Back to Basics | Days 6 & 7: Ending the Week

The last few days were all about making yummy food that was still clean, as well as upping my green tea intake and remembering to take all my supplements for the first time in months. I've now made it so that I've got a little tupperware pot on the side in our kitchen next to the kettle, which has a range of three or four different healthy teas (green, strawberry green, detox, lemon and ginger etc) in it as well as my supplements to remind myself to have both with meals.

After my mammoth gym session on Day Five I was struggling with post leg day and post post leg day pain - my bed = life saving. So, Sunday morning I sorted out a bit of a mood dip with my vegan, clean pancakes, which are divine when topped with a bit of fresh lemon juice and cooked in coconut oil. I'm not the greatest coconut fan, but this really adds something to the flavour of the pancakes.

Overall my detox helped me to remind myself of where I came from on this journey, and start to remember that I can eat clean and still enjoy myself. Plus the bloating I'd gained from eating dairy products - not brilliant when you're intolerant to lactose - as a means to avoid essay stress the week before.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

Love and Light

Steph 

Vegan Nut-Free Chocolate Easter Nest Cakes

Since I can remember, me and my sister have made chocolate nest cakes for Easter every year and it's part of our traditional Easter time. So, this year I decided to consider making a clean variety as well as the recipe we normally make so that I can enjoy the holiday without going overboard. The bitterness of the dark chocolate on these is nicely complemented by the sweetness of the dried fruit, and combine to make a really yummy snack. 

Ingredients:

1 bar organic dark / vegan chocolate

Organic bran flakes / sticks

Dried apricots

Dried cranberries

Cacao powder

1.) Break the chocolate up and put it into a bowl. Heat in a bowl over a pan of boiling water until the chocolate has melted. Keep a careful eye on it as chocolate burns so easily!

2.) Put a couple of handfuls of bran flakes into a bowl and pour the chocolate over them. Add more bran flakes if you need to. 

3.) Place spoonfuls of the mixture into cupcake cases.

4.) Chop up a couple of dried apricots. Place a few segments and a couple of dried cranberries in each.

5.) Finally, sprinkle a little dusting of cacao powder on each and put in the fridge. Once they've hardened they're ready to serve!

As always, comments and questions are always welcome

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day Five

Yes, there was no Day Four post. I fell off of my detox bandwagon a bit and wanted to secure today's health before writing a blog post. Today was really a day for hitting things hard and boy am I exhausted. Currently fighting the urge to write this in a foetal position under my favourite fleece blanket is a challenge.

I am loving how vibrant my fruit bowls are at the moment. I have a major sweet tooth, so fruit really helps me manage to stay off of the artificial sugars and forms a fairly large part of my diet. I have at least three portions of it in my morning smoothie and will most days have a fruit bowl like the one above.

Finally, I hit the gym for probably the longest time ever today. Let's pray that I don't have to walk anywhere tomorrow. The fact that the only bathrooms in my student house are upstairs is probably going to result in me crawling around pathetically. Anyway, the second picture is a couple of gym essentials for me: my water, shower gel & body spray and spare socks (hey, no one wants to be re-using after a hard workout am I right?!).

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day Three

Yesterday wasn't exactly 'perfect' for my detox week I'm not going to lie. I wasn't able to post my blog piece because I took my sister out with my boyfriend and our future housemate to our favourite bar. Hence the slight breakdown in my detox yesterday. However, I avoided the temptation to mix my drinks, especially having ones with yeast in them as well as avoiding my usual post drinking takeaway stop out (*cries*). I've gotten to the point now where the thought of putting fast food into my body is actually repellent because I cannot know what has gone into it.

So, aside from yesterday evening, it was a pretty good day for the detox yesterday, and I'm really starting to feel the effects of it. I walked for a couple of hours with my sister charity shop clothes shopping on my tight student budget. When she picked up a massive faux fur coat for a tenner you knew it was going to be a great day.

Finally, I'm making sure that I don't take last night's excesses into today. I've started the day off with a spinach, blueberry and ginger tea. Hopefully this will help to start and balance my body out again.

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day Two

Yesterday's lack of negative food's really helped me to restore my energy and I managed to get up and shower at half 6 - something I haven't done in months! Today has been a day for productivity and for once I don't feel exhausted.

I started the day off with my blueberry and spinach antioxidant smoothie which I haven't had in a few weeks. This is a great boost to the morning, especially as I was feeling rather sniffly and under the weather. I also started a course of homeopathic remedy to help rid me of my allergies to dust, pollen and animal fur. This was kindly given to me by my boyfriend's mum (here's her website), so we'll see how it goes!

