So this caught my eye in Jamie's America a few days ago and I couldn't believe I hadn't taken notice of it before. It's a real, fresh summery salad with some of my favourite foods in it. Watermelon, lime, seeds, spinach (which was my addition to it), goats cheese and mint. The flavours tasted amazing together, the crunchiness of the seeds with the soft cheese and crunchy, watery melon. It's so easy as well and just makes salad that bit more exciting!
Seeing as I'm in the midst of French oral examinations, I figured I need a day of good food to get me through. Today's plan is to be learning my oral presentation, in between that will be nice and quite healthy food to get me through and get my brain ticking!
Breakfast - porridge oats with a handful of blueberries and strawberries and a drizzle of golden syrup.
(Porridge oats release energy slowly, so will keep you fuller for longer meaning you can study longer! - add some fruit to the mix for a good vitamin and natural sugar hit)
Lunch - omelette with cherry tomatoes marinated in garlic, apple, goats cheese, spinach and crispy bacon.
(Slightly on the not so healthy side however eggs are a good source of choline which is an important nutrient in regulating the brain. Plus apples, cherry tomatoes and spinach are all nutritious foods. Garlic of course is considered as having medicinal properties (for curing the common cold etc), goats cheese and bacon are not so healthy but grilling the bacon lowers the fat amount and both can be the little treats of the meal, just grill 1 bacon rasher and cut into small pieces and drop about 4 blobs of goats cheese over the cooking omelette - use about a quarter of the goats cheese roll, I'm talking about a small one!) Finish with a sprinkling of basil.
Dinner will be moroccan vegetable cous cous with skinless chicken and halloumi cheese. Photo will be posted later.
Love FF x
It's been a few days since my mad bout of posting lots. But it's the weekend and I'm a student therefore I'm either going out or in the library! Although I should be studying now I think I might update with a few of the meals I've had. This Friday night I cooked tuna steak for me and my housemate along with Gino D'Acampo's Cherry tomato and Anchovy Sauce and French Bean Salad with Mint, Goat Cheese and Pine Nuts.
I saw him make this on This Morning whilst I was bumming about at home, probably before a lecture. (Life of a student eh?!) Also during his cooking segment, there were other people all cooking the same thing at home at the same time as Gino, they had a wall of telly screens so he could watch them and tell them if they're doing the right thing. Thought that was pretty cool and also showed that what these TV chefs make on the telly isn't that hard!
So Gino cooked it with a crispy salmon fillet - whereas I had tuna steak in the freezer and I'm not a massive fan of salmon. The meal again, like Rosie's wasn't too difficult.
This is Gino's recipe - I am copying and pasting it from the website, so in no way am I claiming it is mine!
I am separating the recipe into 3 parts, since there are kind of 3 stages to it although done at the same time.
For 2 people.
Sauce:
200ml olive oil
1⁄2 red onion, finely sliced
4 anchovy fillets in oil, drained
400g tinned cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons finely chopped
flat-leaf parsley
Salt and pepper
Preparation:
Heat 4 tablespoons of the olive oil in a medium saucepan and fry the onion until golden. Add the anchovies, cherry tomatoes and parsley, season with salt and pepper and cook, uncovered, over a medium heat for 10 minutes.
French bean salad with mint, goat cheese and pine kernels:
100g French beans (topped)
3 fresh mint leaves
½ garlic clove
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
70g goat cheese
2 tablespoons of dry toasted pine kernels
Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
In a medium size saucepan, cook the beans in salted boiling water until al dente.
In the meantime finely chop the garlic and the mint together and place in a large bowl. Pour in the oil and lemon juice and mix until well combined.
Drain well the beans and add into the bowl with the dressing.
Season with salt and pepper and toss all together until evenly coated. Place on a serving plate.
Crumble over the goat cheese and scatter with the cooled pine kernels.
2 tuna fillet steaks.
For the timing of the meal overall, I would:
- Fill up a kettle to boil the water for the green beans.
- Place the green beans in a saucepan.
- Chop up the onion for the sauce, open the can of cherry tomatoes, open the tin of anchovies.
- Once the kettle is boiled, pour into the saucepan with the green beans and let them cook.
- Start frying the onion for the sauce.
- Get the grill very hot for the tuna steaks.
- Once the green beans have been cooking for a couple of minutes and the red onion has sweated and you have started adding the other ingredients to the sauce. Then place the tuna steaks under the grill, cooking for 5 minutes either side - or until it's cooked how you want it, here's a good guide for cooking tuna steak.
- Then follow the rest of the directions from Gino's instructions for the sauce and the green bean salad.
Plating up:
- Place the sauce onto a plate, place the tuna steak on top. Arrange the beans next to it.
Enjoy!
Love FF x
