The way fast food should be

When most people think of fast food, they think of greasy, fatty, oily food made with subpar ingredients that is dirt cheap. One of the biggest issues with this is although you may enjoy it while you are eating it, it makes you feel pretty icky after you finish it. Stodgy, stodgy, stodgy!

But who said fast food has to be that way and has to be bad for you!

A great example of good, healthy, decently priced fast food is Leon.
Their slogan is even ‘Naturally fast food’

Leon
101 Tottenham Court Road
London
W1T 4TT

Is the one I go to most often but there are about 30 other locations which you can find here.http://leonrestaurants.co.uk/restaurants/

They have a great range of quick, fresh, healthy option for eat in or take away. They have hot boxes, super salads as well as healthy wraps and light bites.

Everything I have had from here has been fresh, tasty and delicious. I’m going to share a few of my favourites.

The Chicken & Chorizo Club Hot Box

Chargrilled chicken thigh with slices of roasted Spanish chorizo, topped with sweet red peppers and a handful of chopped parsley.

This box is

• Low saturated fat
• Low glycemic load
• Wheat free
• Gluten free

Similar is the Chicken & Chorizo Club Wrap

Chargrilled chicken thigh and slices of roasted Spanish chorizo with fresh leaves, pink cabbage, slices of pickle, garlic aioli and Leon chilli sauce in flat bread wrap.

Grilled Halloumi Wrap

A great vegetarian option. Grilled halloumi, fresh leaves, pink cabbage, baby plum tomato, parsley, aioli and sweet chilli jam in a flatbread wrap.
 
The Chicken Burger

See burgers don’t have to be bad, Leon have worked on a burger that tastes good and does you good. Chargrilled butterflied chicken thigh with fresh rocket, fresh tomato and pickles, finished with punchy olive oil herb mayonnaise, served in an artisan sesame seed topped bun. It is low in saturated fat.
 
Chargrilled Chicken Superfood Salad

 

Chargrilled chicken thigh served on fresh leaves with pink cabbage, peas, quinoa and semi-dried tomatoes. Topped with fresh herbs and toasted seeds

This salad is

• Low saturated fat
• Low glycemic load
• Wheat free
• Gluten free

Hummus and flatbread

Chickpea dip with tahini, lemon juice and olive oil, topped with roasted peppers
My all time favourite is the

Fish Finger Wrap

Cod fillet from sustainable shoals, served with cos lettuce, slices of pickle and Leon own-made tartar sauce in a flat bread wrap.
It is low in saturated fat and dairy free
 My other favourite is the 

Leon baked fries

Crispy baked potato waffle fries sprinkled with Leon seasoning.
 The waffle shape reminds me of being a kid. They taste so good and as they are baked they aren’t that bad for you right?

This is definitely my go to fast food option if there is one around and one of my favourite airport snack if I am travelling out of Heathrow terminal 2 or 3 or Stansted.

Try it out and it will change your view of fast food, I promise you.

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.

Third times the charm

The last few weeks I have been setting time aside on a Sunday to do food prep for the week ahead. Although I have still been eating out a lot and had a few work lunches and family dinners etc. it’s helped a lot to keep me eating healthier lunches and snacks when I can. It’s saving me money to by not always buying lunch out.

The past few weeks I was making meals like stir fry and brown rice with garlic prawns, which were both really tasty but tended to be a little heavy for lunch. I tried to make a big batch of salad but by the time I got the salad to work and had it at about 1pm for lunch it was always wilted and a bit soggy, even if I hadn’t added the dressing.

I recently saw on Pinterest a lot of pins about salad jars so I thought why not give it a shot. If it’s going to keep the salad a bit fresher and I can make a few on the Sunday that would be great.

The secret to a perfect Mason jar salad is all in the order.

You always put your dressing first. This is the only way to guarantee your salad won’t get soggy and it helps that you can put it at the bottom of the jar instead of having to bring a whole other container just for the dressing, which just means more cleaning.

