Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: F: Fish: Monkfish Kebabs

 It´s back! The Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge is back and to kick off we´re continuing with the letter F. I knew immediately which ingredient to choose for F! Fish without a doubt! We don´t eat enough of it as I´ve never liked it, neither the taste,the smell nor having to touch it and my hands smelling fishy. We only eat it once a week and I can only eat white fish battered(usually frozen battered tilapia!) and my daughter is also not so keen on fish so hopefully I can discover some new recipes that will change our minds. The first recipe I decided to try out was one I came across in a book about feeding babies and  toddlers and family food; monkfish kebabs. The recipe is very simple and fairly quick to make and it was a hit with both my husband and my son.However, I chickened out of trying it....I think it would taste too fishy for me and my daughter refused to try it at first ,then she eventually tried it but spat it out so a bit of a mixed result.I don´t think this is going to convince my daughter and I to eat more fish though.

If you´d like to join in with the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge, either make this recipe or make your own fish recipe and blog about it linking back to this page. I´d love to see your fish recipes and get more inspiration of ways to eat more fish especially for those who don´t like fish!

Ingredients (for 2-3 people)

1 tomato cut into 6 slices
1/2 small red pepper,cut into squares
1/2 small yellow pepper,cut into squares
3 mushrooms
monkfish tail cut into about 12 cubes
juice of 1/2 lemon
a pinch of black pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil

Method:
1.Heat the grill and soak 3 wooden skewers.
2.Thread a slice of tomato,monkfish,red pepper, monkfish,yellow pepper and then a mushroom onto the wooden skewers.
3.Mix olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper together.
4.Place kebabs on top of oven tray covered with tinfoil and brush the dressing over the top.
5.Grill for 5 mins,then turn over and cook for a further 5 mins till fish is cooked.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge E: Eggplant: Eggplant Parmigiana

 Why when you can´t sleep at night, words come easily for a new blog post but when you actually sit down to write it, you can´t even remember what you were going to put or even think of anything to write. Zero,nada, zilch! A big fat nothing!

I had an aubergine lurking in my fridge, about to go bad, waiting to be used and I came across a recipe for Eggplant Parmigiana...or aubergine as it´s known as to us Brits, in my trusty American Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Every recipe that I cook from that book turns out delicious and it is one of my most used and well-thumbed, tatty,falling apart and spattered cookbooks. I decided to make it for me and my other half´s dinner as I wasn´t sure if the kids would even try it,despite the fact that one of my aims in doing this Eat More Variety Challenge is to get us all eating more variety. This dish was definitely a winner and I think the kids might even like it,if I can manage to get past the first stumbling block of getting them to at least try it, as it´s reminiscent of pizza. However, my daughter can even be fussy with pizza as she doesn´t like it with cheese...who doesn´t like cheese on pizza?...so she might not like the cheesey aspect of this dish.So with out further ado, on to the recipe.

Ingredients (Serves 2)
 1 small eggplant
  1 beaten egg
1/4 cup plain flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup meatless spaghetti sauce or bolognese sauce
3/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Method:
1.Wash and peel the aubergine and cut into thin slices.
2.Combine egg and 1 tbsp water,then dip aubergine slices in egg, then flour to coat
3.Fry aubergine in hot oil  for 4 to 6 mins until golden on both sides, drain on kitchen roll.
4.Place aubergine in a single layer in a baking dish about 30x 19x 4.5cm,then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, then add the spaghetti sauce and finally sprinkle the Mozzarella over the top.
5.Bake for 10-12 mins in a 200ºC oven until cheese has melted.

