Cabbage/Minced meat soup

Healhty, tasty, filling, WLC food!

Cabbage/Minced meat soup

600g minced (lean) meat
3 carrots
1 white cabbage (approx 800g)
4 Cloves of garlic
1 small leek
1 Onion
2-3 Chillies (whole fresh)
Salt
Black Pepper
White Pepper
Marjoram
Paprika powder
Basil
Fresh parsley

• Chop the cabbage and start boiling. While boiling, peel and chop the carrots and leek and add in with 1 peeled whole garlic cloves and 2-3 whole chilies (depends how spicy you want it). Add Salt and Marjoram (dried). If you have dried Basil add in too. I had spare half of red pepper so added it in too :)

 

• Fry the minced meat together with onion and 3 crushed cloves of garlic,  add salt, white and black pepper and paprika powder until cook until the meat is fully cooked

• Mix the minced meat into the soup and let boil on low heat for 30mins
• Add chopped fresh parsley and pepper/salt/spices to your taste 

Meatballs

• 500g minced meat
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• salt
• black pepper
• hot paprika powder
• Dried herb mix *not mandatory
• 1/4 dl olive oil
• 2 eggs

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl

Use your washed bare hands to roll meatballs to about the size of a golf ball
Place onto a baking tray and cook in the oven for 30/40mins in 200C

Served with the usual veggie bash and spinach/avocado salad

Sea bass with Veggie Mash and mushrooms

• Sea bass fillets
• Sweet potatoes/Turnips
• Mushrooms
• Red Onion
• Fresh Dill
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Lemon

Fry the seasoned sea bass on olive oil from both sides starting from the skin side.
I a separate pan Saute red onion and mushrooms in olive oil until cooked.



Veggies mash

• Boil peeled sweet potatoes and (turnips)
• Once boiled pour the water away, add a knob of butter and mash

Happy Halloween! Carrot /Beetroot balls

Carrot/Beetroot balls and asparagus

• 4 Carrots
• 1 Turnip
• 1 beetroot
• 4 cloves of garlic
•  Onion
• Olive Oil
• 2 Eggs

Grate all the veggies (Food processor comes handy if you have one)
Add in chopped garlic and onion and mix together
Add egg and 2tbs of Olive Oil and season with salt, black pepper, chilli powder and basil (dry or fresh)
Stir well.
Wet your hands and from the mix shape small balls and place onto a baking tray
Cook in the oven for approx 30-40minutes in 180C

Ready to go to the oven!

Served with boiled asparagus and tomato/rocket salad

And a little bit of Halloween!

Mackerel with Veggie Mash

Mackerel with veggies mash 

• 2 small whole mackerels
• I suggest you ask the mackerel to be gutted and head removed, but if you forgot (like we did), it is not difficult to gut  a mackerel. Check instruction videos from Internet
• Once gutted and head removed, season with salt and black pepper and place few lemon slices inside the fish. We had some extra basil leafs so put few in too.
• Rub a little olive oil onto the skin and cook in the oven for approx 30minues

Served with boiled asparagus, veggie mash (sweet potato and carrots) and tomato/rocket salad

Veggies mash

• Boil peeled chopped carrots, sweetpotatoes and (turnips)
• Once boiled pour the water away, add a knob of butter and mash

Smoked haddock, Hummus and Veggies

Super easy week day dinner!

Fillets of smoked haddock (got from tesco)

• Place on a oven try and cook for 30mins

Served with hummus, boiled broccoli and tomato/basil/rocket salad

   Hummus

•  2 cloves garlic
•  2 cans of organic chickpeas
•  1/4 liquid from one can of chickpeas
•  3-5 tablespoons lemon juice (taste before adding full 5 spoonfuls!)
•  2-3 tablespoons tahini (Needs to be organic to be WLC compliant! 
•  Tahini*You can get it from Waitrose. You can store in in fridge and it will stay good for several weeks. Alternatively you can make a larger portion of hummus and freeze it in small portions using freezer bags)
•  1 teaspoon salt
•  black pepper to taste
•  2 tablespoons olive oil

Place everything into a bowl (garlic chopped) and with a hand blender mix till smooth paste. That's it! Who said hummus is difficult to make!?

