I mentioned in my February life update/favourites that I joined a gym last month. I am loving it. It's all part of my plan to get more energy (seriously, naps are my LIFE but I've got to learn to adult sometime, right?) so that I can boss my life, do my best and live life to the fullest. I've started making other little changes too: I've mostly cut out naps so I'm not sleeping too much, I've switched out fruit juice for green tea and I've (mostly) given up the sweeties that give me a quick sugar fix.
I've reached that point in the year (or maybe my life??? ... Who knows) at which if I don't get a meal that's steamy hot and full of carbs every day then that day is basically an absolute waste for me. It's so cold out, and I'm enjoying taking the time to cook so much more at the moment, that I just can't get enough of trying new recipes like this.
A while ago I spoke about my chicken and broccoli stir fry recipe on Nourish ME, which has now become a staple in our household. Seriously, we eat it every week, and it's such an easy meal to make that's jam packed full of goodness. The sauce I've used on there is exactly the same as the one I've used here because it is uh-mazing, and tastes just as good on beef as it does on chicken.
I've spoken before about the fact that I enjoy brown rice way more than white rice - I just think that the texture and flavour are both much more preferable in the former. The one downside? It takes almost three times as long to cook. Ugh. But, when Tilda offered to send me a selection of their newly-branded rice pouches, I was pretty darn excited to get some wholegrain rice* that only takes two minutes in the microwave. You can fry it as well if you're not a fan of microwaves (I know so many people aren't) and it still only takes three minutes then.
I've only ever tried normal pilau rice before, and I really haven't been a fan, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed this to the extent that I hunted it down in my weekly food shop to rebuy. Tilda kindly sent me a range of their flavours, including mushroom basmati* and coconut basmati* rice. My boyfriend offered to be the guinea pig for the mushroom one because I cannot stand the slimy little things, and he loved it. I enjoyed the coconut one too, but I have to say that the wholegrain pilau is still my firm favourite.
Anyhow, let's get onto the recipe!
Ingredients:
(for 2 servings)
300g beef (diced)
Sauce (recipe here)
Tilda wholegrain pilau rice
Sea salt
Black pepper
Method:
1.) Tenderise the beef
2.) Heat a tablespoon of oil in a wok or frying pan.
3.) Season the beef with salt and pepper and cook until it is done to your liking. I enjoy having mine still pink in the middle and it took about ten minutes on a low heat.
4.) Whilst it is cooking, make the sauce.
5.) When the beef is nearly completely ready, pop the rice pouch in the microwave for two minutes.
6.) Pour the sauce over your beef and cook for a further minute.
7.) Plate everything up.
This really is such a simple meal to make and I'll definitely be making it again in the near future!
*Although products in these post were gifted to me for the purpose of a review, all opinions are my own as always*
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This heatwave in the UK really means one thing: it's time to get the grill out and start our (let's face it, pretty poor) attempts at barbecuing. From blackened sausages to chicken that's more than slightly on the raw side, it's the barbecue failures that cling most dearly to our hearts. Or mine at least. I have such fond memories of family get-togethers revolving around the grill.
However, last time I had a barbecue it was in a student house, in which I was the sole girl. It consisted of a road sign to put the charcoal on (of course) and a broken piece of trolley (separated from its mother by a rolling pin) on top of some empty beer bottles as a grill. The next day I'm pretty sure we were all fairly ill, and not just from the hangover. This time I was determined not to let any Bear Grylls wannabes take over, but put together a nice meal which didn't involve hundreds of health and safety violations.
As I turned 22 last Saturday, and the weather was pretty darn hot I figured a barbecue was in order. So, we hopped down to the shops to pick up some lovely fruity cider and ice (of course - what summer party could be held without this?!) and all of our barbecue gear. Amongst our guests were a bunch of fairly carnivorous meat-eaters, but also a couple of vegetarians. Me and my sister set to work on a whole range of items for the grill, including garlic chicken and pepper skewers and these lovely vegetable kabobs.
Although we stuck to tomatoes, peppers, onion and baby corn, you can choose a whole variety of vegetables for your kabobs. Next time we're going to add broccoli and courgette, as I think they'll be super tasty fired up on the grill.
This was honestly SUCH a simple recipe to make, and it makes for a visually appealing dish to add to your spread. Everyone at our barbecue gave the kabobs a go and they offered a yummy, light accompaniment to birthday cake and barbecue meat!
We used wooden skewers for ours because everywhere seems to stock them at the moment, and they're a really cheap alternative to metal ones. However, metal skewers would work just as well (possibly even better).