Next add salad ingredients that won’t soak up the dressing, such as carrots, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, chickpeas, cucumber, celery etc.

Then go anything else big and chunky as this protects your more delicate ingredients from getting wet or squished. Try and pack they layers tightly as the less air between the layers the fresher it will stay.

Lastly add you cheese, nuts and greens, basically the ingredients you want to stay dry until just before you eat the,. They also create a moisture barrier that prevents the entire salad from getting soggy.

It’s important to choose a good combo of ingredient. You want to mix textures and flavours while still having your healthy 5 a day and a protein to fill you up.

I looked at loads of recipes but in the end I just went with things I like. Check out how my salad jars came along.

So you can probably tell from the pictures I over estimated how much would fit in the jar so I had to put the salad leaves in bags and the protein sections (one smoked salmon, one chilli prawns and one chicken tikka) in little boxes. In the jars its dressing, cucumber, celery, egg, avocado, grilled mushroom, broccoli, beetroot, artichoke and feta cheese

I just had one for lunch and it was pretty good. Still fresh and super tasty. Success.

 

That tiny little jar made a hell of a lot of salad!  

 

I also made a batch of guacamole, cut up a bag of carrots and packed up fruit for the week.
The fridge is full up of healthy lunchs and snacks

 

Its going to be a good week :)

 

Second Sunday prep session

Last week went well, with me finishing off the last of my Sunday prep dishes on Friday night. Everything kept pretty well this time around, I didn’t have the need to freeze anything. The quiches were nice at room temperature or warmed up. They were probably my favourite part of last week’s prep so I will be doing that one again soon. The prawn dish and the chicken kept and tasted good to but I did eat the prawn dish in the first few days, otherwise I would have had to freeze it for sure.

The healthy eating went slightly of track when I was given a box of chocolates Monday, a box of homemade brownies Tuesday (ridiculously good ones), Reese’s peanut butter cups Wednesday and there was also a few farewell lunches and family catch up dinners during the week and a boozy work function Thursday evening.

The prep did help me keep healthy when I could and more importantly not skip any meals so I decided to do it again this week despite have a bit of a hectic social life again, with some family dinners, a birthday party and another farewell lunch.

This week it’s a massive beef stir fry, brown rice, trail mix, carrots sticks and then I bought yogurts for the week, a bunch of fruit, some cheese varieties and some 9 bars.

Everyone knows how to make a beef stir fry, you can’t really get much simpler than that especially when, like me you cheat and buy a sauce. Next time I am determined to make my own sauce from scratch but this Sunday I had to do some work and had my cousins 21st so time was a bit tight.

Basically chop up all your veggies. I had onion, mushroom, cabbage, peppers, spinach and broccoli. I browned the onion and mushroom first in a good able spoon of coconut oil and then added the beef and lightly fried. I added the rest of the veggies and poured in half of the sauce packed (which was more than enough sauce!!) I then made the brown rice and was done. Super easy, super tasty and I made enough for 5 meals.

I went and bought a whole bunch of nuts and dried fruit for a trail mix. Its dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried strawberries, dried mango, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, walnuts, cashews and almonds. These should stop me snacking on chocolate and sweets I hope or at least a bit less.

 

 

You will also notice I bought some 9 bars. The first thing that attracted me to 9 bars is the fact they are made in the UK, in Wales. They contain no trans fats, artificial additives, preservative or colouring and they are good for people allergies or specific dietary requirements as they are free from wheat, gluten, dairy, lactose, yeast and egg. They are call 9 bars because they contain all 9 essential amino acids.

There are 6 different types of bar to choose from and I’ve gone with Pumpkin. I am yet to try them so will give a yay or nah to them once I have.

The one thing to note is these bars are pretty high in calories but counter acting this is the fact that they are high in protein, rich in Omega 3 and have a low glycaemic index for a slow release of energy. Fingers crossed they taste good.

