quick

Turmeric Egg on Toast

I just rushed in from a resistance training session, and had to rush out again in minutes, so how was I going to re-fuel? Since it’s winter here, I’m loathe to make a protein smoothie in my Thermomix because it’ll chill me from within.

The quickest, warmest, high protein, healthy fats replacement is a boiled egg on toast. I boiled the jug ala Jamie Oliver style, popped the egg and water in a small saucepan and let the stovetop catch up while I pulled out an avocado and the frozen (gluten free) bread slice ….when I saw it. The frozen Turmeric bulb. How would that go with egg? Turns out: ….brilliantly.food fervour

I smashed half an avocado on the toast, spread the egg over the top, then finely grated turmeric over all of that. With some Himalayan salt (I love salty eggs) & the slimmest drizzle of olive oil, it tasted DIVINE. And I just upped the nutrient density and anti-inflammatory properties of my post-training fuel, with minimal effort.

Up there for thinkin’, down there for dancin’!

 

Deconstructed Apple Crumble

I have to admit I became a little distracted in my yoga class this afternoon. Somehow apples popped into my head (go figure?!) and my Samadhi was lost; the ‘Train of Thought’ left the station and a Craving was born. I was mulling over ideas for a warm apple dessert, but I knew an apple pie was out of the question. Waaaay too much time and effort.

So when I got home I looked up apple recipes in the Thermomix Recipe search engine, knowing that I was really looking for something ‘apple-crumble-ish’, to make it quick (minimal time between making and eating) but I realised they all still required oven baking. Pshhh!

So I decided to go with a ‘deconstruction’. As long as it was warm, I didn’t care.food fervour

For a single serve, one apple is plenty. I chopped it up roughly and threw it in the Thermie for a quick ‘Turbo’ smash-up (keeping the skin on – the more fibre the better!) then added about 10gms of water and set it to ‘stew’ for 3 minutes, 70ºC, Reverse Speed 2.

I popped the stewed apple straight into my serving dish (Thermie owners could put it in their Thermoservers to keep VERY warm, if you could be bothered to wash another item) showering it with ground cinnamon, then put 50gms walnuts in the bowl and chopped for about 6 seconds on speed 5-6. Adding 30gms coconut oil, 5-10gms coconut sugar and roughly a tablespoon (5gms) of psyllium husk I set it to cook for 2 minutes at 100ºC, Reverse Speed 2.

Scooping it straight into the dish with the apple, I poured in some fresh cream, garnishing with shredded coconut, then mixed it all up before taking the first spoonful. SO yummy. SO quick. SO satisfying. Instant gratification!

Baby Kale & Custard Apple Smoothie

Feeling like a green smoothie just now, I opened up the fridge and found half of a custard apple staring back at me. “Hmmm” I thought, “I haven’t tried anything with one of these little fellows yet”.

food fervourWell-ripened custard apples are pretty sweet, so chances are you won’t need to add sweeteners to this smoothie. Well, I didn’t.

I threw a big handful of some baby kale leaves (a first time purchase at the farmer’s markets last week) in my Magic Bullet, peeled and de-seeded the custard apple half and added it with one super-heaped teaspoon of my homemade vanilla bean paste, a good dash of ground cinnamon, nutmeg and about a cup of unsweetened almond milk.

Because custard apple has a slightly grainy texture I made sure I blended it well. Still a trace of ‘graininess’ but the taste trumped that. Quick, easy, yum.

Hot Brekky in a Hurry

Working on a Sunday is never really fun, I mean, who wants to rush around on Sunday? I wasn’t starting work until 9:30am but I usually like to leave myself about an hour to get there. I’d been up for awhile drinking tea, messing around, when I realised it was close to 8am and I had to start getting my lunch ready. With about half an hour up my sleeve, I knew I’d easily have time to make a black quinoa salad, thanks to my beloved Thermomix.

It only takes 18 minutes…plenty of time! While I was chopping up the veggies I wanted to add to the salad, I was inspired to make myself a hot breakfast – after all, I had heaps of time, right? I mean, with Thermie taking care of lunch I had all this time to fry up some stuff….right?

Oh dear. Talk about multi-tasking! Even with my lunch veggies ready to add to the quinoa in the last 4-6 minutes, I was really pushing it. But I did it, and it was super wholesome and very tasty even though I inhaled it!

