Bolognese

This is cooked in one pot (apart from your pasta) and it is PACKED with goodness. If you have picky eaters you have the option of blending the veggies & tomatoes into a sauce and they will eat everything without knowing it!

Serves 4

Ingredients

500g minced beef, lean & organic if possible
400g tin chopped tomatoes or chop fresh
75g button mushrooms, diced fine
1 red pepper (bell pepper), diced fine
1 carrot, diced fine
1 courgette, ends removed & diced fine
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped fine
Dash red wine vinegar
1 tbsp basil, dried or finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
4 portions of cooked whole wheat or GF spaghetti
Pink Salt & Pepper to taste



Brown mince in a large pot with the onion in olive oil

Add garlic, peppers, carrot, courgette & mushrooms. Cook until
tender

**If you want to blend these with the tomato, simply
remove the mince from the pot before adding the veg.
You can then add the cooked veg, wine vinegar & tomatoes to 
a blender and blitz until smooth. 
You can then return the mince to the pot in the next
step**

Add tomatoes, wine and basil. Season with salt & pepper and bring to 
the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 10 mins until your pasta
is ready to go


Serve & enjoy the goodness!

Sesame Chicken

This is pictured with white rice but we have since switched to brown. I don't know why we decided to go with white rice. It just never makes us feel GOOD and if it doesn't make you feel good, don't eat it!

This is part of the Take Out, Fake Out series. Sometimes you just really want to sit in front of the TV with a chinese. This is totally fine! Call your take out and order 1 meal between 2 people OR eat half and bin the rest so you're not tempted to go crazy. If though you're trying to avoid the temptation altogether, try something from our Take Out, Fake Out.

Serves 4

Ingredients
3 lrg chicken breasts, no skin, cut into chunks
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, crushed
100ml honey
50ml organic tomato sauce
90ml soy sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp corn flour, made into a paste with a little water
140g brown rice
Some sesame seeds
2 spring onions, green only, chopped

Once all your prep is done this comes together quickly.
First get that rice cooking because it will take the longest.

Brown the chicken all over in the olive oil with the onion and garlic. You want the chicken almost cooked through
Add the honey, tomato sauce and soy
Add the corn flour paste

Keep some water to hand in case this thickens too much for your liking. Add no more then a 1/2 tsp at a time. You'd be surprised how far water goes when thinning something like this.

Once you like the thickness of the sauce you're done! How easy was that?!

To serve sprinkle with sesame seeds and top with spring onion

Gluten Free Pancakes

When we first moved our four year old to a GF diet, my first thought was "oh no, she loves her weekend pancakes" I'd always heard GF pancakes were rubbery and tough. I wanted light and fluffy like she loved. The search began but I ran into a wall. Any recipes I found either said "very tough when cold so eat straight away" or they contained an obscene amount of sugar! Which I know a lot of store bought GF products do contain. No no no. Wasn't happening. I couldn't willingly put so much sugar into her food. Plus she'd be bouncing off the walls for hours!

So I put out a call and a family member in Australia came to the rescue. She gave me a good base recipe I could work from. So I altered it, reduced the sugar and general amounts and this is the result

This recipe makes about 6 - 8 pancakes

1 cup GF Flour, we find tritamyl the best at the minute

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 egg

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Aprox. 1/2 cup Milk

Dark Chocolate Drops

Blueberries

This is pretty normal as far as pancakes go. Add flour, baking soda, sugar, vanilla, egg, milk and mix well until all lumps are removed. Now I've said aprox. on the milk amount because I will use more or less depending on my mood. The thinner the batter the easier they are to cook, in my opinion, because they cook through quicker meaning less time on the heat, meaning less chance of over cooking and burning.

I let the first side cook until the uncooked side starts to bubble and look like it's drying out

Flip the pancake

Now, while it's cooking, drop a few chocolate drops onto the cooked side of the pancake. Give it a second to melt and the spread very gently with the back of a spoon. There is your chocolate spread. We use organic dark chocolate but use what every you like. It's a handy trick even for non GF pancakes

With the blueberries you can just drop them on top of the stack. All I did here was pop them into a bowl and give them 30 seconds in the microwave. Pour on top and there you go.

Rocket Salad

We love this salad. It's our true guilty pleasure. I know the chorizo isn't healthy but I figure this is still better than pigging out at the local chip shop. This has green in it!
We normally have this with a veggie thin crust pizza divided between the two of us. Not meat and thin crust so you're not adding calories to it and can enjoy the chorizo treat. You can use either spicy or normal chorizo, it's totally up to you.

