Sweet potato and spinach bake

I am officially a University of Manchester graduate! Graduation was such a memorable day with great weather, lots of alcohol and picture taking. Sadly, it also led to many goodbyes as all of my course mates started heading back to different parts of the world for further studies or to start their careers.

                                

Having Tom and mum here has led to lots of eating out but we've still managed to cook some nice and healthy meals in the frenzy of things. I decided to make a healthy type of veggie bake with the sweet potatoes and spinach that we had in the fridge and it turned out to be super delicious and the perfect accompaniment to our lamb steaks.

SWEET POTATO AND SPINACH BAKE

• 250g peeled and thinly sliced sweet potato 
• 200g fresh spinach
• Rosemary or thyme
• About 50 ml non fat milk
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• Salt & pepper
• A few tbsp of light cheese, grated

1. In a frying pan, lightly pan fry the spinach with some crushed garlic and season.
2. In a greased baking dish, form a layer of sweet potato slices on the base, season with salt and pepper. Top with a third of the cooked spinach.
3. Continue layering the vegetables, seasoning as you go along. You could add a little cheese between each layer if desired.
4. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, herbs, mustard and garlic until simmering. Strain and pour over the sweet potatoes.
5. Top with a little cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 175 degrees for about 30-40 minutes.

Enjoy! Xx 

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Simple octopus salad

So my holiday has now come to an end. Time to head back to a sunnier Manchester(hopefully!) to graduate and start my new job at EY! These four weeks have been a good relaxing break before going back to the hustle and bustle. Having eaten out quite a bit whilst on holiday, I've come across a few new lovely restaurants and my favourites were Selfish in Pointe aux Cannoniers and Izumi at Port Chambly. Selfish is a small and homely restaurant mainly serving seafood. Their sushi dishes are based on Mauritian flavours such as guava and tamarind and are a nice tasty twist on traditional sushi. Izumi serves traditional Japanese food and we had a delicious teppanyaki celebration meal when I received my final University results.

As a yearly tradition, my mum hosts a lunch for her tennis group and this time round I offered to cook all the food. I made lots of different 'salad-y' dishes including octopus salad and a trio of desserts to finish.

Octopus can be a tricky thing to cook as it can easily become super chewy and hard to eat. My dad taught me the trick to perfectly tender octopus and mentioned that the most common mistake was to boil it, big no no! On to the recipe.

OCTOPUS SALAD

• 1 kg of octopus
• 1-2 tomatoes, diced
• A large onion, finely diced
• Large bunch of coriander, chopped
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice

1. To clean the octopus, scrub with lots of salt and wash throughouly.

2. In a large saucepan, add in a little oil and the whole octopus, (only chop it up once cooked). Stir around for a couple of minutes, lower the heat and cover to cook.

3. Check the octopus every 5 to 10 minutes stirring it around as it releases it's own juices and pricking it with a skewer. Once tender after about 20-30 minutes, the octopus is cooked.

4. Once cooled, chop the octopus into fine slices.

5. In a large bowl, combine the octopus slices, diced tomatoes, diced onion and chopped coriander. Season with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.
 

                                              

Enjoy xx 

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Thai carrot soup

Here's another recipe for my detox week! This went down a treat. The peanut butter gives this a light 'satay' flavour and makes for a filling and tasty soup.

THAI CARROT SOUP

• 1 lb carrots, peeled and chopped
• About 1 litre of vegetable stock
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 0.5 tsp minced ginger
• 2 tsp peanut butter
• About 1 tbsp lemon juice
• About 150 ml coconut milk
• Salt and pepper
• A little chilli paste: optional

1. In a large saucepan, heat about a tablespoon of oil. Lightly fry the chopped onion, garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add in the carrots and cook for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the vegetable stock to the pan, reduce the heat, cover and let the carrots cook until soft, adding more water if necessary.
3. Remove the pan from the stove, add in the peanut butter and coconut milk and blend until smooth.
4. Season with salt, pepper and chilli paste.

Xx

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Iced citrus green tea

Just a quick post about this refreshing drink that I've been having recently in this Mauritian heat! Taste wise this is very similar to regular iced tea but with all the benefits of green tea. Green tea is known for it's benefits with regards to weight loss, depression, cholesterol and heart diseases therefore there should be no reason not to load up on this yummy drink!

ICED CITRUS GREEN TEA

• 1 litre of green tea
• 1 large orange, peeled and sliced
• 1 large lemon, half sliced & half squeezed
• 2 tsp honey

Once the tea is brewed, when still warm stir in the honey and squeeze in half a lemon.

