Simply Good

One of my favourite areas in London is Camden Town. With the hustle and bustle of Camden market, the leafy streets, live music, the Etcetera theatre and the many different walks of life you will bump into there. Another thing I love is the food, the street food of the market and the amazing restaurants in the area.

I blogged a while back about one of my favourite Japanese spots, Bento Ramen in Oishii (おいしい). Another place I like to frequent in Camden is just minutes away from Camden Town tube, Simply Fish.
Simply Fish
4 Inverness St
Camden Town
NW1 7HJ
020 7482 2977

This place is super simple and that’s probably the thing I like about it. It is a good place to go when you are wanting a healthier eating out option to.

They have there world classics, salads and there platters full of seafood treasures, but the thing I like the best is the "create your own fish meal" which is what I usually get.

How it works
You choose your fish, how you want it cooked, what sauce you want with it and then your sides.

The first time I came I had the sea bass because I had never tried this type of fish before and it was sooo good. Simple, fresh and tasty. Everything you want food really.

I recently went with my cousin and his partner. My cousin, not the most adventurous when it comes to fish, went for the
British Fish & Chips, Minted Peas & Tartar Sauce

I got to try a little and it was very tasty. My cousin gobbled it up which was a success for a usual non fish eater.

I originally also chose from the World classics menu and got the crab risotto.

As you can see from the picture it doesn’t look very crabby...so I was a bit disappointed when it came out. When I tasted it, it tasted good. Nice herbs and a tomato, vegetable stock base but no sign of any crab flavouring or crab pieces. I talked to the waiter about my disappointment and was offer to swap my choice.

I went back to the trusty create your own fish meal choosing Swordfish, grilled with hollandaise and sweet potato wedges.

It was so good. Again this was my first time having swordfish. A really meaty, tasty fish cooked to perfection. I usually don't like to cause a fuss but I was glad I had voiced my disappointment with the risotto and got to enjoy this.

My cousin’s partner got the salmon, baked, with hollandaise, with the mushrooms and lemon & Basil new potatoes. 

Again another great dish. I got to taste some and the salmon was so good. I also sneakily ate probably a quarter of the mushrooms which were really tasty, sautéed in butter and garlic.

I also really like their choice of juices with so many flavours, mango, apple, guava, lychee, cranberry, grapefruit and of course orange. My favourite is the lychee, closely followed by the mango.

As we know I am not a big alcohol drinker but they so also have beers (as you can see above) as weel as cocktails, mocktails and wines.

If you want something quick and simple which has good portion sizes which you can keep healthy than this the place for you…oh yeah and you have to like seafood, it is a fish restaurant after all.

Food prep Sunday

I am not paleo or celiac or gluten intolerant or any of that stuff but one thing I am is…LAZY.

My diet in the past hasn’t been great which ends up making me feel rubbish and the main reasons for that is because I am time poor and quite frankly lazy.
 
I do actually enjoy cooking but if I’ve got home from work between 2000 – 2100 the last thing I want to do is start cooking...which also means cleaning. I end up getting a healthier take away option (meaning expensive) on the way home, eating instant noodles, toast or a quick pasta dish or if I am really bad...just skip dinner altogether. I did for a while even get addicted to the M&S and Sainsbury ready meals.

In Australia we had the frozen meals but it was pretty widely know these weren’t good for you and that they should NOT be a regular occurrence but when I moved to the UK and there was this new 'fresh' ready meal, I got hooked. They looked and seemed pretty healthy, they were tasty and it was so easy. A few minutes in the microwave and the food was ready and eaten in less than half an hour with no clean up! What could be better?

Then I started to realise, when something is too good to be true it probably is. I started doing the research.
Saturated fats, additives, sugars, crazy amounts of salt, lack of natural vitamins and minerals.
From this you can gather that I straight away stopped and a ready meal is as rare for me nower days as getting a fast food take away.

However giving up the ready meal brought back that age old issue of being time poor during the week and then eating badly, expensively or not at all. Skipping meals became far too often which in the end just made me run down, tired and pretty irritable all the time.

I mentioned before about paleo, celiac, gluten intolerance etc. because people with these types of diets/concerns are often really good with what they eat and making sure they do the right things. One of the ways they do this is a Sunday food prep session. My thinking…why not give it a go and see if it’s going to help me keep myself from binging on junk and skipping meals and of course being a foodie, still keep me satisfied taste wise.

I started yesterday with my first Sunday prep session.

