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Healthy recipes for young and old
Try these simple, quick and easy recipes for wholesome meals and snacks with natural flavors, plenty of fibre and high nutrition. Young beginners and old cooks can follow these recipes. They are recipes for: bread, beef, chicken, eggs, fish, lentils, beans, pancake, porridge, rice, sauerkraut, soup, spud burgers and stew. They can be used to cook most meats, vegetables and cereals, or fruit if it needs to be cooked.
To find the recipe you want, search this page for a keyword.
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Half fill the tin with flour.
Break up any lumps with the spatula.
Pour some cold water onto the flour. Three cups of flour will take two cups of water.
Mix the water into the flour and cut and stir well with the spatula.
Add water until the mix is like soft dough, neither hard nor sloppy.
Do not add any other ingredients.
Do not knead the dough.
Cut across the dough with the spatula, mix and flatten it evenly across the tin.
Put the oven on about 220 degrees centigrade.
Put the tin of dough into the middle of oven.
In a small, electric oven, baking takes about 12 minutes. Do not wait for this flat bread to rise as plain flour will not rise.
After 10 minutes, look to see that the top of the loaf is light brown or starting to go brown, not burned.
Then turn off the oven.
Let the bread set in the closed oven for another 10 minutes.
Cut around the edges of the loaf with the spatula to separate them from the sides of the tin.
Turn the tin of bread upside down and drop it on to a bread board until the loaf separates from the tin.
The finished loaf is not sticky, burnt or broken.
Cut slices off with a bread knife.
If you choose to set the oven at a lower temperature, or use a bigger oven, baking will be slower. If the oven is electric with heating bars at top and bottom, remove any drip tray and put the bread tin on the grill in the middle for even heat.
Good wholmeal flour is wheat and gluten, unbleached and without preservatives or artificial coloring or flavoring. Gluten is healthy protein for everybody except a few people who have a rare disease such as celiac. This bread is made without yeast, baking powder or salt.
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Let a frozen chicken defrost overnight in the fridge.
Put the defrosted whole chicken into the baking dish and put it in the oven.
Set the oven on high, about 170 degrees Celsius or centigrade.
While the chicken is cooking, prepare the vegetables.
Wash the vegetables under the tap.
Cut the potatoes into halves lengthwise.
Cut the other vegetables except the peas into pieces about the size of half a potato.
Bake the chicken for 40 minutes or until it is just starting to go brown.
Take the baking dish out of the oven and check the chicken.
Use the steak knife and fork to cut the chicken in half, cut the legs off and cut the rest into large pieces.
Turn the pieces over with the tongs.
If the chicken is pink inside and not yet cooked, put it back in the oven.
When the chicken is cooked or almost cooked, add all the vegetables into the baking dish.
Bake the dinner for another 15 minutes or so until the vegetables are soft enough to stick the fork into but still firm, not soft or crumbly. The skin of the chicken should be lightly browned but not burnt.
When the food is cooked, turn off the oven.
Use the tongs to serve the hot chicken and vegetables onto plates.
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Put eggs in a saucepan.
Cover them with water.
Put them on the stove on medium heat for a minute or until they begins to boil.
Then cook them simmering on a lower heat so they do not crack.
Boil them for five minutes.
Lift one egg out of the pot with an egg spoon and crack it open to see that it is cooked.
Serve the eggs.
A bowl of plain porridge, a boiled egg and a fresh fruit make a healthy breakfast.
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Rinse three frozen fish fillets under the tap to remove salt.
Put them in the frying pan.
Pour a glass of water over the fish instead of using cooking oil.
Put the pan on the stove with the hot plate on high temperature.
Rinse the lettuce and tomatoes clean under the tap.
Let the fillets defrost in the pan and cook for five minutes.
Flip the fillets over with the spatula, taking care not to splash hot water on anybody.
Lower the heat to medium.
Cut the tomatoes into halves.
Cut off some lettuce leaves.
Add a little more water to the pan if needed.
Let the fillets simmer for another five minutes or so until they are cooked but still firm and not burnt.
Lift the fillets and salad out with the spatula and put them on to plates.
