Apple & Cinnamon Pancakes

Who doesn’t love a pancake for breakfast?  Donkey from Shrek certainly does and so do I, but with our body goals and healthy nutrition in mind, it is hardly considered the breakfast of [fitness] champions… until now.  These pancakes are super easy – all ingredients into the blender and blend – and super healthy which is the way we like to start a day.  Packed with excellent nutrition, they are also gluten free and dairy free for those who have these intolerances.

Ingredients – place all into a blender:

1 fresh sliced apple
2 eggs
1 cup oat milk (or any milk you fancy)
1 cup steal cut oats (normal oats or jumbo)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Blend until smooth and pour out batter into a heated pan to your desired size pancake. When the pancake starts to bubble, flip over and cook the other side.

Enjoy with agave syrup or honey.

Nutrition (per pancake)
This batch made 8 pancakes… depending on how thin, fat, big or small you make them, your nutritional value per pancake will change accordingly.
Calories 85
Protein: 3 grams
Fat: 2.5 grams
Carbs: 12.5 grams

Best Ever Butternut Soup

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged my ultimate soup recipe yet!  I always have a few Tupperware pots of various versions of this soup in my freezer for a low-cal, nutritious and delicious dinner when I run out time or ideas for dinner.  And I always bring a small pot of left-overs for my work lunch and simply don’t grow tired of it.

Since making this soup, I am constantly floored by anyone’s need to put cream, butter, milk or any other fat laden ingredient into a soup.  There is no need and my recipe is proof of that.

This post features butternut, but I’ve also made the soup with different combinations of sweet potato, courgette, carrot, broccoli, peppers and any other left over veggie I have in the fridge.  I always add the lentils not only to thicken the soup, but add to its nutritional content.   As always, any recipe I’ve made up has an exceptionally easy and short method 🙂

Ingredients
1 butternut, cut into cubes
1 small red onion, chopped
200g dry red lentils
2 veg stock cubes
Tsp curry powder

Method
Saute onion, add butternut and allow to sizzle a little. Add water, stock cubes and rinsed lentils.  Pop on the lid and cook for 15-20 minutes until the butternut is soft.  Blend into soup consistency, stir in curry powder.

Nutritional – I divide this pot into 4 large portions
Calories:  170
Fat:  0.2g
Carbs:  35g
Protein: 9g

Healthy Chocolate Cake

Me and my chocolate cake recipes, right?!?  I just can’t help myself especially as they are the easiest recipes to make up from what you have in your cupboard.  This cake however is smothered in real chocolate icing – which rather ironically is the reason for baking the cake.  I had left over icing from baking a “full-fat” birthday cake for my boss and wanted to use it up so I invented a super healthy cake for a super un-healthy icing!

I’d prefer you smother your cake in a healthier version of icing, for example extra light cream-cheese mixed with good quality melted chocolate = chocolate cheese cake topping. Or what about mixing peanut butter with cocoa and agave nectar?  For a runny sauce heat coconut milk, truvia blend and honey in a saucepan – simmer for 10 minutes and allow to cool.  Yum!

Ingredients
140g brown truvia baking blend (or Tate & Lyle half)
50ml olive oil
4 eggs, separated
250ml fat free natural yogurt
80g oat flour
80g wholemeal flour
3 tblsp cocoa
1.5 tsp baking powder
Pinch bicarb (baking soda)

Method
Beat together the sugar and oil. Add the egg yolk & beat some more. Add the yogurt and stir.  Fold in the cocoa, flours, baking powder and bicarb.
Separately, whisk egg whites until they’re stiff and fold into the batter.
Pour into 2 lined cake tins and bake at 160 deg C for 30-40 minutes. Don’t let it over-bake or it will be dry.
Once cooled, fill the middle, sandwich the 2 cakes and top with your favourite healthy topping.

Nutritional Value per slice of sandwiched cake, no icing (I cut my cake into 8 slices)
Calories: 172
Fat: 4.5g
Carb: 32.6g
Protein: 7.2g

Sweet Potato Crusted Quiche

Wow, it has been ages since I last blogged!  A new job has kept me very busy and very happy over the last year, but it is time to re-unleash my kitchen creative and get blogging again!

