Vegan Teriyaki Tofu Fried Rice

On to the next recipe for my major recipe uploading today. I'm trying to make use of this apare time I have as I realised I'm studying for a chem test that may possibly not even be tomorrow like I assumed it would be! 

I really love how this vegan fried rice tastes :) Fried rice is such an easy dish to whip up with whatever you have in your fridge. For this japanese-y fried rice, I wanted to add mirin but I ran out, [or at least I thought I did :-( ] and I wanted to add japanese chili powder over but I had apparently used it up too. I'm obsessed with the stuff, and spicy food in general. 

Watermelon Goats Cheese Salad

A quick, simple and refreshing salad, perfect for a hot day ^^ 

The watermelon can be cubed if you dnt have a melon scooper but I find the little melon pearls really adorable :-) Oh and I absolutely love feta cheese! You can add more but I think this amount is enough because the cheese flavour is quite intense so a little goes a long way ~

For 1 serving

What you'll need

1 cup of watermelon balls

1/2 cup spinach leaves 

30g Feta cheese cubes (or crumbled) 

10g walnuts (chopped or whole) 

2 tbsp orange juice

How to

1- Just toss everything together and serve up!

Bacon wrapped sweet potato wedges

Made some simple baked sweet potato wedges wrapped with crispy turkey bacon! So good fresh out of the oven. Especially if you love sweet potatoes like yours truly. Turkey bacon may not be super healthy but it isn't too bad if you make sure it's low in fat, sodium and most importantly nitrate free. Besides its pretty delicious. 

Healthier Baked Chicken Parmesan

Cheese. Definitely not healthy but so good! However I believe in moderation so a little cheese is acceptable in my books. As long as you don't go too crazy cheese is actually pretty good! It has lots of vitamins and minerals, and is a good source of protein :)

Made chicken parmesan for lunch the other day and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It was so moist and juicy ❤ I even made my own breadcrumbs. Here's the recipe. 

What you'll need

•1/2 a slice of wholemeal bread OR some wholemeal breadcrumbs

•1/3 tsp of any salt free seasoning (such as lawry's, mrs dash.....)

•1 boneless skinless chicken breast (190g) 

•1 egg white

•Organic pasta sauce (low fat and sodium) (I used about 1/5 of a 339g bottle)  

•2 tsp grated parmesan 

•1 slice of reduced fat cheese (cut into 2)

•Dash of black pepper

How to

1. Preheat oven to 150C. Tear bread up into small scraps. Bake for 10min or longer until crispy. Blend the bread and seasoning in a food processor to get breadcrumbs. Pour onto a plate.

2. Preheat oven to 180C. Spread a spoonful of pasta sauce on to a oven proof dish. 

3. Beat egg white in a bowl. Coat chicken breast thoroughly in egg white and then coat in the breadcrumbs. Place on top of the pasta sauce in the dish. Bake for 18min**

4. Remove chicken from the oven. Increase the oven temperature to 200C. Pour enough pasta sauce over to cover the chicken. Just use as much as you like ^^ 

5. Sprinkle parmesan over and lay the cut up cheese slice over. Sprinkle a dash of black pepper over. Bake for 10-15min until the cheese melts and turns slightly brown!

** If you use a smaller chicken breast you can bake it for a shorter time in step 3.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

After one bite of this, I flipped out and couldn't stop raving about it for the next few hours. These healthy sweet and sour meatballs are honestly THAT good. They taste and look like they were made in a Chinese restaurant! 

I'm going to teach my maid how to cook this for us, so we can have it for dinner some day! On weekdays my maid cooks dinner (-: 

Perfect blend of sweet and sour! Plus it's low fat unlike the usual sweet and sour pork. I messed these up last weekend and they were terrible!! But my mum motivated me to try again (-: I'm so glad I did!

What you'll need

140g minced chicken (or you can use half pork half chicken)

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp honey

1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp light soya sauce

1/3 tsp Chinese rice wine

3 tbsp water

1/2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp minced garlic

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped capsicum (3 colours)

How to 

1. Boil water in a saucepan. Form mince chicken into balls. Drop chicken into the boiling water and cook for about 15min or until they float to the top. 

2. Mix tomato paste, honey, vinegar, light soya sauce, Chinese rice wine and water together to form your sauce.

3. Heat olive oil in a pan. Over medium high heat sauté onion and garlic. Once fragrant add in vegetables and chicken meatballs. Briefly fry for a minute or so and then pour sauce over. Mix everything together well and cook until sauce thickens. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the meatballs.

