Butterbean stew recipe

Hello everyone,
I haven’t posted a recipe or anything for quite a long time. I asked a few people on Instagram if they would like me to start posting recipes again and I got such positive feedback that people would love to see recipes. I dip in and out of blogging ever such a lot but I really enjoy it. I enjoy having the space to share anything my heart desires. So, as with all of my other recipes I have shared I thought I would post them on this blog. This particular one I am going to share today was actually requested and I didn’t really know what you would want me to share so I thought I would kick off with this one.

Butterbean stew:

Ingredients:
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 can of butterbeans in water, drained and rinsed
1 small onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 red pepper, chopped
1 courgette, chopped
1tsp each of cumin, coriander and garam masala

What to do:
1. Heat a little oil in a saucepan and add in the onion, carrot, pepper and courgette and cook for five minutes
2. Add the butterbeans, chopped tomatoes, cumin, coriander and garam masala and simmer for 15 minutes. You may need to simmer for longer depending on how crunchy or soft you like your vegetables to be
3. Serve with whatever you would like and most importantly enjoy! 🙂

Spicy tomato and chickpeas and potato cakes

Hello,

I wanted to share with you two recipes today. The first one is spicy chickpeas and spinach and the second one is potato cakes. Today was my first time making potato cakes and I am in love they are so delicious. I think the spinach and chickpeas is also quite a standard recipe that I see in cookery books and on the internet. All with only slight variations. You don’t have to eat these too thinks together but I normally eat my chickpeas with rice so I fancied a little change today. You could also have the potato cakes with baked beans or any other saucy thing you would like. So, I shall share the recipe for both.

Spicy tomatoes and chickpeas:

Ingredients:

• Olive oil for frying
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 gloves of garlic, crushed
• Small piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely grated
• 2 red chillis, chopped as small as you can
• 1/2tsp turmeric
• 3/4tsp garam masala
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 2tsp tomato puree
• 400g chickpeas
• 200g packed baby spinach leaves

What to do:

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and cook the onion until softened. Stir in the garlic, ginger and chillis and cook for five more minutes
2. Add the spices and stir over a low heat for a few seconds then add the tomatoes and tomato puree and simmer for five minutes
3. Add the chickpeas, simmer for ten minutes. Lastly add in the spinach and cook for a few minutes until wilted

Potato cakes:

Ingredients:

• 2 large diced potatoes
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1tsp dried chives
• 2 chopped spring onions
• 1/2 beaten egg
• Olive oil to fry

What to do:

1. Put the potatoes in boiling water and simmer for ten minutes. Drain then mash lightly with a fork
2. Add the cheese, chives and spring onions and half an egg and combine so everything has stuck together. Be careful not to use too much egg otherwise it will be too crumbly for cooking
3. Make 4 potato cakes and then heat your oil in a frying pan. Fry on each side for 4-5 minutes until browned

Enjoy 🙂

If you try any of my recipes then don’t forget to tag me on instagram or comment below

Lentil bolognese

I wanted to share with you a recipe for one of my favourite sauces. I love lentils and I love that it makes the perfect alternative to a proper meat bolognese and I am not a huge fan of quorn although I eat it occasionally but I think lentils make a good meat free substitution.

How to make lentil bolognese sauce:

Ingredients:

• 75g dried puy lentils (or you could use red lentils if you like)
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 small carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 small courgettes, cut into cubes
• a couple of medium sized mushrooms
• 1x 400g can chopped tomatoes
• tsp vegetable stock powder and about 150ml water
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1tsp dried oregano

What to do:

1. Put the lentils into a saucepan and then fill the pan with water. Cover and bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes and then drain once cooked.

Cooked lentils

2. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion, garlic and carrots and then fry for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the courgettes and mushrooms and cook for two more minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, stock, tomato puree and oregano and lentils.

