My Healthy Eating Blog: October 2005
Read my healthy eating blog, and find out how I'm feeding my family healthily, day by day. Click here to see the current blog-in-progress.
31 October 2005Romanesco cauliflower
Take a look at this bizarre pagoda of a vegetable. It’s a Romanesco cauliflower, and I pounced on this fine specimen the greengrocer this afternoon, because it’s at its very best through the latter part of October and November. Quite apart from being a handsome lime green beast, it also tastes delicious, like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. I’m going to use it in a gratin, by cutting it into florets, blanching them lightly in boiling water, then dotting them with low fat crème fraiche, sprinkling with finely grated Parmesan mixed with wholemeal breadcrumbs and baking until crisp. Lovely – roll on suppertime. For other ideas of how to use it, see my page on autumn vegetables.
21 October 2005Baked apple recipeThe children were moaning – no, no, that’s not fair – were constructively criticising the concept of the baked cooking apple, which I was proposing to make for them last night. These apples are, apparently, too big, too sharp and just, well, boring… Can’t say I agree, but as I generally aim to please, this time I made baked apples with spiced honey. Mmm, what a difference. This recipe uses small, sweet dessert apples, peeled and halved and baked in a spicy fruit sauce sweetened with honey. In my unbiased opinion, they are precisely the right size, pleasantly sweet and totally cool. And I don't want any arguments, got it?
19 October 2005Pumpkin square recipeWhy is it, that when one bit of domestic kit bites the dust, several others immediately pack up in sympathy? First the blender went, now it’s my kitchen scales, sullenly refusing to boot up, and rewarding me with ‘E’ – for error – whenever I try to weigh something. Nothing for it, I had to use my cup measure – bought in the interest of testing recipe measurements for my American audience. And I have to say – it’s easy! You really need 2 measures, one for wet and one for dry ingredients. But it worked like a charm, and the pumpkin square recipe I was trying came out beautifully. I’m hooked.17 October 2005Pumpkin soup recipesI had a very nasty moment with my blender at the weekend. Busy testing some pumpkin soup recipes, I filled it up with red-hot cooked pumpkin, turned on and ‘WHOOOAAA’… was sprayed with a fine, sticky mist of pureed pumpkin. Me and the wall, the worktop, the recipe and the cat, that is. Somebody – I shall name no names – but somebody, who was doing a bit of washing up the previous day, had plonked a hefty frying pan down onto the blender goblet. Result, a hairline crack, which opened up when heated…. So now I’m in the market for a new blender, sigh. The soup tasted good, though.12 October 2005Healthy chicken recipesDecided today that it was time to re-organise my pages of chicken recipes. I’ve put them into sections, so if you want a baked chicken recipe, you go to the baked chicken page, a lemon chicken recipe – try the lemon chicken page, and so on. And you can get to them all from healthy chicken recipes. This is an area of the site which is set to grow, because I cook chicken so regularly and am always looking for new ideas. But there are a dozen or more good recipes here, to get started with.
11 October 2005Healthy cake recipesI amaze myself sometimes. A year ago, I’d have ruled out home-made-cake making as something I couldn’t possibly fit into my life. Then I learned a thing or two about what’s in manufactured cakes, and vowed there and then to stop buying them and filling us full of heart-harmful hydrogenated vegetable oils. That very day, I realised that unless our cake-eating days were to be over for good, I was going to have to make my own.And it’s been real fun. The cakes are lovely, 100 times nicer than any old stuff in a packet, and now I’ve got it down to a fine art it hardly takes any time at all. I’ve been using butter, rather than the cheapo soft margarines, that are full of the same stuff as bought cakes. Last week, being out of butter, I used a reduced fat olive oil-based spread, same stuff I put on bread. Would it work? Would it! The cake was light as a feather, but with a 40% fat reduction. Tried the same trick again yesterday, with the same results. Who’d have thought it. If the idea appeals, check out my page on healthy cake recipes, for other cunning ideas.
7 October 2005Chicken curry recipesI don’t know why, but very often Friday night is curry night. I often make vegetable curries, but I bought a pack of chicken thighs at the organic butcher yesterday, and tonight I’m going to turn them into a delicate chicken curry.
5 October 2005Baked apple recipesThe grass outside is covered in windfall apples, so I picked up some of the less battered ones and made baked apples. Straight back to childhood on a plate. Best with custard.
3 October 2005Healthy soup recipesOoh-er, it is perishing cold here in draughty East Anglia today. And, wouldn’t you know it, the boiler’s bust, and the man can’t come to fix it until after 5pm. Plus I have a sick child off school today, looking horribly pallid and strong enough only to lift the Play Station control… What can I make, to tempt a feeble appetite and keep us both warm until the boiler man saves us? Soup, of course, it’s the only answer. Fortunately, there are lots to choose from, in my page on healthy soup recipes.Read more entries in my healthy eating blog.
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