by Siobhan | Sep 5, 2017 | Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch
This may seem like a strange combo but the banana and avocado in the pancake mix help to keep it really soft and moist even if it does have a slightly green tinge! Plus it’s a great way to get avocado into your diet without really noticing, making it a great recipe to use when introducing kids to avocado for the first time.
I used a wholegrain buckwheat flour for the mix which provides a gluten free source of fibre but the end result still remains light and soft because of the amount of moisture in the other ingredients and due to the baking powder, so don’t forget to add this.
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by Siobhan | Aug 21, 2017 | Dinner, Grainfree, Lunch, vegan
Creamy ✔
Spicy ✔
A pop of sweetness ✔
Protein and fibre packed ✔
2/5 a day ✔
What’s not to love?
Such an easy, tasty meal to whip up and depending on how you choose to cook it, it can be made in mere minutes!
This recipe is also super nutritious and a great one for after a workout with good carbs from the sweet potato, protein from the yogurt and beans and some great antioxidants from the pomegranates and Vitamin A in the sweet potato.
It can also be easily tailored for those with dairy allergies or vegans by using a dairy free yogurt.
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by Siobhan | Jul 11, 2017 | Dinner, Grainfree, Lunch, vegan
This quick meal is not only tasty and cheap to make but uber healthy too thanks to the 6 different fruit/veg meaning it’s packed full of plant based goodness. There’s way too much to mention in detail so I’m just going to quickly summarise the main benefits below:
*Easily sourced cheap ingredients
*Lots of fibre = filling
*Protein from the lentils and peas
*Cruciferous veg from the cauliflower
*vit A and C from the mango
*Filled with plant based antioxidant goodness
Quick, cheap AND healthy, you have no excuse not to try this!
An optional but added bonus is the turmeric at the end which can help with digestion and is highly anti inflammatory especially as its absorption is greatly increased by the addition of black pepper.
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by Siobhan | Jul 6, 2017 | Breakfast, Desserts, Grainfree, Lunch, Popular
Didn’t think there could be a healthy, tasty, low sugar AND low carb donut? Well think again because I created one!
I was so careful with this recipe to strike the right balance between using low carb coconut flour (which I’ve found in Tesco before) but also making sure that it was really moist too, I finally nailed the recipe and I’m super proud of it!
PLUS, as I used lemon zest and juicy blueberries for flavour it means it’s also refined sugar free, but as always feel free to adjust it to your desired sweetness/tastes, you can use vanilla extract, some liquid stevia if you have it or a drizzle of honey if you like, it’s entirely up to you.
A note on coconut flour
I have been able to get a 500g bag of fat reduced coconut flour in Tesco for £3 on offer or £3.75 normal price, now although it’s more expensive than other flours one thing to remember is that this fat reduced version is VERY absorbent meaning you need far less for recipes, usually 1/3 of normal flour. For example, this recipe only needed 35g, for my sweet squash loaf I only needed 40g, therefore a 500g although more expensive will last you a long time. Furthermore, if you’re looking for high fibre, low carb baking options then this is definitely an ingredient you should consider.
Tiana is another brand that’s fat reduced and is available in Holland and Barrett.
Benefits
As this recipe is high in fibre and good fats, low carb and low sugar it also means it’s quite a good option/treat for anyone with diabetes as I often hear from one of my friends that their diabetic siblings don’t really have much choice of treats that aren’t filled with lots of different artificial sweeteners/weird ingredients.
These donuts are made with real food, nourishing ingredients so you can even have them for breakfast and not feel guilty, seriously I’ve done this, it makes your early starts much better, try it and thank me later, hehe.
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by Siobhan | Jun 27, 2017 | Dinner, Grainfree, Lunch, vegan
Even if you’re kale-phobic chances are that you’ll like this salad due to the delicious, juicy pomegranate seeds which give a lovely pop but also lend loads of flavour to the kale base, plus the creamy tahini (sesame seed paste) lime dressing on the kale also covers the flavour meaning this is one dish that even the kale haters won’t have to force down!
If you’re not a lover of tahini either then you can sub it for almond butter.
To bulk out the rest of the salad I used leftover cucumber, sweet red pepper and flaked almonds but you can use whatever salad/veg you have in your fridge.
Nourishing nutritional benefits
Due to the mix of kale, tahini and almonds this salad is also a good source of plant based calcium for those who are dairy intolerant/vegan. See here for more info on plant based calcium.
Annnnnd the kale is also a good source of Vitamin K1 which is great for bones so it’s a double wammy in terms of bone benefits which is great for anyone who may be on a dairy free/vegan diet and finally the pomegranate seeds are an excellent source of antioxidants, so your body will love you for eating this one!
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by Siobhan | Jun 5, 2017 | Breakfast, Desserts, Grainfree, Lunch, snack
I purposely made this recipe with two different flours meaning it’s suitable for many different types of diets/requirements.
I’m quite fond of spelt flour but this time I used buckwheat flour instead so that it would be gluten free (but if you tolerate gluten and can only find spelt then you can use it instead), I’ve also included a coconut flour recipe meaning that this version is grain and gluten free but also lower carb and suits paleo/grain free diets.
Coconut flour low carb version
Healthier Buns
Out of curiosity I decided to look into the specific nutrition of each version using an online nutrition calculator and found that they are far lower in sugar, calories and fat than your typical store bought ones, plus they’re made with real food ingredients and sweetened mostly (or completely if you omit the honey) with fresh fruit making them a far healthier option in my opinion and also contain quite a bit of fibre to boot!
For the calculation I used the options of 1 tspn honey and medium fat milk, the results per bun are:
Buckwheat version
-122 calories
-12g carbs
-4.7g sugar
-6.6g fat
Coconut version
-103 calories
-8.2g carbs
-4.9g sugar
-6.7g fat
Buckwheat flour version
Recipe Notes
The major key to the distinctive bakewell taste of this recipe is the almond extract as this gives the unique marzipan flavour, without it they’ll still be nice buns but the flavour won’t be as good or as distinctive so I highly recommend getting it which should be easy as I found mine in a big Tesco store in the baking aisle.
I used a reduced fat coconut flour meaning that you need to source yours carefully as some still have all the fat in it meaning the recipe won’t work the same. I used The Groovy Food company’s coconut flour which I managed to find in a large Tesco store on offer too! So do keep an eye out for it, you don’t always have to go to health food shops to get ingredients like this anymore.
As always I prefer to use as little added sweetness as possible so I’ve tried this recipe with and without honey so simply adjust it to your sweet tooth.
As mentioned before I used buckwheat flour this time so it would be gluten free but if you only have spelt flour then that will work too.
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