Satay Turkey Meatballs

My Sister in Law passed this recipe on to me a couple of weeks ago, she's a bit (or a lot) of a whiz in the kitchen, and has been coming up with some great recipes for her one year old, and my brother who is the pickier of the two! I gave them a go today, and they were a hit for Ezra's lunch. I now also have a whole lot of meatballs left over, so guess what we are having for dinner tonight! They were a hit for me as well, I was going to freeze them, but decided against it. I'm really looking forward to dinner tonight, especially because it is all basically already ready! 

Ingredients:

500g minced Turkey

2 cloves garlic

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs

1 grated carrot

1 cup of chopped spinach

1 tablespoon natural peanut butter

A small handful of chopped coriander

Splash of Tamari

Method:

It's as simple as grating the carrot, chopping the spinach and coriander, crushing the garlic and adding those, plus everything else into a bowl.

Mix well.

Then form the mixture into small meatballs.

Heat a frypan, and then add some oil

Place meatballs into the pan and fry until they brown on the outside and are cooked through (my SIL fries them off and then puts them in the oven until they are cooked through, so either method works well)

Serve with rice, pasta or steamed vegetables.

You can also make up an easy dipping sauce for them with coconut milk, peanut butter and Tamari, incase your kids like mine are really, really obsessed with dips.

As much as I like eating sandwiches, they do get a little boring and redundant for me. So I love having some quick and easy lunch recipes for me and the kiddo on hand, so that we don't have to have the same thing for lunch everyday. 

Is there anything interesting you have been creating to make lunches more exciting lately?

Karen xx

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Lentil and Haloumi Salad

We are all moved out of our house, and the new owners have officially taken the keys, it is a really good feeling to be all done with the hard stuff! I'll do a blog post on that soon, but, today a recipe, because it has been a while.

 Now that we are getting a bit more normality back into our lives, we are trying to get back to our regular healthy meals, rather than the last minute thrown together stuff we have been eating lately, plus our fair share of eating out. It feels good to have time to think about shopping and dinners again.

This is one of my favourites. When I'm feeling like something light and easy for dinner this is my go to meal. And, I love haloumi!!! Seriously cheese that you can fry in a fry pan, do I have to say more! Also, I know it isn't the typical toddler meal, but Ezra chows this down. He LOVES the haloumi too, and will eat big spoonfuls of lentils. Sometimes that kid shocks me with what he eats, but we have been feeding him a pretty wide variety of different foods since he has started solids, so I'm hoping he will keep his great eating habits! The strangest thing that he loves is the pickled ginger that you serve with Sushi!

Ingredients:

Green Lentils
1/2 Red Onion
Cherry or Mini Roma Tomatoes
Lemon
Bunch of Coriander
Olive Oil
Haloumi Cheese

Method:

Follow the instructions on the packet of Lentils for cooking, and I usually just estimate how much I need depending on the size of the group eating.

Halve the tomatoes and finely slice the red onion and pick a handful of coriander leaves and add them all to a large bowl

Squeeze half of the lemon and approximately 1/4 cup of Olive Oil into the bowl, and stir in.

When the lentils are almost ready, fire up a fry pan, add a teaspoon of oil and sliced haloumi. Cook the haloumi until it is crisp and golden on the outside.

Strain the lentils, and add both them and the haloumi to the bowl and serve.

So easy, so delicious.

Karen xx

As it is Tuesday, I'm linking up with Jess for #IBOT and Stacey at The Veggie Mama for Meatless Monday!

Mint and Lime Iced Tea

One thing I miss about living in Florida is the over abundance of Iced Tea at almost every restaurant, it just isn't something you come across very often in Perth. Usually restaurants offer you the choice of Sweet or Unsweetened, of course unsweetened is so much better for you, but Sweet Iced Tea with the copious amounts of sugar just tastes soooooo good. 

But now that I am  cutting down the sugar in my diet I no longer can justify sweet tea, and I hate all the artificial sweeteners as well. I actually have a really hard time even drinking soft-drink (soda) at all anymore, it has actually tastes pretty gross to me now. 

The weather in Perth got a bit nicer yesterday, and the sun was shining, and I got a craving for some Iced Tea. We have a massive bunch of mint in the fridge that needed to be used, and a couple of limes lying around, so they made the perfect addition to my tea. No need for sweeteners, the flavour was perfect and really refreshing. 

Karen xx 

A Challenge in Eating Clean

Last night we watched the doco 'Forks Over Knives', has anyone else seen it yet?

Here is the trailer

I found it so intriguing and interesting, and maybe for the first time in my life I would actually consider becoming a Vegetarian (or more like, cutting down the amount of meat we consume). Some of the things they brought up about heart disease and health problems and the connection with eating a diet consisting of high animal based products (meat & dairy) was really confronting.

Really, it reinforced a lot of changes in our eating habits that we have been making anyway.

 I wouldn't say that we were eating particularly badly before. We make most things from scratch, like pasta sauce and curries, and rarely do we ever just dump store bought sauces in our meals. But still there were some changes we felt like we wanted to make, like using wholemeal flour and pasta instead of white.

An amazing spinach and mushroom quiche Joel made the other day!

I have found for myself with food, it is really hard to change my mindset. I just get a bit stuck, because it seems like a lot of work and when you are used to eating something, its easy to cook, so it is so easy just to keep going the same way.

So lately we have been trying to focus more on Clean Eating
Meaning, that we are trying to stay away from overly processed foods, eating whole-grains and staying away from  preservatives, and those things you have no idea of what they are on the ingredients label of food. It is amazing the amount of additives and preservatives that are in so many things, and the packaging doesn't even really clue us in to what it is because they use numbers. I spent a bit of time researching these numbers, and some of them are just plain scary.

The more I look into it all, the more it disturbs me. I just want to go back to basics. I don't want my vegetables to be Genetically modified. I don't want to be consuming copious amounts of chemicals. I don't want High Fuctous Corn Syrup. I don't want my Sultanas dried in chemicals. I don't want my Chicken cooled in Chlorine.

So I've set a bit of a challenge for myself to put in the effort, find great recipes and learn to love to cook.
Because I know, I know, it will be worth it.

You can do it with me if you want! It is way better than going at it alone!


Karen xx

Also,
Here is a great website for some recipes I have found!
http://www.thehealthychef.com I tried the pumpkin Lasagna.. AMAZING!!