Mum's pancakes were thin crepes, designed to make a couple of eggs and a cup of flour feed a family of five, and perfect for filling with chocolate chips, rolling up and dipping in yoghurt! There is no recipe in the world that can replicate the fun of sharing a table with family, eating pancakes with sticky fingers on a holiday weekend, but that doesn't mean there's no place at all for pancakes on a normal day.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Did Someone Say Brunch?
The year before my family emigrated from the UK to New Zealand, we spent a summer over here staying with my mum's cousins. Our first ever Kiwi Christmas, we were served up pikelets for breakfast. New to summer Christmas customs, I remember Mum asking if a pancake breakfast was tradition and my 'aunty' Audrey saying, "It is now!". Fast forward sixteen years and pancakes and pikelets have become synonymous with special occassions. Every birthday, long weekend and Christmas morning we have a spread of pancakes, pikelets or waffles, hot berries, fresh Greek yoghurt or cream and golden syrup. Consequently, I love pancakes! Not just for what they represent, but for the endless topping possibilities and my uncanny ability to eat my weight in them without getting full.
Cooking for One (+Recipe!)
For the past few years, I've had very little motivation to cook nice dinners for myself. Days spending eight, nine or ten hours studying or working left me unable to summon the energy to cook a meal "just for one". Add to that that I've spent the last couple of years working in close proximity to a mall food court and my dinner favourites have gradually degenerated from colourful stir fries and rich roast dinners into alternating takeaways with lazy ten minute "meals" like macaroni cheese and tomatoes on toast.
Lately that has changed. Making a real effort to eat healthier food has meant putting a bit of planning into my dinners, and while I can't always rally the energy to cook after a long day, rediscovering what it means to "cook for one" has been a total revelation. As I've said before, growing up we were encouraged to eat a variety of foods but traditional meals always won out. Winters were special for roast meals with pork crackling and crunchy roast potatoes as well as cakes and scones and home made bread with real butter. Of course, these were treat foods and like anyone, my family does make an effort to eat healthily but I can't honestly say they're huge fans of brown rice, tofu and quinoa!
Cooking just for myself means I can take these not-so-well-loved but healthy ingredients and experiment with them without having to disappoint anyone with an inedible meal if things don't pan out (excuse the pun!).
And I'm glad I have been able to experiment because I was playing around with the usual suspects (brown rice, tofu, chia seeds...) and I managed to cook up a really yummy, colourful and healthy dish for dinner the other night. I actually really like using tofu, it's like a little flavour sponge. In this recipe the tofu is marinated in citrus and ginger which gives a yummy pop of flavour that really complements the beetroot.
Lately that has changed. Making a real effort to eat healthier food has meant putting a bit of planning into my dinners, and while I can't always rally the energy to cook after a long day, rediscovering what it means to "cook for one" has been a total revelation. As I've said before, growing up we were encouraged to eat a variety of foods but traditional meals always won out. Winters were special for roast meals with pork crackling and crunchy roast potatoes as well as cakes and scones and home made bread with real butter. Of course, these were treat foods and like anyone, my family does make an effort to eat healthily but I can't honestly say they're huge fans of brown rice, tofu and quinoa!
Cooking just for myself means I can take these not-so-well-loved but healthy ingredients and experiment with them without having to disappoint anyone with an inedible meal if things don't pan out (excuse the pun!).
And I'm glad I have been able to experiment because I was playing around with the usual suspects (brown rice, tofu, chia seeds...) and I managed to cook up a really yummy, colourful and healthy dish for dinner the other night. I actually really like using tofu, it's like a little flavour sponge. In this recipe the tofu is marinated in citrus and ginger which gives a yummy pop of flavour that really complements the beetroot.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Low Fat Pumpkin Pie
I promised in my last post that if I were to do any "healthy" baking I would come back here to share the results. I have to confess that the pumpkin pie recipe I'm about to share with you is not what I would call healthy per se, and you'll see why soon enough. It is however very low in fat, especially compared to recipes I have read online - that goes for the filling and the pie crust (feels like sacrilege to call it "pastry"!). There are one or two simple changes I would make if I was going to cook this up again (stated below) and I think once tweaked with, this would make for a pretty healthful dessert or snack.
I've never made pumpkin pie before and usually I wouldn't attempt a healthy version of anything if I didn't know how to make it the regular way first. I did quite a lot of reading to see what the pie filling is made up of and it's basically a pumpkin custard. Most recipes call for a couple of whole eggs, and lots of cream and sugar although one or two suggested using mascarpone or even low fat yoghurt to create a more cheesecake-type filling. Recognizing that I needed a mixture that thinned out the pumpkin but still set to a creamy texture once cooked, I used my baking instincts to create the below recipe. The resulting filling was creamy and spicy and pretty indulgent actually.
The pie crust is kind of a different story. Real pastry is made up of one part white flour to one part butter; it's less of a "sometimes" food and more of a "birthday and Christmas" food. Don't get me wrong, I love pastry as much as the next person but if I think too hard about what's in it I get the health heebie jeebies! With that in mind the pie crust below is an excellent alternative. The recipe I used is from my trusty Healthy Food Guide magazine and was designed for a savoury pie that would be eaten straight from the oven. The pastry is pretty bland but it held itself together and served its purpose of holding all the filling in one place. If I were to use it again for a dessert pie I'd probably add a bit of a cinnamon or maybe even some sweetener to give a bit more flavour.
