Ten in 10 Week 8: Anything in Moderation?

As the final weeks of the Ten in 10 Challenge swing by, I'm finally starting to pick up the motivation I lost sometime over the last couple of weeks. My plan last week to kick myself back into gear was to surround myself with Happy Fruit, to stop myself reaching out for Evil Carbs.

Making dishes with colourful fruit is certainly alot less guilt-tripping for the body and mind than say, a giant cookie.

Well, if you're working out regularly, you can eat whatever you like, right? Anything in moderation, you always hear. Well, is that really so? I always used to think so but after another rollercoaster week, I'm wondering if it's really true...

To illustrate, let me tell you about my day. This morning, I had blueberries and satsuma segments with natural yogurt. A banana as a mid-morning snack. Then around lunchtime, I cycled down to the market to stock up on fresh fruit and veg. Feeling restless at home, I then went out for a long walk, realised I had forgotten about lunch, and ended up buying a couple of sausage rolls to just 'keep me going' until dinner. Now, as I write this, I'm snacking on a large bag of Cadbury's Giant Chocolate Buttons.

Now, I'm not a massive fan of people who tell everyone what they've eaten on a regular basis, but writing this out now is making me ask myself if I'm really achieving anything. Yes, I still do a few exercise classes a week, and am managing to do extra stretches at least every other day, so I'm not lagging too much in that respect. But I think I've developed a dangerous 'cancel-out' mentality which is screwing with me.

It fools me into thinking I can just binge on more junk food that I'd usually eat, as long as I carry on eating healthy food and exercise at the same time. But as I sit here now with a heavy stomach and sugar-loaded mind, I know that this is still cheating.

It's like scoffing on a burger whilst walking on the treadmill. You just can't cancel it out like that. Ok, I just need to stop this now.

You might be interested to read my other posts on the Ten in 10 Challenge.

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in
Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day Faux Pas: Char Siu Pork Pastries

A real tasty pasty treat this week.

The filling is char siu - a Chinese barbequed meat, usually pork. If you've ever walked past a Chinese restaurant that specialises in roasted meat dishes, you will have seen the glistening char siu pork hanging in the window, alongside whole roast ducks, chicken, crispy pork and a goose or two as well.

The ones I made above are based on the ones you'd expect to find in a dim sum restaurant. I can't get enough of them when I go for dim-sum (quite literally - there are only 3 per plate and there's usually 4 of us). So I decided to make slightly smaller ones so that I could make more! Well, that's kind of the story anyway...

Now, I didn't make this completely from scratch. I cheated and bought the puff pastry. This is mainly because I wanted to concentrate on getting the pork right. You can quite easily get char siu sauce in a jar from an Asian supermarket but it's very easy to make yourself, and of course, it's a bit more reassuring as you know exactly what is going in the sauce. No hidden nasties.

This is definitely one to marinade your pork in overnight so I had 500g of pork fillet swimming in sauce and ready to roast. I used Ching-He Haung's recipe from her book Chinese Cooking Made Easy. The recipe creates 6 pastries, but uses only half of the roasted pork, as she suggests using this for a different recipe. Aha, I thought - all I need to do then is use all of the pork and make slightly smaller pastries to create more of them!

Well.

One error.

I forgot that I would need more puff pastry to do this. So I still ended up using half the roasted pork fillet anyway! And because I essentially only had 6 pastries worth of puff pastry to work with, I was desperately trying to pack the pork into tiny triangle pastry shapes:

Fifteen long minutes and 3 triangle pastries later, I resorted to stamping out small circles in the rest of the pastry to pop the filling on top instead! They do taste alot more satisfying encased inside the pastry though so next time, I will have to remember to get the quantities of the ingredients right...

At least I now have some leftover roast pork, which is in the freezer and ready to be thawed for more char siu happy times!

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.
Continue reading this post..

Hungry Jenny Faux Pas: Why (Slightly) Healthy Cakes Don't Work

a) The consistency/texture is just not the same as a 'regular' cake.
b) The quantities for 'alternative' ingredients are less easy to judge.
c) They are not as visually appealing.
d) It doubles the chance of messing up the whole recipe.

So, what's the answer?

e) All of the above.

I've had my fair share of disastrous cakes. And my latest cake-up (ka-boom), which I hang my head in shame as I show you, has made me realise something...

