Throw together mid week meal

I threw this one together the other night and it was delicious!

Ingredients:
Some kale/silverbeet/baby spinach whatever green leafys you have
1 Brown Onion Chopped
2 Cloves garlic Crushed
Lemon juice and zest of one lemon
Can of lentils drained and rinsed
6 Lamb chops or haloumi would also work for vegetarians
Goats Feta (unless cooking with haloumi)

Use organic ingredients where possible preferably from a farmers market

Method
Saute Greens, Onion, garlic, Lemon zest until they are nice and soft
Meanwhile grill or fry lamb chops till pink on the inside
Add in Lentils and stir till warmed through
Crumble over goats feta
Squeeze lemon juice over

Serve!

Delicious

Apple pie porridge

Warming winter porridge
1 cup oats
1 1/4 C milk/almond milk
Handful chopped walnuts
1 date chopped
1T maple syrup
1 apple cored and chopped into small pieces
1t cinnamon
Sprinkle of chia seeds

Mix all ingredients together, except chia seeds, in saucepan and allow to soak, if you have time, as this increases digestibility. Cook on medium heat until milk has absorbed and oats are cooked.

Sprinkle with chia seeds, mix in and drizzle on some more maple if you have a sweet tooth.

Healthy chocolate crackles

These are a great alternative to your traditional chocolate crackles and they are even easier! Just three ingredients :-)

Admittedly the chocolate butter is quite pricey but if you can pick it up on special from the health food shop it's not too bad. I have seen it at wray organic health food shops at pretty good prices. Anyway for me I don't mind spending a bit more and it goes surprisingly far. It has coconut butter in it as the main ingredient which has numerous health benefits. It also contains cacao which is high in antioxidants. The coconut chocolate butter is the ingredient that acts like copha which is what sets your regular chocolate crackles. If you didn't want to spend the money on the coconut butter I'm sure there would be a way to make up a mix using coconut oil, honey and cacao but I'm lazy and time poor with a 22 month old! So here goes my chocolate crackles!

I guess amounts! So just chuck some rice bubbles/rice puffs/spelt puffs into a bowl, put in a bit of desiccated coconut and then enough coconut butter to get a decent coating. You don't want the mixture swimming in it so start with a smaller amount and build up until its nice and chocolatey. Spoon into paper cases and refrigerate. That's it and they don't take very long to set either.

So yummy with a cup of tea and great chocolate alternative for Easter :-)

Spelt honey jumbles

A childhood favourite of mine these delicious oval shaped biscuits are ridiculously morish so yummy! I use spelt flour in most of my recipes as I'm not a fan of wheat so here is my interpretation of the humble honey jumble.

Ingredients
90g unsalted butter
3/4 C Honey
2 C plain spelt flour
1t bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 t ground ginger
1 1/2 t mixed spice
1t ground cinnamon
2T milk

Icing
1 egg white
1 1/2 C icing sugar
Vanilla extract
Pink food colouring (optional)

Method
1. Pre heat oven to 180 degrees

2. Place butter and honey in small saucepan and slowly bring to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes then take off heat allowing to cool for 15 minutes (or if short in time like I am put it in fridge for 5 minutes or so)

3. Sift flour, bicarb and spices and add to the butter mixture, gently stir in milk.

4. Allow to cool to room temp for an hour (or again stick in fridge for 10-20 mins until room temp)

5. Turn dough out on lightly floured surface and knead, adding a little flour if needed.

6. Divide mixture into 4 portions and roll each into a long sausage shape. Cut each sausage shape into 6 pieces.

7. Tuck edges under slightly.

8. Place biscuits on trays lines with baking paper. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until biscuits start to crack on surface. I like mine pretty crunchy so leave them till they're golden.

9. Once cooled make icing by whisking the egg white and adding in icing sugar, food colouring and vanilla essence. If you feel like being tricky halve the icing sugar mixture and add food colouring to one half so that you have a mix of white and pink jumbles!

10. Enjoy with a cup of tea whilst trying to not eat the entire batch (or don't try and just eat them all they are that good)

Tuscan peasant soup

A regular favourite in my family I love this soup for its simplicity and how easy it is to make! Recipe can be found here: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/27113/tuscan+peasant+soup
I use canned tomatoes as I don't often have fresh sitting around and on the occasion I used fresh tomatoes I actually think that it wasn't as tasty! I also usually use kale instead of silverbeet as I usually have it in my fridge from our organic food order we receive. It is super healthy and super tasty! Enjoy!

Watermelon and mint blocks

Ingredients
Watermelon
Mint (small handful)

1. Cut up the flesh of a quarter or so of a watermelon. Place in food processor.
2. Process until smooth. Put juice and pulp over a fine mesh strainer and push through fine mesh strainer. I like to put a little bit of the pulp back in for texture and fibre.
3. Chop mint up finely and mix in with juice.
4. Pour into ice block moulds or Zoku and freeze!

Banana and nut butter mini sandwiches

Cut a banana up into half a cm slices. Spread on nut butter. I used almond, brazil and cashew nut paste. Put slices together and bobs your uncle you've got a healthy protein packed lunch for the smalls. Or a snack for the bigs!

Thanks to Hayley from the "doing it for the kids" page on Facebook for this idea.