Some dinners of late, and our superfood smoothie secret weapon for the Winter.

October 18, 2016


I haven't written many food posts on here, probably only this one or this. I just find writing about interiors or travel or our weekends a bit more fun, and pretty. My husband and I both LOVE food but blogging it just doesn't seem to happen very often, mostly because we're too starving to take photos of meals before wolfing them down, or they always seem to fill my camera with steam. However it's a post that's been requested by a few of you {hey Emily and Kayleigh} over the past couple of months so I thought with the changing seasons it would be a good time to actually sit down to write a bit more. Some of our favourite weekday dinners below, as well as the smoothie recipe that we have every single morning.


So let's talk smoothies. You may remember that we started going mad on the nutrition in smoothies back in January and looking into additional supplements. We eat healthily but we wanted maximum nutrition, making sure our bodies have everything they need to fight off bugs and generally feel the best that we can. If you're deficient in anything it can affect you in so many ways, tiredness, illnesses, hair, skin, nails the lot. Back in the summer I went to a Brides magazine dinner where in the goody bag there was a box of Equi London Fundamental mix. It's a powder that you can add into smoothies or just dilute into water and is the equivalent of 15-20 supplements a day. We googled it and found it was sold on Net a Porter and were amazed by the ingredients - it contains every super food you could think of from spirulina to acai to goji to to flaxseed to kale to wheatgrass yet tastes good!

'Equi London's 'Fundamental' supplement aims to address the "difficulty in balancing fast paced, modern living whilst trying to maintain good health.” Focusing on the 'Equi Eight' philosophy of optimising digestion, detoxification, hormones, stress, brain, energy, circulation and immunity, each scoop supplies you with all the ingredients your body needs to works at its best, delivering daily multi-vitamins with powerful superfoods, antioxidants, omegas, probiotics and digestive enzymes, amino acids and isolated nutritional compounds from herbs. It's also packed with high concentrations of Vitamins B12 and B6 to reduce tiredness, Vitamin C to combat weakened immunity and Zinc to boost cognitive function, as well as magnesium and vitamin D, often deficient in those living busy lives and working in offices.'




We started adding it to our smoothies and LOVED the taste. It's coconut flavour and weirdly when in water, it tastes a little gross - I think it's the spirulina being a bit pond weedy? But when in our smoothie combined with everything else, it tastes so sweet, coconutty and almost like vanilla. Our smoothies before were a bit spinachy but they now taste like a treat. In addition we know all the goodness that goes into it and it feels like such a great start to the day, especially post exercise. 

Our daily recipe:
We blend in a nutribullet: 7 balls of frozen chopped spinach, a scoop of the Equi London formula, a large teaspoon ground turmeric or a chunk of fresh turmeric, a sprinkling of black pepper to help aid the absorption from the turmeric, a handful of frozen blueberries and mixed red berries, a small piece of fresh ginger and a tablespoon of coconut oil. 



Since then we've ordered two more boxes and I don't think we'll ever stop using Equi London now. If you want sparkly skin, eyes and just to generally feel well and full of energy then try try try it. 

Ben and I are always hungry and on the go so we have a small breakfast in addition to the superfood smoothie - either eggs on toast, peanut butter on toast, a sachet of protein porridge or if short on time just cereal. We'll then have lunch, I mainly find lunches a bit boring. But dinner, dinners are yummy and different every day. We have a few that we rotate through the week, quick fail proof midweek that are mostly healthy. Weekends are different and always a bit more of a treat. It's all about balance right? We love having our allotment for fresh produce which makes us think of different ways to use it all up. Right now we have an abundance of squashes, kale and chard. 

I'll split this into summer and winter. 


