A Couple of Easy Ideas for Christmas

Here are a couple of easy ideas for Christmas! (and delicious!!)

First up, a simple Pumpkin, Spinach & Feta Salad!

To make this, you simply cut up some pumpkin, sprinkle with the herbs/spices of your choice - I used a pre-mixed "Moroccan Spice Mix", toss onto a baking tray with half a sliced red onion and 2-4 cloves of garlic.  Spray with a little olive oil spray, and bake in a 180c oven for about 40 minutes. You can allow to cool (as I did) or use warm.

Mix together 1tablespoon of olive oil and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, and add 1-2 of the previously roasted cloves of garlic (chop them up or mash them!).  Take your spinach leaves (or any other salad leaves that take your fancy - I actually used a bag labelled "Aussie Salad" which also had some slithers of grated beetroot in it), and toss with the dressing. Then its just a matter of adding the roasted pumpkin & onion, some chopped feta cheese and some chopped walnuts! 

The second Easy Christmas creation is a fruit salad Christmas tree!

To do this, you take a carrot and a cored apple, and put the carrot into the centre of the apple.  You then toothpick your chosen fruit to this structure until it resembles a Christmas Tree! I used Watermelon, Kiwi,  Strawberries, Grapes and Cherries.  Next time, I will be trying to add some slices of stone fruit as well (to cover more of the gaps!!)

Results are in!

Well, the 8 week challenge is over, and the results are in!

Over the 8 weeks, I lost 13% of my body weight and 30.5cm overall! I am very happy with those results indeed!  As a bonus, I even came second in the competition!! (and I WON the most sessions attended award!!)









This weekend, we had a special Christmas themed workout, so I of course had to wear my Santa Hat!




There is another Weight Loss Challenge commencing on the 29th January - you can check out the details here!

http://www.inshapeoutdoors.com.au/

or here!

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Weight Loss Challenge!

My poor blog has been a little neglected of late! Its not that I haven't been cooking - nope, we are still eating! I am currently taking part in an 8 week weight loss challenge, so am following an eating plan from a nutritionist.  I was worried before we started that having to follow a structured plan would be too difficult, but I am actually loving it.  Not too much thinking involved, just eat what is on the schedule for the day! Everyone on the challenge is following the same basic plan, so I do still have a bit of lee-way with regards to what I put in my meals, because the plan has been written for meat eaters, so I get to substitute something else for the meat (generally tofu or beans).  So I do still get to be a little creative in the kitchen.  Here are a few of the things I have been eating so far...



Spinach, tomato & cottage cheese omelette (the cottage cheese was my addition - need some more flavour!!)


Spicy "chicken" (tofu) - this was tofu marinaded in a yoghurt, tomato paste and spice mixture, and then cooked under the grill.  Because I had marinated tofu, and not raw meat, I was able to use the left over marinade as a dressing for my salad!


sweet potato & four bean mix burger - on the plan this was meant to be a palm sized piece of meat and 1/3 of a cup of mashed sweet potato.  I mixed my sweet potato with a small tin of 4-bean mix and a table spoon  of cottage cheese, mushed it together and pan fried it (non stick pan, small spray of olive oil)



Stuffed eggplant


stuffed tofu (was meant to be flattened chicken rolled up with a tomato stuffing - I cut a slit in the middle of my tofu and filled with the stuffing)

So as you can see, I have been having quite a variety of food! And so far have lost about 4 kilos in 2 weeks (I am of course also training hard!!!)

Vegie Dumplings!

I usually have a box of frozen Coles Vegetable Dumplings on hand in the freezer - they are quick and easy to get ready after I get home from training on the days I train in the evening. Quick dinner is good dinner!! Anyway, I decided it would probably be just as easy to make up a batch of my own!

To make the filling, I was lazy, and whizzed up various vegies in the food processor, as well as some firm tofu. in the interest of extra laziness, I threw in half a bag of pre-grated vegies from Woolies.  I then fried the chopped up vegie and tofu mix with a little oil, and added some soy sauce, garlic, ginger and chilli .  I then left the mix to cool down.  Next step was to fold up the dumplings. Of course, I used wrappers I bought from the supermarket! I put a little filling in the centre of each one, lightly wet the edges with a little water, and then tried to fold them up neatly.  I don't think I did a bad job actually!



The dumplings were then pan fried in batched until golden, then thrown back into the pan with about half a cup of water and a lid on to steam for a couple of minutes.  We then ate way too many, which defeated my intended  purpose of having leftovers to keep in the freezer!  Will have to make MORE next time!!

Cookies!! - Oatmeal Raisin Cookies!!

I have been having quite a lovely time lately trying out some vegan recipes.  These cookies were magnificently delicious!!



Please find the original recipe over here I used this recipe from the book "Eat Drink & Be Vegan" by Dreena Burton.  I changed the original recipe ever so slightly - Instead of allspice, I just added extra cinnamon, so a whole teaspoon of cinnamon in total (because cinnamon is magical and I love it!!. The other slight tweak I made, was that instead of plain instant oats (of which I had none) I used a sachet of Quaker "oats So Simple - Golden Syrup flavour", and then added ordinary rolled oats to make up the 1/2 cup. I also added about 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts!

