Fat free beetroot pancakes

Oh no, another pancake post already?! Ok maybe my love for pancakes is getting a little out of hand recently, is there such a thing as a pancake addiction?! Oh well, as long as it is healthy and tasty, it's all good! Also given their bright pink colour, I think these would be perfect for St Valentin's, perhaps paired up with an indulgent dark chocolate sauce.

These moreish and rich pancakes were a result of too much revision, a frazzled brain and a couple of rather sad looking beetroots that needed using up! As I was already roasting a big batch of sweet potatoes and zucchinis for the next couple of days, I decided to chopped up the beetroots and roast them which took about 30 minutes. I've always been used to having boiled beetroot in salads back home but wow, roasting them really brings out their natural sweetness. Perfect for some pancakes! 

I played around with a few ingredients, wanting to keep it as simple as possible and the result was surprisingly good! I layered mine with cream cheese, bananas and a vanilla protein glaze, however I feel like something zesty and sharp such as orange segments or a few raspberries would work perfectly with this. Also, dark chocolate works really well with beetroot so instead of a protein glaze you could easily make a dark chocolate sauce (cocoa, honey and milk for a runny glaze or yogurt for a thick topping) or just use some melted dark chocolate. On to the recipe.

BEETROOT PANCAKES

• 80 g of beetroot purée (peeled, chopped, roasted until soft and blended)
• 40 g whole wheat flour
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• Good pinch of cinnamon 
• 1 egg or flax seed egg replacer
• 2 tsp honey
• A little milk if the mixture is too thick
• 1 tsp vanilla extract, optional

1. Mix together the purée, egg, vanilla and honey until well combined.

2. Fold in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. If the mixture is too thick, add in some milk (I added about 2 tablespoons). You want the batter to be relatively thick, similar to cake batter consistency.

3. On low to medium heat, fry a tablespoon of batter at a time on a greases frying pan, flattening down the batter with the back of your spoon and flip over after about 20- 30 seconds. These cook quickly and can burn quite easily!

Once all the batter has been cooked, layer up with your choice of filling and enjoy.

Xx

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Crunchy chocolate spiced breakfast goodness

Crunchy chocolate spiced breakfast goodness, there are no other words to describe this! I've been wanting to make some cocoa flavoured granola since such a long time.

This is so indulgent and will definitely fix your chocolate cravings whilst still being nutritious and healthy! Granola is such a great thing to have in stock, not only great for breakfast, but a perfect snack and topping for yogurts, ice cream, fruit compotes and so on. I like my chocolate flavoured baked treats to taste slightly bitter and dark but if you have a sweet tooth, definitely add a little more honey. If you want to make this fruity and sweeter, fold in some dried raisins or cranberries once cooled and cooked. 3 more days till the end of exams, yay!

SPICED COCOA GRANOLA

• 200 g oats 
• 100 g broken nuts- I used walnuts and almonds
• 40 g desicated coconut- or oats
• 0.5 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp honey- or more
• 3 tbsp coconut oil- or olive oil
• 3 heaped tbsp cocoa powder ( not drinking chocolate)
• About 80 ml water
• 1 tbsp vanilla: optional

1. Combine the oats, coconut, nuts, cocoa and spices together until well mixed.

2. Mix in the oil, honey and egg until roughly incorporated. Slowly pour in the water until the mix is just moistened. 

3. Pour the mix onto a baking tray, compress and flatten (to create crunchy clusters). Bake in a preheated oven at 175 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, mixing it all up after 10 minutes to ensure an even bake.

Note: this can burn really easily so keep an eye on it. Remove when granola is lightly browned. Once completely cool, store in an airtight container.

Try not to eat it all in one go!

Here are a few healthy and fun ideas to decorate cakes that I've tried recently. Definitely worth trying :)

Xx

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Pear & blueberry protein pancakes

Oh no, "not another pancake recipe" I hear you say! It is true, I do tend to make more pancakes than your average person. However, the variations and possible flavour combinations are endless. Given how easy and quick pancakes are to make, along with their 'yumminess' yet 'healthiness', there is nothing stopping you from going pancake crazy!