Summer - When the weather is nice we pretty much use the BBQ everyday. It's just such an easy way to cook and a great way to grill vegetables as well as meat or fish. A lot of these don't really have recipes as such but some of our favourites include:

- BBQed salmon with vegetable skewers {courgette, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers and onion} with griddled asparagus and couscous.
- BBQed lamb koftas with a courgette, tomato and cucumber salad with flatbreads. We use a potato peeler on the courgettes to create long strips. 
- BBQed halloumi with vegetables, wholegrain rice and quinoa {the uncle Ben's microwave bags are great} with salad.
- BBQed chicken coated with chipotle paste with sweetcorn for burrito bowls. Cook brown rice and mix in some salad leaves,  black beans, salsa, grated cheese and guacamole.
- BBQed sausages with kale and wholewheat pasta.
- Not BBQed but courgette lasagne is one of the best ways we've found to use our allotment gluts each summer. I use this recipe, and serve with a salad or leafy greens.
- Pizzas in the summer are great especially when topped with baby courgettes and their flowers. We make them with this recipe that I've posted about before.


Now that the autumn is here, and we're not using the BBQ to cook dinners, a few of our midweek meals are:
- Vegetable tagine. I use an adapted version of this recipe - I don't put the cardamon pods in or rosewater or serve with yogurt cheese. But it is v nice with onion jam. You can use whatever vegetables you like but squash, peppers, carrots and parsnips work well.
- Sausages with chard and lentils. We have loads of chard at the allotment so this is a good way to use it. I cook the sausages in the oven for 20 minutes and in a wok or non-stick pan, fry a little garlic with the chopped chard leaves and then pour in a can of chopped tomatoes, cook until soft. I then use microwave lentil pouches and it's a super quick yummy autumnal dinner.
- A piece of cod/any white fish cooked in the oven along with a baking tray full of courgettes, squash, onions and peppers along with a can of chopped tomatoes. It all bakes up and then I serve with quinoa and tenderstem broccoli.
- Turkey meatballs cooked in the oven with a tomato sauce served with wholewheat pasta, baby carrots, broccoli and kale with grated cheese. 
- Seeded fish, frozen from Waitrose cooked in the oven, with roasted sweet potatoes and green veg is another fav.
- Side note, the best way to cook roasted sweet potatoes is to microwave them whole for 7 minutes each first and then put in the oven for half an hour until v soft.
- Beetroot burgers to use up our beetroot. Recipe here. You do it all in a food processor. 
- I often make a chilli which will do us for two days. One night we'll have it with brown rice and black beans. The next we'll have it inside a squash. We've grown a lot at the allotment so we cut one in half to roast and then use it like a bowl for filling. 
- Likewise for bolognese which we'll have with kale and brown wholewheat or spelt spaghetti.
- Salmon stir-fry. 
- Prawns cooked in a wok with some onion, tikka paste and tomato puree before cooking down with chopped tomatoes and frozen spinach. Serve with rice and quinoa. 
- Jamie's salmon as we call it, a traybake with roasted tomatoes, green beans, olives and anchovies. Recipe here. Serve with pasta or potatoes or courgetti! 
- Risotto but that's more for a weekend when I've got more time. 
- And a one tray roast chicken which I've talked about here. But that takes an hour and a half to cook.


Seven vegetable tagine. 



Cooking pretty chard.



Cooking tagine before it goes in the oven.


Fish with the roasted vegetables, quinoa and broccoli. 

 

Burrito bowls. 


Summer favourites.


Homemade pizzas.


Courgette lasagne.


Roasted spaghetti squash. When cooked it forks into strands like spaghetti! Great for healthier alternative to pasta. 


Roasting for fish. 


Risotto with squash, asparagus, white wine, chicken, mushrooms, peas and parmesan.


Summer salads with halloumi.


BBQ yum. These are Heck sausages made from chicken with mozzarella. V low cal and fat.


Forever picking allotment kale. It goes with so many things. 


Courgette ribbon salad to go with lamb koftas. 


I miss summer evenings for eating outside! 

What are your favourite dinners? Have you tried Equi London?

R <3 xx

{I was sent Equi London to review but had already been using it for about a month before I got asked to review it. I would never ever blog about something I wouldn't buy myself or truly love}

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1 comments

  1. Some great ideas! Thank you for sharing. Some of the autumn/winter ones look particularly delish! This has to be my fav time of year for cooking, from lasangnes to hot pots to pies and crumbles! Tried growing a couple of vegetables last year but we were so busy that I didn't take much care of them but with a new baby due just before Christmas, hoping to get more into it whilst I'm at home next year xx

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