Sunday, November 18, 2012

Crock-pot lamb/ ofto

I posted this on my other blog as well (which is soon to be filled only with recipes), but until i start getting traffic there, i will double-post on this one as well)


                                                                    The end result!

I love lamb. Slow-cooked lamb is one of the most delicious meats for me.
Whenever I eat lamb i consider it a treat, since lamb is so expensive, people can't really
afford to have it too often.

In this case, we are using a crock-pot, which is the best thing ever by the way, but if you
dont have one, you can use a regular pot on the stovetop or put it in clay cookware in the oven and leave it to cook for the day (yes, that's right, it takes long to make!). There are many alternatives,
use what you have.

Let's get to it :)

Ingredients

Spices
  • Ginger powder
  • bay leaves
  • rosemary
  • Leg of lamb - boneless. I used an entire leg and whatever is leftover will be used to make wraps tomorrow.
  • olive oil
  • water
  • potatoes
 For the salad
  • Kale - two pieces
  • 1/4 bunch spinach
  • 1 onion
  • 1 lemon


                                See how half my plate is full of greens? Gotta love the greens!

Instructions

This is a crock-pot recipe. Do you know what a crock pot is?
Wikipedia has the answer haha Crock-Pot
The gist is that it gives me the freedom to put food the night before, turn it on low, get to bed, wake up next morning, go out, come back and the food will be ready and waiting for me to take it out and eat.
I put the leg of lamb in it, put the ginger powder, bay leaves and rosemary. Rosemary is such a nice spice with lamb, i love it. You could also put thyme, instead of rosemary.
Cut the potatoes and spread the bay leaves in and around them.
                                               Here's a photo to see the food being cooked.

As you can see, my crock-pot is small. It's 2.5 Quart crockpot from Walmart.  So the next step is different for each of you. Since my pot is small, i only needed half cup of water to almost cover the food. Dont cover all of the meat because the lamb itself has some water itself that will come out while it's cooking.
All the spices you've put in before will be floating in the water and spread around.
Normally, if you leave it just with water, during the process of cooking, all the spices will float to the top and the taste will not be as strong.
What we did here is drizzle olive oil, just enought to cover the surface of the water. This makes the spices "trapped" in the water underneath, so all the taste will come out and the aroma will be heavenly.

That's it for the meat. Turn it on high until it heats up and then on low for the rest of the night. The food will be ready the next day.

Salad
The salad is really simple. It was prepared 5 minutes before we ate. I washed 2 kale branches (?) and a handful of spinach and chopped them up. Chop up one medium onion and take the fresh juice of one lemon and pour it in the salad.
As a dressing  i just used the lemon juice and a couple spoonfuls of the oil from the crock-pot with cooked lamb (the oil retained the aroma of lamb and the herbs).

The end result is a delicious blend of herbs and spices, with the distinct taste of lamb. It's a healthy meal with the proper amouth of starch, protein and vegetables.

Let me know what you think of it and if you have any suggestions comment below! :)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Food for an upset stomach.


This is posted on my new blog as well! I'm trying to draw traffic there instead since it will be updated more frequently. the link is here: Food For You



So i wasn't feeling too good the other day. I had an upset stomach and was feeling pretty weak.
You know the feeling when you're hungry but not hungry at the same time? Yea, I had that.

I found this lunch really helped my upset tummy.  It was light enough that it didn't make me feel
stuffed, but it was also filling and helped me feel better.

Apple contains pectin, which helps you with an upset stomach and can prevent diarrhea.


Delicious shrimp with vermicelli noodles, apple, and vegetables. 


What you'll need for a single portion:
  • kale chopped up - about a handful
  • frozen vegetables of your choice thawed - half a handful ( in my case it was peppers with beans)
  • shrimp - a handful
  • one portion of rice vermicelli noodles (you can find them separated into portions in the store)
  • one medium/small apple sliced
  • soy sauce - to taste
Pretty simply, huh?
This is all about how YOU like your food. Be creative, dont be restricted to what a recipe tells you to do.
Mix things up, add spices if you want; in my case, it was kept simple because of my upset stomach. 

The shrimp was precooked so all to be done was to reheat it in a pot, while you are making the rice vermicelli noodles in another pot at the same time (rice vermicelli noodles cook really fast). When the shrimp is done, remove it from the pot and add the thawed frozen vegetables and the chopped up kale to be warmed up a little but not heated up too much or boiled!  
Serve it in a plate, add the sliced apple on top with some soy sauce, I liked the soy sauce on the apple, it added an extra zing to it.

That's it.
It's a fast meal, perfect for that day where you aren't feeling too good and it's really healthy!

Enjoy! 

Please help me out by spreading this around to anyone who might find it useful :)

NEW BLOG!

 I started out a new blog, this one is going to be all about food and recipes.
It's going to be helpful for anyone looking for new recipes to try out.

It's going to be super healthy and promoting a healthy weight loss for you.

Please go and visit it! :)

http://fo0die4life.blogspot.ca/

Cheers!