Before you say 'oh no but we don't get blueberries in Mauritius', you can easily swap them for some juicy mangoes, apple or not use any additional fruit at all. I used the blueberries as added 'chunks' in the mix so they can be avoided! In the pancake mix itself, I used a pear purée left over from my tofu brownies. Here too you can change your fruit purée according to your preferences. I used pear purée which came under the form of baby food just because given exams, I didn't have time to make my own purée. You can easily make your own, for hard fruits like apple and pear, just chop and cook down with a little water and cinnamon, for soft fruit like raspberries or mango, just blend into a purée. Also, I used protein powder in mine but this can easily be replaced with ground almonds or coconut flour. Basically, it is up to you to play around with this, it is so easy to change things around and create your own delicious combinations but this one is definitely one to try if you have the ingredients. 

PEAR & BLUEBERRY PANCAKES (eggless)

• 60 g oat flour (grind up some oats)
• 25 g protein powder or ground almond
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• Good pinch of cinnamon
• 40 g of pear purée (I used baby food for convenience)
• About 135 ml of dairy or non dairy milk
• Half a handful of blueberries (optional)

1. Combine the oat flour, protein powder, baking powder and cinnamon.

2. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, pour in the purée and milk and combine slowly until you obtain a smooth batter. Fold in the blueberries if using.

3. On medium heat, fry a heaped tablespoon at a time of the batter on a greased frying pan, lightly flatten and shape with the back of your spoon. Flip after about 30 seconds and cook on the other side until golden brown.

4. Stack with your choice of filling and topping. I used sugar free blueberry jam in between the pancakes and topped with some leftover pear purée, blueberries and some flaked almonds.

Enjoy 

Xx

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When in doubt, bake

Today's exam went pretty well. By 1.30pm, one exam, an intense HIIT session and an office hour for international monetary economics done, I got home and didn't know what to do with myself! The plan was to revise for my next exam, but to be fair, I felt like my brain had done enough hard work for the day and needed a little break!

Once I managed to do a little preparation for one of my interviews for an Accounting graduate scheme coming up soon, I headed out to town to get inspired for my next experimental baking session. 

I ended up in Chinatown and once I stepped into my favourite Asian supermarket I knew that it had to be tofu related! I quickly turned to my phone for some tofu baking inspiration and realised that in the vegan world, baking with tofu wasn't such an unusual thing. After browsing several recipes and gathering inspiration from a few brownie recipes, I decided to make vegan tofu brownies, adjusted according to the ingredients I had at home. I have to admit that I wasn't too sure about final results but now that these little squares of Fudgy gooeyness have cooled and set, I can definitely say that these are worth a go if you are looking for a healthy alternative to chocolate cake/ brownies. 

Possible alterations: I used baby food/apple and pear purée( you can make your own, cooked down chopped up apple or pear or both with cinnamon until soft enough to mash) here as a substitute for oil/ sweetener, however if you don't wish too, I would add 20g more tofu, a tiny bit more oil and honey. I only use 50 g of honey here as I rather like a slightly bitter taste to my chocolate baked goods, definitely add more if you have a sweet too. Also, next time I will definitely fold in dark chocolate chips and walnuts before baking, yum! Also, do make sure that you use silken tofu( super soft type) and not the firm type!
Note that these are only vegan if you use dairy free chocolate. Ok I will stop rambling on now, recipe is as follows:

SILKEN TOFU BROWNIES

• 170 g silken tofu
• 50 g honey (or more)
• 20 g olive oil (or coconut oil)
• 65 g dark chocolate, melted
• 50 g fruit based baby food/ apple sauce/ apple purée
• 20-25 g cocoa (more for bitter choc taste)
• 80 g whole wheat flour
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 0.25 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tsp vanilla: optional but recommended
• Dark chocolate chips/ broken walnuts: optional

1. With a hand blender, blend the tofu until completely smooth. You could probably do this with a fork too as the tofu is so soft.

2. Add in the oil, honey, vanilla, apple purée and dark chocolate and mix thoroughly until well combined.

3. Fold in the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa and stir until you obtain a uniform batter (check picture below for consistency-thicker than normal cake batter). If using chocolate chips or walnuts, fold in now.

