Healthy AND delicious homemade ketchup recipe
Healthy Ketchup Recipe:
Ingredients:
3 fresh (ripe) toms, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 stick celery, 1/4 red onion, glugs of apple cidre vinegar, 6 sun dried tomatoes (soaked), 3 dates, salt, pepper, 1/4 slice red jalapino.
Blend till smooth.
Taste……hmmmmmm, almost, not quite
…added sprinkle chipotle pepper (kinda smoky), the other half of celery, 1 tsp agave, yet another half stick of celery, some sun dried tomatoe soak water, a glug balsamic a tsp lecithin (optional, good fat emulsifier with benefits).
OK, we are there, I think – not where we set out to be, its not bright red, its orange. Its not as tomatoey as it was at one point, and its creamier (due to the cashews) than ketchup, but……………..mmmmmmmmmmmm it is SO good!!!
Creamy, sharp, sweet, salty, delicious with the olive and veggie bites I dehydrated yesterday – a side order I made by adjusting the burger recipe. And every mouthfuls a good’un!
A k‘chup worth making I’d say, it will save many a craving obsessed day.
Learn MoreThe mission – energy, sleep, weight adjustment, happiness – yey!
Another week begins. Let’s renew our goals, write them down. Think about them, make them realistic and make them count – don’t have too many!
We are still on the same mission, losing some weight, gaining a lot of energy, clarity, sleep, motivation.
As we lose the ‘baddies’ (see earlier post) we will gain on all those levels and also enjoy mood change – apart from the obvious “grrrrr, I just want a drink/burger/cream tea/packet of salt n vinegar”, our mood will generally be elevated – food, especially sugar and added chemicals, really has a massive effect on our mood; here’s an experiment for you, feed a toddler a real food diet of fruit veggies, nuts, seeds, maybe some organic fish and chicken for a month (actually a week would probably work) then give it a thick milkshake from the place with a capital M and stand back, a long way – a better idea, don’t, just do the first part, for life!
I have a new all singing, all dancing (OK, just all juicing) juicer and it makes LOADS of juice and hardly any pulp, what there is is powder dry and the juice is delicious!!! I haven’t even been adding an apple. Here’s a photo of today’s juice, it’s a green juice but looks multicoloured (is that an oxymoron?) – kale, celery, cuc, carrots, beetroot and their leaves, ginger. Look…
And I have a big glass bottle full in the fridge ready for tomorrow morning!
So this week one of the meals we will be having, and I will be giving recipes for, is burgers – they are dehydrating now, don’t worry they can be made in a conventional oven and I’ll give alternatives – with homemade ketchup and creamy coleslaw. I’ll include optional chips.
The burgers will be topped with “ah hem”…’smoky bakern’ and pineapple (real) and drizzled with 1000 islands dressing, all for my old mate Diane. We used to serve them up and, usually, eat them. Hawian burgers, delicious and now we can have them again – not as we knew them but they’ll be good all the same 🙂
Oh and my goals are – lose the other 3kg, juice every day, no wine mid week, meditate each day, sleeeeeep, post every other day.
Yours?
You want a burger? I give you a burger Diane!
Recipe for a healthy burger:
- Take one or two big portabella or field mushrooms per person and put in a shallow bowl or on a baking sheet.
- Top them with lots of sliced onions.
- Mix some olive oil (about 2 tblsp) and a clove of garlic for each 4 mushrooms, add pepper, some chilli if you like it and splatter it over the mushrooms and onions.
- Put in the oven at about 180 for about ( specifics huh?) 15 mins.
- Take out and top with some parsley ( optional) and some strong cheese grated or sliced THINLY.
- Pop back into the oven for a further 10 mins until all juicy and melty.
- Serve with coleslaw (cut the mayo with half live yogurt – make your own mayo if possible) and home made oven chips and ketchup – recipes tomorrow for those!
Up to you how you serve them, I like them alone ( as we had them last night) but you could use wholemeal wraps, leaves, or some really good whole grain bread spread with mustard and ketchup (not ‘that’ kind, use my recipe, coming tomorrow) to put them in. Whatever, its a tastily juicy, meaty and delicious burger! Totally cuts that carnivorous craving.
Sorry no photo, we eat them before we had time to take it, yum-a-loo!
Oh oh, what’s that smell…….. Whoops, whilst I’ve been so engrossed in meaty mushrooms the quinoa has boiled dry (tonight it’s squash n coconut curry and was with quinoa ), I’ll let you know what smoked quinoa tastes like tomorrow.
Learn MoreFirst in the battle against the baddies is to gather the goodies
The war against the baddies begins by having the goodies abundantly available so I’ve compiled a shopping list. You will probably have some of it already.
