The Secret Ingredient: Delicious,easy recipes which might just save your life

The good news is that it works. My cardiologists are amazed at my recovery. They cannot believe the levels of fitness that I have achieved and the way my heart is responding. I am so happy that I have taken control of my ‘active living’, and it is having such a positive effect on my health that I wouldn’t want to live my life any other way.

So back to the Secret Ingredient - why don’t you try a bit of active living yourself? Enjoy your food, eat for health by following some of my recipes, then go for a walk! Make a resolution to begin today. Start by just taking a walk around the block. Then build it up slowly, listening to your body. Walk as though you are late for an appointment. When you’re on the telephone, walk around instead of sitting still. Go for a wander in the park at lunchtime. Do your grocery shopping in half the time it usually takes you. Before you know it, you will start to lose a little weight, you’ll start to feel a bit more energetic, and you’ll probably want to try some other activities: cycling, swimming, gardening, dancing, or anything else you enjoy that will get your heart rate up.

Promise yourself you’ll live actively for three months. If you can honestly say after that trial period that you don’t feel 100 per cent better, then quit. But you will feel better, and you won’t quit.

The Secret Ingredient. Try it, you’ll like it - I promise!

easy hummus

everyday

Great as a starter with some toasted wholemeal (whole-wheat) pitta bread or vegetable sticks.

serves 4

2 small garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

1 mild red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped

400g/14oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

handful fresh flat-leaf parsley or coriander (cilantro), roughly chopped

juice of ½ lemon

freshly ground black pepper

1 Put the garlic, chilli, chickpeas and 1–2 tablespoons olive oil in a food processor and whiz until completely smooth - this may take several minutes. Add the herbs and a squeeze of lemon juice and whiz again until well blended. Taste and add more lemon juice and olive oil, as needed, plus some black pepper.

2 Spoon into a serving bowl and drizzle over a little more oil, then cover and chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

sardine and olive tapenade

everyday

For a delicious starter, load this tasty tapenade onto small slices of wholemeal (whole-wheat) toast for a flavour explosion!

1 Put all the ingredients into a food processor, or use a hand blender and a large bowl. Whiz until you have a coarse paste.

2 Taste to check the balance of flavours and add a little extra lemon juice if needed.

3 Serve on small pieces of toasted wholemeal bread.

serves 6

150g/5½oz/scant 1 cup pitted black olives

3 sardine fillets (canned, in tomato sauce)

3 tbsp capers (in brine, rinsed and drained)

2 tsp dried rosemary

1 heaped tsp fennel seeds

zest of 1 lemon

squeeze of fresh lemon juice

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

the five ‘f’s

I’m going to share with you my most precious tool for maintaining good health and happiness: the five ‘F’s. Family. Food. Fitness. Finance. Future. Pay attention to these and your life will change! It’s just a way of altering your thinking - of paying attention to the simple but important things in life, and it works for me.

Family is the most important element, I would imagine, in everyone’s life. And the older you get, the more precious your family becomes, especially if along the way you have lost a close family member. We can all show our family how much we care by feeding them well and by nourishing them with healthy food. As a mother, I know that my happiest moments in the day are when my children eat a lovely meal that I’ve cooked for them and they leave the table glowing, eyes sparkling and full of energy! So, by caring for a family through food, you are enabling fitness. Kids have good energy to play, adults have good energy to work, play sports and make the most of life. When we have good fitness, we also have the energy to take care of our finances. We are more efficient, we can work until the job gets done and be satisfied we have achieved our best, financially. And this in turn leads to a better future - physically, emotionally and financially.

the rainbow

When you are planning your ‘five a day’, try to think about a rainbow. The more colours you can incorporate into your diet, the healthier you’ll be.

If you are not aware of the need to eat five fruit and vegetable portions, it’s easy to eat only two or three portions day. The most important thing is to count and rotate your foods throughout the week. Eating a rainbow of colours is the best way to ensure that you are getting your full quota of nutrients. It’s the phytochemicals that give fruit their colour, so if you eat lots of different-coloured fruit and vegetables, you get a whole range of benefits.

RED: tomatoes and watermelon contain the essential nutrient lycopene.

ORANGE: mangoes and oranges contain plenty of vitamin C, and carrots and sweet potatoes are rich in beta-carotene.

YELLOW: sweetcorn (corn), pineapples and yellow (bell) peppers contain lutein (a form of antioxidant), and bananas provide potassium, which helps to prevent heart rhythm irregularities.

GREEN: broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and watercress contain folic acid, which helps to maintain healthy arteries.

BLUE: blueberries, blackberries and prunes are full of healthy vitamins and anthocyanin, which helps circulation.

INDIGO AND VIOLET: beetroot (beet), aubergines (eggplants), plums and red cabbage all contain powerful antioxidants.

Research shows that people who have a diet high in antioxidants tend to have a lower risk of heart disease and cancer compared to people whose diets lack these vital nutrients.

