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Sunday Cooking Rituals

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For the last few weeks I’ve been enjoying cooking at home pretty much 7 days a week. I might have eaten out once or twice or even been “naughty” and ordered in once or twice, but most meals I’ve eaten since I got back to Ireland from Istanbul have been cooked at home. Mostly by me.

During the week I take the time to prepare something simple, yet tasty.

But on Sundays I have taken to doing that little bit more.

Instead of simply cooking  a nice breakfast, which I try to do most Sundays, I also take the time to cook a reasonable meal for myself as well as cooking soup for my lunch during the week.

Admittedly no matter how organised I might try to be I never cook more than 3 days worth of soup, as I like it fresh and refuse to freeze it. (The freezer I have is tiny anyway and I’m currently trying to empty it so I can defrost it properly)

Breakfast today, for example, was a rather ample 3 egg omelette with mushrooms, onion, garlic and peppers with cheese:

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Served with hot sriracha sauce instead of ketchup, it had a nice texture and the sauce gave it a nice “bite”. It was heavy enough that I didn’t need to have lunch as well, so I’ll have dinner later instead.

I’ve always like pulses, but up until relatively recently I lacked the confidence to make my own lentil soups. I’ve finally overcome that, as well as giving the pressure cooker my mother gave me a new lease of life.

Lentils are wonderful. I’ve always liked them, though up until recently it was quite hard to find anything other than the red variety in many Irish supermarkets.

I’ll be making a batch of lentil soup this evening, which will probably have plenty of vegetables and a bit of chilli to give it a bit of a “kick”. Of course the challenge when cooking with fresh chilli is getting the quantities right. Too little and it’s pointless, too much and you can render a potentially tasty and wholesome dish inedible!

Last week’s soups turned out very well and I was also delighted to see that I lost some weight, but without being miserable.

Here are a couple of shots of the soups I made last week:

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One of the interesting things about lentils is how they manage to thicken a potentially overly liquid soup the longer you leave them, so even though I may have started out with a lot of liquid by the time I served the soup most of it was gone.

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I love that there’s tons of vegetables in these soups, in some ways they’re almost closer to being stews than soup!

Now off to the kitchen to see what I can make!

 

 

Kale, Fresh Vegetables and Grilled Meat

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I’m a big fan of kale. It’s a very tasty vegetable and it’s also full of important nutrients – it’s got a lot of vitamins, iron and other things.

Combining kale with some other vegetables can do a good job of replacing carb heavy sides, like potatoes, pasta or rice.

Earlier this week I had a wonderful fillet steak for dinner one evening and fresh beef burgers another. While it was tempting to serve the meat with some for of potato I opted instead for a vegetable sauté. Onion, garlic, chilli, mushroom and pepper sautéed and then cooking the kale in the pan with some water gave the kale a rich taste.

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I nearly always grill meat on my George Foreman grill, as I like the taste and also find it to be a better option overall. With a good quality steak the grill will seal the meat for you nicely, while in the case of burgers grilling can be a good way of keeping the excess water, fats and other stuff that comes out during cooking away from you. Admittedly if you’re buying fresh, good quality burgers the amount of excess rubbish that comes out during the cooking process is minimal, as a good quality butcher bought burger is probably going to be made of reasonable quality meat. Frozen burgers, however, are horrendously bad.

Microwave Your Soup (Or Stew) Easily

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I’ll freely admit to being mildly addicted to kitchen gadgets and gizmos. Any time I’m in a reasonable sized mall in the US I end up in the kitchen department of Macy’s or in the local “Sur la Table”

One of the things I picked up on a recent trip was this microwave friendly soup mug from sistema. Yes, it’s also available in shops over here, but I picked  it up along with a few other things 🙂

Anyway … I had been using my Stanley Classic Vacuum food jar, which I got a couple of years ago. The Stanley food jar works very well but I thought I’d give the sistema mug a go, as it’s a generous size 656 ml vs the Stanley’s 500 ml.

sistema microwave soup mug

What’s interesting about the sistema soup mug is that it’s so sturdy. It’s got 3 clips that hold the lid on firmly and make a strong seal, so the liquid won’t seep out when you’re transporting it.

When you want to heat up the soup (or stew) you don’t need to take it out of the mug – it’s got a very well thought out air vent in the lid which you can simply pop open during the heating process.

One thing I did learn, however, is that heating up soups or stews can take a bit longer than you might expect. You’ll probably work out the right amount of time to leave something in the microwave with a little experimentation.

So you can eat the soup or stew directly from the mug once it’s heated up. Personally I prefer to move the heated up food to a proper bowl, but if I was in a hurry I’d probably eat it straight from the mug.

All in all it’s a pretty good way of transporting, storing and re-heating a single portion of soup or stew. Available on Amazon and other places.

