Instant Pot Chicken & Vegetable Soup

This hearty soup is perfect for those chilly winter evenings and will sort out a cold in no time!

And like all my recipes, it’s super quick and easy to make…

Ingredients

• Olive oil spray
• 1 cup sliced celery
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 1/2 a courgette, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1-2 tsp chilli flakes, more or less to taste
• 3 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 whole uncooked skinless chicken breasts
• 3 cups (750ml) chicken broth
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
• Juice of half a lemon

Instructions

1. Set the Instant Pot to the Saute setting and spray the bottom with oil. Once hot, add the celery, carrot, onion, and garlic. Cook for about 2 minutes then add the courgette, chilli flakes, thyme, oregano, salt and black pepper. Cook for about 2 more minutes.
2. Add the tomato puree, chicken and chicken broth, stir and change the setting to Pressure Cook/Manual (depending which model you have) on high pressure. Seal the lid and set the timer for 12 minutes. Once the time is up, let the pot sit for 10 minutes before manually releasing the pressure.
3. Remove the lid, transfer the chicken breasts onto a plate and shred with two forks.
4. Add them back to the soup along with the parsley and lemon juice. Give it a stir before serving hot and enjoy!

 

Homemade Burgers (Better than your Local Burger Joint!)

Okay, I’m never ordering a burger again! (Well unless I’m hungover and lazy).

These homemade burgers are tastier and probably healthier than your local burger place, and they don’t take too much work. Make sure you get some good quality mince, not too fatty but not extra lean either as the burger will end up dry.

The following recipe will make 3 large burgers:

Ingredients:

• 400g beef mince (medium fattyness)
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (about 2 slices of bread, whizzed in a blender)
• 1/2 an egg, whisked
• 1/3 of an onion, finely chopped
• A spash of Worcester sauce
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 bread buns of your choice (I used sesame buns, but brioche would also be great!)
• Fillings of your choice (i.e. tomato, lettuce, red onion, avocado, fried egg, cheese plus condiments)

Method:

1. Combine the first five ingredients in a bowl and form burgers. 
2. Fry in the olive oil for approx five min each side on a medium/low heat. 
3. Meanwhile, toast your buns.
4. Place cooked burgers between a toasted bun and add desired fillings!

 

Comforting Chilli Con Carne with Homemade Guacamole

Chilli Con Carne is such a simple and easy dish it had to make the blog! This one has a couple of secret ingredients added to give it an extra bit of depth/bite. Half a teaspoon each of coffee and dark chocolate add a slight bitterness, which balances the sweetness of the tomatoes. I also add a pinch of cinnamon as I think the spicy/sweet flavour works well with a dish that has both elements in it already, so why not add a bit more!

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 green or red pepper, roughly chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 heaped tsp hot chilli powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• Large pinch cinnamon or 1 stick
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
• 500g lean minced beef
• 1 beef stock cube in 300ml boiling water
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1/2 tsp dark chocolate powder
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 400g can red kidney beans
• Plain rice, to serve
• Sour cream, to serve
• Fresh coriander, to serve
• Grated cheddar (optional)

For the guacamole:

• ½ a small red onion, finely chopped
• 2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped
• 3 ripe avocados, chopped
• 1 bunch of fresh coriander, chopped
• 6 ripe cherry tomatoes, chopped
• Juice of 2 limes
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika

Method:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and cook, stirring fairly frequently, for about 3-4 minutes on a medium heat, or until the onions are soft and slightly translucent. Then add the garlic, red pepper, chilli powder, paprika and cumin. Stir, then leave to cook for about 5 mins, stirring occasionally.

Add the mince and cook, stirring until browned on a high temp. Make sure to break it up into pieces as you do.

Add the beef stock and the chopped tomatoes. Add the herbs, coffee, chocolate and a good shake of salt and pepper. Squirt in tomato purée and stir in until melted.

Bring to the boil, stir and put a lid on the pan. Turn down the heat until it is gently bubbling and leave it for at least 20 minutes but ideally 1 hour. You should check on the pan occasionally to stir it and make sure it isn’t bubbling too wildly.

Meanwhile you can be making the guacamole. Add all the ingredients to a small bowl and mash together. If you want it smoother add to a blender and pulse a few times until you achieve the desired consistency.