I decided to make a big batch of garlic prawn wild rice with carrot and spinach for dinners, mini cheese, tomato, spinach, carrot and bacon quiches (12) for lunches and then Caribbean spiced chicken for either lunches or dinners, with spinach salads or green beans.
Breakfast would be cereal or porridge and some fruit.
Snacks would be grapes, carrot sticks, homemade guacamole, popcorn, baby bell cheese and fruit again.

Grocery shopping:
Chicken
Prawns
Bacon
Wild rice
Garlic
Onion
Eggs
Mature cheddar cheese
Baby bell individual cheeses
Butter
Coconut oil
Spinach
Green beans
Tomatoes
Carrots
Avocado
Grapes
Nectarines
Apples
Lime
Pre-packaged popcorn
Porridge packs
Fruit n Fibre cereal

The guacamole recipe is in my blog post Getting back to good

The garlic prawn wild rice with carrot and spinach is pretty easy.

• Prepare and cook the garlic prawns.
• Finely grate two carrots and chop up two cups of steamed spinach.
• Prepare the wild rice (brown rice if you prefer)
• Then basically mix it all together.

Not very hard at all but it’s pretty tasty and I find it filling.

The chicken is just fillets of chicken, cut in to steak sizes and spiced and fried. Again really easy but tasty. I fry in coconut oil because I prefer the taste and have been told its healthier for you.

The mini quiches need a bit more prep. You can customize yours by adding which ever ingredients you want. I chose cheese, tomatoes, spinach, carrot and bacon.

You need a muffin pan and 6 free range medium eggs beaten and seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper and then your mix ins.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and generously grease the bottoms and sides of your muffin pan with butter to ensure a stick-free removal once the quiches are done baking.
2. Make sure your eggs are beaten and you’ve added the salt and pepper.
3. Chop up or grate all your fillings.
4. Add you fillings to the egg mix.
5. Fill the tins with the mix. The quiches will puff up when you bake them, so make sure to leave just a tiny bit of space at the top of each.
6. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until you can poke the centers with a knife and it comes out clean.

 

 

Super easy and super tasty both cold and hot. I have just had them for lunch with a few of the other bits and it was tasty and filling. 

Hopefully the rest of the week is as good of a success as today has been so far.

If I can keep this up surely getting back to fit and healthy is going to easy right? *smiles*

Getting back to good

I have just returned from an amazing trip in Berlin. It is a great city, with great people and amazing food...blog posts to come on that but I have been pretty bad lately. A lot of junk food and snacking and my health is definitely paying the price for it…especially my face, which is looking pretty spotty…no one likes a pizza face!

So back to snacking less, drinking a lot more water and getting that healthy eating back on track. I have a break from travelling for a while so the time for the lifestyle change is now.

Snacking less is one thing, not snacking at all is not possible in my world. With that in mind its time to get back to healthier snacks.

I started to buy nut mixes but there was something about them I  just didn’t like. They either tasted old or they had something in them I would pick out or leave. They aren't particularly cheap so that seemed a bit of a waste of money. So I decided to make my own mix.

It is cranberries, mango, hazelnuts, cashews and almonds. Its soooooo tasty and good for snacking and grazing on all day.

Another new healthy treat Ive added is homemade guacamole. Its healthy, its easy to make and another snack that is tasty and filling. I do have it with chips but I’m trying to be better by making it Lentil chips.

Guacamole

Ingredients

2 avocados

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ripe tomato, chopped

1 lime, juiced

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Peel and mash avocados in a medium serving bowl. Stir in onion, garlic, tomato, lime juice, salt and pepper. Season with remaining lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. Chill for half an hour to blend flavours.

 

My last new favorite snack is lightly salted ProperCorn popcorn.

A lot of people have been telling me lately that popcorn isn’t really as good as they make it out to be. So I’ve done a bit of research.

Calorie content. 88 kcals per bag

Fat content. 14.5g/100g of fat.

Sugar content. 0.5g of sugar per 100g.

Fiber content. High fiber as it contains 11.8g of fiber per 100g.

That doesn’t sounds to bad to me, could be improved by being air dried, which would reduce the fat content but overall it’s a much better alternative to crisps so ProperCorn popcorn is becoming one of my favourites.

Fingers crossed with cutting down on the cakes, chocolate, crisps and soft drink I can get my health back to a good place.

Ill be posting some of my healthier meal options in the next few weeks to. Hopefully it might give you guys some ideas to.