How-to : Shortcuts to quick and thrifty dinners
Posted: January 18, 2012 Filed under: How-to | Tags: cook, food, healthy, home, Lunch, thrifty, Vegetable 7 Comments »Wouldn’t it be great if a little prep work on a sunday could mean super easy lunches and dinners the whole week through? Read on my friends!
Life is busy when you work full time, (I’m sure this isn’t coming as a surprise to anyone!) and so I try to pack a lot into the 5-9. I normally get home from work at around 5.30pm (I work 9-5 and am very fortunate that I only live a 20 minute walk away from my work – yay!) and once I’ve sorted myself out, I do an hour of activity, usually running or Just Dance-ing. Then I shower before I make dinner.
Its best for me to make very quick dinners on weeknights, since by the time I’ve done all that I’m liable to be absolutely starving and start eating anything in the kitchen. I’ve mentioned before about how I tend to buy the same staples every week which I can then turn into a variety of different meals.
THEN the other week I took another step towards being organised in the kitchen – I spent 30 minutes on a Sunday evening (when I was making another meal anyway) roasting all the veggies that I love to eat. I coat with olive or vegetable oil, salt and pepper, and then roast up :
- 2/3 quartered red onions
- 1 large sweet potato, cut into medium chunks (say 1cm cubes)
- 1 large courgette, as the sweet potato
- 3 large peppers, cut into large strips (as you would to dip in hummus)
- 1 head of broccoli (Add about half way through the cooking time)
- 10 medium mushrooms (I buy the cheapest ones and add them with about ten minutes to go)
That amount of veggies keeps me going for five lunchtimes, plus probably 3-4 evening meals.
And once they’d cooled down I added some tomato pasta sauce (I guess making it similar to ratatoille) stored them in a plastic container in my fridge and dipped into them all week. Best idea ever! Another great thing about this is that you can stretch the veggies out even further with canned tuna or beans (I like butter beans, chickpeas, kidney beans and canneloni beans) and make them into lots of lovely meals! And its super healthy because you’re getting protein too!
Here’s what I made with them
-lunch every day, one toasted pitta filled with hummus, plus veggies (no morning chopping or faffing before work, plus its filling AND cheap. I keep pittas in my freezer so they’re always on hand)
-vegetable pasta – With your veggies already cooked, you can be eating this in the time it takes to cook your spaghetti (about 4 minutes!!)
-vegetable burritos – again, so fast!
-vegetable risotto – I fried newly chopped onion with garlic and added the risotto rice and stock, and then added my cooked chopped vegetables to warm up
-quesadillas – add tuna or some kidney beans for protein (as I’ve mentioned before, the flour tortillas you can buy last FOREVER, or around a month for me anyway)
-veggie curry – simply cook your rice and heat your pre-prepared veggies up with a bought curry sauce (I always keep a stash of mini-naans in my freezer)
-chickpea and vegetable casserole with cous cous – again, you simply have to eat things and add a tomato sauce. Oh and boil some water to make the cous cous!
Not particularly attractive but hopefully you get the idea!
In case of even more extreme laziness, I also keep certain foods in my fridge and freezer so that I can eat well in spite of doing literally no cooking whatsoever, such as
- lovely soup (Covent Garden or New York soup company are the best but I only buy when they’re on offer)
- frozen veggie burgers (we get the tesco ones, they’re packed full of veggies with a breadcrumb exterior)
- frozen fishcakes
- frozen pizza! – again to be thrifty I normally only buy when they’re on offer
I hope this post has give you some inspiration on eating relatively well in spite of busyness! Let me know if you have any other shortcuts or tips I should know about!
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Easy healthy dinners : Creamy mushroom pasta
Posted: September 14, 2011 Filed under: Healthy Eating, Homemade | Tags: cook, food, healthy, home, Mushroom, pasta 4 Comments »
I love mushrooms. I hated them for the first 25 years of my life and then suddenly loved them with a passion (and no, there’s definitely no baby kerrycooks on the way to account for my sudden change of heart!). I think I just suddenly realised that mushrooms are amazingly delicious! And if you agree then this recipe is for you!
Here’s what you need to make it -
- Pasta, of your choice
- Mushrooms! and other veggies, I used red onion, pepper and courgette
- natural yoghurt
- parmesan or other cheese
- more great optional extras, a slosh of white wine, some chopped bacon or pancetta, crumbled gorgonzola mmmmmmmm
Fry all your veggies, starting with the ones that take longest to cook, over a medium heat with some olive oil and garlic.
Once you’ve got the veggies started off, put your pasta on to cook
Once your pasta is cooked, add it into the pan with the veggies and add a large dollop (technical term) of natural yoghurt. Stir in some grated parmesan (or bacon and white wine/cheese) at this ponnt too! Allow the flavours to come together on the heat for a moment and then its ready to serve!
