Tag Archives: healthy recipe

Sunday Breakfast: Baked quail eggs

When it’s not a weekend, sometimes being pressed for time can make hard to prepare anything for breakfast, and I’m not saying about to sit down and enjoy it, and you probably skip it day by day.. I never skip breakfast, and studies show that those who eat breakfast regularly lose weight! So be sure you eat a good and tasty breakfast! Like this protein-based, that starts your metabolism and your energy level will be fired up.

You only need to put all ingredients together in a baking dish (small-individual or one large to share), crack small&tasty quail eggs in it and bake for few minutes. Meanwhile, you can make a fresh tea or toast some bread.

Baked quail eggs with Gruyère cheese, ham and spinach

Time: 15-20min
Difficulty: very easy
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Ingredients

butter, for greasing baking dishes

fresh spinach leaves

cooked ham slices (1 large per person), cut into strips

5 or more quail eggs per person

1-2 tbsp grated Gruyère cheese per person

salt, crushed pink peppercorns to taste

Garnish

extra grated cheese

chopped parsley

cherry tomatoes

bread

Method

Preheat oven to 200C.
Grease baking dishes with butter.
Put in spinach, ham, 1/3 of cheese. Crack eggs, season with salt&pink pepper and sprinkle with some cheese.
Bake for 6-10 minutes or until the egg white is set.
Sprinkle with parsley, garnish with cheese. Serve immediately with cherry tomatoes and bread.

Enjoy!

Have a lovely and delicious weekend breakfast!

Millet bitochki

Bitochki or bitki is the name for round-shaped, flattened cutlets (côtelettes/patties) in Russian cuisine, which are prepared from chopped meat or grains. Originally in old Russia, a good and expensive cuts of meat were flattened, cooked and called bitochki, but lately people adapted the recipe and began to use cheap meat. Any remaining meat was chopped, mixed with other ingredients and then served fried or baked. Poor people even used grains.

Nowadays, not only poor one can make such bitochki. I used millet for mine. Bitochki are not only tasty, but healthy and it is a good option for a meatless day. Millet is one of the healthiest grain, moreover is considered to be one of the digestible and non-allergenic grains*. It contains lots of fiber and low simple sugar. Finally, bitochki have such a nice texture inside (it reminds a white fish a bit) and crispy outside.

You can serve them with a lettuce-tomato salad on a side. I made mushrooms sauce, but if you are run out of time or lazy – serve with a good dollop of sour cream (or creme fraiche).

Millet bitochki with mushroom sauce

Servings: 12 pieces
Difficulty: moderate
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Instead of mushroom sauce you can serve bitochiki with sour cream.

Bitochki as well as mushroom sauce can be made a day or two ahead and then gently reheated.

*You can use both cream and sour cream, or any one.

Ingredients

150g millet

500ml hot water

1 medium egg

2-3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

1 medium onion (any sort you like)

300g mushrooms (I used oyester and champinions), chopped

1 tbsp butter+ 1 tbsp olive oil, for mushrooms

20g butter

15-20g plain flour

100ml 35% cream*

2-3 tbsp sour cream*

150ml hot water

salt, freshly ground pepper to taste

fine homemade breadcrumbs

2 Tbsp olive or sunflower oil, for frying

some chopped parsely, for garnish, optional

Preparation method

Wash millet throughly under running water, cover with hot water, season with some salt, bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until millet is ready. You need to cool it completely. To make it faster, spread millet on a large plate and put in a fridge for 10-15 minutes, while preparing the mushrooms and sauce.
In a frying pan, heat butter and oil, add onion and fry for 5 minutes (set aside half of onions for millet ). Add mushrooms and fry on a hight heat for 10 minutes or until all liquid is evaporated (if there is any). Season to taste. Set aside 3-4 tbsp mushrooms for millet; then chop it finely.
Meanwhile, in a small pan, add butter and flour, stir on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir into mushrooms.
Pour over cream along with sour cream, give it a good stir. Pour in hot water. Check the seasoning. Simmer on a medium heat for 5-8 minutes. Add more hot water to reach desired consistency. Keep the sauce warm.
Transfer cooled millet in a mixing bowl, add egg, parsley, season with salt and pepper. Mix in fried onion and mushrooms. Combine the mixture. I didn’t use any flour, but if the mixture seems doesn’t want to resemble into a patty, add a tablespoon or two of plain flour.
Generously spread breadcrumbs on a large plate. With a tablespoon take a millet mixture and make a ball, pat it down with your hand or spoon. Cover in a breadcrumbs. Repeat with all millet mixture.
In a large frying pan, heat oil, put bitochki and fry on both sides until golden. To keep it warm while preparing others – put them in a preheated 120-150C oven.
Serve with mushroom sauce and sprinkle with extra parsley, if desired.

Enjoy!

Fish with spiced lentil ragout

Happy Valentines Day!!!

I’d like to represent a very delicious main course, that looks elegant and suits perfectly to this special day. A healthy and tasty fish is complemented here by aromatic lentil ragout and fresh fennel shavings. Another secret weapon in this sensational dish is aromatic spices: turmeric and ginger, that really burst the lentils with lots of flavour. And of course don’t forget the final touch – a drizzle of lime juice.

Simple! Healthy! Sensational!

