Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
1 can Rhodes Country Kitchen Tomato, Onion and Garlic
400g new potatoes, cooked and sliced (about 1cm)
125g bacon or chorizo sausage, chopped
1 red, yellow or green pepper, sliced
90g chedder cheese, grated
handful of chopped parsley
6 large free-range eggs
1 tbsp (15ml) olive oil
1 onion, chopped
Method
Preheat oven to 180C
Heat olive oil in frying pan and saute onions and pepper for about 5 min. until soft.
Add chopped bacon or chorizo sausage and fry for 3 min.
Add sliced potatoes.
Whisk eggs and chopped parsley in a bowl until fluffy and season with salt and pepper.
Add egg mixture to the tomato and potatoes and fold through.
Sprinkle grated cheese evenly on top.
Place the whole pan (if it is oven proof) into the preheated oven, or empty the ingredients into a greased ovenproof casserole dish and bake for 20 min. until the omelette is golden brown and firmly set.
Slice and serve warm as a delicious brunch dish or serve cold with a green salad nd crusty bread for lunch or an easy supper. Also great to fill lunch boxes or pack into a picnic basket.
My Notes
I put the mixture into a greased microwave oven safe dish and cooked it on high for 10 minutes instead of using the oven and it came out just fine.
Source: HealthyFood Healthy You
Serves: 4-6
Dress it up for a dinner party or have it for brunch - this is the perfect summer dessert. The kids will love it too!
Ingredients
4 bananas, frozen overnight
300g fresh or frozen raspberries
2 cups (500ml) plain fat free yoghurt
1/4 cup (60ml) fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon (15ml) toasted almond flakes
Method
- In a blender, blitz bananas to break up
- Add 1 cup (250ml) yoghurt to moisten and blend
- Stir to loosen slightly
- Add raspberries and remaining 1 cup (250ml) yoghurt and blend till smooth (stir it if it needs loosening)
- Scoop out into glasses
- Serve sprinkled with extra berries and toasted almond flakes
- Add less raspberries of you prefer the sweeter flavour from the bananas
- Use vanilla flavoured fat free yoghurt for extra flavour and sweetness
- Use any chopped seasonal soft fruit or berries as a topping instead of fresh blueberries
- Freeze it overnight. Remove from freezer 15 minutes before serving to soften slightly and serve as a berry ice cream
- Substitute raspberries with frozen mixed berries
Source: GI Lean Lifestyle Recipes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
80g pearl barley, uncooked
1000ml vegetable stock
250g tomatoes, canned
100g baby marrows, sliced
150g red onion, chopped
100g corn kernels
200g carrots, chopped, cubed
400g split peas, cooked
fresh parsley, chopped
Method
- Place pearl barley in a large saucepan and add vegetable stock
- Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add the rest of the vegetables and bring to the boil again and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add the split peas and heat thoroughly.
- Sprinkle parsley over the hot soup and serve immediately.
Source: GI Lean Lifestyle Recipes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
300g carrots, cubed
150g celery, chopped
200g tomatoes, canned
150g red onion, chopped
250g cabbage, chopped
100g patty pans, diced
5ml garlic
625ml vegetable stock
100g corn kernels
100g baby marrows, sliced
400g butter beans, canned and rinsed
250ml pasta, uncooked
Method
- In a pot combine all ingredients except corn, baby marrow, butter beans and pasta
- Bring to the boil and reduce heat.
- Simmer for 15-20 minutes.
- Add the corn, baby marrow, butter beans and pasta.
- Simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are tender and the pasta is cooked.
Source: GI Lean Lifestyle Recipes
Serves: 2-3
Ingredients
10ml Olive oil
100g onion, chopped
400g butternut, raw and cubed
5ml fresh root ginger, grated
250ml vegetable stock
250ml fat-free milk
400g butter beans, canned and rinsed
season with salt and pepper
Method
- Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the onions until they are softened.
- Add butternut and ginger and stir-fry for as few minutes.
- Add vegetable stock, milk and salt and pepper and bring to the boil.
- Add butter beans and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Let the mixture cool, and then liquidise.
- Reheat and serve hot.
I'm even more excited to go to Roma next spring after seeing this bit from the wonderful travel blog, Galavanting.tv.
Source: Cook Yourself Thin
Lemon meringue pie is a British classic and rightly so. Apart from looking stunning with all that swirling cloud on top, it combines contrasting flavours and textures. Although this recipe omits the pastry, you will find that the crunch of the meringue, the softness of the cream and the sharp ouch of the lemon is all that this dessert needs.
Serves 6
Nutritional Information: 266 calories per serving
Ready in 2 hours 35 minutes
Ingredients
The meringue
- 2 free-range egg whites
- 115g caster sugar
The lemon curd
- 2 level tablespoons cornflour
- 100g golden caster sugar
- Juice of 5 lemons and the zest of 2
- 2 free-range egg yolks
- 120ml whipping cream
Method: How to cook zesty lemon meringue mess
1. Preheat a conventional over to 120ºC or a fan-assisted one to 100ºC.
2. First, make the meringue by whipping the egg whites with a handheld whisk until quite stiff, then gradually whisk in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time.
3. Once you are satisfied that you have a feminine and glossy-looking mixture, dollop six blobs onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and pop into the oven for two hours.
4. To make the lemon curd, put the cornflour, sugar, lemon juice (strain this in with a sieve to prevent lumps later) and the lemon zest into a small saucepan over a medium heat.