Ten mins before the end of cooking, add the drained kidney beans. Taste a bit of the chilli and season. Once done, leave to stand for 10 mins for the flavours to infuse more. Serve with rice, sour cream and fresh coriander (and grated cheddar if desired).

Diet* Update!

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you may know that in April 2015 I decided to try a pescatarian diet for a while to see how it went. I love fish and wanted to cut out the fat you can find in some meat (i.e. burgers, bacon, sausages etc) and I also was keen to know if the claims of increased energy levels when cutting out meat were true.

It’s now February 2016 and I’ve been doing the pescatarian thing for nearly a year. I’m not sure about increased energy levels, I feel generally the same, but I can report that it has been a lot easier to maintain a healthy body weight (without even trying). Although it’s been a good journey and I’ve discovered a lot of new pescatarian and vegetarian dishes, I’ve now decided I’m ready for a change. Especially as annoyingly, I’ve also developed an intolerance to prawns 😦

So I decided it would be a fun idea to try out a new diet every few months and post recipes from that particular diet. I don’t believe any one diet is the ‘holy grail’ of diets and that other diets are wrong, so I thought I’d trial all (or as many as I can) of them to prove that you can make any diet (within reason!) work for you and show you how to make tasty and satisfying meals for any one of them! I’ll also be sure to report any changes in my body, weight or energy levels on any of the diets so you can decide which one/s might work for you.

Since it seems to be the most popular one around at the moment and everyone is swearing by it, the second diet I’m going to try is Paleo – from today! So stay tuned for exciting Paleo recipes and my thoughts/experiences on the diet as I go along.

Until the next post 🙂 xx

*When using the word ‘diet’ I mean ‘kinds of food I’m eating’. I’m not attempting to lose weight.

One Month Update

So I’ve been a pescetarian now for a whole month! I haven’t had any slip ups except one day about 3 days after I started when I attended a brunch at my friend’s apartment and accidentally (honest) ate a sausage! Surely I can be forgiven for that 3 days in, I truly forgot I was a pescetarian! I remembered right after I ate it and only ate the smoked salmon and cream cheese toasts and mini egg bakes after that. Everyone else had a good laugh at me though so at least I entertained.

Since then I have been very good, it hasn’t been difficult at all except for a couple of times I’ve had a burger craving. I knew burgers would be the hardest thing to give up. I can take or leave chicken, mince can be substituted with Quorn, which tastes nearly the same, and sausages aren’t that amazing I can’t do without them. I have been looking for substitutes for things though; I found these amazing Quorn scotch eggs (which taste exactly like the real thing!), plus some mini cocktail sausages and even tofu weiners!

I spent 10 days in Mykonos, Greece as well, and while I was there I just ate tons of fish and seafood. Grilled octopus, shrimp pasta, and fresh fish straight from the sea. Forget meat, you can’t get much better than that!

I’ve made healthier choices in several situations, i.e. when I’d usually order a beef burger I’ve gone for veggie burgers (not the patty kind, but actually fresh grilled veg in a bun!), I ordered Thai last night and had the vegetable Thai red curry (which I guess isn’t super healthy but eating all the veg in it rather than chicken must be good for me).

Eating out doesn’t cause any problems at all. Most menus have loads of fish options, in some cases even more than meat.

So how do I feel? To be honest, not a huge amount different, but I feel better in myself for avoiding saturated fats and getting larger intakes of vegetables and therefore more vitamins. I haven’t weighed myself but I doubt I’ve lost anything after a holiday full of eating and drinking, with no exercise! I feel the same weight though, which is amazing in itself, I should be heavier. And I’m not doing it to lose weight anyway. On some days I have felt more energetic in the mornings, which is unusual for me as a morning hater! I used to feel sick quite often too, especially after dinner, but can’t remember the last time I felt sick that wasn’t alcohol induced! Of course I can’t guarantee any of these changes are to do with my new diet, but I have a feeling they are, and I like doing it so I’m going to keep at it for a while longer.

I also want to experiment more with vegetarian cooking, which to be honest I haven’t done, what with being away and eating out a lot, I just haven’t had time. There’s so much creativity involved and its great not having to worry about washing your hands 50,000 times after handling raw chicken! I made a vegetarian sausage casserole the other night, which I’ll post next, but it’s basically what I would do with meat sausages and just substituted the type of sausages so its not exactly a ‘vegetarian dish’! It was super yummy though!

Anyway, bye for now and I will update again soon!