Chopped onion and carrot

Chopped mushroom and courgette

3. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes

Enjoy ❤

Red lentil and vegetable sauce

Hello,

Today I wanted to share with you one of my all time favourite recipes. I make this so much and it is so quick and easy and such a favourite of mine. You can serve it with anything you like: rice, couscous etc. I always have mine with pasta.

Ingredients:
1 onion, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
2 carrots, diced
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp each tomato puree and balsamic vinegar
250g diced vegetables. You can you anything you like I used: courgette, red pepper and mushrooms
50g red lentils
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes

What to do:

• Tip the onion, celery and carrots into a large non stick pan and add 2-3tbsp of water. Cook gently, stirring often until the vegetables are soft
• Add the garlic, tomato puree and balsamic vinegar, cook on a high heat for one minute more, add the diced vegetables, lentils and tomatoes and then bring to the boil
• Turn the heat down to simmer then cook for about 20 minutes until all the vegetables have cooked.
• Enjoy 🙂

Recipe- Mushrooms and chickpeas with apricot couscous

Hello!

Today I have decided to share with you a recipe because on my Instagram I always have quite a few people saying they would love to know the recipes for the things that I cook and bake. So I thought I would start off with a pretty basic recipe. Pretty much all of the ingredients are ones that you would already have in your house so it’s always good to be able to make something and not having to rush and and buy something last minute and also this recipe is so quick and that’s exactly what you need sometimes. I do love cooking but I don’t like to be in the kitchen for hours after a long, busy day!

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, diced
• 1tsp olive oil
• 1/2tsp ground cinnamon
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 300g mushrooms, quartered
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 400g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1tsp clear honey OR 1tsp agave nectar

1. Fry the onion in the oil for 6 minutes until softened. Add the cinnamon and cumin and cook for one minute, stirring. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes then stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas and honey/agave. Simmer for 7-8 minutes.
2. To make the couscous I use 50g per person and 2-3 depending on how big they are dried apricots per person. Chop up the apricots into really small pieces and then put in a bowl along with the couscous. Pour over boiling water from the kettle until it has just covered the couscous and then cover with a plate and leave for five minutes. When the couscous is cooked fluff up the grains and serve with the mushrooms.

Enjoy!

Meal plan.

I feel the need to document this because I feel like the fattest person ever to have come on this earth. So here goes.

Breakfast: 40g porridge oats with 120ml of soy milk and a tsp of honey, grapes.

Snack: Soreen banana lunchbox loaf.

Lunch: 50g couscous with 1/2 jar of chargrilled vegetable sauce and 70g quorn chicken pieces.

Snack: Large banana.

Dinner: Two slices wholemeal toast spread with 2tbsp peanut butter, nectarine and raspberry yogurt.

Snack: Graze black pepper popcorn.

And I was going to have more to get me to at least near my calories but this popcorn has outdone me. There was literally SO much of it and I seriously don’t think I can fit another thing in me. What the hell is wrong with me? Im horrible 😥

What do I eat?

Hi!

I am rather nosey myself and love seeing what other people eat so I thought I would share some of the things I have eaten recently! This won’t be a full day or anything, it will just be random meals from any day but I think I am going to participate in next weeks WIAW 😀 I have been on a real cooking kick lately so I have been cooking a lot of my dinners so I will show lots of those.

So firstly breakfast pictures:

Weetabix with a sliced banana and milk.

So my most common breakfast is some type of cereal with milk and a banana. I absolutely love Weetabix and also sultana bran is a favourite as well. I also love anything and everything to do with peanut butter. Crumpets are the best things ever:

Crumpet spread with peanut butter and a banana.

I have been experimenting a lot with my breakfasts recently as they are all a bit samey so I came up with this a few weeks ago:

Apple and cinnamon overnight oats.

This was my first time making overnight oats and I topped it off with peanut butter. I did like it but I am still searching for my perfect breakfast! I know breakfast is a lot of peoples favourite meal but for some reason I don’t really like eating in the mornings so I just like to grab something quick.

