I am of course talking about fruit (& veg). It's just as easy to walk into a super market and pick up an apple, banana or even something a little more exotic for the same price as a chocolate bar or packet of crisps. But for some reason, this option is sadly often overlooked!
I have just spent a long weekend back in Plymouth (my Uni city) with lots of friends and alcohol... Dry January has finished after all! I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks but I knew it would be a challenge in itself being away from my own kitchen and trying to eat clean. Obviously enjoying myself was a priority but with alcohol in the mix I wanted to make sure that I could still at least eat healthily.
I'm glad to say my clean eating was not disrupted :-) and all it required was a bit of preparation and a touch of will power. Thursday night I knew we weren't going to be arriving until around 9:30 so I wanted a super quick to cook and light dinner for once we got there - in order to avoid the dreaded fast food chains! So the night before I prepared some quesadilla filling and just fried them up once we arrived, they went down so well we had them again for lunch the next day (after we returned from our run)! And I just had them again now... I will include the recipe at the bottom of this post.
I ate my chilli with corn tortillas instead of rice and when the others had pasta, I put my bolognese into a couple of peppers and roasted them in the oven. I hit up nandos when I was hungover (a bit of wing roulette got me sweating my hangover out) plenty of chicken and some corn on the cob was perfect! When others gorged on crisps and pot noodles I turned to my popcorn machine and dark chocolate and didn't feel like I was missing out, and better yet, I didn't feel guilty. Overall I ate more than I usually would and definitely ate more chocolate but that's not the end of the world now is it.
So anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that a little preparation can go a long way... I always hear people saying 'there's no point in me starting to eat healthy or exercise until after x, y, z...' We're always postponing because LIFE gets in the way, but life will always be there and there will always be some occasion trying to push you off the wagon! Obviously I'm not suggesting you never indulge, just keep it for occasions that are important for you. A special dinner, birthdays, holidays etc. etc. Most of us work all week in sedentary jobs and then feel like we're owed 'treats' at the weekend which lands us in that horrible cycle and makes it impossible to lose weight because we over indulge every weekend.
I'm in the process of rekindling my relationship with food and learning that healthy food can be prepared and cooked quickly and not compromise on taste. This recipe for quesadillas is the perfect example of this :-)
Although this is my recipe you can change it to whatever you like! Use more or less of any ingredient, add meat or whatever! I'm just going to write mine to try and give you an idea of quantities.
Ingredients
1 red onion
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 tomato
1/2 tin of black beans (available in Morrissons) drained and rinsed
Handful of fresh coriander
Fresh chilli (optional)
Corn tortilla
1 clove of garlic
Grated cheese (optional)
To make the quesadilla filling, chop up all the ingredients a part from the cheese and beans and mix into a bowl. Give the beans a bit of a squish with a spoon or your hands before adding them to the mix. Then grate the cheese (I like to keep it separate but you can mix it in if you wish!You can keep the mix raw or fry it depending on your taste (obviously this only counts for vegetarian versions!) Raw food is good for you because its in its natural state and easy for your digestive system to process without having to work super hard. Personally though, I can't stand raw onion and garlic! So I usually fry them before mixing with the other ingredients.
This should give you approximately enough filling for 4 quesadillas. I like to make this much at once and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge. That way when I'm ready for dinner it takes 2 minutes :) perfect, healthy, fast food!
So to cook - get a tortilla, use a spoon to place the filling onto one half of the quesadilla. This is when I like to add my cheese, grate on top of the prepared filling. Fold the tortilla over and squish it down with your hands. Place into a hot frying pan for a minute or two and then carefully flip it over to toast both sides. You can usually fit two in at a time - and I consider that to be one quesadilla. It's just that folding them in half makes them a lot easier to turn over! I don't think you have to add oil either - I don't, but just see how it goes. And if you see smoke it's time to flip!I hope you'll give this a try for an easy fast dinner or weekend lunch! I'll be adding chicken to mine this week too, this recipe is so versatile which is what I love about Mexican food.
Have a good week, I hope it's a healthy one
Minnie
Xxx
