Meatzza Recipe

On Saturday night I made my first meatzza, here's the list of ingredients.

1lb beef mince
1 duck egg (mixed with mince and used as base)
Half a red pepper (diced and fried)
1 chilli pepper
Pepperoni
As much cheddar as you can handle
1 small red onion (diced and fried)
1 400g can chopped tomatoes (blended with a bit of puree and boiled down)

Method

Mix together mince and the egg in a bowl. Once the mince is even coated with the egg, spread this into a baking dish, and put in the oven on a high heat (around 200c, or gas mark 6).

While waiting for this to brown, blend the chopped tomatoes with a little tomato puree (optional) and boil down in a saucepan until you get the thickness you want.

Chop the onion and red pepper, and fry in some lard.

Grate as much cheese as you desire, I went for lots!

Chop the chilli pepper into circles.

By the time your toppings are ready, your base should be brown. This means it's time for the fun part.

Spread your tomato sauce onto the base, and cover with a layer of grated cheese, don't use it all just yet.

Add the onion, pepper, chilli pepper and pepperoni, and then cover with some more cheese.

Pop the whole thing back in the oven and wait for your cheese to brown.

Mine came out looking like this:

It is a mess, there's no question about that. However, this is packed with all the right nutrients for me and tastes delicious. This will be a regular meal for me I feel, and will probably make this again on Friday to break my weekly 24hr fast.

The trick is in the ingredients

One thing I have found since cooking more regularly, is that if you use good ingredients you can't really go wrong.

If you are serious about diet, then the most important thing I would recommend is to look at where you are getting your food from.

Meat
For those of us chasing muscle gain, meat is really important. I've always loved meat, even before protein levels were of any concern to me.

It is tempting to buy supermarket meat. They have good deals, a large range and are a very convenient option. All this is well and good, but I would not recommend getting meat from the majority of supermarkets. Supermarket meat is watery, low quality and has additives to increase the shelf-life. This is not what you want.

One of the best decisions I made with regards to health and fitness was to visit my local butcher. The meat is higher quality, more pure with less water, and to top it off the service I get there never fails to put a smile on my face.

If you don't have access to a local butcher, or you just don't have the time, then the one supermarket I would recommend for meat would be Waitrose. This is the lesser of many evils, it's not quite as good as butcher's meat, but it's lightyears ahead of other well-known supermarkets. This brings me onto my next point, quite conveniently.

Other groceries
Another decision, made fairly recently in fact, was to start shopping at Waitrose. Shopping in Waitrose is a much better experience than other supermarkets I could mention, and the quality of the produce is way ahead.

The selection of veg is vast, and whenever I hear about the latest superfood you can almost guarantee that Waitrose will stock it. My first roast dinner I had with Waitrose ingredients completely sold me.

I should also take this time to dispell the ridiculous rumour that Waitrose is more expensive than other supermarkets. This is completely untrue!

I usually spend less than I did at the previous supermarket I frequented, and I'm getting a much higher quality of food for my money. If you visit Waitrose at the right time of day you will even find them reducing veg that will be good to use for up to a week after buying!

 I think that these simple life choices have proved extremely effective. I feel healthier, more alert, and I am getting leaner quicker. Remember, if you use good ingredients, you can hardly put a foot wrong.

Cheesy Sweet Potato Rosti!

Thursday nights I tend to cook something quick. This is because I want to finish eating as early as possible, so that I can break my fast as early as possible the next day!

Every week I fast from around 7.30/8pm on Thursday, to around the same time the next day. Most people who use intermittent fasting do a daily 16 hour fast with a 8 hour eating window, but I find that a weekly 24 hour fast suits my lifestyle a lot better.

Last night I got back from the gym at 7pm, giving me about 20 minutes to rustle something up. I had leftover roast chicken breast from Sunday's roast, so this helped me speed-wise.

This meal is very quick, very healthy, and really tasty. Here is the "recipe" - I put this in inverted commas because it's all kind of thrown together really.

Ingredients
Sweet potato
Cheddar cheese
Kerrygold Butter
Cabbage
Sprouts
Broccoli
Chicken breast (with skin on)

Explaining the food choices
Sweet potato is there for the carbs - I do need some when getting back from the gym

Cheese is there for fat, I'm about to embark on a fast (which at time of writing I am over halfway through) so will help me get through that. Plus it's yummy!