I also cooked them a little longer than the strict 11 minutes specified - I think my oven is a little dodgy, and i made some other cookies from the same book which ended up a little soft when I stuck to 11 minutes.  I left these until golden brown, and once cooled, they were nice and crisp, with a slight Anzac biscuit taste to them!

Barbeque Lunch - Tygum Lagoon

Its been a little while between posts! Not that there has been a lack of cooking, or eating, just a lack of posting! Shall try to rectify that situation


We decided that we would like to have a barbeque lunch, and since we deposited our bbq on the footpath during a council clean-up, we had to find a bbq in a park!  Janet hit the computer and Googled up Tygum Lagoon, at Waterford.  Armed with our google map, an esky of food and a happy dog, we set off!

We managed to not get lost, despite there seeming to be a lack of street signs.  We even managed to find a bbq that was not being used!


its quite a nice park, with a walking track all the way around the lagoon (there is also exercise equipment all the way around if you are so inclined)


I cooked up our lunch, while Janet kept Shadow entertained.  I had Tofu & red capsicum kebabs (marinated in soy and lemon) and some salad.  Janet had sausages on a bread roll.  I managed to forget to bring the sauce! oops!)



This rather magnificent model sail boat was being sailed on the lagoon!


Now we know this park exists, I am sure we will be back another day!

High Tea!

Kara had a marvellous idea, and a high tea was organised! Complete with pretty tea cups, delicious morsels of food, a beautiful garden in the sunshine, and ladies in dresses and hats!











Anita made this selection of tarts, custard and mini pavlova!


Fancy sandwiches by Kara

Lemon tarts

I made these strawberry macarons. They were filled with strawberry almond buttercream.  They didn't quite work as well as my test batch, but they still looked pretty and tasted quite yum! (Will have to keep practicing!)


Those are my choc caramel brownies that are out of focus.... they were nice and gooey!

These little scones were great! I think I need the recipe!!

I also made these little lemon cupcakes!

We only slightly over catered.... (ok, there was heaps of food left over!), but maybe all of the guests just under ate :-) .  Look forward to the next one!!!!

Australia Day - Lunch

As is traditional, we gathered for lunch on Australia Day (26th January) at my parent's place (see  last year's post!)


Once again, the meat eaters enjoyed pies - this one was chicken (see the little pastry chicken on top! - cute!)


And this one was mince!


There was mashed potato


and some delicious sweet, buttery peas


My contribution was this Passionfruit and Mango Pavlova Ice-cream!  Very simple to make - (if I was more organised I would have made my own ice-cream, but using bought ice-cream makes this super easy and quick!!)

Simply soften 2L of vanilla ice-cream, and split into 3.  To one third add the pulp of about 5 passion fruit. To another third, ad the pureed flesh of 2 mangoes. Keep the other third plain.

Line a fluted ring tin (or container of your preference!) with glad wrap.  Into the base spread the pulp of 2-3 passionfruit and some diced mango.  Then, add your passionfruit ice-cream, followed by half of your vanilla ice-cream.  Then add a layer of mini meringues (I bought mine from Woolworths), and cover the meringues with the remaining vanilla ice-cream.  To complete, the final layer is the mango ice-cream.  Put the whole container into the freezer to set. When ready to serve, simply remove from tin, peel off the plastic and cut into slices!




We finished with these delicious lamingtons - surprisingly, the light fluffy cake under the icing - was chocolate! Brilliant alteration!

Out for Dinner - Bean To Cafe Regents Park

This is our local cafe http://www.beantocafe.com.au/ - we recently were invited to their "Bubbles & Bites" event, where we were treated to samples from their new menu. So we were keen to get back for dinner! (we had been previously, but not with their new chef!) (they are only open for Dinner on Friday & Saturday nights)


We started with the garlic bread, because we like it! Delicious toasty bread with garlicy butter!


Janet had the Chicken Schnitzel with Creamy Mash & Lemon sauce.  She actually had this last time we went for dinner, but this time, it was much better - the mash was not runny, and it came with vegies! (or salad)


I had the lentil patties with roasted capsicum vinaigrette and salad. I loved this! It is nice to get a vegetarian meal with some protein in it! And the Capsicum sauce was delicious! Thumbs up for this one!

We love the friendliness of this cafe, and we also love the fact we can walk here from home! Next time, we will be going in the morning to try out the Breakfasts!

Dinner from the Garden - Kataifi Pastry Corn Fritters

The goody bag I received on the Christmas Bus Tour contained a packet of this Kataifi Pastry.  We were given a recipe to make some haloumi wrapped in the pastry.  I decided to be a little experimental and put it to use with these fritters....because I din't have any haloumi, and too lazy to visit shops!

To make the fritter mixture, I raided my vegie garden...

In a small food processor, finely chop 1 onion, 1 red chilli, 1 small red capsicum and a handful of fresh herbs.

In a bowl beat together 3 eggs, with a splash of soy sauce, about 1/2 a cup of wholemeal flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder.

TO the egg mixture, add the chopped herby onion mix and the kernals cut from a cob of corn.



Then, with your pastry, make small round rings, and place into a lightly oiled pan.




Put a spoonful of the fritter mix in the centre of the pastry ring



flip over when browned on one side, and cook until done




You end up with a fritter surrounded by nice crispy pastry strands.