 

I also chopped up some carrots to have with baby bell cheese or cream cheese and will also buy some M&S hummus to. Love the organic M&S hummus.

 

 

Having less time this week I bought some yogurts for breakfasts to go with my granola and strawberries which I will cut up to go in as well. I also bought bananas, apples and nectarines for morning and afternoon tea.

Hopefully it all lasts the week like it did last week.

Any questions let me know. If you have any ideas, tips or advice, it is always appreciated just leave them in them comments.

Hope your Sunday prep is going well to. Here’s to a healthy week ahead.

Photo taken from http://www.dsmh2o.com/cheers-from-des-moines-water-works/



Starting it off right

I am sure you have all heard the saying:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

You’re probably all sick of hearing it to but it is right folks.

Despite its importance it is the most regularly skipped meal of the day. To me this is just bonkers people because it has to be one of the easiest meals to prepare for!

I will admit there was a time when I would skip it or in fact eat some pretty shocking things for breakfast like cookies or cake or pastries…pastries once in a while isn’t bad…but every day like I was doing, is not a good thing.

Due to health issues back in 2010 I had to learn the importance of a healthy breakfast. Emphasis on the healthy part!

If you really think about it, it make sense that breakfast is so important because you have basically been fasting overnight. Say you finished dinner at 2100 and then head to bed roughly 2230. You get up 0700 and don’t end up eating your breakfast till 0800. That means you have not eaten for 11 hours. Would you ever go 11 hours without food during the day…I doubt it! Say you skip breakfast and don’t have lunch till 1300, we are now talking 16 hours people! That’s just crazy talk!

Breakfast not only breaks the fast you’ve been having overnight (hence the name break-fast) but also gives you the boost to start your day right. A healthy breakfast provides essential nutrition, better cognitive function and even helps with weight control.

So now we all know the importance of breakfast let’s talk about how simple it can be.

First note – STAY AWAY FROM THE BREAKFAST BISCUIT
The humble breakfast biscuits is advertised as sustained energy but folks in this context sustained energy just means SUGAR. 
If you eat one pack which is four biscuits you are consuming roughly 3 teaspoons of sugar with a little bit of fibre and protein to round it out. This is actually the same amount of sugar as eating 4 Oreos!
Therefore the so called convenient, healthy, nutritious breakfast biscuit is not the key to your healthy breakfast.

Now to some good, easy, healthier options that I have all the time. Remembering I am lazy, these have to be easy enough for you *smiles*

I am pretty time poor in the morning during the week, so most of these can be prepared in less than 5 mins (or the night before) and eaten at your desk.

Natural Greek yogurt with honey and strawberries

Natural Greek Yogurt topped with Granola and peach

Granola with banana and almond milk

Granola with banana, strawberries and almond milk

Porridge with banana and strawberries

Porridge with honey and a Petits yogurt with a nectarine

Peanut butter on Warburton’s brown sandwich thins (basically a thinner version of bread) with banana and apple

Of course there is always room for a treat breakfast as long as it’s not all the time. Say,
Nutella on Warburton’s brown sandwich thins with nectarine

There’s even room for the odd breakfast take away. Can’t go passed an egg, sausage, hash brown and tomato sauce Bap. Sometimes it just has to be done.

On a weekend I also like to get a bit more creative

Scrambled eggs with tomato, spinach and cheese with Warburton’s brown sandwich thins with a little bit of butter

The other weekend my amazing cousin Kirsty also made me an English muffin with cheese bacon and a poached egg and it was amazing.

I haven’t tried it myself before as the thought of cooking a poached eggs scares me off but it was soooo good I might have to overcome that fear and give it a try.

So there is a whole bunch of options ranging from easy to a little more tricky. You now have no reason to skip breakfast people!

photo taken from https://nourishinstyle.wordpress.com/tag/recipe/

So start eating breakfast from tomorrow, if you don’t already folks. From personal experience having a healthy breakfast will set up your metabolism and you are more likely to make healthy choices throughout the whole day!
  

 

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*