Now for lunch. My lunches vary a lot which I love.

Baked beans on toast.

One of my favourite lunches at the moment has got to be baked beans on toast. I have that one a lot 😀 Another lunch I have quite a lot is soup:

Homemade spiced carrot soup.

I made this one out of a book that only has vegetarian soups in and it was really nice. Im really trying to make my own food now as cooking is such a hobby of mine. It has its downsides now as I do get VERY obsessed.

Mediteranian herb wrap with onion and chive cottage cheese, sweetcorn and quorn ham.

This is a lunch that I have just come up with recently. It is so nice and I have forgotten how much I love wraps so I will definitely be having more of them in the future!

And now for some dinners:

Homemade quorn shepards pie with sliced tomatoes.

I have this dinner quite a lot and it’s probably one of my favourites. We have a quorn book in my house and it has recipes using all the quorn products so that is where I got this from. And I like it because the mashed potato has parsnip in with is so it gives it a nice taste.

Homemade bean and pepper stew with couscous.

This is one of my new recipes that I have tried out. I have recently bought a vegetarian cookbook and it’s great because all the recipes are under half an hour and there are variations for each one for ten minutes, 20 minutes and thirty minutes. I really liked this stew and it is definitely one I will be making again.

 

Homemade sweet potato curry on chapatti.

My last dinner is another recent recipe find. I loved this and I absolutely love chapatti- I have every curry with them.

And of course there has been some snacking going on:

Hot cross bun loaf spread with peanut butter.

Hot cross bun with spread and a hot chocolate.

 

Cadbury’s mini egg nest cake.

So that is about all what I eat. I am rying my hardest not to stick to being “healthy” all the time. I am still recovering and I must be okay eating a few “treats” once in a while. I do find it tricky, especially right now but it’s all part of recovery!

Food challenges.

Hello

As you know I have been to my nanas house which is in Sussex for a few days. It’s a five hour drive so quite far away from where I live. And we went because my nana and my cousins usually come to stay at our house for Christmas but they couldn’t this year so we came to them instead. So we only went for a few days. We left on Thursday afternoon and then we have just got back today (Sunday).

While there, I have faced some pretty big challenges to do with food. I actually found the journey pretty hard to deal with as well. It’s like when I am doing nothing then all the ED thoughts come flooding into my head at full force. We left the house at 5:00pm so I took some soup in a flask with me to have in the car. It was horrible. Because the car was moving and I had my head down looking at the food I just felt so sick and then afterwards I just felt so full and extremely bloated. That’s when the ED thoughts crept in and three hours after I had actually eaten that I was still ridiculously full. Thankfully when I got to my nans I felt a bit better and didn’t act on any of the urges that I had.

And then the next morning, on Monday at breakfast time there wasen’t really much choice of food in as I haden’t been shopping yet to select what I wanted. So I had a big fuss at breakfast and it was all quite hard really. There was no wholemeal bread and no cereal. So my mum just went and put down a piece of white bread in the toaster which I had a massive freak about. I did eat it in the end though and it wasen’t one of the procesed loaves, it was from the bakery so it was extra scrummy.

After breakfast we went to waitrose where I bought loads haha:

• Mushroom ravioli
• Tomato and basil sauce
• Vegetarian chilli with rice
• Vegetarian casserole
• Quorn pasta bolognaise lunch pot
• Kit Kats
• Go ahead yogurt bars- blueberry
• Eat natural “lunchies” banana and apricot bars
• Fruit and fibre.

I was so excited because nearly all of that list I have never seen at home before so I was buzzing haha. And then in the evening I saw my cousins who live in Sussex. My nana had cooked a big roast dinner but they arrived so late that no-one ate till about 8:30. Luckily I ate earlier so that was good. I was worried that someone would say something to me and think that I was a bit of a pig for not being able to wait, But I had an excuse lined up in my mind for if that happened and no-body said anything anyway!

