A ‘Peek’ at My Plate

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;”] A[/dropcap]s someone who writes recipes for a living, I often get asked about what I eat in a typical day.

While I’m pretty sure I spend more time than the average person thinking and talking about my next meal, I definitely don’t spend more time actually cooking. Well except for days when I’m testing and photographing recipes for work.

So this week I thought I’d share with you what my plate looks like on a typical day…

Mel & Carlos’ Green Eggs from ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes‘.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast is the meal where I’m most likely to ‘fall into a rut’. To avoid this I have a personal ‘rule’ of not eating the same thing for breakfast two days in a row.

My favourte breakfast is poached eggs with collard greens from the garden or baby spinach or kale. But I also mix it up with fried eggs or scrambled like the ‘green eggs’ pictured above.

When I’m not eating eggs I tend to go for home made yoghurt with oat bran or psyllium and nuts or home made granola.

Simple Minestrone from ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes‘

LUNCH

In my slave-to-the-sourdough bread making days lunch would mostly be a sandwich. But since we started eating ‘mostly-paleo‘ a few years ago lunches have changed dramatically.

Now lunch tends to be a salad or a soup like the minestrone below. Quick, healthy things that would mostly deserve a place in my new print book ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes‘.

Ginger Beef Stir Fry from ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes‘.

DINNER

Dinner time is where things get creative and fun! But that doesn’t necessarily mean I spend hours in the kitchen after work. When I was writing ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes‘ we pretty much ate a 10 minute meal every night. And apart from dinner hardly taking any time to prepare or clean up after, we didn’t really notice a difference from a deliciousness or health perspective.

Dinners can be anything from a one pot stir fry like the ‘ginger beef’ pictured above, to a warm salad like ‘pork sausage with ratatouille’, to a big pot of chilli (vegetarian or otherwise), to the old reliable protein + veg or salad combo like ‘chicken with green beans and pesto’ or ‘lamb cutlets with white bean mash & tomato’. Endless possibilities.

Simple Minestrone Soup

From ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes‘.

I love how the juices from the beans give this soup a dense soupy texture. They also add a rich slow cooked depth of flavour. You’ll think your adopted Italian nonna has been simmering the soup for hours rather than the quick 5 minutes you’ve actually allowed.

The recipe below gives instructions for a stove top, but there’s no reason you couldn’t whip it up in your work microwave. I’d skip the garlic and just pop the zucchini, beans, and tomatoes in a microwave safe container and nuke until it’s hot.

Enough for 2
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled & finely sliced
1 medium zucchini, finely sliced into coins
1 can tomatoes (400g / 14oz)
1 can cannellini beans (400g /14oz), or other white beans
4 tablespoons pesto, to serve

1. Heat a few tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan.

2. Cook zucchini and garlic over a medium high heat for a few minutes, or until the zucchini is starting to soften.

3. Add tomatoes, beans and the juice from the cans. Simmer for another 5 minutes or until the zucchini is cooked through.

4. Taste and season.

5. Serve hot with pesto on top.

VARIATIONS
vegan / dairy-free – replace the pesto with a handful of torn basil leaves or some basil oil and a handful of toasted pinenuts.

different veg – replace the zucchini with cavalo nero or cabbage as per the note above.

more substantial – add a few handfuls of cooked short pasta such as penne or add a few handfuls of torn rustic sourdough or ciabatta – a great way to use up stale leftover bread.

tomato alternative – replace the canned tomatoes with tomato puree or passata or commercial tomato pasta sauce, you’ll need about 1 1/2 cups.

Video version of the recipe.

5-Ingredients 10-Minutes is almost here!

It’s only a week until my new print book is published in the UK and 2 weeks until the official launch in Australia on the 20th March! It’s now available to PRE-ORDER from amazon.co.uk and bookdepository.co.uk (my favourite book supplier because they have FREE shipping anywhere in the world!).

More details over here:
www.5ingredients10minutes.com/

With love,
Jules x

ps. If you had problems viewing the ‘sample recipes’ from the book last week, Sorry! I (hope) I’ve fixed the problem…
You can check them out over here:
www.5ingredients10minutes.com/sample-recipes/