Polenta Please

I always like to make a thing of breakfast at the weekends.  During the week Alex and I have breakfast separately and I always just whizz up a green smoothie of some description for mine,  So at the weekends I like to make us both something yummy to have together, or we go out for a brunch somewhere.  I love to experiment with new things and ingredients and recipes as well, whether it be buckwheat pancakes, quinoa granola or today's new find, polenta porridge.

I spotted this recipe yesterday and decided it would work well for a quick but nice warming breakfast this morning so decided to give it a go as I had some polenta languishing in the cupboard from a few months back.

The recipe says to use water and

skimmed milk but I used water and almond milk,  I did consider using coconut milk and think I will try that next time to add a slightly different dimension...maybe with a bit of lime.  Anyway, it was super easy, just boil up the water and milk, slowly whisk in the polenta then leave it to sit for 5 minutes before chucking on whatever you fancy for breakfast.

We added unsweetened greek yogurt (which just tastes like double cream to me it's so yummy), raspberries, honey, and a blob of blueberry jam I found in the cupboard and fancied trying.  I also added walnuts just for a bit of texture as it was all looking a bit mushy and ploppy so far and I thought the extra crunch would  balance it a bit better.

Taste wise, polenta is fairly unassuming so it just sort of tasted warming and comforting and it took on all the flavours of the other bits we topped it with beautifully.

I found the quantities in the recipe ever so slightly generous but that might have been all the toppings I added.

It was defo a really good, interesting, lighter alternative to porridge.  Having eaten it it definitely feels easier on the old tum tum than oats and I'm looking forward to experimenting with different flavours and whatnot with this one.

Smooth Operator

I'm getting quite good at this green smoothie lark now.  Occasionally I do have a bit of a smoothie disaster. Like, for example, earlier this week, when I discovered that if you lose a cherry stone whilst making a cherry cacoa smoothie, it's probably fallen into the blender and will therefore get munched up into very annoying sharp chunks all the way through your smoothie making it nearly impossible to drink. Mega fail.

 However, I made up for it today as I put into practice two, slightly more useful, lessons I also learned this week:

1. Using water as the liquid base sounds boring and revolting but actually produces a really fresh, light smoothie where you can really taste all the other flavours;

2. Whizzing up the greens and liquid first before adding the other stuff gives a much smoother, better finish without random bits of spinach floating around.

With those 2 in mind I decided to cobble a green smoothie together after the gym today.  I had some mango in the fridge so wanted to use that and fancied putting some nut butter in too. Most importantly I wanted it to taste really fresh and vibrant. So after a quick rifle round the kitchen I came up with the following which made 2 generous servings:

2 cups filtered water

2 cups spinach

1 cup mango

1 banana 

1 dessert spoon almond butter

1/2 avocado

1 tble spoon macca powder

I didn't add any hemp protein powder as there was plenty of protein in our lunch. I didn't use almond milk or too much banana/fruit/nut butter as I wanted to keep it quite clean tasting. 

The result was super yummy! It was lovely and smooth and creamy (I hate them too watery), with a delicious fruity taste and a hint of bananary-nutty yumminess without being at all heavy or stodgy. The texture was great given I whizzed up the spinach first. 

Alex agreed it was defo a success! And not a dismembered cherry stone in sight.

Think I'll be making this one again. 

Rainbow bright

We were sposed to have morrocan chicken soup for tea tonight, but I just didn't fancy a bowl of heavy, chickpea laden, brown plop.  I stared into the fridge trying to conjure up some sort of alternative and spotted a nice bunch of asparagus that I suddenly did fancy.

I grabbed a couple of other brightly coloured bits from the veg and salad drawer, unearthed some feta and some chicken slices for a bit of protein, lightly steamed the asparagus and after a quick drizzle with some left over mustard dressing, we had ourselves a meal.

A veg packed, multicoloured, full of nutrients and flavour meal in a jiffy. So much lighter than the soup option which can wait for another night. 

Happiness on a plate!

Chinese fake-away

Some nights are just chicken fried rice nights and there's no getting away from it. 

So whilst what I'm about to share may not be the 'best' nutrition wise, it is certainly a million times 'better' than the Noodle Nation equivalent I could have fallen victim to. 

And it was much quicker and cheaper. 

