So I’m doing well so far! My baby steps are going well. I walked today; not ‘a walk’, but rather I walked to the supermarket and then back with my groceries. I was pretty buggered by the end, because I was a silly shopper and bought all sorts of heavy things I didn’t need.

But while I was there, I picked up some ingredients for dinner. I was originally going to try Greens with Tahini because I love-love-love sesame seeds and I was looking for something new, particularly since I’m not a salad fan. I figured if I liked it, it would be awesome. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of the ingredients, and I couldn’t find Tahini. So instead I just found some greens and figured I’d wing it.

I’ve had potatoes in the pantry for a while so I need to use them, thus mash. And I’ve been wanting salmon for a while, sooo…voila. This was my dinner tonight!

Salmon with Garlic Wilted Greens and Mashed Potato

Please excuse the dodgy photo. I was going to take a picture before I started eating (in fact, you can see the camera cord in the upper corner), but my camera isn’t working. Then halfway through I realised that I could take a picture with my computer.

My favourite part of this dinner was probably the wilted greens. Mash isn’t exactly exciting and I think I could have done more with the salmon to flavour it.

Ingredients
1 Salmon fillet (This one was 180g, and actually a little big for me, I didn’t finish it)
3 garlic cloves
2 big handfuls of greens (This pack was just from woolies, I grabbed ‘Cottage greens’ accidentally instead of the one I thought I had, because I’d never tried kale before)
2 medium sized potatoes
lemon juice
salt
pepper
low-fat milk
a squidge of margarine
balsamic vinegar
olive oil

Salmon
Crush the garlic (about 1 and 1/2 cloves) and heat in a pan with a spray of olive oil. Then I added some lemon juice (about 1/2 tsp, probably) and waited until they were heated and the garlic was ‘fragrant’ (I learnt about this the first time I made soup, and it is a great way to cook). Then I just added the salmon skin-side down and left it there for a few minutes. Once it was cooked halfway, I put salt and pepper on the top and turned it then let it cook the way through. I added another squirt of lemon juice and that’s about it.

Garlic Wilted Greens
Crush the garlic (1 and 1/2 - 2 cloves) and heat in a pan with a spray of olive oil (can you tell this is my starting point for almost everything?). Then add a wee squirt of lemon juice. Once that’s heated a little, throw in the handfuls of greens and stir until they’re just nicely wilted — not soggy and gross. This happens really quickly, by the way. In total, I would say it takes about 3 - 4 minutes, including cooking the garlic that little bit. About halfway through, I added a little bit of balsamic vinegar because I love it, and I loved the smell coming up from them. Then I took them off the heat while I waited for my salmon to finish.

Mashed Potatoes
I’m pretty sure everyone can make these, but in case you can’t:
Peel the potatoes and stick into a pot. Heat on the highest level until the potatoes are cooked. You can tell when they’re cooked because if you stick a knife into one and lift up, it will fall off the knife before the potato leaves the water. Then drain the water and after that use a fork/masher to mash up. Add a smidge of milk (I’m not even going to say 1/4 cup, but it really isn’t much) and a smidge of butter. Season with salt if you want to — I didn’t. Put on the plate!

…

Simple and yum. As I said, the greens were my favourite and they will be on the menu again soon. I may have found a new favourite for my with-meat food, since I am normally not a meat person and I don’t know what to do with it. For the salmon, next time I think I would add some Moroccan spice. My Mum has this spice at her place and I am obsessed with it. I haven’t bought it yet, but I want to add it to everything, and I think it’d give the salmon a nice zing. What was lovely was the lemon-y taste on the skin of the fish. It was like it’d been absorbed into it and it was just lovely.

What I love most about this meal is that it’s the first real art I’ve made since I’ve moved into my new house. Heck, it’s the first since I left Edinburgh. I truly believe that you should make food into something more than just food. I hate eating on the run. But I’ve been doing it for almost 9 months! And so sitting down and making something I can admire for taste and for beauty makes me so happy. It finally feels like I’m getting back on the right track.

Posted at 10:13 am | 1 Comment »

So, I made these yesterday. They work out to about 2pt each, which, if you’re having company isn’t bad at all, since they get gobbled up quickly.

The reason we made these was because when my sister came a few weeks ago, we made a cheesecake. We were going to buy a shortcrust pastry case for it, but they only had mini-ones (seen here) or a flan case. I bought both because I didn’t know which would be better. Then when we used the flan case, I had to find something to use these for. And voila! Chocolate tartlettes.

Ingredients

• Mini short-crust pastry cases (x24)
• A block of plain (dark) cooking chocolate
• A tsp of vanilla essence.
• A dash of water.
• A little leftover 2%/Light Evaporated Milk.
• Raspberries/Blueberries/Strawberries to garnish.

Put some water into a pan (really - just a dash) and then over low heat melt the chocolate. (The water helps stop it from burning). Once it’s melted, add the evaporated milk and the vanilla essence. Spoon the mixture into the pastry cases and top with the berries. Easy!

I used Evap. milk for this because I had leftover and it helped bring points down. The amount you use depends entirely on the runniness of the mixture, but for me it honestly wasn’t much. These worked out to be fantastic, very yummy — my flatmates ate them all that night. It’s a nice little treat and at 2 pts each, surprisingly satisfying.

Posted at 2:50 pm | No Comments »