All posts filed under: Cooking

Potato Week and Stifado

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Okay, so on Potato Week I decided to center a post around heart-warming food, since potato equals comfort eating and warmth in my mind.  It must go back to my childhood when my mum would have made baked potatoes for a light dinner,  the house would have smelt divine and the kitchen would have become the focal point of the house…So once winter kicks in I get the craving to, most of all, recreate that atmosphere and feel once again, the warmth and comfort of a good baked potato. Of course, now I live in Northern Ireland, the country of THE potato, so I would most times choose a good Maris Piper potato for its fluffiness and taste (I cheated this time, though and used a ready half-baked one!) Actually, except for the times when I make mash (which my dad is firmly convinced is better when made with “pink” potatoes, and I believe him, as his mash is always delicious!), I prefer a Maris Piper for roasties, potato wedges and even potato salad! Today I …

Paleo living…

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So, my friends, a second recipe this week! The first one was dedicated to my little one, this one tonight is dedicated to hubby. Cause he has been on a new diet since we came back to Greece. And cause it has actually simplified my life as I hardly ever cook carbohydrates for dinner during the week now. And has challenged me to come up with new ways to cook chicken and fish and beef… So this week I picked Ainsley Harriott’s 100 Great Chicken Recipes(!!) from our local library and decided for the roasted blackened chicken Itza with cumin sweet potatoes. I replaced the English mustard powder with proper mustard and left out the caster sugar. I made a paste out of black pepper, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp Moroccan spice mix (instead of the paprika in the initial recipe), 1 tsp of mustard and 1 tsp each of chopped chilli and chopped garlic. I used the paste to coat my chicken and put it in the fridge to …

Romanian soup and tips for your fussy eaters

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The weather has turned bad on us. Hey, it’s October, right,  so it has every right to do so(pun intended)! In our household October equals excitement on various levels. For one thing, daddy bear starts to feel a bit better concerning the weather and starts to enjoy things more. He suffers from what I call seasonal and locational melancholy from May until the end of September: he misses his home country, the sunshine and the warmth and only recovers from mourning for it once the weather turns cooler there as well… Emma starts getting excited come September about a couple of things: the imminent(for her!) birthday celebrations in November and Halloween. Of course, the older she gets, the more she understands and wants to participate in Halloween as a dress-up, have-fun celebration and she gets truly excited at the thought of witch lollipops( yes, Mothercare do them!), chocolate pumpkin treats(Home Bargains, 67p per bag of 20) and not-so-scary lanterns in the house. As for me, it’s comfort food cooking season! This year, the pumpkin craze …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 35 – Don’t fear fats!

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I think this is the lesson I learned since my last weigh-in. It paradoxically took an increase of fat consumption in my diet to lose weight last week!! My explanation? We have been told that veggies and fruit are great for losing that extra weight but losing weight depends to a great extent on an efficient daily elimination of the ingested food. I found that in my case water doesn’t have enough lubricant effect necessary in the elimination process and that fats like avocado, extra virgin olive oil and even “bad” fats like pork pancetta and bacon had a favourable effect. This is not medical advice so please don’t go blaming me if this doesn’t work in your case. This is what works for me and has helped me go down another notch this week, from 68.5 to 67.6! Stay healthy, eat well and don’t ditch the bacon ;-). Talk soon!                                                         I now add olive tapenade, curried coleslaw or a dash of olive oil to my salads. Delish!

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 20 – Health on a plate

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Today it was “leftover” day in our household. I had made my turkey burgers and quinoa salad from yesterday evening so all I had to do is make a fresh salad of organic lettuce and tomato and my dinner was ready. I am always experimenting with my food so last night I  added a thin slice of Gruyère cheese into the burgers and it melted when warmed up today. Delish! I had also more confidence in making the quinoa salad second time around and realised that a cup does us just fine and nothing goes to waste, which I hate seeing. Hubby enjoys my food more than ever, he had always been a healthy eater but he just loves trying new things and he got spoilt in the last three weeks. Well, this is day 20, there are exactly 20 more days left of this healthy living challenge and I am heading for the kitchen to make myself a fruit snack as I got hungry again after out very healthy dinner at 6. Talk tomorrow! …