How To Cook Lean And Healthy Food Deliciously - Recipes

This year, for the first time, I decided to observe Great Lent. I really love to eat well and get an aesthetic pleasure from eating, so it was difficult for me to give up my usual dishes. The hardest thing is to exclude fish and seafood from the diet, but I can quite easily do without meat.

In my opinion, food should not only be healthy, but also varied, so I was always wary of fasting: it seemed to me that with such a list of prohibited foods it was simply impossible to cook something delicious.

But I decided, then I decided, and began to study the issue deeper! And what was my surprise that lean food can be delicious! This topic fascinated me so much that it is possible that I will soon come to vegetarianism. Perhaps I will even publish a book with my favorite recipes for healthy dishes, but for now I want to share five of the best of them:

Warm salad with quinoa, fried pumpkin and pomegranate

Ingredients for five servings:

• 400 grams of pumpkin pulp
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 red onion
• 1.5 cups quinoa
• 1 bunch of dill
• 1 bunch fresh mint
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 pomegranate
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Place the quinoa in a saucepan, cover with three glasses of water, add salt to taste, and heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for 15-20 minutes;
2. Cut the pumpkin pulp into small cubes and cut the red onion into wedges. Heat the oil in a deep skillet and sauté the pumpkin until soft and browned. Transfer the finished pumpkin to a plate and saute the onion in the same way. When the onion is done, add sugar to caramelize the onion;
3. Combine pumpkin with onions, quinoa, and finely chopped herbs;
4. Add salt and pepper. Garnish with pomegranate seeds before serving.

Lean bean cutlets

Ingredients for four servings:

• 250 grams of beans
• 2 potatoes
• 1 bow
• 1 teaspoon salt
• dill and parsley to taste
• breadcrumbs

Preparation:

1. Soak the beans overnight, change the water in the morning and cook until tender;
2. Boil potatoes;
3. Combine potatoes with beans and finely chopped onions, herbs and salt, and then spin the resulting mixture through a meat grinder (you can crush it by hand);
4. From the resulting "minced meat" make cutlets and roll in bread crumbs;
5. Fry the cutlets in olive oil or put them in an oven preheated to 170 degrees for 20 minutes;
6. You can experiment and add mushrooms or carrots to the cutlets, so they become more juicy and tasty.

Spring rolls with wild garlic and spring vegetables

Ingredients for four servings:

• 4 radishes
• 4 sheets of rice paper
• 40 grams of parsley
• half a bunch of green salad
• 50 grams of green onions
• 50 grams of fresh wild garlic
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 40 milliliters of olive oil
• 1 pinch ground coriander
• juice of half a lemon

Preparation:

1. Cut the onion stalks into 2-3 parts, thinly cut the radishes, pour boiling water over the wild garlic, dry and let it cool;
2. Spread rice paper on a board and sprinkle with cold water with a brush, wrap in a wet towel and leave to soak for 10 minutes;
3. Prepare the sauce: finely chop two onion stalks, peel the garlic and chop. Whisk olive oil with garlic, green onions, coriander, parsley and lemon juice in a blender, season with salt;
4. Put a wet sheet of rice paper on a roll mat, spread the slices of radish, lettuce, 2-3 onion feathers, parsley and wild garlic on it, 3-4 centimeters before the edges of the sheet, pour the sauce.
5. Roll the sheet into a tight roll and let sit for a couple of minutes so that the edges of the rice paper stick together better. Repeat with the remaining sheets of paper and filling. Cut each spring roll in half and serve with the remaining sauce.

Lean Buckwheat Oat Waffles

Ingredients for two servings:

• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 tablespoons agave syrup
• a pinch of salt

Preparation:

1. Mix all ingredients;
2. Heat the waffle iron, brush with butter and start baking;
3. Serve the waffles with your favorite syrup or runny honey and berries.

Green avocado sorbet with basil

Ingredients:

• 1 avocado
• juice of one lime
• 10 sprigs of fresh basil
• 2 bananas
• 6 sprigs of peppermint
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup

Preparation:

1. Peel the banana and cut into several pieces;
2. Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, remove the peel. Cut the flesh into pieces and drizzle with lime juice;
3. Tear off the leaves from the sprigs of mint and basil;
4. Combine banana, avocado, mint, basil, agave syrup, and lime juice in a blender. Whisk for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and fluffy;
5. Transfer the green sorbet to a container or bowl and place in the freezer for 1 hour. When the mixture freezes slightly, stir it with a fork or whisk to break up any lumps of ice, and place it back in the freezer. After another hour, repeat the operation and leave the sorbet in the freezer for another hour;
6. Refrigerate the dessert before serving to make it more plastic.