Tag: lunch

Ackee with Onions & Peppers

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Joleisa.com

Loaded with protein, fibre and vitamin C the ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica and is a bit like marmite – you either love it or hate it – and I love it! Thank you to my friend Tracey for cooking this yesterday and reminding me just how good it tastes, cooked with Caribbean sunshine flavours. The humble ackee is also full of vitamin A which supports the immune system and has antioxidant properties that can also fight inflammation. It is a soft fruit when cooked and looks like scrambled eggs and you will probably only find the tinned variety in the UK, which is fine and at approximately £1.70 a tin it’s also super cheap! Give this recipe a try – it’s a great breakfast and side dish 🙂
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Black Eye Pea Salad

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DianeKochilas.com

My absolute new favourite (don’t tell the others!) With the cost of living sky-rocketing and time to cook and plan evaporating – I needed something that requires little preparation and could last in the fridge for a few days and of course was nourishing and healthy. God really has given us all we need to live a healthy life and these little beans are full of goodness and benefits; they are great for your heart, and your blood pressure, they are full of protein, can help combat anemia, and keeps your bones strong! I use my pressure cooker for the dried beans for about 10 minutes but you could also soak them overnight and cook in a saucepan with water or use tinned, whichever is easiest for you.

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Arabic Chickpea Salad

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Mashed.com

This salad is my wonderful ‘throw together’, put in the fridge, and let it marinate beauty! I love the flavours in this salad and with the cost of living rising sharply, it’s pretty cheap and very filling. Even if you are not a fan of chickpeas (which is probably because they have been served in a bland way) the mixture of mint, lemon and paprika are just delicious. I always use the jarred chickpeas which I pick up in my local Turkish supermarket for 89p a jar! (they have gone up recently by 20p) Chickpeas are high in fiber and protein and break down slowly in the gut, keeping you fuller for longer. did you know that chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) are considered a vegetable and a legume because they are so nutritious? well, you do now!

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Butter Bean and Callaloo Stew

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I am sharing a plate full of Caribbean sunshine here! This dish has all the flavours that I love and is healthy and nutritious. I miss my mother-in-law and this Jamaican dish reminds me of her. This dish can be rustled up pretty quickly and is I believe, a breakfast dish but it’s amazing any time of day. The whole dish probably took me about 20 minutes to make and I will be sharing this with friends served with rice and an avocado salad. It’s vegan and is very kind on the budget, which is just as well as everything has gone up massively.
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Maple Roasted Sprouts and Potatoes

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Eatwell 101

I hope I am not the only one who loves brussel sprouts?! They are one of my favourties and they are in season at the moment. This is one vegetable that grows in the UK (they thrive in cold weather) and are incredibly good for you, unfortunately a lot of our mothers boiled them to death and they became something to be endured rather than enjoyed! These little green heroes are full of vitamin K (which can promote bone health), fibre and suprisingly contain Omega 3 fatty acids. This is a great side dish to liven up any dish and ofcourse its heatlhy and fairly cheap.
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Marvellous Mushroom Pate

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mushroom pate
Culinaryginger.com

Happy New Year! I went to the Queen of Hosts yesterday 🙂 (Tracey Fenner is the Queen!) for a wonderful New Years Eve visit  – there was amazing food, lots of laughs and even some tractor driving thrown in! Now, I don’t think anyone has ever left Tracey’s home hungry – maybe rubbing their belly because they over induldged but never hungry! So, there were snacks before we went for our country walk and then a massive meal when we came home – and our snack before we set off was this amazing mushroom pate served on toast. I always plan to pace myself and eat delicately but this was just too good and very tasty so I just got stuck in! This is a great dish to serve as a starter or when having friends over and will be my new favourite for a snack. As mushrooms are full of vitamin D – they actually help fight off colds – they also contain selenium which helps support the immune system and prevent damage to cells and tissues.
So get some toast or crackers and get involved 🙂
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Turmeric Tofu Scramble

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Charitymorgan.com

I am always on the lookout for cheap and nutritious meals, that also can be put together quickly. Working from home for so long is having an impact on my desire to cook after a long day in front of the screen – so the quicker the better! I often have this dish for brunch on the weekend but it is equally as good in the week. As always be adventurous – throw in your favorite things and see how it turns out 🙂 I often chuck in a handful of spinach or some courgettes, mushrooms etc. Leftover boiled potatoes (fried) also go well with this dish. I paid almost £11 for this dish recently (I know I know! but I live in London) and this will cost you a fraction of the price.
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Saucy Vermicelli Noodles