What better way to start off a summer of blogging than with a delicious and healthy quiche, perfect for picnics or a packed lunch.

I took this recipe off pinterest, still a constant source of inspiration, but as usual, tweaked the ingredients to make it a healthier version.

Ingredients
1 medium sweet potato
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 small red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, diced
1 bunch spinach
2 eggs, 2 egg whites
1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
¼ cup goat cheese, crumbled

Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Peel sweet potatoes, slice thinly and lightly coat in olive oil. Lay potato slices in pie dish like a crust and bake for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are slightly soft. Remove from the oven and reduce temperature to 375 degrees.
Heat a large fat free pan over medium heat and cook the onion until soft. Add the garlic and spinach, tossing until spinach is wilted and tender, about 4 minutes. Drain off the water released from the spinach.
Whisk eggs in a medium bowl & then stir in the mozzarella and goat cheeses.
Combine the spinach mixture with the egg and cheese mixture and pour into the crust. Bake until the quiche is firm – about 40 minutes.

Serve hot or cold.

Nutrition per slice – I cut my pie into 4 large pieces
Calories: 178
Fat: 5.6g
Carbs: 15.8g
Protein: 13.8g

Easiest Mushroom Risotto

You may remember my blog about my husband’s delicious Tuna Risotto… well this mushroom version is pretty much an adaptation of that very tasty dish.  I love a creamy mushroom risotto and developed a sudden taste for one on my way home from work a few evenings ago.  I was also craving a poached egg and being undecided which to have, made dinner out of both with a sprinkling of parmesan shavings.  Utterly delicious.  And as there was some risotto over, I had a portion for my breakfast the next morning – hey don’t judge before you try it 😉  Who said breakfast has to be cereal?

Recipe (makes 4 portions):
1 cup dry brown rice
water to cover the rice by about an inch
1 punnet mushrooms (I think mine was about 200g)
1 vegetable stock cube
1 small red onion, finely chopped

Place it all into a casserole dish with a lid. Give it a good stir and pop it in the oven for around 1 and a half hours. (you don’t need to leave it as long, it all depends how soft you want the rice).  Check on it once or twice during the cook to make sure it doesn’t go dry.  If it does, just pop a bit of boiling water in, give it a stir and close the lid to continue cooking.

Option to serve: pop a poached egg on the top & sprinkle with parmesan shavings

Nutrition (without the egg):
Calories per serving: 200
Carbs: 38.5g
Protein: 5.6g
Fat: 1.8g

Carrot Cake the healthy way

Most people think carrot cake’s got to be healthy right…. wrong! Some of the decadent carrot cakes out there have hardly any carrot in them. Like any other cake one thing they do have a lot of is butter, sugar and white processed flour. So is this carrot cake on the healthy track? You betcha!

Now for anyone running through my blog you’ll think I eat a lot of cake… I don’t really, its just that I love baking and want to share healthier ways of making tasty treats. I also want to remind everyone out there that portion control is still key to staying lean and a treat is exactly that: a treat. Not something you have all the time. If you’re on a health/weight loss journey, keep your eyes on the prize: your goal of being lean, fit and healthy. And use these recipes for special occasions and treats.

Now onto the ins and outs of this yummy and moist cake. Lots of carrot, raisins, oat flour and eggs to keep us nutritionally sound. A dash of something sweet to make it a treat, a splash of some oil to keep healthy fats in mind and voila. You won’t believe how good this tastes.

