Lamb is my absolutely favourite protein so I really don’t need any excuse to eat it. My arm is being twisted to eat red meat at least twice a week so I’m embracing it!! I know that it’s more expensive in the UK but if you’re cooking for an anniversary or dinner party, a couple of cutlets each person will do to make a really special meal and it’s so tasty, that’s really all you need. In terms of portion size too, it’s enough.

I made this for dinner last night and served it with English spinach and green beans – it was fantastic.

Serves 4

8 good quality lamb cutlets
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp chopped marjoram
1 tbsp chopped thyme
3 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp cumin
½ tsp chilli flakes
¼ cup olive oil
Freshly ground pepper

With a mortar and pestle, pound the salt and garlic to a paste. Add the herbs and pound for a couple of minutes, stir in the cumin, chilli flakes, olive oil and a few grinds of pepper. (Alternatively, blend all in a spice grinder). Mix with the lamb cutlets and refrigerate until needed.

Parsnip puree
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 small brown onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, grated
4 parsnips, peeled and diced
chicken stock, to cover
salt and pepper
juice of 1 lemon, or to taste

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat the olive oil over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, with the lid on for about 8 mins until soft and translucent. Add the parsnips and cook for about 5 mins, then add the stock to cover the parsnips. Simmer for 30-45 mins until the stock has all but evaporated.
Scrape all of the mixture from the pan into a food processor and blend. Season and add lemon juice to taste and keep warm. You can make this in advance and re-heat in the microwave.

Preheat the BBQ until nice and hot. Cook the lamb cutlets for 2 mins on each side. Remove to a warm plate, cover with foil and rest for five minutes. Spoon a blob of parsnip puree onto each plate, arrange the lamb cutlets on top and serve with the veggies.

WARNING!! This is not for the faint hearted!! If you are not keen on hot, then I recommend you reduce the amount of chillies to one. Or use a fresh chilli and remove the seeds. It is a really delicious, simple dish. I have been eating it all week on a bed of spinach. That’s all I needed. Also, the recipe uses chicken thighs but if you really want to you can use breast cut into two.

2 onions, peeled and cut into wedges
2 tbsp butter
olive oil
1kg chicken thigh, skin on, bone in
5 dried long red chillies
3 cloves garlic chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
2 bay leaves, fresh if available

Put the chillies in a bowl in 500ml boiling water and soak for 30 minutes.

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat the butter and a splash of olive oil and brown on both sides. Do this in two batches if needed. Pour off the excess fat at this point.

Blend the chilli water, chillies, cumin and garlic in a blender until smooth. Add this sauce to the chicken with the bay leaves. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Season to taste and serve.

Firstly, apologies for not posting a recipe for a couple of weeks but I have been totally obsessed with my super salad that I last posted. However, I recently bought a book called “Aussie Body Diet and Detox Plan” by Saimaa Miller. I’m not into detox’s believing that, for me, I won’t get into a plan that I won’t do for a lifetime. The book has some really lovely, healthy recipes.

I cooked this weekend, the Moroccan Fish Skewers which were delicious. I think next time if I’m making it just for me, I will keep the fish fillets whole and grill like that. But for the look of the fish on the skewers, stick with them.

Serves 4

700g thick white fish fillets (barramundi or snapper)
400g tin crushed tomatoes
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp turmeric
2 tsps paprika
1 tsp mild curry powder
2 cloves garlic, grated
20g freshly grated ginger
2 tbsps lime juice

Cut the fish into cubes and thread onto skewers. Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Lay the skewers a dish which will allow them to sit in the marinade and pour it over the skewered fish. Refridgerate for several hours.

Preheat the grill to high. Transfer the skewers to the grill tray, spoon any marinade left in the dish over the top and cook the skewers for 5 mins. Turn and cook for another 3 mins.

I served my skewers with a millet salad and tzaziki.

I have put up a couple of recipes similar to this but I don’t apologise for it. I know that part of any success I have eating healthily is having food prepared for lunch and dinner.
What could be better than a salad full of goodies, a salad, which will make you, feel great and that you look forward to eating? Nothing!! I will have this everyday for lunch.
This was inspired by a recipe by Michael Moore, a chef diagnosed with diabetes, who produced a wonderful cookbook to show great options for those living with the disease.

