Meet My Oven

Meet my oven. He likes to incinerate things. Everything. Even when you set the thermostat to 25 degrees celsius.  Needless to say these pita chips did not end up on my dinner plate.

Even though the chips were a big fail, the dip turned out to be a winner. After the success of my tostadas the other night, I felt like sticking with the Mexican theme. I tried a Black Bean Dip Recipe from Food.com. This would be great for entertaining because all the method involves is throwing the ingredients in the blender until mixture forms a light, creamy and very tasty dip. The jalapeno gives the dip a bit of spice and it tastes really nice with sour cream. I served my dip in a whole wheat pita pocket with tomato, cucumber, baby spinach leaves, sour cream and cheese. No doubt it would taste awesome with corn chips.

Mexican Black Bean Dip Recipe (adapted from Black Bean Dip Recipe from Food.com)

(yields 1.5 cups)

Ingredients

• 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 3t tomato paste
• 2TBSP water
• 1 clove garlic
• 2t lime juice
• 1/2t cumin
• 1/8t cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2TBSP jalapeno
• salt to taste
• Fresh coriander, to garnish (optional but very good)

Method

1. Place all ingredients apart from coriander in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
2. Scrape dip into a bowl and garnish with fresh coriander

A Little Bit fishy…

Let me start this post with a word of caution. If you happen to make Jamaican Lentil Stew with Coconut and realise at the step where it says to add curry paste, that you have no curry paste, DO NOT be tempted to substitute laksa paste. The dried shrimp in the laksa paste WILL be noticeable and make your whole stew take on a slightly fishy, not-quite-right taste. NO amount of curry powder or any other seasoning will take this away….

On a slightly more successful note I thought I would share with you one of my lunch time favourites. Sardine Spread. Sounds gross (and looks terrible) but it is really nice! I promise! This spread is good on crackers, in a sandwich or wrap or to eat with carrots or celery sticks. Sardines are super good for you – they are rich in omega-3, calcium, protein and vitamin D, so eat up.

I made this yesterday for lunch and put it in a wrap along with some lettuce, snow peas, tomato and cucumber – was good!

Sardine Spread Recipe

(makes enough for 2 sandwiches)

Ingredients

• 1 tin sardines in spring water
• 2 TBSP reduced-fat cream cheese
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 squirt lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• gherkin, chopped finely (optional)

Method

1. Drain sardines and put in a small bowl
2. Add remaining ingredients and mash with a fork until the mixture forms a smooth paste
3. Eat

A Tasty Food Explosion

I enjoyed the Cannellini Feta Hummus I made at lunch so much, I had to incorporate it into my dinner last night too. It was another sunny Spring day and my legs were sore from hill intervals on the stationary bike this afternoon so I felt like something pretty light and fast to throw together. The picture looks like it was literally thrown together but it really did taste far more appetising than it looks, I swear!

15-Minute Greek Beef Salad Recipe

(serves 2)

Ingredients

Meat

• 250g beef schnitzel
• 1t ground coriander
• 1/4t chilli powder
• 1t ground cumin
• 2t garlic, finely chopped

Salad

• 4 large handfuls mixed greens
• 1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2TBSP coriander, chopped finely
• 1 spring onion, chopped finely
• (I also used alfalfa sprouts I needed to use up)
• 1/2 medium cucumber (I didn’t have any but it would’ve worked really well)

Dressing

• 3TBSP Cannellini Feta Hummus
• 1TBSP plain unsweetened yoghurt
• 1tsp lemon juice
• water to dilute to a pourable consistency if needed

• 2TBSP sweet chilli sauce
• freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Slice beef into strips
2. Massage ground coriander, cumin, chilli & garlic into beef and set aside (I just put the meat back into the meat tray)
3. Place mixed greens on two plates and prepare tomatoes, coriander and chilli
4. Mix hummus dressing ingredients together in a small bowl until smooth, set aside
5. Heat a lug of olive oil over a medium-high heat in a fry pan
6. Fry meat until cooked then add remaining salad ingredients (tomato, coriander and spring onion), toss to combine
7. Place meat mixture on top of mixed greens and top with hummus dressing and sweet chilli sauce
8. Grind over black pepper

Almond Butter, Pancakes, Salmon and Hummus

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone mad – I’m not considering putting the ingredients in the title together! Yesterday morning started disastrously – my beloved almond butter smashed onto the kitchen tiles. Thankfully the stickiness of the almond butter meant that most of the glass attached itself to the giant glob of nut butter. Not cool.

To console myself I made a new egg white and oat pancake recipe topped with banana, toasted coconut, pineapple and a tiny bit of almond butter I managed to save. The toppings were amazing but the pancakes were so so, so no recipe to share for them. I’ve seen so many recipes online with egg whites and oats blended together to make a healthy, protein-filled pancake but there is no disguising the egg. The pancakes had an ‘omlettey’ texture, nothing like the spongy pancakes I prefer.

For lunch I made a Salmon Noodle Bowl by Faith at An Edible Mosaic. You must give this a go. The noodle bowl is very simple to prepare and looks impressive. You just simmer the noodles, saute the vegetables in a garlic-ginger-honey glaze and then add the fried salmon on the top. For the vegetables, I used bok choy (80 cents at my local FruitWorld – what a bargain), carrot and half an onion. Next time I’d probably two bok choy as I prefer lots of green stuff! I used whole grain spaghetti instead of noodles because it is what I had on hand but soba noodles would have been better. You could even use rice noodles and make it gluten-free.

Today’s lunch was also very satisfying. I made a sandwich using homemade cannellini and feta hummus. I adapted this recipe from Caitlyn’s Holly Deliciousness Hummus and it was super good. Adding feta is actually genius. It took all of two minutes to throw the ingredients in the blender to being able to spread this on my sandwich.

Cannellini Feta Hummus Recipe (adapted from Caitlyn’s Holly Deliciousness Hummus)

Ingredients

• 1 can of cannellini beans
• 1TBSP tahini
• 1tsp garlic, minced
• 50g feta, crumbled
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 TBSP water
• 1 tsp dried capscicum flakes (optional)
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Drain and rinse cannellini beans
2. Add beans and all other ingredients (apart from salt and pepper) to blender
3. Blend until smooth and creamy
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper
5. Try not to eat too much and give yourself a tummy ache like I did – it’s quite rich!

This recipe is definitely a keeper. Next time I’m going to add sun dried tomatoes and basil. This definitely beats store-bought hummus!

Holy Deliciousness Hummus