...and there you have it!Easy peasy! Enjoy on it´s own or with a salad and some crusty bread.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge E: Eggplant: Stuffed Eggplant

It´s the start of a New Year and with it brings new promises, many of which I try to keep and often fail. One of those promises is to try and blog more,something which I have very little time for these days but somehow I´m going to have to find it, and the other is to eat healthier and attempt to get my kids to eat healthier and eat more variety of food.So I have returned to my Eat More Variety Challenge after my long absence to continue from where I left off,with the letter E. After brainstorming ingredients beginning with E, I decided to choose eggplant,even though it really begins with A if you´re from the UK like me! Eggplant is the American English word for aubergine and although I like it,it´s not something we eat a lot of and getting the kids to eat it is a whole other ball game!

Eggplants,or aubergines, have many nutritional and health benefits. They contain anthocyanins and chlorogenic acid which fuction as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds as well as containing fibre,potassium,Vitamin C,Vitamin B6 and phytonutrient so can help with heart health, blood cholesterol,cancer, cognitive function, weight mangement and liver health.

I discovered this recipe for Stuffed Aubergines when I was browsing my cookery books and thought it sounded yummy and it certainly didn´t disappoint. I made this for supper for my husband and I, thinking that maybe the kids might be persuaded to try it but I should´ve known better, despite the fact that they thought it looked a little like pizza, they wouldn´t even try a tiny forkful!!Another good thing was that it didn´t take me as much time to prepare as I had expected.

Stuffed  Eggplant orAubergine, based on the recipe in The Dairy Book of Home Cookery(Serves2)

Ingredients:
2 medium sized eggplants/aubergines
1/2 medium onion
2 slices of bacon (think I´d increase this to 4)
1/2 green pepper
1/2 can of tinned tomatoes(around 200g)
25g butter
50g sliced mushrooms
50g white breadcrumbs
salt & pepper
50g Cheddar cheese,grated

Method:
1. Halve eggplants lengthways and scoop out the pulp, leaving 1/2cm thick shells.
2.Chop pulp and place in a saucepan.
3.Chop onion, green pepper and bacon
4.Add to aubergine pulp along with the butter and simmer gently till pulp is tender.
5.Add tinned tomatoes and stir in mushrooms.
6.Remove from heat and add breadcrumbs to thicken,season with salt & pepper.
7. Stuff eggplant shells with the mixture and spinkle with grated cheese.
8. Cook in preheated oven at between 200ºC/400ºF for 15 '20 minutes.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: D: D for Date: Pork & Date skewers

Things have been really busy lately what with birthday parties, end of school ballet shows, graduations, courses and kids that seem to be going to bed later and later. Add all that to the fact that the limited free time I have, I prefer to relax and watch a couple of TV programmes....namely Great British Bake Off  with professionals and Poldark,which hasn´t left me much time for blogging. I decided to make these Pork & Date Skewers from BBC Food recipes awhile ago but haven´t got around to blogging about them until now.

They were fairly quick and easy to make and made a tasty change. We cooked them on the electric griddle and I don´t know if it´s because I bought the wrong cut of meat or I cut the meat too thick but as you can see the outer layer of the pork got a little charred. I also doubled the quantity of dates as 5 didn´t appear too be many so maybe the sugars in the dates also contributed to the charring. Unfortunately these weren´t a hit with my toddler,who usually eats everything, and my daughter(no surprises there though!) so I haven´t succeeded in getting her to try or eat any dates yet!!In the recipe given, the pork and date skewers were served with a couscous salad but I decided to serve it with a version of Nasi Goreng.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: D: D for Dates: Wild Rice with Dates & Walnuts

Hello strangers! Finally back again to bring you this month´s Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge and we´ve reached letter D. I decided to choose dates for the letter D as it´s something that although I like we hardly eat but now after reading the nutritional and health benefits of eating dates....I think it´s something we´re definitely going to be consuming more often. Plus I have discovered lots of yummy recipes to try!!

First a quick look at some of the nutritional benefits of dates. Dates contain a wide range of essential nutrients and are a fantastic source of potassium.They are rich in dietary fibre, so therefore helps protect the colon mucous membrame from cancer-causing chemicals. They contain tannins which possess anti-infective,anti-inflammatory and anti-hemorrhagic properties.They are also an excellent source of iron. They also have many other health & nutritional benefits which you can read more about here .