Fish with spiced lentil ragout

Servings: 2
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

Fish

2 x 150-200g white fish fillet (I used sea bass)

2 tbsp lime juice

freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

some homemade breadcrumbs and flour, for coating

1 tbsp olive oil or other veg oil, for frying

Lentil ragout

100g dried green/brown or Puy lentils

1 rosemary sprig

water

1.5 tbsp olive oil

1 small red onion, chopped

1 small carrot, cut into fine cubes

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 tsp fresh grated ginger

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 medium tomato, chopped (without liquid and seeds)

1.5 tbsp tomato puree

zest from 1/2 lime

freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

Garnish

lime juice

lime wedges

fennel shavings

fennel or parsley

Preparation method

Rinse and drain lentils. Put in a saucepan with rosemary, cover with water (do not season) and bring to boil on a medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Add extra water if all absorbed, or drain some if there is any left.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a small frying pan, add onion and carrot and saute for 6-7 minutes until soft and golden. Add garlic, ginger, turmeric and saute for a minute more. Stir in chopped tomato and puree. Turn off the heat.
Discard rosemary form lentils. While lentils are still warm season with salt and pepper, then mix in lemon zest and vegetable mixture; give it a good stir.
Drizzle fish with lime juice, season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle skin side with breadcrumbs and flour. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry skin-side down for 2 minutes, then turn and fry for 1-3 minutes more (depends on fish thickness), until golden and cooked.
Arrange lentil ragout on a serving plate, top with fennel and fish fillet, drizzle with lime juice. Garnish with fennel (or parsley) and lime wedges.

Enjoy!

Herb-marinated salmon

I love cooking and eating salmon. Roasting salmon is my favourite way to prepare it. Usually I sprinkle it with some sea salt and freshly ground pepper, plus a pinch of dried rosemary or thyme – and salmon goes into the oven. Then a super healthy&tasty dish is ready in short time. A couple of weeks back I bought fresh salmon steaks and decided to roast it again, but that time I prepared a marinade and left it for a half an hour or so to soak up all of the amazing flavours before roasting. I chopped fresh coriander, parsley and mixed it with mustard, and some ground green pepper. Now you can imagine all those wonderful flavours! 🙂 What to say, salmon turned out gorgeous and unbelievably tasty! On the weekend I repeated the recipe but grilled it on a barbecue. It was superb again! Next weekend you will try it, right? 😉

What about you, dear readers? how do you cook salmon? and what spices and herbs are you usually using?

UAE is celebrating today its 44th National Day! Happy Birthday to the country, which has become my second home.

Herb-marinated salmon steaks

Servings: 2
Time: 1 hr
Difficulty: easy
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*You can substitute green peppercorns with white.

Ingredients

2 salmon steaks

Marinade

4 tbsp finely chopped parsley

4 tbsp finely chopped coriander

1 garlic clove, minced or chopped (optional)

2 tsp Dijon mustard (you can also use wholegrain mustard)

1/2 medium lime, juice

1/2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil

1-1.5 tsp coarse sea salt (or more to taste)

2 tsp whole green peppercorns*

Extra

1 large sliced red capsicum

2 small sliced parboiled potatoes

2 gralic cloves in their skin, optional

Preparation

For the marinade, crush sea salt and green peppercorns. In a bowl combine all ingredients for the marinade.
Put salmon steaks in a shallow plate, pour over marinade and leave to marinade for 30 minutes at room temperature, turning once. You can keep the fish in marinade for longer, but cover the plate with plastic wrap or foil and put in the fridge until ready to roast.
Preheat oven to 190-200C.
Arrange salmon steaks in a baking dish, add sliced capsicum, potatoes and garlic. Roast for 20-25 minutes.

Serve warm. Enjoy!

Herb-marinated roasted salmon with capsicum and potato slices

Oatmeal Cookies with dates

There are thousands recipes of oatmeal cookies, I guess. Needless to say, I prefer homemade cookies to store-bought. Homemade is homemade, right? Plus I can vary the amount of sugar, thus you can feel that you’re eating oat cookies, not sugary cookies with oats! And of course, you can add your fav nuts or chocolate chips as much as you like. 😀 Personally, I don’t like chocolate chips in cookies. I add it sometimes too, but almost never do it; choco chips contain more sugar than pure chocolate; so if I deliberately reduce the sugar in a recipe why should I add more sugar but in another form.. I prefer roughly chopped dark chocolate, it’s healthier and adds much more flavour and taste! Add a small handful of dried berries or fruits for extra deliciousness! 🙂

So, it’s my fav oatmeal cookies recipe. What’s yours? 🙂

Oatmeal Cookies with dates

Servings: 20-22 cookies
Time: 20-30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Instead of dates you can add some black raisins or dried cherries.

Addition of chopped dark chocolate make cookies only better.

Ingredients

170g butter, soft at room temperature

35g brown sugar

35g golden caster sugar (or more brown sugar)

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g plain flour

50g fine oats

1/2 tsp fine salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2-1 tsp cinnamon

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

200-220g oats

80-100g roasted walnuts, roughly chopped

6-8 large dates, stoned and chopped

Method

In a bowl, whisk flour with fine oats, salt, baking powder and spices.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with sugars until creamy about 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla.
Add flour mixture into cookie batter and whisk/beat until combined.
Stir in oats, walnuts and dates.
Line 2 baking trays with parchment. Scoop in cookies, leaving the space between cookies about 4-5cm. With wet hand flatten the cookies slightly.
Bake in preheated 180C oven for 15 minutes or until light golden.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!