Straight from the ‘Coles Feed Your Family’ online page, this steak recipe is by former Masterchef contestant Michael Weldon. An easy variation of a simple meal with some added flavours while being high in protein and rich in vitamins and minerals.
Ingredients (serves 4):
4Scotch Fillet steaks
2tbspolive oil
60gbutter
4sprigsthyme
2clovesgarlic, crushed
150mlred wine
1tbspbrown sugar
250 gGravox Traditional Gravy Single Tub
1tbspred wine vinegar
500gkale, stalks removed (or
1 1/2tbsplemon juice
800gbaby washed potatoes, chopped, steamed, to serve
Method:
Season the steaks with salt and pepper. Brush with half the oil. Heat a frying pan over high heat until very hot. Add the steaks and cook for 2 minutes. Turn and add the butter, thyme and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes for medium rare or until cooked to your liking. Baste the steak with pan juices. Transfer to a plate. Cover with foil and set aside for 5 minutes to rest.
Meanwhile, combine the red wine and sugar in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Cook until the liquid reduces by 2/3 and the mixture is slightly syrupy. Add the Gravox and red wine vinegar. Stir over low heat to warm through. Remove from heat. Cover to keep warm.
Heat the remaining oil and kale in a large saucepan over high heat. Stir until kale has wilted. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
To serve, place the wilted kale on the plate. Top with steak and drizzle with the red wine sauce. Serve with steamed potatoes
A real winter favourite with the addition of ginger which is rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties.
Ingredients:
o 1 large shallot (about 50g), peeled, cut in half
o 1 long red chilli (about 10g), cut in half
o 8cm-piece fresh ginger (about 30g), peeled, coarsely chopped
o 3 cloves garlic, peeled
o 2 limes, zest and juice separated
o 1/2 punnet fresh coriander (about 8g), leaves and stems separated
o 1 tablespoon canola oil
o 3 medium carrots, peeled, sliced
o 900g Kent pumpkin, peeled, seeded, cut into 3cm pieces
o 5 cups chicken stock or water
o 400ml can coconut milk
Method:
1. In a food processor, blend the shallot, chilli, ginger, garlic, lime zest and coriander stems to form a paste-like mixture.
2. Heat a medium heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add the oil and paste and cook for 2 mins or until mixture is fragrant. Add the carrots, pumpkin, stock and all but 2 tablespoons of the coconut milk. Cover and bring to a simmer. Cook for 20 mins or until vegetables are tender.
3. Using a blender, and working in batches, puree the soup with 2 tablespoons of lime juice until smooth and creamy. Season with salt. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with remaining coconut milk and coriander leaves.
Zucchini slices are a great way to add more vegetables into your overall diet, especially when served with a side salad. They make for a great lunch, dinner, or snack, and are perfect for your weekly food preps. One of my personal favourites!
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Ingredients:
2 zucchinis
4 eggs
2 spring onions thinly sliced
1 carrot
1 red capsicum
175g packet of short cut bacon
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup grated cheese of your choice (this was mozzarella)
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Side salad: baby spinach, rocket, cherry tomatoes, spring onion, sunflower kernels
Method:
Pre heat oven to 180 degrees. Grease a 20cm x 30cm lamington pan and line the base and 2 long sides with baking paper.
Place the zucchini, carrot, capsicum, spring onion, bacon, cheese and flour in a large bowl and stir to combine. Add the egg, milk and oil and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake for 40 mins or until firm to the touch. Set aside to cool. Cut into squares. Serve with side salad
Step 1: Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add the coconut milk and water and bring to the boil.
Step 2: Reduce heat to low. Add the chicken, pumpkin and lime leaves and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes or until pumpkin is tender. Add the beans, peas, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes or until the beans are bright green and tender crisp.
Step 3: Serve with rice. Top with Thai basil leaves.
This was an enjoyable afternoon snack for me last week; vita wheat crackers with cucumber, smoked salmon, cottage cheese with some cracked pepper and Tabasco sauce.