Tomato Soup - dairy/wheat free

This soup turned out really nicely! I'd recommend to double the ingredients to make bigger soup

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
a handful of fresh basil leaves picked
olive oil
1kg of tomatoes (as ripe as possible)

• Put your onion, garlic and basil into a large pot with a couple of lugs of olive oil
• Cover the pan, and simmer gently without colouring for 20 minutes, stirring every now and then. 
• While the veg are simmering, drop the tomatoes into boiling water for 30 seconds, then remove the skin. 

Add these to the veg and let simmer for a further 20 minutes with the lid on, press the tomatoes gently so they break. 

Purée the soup using a food processor, but be careful as it is very hot

 Once you've puréed the soup, put it back into the pan, bring it back to a simmer, and season very carefully with chopped basil leave, salt and black pepper.

Chestnut and Mushroom burgers

2 garlic cloves
1 large onion
butter
200g mushrooms
200g cooked/peeled whole chestnuts (available in Waitrose, Porter Foods Organic whole chestnuts)
fresh thyme
salt and pepper

• Melt the butter and add onion and cook until lightly brown
• Add garlic and thyme and simmer for 5mins
• Chop the mushrooms and half of the chestnuts  - safe the other half

• Add to the pan, simmer till the mushrooms are cooked, season to taste
• Place half of the mixture from pan into a bowl
• Spoon the remaining into a food processor and add the rest of the chestnuts and one egg
• Mix to make a stiff paste (can have small bits in it)
• Combine both of the mixtures and with washed wet hands shape into approx 10 flat burgers
• Grill on medium heat for 10minutes 

Served with veggie mash, boiled mini carrots and rocket

Salmon Side

When you buy a 1kg salmon side, instead of cooking it in the oven, you can split it into two and grill it.
Just slice the other side in to 4 slides, season with sea salt and pepper and grill on very hot pan
You could grill all of the slides (whole 1kg) in one go but that takes more time and it tastes much better when done just before eating.

Served with boiled broccoli/cauliflower and saute green peas/onion seasoned with pepper and oil

Served with veggie mash (sweet potato/turnip) and tomato/capers/avocado salad

Pan-Fried Hake fillets, squid and veggies

Easy Friday meal

Pan-Fried Hake fillets
Salt/Pepper/Dill and Olive Oil
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the seasoned hake fillets, skin side down.
Fry the hakes for five minutes on each side, or until golden brown and cooked through. A
Sprinkle some fresh dill to garnish
(Tip: As you don't use these kind of herbs every day, buy a bigger bunch, chop it and froze it in a freezer bag on the day of the purchase. You can then add the herb to your dishes. As its chopped you don't need to defrost if you will add it too cooking. If you want to add it to ready meals like this time just take it out from the freezer at the beginning of the cooking and its defrosted when you're about to serve the meal)

Squid with garlic and onions
This is the simplest way to serve squid. It’s great as a starter but it can be served as a small side dish too (like we did)

• 300 gms squid cleaned (you can ask your squid to be cut into rings already too)
• 3 chopped garlic
• Small bunch of Fresh coriander (we did not have this time so used parsley)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sautee garlic and onion, add seasoned squid rings a until fully cooked


Served with greens and boiled cauliflower and tomato/rocket salad

Rib Eye Steak with Veggie Mash

Another go with the rib eye steak, check another try here- link :)
Veggie mash (the usual recipe here)
Some fried onions and rib eye steak (just salt and blackpepper)
Boiled green beans and that's it!
Served with some yummy guacamole (it really goes with any meat)

Trout with Veggie Mash

Waitrose has these great oven bags, so I decided to try it out. You could also by your own oven bag, season the fish and that's it. When choosing your fish ensure to ask it to be scaled, guts removed and de-boned. After that you can salt the fish, add lemon or herbs inside the fish and either grill or roast in oven, simple!
When selecting the fish, it should look moist, shiny, well-rounded and not dry or dull looking. A general rule is to cook a fish 10 minutes for each inch of thickness.

