David and I always eat healthy dinners but breakfast and lunch are a very different story.
For dinner we often have fajitas. I love fajitas and would eat them every day if I could. As it is we usually eat them twice a week! I know that they are terribly fattening but they are such a great way of eating protein and getting your five a day.
The Famous Fajitas
Once a week I make them with diced chicken breast, large white mushrooms, Portobello mushrooms, a red onion, two peppers (usually red and yellow!), mixed chillies and spinach. The second serving of fajitas I make with lean steak mince, mixed mushrooms, a tin of chopped tomatoes, red onion, peppers and chillies. The chicken fajitas we have with a cheese and chive dip, the beef I serve with Guacamole and grated cheese.
When not eating fajitas for dinner we tend to eat whole wheat spaghetti with bacon or prawns and similar vegetables to those I use in fajitas. Perhaps with the addition of fresh tomatoes, spring onions and sugar snap peas. I often use Philadelphia to make a quick and easy pasta sauce.
We sometimes have smoked gammon with stir fried vegetables or fish cakes with the same.
David’s dinner speciality is Egg Fry which came about when we tried unsuccessfully to make omelettes! Egg Fry is bacon, mushrooms, chillies, peppers, tomatoes and onion mixed up with egg and cheese so it is like a broken omelette or very posh scrambled egg?!?
Since being pregnant I tend to get cravings for things with Super Noodles, the latest being chicken Kiev or fish fingers, always served with corn.
So I think that are dinners are healthy enough though as winter approaches I would love to be able to make a lasagne or shepherd’s pie, or even a roast dinner. But I can’t, or at least I never have.
With my cooking aspirations aside though, for dinner we do okay. It is lunch and breakfast where we fall down and I would love to hear people’s healthy eating ideas.
Now the days are growing colder soup and sandwiches make a quick and easy lunch. Or soup and bread at least. David makes a mean cheese on toast. But I am lost for inspiration beyond these very basic ideas.
For breakfast I tend to have Nutella on toast, Golden Syrup flavoured porridge or Coco Pops! Not very healthy, I know, and not a good example to set Esther and William as they grow.
I am very aware that I need to set my children a good eating example and I also know that now I am pregnant I need to be eating a healthy and varied diet to give my little bump the best possible start in life. And as Esther and William were born at just 27 weeks I don’t have a moment to lose. You never know when this little bump may decide to arrive!
The problem is that it is not just inspiration that I lack, and time, I also have no culinary skills. I am not a good cook at all. I already mentioned that I have never made a roast dinner, nor have I ever made any kind of casserole or pie. These are things I think that I might like to try but I wouldn’t know where to begin. But I do want to, I do.
Especially as the children get older, I don’t want them to have a Mummy who is a rubbish cook.
Over the coming weeks and months I am going to try and improve my diet. I am going to keep a diary of my successes and failures here on the blog. Any ideas from anyone would be very gratefully received.
What simple, healthy meal ideas can you offer a struggling Mum to be?
Thank you x
Jennie I would get yourself a copy of Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook – it has loads of easy recipes and lots of clear explanations for a million different dishes. For breakfast why not try a fruit smootie followed by musli/weetabix or just plain porridge. Beans/tomatoes/mushrooms etc on toast is good as is scrambled eggs. Hope that helps x
If you can peel a potatoe and put a chicken in the oven, then you can make a roast dinner. Honestly, it’s not hard (take it from a self-confessed lazy cook). Plus you can just chuck the left-overs in a big pan, with some veg and herbs and water and make a chicken stock out of it. Add some of the left-over chicken and some onions and you have a lovely chicken soup – perfect lunch material. We add pasta to ours for a more hearty meal. Yum.
I’ve taken to having those new warburton squares in the panini maker with cheese, ham, tomatoe and basil… yummy!
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You and your fajitas! Mind you, they are an easy way of eating vegetables, and oh so yummy.
Thanks for linking up to ShowOff ShowCase
Hi, most of your favourite recipes can be adapted to be healthy.
Breakfasts – what about a grilled breakfast occasionally, or a poached egg? Porridge is a good breakfast so maybe, if you feel it’s not good for you, it’s more a case of trying a different (less chocolatey) cereal.
Lunch – I always think eggs make for a great, nutritious, fast lunch in a whole host of styles – I enjoy them boiled, then into a cup with some light butter and/or light mayo and then chopped up, served with toast.
For dinners, the only reason fajitas would be “bad” is if you’re drowning them in oil and full fat sour cream. You can get round this by using an oil sprayer – I don’t mean fry light (which smells funny) but go somewhere like Lakeland and get one that you put your own oil into. You can make a tsp stretch so much further so you use less. You can get away with zero oil if you invest in a decent set of pan liners, too.
Tbh, it sounds like you’re doing really well. I hope you’ve managed to stick to a healthy eating regime. I’m now off to see if you’re still pregnant, and if not – whether you had a boy or a girl!
Still pregnant! 27+1 today. Love all your ideas. Thank you for such a lovely, detailed comment. Going to make whole family lovely eggs and toast for lunch x x x
Im afriad I’m abit of a basic cook, roast dinners (as mentioned by molly) are a fave of mine simple… chicken in the oven, peel potaoes in a pan, carrots and sweetcorn are my childrens fave veg to go with it, yorky puds are a nice easy extra too with any roast not just beef – other than that i like spag bol, mince pie with sliced potatoes on top with a layer of cheese then more potatoe, or chicken in white sauce with rice is nice and simple too anything simple does me 🙂
See to me that all sounds lovely but I would not know where to start. Think I might go on a cooking course!
i swear by my slow cooker – you can cook so many meals in it for hardly any effort from roasts to stews to soups to curries, chilli con carne etc… @the_moiderer has a linky on her blog with lots of slow cooker recipes.
What is a slow cooker?