4. Spoon batter into a well greased oven dish and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 12 minutes, you really don't want to over bake these. You should be able to lightly press on the brownie without breaking the crust and it should feel soft and spongy to the touch. 

5.Remove and cool completely before cutting. These are best when well rested.

Also, with the other half of the tofu, I made a quick slap up dinner, stir fried some mushrooms, added in the tofu with a handful of spinach and a few teaspoons of oyster sauce, cooked for 2 minutes et voila! Topped with flaked almonds, I have them on everything nowadays, new found obsession adding the perfect crunch to any meal! It's hard to make tofu look pretty, but here you have it, tofu a la Katie.

NOTE: These do not taste of tofu! As I know a lot of people do not actually enjoy the taste of tofu, rest assured that the tofu here is used to add 'fudginess' to the brownies and does not add any taste.

Enjoy!!

Xx

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Rustic beetroot and carrot muffins

This time next week I will be exactly half way through my exams. I can't wait for the 24th of January, where everything just goes back to normal! I really do hate exam periods and not in the sense that you would expect. Fair enough that it leads to a lot more studying than usual for most of us, but to me, the exam period feels like a span of time whereby everyone around me just puts their lives on hold. I notice that most students study for 10-12 hours a day, perhaps even sleeping in the library, working away like robots: wake up, study, eat, sleep, repeat.

Oh dear, I feel like I'm on a rant but my point is that I feel that as humans nowadays, we tend to stress way too much about everything in our lives. As a student, if you were consistently attending lectures and doing any set work, then there should be little reason to stress and spend ridiculous hours studying prior to an exam? This great exposure to so many stressed individuals around me at the moment has made me question whether my relaxed attitude was something to be worried about? I then found this video which I think sums up stress and its horrible effect on our lives.

I really liked this video as it is short and sums up a few important points. Firstly, stress is a horrible thing! It increases your susceptibility to diseases such as cancer or heart attacks. Additionally, stress reduces your ability to take in information. When stressed, being around other people helps. Therefore, if you are stressed in any way, whether you think that the issue is greatly significant or not, it always, ALWAYS helps to speak to others or surround yourself by positive attitudes. Also, the importance of a balanced lifestyle cannot be emphasized enough. I wrote a post in July 2013 about the stress hormone cortisol and how some claim how it can be referred to as 'public health enemy number 1'.

Anyways, now on to the recipe. This was one that I completely made up. Baking is definitely one of my 'stress relievers'! When I first tried a muffin straight out of the oven, I immediately thought that it needed improving- I'm always so harsh about my own food. However, as I tried another muffin the next day, the flavours seemed to have developed, the initial overpowering beetroot earthiness had settled and I couldn't complain about anything! Because of the sheer amount of vegetable in this muffin, it makes for a very moist and slightly dense muffin. Do not expect a light and fluffy muffin, these muffins are very rustic and perfect as a filling snack or afternoon treat to have with some tea.

BEETROOT & CARROT MUFFINS

• 40g coconut oil
• 45g honey (or more according to your preferences)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (I also used a vanilla pod: optional)
• 150 g grated carrot
• 150 g grated beetroot
• 0.5-1 tsp of cinnamon
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 110 g whole wheat flour

1. Mix together the oil, honey,vanilla and egg for a couple of minutes until well combined and slightly 'creamy'. Add in the grated vegetables and stir until combined.
2. Gradually add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon, stirring until just combined. DO NOT overmix, as with any muffin, overmixing = tough muffins.
3. Pour into muffins cases and bake at 180 degrees Celsius (preheated oven) for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy!
Xx

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Coconut & date granola bars

Hello again! It does feel quite weird being back to writing posts on such a regular basis, but as I said, revision just makes me want to cook non-stop! Tonight was one of those experimental baking sessions. I knew that I wanted some sugar free snack to take to the library, preferably peanut-butter free because I have been eating way too much of that recently! I also bought some beetroots today so wanted to make something different with those. Ended up with some interesting carrot and beetroot muffins (recipe to come another day) and some awesome coconut and date granola bars.

These are much healthier than most bars out there! Only 15 g of added fat for the whole batch, and the only sweetener is dates, if you have a real sweet tooth, definitely add in some more dates or some other dried fruits to the dry mixture, such as raisins.Enough rambling because I need to get back to reading my finance book, so here is the recipe.

