Carbonation Levels May Vary

See this trail of damp spots across the carpet?…

Turns out I should have read the label before deciding to shake my drink. There was a bit of sediment on the bottom and I thought I would mix it in. Bad idea. The part where it says it is carbonated might have warned me about the huge explosion of bubbles that sent me running towards the door.

I tried another another drink from ieProduce, a health store nearby, today. Other bloggers have written about how delicious some kombucha teas are and they are meant to have lots of health benefits so I thought it would be a good, healthful treat for another sunny, spring day.

Once I got past the off-putting colour and the explosion of fizz on my carpet, this drink was really nice! Wikipedia tells me kombucha tea is made by fermenting tea. The slight yeasty taste vaguely reminded me of home-made ginger beer.

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If you check out the label (above), you’ll see that kombucha tea supposedly has many health benefits but I can’t find any scientific studies with evidence to support this. Apparently drinking this tea can actually be harmful to some people so with no proven benefits maybe it should be avoided? Shame it tastes so good – price rather than caution will probably stop me from buying it again.

Grocery Mission Aborted

I REALLY need to go grocery shopping and I REALLY don’t want to. I still haven’t done a proper food shop since my Frugal Frittata post and I thought I’d cleaned out my cupboards pretty well then. After having a look at the few items in my pantry and freezer I decided that I could make one more dinner from what i had left and it turned out better than a planned meal – win.

Usually I like to make my recipes from scratch. I like to know what’s going into my body is good and nutritious and if i make my own food I know that for sure. However, I’d bought some Taste of India Moong Dahl because I was impressed by the ingredient list (or lack thereof). It has no added chemicals, preservatives or sugar – just real food (see picture below).

Cheat’s Moong Dahl Recipe

(serves 2)

Ingredients

1 tub Taste of India Moong Dahl
1/2C frozen peas
1 1/2C frozen shrimp
1 courgette, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped roughly

Method

1. Sautee onion and courgette over a medium heat until softened and transparent
2. Add frozen shrimp
3. Once shrimp is heated through, add Moong Dahl
4. When mixture is hot add frozen peas

I don’t think you can get a much faster, quicker and tastier dinner recipe than that! I served mine with unsweetened yogurt and mango chutney. If you like your food with a bit of kick you might want to add some chilli to the onion and courgette mix at step one.

My First Green Monster

Angela from Oh She Glows started the Green Monster Movement to spread the word about nutrient and energy packed green smoothies she makes. The smoothies have spinach/kale (which gives them their VERY green colour), banana, milk, ice and pretty much anything else you feel like throwing in like chia seeds, flax seeds, supplement powders, coconut milk etc. Apparently you can’t even taste the green stuff…

Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept of a green monster but the thing I just couldn’t get my head around was that they are GREEN. After some excessive Friday night fruit pie eating, I felt like a healthy kick after my workout this morning and the bag of spinach in the fridge was staring me down so I decided I’d finally try my first Green Monster. I used spinach, banana, oats, vanilla whey powder, milk and yogurt.

The smoothie tasted great! It was sweet and smooth. If you were colour-blind you would have no idea it had veges packed into it! Apparently if you are concerned about your iron intake you can steam the spinach first to make it easier for your body to absorb but I didn’t bother with this.

Mim’s Green Monster Smoothie Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 generous handfuls of spinach
• 1/4C trim milk
• 1/4C unsweetened yogurt
• 1 very ripe banana
• 1 scoop protein powder
• 1/4C rolled oats
• ice

I didn’t add ice because I was concerned my feeble excuse of a blender wouldn’t cope, but I should’ve definitely either refrigerated or frozen my banana beforehand or added ice because it was a bit warm. I can’t wait to try this smoothie again with different ingredients. I think a peanut butter-banana smoothie may work quite nicely!

Hello world!

Here goes – welcome to my blog!

Cooking nightly meals for myself nightly, I often find myself wanting to share with others what I have put together in the kitchen. I’ve been thinking for over a year now that I’d love to start a blog to show others my cooking successes, fails and crazy experiments.

Since stumbling across Kath Eats in 2008 while looking for a healthy baked oatmeal recipe I’ve become a regular reader of many healthy living blogs, all written by overseas bloggers. As inspiring (and delicious) as all the recipes and posts are, it’s frustrating reading about foods that won’t be in season for another 6 months and products that we can’t get in NZ!

Hopefully I’ll post some delicious (and mostly healthful) food ideas on here and share a little bit about what I get up to aswell.