Surviving Healthiness - Recipes

I've very recently (like 3 days ago) decided to start trying to eat more healthier things, cutting some carbs down and all that rot, so I could doubly enjoy the days where I cook delicious meals and treats. So I'm no longer buying snacks or crisps/chips and trying to eat less carbs and more fruit and veg basically. It's going fine so far, I still enjoy eating, thank goodness!
I also started going for a run (if you can call it that :p) in the morning, I'm hoping I'll keep it up once classes start up again, but not sure, I definitely can't say I'm enjoying it just yet...
Last thing I'm doing is keeping track of how much water I drink and make sure it's enough. For that I use this 0.5 l (2 cups) bottle that filters the water while I drink, and make sure I drink at least 3 of those during the day. I'm peeing a lot more I've found, but I'm hoping that evens out soon, or all the doctors are wrong and we're not supposed to drink this much water. :p
Right now I'm drinking a glass of skim milk, and surprisingly enjoying it very much! Unfortunately it's also 60cal or something, why?! But at least it's healthy calories, unlike the 3 oreos (160cal) I had earlier... ^^

Anyway I thought I'd share some healthy really basic recipes I'm using doing this. Sorry for the not so pretty pictures, since the recipes are so simple and meant just for yourself and not at all to impress anyone else, I'm not really bothering with plating them nice or watching the light... I'm really just snapping a picture at my desk before I dig in. If you really would like prettier pictures, comment below, and I might take the time next time. ;) Also, do you like recipes clumped together like this or would you rather I make separate posts for them?

Chicken drumsticks with butternut squash, carrots, onion and garlic (and pecans/walnuts)

I know, I know to be truly healthy you should eat chicken breast, not the drumsticks, but they were in promotion you guys! Me being the poor poor student you see before you must make do with what the store offers. Also, I'm pretty sure this recipe wouldn't work as well with the breast since it would dry out and isn't juicy enough. We kind of want the juicy chicken to flavour some of that butternut. That being said, it's still fairly healthy since we're not adding any carbs and just eating more veggies. If you do want carbs with this however, add some potatoes to the pot or serve with couscous, cooked in chicken stock. When making this for more than 1 or 2 persons I would just use a whole chicken. I love the wintery combination of chicken and squash, so I might do another less health conscious version of this recipe soon as well, while we're still enjoying the chilling winter months. Butternut (and all pumpkins) are a bitch to cut up unfortunately though, especially if you don't have fancy knives like I do. :(

As you can see it's a pretty big portion, so it's either a really big meal for one or two small ones (225 cal pp would be more like lunch). I ate it all for dinner, but forewent the nuts this time (450cal is still a decently healthy dinner). It did make me feel really full, which probably I should avoid more, so next time I'm gonna split it into two meals. You could of course make half as well, but these proportions filled my small casserole so nice, and you want everything to be snug in there so the flavours mix well.

Half of the casserole, a fairly decent sized plate.

Dinner - 1-2 person(s) - 450cal / 550 cal (with nuts) - 20 minutes prep + 40 minutes cooking

- Chicken drumsticks (2)

- Squash (190g / 1.5 cups, cubed)

- Carrots (1 cup, cubed)

- Olive oil (0.5 tbsp)

- Chicken spices (2 tsp)

- Thyme (1 tsp)

- Garlic (3 cloves)

- Onion (1 small)

- Optional: lemon juice (0.5 tbsp)

- Optional: pecans (handful) or walnuts

- Preheat oven to 200°C / 400°F

- Spice you chicken with your chicken spices (mine contains paprika, salt, pepper, curry, cayenne, nutmeg, ginger, turmeric, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, among other things, but your favourite is fine) and half of your thyme. If you want it to be healthier, put the spices on under the skin and then remove skin before eating. Don't remove before cooking, or your chicken might be a bit dry.

- Peel and cut your squash and carrot into chunks.

- Roughly chop your onion and garlic and mix in with veggies, sprinkle with rest of thyme.

- Put veggies in oven casserole, put chicken in between and drizzle whole with olive oil. Try to use only a little oil, since it contains about 120cal per tbsp. Optional: sprinkle with a little lemon juice for a zesty flavour.