Doing A Step Challenge At A Conference

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Earlier this month I was in Las Vegas for CES. It’s a huge event. Not only does it attract well over 150 thousand attendees from the four corners of the globe it’s also spread over  a very large area, taking over the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as several other locations throughout the city. End result being that if you spend a reasonable amount of time on the floor at CES you end up walking a lot.

The guys at CES obviously know this, so they setup a “step challenge” using LoseIt. LoseIt is very similar in functionality to services and apps like MyFitnessPal, but the added element of the challenge at an event I was attending was appealing, so I signed up.

So how did I do?

Surprisingly well, though my feet were in bits after the week! (Lesson learnt – if you’re attending CES bring practical walking shoes!)

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Being in the top 10% of participants felt good, though I honestly don’t understand how the person at 247k steps did it without cheating.

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My final ranking was in the top 50 which I think was quite respectable.

Being part of a challenge was kind of cool. It definitely motivated me, which was good. I also liked the idea that it was tied to an event I was attending, as opposed to some random target that I couldn’t really relate to.

So maybe I’ll see about launching step challenges at other events I attend which involve a lot of working, who knows, it might take off 🙂

In any case it was a bit of fun!

 

Spiralizing Vegetables To Replace Pasta

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I love pasta, but it’s heavy in calories and carbohydrates. Pretty much every single diet out there suggests cutting calorie and carb intake. So how on earth can a pasta aficionado be happy with what they eat, while also cutting down on calories etc? I’ve always maintained that it would be impossible for me to stick to any kind of diet that deprived me of tasty food. Sure, I might lose weight a lot faster if I was to go on some crazy extreme diet, but I’d be miserable.

The spiralizer might be a solution.

I’m not sure when spiralizers became popular, but they are one of the “must have” kitchen gadgets at the moment.

At the moment I have a simple handheld spiralizer:

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It’s got two blades which let you make spirals of vegetables quite quickly and easily. You can, of course, choose whether you want quite fine spirals or thicker ones. You can use it for salads, like I did last night:

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Adding a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs and you have a very tasty salad.

But another popular way of using the spiralizer is to replace pasta or noodles. Want spaghetti without the calories? Try “courgetti”, which you can make in your spiralizer using courgettes.

Once you’ve cut the courgette into the spirals you can fry them up a bit with a bit of olive oil:

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Frying them for about 4 minutes they become quite crisp and are of a similar consistency to al dente pasta.

Serve with your favourite pasta sauce and enjoy!

Bringing Organic Waste Under Control With Obeo

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For the last year or so I’ve been making a concerted effort to make proper use of my brown bin ie. the organic waste one. I got a compost bin and biodegradable bin liners.

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However, it’s messy and, to be frank, not exactly the most hygienic way of dealing with food waste. And since I cook with a lot of fresh vegetables as well as juicing etc., the volume of organic waste can be substantial.

A couple of months ago I came across an Irish company that seems to have found a solution to the problem.

Obeo is a very graceful solution to the organic waste problem.

Here’s their video explaining the product and how to use it:

The boxes are good quality and biodegradable. Pricing varies on how you buy them ie. subscription vs bulk but they work out around 75 cents each. Yes, that is more expensive than the bags for the compost bin, but Obeo is a lot neater and hygienic. You can buy online from their site or try to get them in either SuperValu or Dunnes Stores.

I like the idea of recycling as much of my household waste as possible, but I don’t like household waste management to be messy, so the Obeo is a product that helps me achieve that goal.

Healthy Chip Shop Curry Sauce

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Guest post by Jason.

Healthy Curry Sauce and Chip Recipe

Healthy Curry Sauce and Chip Recipe

Healthy Chip Shop Curry Sauce

One thing I’m always craving at the weekend is chip shop curry sauce. The Chinese style curry sauce that you often find on the butcher counter is filled with coconut milk and is laced with hidden calories. I decided to make a healthy chip curry sauce recipe that is tomato based. The only thing I might try add next time is a tin of beans to thicken the curry sauce up.

Healthy Curry Sauce and Chip Recipe

I made some slimming world chips shop curry sauce with potatoes and sweet potatoes. Just par boil the potatoes in some water with a pinch of salt. Coat them in some fry light spray and place in a pre heated oven at 180. Cook for about 20 mins and then flip the chips over and finish for 10-15 mins. To stop them from sticking I have a flexible wire oven proof sheet that I picked up in Dealz.

How to Reuse Leftovers

I had some left over home made coleslaw and had some left over mashed potatoes so I chopped up some coriander, added some fat free fromage frais and seasoned with salt and pepper.

I seared seasoned the stake with pepper and then charred it on a griddle pan. I then put it in the over on a wire rack to finish and allow some of the juices to drain. I leave it on the rack outside of the over for 5 mins to rest and then season with some ground rock salt.

More to come .. here is my weight loss back story.