Serve with brown rice and you can garnish with coriander if you wish :-)

Tahini Soba

School has started officially so my posts from now on may be even shorter than normal! Today I made this really easy soba. When I showed it to my brother he said, "that's not japanese" so I said "it's fusion.

In any case, it's delicious ^^ Tahini is sesame seed butter. I used organic hulled tahini I got from wholefoods in London. Tahini's rather bitter, so I sweetened it up with honey. Worked pretty well I must say! 

What you'll need

A piece of ginger

50g uncooked soba

1/2 cup chopped broccoli 

1/4 cup sliced carrots 

1 tbsp hulled tahini

1 tbsp honey

1/4 tsp mirin

1/4 tsp light soya sauce 

Grilled meat of choice

Seaweed for garnishing 

How to

1. Boil water with ginger. Add in broccoli and carrots. Blanch for a few minutes and remove broccoli and carrots. Then cook your soba in rapidly boiling water for 3 min or according to your packages instructions. 

2. Mix tahini, honey, mirin and soya sauce together. Toss soba in the sauce. Garnish with seaweed and serve with vegetables and grilled meat :)

Healthier Enchiladas!

Asdfghjkl. These are not the cleanest recipe I have but they are certainly super delicious and healthier than other enchilada recipes! When I first took a bite of these I immediately tweeted that I was in enchilada heaven because seriously, I was! It's like pizza pasta deliciousness in a burrito or something. And single serving convenience ~

On a side note, I want to let you guys know that I do iifym and don't eat healthy all the time. In case you don't know. Because someone today was criticizing me of not being truthful. And I did not ever claim to eat completely healthy 24/7 but incase it was implied by my pictures :/ 

What you'll need

1 wholewheat/wholegrain flour tortilla

1 tomato

1/2 tsp olive oil

1/8 cup sliced onions

1/4 tsp minced garlic

50g minced chicken breast

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp dried herbs

1/2 - 1 red chili, chopped up 

1 tbsp corn kernals 

1/8 cup chopped bell peppers

2 tbsp tomato paste

10g shredded mozerella

Greek yogurt 

Spring onion

How to

1. Rinse tomato and leave some water on the surface. Microwave on high in 1 minute intervals until the skin splits. When cool enough to handle, remove the skin and chop up. 

Preheat oven to 180C. 

2. Heat olive oil in a non stick skillet, over medium heat sauté onions and garlic. When fragrant add in chicken and fry till opaque. 

3. Next add in the spices, chili, corn, bell pepper, tomato paste, and lastly chopped tomatoes. Toss together and keep frying. The chopped/mashed up tomatoes will soften up as they cook. At the end you should have something resembling chicken and vegetables in pasta sauce.

4. Spoon chicken and vegetable mixture into the centre of the tortilla, leaving the sauce behind to use for later. Wrap up burrito style! Fold sides of the tortilla over slightly then roll up tightly from bottom to top. Place into a dish, pour the remaining sauce over the entire tortilla wrap, sprinkle cheese over and bake for 20min. Cool before eating. Top with greek yogurt and spring onion. Enjoy!

Tabasco Cream Soba

Today's recipe is so super quick and easy I can barely call it cooking. It's really good on a warm day because the sauce is made of greek yogurt, which is cold. You can always make it hot my making the sauce in a double boiler or heating it in a microwave. However the weather was just too hot for me to even consider doing that. Therefore I have cold soba, which is actually normal since Japanese soba is sometimes served over ice :) 

What you'll need

50g uncooked soba (organic if possible)

1/4 cup greek yogurt

30g tomato pasta sauce

1.5 - 2 tsp Tabasco sauce

1/2 cup spinach, torn up

Grilled chicken, chopped up 

Chopped red chili (about 1/2 a chili) 

How to 

1. Cook soba according to the package. Remember to rinse in cool water afterward to stop the cooking process.

2. Mix yogurt, pasta sauce, Tabasco sauce and torn up spinach. Mix into soba and add in the grilled chicken too.

3. Sprinkle chopped red chili over and serve :)

How easy was that? 

Sun Dried Tomato Cashew Pesto

Happy New Year's Eve!! So this is rather different from regular basil, pine nut pesto BUT it's just as delicious if not better! It's so easy to whip up and tastes great on toast and crackers with some lemon juice. You can water down the pesto a little, stir it through some pasta and serve with some protein for a satisfying main course!

There's only one step for this recipe!! Just blend up everything hehehe. I love thyme and sun dried tomatoes btw :-)) Also hope y'all are having a good New Year's Eve!