No, that's not mouldy cheese

A little pattern amongst any cake-making errors I make. On each occasion, the cake was made because it seemed healthy - free of butter, flour or sugar. (Er, remember my sugar-and-butter-free apple cake disaster?) The one above is butter-free, and contains natural yogurt and a bit of vegetable oil. But what came out, as you can see, was what looked (and tasted like) congealed blocks of lard. Yum.

Then thinking about it again, I realised that I would want to omit flour, butter AND sugar to deem a cake to be truly healthy. And the Hungry Jenny cakes that have gone wrong only ever have one of these ingredients omitted in the attempt to be at least slightly healthy. But what's the point of that anyway? The attempt, yes, the attempt to be healthy is good news at least, you might say.

But not, I should point out, when they turn out like this:

"What's wrong with it, it's alright isn't it?" my sister asked.

"LOOK AT IT!" I screamed, pointing at the rest...

(I didn't really scream at my sister, I'm not a maniac)

The taste of this was not too bad actually, just overly soggy because it's got loads of eggs and carrots in it. I just kinda left it in the oven a bit too long and the non-stick tin failed me, leading to the burntness-and-dumping-onto-plate-situation.

You can probably tell that it's at this point that I stop caring about the presentation, because it's just not something to be proud of. I just had to take a photo because the situation is just laughable. I'm sorry if I hurt your eyes with it, I promise to post up a nice-looking cake to redeem myself soon (I hope).

So, you see - when you choose your path to baking a cake, there is no middle road - you go full fat all the way with your ingredients, or you make sensible healthy substitutes for everything, leaving no room for single bad ingredients to slip in.

I realise I'm probably not being entirely fair. Of course these mishaps are partly (well probably mostly) down to my own foolish baking tendencies. But a common thread has been found amongst my cake disasters and I just wanted to warn you now, because having to throw away an entire cake is not a good feeling.

Well, looking on the bright side, you're being healthy in that sense by not being able to eat any cake at all.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas?

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in Continue reading this post..

Ten in 10 Week 7: Happy Fruit for Happier Times

This week has been a battle. It's a rocky time and I keep getting that weird sense of not feeling hungry but still wanting to eat - and this leads me to lapse - badly. This whole bread ban is my downfall really - usually, when I say to myself that I want to cut something out (like the meat ban I did), that's it, it's out.

But during this Ten in 10 Challenge, I've compensated for my bread ban by replacing my cravings with scones, croissants, brioche, soft biscuits, pasties - basically any bad carb-like food. And I've realised that it's these horrible refined processed carbs are a comfort of mine, much like how chocolate is for some others. And that's dangerous.

So now I have a plan to sort this out properly:

Create a barricade of Happy Fruit. I'll surround myself with healthy things to reach out for, so that I'm less likely to hit out with those Bad Carbs instead and crash.

Watch out everyone, I'm going to become a Cherry-Tomato-Popping...

...Berry-Bopping...


...Grape Monkey!

Ok, well I think I'm all set for the next week of the challenge now. Let's hope it works...

You might be interested to read my other posts on the Ten in 10 Challenge.

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in
Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie-Day: Easy Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratin

A ridiculously simple one this week.

Nice healthy trees in a pie - broccoli and cauliflower. Is it wrong that this makes me salivate? Well, you can hoo-haa all you want. I love vegetables I do.

I cheated with this dish and bought one of those bags of ready-chopped florets. I can't be doing with hacking a massive cauliflower, they are so messy and have so many leaves around them to pull off, it's just unnecessary work, isn't it?

The topping is made up of breadcrumbs, ground almonds and grated cheese and after sticking this under the grill, it comes out wonderfully crispy :-)

Easy Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratin

Print-friendly recipe

Serves 4:

300g cauliflower and broccoli florets (4-6 of each)
100g light cream cheese
25g ground almonds
8 tbsp breadcrumbs
4 tbsp grated cheese
2 tbsp mixed herbs
2 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp butter, softened

1) Boil broccoli and cauliflower florets until cooked. Drain and set aside.
2) Mix cream cheese, parsley and ground almonds. Gently stir in the florets, then pour the mixture into a pie dish.
3) In another bowl, mix breadcrumbs, grated cheese and mixed herbs.
4) Scatter over the pie mixture and grill for 5-10 minutes.

