Smoked Salmon Rice

This is another meal I pilfered from my friend Shannon and have cooked mercilessly for the past year.

It's easy, quick and super delicious.

I had trouble with it when my band was tight, but whenever it's been normally adjusted I haven't had a moments bother.

I must confess this really is one of the only meals I cook without measurements.

Smoked Salmon Rice

1 bag of 90 second medium BROWN rice (this is so important for a bandit)

1 zuccini

1/2 spanish onion

1 small handful of slivered almonds

1 fillet of smoked salmon (fillet - not the strips - you can make it with the sliced stuff, but it's not as flavoursome)

1 tablespoon of kecap manis (as much as you like, really - to the taste)

Cook the onions and zuccini together with olive oil. Add the rice, the salmon and add the almonds at the end after you roasted them.

Voila. I cooked this for two of my workmates today. They ate it in about two seconds flat - it's so delicious. These ingredients should do you for two or three meals. It's very more-ish, so you'll need to be disciplined. I have some leftovers in the fridge from last night I'm doing my best to stay away from...

Sandwich Land!

As I blogged about before, I've been having trouble with my band.

It was too tight. I'm madly eager to lose the last of my weight, so stupidly thought that it being tight would be better for losing weight.

Cue the "wrong" sound from Family Feud. Ba-buuuuum.

What I did was put on four kilos eating pretty much nothing but high calorie, crappy food. You know the stuff: easy to digest, yummy. I regressed into a lot of bad habits. Chocolates and Cheese and Bacon Balls. Yucko.

Finally, I admitted defeat with the tight band when I started to have to clear my throat every two seconds and was even having trouble keeping dinner down.

My fantastic surgeon, Dr Stening, and Janet, practice manager, waited late one afternoon for me to get from Canberra to Bowral and Dr Stening took a whole 2mls out.

The really weird thing is that he forecast, and I expected, I'd be ravenously hungry. Instead, I'm less hungry than I was and am able to eat proper meals.

The most fantastic part of having a non-tight band? I can eat a sandwich!

If your band is tight, this sanga might still be heavy going for you, but my band (which has about 4ml in it) is loving the hell out of it.

Yummo Sanga (it's like a burger, without the meat and super-healthy!)

2 pieces of good quality rye bread

1/2 small avocado spread like butter

1/2 small tomato

3-4 pieces of canned beetroot

A scraping of basil pesto

As much lettuce as you can fit

Enjoy! This sandwich is super tasty, filling and healthy.

Why I haven't posted...

Hey Troops,

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been having trouble with my band, so haven't been cooking anything!

Hopefully having it fixed on Tuesday, so expect more posts then.

Mel xx

Vegan-tastic-health-central Stew

When I'm in London (city of my heart, love of my life thus far), my first stop is always Food For Thought.

It's a tiny cafeteria (well, you can't really call it a restaurant) and it's my favourite place to eat in the world. It's better than any Sydney five star restaurant or McDonalds

drive-thru I've ever been swung by.

FFT is so great that when I lived in London and was going through some stuff, the only way my friends could be assured I wouldn't cancel on them was if we arranged to meet at FFT.

It's a Vegetarian paradise full of delicious stews, mouth-watering quiches and dream-inducing desserts. Everything tastes home-made and there's a real sense of community there - in the table part, you sit where you can, beside whoever is there.

Every stew I ever make, I try and make it like an FFT stew. Sadly, it never mutha-fuggin' is.

When/if I ever move back to London, I want a job there so I can learn all their secrets.

This stew you're about to learn is delicious, but sadly, not an FFT stew. When n

ext I'm home, I'll try and dig out their cookbook and get one made for you.

Stew (or casserole, whatever you happen to call it) is the perfect food for us bandits. It's soft, tasty and has warm liquid to help everything go down including the rice.

Yes, I said rice! I find I don't have problems with rice if it's covered in stew. I do use brown, medium grain rice as it's loads better for you.

Vegan-tastic-health-central Stew

1/2 normal sized sweet potato chopped into smallish cubes

3 or 4 small chats potatoes chopped into smallish cubes

1 whole broccoli

1 whole carrot chopped into smallish cubes or sliced

a handful of button mushrooms chopped

a can of chickpeas

3 squash chopped up

2 cans of diced tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

1 whole brown onion

2 tblsp of curry powder (or beyond, to the taste)

2 tsps of cumin (or beyond, to the taste)

Cook the onion in some olive oil until soft. Add the garlic, curry powder and cumin, cook together adding a bit more oil if necessary. When this is all mixed in and smelling terrific, pop your tomatoes in until they thicken a little. Then whack all the vegies in and transfer into a slow cooker or crockpot.

Cook on high in the slow cooker for 4 hours or low for 6 hours (or until the potatoes aren't a bit crunchy).

Slow Cooking

It occurs to me that the cooking trend of the moment is perfect for bandits.

Slow cooking.

Yep, it's time to get out the crock-pot and start cooking the hell out of everything.

Why do I think it would be great for bandits? The perfect food for a bandit is a stew or casserole - it's soft, usually runny or saucy and it's flavoursome and delicious.

I think over the weekend I'm going to try and get a crock pot and put this theory to the test.

Happy cooking!

It's a light-on week

For my beloved four readers,

This week will be super-light on, I'm afraid. I don't expect I'll be back in the kitchen a-cookin' until Thursday night.

I have a special family occasion in the Big Smoke, which will mean tomorrow and Wednesday away from the kitchen.

Just wanted to let you know I'm still here and hopefully this is the last light-on week for a while.

Loads of love and happy cooking,

Mel xx

Easy Peasy Spinach and Feta Frittata

Okey dokey. So this is about the easiest recipe in the world.

It's for when you get home and realise you've forgotten to go to the shops.

You look into your pantry and fridge and see that all you have is a bit of cheese, some frozen spinach and a few eggs. Voila! You gotta frittata.

Easy Peasy Spinach and Feta Frittata (242 calories)

2 eggs (160 calories)

As Much Spinach As You Like (around 50 calories)

10g of crumbed feta (32 calories)

I had some left over cream in the fridge from a dinner party last night, so I whacked two dollops of that in. You really don't need to do this - it will be just as delicious without it.

Crack the eggs, beat them until they're all the same colour. Pour the eggs into a small teflon oven ready pie bowl (not sure what the official name is!), then add the spinach and the feta evenly so it looks purrrrrty.

Whack it in the oven on a low-medium heat for about 15 minutes and you've got yourself the quickest dang dinner/lunch out there.

If you're feeling super adventurous and have more left over vegetables in your fridge than I do, add some capsicum! Tomatoes! Broccoli! Sliced sweet potato! The frittata is your oyster.

ps. If your band is just right, the portions I've given you will probably last you two meals.