August's Feel Good Food Challenge

This month's key ingredient for Feel Good Food was one of the original contenders for the first challenge back in June. I chose it because it comes in so many different forms, has so many different uses in cooking and baking, and of course, most importantly, has so many health benefits.

I am of course, talking about GINGER. Be it freshly grated ginger root, ground ginger, crystallised or pickled ginger, this month, I want your ginger recipes please! 

To encourage you, some of the linked health benefits to ginger include;

• Ginger contains a number of compounds that aid gastrointestinal functions including digestion
• A recent study indicates that daily consumption of ginger can ease muscle pain associated with exercise
• Some studies have shown ginger to be very effective in reducing nausea linked to seasickness, pregnancy and even nausea brought on by chemotherapy

The rules are as follows;

• Recipes should be submitted by midnight on the 28th. 
• Recipes do not need to be calorie controlled, but wherever possible, try to use wholemeal carbohydrates (flour, pasta, rice etc) to make them as nutritious as possible.
• You can enter as many recipes into the challenge as you like, the more the merrier. Existing posts are welcome, as long as they contain the chosen ingredient and have been updated to include a link back to this challenge.
• Recipes can be your own or someone else's, but if you do use an existing recipe please credit the source.
• Posts must contain the Feel Good Food logo above, be tagged with Feel Good Food, and contain a link back to this site. 
• Once your post is live, you can add the URL to the linky tool at the bottom of the page. Alternatively, email me a copy of the URL link to kickatthepantrydoor@gmail.com so that I know it is there, and I can include it in the round up at the end of the month. 
• If you are on Twitter, tweet me the link at @ThePantryDoor1, using the hashtag #FeelGoodFood and I will retweet as well. 

Hearty Beef Goulash

Goulash is a traditional Hungarian dish with hundreds of varieties and recipes. The name originates from the name of the cattle-herders in Hungary, and evolved to become the name of the meat dish that the cattle-herders made. Sometimes it is made as a soup, and sometimes more as a stew. This is my interpretation of the dish, made with store cupboard ingredients, and it makes an easy, economical and hearty dish. It can be served with potatoes or rice, and is ideal for making in a slow cooker during the day, or making at the weekend and freezing in batches to take to work for individual lunches. 

The dish is wide open to substitutions and additions to use up what you have, you may consider switching the cannellini beans for kidney beans, or adding new potatoes or carrots, feel free to have some fun with this one!

Ingredients

1 Onion

500 grams Casserole Steak, diced

1 teaspoon Paprika

400 ml Beef Stock

400 grams (1 tin) Chopped Tomatoes

1 Red Pepper

1 Green Pepper

400 grams (1 tin) Cannellini Beans

3 teaspoons Cornflour

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

Take a large heavy bottomed saucepan, and heat a tablespoon of olive oil. Roughly chop the onion, and add to the pan. (You can test that the oil is hot enough by dropping a piece of the onion into the pan - if it sizzles on contact, it is ready to use) 

Once the onions have softened and turned clear, add the beef to the pan. Fry for 2 - 3 minutes until the meat browns, then add the paprika and stir until the meat is well coated. 

De-seed and chop the red and green peppers and add to the pan. Add the beef stock and the tomatoes, and stir well. Cover the pan with a lid, and leave to simmer for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Alternatively at this point transfer the mixture to a slow cooker, and cook on the low setting for 8 hours.

When the meat has tenderised, drain the can of cannellini beans and add. Mix the cornflour with a few teaspoons of water to make a paste. Add the cornflour mixture to the pan, and stir thoroughly to thicken the goulash. Season to taste. Cook for a further 15 - 20 minutes to allow the cannellini beans to cook, then serve with potatoes or rice, or simply in a large bowl with hunks of crusty buttered bread.

I am entering this into Credit Crunch Munch run by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All, as it is a brilliant dish for using up leftovers, making the most of cheaper cuts of beef, and great for freezing or portioning for lunches. Helen has asked for substitutions this month, and although there aren't any in my recipe, the dish itself is great for adapting and substituting depending on what is in the house.

Jumping on the Healthy Eating Bandwagon

Ok... I'm going to start this post by confessing that a) I haven't actually made any New Year's resolutions this year through a crippling fear of the disappointment that will follow when I inevitably break them, and b) I have a terrible tendency to yo-yo diet. These things do not make me the best person to come to for any kind of healthy eating / diet tips, however I do have a few recipes for those of you with a little more motivation than me! 

When I have successfully lost weight in the past, it hasn't been through any celebrity fad, crash diet, or intensive exercise regime. I generally follow a few golden rules, and with a little determination they give me the results that I want...