Shopping with a halo 🙂
You can swap things out (not like crisps in place of apples or wine in place of water though), you can religiously follow or just use what I write and eat as a guide. Up to you.
The main thing to remember is if you want to lose weight you need to change something.
If you move more (a lot more) and eat less AND/OR differently consistently you will lose weight, look better, feel better and depending how far you choose to go really make some massive changes to your health.
So here is a useful shopping list. A list of things that you can use for an instant snack, to throw together something quickly to eat, or to take your time to make a meal.
We need to have something easy and fast when we are hungry before we are tempted by fat, salt and sugar laden snacks and quick bites – stodge by any other name!
Packet of sea weed – Nori sheets work best.
The main meal recipes I suggest for the next few days are;
Im loving the Nike Training app (OK loving it is reaching – I love it AFTER I have done it!!) also the ‘7 min WC’ app – I can never find an excuse not to find 7 minutes for that one 🙂
Our Recombobulation regime, join us if you wish!
For a few weeks I am going to be posting every few days to say what we have, and are, going to eat with tips and life style adjustments plus recipes.
The reason, we need it and I have so many people who ask me for help, tips and have the same problems and needs we do. You are welcome to take part. Let me know how it goes, what you need and any comments (please be nice?).
“Hmmmm, this needs some work!”
Our Objectives:
To lose about 4 KG each, gain energy, sleep more deeply, increase immune system, reduce inflammation (aches, pains and stiffness), increase mental clarity and reduce stress.
Most recipes will be using very precise measures such as ‘some’, ‘lots’, ‘a handful’, ‘glug’ – if its crucial I’ll say but this way of eating really does mean you aren’t restricted, also as we have cut out wine, stodge and sugars for a lot of the week (what, didn’t I say?…), and everything we are eating is actually GOOD for us, we can be so much more generous with ourselves.
Day 1
FIRST things first!
Drag yourself out of bed and stretch, really, really stretch, it should feel good. If you shower or bathe in the morning, its a great start to finish with a cold blast of water, you can scream, thats OK! You will feel great afterwards (really!!).
Massage your head and face as you wash, really roll those knuckles into your cheeks and knead your scalp and neck with finger tips. As you dry rub vigorously ( you are helping break down toxins AND toning your arms ;-), massage your preferred oil or body cream in (more toxin breakdown, firming and toning going on), clean your teeth plie-ing as you do (men too, we all need a nice firm bum!) So all that should have taken maximum of 15 minutes…
I pint warm water with (if you have it – if you don’t get some for tomorrow!) a whole lemon squeezed into it. Optional optimisation: add a tablespoon or two of Aloe (build up to it a teaspoonful a day!). We will have this every day so be prepared. Make it before shower or whilst bath is running so its really absorbing and out of your tum before you have breakfast.
Whilst waiting for the kettle to heat do some body rolls, they will stretch and reposition your back, tighten tum, bum and legs and simply feel good. – Stand upright, stack your spine so its comfortably straight. Lift chin, stick bum out, hands on thighs, push bum back lowering chest towards knees, keep chin right up, slide hands down thighs. When arms are bent pull in tummy, tuck bum under, hunch your back so that it curves the other way (like a cat), shoulders rounded, chin on chest and roll up slowly stacking the spine vertebra on top of vertebra. At the top do it again. If that doesn’t work tell me, Ill get one of the kids to do a little video and post it!
Breakfast – Me: Live yogurt, honey (Im using raw) 1tbsp ground flax, 1tbsp chia seeds, heaped tsp pollen, fruit – Im using banana and some mixed red fruit I’m defrosting over night. Rooibos tea (no milk or sugar it doesn’t need it).
Robin: Meusli (no added sugar), chia and flax, fruit as above with fresh squeezed orange juice on it.
Options – add or replace seeds with oats or meusli (without added sugar). Try to have the flax and/or chia its amazingly good for you for digestion and highly nutritionally beneficial but flax MUST be ground!!
If you don’t want dairy have the seeds, fruit, oats with coconut water/orange squeezed over/nut, rice or oat milk.
Snack if needed; small handful of raw almonds OR piece of fruit OR miso with sea weed in OR 2-3 of dates, prune or dried apricots
Lunch Green smoothy. For these I use a Vitamix which is a really strong blender – if you don’t have a strong blender I suggest blending all the soft things and eating the apple, cellery and even the greens but CHEW then well, you need to grind those leaves to get all the nutrients out of them! : Bananas, apple, celery ( 2-3 sticks), handful (FULL) green leaves and half an avocado OR a spoonful of coconut oil OR flax oil – for at work I like the mixed bag of watercress, rocket and spinach, ready washed). Drink as much as you want, put some in a glass bottle or flask for later if you can’t drink all at once – if you find you are hungry mid afternoon add another banana or two tomorrow (yep, green smoothies rock every day!
