To ask for healthy meal ideas? Feel shit, need to eat properly

[OffredsNose]

As per previous thread, I feel shite, I have no energy at all. My hair is falling out …

my diet is also crap. I’m doing a grocery online order right now - hence why I’m posting here for traffic.

Any healthy recipes/meal ideas you can recommend would be highly appreciated. Preferably packed with vitamins!

A hello fresh subscription, simply cook. Even simple meals omelette and soup can help. 🙂

Really easy airfryer one. Can make it in any quantity

Good quality (high meat content) chipolatas cut into pieces
Selection of Roasting veg eg sweet potato, cherry tomatoes, butternut squash, pepper all cut into bitesize pieces

Mix the above in a bowl with some olive oil and any spices/herbs you fancy.
Air fry for 15 minutes.

Make a list of 5 fruit and 5 veg for all and divide it into meals. I make smoothies or soup if I can't add them into my meals. This is helping with my weekly shopping list too. Ideas:
Noodles with veg
Pasta / soup with veg
Curry and rice
Wraps
Tacos
Pie
Stir fry
Lentil soup or dal
Always a small salad on the side for lunch for which either I have ready bags or chop up cucumbers, lettuce and cherry toms. (My problem is mainly portion control)

I made a brilliant root veg stew in my slow cooker the other day. Super cheap, tasty, filling and very good for you. Sorry I'm no good at links...

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/slow-cooker-spiced-root-lentil-casserole/amp

I think its easier to ask

1. what do you eat now?
2. what do you like to eat? (is there a particular style of food - eg Italian)
3. how many are you cooking for?
4. whats your budget?

Rather than take a stab in the dark, just to narrow it down a bit.

I would focus on overall nutrition rather than cooking per se. Make sure that you are covering all the key food groups (protein, complex carbs, healthy fats) and that half your plate at each mealtime is made up of veg. Aim for plenty of leafy greens and a rainbow of colours beyond that (i.e. red, yellow, purple fruit and veg as well). Snack on additional fruit and veg, plus nuts and seeds. It's also a good idea to supplement with a multivitamin and a good quality probiotic.

There have been lots of great recipe ideas here, but you can also eat well by compiling a simple nutritious plate using the above guidelines. e.g. I can hardly ever be bothered to cook in the evenings, but just had scrambled egg on rye toast with spinach and tomatoes, followed by some fruit.

I haven't seen your other thread but hope this is helpful. Good luck.

BBC good food has a section called 7-a-day recipes, each recipe of which has at least 3 portions of veg to help you get to 7 portions of fruit and veg a day.
7 a day

If I'm really struggling to eat healthily and prioritize fresh food, I make sure I eat one piece of fruit after breakfast, lunch and dinner and at least one veg with lunch and dinner, even if its just lots of salad on a sandwich. This way, I've definitely got at least 5 portions of fruit and veg in a day.

For porridge can I use normal porridge oats (like Quaker)?

And when you say liver, from what animal? Asda have 3 different animal livers …

(can you tell I normally live on beige food? 😂)

I eat beige food (kievs and beans, fish fingers and beans, jar bolognese, jar curry …

cooking for two

I like curry and casseroles … basically soft food. I don’t like salad. Autistic so very awkward I know but I will eat more or less anything as long as it’s not salad

DH won’t eat fish unless it’s from chip shop

No budget but ingredients must be easy to get hold of as I don’t venture far from asda

I love a tray bake. Chicken drumsticks, some chopped chorizo, sliced red pepper, onions, some green beans. Olive oil, salt and vinegar and cook for 35 mins.

Salmon or sausages with chopped sweet potato, broccoli and cherry tomatoes.

Smoked sausage, corn on the cob, sliced new potatoes, prawns and cherry tomatoes, cajun seasoning, cover and cook.
Roasted root vegetables (carrots, parsnip, beetroot) with meat or fish of your choice.

Really easy way without too much

additional faffing.
You can make it middle Eastern by adding harrisa paste 10 mins before end of cooking pesto for Mediterranean. Sprinkle things like pine nuts or pumpkin seeds over the top before serving.