What you'll need

50g sun dried tomatoes

15g (2 tbsp) cashews 

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves 

2-3 tbsp water (your preference)

How to

1. Blend everything together well!

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Yum in my tum. Gluten and dairy free sweet potato gnocchi!

Just realised gnocchi is sorta like western dumplings? 

I've never made my own pasta before, which is why I was really excited to make these! I'm honestly so happy with the way they turned out. If you like sweet potato you'll absolutely love these. You can really use any herb in place of rosemary, but I think rosemary goes fantastic with sweet potato! 

The pasta can be a little sticky, so when you're forming the little gnocchi pieces use slightly damp hands and a slightly damp fork. Water repels the stickiness :D 

What you'll need 

160g sweet potato 

1/4 cup all purpose gluten free flour blend

1 egg white, beaten

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Water and a fork/gnocchi board

2 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp butter extract 

1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves 

1/2 tsp minced garlic 

Black pepper 

Cherry tomatoes

How to 

1. Scrub sweet potato and poke holes in it with a knife. Bake the sweet potato in a preheated oven at 200C for 1h. Let the sweet potato cool, scrape out the insides and mash. 

2. Mix flour, egg white and smoked paprika into the sweet potato. Combine well into a slightly sticky dough. 

3. Take a teaspoon of dough and roll it into a oval shaped sphere aka an ovoid! Roll it on the fork to make the line indents you commonly see on gnocchi. Set aside and repeat until the dough is used up. 

4. Set gnocchi aside to air dry for an hour. Then cook gnocchi in boiling water for a few minutes until they float to the surface. Remove with a sieve or slotted spoon. 

5. Heat olive oil and butter extract in a pan over high heat. Fry garlic and rosemary. When fragrant immediately turn off heat and toss in gnocchi. Serve with black pepper and cherry tomatoes!

Pandan Salmon Bundels

Oh boy. The second I, no, BEFORE I even removed these guys from the oven, I could smell how delicious they would be. The slightly charred pandan and the Asian marinated salmon together were so fragrant, I immediately started freaking out because I knew what I had created today was a success. 

Savory recipes are sometimes tricky, because salt adds a lot of flavour. But with these you won't miss the salt at all! The combination of the shallots, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chili and pandan is absolutely divine. If you love pandan, salmon and lemongrass as much as I do, you HAVE to try this recipe!

Even better, it's so simple! Anyone can do this :-) 

Be sure to leave your pandan leaves wet after washing them to keep them from burning while on the grill!

What you'll need

125g salmon fillet, cut in to 4 pieces

1.5 tbsp shallot

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp chopped lemongrass (white part)

1 tsp chopped ginger

1/2 red chili, chopped

1 tsp honey

1 tbsp water 

4 pandan leaves (leave wet)

How to

1. Blend all ingredients together EXCEPT pandan and salmon. Marinate salmon in the paste for 30min - 1h. 

2. Preheat grill. Roll each piece of salmon (along with some paste) in a damp pandan leaf. Keep the end of the leaf at the bottom of the salmon so it does fly out. Grill for 12min. If your pandan leaves look like their getting too brown, brush some water on and continue grilling! 

I served mine with brown rice, salad and tomatoes.

Quinoa Pizza Rounds

Another pizza post. Sorry I'm not sorry.

These are like pizza, minus the grease and carbs.

Gluten free too! Quinoa is also higher in protein than other carbs like rice :)

Going for a swim in pizza sauce. Actually I used pasta sauce but what's the difference haha.

I do realised I just spammed you guys with pictures but I can't short list them it's so difficult sigh. 

What you'll need

1/2 cup cooked quinoa 

1/3 cup shredded cheese 

1/4 cup chopped shallots

1 tsp minced garlic

Slightly under 1/4 cup parsley or basil 

1/2 tsp chili flakes

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs (ensure there's oregano in there) 

1/2 tsp smoked paprika 

50g turkey breast, chopped up

1 egg

Serve with: pasta or pizza sauce

How to 

Preheat oven to 180C

1. Mix everything together except egg. Beat egg and combine with the other ingredients.

2. Divide into 5 greased muffin cups. Bake for about 18min. Cool slightly, remove from tray and serve with sauce!

Ps you can try less cheese and an extra egg white if you want.

Hasselback Sweet Potatoes

I love sweet potato. My favourite way to eat it has always been twice baked (recipe posted before). But this new method may be just as good if not better! This is great to serve at a party because the hasselback effect just looks really.. Cool. 

Usually I don't bake my potatoes with oil but I did use some this time. OMG it makes a huge difference. Like it gets all crispy and stuff :O Look!

