Mango & Pepper Risotto

We picked up an almost over-ripe mango which was reduced in price at the shop yesterday so I was looking for a way to cook it.  This is what I came up with, a concoction of my own this time!

Ingredients:

1 cup arborio risotto rice

1 red pepper

1 small red onion chopped

Half a mango - peeled and diced

Handful of small button mushrooms

2 tbsp olive oil

Vegetable stock

150ml boiling water

150ml white wine

1 tsp swiss vegetable bouillon

1 tsp chili   )

1 tsp ginger )  see below!

Mix all stock ingredients together in a jug.

How To

Put the olive oil into a large frying pan

Add the onion and soften for a few minutes

Add the red pepper and onions and soften for a few more minutes

Add the rice and fry for 2 minutes

Add the stock a little bit at a time, letting the rice soak it up.

Cover and simmer for 10 minutes

Add the mango and cover and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

Keep checking the moisture levels, if the rice is starting to get a bit sticky add either more stock or just pour in a bit more wine. (I'll let you guess which I did!!).

I intended to put some quorn pieces in to bulk it out a bit, but they weren't really needed, it was a filling meal in itself.  For non-veggies you could add some diced chicken breast, browned in the pan after the onions have softened.  

It was really scrummy and the nicest 'healthy' thing I've eaten this month. The mango was quite sweet and tangy and went perfectly with the rice.

A little footnote about the chilli and ginger. I found these little gems in the freezer at the supermarket yesterday.  I usually buy fresh chilis and fresh ginger for specific recipes and invariably I end up throwing away half of them because they go off before I get around to making another dish that needs them.

How innovative are they?  Little pouches of chili and ginger that you keep in your freezer.  Each portion contains 1 teaspoon.  I guess you could always make your own by using ice-cub trays, but it doesn't half save you the hassle!

More Sweet Stuff ...

Not sure what I would call this, it's a recipe I picked up from a raw food subscription - Cocoa Nuts maybe?

Ingredients

I.5 cups mixed nuts (I used cashew nuts and some almonds and walnuts I already had in the cupboard, but any sort will do)
1/4 tsp cinammon
Half cup of raw cocoa powder
4 tbs agave nectar
Half tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp shredded coconut
1 cup dates (or you can use sultanas or raisins if you prefer)
Handful of dried sour cherries (optional - Jenny saw these in the shop so we thought we would add some in)


How To:

Put the nuts and cinammon into a food processor until they are ground.

Add cocoa powder, coconut, agave nectar and vanilla and whizz up briefly.

Add the dates and process until the mixture starts to stick together.

Remove and put on a tray and press down.  Put in the fridge overnight to 'set' - then cut into bite size squares.  Store in a box and eat as required.


I've varied wildly in quantities from the original recipe - I tried to mostly halve the quantities  but found that I needed to put in more dates and agave nectar.  Mine turned out very nutty, with just a hint of chocolate so maybe in future I would put in a tad more cocoa powder, but otherwise I was really pleased with it

They're quite dense and filling so you really don't need a very big serving.

Pasta with Asparagus and Spinach 

Jenny made a lovely tea last night. She boiled up some penne pasta. 

Then in a large frying pan put a packet of baby spinach and some asparagus, along with the juice of half a lemon and a little bit of garlic. 

Cook it in a little oilve oil until the spinach starts to wilt and then stir into the cooked pasta. Simple but simply lovely!

Becky made the loviest cupcakes afterwards as well.  What a treat.  As I'd been so good all week I didn't refuse!

Back on the horse!!

Back into the healthy eating the past two days and feeling somewhat better again.


Today I want to mention puddings!!!

I found a recipe for healthy ice-cream. Except there is no cream in it so you really can't call it ice-cream.

I thought I would give it a whirl nevertheless.  It's the simplest of simple things.

You just take one banana and a handful of strawberries,  stick them in the blender, then decant to a plastic container and put in the freezer.

Problem No. 1 appeared when I sliced the fruit up and tried to liquidise them. No can do - I had to scoop them all out and cut them really finely - which did the trick in the end.

Problem No. 2 appeared the next day when I decided I'd like a scoop or two of the mixture out of the freezer.  It was frozen block solid. An ice-cream scoop wouldn't even touch it, I suspect I would have had more luck with a pick axe.   It took a couple of hours for it to defrost to a consistency that was still icy but ok to eat and not runny.   It was ok, just like frozen fruit really - quite refreshing for a hot day - but by no stretch of the imagination can you call it ice-cream. Still it was nice enough.



I found another recipe today which is similar which I have just whizzed together, and am going to try freezing it for about an hour before I eat it so it doesn't set solid.

