Spelt bread and raw strawberry jam

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about my diet and how far I’ve come in the past few months. I changed the way I eat a lot but more for health purposes, of course I was hoping that eating better would also mean losing a bit of weight but I didn’t really expect to.

The biggest change was that I cut out all processed/refine sugar, as I’ve already mentioned, and that has benefited me in many ways. First of all, I feel more in control of what I eat, both in terms of portion sizes and cravings, my mood are better and I have more energy. I’ve also almost entirely cut out meat, this wasn’t intentional but it just happened, though I still tend to eat fish once or twice a week and dairy and eggs fairly often. I made a conscious effort to substitute all these things with vegetables, so I’m eating a bit less grains (pasta, bread, rice etc) too.

I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to be gluten free for a couple of weeks or so to see if I could notice any difference and yesterday, while at a health food store, I had a spur of the moment decision to buy some spelt flour and have a go at making spelt bread. One tiny little detail: spelt isn’t gluten free (I only realised this many hours after buying it).

Nevermind! I shall blame this on the extended sleep deprivation and all that. I gave it a go anyway and used the recipe that was on the packet. It was quite quick and fairly mess free and didn’t need as much work as wheat bread; unfortunately I don’t own a bread tin yet (must get one!) so the poor thing went all flat instead of rising in a lovely loaf shape, but let me tell you, it’s actually rather nice! It will be quite amazing with some soup once the weather goes colder again.

I wanted something to put on it and couldn’t quite think of something that was a bit special, just like the bread itself, until I remembered about this easy recipe for raw strawberry chia jam.

It’s all pretty straight forward: mix 3 tablespoons of chia seeds, 3 tablespoons of honey (or agave nectar or maple syrup) and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (one large lemon should be enough) together in a little bowl – as you can see in the photo, it’s that odd brownish mess!

Mash the strawberries – 1lb according to the recipe, I used a 400g pack – with a fork or pulse in the food processor, combine with the chia seeds mixture and pour in a container (you may want to use one that is big enough…) then simply put in the fridge and leave it to set for at least half an hour. Done!

You can now enjoy your lovely super healthy jam on your not-gluten-free spelt bread 😉

I’m fighting with all my might not to go and eat the rest of the bread and jam right now. Must…. resist…. temptation…..

A different Sunday dinner

Today I was feeling a little adventurous, I really wanted something nice but different from the usual things (pasta mostly!) I end up cooking.

The solution, as always, came from Pinterest (if you’re not on it yet, you really ought to, though it can be quite addictive and time consuming!). I have a few recipes pinned on my food board that I really like but rarely make, or have never tried, so it’s always a nice source of inspiration.

Tonight I ended up making a very odd combination of jacket potatoes with cheese and a lentil bolognese sauce (low fat, healthy and cheap, what else could a girl want?), with a side of baked courgette chips (purely so that I didn’t have to put the oven on just for the potatoes, it feels like a bit of a waste) and a superhealthy raw carrot cake, from the same lovely lady who introduced me to the wonderful world of raw chocolate brownies.

Unfortunately, as it was quite a hands-on dinner to make and the children were keeping me on my toes (you try to stop a fight while your fingers are coated in a messy eggy breadcrumb mixture!) I didn’t get round to taking any pictures of the work in progress, but just the finished result. The cake looks much better than in the photo and I’m secretly quite pleased that my daughter wasn’t too keen on it – more for me tomorrow! And I’m also very happy that for once everything went according to plan, often when I try out new recipes or ones I’m not familiar with I end up doing something wrong and mess it up.

Have you made any adventurous meal lately? How did it turn out? Or do you prefer to stick to a good old roast on a Sunday, be it homemade or eaten out?

Ode to vinegar

I love cider vinegar. If you’d told me a few years ago that I would have bottles of vinegar scattered throughout my house (4 different types nonetheless) I would have told you you were barking mad. But here I am, hardcore vinegar lover, I guess I’m getting quite ‘crunchy’.