Snack as above
Dinner (Its day one so we are all motivated and being really, really good) – Spicy cabbage and cashews:
(just before we start I have to say this is when we always want a glass of wine for all those important reasons such as its been a stressful day, its been a good day, something really bad happened, something really good happened, its erm… Monday (fill in as appropriate) basically habit, boredom or the feeling that if we can’t we are deprived – I happen to be a miss-matcher, which results in, if I can’t have something I want it even more, so we have found a big glass of ice cold water, sparkly is best, mixed with some ginger juice and agave or, for ease and deliciousness, Bottle Green Ginger and Lemon grass cordial cuts through that moment perfectly 🙂
So….
Spicy cabbage and cashews
Chop finely half a red cabbage and half a white cabbage ( obviously this depends on the size, mine are organic and fairly small), put in a bowl.
Grate a carrot or two over the top.
Add 1/4 finely sliced red onion (or any, spring onions are good).
Grate or cube an apple, throw it in.
Chop or slice a red pepper and add.
Throw in a handful of raw (or at least natural) cashews.
Mix up in a cup some nut butter (I like using cashew for this) with some chopped chilli (or powdered, or chilli oil, use what you have and adapt to your taste), some flax and/or olive or sesame oil (not toasted), a squeezed orange and a crushed clove are garlic (optional) add some sea salt ( pink Himalayan or Celtic sea salt) and pepper. Pour over the top and mix madly.
Chop up half a bunch of fresh coriander ( again depends on size of bunch and how much you like it!) and sprinkle liberally on top, mix again et voilà! Its cold but even on a cold night the chilli warms it and you up.
Recipe inspired by Markus Rothkranz.
Eat to your hearts desire, chew well, there will probably be some for lunch tomorrow (or dinner tomorrow night if its easier, this is all meant to be easy and made to fit your life style).
Need something sweet? Blend a banana, pinch of vanilla, some live yogurt (cows, goats, raw coconut, whatever), 1/8-1/4 tsp stevia or some honey – its like banana and custard. OR a couple of cubes of dark chocolate. I’ll do some really good raw puddings another time and post them with a link.
Just before bed a cup of warm water with a couple of TBSP Apple cidre vinegar in warm water and (if you want/have/can) a tsp passion flower powder mixed in.
Recipes coming soon!
TIPS FOR LIFE
Ill add to these as we go. I don’t want to over whelm us!
1) Drink green or herbal tea in place of numerous cups of black tea and coffee – if you can’t do without black tea and coffee try to avoid sugar and limit milk and have only in the mornings. Good substitutes are Red bush ( Roibosh/Rooibos), green, herb, hot or cold water with mint/lemon/ginger, dandelion coffee.
Dieting? Not me!
After my obsession post I had various views from people who were involved in potentially extreme things… religion, diet, anorexia.
Maybe we shouldn’t bandy words about without meaning them. I am passionate rather than obsessed, though having said that I have been obsessed and I have used food as a way to give myself control and also to give myself something to focus on when going through more difficult times.
Sometimes we do feel out of control because of situations we find ourselves in, maybe through relationships, work, home, finances, illness.
Something to focus on can be a good thing.
I used to say to my kids, if they woke with a bad dream or had a bad day and were trying to go off to sleep, ” think about something happy, its your birthday in a few days/weeks/months, what would be the best birthday cake in the whole world, think about how it will look and tell me on the morning” or Xmas cake maybe….. you get the idea. It took their mind off the problem they could not do anything about right then.
So, could that have potentially started a comfort eating problem? Maybe. Could it have contributed to minds that won’t be quiet when we want them to? Maybe. Could I now add it to the list of things I did “wrong”? Maybe.
To me, at the time, it was the right thing to do. So to me now, I did my best, with what I had at the time so I am OK with that.
I am sitting here at 3.25am. I couldn’t sleep, again. Too many thoughts, too many ideas. I’m not awake because I am worried but because I am excited. I don’t need to think about what my next birthday cake will look like ( probably a raw chocolate one with fresh fruit on top:) but I can’t help but think about new ideas for food, new ways to make raw work on a day to day basis sidestepping cravings and habits of a life time. Where to have our UK retreat, whats next to do for the french one. Its fun, its exciting, its creative.
Its a long way from obsessed.