Ingredients this time are:

One banana
Handfull of strawberries
2 teaspoons of raw cacao powder
A dribble of maple syrup

As my blender wouldn't liquidise all of that I poured in a little bit of rice milk - which worked a treat.

If you like dark chocolate you will love this - the raw cacao powder is more bitter than sweet and I might have been better putting just one teaspoon in - I will try that next time. 

Weigh-in Time!

Not done at all well this week, but that's not surprising as I have had a very naughty few foodie days which have included pizza, chinese take-away, wine, chocolate and a Maccy D!!!!

Was in work on Thursday for the day and very pooped by the end of it - we have so much work on at the moment.  I opted out of cooking and we got a chinese take-away. I have to say it was soooo nice.

Friday we went over to Manchester to see Bruce Springsteen play and managed to grab a very, very quick MacDonalds  on the way there.  Not sure it did the digestion any good wolfing it down in the take-away car park but we needed something to keep our energy up.

It was a wonderful gig.  Mind you, Simon and I were almost divorced three times before we even got there.  The traffic was horrendous so Simon flung a map at me and between us we decided on a back-street route away from the traffic.  But man, if you are gonna ask someone to navigate, please listen to them - don't go shooting of down right hand turns that take you further away from where you want to be.

We got there about 10 minutes before Bruce and the band took the stage, and managed to locate Rue and Liz who had found us a nice little spot to watch the show from. Despite the rain having been coming down in stair-rods all day, it stopped just as the show started - thank goodness.

Highlights of the show for me were No Surrender, Land of Hope and Dreams and Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.  Some of my faves there - loved every minute of it.

So back to the diet - this morning I weighed in at 11st 13 and a half - so really not lost anything.  Pleased to say that the next three weeks I am back into a proper work routine so it should make it a lot easier to plan ahead.  I doubt I will achieve my goal of dropping another 5lb in the next 6 days - it's possible, but so long as I am good and loose something this week, I'm not too bothered.  I'm still heading (creeping!!) in the right direction and that is good enough for me for now.

So, the healthy eating thing?  It something would be hard for me to sustain long term I think, although I am planning on doing it whenever I can, but not feeling guilty if I have the odd take-away or cake.  The biggest thing is finding meals that I like, and am happy to eat more than once!!  I will stick with the rice milk, and keep trying to incorporate more raw fruit and veg into my diet thought. 

The biggest thing is that I have definitely felt better when I've had a few days of fresh, unprocessed food, and then become sluggish when I revert back to the junk food.  It's quite shocking the difference it makes actually.  I feel more alert, less tired, happier and my digestive system doesn't feel so clogged up - and really, that is a huge endorsement for trying to continue to make some changes.

Tuesday & Wednesday

Woah what a couple of days!

Tuesday was the culmination of 3 months of studying for a work-related exam.  It didn't go well.  And that's all I will say about that!

Straight after the exam I left the hospital and headed down to the station to hop on a train to London.  Best remedy for my malaise.  I was meeting up with Jenny for a night at the theater as, due to her college having their annual ball, she wasn't allowed to stay in her room that night.  She wasn't actually going to the ball, but as its an all night affair, it's a college rule that none of the rooms can be occupied.  Seems a bit strict to me, and it meant she had to make alternative arrangements.

So she headed into London and met me from the train and we headed over the road to St Pancras Youth Hostel.  Accom. is hugely expenive in London at the moment, no doubt due to Jubilee and Olympic season - so we opted for something cheap.  It wasn't the Ritz but it was ok and somewhere to lay our heads for the night.

We had a lovely tea at Pizza Express, and I chose  a healthy goats cheese salad (how good was I??).  I'd only had some veg soup for lunch, and a cookie and pepsi on the train (consolation food), but wasn't particularly hungry by tea time, so the salad was really nice.

We hi-jacked a taxi to the Queens Theatre to see Les Miserables.  I went to see it last year with some friends, and Jenny was to come with us but it didn't work out, so I had promised her that I would take her sometime.  This was the ideal opportunity.  The tickets were half the price we paid last time but we were up in the gods.  When it comes to films, tv programmes and the like, I'm not usually one for watching things over and over again, but I loved Les Mis and it was great to see it again. The cast had changed a couple  of days before and the new performers brought something slightly different to the night.  

I did indulge in a little tub of ice-cream during the interval - it was so hot (that's my excuse etc ...) but not a bad day food wise all told.  We walked back from the theatre to St Pancras, and I even managed to remember the way without a map.

I woke up on Wednesday morning thinking it might have been wise to have brought my A-Z or printed off some maps before I came, then I remembered the map app on my phone.  I'd never used it before but it turned out to be an excellent little facility.  That led me on to downloading a London Underground app from the princely sum of ... 69p!!  That was brilliant also and made things soooo much easier.  We had brekkie at the hostel - so cornflakes and a yoghurt for me then set off for Oxford Street to do a bit of shopping.  Bought a few crafty bits and Jenny got a new dress then we headed down to Piccadilly to visit Europe's biggest bookstore - Waterstones.  It is immense!  