* when served without the ice-cream, and feel free to omit the sugar

salads, sides & vegetarian

chargrilled vegetable salad

everyday

Ideally you’ll need a grill pan for this dish, or a George Foreman-style grill.

serves 4

olive oil, to brush the griddle pan

1 large aubergine (eggplant), sliced lengthways

2 large courgettes (zucchini), sliced lengthways

8 spring onions (scallions), blanched in boiling water for 2 minutes

1 red and 1 yellow (bell) pepper, roasted, skinned, deseeded and cut into quarters

12 asparagus spears

for the grilled vegetable marinade:

1 shallot, peeled and diced

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely diced

2 garlic cloves, peeled and diced

8 basil leaves, torn

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

1 Set a non-stick ridged griddle pan over a high heat and brush lightly with olive oil.

2 Cook all the vegetables for 2–3 minutes on each side until nicely chargrilled (charbroiled), then remove from the heat.

3 In a large bowl, combine all the marinade ingredients and add the cooked vegetables, gently stirring and coating them in the marinade. Leave, covered, in the fridge to marinate thoroughly - overnight if possible - and serve the next day at room temperature. Don’t worry if making this is a last-minute decision and you don’t have time to marinate overnight. Just let the flavours infuse for as long as you can.

crunchy coleslaw

everyday

This makes a great accompaniment to any dish. But I love it on its own, sneaking a nibble as I’m passing the refrigerator!

1 Wash the cabbage, carrots and apple.

2 Shred the cabbage and apple and grate the carrots. Don’t even think about getting a machine to do this for you - it’s great exercise for those arms! Put into a colourful bowl, then add all the other ingredients. Mix up well, having a little taste as you go.

3 Garnish with the chopped chervil or parsley and serve.

My recipes are very low salt. If you’re missing salt, try a squeeze of lemon instead for that extra zing.

serves 10

½ small white cabbage

2 carrots

1 small green apple

juice of ½ lemon

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

150g/5½oz/⅔ cup natural low-fat yogurt

freshly ground black pepper

chopped fresh chervil or flat-leaf parsley, to garnish

herbed leaf salad

everyday

A wooden bowl is recommended for this dish - for a unique way to flavour the salad.

serves 4–6

1 garlic clove, peeled

4 tbsp mixed fresh herbs (chervil, tarragon, dill, basil, marjoram, flat-leaf parsley, mint, chives, sorrel)

350g/12oz mixed salad leaves, washed, dried and torn (curly endive, baby spinach, rocket/arugula, radicchio, chicory, watercress, treviso, oak leaf, dandelion, nasturtium)

freshly ground black pepper

to serve (optional):

wholemeal (whole-grain) croutons

toasted pine nuts

shavings of Parmesan

for the dressing:

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

½ tsp muscovado sugar

1 Rub a wooden salad bowl with the raw garlic. Combine the herbs and the salad leaves and mix thoroughly. Season with black pepper.

2 For the dressing, put the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and sugar into a cup or small bowl and whisk together with a fork quite vigorously.

3 Dress the leaves, but don’t drown them. Serve immediately - once dressed, try not to let the salad sit around for too long, or the leaves will go soggy. If you like, scatter over some wholemeal (whole-grain) croutons, toasted pine nuts or flakes (slivers) of Parmesan.

prawn, avocado and pecan herb salad

everyday

You know, salads don’t have to be boring. This dish is full of flavour! You can serve it as a main meal or smaller portions for a healthy starter. If you don’t like prawns, you can substitute with chicken; anything goes, really. Be adventurous with your salads and make this a regular, everyday dish.

Prawns give great texture and flavour to this recipe, but they do contain cholesterol, so I have allowed only four prawns per serving. If you want to make it more substantial, you can add extra protein: such as tuna, chicken or turkey.

1Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped salad onions, crushed garlic, soy sauce, black pepper and raw prawns. Sauté until the prawns have turned pink all the way through.

2Arrange the salad leaves, watercress, avocado and tomatoes in a big dish, then pour over the prawns and other cooked ingredients. Squeeze over the lemon juice, sprinkle with torn basil and pecan nuts and serve.

serves 2

drizzle of olive oil

2 salad onions or spring onions (scallions), peeled and finely chopped

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

1 tbsp soy sauce

freshly ground black pepper

8 uncooked king prawns (jumbo shrimp)

mixed salad leaves

watercress

1 ripe avocado

2 tomatoes, sliced

juice of 1 lemon

handful of fresh basil, torn

handful of shelled pecan nuts

the ‘staying alive as long as possible’ plan

I enjoy giving talks to different heart rehab groups and medical conferences around the country. I love hearing people’s amazing stories and I love to learn different tips to make life a little easier after surviving a trauma. Something that people in my heart groups seem to really struggle with when recovering from any incident is learning how to rest properly. For some reason, we seem to feel guilty when we need to rest and see it as some sort of failure.

I have always been a busy Bee! So having rest forced upon me after my heart attacks was difficult to accept. For a long time I tried to fight it, until one day I had one of those ‘light bulb’ moments when everything suddenly made perfect sense and I no longer viewed resting in a negative way.

I realized that the problem with my heart was playing with my head. I was frightened that I was going to die because my heart would simply stop working. So whenever I got tired and needed to rest, I started to panic, thinking I was going to die any second. Looking back, I can see how ridiculous this mindset was, but it made perfect sense to me at the time.

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