to you whether or not you peel the skins off, or drain the liquid. Stephanie Alexanders recipe says you should use Roma tomatoes and once grilled, lose the skin and put them in a colander for 20mins to drain. However the juices that had come out were delicious and full of tomato flavour, and I couldnt be bothered to peel them - besides, I like a bit of a char flavour on things!

The recipe also calls for blanched 3 times garlic, and cooked till its softened. I blanched it once and cooked it till it was soft, however it would be just as nice to hide it under your tomatoes, skin on, to soften that way.

I then chucked it all into my food processor, along with a handful of the jarred peppers (squeezed off their excess juices), almonds, a shlug of red wine vinegar, some salt and pepper, and blitzed.

Done.

Taste it, see if youd like more vinegar, more almonds... Secret is, to add less than you think to start out with, then taste it. You can always add more of something but its alot trickier to take it away! In this case I would have taken the seeds out of the chilli as it has quite an aggressive heat - it would be amazing used as a marinade for bbqs, but we were using it as a dip, so it was a bit much. Leave it out if you want.

Its SO versatile, and so easy to make. It doesnt require anything fancy, you can use any vinegar you like really, that you enjoy the taste of. Use lemon instead if you want. Its a very forgiving recipe, if you can call this post a recipe... This is definitely an everyday food - you're likely to have everything in the cupboard already, and its healthy enough to eat every day! Its certainly versatile enough.

Easiest way to jazz up a piece of chicken or red meat, use it as a dip, put it on bread with cheese and grill it, use it as a pizza sauce with lamb and fetta... Add mint, coriander or parsley... You'll be eating well!

Options for this healthy choice sauce are endless!

chicken wings from heaven!

Chicken Wings With Orange Tomato Glaze - Apples for Jam (Tessa Kiros)

Ingredients

12 Chicken Wings

110 g (3 1/4 oz) Light Brown Sugar

375 ml (13 Fl oz/1 1/2 cups) Fresh Orange Juice

185 ml (6 Fl oz/3/4 cup) Tomato Passata (Pureed Tomatoes)

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

Method

Preheat the oven to 160˚C (315˚F/Gas 2-3). Put the sugar, orange juice, passata, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Spread the chicken wings in a baking dish just large enough to fit them in a single layer and pour the sauce over the top. Bake for 2-2 1/2 hours, basting and turning the pieces over every now and then, until the chicken is crispy and sticky and the sauce is a thick glaze. Serve warm, or even at room temperature.

YUM!

easy, you pprob have the ingredients in the cupboard already... next time im going to leave out a bit of the sugar and add some orange zest to give it a bit more zing! we added some purple tiger chillies (little baby ones that pack a punch) whole, fresh from the garden, but with the tops cut off and punctured, it let some heat out into the sauce, which was perfect for me, and bf ate the chillies whole (and cried a little bit lol). Had no passata, used whole canned tomatoes (without the juice) just blitzed...

I served it with thinly sliced roast potato chips (that Steve made - delish) and broccoli - would be awesome with a crunchy salad or coleslaw with a zingy dressing to cut thru the sweetness/richness of the sticky marinade... will be making this again, the meat falls off the bones... make it!!

btw I didnt manage to get to get a photo of it... because we just ate them without thinking about it! Ill try to do better next time :D

Germination!

2 weeks ago, in 8 little black plastic punnets (that I bought for $1.30) I planted 6 different kinds of seeds in special seed potting mix... Rocket, purple climbing beans, heirloom tomatoes, leeks, sage and spring onions have been planted, and waited upon by one fairly impatient gardener!

The rocket took about a week to show signs of life, and the little dicots are about 2cm tall now! I took those seeds straight to school for the kids to plant, in the hope that something they've sown will germinate quickly and spark their interest! So Im looking forward to being able to add rocket to my meals in the near future, in the knowledge that when it looks like they're going to run out, they germinate quickly and Ill be back on my way!

Tonight I went and had another look, in the vain hope SOMETHING will have sprouted... Upon having a look I think I acted like a child at christmas when I saw a bean had sprouted! I had a little poke around and found that more were starting to come up!! Without digging too far in and disturbing the little seeds, I found that quite a few had germinated so I think its pretty safe to say, that I'm going to have at most, 16 purple bean plants! I also noticed something else coming up, much smaller, just poking its little head out, but I cant remember what it is... I think its either leek or sage, I cant remember... Either way, its on the up!

I think things may have gone faster if I had've chosen a better spot for them, because they didnt get as much sunlight as they should have, I think... So I've decided that, if I remember, Im going to have the seeds outside in the sun during the day, and for part of the night, in the bathroom under the heat light... I dont know how that will go, but I worked on a flower farm in Queensland for a month when I was backpacking around, and in order to get the Chrysanthemums nice and tall, so they had long stems for good bunches, they were under lights all night, and obviously, sun all day. Im hoping this same idea will work for the germination of seeds - they need sunlight to grow, and Im assuming the grow upwards in the search for sunlight, so if theres light on more often, Im thinking they're going to grow a bit faster? Looking at the picture, it doesnt look very impressive... But there are bean shoots coming up in the top left and right punnets, and I honestly think, in the last hour, after I gave them more water and lots of light, a few others that might have needed another day before I saw them, have started to come up! More to come, but I think the light idea is a good one!

I suppose this means Im going to have to get busy on getting the garden ready?! There are ALOT of weeds out there, still! I actually may have teed up a sheep or 2 to get rid of them! Ahhh the country life :)