It’s time to get healthy! Well, for me, it’s always time to get healthy. Health is the thing that keeps us going; keeps us happy, productive and firing on all cylinders to a ripe, flexible and smiley old age. I speak a lot about this in my ‘About Me‘ profile and in some of my posts, however, you may have noticed that most of my posts are not quite consistent with this theme. In fact, most of the dishes here are rich, sweet and decadent ensembles sent straight from heaven to keep you plump and happy as a Botticelli model. They are the sort of dishes that you would treat yourself to on a special occasion or that you would share with friends over a sumptuous dinner. I enjoy sharing those food-events and telling a story about a romantic or social occasion. But they are not the norm. And thank goodness for that! Because if I was eating tiramisu and marscapone tarts everyday then I wouldn’t be fitting into those ‘resort bikinis’ that I pack on my holidays!
I’ve recently revamped my exercise regime. I’ve switched from personal training and gym group fitness classes to CrossFit and I’ve added in PowerYoga and, well, hey, while I was at it I threw in Dry July too! I am 13 days into an up-tempo, fantastic fitness regime that mixes a little bit of the above and hopefully will lead to that smiley, flexible old person I referred to earlier.
So, in the spirit of Healthy July, I’m going to post a few of my “normal” recipes that represent my everyday eating. These meals are equally delicious, a lot faster to prepare and certainly a lot better on your digestive system (and kinder to your skinny jeans) than my more decadent, previous posts. I hope that you enjoy these meals equally as much as those big, sugary tarts in the ‘cake’ tag, and that these meals bring joy and good health to your dining room table every single day.
Chilli Beef Salad
Ingredients
1 cup baby spinach leaves
1 cup coriander
1 cup flat leaf parsley
1/2 small red onion sliced
1 cup cherry tomatoes halved
1 large red chilli chopped (keep the seeds)
1 carrot finely sliced
400 g good quality beef rump
1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp oyster sauce
Method
Mix sweet chilli sauce, sesame oil and oyster sauce together in a bowl.
Finely slice the beef into thin strips (about 2-3 cm wide and a few mm thick) and add to the bowl with sauces. Mix and allow to marinate for 30 minutes.
Rinse the salad ingredients. Very coarsely break up the coriander and parsley with your hands (just break it up a bit, don’t tear it to pieces). Mix the spinach leaves, coriander and parsley and add to two bowls. To each bowl add red onion, carrot and tomatoes.
Heat a fry pan or wok on high heat. Add a drizzle of light oil (I used macadamia oil. Delicious). Add the beef (I did not add the extra marinade sauce. The idea is to go lighty with the sauces) and stirfry quickly to rare or medium rare. Add the chopped chilli and chilli seeds (if you like a bit of ka-pow!) just before the beef is finished.
Remove beef from pan and pile it onto the salads. Serve immediately.
Serves 2
la petite cuisine 