Quick healthy meals

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Note how low these quick and easy meals are low in fat and yet how good they can be - full of great fresh flavours and bursting with nourishment. They are also quick to prepare, can be cooked in one pot and served all at once, making them budget and time-economical too. Most of them could be varied endlessly according to individual tastes. Think of them not so much as recipes, but concepts. Enjoy!

Use leftover vegetables and place in individual dishes. Crack one or two eggs on top, drizzle with pesto or hummus and bake until eggs are done.

Risotto prepared using defatted stock or vegetable juice, tossed with brine-packed tuna or shreds of smoked salmon and oven-roasted tomatoes and olives.

Pasta tossed with mixed cooked seafood, a little stock or wine, sliced spring onions, shreds of chilli, a handful of chopped herbs and freshly ground black pepper, topped with a few shavings of good parmesan cheese.

A tortilla spread with pureed beans mixed with chilli and oregano and cumin, topped with tomatoes and sprinkled with grated lower-fat cheese and grilled until the cheese is melted. Serve with a salad of plenty of fresh greens, chopped avocado, olives and a little low-fat sour cream. (alternately, roll up the tortilla and brown under the griller on all sides.

Pile corn chips in a dish and drizzle with salsa, cooked beans and grated cheese. Bake until crisp and golden and serve with a tossed green salad and thinly sliced oranges.

cheesecarrot Toss finely sliced lean beef or skinned chicken breast with finely sliced carrot, capsicum, snow peas, bean sprouts, soya sauce, garlic and grated fresh ginger and fork through cooked rice or noodles.

Cook rice or mung bean noodles and toss with cooked chicken breast chunks, fish sauce, fresh ginger, garlic, soy sauce, chilli, sugar and rice vinegar, and a handful of chopped coriander.

Toss cooked rice with heaps of cooked vegetables and some nuts. Break in a couple of eggs and stir around until they coat the mixture and disappear. Add a tin of drained tuna or salmon if you like, or add leftover scraps of lean meat or chicken.

Make a huge sandwich with thick slabs of the best wholemeal bread you can buy, spread with low-fat mayonnaise or chutney and top with all the salad you can find and some low-fat cheese.

Split focaccia to make the base for a pizza. Spread with spaghetti sauce, and top with anchovies, olives, grilled eggplant and oven-roasted tomatoes, artichokes and a few shavings of good parmesan. Bake until hot.

Make kasha by stirring an egg through raw buckwheat, then add stock and simmer until the kasha is soft and fluffy. Fork through cooked lentils and tomatoes and spinach and season with pepper.

Bake a huge potato until it is fluffy, scoop out some of the centre and fill it with cooked vegetables lightly mixed with an egg. Drizzle it with low-fat sour cream or natural yoghurt and return to the oven for 10 more minutes. Or you can fill it with curry, or ratatouille - or anything you have on hand.

Make a hearty vegetable soup with everything in the fridge crisper. Grate a potato into it, and pop in a couple of handfuls of rice, barley or pasta. Let it all cook slowly until everything is tender. Serve with some good crusty bread and a sprinkle of fresh chopped herbs, alfalfa sprouts or chunks of avocado.

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