You can blend the florets with the cream cheese mixture instead if you like - I prefer to keep them as they are because I like a bit of texture in my food.

Those broccoli and cauliflower boys don't look so bad now, do they?

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Say NO to Takeaway: Try this Squash and Salmon Curry instead!

Now this is something you can make easily in half an hour or less instead of waiting around for a sloppy takeaway to arrive. The actual time it took me to make this was, er, quite a bit longer, but as usual, this was because I was faffing around experimenting with the ingredients. The end result though is a warming mild curry:

Fancy giving this one a go? It won't take you very long, I promise.

Hurrah, alright then! If you click through on the link below for the full recipe details, you might think it has quite a long ingredients list. This tends to put me off whilst browing recipes myself, but WAIT! Before I lose you, let me explain.

I have a row of herbs and spices along my kitchen window and there are some cooking occasions that scream out for a bit of spice experimentation. A bit of this, a bit of that, and ooh, *sniff sniff*, ok, chuck that one in too. I'm not quite sure what I created in the end, but luckily I noted down what I chucked in because it turned out rather nice! So this is a good one to taste as you go, throwing in what you fancy to make the flavour more interesting.

If you can't be bothered, or don't have a dusty row of (but perfectly usable) herbs and spices to choose from, then you can simply replace them with some curry powder. Also, this recipe is mildly spiced so you may well want to improvise anyway to give it some more heat.

Mild Butternut Squash and Salmon Curry

Print-friendly recipe

For 2:

1 small butternut squash, in chunks
1 cooked salmon fillet, in chunks
200g chickpeas
Half a courgette, chopped
Half a small red onion, chopped
200ml coconut milk
500ml hot stock
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 piece of lemongrass
2 tsp pumpkin seeds
Some fresh coriander

1) Fry the onion, courgette and chickpeas in a deep pan.
2) Add butternut squash, followed by lemongrass, fennel, paprika, cumin and garlic.
3) Pour in the coconut milk, stock and fish sauce. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.
4) Stir in the salmon during the last few minutes.
5) Take out the lemongrass, garnish with coriander and pumkin seeds, and serve with steamed rice.

If you liked this, you might want to try making these other takeaway alternatives too. Continue reading this post..

Stairway to Hamburger Heaven

Yes, quite literally, this is a stairway to BURGERS. And they are really awesome burgers too...

Sloppy Joe's

The Real Burger Kitchen arrived in Chichester a while ago, but I've only just got round to trying it out - and promptly went back again a few days later :-)

It's quite a small place but is arranged in a way that doesn't make you feel squashed in when most of the tables are filled. The place is light, and done up in a subtle modern way, with comfy booths, and canvases of their delicious food surround you. I really wanted to take a picture of one that had a very colourful and tasty-looking sundae on it but thought that might be a bit inappropriate! I try not to get too snap-happy when dining out.

Now the burgers themselves are pretty damn good. They are a decent size and come with a hearty portion of shoestring fries. These burgers are not the flimsy unsubstantial ones you find in fast food chains. Nor are they the overwhelming look-at-how-massively-stacked-I-am burgers - ie the ones that leave you feeling slightly sick with meat sweats.

Lamb burger with hummus and halloumi cheese

Yes, admittedly, they do look rather large in these photos! And I had to cut mine up (because of my metal mouth) to eat it, although at one point, with the Sloppy Joe, I did try to eat it the normal way but it just got, well, too sloppy! It's not a first date burger, let me tell you that.

They have a good range of different burgers and are all gluten-free :-) Perhaps that is another reason why you don't feel like a complete stodge ball afterwards. And I found out afterwards that they also offer gluten-free buns too which I've never tried before. The perfect way for me to deal with my bread cravings, surely?

Hm, sounds like another trip to burger heaven is needed!

(Oh and psst, there's a 2 for 1 voucher here that can be used until the end of February 2010.)

Other restaurants I've tried that you might like to read about.
Continue reading this post..

Ten in 10 Week 6: Down (but not Out)

The halfway mark of the Ten in 10 Challenge has now been crossed and it's admittedly been a pretty tough week. As a result, I've slipped a little on all of my four goals...

Damn.

