Beetroot, Butternut & Chicken Salad

May I just say I’m a butternut freak, you’ve probably noticed. I post butternut recipes regularly. I guess I love it, because it looks like sunshine on your plate. Part of enjoying food is how it looks, if it’s pretty I enjoy it a whole lot more.

   

Ingredients:

300g cooked beetroot (you could buy it cooked or steam it for 15 minutes)

250g Steamed Butternut

300g baby leaf Spinach

2 Chicken Breasts cut into strips

1 tablespoon Honey

1 teaspoon Chicken Spice

Method:

Firstly coat the chicken in chicken spice and seal it into a hot frying pan. No need for oil, the honey will help the chicken to get golden brown.

Seal the flesh of the chicken and add the honey.

Fry for about 5 minutes and take off the heat. It should be cooked without being dry, nothing like dry chicken.

Now you could be creative, compile the salad in layers.

First layer will be spinach, followed by butternut and beetroot. Lastly add the chicken.

Drizzle the left over honey juice from the pan over your salad and viola; you have a tasty summer dish.

You could add pumpkin seeds, even some parmesan. I added almonds to my dish. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Warm Lettuce Salad

I saw an idea for this dish on the television, and thought is this woman insane? How on earth does fried lettuce taste. The answer? Delicious!

It sounds weird, but try it. I am a firm believer in trying everything at least once. When you fry the lettuce it gets a sweet taste. The trick is not to cook it for too long, you want your lettuce to still be a bit crisp. This is what I did:

Ingredients:

1 medium onion chopped

½ Iceberg Lettuce chopped

½ cup Frozen Peas

5ml Butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

First soften the onion in a bit of boiling water in a pan.

When the water is cooked away add the butter and lettuce, stir-fry the lettuce and onion, for about 2 minutes on high heat.

Add the peas, salt and pepper.

Stir for another 2 minutes.

Take of the heat and serve warm.

Let me know what you think.

Tuna Cakes

We all know we need to eat more fish, but it gets boring. The same old fish and chips every week. So I decided to try something new. I call it, Tuna Cakes. I decided to use tuna, because it is high in omega 3 fatty acids. 

Omega 3 is such a wonderful supplement with great health benefits. It could lower cholesterol, reduce high blood pressure, ease joint pains, fight wrinkles, improve memory and could even boost your mood.

Ingredients:

200g mashed potatoes

2 tins of Tuna

1 egg

1 teaspoon parsley

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Pinch of Paprika (You could add more if you like hot food)

Salt to taste.

Method:

Add all the ingredients together, mix well.

Add about 5ml of olive oil in a very hot pan.

Scoop a tablespoon of the mixture into the pan and press down to flatten it slightly.

Leave it for about 3 minutes per side, or until it’s golden brown.

This mixture will make about 8 fish cakes.

I served these Tuna cakes with some sweet chilli sauce. You could serve this hot or cold, next time I might add a bit of spring onion to the mixture. Overall this is a healthy fun recipe, I hope you enjoy it!

My First Risotto

You have to try something new every now and then. You know, just to keep it interesting. I decided to make my first Risotto. This is a high in starch meal, so try not to overdo it :)

 

Mushroom Risotto

250g Mushrooms thinly sliced

1 large onion thinly sliced

1l of vegetable stock

1 Pack of mushroom soup powder

400ml Low fat Milk

250ml Pasta Rice

Firstly gently sweat the onion and mushroom until the onion is soft.

Add the rice and some of the stock; keep adding the stock little bit at a time waiting for the rice to absorb the liquid. Do this until all the stock is absorbed or the rice is nice and soft.

Lastly add the soup powder to the milk and add to the risotto, stir until it thickens.

Let it gently cook for about 10 minutes.

You could serve this with a bit of parmesan cheese if you like.

Honey Peach Chicken Skewers

It’s summer time again, well almost. This time of year South-African’s love to braai (barbeque). Sometimes I get tired of the same old thing over and over again. So we tried something new for the grill. It’s quick and easy to make, and tastes real good. Hope you enjoy it.

   

Honey Peach Chicken Skewers

Makes 4 skewers

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts cubed

250g Dried peaches

60ml Honey slightly warmed in the microwave to make it runny

Chicken spice

You will also need skewers.

Method:

Stack the chicken and peaches on the skewer.

Baste the chicken with Honey and lightly spice it with the chicken spice.

Braai until cooked, it will take about 10 – 15 minutes.

Enjoy with summer salads.