Extra Veg - my week of eating more fruit and veg

Inspired by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours, who has launched a challenge to encourage us to eat Extra Veg, I decided to spend a week making myself eat an extra portion of fruit and veg, on top of whatever I would normally have eaten. It made me realise that it's actually quite easy to eat more of your five a day, and with just a little more planning incorporate an extra piece of fruit or veg into your day. I even managed to eat some vegetables I don't like, by hiding them in my own food!

Monday
I took some homemade broccoli and stilton soup into work for my lunch; as I explained when I posted the recipe, I even managed to sneak in some courgette as an extra vegetable.



Tuesday

Today I made a delicious cake which I won't say too much about yet as it will be appearing on my blog shortly, other than to explain that the reason I've included it here is because it contains peaches.

Wednesday
I bought a recipe book on Amazon called the "Sneaky Chef" and it's full of really inventive ways to sneak vegetables into food. I decided to try a recipe for chicken fajitas with a cheese sauce; it appealed to me because the sauce called for stilton and I still had some left over from Christmas to use up. The hidden vegetables didn't sound like they would go with this at all but it worked surprisngly well and I couldn't even taste it.

Boil some cauliflower florets until tender. Peel and slice a quarter of a courgette so all the green is removed, and place the raw courgette with the cooked cauliflower in a food processor and blend until smooth.

You can freeze this if you like - maybe in an ice cube tray so you can add a couple of cubes to a meal.

While the recipe is a good way to hide veg, it isn't necessarily the healthiest. You mix a couple of spoonfuls of the vegetable puree with the same amount of mayonnaise and then crumble in some blue cheese.

Spread a little of the sauce over a flour tortilla

Then add some cooked chicken and any other fillings you want in your fajita

Roll up the tortilla and serve with rice or vegetables

Thursday
I made canneloni for dinner tonight; a meat version for my boyfriend and a vegetarian version for me. I don't like spinach (I have eaten it several times, as it was a favourite of the children for whom I was an au pair, so I know I can't stand it) - but I do like spinach and ricotta ravioli, as long as there isn't too much spinach. On that basis I decided to make my own spinach and cottage cheese cannelloni following a Slimming World recipe, which I will post here soon. In the meantime here's a photo. It was the first time I've cooked with spinach - other than when I was making dinner for my au pair family - and I was surprised at how much it reduced down, but any more in the cannelloni would have been in my opinion too much.

Friday
This morning I had fruit on my porridge. Tinned fruit as well as fresh counts as one of your five a day, though it's healthier to choose tinned fruit in its own juice rather than in syrup. This is a tasty addition to porridge and I now prefer it with fruit rather than without.

Saturday
 Today I largely failed but I was expecting that as I was out all day. I had a bowl of cereal as a hasty breakfast before going to Slimming World - I could have had fruit on my cereal but in my hurry completely forgot. Then I got the train straight after Slimming World to Bicester Village - if you haven't been before (and have some spare cash) then I highly recommend it. It's a designer outlet village north of London (not far from Oxford) with discounts of up to 75% - and in the January sale even bigger discounts. I got a Le Creuset casserole dish I've wanted for ages at half price, and I invested in a Mulberry Alexa! (Also half price). Lunch was a mini ham and cheese baguette at the train station as I got back late I'd already said to my boyfriend that we could have takeaway for dinner so overall it was a pretty unhealthy day. I did have pineapple on my pizza though, I wonder if that counts as an extra portion of fruit?!

Waiter... there's an unexpected topping on my pizza!

Sunday
I made provencale chicken from a Slimming World recipe and tried out my new heart-shaped Le Creuset casserole dish. The recipe called for courgettes, which as I've mentioned I don't like, so I threw some into a blender and stirred the puree into the sauce. Job done! 

I found it a lot easier than I was expecting to eat more fruit and vegetables, particularly as I found ways to hide veg I didn't like, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy fruit on porridge. It does involve a little extra time and effort or sometimes just remembering to do something different, but once it becomes habit I'm sure I will barely notice that it takes me a few minutes longer. I'm going to try and eat more fruit and veg as often as I can!

I'm sending this to Helen at Fuss Free Flavours for her Extra Veg challenge and am expecting my whole week's worth of recipes will earn me a pat on the back!

Broccoli, Courgette and Stilton Soup

I'm trying to eat more veg this month, and I also wanted to use up some cheese from Christmas, so I decided broccoli and stilton soup would be a great idea. I am a pretty fussy eater and don't like a lot of veg, so had an idea of sneaking some hidden veg... into my own food! My theory was that if I couldn't see it, and hopefully couldn't taste it, I wouldn't mind eating it. Courgette (zucchini) seemed a good option!

I can only give rough quantities for this recipe as it depends how thick you like your soup. To serve 3/4 you need:

1 head broccoli

about 100g stilton or 6 Laughing Cow Light blue cheese triangles

about 1 pint vegetable stock

half a courgette (zucchini)

salt, pepper

crispy bacon pieces to serve (optional)

Chop the broccoli into florets

And slice the courgette

You can either use leftover Stilton...

... or if you want to make this soup low fat and Slimming World friendly, use Laughing Cow Light Blue Cheese.

Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a pan and simmer the broccoli and courgette until tender. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

Blend to a smooth soup either using a hand blender in the saucepan or by transferring the soup to a standalone blender.

I had some leftover bits of crispy bacon I decided to serve on top of the soup, the different texture and taste complemented the flavour of the soup really well.

Most importantly, I couldn't taste the courgette - so I successfully squeezed an extra portion of veg into this meal. The soup lasted me three days and I took it into work for lunch so it was both healthy and thrifty, which is a great combination for January!

First I am sending this to Family Foodies, the blog challenge hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash and Louisa at Eat Your Veg, as the theme this month is hidden goodies (that is, hidden fruit and veg).

The theme for this month's No Croutons Required, hosted by Lisa's Kitchen and Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, is a vegetarian soup or salad. Obviously if you were making this for vegetarians, leave off the bacon! You should also check that the cheese is made with rennet that does not come from animals and is suitable for vegetarians.

Louisa at Eat Your Veg is also hosting the Four Seasons Food challenge along with Anneli at Delicieux, and they are looking for virtuous recipes this month, so I think my vegetable soup - with extra hidden veg - is a good example.

On a similar note, Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy are hosting a new challenge, Extra Veg. They want to encourage us to eat an extra portion of vegetables whenever we can - so while this broccoli soup alone would count, I've also added the extra portion of veg with the hidden courgette.

January's Feel Good Food challenge, hosted by A Kick at the Pantry Door, is tasty and inexpensive. You can use vegetables that are a little past their best in this soup, and it's a good way to use up leftover cheese (eg from Christmas) so this is a pretty frugal recipe.

I'm not done yet... January's Cheese Please challenge, hosted by Fromage Homage, is comfort food and winter warmers. Soup is a lovely winter warmer and since I've used stilton I am sending this over.

Simply Food is hosting the event Let's Cook with Green Vegetables, and since it has to be a vegetarian recipe, you'll need to leave out the bacon and check your cheese is vegetarian.

And finally I am sending this to Turquoise Lemons' No Waste Food Challenge as you can use leftover veg and the cheese was hanging around from Christmas.