And then on Saturday morning when we had breakfast, that was an even bigger challenge. Saturday was the day that we went out to London on the train and we went out to the national science museum. So I needed a big breakfast with all that walking around. So I had a bowl of cereal and then my mum said I should really have some toast as well. And then my sister said why don’t you have a crossiant. She wanted me to have a croissiant the day before but I said no. I thought to myself hmm I would like to try a crossiant but the fat content is ever so high. And then I thought to myself well everyone is allowed a treat once in a while and my family were having two of the large croissants so just one wouldn’t hurt. So I ate it!!

It turned out to be a really good day at the museum. Except we left a bit too late so we arrived at 2pm. It didn’t really turn out as a problem in the end as a few hours in the museum was enough as we did get tired so quickly. And then we got back today at about 4:40pm. I did have a good time but I am actually really glad that I am home now.

Something did bug me and upset me a little while I was away. It was whenever I would eat something my nana would always make a comment on it. Like ooh that’s a nice yogurt, ooh look what’s in your basket or you have found hot chocolate. She wouldn’t say it quietly either, she would almost shout it. And I did get quite annoyed at one point. I would rather she just left me to it than pick up on every single thing I ate or even touched. She would just put toast on for me when I tell her not to. And it’s frustrating because I am well enough to be able to make my own decisions now.

Food pictures.

Hello 🙂

Today has been quite a good day 😀 I have been out to the shops twice 😛 The first time was to buy mince meat as we are running low and also to buy other food stuff and then the second time I went was with my sister as she wanted to go to new look and to boots to get some stuff for her A-level presentation evening which she has later on this week.

I also made mince pies today.

Mince pies.

I think they turned out quite well 😀 The only problem was the mince meat kind of exploded out the side of some of them. I don’t think that’s too much of a big deal though. And I am definitely going to try a mince pie this year. Even if I only have one it will be a big achievment I think.

I also plan on baking other things this week. Over the weekend I am going to bake a tea cake loaf which I am quite (ok, a lot) excited about. 😛 I have just wanted to make it for ages now and right this moment I am in the mood to bake and to actually eat what I have made so I think that’s a good excuse to bake lots now.

Anddd I also have some food pictures to show you all:

Yogurt with a chopped banana and granola.

This is the BEST breakfast ever. So tasty and definitely a great way to kick start your morning.

Boiled egg and toast.

I have also had a boiled egg for breakfast. I never really have eggs for breakfast, I usually just go for cereal or toast but I woke up and really fancied an egg so I had one. And marmite spread on the toast is an absolute must 😛 And then I also had a glass of orange juice on the side.

 

Crumpet spread with peanut butter and a banana.

And then my last breakfast to show is a crumpet spread with peanut butter and a banana. Crumpets are the absolute best 😀 Especially spread with peanut butter so it seeps into all of the holes!

Next onto a lunch photo:

 

Vegetable soup with a bagel.

This is possibly my favourite lunch ever. Well, I think my favourite soup is Covent garden butternut squash soup. The one here is the Covent garden best ever vegetable soup and I really like this one as well. And I am so excited because today I bought the seasonal one: honey and parsnip!! Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to try it! And I love bagels as well so usually I would have a bagel with my soup.

Wholewheat pasta with tomato and mushroom sauce and quorn meatballs.

And this is a dinner. This is actually the one I had last night, (don’t worry, I had more than this.) I loove pasta so much and I actually quite like quorn as well. I am a vegetarian which some of you might not know so I do eat quorn. I like their meatballs, mince, chicken pieces, delli slices, burgers and I also like some of their ready meals.

And that is everything 🙂

My weekend.

Hello 🙂

I feel like I have had a really good and productive weekend. I didn’t do much work though which I completely freaked out about last night when I found out I have about four assignments due in this week. I have started all of them though which is good and I do have two days off this week where I can do some work and I also have over three hours of break on Wednesday where I can go to the library. I have been getting so worried about college work. I just find it takes me so long to do, much longer than I have the time and energy for and I am starting to get really upset as I don’t think I will be able to get the mark I wanted to.