Ingredients (makes 4 skewers):
The vegetables:
1 bell pepper (we chose a green one, but any colour is good!), cut into chunks
5 baby corns, cut in half
1 small red onion, cut into chunks
3 salad tomatoes, quartered
For the marinade:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
Method:
1.) Mix the marinade ingredients together.
2.) Place the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Cover and mix with the marinade.
3.) Leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.
4.) Place the marinated vegetables onto wooden skewers.
5.) Hand them to your barbecuing delegate and grill until hot.
What's your favourite barbecue dish?
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I LOVE to bake - it's my favourite form of procrastination and I turn to it every time I'm feeling super stressed out. Usually my bakes are calorific chocolate-dense pieces of gooeyness, but this time I decided to give something new a go. This was met with horror from my boyfriend - 'oh Steph are you making one of your weird-ass recipes again, can't you just make cookies?!'. My answer of course was a firm no and I'm so glad. In the end even he loved them, and the whole household ended up snaffling them up within a day or two. I've really enjoyed sharing some vegan recipes with you recently, and you all seemed to love my tomato and basil risotto as well as my pear and raspberry oatmeal so here we are!
These were so moist and tasty that I couldn't not share them with you. Just a top tip: make sure you have muffin cases BEFORE you start making the mix. Mine was already made before I realised I didn't even have proper cake cases, let alone muffin cases, so I ended up with these tiny paper ones which made muffin eating much more tricky than it should be!
Blueberries are currently my favourite fruit. If you follow my Instagram, you'll probably already know this as they feature in so many of my recipes and fruity pictures. I only discovered blueberry muffins a couple of years ago and ever since then I've absolutely loved them. I would even say they're tastier than chocolate ones (say whaaat?!), because I just love coming across the little pockets of moisture and sweetness that the whole blueberries in them bring.
Ingredients:
For the topping:
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
3 tablespoons caster sugar
For the muffins:
225g frozen blueberries
75g fresh blueberries
170g caster sugar
375g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 flax eggs
40g melted coconut oil
4 tablespoons grapeseed oil
235ml milk alternative (I used rice milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
Method
1.) Mix sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl for the topping and set to one side.
2.) Create the flax eggs. Mix 2 tablespoons flax seeds with 6 tablespoons water and leave to set.
3.) Preheat oven to 200 degrees (celsius) or 180 for a fan oven.
4.) Heat 150g of the frozen blueberries and a tablespoon of sugar (you can swap to agave nectar if you prefer here) in a saucepan for around ten minutes. Once cooked, strain through a sieve, ensuring you mash the berries as you go for maximum flavour. You can choose to add the 'bits' here if you want or leave them out. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
5.) Mix the flour, salt and baking powder together in a large mixing bowl.
6.) Melt the coconut oil.
7.) Add the sugar, flax eggs, coconut oil and vegetable oil. Mix until everything is combined.
8.) Add the rice milk (or other milk alternative) and vanilla extract. Give a quick stir.
9.) Gently fold in the rest of the frozen blueberries as well as the fresh ones.
10.) Place mixture in muffin cases in a muffin tin.
11.) Place a teaspoon of the blueberry jam mixture you made earlier on the centre of the top of each muffin and swirl around. I used a wooden skewer for this, but a cocktail stick or knife tip works equally well.
12.) Sprinkle the lemon sugar mixture over the top and place in the oven for around 18 minutes.
I really hope you enjoyed this recipe, I've been loving sharing more of my creations with you recently! If you give this a whirl tag me in your pictures so I can have a peek!
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I'm not sure if it's just because it's summer, or because I've had a lot of spare time on my hands recently, but I've really fallen back in love with cooking and experimenting with my own recipes again. You guys seemed to love last week's vegan pear and raspberry oatmeal recipe so I thought I'd share another recipe with you. This one makes for a super tasty dinner, plus you don't exactly have to be a whizz in the kitchen to make it! After 5 minutes or so of prep all you need to do is pop all of the ingredients in, give this a quick stir every so often and then you'll be good to go. Plus, risotto has a reputation of being a tricky dish to make, so if you're having guests over, or your mum's come to visit, you can pretend like you've got this whole adulthood thing down to a 'T' by dishing this up.
I was a bit worried about this one - I've never made a risotto before, but as I've made a few paellas I have some kind of understanding of what a risotto vaguely should look like. If you've made paella before, then the main difference between the two is that risotto is a lot creamier. Traditional risotto recipes generally contain double cream, so this vegan version is a fair bit healthier and lower in calories. I'm a big fan of spices, so if this recipe seems a little too much for you, then just take out the turmeric and paella. It won't be as tasty in my opinion, but it'll have practically no heat. The coconut milk mostly balances it out anyway, but that's just a tip if you're worried about over-spicing the dish.