I changed a couple of his ingredients for what I had in the fridge and pantry. I also found this great rice in the supermarket called Rice Plus. It has a mixture of different types of rice plus pearl barley, white quinoa and black sesame seeds. Look out for something similar.

Of course, as I said I had this for lunch on it’s own but you could have it on the side of some BBQed fish or chicken skewers.

4 serves

1 cup brown rice (or rice plus above)
1 can soya beans (or cannelini beans), rinsed and drained
Half red onion, thinly sliced
100g firm tofu, fried and diced
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 large ripe avocado, diced
2 handfuls baby spinach leaves
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
S&P

Cook rice. Rinse with cold water and drain well.

Mix all of the ingredients together gently in a bowl and check the seasoning.

Enjoy!!

Alright, alright……I’m one of those people. This is a cake with a vegetable in it. BUT it is very delicious. It’s baked in a loaf tin and the slices are quite firm so could be put in a lunchbox for work. It is still a cake though, so try not to eat 3 slices like I just did. (I must see someone about that.)

3 eggs
250ml vegetable oil
150g raw sugar (or stevia)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
300g wholemeal self-raising flour
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
100g coarsely chopped pecan nuts

Preheat oven to 175 degrees.

Beat the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla until pale and thick. Fold in zucchini and then fold in flour, cinnamon and pecan nuts.

Pour into a loaf tin lined with glad bake. And bake for 60-70 mins, until a cake skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin, then turn out and slice to serve.

No Insanity for a week. No Insanity this week either it looks like. Every time I have a good day neck wise, it’s followed by a bad day which means I am in agony again.  I have had massages and acupuncture and that’s helped a bit – I did try having a little bounce around on Saturday and immediately regretted it – it made my neck ten times worse.

What’s happened is that all my good form is disappearing fast! As fast as I toned up I am toning down again and in another week if I don’t manage to go back to Insanity I am going to have to start all over again. I am gutted.

Hope those of you who are still going are loving it! I am missing it like mad. I am tired, lethargic and in desperate need of a good workout. The gym bike (only thing that doesn’t hurt my neck) is quite literally doing my nut.

Sad face

I’ve done a healthy schnitzel before for the blog but this one is even better. If you can’t find lemon myrtle (supermarket herb aisle or good grocers) then the lemon zest will do. The crunchy coating of the polenta and black sesame seeds (from Asian grocers) is really delicious. I found this in Who (only when I’m at my wonderful podiatrist do I have a chance to catch up on my gossip) and they recommend serving it with kale and sugar snap peas, or you could make a homemade coleslaw and wedges.

2 chicken breasts, cut horizontally into 2-3 flat pieces
2-3 tsp ground lemon myrtle
1 lemon, zested
½ cup plain flour
2 eggs, beaten with 2 tbsp milk
4 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 cup polenta

Lay the chicken pieces out and sprinkle them with the lemon zest and lemon myrtle. Season in the same way. On plates, lay out the flour, egg mixture and polenta and black sesame seeds mixed.

Coat the chicken in flour each side, then egg and then press it into the polenta to coat.

Heat a fry pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil (or coconut oil if you prefer) and cook the chicken for a few minutes at a medium heat on each side until brown. Keep warm in the oven until all cooked. Add a little more oil for each batch of chicken.

Serve with wedges of the zested lemon.

Insanity has come to a halt again. I did my neck another mischief and have spent the entire weekend with a hot water bottle across my shoulders (It seems to help.)  I am much better today then I was on Friday, but once again it’s meant a halt to my beloved Insanity and I am going to give it one more day before I recommence.  I WILL finish this damn blasted and ridiculous programme.

BTW – interesting but inevitable side affect of this neck-ache break from Isnaity = having exercised so much over the last 2 months, stopping for 4 days means I am cross, tired and grumpy.  DYING to get at it again.

Will report when I am back on that horse (so to speak…)

When I post recipes for the blog I try to give ideas to help us all cook something different, use different ingredients, get out of a rut…… Day to day, I like to eat (without sounding wankey) good, honest food. Fresh ingredients, prepared simply. Generally it will be a protein (meat, fish etc) with salad or vegetables.

For Saturday night dinner, I wanted something tasty and special but not too difficult to prepare, including some of my favourite foods. This was the result. Looking at the list of ingredients now, it seems quite a lot of work, but it really wasn’t!!

