Chopped salad with Ginger Dressing

This is a delicious salad which is great on his own or as a side dish.  

Crunchy, healthy and delicious.  Great vegetarian food or a side dish with spicy grilled prawns.

Goats Cheese Salad

I love salads which combine warm and cold ingredients and this super special salad takes delicious, creamy, melting goats cheese and mixes it with a spiced dressing and pepperly leaves.  Delicious.

Vegetable Curry

I love vegetarian Indian food.  There are so many vegetarian people in India (a quick google search said 31%) and figures from the UN says India has the lowest rate of meat consumption in the world.  These has my favourite vegetables in a curry, chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and cauliflower give substance and make you feel full without meat.  Long before cauliflower was trendy, Indians were using it in curries.

Edible Flower Salad

This light savoury salad was inspired by the beautiful flowers responding to the sunshine in my garden.  I combined three different types of edible flowers into a really light early summer salad.  This was great as a really light meal or starter / appetizer on its own but would also be great as an impressive looking side dish.

The cucumber gives a lovely texture and removing the skin helps the flavour of the herb flowers sing out.

I wouldn't use commercially sold flowers for this as you don't know if they're ok to eat or if they've been sprayed with pesticides, only use ones you've grown yourself and know haven't been sprayed.

Roasted Vegetables with Feta Cheese

This past week I've been full of cold and generally off my food.  All I've been eating is anything with loads of spices to try and shift the bunged feeling.  Today, at last, I'm starting to feel better but the weather for the year is still cold and miserable so I put together this dish of lovely summery roasted vegetables.

My herbs are looking fabulous right now with all the wet weather this week and it helped cut through the lingering dullness from my snotty nose.

I mean, look at that?  How you can still feel anything but summery and healthy when that was your lunch?

Roast Pepper Sandwich

I love a "different" sandwich.  My son, sadly, gravitates towards ham whenever he's given a choice but sandwiches can be as boring as white bread with wafer thin ham or as interesting as this little beauty.

This is a delicious but messy sandwich; have napkins nearby.  If you'd like to eat this with more decorum and less goats cheese on your chin, use cold bread and allow the peppers to cool before assembling.

Fruit Kebabs

An unashamedly childish recipe here.  I used to have a blog Mamacook all about food for kids and this was one recipe I made loads but never got round to blogging.  There are loads of ideas out there for healthy and fun foods for kids and one of them is fruit kebabs.  The downside though is the stick.  What is the fun in the boring stick and if you use a skewer it's a bit risky for younger kids too, you don't want sharp wooden sticks going in their mouths...

Well I have an answer I came up with a few years ago and it is so simple!

Day 9 of 10 a day

On the home stretch and today I feel fantastic.  It's like I've gone through the lull and come out of the other side.  I woke up at half past 5 with a smile on my face.

Cauliflower and Pea curry

Pulses are great in curries, I often make them with chickpeas which are great but I wanted to make something different.  I have to admit the substitution of carbs and meat for cauliflower somewhat passed me by.  I tried cauliflower rice and it was disappointing.  The idea of "cauliflower steak" also doesn't appeal so it was with some trepidation I made a curry with no meat, no pulses and as cauliflower with the main ingredient.

I needn't have worried.  This is delicious.  The great thing about cauliflower is it's like a flavour sponge, it just sucked in all the gorgeous flavours from the sauce.  Did I care or even notice this dish is vegan?  Nope.  Did I miss the meat?  Not at all.

Edamame Bean Salad

I love edamame (or soy) beans.  I had a delicious dish recently of some edamame beans in chilli sauce at a Japanese restaurant, they were utterly addictive.

This salad is less messy but no less tasty.  What's great as well is despite being all vegetables, the dressing brings it all together to make it taste like more than it is.  Super healthy.

Mixed Bean Chilli

I love chilli, I particularly love vegetarian chilli, slow cooked meat chillis, frankly I just love the heat.  What is great about this chilli though is as well as being vegan, it also contains mostly store cupboard and "likely to be in your fridge" ingredients.  It's so cheap as well and freezes brilliantly making it the ideal recipe for when the month is nearly up and your bank balance doesn't look quite so healthy.

You could mix up the beans in this; I would have used pinto beans if I'd been organised enough to soak and cook them (I couldn't find any in cans in my local supermarket.)  Of course you can use dried beans here which would make this even cheaper, just soak and cook them first as I find cooking them with something acidic like tomato if they're not already cooked through makes them a little tough.

Chestnut and Mushroom Soup

I'd recently bought some cooked vacuum packed chestnuts and I had some chestnut mushrooms in my increasingly dwindling fridge stocks so an idea came to life to combine these most seasonal of ingredients.

The flavour of mushrooms is great but the slippery texture in a soup isn't ideal unless you combine it with something starchy.  I'm not a fan of potato in soups but I love using other vegetables to thicken soups and stews and why not chestnuts?

Chestnuts are a bit of a faff to prepare from raw which is why I used pre cooked ones here but they are bang in season and make this delicious, filling and thick soup which is a delight of wintery flavours and also smooth as silk.

Roasted Parsnips

I'd always found roasting parsnips a bit hit and miss.  The problem is parsnips have a higher sugar content than potatoes so tend to burn a little more easily.  I've come up with a few ways to help reduce the risk of that happening and have lovely golden parsnips for your tea or Sunday Lunch.

Grilled halloumi with herb vinaigrette

Halloumi is a great quick meal, there is something surprisingly deliciously salty about the squeaky cheese.

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

I make no claims to be an authentic Indian chef, but this is going to university time of year and it's also coming to the end of the month.  All of us could do with a decent curry recipe which costs pence and tastes great whether you're a meat eater, a vegetarian, a vegan, gluten free etc.

Fruit and Pumpkin Seed Breakfast

I feel like I'm on a one woman mission to convince everyone that breakfast doesn't have to be cereal or toast.  This is my latest invention with some lovely pumpkin seeds.  I do love a breakfast which has layers of flavour and texture.  Pumpkin seeds add crunch and are a great source of fibre, protein, iron and magnesium.  Also you've had two of your 5 a day (or 7 a day) and you've only just opened your eyes.

Paprika Halloumi Skewers

I love halloumi, the Cypriot cheese which keeps it's shape even when cooked and I decided to try a non traditional way to prepare it with more Spanish spicing.  It worked pretty well.

Day 7 of 7 a day

My last day of eating 7 fruits and vegetables in a day.  It's been a journey.  I am thoroughly bored of my kitchen scales and the crushing realisation that, (a rare situation in modern life), my portion sizes were normally too small.

Still it's been a journey.

Day 4 of 7 a day

It's day 4 of trying to eat 7 fruits and vegetables a day; seeing if this is even possible and how it makes me feel.

A simple jar salad

I love jar salads as they are great to take into work for an easy packed lunch but also look so beautiful.

It's great just to mix and match what you have in the fridge and I always find layering it up, I start to think about balance, where are the carbs coming from?  The protein?  The vegetables, the vibrant colours?  It's a great way to visually see your balanced meal.

This is my latest layered lovey!