CLEAN EATS: The Easiest, Healthiest Weekday Dinner
It’s been a while since I last posted about my I Quit Sugar journey. In summary, the update is that I have kicked my mid-afternoon Caramello cravings and developed an addiction to Pukka tea, and whilst I am not as super sugar vigilant as I was initially (I eat fruit a few times a week, and when I eat out I usually have dessert), sugar is no longer an accepted part of my diet but rather what it should always have been - a treat, to be enjoyed consciously and very occasionally. I’m much more aware of hidden sugar that creeps into sauces and low-fat ‘health food’ products, and it’s prompted me to generally eat 'cleaner’ with a diet based on unrefined whole foods.
Apart from being healthier, I have found that I taste food more - my taste buds are sharper and sweeter than they were previously. Sauces that I once thought of as 'savoury’ now taste like liquid sugar. Which they are. My skin has cleared up enormously and I did lose some weight (about 2 kilos), mainly around the belly (hurrah!).
All this is really just to introduce one of my go-to weekday evening meals that can be thrown together and is guaranteed to taste phenomenal. This isn’t so much a recipe as 'things to throw together that taste really good’. It’s like a giant, delicious multivitamin.
The ingredients & quantities I’ve posted below are by no means prescriptive, just what I like and which fills me & my partner up. The beauty of this 'recipe’ is that it can be easily mixed up to suit your taste - for example, I’ve used infused olive oils (lemon, garlic), thrown in whole cloves of garlic & some rosemary for a more 'classic’ roast, thrown in some felafel balls or chickpeas for some added protein, and swapped ricotta for haloumi and added baby spinach & cous cous (this makes an excellent lunch to take to work the next day).
If you have any healthy go-to weekday meals, please post them in the comments section below!
Ingredients
- 1 x sweet potato
- 1 x brocolli
- 2 x carrot
- 2 x zucchini
- 1 x spanish onion
- 180 grams x full fat ricotta
- Olive oil
- Spices to taste - I love a sprinkle of cumin, turmeric, salt, pepper & a little chilli
'Method’
- Chop up vegetables into rough chunks and spread over a baking tray lined with baking paper.
- Slosh a good glug of olive oil over the vegies (be generous!), then sprinkle over herbs & spices.
- Pop into the oven (I heat mine to about 190 degrees celsius) and cook to taste - I usually cook mine for about 20 minutes so that they become soft & golden but still retain their shape.
- Pull the tray out of the oven, sprinkle ricotta over the top and pop back into the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