Add in the orange and lemon slices, leave for atleast an hour to infuse and keep refrigerated.

Enjoy xx

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Detox time

After two weeks of wedding celebrations, family gatherings and having visitors in Mauritius, it was time for a bit of a detox! The day started with an early Zumba session. Zumba has never felt so hard in such heat! For anyone in the north of the island, check out the classes run by Giovanni (52516578), a licensed Zumba instructor, lots of fun assured!

For breakfast I made smoothies, a simple raspberry and pineapple one for mum and an avocado, pineapple and banana one for me.

Avocados and bananas are full of folates which support red blood cell formation and good circulation. Avocados are also full of healthy fats and they have the highest protein content of any fruit- perfect to kick start the day! I always have a bag of chopped up frozen bananas in the freezer, the perfect base for any smoothie giving you a thick and refreshing texture.

AVOCADO BANANA SMOOTHIE

• Half a ripe avocado
• 2 small frozen bananas, chopped
• About 1 cup of non fat milk or coconut milk
• A couple of slices of pineapple, chopped 
• 3 tsp honey, or more according to taste

Blend everything together until nice and smooth, I used a hand blender. Adjust the amount of milk used according to your desired textured. If you find the avocado too overpowering, add in some vanilla, more pineapple or honey.

Now off to make some Thai carrot soup and iced green tea!

Xx

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Chocolate muffins with peanut butter centre

So it has been quite a while since my last post! From mid May onwards, I was in the midst of final exams and dissertation frenzy. The day after my final exam, I flew back to Mauritius for a family wedding aswell as a well deserved break to celebrate the end of University! My best friend from Uni along with my sister and several cousins were all visiting Mauritius at the same time which meant that we have been out and about being tourists for the past two weeks or so!

After a longggg break from the kitchen and baking, I wanted to start with something relatively simple to make, not requiring many ingredients, thus making muffins the perfect option! Playing around with what I had in the kitchen, I used a mixture of cassava and plain flour for these but using just whole wheat flour would work just aswell!

DARK CHOCOLATE MUFFINS WITH PEANUT BUTTER CENTRE

• 100g cassava flour
• 100g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 0.5tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 40g cocoa
• 60 g coconut oil, melted
• 1 egg or 2 egg whites
• 220g non fat milk
• 100g honey
• A handful of dark chocolate chips, optional
• About 12 tsp of peanut butter

1. Combine the flours, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add in the chocolate chips if using.

2. Make a well at the centre of the dry ingredients, break in the egg, add the oil, honey and milk and combine until you obtain a smooth batter, do not over mix.

3. In muffin cases, half fill with batter. Add in a teaspoon on peanut butter on the batter and cover with more muffin batter.

4. Bake the muffins for 15-20 minutes in a preheated oven at 175 degrees Celsius until muffins are well risen.

                               

These are best warm as the peanut butter is all melted and oozing.

Xx

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Fat free zucchini bread

So I've decided to disappear from the world of Facebook for the time being until exams are over and tadahh, I suddenly find myself with so much more free time! It's crazy how we can become so addicted to so-called "social networking" websites, whereby we manage to spend so many pointless hours browsing through our newsfeeds and "catching up" with what's going on. I'm certainly not denying the fact that I am guilty of such doings myself, but it is clear that Facebook has become an unhealthy habit for many. Although I did have the temptation of giving in to my Facebook "ban" quite a few times today, I realised that at the end of the day, I managed to fit much more in my day than I usually would! Anyways, as a consequence, voici a new blog update: fat free zucchini (courgette) chocolate bread.

FAT FREE ZUCCHINI BREAD

• 1 small zucchini (courgette) (about 220 g), grated
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 egg
•  100 g honey (alter to your preference)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 190 g flour of your choice (I used whole wheat)
• 25 g cocoa
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• A few dark chocolate chips and chopped nuts: optional

1. Combine the grated zucchini, mashed banana, egg and honey.
2. Fold in the flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon until you obtain a smooth batter. Quickly fold in the chocolate chips and nuts if using.
3. Pour the batter into prepared cake moulds, I made 6 muffins and 2 mini loaves.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 175 degrees Celsius until nicely risen and a toothpick comes out clean, mine took 20 minutes. 

Other recent creations: chocolate and peanut butter frozen yogurt and pumpkin seed & cranberry granola bars. I loveeee my ice cream machine! Ok time to get back to microeconomics :(. Xx

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