About 3/4 of our weekly shop looks the same every week. Berries, yoghurt, eggs, spinach, peppers, mushrooms and lemons are guaranteed.
So let's take a look at what the fridge tends to look like, and please notice, there isn't a supermarket prepared meal in sight.
We always have lots of garlic and lemons in, and often root ginger. We have a slice of lemon in our green tea every morning and we love garlic. Lemon and garlic can be added to most dishes to improve flavour.
We usually have four - five tubs of yoghurt in as this is one food we eat more than anything. We regularly get Fage O% fat Greek Yoghurt and flavour it ourselves but also find Skyr and Rachel's to be just as filling and the lowest sugar options of any other flavoured yoghurts. Rachel's Coconut is my favourite but they didn't have it this week and we also get Skyr unflavoured to be even healthier. The protein content in all three brands is great with a low sugar and fat count.
Cottage cheese has become a regular on our shelves as of late and it is used in salad dressings, flavoured with either lemon, or more often Harissa which is featured in the image below. Again, high protein, low fat therefore making it an excellent and filling edition to a lot of meals.
Having these jars in is a great tip for adding healthy flavour to a variety of meals. The Harissa as mentioned helps enhance dressings or is great rubbed on salmon. The capers add a salty flavour to stews, casseroles or on top of white fish. Sundried tomatoes improve EVERYTHING. I often have them chopped up and mixed in with grains such as pearl barley for extra flavour. Olives are a great source of healthy fats and taste beautiful mixed with tuna and feta (also a weekly staple but not photographed this week) for a delicious spin on a Greek salad. We also often have in pesto and Thai curry paste (both regularly homemade but not always). I don't always use these in the traditional sense eg, pasta and curry. I rub them on meats and fishes to add extra flavour when baking or stir the pesto through a grain salad for an additional light flavouring.
There is always some form of berry, often a rotation of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, in the fridge. We have them every morning with yoghurt which is then topped with no added sugar Alpen or Museli of choice. Generally, for smoothies we use frozen berries - it is more cost effective and makes the smoothie nice and cold. Carrot batons are great for when you feel snacky. We often find we eat through boredom so these keep our hands and mouths busy, stopping us reaching for biscuits.
We have mushrooms every week as they are our favourite in omelettes, stir fry and my Fajita bowl (recipe coming soon). We eat one or two of these for tea every week as they are fast and easy. Having a couple of staple dishes that you do every week is a great way to keep to a healthy diet - but more on that in a later blog. Beansprouts really bulk up a stir fry as well as other dishes and salads.
We ensure we have a couple of green veggies in each week that often go with a protein and sweet potato dish which is as straightforward as it sounds.
The stir fry packs supermarkets offer are excellent if you are tight on time which we were this evening. Otherwise, it is easy enough to throw together your own. We always have lots of proteins in and fish every week. Salmon is the most popular and chicken is used for teas and lunches.
The salad draw always has spinach, another lettuce variant (often rocket), cucumber, peppers, chillis, tomatoes and spring onions. These all generally make up the base of most salads. Peppers, onion and spinach are also heavily used on evenings for dinners such as omelette and Fajita bowls.
This week we had a bottle of white wine which was kindly gifted to us from a neighbour. We aren't heavy drinkers but do enjoy a glass here and there. Generally, we prefer red but this was a good white. It also flavoured a risotto I made and a paella. I drink dairy alternative milks, I love cows milk and drink that too but find I bloat if I consume too much so I use coconut, almond or more recently cashew milk for my museli so I can afford to have an occasional glass of milk to indulge. Matt however, drinks cows milk and doesn't like my alternatives.
We both suffer with a big sweet tooth (hint's in the blog name), so I often find ways to satisfy it without feeling too guilty. We eat a lot of dark chocolate and find chocolate milks - which are also great post workout recovery drinks - are delicious. As I am also a milkshake fan, this kills two birds, or cravings in this case, with one stone. This Alpro coconut chocolate one is lovely and sweet, my fav at the mo.
I hope this has given you a little insight into how to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Let me know what's in your fridge and we can compare!
