Gluten Free Homemade Muesli

Hey everyone!

I have always loved muesli for breakfast. Unfortunately a lot of muesli that you can buy from supermarkets are full of hidden sugars that decrease the nutritional value.

Making your own muesli at home is so easy and you can make it taste great, which makes it so much more satisfying when you're eating it. This muesli doesn't last long in my house, so I have been making it quite a lot lately! 

This recipe can easily be changed to how you like it. You can use any seeds, nuts and dried fruit that you like. Some examples are sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds,  almonds, cashew nuts, walnuts, pecans and brazil nuts.

Recipe

Tropical Smoothie - Pineapple, Passion fruit and Banana

So it's coming to the end of the pineapple season with this colder weather approaching. But I'm not quite ready to say goodbye just yet...!!

Pineapple is a great fruit as it is sweet and juicy which makes for a delicious snack.  Pairing it along with passion fruit, it makes a tasty smoothie which is high in vitamin C. Vitamin C is an essential vitamin for our bodies and provides lots of health benefits such as, helping fight infections.

There are endless possibilities when it comes to smoothies. I love trying out new combinations and testing what works and what doesn't! I usually put banana in my smoothies to thicken it up and make it a bit more fulling. 

Recipe

Serves 1

1 banana

1/2 cup pineapple

1 passion fruit

approx 6 grapes ( I used green grapes )

1/2 cup any type of milk (I used whole organic)

Half the passion fruit and scoop out the flesh.

Blend all ingredients in a blender, food processor or any kind of smoothie maker you may have.

I garnished my smoothie with pineapple, mint leaf and with spare passion fruit flesh.

Enjoy!

Brit :)

Vegan Chickpea and Tomato Curry

Chickpeas are a great option for vegetarians or vegans who are looking for a good source of protein. The many health benefits of chickpeas make it a great option to add to a meal. I personally don't think chickpeas taste great on their own, as they don't have a lot of flavour. But the good news is there are lots of options and ways of incorporating chickpeas into your diet without them tasting too bland!

This recipe is packed full of nutrition. Don't be put off by the lengthy amount of ingredients. It only looks long because of the spices that are used! ;) Once you start making it, it is really easy. You only need one pot!

Vegan Chickpea and Tomato Curry Recipe

Serves approx 4

Ingredients
1 T coconut oil
1 onion sliced
2 cloves crushed garlic
Approx 3 cm of ginger
1 t ground cumin
2 t ground coriander
1 t tumeric
1 pinch chilli powder

4 (large) or 6 (small) tomatoes roughly chopped (you could use 1 can of tomatoes)
1/2 cup red lentils
3/4 cup coconut cream
1 can of chickpeas (drained)
1/2 head of chopped broccoli
a good handful of spinach

Salt and pepper to season
sesame seeds to garnish

Method

Sweat, garlic, onion, ginger and spices in oil in a large pot until onion is slightly softened.

Add chopped tomatoes and slightly simmer for 10 minutes to let the tomatoes thin out.

Add lentils, coconut cream and broccoli. Continue to simmer until broccoli is tender.

Add drained chickpeas and spinach. Cook out for 5mins

Season with salt and pepper. Served garnished with sesame seeds. Can be served with rice if you wish :)

Enjoy! 

Brit :)

Brown rice and Lentil salad

If you have been following my blog, you might have noticed I like to keep things simple.

I like to keep things quick and easy but only if they are going to taste yummy!

I was introduced to "Sun rice - Brown rice and lentils" (you can also get Brown rice and quinoa)
I find these great for a good salad base. They are full of fiber and essential vitamins and minerals.
Lentils are a great source of protein, especially for vegetarians or vegans.

I quickly made this recipe up as I was making it one night. Just using ingredients in the fridge and fresh herbs from the garden!