KerryGold Butter -  You may be forgiven for thinking they paid me to include their name, this is not true. Butter is the king of fats in my book, and as KerryGold butter is from grass-fed cows, it's a real superfood. I am a huge advocate for it.

Cabbage, sprouts, broccoli - Veg is a big part of my diet, it just makes me feel good as well as providing essential nutrients.

Chicken breast - Protein of course, for every fitness freak this is one of the most important macro-nutrients. It's recommended that you ingest 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, so for me that's around 180 grams of protein each day. This means I eat a lot of meat, eggs and supplement the rest with protein shakes.

Method
Put some water in a large saucepan and heat on the hob.
While this is heating up, prepare the green veg as you would like it.
Grate half a sweet potato, and pat down excess moisture with a kitchen towel
Grate some cheddar cheese. How much is up to you, it depends how cheesy you want your rosti!
Mix the cheddar in with your grated sweet potato.

By the time the above is done, your water should be boiling. Throw your green veg into a steamer, or cullinder if you don't have one, and pop the lid over the top.

Now for the fun bit - Add a knob of KerryGold Butter to a frying pan, once it melts and before it goes brown, add your grated potato and cheese mix.

Use a spatula to keep the potato moving, and press down on it so it gets all of the heat. You can flip this a few times to make sure it's evenly cooked and crispy on the outside.

You may want to leave it on the heat for a bit, so while this is cooking I grab my chicken breast out of the fridge and serve it on a plate. The skin is left on for flavour, and to add some fat to the meal.

Once your rosti is ready, your veg should be too - depending on how crunchy you like it.

Serve all on a plate and voila, here is the end result:

 

 

Tonight's post will be on breaking the fast! It's one of my favourite meals of the week because I plan it all day and it feels like I have earned it. Stay tuned.

Meatzza

A pizza night has been arranged between friends, and I have been dreading the thought of the carby, unhealthy dough that is a pizza base.

No one can doubt that the base is the essence of the pizza, and is irresistably tasty. However, after doing some reading on low carb options for pizza, I stumbled across my saviour!

I was browsing the MyProtein forum when I came across this thread - Meat feast pizza.

The fantastic thing about this is you can use whatever you like, and it's all based around minced meat - arguably my favourite protein source!

I'm going to use beef mince blended with 1 or maybe 2 eggs for the base. This mixture will then be spread into a baking dish and mashed down. I will then put this in the oven for 10-15 minutes until it starts to brown.

Meanwhile, I will fry off my toppings (yet to be decided) and simmer 1 can of chopped tomatoes.

When the base is ready I will spread some tomato puree onto it, followed by a large helping of cheese, my fried off topping, chopped tomatoes and then for good measure, some more cheese.

This will then go back in the oven for the cheese to melt and brown.

If I'm feeling fruity, I may even record a video to show the whole process! I can however guarantee there will be a few pictures to put up on here and on the MyProtein forum.

Thanks for reading!

Tom

Mini Chicken Roast

Tonight I made a mini roast using chicken thighs. I peeled potatoes and chopped them to sautée size and par boiled them ready to roast with the chicken. I let it roast until the potatoes became crispy, and steamed some vegetables.
I then made up some gravy in the tin I used to roast the chicken and potatoes, and served it up on a plate. Delicious.

Lasagne

Prepared last night, here is the finished article. I thought I would eat half of it so that you can see the layers, rather than just a topping of cheese.

Meals galore!

Tonight I made 3 meals at once. Penne bolognese, lasagne, and a griddled steak on a bed of stir fried cabbage and smoked bacon lard ons.

You can see the steps I made making the bolognese, and images of the finished lasagne (which I will bake off tomorrow night) and the steak which I made for my girlfriend.

Sautéed Potatoes with Leftover Roast Pork

This is something I knocked up quickly for lunch using Sunday's pork. I sautéed the potatoes by boiling them for 2 minutes and then frying them off in a pan with olive oil and pork crackling. I added some steamed vegetables to complete the dish.

Introduction

Hello!

This is my new blog, where I'll be sharing photos, videos, and recipes of the meals I make at home. Please feel free to comment on any posts if you have any questions, or whether you would do anything differently in your kitchen.