To serve, sprinkle over some basil and some MORE cheese and enjoy!
Related articles
- Spaghetti alla puttanesca (kerrycooks.wordpress.com)
- Quick healthy dinners series : Homemade pasta (kerrycooks.wordpress.com)
- Easy healthy dinners : Tomato and chickpea curry (kerrycooks.wordpress.com)
Easy healthy dinner : Mexican bean burgers
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: Healthy Eating, Homemade | Tags: cook, dinner, food, guacamole, healthy, meal, Tortilla chip, Veggie burger 2 Comments »
I have a great fondness for (veggie) burgers and chips, but since I don’t particularly want to balloon to the size of a house, I try to ‘healthify’ burgers and chips a bit. So instead of a normal burger, I make a from-scratch veggie burger with cheddar cheese and guacamole, and instead of chips, I make tortilla chips – which are actually delicious and only 160 calories for one tortilla (which gives you enough chips for one person).
Sweet potato fries are another good alternative to chips if you’re eating healthily!
I decided to make this mexican-ified version of my veggie burgers after I was inspired by my friend Trista’s new venture Californio which sells amazing mexican food at food markets around Nottingham.
All I did was make my usual veggie burgers but I added in some spices. I added some
- chilli flakes
- more cumin
If you had any chilli powder or sweet paprika those would be great too. I need to update my spice collection!
Roughly chop and saute the veggies
Mix with some crushed beans (I used butter beans but black beans would be especially mexican!)
Form into a patty and fry in a hot pan
I served my veggie burger with cheddar cheese and guacamole, with more guacamole for dipping my chips in! This is a fantastically tasting and filling meal, filled with good fats and veggies. Try it out sometime!
Yum!
Related articles
- Nicely’s Tavern Veggie Burger (kissmyplants.com)
- Spicy Chickpea Barley and Quinoa Veggie Burger Recipe (fitsugar.com)
- What’s Your Burger of Choice? (fitsugar.com)
Guest post : Kat’s healthy dessert recipes!
Posted: August 27, 2011 Filed under: Baking, Guest posts | Tags: cookie, cooking, dessert, eat, food, healthy, nutritious, Recipe, yummy 12 Comments »I’m so very excited to have my first ever guest post here on Kerrycooks! Kathleen from over at Kat’s Health Corner very kindly answered my call for guest bloggers, and will be telling you a bit about a subject I know almost nothing about – healthy versions of decadent desserts! Take it away Kat!
Kathleen
My name is Kathleen and I blog over at KatsHealthCorner. I am so glad that Kerry asked me to do a Guest Post for her, and I am here to show you some of my favorite Healthified Dessert Recipes!
My philosophy is that food can be both healthy AND delicious. That is one thing I live by – Healthy, in a Yummilicious sort of way.
My passions include baking and health. And not only that, but one of my favorite pastimes is taking a recipe and making it healthier.
Some of my favorite recipes that are healthified include
Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
My Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. In these cookies, I use a secret ingredient – WHITE BEANS! What?! Beans in cookies?! I’m crazy?! YEP! 
With these, you not only get a yummy treat, but also sneak in the healthy stuff – without ever tasting it!
My Single Lady Banana Cream Pies. These are one of my favorite desserts – and my sister’s too! I have sold her on these – she loves them SO much! These Banana Cream Pies are a single serving, so you don’t have to make a whole batch to handle a craving. And not only that, but they are SO incredibly nutritious!
My Banana Chocolate Brownies. Do you like Brownies? Well I DO! And not only do these taste amazing, but they have whole grains, bananas, healthy fats, and a good source of protein from the beans. They are Healthy that Taste Naughty. 
My Nutty Apple Spice Cookies. These are made both without oil OR sugar! Cookies without sugar?! Are you nuts?! I am not kidding. These are one of my favorite cookies. Instead of using butter and sugar, I use dates and nuts, which are full of healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals! You will never miss the oil and sugar with these!
And My Almond Joy Dessert Bars. These bars were inspired by the Almond Joy candy bar. The ingredients on the candy bar are practically just sugar, sugar, and some trans fats thrown into the mix. I decided to make a healthier version of it. It will sure to please.
Healthy can be Nutritious AND Delicious. J
Do you like cookies? Oh yah baby!
Do you like to bake? Is healthy a concern when baking? I love to bake, and when I bake, I make sure it is both delicious and good for you.
What is your favorite picture above? I really like the Bars.
xoxox,
Kathleen <3
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Easy healthy dinners : Salmon with veggie cous cous
Posted: August 17, 2011 Filed under: Healthy Eating, Homemade | Tags: cooking, cous cous, dinner, easy, food, healthy, healthy dinner, healthy food, homemade, salmon, vegetables, weeknight dinner 5 Comments »
This meal is another perfect weeknight dinner that will take no longer than 20-25 minutes to go from the idea stage to the eating stage.