Stir what is left of the hot water in with the fish oil in the pan.
Pour that liquid over the fish on the plates.
Serve without salt, vinegar, lemon or sauce to taste the fish.
Fish, walnuts and flax seeds have a nutritious oil in them which is needed for good health.
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Although juice can be squeezed out of oranges, lemons, limes or other fruit, fruit is more nutritious when it is eaten whole than when it is drunk. The whole fruit gives you more fibre, vitamins and minerals. So it is better to eat a piece of fruit than to drink a glass of juice.
Some other drinks are: water left over from boiling beetroot, spinach or other vegetables or stew, mineral water and herbal tea.
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A brown glass bottle with a screw lid will do. If you do not have such a bottle, buy mineral water in a green glass bottle with a screw lid. After the mineral water has been drunk, the bottle can be used many times over to keep water in the fridge.
What to do:
Fill the bottle to the bottom of its neck, the widest part, with water from the cold tap, not from the hot tap as warm water can be contaminated by some heater tanks.
Let the bottle of water stand in sunlight for a day with the lid off. Sunlight helps to evaporate chlorine from the water.
Put the lid on the bottle and put it in the fridge overnight.
By next day, the water will taste softer and more natural.
Serve a glass of that water with any meal.
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Put one cup of rolled oats into saucepan.
Add one cup of cold water.
Stir.
Put pan on stove on high heat.
Note the time.
Stir to keep the oats from sticking to the pan.
Heat for two minutes then turn off the heat.
Stir.
Add half a spoonful of honey.
Stir.
Serve.
It's thick, textured and full of fibre.
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Put one teacup full of rolled oats and one cup of water per serving into a saucepan.
Stir.
Put the pot on the stove on full heat.
Stir to stop oats sticking to pan.
Let it cook for two minutes until it starts to steam.
Turn off the stove.
Stir.
Serve in a bowl with half a spoonful of honey.
It cooks fast and is full of healthy roughage, with no salt, sugar, fat or chemical additives.
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Raw peanuts are softer than ones that are roasted.
What to do:
Put one or two cups of shelled peanuts or other nuts into a pot.
Cover them with water.
Boil them on high heat for 10 minutes.
Stir them.
Keep the water level covering the nuts.
Turn the heat down to medium and simmer the nuts for another 10 minutes.
Put rolled oats into the pot until it is about half full.
Pour more water in until the pot is about three quarters full.
Keep the water level covering the porridge.
Stir the nuts and oats around well from top to bottom.
Cook the porridge for another 5 minutes or so until the oats and nuts are soft enough to eat.
Serve each bowl with half a spoonful of honey.
People with dental fillings can boil the nuts for 20 minutes to soften them before adding them into the porridge mix. Raw peanuts and walnuts are softer than roasted nuts and do not need to be boiled for so long.
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Put three cups of dried lentils into the pan.
Add water to cover the lentils.
Put the pan on the stove on high heat.
Bring to the boil then let simmer.
Stir.
Add the baked kidney beans from the can into the pan.
Stir and keep the mix thick and just covered with water.
Cook for 20 minutes in all.
Taste the lentils and check that they are soft enough to eat.
The mix should be about as thick as mashed potato.
Serve scoopfuls of the bean and lentil mix beside salad or cooked vegetables.
If the lentils are already baked in a can, cook for 10 minutes instead of 20. If the kidney beans are dried and uncooked, they need to be cooked longer.
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Rice usually is cooked separately but this recipe includes peanuts. The cooking time is the same with or without nuts.
You need:
brown rice
raw or roasted peanuts
large pot
stirring spoon.
What to do:
Remove some of the salt from salted peanuts by putting them in a large strainer and shaking them then rinsing them under the tap. Raw peanuts are softer and easier to cook and unsalted peanuts are healthier than salted.
Brown rice is more nutritious than white and does not have bleach in it.
Put two cupfuls of shelled peanuts into the pot.
Pour brown rice into the pot until is is half full.
Pour water into the pot until it is three-quarters full.
Put the pot on the stove on full heat for 10 minutes until the water starts to boil.