1. Regular stretching and toning exercises and
2. Regular upper body exercises

I've been feeling a bit low all week for personal reasons and as such I've found it difficult to get out of bed to do my early morning stretches and other daily exercises.

On the plus side, I still managed to get some good exercise this week in aikido - it was a particularly good session and helped to release some much-needed happy endorphins. We were doing a load of breakfall techniques to warm up which is normally something that I get horribly nervous about. (After nearly three years of training, I still can't seem to get the knack of falling to the ground after a technique properly.)

But this week, whilst receiving techniques, I found myself launching into attack and breakfalling with a little less pain than usual. Yes, I was still landing awkwardly sometimes but it felt easier to whip myself back up for more. Aikido is the only thing that can make me zone everything else out completely and relax my mind completely which was just what I needed this week.

3. Find healthier baking recipes

I vowed to bake something healthy at least every other week. This week and last week both seemed to have been the weeks where I haven't done something healthy. Oops. The problem I'm having is that I want to find recipes that don't have what I think are alien ingredients. When you start looking up recipes that are wheat-free, dairy-free, gluten-free and all the rest of it, they don't seem to contain ingredients that you'd find in your storecupboard.

I know that sounds stupid because I can't expect to have them if I'm not already doing this kind of healthy baking. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've only just dipped my toe into healthier baking alternatives so far, using ingredients like ground almonds and polenta for example in cakes. I'm not particularly keen on buying several different types of specialist flours and stuff, I guess.

And the ones I have done so far have not had as much enthusiasm from the aikido guys as the ones that I've made with butter and sugar. And their opinions Count. I'm not giving up of course - I just need to try harder to make these recipes work!

4. Reduce bread intake

This is still proving to be the toughest goal! My main focus was to cut out sliced bread completely which I have done. But I keep sneaking in bread-like alternatives like croissants, pain au chocolat, Belgian buns, burger buns and er, digestive biscuits and fig rolls.

Eh? Yes, I know, the last two aren't bread, but what I should explain is that my addiction to bread is from that stodgy texture, that satisfying lump in your stomach that does you proud from gorging on something so substantial. But alas, as I sit here having munched on 5 fig rolls one after the other, you are left feeling horribly bloated and rather guilty.

This is exactly why I want to reduce my bread intake but as you can see, I keep going round in circles with this. Cutting out sliced bread but finding naughty alternatives that leave me just as bloated. And, when you're in need of some comfort food, like I have been this week, this is the stuff I turn to.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated and stay focussed on your goals and stop yourself slipping?

You might be interested to read my other posts on the Ten in 10 Challenge.

Have a look at my other recipes!

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie-Day: Cod Potato Bites

I know - this might not be what you'd call a pie. Potato halves with a bit of filling and some breadcrumbs on top.

There is a story behind this though. And the story starts with a pie...

I came across this recipe for fish pie fillets, which are pieces of haddock with a prawn and cream cheese mixture over it, topped with crumpled-up filo pastry. They look pretty cute and I had bookmarked this recipe to try out ages ago.

This week, I've been laden with leftover soft cheese from my cheesecake experimentation, and felt it was a good chance to finally try this recipe out.

The thing is though is that I don't really like filo pastry. It's too thin and crispy for my liking and lacks the rich satisfying taste of other types. However, this recipe would lose its delicate nature if I'd have chosen to simply swap the filo with puff pastry for example. So I chose breadcrumbs. Yes, you can really see the logic behind my decisions can't you?

Yet, a slab of fish with a nice sauce and crumbs on top does not make a pie. It needs a bottom, a shell. And what better than a potato shell? I still wanted to keep to the original lightness of the recipe though and went for new potatoes. Now I've never stuffed new potatoes befoe and I'm sure you can imagine that stuffing those little buggers can be quite a tricky business. Plus, the empty potato shells are obviously smaller and you really can't fit in that much filling at all.

So the importance of this recipe is to make sure that you mix the filling up completely and season well, so that the teaspoon of mixture you add in is substantial enough in flavour and has a bit of everything. Having said that, you will probably want to just use half of the potato flesh altogether and put that aside for another dish. Me? I just mixed it all in anyway, stuffed my new potatoes and put the rest of the mixture into a mini flan tin to grill alongside them.

