All posts filed under: Easy Meals

Healthy Living Challenge:Day 4 – Visiting like-minded friends

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Half-term means one thing for for Emma and mummy: catching up with friends!! Today we visited with my lovely friend Iva, from MotherNatureLovesYou.com. I have known Iva for a good few years now and we have both started blogging at about the same time. Iva blogs about food and last year she has decided to adopt a vegan lifestyle and is doing really well! After a healthy cuppa of detox tea and some much needed banter, we took the kids out for a walk. Today we were blessed with sunshine again but it was a bit nippy so we didn’t last too long outside. Having lunch with Iva, and her lovely three boys, was like being in veggie heaven(or shall I say, haven ;-)? We feasted on mixed salad of red and white cabbage, red pepper, onion and cucumber with home-made falafel in pita pockets. Filling, crunchy, fragrant and low-calorie! Tonight I decided for a throw-everything-in-the-pot kind of dinner. I love Sainsbury’s recipes, you know, the ones you can pick on the way out of …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 3 – Salad Day

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Day three has started well, I have waaaaay more energy than I used to have just a couple of days ago, so by 11 o’clock I had cleaned the house, did ALL my ironing and made two  yummy healthy salads!! The first was a wild rocket, giant prawn and avocado salad. I was quite ravenous at 11, when I finished the housework and felt like having some protein so the prawns in the freezer came to mind. I added a drop(literally) of olive oil in a pan, a cube of frozen garlic and one of frozen chilli(Tesco does them and I find them amazingly handy and use them in almost everything) and threw the rinsed prawns in with a bit of salt and pepper. I left them long enough to change colour but no longer as they can easily overcook. Threw them on a bed of wild rocket and added some avocado, following the advice about good fat I received the other day. I found it delicious and I enjoyed the various textures put together, …

40 Day Healthy Living Challenge

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Okay, this week I noticed I have put weight on. Again. I know, I know, all those months of quasi-hibernation and comfort eating do just that but I think enough is enough. Need to turn this around. I have done it before in the past with diet and exercising and I have decided to set myself up for a challenge. Do just that for 40 days. Why 40? Because I remember my mum trying to fast when I was young for the whole 40 days of the Orthodox pre-Easter period and I think it’s as good a number as any. So here is what I need. I need people to join in and keep me accountable as I have come to agree with Hubby and believe that real friends are the ones who know the truth about yourself and spur you on to change when change is needed. I need advice. So if you have been on a balanced weight loss program and it has worked for you, I would like to hear your tips. …

On baking bread

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I have been musing over half a year on the possibility of adding another dimension to my blog. I love cooking, I have said it before and I love counting calories(not that I use my knowledge in keeping my weight down!) so I am going to launch two new categories of posts: cooking easy meals and cooking light for your family. If you like them, let me know. If they inspire you to cook healthier for your family, even better. Today I will post my super easy recipe of soda bread. When I first moved to Northern Ireland Alex encouraged me to take some cooking lessons and the recipe comes from there. But I have adapted it a little bit so it’s foolproof and delicious. I use: 500g self-raising soda flour almost half a pint of buttermilk, 25 grams of butter about half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes(I buy mine from Home Bargains for about 69p per jar). Put the flour in a big bowl, mix the butter in(with your own wee hands or if …