Veggie mash
Boil peeled carrots, sweetpotatoes and turnips, once boiled pour the water away, add a knob of butter and mash

Served with broccoli and re-take of CurryCoconut Veggies

'Re-take' CurryCoconut Veggies

• Baby spinach leafs
• Beansprouts
• Half Onion
• Garlic
• Tomato puree (needs to be organic, check that its pure tomato, nothing added in!)
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Curry powder
• Sesame seed oil (not mandatory but will bring a very nice flavor!)
• Cherry Tomatoes (not mandatory)

1. Chop onion, garlic and sautee briefly in olive oil/2 teaspoons tomato puree
2. Add chopped spinach, beansprouts, sesame oil (approx 1 teaspoon) add olive oil if gets too dry. Season with curry, salt, pepper. 
3. Add cherry tomatoes if you have
4. 
   

Plaice with guacamole

Plaice with guacamole:
served with boiled broccoli and sweet potato/carrot/turnip mash

• Plaice fillets
• spring onion
• dill

Spread some olive oil or butter into an oven dish
Place fillets onto the dish, sprinkle salt, black pepper, dill and sprinkle some olive oil. The add shopped spring onions on top of the fillets, 170C for 20mins.

Guacamole:

• 1 fresh chillies
•  2 limes (We used half lemon)
• 2-3 avocados (depends on size), ripe!
• Small bunch of fresh coriander 
• 1 clove of garlic
• 4 spring onions (we used half of regular onion) 
• Olive oil 
• Handful of cherry tomatoes (we used 3 small regular tomatoes)

• Chop onion and put into food processor with coriander, chili, peeled clove of garlic and the juice of some of the lemon or lime (don't put too much as you an easily over do, easier to add afterwards if needed)
• Add good drizzle of olive oil. 
• Mix up in the food processor and peeled and stoner avocados and quarter tomatoes
• Mix until chunky or as smooth as you want

Roasted rump steak

For a easy Sunday meal we bought 600grams of rump steak and roasted in the oven (roasted as it was, nothing added in!)
Here is is, out from oven and just cut into slices

Served with mashed sweet potato/carrot/parsnip mash

Week day easy dinner- Whole Life Challenge

Dinner; Oven Roasted Chicken Drumsticks with fresh tomato slices (sprinkled with chia seeds) and boiled broccoli/cabbage (once the broccoli is almost boiled add just few cabbage leafs as those just need few minutes to boil)-
This is dead easy dinner!

• Season the chicken with hot paprika powder, salt, black pepper
• Smear some olive oil to the chicken
• Bake, uncovered, until done, about 50 minutes.

Breakfast

• pear/orange puree
• roasted pork (prepared earlier this week), see blog from 18/09
• kale fritatta (free sample pack from Evolve), Will try to make this myself! (bought some kale already)
• http://www.evolveprimal.com/kale-and-red-onion-fritatta/

Whole Life Challenge Cooking

Wanted to try something 'every day'-food but with a twist. Decided to go for beetroot meatballs and these turned out very nicely!

Beetroot meatballs - oven baked
- Served with mashed cauliflower/Yam Mash
- Boil 3 small beetroots (peeled), and be careful as they are pretty messy and you don't want the colour to stick everywhere! Stay in one place while peeling! :)
- Chop 1 onion and 3-4 garlic cloves straight into a food processor
- Add approx 300-400grams of raw minced meat
- Add 3 eggs
- Cut the boiled beetroots into three/four pieces and add in.
- Season with salt, black and white pepper and if you have fresh parsley add it in too
- Mix everything with the food processor. The mixture should not be too mushy so keep an eye on the food processor, it mixes it really fast!