Cod Potato Bites

Print-friendly recipe

Makes 8 bites:

4 new potatoes
1 skinless, boneless cod fillet
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp soft cheese
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp thyme
Salt and pepper

1) Boil new potatoes til just cooked, but not too soft. Drain and cool.
2) Meanwhile, poach or grill the cod fillet til it flakes easily.
3) Mix the fish flakes with soft cheese, lemon juice, parsley and thyme.
4) Halve the potatoes and scoop out the flesh. (Put half away to use another day). Mix the flesh with the fish mixture and season well.
5) Scoop the mixture into the empty potato halves, scatter breadcrumbs over the top and grill for about 5-10 minutes.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Single Serving Moussaka

Usually I find myself cooking way too much - I like to make extra portions to have later in the week for dinner or to take into work for lunch. But I often end up with about three or even four portions instead! It's probably because I tend to sneak in extra ingredients as I cook.

But here lies a dish that will always be, without fail, a single serving for me - the moussaka:

Moussaka is one of those dishes that is continually at risk of being served as a school dinner mess. Not matter how glorius it looks when you take it out of the oven, it doesn't seem to look as appetising once it's on the plate...

*Splodge*

Not particularly appealing to the eye if served at a dinner party, is it? So here are a few ideas for single serving moussakas, for you to serve proudly and with ease.

Baked Potato Moussaka (at top of post)

Print-friendly recipe

For 2:

1 large jacket potato, halved
80g minced lamb or turkey
2 tbsp green lentils
Half a small red onion
6-8 slices of aubergine
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp parsley
Some fresh coriander
Some grated cheese (optional)
50g cottage cheese
50ml milk
1 small egg, beaten.
Bit of butter
Bit of flour
Bit of nutmeg

1) Microwave the potato halves for 10 minutes until cooked through.
2) Gently heat the milk, butter and flour. Mix in the cottage cheese, nutmeg and egg. Set aside.
3) Fry the onion and mince until brown. Mix in lentils, cherry toms and tomato puree.
4) Scoop the potato flesh out and mash with a bit of salt and grated cheese.
5) Add the mashed potato to the mince mixture. Stir in parsley and coriander.
6) Divide the mixture into the two potato skins.
7) Lay aubergine slices on top with the sauce and grill for about 5 minutes.


Mini Lamb Moussaka

Print-friendly recipe

For 2:

200g lean minced lamb
200g chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 small red onion, chopped
Half an aubergine, sliced
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp rosemary
100g natural yoghurt
1 beaten egg
Some grated cheese
2 tbsp cooked couscous

1) Brown the onion and mince. Add tomatoes, puree and herbs and simmer for 15 minutes.
2) Season some aubergine slices and brush with lemon juice. Grill for a few minutes til soft.
3) Divide the lamb mixture into two ramekin dishes, layering the aubergine slices on top.
4) Mix yoghurt with egg and pour over the top. Sprinkle over cheese and couscous.
5) Grill for 15 minutes until bubbly and golden.


Stuffed Aubergine Moussaka

Print-friendly recipe

For 2:

1 aubergine, sliced in half lengthways
100g lean minced lamb or turkey
Half a small red onion
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp tomato puree
50g green lentils
Some parsley
50g light soft cheese
50ml skimmed milk
1 small egg
1 tsp flour
1 tsp butter
A bit of lemon

1) Scoop out the aubergine flesh and dice. Turn the two empty halves upside down and set aside.
2) Make the mince mixture as for the Baked Potato Moussaka above.
3) Divide the mixture into the two aubergine halves. Bake at 190 degrees C for 40 minutes.
4) Meanwhile, make the sauce as per step 2 of the Baked Potato Moussaka above.
5) Pour over your stuffed aubergines once they're cooked through, then return to the oven for another 15 minutes.

Continue reading this post..

The Cheesecake Dilemma

I wanted to make a cheesecake for my boyfriend's birthday but was instantly faced with a Moral Dilemma:

Should I try to make a healthy version or just do it the 'normal full-fat' way?

Eating a lardy cheesecake with all its creamy badness in a restaurant doesn't seem to make you feel as guilty as making one yourself - you suddenly become more conscious of the amount of cream, butter, sugar, cream cheese and other naughty ingredients inside that decadent cheesecake. And that's something that I didn't feel particularly good about giving to someone else.

