Light Meals

Shortcut Pork Meatballs with Zucchini Pasta

Image | | roeliaschoeman

Serves 1

2 Pork Sausages

100g cooked angel hair pasta

1/2 onion, sliced

A handful cherry tomatoes, halved

200g zucchini noodles – pre-made available from Woolies, but it is super easy to make your own using a spiraliser or simply grating baby marrow/zucchini with a cheese grater

5ml olive oil

2ml Chipotle Spice (Woolies) or you can make your own version with smoked paprika and chillies

Remove pork meat out of sausage casings and form/roll little meatballs.  Oven-bake at 180 for about 1o minutes.

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Fry onion in olive oil until soft, add a few drops of water.  Add seasoning.  Stir in cherry tomatoes and cook for a minute or two.   Stir in zucchini noodles and angel hair pasta.  Add some more water if needed.  Stir-fry for a few minutes.  Stir in meatballs and heat through

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1 Serve = 1 Prot, 3 Veg (if you count free veg), 2 CC, 1 Fat

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2 Potato Salad

| roeliaschoeman

20160127_133844.jpg100g baby potatoes, quartered

100g sweet potatoes, cubed (small to medium cubes – if the cubes are too large it may not cook through properly)

Smoked paprika (2 ml – can be quite strong, so be careful)

Cayenne pepper (to taste)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 boiled egg, quartered

1 small spring onion, chopped

3 small gherkins, sliced

a handful (or two) lettuce and fresh herbs (mix)

30ml low fat mayonnaise

15ml lite chutney

Place baby potatoes and sweet potatoes in an oven bag, mix with spices and seasoning and bake in the oven at 180C for about 30 minutes until soft.  Set aside to cool.

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Once cool, assemble salad.  Make a bed of lettuce first.  Mix gherkins, spring onions and potatoes gently (so that potatoes doesn’t break).  Spoon on top of lettuce.  Place egg quarters on top.  And serve dressing(mayo and chutney mix) on the side.

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Serves 1:  2 CC, 1 Prot, 1 Fat, 2 Veg

Pimento Peppers stuffed with Herby Brown Rice and Feta

| roeliaschoeman

As South Africans we ‘braai’ a lot!  So that often leads to eating way too much meat – especially red meat!  So, one Friday evening when Hubby had to satisfy his craving for lamb riblets, I decided to improvise a bit!  Didn’t feel like meat, so I tried this dish – it will make a great braai side dish as well!

2 Pimento Peppers (you can use bell peppers or paprika peppers as well)

 

Garlic and Herb Brown Rice

140g cooked brown rice

5ml Basil-infused olive oil

50g chopped onions

Garlic and Herb Seasoning to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

 

60g low fat feta, crumbed

 

Prepare Peppers by making a slit on top and removing the pips and core.  Roast/braai on grill until the peppers start to blister.

 

Fry onions in olive oil until soft.  Stir in cooked brown rice and add Garlic and Herb Seasoning.  Season with salt and pepper.

 

When ready to serve, stuff peppers with brown rice and top with feta.

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Serves 1 – 2 Veg, 2 CC, 2 Protein

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When serving it as a side dish at a braai, you can omit the feta and have the peppers with your favourite braaied meat 🙂

Eggs in Hell! (eggs in spicy tomato sauce)

| roeliaschoeman

Always looking for quick and easy weeknight dinner ideas because on most evenings I only get home between 18.00 and 19.00.

Came across this recipe and just loved the name!  LOL!  Recipe found on “The Cooking Jar” and tweaked and prepared with love by Hubby 🙂

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10ml olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Salt and Pepper to taste

6 large eggs (recipe serves 6 if 1 egg each, or 3 if 2 eggs each)

 

fresh coriander and fresh bread to serve (I had mine on a slice of toast)

 

Saute onions, garlic and jalapenos and cook until soft.

Add tinned tomatoes and spices and bring to a gentle simmer

Lower heat and crack eggs one at a time and simmer until cooked – for runny yolks about 5 – 6 minutes, a little longer for harder egg yolks.

Remove from heat and serve with fresh breadrolls or toast, with fresh coriander.

