Veal Rollups

I feel kind of bad being negative about this recipe, because it is one of the ones submitted to the cook books by people who have done TF, but I just couldn’t make this work for me, not while I was cooking it and not while I was eating it.

Maybe it’s because I have been spoilt by the spice laden recipes that are common in the books, but while the flavor wasn’t bad, it wasn’t very interesting. I tried it with thyme and I think that basil would have worked a bit better. I also had way too many vegetables for the meat I had, even though I was following the recipe. When I put them in the frying pan they came open and it all went everywhere, I guess I should have assumed I should put toothpicks in too keep it closed, even though the recipe didn’t say too.

I think this is definitely a different way to present meat a veg to yourself, and presentation definitely helps to alleviate boredom, but I don’t think I will be doing this one again any time soon.

Pork Skewers with Stir Fried Vegetables

So after a few weeks off I am back trying to focus on TF, and back cooking regularly from the TF books. At the beginning of this week I put together a menu by writing down all the recipes I was up to and choosing the ones I was going to cook at random. I ended up with a list of recipes that I have actually been avoiding because they didn’t look very interesting or too hard etc. So far I have had one hit and one miss, and these pork skewers were definitely a hit!

I have decided that Five Spice is my favorite spice mix! It seems that anything with this mix on it tastes amazing. Once I accidentally spilled some into a container of almonds and they were the tastiest almonds I have eaten These skewers were no different. The recipe states to marinate the pork in five spice mix and soy sauce for 30 minutes. I miss read the recipe and added a bit more soy sauce but I don’t think that affected it too much. I’m not sure if it was the marinating or if I just managed to cook the meat perfectly but the pork was really tender, an extra bonus!

I managed to over cook the veges a little, as I have a habit of doing, and the shitake were a bit slimy, but otherwise the vegetables turned out fine. Discounting the 30 minutes that the pork was marinating for I think this meal took less than 30 minutes to finish and it tasted great!

Pan Fried Fish with Herbs

As much as I rave about how I love the multitude of flavours that some of the TF recipes have sometimes it’s nice to have something simple. Not that this recipe is at all boring, it has herbs a-plenty as well as two vegetables that are definitely interesting.

I really felt like fish tonight, so I bought some yellow tail kingfish at coles. Once I got home I decided rather than just fry it up and cook some miscellaneous veges I would find a recipe for it. I have been out all afternoon and was really tired so I wanted something simple. Book 1 is great for simple recipes, more so than any of the others, so that is where I looked.

I never used to cook fish because it was always very bland and I didn’t know what herbs/spices to use to make it more interesting. This recipe solves that my combining chives, dill, thyme and lemon juice as seasoning. This made the fish much more interesting and very tasty!

I cooked the veges – broccolini and yellow squash – together in the same dish in the microwave for 4 minutes, and surprisingly that was just right.

I really enjoyed this meal, it was quick and easy but still really tasty.

Lamb Tagine with Herbed Cauliflower Cous Cous

This meal requires a bit of time and planning. The lamb needs to be marinated ahead of time, preferably overnight, and then cooking time is around an hour, including the cauliflower.

It was all worth it of course as it tasted wonderful. It has a very rich flavour too it, and I made the “cous cous” with all the herbs and spices instead of plain and the combination still worked.

So, if you are planning out a weeks worth of meals definitely try this one. It isn’t hard and although you may have to buy some spices that aren’t common (cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, saffron) you will find that as you cook more of the recipes across the books they will get used. That has certainly been my experience. I had those three spices already, actually I am almost out of cinnamon sticks (I will never run out of bay leaves!) so don’t let that put you off cooking this recipe. The saffron is optional, it can be expensive, although I got a huge amount for $5-6 at the local supermarket, but it really adds to the flavour.

I think the “cous cous” would also make a great meal on its own if you are looking for a protein free meal. Very yummy

Creamy Coconut Curry

Firstly I have to apologise for the photos over the next couple of weeks, Gordon has gone to the states (I am SO jealous) and has taken the camera with him, so I am using my phone to take photos.

I really enjoyed cooking this recipe, and I also really enjoyed eating it. I made cauliflower rice to go with it and they went together really well.

If you feel like a stir fry this is a great one to try. I found it really easy to cook and it didn’t take long at all. The only thing that didn’t quite work was the “creamy sauce”. That may sound like a big thing to not work but it was mostly fine in the end. What happened was that the ricotta and the chicken stock didn’t really mix. I think it might work better if you mix the sauce ingredients (ricotta, stock etc) first and then put it in the wok instead of putting them in the wok and then mixing. Just an idea

Mustard Pork with Warm Tomato Salad

I often fall into old habits and end up being really bored with eating healthily. What I have learned from doing TF is that healthy food doesn’t need to be boring. There are a lot of great vegetable meals and side dishes that illustrate this, and this meal is another example that seemingly plain servings of meat can be easily made interesting.