On Saturday, in the morning I just relaxed a bit and then me and my mum went to the shop to get some food supplies. And then when we came home it was already time for lunch as we needed to have a quick lunch because we were going horse riding. Horse riding was okay this week. I didn’t get put on the horse that I usually do but I was on a horse that I have ridden once and I did enjoy riding her last time. For some reason though I just could not get relaxed and I kept trying to make her stand still because I had to wait for about ten minutes actually on her for everyone else to get ready and get on. And she kept trying to edge up the hill and apparently I wasen’t relaxed enough as they said I have to relax my hands and then she would relax as well. And then when I started riding, I actually thought I was relaxed but the lady we where with said I had to focus on being relaxed so I kept getting un-relaxed because I was trying to focus on being relaxed. If that makes any sense. It was a good ride though and I would happily ride her again as she is a lovely horse. I think I was just having an off day with riding. If that can happen? Well I am a bit worried now because I thought I rode really rubbish on Saturday and I want to ride good and be confident again.

And then when we came home I had a shower and a rest and then it was time for tea. My mum and dad then went out together for the evening as it was one of their freinds birthdays which meant I was left at home alone as both my sisters were working late. I was a bit anxious before at being left at home alone because I always think really bad thoughts and then I fall into that depressed state very easily. On Saturday though I didn’t have any bad thoughts at all. I knew that I had Merlin to watch at 8:00 and I didn’t know what I was going to do in the in- between time but somehow I was on the computer and then by the time I knew it, it was time for Merlin and I haden’t had a single bad thought!

And then yesterday, in the morning I cleaned my hamster out and then I did a little bit of work, I then went swimming again. My second time going swimming and it was really good. I went on my own this time so my dad just dropped me off and then when I got in there, there were only three other people in the pool. I actually felt quite comfortable. I think I have got the hang of this swimming lark now! And let me tell you, I can definitely feel my muscles aching today from the swim. Now the next thing I need to do is make sure I am eating a proper amount of food when I exercise. I have also found these past few days that I am getting hungry at college even after I have eaten everything that I have packed. So maybe that is a sign that I am not eating enough during the day. I do know that I tend to save all my food until the evening so maybe that is something that I need to work on.

After swimming I had lunch. I had cheddar cheese in my bagel which I am pretty pleased about because I absolutely love cheddar cheese but I haven’t had it in a while as it is not a safe food of mine. Laughing cow is but it is just not as tasty as good old cheddar. And then for the rest of the afternoon I just rested as I was quite tired. 😛 And also, I had dinner with my family in the evening. That is my mum, my dad, my two sisters and one of my sisters boyfriends. So that is quite a lot f people when you usually only eat on your own so it was quite a challenge for me but now I can say I did it. I didn’t quite have what they all had as they had a roast dinner. None of my vegetables were roasted and my potato wasen’t either but I hope that doesn’t matter.. Anything roasted/fried is my biggest fear food left I think. And also my mum is trying to get me to eat with the family for Sunday dinner as we will be having about 13 people over for Christmas lunch. What a scary thought!

I have a day off tomorrow which I am pleased about. It doesn’t mean I can have a rest though! I have a ton of work to do. And as my last thing that I am going to say, me and my hamster share a food love- peanut butter. He loves it! Haha 😛 I fed it to him yesterday because the other day I googled it to see if it was okay for hamsters to eat and I found out it is but only if you give them tiny quantities because as it is a sticky food it can clog their throat up. Anyway, I spread a teeny bit on his wooden tube and he ate it in the space of about two minutes. He loves it!! And now I am really excited because I love it too.

Wow, I am so sorry this is such a long post! So much to say 😛 I hope everyone has had a good weekend and a good day today. 🙂