- With washed hands take a small portion and shape into a small ball and place it onto a try covered with Non-Stick Baking Paper.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes

For the Cauliflower and Yam mash (my first time to cook yam)
- Boil separately as yam will take much longer to boil
- Ensure you are not boiling yam in too big pieces as it will take longer
- Once Yam is boiled too, mix together and mash

This was a new taste for us, my hubby liked it. I recon it was better on the next day (luckily cooked enough tonight to have leftovers for next days lunch)

Important! As breadcrumbs cannot be used, ensure you don't pack the tray too full as the meatballs might let a bit of liquid out while in the oven (as the beetroot is bit watery). But don't panic if that happens, at least for me it happened but the liquid stayed around the meatball and dried out there, hence easy to move after the meatballs are ready :)
I place another tray underneath the tray just in case though to catch any  (all stayed on top luckily as dried fast)
Not sure how these would have turned out if fried?! I felt lazy after work so oven was the easy option :)

Ready to go to the oven!

Struggling during the day - Whole Life Challenge

The last two days have been quite hard during the day, it seems we are not eating enough during lunch and we have decided really to start cooking larger amounts so we can take lunch from the leftovers.
Also general tiredness/weakness has been around and by reading from other Whole Life Challenge participants more or less everyone are feeling the same, but its should get better hopefully. We have slept very well, me even too well, it has been really hard to get up during the last three days.

We bought a pork joint to have something different for breakfast to go with the smoothie, this time pear/banana, tasted really nice. The pork joint is so easy, you just need to roast it (don't add salt). It will be enough for few days, and it is best (in our opinion) when enjoyed cold with a little salt sprinkled over.
Tried Orange puree too (remember you cannot drink orange juice, cannot squeeze the juice out from the pulp! BUT you can put the peeled orange into a blender and have the puree. Tried mango/blueberry smoothie too and it was really yummy and something different.
Ran out of almond milk :( so need to do more during the weekend, will take pictures this time!

For dinner we had the leftovers from the yesterday's chicken and made some Hummus.
We were lucky to find some natural Tahini (sesame-seed paste) from Waitrose, made it much quicker:

We made our hummus from dried chickpeas (not sure if canned are allowed?)
Roasted Chicken, TomatoSalad with Hummus

Hummus;

• 1 cups dried chickpeas (the smallest you can find)
• 1/2 cup tahini
• juice from 1 squeezed lemons
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• salt
• olive oil
• parsley (not mandatory)
• paprika powder (not mandatory)

1. Wash the chickpeas until the water is transparent
2. Soak them in clean water over night 
3. Rinse the peas
4. Put the chickpeas into a food processor and grind well. Leave it to chill a little while
5. Add the tahini and the rest of the ingredients and go on with the food processor until you get the desired texture. 
6. If the Humus is too thick, add some of the cooking water. It should be thinner than the actual desired texture.
7. Sprinkle Parsley/Paprika Powder over the hummus
8. Serve with Olive Oil (With spoon press a whole to the hummus and pour in a bit of olive oil)

We froze the leftover hummur in freezer bags, easy and quick!

Roasted Chicken

Roasted Chicken
We got the chicken from Tesco and it was already washed and trussed, making things faster.
We tucked in 5-6 garlic cloves, 1xfresh chili and third of a lemon.
Sprinkled with salt and pepper, then smeared some olive oil over the skin of the chicken, sprinkled again salt and pepper and that's it. Just matter of waiting to roast in oven.
We like shredding the chicked once roasted instead of keeping it in pieces (just odd habit, lol)
The chicken was served with sauteed spinach and sun dried tomatoes (to ensure it is allowed in whole life challenge, we bought sun dried tomatoes, that had to be soaked approx for 20mins
http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductView-10317-10001-10762-Waitrose+Cooks%27+ingredients+sundried+tomatoes