It helps to have a cupboard full of 2 minute microwave brown rice and a ready roasted chicken - 2 things always to be found in our house for such occasions. 

So, all I did was very quickly stir fry up some broc, kale and spring onion in coconut oil and cook the rice in aforementioned microwave. Chuck one into the other, sprinkle in some chilli flakes and a flash of garlic oil ( because I'm too lazy to chop up fresh garlic tonight and so hungry - the longer it takes for dinner to be ready the more I'll have nibbled on while I wait!), drizzle some low salt soy/tamari and some sesame oil, rip up some chicken and throw that in too. At this point I realise I have no eggs - mega fail. Normally these would get scrambled up and added at this point, as would some frozen peas. Couldn't be bothered with the peas in the aftermath of the egg revelation so hey presto, dinner was served. 

Yum, cheap, quick, healthier than the alternative but still satisfying that chicken fried rice itch. 

Blackberry cake of extreme yumminess

We've gone all a bit hedgerow happy recently. Alex has been busy making sloe gin and today we added a modest but plump and juicy blackberry harvest to our supplies.

I decided, in part inspired by the great British bake off no doubt, I'd like to make these blackberries into a cake of some description. A sugarless, eggless, flourless cake to be precise. A sugarless, eggless, flourless cake that tasted of coconut and almonds to be even more precise.

No pressure then! Piece of cake - well, hopefully. 

So I searched on the interweb for AGES and found nothing I liked. So, I gave up and decided to make it up myself. 

Anybody who knows baking knows this is not a wise plan. Baking is a very precise, scientific thing requiring just the right ratios of this that and the other. 

Anybody who knows gluten free, vegan, sugar free baking knows the above applies, and some. 

Anybody who knows me and my style of cooking will be expecting the worst here - I don't like measuring and fiddling about. I like chucking things in and seeing what happens. 

So I had found a recipe after all - a recipe for disaster!

HOWEVER what I managed to create was one of the most delishscrumpdyplumptious things ever EVER.

I'd love to tell you the recipe or how I did it, but I didn't write it down!

It went a bit like this:

Combine 1 cup spelt flour, 2tbs flaxseed, 1tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, cinnamon. Then I chucked 'some' ground almonds, coconut flour and dessicated coconut at it too. 

In another bowl mush up a banana, add 1 cup coconut milk, 1 cup ( ish ) apple purée and some pure maple syrup. Melt some coconut oil and add that in along with some vanilla extract and almond essence. Bung in the blackberries. 

Stir the whole lot together and chuck more wet stuff at it if it looks like it needs it. 

Told you my version was very scientific!

I baked it in a loaf tin at 180 for 35mins but it was still a bit wobblesome so I ended up cooking it for another 15 mins odd. Then left it to cool for 10mins before taking it out and stuffing it in mouth as it was SO nice. 

 Gooey, moist, sweet and fruity. Delicious on its own or with Greek yogurt. Yum yum yum and no sugar or lardy nasties in sight. 

I am really rather proud of this but expect I shall never be able to recreate it again! If anyone else manages it do let me know. :). 

Pretty on a plate

Having made up my own nectarine and goats cheese salad the other day, I decided to try and stick more closely to the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe today.

I bought some beautiful flat peaches at the local market, defrosted some peas and got going.

The original recipe has fried yellow courgettes in it but I didn't bother with those, just didn't fancy it.  I also changed the dressing as I couldn't imagine how an olive oil and balsamic dressing would work with the flavours so quickly shook up some olive oil, honey and apple cider vinegar.

It looked SO nice.  I just wanted to sit and look at it. I even got my best plates out in honour of it's prettiness.

So, even though I already posted about my first self concocted version of this salad, I feel compelled to post about this even prettier version with about 8 million photos of its loveliness.

Co-yum!

Since Alex mentioned there was a new yogurt out made just from coconut milk, I was looking forward to trying it.  He found one in Clerkenwell Waitrose the other day so bought two.

WOW!


It is SO delicious.  Creamy, coconutty yuminess.

But, at £1.60 each and 13g of sat fat per 100g (and a pot is 125g), it's not exactly the light option where either the wallet or the waistline are concerned.

One for the odd treat pile I think...

...or maybe I'll just try making me own.  Watch this space ;)