This is me doing some cooking with Andy filming me! I love this background scene shot!
Brussel Sprouts!
Who knew how they were grown or harvested? Here is a quick video of me talking about Brussel Sprouts! Yes, that’s right. Brussel Sprouts!
In a few days time, I will put together a video of roasted brussel sprouts which tastes so good! Especially with lemon squeezed on top. Yum!
Granola Bars
I’ve always wanted to make them so after researching so many thousands (about twenty really!!) recipes of granola bars, I gave it a go on Christmas Day and it was a disaster! I found another recipe and it was a success.
The two ingredients for success?
- Packing down the stuff into the baking tray really well and really tightly. Make sure that nothing is fluffy or poking through the mixture.
- The ingredient which binds everything together is the flaxseed. If this wasn’t vegan, it would be the egg instead.
Here are the ingredients:
- 2 cups organic jumbo oats (or steel cut)
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon Himalayan salt
- 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
- 1/2 cup raisins and cranberries (use raisins only if you prefer. Or cranberries only if you prefer. Do not include dates.)
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract
- 1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup for vegans)
Enjoy watching the video! I think you can follow the methods quite easily from the video.
Turn oven on to 180 degrees. Then add the dry ingredients go in the bowl first, mix together well, make a well in the middle, then add the wet ingredients, mix together very well, add to the baking tray and pack down tightly and press down really, really, really, really well and everywhere. Don’t forget the sides and the middle. And pop into oven. Cook for 25 minutes. Done!
Black Bean Burger
The conversation was like this:
Me to boyfriend, “What shall we have for lunch?”.
The boyfriend shrugs his shoulders and says, “Please not roast vegetables again. I’m starting to get sick of them.”
I started to feel inspired. It really helps to have a boyfriend who is into varieties of food on a regular basis and wants a variety of flavours too. The words ‘black’, ‘bean’ and ‘burger’ popped into my head and I asked my boyfriend, ‘How about a black bean burger’?
He was so excited about a new type of dish developing in the kitchen so I found a recipe from minimalistbaker.com and had to adapt it by changing the nuts into sunflower seeds and the burgers were born.
My boyfriend is intolerant to nuts and this makes my cooking a bit more challenging than normal so I develop a tasty dish that always has nuts in it (from the recipes I find), and I swap them for sunflower seeds, and then give the final meal to my boyfriend. When he approves it, the effort is worth it!
These are the ingredients I used:
- 2 cups mashed sweet potato
- 1 cup cooked black beans (drained and rinsed with water)
- 1 cup cooked brown rice
- 1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds
- 1 small/medium finely diced white onion
- 3 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- Salt and pepper to taste.
My method is written below here:
- First, I steamed the sweet potato and cooked the brown rice. Then I set them aside so that they could cool down.
- Turned on oven to 200 Celsius degrees.
- Ground the sunflower seeds in a KRUPS grinder.
- The onion was chopped and put in a medium sized bowl.
- I put the black beans in the bowl.
- Mashed the black beans till half soft.
- Added the spices.
- Added ground sunflower seeds.
- Added the sweet potato and rice.
- Mashed everything altogether and made sure they all well combined.
- Greased a 4 muffin baking tray with olive oil.
- Scooped handful of the mash into my hands, rolled it into a ball and put it on the tray and pushed it slightly down in one muffin dish. The process was repeated for other three muffin dishes.
- Put in oven and cooked for 20 minutes.
- Took the tray out and flipped burgers over and put it back in oven.
- Cooked for another 15 minutes and took the tray out.
- The burgers were served with a radish, beetroot and tomato side salad and potato wedges with paprika on them plus some dill and lemon sauce on the side for dipping the burgers into.
My boyfriend gave it a stamp of approval 😉
Video coming soon! I have to make it, don’t I? 🙂
Banana Protein Bread
– 2 medium bananas (200g)
– 1/8 cup (22g) of coconut flour
– 3 whole eggs
– 2 egg whites
– 1/2 cup (46g) of glutenfree oats
– 1/2 cup (54g) of banana or vanilla vegan protein powder
– 1/2 cup of almond milk
– 1 tsp of baking powder
Instructions:
Blend together, pour mixture into a loaf breaf (greased, or lined with parchment paper or in silicone loaf pan) and baked at 160 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes (or until your knife comes out clean after stabbing the bread).
Egg muffins
***Egg muffins***
6 eggs
Handful of spinach
1 big tomato
1 pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
– Turn on oven at 200 degrees.
– Slice tomato and pepper into small pieces.
– Chop up spinach into small pieces
– Beat up 6 eggs very well. You can add salt, black pepper and other herbs if you wish. Hot spices also. Up to you.