The first recipe using dates I decided to try out was this Wild Rice, Dates & Walnuts despite the fact that it isn´t very toddler friendly because of the nuts and even though I suspected that my daughter would not so much as touch it!I thought at first that I´d overcooked the rice as it looked quite clumpy/ mushy but however the end result was delicious and I´m glad I tried it. It is quite reminiscent of couscous and the sweetness of the dates and the crunch of the walnuts gives it added texture and flavour.As predicted though my daughter wouldn´t try it.I adapted the recipe from my New Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book.

Ingredients:(for2-3people)
1/2 chopped onion
1 tbsp butter
1/2-3/4 cup of wild rice,rinsed and drained
1 cup of chopped celery
200ml chicken stock(I used Oxo chicken stock cube)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup pitted dates,chopped
1/8 cup chopped walnuts(toasted if time)

Method:
1. Cook onion in hot butter for 10 minutes until tender.
2. Add wild rice and cook for 3 minutes while stirring.
3. Add celery ,chicken stock and water and bring to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer covered for about 20 minutes(the original recipe said 40 minutes but mine was ready between 15-20 minutes) until rice is tender and most of the liquid has absorbed(much like a risotto).
4.Stir in dates and walnuts and cook uncovered for 3-4 minutes.
5. Serve as a side dish with chicken or fish.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: C for Cabbage: Fried Cabbage with bacon

So we´ve arrived at the second C for cabbage recipe in the Eat More Variety Challenge,in which I decided to use cabbage as a side dish. Cabbage is a vegetable we hardly eat and neither of my children have tried it before and this is a great way to jazz up cabbage and make it more palatable for fussy eaters or those who aren´t keen on it. Add bacon and garlic and what´s not to like??We loved it and even my 1 year old gobbled it down although my elder daughter wouldn´t  even try it. So an epic fail on trying to get my fussy eater to eat more variety and get more veggies down her! I won´t be giving up though, I have found some other cabbage recipes that I´m going to try out and hopefully eventually one of them will persuade her to try it!!I do know that I´ll be repeating this cabbage dish and cabbage is going to become a vegetable we consume more often.

The recipe I used was adapted from Delia Smith´s Complete Cookery Course, with the changes being that I used less cabbage than in the original recipe.I used around 350g as although we are 4 I knew that both my 1yr old and my daughter wouldn´t eat a huge amount of cabbage and I think there was plenty...we even had leftovers. I still used the full amount of bacon though. I´d definitely reccommend trying this dish as the bacon gives the cabbage a lovely taste and the crispy charred bits of cabbage and bacon are full of flavour.

Don´t forget that you are welcome to join in the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge anytime. All you have to do is publish  your cabbage recipe on your blog linking it back to this post and leaving a comment on this post and at the end of this month I will publish a round up of all the recipes with links to your blog.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge C for Cabbage: Bubble & Squeak

Hello,it´s been awhile and I won´t kid you, what with a teething, clingy baby turned toddler and two night owls by the time I get them off to sleep, I´m usually pretty exhausted myself and barely have time during theday to cook and bake,never mind blog!!

So here is the long overdue monthly Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge...this time it´s the letter C´s turn and I chose cabbage. I neither love nor hate cabbage..I can take it or leave it but it´s something we don´t eat a lot of as it´s not my favourite. Plus it smells like farts when you cook it so the whole house stinks and it makes you fart-hehehe!

Cabbage is a good source of Vitamin K, Vitamin C and dietary fibre and in fact contains more than 20% of the daily value for each of these nutrients per serving. It is also a good source of Vitamin B6 and folate.Studies suggest that cabbage and other similar leafy vegetables may have protective effects against colon cancer. Red cabbage may also contain potential anti-carcinogenic properties.