Sauteed spinach

• 4 chopped garlic cloves saute until softened
• Add in spinach leafs until wilted
• Season with salt and pepper to taste
• We added a bit of almond milk and let it lightly boil 

What do we have for lunch?
We had beef stew leftover on one day but on other two we had to go for Pret for so called sandwhich without bread  (http://www.pret.com/our_food/)
'No Bread Crayfish & Avocado' is a favourite. Also some fruits during the day
Need to start cooking bigger amounts to ensure we have some leftovers to take for lunch

Work week begings with new challenge on board

So far we have adjusted to the new rhythm quite well, it is all down to planning and shopping the right ingredients and have them available in your fridge.
Breakfast was a boiled egg, slice of bacon and a smoothie. Will try to limit bacon and eggs for 3-4 for times a week (a lot of articles and research available on if eggs are healthy, bad for you or what..) as it has the risk of raising cholesterol..and bacon for obvious reasons of course. When following Whole Life Challenge diet it is important that the bacon is sugar free (as funny as it sounds), many of the bacons have added sugars.

For dinner we made a stew from beef.
Beef stew:

• Sightly fry the beef cubes (approx 600grams) to get some color (not to cook)
• Place to a stew pot
• Add in 4-5 cloves of garlic (peeled), 1 fresh chili, 1-2 onions, few button mushrooms, carrots, parsnips (or whatever veggies you have).

We added some tomato/basil liquid but you can do it with ordinary hot water/stock mix But it will not be near as nice!
We boiled approx 10 tomatoes (just few seconds in boiling water) so you can easily peel off the skin . Place all to the food processor with fresh basil's leafs(dry is ok too) and oregano and 1 fresh chili.
We like hot food so reduce the amount of chili if you're not into spicy food!
We had the stew in the oven almost 3 hours on low heat(with lid on), you can have it ready sooner (approx 1hr per 1kg of meat) but if you are not in a hurry let it sit on medium then on low heat and it will really bring difference to the taste.

The stew was served with beans and mashed sweet potato/carrot/Chia seed mix -- I think its start to swap carrots to something else, getting not just bored but the amount of beta carote might increase as sweet potato has very high beta carote.