Shopping trips are never complete for either me or Jenny without visiting a bookstore.  I bought the new Danny Wallace book - Charlotte Street, and started reading it on the train on the way home - it's hilarious and I inevitably started giggling my way through the pages much to the amusement of the other travellers. I also bought The Barbed-Wire University by Midge Gillies  - about the real lives of Allied prisoner of war in the 2nd World War. I'm not much of a war book person, but this doesn't sound like your usual war book and the blurb on the back really caught my attention.

'For most allied prisoners of war, there were no heroic escapes through secret tunnels - the reality was a constant battle against boredom and brutality.  Now drawing on letters and interviews with survivors, Midge Gillies casts a new light on a remarkable group of men who held onto the hope that there was life beyond the camps.  These men applied their initiative to forming orchestras, building a golf course between their huts and daring surgery on the Thailand-Burma railway.  There were men who attended lectures, learned new languages and, at one German camp, sat exams on such a scale that it became known as the Barbed-Wire University.'

We were doing ok for time so grabbed a quick lunch at Eat; a very healthy falafel wrap and a mango and lime blast - just what was needed to cool us down as it appears summer has arrived.  We then headed down to Trafalgar Square where Terry Pratchett was doing a book promotion for The Long Earth as Jenny is a huge fan of his.  We managed to get hit on the head a few times by bouncing globes but sadly had to leave before Terry put in an appearance.  

It was a close call getting back to St Pancrasin time (via the hostel to pick up our bags) but I made it on the train with just a few minutes to spare.   I so hate being late or close to time for things and prefer to leave myself plenty of time to get somewhere - especially when my train ticket was only valid on that train.  So it was a little bit of a panicky end to the trip, but all is well that ends well. It was another flying visit but so lovely to spend some one on one time with Jenny. 

Back to the food then. Last night we ended up in Yankees for tea - I had a beer and a re-fried bean enchilada but passed on the chips and salad. It's telling that I have cut down on quantities this week as I was struggling to finish the enchilada and we all passed on pudding. 

However, very naughty ice-cream was bought on the way home from the cinema so I did indulge in a bowl full of that. I could feel the calories clinging to my hips!! 

So Monday and one day to be good. 

One more thing I made on Saturday was a huge quantity of mushroom soup. I've frozen 4 portions which will do for work next week and had one in the fridge which I have had for lunch today. Here's the recipe: 

 

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

3 cups of mushrooms

3 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp tamari

Juice of 1 fresh lemon

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp honey

3 tbsp almond butter

handful of cashew nuts

2 cups of mineral water or coconut milk (I used coconut milk for a creamier finish)

Cut up the mushrooms andmarinate in the olive oil and tamari for 2 - 4 hours.

Blend the mushrooms and the remaining ingredients - you might want to experient with the water/coconut milk to get the thickness you like, so just add half at first and take it from there.

Can be served warm or cold - I had it warm.

Verdict

It was nice - the consistency was good, but it tasted a little strong for me. I did put in more tamari than the recipe asked for and I think that was a mistake. 

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day and we had a great time blessing Simon with some fun gifts.  Last week I took Becky on a mystery tour into Sheffield to visit Pete McKee's gallery 'A Month of Sundays'. We'd seen some of his art the night before in The Inn at Troway, which featured musicians and landmarks of Sheffield and loved it.  In the car on the way in Becky was talking about it all the time, little knowing that was our destination - it was so funny and her face was a picture when we arrived there. 

Apart from it being cool and wanting to have a look around, the purpose of the visit was really to choose a pressie for Simon for Father's Day and we settled on this on canvas:

He loves it - and we had a pleasant few minutes trying to identify all of the album covers represented in the painting.  How many can you spot?

Becky went off into Sheffield for the afternoon as Reverend and the Makers were signing copies of their new album.  Father's Day Present No. 2 was a signed copy. 

We met her later on outside the Showroom Cinema as I'd bought us all tickets to see a documentary about John Cooper Clarke - little knowing that the man himself would turn up read a selection of his poems and then treat us to a question and answer session after the film was shown.  Present No. 3 went down a storm!

The documentary itself is very good, and very well worth watching with lots of old footage of John in his punk hey days.  There's also interviews with loads of people who have been inspired by John.

Call it intuition or just a lucky break but as an afterthought I picked my camera up just before I left the house.  I'm so glad I did.

The Scores on the Doors

This is where the rubber hits the road.  Last Sunday I weighed in at 12st 1lb.  This morning the scales say 11st 13.5lb.  