I decided to make the British classic,Bubble & Squeak, despite never having facied trying it before and was pleasantly surprised at how tasty it actually it. It is a great dish to use up leftovers, particularly leftover cabbage and is also vegetarian. Sorry about the photo...it tastes a lot nicer than it looks...but like I said as everything is done in a rush and I didn´t want my Bubble & Squeak to go cold, didn´t have much time to spend taking a better photo! Apparently, Bubble & Squeak was a popular dish during World War 2 because it´s an easy way to use up leftovers during a time when food was subject to rationing. I used the following Delia Smith recipe and the only alterations I made were that I didn´t use a whole cabbage and instead of using beef dripping for frying, I used either olive oil or sunflower oil. I´d definitely make these again as it´s a tasty way to use up leftovers and eat cabbage. Unfortunately I couldn´t persuade my daughter to try it though!

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: B: Barley: Irish Stew

April is here, which means the start of spring and better weather but also plenty of April showers. Spring is my favourite time of year, especially living in Spain as it´s not too cold nor too hot and it´s ideal for picnics, BBQ´S ,walks in the country, bike rides...need I go on!!!Also, all the flowers and the trees are starting to blossom and bloom and the air is fragrant with their perfume and of course you can´t forget all the cute baby animals being born!!So, just as the weather is changing and we are preparing to move onto the letter C in our Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge, we have room for just one more hearty, warming winter dish,which is comfort food at its best, Irish stew.

When I started writing this post, the weather had changed to bright, sunny, blue skies and the temperature had started to warm up but now we are back to dull, dreary and very wet weather, ideal for this stew!!I had originally wanted to make Irish stew in time for St. Patrick´s Day but unfortunately couldn´t find the right cut of lamb so delayed it and ended up buying a quarter of lamb for half the price of the usual fillets I buy!!It´s all separated and bagged up and in the freezer, ready to be used. I think I have enough for at least 3 or 4 different meals!!Unfortunately, my daughter who usually eats stew at both of her grandparent´s house took one look at it and said she didn´t like it and wouldn´t even try it...so much for getting her to eat more variety and try new things!!!

The recipe is adapted from Classic Potato Dishes edited by Lisa Dyer and also included parsley dumplings which would be delicious with it but I didn´t have all the ingredients for the dumplings so left them out but it´d also be great with some crusty bread or French baguette to mop up the juices, anyway without further ado on to the recipe:

Ingredients(4 people)
2tbsp olive oil
1/2  or 1 large onion, sliced
1 leek, sliced
1 large carrot,sliced
2 celery sticks, sliced
about 700g lean lamb cutlets or lamb shoulder, cubed
60g pearl barley
900ml lamb/beef stock(I used a beef Oxo cube as didn´t have any lamb stock)
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
salt & pepper
fresh parsley to garnish

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan and gently fry onions, leek,carrot and celery for 5 mins,without browning.
2. Add stock,lamb and pearl barley and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat.
3. Cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes,adding the potatoes after 20 minutes.
4. Season with salt & pepper and serve garnished with fresh parsley(picked straight out of my garden!)

I loved this hearty stew and it will become a staple during the cold winter months from now on. I´m glad I tried barley as I love the taste and texture it gives to dishes...am looking forward to experimenting more with barley and hopefully I´ve inspired you to try it and experiment with it too!Maybe one day I´ll also manage to get my daughter to try it too.I also had plenty of leftovers too which I could freeze to take out for a day when I haven´t got time to cook!!

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge B: Barley: Butternut squash, mushroom, sage & pearl barley risotto

A new month is here and it brings with it a new letter, the letter B, for the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge. And what ingredient have I chosen for this month´s challenge, I hear you asking...well, I decided to go for a grain which I´ve never tried before and is also very economical...barley. Barley....what do I do with barley you might be wondering. I didn´t know myself until deciding to cook with it but barley can be used in many dishes, particularly soups and stews or even as a main grain to replace rice for example, such as in the following recipe.

