Things I've been Cooking

If you follow me on Instagram you'll probably know that I love to cook. I cook at least two or three times a week. Cooking relaxes me, and the result is food, so that can't be wrong.
I don't often create my own recipes though, and I'm usually a bit scared to think outside of the box, which is one of the reasons I don't really post my recipes- because they're not really mine. But I thought it would be nice to have a post every now and again on some of the things I've been cooking lately. Yeah? Yeah!

Key Lime Pie Bars

So on Thursday we had a bake sale at work and I wanted to go beyond my usual chocolate-chip-cookies-or-brownies and try something new. Now I really really love citrus flavours. I very rarely ordered dessert but if there is something with lemon or lime in, that's probably going to be what I'll choose. So when it came to baking, I came across Sally's Baking Addiction and must have read a dozen of her recipes in one sitting. One of them was for these Key Lime Pie Bars. Holy. Yum. So on Wednesday night, my Mum and I made them. Oh my god, they were incredible. So incredible in fact, that all 15 that I took to work disappeared, and even Dipika (head baker in the Axonn office) said they were "bloody lovely." I'm not much of a baker, but there was nothing to these bars and except for the chilling, they take about 45 minutes to throw together. Limey, sweet, creamy and delicious- I'll be making these again!

Spiralized courgette with prawns and feta

Spiralized courgettes appear at least once a week in my dinner rotation. This week, I added them to Jack Monroe's Prawns and Feta, which is from her book A Girl Called Jack. It's a basic recipe of onion, garlic, prawns and tomato sauce with feta on top, and it's ridiculously simple and delicious. This meal was huuuuuge but it was nearly all vegetables!

Grilled Salmon with Avocado Salsa

I have salmon for dinner pretty much every Tuesday so I'm always looking for new ways to eat it. Other favourites include salmon with feta and pesto, and super healthy salmon burgers.

Protein Balls

I make these on a Sunday for a snack to have at work. I customise them with various things- this week it was chocolate chips, almonds and craisins, but I always stick to honey, peanut butter, flax seed and protein powder. They're delicious and much healthier than a chocolate bar.

Inspiralized Teriyaki Noodles with a superhealthy salmon burger

This looks gross but I promise you it was delicious. I love the Inspiralized blog and this teriyaki recipe is usually on my menu once a fortnight at least, but for a change I swapped the prawns for a spicy salmon burger!

Copycat Pret Tuna Salad

If I need to go buy lunch, I pretty much almost end up with a tuna salad from Pret, so I decided to try making one myself! I use a whole tin of tuna, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onion, mixed leaves, a boiled egg and capers, and make a quick dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and dijon mustard. It's pretty close to the original!

Homemade Veggie Burgers

I've been meaning to try No Meat Athlete's veggie burger formula for months (I got his book for Christmas) but I'd never gotten around to it. I'm also a bit scared of anything that I need to food process and then fry- anything I try to fry always falls apart. Anyway, last Friday Phil was unexpectedly coming over so I needed to throw something together. Knowing I had some leftover veggies in the fridge I thought I'd give these a go. Using his formula I used black beans, mushrooms, sweet potatoes and sweet corn as my veggies, ketchup, soy sauce and liquid smoke as my liquid flavour, cumin, smoked paprika and I think onion powder for my seasoning, oats as my dry base, avocado and coriander as my texture ingredients, and cooked them in coconut oil. I don't want to boast but THEY WERE INCREDIBLE. They were a tiny bit mushy but they fried perfectly and tasted incredible. I ended up making 8 so my Mum and I had one each (Phil actually picked up meat burgers for him and my dad) and there are 6 left in the freezer for last-minute meals. YUM.

Baked Oatmeal

My colleague Natalie made this last week and sent me the recipe. I replaced the almond milk with skimmed milk and used frozen berries instead of fresh blueberries. I can't wait to take this to work and reheat it for a desk breakfast.

Fish Curry

Fish curry is kind of a Crowley-family staple. We don't have a recipe and tend to just throw things in. We always start with a base of onions, garlic and curry paste and a couple of tins of tomatoes. The rest is leftover veggies and whatever fish we have in the freezer. I served this with cauliflower rice, which I make with onions, garlic and sriracha.

African Sweet Potato Soup

I've eaten this for lunch three days in a row and I am still not sick of it. The Oh She Glows cookbook is probably my favourite cookbook and this recipe is one of my favourites. I top it with extra cashews and they go all soft and melty. Yum.

I suck at regular features, but I'll try to post some more recipes soon!

Charlotte x