Coconut and carrot muffins

If you look back at the recipes I have shared they are mostly muffins.  That is because they are such a quick easy thing to make and are a great snack which can be made pretty healthy for every day.  These ones are really yummy although (surprisingly) not over-poweringly coconuty.  Plus they are sugar-free and vegan.

Ingredients

• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 ½ cup spelt flour
• ½ cup unsweetened desiccated coconut
•  ½ cup flax seed
• sprinkle salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 4 carrots, grated
• 1 cup oat milk
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 heaped tsp coconut oil
• juice of ½ lemon

Method

1. combine flax seed and oat milk and let sit.  This thickens and is the “egg replacer”.
2. combine all dry ingredients and then add carrots
3. melt coconut oil in microwave for a few seconds
4. combine all wet ingredients
5. mix wet ingredients into dry (mine was still a little dry so added another tablespoon of coconut milk)
6. put into greased muffin tray
7. bake at 200°C for about 25 minutes

Makes 16

Sugar Free Week 1

Sorry I have been a bit scarce on here.  I have uni assignments to do so (unfortunately) those take precedent.

I thought I would share with you my experience of my first whole week sugar free.

Along with giving up sugar I have been trying to eat healthier and a slightly reduced calorie diet as I am heading to summer and bikini in a month and winter has not been kind to my waist.  Despite the reduced calories I haven’t felt as hungry inbetween meals and only had lighter snacks inbetween and no after dinner snacks.  I have been recording my calories, protein, fat and sugar intake.  Something that has really surprised me is how much protein I eat.  To all those who worry vegetarians don’t get enough protein, really you don’t have to worry – I have been eating around 50 g every day and one day even had about 70 g of protein!  And I haven’t even had any eggs this week.

Anyway back to the point.

I’ve found I haven’t really had any “actual” cravings.  Perhaps it was the total gorge on sweets and sugariness over Christmas and in the run up to new year that has made my body totally not want anything.  I admit that I had cravings for chocolate which was easily solved with some of my homemade “nutella”.  Easy as taking some hazelnut butter and mixing in some unsweetened cocoa powder.  A scraping on a rice cake or two fixes the problem easily.  I have had two instances of what I call “situational” craving.  One was walking past the poison counter (the baked goods section) at Marks and Spencers.  My favourite “treat” (which was basically every time I went to the store) was to get a chocolate chip cookie.  A quick glimpse made me think of it but renaming the area the poison section has made me feel stronger.  We also went to the movies and I had to ignore my usual pick ‘n mix bag.  By the time the movie started though I was fine (the bag has normally been stuffed into my mouth by this time anyway).  It made me realise when I return to my new normal that having a treat will need to involve more mindfulness.

I have made a few “miss steps” (some purposeful):

• day one I had a side salad at our local coffee shop which came with salad dressing.  I am just telling myself it was the full fat variety as that has less added sugar.
• this week I still bought bread from the supermarket which had sugar in (the one was shop “baked” rolls which didn’t have a list of ingredients but I will assume sugar went in).  I have bought ingredients to try to make my own this week.
• I still like my shop bought veggie burgers and sausages.  They just make life easy.  The variety I buy are Redwoods and have added sugar but the total per 100g is still around 1.2g of sugar so I figure they are fine.
• According to Sarah Wilson’s ebook wine doesn’t contain fructose so I had small glass on Saturday night with the Housemate for dinner.  I think I should still try to avoid it during the first few weeks though.
• Stock cubes: they put sugar in!  Low salt version strangely doesn’t have salt added so now using those.
• I had some coconut water but then it is a fruit … not a nut (dope).

What I have eaten:

• breakfast: oats with oat milk.  I thought I would have a problem with it not being sweet enough but my palate adjusted to sugar free within about two days.  It is a bit bland though and need to make a trip to the healthfood store for some more interesting combinations.
• green soup: just throw a bunch of green veggies (broccoli, peas, zucchini, spinach) into a pot, boil lightly and blend
• spelt, tomato and cannellini bean stew based on Martha’s soup recipe.
• roast tomato soup: 2 kgs of tomatoes quartered and roasted with a whole bulb of garlic and onion. Once cooked squeeze garlic out its wrapping” and blitz all ingredients together with a bit of extra water and a stock cube.  Season as desired.
• warm butternut quinoa salad: cooked cup of quinoa, small butternut cubed and roasted, cannellini beans, pumpkin seeds, peas and fried onion caramelised (without adding sugar off course).

I also made some zucchini muffins as a snack.  I am still working on the recipe so will share when it is better.

Yesterday’s dinner

Last night I had some of my Uni friends around for dinner.  Food was good but I didn’t take any pictures.

I came across the Scandi Foodie blog last week and the food just all looked so delicious.  So last night I thought I would test out some recipes.

For mains I made this beetroot orzotto, mainly to use up a pile of beetroot that had come with our veg box.  I had thought that it would be a bit overpowering in flavour but it was actually really good and almost sweet.  I just boiled up the pearl barley in stock and then added the other ingredients.  Really simple in that even though it takes a while to cook it can be put on and mostly left so you can either (a) work on some other bits or (b) go and sit with your guests.

As a side I served a salad inspired by this butter bean, roast tomato and olive salad.  I never do salad dressing but the juice from the tomatoes and a spoon of rapeseed oil worked fine.  I also added some friend halloumi for some extra punchy flavour.

Finally for dessert I made apple tartlets.  I like my cooked apples tender so baked them a bit before hand.  I also only had spelt flour.  Otherwise these were really good (if slightly chewy but that could be because I didn’t measure properly.)

And just a random picture.

New food obsession

I have to admit that I find it hard eating fruit in winter.  It is cold outside and fruit is cold.  I just want warm comfort food.  A couple weeks ago I came across this roasted apple recipe from Joy the Baker.  I  kind of make a lazy version which is basically a wee bit of lemon juice and some cinnamon with a few sprays of spray ‘n cook.  I also like it with the skin on.  And it is so versatile.

1. Eat as is out the dish
2. Sprinkle with nuts and oats and some yoghurt
3. Put in your porridge, and
4. (Perhaps my favourite) on a banana pancake

Any other ideas?

 

Vegan buckwheat and pear pancakes

Technically a little lie in the title as I didn’t have vegan margarine, but that is easy enough to replace.

This is a recipe adaption from Kimberly Boyce’s book Good to the Grain.  I haven’t got around to making any of the other recipes in her book but made these pancakes for my birthday in April and loved them.  I had a craving for pancakes this morning (not unusual for a Sunday really) and with a pear in the fridge I thought I would try make a batch.  Only to discover that I had no eggs.  So flaxseed to the rescue and I had some vegan pancakes.  A couple other ingredient tweeks and downscaling of portions to make 6 instead of 12.  Drenched in agave nectar and with an extra bit of fruit.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup wholemeal pastry flour
• 1 tbsp flaxseed
• 2 tbsp fruit sugar
• 1 tbsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup plus a splash oat milk
• 2 tbsp vegan butter/margarine
• 1 pear

Method

1. Combine all dry ingredients.
2. Separately: melt the margarine, combine with the oat milk and great the pear over the bowl so you get all the juices.
3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry.
4. Pour mixture into oiled/buttered/greased pan and cook as usual.

Made 6 fluffy American style pancakes.