Moroccan Chicken Pilaf

Pilaf is even easier than risotto to make when travelling. This is another low calorie meal which will be quick and easy to cook when we are on our road trip. 

Asian Pork mince with rice noodles or in lettuce cups

Asian Pork Mince

This has become one of our favourite meals, and we eat it almost weekly. It is healthy, low calorie and easy to prepare during the hot summer. Taste it before serving to ensure the combination of sauces suits your taste.

Serves 4
200 calories per serve

Ingredients:

cooking oil spray

4 green shallots, sliced diagonally
20g knob of fresh ginger, sliced finely
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
400-500g pork mince
120g green beans, sliced thinly with a bean stringer
4 teaspoons fish sauce
1 1/2 tablespoon kecap manis (or more to taste)
2 fresh long red chillis, sliced thinly
4 tablespoons water
small handful Thai or sweet basil leaves
12 baby cos leaves or packet of rice noodles
Lime quarters to serve

Let's cook:

Lightly spray a medium non-stick frying pan with olive oil and heat over a medium heat.Add the shallots, ginger and garlic. Cook covered, for 1 minute.

Increase heat to high. Add pork mince; cook stirring to break up lumps for 5 minutes or until browned. Stir in beans, sauces, chilli and the water. Cook for a further 2 minutes or until beans are tender and the sauce is slightly sticky. Stir in half the basil.

Serve mince in lettuce cups or in a bowl over rice noodles. Either way, top with the remaining basil and serve with lime pieces.

Enjoy!

Best wishes

Pauline

Quick and Easy Cheesy Green Soup

Quick and Easy Cheesy Green Soup

Broccoli and zucchini are the stars of this show. As we prepare for our round Australia road trip, initially heading for Darwin and then Perth, I am trying to reduce the calories in our diet in a very healthy but enjoyable fashion before we leave, knowing that there will be many  amazing food experiences along the way, and a fair bit of just sitting.

This soup is brilliant, we never tire of it, and it is so easy to make. It can also consist of whatever left over veges you have in your refrigerator, presuming they are green. Broccoli and zucchini are the star ingredients, and are now also recognised as being key vegetables for people suffering from high blood sugar and Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes. Thankfully we are not in that category. The soup is also quite creamy when pureed, thanks to the texture and structure of the versatile zucchini.

Without getting into too much detail about it, Broccoli is a rich source of Chromium, a mineral which helps to improve insulin action in pre-diabetes and control blood glucose, an important factor for everyone these days I think. This soup makes it so easy to include broccoli in your diet in a very appetising way, and control weight as well.

Ingredients

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

3 tablespoons coconut oil, ghee or butter

6 cups roughly chopped green vegetables , zucchini, broccoli, celery or whatever you have. (However, it works best with zucchini and broccoli.)

1 litre vegetable or chicken stock (homemade is best)

1 cup rocket or watercress (optional)

1 cup roughly chopped herbs, such as coriander, basil or flat-leaf parsley leaves

Pinch of salt

Juice of ½ to 1 lemon (Test the taste after adding juice from ½ a lemon and add more if required.)

½ cup crumbled sharp cheddar

Method:

Sauté the onion and garlic in the coconut oil in a large saucepan for a superior flavour. (if you are really in a hurry omit this step and just add to the rest of the vegetables, it will still taste great) Add the green vegetables to the onion and garlic and stir for a minute, then pour in the stock and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  Stir in the rocket, herbs and salt. (I have used basil and coriander and they are great in this soup.)

Turn off the heat and puree until smooth using a stick blender, or pulse in a normal upright blend when it has cooled slightly.

Whisk in the lemon juice and stir through the cheese, or omit the cheese and top with a dollop of yoghurt or basil pesto.

Serve hot and enjoy.

Thanks to Sarah Wilson for this recipe.

Go green with Broccoli Bites, a very healthy sugar free snack for Adults and Children

Go straight to the recipe here:

Broccoli Bites

Broccoli Bites served with  tomato chutney

I am going green with Broccoli. What I love about these mini broccoli scones or mini fritters, however they fall onto the baking tray, is that they are only the size of a couple of mouthfuls. These little babies are small enough to enjoy a mouthful or two and if I want more, I just eat a few of them. Mind you they look larger in my photograph than they actually are. I don't look at them the same way as I do at savoury or sweet muffins in the coffee shops and think that I can't eat all of that. Purchased muffins are getting bigger and bigger, needing to be shared or just encouraging waste.  These ones also hold their shape without needing to be cooked in mini muffin pans. I really think they are meant to be Broccoli Balls, however I was in a hurry when I made these and took the photo, so they became mini fritters or mini pancakes. They still taste great. You can place your own stamp on them.

Flourless Chocolate Patty Cakes for Valentine's Day

Indulge yourself with these gluten free and very low sugar Chocolate Patty Cakes (Cupcakes)

Jump straight to the recipe:

I found this recipe on the Healthy Chef website and just had to make these as a treat for Valentine's Day ♡♡. They are deliciously moist with lots of rich chocolate flavour, low on sugar, and took inside 20 minutes to prepare. This is such a clever recipe, which can accommodate most allergies, and can be modified to suit the dietary requirements of most guests.