Somehow I managed – within 45 minutes – to prepare a quinoa salad, an apple & coconut chia dessert cup, do ¾ of the washing up, cook and eat the following super nutritious (and filling) hot brekky before leaving for work:

food fervour

Smashed fried eggs atop mushroom & capsicum Hash with (gluten free) avocado toast

Pop about 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, then chop up 8-10 mushrooms and ¼ capsicum. Throw them straight in the pan then de-stem and roughly chop up 3 kale leaves. Stir the mushroom & capsicum Hash then grab 2 eggs, ½ avocado and prep your toast by sitting it in the toaster so it’s read to go (I use gluten free bread).

Add the kale to the Hash and stir until it has wilted (a couple of minutes, tops). Start the toaster then serve up the Hash, returning the pan to the stovetop, adding a little more coconut oil and breaking the eggs into the pan. Spread the avocado over your toast (on the plate with the Hash) then with the spatula, roughly scrape the frying eggs from the pan base, tearing and smashing them up as you tip them on top of the Hash. Season and get stuck into this messy but highly nutritious and satisfying breakfast.

Kangaroo Bolognese

Some people can’t understand how I (or anyone) can eat our ‘national emblem’. The vegetarians’ and vegans’ opinions are justified but any other carnivore (or omnivore, for that matter) cannot complain about me eating ‘Skippy’ if they don’t think twice about eating ‘Daisy’, ‘Babe’ or Nemo!

Kangaroo meat is higher in protein than beef, naturally lower in fat as well, and provides the haem iron I choose to include in my diet. Added to the fact that it is considered ‘Game’ (wild caught) and therefore likely to be a much ‘cleaner’ source of animal protein to consume than the chemical-laden animals being farmed for bulk consumption.

From an anthropological perspective, humans evolved thanks to these kinds of meats: hunters (physically active people) originally had to chase down highly active creatures in order to eat. Daisy wasn’t docilely ‘grazing in the fields’ back then. It was suggested by one of my favourite fitness/nutrition/neuroscience gurus Paul Taylor that “you are the animal you eat”…

On with the story…

I picked up a kilo of kangaroo mince on sale and since I find the ‘mini-chore’ of divvying up individual portions kind of onerous, I decided to create something immediately to lighten my workload. I’m not usually a pasta fan, but somewhere along the line I’d bought some gluten free macaroni and since I’ve been trying to get rid of it (and cannot simply throw it out – wastage is a Sin!) for a while, “spag bol” came to mind.

Straight to the Thermie. Too. Easy. I literally walked in the door at 1:15pm and was eating by 2pm.food fervour

I threw 1 garlic clove, a roughly chopped brown onion, carrot & celery stem in the bowl and almost pulverised them (which ultimately resulted in a very smooth bolognese consistency) for 8 seconds on Speed 7. Then I threw in 20gm of olive oil, the 400gms of Skippy mince (instead of ‘Daisy’ & ‘Babe’) and various herbs (basil, nutmeg, parsley & a bay leaf) and set it on to cook for 10 minutes @ 100ºC, Reverse Speed 1.

In this time I apportioned the remaining kangaroo mince, put away the rest of the groceries and the already-used-ingredients, and pulled out the ones I had yet to use: red wine, tomato paste, tamari, the gluten free macaroni and parmesan cheese. And a zucchini, which I chopped up finely. (My usual bolognese recipe includes more vege – like capsicum & mushrooms – but I didn’t have my Thinking Cap on today. I was more interested in Time-Saving.)

food fervour

While the bolognese simmers away in the Thermomix, the Magic Bullet pulverises the parmesan…

Finally, I added the zucchini, 80gm red wine, 60gms water, 2 tspns tamari & about 300gm tomato paste, set the time to 16 minutes, again @ 100ºC, Reverse Speed 1 then set to work on the other elements:

Since I’m not yet an expert at multi-skilling with my Thermomix alone, I prepared the pasta to cook on the stovetop, boiling the electric jug first (ala Jamie Oliver-style) not just to speed up the process but also to minimise electricity usage a tad. Once the GF macaroni was bubbling away, I pulled out my handy little Magic Bullet, threw a chunk of parmesan in and grated that up in seconds. Everything was ready. I had time to begin the clean-up!

The alarm for my pasta went off literally seconds after the Thermie signalled she was done. Perfect timing. A heavy-duty meal – enough to feed four – complete within 45 minutes… Brilliant!