– Grease a 6 tray muffin. I had a 12 one only!! Olive oil is good.
– Put in spinach in each muffin tray.
– Repeat with tomato and pepper.
– Fill in each muffin tray with egg mixture up to 3/4 full. Do not fill up to the top!!
– Bake in oven for 20 minutes.
Have 1 or 2 as a snack. Try to eat it with lots of cucumber sticks on the side. Have 3 or 4 for dinner and enjoy them with sweet potatoes and salad on side. Lets get those nutrients in our bodies!
Christmas Granola!
It is that time of the year. My boyfriend was getting fed up of his breakfast and wanted something slightly different so I suggested I’d make him granola with Christmassy spices such as nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. Oooh.. and ginger too! His face lit up.
So I found a recipe online but I adapted it to not include nuts or coconut flakes because my boyfriend is intolerant to nuts and he doesn’t like coconut flakes! I once bought a flapjack with coconut flakes on top and I honestly thought he would love it as much as I do but as it turned out… he doesn’t! He ate the oaty part and left the top part of the flapjack to me!
Alot of granolas tend to include nuts, which I can imagine can be very frustrating for people who are intolerant or allergic to nuts. So here you go… it is nut free!
Ingredients:
4 cups jumbo oats (gluten free if you are gluten intolerant)
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup honey (if you are vegan, go for maple syrup)
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp ground cloves
1 cup dried cranberries
Method:
– Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Put baking paper on two baking trays.
– Melt the coconut oil by placing a jar of coconut oil in a saucepan. Put it on low heat and melt the oil slowly. Take the lid off!
– In a bowl, put in pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg and ground cloves.
– Mix together well.
– Then add the honey and melted coconut oil.
– Use your hands to mix everything together very well.
– Pour half of the granola mixture evenly over one lined baking tray
– Pour the other half onto another lined baking tray.
– Put into oven. Make sure both are placed in centre of oven.
– Bake for 30 mins.
– Take out. Let it cool to room temperature. Or cold to the touch.
– Add the cranberries.
– Mix together well.
– Pour the granola into an air-tight container.
Enjoy the granola with your favourite yogurt and add some fresh fruits such as strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Absolutely delicious!
Aubergine & Courgette Frittata!
— Aubergine & Courgette Frittata–
This frittata is easy to make! Great if you have a family for lunch/dinner or to make leftovers/snacks for yourself!
Turn on oven to 220 degrees.
– Cut 1 aubergine and 1 courgette into cubes.
– Slice 1 onion roughly.
– Halve 4-5 cherry tomatoes.
– Put them in a bowl.
– Pour in 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.
– Put in 1 teaspoon oregano.
– Mix altogether with your hands.
– Put vegetables on a baking sheet on a baking tray.
– Put in oven. Bake for 30 minutes.
– After 30 minutes, take out of oven.
Then…
– Whisk together 6 eggs and 1/4 cup milk (oat, almond, hemp etc).
– Put in salt and pepper. (Always add in egg mixture BEFORE you put in frying pan. Not after).
– Heat up a frying pan (that you can use in oven too) or a skillet.
– Pour in 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil in frying pan. Or coconut oil if you want to.
– Put cooked vegetables in frying pan.
– Then pour in egg mixture.
– When slightly cooked at edges around frying pan, put frying pan in oven (Same temperature 220 degrees).
– Bake for 5-6 minutes.
– Take out, let it cool a few minutes, slice it into quarters, and serve with a big side salad!
Sweet Potato Wedges!
Want to know how to make sweet potato wedges? Here’s how! Enjoy the 1 min video.
Turn on oven to 200 degrees.
2 sweet potatoes – sliced lengthways with same thickness
Extra virgin olive oil – 2 tablespoons
Oregano – 1 tablespoon
Himalayan salt – 1/4 teaspoon
Some black pepper. Add as much as you like
Mix together in a bowl really well. Make sure oil is all over the potatoes.
Put on a baking sheet, which is on a baking tray.
Put in oven and cook for 30 mins. Then turn to grill and wait till potatoes are golden on top and take out. Serve with a massive salad or 1 chicken breast. Or Fish if you like.
Kale Crisps!
I wanted simple kale crisps. Nothing with too much fuss or anything complicated. So I baked them in oven with just these following ingredients:
- 250g kale
- 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes.
As my oven was small, I used half of the kale batch and baked them for 15 minutes in oven at 180 degrees. Took them out and then baked the other half.
What a perfect snack for the evenings while watching either Dexter, Stranger Things or The Good Witch!
Here’s the video:
Filming in Sainsburys!
Have a look at this video! 🙂
Eat, Food, Love! 