Stir the rice and peanuts.
Turn the heat down to medium to keep the water simmering.
Keep the water level topped up to just cover the rice as it simmers.
Let the pot simmer for 25 minutes.
Taste half a spoonful of hot rice and nuts to check that they are chewy but not soft or hard.
Brown rice usually takes about 35 minutes in all to cook.
Turn off the heat.
Leave the pot with the lid off for a few minutes to let some more of the water evaporate.
Serve the rice and peanuts with other food or eat it as it is.
Rice or rice and nuts can be served as part of a meal like with cooked vegetables or salad, or for breakfast with an avocado or poached egg. Or it can be serves as a dessert like with sliced banana or half a spoonful of honey or a spoonful of yoghurt.
A big pot of leftover rice, steamed vegetables, stew or porridge can be kept in the fridge ready of another meal.
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Most fat of chicken meat and skin is healthy, unsaturated fat.
What to do:
Put three cups of brown rice into the frying pan.
Pour and scrape the leftover chicken fat onto the rice.
Stir and mix the fat and rice.
Cut the vegetables into small pieces.
Spill the cut vegetables onto the rice.
Stir and mix the rice, vegetables and fat.
Put the pan on the stove burner on medium heat, about 40 degrees centigrade.
Fry the rice and vegetables for 10 minutes.
Stir the food every few minutes while it is frying.
If you add only vegetables that are already cooked, fry the rice for only two minutes.
Serve in bowls or on plates.
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Put the ingredients onto serving plates as you prepare them.
Use an egg spoon to help break and peel the shells off two eggs.
Cut two slices of cheese.
Cut two tomatoes into halves.
Peel off some lettuce leaves.
Cut two pieces of wholmeal bread.
Cut a lemon into four quarters.
Squeeze the juice out of the oranges.
Serve the salad with glasses of orange juice.
Some other ingredients to choose from for a salad are raw celery, apple, water melon, shredded carrot, avocado, sauerkraut and yoghurt, or sliced cooked chicken, lamb, pork, cabbage, onion, sweet potato, beetroot, rice, lentils and red or black beans.
Also see the recipe above for fish salad.
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Sauerkraut made at home this way is one of the best probiotic foods, unlike most sauerkraut bought at a store. It's good for the gut.
This recipe is easy if you take it step by step but it is not so quick.
You need:
half a fresh cabbage, organic cabbage is best
one tablespoon of fine sea salt
one litre of water without chlorine in it
a 2-litre jar
large saucepan
potato masher
egg ring or weight.
What to do:
Half fill a large, clean jar with tap water.
Let the water stand for a day and a night with the lid off the jar to let chlorine evaporate.
Put one tablespoon of fine sea salt into the jar of water and stir well.
Pull an outer leaf off the cabbage and leave it whole.
Use a knife to cut the cabbage into shreds.
Pour the salty water into a saucepan.
Fill the jar with shredded cabbage.
Use a potato masher to pack the cabbage in up to three centimetres below the top.
Pour the water mixed with salt into the jar until it covers the cabbage and reaches up to one centimetre below the top of the jar.
Squeeze air bubbles out of the mix by pressing down on the shredded cabbage with a potato masher.
Cover the top of the shredded cabbage with the outer leaf of the cabbage.
Push the cabbage down below the water level.
With the lid off the jar and the opening covered with a cloth, leave the mix to settle for an hour.
To stop the sauerkraut from rising above the water level as it ferments, weigh it down with an egg ring, jar lid or stone weight.
Put the lid on the jar to make it air tight. If a tighter seal is needed, cover the top of the jar with plastic wrap before screwing the lid on.
Leave the jar on a shelf at room temperature out of sunlight.
Leave the lid on the jar for one week and let the cabbage ferment.
See that the cabbage becomes limper and lighter in color as it brews and bubbles slowly rise to the top.
Open the jar only after a week and look at the cabbage.
If white mould has grown on cabbage which has risen above the water line, scrape or cut that harmless mould off with a knife.
Smell, taste and eat some of the sauerkraut.
Close the jar again and store it in the refrigerator to slow the fermentation.
