A Week in Salads - Prawn Cocktail with a zing!

 Oh the famous prawn cocktail, it has gone through so many permutations, so why not put it through one more. I love prawns and I just had to do this because I love the combination of sweet prawns and creamy avocado. Prawns are also a great source of protein as is most seafood, they are also quite high on cholesterol however and 100gm of prawn contains 63% of your daily allowance. I know not all cholesterol is bad, and I tried to see if there was a further nutritional breakdown of this but I couldn’t find one. Here is what you need for this lovely salad. I found that this was just a little on the large side when I made this

Ingredients

150gm of cooked King Prawns

1 gemme lettuce or ½ Cos lettuce

½ bell pepper

⅓ cucumber

½ avocado

2 hard boiled eggs

Salt to taste

Sriracha Sauce for that Zing!

For the dressing

3 tablespoons greek yogurt

1 ½ tablespoons Tomato ketchup

Method:

In a large bowl put all the veggies and the prawns together. Mix the yogurt and the tomato ketchup well and add to the salad. Cut the eggs into quarters. Transfer the salad to your serving plate, put the eggs on top and drizzle with the Sriracha sauce. If you don’t want that little bit of heat then skip this step. Eat!

Tips and Ideas: One of my biggest failures over the years when dieting was that I had built it around a reward system. I ate too little, I ate the wrong things, I was permanently hungry, fatigued and irritable. I love food, cooking and the experience of a delicious meal. My diets were not allowing me to enjoy any of that. It felt like the only way of motivating myself was giving myself little treats for goals reached. The problem is that you spoil some if not all of the hard work that you had done so far. It is a one step forward two step back method of slimming down, and it is in no way healthy or sustainable.  

Dinner becomes your reward for doing well through the day, you had an apple for breakfast, two almonds as a snack and a stick of carrot and celery for lunch so it is ok to have a pot of pasta with 4 cheese sauce bacon and a whole garlic bread to yourself, and yes I have actually had that exact day! If you like me were dieting wrong and denying yourself too much food, then you like me would latch on to the first opportunity to find an excuse and eat something sweet, rich and/or extremely decadent.

If you feel the need to be constantly rewarding yourself with naughty treats then you have to re-evaluate how you are eating. The best way for me was to build in a cheat day. One day a week when I eat whatever I want. No guilt! And no don’t be nuts and say “Wednesday is my cheat day” move it around to suit your life, birthdays, weddings, work outings, that awesome cheese festival in town. Being too regimented can set you up to fail. What surprised me is how often I was not actually interested in changing my diet on the cheat day, and my cheat days are predominantly used for events. I can say though that is easily due to the fact that I am not dieting, I am not on a regime aimed at losing weight. I am on a lifestyle change aimed at a healthier me. Therefore I changed my diet, I think about what I eat, I plan meals, I cook at home, which gives me greater control over fat, sugar, carbs and salt. I do falter, Easter was a MASSIVE 3 day binge of sugar and fat, but I don’t feel bad because that is not the norm. I believe the concept of dieting is dangerous, useless and unsustainable and I hope these posts inspire you to think about your eating habits on a long term basis.

Bon Appetit!

A week in Salads - Beetroot, Sweetcorn and Feta

Day two of my Salad adventure sees is paying homage to the humble beetroot. When I was planning this week I wanted to make sure that the salads weren’t just low calories, that is easily done. I wanted them to be highly nutritional using ingredients that gave your body the minerals and vitamins it needs to function healthily. Beetroot is an amazing little root vegetable, it can be eaten raw or cooked and really shouldn’t be treated any different to carrots. A 100gm of beetroot has only 43 calories and contains 11% of your RDA of fiber, 4% iron; it also have vitamin C, B-6 and Magnesium.

This beetroot salad does need a little bit of preparation the night before mainly for the onions. The rest can be put together in 5 minutes at work. I actually have two different versions and will give you both recipes as one is with sweetcorn and the other with lentils and mushrooms.

Ingredients for Beetroot & Sweetcorn 2 medium beetroots - cooked & cubed ½ can of sweetcorn - try and get the one without salt 100gm fresh garden peas or ½ can - the fresh ones are sweeter and nicer 1 small red onion 50gm Feta Cheese 1 tablespoon Balsamic vinegar ½ tsp olive oil Salt to taste Cooked Broccoli - Optional Balsamic glaze/dressing - optional

Method 1: Slice the onion in half and then into very fine half crescents. Put in a container with the balsamic vinegar.This macerates the onions taking away the raw bite of them and leaving behind their sweetness. Add the beetroot to the container after 20 minutes and leave overnight in the fridge Pre-cook your broccoli leave it to cool and leave to the side, do not add it to the beets and onion mix until you want to put the salad together Put the salad together by mixing all the vegetables in a bowl, dress with the olive oil and salt to taste. Crumble the feta on top If you like me love a bit of balsamic glaze/dressing drizzle it over. DOnt forget that adds to the calories as does any dressing

Ingredients - Beetroot and Lentils 2 medium beetroots - cooked and cubed ½ can green lentils - drained and washed 100 gm cooked mushrooms 1 small red onion 50gm Feta cheese 1 tablespoon Balsamic vinegar ½ tsp olive oil Salt to taste Cooked Broccoli - Optional

Method 2: Slice the onion in half and then into very fine half crescents. Put in a container with the balsamic vinegar.This macerates the onions taking away the raw bite of them and leaving behind their sweetness. Add the beetroot to the container after 20 minutes. Pre-cook your mushrooms and add them to the beets. Leave in the fridge overnight to marry the flavours. Pre-cook your broccoli leave it to cool and leave to the side, do not add it to the beets and onion mix until you want to put the salad together Put the salad together by mixing all the vegetables in a bowl, dress with the olive oil and salt to taste. Crumble the feta on top If you like me love a bit of balsamic glaze/dressing drizzle it over. DOnt forget that adds to the calories as does any dressing

This salad may need a bit of prep before hand but it is truly delicious, it has lovely sweetness from the sweetcorn and broccoli, or a deep rich earthy flavour if you got for the mushroom and lentil option. 

Tips and Ideas: I have already had a few people worry that a salad is not enough for lunch that they will be hungry, and want to snack all the way through, it will make them grumpy. Over the next two days I hope to share with you how I overcome this.

Make sure that you have breakfast.Breakfast is key to any healthy diet. Having a good breakfast will mean that you won’t be hungry at 11, you will have energy to carry you through to lunch and you won’t have as many cravings. It also helps with maintaining a healthy and faster metabolism. Skipping meals actually slows your metabolism down as your body goes into hunger mode and starts to store all food as fat.   

A good breakfast can be a couple of eggs, they are full of protein, vitamin D and calcium and actually make you full despite their small size, you can add some healthy fat with half an avocado. Alternatively an avocado on rye bread with some cottage cheese is delicious. Porridge is also good but do be careful what you flavour it with, you can easily slip here and go over the top on the sugar by adding too much honey or jam or other such things. Beware the pre-prepared flavoured porridge packets, some or full of sugar and additives.   

Bon Apettite!