Vita wheat crackers are wholegrain based so provide a good source of fibre and carbohydrates, while the smoked salmon contains B vitamins and minerals such as magnesium and selenium which aid your metabolism. Cottage cheese is not only a complete source of protein, but also is a great source of calcium which is crucial for bone health.
Change your serving size to suit your personal needs and enjoy!
Kebabs, couscous, haloumi, and chilli. Four things I love! An easy recipe with a good amount of protein and flavour which doesn’t keep you in the kitchen for very long. Check it out below.
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For the Couscous salad:
Method:
1. Bring stock to boil in a saucepan over high heat. Place couscous in a large bowl and pour the boiling stock over. Stir through with a fork. Leave covered for 5 minutes and stir through with a fork again to separate the grains.
2. Cut up haloumi into smaller pieces. Heat saucepan with oil over medium heat, and add haloumi. Cook for approximately 1-2 minutes each side or until golden brown.
3. Add haloumi to couscous along with spring onions, chilli, and chickpeas.
4. Make the dressing: whisk lemon rind, 1/4 cup lemon juice, paprika and oil in a bowl until properly combined.
5. Pour dressing over salad. Serve!
For the chicken kebabs:
Method:
1. Preheat a BBQ or pan on medium high, cook the kebabs while turning until properly cooked through.
This breakfast/dessert idea is so simple a recipe is hardly needed. Here’s how it was done anyway.
Serves 1
1 ripe banana, peeled
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons fruit jam or preserves
2 tablespoons sliced almonds or other nuts OR granola as is in the photo
1/4 cup fresh berries or other fresh fruit
Split the banana lengthwise and lay the two halves in a shallow bowl. Scoop out the yogurt and put it on top of the banana. Warm the jam in the microwave for 15 to 30 seconds or until it is very runny.
Use a spoon to drizzle the jam over the yogurt, and sprinkle the granola/nuts over everything. Top with raspberries/blueberries and dig in!
Using wholemeal pasta for extra fibre (more than double fibre content of normal pasta), we combined basil flavoured tuna with a bunch of vegetables to make this. Pasta is more calorie dense than other foods and is often vilified, but eaten in a sensible serving is completely fine.
May have included a couple of Tim Tams for dessert… 😉
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Ingredients:
500g wholemeal pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 stalks of spring onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
120g baby spinach
1/4 cup basil pesto
4 95g cans of Sirena Basil Infused Tuna
grated light mozzarella cheese to coat
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, following packet directions, until tender. Drain.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onions, garlic and celery. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until onion is soft. Add tomatoes. Cook for 2 minutes. Add spinach and pesto. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until spinach just wilts. Add pasta to pan with tuna (undrained). Season with salt and pepper. Toss gently to combine.
3. Spoon mixture into a ceramic baking dish. Top with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and golden. Stand for 5 minutes before serving.
Topped with sweet potato rather than it’s white alternative, this added some extra sweetness and fibre to an already delicious meal.
A good source of protein, carbohydrates, fibre, with a variety of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), this pie was a delicious choice for warming the stomach during the cooler evenings of August.
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Ingredients:
500g extra lean beef mince 2 tblp olive oil 2 diced onions 4 crushed garlic cloves 2 tblp Worcestershire sauce 2 stalks celery sliced 2 carrots, chopped into small pieces 1 can diced tomatoes 1 cup corn kernels 1 cup beef stock 1 tblp dried oregano 1 tsp each of thyme & rosemary 1 handful of chopped parsley cracked pepper
Topping:
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut 1/4 cup low fat milk 1 tblp butter salt and pepper for seasoning
Method:
1. Steam your potatoes until soft. Mash with milk and butter until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. 2. In pot or pan, heat olive oil and sauté onions until soft. 3. Add carrot, celery, and continue to cook for a further 5 or so minutes. 4. Add mince, cooking through. 5. Season with thyme, rosemary, garlic, oregano, pepper and worcestershire sauce. 6. Once all cooked, add diced tomatoes, stock, corn and parsley. Simmer for 30 minutes. 7. Preheat oven to 180C 8. Add meat mixture to an oven proof dish and top with sweet potato mixture. 9. Bake in oven for 20-30min until bubbling. 10. Serve with steamed vegetables or peas.