Serves 2

3 roma tomatoes
caster sugar
1 lamb backstrap
1 clove garlic, grated
Zest of a lemon
1 tbsp ground cumin
olive oil
1 red capsicum, cut into quarters
1 finger eggplant, sliced diagonally
2 handfuls mixed leaves
3 good tbsp Greek yoghurt
Juice of a lemon
Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Cut the tomatoes into halves and then each half into 3. Line an oven tray with baking paper, put the tomato wedges on top and sprinkle with sugar, several tsps at least. Bake for approx 45 mins, until the sugar has caramelized on the tomatoes. Remove from the oven.

Make a marinade from the garlic, lemon zest, 50ml olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper. Rub it into the lamb and marinate it in the fridge for as long as you’ve got.

Grill the skin of the capsicum under a grill or on a BBQ until blackened. Put into a bag or container, close tightly and sweat for about half an hour or longer if you have it.

Put the eggplant slices on plate and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook on the BBQ or in a pan, each side for a couple of minutes.

Peel the skin from the capsicum and slice each quarter into about 4 thick slices.

On the BBQ or in a pan, cook the lamb for a few minutes each side and then rest for about 15 minutes.

Arrange the mixed leaves onto 2 plates and arrange the tomatoes, eggplant slices and capsicum on top. Mix the yoghurt and lemon juice together and season. Then drizzle over the salad. Slice the lamb and share amongst the plates.

So it’s a new week of Insanity and I’m LOVING it! I can’t believe how fit you can get, and how  fast you can get it,  if you really work out hard and regularly.  I always think I am pretty fit but day by day I see improvements in my form and my limits of endurance with this programme. Monday it was Max Cardio Conditioning – a workout that’s a bit shorter because once you get going, it has no breaks.  Because it’s designed as an endurance workout I decided to go for the burn.  So, although I worked hard, I paced myself and gave myself no more then a few seconds breather here and there which meant there was no standing-around-puffing-time, just a high heart rate for nearly 30 minutes.  Having done the workout before a few times, I am getting to know it and was able to complete the workout with very little rest at all. That was my first target, my second will be to complete it at full throttle. It will take a few more weeks.

My Tuesday workout was Max Interval circuit which I did on very little sleep after a midnight finish at Premier league and a 4.30 start for Daybreak. I got changed and stuck the DVD on the second I got home at 7am because I KNEW that if I hesitated I wouldn’t workout today. It worked and I love it. I can’t believe that on just my 3rd attempt at this workout I am going harder and longer on every circuit. It’s really such an elating feeling!

There’s been some good to come from bad this week already – when I worked out on Monday night, I did it at work, in my dinner hour.  I took my laptop, and bounced around in the my dressing room for an hour. Why is that of importance?  Well – the dressing room has 2 large mirrors in it.  This was, to be honest, a pretty demoralizing experience.  At home there are no mirrors in my living room. I tend to work out in just a sports bra and shorts (well – I sweat quite a lot) and there it was -  me, working out – in all it’s glory/horror.   Turns out the mirror doesn’t lie when you are working out in front of it in almost no clothes.  I was simply amazed at just how much my ‘wobble and  junk’  moves. I was pretty horrified to be honest.  I think when I stand in front of the mirror, I have a tendancy to pull myself tall and give myself my best posture and watching my self work out I began to wonder whether I am in complete denial about how fit I actually am?   I definitely see a second round of Insanity in the works here!

The good to come out of this horror though might make it all worthwhile.  Working out in front of a mirror REALLY makes me concentrate on form.  Using your abs is actually much easier when you look at them and visibly engage them in front of a mirror as you exercise and with the abs came better posture and a much more effective workout.  Even when I didn’t have the mirrors today as I was back at home I found myself making sure my core was engaged much more often and working out harder as a result. So – maybe the horror of all my junk wasn’t such a bad thing after all. I might even do it again.

Is Insanity working? Hell yes.  I sleep better. My mood is better. I have never worked out 6 days a week and actually, it’s becoming part of my routine and I feel so much better. I am not losing weight though and actually I don’t see huge physical changes yet either. There’s still time though.  I have noticed my arms are much much better and I think the tone on my legs is better but I think I would need two rounds of Insanity to make a massive difference. We shall see.

Keep your Insanity blogs and tweets coming. Loving them!

Georgie x