Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great week so far 
This past week I’ve enjoyed making lots of home-prepared foods, including breakfast cereals, breads, cakes and cookies. All pretty healthy of course! I even attempted my first raw dairy-free cheesecake. But that creation deserves a blog post all of its own 
For this week’s WIAW party, I’d like to share what we ate on Tuesday, which was fairly typical of our eats this past week. The weather was so good that I managed to eat all three meals in the garden. If it’s warm and dry, it has to be al fresco dining. I love it!
Breakfast
- Hot lemon and water (me and M); apple juice for Lil’ L
- Bowl of home-made granola. Before serving, I added some gojis, chopped walnuts and ground linseed for a nutrient boost, then served it with Kara coconut milk. Scrumptious!
Lunch
For lunch, I had a big bowl of salad, which included Puy lentils, romaine lettuce, red pepper, red cabbage, grated carrot and sun dried tomatoes. I made a quick dressing for the salad using wholegrain mustard, cider vinegar, walnut oil and a dash of agave syrup. It was totally delicious and very filling!
For Lil’ L’s packed lunch, I prepared a seeded wholegrain pitta bread with home-made sun-dried tomato humous, and finely chopped red pepper, courgette (zucchini), mushrooms and sunflower seeds, lightly fried in olive oil. ( This is one of his current favourite sandwich fillings). He also had half a packet of Sunbites wholegrain crispy snacks and a piece of home-made cherry & coconut granola bar for dessert.
Snacks & Drinks
Me:
- lots of water with a slice of lemon, 2 nettle teas (still my favourite herbal tea!), orange juice, 2 black coffees
- 1 apple
Lil’ L:
- water, apple juice
- 1 banana, 2 wholegrain sesame rice cakes sandwiched together with manuka honey
Both me and Lil’ L also had a choc chip cookie when we got back from school. I’d made these cookies for my study class and for the 22 children that I took on a trip today to the Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Bristol, but obviously we needed to test them first to make sure they were nice. And they were very nice indeed!
I used the choc chip recipe from this lovely book
The only ingredient I substituted was the plain (all purpose) flour. Instead I used my lovely wholegrain chapatti (atta) flour. It worked really well in these cookies, so I’ll definitely be using it again in the future.
I also baked the cookies for longer than the recommended time of 8 minutes. Instead, I baked them for around 12-15 minutes until they were golden round the edges. When they cooled down, they had a lovely light crunchy texture.
Dinner
A couple of weeks ago I attempted to make a Thai curry that would be mild enough to suit Lil’ L’s palate. It’s the first time that I’ve made him a Thai curry and he absolutely loved it! You can just imagine how much that pleased me He asked if I could make it again this week and I was very happy to oblige. It’s a really simple and quick meal to make, and very yummy indeed!
To keep it mild, I only used one red chilli but if adults want to spice it up further, they can remove the children’s portion before adding more chopped chillies.
In my experience of Thai food, the veggies tend to be undercooked so they retain a lovely crunchy texture. With this in mind, I only cooked the veggies for about 8 minutes.
I also kept the veggies nice and chunky. If I’d been making the curry for Lil’ L a couple of years ago, I would have cooked his veggies for longer (to soften them) and I would have finely chopped or roughly blended them into the coconut milk using a stick blender. Over the years, I’ve gradually been increasing the size of his veggie pieces. He now loves munching on whole broccoli and cauliflower florets
Here’s how I made it:
Lightly Spiced Thai Vegetable Curry Serves 4 Ingredients Curry paste:* * this amount is suitable for one meal. You can easily double or quadruple the recipe and freeze in portions for future curries. 1 can coconut milk Method * If the paste is intended for children, I suggest crushing the seeds using a mortar and pestle (or chopping board and fork handle like I do!).
Hands on time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 cardamom pods
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 red chilli
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cm / 1/2 inch piece of fresh or frozen root ginger, grated
1 fresh or frozen lemon stalk, chopped
juice 1/2 lemon (lime would also work)
1 red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1/2 medium broccoli stalk, cut into florets
1/2 medium cauliflower stalk, cut into florets
2 medium carrots, cut into julienne sticks
2 cups of pak choi, shredded (or other leafy green, like curly kale)
handful mushrooms
1 cup vegetable stock (I use Marigold Swiss Bouillon Powder)
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup raw cashews
marinated tofu pieces (optional, but we add them for a nutritional boost and because we love them! I used half a pack of Cauldron Organic Marinated Tofu Pieces, which can be bought in the fridge section of all major supermarkets)
red chillies (if you want to add more heat to the curry, add some finely chopped chillies after you’ve removed any childrens’ portions).
[This recipe has been submitted to Ricki Heller's #Wellness Weekend]
Dessert
To finish up, we each had a small bowl of Alpro plain soya yoghurt with St Dalfour Strawberry Spread mixed in and chopped pecans sprinkled on top. Super quick dessert, which is truly scrumptious!
Enjoy the rest of your week! And don’t forget to check out all the delicious eats over at the WIAW party. Thanks, as always, to our gorgeous host Jenn :) xx