I've never made pumpkin pie before and usually I wouldn't attempt a healthy version of anything if I didn't know how to make it the regular way first. I did quite a lot of reading to see what the pie filling is made up of and it's basically a pumpkin custard. Most recipes call for a couple of whole eggs, and lots of cream and sugar although one or two suggested using mascarpone or even low fat yoghurt to create a more cheesecake-type filling. Recognizing that I needed a mixture that thinned out the pumpkin but still set to a creamy texture once cooked, I used my baking instincts to create the below recipe. The resulting filling was creamy and spicy and pretty indulgent actually.
The pie crust is kind of a different story. Real pastry is made up of one part white flour to one part butter; it's less of a "sometimes" food and more of a "birthday and Christmas" food. Don't get me wrong, I love pastry as much as the next person but if I think too hard about what's in it I get the health heebie jeebies! With that in mind the pie crust below is an excellent alternative. The recipe I used is from my trusty Healthy Food Guide magazine and was designed for a savoury pie that would be eaten straight from the oven. The pastry is pretty bland but it held itself together and served its purpose of holding all the filling in one place. If I were to use it again for a dessert pie I'd probably add a bit of a cinnamon or maybe even some sweetener to give a bit more flavour.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
First Week Update
Ok, so it's been one week since I started to really put a bit more effort into my eating habits. I have not been perfect - as you can see from the last post there was a flat pizza night and I did have a Quarter Pounder on Wednesday (just the burger, no fries!) but I've made a massive improvement on my previous habits. I already feel a lot more energised, and I'm not as tempted to sit on the couch and watch TV all day.
As well as making a conscious effort to eat better, I've also started taking an iron supplement once a day - I can't say whether or not this is what's behind my energy increase but I think it usually takes a couple of weeks for iron levels to improve from a supplement so I'd say my overall dietary changes are probably the cause.
I'm finding the diary very helpful, I've found it more beneficial to log what I've eaten for a few consecutive days than to try to maintain it non stop, but I can already really see where and why I need improvements. Planning ahead is key - the meal plan I made last week was really helpful but once I'd got to day four, I had a few rushed meals that weren't as balanced as I'd have liked. Although I intend to plan ahead more, I'm trying to negate the impact of the rush by cramming in lots of veggies into my "last minute" meals. For example last night, after a long-ish day at work I just wanted something yum to eat. I decided on Mexican but instead of making it with minced beef and not much else, I made it entirely out of vegetables. Into the pan went three portions of frozen spinach, a half cup of green beans, a few chopped mushrooms, half a can of kidney beans, half a can of tomatoes and some Mexican seasoning. I used baked taco shells instead of burritos or wraps and added a wee bit of grated Edam instead of sour cream. Not a perfect meal by any stretch, and I probably made a little too much, but it was packed with a variety of vegetables, contained a protein source and was relatively low in fat!
I'm still wanting to experiment more and hopefully today I'll be doing a bit of "healthy baking". Last week I made a no-added-sugar banana bread which was really tasty, I might make it again soon and post the recipe. I tweaked it a little bit and replaced the ground almond from the original recipe with wholemeal flour because of the cost. I was a bit worried about the fat content since there was no butter and the only oils in the recipes came from the almond, shredded coconut and some peanut butter but it was actually really moist in the end! It's funny how this all makes me realise how much I was taught growing up about the chemistry of baking!
If I do some more cooking today I'll make sure to post recipes and results up here.
Have a good day!
:)
As well as making a conscious effort to eat better, I've also started taking an iron supplement once a day - I can't say whether or not this is what's behind my energy increase but I think it usually takes a couple of weeks for iron levels to improve from a supplement so I'd say my overall dietary changes are probably the cause.
I'm finding the diary very helpful, I've found it more beneficial to log what I've eaten for a few consecutive days than to try to maintain it non stop, but I can already really see where and why I need improvements. Planning ahead is key - the meal plan I made last week was really helpful but once I'd got to day four, I had a few rushed meals that weren't as balanced as I'd have liked. Although I intend to plan ahead more, I'm trying to negate the impact of the rush by cramming in lots of veggies into my "last minute" meals. For example last night, after a long-ish day at work I just wanted something yum to eat. I decided on Mexican but instead of making it with minced beef and not much else, I made it entirely out of vegetables. Into the pan went three portions of frozen spinach, a half cup of green beans, a few chopped mushrooms, half a can of kidney beans, half a can of tomatoes and some Mexican seasoning. I used baked taco shells instead of burritos or wraps and added a wee bit of grated Edam instead of sour cream. Not a perfect meal by any stretch, and I probably made a little too much, but it was packed with a variety of vegetables, contained a protein source and was relatively low in fat!
I'm still wanting to experiment more and hopefully today I'll be doing a bit of "healthy baking". Last week I made a no-added-sugar banana bread which was really tasty, I might make it again soon and post the recipe. I tweaked it a little bit and replaced the ground almond from the original recipe with wholemeal flour because of the cost. I was a bit worried about the fat content since there was no butter and the only oils in the recipes came from the almond, shredded coconut and some peanut butter but it was actually really moist in the end! It's funny how this all makes me realise how much I was taught growing up about the chemistry of baking!
If I do some more cooking today I'll make sure to post recipes and results up here.
Have a good day!
:)
Food Diary 31/5 - 2/6
Saturday 31/5
Breakfast
2 slices wholegrain toast, one marmalade, one no salt/no sugar peanut butter
2 mugs peppermint tea
Breakfast
2 slices wholegrain toast, one marmalade, one no salt/no sugar peanut butter
2 mugs peppermint tea
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