1 Chorizo Sausage, sliced
1 Red Onion, sliced thin
Handful Pine Nuts
40g (lrg handful) Rocket, added to bowl (Arugula)
2 tbsp balsamic




Let start with those tasty pine nuts. We're going to toast them so on your stove, heat a pan on high. You do want the pan hot because you want to quickly toast these guys. No one wants a burnt pine nut...trust me
So to a hot pan add the pine nuts. Now keep them moving!!!
*Practice that fancy chef shimmy they do with pans. My husband does it. Flips them all fancy...I try and they end up on the floor*
Once lightly brown all over, set them aside

Now add a drop of olive oil to the pan. No more than 1 tbsp is needed. You're going to crisp up that chorizo. Pop them all in a keep turning until they have darkened and are nice and crisp. DO NOT DRAIN THE PAN. Lift out each piece and place onto some kitchen towel to drain any excess oil

You are now left with a chorizo juice/oil mix in your pan

To this, add the onion and cook until soft

Again DO NOT DRAIN but lift the onion and set aside

Now you have a pan of onion/oil/chorizo and you're going to add your balsamic. This will be your dressing. Scrape up any pieces left in the pan while mixing.

Once you have everything in a large bowl add the dressing and give it all a gentle mix

Gluten Free Lunch Challenge Week 2

I'm a day late! I lost the picture. How do you lose a digital file? *sigh*
Any who, after a panic driven search.....

However... It is Tuesday which means I should have two lunches to post but... I forgot to take a photo of Tuesdays lunch :( At least I think I forgot. I can't seem to find it but at the same time I don't remember forgetting to take the photo. Yep. That totally made sense in my head.

This is Monday's Lunch (Picture)

Raisins & Pistachios

Blueberries & Grapes

Mini Salad: Sliced Ham, Cheese Cubes & Cherry Tomatoes

Yogurt (camera shy)

Now i'm wondering if I forgot to take a picture or if I deleted it because I thought it was an old one.

Tuesday's Lunch (Honestly, I fed her)

Melon Balls with Blueberries

Mini Salad: Sliced Ham, Cucumber Chunks, Chopped Tomatoes (no seeds)

Chopped Dried Mango, Raisins & Pistachios

2 Oat Crackers

I won't pretend I remembered that easily. That was a brain teaser. I may need to lie down.

Lunch 3 in currently in the making and I WILL remember to remember not to forget to take a photo!

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad

This is a quick tasty recipe

This serves 2 - 3

Ingredients

2 heads Baby Gem, shredded

3 pieces Bacon, cooked crispy & chopped

1 chicken breast, sliced thin

Handful Green Beans, cooked

6 Baby Potatoes, halved and cooked with skin on

Honey Mustard Dressing, Ready Made or *see below*

Another easy, toss everything into a bowl, give it a mix and sit down to enjoy!

It doesn't really get much easier than these salads. They take minutes to prepare with very little wash up and they are filling. Hope you love this one, it's another of our favourites.

*You can easily make honey mustard dressing using Greek yogurt, Dijon mustard, honey, salt & pepper.

  3 parts yogurt to 1 part mustard and then honey & season to taste*

Not a cure for Man Flu but CLOSE!

As I went to begin typing, my dog poked her head out from under the dining table (her fort) looking for some attention. I will gladly rough the fur on her head because she's about the only living contact that doesn't make me shiver right now. I have a sick 4 year old and a husband DYING from man flu.... In other words, they're both pretty gross, moaning and snotty. Yay me!

So apart from needing to wear a mask and gloves to try and protect myself (i'm actually considering this) when looking after these two, there was a little time for food. Now with sickies in the house and a lot less free hands, on account of my four year old not wanting to walk anywhere right now, I took an easier option.

Introducing the BLT Salad

There isn't much in here and it's very quick (apart from the wedges but you can either use store bought or pre cut and freeze your own but i'll write another post about that) Now we find this VERY filling so we usually use half this recipe for the 2.5 of us but we all find potatoes filling so it could just be us. Plus we're usually planning a work out soon after so no one wants to be stuffed

You will need;

2 lrg tomatoes, sliced very thin
1 red onion, sliced very thin, center removed
8 strips thin bacon, fat removed, cooked crispy, chopped
3/4 iceberg lettuce, shredded (we use 1/2)
4 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp dried parsley
2 portions wedges, cooked crispy

Pretty simply, everything goes into a large bowl.

The dressing is mixed separate. Add the Mayo, vinegar and parsley  If it's too thick, add a little water. I like a light dressing but each to their own.

Get your hands in there and give it a good giggle, toss and mix

Chow down!

Like I said we normally wouldn't eat this much in one sitting. We serve in breakfast cereal sized bowls and 3/4 full there is more than enough. You can cover and pop in the fridge for the next day if you like but if you're not making it for more than 2 people i'd suggest cutting back on the wedges and use 2 tbsp of mayo instead of the 4 tbsp because you won't need as much dressing

There is no hard fast rule to these types of salads. You may eat it and think, next time i'll add more onion or I don't like so much bacon ect. *seriously does anyone ever want to cut back on bacon* That's the great part. You can end up with something completely unique and just loved by your family.

Enjoy foodies :)