Salsa
I had a severe meat overdose last week.
Firstly, I made a beef stir-fry which lasted me for two evening meals – no particular recipe, just chucked in some marinated beef strips plus whatever veggies I had and a few sauces. It was good.
Secondly, I tried the Indian cafe at the end of my street, for the first time (even though it’s been there for over 2 years….) on Friday night – I bought takeaway lamb saagwala, rice, naan bread and vegetable pakoras. Apart from the pakoras, which were delicious, the rest was awful – undercooked, tough lamb with no flavour, and too-chewy naan bread. The service was also very poor – 25 minutes to get a takeaway order when there was only one order before me and one table of 6 in the actual restaurant. Plus, the girl taking the orders stopped halfway through an order to take an obviously personal phone call, which she then proceeded to take outside to carry on in private! I won’t be going back there again. Shame, as it is so close to home and they home-deliver for free if I really can’t be bothered walking 100 metres haha.
Thirdly, on Saturday, I decided to cook lamb shanks in a cook-in-the-bag thingy, with roasted veg. This was quite lovely – I don’t use a lot of pre-prepared foodstuffs, but I like the convenience of these flavour sachet/bag things for an easy, family-style meal occasionally. I had, however, eaten the leftover lamb saagwala, on a roll at lunchtime (because despite its lack of flavour excitement, I do hate to waste food, especially when an animal has died to provide it), plus I had a slice of roast beef on my crumpet for breakfast, so the whole day was very meat-intense, which is not like me.
And finally, on Sunday I went to “high tea” at a posh hotel in the afternoon. I deliberately ate nothing but a crumpet early in the morning, to build up a good appetite. I will write about my total pig-out separately, but suffice it to say, I did not need dinner that night and in fact felt quite disgustingly bloated and huge afterwards. Not only that, but the skirt I wore to the high tea was tight and it is usually quite a loose fitting one, so that means I still haven’t physically gotten over my excess of cheese and pastry whilst in the UK!
Time has come for some detoxifying……for me that means not eating meat for a while – not that I will ever completely be a vegetarian, as I do love a good curry, roast or meat stir-fry. But I know my body, and I do just feel a lot healthier when I stick to veg & fish/seafood. I’d like to say I would give up alcohol to detox, but hmmmmm that will never happen. I have to have something to keep me sane….
I’m really big on mushrooms at the moment, so this is what I had last night – I simply placed 200 gms (9) cup mushrooms (stalks cut off then finely chopped) in a baking dish and topped with 100 gms crumbled feta, the chopped mushroom stalks, 50 gms pitted kalamata olives, cracked pepper and some fresh basil leaves. Baked it for 30 minutes at 160C and served with a freshly made salsa – in this case I used the kernels from 1 corn cob (I don’t bother blanching it, just slice it off raw – yummo), 1 red onion (finely chopped), 1 tomato (finely chopped), 1 avocado (chopped), a pinch of salt, cracked pepper and a splash of lime juice.
Mushrooms, Feta, Olives
This was a delicious and healthy comfort food – filling and “meaty” tasting thanks to the mushrooms, but without the blurrrrggggghhh feeling of eating too much meat in one hit.
This mushroom idea actually works well as a side dish, rather than the main meal that I made of it. I made this quantity just for me – it was too much of course, but bearing in mind that mushrooms shrivel a lot when they cook, you would need to increase the quantities if you wanted this to be a main dish for a few people or a side dish for a large group.
Mushrooms + Salsa = Yum
Happy Fooding!