The flavouring for the pork only took me a couple of minutes to put together, just mix equal amounts of olive oil, wholegrain mustard and then slightly less crushed garlic and it’s done. I found a lot of the paste came off while cooking but the flavour lingered on the meat. You could probably marinate the meat for longer if you wanted.

The salad was also easy to put together. Once the tomatoes were under the grill all I needed to do was but some onion and put it in a bowl with the spinach. Oh, I forgot about the beans. They needed to be blanched. I have never done this before and although I had an idea of what that entails I had to look it up on the internet to see if I had it right. Turns out I had the first part, but not the second. Blanching is essentially where you put the vegetables in boiling water, cook them for an undisclosed amount of time, and then put them in cold/icy water to halt the cooking process. I just drained the boiling water out and replaced it with cold water, which was good enough.

I liked this meal because it was quick and easy to make but still tasted great, although that does seem to cover a lot of the recipes in the cookbooks…

Week 11 Wrap Up

Ok, so it’s been a while since I did one of these, life has been a little crazy lately. The good news is that through all that I have managed to keep my weight going down, I have now lost 10.1kg I am super happy with that as I have strayed numerous times over the last few weeks, but that said, I have made mostly healthy choices when eating outside of the confines of the programs. So even though I am not losing weight fast it is steady and still going down even though I have passed the 10 week point (pretty much where I gave up last time).

Cauliflower “Fried Rice”

Even though I disagree with creating replacement meals out of weird ingredients, I have to admit that this was actually kind of like eating fried rice. Ok, so not that much like eating fried rice, but if you are desperate for a replacement this might work for you.

I made this for lunch today and it was pretty easy (although I still have to clean my blender) pretty much blend cauliflower, chop spring onion, capsicum and beans then cook. The recipe says to cook the cauliflower until golden then add the soy sauce, I don’t quite understand that, my cauliflower never went golden until after I added the soy sauce, but it was cooked properly when I served it so that’s probably the most important thing. I think I fried it for about 5 minutes, added the soy sauce and then fried for about another 5.

This was a nice lunch, and very much like comfort food. The flavour wasn’t amazing but then you wouldn’t necessarily expect that from fried rice either. I am looking forward to trying the “cous cous”, which is quite similar to this recipe.

Cauliflower & Tomato Soup

With the weather getting cooler it’s a better time than ever for cooking soups. I have mentioned before that I love stew type meals, and that goes for soups to, especially thick soups like this. If you are looking for comfort food that is healthy then this is a great option

This was the easiest meal I have made in a while, and it didn’t take particularly long either. As with most recipes the preparation takes the most time, in this case cutting the vegetables. Even this didn’t take too long so everything was cooking nice and quick. Once the liquid was in and the soup simmering I could do something else, in this case tidy the kitchen and read the book I am currently addicted too. The recipe said 20 minutes of simmering or until the veges were soft, I found that I had to give it an extra ten minutes.

The next bit was a little more complicated but not as bad as I had imagined. This is the point where the soup needs to be pureed. You will either need one of those cool hand held blending things, in which case you can leave everything in the pot, or if you have a blender you can pour the mixture into that and blend. I have a blender, and thankfully I only cooked two serves instead of four (after the last time I cooked soup and realised that my “large” pot is woefully inadequate) so it fitted in the blender – just. I didn’t have too much trouble transferring between vessels, although I did slop a little soup on my recently cleaned bench.

Once the soup was back in the pot and simmering all I had to do was add the beans, and after a few minutes the spinach, then serve.

I really liked the flavour. It was a little spicy thanks to the garam masala (which I am glad to have the opportunity to use again). All in all, very yummy, and very comforting in the cooler weather. And totally healthy

Crab & Lemongrass Broth

I have been looking forward to cooking this for ages, but it seemed like it would be hard, it turned out to be less challenging than I imagined.

Finding crab was a bit of an issue. I had originally decided to get a fresh crab, which would have been an adventure in itself as I have never had fresh crab before. But I decided that I would be left with a whole tonne of crab that I didn’t need. So I looked at the tinned crab at the supermarket and as it was only 71% crab I didn’t really want to get that. In the end I found some crab in the packaged meat section that was just crab and not extra brine etc.

Once I had everything cut up this was pretty easy, just a matter of adding everything in. Almost. The recipe asks for lemongrass and ginger but it doesn’t say how to prepare them, eg sliced, crushed etc. I looked online at some similar recipes and the majority called for thinly sliced, so I went with that. That didn’t turn out quite right as both the lemongrass and the ginger were a bit tough in the soup and upset the texture of the whole thing.

The other problem was with the crab. The recipe said to mix with an egg white which I think was so it would stick together a bit like dumplings. My crab broke apart, which I don’t really mind. I think it was because I was cooking this for one, so the broth was quite shallow.

Overall this was such a flavourful dish, I really enjoyed it, even if it was quite spicy. I would definitely make this again.