COCONUT AND DATE GRANOLA BARS

• 200 g oats
• 50 g flaked almonds (or nuts of choice)
• 100 g desiccated coconut
• 20 dates, roughly chopped (or more if you want a sweeter bar)
• 110 ml boiling water
• 3 tsp vanilla extract (+ 1 vanilla pod if you have any)
• 1 heaped tsp cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp coconut oil (or olive)
• 40 g protein powder (I used vanilla): optional, if not just add 1 tbsp oats

1. Pour the boiling water over the chopped dates and allow to soak for atleast five minutes. The next step is optional, you can either blend the dates and water up to make a smooth date paste or just leave the mixture as is and have bits of dates in your bar. I blended mine because it meant that every bite would be sweetened.
2. Mix together the oats, coconut, almonds, cinnamon and protein powder until combined.
3. Pour in the date paste, oil, egg and vanilla and mix it all together until well combined, if it looks too dry, add in a few drops of water. The mixture will look slightly crumbly, but is moist and sticks together when compressed down.
4. Pour the mixture into a lined baking tray and flatten/ compress firmly into the tray.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
6. Once slightly cooled, shape into bars.

Xx

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Banana, chocolate and cinnamon pancake goodness!

After a great workout this evening, I really wanted something sweet, because who said that dinner had to be savoury?

Since I had quite a few ripe bananas in the flat, pancakes it was going to be! I haven't made any pancakes in such a long time and just quickly made up this batch, nothing beats the good old banana, cinnamon & chocolate combination!

This was soo simple to make that I thought that I could simply summarize it all up in the following pictures, if you cant read the piece of paper, ingredients are as follows; 1 egg, 1 ripe banana, 2 heaped tbsp wholewheat flour, 0.5 tsp baking powder, 2 tbsp yogurt, good pinch of cinnamon:

 Yes, it really was that simple to make and probably only took about 5-10 minutes to whip up. I stacked mine with sliced banana and flaked almonds. The topping was made as follows:

CHOCOLATE CINNAMON TOPPING

• 3 tsp yogurt
• 1 tsp cocoa
• Honey to sweeten
• Good pinch of cinnamon
• Protein powder: optional

1. Mix everything together until smooth.

Xx

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Exam procrastination: Healthy take on junk

The exam period always make me want to spend as much time as possible in the kitchen! That counts as good procrastination though, right? I end up with lots of yummy food to satisfy my revision munchies.

Yes, it is that time of the year again, exams start in about 10 days. This time last year, I would be stressing out, spending hours at the library and totally cutting out the gym and other activities from my life, I would basically be in a little 'revision' bubble! Not healthy. I am definitely way more composed this time round, I've realized that as with everything, balance is essential! :)

For the past couple of days, I have been craving some pizza which is unusual as I always tend to stay away from them. But when a craving hits, nothing will make me happy until it has been satisfied. Also, since I've been working out consistently over the past few weeks, I didn't want to waste it all on a few greasy slices of pizza. Thus, the challenge was to make a quick, wholesome, filling and tasty yet healthy pizza! I mention quick because although I have a great recipe for a cauliflower crust pizza, it does take quite a bit of time to prepare. Challenge accepted.

I chose to use couscous firstly because it is cheap and so readily available, even in Mauritius. Couscous is also a great source of lean protein, contains fewer calories than brown rice or quinoa and is a great source of fibre.

COUSCOUS PIZZA BASE

• 100 g of cooked & cooled couscous 
• About 25 g of whole wheat flour or oat flour
• 1 egg white

1. Mix the 3 together, adding a little flour if it doesn't come together. The dough will still be sticky.
2. On a piece of greaseproof paper on a baking tray, spoon out the dough and flatten into a circle.
3. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and flip with a spatula so that the other side can crisp up slightly.
4. Top pizza with toppings of choice and bake for another 10 minutes or so. 

I used pesto, caramelised onions, sundried tomatoes and mushrooms which worked perfectly with the slightly nutty crust!

Enjoy, this went down so well with some homemade sweet potato wedges!
Xx

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