healthy

Lemon, honey and ginger prawns with wild rice and quinoa.

| Nadine Croney

If you like a sweet and sour combo then you’ll love this recipe. Quick, easy and cheap to make it’s a great mid-week meal  suitable for the whole family.

Lemon, honey and ginger prawns
Lemon, honey and ginger prawns

Ingredients

  • 400g of raw prawns
  • A selection of veg to stir fry (I’ve used sugar snap peas, yellow pepper, baby corns and courgette)
  • 100g wild whole grain rice
  • 100g red quinoa
  • 1 lemon
  • 2 inch cube of fresh ginger chopped finely
  • 2 tbsps honey
  • 1 organic Kalo vegetable stock cube
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • Pinch of salt.

Cooking method

  1. Simmer the rice and quinoa in the vegetable stock for 10/15 minutes, drain and set aside
  2. While the rice is cooking add the juice from the lemon into a pan with the ginger and honey.
  3. Bring the mixture to the boil then simmer for 3 minutes then set aside. 
  4. In a frying pan cook the prawns in half the coconut oil and add the salt before transferring them to a hot wok. 
  5. Add your vegetables (I made courgetti from my courgettes) and pour in the sauce.
  6. With the remaining coconut oil stir fry the prawns and vegetables for a few minutes then add the cooked rice and quinoa.
  7. Serve immediately. 

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes (including rice/quinoa cooking time)  

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Chicken and chickpea slow cooker casserole 

| Nadine Croney

As the nights draw in and the heating is turned on to keep the chill at bay my food choices immediately turn to hearty, bone-warming meals which quite often means casseroles, stews and roasts. 

Tonight was one of those nights so I dusted off the slow cooker and made my favourite casserole. 

Even though it’s packed with veggies – seven to be exact, it’s a firm family favourite evidenced by my two children hoovering it up in minutes!! 

Cooking in a slow cooker (crockpot) doesn’t take much brain power as you literally chuck all the ingredients in the pot and let the cooking process create the magic. The real test is being patient and letting the casserole cook for five hours plus. 

 

chicken and chickpea casserole
Chicken and chickpea casserole

Ingredients:

  • 6-8 filleted chicken thighs
  • 3 tbsps coconut oil
  • 1 carton of passata
  • 2 tsps cumin seeds
  • 2 tsps coriander seeds
  • 2 Garlic cloves
  • 1 tbsp rock salt
  • 1 onion
  • 1 courgette
  • 200g chopped swede
  • Handful of mushrooms
  • 3 carrots
  • 200g chopped aubergine
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 tbsp onion salt
  • 200ml cold water.

Cooking method

  1. Brown off the chicken thighs in the coconut oil
  2. In a pestle and mortar mash the rock salt, garlic, cumin seeds and coriander seeds into a paste and add to the slow cooker along with the chicken and drained chickpeas
  3. Chop all the vegetables into cubes and add to the slow cooker along with the passata and onion salt.
  4. Add water and mix all the ingredients well.
  5. Turn the cooker up to high and cook for a minimum of five hours.   

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 5 hours

Serves 6

Fabulous chocolate fudge

| Nadine Croney

I’m really excited about this recipe… five ingredients and five minutes to make, then with a bit of patience (and willpower), you have some delicious chocolate fudge to devour which is healthy, tastes fabulous and requires no baking!

Fabulous chocolate fudge

Cooking Ingredients

  • 100g quinoa
  • 8 Medjool dates (stones removed)
  • 2 tbsps of coca powder
  • 1 tbsp of coconut oil
  • 4 tbsp of water

Cooking method

  1. Toast the quinoa in a pan for a minute until it turns golden brown.
  2. Put the quinoa into a blender and blitz until you get a flour-like consistency (I left mine a bit rough as I wanted some crunch). You can buy quinoa flour if you prefer.
  3. Add the quinoa and other ingredients into a food processor and pulse until the ingredients come together to form a dough.
  4. Press the mixture into a cling film lined plastic tub.
  5. Put in the freezer for approximately 3 hours to set.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Chilling time: 3 hours

Makes approximately 20 one inch squares

No flap, no crap flapjacks

| Nadine Croney

I think I can safely say I am a psyllium husk convert. I discovered it in a seeded bread recipe and haven’t found anything better to act as ‘glue’ when baking without conventional ingredients.

Today I road tested it with my flapjacks. I followed no set recipe instead I just mixed all my favourite ingredients and by luck (and skill of course) created the perfect no-crumble, guilt free, flavour packed flapjack. 

 

Flapjacks
Flapjacks

Ingredients 

  • 2 tbsps of psyllium husk (buy at organic/health food shops)
  • 400g rolled oats
  • 200g jumbo raisins and cranberries
  • 3 tbsps chia seeds
  • 2 tbsps coconut oil
  • 250g of rice sugar
  • 150ml of water
  • 1tbsp vanilla essence 
  • 75g crushed walnuts

Cooking method 

  1. Pre heat the oven to 180c
  2. Line a large baking tray with foil
  3. Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well
  4. Flatten the mixture in the baking tray
  5. Bake on the top shelf for 30 minutes
  6. Take out of the oven and remove from the tray also removing the foil. Put the flapjacks back on the tray and bake for a further 10 minutes. 
  7. Remove from the oven and cut into 12 squares before they cool and harden.

12 servings

 

Flapjack square
Flapjack square
 

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 40 minutes.