Its also a perfect meal to make when you think you have nothing in the house. Its a FANTASTIC way of using up veggies that have seen better days. Once roasted and combined with cous cous, olive oil and herbs, they’ll taste amazing and no one will ever know that they were on the verge of going in the bin!
As well as that, its also easily adaptable – I tend to always have salmon with my veggies and cous cous because I’m a creature of habit. But it would work just as well with any other meat or fish, or you can miss out the salmon altogether and substitute some feta cheese for a bit of protein, which would make the final meal even better value.
Just one word of advice on the cous cous – don’t buy that flavoured stuff. Especially not if it comes ‘with’ vegetables. Trust me, it tastes vile. Get the plain supermarket own brand dried unflavoured cous cous which costs about £1 for a kg (much cheaper than that gross stuff too!).
First up, preheat your oven to about 180 degrees/gas mark 6 and get to work chopping your veggies. They’ll take longer to cook than the salmon. I like to use red onions, peppers (not green), mushrooms, courgettes and sweet potato on the whole. These are my go-to vegetables and I’m not ashamed of it.
I probably should broaden my horizons at some point.
Make sure you chop them all into roughly the same size chunks and then coat in a tablespoon of olive oil (not fancy just regular) and some salt and pepper. Yum yum.
Next, prep the salmon. I sometimes leave it naked (ooh) or just sprinkle a little olive oil and lemon juice on top. The other things I like to do are cover the top in a mixture of yoghurt and dijon mustard and add some crunchy breadcrumbs a la Beth, or, this!
I mixed up some yoghurt, some coriander, some lemon juice and some salt and pepper and added it to the top of the salmon.
Once the veggies have been cooking for around 15 minutes, I swap them to the middle shelf of the oven and put the salmon in at the top. Salmon only needs about 10-12 minutes in my experience (unless its a whole salmon – this is obviously a fillet!).
While those guys are cooking, make the cous cous! I love cous cous because its so easy to make! Just boil the kettle and pour some cous cous into a bowl. I don’t measure it out as I’ve been making it for so long that I just know what looks right for 2 people but you can follow the instructions on the pack too!
Cous cous with boiling water added
Then add boiling water to the cous cous (about two thirds water to cous cous) and cover the bowl with a tea towel. And just like that, you’ve got cous cous!
All the water is soaked up!
When its dry, just stir through with a fork to make it fluffy and delightful. You can also add some more stuff at this stage to make it super great, like
- basil
- coriander
- lemon juice or zest
- lime juice or zest
- pomegranate seeds
- crunch toasted sunflower seeds, walnuts or almonds
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
YUM! Now all you need when the veggies and salmon have finished cooking is transfer the veggies straight into the cous cous bowl and stir it all up and serve with the salmon!
This meal is also great for leftovers, I always keep some of the salmon and veggie cous cous (I always end up making LOADS) in a tub for work the next day!
Easy healthy dinners : easy homemade pizza
Posted: August 3, 2011 Filed under: Cute stuff | Tags: cooking, dinner, food, healthy, homemade, pizza 10 Comments »
I’ve been making homemade pizza for about 6 years now – always using the same method which relies on dried yeast and means a wait of about 45 minutes for the dough to rise (not that long, I know!). Recently I saw a recipe for quick and easy pizza on the Kitchen Goddess (in training) blog and decided to try it out.
Here’s what I used -
- 250g self raising flour
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 75ml tepid water
Below is the self – raising flour with a splash of olive oil
Next, I added the water and made it into a dough – whenever you make pizza dough (or any kind of dough) its kind of a unique experience each time – things like the temperature and humidity affect how much water/flour your recipe needs. I started out using 200g of flour but found I needed more so added more.
Once the dough has come together, knead it for a couple of minutes until its soft and springy and then get to work rolling it out.
No need to wait for the dough to rise – how strange!
Once its rolled out, you then seal the top and bottom of the pizza in a large frying pan in order to make sure you don’t get soggy pizza.
Soggy pizza bottom is the worst fate known to woman.
This is how it looks when its been sealed on either side – I then put onto a baking tray and added tomato sauce and toppings.
I baked for about 20 minutes – unfortunately I didn’t remember to take a picture of the finished pizza as I was too busy eating it! Here’s how it looked before it went into the oven -
Overall, I enjoyed my pizza and it was great that it took 30 minutes to make rather than a total of about 1 hour 20 minutes if you make the yeasted dough version.
I would call this a ‘flatbread pizza’ though – it definitely doesn’t have the same texture of yeasted pizza but it is super quick!
Stawberry (& blackberry & almond) crumble!