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download (2)Absolutely delicious!  I do love noodles but often find they can be greasy when I buy them outside. These tasty sesame infused noodles are just the job! The sauce that accompanies this lifts the dish and makes it rather mooreish – however, rice vermicelli noodles are low calorie – yay! have no cholesterol and are a great source of carbohydrate. You can get this tasty dish onto the table pretty quickly (about 20 minutes) and look like a pro!
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Stuffed Courgettes

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A lovely, light but satisfying lunch dish made with courgettes/zucchini. You can eat a good plateful without feeling guilty! Courgettes have a low GI and are great for people who have diabetes as they won’t have much of an effect on blood glucose levels. Courgettes are also a good source of potassium, vitamin C and folic acid. The tomatoes add a long list of nutrients, especially when cooked – add in fresh dill, mint and parsley and this is a longevity winner – and best of all it is great for the waistline – no after-lunch slump with this one!

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Thai Style Crunchy Salad with Coconut Curry Dressing

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Feastingathome.com

You know something is going to taste good when you see a rainbow of colours on your plate. The sky is the limit really with the ingredients for this refreshing salad BUT it needs to have crunch! You can be adventerous with salad leaves and you can use noodles or brown rice to bulk this salad out. The dressing is very tasty and easy to make. 

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Tangy Panzanella Salad

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panzanella-the-food-placeDespite the cold snap of weather we are having, better weather is on its way 🙂 (promise!) The lighter the days get the more I enjoy a nice tangy and fresh salad. This salad lends itself to a mix of tomatoes types – cherry, plum, yellow, vine etc. The addition of cubes of stale sourdough bread (or any uncut bread you have) make this more filling – this is a bit of grown-up salad! With origins in Tuscany, Italy the salad was created like most great, rustic dishes to avoid waste and is a typical peasant dish. If that makes me a peasant – I’m happy to be!

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Marvelous Oat Flour Cinnamon Muffins

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UpSplash

Any kind of white flour is becoming an issue for me. My stomach just doesn’t appreciate flour too much – a little organic wholemeal is ok, or organic unbleached but any foodstuff that has refined flour in makes my stomach bloat and I feel uncomfortable. Soooooo, finding these little beauties was wonderful. The best bit is oat flour can be hard to find BUT you just whizz porridge oats in a blender and hey presto! Oat flour! These are great for breakfast or as a snack – I will be hiding them however as I live with a bunch of vultures! 🙂

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Plant Based Pastitsio

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Akis Petrezikis

This was a dish I loved when I was a meat eater (many years ago) And finally a version with no dairy and no meat! You never need to be in a flap again when your non-meat eating friends come for lunch 🙂 The pasta used in this dish is readily available in most supermarkets now and the dish is very easy to make. A friend of mine in Rhodes used to make a vegetarian version of this which was amazing also. This recipe comes from one of my favourite Greek Chefs – Akis Petrezikis – who seems to be Greece’s answer to Jamile Oliver!
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Lentil and Rice Biryani

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Our neighbours have blessed us a couple of times recently with some wonderful Bengali cooking (see – even in London there are still good neighbours!) The rice they have sent us via their young daughter was out of this world tasty, non-oily and just amazing. As you know by now I am starting to love Indian cooking and this dish is a great way to brighten up mid-week meals. Lentils are a rich source of protein and keep you full for longer.
Although it looks like a lot of ingredients  – the process is simple, so don’t let that put you off 🙂

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Caribbean Style Porridge

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Sometimes I need a breakfast that will keep me satisfied until lunchtime -and this porridge does the job! My late Jamaican father-in-law was a regular porridge eater and he lived until he was 90! Some Caribbean porridge recipes call for condensed milk but as this is a blog site about longevity,  I am omitting the less healthy version 🙂  Oats are an all round good food – a great source of soluble fiber, a rich source of magnesium and it is great for controlling blood sugar. Best of all  – oats are fairly low cost (DO NOT use instant oats – they are not good!) and when my kids are hungry  – this is a go to for them any time of day.

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Bulgur, Freekeh and Green Beans

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I love to find recipes that are bursting with goodness but still taste delicious and comforting – and this dish delivers. I found this on Ozlem’s Turkish Table and as I have never really used Freekeh before, thought I would give it a go. Not one spoonful of this went to waste! I ate it hot and cold and it was equally delicious. Freekeh is an acient grain (even mentioned in Leviticus in the bible) and is full of fiber, it has a unique, almost nutty taste and texture and aids digestion. Full of zinc, iron and calcium you can really eat without guilt!!! It’s simple to prepare and all ingredients are easy to source. Thank you Ozlem!

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