Aubergines are a vegetable that until quite recently I could take or leave. They were never top of my fav list until I started making aubergine parmigiana for my little boy and he couldn’t get enough of it. I tasted it and knew I had been missing out! After this little revelation, I’ve set out to use it in more dishes where I can, and in place of meat if possible and that’s where this dish was born.
Some nights you need a dinner that you can throw together with minimal cooking but still enjoy the dish as much as if it took hours to make. This dinner is exactly that, provided you have all the ingredients in, you can have it on the plate within around 15 minutes.
I always have a bag of frozen, raw king prawns in the freezer as they are so flexible and can be thrown into most dishes to make them extra special. This week I also had some left over harissa and so thought I would get the two ingredients together to make a quick and easy dinner. The result was lovely. Fresh and lively flavours, filling and best of all, so quick and easy to make.
One of my lovely friends got me a Good Food Magazine subscription for Christmas. Now I have a terrible habit of absolutely loving reading recipe books and magazines, but never actually making anything out of them as I tend to just go off and do my own thing so I decided that I would try and make a least one thing out of each monthly edition. The January edition was full of tray bakes and, having had a read through the mag, I decided the Harissa Cauliflower Pilaf was the most up my street. Now whilst I committed to making something out of the edition, I knew it wouldn’t be too the letter and so, having made this a few times now, I can confirm my version is actually rather different to the original.
Whilst I was pregnant, one of the things I wasn’t supposed to eat was goat’s cheese. Goat’s cheese is one of my favourite cheeses and 9 months without its creamy delight was hard going so I knew one of the first recipes I would write once I could have it again would include it! I also love the combo of lamb, harissa and goat’s cheese and so, after a bit of experimentation, I came up with this lovely salad which works perfectly as both a healthy, filling evening meal as well as for left overs for lunch the next day.
I’m always trying to come up with new, quick and easy weekday and ‘on the go’ lunches using up the contents of my fridge. A few weeks ago, being once again in this dilemma, I threw together this recipe and was more than pleasantly surprised with the results. For only 7sp you get a lovely, filling dish packed with flavour and punch. It’s the perfect dish to whip up if you’ve got back on the wagon post Christmas/New year and want healthy and flavour all in one!
I love that lean lamb mince is now readily available in supermarkets (at one time I used to have to hunt it down and stock up!!). Its a lovely flavour alternative to regular beef mince and can be used in lots of different ways to make a quick and easy evening meal. This one I created very quickly when trying to use up some of the ingredients I had in the house already.
My hubby is a massive fan of all things lamb and all things spicy so tonight I decided the come up with a new recipe which combined both. The result was delicious. As you can see from the picture, the dish is bursting with colour and as a result, flavour. The tagine itself is only 6sp per person and I served this with a drizzle of fat free Greek yoghurt (0sp each) and a pitta for an extra 4sp per person. This meant the whole dish was 10sp and it was lovely and filling. If you have a very hungry other half you could even serve this with a little rice but in my view, the addition of chickpeas and a pitta are filling enough!
The ingredient list might look lengthy but most of the ingredients are store cupboard essentials. Plus the actual method is very quick and easy indeed!
I’ve always got some lean pork mince in the freezer and this week I fancied trying something new with it. These meatballs were just what we fancied. Easy to throw together and lovely and informal to eat, they are the perfect quick tea. If you want to make this even quicker, pop the meatball mix together, roll and chill the night before and its ready to cook the next day!
Always keen to share the different ways people choose to keep themselves fit and healthy, tonight’s Skinny Kitchen Takeover comes to you courtesy of one lady who has some great ideas when it comes to both cooking and exercising. Check out Hannah’s Skinny Kitchen Takeover below where she shares with you her tips on batch cooking and Crossfitting as well as one of her favourite healthy recipes. So without further ado…