5. Stir for roughly seven minutes until thickened.
6. Take the pan off the heat for five minutes in order to cool slightly. Beat in the egg yolks with a balloon whisk until combined and set aside.
7. Whip the cream with a handheld whisk until soft but not stiff.
8. To assemble, roughly crunch up the meringue so that you have a mixture of different-sized chunks and textures.
9. Gently fold most of the lemon curd, followed by all the cream (this is important to create the ripple effect) into the meringue before dividing the mess up.
10.
Finish off by running the remaining curd in swirly whirlies over the
mixture in the bowls. You could garnish with some lemon zest or a spot
of mint to smarten it up a notch.
Harry's Tips
1. Meringues keep really well for a couple of days in an airtight container or tin if you wanted to make them ahead of time.
2. If you don't fancy making the meringue, you can always buy it and save yourself the hassle, but make sure that you spend the money on good-quality bought meringue as opposed to that white chalk that sets your teeth on edge.
3. If you're pregnant (or feeding a baby, or if you're an elderly person), then do note that this recipe contains raw eggs.
In his final years he wasn't a happy man. He had lived a life increasingly full of alcohol, lost his son to alcohol and watched my grandmother succumb to dementia (most likely brought on from years of alcohol) before she died a few years ago. He stopped liking people. He was grumpy, angry and crabby all the time. He pushed away many people in his life with the terrible negativity that had grown around him.
He wasn't always like that. In my younger years it was easier to hide the negative effects of alcohol from the grandchildren. In truth, he was one of the reasons why I feel like I had such a happy childhood.
There are so many things I remember about him. He loved to bake and a birthday cake from him was a treat. He and my grandmother made incredible candy at Christmas every year. They had a big house on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Snake River in the tiny town of Burley, ID. Every summer we would go down there for a month or so. I looked forward to the summers for that reason...it felt so magical to go visit them. The sunsets there were incredible. So was the garden, the Russian olive trees, the massive lawn that eventually when we were old enough we had to help them mow. Papa had a riding lawnmower to do most of the lawn but there were hilly parts that we had to help with the push mowers. For years my little brother begged Papa to let him ride on the lawn mower. He thought that was the best thing in the world. In the house they had a wonderful fireplace in the family room downstairs, with a huge hearth that became our stage. We put on countless plays there for relatives every summer. In the basement was his pool table, where I learned to play pool both correctly and incorrectly.
He loved animals and there were always cats and dogs in his life. When I was little it was Penelope, a huge St. Bernard. I've never seen a live one since then...they're such big dogs that I don't think many keep them as pets. He let me name one of the kittens that his cat had one year. I named it Little Paw. They kept the kitty and he used to write me letters and send me pictures of the cat as it got bigger.
I collected stamps with him. Sheets of stamps, first day covers, 14k gold stamps. A few years ago he gave them all to me...it was the one thing I hoped I would be able to keep from him and he knew it. We used to go fishing a lot. I remember one time I sat my ass down on an ant nest of fire ants. I think, despite my pain, I convinced him not to throw me in the lake fully clothed. I never wanted to put the worm on or take fish off the hook (or watch him clean the fish, which he did right after we caught them). He was ok with that. He just liked having us around.
He wrote me letters all the time when I was little. I loved getting his letters. I loved hearing about Burley and the cats and dogs, and all the goodies that he was baking. I loved dreaming about going back to visit them.
As we got older and more jaded, and more aware of the pain that their alcohol abuse had inflicted on my mother and her siblings during their life, much of that lustre wore off. I did keep in touch with him over the years and after my grandmother died and he was sober, living alone with his little dog in the empty house, I tried to call him every week if I could. I'm the only grandchild that even bothered, mostly because had pushed everyone away. We would talk about things he remembered, about World War II, about selling insurance at Prudential (I still have these funny round TUITS that they used to give out as a marketing gimmick), about politics (he loved Hillary, which shocked me, but couldn't stand Obama because he was black, sigh), about things I remembered growing up.
I hope that he's in a place where that self-inflicted pain and loneliness is gone. Where he is full of the memories of good things, and good times with the people that he loved.
I love you Papa.
As I typed that, I was reminded of an old Bananarama song, "Robert Deniro's Waiting (Talking Italian)." What a goofy but sweet song that was!
At any rate, I've started taking a beginning Italian course, to help me prep for a trip to Rome in the spring. I bought an exorbitantly expensive textbook, Oggi In Italia, for the class. I've been studying a bit on Livemocha as well so I have some of the basics down. And yesterday, I attended the first class.
Basics mostly...how the class will be structured, the alphabet, the various sounds, etc. But the teacher, who I have to admit originally being a little worried about when she explained that she was still a student herself at BC, looks like she's going to be awesome.
I've got 7.5 months to cram as much into my little brain as I can before I go. I know that I would be able to get around anyway as most places I'm going will likely have English speakers, but I want to really experience it on a different level. I want to be able to talk to cab drivers, restaurant owners and shopkeepers with some level of confidence. I want to be able to understand the gist of conversations going on around me. Plus I think that when you start to learn the language you can't help but be even more swept away by the culture.
I'm very very much a beginner so when you comment back with phrases I'll have to go look them up. :-) But I'll keep plugging away at it!
Live Mocha is excellent, by the way, when it comes to learning a new language. I love the way they deliver up the lessons and have native speakers help correct written and spoken grammar in a way that isn't too confrontational or nerve-wracking (not face to face unless you want to enable instant messaging). If any of you join up, add me to your friends, even if you aren't learning Italian!