I served mine with otah stuffed baked chicken. Just slit a chicken breast, stuffed some otah in the centre, sealed with toothpicks, seasoned and backed it :D 

What you'll need

1 sweet potato (150g ish)

1 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp butter extract

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp chopped parsley 

How to

Preheat oven to 200C. 

1. Slice sweet potato 3/4 way down into 0.3 - 0.5 cm thick slices. No need to be too precise actually.

2. Mix olive oil, butter extract, minced garlic and parsley together. Rub mixture all over the sweet potato and don't forget to get between the slices. It helps to use a butter knife!!

3. Bake for 45min. Fan out the slices with a butter knife and your hands. Curve the sweet potato back slightly to help the slices fan out! 

4. Bake for 10 more minutes and eat! If you want you can serve this with greek yogurt and chives :-)

Mozzarella stuffed Meatballs

They may look like regular meatballs, but when you bite into them, they're filled with ooey gooey mozzarella cheese :-) Really easy to make and you can take these to a Christmas party too! 

These are the mozzarella balls I used. I couldn't find low fat but if you can, good for you! I know they aren't completely healthy but if you use lean beef this recipe is moderately healthy :)

Makes 5 meatballs

What you'll need

120g lean minced beef

1/2 tsp minced garlic

2 tbsp diced onion

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp dried herbs

1/2 tsp chili flakes 

2 tbsp oats 

1 egg white 

5 mozzarella balls

How to

Preheat oven to 200C

1. Mix the 1st 7 ingredients together. Beat in the egg white. 

2. Grab some beef and form it into a disk. Then wrap it around a mozzarella ball. Repeat for the remaining meatballs.

3. Bake for 15min (or longer if needed) then serve with tomato pasta sauce, wholemeal pasta and vegetables.

Pistachio Crusted Salmon with Cranberry Sauce

The first of the two Christmas recipes for today. 

Pistachios and cranberries are a classic Christmas combination. Since I have yet to make a dish with the two, I felt it was only right I made this pistachio crusted baked salmon and cranberry sauce served on a fluffy bed of quinoa. The tartness of the cranberries goes really well with the salmon and adds that wonderfully festive feel. This is so basic anyone can do this :) 

For salmon I used fillets premarinated with a whole bunch of herbs and a little garlic. If you are using plain ones, please add some herbs and garlic to marinate it. 

What you'll need

1 125g salmon fillet (I used premarinated ones, see above)

1/2 a lemon (juice)

15g pistachio nuts

1/4 cup or more cranberries

1 tbsp water

1 tsp honey

Cooked quinoa

Steamed vegetables

How to

1. Chop up pistachio in a small food processor. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Squeeze lemon over salmon fillet and coat the salmon in the chopped pistachio. Bake for 15min.

3. Microwave cranberries for about 40s, depending on your microwave. Mash it up with a fork and mix it together with water and honey. 

4. Serve over salmon with quinoa and steamed vegetables.

P.S To quick steam your vegetables, wash them, don't pay dry and microwave for a 30s or so until cooked. 

Chili Beef Pie

You see London inspired me quite a bit. I saw the pies in London and thought heh I should make a pie. And then my parents had a chili beef pizza and raved about what an awesome combination it was... So here we have it, healthy chili beef pie. 

It's like spicy beef stew under a blanket of pie crust. I'm going to be honest here, the crust isn't flaky and puffy like usual pie. For that you'll need puff pastry which needs lots of butter. This is more like the base of a tart kind of crust. But it is still a pie none the less, and a delicious one at that! 

Also I hope you noticed my new blog template! Do you like it better than the old one? 

What you'll need

Pastry:

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp oil

1/4 tsp butter extract

2 tbsp water

Filling:

100g lean beef chuck, cut into 2cm pieces

1 tsp wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp olive oil

2 tbsp onion, chopped

1/2 tsp diced garlic

1 small chili padi, diced (slightly longer than an inch) 

2 tbsp carrots, diced

2 tbsp leek, chopped

1 Swiss white button mushroom, sliced

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs

1 tbsp tomato pasta sauce

Dash of black pepper

How to

1. To make the pastry, mix wholewheat flour with baking powder. Then form a well. Pour wet pastry ingredients in all at once, and knead to form a dough. Set aside. (As always, too dry add water, too wet add flour)

2. Toss beef cubes in wholemeal flour. Heat olive oil in a non stick pan, and fry onion, garlic and chili over medium heat. 

3. Once fragrant add in the beef and cook until the beef turns brown. Add in remaining ingredients. Mix everything together well. Simmer until the water is mostly evaporated and it's like a stew!

