Mango Madness Vegan Smoothie

This smoothie came  out a glorious golden colour and is perfect in this lead up to summer. Here in England the weather is pretty unpredictable, and almost always contains a seemingly endless amount of drizzle. So, this is a good way to start off your day, or relax int he afternoon whatever the weather to bring a little bit of sunshine into your life.

Ingredients: 

1 banana

3 small / 2 medium sized apples

handful of raspberries

200ml rice milk

1 mango

handful of flaxseeds

handful of spinach

1.) Peel and chop the apples, mango and banana. Place in a blender.

2.) Add the rice milk, spinach, raspberries and flax seeds. Blend for two minutes. If you leave out the spinach you end up with a bright pink smoothie, which can be great for kids (or if you're just a fan!).

3.) Enjoy. Top with honey, oats, and chia seeds if you wish.

Love and Light

Steph

Any comments/questions are always appreciated

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 

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

Classic Healthy Dish Twist | Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Lasagne

As I mentioned in my recipe for healthy garlic bread, I LOVE Italian food, but going dairy-free has put a number of obstacles in my way. However, this recipe means that I get to eat my favourite dish: glorious lasagne. This guilt free meal is really filling, and great for a winter night when you get bored of having the same old routine meals (I always end up eating lots of fish and veggies because it's simple and winter makes me lazier). 

Ingredients (makes 2 servings):

125g turkey mince

1 courgette

1 small carrot

1 small onion

1 clove garlic

1/2 tin chopped tomatoes

Dried basil

Dried rosemary

Dried parsley

Extra virgin olive oil/coconut oil

Dried Chili

Ground black pepper

Sea Salt

1.) Peel and finely chop the carrot, onion and garlic. Chop up the turkey mine (unlike normal mince, it can be really really hard to de-clump once it starts cooking). 

2.) Put a tablespoon of oil in a saucepan. Add the carrot, onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is soft and a bit transparent.

3.) Add the chopped tomatoes, a pinch of each herb and a little bit of dried chili (or more, if you want more of a kick!). Season with black pepper and sea salt. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes

4.) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. 

5.) After the sauce has been simmering for 5 minutes or so, put a tablespoon oil in a frying pan. After it has heated, add the turkey mince and brown.

6.) Whilst this is browning, take the courgette and start making the sheets to replace normal pasta ones. Do this by first peeling the courgette and then using the peeler to create strips. 

7.) Add the turkey mince to the sauce.

8.) Get your lasagne dish and start layering! Meat - courgette - meat - courgette - a little left voer meat for the top. 

9.) Cook for 20 minutes

Enjoy!

Love and Light

Steph

Any comments/questions are always welcome! :)