Low Fat Eggplant Parmigiana

I was a bit nervous today, vegetarian food is not always welcome unless served with a big piece of steak. I regularly do a chicken and eggplant parmi at home but today I wanted to show my students how delicious eggplant can be, for me it is one of the 'meats' of the vegetable world, the other being mushrooms!

Firstly, the eggplant was crumbed and baked,
rather than fried, making it very low in fat

Secondly add the cheese

Anyway back to today, we cooked a basic tomato sauce comprised of onion, tin tomatoes and carrots (for sweetness without the addition of sugar) and garlic. Meanwhile we sliced the eggplant about 1cm thick, floured  it, egg wash and then crumbed it. We sprayed it with olive oil spray and popped the eggplant in the oven at 180C for about 30 minutes, turning them over 20 minutes in.

We layered the eggplant, mozarella cheese, tomato sauce, eggplant,cheese, tomato sauce then topped with some parmesan cheese and baked it in the oven for 20 minutes. It was served with pasta and salad.

Speaking of which, I shopped this morning for the class and felt like making a tasty salad, I think people forget to put effort in to a salad and as a result, don't enjoy them or eat them as often as they should. Ingredients of the salad included cos lettuce, spring onions, bean sprouts, basil and avocado, topped with toasted almonds and served with a lemon dressing.

The finished dish

Low fat Eggplant Parmigiana, served
with high fibre pasta and salad

Cumin Spiced Chicken skewers served with an Orange and Lentil Salad

The chicken has been cooked
simply under the grill

The Orange and Lentil Salad- I used the
Cara Cara Orange because it looks so pretty

The finished lunch, yumm...

Another yummy lunch today. This is a recipe I have made a couple of times before. What I like about it is that it is so ridiculously healthy you feel virtuous eating it!! Oh yeah....and it's tastes delicious to boot. You marinate some chicken breast pieces in olive oil, orange rind, cumin and garlic. The oranges are then used for the salad, along with some tin lentils, my home grown parsley and chives, cucumber and red onion. On the plate are perfect proportions of protein, vegetables and carbohydrates. I served it with a slice of Wholemeal Sourdough bread and topped the skewers with low fat yoghurt.
Leftovers: You could freeze the chopped, marinated chicken in to individual portions for later use. The salad could be eaten over a couple of days and would be a delicious addition to any barbequed meat or as a vegetarian wrap served with yoghurt or cheese.

Healthy Apple Crumble

Even too many apple peelings for me to eat

Delicious apple, cinnamon and nutty flavours and aromas

Today we joined others at the housing estate in a shared meal, I decided to do a healthy apple crumble, 48 peeled apples later I was ready to get stuck in to making the crumble. The recipe I used was from Taste and I added some ground ginger, why, because I love it! What is great about this recipe is that it uses macadamia nut oil rather than butter and the apples are baked without sugar. This gives the dish a lovely gooey tartness that contrasts with the sweet and crunchy topping. I served it with some cream.