Thai Beef Salad

Gradually over the last 12 months, I have been trying to reduce the amount of carbs I consume in my diet. So far, I have cut down on wheat carbs like pasta and bread. It was a challenge to cut down bread altogether as I love breads (more than rice), but I try to keep bread consumption to the weekends and will choose sourdough or rye breads. It was easy to take pasta out from my diet, but not so easy with rice. We have been eating basmati rice now for years and love the separate grains when cooked. I have not eliminated rice but have reduced the quantity that I eat. It has not been easy to make these changes; slowly it's becoming easier to choose the right options for me.

Tonight, we had steak for dinner and I turned mine into a Thai Beef Salad with Nam Jin dressing. It's easy to make the dressing:

lemon juice
fish sauce
soya sauce
sesame oil
brown sugar
chilli - chopped
garlic - chopped finely

Mix all the above together in a glass jar or bottle. Taste and drizzle over salad and steak.

For the salad, I put together salad leaves, cucumber, grape tomatoes and yellow capsicum (bell peppers). I will usually throw in sliced spanish onion as well, but I didn't have any so omitted it this time.

Simple yet fulfilling meal. I even had enough for lunch at work the next day.

It's not difficult to eat healthy, but there needs to be some planning involved to have the right ingredients in the pantry.

Mums United

Just before we went away for our holidays to Malaysia and Singapore, I received a phone call from Dana at Soup Research team. The purpose of Dana's call was to invite me to be part of the Mums United project by The Heart Foundation. The purpose of the project is to encourage Australian families to make small changes to their lifestyles and diet to have a better life.

When Dana explained the purpose behind the project and what will be involved, I was interested to be part of this campaign. There is a history of heart disease in my hubby's and my family. Hence the Mums United project was something that I could related to. Heart disease is one of the main causes of death in Australian woman. One should not think that only obese people suffer from heart disease. We have a few friends who are skinny but have had heart attacks.

As a mother and wife as well as the main grocery buyer in the family, I am always looking for the Heart Foundation tick approved products like Bega So Extra Light cheese as a guide on what is good and healthy to buy for my family.


The Mums United site contains fun activities for the family, easy to follow recipes to cook and other suggestions on how to lead a healthier lifestyle.