Serve cool from the jar with helpings of up to four tablespoons at a time, no more than once a day.
Once the jar has been opened, eat all the sauerkraut in it within three weeks.
Sauerkraut with salt water can store for a year or two sealed in a jar in the refrigerator.
If black or blue mould forms on the sauerkraut or it smells bad, throw the sauerkraut away and try the recipe again with two table spoons of salt instead of one.
Sauerkraut is good for your gut. Serve it with salads, on fish, with rice or lentils, on wholmeal bread or whatever.
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Beef and vegetable soup can be made quickly and easily from water drained off a beef stew while it is hot. The big pot of stew made with the beef recipe further below may have two or three cupfuls of soup in it.
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This recipe helps to prepare and cook cuts of beef that are too tough and stringy or costly, so that boneless steak becomes tender and lean enough for most people to eat, even if they have poor teeth or are overweight.
You need:
meat mincer
wooden spoon
wood chopstick
steel stirring spoon
steak knife
frying pan
metal tray
wooden chopping board
1 kilo of chuck beef steak
or blade steak
1 onion
wholmeal flat round bread
or cooked potatoes
tomatoes
or sliced beetroot
lettuce
or cabbage
any other salad.
What to do:
Defrost the beef overnight if it needs to be.
Check that the mincemeat machine is clean and well kept before and after it is used.
Cut the meat into wide strips.
Cut away any big lumps of fat and leave them out of the food.
Put the metal tray in front of the mincer to catch the mincemeat.
Use the wooden spoon to push the meat into the mincer without cutting a finger or blunting a blade.
Turn the handle of the machine if it is a hand one, as the meat is pushed steadily down in.
Spread all the minced meat over the bottom of the frying pan.
Use the handle of the wooden spoon and the chopstick to scrape out meat left in the mincer.
Cut up any lumps of meat left and put them in the pan.
If you are using fresh beetroots or potatoes, first boil them separately in a pot.
Cut up one onion and cut one or two beetroots into slices.
Shred some cabbage.
Add those vegetables to the pan and mix them with the meat.
Leave out the tomatoes, lettuce or other salad to be served cold with the hot mincemeat.
Pour a glass of cold water over the food in the frypan.
Put the pan of meat and vegetables on the stove at full heat.
Take apart the mincer and clean it using the chop stick and a finger.
Leave the parts to soak in warm, soapy water in the sink for 15 minutes or so.
When the mincemeat starts to steam, turn the heat down to medium.
Let the meal simmer for about 20 minutes.
Taste to check that the meat and vegetables are soft enough to chew.
Turn off the heat and leave the food covered in the pan.
Put one or two pitas of wholmeal flat round bread on top of the food and put the lid back on for another 5 minutes, to warm the bread.
Finish boiling the beetroots or potatoes for 15 minutes.
Slice those boiled vegetables into cirles.
Slice the tomatoes into circles and shred the lettuce if wanted.
Put the flat bread or potato slices in the middle of the serving plates and put slices of beetroot or tomatoes around the edge of the bread or potatoes.
Serve the hot mince and vegetables onto the middle of the food on the plate.
Pitas is the name for this flat round bread. Eat it with a knife and fork with this meal.
Clean the mincer thoroughly after using it, as instructed by its maker.
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Here are some ideas for quick, nutritious desserts:
wholmeal bread with water melon
wholmeal bread and honey
brown rice, lemon and honey
brown rice and sliced banana
sliced apple with plain natural yoghurt
segment of rock melon with spoonful of yoghurt
two-minute boiled rolled oats with a spoonful of yoghurt
whole apple, orange, banana or other fresh fruit.
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Most fat of chicken meat and skin is healthy, unsaturated fat.
What to do:
Cut the vegetables into small pieces and put them in the pot.
Pour and scrape the leftover chicken fat onto the vegetables.
Stir.
Cook the pot of soup for two minutes.
Stir it as it cooks.
Serve in bowls with soup spoons.
If the vegetables have not been cooked before, let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes before serving it.
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Put potatoes in the sink and rinse and rub them under the tap.
Cut them in halves lengthwise.
