Mediterranean Style Fish

A BEAUTIFUL meal. My husband is amazing. He just cooked this for dinner. You will want more! Mediterranean style cod served with home made chunky chips.


Serves 2

Ingredients
2 cod fillets (7oz)
75g Parmesan Cheese
1 tsp chopped Parsley
2 slice brown bread, no crusts
4 sun dried tomatoes, in olive oil
1/2 tbsp olive oil (from sun dried tomatoes)
2 Lemon wedges

Chips
2 lrg waxy (high starch) potatoes
Salt & Pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Start with the chips as these will take the longest. Peel potatoes and chop into thick chip shaped chunks. These need to be par boiled. To do this pop them into a pot of boiling water. Leave them in until they are halfway cooked. Once drained, place them onto a baking tray, dribble olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Pop them in the oven now. They'll take roughly 1/2 hour. Move them a few times to make sure they cook evenly.

In a blender, crumb the bread fine. Chop the Parmesan into chunks and add to the blender. Blitz until chopped fine. Add sun dried tomatoes and olive oil to blender and blitz again.

You will be left with a wet crumb.

Place the cod fillets onto a baking tray and cover the top of each fillet with the breadcrumb mix. Divide evenly between the two. Sprinkle parsley on top.

Place the two lemon wedges between the fillets on the tray. The juice will move into the fish during cooking.

Into a pre-heated oven 200C for 15 - 20 mins. Cod is cooked when it's flaky.

Mediterranean Beef Stew

Serves 4

Ingredients

500g Stewing Beef/Lean Beef Strips
1 tbsp tomato puree
3 garlic cloves, diced
1/4 cup olives, chopped
1 large brown onion, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
350ml boiled water with beef stock
salt & pepper


Brown beef in a pan with garlic and onion.

Move to a casserole dish with remaining ingredients and place in a pre-heated oven at 160C for around 2 1/2 hours. Check that the beef falls apart before serving.

Serve with creamy mashed potato and green beans

Stuffed Peppers

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 fresh pepper
3 mushrooms, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 shallot, chopped fine
Handful of grated cheddar
2 slices cooked ham/bacon
Salt & Pepper


Personally I'd use a red pepper but today we only had yellow left over.

Get all the prep chopping out of the way. Half the pepper and clear out the seeds.

In a pan quickly fry off the shallots and mushrooms for 2 mins.

Mix everything up and stuff each half of the pepper. Top with cheese.

Place in the oven 200C for 15mins until the pepper cooks through.

Garlic Croutons

These are great served with the minestrone soup or a garnish for anything you can squeeze them into! Yum! (Not overly calorie friendly)

Ingredients

Fresh white bread (4 slices)
1 heaped tsp crushed garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1/2 cup butter/margarine
pinch salt & pepper
Pre-heated oven 180C


Remove crusts from bread (feed to begging dog or moaning toddler)

In a bowl mix garlic, parsley, butter, salt & pepper. Cream together until smooth.

Butter both sides of bread (without making huge mess)

Cube each slice. 1cm x 1cm (roughly)

Scatter onto a greased oven tray. You can use olive oil to grease or use baking paper. Pop into the oven for around 10 mins. Keep and eye they don't burn and move them around the tray often for even cooking.

Nom nom nom....

Minestrone Soup

Serves 4-6
(Depending on portion size)

Ingredients

Handful fresh Basil
Chopped Spinach (200g or 1 bag)
1 lrg onion
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 carrots, peeled & diced
1 sml egg plant, diced (Aubergine)
2 courgettes, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
1 sweet potato, peeled & diced (2 if small)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
100g spaghetti pasta, broken
2 tbsp olive oil
1 litre water
2 cubes vegetable stock (optional extra flavour)
Salt (5g) & Pepper (pinch)


In a large pot, heat the olive oil. Add all fresh vegetables & herbs. Add salt and pepper. Sweat until onion is soft (semi clear) Roughly 6-8mins.

Once onion is soft, add the tin of tomatoes and continue to cook for 5 mins.

Add water. If you are using the vegetable stock, add this to BOILED water first and then pour into the pot. Bring the water to the boil. Simmer (covered) for 20 mins. Now add pasta.

Continue to cook until all vegetables are soft. Make sure the sweet potato & pasta are cooked through. If you want the soup thicker you can now add a tbsp of corn flour. You will need to cook this through for roughly 3 mins. You can add more water if needed.


You have the option of topping with grated Parmesan or garlic croutons. Or both :)

Serve and enjoy!

A "What's in the Fridge" Lunch

A hit even with a Diva 2 year old!

Serves 2

1/2 Avocado
1/2 red Pepper
1/4 iceburg lettuce
25g cheese (more if you have a cheese monster like my diva)
1 tomato sliced fine
1 Grilled Chicken Breast


Serve in wrap or bowl. Quick, easy, good fats and happy tummy!

Coming This Week!

Fish Dishes!!

Now I'm not a huge fish fan but I know it's good for us so I'll venture out and see what I can do! The things I do for my readers!

Did You Know:
If fish has a very strong odour it's actually not fresh. True fresh fish doesn't have that strong smell.

Our Valentines Cupcakes!

Blueberry Smoothie

Natural Yogurt 150ml
Fresh Blueberries 3 tbsp
1 Banana
1 tsp icing sugar/honey (optional)



Simply combine and blitz until smooth. Pour and Serve.

This can also be stored in the fridge for later :)

Great as a snack or breakfast!

Homemade Pumpkin Soup

1 Butternut Pumpkin
1 Onion
1 lrg Potato (optional)
2 Veg stock cubes (optional)
tbsp Butter (optional)
1 litre water
Hand Blender

Onion; Remove skin, chop into big chunks, throw into pot

Potato; Peel, chop, throw into pot

Pumpkin; Clean out, remove skin, chop, throw into pot

Sweat all for 5 - 10mins on high heat with butter and crumbled stock cubes. Keep moving to avoid stock burning. Add water and bring to the boil. Blitz with hand blender. Can be as lumpy as you like. Season to taste.

Apple Muffins

Makes 12

60g butter (room temp)
100g caster sugar
225ml low fat milk
255g plain flour
3 tbsp baking powder
110g apple - chopped & peeled
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp vanilla extract


Pre-heat oven to 200C

Cream butter and sugar in a bowl. Sift in remaining dry ingredients.
Add milk & vanilla and mix (by hand) until combined. Fold in chopped apple.

Line a Muffin tin with cases and spoon at least 1 heaped tablespoon of mixture into each case. Divide remaining over the 12.

Bake for 20 -25min until skewer comes out clean.