Guiltless Baked Banana

Baked banana is a pleasant warmness in a plate for such lovely cold weather! It's naturally sweet and Better yet, it's healthy!!

This recipe is soo simple that you will only need literally 3 little ingredients; 1 banana, pinch of cinnamon, and 2 teaspoons of honey!!

All you need to do is peel and cut the banana in half lengthwise, put it in a baking dish and sprinkle the rest of the ingredients on top. Cover with aluminum foil and into the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes. And voila!!! You can have this dish with some whipping cream, ice cream, with oatmeal, or even on top of pancakes!! 

Enjoy my loves...

Pesto Spaghetti Salad

Yesterday I was so hungry and had nothing in my kitchen to make a proper lunch for myself! So I found few things here and there and thought of making spaghetti salad with pesto dressing from these few limited ingredients! And it turned out to be a fulfilling yummy dish! I was going to make pesto spaghetti only, but I was so hungry that I had to add few of what I have left in my fridge, so I turned it into a yummy salad that can be eaten cold or warm!

Ingredients:
- Whole wheat spaghetti
- 1 Tomato, diced and deceeded / or 5 cherry tomatoes halved
- 1/4 Bell pepper cut into small squares
- 1 Spring onion (small)
- 1/2 Avocado cubed
- 3 mushrooms

Pesto Ingredients:
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
- Few mint leaves/ cilantro
- 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
- 1 clove fresh garlic / 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
- Few drizzles of olive oil
- pinch of ground pepper
- A juice of half lemon

Method:
- Cook spaghetti according to package directions.
- In a food processor, gradually add the pesto ingredients and blend until everything is well combined.
- Now combine both the pesto paste and spaghetti, and enjoy!

Happy cooking! xxx

Oven Roasted Baby Potatoes

This is a very easy and a quick side dish post; oven backed baby potatoes. It can be served as a side dish to pretty much all kind of dishes you like; soups, meat and poultry entrees, fish entrees, and vegan dishes.

Ingredients:

• 6 small white/red baby potatoes, scrubbed and halved
• 1 tablespoon Italian herbes
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup fresh dill

Directions:

1. Boil the baby potatoes for 10 minutes only, then drain them well.
2. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
3. Put the potatoes in a large bowl. Sprinkle the herbs, garlic, salt and pepper, and oil, mix till the potatoes are well coated.
4. Transfer the potatoes to a baking dish and into the oven.
5. Turn the potatoes occasionally. In the first 30 minutes, add the fresh dill to the potatoes, and put them back in the oven for another 30 minutes or until golden and tender. -So the whole process may take approx one hour-. 
6. Finally, serve the potatoes hot or warm, and enjoy.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I pretty much prefer not to fry my food as much as I can, since I am trying to stick to my healthy eating habit, so I bake my favorit side dish in the oven. Sweet potato fries is a healthier choice instead of having greasy fries as a comfort food to me, they are low in calories, tastier, sweet, healthier -recommended as a healthy food supplement even for diabetes-...

This recipe takes about 30 minutes to make, it can be served as a side dish or I sometimes eat it as a main dish and dip it with some Chinese/Thai sweet chillie sauce...

Here we go..

Ingredients:

2 Medium Sweet Potatoes,

1/4 cup Olive Oil

2 teaspoons Sea Salt

2 teaspoons Ground Black Pepper

2 teaspoons Dried Rosemary if desired or any of your favorite herbs mix

4-5 teaspoons Paprika Powder

Serves: 2

Preparation Instructions:

Line the baking tray with parchment paper or aluminum foil and spray the paper with a little bit of olive oil spray; so the fries won't stick.

Preheat oven 200/220C depending on how hot your oven. 

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into wedges.

Put the wedges in a large bowl, add the oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and the rest of the herbs. Mix well to combine all the ingredients, until each and every wedge gets well coated with the olive oil and the rest of the ingredients.

Arrange the wedges in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. First, bake the fries for 10-15 minutes, then toss them the other side to bake them evenly, and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Total baking time should take you approx 20-25 minutes...

And Voila... Instead of dipping it with ketchup, I love using Chineses sweet chillie sauce as a dip...

Enjoy =)