Recipes

Cacao Super Smoothie

Recipe:

I love this combo of smoothie ingredients. It’s a great breakfast or lunch alternative – a bit like a “chia pudding” – its thick, chocolatey and creamy. It packs a nutritional punch though with satiating fats including omega 3’s and a serving of greens. Pop it all into a jug and blend with stick blender until combined. Add ice in the summer for a frappe!

Crackling Pork Roast

Recipe:

For this exceptionally delicious piece of pork I buy a kilo of freedom farms boneless pork leg. Make sure you’ve brought it up to room temperature prior to cooking. Heat the oven to 160 deg C, and grind about 4 cloves of garlic with a tablespoon of fennel seeds and a teaspoon of sea salt in a mortar and pestle. Once ground mix in a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Smear this all over your pork, and massage it in Jamie Oliver style. Place in a lined baking dish (I use a lasagne dish). Pop in the oven, for around an hour. Then quickly bring it out, pour about 3/4 of a cup of milk around the base of the dish and put it back in for another 20 minutes. This keeps the pork incredibly moist, whilst allowing the cracking to really crisp up. If the crackling hasn’t begun to crisp up by this point turn the oven up to 200. 

Brussells sprouts are perfect with this pork – roast them halved with garlic cloves, eggplant, capsicum and some orange kumara; underneath the cooking pork on the rack on the next level down – for around 30 minutes.

Moral of the story – don’t fear fat! You’ may have heard this from me loads before – but fat is satiating and necessary for our bodies optimal function. It won’t make you fat – unless you follow this meal up with a sugary dessert (and then it’s likely the sugar that’s the culprit). 

Easy Meatballs

Recipe:

These are super delicious – our whole family devours this meal; and they’re packed with nutritional goodness!

Mix and shape meatball ingredients. Pop in fridge for 30mins. Heat a pan to medium and brown the meatballs. Towards the end of the browning add the onion to cook to clear for a few minutes. Then add the two cans of tomatoes and the balsamic vinegar to the pan. Cook for around 15mins; add the extra veggies, cooking for a further 10mins until the tomato sauce is starting to reduce right down. If you have any chicken stock you can add a quarter cup of this as well to loosen the sauce a little.

Serve topped with toasted pine nuts, grated parmesan, a splash of olive oil, and some chopped parsley, basil or rocket. My kids love this with spaghetti (no brainer), but I think a carrot or courgette peeled into strips and quickly stir fried is so much nicer. 

Larb-Slaw

Recipe:

Delicious, nutritious, quick to put together!

Saute onions and garlic until transparent. Add pork mince, kaffir lime leaves and ginger and gently cook, stirring and breaking up all the time. Once cooked through add the sauces/stock and cook for a few more mins. Serve on Slaw – bought or homemade – and top with toasted cashews, and lashings of lime juice. I used loads of mint, coriander and rocket in the slaw here. For the little people in your family (perhaps resistant to slaw), pop into a pita bread or serve over some brown rice.

HINT: I buy Countdown Pork mince in “bulk” – they do 3 packs of 500g each for $20, use it instead of beef or as well as in bolognese, burger patties and meatballs. I have healthful versions of all of these meaty delights – ask me!

Chicken Creme Fraiche

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 180 C. Brown the onion/garlic/shallots in a pan. Add the chicken breasts and brown on both sides; then transfer it all into an ovenproof dish. Pour over the chicken stock and cook in oven for 30mins. Remove from oven, take chicken out, stir in the crème fraîche (or sour cream) and the herbs. Put chicken back into liquid and cook for a further 20mins until it’s brown and bubbling. 

I served with chopped celery, walnut and pear salad with a lemon juice and olive oil dressing, and some roasted cauliflower. C’est délicieux.

Classic Chicken Roast

Roast chicken is a firm favourite in our household. So simple, and the gift that keeps on giving over the next few days. It’s a meal you can pop in the oven at 5pm – head out for a walk, run or a kids activity, and come back to the most divine smell filling your home. I have a few ideas for you to get the most nutritional value out of your chicken meal and I recommend Bostocks (or any organic chook) which means you are not getting the load of potential nasties you may with cheaper chooks. I think though at $17-18 a chicken they are a great value meal. You’ll have leftover meat for lunches as long as you stick to the palm sized potion of protein. And bones for a stock/broth – which is next level nutritional value. Recipe below.

Quantity:	Ingredients:
1	Organic Chicken
6	Garlic Cloves
1 tablespoon	Sumac
2	Lemons, cut in half
1 Cup	Creme Fraiche
1 tsp and a few grinds	Salt and Pepper
1 tablespoon	Olive oil

Recipe:

Heat oven to 200 deg C. Grind the garlic in a mortar and pestle, stir in the sumac, salt and pepper and olive oil. Cover the chicken in this mixture and massage it in. Pop it into a roasting dish that fits it snuggly and pop the lemon halves around it. Throw a bit of rosemary in too if you have some! Halfway through cooking I added some brussels sprouts. Roast until golden and juices run clear.