1. Try to cut out alcohol, but don't ban yourself. If you are having a drink, try white wine and soda, or vodka and slimline tonic or cranberry, and have a small glass of water between drinks. 
2. An absolute unbreakable rule is to drink between one and a half and two litres of water per day. I always keep a sports bottle of water with me when I'm on a weight loss mission.
3. Make time for three meals a day. It doesn't even matter what they are. My weight suffers when I fall out of that routine, when I convince myself I don't have time for breakfast. One day I will learn that three square meals a day is the only way!?

Any-way. I'm a foodie blogger, not a diet expert, so here are a few of my go-to recipes as promised...

Vegetable Soup

I blogged about soup a few months ago - the full recipe is here. The beauty of this is you can use absolutely anything in it, and season it however you like. I like to make a big batch at the weekend with the leftovers from a Sunday roast, and then freeze in individual containers - they make a perfect low-fat low-cal lunch either at home or the office. These ones are Sweet Potato with a few Chillies for spice...

Vegetable Soup Freezer Pots

Chicken Wraps

As a sales rep by day, I spend a lot of time in the car, with no kitchen or microwave, and the constant lure of fast food at the services. I find chicken wraps ideal to take in the car when I know I'm going to be out at lunchtime, however they get bland and boring very quickly. I use these few quick fix marinades to add some excitement to my chicken breasts;

• Chinese Style: 5tbsp Dark Soy Sauce, 3tbsp Brown Sugar and 1tsp Chinese Five Spice
• Tikka Style: 1tsp of Masala (or any other) Curry Paste in 200g Crème Fraiche 
• Mediterranean: 3tbsp Honey plus the juice of 1 lemon

Marinade overnight, and then grill and slice for tasty, high protein, low calorie wraps, salads or sandwiches.

Muffins

Because my worst food habit is skipping breakfast, these little beauties are my morning saviours! The full recipe is in my blog post here, and again it is one of those amazingly adaptable recipes that has unlimited possibilities. I made a quick batch tonight using some frozen blueberries and a teaspoon of lemon extract. You can make them even more healthy by using wholemeal self raising flour, and skimmed milk. The recipe makes a batch of 12, and they are perfect for freezing once cool, and then popping in the oven one-by-one to warm through. 

Lemon and Blueberry Muffin

Good luck to everyone out there who has made resolutions for 2013 - I'd love to hear everyone else's diet tips and healthy eating recipes - please comment below! 

V x

If In Doubt - Make Soup

When I talk about a kick at the pantry door, the absolute essence of the philosophy is that moment when, for any one of a number of reasons, you find yourself in the kitchen, with all your cupboard doors ajar, the fridge door wide open, and you are asking yourself what on earth to make for dinner. Maybe it's not quite payday. Maybe you have neither the time nor energy to get to the shops. Maybe, as often happens in our house, you have a mixture of half used packages and leftovers that don't quite know how to assemble themselves into a proper meal.

Whenever this happens in my house, I make soup. Soup is one of the most under-rated, healthiest, lowest in calories, tastiest, and absolute easiest things in the world to make. It needs no recipe, culinary expertise, little time to make, and its possibilities are endless. I use one simple rule when I make soup - the volume of liquid must slightly outweigh the weight of the solids, normally 500g mixed vegetables to 700ml stock.

Today I made a soup from a bag of sweet potatoes that needed using up. I used a chicken stock cube to make my stock, and added to it the sweet potatoes peeled and chopped, three sweet peppers that were close to their best, and a generous helping of thyme. I left the pan to simmer for an hour whilst I got on with my chores, and returned when the vegetables had softened to the point that they were starting to break up. I added half a bag of spinach that was sitting in the fridge, cooked it through and then blended until smooth.

Gary and I enjoyed big steaming bowlfuls for lunch, with piles of buttered bread, and the remainder has been divided into individual pots and frozen, so that we can defrost and cook a single portion whenever the mood takes. This also makes a cheap and easy healthy lunch option if you work in a place where you have access to a microwave.

Making soup like this, the possibilities are endless, these are some of my favourite options;

Spicy Vegetable

Start by frying a chopped garlic clove and a fresh chilli, then add the stock and vegetables. If you do not have a fresh chilli, 1 tsp of dried chilli flakes could also be used. Butternut Squash or Parsnips are ideal flavours to compliment the spice.

Smoky Bacon and Lentil

Start by frying chopped onions and bacon in a little oil until golden, then add the remaining vegetables, potatoes, and red lentils. Then add the stock.

Chicken and Vegetable

Follow the recipe above, adding 200g cooked chicken. Leftover meat from a Sunday Roast is perfect, alternatively grill 2 chicken breasts, dice and add to the soup before blending.

I would love to hear some of your variations or favourite soup recipes, please post below!

Enjoy! V x