So, easy decision, right? Go for a healthier version.

Well, no, it presents another problem - wouldn't a low-fat cheesecake taste a bit rubbish? There's nothing worse than a disappointing cheesecake. So, how do I find the solution to this?

Test both versions out of course! I have a mini springform cake pan, perfect for experiments of this type.

First, the low-fat version. For this, I used Quark, a type of soft cheese which has a lower fat content than cream cheese, and egg whites. For the base, I went for reduced fat digestive biscuits and a bit of sunflower oil.

The result?
A cheesecake somewhat crumbly, light and airy.

(And not particularly photogenic.)

After the first timid bite or so, it did start to taste creamier than I thought it'd be. But it seemed a little too 'light'. You actually felt like you were eating a bit of lemony air. Which is not quite the desired effect of a cheesecake.

So, onwards with the second cheesecake. This time, it had cream cheese, double cream, butter, sugar, all the badness. But I had some oats in the base, and chose a light version brand of cream cheese, so a small attempt to move it away from the full fatness.

The result?
A lovely creamy texture, but disastrous crumbly base.

Ok, so this was definitely the cheesecake to go for but the base clearly needs sorting out. The oats have to be toasted before adding biscuit crumbs and butter to form the base. I probably should have known that it wasn't going to work properly - it was pretty much in bits when I was pressing it into the tin. But yes, in my silliness, I just assumed this would set anyway. So when it splayed oats everywhere when cutting into it, I knew that next time, I'd need to toast the oats a little longer and use a bit more butter.

Well, that didn't work at all. I went the other way and burnt the oats instead! I chucked the black mess straight into the bin and made a simple biscuit and butter base instead. The rest was pretty much the same process as the second cheesecake above, and into the fridge it went to set overnight. So all was going to plan.

Until I decided to dress it up with a strawberry topping.

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong but as I spread some fresh strawberries over the top, the cheesecake started to sag a little at the sides. Noooo...

Of course, I thought it'd be an easy error to correct and tried to use a knife to smooth it around again. Er, no. It was starting to make strawberry swirls in the cheese, which is no bad thing - unless it makes the whole thing droop down the sides in a very uncheesecake-like manner. Whoops.

Despite this, I have to say, it tastes REALLY good, so here's the recipe as it stands. I probably should have put the strawberry topping on before releasing the cheesecake from the tin, as the cheesecake was quite firm when I took it out, so I thought it'd be ok. Maybe I just pressed the strawberries down too hard!

So, you could safely say that I haven't particularly solved the cheesecake dilemma. The healthy version doesn't taste amazing, but judging from the various mishaps of my cheesecake making this week, perhaps I just need to focus on getting one version right before experimenting with others...any tips are welcome!

More Hungry Jenny cakes here.

Have a look at my other recipes! Continue reading this post..

Ten in 10 Week 5: Beware the Ninja Biscuit

I was attacked this week.

It's left me with giddy shakes and nervousness for fear of being hit again.

Worst of all, it was the most unexpected of intruders...

The Ninja Biscuit.

It was all very innocent. I simply bought a packet of light digestive biscuits for some weekend baking. It was also my turn to do the biscuit round at work, so I picked up a couple of packets for the office. Up until now, I had found that having braces would prevent me from a dangerous scoffing attack.

Yes, it works to stop those custard creams, those jammy dodgers, those bourbon creams - anything with the potential to lodge its chewy texture amongst the metal brackets and wires in my mouth.

But with bread off the agenda for this challenge, I cannot help but crave anything cake-like. And the Ninja Digestive, with its crumbly texture and soft breakability, knew this.

I'm not sure how I will recover from this but I will be strong and fight through it. The important thing I felt I had to do though was to speak out to you, in the attempt to stop this happening to another innocent soul simply trying to be healthy.

Arm yourselves with celery sticks to protect yourselves, my healthy friends, don't let the Ninja Biscuits defeat you.

You might be interested to read my other posts on the Ten in 10 Challenge.

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in
Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day Faux Pas: The Fruity Chicken Pies That Weren't

Right, so - I haven't made my own pastry for quite some time, choosing to use those ready-made ones you get instead - simply because life's too short for me to waste hours trying to get that pastry right. But this week, I felt like giving it another go as I wanted to make some mini pies.