Now, not all vinegar is the same. I like to use apple cider vinegar for health and beauty and cheap white distilled vinegar for cleaning, it’s by far my favourite household cleaning product. What’s the main advantage of using vinegar? For a start, it’s a natural product made by fermenting apple juice into cider which is then fermented again into vinegar, so using it cuts down on the amount of other chemicals that you’d reach for otherwise. It’s also cheaper than many commercial cleaning products yet works just as well and it’s so versatile it feels there’s nothing it can’t be used for!  Here are some of my favourite uses.

Hair rinse
Say what? Putting vinegar on my hair? But I don’t want to smell like a fish and chips shop! – fret not, it’s not as bad as it sounds, and I promise your hair won’t smell funny. Put about one or two tablespoons of vinegar in an old bottle and fill half of it with water, then pour over your hair either after shampooing or after using your conditioner. It gives hair a lovely shine, more volume and really helps detangle it.

Multi purpose cleaner 
I have a couple of spray bottles that I use for this, one is straight vinegar and one is about a third vinegar and two thirds water, I tend to use the diluted one more and save the straight one for really tougher jobs. Vinegar kills bacteria, mould and germs, and it’s great in the kitchen – no need to worry about nasty chemicals coming in contact with food. Again, I know the smell can be off putting for some people so here’s a quick tip: soak lemon and orange peels with vinegar in a jar for a week or two, then strain into a spray bottle and add sweet orange essential oil to it (I just always have a jar soaking ready for when I finish the vinegar I’m using). The smell gets quite pleasant that way. Also, this is THE best thing to use glass, great for windows too, wipe off with newspaper and you’ll never go back! There is really no end to the uses for this.

Drink it!
Ok, I haven’t actually tried this yet, but apparently drinking small amount (a tablespoon or so) every day has numerous health benefits. It can help lower the risk of thrush, as it contains small amounts of probiotics, aid weight loss (for example, look at this study!), improve skin blemishes and tone and some studies show that it may help reduce the rate of growth of cancer cells. It’s worth a try, right? You can either take it straight, if you’re brave, or mix it it in water with some honey or fruit juice. I shall try it from tomorrow and see what happens!

Apparently it can also help with digestion, heartburn (yes, really), wind and constipation, I don’t suffer badly from any of these but it will be interesting to see if there’s a change. One word of caution though: it could interact with certain medications so do check first if you are taking anything.

Do you use vinegar? What are your favourite uses? Do you or would you any of these? Or do you, like my husband, absolutely hate anything that remotely smells like vinegar?

 

 

Raw chocolate brownies – you MUST try these!

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m not trying to completely avoid any added refined sugar – and by that I mean sugar that has been extracted or processed and that isn’t in its natural form anymore.

I’ve been sugar-free for almost 3 months now and I feel much better for it, my moods have improved, I have far more energy and the weight has been slowly but surely coming off, and trust me when I say that I’m in no way controlling my portions, I always end up finishing my daughter’s dinners and putting lashings of oil or butter on anything! We’re a fat friendly house and I most certainly don’t count calories.

But I didn’t know all this when I first started, all I knew was that I really, really liked chocolate and I wasn’t quite ready to face a chocolate-free life. And this is when I found The Rawtarian’s website and so so glad I did. She has many raw vegan recipes, including an amazing raw cheesecake recipe, raw chocolate truffles for when I’m in need of a quick fix and, above, the awesome raw chocolate brownies. I swear, every single person who’s tried them has loved them and I’ve been asked for the recipe many times, so if you’re trying to go sugar-free or just have a healthier alternative to regular brownies, you should really add these to your to-do list.

The recipe is as easy as it gets:
– one cup of pecans (I added some cashews too)
– one cup of dates
– 5 tablespoons of raw cacao (I use regular cocoa powder)
– 4 tablespoons of dessicated coconut
– 2 tablespoons of honey
– pinch of sea salt

I throw it all in the blender at once though Laura-Jane @ the Rawtarian suggests blending the pecans first, then the dates, then adding the rest of the ingredients. Blend until it’s fluffy, but don’t overblend it or the natural oils will separate, I talk from experience!