Brown rice and Lentil salad
Serves approx 4

Ingredients

3 cups brown rice and lentil mix ( if you don't have this available, any brown rice and lentils will be fine and mix them yourself, with most of the mix being brown rice)
  6 cups water
1 cup chopped salami
1 cup chopped black olives
1 cup chopped sundried tomatoes
fresh chopped herbs ( I used - Italian parsley, curly parsley and mint )
Salt and pepper to season

Method

Rinse rice with cold running water
Place the 6 cups water and rice in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Stir so the rice doesn't stick to the bottom
Reduce heat and simmer covered for approx 25 mins - stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat.
Transfer rice into a large serving bowl.
You can leave to cool in the fridge or rinse with cold water and drain if you are using it straight away.
Mix in remaining ingredients.

Enjoy!

Brit :)

In no way am I sponsored in this post
All opinions are my own :)

Honeyed Glazed Pumpkin

Hey Everyone! 

I love trying out new recipes with different vegetables to try mix things up a bit.

It can actually be so easy to enhance flavours of vegetables to make them not only taste amazing but so you can still get all the important nutrients from them.

It's well into spring here now (not that the weather is showing us that at the moment!) but we still had a couple of pumpkins to use up. 

I love pumpkin because it is so versatile. It can be sweet or savoury. Baked, roasted, boiled or steamed. You can eat it in pieces or it can make a really yummy puree. 

This recipe is inspired from a recipe I found in the My petite kitchen cookbook. She is a blogger from NZ who comes up with the most amazing nutritious, wholefood recipes! My copy of the book has post it notes in nearly every page for recipes that I want to try! Check out her blog here 

Honey Glazed Pumpkin

( Serves 3-4 side dishes )

Ingredients

1/4 pumpkin

1T Runny honey

Small handful of chopped coriander and Italian Parsley 

1/4 cup Chopped Olives( I wanted to use black olives but we only had stuffed green olives but they still tasted great!)

1T coconut oil melted

Salt and pepper

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius 

Carefully slice the skin off the pumpkin. Using a sharp knife and a chopping board that is not wobbling around ( place a wet cloth underneath your board to help ).

Cut pumpkin into thin slices, roughly 10 - 5 mm thick.

Place pumpkin into a roasting dish.

Drizzle honey and coconut oil onto pumpkin.

 Season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 20-30 minutes or until pumpkin is cooked right through.

Place into a serving dish and sprinkle with chopped herbs and olives.

Serve while still warm.

Even my cat was trying to get in on this!

Enjoy!

Brit xo

Healthy Nutty Date balls

Here is a great idea for an after dinner sweet treat! I like to have a hot drink after dinner, usually green tea or just plain hot milk.
These nutty date balls are so easy to make and you can make so many different flavours!

These are gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian and contain NO processed sugars.

Recipe

1/2 cup chopped nuts. I used hazelnuts, cashews and almonds
1/2 cup chopped dates
1T cocao powder
1T  organic nut butter eg. almond or peanut
1-2 T coconut (optional)

Blend all ingredients in a kitchen wizz for 1-2 minutes depending on how powerful your kitchen wizz is.Or until smooth rolling consistency.
Roll your mixture into small balls
Sprinkle coconut on top

Enjoy!

Brit xx

Gluten and Sugar Free Apple Crumble!

 This week I created my own take off of Apple crumble. I have always loved apple crumble especially at this time of the year in New Zealand with the cold winter weather approaching!
This recipe is gluten free and is free of any processed sugars. It only contains the sweet sweet goodness of those lovely juicy apples! I also had some pears that I chucked in there too and they were perfectly ripe and were so sweet.
The Crumble is packed full of nuts and some seeds. I pretty much put any nut I could find in the house and crushed them up.

Gluten and Sugar Free Apple Crumble

Ingredients:

Apples and pears (just enough to cover the bottom of my roasting dish.) approx 4-6
2 cups chopped nuts. ( I used hazelnuts, almonds, peanuts and cashew nuts)
1 cup of seeds ( I used pumpkin and sunflower seeds )
25 g  organic butter
2 t cinnamon 

Method:

Chop up apples and pears
place in the bottom of your roasting pan

Finely chop half of your nuts and left the other half roughly chopped
Place nuts in a bowl and mix in with seeds.
Rub in butter

Sprinkle crumble on top of the fruit
Dust with cinnamon

Bake for 25-30 minutes at 170 C

Serving suggestions:
Serve with cream or some good old pro biotic yoghurt :)

Enjoy!