 

 

 

 

Barley, Mushroom and Green Bean Salad

| roeliaschoeman

Yesterday’s lunch! The last of my pre-cooked batch of pearl barley used! Managed to get 3 full meals out of it, so planning does save you lots of time and effort! 🙂

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Adapted from “Closet Cooking”

100g cooked pearl barley

100g green fresh green beans (I just poured some boiling water on it, and left it to stand for about 10 minutes – no cooking needed)

150g mushrooms (I marinated a batch of mushrooms – ovenroasted it for about 30 minutes, put it in a glass bottle and poured some white vinegar (about 150ml) over it, leaving it to stand in the fridge for a couple of hours)

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

A sprinkling of thyme and rosemary (I used dried herbs)

30g low fat feta

Salt and Pepper to taste

10ml white vinegar

5ml olive oil (lemon infused, but you can use normal olive oil with maybe a dash of lemon juice instead)

Lettuce to serve

 

This salad is very tasty if made in advance – to give the flavours of the olive oil, vinegar and marinated mushrooms to develop a bit.  So try to make it the night before.

Mix all the ingredients except the feta and lettuce together.  Once ready to serve, stir in the feta and serve on a bed of lettuce.

 

 

Mediterranean Barley Salad

| roeliaschoeman

This was yesterday’s lunch!  I’m sure you figured out that pearl barley is my newest obsession!  😉  I cooked a large batch a few days ago and froze it into portions – specifically to have it on hand to ‘experiment’ with.  That is my challenge for the week – to make 3 x brand new barley recipes!  Maybe you can try it – find a healthy ingredient that you don’t use THAT often, and see if you can get a few recipe ideas of how to cook/prepare it?

100g cooked barley
25g sliced red onion
50g cherry tomatoes, halved
150g chopped red, yellow and green pepper
30g low fat feta
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parley
8 pitted olives

Dressing: 25ml lemon juice & 25ml red wine vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together and serve!

Serves 1 – 2CC, 1 Protein, 1 Fat, 2.5 Veg

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Breakfast wrap with Balsamic Tomatoes & Feta

| roeliaschoeman

2 egg whites – make scrambled eggs by cooking eggs, while continiously stirring, in a pan treated with non-stick cooking spray

Balsamic Tomatoes
25g sliced red onions
75g cherry tomatoes
25ml balsamic vinegar
In a small saucepan, add onions and tomatoes and enough hot water to cook in. Simmer for about 10min until soft. Add balsamic vinegar, increase heat and cook on medium to high heat until balsamic has reduced to a thick syrup. Mash tomatoes with a fork and set aside.

Make up wrap by using 1 WL wrap (1 CC), topping it with fresh lettuce, scrambled egg whites (1/2 Prot), balsamic tomatoes (1 Veg) and 15g low fat feta (1/2 Prot).

A yummy breakfast to end 2015 with! 

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Christmassy Barley, Butternut and Cranberry Salad

| roeliaschoeman

photogrid_1451050431109.jpgAnother dish from Christmas Lunch 2015!  Lovely colours, isn’t it?  🙂  (Pictured on the right – apologies, not a good photo!)

 

Serves 6

600g cooked barley

500g butternut cubes (raw weight), oven roasted

60g dried cranberries

100g chopped red onion

30g mixed seeds and nuts

Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper to taste

 

Dressing:

75ml balsamic vinegar

20ml olive oil

20ml honey

 

Mix all the ingredients together, serve dressing on the side

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Per person:   2 CC, 1 Fat, 1/2 Fruit (actually less, not sure if we need to count it?), approx 1 Veg

 

 

 

Barley Salad with Roasted Butternut & Apple

| roeliaschoeman

I felt like trying something different for lunch – and boy, this was delicious and filling!  🙂

250g roasted butternut (cut into cubes, roast on medium heat oven for about 35 minutes – until soft) – cooled down

Roasted Apple (100g apple, cut into thin slices, roasted on medium heat for about 25 minutes – before to release the flavour and crisp it up a little bit) – cooled down

140g cooked barley – cooled down

30g low fat feta

Dressing:  5ml olive oil with red wine vinegar (about 20ml – but you can adjust to taste – enough to stir mix with barley so that it isn’t too dry), alternatively you can use 30ml low fat mayonnaise

Salt and Pepper

Lettuce to serve

 

Mix dressing with barley

Place lettuce at bottom of the salad bowl/dish

Stir butternut into barley mix, season to taste

Place butternut and barley mixture on to of lettuce bed

Top with crumbed feta and apple slices

 

Serves 1:  2 CC, 1 Protein, 1 Fruit, 3 Veg, 1 Oil

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Smoked Snoek and Brown Rice Salad

| roeliaschoeman

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70g smoked snoek, flaked

140g cooked brown rice

100g cherry tomatoes (I used Woolies’ exotic tomatoes – beautiful colours!)

20g chopped onion

30ml low fat mayo

Salt and Pepper to taste

 

Lettuce and chopped fresh parsley to serve

 

Mix all the ingredients together and serve on a bed of lettuce with fresh chopped parsley

 

Serves 1:  2 CC, 1 Prot, 1.5 Veg, 1 Fat