Start by making some of your current stuff a bit better:

Fry diced onion, celery, carrot and red pepper (mushrooms if you like them) as a base for your jarred bolognaise sauce

fish finger tacos - cook them as normal. Meanwhile fry a diced onion and diced red pepper. Add some paprika, cumin and chilli flakes. Add a drained tin of sweetcorn. Eat in taco shells with chopped up fishfingers and salsa/tartare sauce/chilli sauce/whatever.

Tray bakes are v easy ;
Salmon with green beans , broccoli and tomatoes
Chicken thighs with potatoes , fennel and tomatoes
Aubergine, peppers , tomatoes and courgettes with gnocchi or halloumi
Butternut squash with lentils and feta added near the end and some greens stirred through
No recipies are set in stone but you can look up tray bakes or roasting tin recipies to get ideas
Our other staples are dhal and vegetable soups , again both v easy to find recipes for to fit with which veg are in season.

Buy:
Loads of veg of all types including garlic and onions
Potatoes
Tins of tomatoes, beans, lentils
Rice
wholegrain bread
Olive oil
Frozen berries
Greek yoghurt
Porridge oats
Honey
Herbs & spices
Nut butter
You can make curries, stews, soups, chilli, risotto easy recipes on line or just make it up.
Eat only these foods in different combinations, and no alcohol.
You'll be a new woman in a month! And save a fortune.

I make a chicken and veg chilli that's pretty easy - I don't follow a strict recipe but this is vaguely what goes in

400g Chicken thighs (I use skinless and boneless but the ones with bones in are cheaper, you can just take skin off)
Couple of chopped onions
Couple of fat cloves of garlic
Any veg you have in the fridge can go in it but I chop up peppers, carrot, courgette, aubergine, mushrooms into chunks
A teaspoon each of:
Cumin
Coriander
Smoked paprika
Hot Chilli powder
Crumbled chicken or veg oxo
Two tins of chopped tomatoes
Tin of black beans/kidney beans

I cut the chicken up (you can shred it after if using chicken on bone)
Fry in some fry lite til browned, put to one side. Soften onions and garlic for couple of mins, add spices and fry for a minute more. Add rest of the veg and fry off for couple of min, add chicken back to pan. Add chopped tomatoes, oxo and squeeze of tomato purée if you have it. Give it all a good stir and cook on low with lid on for an hour or so. Remove lid and cook down further if too runny, add beans til heated through. I add a splash of Worcester sauce but if you don't have it don't worry.

Are lentils better for you than meat? (I notice your list is veggie which I’m fine with - I just worry about my anaemia!)

Don't buy:
Biscuits
Cakes
Chocolate
Alcohol
Crisps

I love this recipe for very chilli:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-vegetarian-chilli

It takes a little time to chop it all up, but otherwise its dead easy and the quantity means you can freeze loads of it.

I don't miss the meat from it. Its a hit with friends.

Generally speaking you can't go wrong with BBC good food recipes. If you like curries and casseroles. They rate recipes by how hard they are so if you aren't a confident cook, stick to the easy rated ones (use the filter option to select the difficulty).

If you don't want to ditch curry sauces, just learn to add veg into it. Peppers are a good one. You can do loads. Even adding chopped up brussel sprouts.

Tray bakes are bloody easy. There's loads of recipes and books along those lines.

If you like beige, do stuff like have chips but turn them into salt and pepper chips (add pepper, garlic, onions and chillis) or even nachos topped with cheese, tomato, avocado etc. Or make your own beige with breadcrumbs.

This is a really helpful thread. Thank you, OP. I hope it’s helped you, too!

Vege chilli always goes down well here
mine always starts with fried onions then whatever veg I have plus tomato purée and kidney beans in chilli sauce
I usually add extra chilli garlic and paprika

Start your day with a green smoothie?

handful of kale and one of spinach
grated ginger and grated fresh Tumeric
frozen mango
apple juice
some cucumber
bit of cayenne pepper

What do you mean by healthy?!

Ooo this sounds nice! How much mango should you put in? And can I use one of those spice jars of tumeric instead of fresh?

Supermarket stir fry deals are good - I'm more of a Tesco shopper, but I'd imagine Asda has similar- you get a reduction if you buy stir fry veg, noodles and sauce together and then I add some prawns or chicken. Takes minutes to cook.

I have this quite often with chilli salt (aldi). It's like a solid soup!

Eat green veg at at least two meals. Eat more veg generally, pref organic if budget allows. Fruit is better than processed sweet stuff but not better than veg.