Ingredients
1 medium orange
140g raisins
80ml walnut oil
2 tbsp natural fat free yogurt
115g plain wholemeal/oat flour
100g self-raising wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
Half tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 rounded tsp ground cinnamon
70g Tate & Lyle light brown sugar (this is a stevia blend sugar so you use less than normal sugar)
2 finely grated carrots (medium to large carrots)
2 eggs

Finely grate the zest from the orange and mix this with 3 spoons of juice from the orange in with the raisins. Leave it to stand while you prepare the cake mix.
Finely grate the 2 carrots.
Mix the flours, baking powder, bicarb and cinnamon in a bowl. Separately beat/whisk together the sugar, 1 whole egg and 1 egg white until creamy (separate the other egg white into a bowl for whisking on its own). Slowly pour in the oil and continue to whisk well. Add the dry to the wet, separately whisk the white until softly peaking and fold into the cake mix. Fold in the carrot, raisins & juice.
Pour into a prepared 20cm square tin (I used a 18cm round tin) and bake at about 170 deg C for an hour.

As I was taking this cake into work, I mixed up a frosting for it… naughty but nice 😉
orange zest, a tiny squeeze of juice, water & icing sugar. The cake is very sweet and moist so definitely didn’t need a topping. I will leave it off next time.

Note: If you use raw stevia, which is highly concentrate, add a little more oatflour or the cake will be too moist.

Nutritional Info:
Calories: 180
Carbs: 27
Protein: 4.1
Fat: 3.6

Sweet Potato Brownies (I think moist chocolate cake!)

I know, I know… ANOTHER brownie recipe. Its not that I particularly prefer brownies to any over cake or treat, but it seems that these are the easiest recipe to manipulate into something healthy by using just about anything from courgettes and potatoes to beetroot. I wasn’t going to do another brownie recipe, but I had a leftover potato and couldn’t think of anything else to do with it. And I’m so pleased I tried this recipe. Rather than one of my own made up and tweaked recipe, this one comes off a pinterest posting that I only slightly tweaked on the sugars and quantity of eggs but it is delicious! So moist and yummy, but I do think it resembles more a chocolate cake than a brownie.

Ingredients:

1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup cooked sweet potato
1/2 cup honey (I used 50ml honey, 25ml Tate & Lyle light brown sugar and 15ml agave nectar)
1/4 cup olive oil (I used walnut oil)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
6 egg whites (I used 5 egg whites)

Combine all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Wizz all the wet ingredients EXCEPT the egg whites in a blender. Mix these 2 together. I found it was too dry so I threw in a dollop of natural fat free yogurt.
Whisk the egg whites until softly peaking and fold in the mixed ingredients.
Bake at about 180 deg C for 18-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them coz you don’t want them to dry out.

Nutritional info:
I cut my tray of brownies into 12 squares and found that as they rose quite high, this was a good portion of cake:
Calories: 75
Carbs: 15.3g
Protein: 3.3g
Fat: 2.1g

Salted Caramel Popcorn

Salted caramel is all the rage now… its in everything from fudge and biscuits to profiteroles and chocolate.  You only  need to hear something THIS often to start getting a taste for it but I decided to find something on the healthier scale of the food spectrum to tantalise and sate my salted caramel taste buds!

And so was born my Salted Caramel Popcorn.  Super easy, relatively healthy but most importantly super delicious.  You can make a rather small amount of the “syrup” and it will cover your tray of popcorn, don’t worry.  As the syrup heats in the oven, you give it a few stir abouts every few minutes and that small amount lands up covering a large area of popcorn.

Popcorn:
I use an airpopper called a popcorn duck – I suggest investing in one of these if you like popcorn as it completely cuts out the need for oil.  The popper comes with a measure which I fill just under its capacity, and this should yield about 8 cups of popped corn.  Once they’re blown out of the popper into a bowl, I transfer the bowl of popped corns onto a baking tray and lightly salt.

Syrup – heat in a pot and allow to boil for a couple of seconds before removing from the heat and stirring until the sugar is dissolved:

1 tablespoon olive or walnut oil
1 tablespoon Tate & Lyle light brown sugar, or a quarter teaspoon Stevia
1 teaspoon Agave
1 tablespoon water
1 few drops of caramel flavouring (a bit like vanilla essence, but caramel flavour)

You can play around with these measurements to suit your taste.  Pour the syrup over the popcorn, stir it around a bit and pop it into an oven heated to around 160 deg C for a minute or so, stir it around, another minute, one last stir and pop back into the bowl to cool.