Spread the halves on a baking tray.
Bake them on high heat for about 20 minutes until they are soft but still firm, testing them with a fork. Don't let them burn.
Turn off the oven and let the potatoes cool a bit.
Put a slice of ham or cheese with a piece of lettuce or cooked cabbage between two halves of each potato.
Hold it like a hamburger to eat.
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Slice up all the chuck steak and put it in the pot.
Cover the meat with water.
Put the pot on the stove on high heat, about 170 degrees centigrade.
After 10 minutes, check that the water has started to boil.
Stir, lift and mix the beef slices with the tongs.
Turn the heat down to medium and let the stew simmer for an hour.
Add a cup or two of water as the meat cooks to keep it covered.
Wash the vegetables under the tap.
Cut each carrot into three pieces.
Cut the other vegetable into pieces the same size as one piece of carrot so they cook evenly. Peas or pieces of bean will be smaller as they need more cooking, specially if they are frozen.
Chuck beef takes a long while to cook but you can leave it to simmer while you do other things.
After an hour, mix the beef around some more.
Lift a piece of beef out of the pot, let it cool a bit then chew on it to test how tender it is.
If the meat is too tough or stringy, add more water and keep simmering it for another 40 or 50 minutes or so until is soft enough. The meat may need to cook by itself for up to two hours.
Then add the chopped vegetables and stir the stew.
Add more water until the pot is three quarters full.
Bring the beef and vegetables to boil point again then simmer the stew for about another 15 minutes.
When the potatoes and carrots are soft enough to put a fork into them, turn the heat off and let the stew stand with the lid on for another five minutes.
Serve the hot stew.
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Beef from cattle which graze on pastures is healthier, without having been fed antibiotics or hormones.
If chuck steak is too tough for you or takes too long to cook, use instead lean minced beef.
The stew recipe for mince beef is much the same as for chuck steak stew but boil and simmer the mince for only about 30 minutes before adding the chopped vegetables.
The steak salad recipe above in this book tells how to mince lean meat.
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Fill a big saucepan about a quarter full of lentils.
Cover them in about twice as much water, 2 to 1.
Let them stand and soak for two hours or overnight, stirring them from time to time.
Wash some vegetables, like potatoes, carrots, pumpkin and broccoli or cauliflower, under the tap.
Cut each carrot into three bits and cut the other vegetables all about the same size.
Bring the pot of lentils to boiling point, taking about 8 minutes on high heat.
Once the water starts boiling, keep the pot simmering on a low heat.
After about 10 minutes, add the chopped vegetables into the pot.
Stir the lentils and vegetables from time to time and keeping them covered with water.
After simmering for 25 minutes, turn off the burner.
Let the pot stand for another minute or two before serving the stew.
Cooked lentils can also be served separately as part of a meal or added as an ingredient to another recipe.
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Steaming vegetables without overcooking them saves more of the vitamins and minerals in them than does boiling them. With this recipe, they are partly steamed in a large pot without using a steaming tray or pressure cooker.
Wash the vegetables under the tap to remove dirt and some of the chemical residue.
Cut the potatoes into halves lengthwise.
Cut the other vegetables into pieces roughly the same size as the halves.
Put all the cut vegetables into the pot.
Pour two and a half glasses of cold tap water into the pot.
Put the pot on the stove on medium heat until the water starts to boil.
Mix the vegetables around with a spoon and turn them over.
Turn the heat down to medium and let the water simmer and steam for about 15 minutes.
Have a cup of water ready to keep the water in the pot from steaming all away. Do not let the vegetables burn in a dry pot.
Stick a fork into some potato to check that it is soft enough to eat but still firm and not crumbly or mushy, and check a piece of carrot the same way.
As soon as the vegetables are cooked just that much, turn off the heat.
Serve the hot vegetables with meat cooked separately: steak, lamb or pork chops, chicken or duck or whatever. Or serve the vegetables with boiled rice or lentils cooked separately.
Cooking vegetables, rice or lentils separately from other foods allows more control over different cooking times for the different foods.
Two leftover potato halves make a fine spud burger with a slice of meat or cheese.
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