Wednesday 10 May 2017

recipe of the week: ramen on the run.

I'm running a week behind (I wouldn't say I was the most consistent blogger!) but am trying to catch up. So many ideas, not enough time. I'm hoping to write more and share my life and thoughts with you more but I can't promise anything... and find it hard when I often feel like I'm talking to a blank wall.

Anyway, as requested, I'm going to try and share a recipe each week which I've made which is easy and will hopefully encourage you to eat just a little bit healthier.

This week, Ramen on the Run.


We don't watch much TV anymore, but Friday nights, when I'm home alone, I often do some craft and watch a show: my embarrassing favourites are either The Living Room or Better Homes and Gardens (cringe), and I flick to the footy because #melbourne. Anyway, on The Living Room the other week, Miguel shared this recipe for a healthy and delicious work lunch: Ramen on the Run. I prepared a few in advance and they were delicious and healthy!

We eat quite a bit of soup in autumn and winter but I don't often think of making Ramen, and it was great!

Get the recipe here.

I made a few changes to make it slightly healthier (see below), I couldn't be bothered doing any cooking so I didn't include the chicken or the egg (and they're not necessary as it's big and filling enough as is!), and I swapped around some of the veggies, but I used the recipe as a base and it's a winner!

Give it a go, let me know what you think!



To make it even better, I'd highly recommend these changes:

  1. swap the two-minute noodles for rice noodles (vermicelli). There's no need to pre-cook them, they're super cheap and healthy and they work well in this soup, 
  2. use organic (see point 3) gluten-free soy (or tamari) as they generally have less ingredients in them, and
  3. consider your choice of miso. Not all misos are created equal! I usually steer clear of soy products, as most are GMO, so look out for this, but miso is great for many reasons but mostly because it is fermented (post on me getting back into fermented food coming soon – and by soon I mean, hopefully soon, see top of post!) which means it has lots of prebiotics and probiotics and is easy to digest. However, a lot of miso is made shelf-stable by either heating it or by adding alcohol... both methods kill the beneficial bacteria hence losing all the goodness of the miso. I'd recommend splashing out and getting a better quality miso so you get the extra goodness! 
This is a great lunch or dinner. But I especially like it because all you have to do is add hot water so makes work lunches healthy, cheap and easy and can be prepared in advance. Always a winner for me!

recipe of the week: roast veggies

When I get on a roll, I get so much more done. It's so much easier to continue doing something than to start. So last week, after buying the fruit and veg, I chopped up and cooked up a whole bunch of veggies; every colour of the rainbow.

Skittles are right, we should eat the rainbow, but not the highly toxic, petroleum filled rainbow they try to get us to eat. We're naturally provided with all the colour and nutrients we need. So pretty!


Once you have them all cut and cooked there are so many things to do with them, you can eat them any day of the week.

You could eat them:
as a side to roast meat,
with some pasta,
in a salad,
in a fritatta,
in a casserole and make a pie,
with some water/stock and make some soup, or
as toppings on a pizza.

The possibilities are endless.

And I assure you that if you've done all the hard work of chopping in one go then you're more likely to eat more veg.

What did I do with them?

I've done all of the ideas suggested above, but I made two meals from our roast veg:
  1. We needed a super-quick dinner so I cooked some gluten-free pasta (made of just rice and corn) and stirred through the roast veg, some olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice, topped with nutritional yeast/feta/goats cheese (whichever is your thing).
  2. Later in the week, I made a roast veggie salad, based loosely off this recipe. Basically I lined a platter with leaves, reheated the roast veg and some leftover meat that was in the fridge and chucked them on top, piled on some herbs and drizzled over the garlic mustard dressing. Too easy and super tasty. Who says you can't make friends with salad?!