  

Press down into a pan (she says with clean hands, which makes me giggle – of course you’d use clean hands! And if you didn’t you’re probably the kind of person who doesn’t really care anyway) and put in the fridge for a few hours to set, unless you’re greedy and impatient like us and end up eating it almost immediately. Then cut into squares just like you would with regular brownies and stuff your face serve.

I really recommend topping them with her raw chocolate icing too, it’s delicious and you wonder how they only have healthy ingredients, they taste too naughty to be so good. I only make it on special occasions, purely because my toddler is crazy about these and the icing can get quite messy in small clumsy hands.

And then…

…there’s that time that you remove the blender from its base but the blade part comes off, spilling the gooey contents all over the counter. This was after I’d already cleaned up some of it.

In case you were wondering, we were making mango and orange lollies.

Butternut squash “pizza”

This weekend has really flown by, my brother, sister-in-law and nephew came for a brief visit after I hadn’t seen them for well over a year so there’s been lots of catching up and running around to show them how beautiful Brighton is – which also involved a fair amount of not particularly healthy food (takeaway curry anyone?).

I wanted a light dinner but fancied trying something new, and I was also tired. New, healthy and quick… now that’s a challenge! Thankfully I remembered a recipe I had saved on my Pinterest food board (are you on Pinterest? If no, you really should, it’s amazing for saving all great things in one place!), it was a butternut squash pizza crust, the idea being to have a paleo-friendly pseudo pizza. I also saw this roasted butternut squash with goats cheese recipe yesterday so I combined the two to make my own veggie butternut squash pizza.

It’s all pretty easy. Preheat the oven to 200°, cut the butternut squash in slices around 1cm thick then drizzle with olive oil (or butter, or coconut oil… whatever floats your boat!) and place them on a tray and bake for around 30 minutes – the timing depends a lot on the thickness of your slices so it’s worth checking them after around 20 minutes to make sure they’re not getting too mushy.

The next step is not necessary as it depends on what you want as topping, but here’s what I did! Prepare a quick tomato sauce by softening some finely chopped onion in a pan with a little olive oil, pour in a can of chopped tomatoes and let it simmer for a few minutes. Next add some chopped courgettes, fresh basil and oregano and cook until the courgette are softer and the sauce has thickened up.

Now, assemble! Put the veggie tomato sauce on the butternut squash slices and crumble feta cheese on top, pop back in the over for 10 minutes and there you go, lovely dinner ready to serve. It was a winner all round (ok, my daughter did leave the courgettes, one day she’ll eat them again, or so I hope!).

I think I’ll make it again soon, though next time I’ll add more feta cheese, I found myself saving the cheesy bits for the end!

 

p.s. chickpeas are soaking… can you guess what I’ll be attempting to make tomorrow?

Banana bread, rain and cleaning

I seem to be having a pretty hectic week this week, which is unlike me as I normally like to be calm and relaxed most of the time (did I just say calm and relaxed in relation to looking after a 2 year old and a 6 months old 24/7?!).

We made banana bread today. Finding the right recipe took me a while, since every time I googled something along the lines of  “sugar free banana bread recipe”, the results would be recipes which used syrup instead or even worse artificial sweeteners like aspartame or the dubious agave nectar (I’ve read so many conflicting articles on it that I’m unsure as to whether it’s good or not, so in doubt I’m avoiding it for now). I will leave my rant on why I have virtually no refined sugar in my diet* for another time, let’s focus on the good stuff for now!

*yes, you’re right, I do put some in my pizza dough, but that’s because the yeast needs something to feed on! Roll on sourdough.

I found this wholemeal no added sugar banana bread recipe a couple of months ago and absolutely love it. It ticks all the boxes: no refined sugar, wholemeal flour, dates, optional chocolate… what’s not to like?!

Now, I have a really bad flaw. I have no patience at all, which is not something that goes well with cooking and doing crafty things, which are my passions. Today this meant that I miscounted the number of bananas I was using – the recipe says 4-6 and I find that 5 bananas in the blender plus one chopped up to get nice chunks in is the way to go. The last banana got forgotten about, so I only used 5.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, see that luscious wholewheat stoneground flour? It needs sifting. It really does.