So, confessional; when I was about 19 I was at art college. I would get up in the morning and have a slice of toast with a diet spread and jam. I would cut it into several pieces and slowly eat it whilst getting ready. I would drink OXO cubes in hot water through the day (maybe one or two, sometimes only half at a time) and then I would have part of a crunchie bar as a reward for being good. Half I think.
In the evening I would cook something like lambs liver with onions and green beans and carrots – in some water, no fat. I was proud of how healthy and nutricious it was, simple, cheap and tasty.
Hmmmmm.
Maybe a year or two after that I read about some super diet involving seeds and yogurt. I remember struggling through live yogurt mixed with sesame and sunflower seeds. Now I know there are great benefits there but that was all I ate. It didn’t last long. Luckily.
The other day I was in a health food shop and there was a young lady asking about diet products. The lady working there was very careful what she said, they were a similar age and the shop assistant was distinctly uncomfortable because the customer was not over weight by any means. I thought ” what on earth is she worrying about, she doesn’t need to diet” then quickly realised I had been just like that! Who knows what the diet was replacing, feeding, nourishing – not her body but her mind in some way.
I was very slim, a dancer, gym bunny, health fanatic, constantly on the move – I recently went back to Harrogate for the first time for years. Someone said to me ( in a very loving, happy to see me way) you used to be such a slip of a thing…. I did have a momentary panic, I had put on weight and was more than I “should” have been and way more than I had been, but I have been learning to accept myself as I am and the work I have done on that over the years stood me in good stead BUT there was a time when that would have meant water only for days on end. They didn’t mean I am now fat, more likely if they had any intention other than “oh, I remember you well”, it would have been that I had been too slim! But what someone says and what we hear can be very different.
We need to learn to hear what someone says – and yes, somethimes people can be plain mean in which case we need to hear that they are being mean and not us being whatever they said – and not turn it into a stick with which to beat ourselves.
So now (and for many years) I believe in being a healthy weight, I believe in exercise to keep us strong, flexible, move our lymph, sweat out the toxins and to keep us mobile. I believe that the majority of what we eat should be feeding us, not just filling us. Nutrients in every mouthful. I believe in moderation and enjoyment and peace of mind and I believe I need to go back to bed and sleep!
Learn MoreA little bit obsessed!
As long as I can remember I have been at least a little obsessed with food!
I do remember being hungry as a child and I was not deprived, just burning it off fast and hungry before each meal – how often are we really hungry before we eat? Not often, try it and see.
I had to go straight to dancing school after school. When I was younger I was delivered and I remember being given Rivetas that my mother was piling cream cheese and pineapple on, I think there could have been butter too – Riveta wasn’t really advertised as it is now as a be all to all people base for fine concoctions, way back then it was just about diets.
The topping sends a mixed message – but as the skinniest kid in class thank goodness for a Mother who was ‘on a diet but just couldn’t resist’. I still love the sucre/sale flavours!
As I grew older I had to get to dancing myself so the minute the bell rang I ran as fast as I could – a few miles across flat planes, across town, up hills, to get there in 15 minutes, about 3 or 4 miles I’d guess.
Usually I had taken nothing to eat. A couple of hours of dancing at least, then a trek back to town and the bus home, just waiting for fooooood!
Home was a funny place, not always happy, a lot of tension and conflict going on. I often spent sleepless nights working out how I could support my siblings and myself on the pocket money I saved every week (religiously I squirreled it away, just in case).
I always started with a base of a massive white sliced loaf because it was cheap and would fill our tummies; there were bags of apples and bananas too. ….
I still wake in the night and work out food for the next day, make up recipes, analyse the day before, NO sliced white loaf now but the bananas and apples figure, somewhere behind the green leaves and celery.
The other day Robin was watching me and asked what I was doing – “counting my portions” (I was counting on my fingers) I do it every day, smug when I hit ten or over, less so when 7-10 and fed up with myself (I’m working on that flagellation thing) if I don’t make 5.
That is a rare occasion these days but when staying away or travelling it can be REALLY hard to get those portions in! In the UK it is not so bad with the brilliant motorway service stations where they have M&S and Waitrose salads, washed fruits and peeled, chopped fruits but when we are going through France it is really tough.
You have to go off road and find a market or super market then find somewhere to wash the stuff – or eat bananas which is fine for the first one or two.
OR be organised and take stuff with you – even after all these years and hardly ever managing to sort myself out to take something for between school and dancing I still rarely get it together.
So that is something I will be working on “being prepared” and delicious recipes to travel with – that means they last in a very warm car or on a very cold ferry, are delicious, nutritious and easy to eat without setting up a picnic table/ getting it all over you, and without having a bag of slimy washing up to do in a hotel room – or worse, forgotten about and to be discovered weeks later, under the seat, when trying to find out “what that smell is”!
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