 Barley can be bought in various forms, among which are hulled barley, pearl barley and barley flakes. My first problem was that I wanted pearl barley and I wasn´t sure if I´d bought hulled barley or pearl barley!!! If you want to join in with the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge, you can use barley in any of it´s forms! Barley is a very healthy grain to eat as it contains many essential nutrients, such as protein,dietary fibre,B vitamins and minerals. If  3 grams of barley is consumed daily it can lower blood cholesterol and help regulate blood sugar. You can find out more about the health benefits of barley here.Plus it is a very economical and affordable grain.

 I had intended to make Irish stew in time for St. Patrick´s Day but unfortunately couldn´t find the cut of lamb I was looking for so went for plan B...a risotto using pearl barley instead of rice.It was perfect as I had some butternut squash that needed using up and I could use my home grown sage, which is starting to look a bit like a jungle I have that much of it! I based the recipe on the following BBC Food recipe but modified it a little. We really enjoyed the end result, a rich tasty nutty risotto...the barley tasted a little nutty, if slightly chewy....it maybe could have done with slightly longer but I enjoyed the texture and taste on the whole.

 Ingredients (2 people)
37g butter roughly(I didn´t bother weighing it, just eyeballed it most of the time!)
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
110g butternut squash(peeled and diced)...it was all I had left!!
1 sprig of fresh sage,(leaves only, chopped)
1/2 litre of vegetable stock
125g pearl barley, rinsed
3-4 mushrooms, sliced(the mushrooms gave the risotto a lovely earthy flavour as well as padding out the risotto as I didn´t have enough butternut squash)
                                                      salt & pepper
Method:
1. Heat around 15g butter( I didn´t weigh just guessed so might have been slightly more or slightly less!)in a saucepan till it melts and then add onion and butternut squash with a pinch of salt.
2. Fry for 10 mins until onion is translucent , then add garlic and mushrooms and cook for a further two minutes.
3.Heat vegetable stock and half the sage in a different pan.
4.Add some more butter (15g) to the onion and squash and mushrooms and then add the pearl barley, turn up heat and cook for 2-3 mins
5.Lower the heat so risotto is on a medium heat and add a ladle of stock to risotto...cook stirring occasionally until liquid has absorbed.
6. Keep adding ladles of stock and cooking until the liquid has absorbed and all the stock has been used up and barley is tender...it should take 30 minutes. If the barley is still chewy or hard, just add more water and cook longer until barley is tender.
7.Season with salt & pepper and add a little more butter(7g?) and stir, then serve and garnish with remaining sage.

Unfortunately I couldn´t get my daughter to try this dish with it being vegetarian but it is a very tasty dish and I really enjoyed the barley.I´m looking forward to the next dish I´m going to make with barley and I hope it´s inspired you to try it too. I´d love you to share your barley recipes!

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: Avocado: Avocado, Bacon & Poached Egg On Toast

Thought it was about time for another avocado recipe before moving on to the letter B of the Eat More Variety challenge. I´ve seen a lot of avocado on toast recipes popping up everywhere lately so I thought I´d try it as it seems a perfect thing for lunch or in my case, tea or supper  and appears to be quite healthy. Unfortunately, I didn´t manage to persuade my husband & daughter to try this dish so it didn´t suceed in getting them to eat a more varied diet, which is one of the whole points of this challenge!!So, for now the winning dish is the creamed chicken & avocado but I enjoyed this tasty suppertime treat and avocado is going to become if not a staple, a more frequent food in our diets...I just have to figure out how to sneek it into my husband´s and daughter´s meals!!!I´ll be giving some of these avocado recipes a go too.I´d love to hear any of your favourite avocado recipes and hopefully some of you might participate in this month´s letter B challenge.