4. Preheat oven to 220C. Roll out dough until fairly thin. I just made it the right size for my dish. Put beef in a porcelain dish, cover with pie crust, press the edges with a fork. Cut slits in the pie crust. Bake for 25min and eat!! 

Pumpkin Chicken Risotto

Hellooo. Today's lunch was pumpkin chicken risotto. I used leftover brown rice which made it quicker to make! Those hardcore risotto fans, don't kill me for not using special risotto rice lol.

This was simply divine. Creamy, sweet and buttery mmmm. I think what made this dish so tasty was the butter extract. I highly recommend it. I got it from iHerb.com!  http://www.iherb.com/?rcode=LPQ082 use this for a discount on your first order :-) 

What you'll need

1/2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp diced garlic

2 tbsp diced onion

140g chicken, cut in to bite sized pieces 

3/4 cup cooked brown rice

1/3 cup steamed pumpkin, puréed 

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup low fat cottage cheese 

1/2 tsp butter extract 

Dash of black pepper

3 leaves sweet basil, torn up

Almond flakes 

A bit more pumpkin

Cayenne pepper (if you wish)

How to

1. Heat olive oil in a non stick sauce pan (such a small portion of food anyway).

2. Sauté garlic and onion over medium heat. Once fragrant, add in chicken pieces and cook until opaque. Then remove from the sauce pan.

3. Now add in brown rice, puréed pumpkin, water, cottage cheese, butter extract. Mix together well and simmer until the water has mostly evaporated. Just cook until the consistency of risotto you prefer. 

4. Add a dash of black pepper and stir in the torn up basil leaves. Serve with almond flakes, a dash of cayenne if you wish and a few pumpkin bits. 

Baked Scotch Eggs

On my trip to London I saw these scotch eggs and I knew I had to try and healthify them. Traditionally a scotch egg is a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. I'm sure that's all really delicious but its probably not too good for you. 

I made my own bread crumbs using a slice of 100% wholemeal bread. All I did was rip up the bread and bake the small bread pieces in a preheated oven. 150C 10min. Then I processed it in a food processor/mini bullet blender thing.

What you'll need

1 hard boiled egg 

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs 

1/4 - 1/3 tsp smoked paprika 

40g minced chicken breast 

40g minced pork (lean) 

1 tbsp wholemeal flour

1 egg white 

Wholemeal breadcrumbs 

How to

1. Mix herbs, paprika, chicken and pork together.

2. Beat egg white in bowl A. Put flour in bowl B. Put breadcrumbs in bowl C.

Preheat oven to 200C.

3. Form the meat into a flat disk. Wrap hard boiled egg in the meat. Next evenly coat the egg + meat ball in wholemeal flour. Dust off the excess. Next dunk it into the egg white. Make sure it's all coated. Lastly coat it in the breadcrumbs!

4. Now bake it on a greased pan/greased aluminium foil/parchemnt paper for about 27 min.

Tabasco Chocolate Chicken

I do realise how strange this sounds. Tabasco and chocolate and chicken served with naan??? BUT 

It works.

It's such a #strangebutgood recipe and I have to share it! 

What you'll need 

150g chicken breast, chopped

3 tbsp water

1/2 - 1 tsp Tabasco sauce (to taste)

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tsp honey

1/3 tsp ground paprika

1/3 tsp minced garlic 

1 tsp olive oil

Chopped red bell pepper

Serve with:

Naan

Lettuce 

How to

1. Mix all the ingredients except chicken and olive oil.

2. Marinate chicken in the sauce. 

3. Heat olive oil in a pan. Add in the chicken pieces and fry over mediu heat. When the chicken is opaque, pour the remaing marinade over and simmer till the liquid evaporates. Add in some chopped red bell pepper.

4. Serve with naan and lettuce. 

Sweet Potato Bacon Pasta

If you love sweet potatoes you'll love this! And bacon <3 <3 And so damn simple. I served mine with microwaved broccoli and baked chicken marinated in Mrs Dash Original Seasoning! 

What you'll need

40g dry wholemeal/brown rice/quinoa pasta

1/4 cup steamed sweet potato

1/4 cup water (or milk) 

2 slices turkey bacon, chopped

1/2 tsp garlic 

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves 

1/4 cup water from cooking the pasta

Method

1. Cook pasta. Save 1/4 cup of the cooking water.

2. Blend sweet potato with 1/4 cup plain water.

3. Fry turkey bacon pieces in a small non stick pot.

4. When the bacon is almost cooked. Add garlic and thyme. Sauté. 

5. Next add sweet potato purée and leftover cooking water. 

4. Cook until thickened and then stir in cooked pasta :)