This was another yummy meal we enjoyed last week…. Thai Peanut Noodle Bowl. Unfortunately I can’t for the life of me remember what website I found it on! Sorry!

Here is the recipe… it was super easy and really tasty. And neither Mr Wonderful or I missed the meat at all, and Miss D ate all of hers too!

Thai Peanut Bowl

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 cup frozen shelled edamame beans
2 cups frozen stir-fry vegetables
1 tablespoon chopped peanuts
2 spring onions, sliced
Rice (cooked)

Directions:
1. Cook rice according to directions.

2. In a pan, saute peanut butter, lime juice, garlic and ginger for 1 minute. Add edamame and vegetables and cook for 12 minutes until vegetables are tender.

3. Pour over the rice and top with peanuts and spring onions.

Note: This could be served with pasta or noodles if you didn’t want to do rice.

One of the yummy meals we enjoyed last week was Herb Crusted Lamb, the recipe was found at Food In a Minute.

Here it is if you are interested in making it yourself… it was really good!

Herb Crusted Lamb with Roasted Vegetables
Ingredients

Roasted Vegetables
2 large potatoes, peeled
2 medium kumara, peeled
2 large carrots, peeled
1/2 cup Eta Balsamic Vinaigrette

Herb Crust
3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp chopped rosemary
2 Tbsp chopped chives
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil

Lamb
400g package Silver Fern Farms Lamb Leg Roast (I couldn’t find this so I just bought some lamb leg steaks and it still worked well)
1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard

Directions

1. To make the Roasted Vegetables, preheat oven to 200°C. Cut vegetables into 2cm pieces and place in a single layer on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle over a little olive oil. Roast the vegetables for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and pour over Eta Gourmet Balsamic Red Wine Vinaigrette. Return the vegetables to the oven and continue cooking for a further 5-10 minutes or until tender. Cool to room temperature.

2. To make Herb Crust, mix all the ingredients together to make a paste. Season.

3. Remove the Silver Fern Farms Lamb Leg Roast from the pack and dry meat with a paper towel. Place in a baking tray. Spread the Dijon mustard on the upper surface of the meat. Pat the herb mixture on to form a crust. Allow to stand for 10 minutes

4. To oven cook: Place in a pre-heated 200°C oven. Cook for 30-40 minutes, until cooked to your liking; for medium rare 30-35 minutes or medium 35-40 minutes. Allow the meat to rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
To BBQ: Preheat a lidded barbecue to 200°C. Place tray in the centre of the barbecue and close the lid. Turn off the two inside burners and leave the two outer burners on. Cook for 30-40 minutes, until cooked to your liking (for medium rare 30-35 minutes; for medium 35-40 minutes). Allow the meat to rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

Serve sliced with the roasted vegetables and a fresh green salad.

Part of my new food regiem (not a diet cause if I call it that, I will most definitely fail) has involved lots of research and googling into finding “healthy snacks”. I haven’t found too many fabulous looking ones but this was one that I tried in the weekend, it was delicious! It was sweet enough to stop at one, but not too sweet that I felt bad eating it.

The recipe (and photo) came from Skinny Taste. She has lots of great recipes, she takes “normal” foods and recreates them in a “healthier” version.

Here is the recipe if you want to try, and if you have a few minutes go check out some of her others!

Black and White Chocolate Chip Clouds

3 large egg whites (room temperature)
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Heat oven to 150°C (300°F). Cover cookie sheet with nonstick silicone pad or parchment paper.

Using a mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together in large bowl at high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar a little at a time, then vanilla, beating well after each addition until you get stiff peaks, the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is glossy.

Fold in chocolate chips. Drop mixture by tablespoons onto cookie sheet.

Bake 35 to 45 minutes or just until dry. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool completely on wire rack. Store covered, at room temperature. Makes about 30 cookies.

Note: I baked mine for 35 minutes, they felt dry to me… once they had cooled they were incredibly sticky. When I make them again I will bake them for 40-45 minutes. She also claims in her blog post that these are great fresh out of the oven but even better then next day, I didn’t think that was possible when I first tasted it, but she is correct! So don’t eat them all on day one!

Adapted from my Chocolate Chip Clouds
Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 30 • Serving Size: 1 cookie • Old Points: 1 pt • Points+: 1 pt
Calories: 55.6 • Fat: 2.1 g • Carb: 8.2 g • Fiber: 0.8 g • Sugar: 7.9 g • Protein: 1.0 g

This afternoon I was looking for something to do so I decided to try these roasted chickpeas.

They were yummy! Miss Delightful enjoyed munching away on them. I’ll add them to my list of homemade snacks.

This week it was our turn to take some morning tea to Mainly Music… thankfully on Tuesday night when I was watching Donna Hay on TV she made an amazing looking Lemon Yoghurt Cake. So I quickly wrote down the recipe and made my own.

It was delicious! There wasn’t even a crumb to bring home I actually ended up making 2 cakes so that Mr Wonderful wouldn’t miss out!

Here is the recipe if you want to make one yourself:

Lemon Yoghurt Cake

Ingredients:
3/4 C vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 Tbsp lemon rind
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 cup plain yoghurt
1 3/4 C caster sugar
2 cups self-raising flour

Icing
3/4 C sugar
1/4 C lemon juice
stir very gently together – only when the cake has been taken out of the oven.

Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients in order, sifting in the flour at the end.
Pour into a cake pan, give it a little shake.
Bake at 180C for 35 minutes.

Pour over the cake, generously!

Enjoy!!!

I am in yummy food heaven this afternoon! I had a couple of lemons sitting on my bench that I needed to use so I went onto Pinterest and had a little explore. I found this lovely idea and decided I was definitely making it!

They were actually really easy to make, and Miss Delightful had so much fun mixing and pouring and “helping” me!

When they were cooked and glazed Miss D and I taste tested a slice each. She devoured hers before I even sat down. She then asked for more, which I said no to… she looked at my plate and said “Have some of Mummy’s?” Cheeky monkey!

The recipe can be found here at Rita’s Recipes, but I’ll pop it in here for you as well!

Lemon Brownies

Ingredients:
3/4 C flour
3/4 C sugar
1/4 t salt
115g butter, soft
2 eggs
juice from 1/2 lemon (about 1T)
zest from 1/2 lemon (about 1t)

Glaze
1/2C icing sugar
1 T lemon juice
additional lemon zest
stir together (note: I added a bit of warm water to help it become liquid)

Directions:
Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
Mix in the softened butter.
In another bowl whisk the eggs with the lemon juice and zest.
Add to the larger bowl and mix well.
Pour into prepared 8X8 brownie pan.
Bake at 180C for 25 minutes.
You can double the recipe and bake in a
9X13 pan for 30 minutes.
Remove and let cool, then glaze.

Mr Wonderful couldn’t get over how they look like a cake, taste like lemon and have the texture of a brownie… so much goodness in one creation!

Enjoy!!!