Let me know what you think in the comments :)

Brit

Raw broccoli and salmon salad with Avocado dressing

This recipe was written in the NZ Herald back in April this year. If you are looking for a meal idea that is healthy and tastes great, you've found a winner! This recipe caters for everyone! Gluten free, Dairy free, Sugar free, Clean eaters! If you are vegetarian or vegan you can easily take out the salmon :)

This recipe is so easy and can be achieved in 3 steps!

You will Need:

1 Head of broccoli broken in to florets

1 red capsicum, roughly chopped

Handful fresh herbs of your choice (I used coriander, Italian parsley and Vietnamese mint)

200 g salmon (smoked if you wish, I prefer mine not to be smoked)

1 cup black pitted olives

1/2 cup seeds (toasted if you wish, I use pumpkin seeds and sunflower )

Dressing:

1 avocado

Juice of a lemon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup water

2 cloves garlic*

sea salt

pepper

* Note that the 2 cloves of garlic is quite strong, change this to 1 clove if you don't want it too garlic-y :)

What to do:

Dressing:
1. Blend up all ingredients together until smooth.

Salad:
2. In a food processor, Pulse the broccoli, capsicum and herbs until a rice like consistency.

3. Transfer to a large bowl and toss in dressing, salmon, olives and seeds!

Enjoy!

I hope you like this recipe as much as I do! Let me know what you think!

Brit xx

Salt and Pepper Squid with an asian salad

For me, salt and pepper squid is always a 'go to' meal on a menu that I know will always have good seasoning and flavours. I quite often see it on menus in the entrees section so it is always good if you don't want to have that "  I've eaten too much - bloated feeling" not good!  Why do we order so much food and feel like you have to eat it all since you paid your good hard working money for it? Even if that means your gonna suffer afterwards. About 90% of the restaurants where I live have main meals that are way way over sized and honestly just shouldn't be able to fit in one persons stomach. Apparently our stomachs are roughly the size of our fists, but can actually stretch about 10 times larger than this! I dunno about you but the thought of my stomach expanding that much freaks me out a little!

What do you think?

Back the Squid!

This recipe has so many great flavours in it that complement each other perfectly!
From the spices in the salt and pepper mix to the chilli in the dressing!
This recipe is also gluten free as it uses rice flour.

The recipe is open to changes and is not strict at all! If you don't have ingredients- don't worry :)

Just swap and change thing around -Get creative! The dressing is quite hot so you can take out the amount of chillies if you wish :)

Recipe

Salt and pepper mix:

2 t Szechwan Pepper

2 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

2 t coriander seeds

2 t dried red chilli powder

100 g sea salt flakes

300 g rice flour

Asian Salad

1 cucumber, peeled into ribbons

1 red pepper (capsicum) deseeded and sliced

1 red onion, peeled and sliced

1 spring onion

1/2 cup fresh coriander

1/2 cup fresh mint sprigs

1/4 cup fresh Vietnamese mint

1 cup mung beans

Nahm Jim Dressing

4 birds eye chillies

4 cloved garlic, peeled

4 coriander roots

75 ml lime juice

3 1/2 T fish sauce

Squid

12 squid tubes

oil for frying

sweet chilli sauce, Asian plum sauce or aioli for serving.

What to do

 Salt and pepper mix-  put all ingredients except rice flour into a frying pan and fry gently for about 5 minutes or until fragrant.

 Then grind this with a pestle and mortar. Place in a bowl and add rice flour.

Salad - mix together all salad ingredients in a bowl.

Dressing -  Grind chillies, garlic, and coriander root in a pestle and mortar into a paste.

Then mix with lime juice and fish sauce in a bowl.

Toss through the salad.

Squid -  Clean tubes and remove membrane (if not already done)

Score the squid with a knife (not cutting it right through)

Then roughly chop into desired size. Or into rings if you prefer.

Dust with salt and pepper mix.

Deep fry in fryer or in a wok in oil.

Fry until golden. 

Serve with your chosen sauce.

Enjoy!

Let me know what you think! 

Brit xx