The humble broccoli - how do you eat yours?
I love trying new recipes and getting inventive in the kitchen so last week I put a poll up on social media to let you choose what vegetable I’d be experimenting with this week – the choices were cauliflower or broccoli and apart from a handful of people, the majority chose broccoli as my ingredient of the week – I was quite surprised actually as I expected a lot more votes for cauliflower (plus I had some great ideas up my sleeve for some new dishes which I’ll save for future blog posts!).
I eat broccoli regularly but like a lot of people, I often just steam or boil it and have on the side of other dishes but I wanted to try to make broccoli the hero of a dish and give this very healthy vegetable a lot more credit!
Health benefits of broccoli
As a kid, we were told, as I’m sure lots of people are, ‘eat your broccoli, it’s good for you’ but for me, it was always the last thing on my plate, one of my least favourite parts of my Sunday dinner, one of the vegetables that, overboiled and rather mushy, was not in the least bit appetising and was something to be forced down!
Having learned a lot more about nutrition, these mini trees pack a really healthy punch and my mum was definitely right – broccoli is really good for you – its a powerhouse of nutrients including containing more Vitamin C than some citrus fruits, high in antioxidants and carotenoids and some of its health benefits include being great for your skin, boosting your immune system, protecting your eye health and also important for prostate health and repairing the DNA in your cells. So apart from the overcooking, my mum was definitely correct in ‘eat your broccoli, it’s good for you!’.
So, after broccoli got the vote for my vegetable of the week, I decided to try a few new dishes this week and here are my recipes.
Cheesy broccoli and quinoa bake
Ingredients
This serves 2 if you have it as a side dish or on its own, it would be a filling meal
- a head of broccoli chopped into florets
- 100g of quinoa
- a vegetable stock cube
- 40g of reduced fat cheddar
- 100ml of skimmed milk
- 1/2 tbsp of olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tsp of chilli flakes
- 1/2 tsp of black pepper
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C / gas mark 5
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper
3. Chop the broccoli into bite size florets and drizzle over the olive oil, give them a shake to evenly cover and place in the oven for 20 minutes until starting to brown.
4. While the broccoli is cooking, put the quinoa in a pan with the vegetable stock and 200ml of water and cook according to the package instructions until the liquid has been absorbed.
5. Take the quinoa off the heat and add the milk, chilli, garlic, black pepper and about 1/3 of the cheese and give it a good stir to mix through thoroughly and then add to an oven proof baking dish.
6. Add the cooked broccoli to the quinoa and mix well
7. Top with the remaining cheese and put back in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the cheese has melted and turned golden brown.
I served mine with Linda McCartney rosemary and red onion sausages and really enjoyed it – I’ll definitely be making this again.
Broccoli bites
Ingredients
A quick and easy dish and these are perfect as quick snacks or I used them to dip into soup for a filling lunch!
- 1 head of broccoli chopped into florets
- 3 medium or 5 small potatoes
- 40g of grated reduced fat cheddar
- 1 tsp of garlic granules
- 1 tsp of onion granules
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C / gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with baking paper.
3. Steam the broccoli for 5 minutes until soft.
4. Chop the broccoli into small pieces and roughly mash the potatoes.
5. Add the chopped broccoli, potato, the grated cheese and the garlic and onion granules to a bowl and mix thoroughly until its all combined.
6. Using your hands, make small balls of the mixture and then flatten them between your palms and place them on the baking tray and spray with low calorie spray oil and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
These are delicious hot or cold and will keep in the fridge for 3 days – perfect to serve with a meal or just to snack on when you are feeling peckish.
These sound delicious I have broccoli and quinoa in my house so no reason not to try something different !!! Thank you Georgina xx
hope you enjoy them, do let me know what you think!