Fresh Week - Day 1 complete

Healthy lunch and dinner achieved!

I haven't eaten raw carrot sticks since my mum made me lunch, but I was actually surprised how nice it was!

The roll was packed with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, Edam cheese and crumbed ham and actually kept me full all afternoon.

  

Dinner was Chicken and Mushrooms in a tomato sauce with Carrots and Rosemary crushed Potatoes.
Ingredients:

4 chicken thighs
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 Clove of Garlic
350g new potatoes
A sprig of thyme
A bay leaf
300g Carrots

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and boil a pan of water.

First I chopped up the garlic finely, halved the larger potatoes, and roughly chopped the chestnut mushrooms.I peeled and sliced the carrots into equal sticks, this took a few minutes (if I had a Tefal Fresh express it would have taken seconds, hint, hint!)

The chicken was patted dry, rubbed in oil and seasoned before going in the hot oven on a baking tray for 20 minutes.

In a large pan I heated a tablespoon of oil and fried off the garlic before adding a tin of tomatoes with a bay leaf and the mushrooms. The potatoes were added to the boiling water and both pans simmered for 14 minutes. I then added the carrots to the boiling water for 4 minutes, took the chicken out of the oven and put it in the pan of tomato sauce.

Finally to make the crushed rosemary potatoes I drained the pan of water and put the carrots to one side. I crushed the potatoes gently with the back of a fork and heated a frying pan with a little oil. Once hot I added the rosemary waited a few seconds then fried the potatoes until crispy!

 Serve it all in warmed bowls and enjoy!

Undercover Ratatouille with Lemon Roasted Sea Bream

This is by far one of the easiest from scratch recipes I have ever made but also very tasty and fresh. Quite an achievement since I have always ended up with the Courgette and Aubergine (Egg plant for any Yanks) in my veg box going to waste as I've not been keen on them before.

 2 Fillets of Fish (Bream), 1 Lemon, 1 Aubergine, 200g Courgettes, 2 Peppers (we used 1 red and 1 Yellow), 1 Tin chopped Tomatoes, 2 Cloves Garlic, 1 Tsp Sugar, 1 Tsp Provencal Herbs (mixed herbs would also work)

As we have learnt by now, first I heated the oven to 250 degrees C then chopped up all the veggies. The peppers were de-seeded and sliced, the courgette was chopped into cubes and the for aubergine I removed the top and bottom, sliced into quarters and removed half of the spongy middle before chopping into cubes. If you really like your peppers you could slice it into bitter strips than I did.

These were all popped onto a baking tray and tossed in a little oil with a pinch of salt and pepper before being put on the top shelf of the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile I finely chopped the garlic and fried it in a large pan with a little olive oil for a minute before adding the tin of chopped tomatoes. I then added the herbs, sugar and a pinch of salt and let it bubble until I had a thick sauce.

I placed a tray with a tablespoon of oil into the oven to heat up then rubbed some oil on my fish again seasoning with a little salt and pepper then placing on the heated tray. Finally squeeze the juice from 1/4 of a lemon on top and place in the middle of the oven for 5 minutes.

The veggies should be about ready by now, gently roasted and a bit crispy around the edges. Remove from the oven and add to the tomato sauce, taste and season as needed.

Serve the fish on top of the ratatouille and zest a little bit of lemon on top.

Result:

Both the fish and the ratatouille would work really well with other dishes or together. I couldn't believe how nice and simple this was and still so tasty. The fish was perfectly cooked and very moist and the vegetables all tasted very nice amazingly as both myself and the other half didnt think we really liked courgette or aubergine.

Recipe Score: