FoodieChat

This recipe is from my friend Jo. It’s also something that can be prepared the night before for lunch. Take 1 cup of cooked spiralli pasta (I use wholemeal as it’s lower GI), a few halved cherry tomatoes, some sliced capsicum, and a few rocket leaves, and make a dressing of 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and 1.5 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil.  Season to taste, and add a can of drained tuna in olive oil.  If you’re taking it to work, dress everything except the rocket, and place the rocket on the top of your lunchbox, and keep the tuna separate.  Low GI, high protein lunch - easy!

A very quick and easy lunch idea that can be made ahead, all you need is half a BBQ chicken (shredded), half a packet of farfalle or fusilli pasta cooked al dente, half a sliced red capsicum, half a punnet of cherry tomatoes (halved).  Toss together, with 4 large tablespoons of pesto with a little bit of the pasta cooking water to moisten it, or more olive oil if you’re not watching the waistline. You can add anything to it that you like - cucumbers, sliced mushrooms, or you could just eat it warm by stirring the pesto through the pasta just after it’s cooked.

If you wanted to be a bit more tricky and make your own pesto: one bunch of fresh basil (1.5 cups), 1/3 cup of parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts, 1 garlic clove placed in a blender, then turn it on and pour 1/2 cup of olive oil to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. It’s nicer if you leave a bit of texture in it rather than completely pureeing it.  Store in the fridge with some extra olive oil to preserve it on top.

Now it’s not often that Nigella Lawson, domestic goddess, creates a low fat version of something. Not that she called this lower fat, but I certainly think it is, by virtue of being based on condensed milk, rather than cream, as most fudge sauces are. And it can’t be any easier:

1. 200g condensed milk (I even used skim)
2. 100g chocolate
3. 100g peanut butter (Again I used lite).

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan, and warm gently until melted together into a lusciously viscous rich sauce.  Add a couple of tablespoons of water to prevent from setting too hard.

Pour over ice cream, sprinkle with chopped nuts, and enjoy - blissful in the knowledge that it’s not as bad as it could have been for you!

A great way to occupy an evening with children (I can testify to this) is to get a box of vanilla cake mix and ice them together and dunk in bowls of sprinkles.  That way you don’t need to risk wrong ingredient proportions and the finished product will always work. And for $2 for a dozen - it’s dirt cheap too (I used Greens Vanilla Cake mix with frosting sachet, and added one single drop of red food colouring to make the icing pink). Great for parties for children and adults alike!

These are some amazing organic strawberries I picked up at my local Harris Farm. Not one blemish! You can really taste the difference.  I once sampled some straight from the farm at a farmer’s market in California - the sweetest I’ve ever had. Here’s a tip to enhance the flavour - eat them at room temperature. Same goes for all fruits!