I made this in my *slightly* oversized wok (thank God for the wonders of IKEA), but a large saucepan would do the job if you wanted. A frying pan could also work, but if, like me, you're a bit of a klutz, then it might be best to avoid so that your cooker doesn't end up smothered in various ingredients! This recipe makes three servings, so I made it for me and my housemates, but you can freeze the spare servings if you just want to make it for yourself!
Ingredients:
220g arborio (paella) rice
400ml vegetable stock
4 salad tomatoes
1/2 Spanish onion
2 garlic cloves
50ml coconut milk
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Sea salt
Ground black pepper
8 basil leaves
Coconut oil / extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Dice the onion and tomatoes.
- Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan. Add the onion and crushed garlic. Cook for 3/4 minutes, or until soft.
- Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 3/4 minutes.
- Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the rice and stir for two minutes.
- Add the stock and stir in. Add the turmeric, parsley and paprika.
- Leave to simmer until all the rice is soft and chewy. If needs be, add more boiling water to the mixture so that it doesn't burn.
- Add the coconut milk, stir in and cook for another two minutes.
- Serve and top with the chopped basil.
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Confession time guys: I had NEVER been to a Revolution bar until a couple of weeks ago. Apparently that's pretty much some kind of foodie crime as everyone and their mother has been to try some of their awesome cocktails and tasty-ass food. So, when I went to visit my sister in Plymouth a couple of weeks ago (more on that in the near future!) I HAD to give it a go.
Me, her and my boyfriend all obviously needed to give some of their cocktails a whirl. They had a deal on whereby you got two of the same cocktails for a certain price (possibly £7-ish - don't quote me on that though!). We picked up a couple of Gin 'n' Juices to start. This one was Beefeater gin with elderflower liquer, strawberry puree and a fizzy drink called ting. To be honest, anything that combines gin and elderflower is probably going to be a win in my books, and we all loved this one!
Next up was Blue Movie. I may or may not have picked this one purely because it has blueberries in - any way to cram some extra nutrients in is a good way right?! This had Absolut Berry Acai vodka in with lemon, apple juice and lemonade. This was definitely my favourite flavour of all the ones we tried, plus the mini milk bottles with candy striped straws these came in were adorable!
Next up we moved onto their 'blank canvas' cocktails. This is Stoli vodka with lemon juice, sugar, soda and a flavour of your choice. Altogether we tried sour berry, big apple, pear drop and most importantly: birthday cake. When my little sister saw this on the menu she HAD to give it a try, and it was oddly quite tasty without being too sweet - it even had a little bit of a sour after-kick. Pear drops was my favourite flavour out of these though, as it tasted EXACTLY like the sweets I used to have as a child, nom! There are masses of flavours to try out, and next time I go I want to give fruit salad and salted caramel popcorn a go, mmmmm. Best of all was that the 'canvas' of these cocktails did indeed arrive 'blank' and you had a little pipette of the flavour and colouring to pop in and mix yourself!
Have I really rambled on that much about cocktails? This was meant to be a short post - whoops! Anyway, on to my favourite part: the food. Although our service was wonderful and our waitress was absolutely lovely, I was totally disappointed by my dessert, or lack thereof. I ordered it at the beginning of the meal, and when it came to the time that they ought to have brought it out I was told that the kitchen was closed. I wouldn't have minded at all if I had ordered it later on, but I've worked in a restaurant before and you can't just not bring food out that someone has ordered at the beginning of their meal. They didn't give me any warning that the kitchen was closing soon and I legitimately almost cried. I mean, I was meant to be getting a salted caramel and chocolate fondue with fruit (does that not sound like heaven?!) and instead I was left with nothing.
However, my starter and main were honestly divine. I went for nachos to start (of course) and I think they were possibly the best nachos of my life. If you've read my Las Iguanas restaurant review you'll know that a restaurant is only as good as its nachos in my opinion. These were so tasty, and Revolution had added vodka to the salsa as a little twist, which made it a bit sweeter than normal, but still totally nom-able. I could eat these time and time again and never get bored. One word of caution: if you're not a fan of spice AVOID THE PEPPERS, they had such an intense after-kick to them I turned into a spluttering tomato after accidentally swallowing one whole.
For my main I decided to go for something a little different with their panang curry. This came with jasmine rice and was such a nice mild dish. It didn't contain any dairy, as it had coconut milk in instead of cream or yoghurt. My sister and boyfriend both opted for burgers and were pretty envious when this came out of the kitchen!
All in all, we had a great time and I really want to go back again for some yummy food and innovative drinks! *This was not a sponsored post*
Have you ever been? I'd love to hear about your experiences and food & drink recommendations!