On the bright side, I made a little change and added about 2 tablespoons of cocoa to it. It was brilliant, had a little chocolatey hint (though wasn’t all fluffy and light due to the non sifting of the flour, learn from my mistakes!) and tasted lovely. I definitely need to pay more attention to what I’m doing next time, not easy with a toddler that really really wants to “help”.

It was brilliant to have something to snack on here and there during our busy day, we’ve been out in the moody weather (sun, rain, sun – repeat as required) all afternoon and this evening I’m doing a fair share of cleaning, my brother, sister-in-law and nephew are coming to visit tomorrow and I’m trying to make the house look a little less like a bomb site. Wish me luck!

Day out and a quick salmon pasta

Today we made up for yesterday’s lazy day and went for a long day out. It was a pretty last minute plan to go and visit a friend in Peacehaven, about an hour’s bus journey away from us; the weather looked a bit uncertain but it was just meant to be very cloudy at worst (glorious British summer!) so we went for it and it turned out to be quite lovely and sunny most of the day!

The day was spent mostly playing in the garden, how I wish I had one! And I also was lucky enough to end up with some gorgeous pictures ❤

We were all quite exhausted by the time we were going on home and we needed a quick and easy dinner so I stopped to buy some smoked salmon and made creamy salmon pasta. It is such an easy dish that it doesn’t really need a recipe!

All it takes is to cook some pasta (please, only put the pasta in when the water is already boiling!) and in a separate pan briefly cook the chopped up smoked salmon with a bit of butter.

Add some double cream, I normally use the little 150ml cartons, and let it cook on a low heat just to thicken the cream up. Combine with the pasta and done! That’s a lovely quick dinner sorted.

Admittedly no veg in it so we try to make up for it by having a salad or cooked veggies on the side.

Pizza!

Today we had mostly a fairly lazy day, we were all a bit tired and grumpy so we stayed indoors but ended on a high as we made pizza for dinner.

We love making pizza. We have a bread machine that takes care of the messy dough making part for us most of the time so all we have to do is roll it out and put toppings on, it usually takes us half an hour from getting out of the bread machine to eating it so not too long either. Plus point that it’s cheap, or at least it can be unless you feel like splashing out on fancy toppings!

I use the Jamie Oliver pizza dough recipe and have done for years, though I tend to leave the salt out as I find that because I do it in the bread maker it can sometimes kill the yeast. Also, I don’t use fast acting yeast so I first need to activate it by mixing it with the warm water and sugar and leave it for 15 minutes or until it has a bit of foam on the top.

Then, the fun part!

Because I like my pizza fairly thin, I first cook it for a few minutes just with the chopped tomatoes (or passata, if we’re using that) on to avoid it becoming soggy. We then add our toppings, sprinkle oregano, basil and a drizzle of olive oil and back in the oven! The result is always great. Sorry, not a great photo, we were all too busy scoffing it down.

And I think it’s fair to say that everyone enjoyed it!

On my to do list is trying to get a sourdough starter going and make pizza using that instead of the yeast. I tried it last week but it didn’t work. Will try again…

New beginnings and a toddler game

Exciting first post! Exciting for me because I am fairly new at blogging, actually almost a total newbie so please bear with me while I get in the swing of things.

It’s been an exciting day here, my little boy (who turns 6 months this Saturday) has just started weaning so it was very messy but all so interesting – I’d forgotten how much cleaning is involved though! We are doing baby led weaning so he just eats what we eat as long as it’s suitable, today it was spelt pasta with courgette, peas and pesto and then some pineapple and strawberries.

As exciting as it was for me and him, my toddler was feeling a bit bored this morning so I had one of those rare moments of impromptu creativity and I made her a little game – I printed out some pages with coloured squares on (a 5 minutes job on Word) so she could sort her built blocks on them. And voilà, there you have it: a Montessori-style sorting activity. It worked a treat! Until her little brother tried to add said paper to his morning menu, but that’s a different story. If you don’t have a printer you could just draw them by hand, I’m sure it would work just as well.