A "some-more" snack...without the calories

When winter starts, the number of clothes you pile on increases ..and so does the amount of food that you put in your mouth. The need to always be warm is met with the need to well..always be eating. This of course is a generalisation as I have a few friends who do not eat like bears who are about to hibernate for the winter season haha but in my case, I always have the need to want to snack on something.

I found a healthy snack option which is too good to not share with you. 

Ingredients

1 can chickpeas

Extra virgin olive oil

Mixed Herbs

Cayenne Pepper (optional)

Salt (optional)

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Drain a can of chickpeas and throw into an oven proof dish.

Sprinkle some EVOO on it - enough to get some of the peas covered in it.

Add your spices and shake the bowl around so that this mix lathers as many chickpeas as possible.

Put in the oven and bake for 40minutes or until it reaches the desired crispy, crunchy texture.

Throw in a bowl and enjoy in front of the tv :) The great thing about this snack is that it in fact low in calories (if you watch the amount of EVOO and salt you use).

You can add other spices as an alternative to the ones I mentioned above. The amount of spices also depends on your own personal taste buds. On this particular occasion I was looking for a mexican chilli-ish kinda of taste hence the cayenne pepper. On another occasion, I used just salt and vinegar (sprinkle of vinegar added after the chickpeas were done) – smelled just as good as sloppy slap chips :).

Mix it up any-which-way you like. It is after all going into YOUR belly :)

Vegetable Tagine with olive and parsley couscous

Last week I was guilty of gluttony. A certain pizza establishment based in the Hyde Park shopping centre had this great special on(they still do if you're interested) – a small pizza for 29 bucs. The special – you could choose ANY pizza (yes even if it had expensive things like seafood on it) and you would only pay R29..anyway I took fulll advantage of this and ate 3 pizzas in a space of 5 days..they were good pizzas but certainly not good for my waistline..

So this week I have vowed to eat healthily hoping that my body would forgive me! Visited fruit and veg and stocked up on all the 'love-my-body- goodies I could get...

Dinner last night would make any vegetarian proud. Here's the recipe.

Vegetable Tagine with olive and parsley couscous

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 med red onion thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp dried chilli flakes            } I combined these two and used the chilli and garlic mix and just                                                      added 2 tsps.

1tsp ground coriander

1tsp cumin seeds

½ tsp tumeric powder

500g pumpkin  - I used roasted butternut

2 med potatoes chopped coarsely

2 ½ cups veg stock

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

½ cup coarsely chopped coriander

- Heat oil and cook onion (till soft) and garlic and chilli mix

- Add spices and seeds: cook, stirring until fragrant (such a great smell u'll know when its fragrant)

- Add the potatoe (As mentioned above I used roasted butternut which I didn't add to the tagine but instead placed alongside the meal). If you don't want to do that then at this stage add the butternut to the potatoe and spice mix.

- Stir in stock, bring to the boil. Reduce heat and let simmer uncovered until veggies are tender.

- Add can of chickpeas.

- Cook (simmer uncovered) for about 10 minutes (sauce will thicken slightly by now). The veggies should be 'tender' at this point,,,which means its READY!:)

Olive and Parsely Couscous

Cook couscous according to packet instructions, I made 2 cups of couscous

spoon of butter

1 1/3 cups black pitted olives

½ cup coarsely chopped flat leaf parsely

Couscous: Add olives and chopped flat leaf parsely to couscous and mix all together. I added another spoon of butter to this mix ;)

Side Note: If you want, you can cook the couscous with 1.5 cup of veg stock instead of plain old water.

It's ready to be served. As you can see in the pics I took, this time I chose to put the butternut alongside the tagine instead of mixed in with the tagine...both ways work just as well! I felt full and welllll nourished after this meal! :)

Hope you enjoy. Oh if you want to make it a day ahead, you can...just store the tagine and couscous separately in the fridge!