 

 

You Don’t NEED Ice Cream…

I have a sweet tooth, there’s no doubt about it. So satisfying the night-time urge I usually get can be tricky, considering I generally try to avoid sugar.

food fervourThe best thing to do is …make something yourself. This is pretty much my entire philosophy towards food anyway. If YOU make it, you KNOW what’s in it. It’s that simple (aside from being really important).

I used to looooove ice cream. I could eat whole tubs in one sitting, no joke. But I just don’t need to, don’t WANT to, buy it anymore because I have found the perfect, more nutritious substitute. Greek yoghurt.

Full fat Greek yoghurt. Because fat really does satiate. And I find Greek yoghurt less tart than natural yoghurt (maybe it’s just me, but it makes me feel like I’m eating thick cream…). Unlike its other dairy relatives, yoghurt is full of natural probiotic organisms = Good for the Gut!food fervour

I’ve made so many varieties in the past, but my favourite usually involves blueberries, banana, cacao in some form and a teensy bit of either maple syrup or coconut sugar (IF I even feel like I need added sweetness). Like this one I’ve just gobbled down tonight.

It’s too easy and too quick and these are two of my favourite things! Quick. and. Easy.

I sliced one banana, grabbed a handful of blueberries and plopped them in a bowl with 3 heaped dessertspoons of yoghurt. I scattered maybe a dessertspoon of cacao nibs over the top then drizzled about 1-2 teaspoons of maple syrup over it all. Bloody yum!

Cacao Avocado Mousse

The final touch for the best Mother’s Day pancakes is another too quick-and-simple but nutrient dense treat that can be enjoyed entirely on its own. Or with fruit (especially blueberries)! I love my fruit, can you tell?

The avocado makes this dish. Its naturally creamy texture and bland taste make it one of the most versatile super foods out there and I think people are only just beginning to discover its true potential. It’s the (very healthy) fat content that makes it work as a mousse…a mousse full of vitamin E; not what you’d expect to find in a conventional nor commercial version.food fervour

So, grab 1 small avocado, ¼ cup (approx 20gm) cacao powder, 1 dessertspoon maple syrup and IF you want to thin it down so it’s like a runnier ‘sauce’ over the pancakes, you’ll also need at least ¼ cup (45gm) milk (any kind you prefer) milk. Or even coconut water coz it’s naturally sweet, and well as (phyto)nutrient dense.

Simply throw it all in your chosen blending appliance, ‘wazz’ it ups few times, scraping down the sides in between. Actually, because avocado is so easily broken down, you could pretty much blend by hand. If you wanted. Meh, save your energy!

Soooo easy. And soooo good.

 

Quick Warm Salad with Avocado & Sautéed Bacon

food fervour

I wanted avocado but I wanted something warm. And of course I wanted a variety of veggies. But what protein?

I’m over throwing feta into everything. And then I remembered I had bacon in the freezer. Now I rarely touch cured meats because of the nitrates in them, but I always have some chopped up and stored in the freezer for the (very) rare occasion I feel like fried rice. Or a soup…or something. Like Matriciana.

Not that I’m into pasta either (especially since I went gluten free, and beyond that, choosing to avoid processed foods) but I know of that dish and know that bacon and chilli go well together. Oh, look at that! There’s some chillis in the freezer too, right under the bacon! With the frozen ginger and turmeric. “Right!” I think, “this will show you, Head Cold.”

Chilli likes broccoli too. And so do I. So it was all too simple.

food fervourI threw a de-seeded red chilli, a clove of garlic, a piece of turmeric and a piece of garlic in the Thermomix and chopped them up, then added the bacon and about 20gms olive oil and sautéed all that for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I filled up & turned on the kettle, chopped up some broccoli and snow peas, then blanched them in a saucepan with the kettle’s boiling contents. I dissected and scooped out my avocado halves, chopped up some cherry tomatoes & a shallot, then drained the broccoli & snow peas and threw them on top of the rocket bed. I placed the avocado halves in the centre and scattered the cherry tomatoes around. The sautéed bacon & spices smothered the avocado and I sprinkled the shallots over the top. A decent hand-squeeze of half a bush lemon finished it off.

It took me less than 15 minutes to make, it tasted great and guess what? My nose has stopped running 🙂