We have been very busy lately, planning a road trip from Cairns along the Savannah Way and into Western Australia and down to Perth. There will be some camping involved, and we will  also be staying in cabins and hotels when the muscles need some pampering. I have been planning some camping meals of course and Mr. HRK who has discovered online shopping for camping equipment, bought us a Dream Pot. We cooked our Corned meat and vegetables in our new Dream Pot a couple of nights ago which was exciting. It's like having an extra powerless slow cooker on hand to use in the kitchen. So now I am trying out new recipes and planning some meals for the trip. There will be more of that later on the blog. 

We are also going to be first time grandparents, hence the trip to Western Australia for the birth, so I am also extending my skills and sewing some little things for the new addition to the family. 

It is all very exciting, and lots of projects are in progress. These chocolate delights were a nice deviation from the other projects.

Flourless Chocolate Patty Cakes (Cupcakes)

Ingredients

1 ½ cups almond meal/ground almonds, or hazelnut meal

¼ cup good quality cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder (gluten free if needed)

2 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla paste or extract

¼ cup  macadamia nut oil or olive oil (I used macadamia)

¼ cup full cream milk or almond or soy (your choice)

2 tablespoons organic maple syrup or honey

Let’s Cook:

Preheat your oven to 160 deg. C.

Combine the almond/hazelnut meal, cocoa powder and baking powder.

Add the eggs, oil, vanilla, milk  and honey, then mix well with a good spoon to form a smooth batter.

Spoon into 12 small individual patty tins or cases.

Bake for 25 minutes until risen and cooked through. They will start to crack slightly on the surface when cooked which looks nice.

Serve with Greek yoghurt or raspberry puree, or cover with chocolate icing, depending on the occasion, or serve just on their own.

If you are feeling very intolerant to gluten, lactose, or nuts etc this recipe works very well. Other substitutes can be used. e.g. For nut free cupcakes substitute almond meal for ¼ cup coconut flour, then increase number of eggs to 4, and add an extra tablespoon of honey or maple syrup.

Jump straight to the recipe:

Blueberry pancakes on Pancake Tuesday

Our good friend Paul arrived this morning with delicious blueberry pancakes for Pancake Tuesday, such a treat and a lovely surprise. Apparently Pancake Tuesday is an Anglican tradition, however this
recipe was taken from the old Presbyterian cookbook .  I'm sure I've got a copy somewhere.  There are so many recipe treasures contained in those old church and school cookery books.

Paul said this recipe is just two cups of everything.  What an easy way of remembering a recipe. I'm not great at remembering recipes but this sounds memorable.

Then this afternoon I hosted Mahjong so more cake.

A perfect day really, don't you think?

Marilyn's Heaven in a Bowl Custard

Custard

CUSTARD, HEAVEN IN A BOWL

Jump straight to the recipe:

This is one of those recipes which I am sure will become part of the McNee clan's cooking repertoire. Marilyn goes back a long way as a teaching colleague of Neil's, and came to the Retiree's lunch at our place last week with a plum pudding left over from Christmas, a cheesecake, and this nostalgic custard. What I love about Marilyn's generation, is that she has no qualms about taking a shortcut with her cooking when necessary, hence the use of the Vanilla Instant pudding mix in this recipe. I should also mention she taught Home Economics for many years, hence her cooking, and her dressmaking etc is highly respected.

Neil was so excited by this custard, that I felt almost guilty that I don't cook more of it for him. In this heat we are experiencing at the moment, it is brilliant to be able to just mix up the ingredients for a recipe, chill it in the frig and it is ready. No cooking involved. I took a bowl of the custard which was leftover from the Retiree's lunch over to Kati's the following day for her birthday lunch. She found it in her frig that evening, and renamed it Heaven in a Bowl. I think she and little Leon ate it all in one sitting.

Neil remembers when the Vanilla Instant Pudding craze started when he was a just a boy living in Toowoomba. He often played over at his neighbour's house in the afternoons, where they sometimes made the pudding for dessert. Occasionally he was offered some, and as a lad he was in heaven when that happened. I don't remember my Mum ever using instant puddings, except perhaps jellies, as I think she cooked most things from scratch. However, in those days in Rockhampton they didn't frequent shops or the very scattered supermarkets as often as we do now.







The addition of the sprinkle of nutmeg in this pudding gives the dish an individual flavour, akin to that of homemade custard.

Marilyn’s “Heaven in a Bowl” Custard

Ingredients:

1 Vanilla Instant Pudding (Cottee's) (found at Woolworths with the jellies, custards etc.)

300ml Cream

300ml Full cream milk (or concede and use low fat milk because of cream being added in the recipe)

Sprinkle of nutmeg

Method:

1. Add milk and cream to a bowl.
2. Sprinkle in the pudding mix.
3. Beat with an electric hand beater until the mixture is thick enough.
4. Sprinkle with ground nutmeg and mix in.
5. Place covered bowl in the refrigerator and allow to set. This won't take long.
6. Whilst this is a custard it will set as a pudding consistency.
7. Serve with fresh fruit, frozen mango, plum pudding or whatever you are serving or just eat it on it's own as comfort food.