Healthy & Quick Recipes for 2018

With everyone having the same old 'New year...new me!' mantra as we shuffle into 2018 I am aiming for a much simpler year ahead. No crazy resolutions that I know will disappoint me when I don't fulfill them and no targets too ambitious, being a happy, healthy working mum and wife are the only goals I'm aiming toward!

However I did think that one of the things that I could share were a couple of recipes that I've found over the last year or so and really got on with. Not only are these recipes for 'Healthy Bean Chilli' and 'Super veg pasta' delicious but they also contain at least 5 portions of fruit/vegetables so are totally sin-free, guilt-free, tasty eating dishes! As I don't use salt in any meals that I prepare it means that baby Leo, who at almost eight months old is mastering weaning, can have some too. He loves pasta, cucumber and anything that makes a mess of my kitchen!

Healthy bean chilli

Ingredients: 

400g tinned chopped tomatoes

80g red pepper

80g cherry tomatoes

400g red kidney beans

200g berlotti beans

200g haricot beans

1. Empty your chopped tomatoes and drained red kidney beans and combine in a pan over a low heat.

2. Chop your red pepper and cherry tomatoes into small pieces or leave chunkier for baby led weaning!

3. Add drained berlotti and haricot beans to your pan and cook for a further five minutes.

4. Add chopped vegetables and leave for 30 minutes on a low heat. 

5. Serve with a sweet potato cooked in the oven for 1 hour or with wholegrain rice.

It is genuinely the easiest, simplest and quickest dinner to prepare and the only thing that you have to be patient with is how long to cook it all for. 

Serves 2 people (and a baby who just steals anything on mumma's plate)

Contains 5 portions of fruit/veg

Super Veg Salmon pasta

Ingredients:

400g tinned chopped tomatoes

80g button mushrooms

80g red onion

80g cherry tomatoes

80g mixed pepper

Pepper to taste

Garlic to taste

Wholegrain pasta

2 fillets of salmon (I used frozen)

1. Chop all of your vegetables into small pieces and put to one side.

2. Grease a baking tray and put your salmon fillets in at around 180* for 25 minutes.

3. Combine your tin of chopped tomatoes in a large pan with pepper to taste and add garlic. I use around half a clove but again this is to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Add chopped veg, cook for a further 10 minutes.

5. Put a large pan of wholegrain pasta on. I use the bowls that I aim to serve my pasta in to measure out exactly how much I need to cook rather than doing way too much!

6. When the pasta is cooked, strain and leave to one side to rest.

7. Take salmon out of the oven, shred with a fork while warm and add to your tomato sauce for 5 minutes, this will turn pulled meat!

8. Serve two bowls of pasta and add sauce on top or combine the two together!

Serves 2 people 

Contains 6 portions of fruit/veg