wednesday's lunch special

Today's lunch was a variation on one I made a few months ago, with bulgar wheat, peaches and ham, and similar to the dinner salad that won the best 'summer salad award'. With late summer upon us, I felt like bulgar wheat was a good option: filling yet light.

(serves 1)

50 g bulgar wheat

2 slices cooked ham, sliced

¼ ball of mozzarella

5 cherry tomatoes, halved

50 g baby spinach leaves

1 nectarine, quartered and then halved

Lemon juice

Calories: 298 (very respectable)

I decided to have bulgar wheat in my salads all week long, just to make a change from chickpeas and butter peas. I've found that the bulgar wheat really helps to fill me up and sustain me through the afternoon. (I get the sensation, as I do with couscous, that the grains expand in my stomach).

Unlike couscous, though, bulgar wheat holds its texture and form better, not tending to get mushy. It also has a nutty flavour that I really like – to get the nutty taste without all the calories of throwing in a handful of pumpkin seeds or cashew nuts is extremely satisfying.

Bulgar wheat is also relatively low-calorie: 50 g of dry bulgar wheat will cost you about 180 calories. While that is more than ¼ of a can of butter beans, it is also more filling, and you'll have less of a tendency to snack.

a "bloody" good meal

Sometimes work drives me to drink. I'm exaggerating, but really, after a long hard day at the office, it does happen that I don’t feel like cooking. Luckily, a simple pasta supper will do the trick. I first found this recipe from Gary Rhodes’ Keeping it Simple cookbook. While I don’t like all of his recipes (I think he uses too much butter and cream as ‘easy’ routes to good-tasting food), I’ve been wanting to try his bloody mary pasta for a while. And the vodka can help settle my nerves.

I keep a bottle of vodka in the fridge, though I haven’t opened it since I bought it six months ago. A good excuse to open it, then, if ever I heard one.

The sauce is composed of:

Finely chopped onions, sautéed (Gary says in butter, I say olive oil)
Passata
Blanched, peeled, deseeded and chopped tomatoes
Your average bloody mary ingredients – celery salt, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and Vodka. (The brilliant thing here is you can make your sauce like you make your drink)

The result is really tasty – it looks simple when served (almost too simple). But my tastebuds were pleasantly surprised by a seemingly boring tomato sauce that has a zing and some earthiness (kindly provided by the celery salt). I could have eaten loads (but I didn’t)

Calories per serving: about 575 – a respectable meal in and of itself.
(A 100 g serving of wholewheat spaghetti (335 calories)+ ½ the sauce (1/2 jar passata, ½ tbsp olive oil, 1.5 tbsp vodka, ½ an onion and the other bloody mary accoutrements))

An easy way to cut down on calories here would be to either:
-have a smaller serving of pasta (say 75 g), which I often do
-cut down on the sauce (my version calls for quite a saucy dish)
-use olive oil spray instead of the olive oil (About 30 sprays I’d say would do – though keep the heat low and perhaps cover the onions so they can sweat more easily)

I would have done the third one, but my incessant use of olive oil spray has caused me to run out mid-week!

One last tip: put the vodka bottle back in the freezer right away or you might get carried away after dinner!

Simple steak with sauteed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and roasted sweet potatoes

I have a love-hate relationship with steak. In short, I often find it much too chewy. But a thin grilled steak served with some unbeatable flavours can be mouth watering.

Monday night menu: grilled steak with roasted sweet potatoes, sautéed mushrooms and grilled tomatoes and garlic.

As with my homemade burgers with sweet potatoes, get the oven preheated and start the sweet potatoes roasting about 30 minutes before doing anything else. When the sweet potatoes are near finished, move them to the bottom of the oven and switch to the grill setting.

The steaks require minimal preparation, though for my serving, I like to weigh 100 g worth of steak separately. The rest can be served to others or saved for a steak salad or sandwich the following day.

The tomatoes couldn’t be simpler – slice a beef tomato in half and top with a bit of garlic. These will go under the grill once the steaks have turned.

Mushrooms – slice and sauté with fry light oil.

(serves 2 – one large portion, one small portion)
500 g pack of thin beef steak (weigh out 100 g for small section)
450 g sweet potatoes (large portion – 300 g, small portion 150 g)
2 large beef tomatoes (split evenly)
250 g pack of English chestnut mushrooms
Fry light oil (40 sprays)
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 cloves of garlic, bruised and chopped

Serve with a dollop of light mayonnaise for the sweet potatoes.

Calories per small serving: 396. (Leaving perhaps a few calories left over for some frozen yogurt, perhaps?)