- Put in oven for about 40 min (depends on your oven), check if squash is soft by pricking it with a fork. For extra crispy chicken, baste (cover is with some of its own juices) a few time during cooking. If you don't have much experience cooking chicken, you might want to keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn anyway. If it does burn, it's probably still perfectly fine. Either just the spices burn, and then you can scrape those off, or the whole skin burned and you can just remove the burnt skin (is healthier anyway). Enjoy your comforting (healthy) dinner!

- Optional: Mix in some cut up pecans or walnuts, adds about 100cal though... ;)

Scrambled eggs with peas, shallot and chives

So I love scrambled eggs, especially on top of some delicious fresh buns or just with some toast, but since I'm trying to eat less bread, I wanted to pimp my regular eggs so I'd miss the bread less. We all know the classic eggs with tomato or mushroom, which I'll probably do soon as well, but somehow I find those affect the texture of scrambled eggs which I like so much. You do have to like peas for this recipe, since you use a lot. I didn't used to like peas, silly me, but I've learned to like, if not love them, so I'm glad I've found a new use for them. I ate this for breakfast, with 3 mandarins (100cal).

Breakfast/Lunch - 1 person - 200cal - 10 minutes

- Peas (frozen, 0.5 cup, about as much as your eggs)

- Eggs (2)

- Shallot (1 tiny one, or half a normal one, makes about 2tbsp)

- Chives (1-2tbsp; I used precut freeze-dried ones, but if you have fresh just cut those in little pieces)

- Oil/Butter (I used coconut, bout a teaspoon, however much needed to coat your pan)

- Salt & Pepper

- Dice your shallot really finely. I do about 1-2mm pieces (0.03-0.06 inches), since I'm obsessed with cutting things finely, but just go as small as you can. I might do a quick tutorial on how to dice onion later if there's any interest in that.

- Mix your eggs well with a fork. Add in salt and pepper to taste.

- Put your pan on the fire and coat with some oil or butter

- Throw in your eggs, diced shallot, chives and 0.5 cup of peas

- Scramble it all (with small spatula), best way is to put the pan on a high fire, and keep scrambling it all while you intermittently take it off the fire and back on. If you don't trust yourself to do it that way then just put the pan on a medium fire and just scramble it slowly. Take it off the fire when it's still a bit creamy if possible, mine were taking off a bit too late this time unfortunately, put it on a plate and enjoy!

Steak with tomatoes, scallions and balsamic vinegar

This is one of my favourite super easy recipes. I've loved this one way before I started this healthy thing. I don't really remember which book it came from, some lowcarb book my sister's owns, so I'm sorry I can't really give you the source. I unfortunately didn't eat this all too often, because I considered steak to be too expensive for my student budget most times, but if I have to be healthy I can at least indulge in healthy things right? It's literally the easiest dinner you can make for yourself. It contains 4 ingredients and takes maybe 15 minutes. It's not the absolute lowest in calories, but it's decent and I do feel it fills you up quite nicely. And have I mentioned it's delicious?!

Dinner - 1 person - 450cal - 15 minutes

- Steak (150g / 5 oz)
- Tomatoes (200g / 7 oz, cherry is best, but regular is fine)
- Scallions (50g / 0.5cup)
- Balsamic vinegar (2tbsp)
- Oil/Butter (I used coconut oil)
- Salt & Pepper

- If you have the time, let your steak come to room temp (2 hours outside fridge)
- Cut up you tomatoes and scallions. as small as you want.
- Mix the tomatoes, scallions and balsamic vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.
- Put you pan on a high fire.
- Season your steak on both side with salt and pepper.
- Once pan is hot (butter/oil should melt immediately), throw in steak. For me the only way to eat steak is quite rare so this is what I do, but if you really think your steak need to be cooked more (why though? All that delicious flavour and texture being cooked away). This is what I do: let both sides brown about 2-3 minutes on each side. Brown sides quickly as well. Take out of pan and put on plank (wrap in foil if you want).
- Add your tomatoes to the pan and cook for 5min, until the liquid (balsamic vinegar + tomato juice) thickens.
- Smother your steak in your delicious tomato balsamic sauce and go to town on it!