Nutrition Info
I can eat this whole batch on my own… but that’s totally piggy so suggest you save this for when you have someone to share it with.  That way, you’re forced to give half of it away.  Here is the info for HALF a batch as per the ingredients above

Calories: 193
Carbs:  31
Protein:  4
Fat:  4.9

Energy Bar bake off

I’ve had my eye on a few “energy bar” recipes lately, but couldn’t decide between the bars you pop in the oven or the ones you freeze and then keep in the fridge. I was also not 100% happy with all the ingredients they were suggesting so I got about working a new combination for each.

For the baked bars, instead of producing (another) batch of poor textured healthy bakes, took a tip from my coconut oat cookies and added coconut oil … instead of apple sauce or pumpkin puree – both are great in a cake, but produce a poor biscuit crunch.

The verdict… yum, yum, yum and yum! The fridge version hold huge similarity to a Meridian Peanut Bar and the baked version were so delicious my hubby gobbled them up before I could share them with anyone.
Baked Energy Bars
8 pitted dates
Half cup mixed chopped raw nuts
Half cup mixed seeds
Handful dried berries (cranberries etc… or even raisins)
Add all the above ingredients into a food processor & pulse the mixture until mixed and smooth but with a bit of texture. Transfer into a mixing bowl and add:
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbslp spelt flour
2 tbslp agave nectar
Half cup oats
Half cup coconut oil (liquid state)

Spread the mixture into a baking dish & bake at 180 deg C for about 15 to 20 mins (until golden brown and set).

Nutritional info: This mix made 10 squares/bars
Calories: 170
Protein: 3 grams
Carbs: 12 grams
Fat: 12 grams (all of the good-fat family)

No Bake Bars
1 cup pitted dates soaked in warm water
Half cup dried apricots
Half cup chopped raw nuts
Quarter cup no sugar/no added oil peanutbutter
Half cup oats
Half cup mixed seeds

Pulse all ingredients in a food processor until smooth, but with a bit of texture/crunch still in tact.
Scoop into a baking tin and press down to make an even layer. Freeze for 30 minutes & then keep in the fridge.

Nutritional Info: This mix made 12 bars
Calories: 145
Protein: 4.5
Carbs: 16
Fat: 7

Coconut Oat Cookies

FINALLY!!!! A healthy cookie with true crunch, genuine biscuit’iness and definite “can’t believe its not butter” joy. I can’t contain my happiness.

Most of you know that I have been on a mission to create a biscuit or an oatbar that embraces the following qualities: first and foremost (of course) healthy; tasty; more’sh; buttery without the butter; crunchie; moist; perhaps with a slight chew to it; oaty; generally yum.
I’ve tried apple sauce instead of butter; soya marg in stead of butter; pumpkin puree instead of butter; yogurt instead of butter… and although I’ve had some tasty cookies, they’ve never upheld an ounce of crunch… until now.

Hail coconut oil! Not only great for frying, basting, roasting, hair, skin, removing sticky labels and a gazillion other things, but bloody brilliant at making a good cookie.

Ingredients
Half cup coconut oil – in its mushy state: too hard, soften over boiling water, or too liquid, pop in the fridge
80 ml brown sugar
80ml truvia baking blend
2 small eggs
half tsp vanilla essence
1 cup organic stone ground wholemeal flour (or just wholemeal if you can’t get the good stuff)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup rolled oats
30g raisins… optional

Beat the coconut oil and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Sift the flour into a bowl, add the sugar, baking powder and oats. Mix wet and dry. Add the raisins and gently stir in.
Place rolled balls, approx 1 and a half inches in diameter onto a greased tray and flatten slightly into a round disk. The mixture spreads a little on baking, so don’t place the dough too close.
Bake at about 180 deg C for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Allow to cool before scoffing or you’ll burn your mouth 🙂

Nutritional Info
My batch made 17 good sized cookies
Calories per cookie: 111
Fat: 9.6g (from the good variety)
Carbs: 7.3g
Protein: 2.1g