Posted: August 1, 2011 Filed under: Baking, Healthy Eating, Homemade | Tags: almond, baking, dessert, flour, food, fruit, gluten, gluten-free, healthy, healthy dessert, homemade, strawberry, summer 5 Comments »
A crumble is a most magical thing. You can take the hardest, most frigid winter rhubarb and pears and make them fragrant and amazing (and if Nigella tells you to do it, you do it).
It may seem strange therefore to put gorgeous-tasting-on-their-own summer strawberries in a crumble, its a BOSS idea for the following reasons
- Delicious local summer strawberries start to go mouldy quickly and when they’re past the stage where you’d want to eat them raw, this crumble is the answer
- It just tastes divine – its the taste of SUMMER
I’ve made some changes to Nigella’s original recipe to omit the flour because I had a non-gluten eating friend over for dinner and wanted to be able to make something that was gluten free, healthy(ish) and delicious.
Here’s what you need
- 450g strawberries, hulled (with the green bits cut off! you don’t want to eat the green bits. Lee does)
- 50g blackberries (or rasberries, or pretty much whatever you like)
- 15g caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons cold butter
- 100g flaked almonds
- 50g light muscavado sugar
- 100g ground almonds
Firstly, put the fruit into a casserole dish or tin and sprinkle over some caster sugar and vanilla extract. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have used as much caster sugar as these were sweet summer strawberries, but if you’re making this in the winter months with imported strawberries it may be needed.
I used this ceramic white dish to bake my crumble in but you could use a brownie or loaf tin, whatever you have. Next, in a bowl, mix up your butter, flaked almonds, sugar and ground almonds. The mixture is quite a bit wetter than a normal crumbly (duh!) crumble mix but spread it around on top of your fruit (I used fingers, utensils are no good for this job!) as evenly as you can – there will be some gaps. But thats fine.
Sprinkle on a little more sugar (light muscavado or demerera for that crunchy crumble flavour) and flaked almonds and pop into a pre-heated oven at gas mark 6/180 degrees for about 30 minutes.
How you could make it even better!
- cook for a little longer to get more of that yummy crumble crunch
- add some chopped mint in with the fruit – YUM!
The crumble stuck around for about 30 minutes before being completely devoured so I’d say it was a success! Seriously – it was pretty amazing with some vanilla ice cream and I’d really recommend it as a very summery dessert – its even pretty healthy!
Easy healthy dinners : Quesadillas
Posted: July 20, 2011 Filed under: Healthy Eating, Homemade | Tags: cooking, dinner, easy, food, healthy, homemade, quesadilla, yum 9 Comments »I tell ya, these quesdillas are so easy to make, the hardest thing about them is figuring out how to spell quesadilla.
quesi
qeasi
quesada
Quesadilla!
Or kay-sa-dee-a if you prefer!
Let me tell you about how delicious these babies are – they are basically an inside out pizza. Yep. Yum.
Here’s what you’ll need! Quesadillas are THE most endlessly customisable meal in the world. The combinations and flavours are pretty unlimited.
- Tortillas (2 per person, go for small ones)
- Cheese – I used cheddar but you can use whatever you fancy – or as the pioneer woman puts it, whatever makes your skirt fly up!
- Some veggies or some meat/fishies
- Some spices and seasonings
What I actually used was cheddar cheese and mozzerella cheese, mushrooms, red onions, courgettes, red peppers and yellow peppers. As you can see from the recipe (although it feels a little like cheating calling it that), as long as you have some cheese (keeps forever most people have some in their fridge) and some tortillas (you should have some around as they KEEP FOREVER) and some other stuff too, you can make quesadillas! Got some sad looking spinach? Make quesadillas! Leftover roast chicken? Quesadillas! Veggies in the fridge seen better days? QUESADILLAS!
Here’s how you make them!
Cook your veggies on a high heat so that they brown on the outside but retain a bit of crunch – similar to if you were making fajitas.
Grate up some cheese – you’ll need at least 75g per quesadilla (although it depends on the size of the tortillas, mine were HUGE).
In a large pan, turn on the heat and melt some butter before dropping your first tortilla into the pan.You need about a tablespoon to stop the quesadilla from sticking (and so it tastes delicious). If you don’t like butter you could try those non stick sprays they have now.
Add a layer of sprinkly cheese and veggies, then add more cheese on top.
The cheese is the glue.
Then add the second tortilla on top and press down with the spatula. This is where things can get a little hairy. As soon as is humanely feasible, flip the quesadilla over. My quesadilla was massive and a little difficult to flip but a spatula and an oven glove is normally enough to complete the operation successfully!
Presenting – the finished quesadilla in all its glory! Just 15 minutes later, you have a yummy dinner thats fairly healthy (full of veggies) and easy and quick to prepare!
Have you ever tried quesadillas? The pioneer woman has some great ideas for variations – including spinach and mushroom and spicy shrimp quesadillas.