Mini pies = less pastry = less chance of screwing it up.

That was the theory anyway.

Ok, so they don't look too bad, do they? Well, let me just say that the pastry wasn't the only problem...

I've got to be honest - my heart just wasn't in the whole pie-making business this week *collective gasp from pie lovers everywhere*. I think I was just tired. This is probably why I felt like being lazy with this recipe hoping it would still turn out nice.

Wrong.

These were meant to be soft mini pies, with tender chicken pieces, oozing with a fresh apple-y, cheesy sauce, and wrapped lovingly in a parcel of crumble-in-your-mouth pastry.

But I used mince instead, diced the apple rather than turning it into a puree and er, forgot to add the cheese altogether. And when you have to make a focussed effort to break the darn thing in two to eat it, you know the pastry has gone wrong.

Even though the pies I make each week aren't always pastry-based, I thought I'd be at least a bit better at it by now! Erm, I clearly have a long way to go.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas?
Continue reading this post..

Say NO to Takeaway: Try this Tasty Teriyaki Chicken Instead!

This is easily one of my favourite dishes. It's one of the few things that I've actually made twice!

Er, I realise that makes my recipes look a bit dodgy when I imply that I don't repeat my own dishes. I promise you, the only reason I rarely make the same thing twice is so I always have new stuff to blog about. Lucky you, eh?

The most satisfying part of this dish (apart from eating it so happily of course), is being able to make the sauce, oh-so-easily. It would be very difficult to get the measurements wrong for this. Yes, I m bold enough to make such a claim.

So, first, the ingredients for the teriyaki sauce.

Teriyaki sauce is made out of sake (a Japanese rice wine), mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking wine), soy sauce, brown sugar and ginger. Ok, so the last three you probably have in your store cupboard. But the sake and mirin not so much? That's ok, you could use rice vinegar, white wine vinegar or sherry instead for the sake, and honey instead of the mirin.

Now I'm not particularly well-versed on ratios, but to make the sauce, you basically have equal parts of soy sauce and sake, half that of mirin, then about half that of brown sugar and a bit of ginger to taste.

Make sense?

So to make roughly 100ml of sauce, you would use:

6 tbsp soy sauce
6 tbsp sake
3 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp grated/ground ginger (fresh is better!)

All you need to do is gently heat it up until the sugar dissolves! If you want to make it as a dipping sauce instead, just mix in some cornflour to thicken it up as you heat it through.

But to continue making this Tasty Teriyaki Chicken...

Print-friendly recipe

250g diced chicken thigh/fillet
Half a red onion, chopped
100g broccoli florets, chopped
100g aubergine, diced
Some grated ginger

1) Marinade the chicken in your newfound teriyaki sauce for at least 15 minutes.
2) Fry the chicken with the onion, reserving some of the marinade.
3) Add a large handful of broccoli florets and diced aubergine, mixing well. Cook over a low heat for about 5-10 minutes.
4) Mix in some grated ginger and serve with fluffy steamed rice.

And there you go - your own healthy take-out alternative!

If you liked this, you might want to try making these other takeaway alternatives too. Continue reading this post..

Flour Free Butternut Block Cake

Do not fear this Butternut Block - he will not harm you.

He's a big softy really.

This is one of the softest, sweetest cakes you'll ever eat. Butternut squash might seem like a weird ingredient for a cake but it's naturally sweet and makes it really moist. Ground almonds are used instead of normal flour which gives it a subtle nutty flavour and a bit more interesting texture to the cake.

Butternut Block Cake (flour free)

Print-friendly recipe

Makes 1 loaf:

1 small butternut squash, cut into cubes
200g ground almonds
100g butter
100g sugar
1 tsp gluten free baking powder
2 eggs

1) Gently boil the squash cubes for about 15-20 minutes. Drain well, mash and leave to cool completely.
2) In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar and baking powder. Beat in the eggs.
3) Add the squash, then mix in the almonds.
4) Pour into a loaf tin and bake at 180 degrees C for about 45-50 minutes.
5) Allow to cool completely and cut into large cubes!

These went particularly quickly after aikido training and I wish I'd made more!

Other flour free baking recipes that might take your fancy.

More Hungry Jenny cakes here. Continue reading this post..