I did hope to lose more than 1 and a half pounds this week, but on balance I have eaten out a couple of times and had wine and chocolate, so I'm happy that I have lost something and am into the 11's rather than the 12's.  I hope I don't stay there too long though.

So the coming week is probably going to be more of the same. It's Father's Day and we are going out for tea and I have a day and a half in London with Jenny this week, so it will be a case of eat whatever is available.  Hopefully with a big push towards the end of this next week, I can lose a bit more.

Overall, I feel better for the change in diet.  Definitely more alert and less tired than I usually am with more energy.  I only remember feeling properly hungry once this week which was in the evening after the Nandos lunch  - so that is all good too.

Breakfast today was cornflakes and rice milk with some fresh grapes and blueberries.  Lunch shall be half a stuffed pepper and one of my spinach and ricotta tartlettes that I made yesterday.  Here's the recipe:

A little well done in places but it didn't affect the taste

The following makes 4 tartlettes:

6oz fresh spinach
1/4 cup of ricotta cheese
1/4 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese
1 large egg - beaten
1/2 clove of garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper






Finely chop the spinach and put into a medium bowl.

Add the ricotta, parmesan, egg, garlic, salt and pepper and stir well to combine.

Coat 4 cups of a muffin pan with cooking spray. Divide the spinach mixture amongst the cups (they will be very full).

Bake the cakes at 180 degrees for about 20 mins.

Remove from oven and let them stand in the pan for 5 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife and turn onto a plate.  Serve warm sprinkled with more parmesan if desired.

The stuffed pepper has cous cous, mushrooms, tomatoes and cucumber.  I made 2 yesterday, along with some mushroom soup and all the other stuff I mentioned - it was a bit of a culinary afternoon!  I'll post the mushroom soup recipe tomorrow!

~~~~~~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~~~~~

We're off to see a documentary about John Cooper Clarke at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield tonight.  It's a father's day surprise for Simon.  He was just saying a couple of weeks ago how he had never been to that particular cinema before and lo and behold we now have the chance.  Looking forward to it.  Then we're hoping to go to Yankees on Ecclesall Road for tea afterwards, it's been a favourite place of his down the years.  They don't take bookings at weekends, so hopefully we can get it.  As the name suggests its an American diner type place serving predominantly burgers.  

Until then the rest of the day will be spent studying for my AMSPAR exam on Tuesday.

Saturday - which feels like Sunday for some reason, but everyone assures me is in fact Saturday. Was very hungry this morning so I had not one but two bowls of cornflakes with rice milk.

Just got back from Sainsbury's having stocked up on fruit and veg and other bits and pieces and am going to make some of that soup I mentioned yesterday.

I've never had cold soup before - have you? It's never been something that has appealed to me. However,  I came across a Gazpacho recipe in an ebook I downloaded this week called Raw Food Recipes and thought I would give it a go. It worked really well and is surprisingly filling.  I couldn't eat the whole bowl full so have saved half for tomorrow or maybe later if I feel peckish.

Here's the recipe. 

Gazpacho Soup 

5 tomatoes 

Half a red pepper 

3 soaked sundried tomatoes 

Fresh juice of 1 lemon 

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil 

Pinch of salt and pepper 

Zest of garlic (optional - I didn't!!) 

Blend all the ingredients together in a high speed blender. Add water until it gets to a consistency you like - I just added about quarter of a cup. 

The recipe didn't say to strain the mixture - but as my blender left it with lots of little lumps I put it through a seive to make it completely smooth - I don't like lumpy soup!!! 

It also said to garnish with some small slices of avocado - I did this but it sank to the bottom - maybe I should have left the soup lumpy for photographic purposes and then seived it afterwards ;-). It was surprisingly tasty and quite filling.

I'm also trying a mushroom soup recipe from the same book - that can be served warm but not hot as apparently you lose most of the goodness if you cook it above 46 degrees.  It's a little more complicated to make and in fact my mushrooms are marinading as we speak. I'll probably freeze that for later on in the week and stick the recipe up when I have road tested it.

My plan for tea is to have some noodles with mushrooms and red peppers, onions and hemp seeds - and as I missed out on Chocolate Friday yesterday, I bought a tiny bar of Green & Black's milk chocolate.  That should go down nicely with the rest of the wine I opened 2 days ago!!  I will save that for this evening though.

Edit:  I didn't have noodles for tea  I made some Spinach & RIcotta tarts which turned out a lot better than than I thought they would.  Recipe tomorrow.  Pudding was a fruit salad of banana, apple, pear and kiwi fruit.

Tomorrow I get on the scales and see if I have managed to shift any poundage.  Eeek!!