Mad Mex Naked Burrito

This is a decidedly low carb, low fat meal. It's essentially a burrito without the tortilla, cheese or sour cream. All the things that would give it flavour, right? Yes and no. I figured that since most restaurants use everything they can to make everything as flavoursome as possible, I couldn't really go wrong with ordering something more boring. And I was right: the steak is heavily flavoured and the pinto beans are salty. This is enough to balance out the blandness of the rice and lettuce. The only thing that I disliked was that the rice tasted stale. But rice is difficult to keep fresh in a fast food restaurant. Rating: 8/10.

A simple leftovers meal

In order to save time, I made these bacon and egg cups by filling a muffin tin with bacon, cracking and egg into each one, and baking. I am serving one of my bacon and egg cups with a small tin of beetroot and some leftover gluten free spinach gnocchi.

This is another meal from yesterday that uses the bacon and egg cups. Only in this case, I have smeared Kraft cheese spread on top of the bacon and egg cups and used rice that I precooked a stored away in the freezer for later use.

My version of chicken biryani

Biryani is basically Indian style fried rice with meat and vegetables. In this recipe, I took leftover rotisserie chicken and cooked rice and added some frozen vegetables I got from an Indian supermarket near where I live (namely okra, which tastes like a bland version of green capsicum) and of course, spices (mainly cumin, but also pepper and chilli flakes). The great thing about spices is that as long as you never use TOO much, it's always fun to use different spices. Tumeric has a somewhat muddy flavour and is great for filling out the flavour of the hotter spices. Cumin has a very distinctive savoury flavour while not being too hot. Cardamom seeds can also be added to the rice and have their own distinctive, bitter flavour. Of course, it goes without saying that all spices need to be fried in a little oil before the cooked rice, chicken and vegetables are added to unlock their full flavour.

Hamburger Donburi

Yet again, I felt like burger with rice as a substitute for bread. The only thing that's missing here is the mayonnaise, but I figured that enough flavour came from everything else.

Sushi

I used 1 cup of sushi rice (also short grain rice, even arborio rice, are both fine), to which I cooked according to instructions and to which I added sushi vinegar. I didn't use a sushi mat, I just laid out the nori on a chopping board, pressed a cup of the prepared rice onto half of the sheet, laid out the filling in the middle of the rice, in a line, then rolled up the whole thing, making sure to wet the two pieces of nori that were coming together. It was like making a Vietnamese cold roll, or tortilla wrap, only you don't have to fold in the sides as well. After the roll was wrapped up, I sliced it. For the filling, I used leftover fish fingers. Which aren't the best, but are an extremely cheap protein source. The sauce is mayonnaise mixed with wasabi powder.

We had already made sushi with proper ingredients like carrot, cucumber and smoked salmon (and egg!) but they had already run out rather quickly, and I needed to use up my fish fingers.

Abundance bowl with carrot and sultana salad

I recently learned about "abundance bowls." They are modelled on donburi, which are various types of meals that are based on a bowl of rice with toppings. Only with abundance bowls, the rice is generally "bulked out" with lentils or chickpeas, and they are topped with salads and lean meat. The salad I used here was a carrot and sultana salad with a dressing made of peanut butter and French dressing. It didn't sound very appetising, and I didn't touch it for the longest time. But next to the lentils and rice, it felt like an abundance of flavours and textures. The nuttiness of the peanut butter accentuated the nuttiness of the lentils in the rice, and the tang of the French dressing balanced out the nuttiness. The sultanas added a little sweetness. The rocket added zing. Overall, very happy.

Burger rice stack

After perusing many recipes of "stacks," I wished to create my own version that was low fat and did not involve bread. This resulted. The only problem that resulted was that it crumbled apart the moment I commenced eating it...

For those of you who wanted to know how I moulded the rice: I simply pressed the rice that was cooked according to instructions into a small bowl. After a few minutes (or seconds), I upended the bowl onto the plate like you would with a freshly baked cake.