Finally, my mum and sister came up today, which is something I've been greatly looking forward to. After having a light lunch of organic hummus and rosemary breadsticks, which was DIVINE, I decided to splash out this evening with a lamb roast. Although during detoxing I usually keep to lean meats, this roast was a lot more minimal than one I would usually make, as I only cook them on special occasions. Instead, it was packed with organic veggies and home seasoned roast potatoes. I'm always tempted to buy pre-seasoned frozen roasties, but during a detox I like to know exactly what is going into my food, and looking at the ingredients on one of these packets might horrify me!

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to getting back to yoga as I had no time for it today, but made up for it in a frenzy of cleaning before my guests arrived!

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Day One

Recently I've been falling away from my clean eats diet, and I've started to notice the effect it's having on both my physical and mental health. My sleeping pattern in particular has been all over the place. So, this week I'm going to be posting every day as I attempt to get back to basics, and remind myself why I started this journey. 

So, I've started off the week with a glorious trip to Wholefoods (honestly, I could spend hours in there). This is just a very small sample of some snack-type foods I picked up for when I feel like eating something really bad so that I don't do exactly that. Plus I've been hunting for Himalayan pink salt and wholegrain penne for just about forever, so my little beady eyes lit up with joy when I spotted these. 

As I sit here sipping on my Clipper's organic detox tea, which btw is a million times nicer than any other I've tried so far, I realise that I feel fulfilled about how I've spent my day for the first time in a couple of weeks. I hit the gym super hard for the first time in forever, and you can see the massive smile it put on my face in the top picture. 

Hope you all have a healthy, fulfilled week - what are your plans to improve your wellbeing?

Love and Light

Steph

Clean Nut-Free Vegan Oat Bars

This is one of my favourite recipes I've made in a while. Recently I've felt a bit lost on the snacking front - so many shop bought snacks contain masses of sugar (hello the delicious and marketed as 'healthy' Nature Valley bars). My boyfriend is allergic to nuts, so I can't go for nakd bars or healthier options like that either. Starting to reach minor levels of insanity, and feeling myself ogling the crisps when food shopping, I decided to take matters into my own hands and home make some oat bars. A final plus is that they work out cheaper than store bought ones.

Ingredients (makes 1 batch):

300g porridge oats

2 ripe bananas

200g soft figs

50g dried cranberries

3 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Handful of chia seeds

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Finely chop the figs. 

 2.) Mash the bananas and mix them together with the honey, vanilla essence and figs .

(It may not look pretty now, but don't worry, they're delicious)

3.) Mix the oats, chia seeds and cranberries in a bowl. 

4.) Add the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix. 

5.) Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Press the mixture into the tin.

6.) Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until it's darkened to a golden brown a little. Cut up and serve. 

What's your go-to healthy snack?

Love and Light

Steph

Simple Make-Up Remover Set

Simple's Kind To Eyes Nourishing Eye Make-Up Remover has been my go-to for years. As a big fan of gel eyeliner, I really need something that can get rid of heavy-duty eye makeup without hurting my eyes, and this has always done the trick.

So when I was given the simple gift pack with their Kind-to-Skin Hydrating Light Moisturiser and Facial Wipes for Christmas I was overjoyed. The little bag they came in is a perfect makeup bag for when these ran out as well.

Overall I was incredibly impressed with both products. The moisturiser is actually quite good for putting on at night or after you've washed your face to give it that extra bit of suppleness. The face wipes are brilliant for removing foundation, and even work at getting mascara and eyeliner residue off - now that I have these, I'm not going back to using other products!

What are your favourite make-up removal products?

Love and Light

Steph

Baked Cod on a Bed of Sweet Potato Mash

I'm not the greatest fan of the 'fruits of the sea', but I try to sneak a little bit into my diet here and there. This is probably one of my simplest dinner recipes to make that is up on the blog, and incredibly easy to present. Which means that if you're not the greatest cook, or want to show your parents/other half that cooking healthy dinners can be easy and delicious, then this is a pretty good meal to hit them with. I paired it with a side of kale (every food blogger's go-to), but you could very easily add a side salad, other dark greens, or a medley of roasted vegetables. 

Ingredients (makes 1 serving):

1 cod fillet

1 small sweet potato (or half a large one) 

1 teaspoon coconut oil/extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons tomato puree 

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt

Pepper

Parsley

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (electric oven). 

2.) Peel and chop the sweet potato. Place in a pan of water and cook for 20 minutes after the water has started to boil.

3.) Season the cod with the olive oil, sea salt, ground black pepper and parsley. Place in the oven and cook for 20 minutes.

4.) Once the sweet potato is soft, mash it with a little bit of coconut oil - this keeps the recipe dairy free and adds a little extra flavour to it. Add some black pepper. If you want, you can add a little cheese to make the mash really gooey!

5.) Place the cod on the potato. Mix the tomato puree with the lemon juice and drizzle over the top, or around the cod. Et voila, it's ready to eat!

Any comments/questions are always welcome

Love and Light

Steph