STAPLE:	Maize / Corn	Rice	Wheat	Potato	Cassava	Soybean	Sweet potato	Sorghum	Yam	Plantain]
Component (per 100g portion)	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount
Water (g)	76	12	11	79	60	68	77	9	70	65
Energy (kJ)	360	1528	1419	322	670	615	360	1419	494	511
Protein (g)	3.2	7.1	13.7	2.0	1.4	13.0	1.6	11.3	1.5	1.3
Fat (g)	1.18	0.66	2.47	0.09	0.28	6.8	0.05	3.3	0.17	0.37
Carbohydrates (g)	19	80	71	17	38	11	20	75	28	32
Fiber (g)	2.7	1.3	10.7	2.2	1.8	4.2	3	6.3	4.1	2.3
Sugar (g)	3.22	0.12	0	0.78	1.7	0	4.18	0	0.5	15
Calcium (mg)	2	28	34	12	16	197	30	28	17	3
Iron (mg)	0.52	4.31	3.52	0.78	0.27	3.55	0.61	4.4	0.54	0.6
Magnesium (mg)	37	25	144	23	21	65	25	0	21	37
Phosphorus (mg)	89	115	508	57	27	194	47	287	55	34
Potassium (mg)	270	115	431	421	271	620	337	350	816	499
Sodium (mg)	15	5	2	6	14	15	55	6	9	4
Zinc (mg)	0.45	1.09	4.16	0.29	0.34	0.99	0.3	0	0.24	0.14
Copper (mg)	0.05	0.22	0.55	0.11	0.10	0.13	0.15	-	0.18	0.08
Manganese (mg)	0.16	1.09	3.01	0.15	0.38	0.55	0.26	-	0.40	-
Selenium (mcg)	0.6	15.1	89.4	0.3	0.7	1.5	0.6	0	0.7	1.5
Vitamin C (mg)	6.8	0	0	19.7	20.6	29	2.4	0	17.1	18.4
Thiamin (mg)	0.20	0.58	0.42	0.08	0.09	0.44	0.08	0.24	0.11	0.05
Riboflavin (mg)	0.06	0.05	0.12	0.03	0.05	0.18	0.06	0.14	0.03	0.05
Niacin (mg)	1.70	4.19	6.74	1.05	0.85	1.65	0.56	2.93	0.55	0.69
Pantothenic acid (mg)	0.76	1.01	0.94	0.30	0.11	0.15	0.80	-	0.31	0.26
Vitamin B6 (mg)	0.06	0.16	0.42	0.30	0.09	0.07	0.21	-	0.29	0.30
Folate Total (mcg)	46	231	43	16	27	165	11	0	23	22
Vitamin A (IU)	208	0	0	2	13	180	14187	0	138	1127
Vitamin E, alpha-tocopherol (mg)	0.07	0.11	0	0.01	0.19	0	0.26	0	0.39	0.14
Vitamin K (mcg)	0.3	0.1	0	1.9	1.9	0	1.8	0	2.6	0.7
Beta-carotene (mcg)	52	0	0	1	8	0	8509	0	83	457
Lutein+zeazanthin (mcg)	764	0	0	8	0	0	0	0	0	30
Saturated fatty acids (g)	0.18	0.18	0.45	0.03	0.07	0.79	0.02	0.46	0.04	0.14
Monounsaturated fatty acids (g)	0.35	0.21	0.34	0.00	0.08	1.28	0.00	0.99	0.01	0.03
Polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	0.56	0.18	0.98	0.04	0.05	3.20	0.01	1.37	0.08	0.07

Food planning

Second day and it is clear that all food needs more planning than usual, not meaning it is more complex to prepare but to ensure fridge is fitted with food for each meal. We are actually getting excited about this and already researching recipes and what food ingredients are on the 'Allowed' list that we have never in our life tried before (like Chia seeds)
The food processor is really needed, and as part of breakfast ever breakfast from now on will include one small glass of some sort of smoothie.
So far we have tested the basic flavours Strawberry and Banana and also Strawberry/Banana with fresh coconut!
My hubby spend quite some time opening it, we still have 2 to open, lol!

But it is definitely worth it, and you will not use the whole coconut in one go, we packed it to the fridge and will add few bits to smoothies over the next two/three days. It brings a nice flavor and little crunch to it.

The salmon we had in the fridge (as we only used other half yesterday), was fried on a pan and served with roasted veggies (courgette, onion sprinkle with some mixed dry herb- place on a tray, sprinkle with oil and to the oven it goes, easy and yummy)

For breakfast we fried one piece of bacon, a glass of smoothie and a new invention - Re-using the leftovers from Sweet potato/Carrot/Parsnip Mash!

Veggie Mash Breakfast 'Pancakes'

• Add two eggs to the remaining mash (more eggs if you larger amount of leftover mash)
• Mix it and shape into a burger shape and fry

This is really tasty! Looks bit like a pancake :)

We even made Almond Milk (to replace coffee milk), but unfortunately I forgot to take the pictures.
But is it really easy to make

Almond Milk

•     1 cup raw almonds - soak overnight or for at least 6 hours, ensure you have enough water in, so   that the water is 5cm more than the almonds
•     Rinse under water and discard the water where almonds were soaked
•     Mix the almonds in food processor/mixer till you have solid 'paste' sort of mixture
•     Strain the blended almond mixture using a strainer, we did that approx 4 times

Will keep well in the refrigerator for up to four days