I’m sure many of you are familiar with, have seen or have heard of the glycemic index (GI).You know, those commercials and food labels that tell you why a particular food is more healthy because it is ‘low GI’. In short, the GI is a measure of how quickly a given food can raise blood sugar. The test is done solely on a specific carbohydrate food with a score between 1-100.
High GI foods such as sugar, white potatoes, cereal etc raise blood sugar more quickly, thus are scored higher. Low GI foods such as whole grains, nuts and vegetables do not cause the same rises in blood sugar, so are scored lower… But, do all the meals we consume only consist of high GI foods, or low GI foods? No. They are often a mix of both.
Consuming a high GI food (for example white potatoes) as part of a mixed meal of lower GI foods (vegetables, legumes) with a lean protein, would more than likely mean the overall GI of the meal is quite low. The vegetables and legumes in this case may slow the digestion of the white potatoes.
What does this mean for you?
Well, while you may see a lot of marketing to do with high GI and low GI foods, or have heard of people cutting out potatoes because of their GI score, just remember the GI index should not govern someone’s carbohydrate choices exclusively. Many different types of food both low and high GI have a wide range of vitamins and minerals which can benefit your health.
Eat a variety of whole and minimally processed foods and enjoy what is on your plate!
The protein source I opted for on this occasion was salmon for a source of Omega 3s (or ‘healthy fats’ as some people may know it by), which is an essential fatty acid the body can’t produce itself, so must be consumed through foods. As Omega 3s are known to fight disease and promote healthy joints, it’s not a bad choice.
The accompanying salad was a mix of my favourite greens and a sweeter addition in semi dried tomatoes, topped with pine nuts, which were all a good fibre source.
Salmon is one of my favourite meals, but everyone has their own food preferences. Eat to suit your needs and preferences and remember to try to keep consuming a variety of foods to meet your macronutrient and micronutrient needs!
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FYI here is the recipe with approximate ingredients:
Crispy Skin Salmon with Semi-Dried Tomato Salad
Ingredients:
100g spinach
50g rocket
60g beans
semi-dried tomatoes
2 tablespoons pinenuts
olive oil
salt and cracked black pepper
2 teaspoons chives
2 x 200g salmon fillets
Mix salad into a bowl. Season the salmon skin with salt.
Heat 1 table spoon olive oil in a medium non stick frying pan over medium high heat. Place the salmon in the pan, skin side down, and cook for 3-4 minutes or until the skin is golden and crispy. Turn the salmon and cook for a further 2 minutes or until your liking.
To serve, arrange the salad on a serving plate and add the salmon.
Healthy eating doesn’t have to mean you avoid the foods you love, nor does it have to mean hours and hours of food prep. Check out this recipe below for a simple and easy to prepare Thai dish (who doesn’t like Thai food?) which contains a great mix of macronutrients, and most importantly is delicious!
Method:
Step 1: Heat half the oil in a wok over high heat until just smoking. Add the almonds and stir-fry for 1 minute or until golden. Transfer to a heatproof bowl.
Step 2: Add half the chicken to the wok and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until brown. Transfer the chicken to the bowl with the almonds. Repeat with the remaining chicken, reheating wok between batches.
Step 3: Heat the remaining oil in the wok. Add the onion, broccolini, chilli and garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until the broccolini is bright green and tender crisp. Add almonds, chicken, shallot and chilli jam and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until heated through.
Step 4: Spoon the stir-fry among serving bowls. Sprinkle with basil and serve with steamed rice.