After looking at various avocado on toast recipes and a trial avocado on toast recipe, which was a bit of an epic fail, I came up with this recipe as I had some leftover bacon bits, or lardons, that needed using up and based on a recipe for Avocado & Onion sandwich in The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, came up with the following:

Ingredients: (1 person)
2 slices of wholemeal(or white,according to preference) bread
1 small-medium ripe avocado
leftover bacon bits or lardons
2 eggs
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
2 tbsp cream or milk (optional)
Olive oil


1.Mash the avocado with lemon juice, cream and paprika.
2. Poach egg in some boiling water and a splash of malt vinegar
3..Fry the bacon or lardons in some olive oil
4. While bacon is frying, toast the slices of bread
5. Place mashed avocado on top of toasted bread, then the poached egg and place the bacon on top.

I actually only made 1 egg as you can see in the photo and just grated some cheese on top of the avocado & bacon on my second slice of bread but I much prefered the avocado on toast with the poached egg...it just seemed to have more flavour with the runny egg yolk merged with the bacon

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: Avocado: Creamed chicken & Avocado

One of my New Year´s resolutions is to eat a more varied diet,as I believe that a varied diet is healthier and also because there are many ingredients I either hardly eat or cook with or don´t like. So, I came up with this Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge to try and encourage me to eat more things I don´t like or don´t eat very often and discover recipes that use these ingredients in ways I like. I also want to encourage my daughter to try more things and also eat a more varied diet as she is quite fussy.

For letter A, the ingredient I´ve chosen is avocado.I neither dislike nor love avocado...it´s just something I don´t eat much of...in fact I only eat it in guacamole.I used to buy them for my daughter and mash them up for purees when I was weaning her and she loved them but as she got older I stopped buying them and needless to say, she stopped eating them!!

Avocados contain a lot of fat but it is "good" fat and they are also rich in B vitamins, K vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and potassium so they are a great ingredient to include in your diet.You can read more about the nutritional benefits of avocados here.

Of course, the obvious choice of recipe to make with avocado is guacamole,which I want to do one day, but I was looking for something different and more original and came across the following recipe for Creamed Chicken & Avocado, taken from Delia Smith´s Complete Cookery Course. The avocados didn´t appear to be ripe and I found this trick on the Internet about how to ripen avocados quicker by placing them in a plastic bag with a banana as the banana contains something which speeds up the ripening process, so I did this and it worked for one of the avocados but not the other.Unfortunately, I couldn´t persuade my daughter to try even the smallest bite of this dish but we thought it was absolutely delicious and my husband even went so far as to describe it as being in his top 10 of sauces so I will definitely be repeating this dish despite it not being maybe the healthiest dish!! I served it with wholemeal pasta which is great with the creamy sauce and it´d be lovely with some crusty bread to mop up the sauce!

If you´d like to join in with the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge all you have to do is post a comment or send me an email, write a post on your blog using this month´s ingredient: avocado and link it back to this post and at the end of the month, I will write a post linking and sharing your recipes. The recipes can either be sweet or savoury. I look forward to seeing and trying your avocado recipes!!

Ingredients:(2 people)
1 chicken breast(fried)or leftover chicken, about 250g,chopped
25g butter
25g flour
125ml milk
75ml chicken stock(I used an Oxo cube)
75ml cream
1tbsp dry sherry
lemon juice
1 ripe avocado
pinch of salt & black pepper
25g cheese,grated( I used extra mature Cheddar cheese)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200ºC
2. Melt butter in a saucepan and then add flour to make a paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring all the time.
3.Add milk, cream and chicken stock and bring to simmering point, then cook gently  for 2-3 mins, stirring all the time.
4. Remove from the heat and add chicken, sherry, salt,pepper & lemon juice.
5. Halve & quarter the avocado and remove the stone and skin, slice thinly and place in a casserole dish.
6.Spoon creamed chicken on top of the avocado and then sprinkle grated cheese on top and cook in the oven for 20-25 mins.